Bob Barnard Track Engineering

Apparently Silvio is not doing so well with the Italian people, not for the first time. This leads me to ask, if it is OK for Silvio with all his media interests to run a country, why is it a conflict of interest for Rupert to run F1. Just a question.

Montezemolo says he is "married" to Ferrari and is not looking to move into politics. Being married to Ferrari one would think would be enough politics to last a lifetime.

I'm still intrigued as to where Eric Lux is going to sue Sutil as the event happened in China. I am no lawyer, but do you not have to have some standing before a court, so is he suing in China? Not easy one would think. Any lawyer out there care to comment?

As you can see the news is thin today, but the biggest story for me is Highcroft pulling out of Le Mans. Given that they were the only petrol car to stay with the diesels at Sebring, this is a sad loss. Due to Honda Japan's problems after the quake they say. Duncan is now looking for a new partner. With his track record and driving team I would think manufacturers would be falling over themselves to talk to him.

There is a video posted of work continuing in Austin. One would only hope so, are they so paranoid they have to do this stuff? The main feature is the nice sign and a lot of equipment seemingly going back and forth in the same spot.

In a replay of F1 the V8Supercar Series in Oz has been sold off to a venture capital group, but Tony Cochrane has learned from Bernie and has stayed as Chairman.

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Well I joined Chairman Atherton's brave new world yesterday and watched the 12 hour on espn3.com. I have to admit to being a sceptic and was actually pleasantly surprised. After connecting my lap top to the TV via an HDMI cable which I already had, and some teething problems, it ran faultlessly all day. Could not use the lap top for anything else, but hey, I was watching the race. Not sure why some folks cannot get espn3.com? This is the first time I've been on it and it won't be the last. When I first connected my soccer team was being shown live.

The Radio Le Mans commentary added to the enjoyment, I turn the sound off on Speed and listen to these guys anyway so I was pleasantly surprised by it. The only jarring note were the required female and American in pit lane for the ABC highlights show presumably. When will they learn to keep their mouth shut unless there is something worth saying, and no we do not need to be told that the fuel goes in first at every stop. I particularly liked being told that the windscreens had to be cleaned because of the "daylight sunshine." That nightime sunshine can be deadly to. Mind you John Hindhaugh, the main man at Radio Le Mans has his Murray Walker moments. After a couple of hours of great racing John admitted he "could watch this all day." Well John it's a 12 hour race so your in luck. But I knew what he meant and love his passion and knowledge as we loved Murray's. Motor Sport had a great interview with Murray this month in which Murray said that commentators could not fake excitement or enthusiasm. Take note Lee Diffey, and no one could accuse Bob Varsha of faking either, Mr. Bland. I was amused by the number of comments on how hot it was. I guess if you come from the north of England it is, in which case do not come back in a couple of months time John.

To me it was more enjoyable watching this broadcast than Speed. Much less interruption for commercials, although the two we had got old very quickly. There were the inevitable "infomercials", but again these seemed less intrusive, perhaps because we were seeing so much of the race. Why oh Why does Atherton feel he has to talk to the commentators at every race, and who cares? Is it an insecurity complex? As I said before, Bernie never feels the need, nor Brian France. There were too many extended in-car camera shots, as good as they were, and static camera shots like the camera crew were on break, but this is nit-picking.

The race was a cracker, with three cars capable of winning down to the wire. Great to see Hughes de Chaunac's Oreca Team win it, and the tears in Hughes eyes are a testament to his passion for the sport despite the many years and great success he has had. Not to mention the incredible job done by Highcroft to finish second and nearly steal the race, in a petrol Honda that only turned a wheel a week ago. Well done Duncan, Brabs and the rest of the team, and on to Le Mans. Peugeot finished third in their new car, but both Peugeot and Audi ran into problems and each other, but let's not take anything away from Oreca and Highcroft, they were on the pace and not just lucky. Hard to see what the ALMS is going to do for LMP1 cars though, and the LMP2 were disappointing to say the least.

Not so the GT's who put on their usual performance with 5 or 6 cars running together most of the race. Well done Bobby Rahal and BMW, but we can expect the new Ferrari's to come back strong. Corvette avoided the debacles of last year to finish strong, so we are in for a stellar year, again. It is hard to accept, as the pit lane reporters seemed to do, that overseas professional teams did not know the rule book because it was their first time here. I'm sure Tony Dowe would not be making these mistakes wherever he went.

Corvette showed their in-car video display from the rear facing cameras which lead me to the question, why not build them into the wing mirrors?

The track played its part in the proceedings as is normal for Sebring. At what point do the bumps, that is a mild term to describe them, stop being "character" and become dangerous? We saw cars being destroyed thanks to Turn Seventeen particularly, and we were fortunate we did not see serious injury to Johannes van Overbook  when his Jaguar was tipped into the fence through no fault of his own. It is time Don dipped into his wallet and spent some money to maintain this place.

So, is the "game changer" a success? Well for me as an enthusiast and a professional involved in the sport it was actually an improvement, but how many average fans are going to go to the trouble to do this? OK, the next generation are being brought up on live streaming on handhelds, but are they interested in motorsport anyway? The evidence says not. Is a two hour highlights show on ABC today going to bring new viewers? Perhaps, the average sports fan is brought up on a diet of two or three hour games, so watching twelve hours is unlikely. The viewing figures will tell the story, but again, will the average fan think our sport unimportant if not worthy of live TV?

Elsewhere the MotoGP season is underway in Qatar in what should be a good race, at least for third as Julian Ryder said. C'mon Aussie! Bernie is up to his games again saying this could be the last F1 GP in Australia this week, he has to drop two races anyway to make way for Austin and Russia, so it may as well be Oz. Nice negotiating position. Vettel is making noises that if the drivers are not happy with the rules this year they may withdraw their labor. He needs to talk to the drivers who tried that on in South Africa a couple of decades ago. Bernie's position on drivers is like buses, there will be another one along soon.

It's terrible to see what is happening in Japan and let us hope it does not get worse, one Chernobyl in this world is enough. If you want to read a great book about Chernobyl read "Wolves Eat Dogs" by Martin Cruz Smith, the guy who wrote Gorky Park. Japanese MotoGP is postponed for a second year due to mother nature.

Trouble of a man-made kind in the Middle east with the situation in Libya beyond description. As I said, why do troops do these things to their own people? Bahrain is getting there with a "peacekeeping" force from their neighboring states, particularly Saudi Arabia, coming in to help the Royal Family keep hold on power. That is never going to work in the long term. We need to look no further than Northern Ireland to see what a suppressed people will do when desperate. So, a rescheduling of the F1 race is impossible with a  three month "State of Emergency" being declared. More to the point, does F1 want to be seen in a country that so obviously is repressing its own people? Silly me, we are already doing that aren't we?

On a happier note, it is great to see the HPD LMP1 car doing so well in practice for Sebring. Despite only turning a wheel this last weekend the Highcroft run car is mixing it with the Peugeots and Audis. We are still off last years times, but not by much and that could be down to the restrictions placed on the diesels. Are we to see a level playing field at last? Looks like being a good race, if only it was televised live.

In what must rate as one of the most outrageous pieces of spin ever Colin Kolles, when asked if he thought HRT would feature in the top 10, he said: "I think so yes. I think that others are more desperate than we are to be honest with you." Colin was responding to Bernie's opinion that F1 really only needed ten teams, and of course the media had to ask HRT where that left them. Colin supported the idea!!!

Nice to see Daniel Ricciardo setting the pace in FR3.5 testing. Let's hope he can win the Championship this year and continue his progress to F1. That other Aussie, Casey Stoner looks on course to be the favorite for this year's MotoGP Championship with another chart topping test session in Qatar. But it gets real this weekend when the first race is run under lights. Ben Spies is not far off on the Yamaha and capable of mixing it with the Hondas on paper. Strange it is de Puniet on the private Ducati that is leading the way for the marque. Rossi had another get off and ended up thirteenth. If this is sandbagging it is world class.Sorry to hear Cal Crutchlow lost the tip of his finger, but he is in some illustrious company there. Let's hope it is a good omen.

In other news, Jean Todt in Melbourne for the GP says Australia should keep its race, but he is not paying for it is he? Horner is stirring the pot suggesting Lewis Hamilton will be looking to drive a Red Bull if he has another disappointing season. Is this to replace Vettel? Lewis meanwhile has a new manager and is reported to be open to "music and film" to expand his career. Whatever.

Bernie is doing his bit to alleviate the GFC and restore the property market in London by spending 101 million pounds for two houses, one for each of his daughters. What must it be like to have that sort of money? Not that I begrudge him one dollar, he grew up not far from me in London and earned every one. There are many great lessons from Bernie's life we could all learn. Like Bill Gates, it is not inventing the product, it is knowing its potential and how to exploit it that is the genius.

We heard a few days ago about the HPD LMP1 car, and the rejigged LMP2, but now David Brabham is saying he is looking for a ride as the Highcroft team of Duncan Dayton is not a certainty to compete in ALMS. So who is going to run an HPD LMP1?

Alonso and Massa made some comments about to many buttons on the steering wheel this year.Alonso said "we are losing focus on the driving," and Massa " we have so many things to do...but we still have to drive the car." Thankfully. I'm still confused about where and when the movable rear wing can be used by the driver. Anthony Davidson said at the Autosport Show "You are pretty much going to be able to use it wherever you want [in practice and qualifying] and it is going to gain you anything up to 15km/h on the straights - so there is going to be a huge discrepancy of speed." But as I have read the rules it will only function when the car following is one second behind, so is it only the car following? Not much point if both can do it. And is this only in the race and it can be used when you like for the rest of the weekend as Ant suggests? Then I saw a piece that said there will be a predetermined point at the end of the main straight where a signal from Race Control will allow it to be used, which lead to a comment that you do not want to be leading going into the last lap. The comment also said this would lead to some strange strategies. Now this is nothing new, there are several tracks where that is the case anyway, Monza and Phillip Island to name two, but can anyone provide a comment to explain how this is going to really work, preferably before the season starts?

Does anyone else think Mr. Lorenzo needs some better advice on his self promotion? It is one thing to try and be a bit zany for the fans, and quite another to look totally wacko. There is no question he can ride the bike, he should let that do the talking. Nothing like this happened in the old days, riders just did normal stuff like putting rental cars in swimming pools. Rossi in the meantime did not seem to be having too many problems with that shoulder at Wroom.

It seems a day for comings and goings or coming back. Eric Boullier tells how he "shook off the ghost of Briatore," but wants Grosjean back in F1. Then you should have hired him I would have thought? Mr. Chung wants back in at KAVO and is going to sue, and Pat Symonds wants back in and is looking for a job. Massa is hoping the Pirelli's will save his seat at Ferrari, while Alonso announced he has a new press secretary, Roberta Vallorosi, who has worked for Rossi apparently.

Talking of comings and goings, the Professional Circuit Forum that was to be held in LA this April will now be staged in November on the east coast and will include a trade expo. The organizers are making the change to have one Forum a year and here in the US at a location to be determined, but south rather than north at that time of year.

How sweet it must have been for Mark Webber to win the British F1 GP  yesterday. "Methinks they protesteth too much" is how I would treat Red Bull's continual assurances that Vettel is not getting preferential treatment. Team Principal Christian Horner insisted that the differences between the two wing versions were minor, and only affected driving characteristics. If that was true why risk having a problem with Mark by changing it over to Vettel's car after Vettel's wing had broken in practice? Sources have revealed that there was both a lap time and a weight difference between the two versions. Mark commented that the car felt better with it on. Horner saying that they gave the wing to Vettel because he was ahead in points makes more sense than "there were minor differences." It's like the Turkey deal all over again, they cannot stick to a story. So, if Mark wins the World Championship are we going to see a Champion walk from his team again? You have to love him for his honesty and lack of PC!

Not that winning the Championship is going to be easy. They said that Jim Clark could just drive around a car's problems, as did Senna. Now I am not yet saying that Hamilton is in that illustrious company, but you have to admire his ability to take a car that is not well set up and putting it fourth on the grid when  his World Champion team mate can only manage 14th and says it is undriveable. Then he runs a strong second in the race, setting fastest times. Cudos to Button to take that ill handling car and get it up to fourth, he has a different style to Lewis but is still very effective. You do not really see how he does it. McLaren have a great team with these two and of course the engineers and mechanics, and yes I am biased.

Ferrari are again exercising their selective memory and "the rules do not apply to us" mentality. Do they not recall Spa three years ago and that great duel between Raikkonen and Hamilton? When Kimi pushed Lewis wide at the "bus stop" and Lewis did pass Kimi, let Kimi back past him again, and then overtook him, only to be penalized for not letting Kimi by far enough! Lost the race and the Championship. So why was Alonso's pass on Kubica any different?

Nice to see Williams up there again, and the Cosworth is obviously not too shabby. Yamamoto ran around last, must have been weighed down by his wallet! Well done Nico Rosberg, beat your elderly team mate again. Michael is not driving well and cannot be enjoying his time back in the car. Even the TV commentators are now comparing his age with every other driver he gets passed by.

Did not get to see the ALMS at Miller, but well done Highcroft, and it seems that the Drayson car ran well. Keep Emmanuele in the car so we have some competition for Brabham and co.

Did not see WSBK either, but it is turning into a Biaggi benefit. Pity about Corser and the BMW's. Did anyone see the accident in practice? Brno is a safe track so I am surprised at his injuries, was it just a high speed get off?

Congratulations Spain for the World Cup. I lived in Spain for a year and love the people and the Country, so if England could not win I am glad Spain did. Hard to believe it was their first final and win.

Sad to see Lance Armstrong having such a tough time on the Tour, but I guess when your luck runs out. He is still amazing, but in a way he is finding out what Michael is finding out, the current crop of riders are pretty damn good! I know I am an Aussie, but I think Andy Schleck is who I would like to win.