Bob Barnard Track Engineering

A good friend, Allen Petrich, wrote a send up of the goings on in F1 like a French farce. As we say, who would believe it. Following my explanation of the rules for using the movable wings he added that we should make it a Monty Python script. We devise a movable wing to aid overtaking, the teams spend millions to put it on the car, and then we constrain its use inside painted boxes so overtaking is almost impossible. There are definitely mixed feeling about it and as Mike Gascoyne comments we would have missed that incredible race at Jarama when Villeneuve Senior held off all comers for the whole race. Yes we want overtaking, but not some video game, we want Hakkinen and Schumacher at Spa. Lewis says that the extra buttons will be more of a problem in practice and qualifying, when they have no restrictions on using it. That is really going to make qualifying a bit of a mystery for us spectators, almost like having qualifying engines again.

Hamilton also said he is not changing his driving style to suit different cars or tracks, this is who he is and that's how he is going to drive. Good on him, I for one enjoy watching him. Overtaking for Lewis and Kobayashi seems all too easy. Perhaps they could give lessons, or some "brave pills" for the others.  Lewis stirred the pot in Berlin when asked if he thought Schumacher would be better this year. He said he thought Michael would not be much different, but he was welcome to prove him wrong.

Bernie is apparently winging his way to Melbourne for the race this year with his daughters, girlfriend and entourage, to bring some "global prestige" to the event. If this is an unusual occurrence then it just shows how Bernie feels about the event.

Lotus, the green and yellow one, completed an untroubled private test yesterday at Valencia and ended up 18th and 20th on the time sheets in the 1 minute 15's. Not too bad, about two seconds off the quick times, so a big leap forward, and they say they had no time to set the car up. Glock in the Virgin was even faster, so just maybe we will see those teams up amongst the second tier this season. Will make for more interesting racing. Jerez will tell us more, I hope.

Nice to see young American Alexander Rossi moving up to FR3.5 with a top team, Fortec. He finished fifth at a one off outing in Monaco last year and has gone well in testing, so go get 'em Alexander. Bernie or Tavo should pay for a top notch publicist to get his name better known in the US. Then we might see the public wake up, like with Lance Armstrong.

Williams are to proceed with a stock flotation on the Frankfurt exchange. I think it was Joe Saward who suggested that this may not be such a good move. Stockholders care about returns, like CVC, and not results. I think the Washington Redskins are the most profitable NFL team, and this clearly is not related to on-field performance. Managing expectations could be a hard balancing act for Sir Frank.

Renault with its forward exhaust is fastest on the last day at Valencia, so obviously they have something working. So much for Helmut Marko's assertion after day two that "If we had run a race today we would have lapped the field." Helmut also vehemently denies they overspent, but even if they did the fines should go to charity, not the smaller teams who came in expecting some equality in spending. Not so fast Helmut, and why don't you just shut up and go away. A friend sent me a link to an F1 technical blog which showed how Newey has used a different way to use the exhaust gas through the diffuser, through a loophole in the rules. You have to love these guys. Apparently this did not show up until the second day. Here is the link.

So Kubica was quickest over the three days, and Lotus are back to having hydraulic problems, this time with the power steering. How does that happen, surely you buy this stuff from a specialist? Glock in the Virgin was well up, but Force India still continued to shine with Sutil second fast. Now, it is all very early days, but it is still interesting. McLaren are to unveil their car tomorrow in Berlin, and Lewis says it looks different to the other teams and is not sure if that is good or bad. The Mercedes is having teething troubles, with the HRT faster at this point. Ross Brawn says he is encouraged though, but is sitting on another payout from Mercedes for his remaining shares, so is probably feeling pretty good about life at the moment. So it is all over the place. Next test Jerez in a week.

The FIA have set the rules for the movable wing for the first three races. A line will be painted on the track at the entrance to the last corner onto the straight where the car following will have to be within one second to allow the wing to be triggered, and another line 600 m from the corner at the end of the straight to show is plebs where the wing can be used by the driver. Ferrari have suggested that 600 m may not be enough, but the FIA say they will tweak it once we see how it works. As I said, are we going to see processions waiting to get to that point?

Mike Gascoyne blames the tracks, as he should, especially the boring desert tracks, Bahrain and Abu Dhabi. As Mike says, they had a clean sheet and as much money as they wanted and still got it wrong. Let's include Korea in that, and wait to see how India works out, if they can sort out their corruption problems. Apparently the first layer of asphalt started being laid yesterday.

In Malaysia Simoncelli on a non-works Honda ended the last day fastest, with Stoner a hair's breadth behind. The Hondas all populated the top of the time sheet with Lorenzo and Spies mixing it with them. The Ducatis improved to 8th and 10th, with Hayden again the quicker, but Valentino thinks his shoulder is costing him 7 tenths or more, so he feels they are closer than it seems. Nice to see that a second string Honda is not too shabby, could make the racing more interesting this year. Some of us can recall when there were several "works" teams out there, especially Yamaha, which definitely made it more fun.