Bob Barnard Track Engineering

Jensen Button looks set to reap the rewards of his strong driving and good team spirit with a renewed contract for more money and better terms. This comes after a bit of a dance between him and McLaren, Ferrari and his management. A few weeks ago Martin Whitmarsh is praising Button and saying he wants him to stay for as long as he wants to keep driving. Button had been making noises about how happy he was there, and it all seemed set for a quick long term deal. The Jensen comes out and says he wants to keep his options open, a short term deal will be fine with him. In come Ferrari looking to replace Massa, and who's on the short list, Jensen. A smart choice, but who approached who? Did Jensen's management approach Ferrari? I don't see Jensen as one of those "I always wanted to drive for Ferrari" guys. So was it a negotiating ploy? If so it worked as all of a sudden here's Whitmarsh with a better contract for him to sign, and Jensen seems happy to sign it. And why not? The way Lewis is talking and driving Jensen could end up the number one driver there.

Then we have Silverstone, who went from a profit in 2009 to a loss in 2010. Silverstone was unusual in that it made a profit. It is only one of two non-government backed races on the calendar, so this is a major feat. Chris Pook told me a long time ago when he ran Long Beach that if Bernie thought you were making money he increase the fee, and lo and behold Silverstone's fee for the renewed 17 year contract is it's highest ever fee at around 11.6 million pounds. Bernie did cut them a break though as the escalator is only 5% and not the usual 10%. This still means that in the next ten years the fee is going to top 20 million pounds. Admission fees are now 195 pounds for the cheapest tickets to 475 pounds. $1000 to see a GP! You'd better not take the family. Does anyone think this is sustainable?

Lastly the poor old BBC, the State owned broadcasting service in the UK, is reportedly going to relinquish the rights to F1 as part of the British Governments austerity package. Bernie and the boys are up in arms as they want the races to remain "free to air." Well who is charging the BBC an exorbitant fee for showing them? Bernie, so you would think the answer is simple, if it is that important then just drop the fee. Now I have not lived in the UK for 40 years, so feel free to correct me, but ITV is also free to air is it not? Just those pesky ads to interrupt the broadcast like the rest of us have to put up with, and that is after we pay the cable fee, so what's free? I fail to see what is in it for the BBC anyway? Who cares if your ratings go up, you're not selling the airtime. So it is all "prestige", just another way for a Government to subsidize Bernie to feel good, but without any actual benefit such as hotel and restaurant income for race fans.

So the FIA have come out now and limited the throttle opening for "off throttle" situations, i.e. braking, to be a maximum of 10% for Silverstone and the rest of the season. So does this rule out hot blown exhaust diffusers, or just severely restrict them , perhaps to the point that is not worth doing? For next season the whole concept is banned, told you so, and high exiting exhausts are back.

Bernie has leaped to Lewis' defence, he is in trouble now. Sunday probably saw Bernie's dream race except with sprinklers. Chicanes you can short cut and drivers biffing and barging on a skid pad. Why not just stage a demolition derby and be done with it?

It seems the Delta Wing car going to Le Mans next year has not gone down well with the sports car crowd, and why am I not surprised? I looked at the calendar to make sure it was not April 1st, but then again perhaps the French have that in June? Last time I looked sports cars had two seats, and I know they have stretched the friendship on that lately, or even for a long while, like the FISA suitcase if you are old enough to remember, but this does not even come close. Murphy the Bear had a good piece on it amongst other sports car related stories including the slow demise of the Panoz empire:

http://murphythebear.com/blog/index.php/2011/06/16/191-mottos-back-to-the-future-plying-phallus-disposing-of-an-empire-cheese/

Part of the Delta's attraction is of course it is "green," lightweight and a small turbo engine, just like F1 is supposed to have in 2013. Does not seem very likely right now, and Renault is rattling its' sabre saying it will pull out of F1 if it does not get a 4 cylinder turbo. They say it's parent, Nissan, is only there because they were promised one, and have brought in Infiniti to sponsor Red Bull because of it. Now I own and drive a great Infiniti, G35, 3.5 liter V6. I actually don't know if Infiniti make a car with a 4 cylinder, and there cannot be too many Nissans sold with one, so what's the problem? Let's do what Ferrari wants and build v6's. I do not know the numbers but here in the States it is probably the dominant configuration. Europe maybe not, and Renault is probably the driver for the 4 cylinder, not Nissan. Anyway, let them go if they want to, F1 has and will survive. Nature abhors a vacuum, so someone will fill the void and make some money.

That's the big news of the day, Lewis Hamilton and Tony Stewart were both out on the Watkins Glen circuit and did not hit each other! That must be the first time for a long time for both Lewis and Tony. Personally I do not see much value in these swaps for us fans, but a great promotion for the sponsors.

What else is going on? Not much. Team Lotus are reaping the benefit of the court's decision to let them keep on using the Team Lotus name it seems with the announcement that GE is to be the new team sponsor. Now this is obviously partly due to Tony's airlines and GE aircraft engines, but good to see some new blood and money in the sport. This is the first of a few new sponsors for Team Lotus so with the announcement of them using the Williams wind tunnel look for them to really start to worry the time sheets.

Lewis says he is happy at McLaren as long as they give him a winning car. There lies the problem.

Exhaust blown diffusers employing fuel ignited in the exhaust pipes are to be banned in F1 from Silverstone onward. It has only recently been explained to most of us mere mortals that there are two types of blown diffusers. The original one cut the fuel and ignition on braking but kept the engine turning over so gas flow remained over the diffuser. Otherwise the extra downforce went away during braking which is not a desirable outcome. This is "cold blown" and as I understand the FIA stance is acceptable. What someone, probably Adrian Newey, worked out was that hot gas worked way better, so cut the ignition but keep the fuel flowing which now ignites in the hot exhaust and gives a large increase in downforce. This uses a lot more fuel, not very green, and can only really be used freely in practice and qualifying as the cars do not have enough to waste like this in the race, which might explain why Red Bull has a big advantage in qualifying which disappears in the race.

I think the FIA were struggling to find a way under the current regulations to ban this and so have come up with the "movable aerodynamic device" deal, the movable piece being the drivers right foot when he takes it off the throttle. Stretching a bit here I think, as does Red Bull who are not happy. They say they need the fuel flow to cool the valves. Funny they did not need it till now? Like all smart ideas it is very expensive and once discovered will be banned.

Lewis is off today playing car swaps with Tony Stewart who was a great open-wheel driver before switching to NASCAR and should enjoy the McLaren around Watkins Glen. Not sure Lewis will enjoy that tractor called a NASCAR. Let's hope they are not on track at the same time, they are likely to run into each other. Lewis' management denies looking for a new ride for Lewis, but this reminds me of Senna leaving McLaren because Williams had a car he could win in. Some odd characters in the McLaren garage and hospitality by all accounts, as one journo said "you can see where Lewis' head is at right now." What does Ron make of all this?

In all the excitement of the Le Mans 24 Hour a couple of things went unsaid. Aston Martin put on a worse display than the Jaguar last year and heads should roll for it. I don't know if the Audi engine guy is right in saying the engine configuration is all wrong, but something is badly wrong at Aston when you cannot do more than three laps in a 24 Hour race! They came out before the race and said that they would probably not last beyond 12 hours, what a great ambition. I know everyone will say its a new car, but both the Audi and Peugeot were new cars this year, the Audi only running one 6 hour race prior to this, and they managed very nicely thank you. It is not as if the Aston was ever on the pace when it was running, which for an engineering company is a sad indictment.

The other story is the ongoing problem of equality between petrol and diesel. The petrol cars were never in the race, way off the 2% and the faster refueling did not help much as the gravity fed flow could not match the increased size of the hose, nice one ACO. Now the diesel guys will keep saying it is because there is no one running a petrol car as seriously as they are, and if there was you would see it up there with them. There is some truth to this, we have not seen a similar effort with a petrol car, but just maybe it is because they know the current rules make it a waste of money?

The quote of the weekend was "it is a week's holiday at the end of which they run a race." And what a race we were treated to this year! Xan and I both had no trouble staying awake for the 24 hours. Fourteen seconds separated first and second, Audi and Peugeot, at the end of 24 hours. There have been closer finishes, but all staged. A slow down lap was added after the 24 hours were up as the last lap was full out racing, not the usual parade for the cameras.  You could say the race was won by the length of the pit lane, as that is what it came down to with both cars stopping with about 30 mins to go, the Peugeot just for fuel, the Audi for a dash of fuel but then new tires, so a longer stop and he got out 6 seconds in front, thanks to the Peugeot being at the opposite end of the pit and Audi being close to pit out.

All four classes saw some great tussles, most of them cleanly fought. I'm not sure I am happy about the antics of the Peugeot drivers, despite their claims they were innocent and it was down to bad visibility out of the closed cockpit cars. Davidson and Gene knew all too well where the Lotterer Audi was and being laps down on the Audi should have have had more respect for the leader. It is one thing to make things hard for the overtaking car, it is another to deliberately move over on him on a straight piece of road after you have just collided in the second chicane on the Mulsanne Straight. We had already seen all to graphically what happens when a car moves over on another at those speeds, and I for one expected better from Gene. I still have not forgotten Davidson putting the Corvette into the wall at the Porsche curves.

Yes the Audi guys were aggressive too, they had to be, and the changes to the rules had an unintended consequence. The ACO reduced engine size and air intake size to slow the LMP1 cars down, but in the usual fashion the engineers worked out how to recover some of that speed by reducing drag, and therefore downforce. So the cars were more on the limit when it came to cornering and avoiding traffic, and needed to keep up the momentum, so they took chances and had less control when they did not work out. We saw two massive accidents to the Audis which thanks to the design of modern cars both drivers survived with virtually no injuries. As I said a week or so ago, car design is where safety has improved. The walls and tires did their job too, especially for McNish's accident where there were a lot of marshals and photographers. We had two long safety car periods to repair damaged guard rail, and great job by the track to get it fixed, but it showed why I prefer concrete as the hits in the Porsche Curves with the Corvette and Ferrari required no repairs at all. Guard rail is made to give, and is probably a bit better for the drivers in that respect, but McNish almost went over the guard rail perhaps due to the fact it did give and provided a ramp?

Unlike almost any other form of racing Le Mans does not red flag a race except for exceptional rain or fog, so we saw a one hour and a two hour procession. They have three cars due to the length of the track, and this makes for some interesting strategy. The race goes on, albeit at a reduced speed, and a lot happens. Drivers make mistakes due to cold tires or boredom, teams with a slower driver take advantage of this time to put him in, therefore meeting the time requirements for drivers but not losing any time. Refuelling stops have to be made and tire changes can be done without the normal loss of time, but who is behind which safety car has to be considered, and when to stop. At the start of the period, yes if you are low on fuel, or at the end to maximise your next run and if you actually wait until the final moments you can actually make time as you can leave under green without waiting for the next safety car. Great strategy games.

The strategy between Audi and Peugeot was fascinating. This year Audi were the fast cars but used more fuel, so more pit stops. So which was better, a fast pace and more stops or a slower pace, relatively, and less stops? As it turned out there was no difference. 14 seconds in 24 hours, 0.016%! Tire wear also played a part. Audi, despite running faster could run four or five stints between tire changes, and the poor drivers did those stints too! The Peugeot although slower could only run three and sometimes four stints. Either way they ran about twice the distance on one set of tires as F1 does on three or four, so who's green?

The standards applied by the Stewards both here and at Montreal make me scratch my head. Robert Kaufman who made contact with Rockenfeller in the Audi in the dark and when taking the racing line, as the slower drivers were told, is ejected from the race. Gene who deliberately moved Lotterer over almost to the barrier in broad daylight while racing with him and on a straight does not even get called to the Stewards! Hamilton gets called to the Stewards in Montreal and Button who took him and Alonso out while winning the race does not? Now, that is probably due to the past problems of Hamilton as much as anything, but it is still inconsistent.

I did not see too much of the Canadian GP. After getting up at 5:30 on Saturday and staying awake until 7:30 Sunday and being emotionally wrung out by the Le Mans race, I went to sleep and set the alarm for Montreal. Speed had given the race over to Fox who dd their usual stellar job, starting the coverage as the race started despite a paid for ad being on the half hour prior, and thankfully for them it was behind the pace car due to the rain. I got up for this? We had the usual BS from Bob Varsha and the boys. This is network so we must have a whole lot of new viewers who know nothing about F1 so we have to talk to us like we are children. Then we start, and it is all crazy, Hamilton more than most, and the outcome was all too predictable. I personally thought Button put him in the wall, but I guess his explanation stands up, that would have been out of character. Then we had the red flag, so I gave up and went back to sleep. I wrongly thought Fox would give up after the mandatory two hour broadcast but apparently no. I'm glad I did not wait up though. I have read it was an exciting race, but from what I have read it was a crap shoot. Give me Le Mans every weekend.

The coverage of Le Mans was great. I had Radio Le Mans on one computer so had all the action and information on what was happening, not a load of infomercials, FromsportCOM.com live streaming on the TV via the other computer, and SPEED if I needed it, when they were actually on and following the action. The Eurosport Director went to the same school as the SPEED guy, he would at times rather show someone asleep in the pits or media center rather than two cars racing their hearts out.

Needless to say I did not watch the MotoGP or the WSBK, both predictably won by Casey Stoner and Carlos Checa respectively. Great gutsy ride by Colin Edwards though.

Finally a word about Lewis who is reported to have met with Red Bull's Christian Horner at the weekend. A very smart man, Warren Willing, told me years ago that when a rider or driver is struggling with a slow machine one of two things will happen. Either he will get depressed and stop trying, or drive over aggressively and crash. This seems to be the consensus for Lewis' problems at the moment. The McLaren is almost there, but never quite there when it comes to beating the Red Bull, so he tries to make the difference up by driving harder. It cannot be easy to watch Vettel in that car and know you could be there too.  Something needs to change before his career will be remembered as a great talent wasted. Maybe a change of team is it?