Bob Barnard Track Engineering

Some people just do not know when to shut up. We have some great examples today.

Bernie said that his mate Briatore was "In no shape or form .... involved in this." He then went on to tell the Daily Express. "He did make a payment for me but only because I asked him." ? I know when to say nothing.

Then there is Adam Parr, he who is telling disgruntled fans how expensive it is to run a team. He does it again today and I'm sure the fans appreciate being told that if they just accept the need for budget cuts in F1 then the teams would not need all that money and the TV and admission costs would go down. Well, he did not actually say the last piece, and we all know that the money will just go somewhere else. The teams could reduce the cost of the show whenever they want, just getting rid of those monstrous "hospitality" units would save a few million, each. No, Adam goes on to say that if each team spends 100m pounds a year to run then the cost of the show is 1.2 bn pounds. Well it is a lot more than that Adam if you add in the cost of building the tracks and staging the races, but let's just look at his maths. Each team has sponsors who foot part or all of that 100m pound bill, but let's say half, so now we are down to 600m pounds by his reckoning. Then there are the fees paid by the poor promoters, say 25m each by 20 races, that nearly covers the rest. You could almost put this on TV for free, but that does not include Bernie's cut or the CVC rape.

Adam continues with his "racquets and plimsoles (tennis shoes to you and me)" analogy, and then makes it worse by comparing the cost of admission to Crique de Soleil" at 100 pounds to the local circus for 10 pounds where you only get to see "a couple of mangy elephants and a rather droopy clown." Nice one Adam, just endeared yourself to the circus industry. Anyway Adam believes the fans will understand. I would not bet on it. At least F1 does not have a slogan of "For the Fans." The next FOTA forum in England should be a doozy, they could sell the rights to that for a lot of money, help defray the cost of running the races. 

Then there is India and the GP, which yesterday had 6000 workers going day and night with 250 engineers to finish the track. Today we are told its all done bar the top layer of asphalt and they were ready for and expecting Charlie last Monday, but he decided to leave it till August 30th. Now I am happy it is ready, but why tell us a story?

Last but not least we have another reported intent to stage an F1 race in the streets of New Jersey with Manhattan as the backdrop, with a race in 2013. Bernie and Martin Whitmarsh must be pleased. It is a private investment, so the question must be why? These are smart businessmen and must know what the costs are, but perhaps know better than I what the income will be, but I would check with Melbourne first. It is one thing for the City to fund this and reap the "economic benefits," but unless these guys own a bunch of real estate in the area it is hard to see the rational.

Just four days after the "unanimous" decision on Bahrain both Bernie and Todt are saying we will have to keep an eye on the situation and rethink going to Bahrain! How can these people have any credibility? I saw a clip of an interview with Jean Todt on the BBC last night, and he looked a bumbling fool. He kept looking over his shoulder as if to check with someone that what he was saying was OK. Who would that be, Bernie or the Bahrain Royalty?

Pit Pass has a couple of pages that say things more eloquently than I:

http://www.pitpass.com/43844-Comment-WTF

The next one is a report from inside Bahrain that raises some very pertinent points. Like "Odd is it not that you can be fined $100m for stealing someones designs but kill a few people and it is OK." I paraphrase, read the whole piece at:

http://www.pitpass.com/43834-Greetings-from-Bahrain

Max Mosley raised the point that the WMC cannot just change the calendar without the unanimous agreement of the teams, and the teams have finally broken silence, albeit in a private letter to the FIA and FOM, and asked for India to remain on Oct 30th, and let Bahrain go to the end of the year if at all. That way I guess they can say when the time comes we are not going.

This whole sorry saga is taking on the image of a French Farce, and must also call into question the ability of those theoretically in charge to continue running the sport. Perhaps Rupert can do it better? In the meantime how would you like to be promoting the Indian GP and selling tickets? And where are those bunch of heroes who own F1, CVC, they are deafening in their opinion of events. Perhaps their investors include some middle east money as well?

Hopefully we can actually get to some racing in the next few days. Who says there are no politics in sport!

On the day when those heroes on the World Motorsport Council vote to reinstate Bahrain, unanimously, our National Radio Broadcaster, NPR had the following item.

http://www.npr.org/2011/06/03/136912868/bahrain-accuses-doctors-of-exaggerating-protesters-injuries

Nice one guys, you just proved what a bunch of gutless individuals you are. How can a vote on something so contentious be "unanimous?" Is this just a case of we must all be seen to be in this together? Is Bernie right when he says it's not about the money? There has to be something else going on here.

The only person with the courage of his convictions is Damon Hill, and why are we not surprised. Damon's quote is spot on.

"It is important that Formula One is not seen to be only interested in putting on the show, whatever the circumstances, " Hill concluded. "You can't just base your decision to hold a race in a country on that country's ability to pay."

Hill's comments come in the light of another flippant remark from Bernie Ecclestone. He told CNN: "What's our problem in the world at the moment? Too many over-educated people. If we can find a way to do something about that then a lot of our problems will disappear." Oh Bernie, how can you? How can CVC allow this to go on?

Again I find myself in agreement with Max Mosely. He said reinstating Bahrain "would represent 'a public relations disaster' for the sport – asserting that if he was still FIA President, the grand prix would be rescheduled 'over my dead body." Well said.

Well I for one am not going to watch it and urge others to do the same. It is India I feel sorry for. They now face the prospect of trying to sell tickets while the teams are saying a race on Dec 11 is impossible for their staff. If they stick to their guns they will not go, but they have not shown any willingness to stand up to Bernie to date.

What is it with Bernie and Bahrain? Apparently he had a meeting with the Teams and said "They are happy, but there is a problem with the date: that is the only thing." Oh, that's the only thing is it? When asked about safety he said "I don't know. I've no idea. It can be safe on the Friday of the race and on Sunday...I don't know." So how on earth can you "hope" that the new date will get approved by the FIA? All this supposes India is going to give up its date in October and move to a December date. December 4th is the one being bandied about, but flying the circus from Brazil to India in one week is a stretch. It probably can be done, although some teams doubt it. That would put the race back to Dec 11th, which really stretches the friendship for the workers, so expect a push back on that. All this cannot just be about the money? By the time October comes around Bahrain may as well wait until the start of the 2012 season.

There is scuttlebutt that Bernie may be assembling his own group to buy back F1. It is like a pea and thimble game the way he sells and buys it, and makes money every time. Can it be related to Bahrain?

It has been an odd day, that's why the blog is late. Woke up at 1 am to watch the live streaming of first practice to see if the asphalt patch worked, which it did nicely. Hats off to the Monaco team. Only problem with the track was a water main leaking in the middle of the start straight, so a little man from the water board had to come out with his large valve key and tighten it up, under a red flag of course. Back to sleep at 2:30 am so recorded the second practice and have not had time to watch all of it yet. Working on the next venture to construct a couple of country clubs here in the US. So, I will have to rely on the results and reading the blogs. Monaco is interesting in that it has so much less reliance on aero and more to do with the drivers skill and attachments, if you get my drift. It levels the playing field, except that the top teams have the best drivers. But there is Alonso in the Ferrari that was lapped last week. No problems with hard tires this week. Mark Webber's bad luck continued with gearbox issues keeping him in the garage this morning and KERS issues keeping him down in eighth this afternoon. As Barry Sheene would say "If he had a duck it would drown!" Mind you Vettel is only in fifth at the moment, with Rosberg looking very racy today. Everyone moved to the super-soft compound this afternoon, their first experience with these. It was said they waited to try them until the track had "rubbered in," but one trait of these Pirelli's is that they do not lay rubber, so go figure. What is hard to figure is that with no testing you would think the teams would be on track from the green light in the first session, but no, those that ventured out did one lap and came back to the pits. OK, so they want to make sure the car is good to go, but it was the last half an hour before they all got serious, and then of course they were being balked by traffic. HRT at nearly 7 seconds off the pace again look in trouble with qualifying if one of the top teams goes for it in Q1.

Daniel Ricciardo had a busy day, driving the Torro Rosso in the morning and then taking pole for the FR 3.5 race.  Canadian  Robert Wickens was second fastest and American Alexander Rossi fifth. GP2 qualifying sounds like a real crash fest due to drivers slowing at the end of a lap to try and get a clear run. Massa nearly caused Alonso to run into him doing the same thing. Something needs to be done to stop this around here as most corners are unsighted.

It seems we are to find out who really is Lotus tomorrow. Did they bring spare bodywork with different colors?

Not good. That is the prognosis of Murphy The Bear, and he should know. His latest blog is as always to the point, but depressing for North American fans:

http://murphythebear.com/blog/index.php/2011/05/19/190-assessing-alms-and-grand-am-prospects/#more-1089

It seems the ALMS "Game Changing" TV package is so good their chief of TV got fired for it. It is also a sad day for racing when Audi can sell more cars from plain old ads than from winning on a race track. "Win on Sunday, No One Notices Monday?"

The blog also picks up on the plight of NASCAR. As my readers will know I have been saying this is not just an "economy thing," but a lot of people do not want to believe it. On a similar note, I suggested that the VIR Grand-Am race could have been a fix for the Ganassi team to get beaten, but even I did not realize that the winning car is  associated with Daytona, so the money went from one pocket to another as Murphy points out.

The Bahrain saga continues, with the June 3 deadline being real now apparently. The latest is for India to move to December and give Bahrain it's October date. Is this more because India will not be finished by October?

I had to laugh when I read that Bathurst is "secure" until 2034! Who knows what we will be racing by then, and whatever it is Bathurst will always be secure. V8Supercars needs Bathurst more than Bathurst needs them, so who is securing who?