Bob Barnard Track Engineering

Is anyone else tired of this nonsense with bad tyres? One of Bernie's best ideas was the three stage knockout qualifying to make teams put cars on track. Now we have the situation where they are once again sitting in the garage during qualifying to save tires. Of course it is made worse by the domination of Red Bull and to some extent McLaren. Why not just give them one or two more sets? In the race they are still going to have to use both compounds, and gamble on a two or three or four stop race. Better still make the tires better. As the editorial in this month's Motor Sport says the current gimmicks are a band aid to cover up the basic problem with the current car specs.

Then we have Lewis Hamilton admitting in the post qualifying press conference that he will not be able to challenge the Red Bulls tomorrow as he has to look after his tyres! Great racing this is. We also have Vettel admitting his KERS did not work in Q2 & 3. Good, can you imagine how much more than the one second advantage they would have? Let's hope Mark can put on a show, otherwise it will not matter how many DRS, KERS and bad tires there are, it will be very boring.

You all know I am no fan of KERS and the whole green racing deal on the basis that racing is about efficiency anyway. It is nice to read the piece, again in Motor Sport, about the new Audi for Le Mans. Dr. Baretzky, the Audi engine Chief, puts it nicely. Talking of hybrids and why they are not planning to use it he said that at the moment the extra weight on the car would need more fuel to propel it than you are gaining from its use. "The system should pay for itself...Motor Sport should be about the truth: the more efficient, quicker, better car should win, and the rules should be made according to that. The ACO says we have to encourage this technology. Why? If this technology is a better solution, it will come. If we have to encourage it and it turns out to be the wrong route, it is a waste of energy and time." Here here.

The FIA has announced that DRS is so successful we are to get two zones of it at Canada and Valencia! Personally I never saw that Canada has a problem with overtaking with Turn 1, the hairpin and the last corner being full of action in the past. Valencia now is different, it needs all the help it can get. They have also decreed that the DRS cannot be used in the tunnel at Monaco, or Eau Rouge.  It would be a very brave, and stupid, man to try it through Eau Rouge. The tunnel might entice some to try. Why all this manipulation of where and when? If it is so good then rely on the drivers common sense and self preservation to decide when to use it. Or are we protecting the drivers from themselves?

So who watched Kimi at Charlotte? I did, and was very impressed. He kept it going in the right direction unlike some of the much more experienced drivers out there, including his team owner Kyle Bush. Kimi never saw Charlotte until Friday morning and raced there that night! He certainly was not intimidated by running in close company, and the other drivers did not seem to have a problem racing around him. Great job, not that I expected anything less. So now what, Nationwide?

Back at Barcelona we potentially have the situation where the Cosworth teams could protest the engine mapped exhaust blown diffusers. This the off and then on again ruling by the FIA, which leaves the door open as they did not say its use was legal, just that the teams had a stay of when they needed to undo it. That would be a nice mess at the end of the race wouldn't it?

As reported a few months ago the success of the greens in recent German elections has made the support for the German GP unlikely to continue past 2015, two more races at the Nurburgring as it alternates with Hockenheim so that track only loses half as much!

It's a sad day when your team boss tells you that you should not be trying to overtake on the first lap and not race your team mate. That's what Martin Whitmarsh is telling Lewis Hamilton after Turkey. "We want Lewis to attack but sometimes it does not pay off," Whitmarsh said. "If you look at Lewis's race pace it was OK later in the race but the tyres are so delicate and if you scrap with others including your own team-mate you will damage your tyres. In a race that critical you can't do that." So what is he supposed to do, just run around waiting for others tires to go off, or go back to waiting till the pit stops as we had in the refuelling days? I did not see that Button's supposed tire conservation mode worked as he finished behind his team mate even though he made one stop less. F1 is about racing, and it's a sad day when that is no longer the case, unless you are Red Bull.

A lot is being made of the amount of "overtaking" now due to the tires and DRS, and KERS. Those of us who now think this has reached a ridiculous situation where it is not overtaking but "passing," and yes there is a difference, are being told to shut up and enjoy it. I for one subscribe to the Max Mosley school, and I can enjoy one overtaking manoeuvre a year if it is Hakkinen on Schumacher at Spa. We do not have to worry about team orders any more, overtaking your team mate is easy.

Not only are we to have a small turbo engine in 2013, we are now to have a spec chassis it seems with drag and downforce targets set. The option to go back to ground effects has been dropped by the teams as unworkable when trying to meet these targets, I presume meaning there would be less drag and more downforce than allowed. I know Ferrari say we should get away from too much reliance on aero, but spec racing?

Much continues to be made of Turn Eight in Turkey, and a great corner it is, but how much better if it were not to have the "four apexes?" They are pinch points that turn it into a one line race track, especially when the marbles build up. Yes it is quick and we do not see much overtaking on such quick corners, but if the track actually paralleled the race line there would be room for someone with some large attachments to try. On Sunday I think I saw one time where a driver started to put his nose under the car in front, and then had to back off. Think of the Spoon Curve at Suzuka, or the Parabolica at Monza.

The Judge in the Lotus case must be having a hard time coming up with a decision. It was originally late March and it is now suggested that it will be later this month.

In a similar fashion the Bahrain on again/off again decision is being allowed to fester. There is a good reason things have "settled down," and it is not because the problems have gone away. As we saw in Northern Ireland you can suppress opposition, but it does not go away, especially when it is the majority being suppressed.

I think I have read every possible argument why News Corp cannot buy F1, and what they are attempting to do by saying they want to. We have the FIA saying they have to agree, the EC won't allow it says Bernie and a bunch of scribes, and now even Max Mosley is against it. Well that seals it if Max won't allow it because Rupert had the guts to show Max's little hobby in his rag. I may be wrong, but when so many people are saying something cannot be done, then it seems likely it will. "Me thinks they protesteth too much." If Murdoch does not want to buy F1 he must be having a good laugh at all these people beating themselves into a lather.

Well wasn't that interesting! Like chinese checkers with everyone passing and re-passing and not knowing how it was going to play out. Everyone seems to have enjoyed it, but I found it tough to follow. A number of factors played into that. I did not watch it live, midnight Saturday night here and we were off on a road trip early Sunday, hence no blog. So taped it as SPEED are not letting us record to disc, so quality is bad and graphics unreadable. Finally watched it in bed at 8pm last night after a couple of glasses of red, so not fully on top of my game. Lastly we have Mr. Varsha and co. doing the commentary, and I bet Coulthard and Brundle kept their viewers better informed.

Anyway, I think I am not feeling happy because I don't just want to be entertained, I want to understand what is happening and watch it unfold. To do that now it seems I need to be watching the timing screen and doing a lap chart while trying to watch the race. Doesn't sound much fun to me. Joe Saward said after Malaysia that following the race is not hard because he does a lap chart, but that's his job, not his entertainment. I am struggling to find a comparison. At the moment NASCAR is the closest where who changed how many tires when seems to decide the race. It would be like watching a soccer match where you can sub the players like basketball, and you take Ronaldo off for a spell and then bring him back at the end when the defence is knackered. Probably just me prattling on as an old purist.

Great result for Lewis, and even more amazing for Webber. He did avoid the problems of being in amongst the back end of the grid and drove a great race. "Just doing my job" he says in true Mark fashion. As it seemed in practice the Mercedes are lifting their game, but Ferrari are in trouble. Strangely it is Massa that is handling it better. It is telling when you see the fastest race laps that Trulli in the Lotus was quicker than Alonso! Very good for Lotus, finally beat a mid field team on pace. Pretty amazing that there was only one DNF and that was for a wheel not being put on correctly. There was the same amount of marbles as we will now become used to, but drivers are going out there anyway, especially Webber, it did not seem to faze him. It was interesting that there was probably more overtaking away from the DRS zone than in it, the combination of KERS and tires are having more effect.

Montezemolo says the Ferrari form is totally unacceptable, and in a speech like he was practicing for being President, he said, ""This cannot and must not be the team's level," he said. "It's a very delicate moment. I expect our engineers to act with determination and know-how, unleashing the maximum of their capacity to improve the performance of the car in a short time. I want Ferrari to be at the level that both we and our fans demand it should be." Rah, Rah.

Peter Geran responded to my comments on attendance in China and how it is now a major market for manufacturers, but I believe that has happened in spite of the GP, not because of it. Rumors continue this morning about the Indian F1 track not being finished. Here we go again.

Over in Assen the Checa show hit a speed bump in the first race with Rea winning on the Honda, but normal service resumed in the second race and Carlos now has a handy lead in the Championship. BMW fared better in the race than practice, but that's not saying much. Good to see young Australian Mark Aitchison finish tenth in the first race, his best finish in his rookie season on not the most competitive machine.

I caught a few minutes of the Long Beach ALMS race at odd times on live streaming, and there always seemed to be a caution out. Very sad race. Why not just run a GT Championship and get the other cars out of the way for them?

Well the Malaysian GP has been run and won, and I do not know how I feel about it. Vettel and Red Bull could get as boring as Schumacher. You have to admire them, they find a way to win even when the KERS does not work, but I will show my bias when I say it does not thrill me. Pirelli say their tires made for an interesting race, but call me a purist, but I don't find this fun to watch. As Michael said, this is a lottery, and he should know, he seemed more off than on.

The rain stayed away, but teased everyone to add to the lottery, and the DRS did work on occasions, but not always, so not sure about that either. We saw a lot of overtaking at other points around the track, mainly Turn 15, which tells me it is more about the track than messing about with the car. The slow cars seemed to stay out of the way, so well done, and Lotus actually did OK, so maybe we will see them mixing it in the mid-field. Williams had a terrible day, one to forget, while we ponder what would Kubica be doing with that Renault? Very odd steering column failure on the Petrov car, but then he did get very airborne thanks to the hump in the run-off. Not good.

So in all a dissatisfying race for me, but not really sure why. Lewis probably feels the same, and what was Alonso thinking? The pace of the Ferraris in the race was surprising, and Massa seems to have recovered his speed and determination. Mercedes are in trouble.

Bernie is reportedly trying to get the teams to oppose the 2013 engine, and Malaysia is pondering whether to renew after 2015. At least there was a crowd today, it was empty for Friday and Saturday which must be disheartening for the drivers, and the organizers.

Chip Ganassi did not quite sweep Barber, but won the Grand-Am race of course, and finished second and third in the Indycar. Not too shabby.

So now we get reports of practice and qualifying from Paul Ricard LMS, and guess what, the Autosport story is about the Aston! Apparently it was there yesterday, just had engine trouble and did not run. Not that it is setting the world alight when it ran, six seconds off the pace and down with the LMP2 cars. Now it is brand new, but compare their debut with the Honda HPD at Sebring. The AF Corse Ferrari carried on where it left off at Sebring by topping the GTE standings, GT2 to most of us. The Rebellion Lola Toyota was fastest for your information, but it is close among the four, yes four, LMP1 cars.

If you thought I was being pessimistic about ALMS yesterday you need to read two excellent articles on Last Turn Club,

http://lastturnclub.com

Qualifying in Jerez for MotoGP was predictable with Stoner in front of Pedrosa, but only just. Perdosa is not likely to last the distance at a pace to worry Stoner, but Lorenzo is lurking right there, and Spies has found something to be fourth, but crashed. Valentino's good run came to an end with a crash and he ended up twelth. How many more times can he afford to crash before he says enough? Young Bradl took the pole again for Moto2, but there are 40 machines on the grid and the top 28 are covered by 2 seconds, should be some race.

Let us all wish Nicolas Hamilton well in his race debut in the Clio Cup at Brands Hatch this weekend, with big brother flying in to watch. As most will know Nicolas has Cerebral Palsey so is an example to us all to never let adversity stop us from achieving our ambitions.

So Bob Varsha, "how do ya like them apples?" Kimi is confirmed for NASCAR trucks in Kyle Busch's team no less! No mention of the Gillette connection now. Nothing like starting in a top team with a good teacher. I think Kyle and Kimi will get on well. Even I might watch that.

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