Bob Barnard Track Engineering

Why would HRT, a team desperately trying to be Spanish, hire a Chinese reserve driver with no record? Does he bring a big bag of money? HRT are certainly not selling anything in China to warrant trying to gain exposure there. They now have a 30+ Spanish lady driver and a 24 year old Chinese guy, neither with any obvious credentials. Sounds like a great test and back up team. Come to think of it why would we expect anything else. As we would say in Oz, all they need is a tent and elephants and they would have a circus.

Argentina look pretty certain to have a F1 race in 2013, on yet another Tilke masterpiece, while one of his other gems, Korea, is likely to be dropped as they cannot pay the fee. That was a great investment wasn't it? Anyone in Texas watching this?

Meanwhile Magny Cours is asking why no one is looking at their track to stage a revived French GP? It is said that it is too remote, but I have been to both Magny Cours and Paul Ricard, and let me tell you Paul Ricard is not exactly downtown anywhere either. Maybe Bernie's involvement at Paul Ricard has something to do with it, or the politics of the Magny Cours Department?

Spa is supposed to be alternating with a French GP, but the Belgian locals are not much in favor of that and have a petition going. If, like me, you think only seeing a race at Spa every other year while suffering Bahrain each year is too much to bear, please go on to the web site and sign the petition.

http://www.grandprixf1.be/home.html

On a last note, unsurprisingly, Lotus, the car maker, can no longer afford the sponsorship for the F1 team that carries its name, nor will it be able to buy into the team. The real team owners say they are happy to continue with the Lotus name anyway. Thank goodness after all that wrangling.

I have commented over the last few months about the problems at Lotus Renault or whoever they are, and the stories continue about Lotus Cars and their funding needs. So we have an under funded team whose ownership is unclear being sponsored by a car maker owned by a Malaysian car company and spending money like there is no tomorrow.

So what do we hear now? The apparent owner of Lotus Renault, Genii Capital, is going to buy into Lotus Cars with possibly a majority position. Sort of reminds me of a snake swallowing its other end. I think they deserve each other.

This is part of a situation where teams will have to get approval for changing their name, which is a very big deal as the dole out of money from the Concorde Agreement is to the team that had the name when it raced. So if Team Lotus wants to become Caterham Tony risks losing the money he earned this year, which has been the stumbling block for resolving the Lotus name argument. Tony was willing to give it up if he was recompensed by Lotus Renault for that loss. HRT is in a similar position, but it is hard to see that they have much coming from the Agreement the way they have performed. So we have the prospect of three teams wanting a name change, and Bernie is really the one who has the say, and apparently he is eager to start the discussion. I bet he is, in this sort of deal there is only going to be one winner, Bernie.

Over in Suzuka we have Vettel on pole again by the slimmest of margins over Button who has been on it all weekend. Lewis had his last lap "destroyed" by Webber and Schumacher overtaking him at the chicane as he slowed to give himself some room to the car in front. So, did Red Bull give Mark the word to jump Lewis a la Ferrari? Mark was off the pace anyway, and I'm sure Michael would have taken the chance to screw Lewis with glee. He says Lewis put him onto the grass. Touche Michael, have you looked at any race film lately? I did not see it on the TV, and the Stewards have done nothing so far, so it cannot have been as bad as either Lewis or Michael are saying. So, we could be set for a great race tomorrow with Jenson and Lewis both looking very fast, and if someone can jump Seb at the start we could have fight for a change.

In Q3 we again saw four cars sit it out to save tires. This basically went on all weekend with the top cars sitting out the first 40 minutes of Friday morning. Pirelli and others are calling for a change to provide the paying customer something to watch. I think probably one more set of softs for Q3 would do it, and take them away afterwards.

In other series in action this weekend Kevin Magnussen has put himself on pole for both British F3 races and has won the first, so looks good for second place in the Championship. Where would he be if he did not have all those plug problems early in the season? Canadian Robert Wickens has won the first race of the FR3.5 finale weekend and extended his lead in that Championship, but only to nine points so it is all to play for Sunday.

Bathurst, the best tin-top race in the world, and yes I include Daytona. Never mind 500 miles turning left, how about 1000 km up and down a mountain? SPEED has it on this afternoon so check your local listings as they say. Rain shuffled the top-ten qualifying so the first few laps should be fraught with action.

And last but not least the Teams are to discuss the situation in Bahrain, which shows no signs of settling down. Bernie in his usual fine form said " I do not know if it is right or wrong, but we have it on the calendar for 2012."

There are a few realignments going on with the F1 teams. Williams announced that they are going to use Renault engines from next year, so Renault increases its hold on the F1 engine market, despite supposedly being down on power. Let's hope this improves the performance of the team. HRT's ownership and management just got cloudier, with a buyout of Carabantes by Thesan Capital, which is a venture capital group backed by Nomura Bank of Japan. They say they will move to base the team in Spain with the current Directors and Team in place. So presumably Colin Kolles is still on the outer. This all begs the question who really is minding the store and who owns it? And will it make any difference?

HRT's arch rival for being last, Marussia Virgin, has confirmed a technical tie up with McLaren Applied Technologies, so look for an improvement there and perhaps Mercedes engines? Cosworth are going to be left with HRT, so it is highly doubtful they are going to invest in a new for 2014 engine with just one customer.

Speaking of engines, Clive Pollock is reportedly going to push on with his proposed engine for 2014 despite the u-turn by the FIA, and Bernie is now threatening to sue the FIA if the 15,000 rpm limit impacts on the poor promoters and their ticket sales drop. Of course his concern is that the promoter will not then have the money to pay the fee to stage the race, but since when has that ever been a concern for him? Bernie is famous for not being fond of drivers in general, they are like buses, another one will be along shortly. That is why he has cleverly promoted F1 as a team sport and built Ferrari and McLaren etc as the stars. It also seemed that promoters enjoyed the same stature as drivers, as there is always someone else waiting to pay him to lose money whenever a promoter wakes up or runs out of it. Bernie has also been having a bit of a verbal spar with Williams CEO Adam Parr. Adam was crass enough to point out that sports such as NFL enjoy considerably larger TV fees and suggested Bernie could be doing better for them all on this front. Bernie of course then pointed out how well Adam was doing on the sponsorship front for Williams. Touche.

The leakage of top staff continues at the other Renault, which isn't, Lotus Renault, with designer Tim Densham reportedly heading for Ferrari. Is everything really well at Renault as Boullier continues to tell us?

I took a day off yesterday so have not commented on the racing. Lorenzo scored a great win at Mugello so perhaps the Championship will not be a Stoner/Honda procession after all. Simoncelli managed to finish a race while Rossi dragged his Ducati up to sixth. In Imola the Peugeots gained revenge for Le Mans with an easy win over the Audis

This is my last blog. Just kidding, but it is my last blog on Wordpress. I have revamped my personal web site where I always intended to base my blog, and it will be launched today. The link should not change, so you should go straight to it, but if not go to www.bobbarnardtrackengineering.com and go to the blog page. See you there.

No not the vegetable drink but the Australian Supercar Series that is now going to Austin in 2013, having raced in the Middle East the last few years, although no one came to watch. I was told when Austin was first announced that ISC, i.e. NASCAR, were not likely to give them any races, so no NASCAR, Grand Am or AMA Motorcycles. So what were they going to run at this expensive facility to justify it other than F1, which is unlikely to make money for anyone but Bernie? The answer is to bring in other overseas series such as the V8Supercars. I bet Tony Cochrane is laughing all the way to the bank. Can you imagine what it costs to air freight these cars? They weigh at least twice what an F1 car does and cannot be broken down to a nice size to put in a plane. Volume is as big an issue as weight for planes. So this cannot be cheap for Tavo and the boys, they had better hope they pull a better crowd than the Yas Marina Circuit does.

I also heard a suggestion that the new World Endurance Championship US round might go to Austin rather than Sebring or Road Atlanta. Another great series, and one that can pull a crowd as we have seen at Road Atlanta. Sebring pulls a crowd even when the race has been cancelled, spring break and all. But again an expensive deal to put together, so a hard way to make a dollar, but I guess if you've spent the money you may as well use the place.

Martin Whitmarsh says he thinks that the US should have two F1 races, just like the old days, one on the east coast and one on the west. Not sure where that leaves Texas. Martin said he "had nothing against Texas and hopes they have a successful race,  but the natural hinterland for us is us the east coast and the west coast," which does not sound very supportive, so good luck Tavo.

It must be a very wet summer in Europe as it seems just about every MotoGP has problems with wet tracks. In Mugello hardly anyone went out in the second session due to the rain. In the morning dry session Simoncelli did his usual by now fastest lap, very closely followed by Stoner. Rossi broke down and is way down the field of only 16 bikes.

Imola seems to have missed the rain and the ILMC teams had dry conditions, Peugeot and Audi sharing the top four places with Pescarolo fifth but 3.5 seconds adrift. Look out for live streaming of the race on one of the European sites, and Radio Le Mans for live commentary.

Strange goings on at HRT, and not just in the driver line up. Colin Kolles is apparently leaving/being squeezed out, but he is the one that has the team and the workshop, so how is this all going to play out?

Daniel Ricciardo is on the fast track to an F1 drive, if driving an HRT can be called fast. Be careful what you wish for Daniel. Red Bull have bought Daniel a ride in the HRT Team to replace Karthikeyan, who will presumably get the ride back at the Indian GP later this year. So Helmut Marko wants Daniel to get more F1 seat time, but is not yet ready to ditch either of the Toro Rosso drivers. Who does Helmut want to groom Daniel to replace, that is the big question? I did ask a while ago when was the last time we had two Australians in a GP, if ever, and the answer was we have, but I think only once about thirty years ago in the Alan Jones era. I think the other driver would be Larry Perkins, but I am ready to be corrected.

Following the Red Bull pull out from NASCAR we now hear of another drinks company doing the same. Crown Royal has pulled the plug on the Roush Fenway team. Rats leaving a sinking ship?

A ship that certainly is not sinking is Le Mans and the ACO, with the announcement of the new World Endurance Championship, and now Porsche committing to build an LMP1 car for 2014. Not sure how you design a car for that far in the future the way the rules change, or why it is going to take so long? Porsche must have some information from the ACO on what those rules are going to be. Do we know? Is there some change that will take effect then? Anyway, presuming Peugeot and Audi are still running, and running diesels, we may see of the first time if what they have been saying is true, that a properly funded and designed car can compete with them without all the "equalization."

Talking of engines, no surprise here, the WMC ratified the V6 engine for F1 from 2014.