Bob Barnard Track Engineering

No I did not watch it, but congratulations to the Wood Brothers, nice to see them back in the winners circle. Growing up in England I used to read the monthly NASCAR reports in Motor Sport when it was all totally foreign to me and ruled by King Richard Petty, and the Wood Bros. So what will we see next at Daytona, cars with couplings built in or a sort of "stretch limo" in the shape of two cars?

No news on Bahrain, but the expectation is still that it will be "postponed." So when would you fit it in to an already crowded schedule? Before or after Abu Dhabi? The general consensus is not to go, so even if it goes on there may be those not attending.

Testing continued in Barcelona, but the new President of the region is now saying they cannot afford to keep the race, even though their fee seems to be more modest than most. So even with Alonso mania you cannot make a quid. Another politician has come out in Melbourne to say the race is no longer worth it economically, and the locals don't want it anyway, if they ever did. Anyone remember the demonstrations both in Melbourne and outside Bernie's house when it was first being built? So Shanghai has negotiated a lower fee, Valencia and Barcelona have both indicated they are not happy, and there is Melbourne. Korea has fired its Chief and India's has quit. Is the wheel starting to turn at last? France cannot afford it, Indy stopped, Hockenheim can't make it pay, Spa is always in trouble, Fuji gave up, Turkey is I think run by Bernie as they get no spectators, as is Hungary, Canada had to be bailed out by the Government, so where to next?

The photos of tanks in the streets of Bahrain reminded me of the Tiananmen Square situation, why do soldiers carry out such orders against unarmed civilians? Joe Saward rightly says that all the investment by Bahrain in presenting itself as a good place to visit and do business has probably been lost. Joe also suggests it is not a place that F1 should be associated with, but then again we just extended the deal with China, and I'm sure business will go on. Ever since the Munich Olympics the question of sport and politics has been raised. Still, if sponsors are concerned about their "green" image, I'm sure they are just as concerned about their humanitarian one. I've learned in my travels that there are very different cultures around the world, and we ignore them at our peril when doing business in them.

It seems Bernie's week is not getting any better with his comments on the situation in Bahrain being treated at best as "insensitive." One twitter post says Bernie thinks things are calmer now, (now they have shot a few people.) Not Bernie's words, but you see how they are being taken. He writes off the GP2 race as "only being the Asia series," "not terribly important." For the full piece go the ESPN F1, http://en.espnf1.com/f1/motorsport/story/41200.html

With some spare time yesterday I watched the twin 125's from Daytona, and have to announce that if that is what is going to happen on Sunday over 500 miles I will not be watching. A boring, bizarre pair of races. OK, the drivers are doing what they need to to be competitive, two cars hooked up are close to 10 mph faster than one, and by the second race they had worked out how to keep the car behind cool without having to waste time swapping over. So young Trevor Bayne pushed Jeff Gordon for the whole race. What was going to be his reward? They are not the same team? TV air time? Jeff Burton the winner of race two was pushed by Bowyer his Childress team mate for the whole race  so what did they do, flip a coin to see who pushed who? So what now NASCAR? The reduced restrictor plate slowed them down to about 199 mph, but we still have the strangest racing I've ever seen.

The debate over the Phillip Island MotoGP date rolls on, and the Daytona model might be a good one for Ron Walker to look at. Running the GP and World Superbike one month apart may not work, but one week could be built into a Daytona "Speedweek." If you are a fan of two and four wheels you could actually camp out at Daytona from the Rolex in late January through the Daytona 200 bike weeks in March, with non-stop action, and many do. Bike week is huge, with supercross and flat track events as well as a series of road races from pure amateur through to AMA, or is that DMG these days? In fact most motorcyclists come for the atmosphere and never go to the race. Still does not solve Ron's problem of having the F1 GP around the same time, but as I have said, that should be another "raceweek" with the Melbourne Cup in November.

It seems the Austin F1 track started again. Passers by the site report activity. What's that four starts now?

F1 testing resumes at Barcelona, which seems certain to host the final test as a result of the Bahrain problems. Track was wet this morning and no one is near last years times. Seems we are still not seeing any clear picture although the analysts are saying that from their long run times Red Bull is still the car to beat. Alonso in the Ferrari is topping the times at the moment, as they have done most days, so they must have a different strategy to these tests, or they are just quick. Hold the presses, Vettel just banged in fast time, over a second quicker than Alonso, just to show he can? Luizzi is down to test the HRT this weekend, good luck.

Hopefully Robert is continuing his recovery. Interesting he is apparently expressing his preference for Luizzi to take over his seat. Number one, why should he have a vote, and number two, why Luizzi? Just a good mate, or is it he thinks he might have trouble getting Nick Heidfeld out of his seat again? Loyalty is great, but if Nick is anywhere near the top of the charts at the end of the year who is going to fire him?

CVC have started their own investigation into who paid who for what in their share purchase. About time they got interested, as I have been saying, if the deal was crooked then would it stick? There must be some lawyers out there who can answer that. Who do they tell if they find anything?

The Bahrain GP Organizers are between a rock and a hard place, with Bernie and the FIA coming out expressing concerns about the safety of staging the GP. The FIA spokesman must win an award for the stupidest comment this year. "There are realities on the ground that we need to accept, but the FIA is fully confident, with the Bahrain Motor Federation, that the situation will be resolved amicably." Really? Since when did the FIA become the US State Department? Ask Mubarak how it worked out for him. You have to feel sorry for the organizers who work all year for this only to have a situation totally outside their control dictate things. I know how that feels, and usually it is the weather, but it has been politics too. This weekends GP2 Asia race will be a good indicator of events. So far so good apparently.

Talking of politics, Silvio Berlusconi is in a bundle of trouble in Italy, and I'm not just talking about Tottenham beating AC Milan. Had to rub that in. Do we really think Montezemolo will leave Ferrari to run the country?

Shanghai has re-upped for another seven years, but the Mayor of Shanghai must have been talking to his mate in Melbourne as he says he paid less for the rights this time around. Are we seeing the beginning of some common sense returning? Nah, can't happen can it?

There are stories today that suggest the McLaren is "too radical," too many things to sort out to get it to perform. Reminds me that sometimes the best cars are the simplest, like the FW07. Easy to set up, and fix. You can out- complicate yourself. Now, it is way too early to come to that conclusion, but smarter people than me who were at Jerez are suggesting  that it did not look good in the McLaren pit. People were always looking for the trick to the RB6, and perhaps that was its' strength, there wasn't one. It was just fast.

Vettel certainly does not like things to be too complicated and has reiterated that overtaking in F1 should not be too easy, and that there are too many buttons, drivers should concentrate on driving the car. Mind you, he does not mind complicating his relations with the team by again stating he would like to drive for Ferrari. Even if he does, why keep saying it? What is he trying to do, or is he just naive? Or too straightforward for most folk to believe? Interesting that Horner has come out and said Webber can stay beyond his one year contract, more mind games? Why bring that up now?

They say money makes the world go round, and it certainly makes the F1 world go round. In fact it has enough money to go around, it just isn't being split up correctly at present. The Resource Restriction Agreement, RRA, was raised again by Horner, and Whitmarsh continued in the  "we must be more relevant and not be seen as gas guzzlers" vein. F1 engines are I believe the most efficient engines around when you consider the power they produce from each gallon, and not just look at the miles per gallon. And there is that old "relevant" again. I guess the World Cup is relevant because most of us have kicked a ball around at some time in our life, but there again most of us have driven a car.

Bernie in responding to the Mayor of Melbourne about the value of an F1 GP compared it to the Olympics and the World Cup, and as far as the Olympics goes he is dead right. I was in Barcelona in 1992 and watched the Sydney Games lead up, and what a con job that is. Go and spend $6 bn  on facilities you did not need and will not use again for two weeks of exposure that no one cares about afterwards. At least you get an F1 race each year. The World Cup  has been different as the stadiums are used afterwards, although we now have South Africa looking for someone to run them and Qatar building stadiums in the desert.

Mark Hughes writing in Autosport the other week said "The sport can't afford to allow money to haemorrhage out." His article concentrated on the cost to promoters of staging a GP and where that money is going. The basic problem is it is not going back into the sport, it is going to a bunch of investors who have done no more than buy the rights. No one begrudged Bernie making a lot of money, he built this sport over many years and with his own abilities, and made others rich along the way, but the current situation with CVC is unsustainable. Hughes questions how many new countries there can be that will keep paying for GP's, and when the existing ones will get tired of it, like Malaysia and Bahrain. Now I met both those track chiefs in Cologne last year and they are already asking those questions. In Bahrain the Parliament is asking what they get for their money, and the circuit chief has a good answer. "What would it cost us to send everyone who watches the race a postcard?" It is a good argument, and has worked till now, but for how much longer? Malaysia says it has achieved it's objective of putting the country on the world stage, now they need the track to make money.

Joe Saward asks the question what these latest popular uprisings mean for F1? It is OK to go to all these exotic places with loads of money, but how safe and stable are they? Apparently there are stirrings in Bahrain today, and the F1 circus is headed there shortly. Would a new popular government be so keen to spend millions on a rich man's toy?

In a somewhat related article Sebastian Vettel is asking if the wheel has turned too far towards making F1 a "show" rather than a sport? Movable wings, KERS buttons, all to make the show better, but not for the driver. Alonso does not think it will be any easier to pass a car that is similar in speed, only those pesky back markers, and as I said a week or so ago, timing when to turn the wing back at the start of the braking zone is going to be a tricky problem, with some drivers missing it in early testing. So, we are spending loads of money on "widgets" that we are not sure even work. OK, KERS or some form of energy recovery system is going to be part of future automotive design, but that is being developed in spite of F1, not because of it. Porsche and Williams kept on developing their system when F1 had given it up.

So we have a situation where there is an incredible imbalance between the three parties to the deal. The promoters are not making money, the teams are getting some of the money coming into the sport, and a third party who are a silent partner effectively is creaming most of it off. Is this sustainable? Add to that the alienation of the traditional supporters of the sport by removing the opportunity to see it live and pandering to an elite who will lose interest and move on to the next big thing. Ask NASCAR how that is working for them. And while we are at it let's think about the "Car of Tomorrow" where the rules are so tightly proscribed it is almost spec racing. The teams spend enormous amounts on the smallest, silliest parts just to gain a thousand of a second, and as soon as they find it the part is banned. Does any of this sound "relevant" or "sustainable?" Oh yes, and now we are to have tires that wear out faster to make the "show" more fun, is that being efficient or relevant, or even safe? Interesting how the word "green" has disappeared from most of the motorsport vocabulary, apart from good old ALMS.

Yesterday Nico Rosberg was concerned about the lack of pace with the Mercedes, and today Michael tops the timesheets at Jerez, go figure. It seems he had no less fuel than Massa when he did his quick time, so did they find something in the car or is Michael back? Two of the new boys had big offs and bent their toys. Perez and Maldonado both hit something hard, so Maldonado in particular is having a baptism of fire. Alguersuari took note of Helmut Marko's comments that Torro Rosso was not a boarding school, whatever that means, and he is more than ready to replace one or both of the current drivers. Strangely it is not Ricciardo he is favoring but Vergne, but most of what Helmut does is strange. No one answered my question about two Australian drivers by the way.

Button had his go in the new McLaren, but they are still basically doing systems checks, albeit fast ones. Lewis declared he found the car better, which you would hope he would say after all the time and effort gone into it. Lotus had another troubled day, but at the moment the field is covered by just over two seconds, so better than last year. Way too early to judge anything though. Heidfeld gets to drive tomorrow, and Boullier says if he is quick he will sign him. He needs to do something, Petrov is not setting the world alight at the moment. The news on Kubica continues to be encouraging, with Robert vowing to be back before the end of the season, but you would have to wonder why, unless his replacement is not doing well.

Ron Walker, the Australian GP boss is softening everyone up for Melbourne losing the race. Bernie is apparently upset by the remarks of the Mayor. A man not easily upset by personal comments I would have thought. Now Ron did throw in a more telling line that Bernie is concerned that for the first time in 40 years someone is questioning the value of his product. The King's new clothes comes to mind.

Over in Abu Dhabi Ferrari protege Jules Bianchi beat Grosjean off the line in the Asia GP2 race, and kept him there for a maiden GP2 win. He beat a class field, so despite being the winter series this is for real. That other series, Superleague, the one with the soccer team cars, says that it is the best alternative to F1 because it has so many ex F1 stars. Narain Karthikeyan, Sebastien Bourdais, Antonio Pizzonia and Robert Doornbos? Not exactly a stellar cast, and all cast offs. Yes they can drive much better than I, but that is not the point. Let's see someone come through this series to F1, not from it.