Bob Barnard Track Engineering

The Boss of the Barcelona Circuit has come out and said that the comments of the Region's new President were in the way of a negotiating ploy to get the future GP fee reduced. He stated the obvious, "It is hard to negotiate with monopoly." In the end all you can do is say no and walk away. He did echo the Presidents comments that due to the inbuilt escalation clause, believed to be 10% a year, the cost of the race by the end of the current contract is "unaffordable."

Interesting in these unsettled times that the Williams float is apparently fully subscribed. There must still be money out there if you can make it look worthwhile, or is it the excitement of owning a piece of an F1 team? Williams CEO Adam Parr came out and said what we suspected, that his team would not have gone to Bahrain if it had not been canceled.

Malaysia, a track built in 1999, is "tired." Strange that tracks like Spa or Monza somehow manage to stay fresh? Perhaps their design does not get old. It was apparently rushed and done cheaply. Really, I bet it cost more than most at the time and took a couple of years to do. Phillip Island cost $5m and was built in less than a year and I do not hear of that being "tired." What they really mean is that the people are tired of it. They had a crowd of less than 100,000 over three days last year, how can you justify the fees for that? The solution? A night race of course. Let's spend a lot of money lighting the track and then hope enough people turn up to make that cost worthwhile. Clutching at straws it seems to me.

The last F1 test is now on March 9 and HRT are reported to be bringing the 2011 car. Ross Brawn tells us he is not concerned about their current form as the car they are running is not what will show up in Melbourne, so let's look forward to that. Red Bull are "sandbagging," and Sam Michael likes both the Pirelli's and Maldonado. Frustrating time of year for us fans isn't it? Who or what do you believe?

The motorcycle world kicks off this weekend at Phillip Island with Checa continuing where he left off in testing by capturing pole for the opening round of the World Superbike. Perhaps Ducati should have dropped the works team in MotoGP and not WSBK? Part of the GP bikes problems are put down to the carbon fiber frame, which is presumably much stiffer than the aluminium. I remember Cagiva coming out with a CF frame in 1990, and having all sorts of problems. As Warren Willling put it, they are starting from scratch as all the previous set ups mean nothing, and it would take a huge amount of time and effort to work out what to do. Cagiva gave up.

Over at IndyCar all is not as well as it seems if Gil de Ferran and Tony Kanaan cannot raise the money to go racing.

Well it is better than Indy Retirement League. Actually it works well, most people know what an Indycar is in the US, not sure anyone knew what a "Champ Car" was. Indycar has woken up from it's winter slumber with a raft of rule changes which will just make it harder for us to understand what is going on, but of course it is for the fans. Engines are the news as in F1, with efficiency being the watchword. The move from V8's to V6's makes sense as most road cars here are running V6's, but to reduce the capacity from 2.4 to 2.2 liter hardly seems worthwhile. Who makes a 2.2 liter? And did 0.2 liters really make it lighter and more efficient? We are still running E85 even though the case for ethanol being "green" has long since been discredited, but I guess if they get sponsorship from Iowa's corn farmers it makes sense. Oh, and we opened an office in LA, just so we can be closer to the media industry. Just what we need is more Hollywood in our racing. If you have a great product they will come to you, it's about the racing stupid.

Christian Horner is assuring us that Red Bull did not break the Resource Agreement, but FOTA are checking anyway. Domenicali said "that he was sure that all the signatories to the agreement would have respected it, although there are always questions of interpretation to be taken into account." I bet there are. That's the problem. Not that I agree with this BS anyway. No one questions Bernie's resources or how much is spent on the tracks and their viability, so why bother with the teams? If a team has broken the Resource rule it seems the recourse is to take that out of future spending, ouch! But is it only a gentleman's agreement or does it have teeth? That always presumes there are gentlemen involved. Domenicali also commented on how quiet the politics were at the moment, but with the new Concorde Agreement yet to be signed there is the dreaded (or welcomed) breakaway series apparently still hanging around , which is there to get a better deal presumably. Domenicali also questioned whether the movable rear wing is going to be better or not, and as I have said, are the fans going to know who is doing what and why.

It turns out that Kimi is going rallying with his own team, Ice 1 Racing, with a Citroen DS3 and his own sponsors. He has run his own team before in F3, so he is no stranger to doing it.

The Nextgen Auto web site has an article with more on our friendly banker Gribkowsky. "It has emerged that the German magazine Stern in its latest edition on Thursday will link the payments to Gribkowsky with a company called Petara — a word made up from the names of Ecclestone’s daughters Petra and Tamara. It is claimed that Gribkowsky’s company GG Consulting was registered on 22 February 2006, a day after he was made a director of Petara." Now is that a stretch linking Petara to Bernie's daughters names? Watch this space.

Norbert Haug has no sympathy for Red Bull complaining about their Renault engine being down on power and wanting "equalization." F1 is not about equalization he says. Here here.

So France cannot have an F1 GP again until F1 reduces its carbon footprint. What hypocrisy? Lets look at the Tour de France, 21 days around France with each team having numerous cars, buses, service trucks, media motorcycles and helicopters, not to mention the set up crews. OK, it is a bicycle race, but my bet is it uses more gasoline than F1 does all season, and all in France. Let's not even talk about how much gas is used for spectators to get to soccer matches, or the energy used for night matches. The most telling line came from France’s new sports minister Chantal Jouanno who, when asked what can be done to revive the country’s F1 race,  told the L’Equipe sports daily: "We need to know if the French motor sport federation (FFSA) is able to bear the cost of a grand prix." There lies the real problem, no government money for Bernie. Maybe Alain is right, they are "auto-phobic."

Sad to hear of the death of Tom Walkinshaw, let us remember his achievements and not the end with Arrows.

So VW is considering an F1 engine now the rules have changed, maybe I am wrong about the new engine, nah. I was thinking about how it will sound, very important for most of us fans. They were loud back in the eighties, but a turbo usually quietens engines, one of the complaints about the old CART cars, and if the new F1 engines are limited to 12,000 rpm and a turbo then this could be quite a different animal than we are used to.

It seems I am not alone in questioning the Korean GP's award of the Promoter's Trophy, several journalists who attended have very different views.

Speaking of views, Jacques Villeneuve likes most of the new rules in F1, thinks they have got most right, but is concerned that the movable rear wing is "too artificial." This raises a question, what do we think F1 is or should be? Is it sport, business or entertainment? It is all three of course, but where is the balance? Do we introduce artificial things to make it more entertaining? Tires that do not last and mix up the results have been mooted, we have KERS, but is that really any different than "push to pass" that fair ground addition to IRL because no one can pass? Now we have drivers at 200 mph trying to manipulate a KERS button and/or the movable rear wing, and how are we the poor spectator supposed to keep up with who is doing what to whom, and does it matter if it is not his driving skill doing it? It has all the makings of becoming a video game with the ability to manipulate buttons faster than the other guy being the measure of performance.

I saw a piece today that said Mark Blundell and Martin Brundle, say that a few times fast, are teaming up for next months Daytona 24 hour! That's pretty scary, time goes by so fast. We have just finished this season and we are talking about next month's races. I know it is late in January so it is closer to two months, but still. Only 90 days to the Bahrain F1 GP.

F1 news still centers on drivers and teams with HRT reported in big trouble following the falling out with Toyota. Seems Toyota wants paying, how rude of them. So no new chassis, no drivers, no money, but a Cosworth engine, presuming they have paid them. Petrov is being told to move to England near the team and improve his English, that will improve his consistency apparently. I suppose being around the team can keep an eye on him, but not sure really how it improves his consistency. Hulkenburg is being tipped to fill one seat at Force India, let's hope so, he is good enough to stay in F1, unlike some.

Interesting that Mazda is setting up a scholarship to help young drivers step up from Star Mazda to Indy Lights and then Indy Car. They have a big motorsport image here in the US so this is part of that, but what about a Mazda engine in Indy Car?

Alain Prost regrets the Renault sale of it shares in the F1 Team and believes that France has become "auto-phobic." It would appear so with no French F1 GP, but what about Le Mans, Peugeot and Citroen in WRC? Vergne is on the brink of an F1 drive and Renault are still producing engines for F1 and reviving the young driver program that was so successful in the past. So things are no quite as gloomy as Alain would see them.

The "green" engine rules are due to be approved by the FIA World Council today, and it seems it is Jean Todt who has pushed this through against the protests of the engine manufacturers. I was never quite sure why we went away from turbo cars in the first place. I know the power was getting out of control, but presumably that is being addressed now, so why not then? In an Autosport piece about how this green engine will be better for the sport David Tucker, director at sports agency KTB, told Brand Republic: "The potential rule change will allow F1 to appeal to a wider potential sponsor audience, and demonstrate to fans F1 is still at the cutting edge of technology." Seeing as how we had 1.5 liter turbo engines in the eighties I'm not sure how cutting edge this is. Turbo cars running around in some sort of efficiency run may appeal to would be "seen to be green" sponsors, but what about the F1 fans? If Tucker is talking about all the energy recovery systems, we did not need a new engine to do that, just ask Williams and Porsche. It seems we are headed to a world engine of 1.6 liters, turbo charged, with fuel monitoring in F1, Touring Cars and presumably sports and rally cars. Where is the "cutting edge" in that? All looks like "Spec Racing" to me. Common ECU, common chassis in BTCC and V8Supercars, where is this all going? Tony Dowe said the other day, go back to big block V8's that will run a season and put them in F5000 and Can-Am style cars. Cheap, fun and people want to watch.

Don't often find anything interesting to write about Indy Car, but the announcement that they are going to trim the funding scheme from 24 to 22 cars "in a move aimed at boosting the quality of the field" has caught my eye. You are going to stop paying $1.2m a car to the bottom two teams to improve the quality? And you do not expect the size of the field to reduce, so presumably those two cars are going to have "pay for ride" drivers to make up the loss. That will improve the quality. Randy speaks with fork tongue methinks, he just wants to save $2.4m. Maybe he got this Bull from his previous job, which he is somehow still listed as holding.

It seems the American motorcycle world is in need of some financial assistance with comments today about the number of good riders without a ride for 2011. "Hopefully, this is the bottom," said one team owner of the current situation. What is going to change to make it the bottom?

Not much else to report, 100 days to the start of 2011 F1 season, hang in there. V8Supercars at Homebush in Sydney this weekend, is this the last race of 2010? Still, gives me time to finish the book, Chapter Nine under way, back in Oz after the '93 USGP.