Bob Barnard Track Engineering

Sorry to have gone missing for a couple of days, my back has been playing up so lying low. One of the things that has come up and not commented on by the general media is the goings on in Austin over the Promoter. Here is the original story from Friday:

http://motorsport.nextgen-auto.com/Report-hints-US-GP-project-to-lose-promoter-Hellmund,30873.html

Joew Saward has followed this up with his own view on what is going on:

http://joesaward.wordpress.com/

This is about the fourth article so scroll down. Mind you the other articles are interesting. The Argentina track by Populous looks like a big kart track. Stick to football stadiums. Anyway Joe suggests Tavo might be looking to make more money consulting to other would be F1 race promoters. That says a lot about how much (or little) there is to be made in promoting one himself. I guess one day we will find out what is going on in Austin.

Joes first article on the Hamilton/Massa incident is responding to a number of web sites commenting on how Massa was told over the radio to "destroy" Hamilton's race by holding him up. Nothing wrong with that, except you would think Smedley would be encouraging Massa to go faster to stay in front, not slow down and keep Hamilton behind. Shows a lack of confidence in his driver. What is really the story here is the hypocrisy of Massa to complain of Hamilton's driving after the race! Adding insult to injury. And I find it amazing that in race after race I hear drivers in following cars being chastised for hitting the one in front, and yet at Spa Hamilton is in the wrong when Kobayashi hits his rear wheel!

The 14th annual Petit le Mans has been run, and who knows if we will have a 15th. Sebring is announced as a round of the WEC, but not the Petit? Scott Atherton did his usual "everything is getting better" speech but did not address the ALMS cars not being able to run in a WEC event. Has that been sorted? If it had you would think he would have mentioned it. And now we are "grandfathering" museum pieces like the V12 Aston Martin! Must be embarrassing for Aston that their 2011 car does not run but a collectors car finishes third!

ESPN3 coverage was very good except the ads were getting very old by the end of ten hours. A very eventful race. Not sure how they could edit that down to two hours, allowing for ads. I tuned in with 15 minutes to go and the race had ended, so the "highlights" were probably an hour at best. The major talking point was the Dumas crash, and I would like to know if he actually hit the front of the Porsche. Shades of Le Mans for me, stuck his nose in too far when the hole was closing. Now I am no fan of Montagny and the tactics of Peugeot, but Audi should know by now that they need to take no chances when passing them. Not sure why they had to start 53 cars? Do they need the entry fees that bad? Track density by FIA rule is 43, so 20% less and would have made life easier for the real competitors rather than those making up the numbers.

Over in Japan Honda managed to win its home MotoGP for a change in a crash fest. Stoner did well not to crash and recover to third behind Pedrosa and Lorenzo, so Casey still has a handy lead in the Championship. Rossi fell off at the second corner and took a few with him. Bit of a nightmare season for him and Ducati. Marquez failed to win the Moto2 class but still takes over the lead in the Championship from Bradl by one point.

Elsewhere lots of Championships were decided. Checa went out in style to clinch the WSBK, Tomszyk won the DTM title for Audi, Ceccon won the AutoGP title if anyone noticed or cared, Mehri won the Euro F3 title, Botolotti clinched the F2 title, and Peugeot took the inaugural, (and only?), ILMC Manufacturers Trophy. Dario Franchiti retook the lead in the Indycar championship with one race remaining.

In other news Tilke is the latest person to be trotted out to reassure us India will be "finished" on time. It is normal that the work is finished at the last minute he said, well most of it will be apparently. That may be true of a street course, but there is no excuse for a permanent facility. Bernie is due in court in Germany in November to testify in the Gribkowsky case, so perhaps we will learn what really went on.

It seems that despite being dropped from next year's calendar Turkey is still keen to have a GP and are ready to be the stand in if Bahrain cannot sort out its problems, which from current reports is not likely whatever Bernie says.

Very little going on worth writing about at the moment. Tost of Toro Rosso is echoing my thoughts on the Stewards at the last race and calling for professionals. In one of the most professional of sports it remains an oddity that the final arbiters of events are unpaid amateurs, and are different at each race. 

Over in the NASCAR world the "Chase" is on. When are they going to drop this stupid idea? Anyway Tony Stewart has won the first two races, so there is some justice in my opinion, but you can feel free to differ.

Petit le Mans testing was on at Road Atlanta on Sunday and the Peugeots are quick, and the gasoline cars nowhere. Qualifying is streamed live on ESPN3 on Friday, with the race on Saturday.

MotoGP from Motegi this weekend and all the riders are there despite the threat not to go because of radiation fears. Capirossi is not there due to his collar bone.

Finally the Indian Tax issue is not resolved. The customs duty may be, but the 70% tax on the team and drivers income from this race is not. Whitmarsh is not happy but it does appear the teams will go anyway.

It is one of the oddities of living in the US that kerb is spelt curb. I guess the "curb" is a limit to how far you can go, so it makes some sense, or is it just another simplification of the language that America likes, like harbour and harbor.

Anyway, the bolt down kerbs in Singapore "curbed" the enthusiasm of the teams this morning, or is that evening, when they started to become unbolted during a support race, and continued to give problems during the session. Whole sections have been removed and are presumably going to be reinstalled overnight (day?). Without knowing it looked like the insert in the pavement was not holding, but after four years why would that happen now?

Not the sort of advertisement Singapore is looking for when the whole point of the race is to show off the place. It was a primary concern of mine when planning Adelaide that we should not have a red flag situation, not easy to do on a street circuit.

I had the misfortune of tuning in to Speed for the second practice as the fromsportcom.com site has a tendency to freeze, but even that was better than listening to the inane rantings of Diffey and Co, so I went back to it. 

Practice? Well the results are predictable, Vettel fastest and a big spread of times. McLaren making bad choices and Ferrari looking good on "full" tanks, but how full were they? The track does not get any better and passing will be at a premium. Lots of brake problems. Ricciardo outpaced his team mate to be not quite last, but OK seeing as how he had not been here. Schumacher continuing good form well ahead of Rosberg who seemed to struggle.

Ron Dennis chose this weekend to spell out plans for McLaren Automotive including identifying the US as the biggest market and suggesting a motorsport involvement here. Can't see it in Grand Am can you? Ron is predicting a multi-billion dollar future for the business and a stock market flotation in five years, and who is to say Ron is wrong?

Not much else going on except the continued reassurances over India. Mallya came out yesterday and said the race could be run "tomorrow." Not unless those photos were from a month or more ago, but the FIA say they are "positive" about the situation. Meanwhile the local press are suggesting that with all their money the teams ought to be paying the Indian Gov't to come and race, if they can get a visa.

The latest trouble to hit the upcoming Indian GP is that of visas for those wishing to attend. Did no one associated with the race do their homework on this and the tax issues? The Times of India is reporting delays for drivers, teams, and journalists, and yes the FIA officials. There is even a report Rosberg has been refused! Obviously this not an event of "National Significance." The FIA head of communications is quoted as saying, "if it takes three weeks to get a visa then many people won't be going, including me."   

Now I actually have a visa, and yes it took weeks, causing me to miss meetings set up by a Government Authority who should have known better. The system is designed so that you cannot get to the consulate directly to try and speed things up, very frustrating. I was a little surprised, I had not required a visa to go anywhere for years, and with a British Passport foolishly thought this would be simple. Seems nothing is simple in India and they don't really want people to go there, except terrorists. 

So, if any team needs a driver, let them know I have a business visa.

That man Martin Whitmarsh is in the news again, he must be vying for attention with Montezemolo who has been in the papers every day this week. It appears FOTA is looking at purchasing part or all of the CVC shares in F1, buying back the farm. There are lots of successful player and team groups who have done this, PGA, ATP, NFL and NBA, and then there is CART. Martin says that the teams owning the sport will bring stability, but you cannot help wondering if the smaller teams, like HRT who is not a member of FOTA, would agree? Anyway, it must be better than a venture capital group just sucking money out musn't it?

On the driver front there are rumors that both Kubica and Petrov could be replaced by Senna and Grosjean, Senna bringing more money then Petrov. Renault has announced that Red Bull is their "factory team," no surprise there, and Boulier is apparently covering the bases by talking to Cosworth. All sounds a bit messy. Rumor yesterday that HRT are to switch to Renault power, leaving Cosworth with one customer, and you can't see how that works financially. Talking of leaving Cosworth, their CEO just did.

Our old friend Luca has been very quiet lately. He could usually be counted on to provide some good ammunition for us bloggers, but he must be busy on his election campaign. His buddy has just resigned as General Secretary of FOTA among rumors he is also going into politics in Italy. So Luca says Domenicali has his full commitment, no he does not need Adrian Newey, even though he is "tired of losing the Championship at the last race." He likes the move to pay-for-view as long as their is a balance of free-to-air, I bet he does. Like Whitmarsh he is looking for F1 to move with the times and get on iPad etc.

Talking of Whitmarsh, he is trying to smooth out a potential problem with the Indian tax man who is likely to withold part of the teams income from the GP under Indian law. This has been simmering under the surface with the teams financial gurus trying to find a solution. Martin is playing down a boycott of the race, it does not need any more issues to deal with, but he says "you do not go to somewhere if you are going to be penalised." Our old friend Ron Walker from Melbourne must know how to solve that as I recall we had a similar potential problem with the Oz bike GP. Ron and his circuit mates are still carrying on about the new engine needing to be 18,000 rpm so it sounds right for the punters, or they will go elsewhere. Randy Bernard from Indycar just happens to be in Monza, but he has been meeting all sorts of people in the last year, and has Ron heard an Indycar?

Continuing the promoters theme our friends at Pit Pass, who I have said I suspect are close to Bernie, have floated the idea that with the demise of the Turkish GP F1 Group could be looking for another race to promote. Lo and behold Austin is suggested as a prime contender. I have always thought there is something or someone behind the Tavo thing, or am I a conspiracy theorist? Bernie used to promote a lot of races, but presumably worked out that this is a certain way to lose money. I guess if the Texas Government is paying the fee and Tavo's backers are building the track then promoting this race may not be such a risk. India and Poland, yes Poland, are other potential races mentioned. Apparently F1 Group has applied for the "Grand Prix of Poland" trademark. They had better pray that Kubica's upcoming time in the simulator or car is positive. We all hope it will be and it is great to hear he is recovered enough to start driving again in whatever form.

Red Bull pulled a surprise on the other teams by taking pole for tomorrow's race, well Vettel did, Mark was back in 5th after a less than stellar practice and qualifying. More KERS problems and an old engine, although Mark in his usual fashion refused to look for excuses. Hamilton and the team blinked in Q2 after setting a good time on the hard tires which would have seen him through and saved a set of options, but at the end of the session they put on the options to make sure of progressing. Should have stuck to their guns, but that is easy for me to say sitting at home. Vettel is running very little wing but still putting in great times through the fast corners, and has short geared the car which helps the drive out of corners but will put him in trouble for top speed if the others can get near him, a big if. So a different strategy which would presumably be ruled out if the teams have to nominate their eight ratios at the start of the season as that odd rule for 2014 states. More restrictions. Ferrari tried Massa towing Alonso around to try and get a good starting position for their home race, but ended up 4th behind the two McLarens. Tomorrow should be interesting with McLaren thinking they are in a good position, but don't they always.

Bottas secured the GP3 title with a win here, and Fillipi dominated the GP2 race but Grosjean already has the title and a possible F1 seat.

In Silverstone Peugeot went on to secure pole for tomorrow's race with the Audis second and fourth around the second Peugeot.The Rebellion is four seconds of the pole time, but only a second off the slowest Audi. All the petrol cars are within a second so that would be good to watch, if you can see it. Try http://tv.audi.com/#/01

Bit early for me and will clash with the GP. In GTE Pro the BMWs mugged the Ferraris with 1-2 in qualifying, with Porsche also strong. Pat Long put his GTE Am Porsche on pole, but it is hard to see Pat as an amateur.