Bob Barnard Track Engineering

That was the title of a piece on the ESPN blog about Bahrain a year or so ago, and we are hearing the same about Sochi. Has the FIA or FOM nothing to say? Not even "this is sport and not politics," as lame as that is? Ask Putin if the Olympics or F1 are about sport.

So India is not going to be on the 2015 calendar, what a surprise. They fell for that one. Now what are they going to do with that white elephant of a racetrack? The fate of Turkey, Valencia and Korea in recent times does not stop would be promoters it seems, with Azerbaijan getting a race according to Bernie. What with Long Beach still trying to decide, and a raft of others waiting in the wings there are plenty of people and countries who think they are smarter than Bernie and all the other F1 race promoters.

To assist those people I have recently connected with a group called Meet The Crowd, MTC, who specialise in strategies for would be and existing race promoters, and economic impact assessment, to assist with analysing whether to bid for an event or to renegotiate an existing contract. Our combined experience of organizing and promoting such events is now available. Check out their web site:

http://www.meetthecrowd.com/

In two wheeled matters it seems that Dorna is making up the rules as it goes along. Not a good basis for keeping teams in a sport. As soon as Ducati decided to do what Dorna wants and go to the open class they make up a new class for "works" teams in the open category, a class of one so far. Nice one. I bet Ducati are well pleased with that. Dorna has managed to upset both Ducati and the rest of the open teams, and is annoying Honda about them using the common ECU. If they keep this up they will be as popular as the FIM was in the early 90's.

It is interesting, and annoying, to compare the different views the media and those involve have of the same event. A good friend, Allen Petrich, who watched only snippets of the Indian GP, commented how at odds were the comments of ESPNF1 compared to my blog.

I see this all the time, and it has an element of "The Emperor's new clothes" about it. I heard the SPEED pit reporter say what a "fabulous circuit" India was. What basis has he for saying this, is he just mouthing the press release from Bernie? Too many journalists do not know anything about what they are seeing and reporting on, so just repeat what someone with a vested interest has told them. Drivers say they love the track. Do they really are are they just part of the business. I admit India may be a fun track to drive around. There are many like that, Barber here in the US is I'm sure a fun track to drive on your own, but race? That is a different matter, and that is what we are here to do. Tracks need to produce good racing, overtaking opportunities and not just corners thrown in just to have one. There were a few of those in India. The "parabollica" was great, and if you did not have the next two slow corners we could probably have seen overtaking into that nice downhill right, but as it was there was no way to get close enough. 

Of course Bernie says it was all wonderful, he had his check a long time ago, and as an event it went OK, as a race it was awful, but that is my opinion, and a few others. Bob Constanduros has been writing a "postcard" from India on Pit Pass. Bob is a long time F1 track commentator and thought the race was interesting, good battles going on for 14th! Now I am not saying Bob has a vested interest, but who do we think suggests tracks use him? Bob comments in his Sunday piece that he had lots of tweets about the boring race, so there are some more of us out there.

Have a look at the ESPNF1 piece on media reaction. "Great weekend, forgettable race," and see what I mean,

http://en.espnf1.com/india/motorsport/story/63151.html

I understand that people like Martin Whitmarsh are going to say it is all great, they can see dollar signs from Indian sponsors, but the media have a responsibility to tell it like it is. Unfortunately the motor sports media seem to think it is in their interest and their employers to beat up how good everything is. Most of us true fans can tell for ourselves thank you.

The "lease" of Silverstone by a Qatar based group that was denied so strongly now seems to be happening, and a good job too says Bernie. 

"It's what Silverstone needs," he said. "They need to let the professionals run it."

"The new owners will put proper people in, commercialise it and run it properly. They will get the job done. They won't muck around. Europe has got to understand that Europe will be sold to the Chinese or India or these people in the Middle East." Ouch! I'm sure the BRDC who have run Silverstone for 60 years are glad that a bunch of Arabs with no motor racing history can come in and show them how to run it "professionally." Yas Marina is such a success the developer has had to have the Government take over.

Where does Bernie think all the knowledge and development has come from to build the sport to where it is, Korea? As far as I know all the tracks are designed and built by Europeans, and you will usually find a European running the place.

Oh sorry, I guess Bernie is talking about all the essential hotels and BS that he loves to see.

Well no cows on track yet, but watch out for those curbs, they jump out and destroy your supension! Well it did to Massa. Very strange why he is the only one the way they have all been grass cutting and curb hopping. I would have thought they would have done something with that second corner of the chicane, concrete it overnight at least. Still, what's a bit more dust.

Unlike most Tilke tracks this one seems to lack any distinctive architectural features, it could be anywhere. Except for the air polution and dust that is. Not a great advert for travelling to India. "Delhi belly" has of course struck with McLaren flying in new troops to replace those effected. Ferrari are in trouble with the tobacco police here in India. With all that air polution I would not have thought smoking was a big issue.

The Massa front wing is drawing some attention, as it should, and Mercedes suddenly found a few seconds a lap overnight, so what were they up to? Still did not help Michael get in to Q3. Toro Rosso did well though. Qualifying was not the usual exciting session, with three cars choosing not to set a time and Vettel clearly quicker. I like Button on the radio telling the crew he has no grip, and he is running around fourth. There are a lot of drivers who would like to have similar levels of no grip. I guess it is down to expectations. How does someone like Ricciardo drive around at the back in the HRT without being mentally destroyed?

Rumors abound that Kimi has signed for Williams. If he is watching this he must know something we don't about next year's car. Still it will be great to have him back and I don't care if he mumbles, it's his driving I want to see.

Finally we have the riot at the cancelled concert by Metallica. Let's hope the race is not red flagged! Still there were a lot more people at the scheduled concert than the track yesterday.

The most fun so far has been reading of the adventures of journalists and commentators. Apparently Bernie has been not allowing a view of the track from the media center for several of the recent tracks, but here the TV commentary boxes have no windows either. So, you only see what Bernie wants you to see on TV?

The first impression is of the smog, and then the dust. There are acres of asphalt run off except where it is most needed at the first chicane. Just about every driver has short cut the second corner across new dry turf amidst clouds of dust and grass on the track. Well we have dogs on the track and cows in the paddock, so a real paddock eh? I guess we have to ask what if a cow wants to go on the track, can anyone stop it in a country where it is sacred?

Some good elevation changes and several nice corners, but it is like the Curate's egg, "good in parts." The pit-in looks like Valencia, China and several other Tilke tracks, and is marginal, but pit-out is as bad as Korea. We've already seen a near miss as it dumps cars out onto the apex of Turn One. Why pit exit could not have been run around the inside of One and exit onto the outside of Two is hard to understand. And then there is the crooked pit building and pit lane, and the lawn. Go figure.

If ever we needed evidence of flexible front wings we got it with Massa. It was odd as only the Ferrari seemed to find bumps to make the wing bounce up and down and drag on the track. Did not slow Massa down though.

We saw a few incidents, D'Ambrosio the biggest of them in a very strange lose, and that wall is too close anyway. The marshals need some training though, and at one point a photographer casually got over the wall to get a closer shot of a Williams stuck in the gravel. He was one of the guys I referred to yesterday who feel immortal, like the marshal who stood on the side of the car facing the oncoming cars.

I watched on Fromsport on a Spanish Channel as the BBC one would not go full screen for some reason. The surprising thing was the commentators spent most of the practice talking about MotoGP and WSBK! I know it was not scintillating viewing, but is there nothing else to talk about?

They could talk about the Gribkowsky trial which started this week, with Bernie due to testify mid November. Nothing startling yet.

Mercedes were strangely way off the pace, Michael almost last and Rosberg not much quicker. Down among the new boys at 5-6 seconds off the pace. Now it was said they were working on race set up, but I cannot believe they would not do one quick run on low fuel. Working on next year's parts? Which is reported to include a front wing F-Duct. Thought that stuff was banned, and not sure why you would want to stall the front wing anyway. A way to run more air under the car to replace that lost by the exhaust? 

Not sure today told us much other than the usual suspects will dispute qualifying and the race. Not much running on the hard tire today.

Long time Renault Team Manager John Wickham has quit, not even travelling to India. Sinking ship?

India is receiving a lot of press at the moment, which is I guess why they wanted the race. Coverage is a two edged sword though if you have the corruption and poverty that India enjoys. The following is a report from Fox News: