Bob Barnard Track Engineering

About half way through the Hungarian GP I had the feeling Button would win it, even though his team mate Hamilton seemed to be in command. It did not turn out the way I had been expecting, but not much did in this rain effected race. What we got was some great clean racing between McLaren team mates, and no team orders here, Horner please take note. We saw Massa give way to Alonso pretty easily, with both Ferrari drivers having their share of off track excursions. Lewis's race was effectively lost when the team, presumably with Lewis's agreement, kept him on the super soft when most of the other top runners went to the prime. Surprising really seeing as how quick Lewis was on those in qualifying. Just maybe that was the problem, he had saved an extra set of super softs in qualifying by using the primes, and that induced them to use them. 

In any event that only got worse when Lewis arrived at the wet corner first, spun, and then copped a drive through penalty for spinning the car back around in front of di Resta. A bit harsh if you ask me, if he had not moved so fast then Kovalainen would have been out on the grass to avoid him, but Lewis accepted his fate with good grace. As Eddie Jordan said, this is a different Lewis than we saw at Monaco and most of the first half of the season. His head is back in a good place and we are seeing some great drives of controlled aggression from him. The final nail was the decision to switch to inters just when the rain had stopped, but he fought back to fourth with his usual grit.

I was surprised to see Button catch Lewis when he had the prime tire and Lewis the super soft, which in theory is almost a second faster. Alonso looked decidedly unhappy with third, his race being ruined by a terrible start and the two Mercedes passing him through the first corner. Mercedes continue to really struggle, but as always passing around here is difficult at the best of times, let alone a damp track and one dry line. We did actually see some good passes though to make it more interesting than usual. Vettel increases his lead in the Championship on a day when he should have lost some ground, so his good luck continues, or is it good team work? Sorry to see the Lotus cars both retire, Kovalainen was having a very good run, and Ricciardo beat not only his team mate but also D'Ambrosio.

Elsewhere a wild card, in more ways than one, John Hopkins, took pole at Silverstone for the WSBK race, but Checa has taken the first race win with rival Biaggi well down. Over in Spa Audi won from BMW and Mercedes after a good race. Audi TV had very good live streaming and an amazing sole commentator that worked for hours on end, knew the cars and all those foreign named drivers. It was not continuous and I admit I did not stay up for it through the night, but saw enough to be entertained. This race saw three of the new McLaren GT cars entered basically as a shake down before putting them on sale to private teams to race next year, and they shook them down a bit harder than even they expected, one car going out to a huge crash in the first hour and another catching fire!

Talking of catching fire, the Lotus Renault of Nick Heidfeld did it again, about the only thing that was on fire in that team. Nick drove it out of pit lane after an extended pit stop where something obviously got too hot as it was trailing smoke from the pit stall. It finally exploded halfway down pit exit when a marshal was extinguishing the flames and let's hope he was not injured, but he limped off. So what exploded? Surely Nick shut down the engine before bailing out? So a radiator or something else in the side pod, KERS? It will be interesting to see if we are ever told. 

So, F1 is off on its holidays for three weeks, so could be a slow August for bloggers. 

As always it is necessary to watch what Bernie does rather than what he says. Not long ago the Big Bogie Rupert Murdoch was going to steal F1 and heaven forbid put it on Sky! That just cannot happen, we have to have it on free-to-air, whatever that means. I pay for SPEED to show it so it is certainly not free-to-air here and we have to put up with ads, lost of ads, and Bob Varsha! Lo and behold, Sky is now the best thing to have come along, it is "super for F1," Bernie says, "it will mean a lot more coverage for the sport." Not sure how that can be as Sky only has 24 million households while the BBC covers everyone. The key words here are "super for F1." Note it is not super for the fans.

The BBC said it could not afford to continue so it seems a deal was done to keep half the races on the BBC and all of them on Sky. I'm sorry, but this is like having a race every other year. If it is worth having for half the races then why is it not twice as valuable to have all of them? Prestige to have any it seems, what BS. At least the Brits will have an ad free broadcast from Sky for their money. 

And what do the teams make of this with all their posturing about how important it is to their sponsors to have it on free-to-air? Martin Whitmarsh says they must withold judgement, and he was the one who said the other day that F1 must broaden their reach to the new media. Adam Parr is more honest. If they get more money from the TV deal to compensate for any potential loss in sponsorship then he is happy. Of course he is, it's all about the money.

Meanwhile, back at the track Lewis Hamilton continued where he left off in Germany by topping the timesheets in both sessions, but in race simulations it seemed very close between McLaren, Red Bull and Ferrari. Mercedes continue to struggle and Ross Brawn says it's all his fault. Ricciardo is ahead of his team mate by half a second, while Trulli's wake up call has him a similar distance in front of Kovalainen. 

Bernie has revamped next years calendar moving Bahrain to the end of the season so they can sort their problems out. So it starts in Melbourne, then Malaysia, China and India before a three week break which could include in-season testing. Turkey is missing, and as Allen Petrich said, there goes Tilke's best track. Austin is moved back to team with Brazil, but as someone pointed out this now competes with the NFL season, so good luck with viewers watching that.

BMW took pole for this weeks Spa 24 hour, and I need to find a live stream for that. In the Intercontinental Cup Aston Martin have given up of the new car and will run the old car for the rest of the season, very sad.

On the "green" front, a couple of snippets to share. It seems we are not all going to fry anytime soon from global warming, or as they say now, "climate change," as it seems to have not got any warmer lately.

http://news.yahoo.com/nasa-data-blow-gaping-hold-global-warming-alarmism-192334971.html

And to follow on about my thoughts on hydrogen, I saw a piece on TV yesterday about a new German stealth submarine that runs on hydrogen fuel cells. No moving parts, no noise, and no heat signature, very clever. Hydrogen and oxygen stored in tanks on the outside of the hull so reducing the danger of an explosion in the hull. Damn smart, good job they only just worked this out.

A great day for Australian sport! Cadel Evans is crowned as Tour de France winner and Casey Stoner wins the US MotoGP. Now if only Mark Webber could have converted pole position in Germany to a win we would have had a trifecta! But it was not to be, Lewis Hamilton and McLaren were not to be denied today, and as we saw in Silverstone, Lewis is back to his old self. Still going for it but without the rush of blood. A very good race to watch and I did not have to wait till noon to watch it thanks to live streaming. Vettel struggled and only took fourth on the last lap. So, is Red Bull vulnerable, or is this just a blip? Alonso carried on his Silverstone form and Massa had a good race, so it seems the Ferrari is back in the fight, although their performance on the hard tire is still suspect. Not sure about McLaren with Button struggling all weekend and finally retiring with a hydraulic problem.

Pirelli seem to be improving the durability of their tires, a lot less marbles to be seen, and the softs lasted well here today. A lot of overtaking and most of it not down to DRS or the tires thank goodness, just good racing. Our other Australian, Ricciardo, finished the race and beating Chandook in the Lotus, not too shabby.

Glock has re-signed with Virgin or Marussia or whatever they are, for another three years, so apart from the problem of not having many options, he must see some daylight at the end of the tunnel. Lotus Renault had a pretty bad day, while Sutil and Force India had a very good one. Poor di Resta was spun on the first corner by Heidfeld and was playing catch up all race. Heidfeld ended up being taken out by Buemi in dramatic fashion, for which Buemi has earned a five place penalty for the next race in Hungary.

Over in Laguna Casey Stoner played it cool for half the race and then took Pedrosa and Lorenzo in two passes that displayed his determination,skill, and guts. After Germany he needed to reassert himself, and he did emphatically.  Lorenzo showed his ability to ride through pain after a massive high side in practice Saturday morning to take pole and then finish second today. I would have given any money he would not ride after that strange accident that took place after the checker and while doing a practice start. 

Elsewhere I was able to watch Grand Am from New Jersey, ALMS from Mosport and Indycar from Edmonton thanks to multi-tasking. Apart from a professional interest all of these were underwhelming. Edmonton's revised track layout is worse than the original and these guys continue to drive into each other at every opportunity. Mosport appear to have repaired last year's damaged guard rail with the same round pine posts that are not to spec and caused the problem last year. Does no one ever learn? Hopefully the new owners will do what is necessary to upgrade the safety at this great layout.  

Going back to F1, it seems the teams were as surprised as I was over some of the rules for 2014 and are saying that they did not go through the correct channels to be approved. So maybe some sense will prevail. There is a suggestion that Bernie paid the money to Gribkowsky not because the lawyers fees would have been more, but the resulting loss from tax on the trust following a court challenge would have been substantial. That would presume that Bernie died before his wife had lived in the UK for less than 18 years, the time to gain residency. Now that is an argument, but given Bernie does not plan to die soon it is still hard to accept.

Great morning! Cadel Evans continued to show his guts and strength today by blitzing the Schleck brothers in the time trial to take the yellow jersey by over a minute and win Australia its' first Tour de France! Right up there with the Americas Cup and Gardner's 500cc Championship! Well deserved after his showing in the Alps where his team seemed to go missing on him. Where was George Hincapie? He always seemed to be there for Lance, but I guess in his 16th Tour he might be losing it a bit.

That other Aussie Mark Webber took pole in Germany, but Hamilton was the real surprise, only missing pole by 6/100ths of a second. This is the guy who said yesterday that pole was out of the question, and the McLarens certainly looked that way in practice. Lewis and the team somehow dialed in a lap to knock Vettel off the front row for the first time this season. Let's see how Seb deals with it. Forecast is for rain tomorrow, what else in that region, so all bets might be off. Ferraris filled the next two spots with Button struggling down in 7th behind Rosberg. The usual suspects were in the last six places with Ricciardo avoiding the cut just 2/100ths behind Luizzi, and surprisingly Kobayashi in the 7th elimination spot. Chandook qualified less than a second behind his Lotus team mate, and it was interesting that the commentators could not work out what was going on there any more than I could. They did ask the pointed question about how he liked the power steering that Trulli keeps complaining about and Chandook said it was OK for him.

The rumors persist around Bernie and Gribkowsky with comments that "Bernie does not get blackmailed." It does seem out of character for Bernie to succumb to threats, but he says his lawyers told him to. That seems out of character too. There are suggestions that he could take a sabbatical while it gets sorted with his mate Max saying it might happen, but then he again he said it was not Bernie's style. Bernie is talking nice about cutting Nurburgring a break with their fees for the new agreement. Maybe he is getting soft hearted, or is it the six German drivers on the grid? 

Domenicalli says that the "electric" cars in pit lane is still to be agreed by the teams, lots of technical issues, not the least of which is getting run over because you can't hear them coming! Still no explanation of what is driving this, except that it is to be seen "green." How? They cannot be saving that much fuel, and if they do they will just dial it up on the track, and noise can be the only other issue. But how does that work with cars going by on the track? Perhaps it is so the Paddock Club people can talk business?

The closed cockpit for F1 cars continues to be discussed despite the fact I thought I read it had gone away on safety grounds, too hard to get a driver out after a crash. Maybe they are not only going to fit aircraft style canopies they are also fitting ejector seats? They'll need windshield wipers too, in fact why don't we just borrow some LMP1 cars from Le Mans? Maybe this is why Audi are interested? Seriously, are they really trying to alienate the F1 fans? Has anyone got an answer for the single set of gears for a season? Can't be a cost deal surely, how much do a few extra gears cost? Do they think that with eight ratios they can cover all the tracks? Are they really trying to remove the technology? We have spec tires and ECU's, severe limits on the engines, now gear ratios, and Max did suggest once we go to a spec chassis. Formula Ford anyone? Oops, they allow more than one chassis.

In other news the Indycar race was washed out in Edmonton yesterday, so much for flat airfield tracks, and Lorenzo took fastest time at Laguna in the second practice. He could sneak the Championship from under Hondas nose if they do not put all their effort into Stoner. Not team orders, but focus. Poor Ben Bostrum, why did they bother with a wild card when he has had no testing or practice? Just makes him look bad and I can't believe it made any difference to the crowd. Spies, Hayden and Edwards are much more likely to get American fans to go. Rossi continues to struggle on the Duke, but that's hardly news. Following my comments on when SPEED is showing qualifying it seems our friends in England will get to see it earlier than those of you on the East Coast. I will be watching on fromsportcom.com live, just as I am now watching the practice. 

Now I know team orders are OK now, but the decision by Red Bull not to let their drivers race robbed the fans of an even better finish than we saw between Lewis and Massa. Mark seems likely to be offered a new contract, but he obviously is not happy about being told to "maintain the gap" and it took a few messages before he complied. OK, so no team wants to see their drivers take each other out, but McLaren has a lot more confidence in the ability of their drivers to race each other and not crash than Red Bull. So does Mark want a new contract?

McLaren shot themselves in the foot again this weekend with Lewis not having enough fuel in the car and Button being released without the wheel nut on. Now you could argue that Lewis would not have been where he was if he carried that extra fuel, but we won't know will we? The old Lewis turned up for this race, the one we got to admire and love. Great drive from tenth on the grid and fourth was a poor reward. Now Lewis is saying he will not continue to do the excessive amount of PR required by McLaren, especially in the lead up to this race. Martin Whitmarsh needs to circle the wagons and refire the troops.

It would seem from the performance this weekend that McLaren were hit hardest by the diffuser shambles. The problems with the car in testing were masked by their ability to get the blown diffuser working, and now they are stuck with a poor car, but have been given a reprieve. As I said Ferrari were strangely silent and it is suggested they were the ones driving this all along. Somehow Bernie twisted enough arms to get the unanimous vote needed to return to the pre-Silverstone situation where the changes in the ECU from qualifying to the race are banned, but blown diffusers can still be used. Initially it was reported that Ferrari and Sauber, who run Ferrari engines, were not agreeing to the reinstatement, but then Bernie came out and said they all agreed. What did that cost? Presumably now they have all agreed there is no basis for a protest.

Engine reliability did not seem to be a problem for anyone other than Kobayashi in the Sauber, so perhaps it is a longer term issue over several races, or not really an issue at all. Pity to see the two Lotuses drop out so early, reliability is still an issue for them despite improvements in performance. HRT seem to have got on top of it with both cars finishing, albeit last, but Ricciardo gained valuable experience and stayed out of trouble.

Great drive by Alonso, you had the feeling that he had the measure of the Red Bulls even if Vettel did not have that wheel problem, it will be interesting to see if Ferrari can maintain this or if they were lucky and did not have to use the hard tires today due to the wet conditions at the start.

Interesting the amount of overtaking that went on away from the DRS zone, and how little impact it had when the front runners tried to use it.

Adding to the oddities of the new pit complex is the location of the winners rostrum. Looked like the US where they never face the crowd and it is a made for TV event. Pit Pass web site has a piece on the BRDC finances, the owners of Silverstone, which does not make for pleasant reading.

http://www.pitpass.com/44171-Exclusive-BRDC-depends-on-bank-funding-to-continue-as-a-going-concern

Speaking of oddities I received the June 23 rd issue of Autosport yesterday, takes a while to get here. Lo and behold there is a two page center spread in the middle advertising the Laguna Seca Historic Races. But what did they use for the centerpiece photo? Silverstone from the 60's. Go figure. 

Over in Brno Melandri and Biaggi shared the WSBK wins, with Checa in third and his points lead now down to 30. No time to panic, but it does not look as easy as it did at the start of the season.