Bob Barnard Track Engineering

Jean Todt is continuing his world tour. After telling us Mexico should have a grand prix he is now in Sao Paulo and telling us the Interlagos track is safe, it was the cars that caused the deaths not the track. So now Jean is a track design expert? He may well be right, F1 cars have become very safe for the drivers so they would probably survive a similar accident, but why not remove the cause of the accident?

Not a lot else going on today. Interesting article by Miles Geauxbye, sounds like he is from Louisiana, on The Last Turn Club about the future of ALMS. Some of us have suspected for a long time it does not have one, but it is still there.

http://lastturnclub.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=786&Itemid=51

A couple of articles in this month's Motor Sport. Mat Oxley talking about the lack of overtaking in MotoGP, sound familiar? Too many rider aids, and too much manufacturer influence, something I've said for years. I think if you asked the fans we would still be racing 500cc two strokes.

The other is about our friend Tavo and Austin. I think Austin is probably a great place to stage it, like Adelaide, small enough to have everyone involved but big enough to have all the restaurants and entertainment people want. The Oz GP went missing when it moved to Melbourne. Tavo had an odd statement though that "many of the circuit's details will be unfinished by next year's race." He went on to say he hoped "the fans understand that there will be some components that aren't exactly ironed out...some things will have to wait until 2013, 14 or 15." Sounds like the Indian GP, the pits are finished but sorry about the grandstand. 

It's an unusual break to the Turkish F1 race and it has gone quiet, well almost. Bernie's protesting loud and long that F1 is not for sale, and then adds anything's for sale if the price is right. Montezemolo has come out and admitted opposition to the new engine rules. That's good of him, we would never have known that from his carrying on about it for the last three months.

Some scuttlebutt from well connected people in Texas has suggested all may not be as it seems with the Austin deal, and forecast that the legislature would not pass the $25m hand out as reported yesterday. A friend also sent me a youtube video of the Indian track from March that shows a ribbon of asphalt and not much else. I don't want to sound like a negative person, I wish none of these ill, but as a construction engineer by profession and one who has always finished a track on time I have to wonder who is managing this stuff?

I am sad to hear of another death at the Interlagos track in Brazil. This was not in the area of the previous one, it was the left after the Senna Esses after the start. We have been spared these for a long while and must continue to push for safer tracks without making them sterile and boring. I agree with Sir Jackie Stewart that the rash of asphalt run off does not penalise a driver for a mistake, in fact it can be the fast line. Neither of us want to see drivers injured, so there must be a happy medium here somewhere. On that note it is great to here that Robert Kubica is to leave hospital soon.

Le Mans Test Weekend is this weekend. Should be interesting to see the new Audi, and if the "equalization" is working for the petrol brigade.

The earning figures for Formula One are a big story today, with Bernie and the teams getting a raise in income. But there is something wrong here that I need an accountant to explain. My arithmetic obviously does not work in the world of accounting. The gross revenue for F1 is reported at $1.08 billion. The teams received $658m divided between them, not equally of course. Bernie received $7.9m and the net income is $296m. So $117m seems to be an operating cost. It is then reported that CVC LOST $660m! Now to my mind this means that CVC's costs are $296 + $660m, yes/no? Now CVC is a venture capital group, so apart from some management fees, this must be interest on the debt? Is that possible? No wonder they are looking to sell F1. What am I missing?

Joe Saward has a piece that goes a bit further into illuminating the ever shifting world of F1 management.

http://joesaward.wordpress.com/

Formula One Administration has just transferred the F1 rights to a sister company Formula One World Championship, which is owned by Bernie's holding company SLEC which is in turn held by - well read it, I do not have enough space. Eventually we get to Delta Topco Ltd which has CVC and others as shareholders. You could lose a lot of money going through that lot, which is presumably the point. Other snippets is the sale of Instanbul Park between internal companies, presumably the F1 track the Turkish Gov't couldn't make pay, for $1, yes one dollar, an $11m write off apparently, but then how much did the Gov't write off? What does that say about the value of all those other monuments to ego and foolishness called F1 circuits?

In other news the Brazilian Federation has asked the FIA to look at the Interlagos track. Pedrosa has had successful surgery to unplug an artery trapped under the ironwork put in his shoulder after his accident last year. Let's hope he recovers quickly and is back in form to mix it with Stoner and Lorenzo. Jan Magnusson's son is setting fastest times in F3 testing, and Tony Fernandes is saying the name row is hurting sponsorship. I know how he feels, sponsors do not like uncertainty, especially over the person selling them something really has the right to it. I had exactly that problem with Eastern Creek when the owners were trying to sell sponsorship for the MotoGP that I was promoting. By the time that was sorted the time left for sponsors to exploit their investment was so short the value was greatly reduced.

Rain is forecast in Malaysia for the F1 race, fancy that, and in the monsoon season too. So, no movable wing and no more answers as to how it will improve overtaking, but there will probably be enough in the wet anyway.

Kimi had his first taste of NASCAR truck racing at a half mile oval and apparently did well. It was behind closed doors, so no real information is available, but it does not sound as if he stuck it in the wall.There are reports he is paying $100,000 a race for the ride, but I'm sure a sponsor will be all over that.

The final corner onto the straight at Interlagos, home of the Brazilian F1 GP, has always bothered me. The drivers cut across pit entry to get a faster line on basically a blind corner, and then the wall on the exit of the corner is right on the edge of the pavement. We have seen crashes here in F1, but not as many as you would expect, so it was one of those deals that seemed OK even if it looked bad. Well, I should remember my own words, if it looks bad it probably is. A motorcyclist died earlier this year and last weekend there was a fatality in a stock car race, the third fatality on four years, at a time when racing is generally being spared. There are now calls to modify the corner, but the problem is not easy to fix. The track is very close to the boundary of the property on the outside, and there is a steep drop off on the inside. The corner is great and re-profiling it would not be appreciated by the drivers, but nor would dying. Not a simple fix.

Jean Todt is flagging a revisit to the fees CVC, aka Bernie, paid for the hundred year commercial rights to F1. The fight over engines is apparently just an opening salvo, and Jean is giving notice he is standing for re-election. I bet Bernie will be working away behind the scenes to put his own man in there.

I love the fact that the Russina GP track is "well on track." Well the race is three years away so why shouldn't it be? The best bit is the "Final Feasibility Study" is going to the IOC. Last time I looked they did not run F1 races. And wouldn't you do the feasibility study before you signed a contract for millions of dollars to stage an F1 race? Silly me, this is just the study to make sure you can run a Winter Olympics and an F1 race within a few months of each other, not whether it is going to make money. We all know that answer don't we?

Has everyone caught up with what McLaren were trying to do with their trick exhaust before they gave up and copied Red Bull? "The Octopus" was what it was called. Instead of collecting the exhaust into two pipes from eight, it split them up and fed them into areas of the underfloor to provide the perfect exhaust diffuser. It was all a bit too complicated, and like a lot of complicated things in F1, they could not get it to work. Some of the best cars have been the simplest, the FW07 for instance. Don't think they have forgotten it though, so look for a revisit sometime this year.