Bob Barnard Track Engineering

There is a great saying in Australia to describe a stupid situation, "All we need is a tent and elephants and we would have a circus." This is what F1 has been called, and is well on the way to being a real one. More "F1 Figures" have come out in favor of sprinklers. Let's think about this. The reason rain effected races are interesting is usually the unpredictability of it, look at Spa. Now if it becomes "predictable" that Bernie is going to turn the taps on sometime in the race do you not think the geniuses in F1 teams will work out how to make it all "predictable" again?

Good old Luca di Montezemolo has sounded off again about the current F1 rules. Steering wheels like "martians." You have to love him. He gets my vote for being the next Ringmaster of the circus, but he probably has his eyes on a bigger tent.

Not to be outdone Indycar has some ideas of its own to spice up the show. Guest drivers for the last race did not even rate a comment from me, but I have seen what happens when you start distorting races with offers of large amounts of prize money and it is usually a demolition derby. You had better hope the Championship is not being decided at that race with a bunch of ring-ins out there having their own race and "devil take the hindmost." Now we are to split the Texas race into two races for double the fun. We all know people watch the start and the finish, so now they have to tune in twice. But just for real fun let's just pick grid spots out of a hat. Why waste time on qualifying at any races? It would be greener, especially if you used recycled paper.

Very good news on Sir Jackie, we need his common sense around for a while yet.

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?

Strange doings at the Rolex qualifying at Daytona yesterday. The Ferrari 430 entered by Aten, my mate Tony Dowe, was withdrawn by the "owner" at the last minute. Which begs the question, what else are you going to do with it? Put it in a museum? Why spend all last year building this, and rebuilding it after the fire at the "Roar" test weekend, and then decide not to race it? No one seems to know who the owner is, except presumably Tony. To add to the mystery the car seemed to do two laps in the last session, albeit very slowly, according to the timing and scoring. Was this on the truck on the way out? What are we missing here?

Jorg Bergmeister in the Flying Lizards Porsche Riley captured the Daytona Prototype pole position in a triumphant return to Grand Am for the successful ALMS GT2 team, with Dominik Farnbacher taking the GT pole with one of the TRG Porsches. Race starts Saturday at 3:30 pm EST live on Speed, for most of it anyway.

In other things that make you wonder, Oz GP Boss, Ron Walker, has warned of Australia losing the race because there are lots of other countries wanting a race. Really? Ron mentions Russia and India as two, who as far as I know already have one, keep up Ron, and Warsaw. Warsaw? We've had a lot of countries suggested, but perhaps Ron has an inside line to Bernie. Then there are Qatar, Dubhai and Kuwait, which are now the center of the F1 universe, we could run the whole series there, the World Cup are going to Qatar after all, and that old chestnut, Staten Island. ISC tried that one Ron, and see how long that lasted. Sometimes you have to wonder which world Ron is living in. A friend who worked for him on the Melbourne GP told me some weird stories.

Bernie of course has told the Mayor of Melbourne that there is no problem handing the race back, just call his office and work out the details. The penalty more like. This is all good fun isn't it? First the ASN, CAMS, say they are going to take it off the calendar because they are not getting enough of the payout from the race, sorry I mean the "profit," and the Premier of South Australia has to chime in with how Melbourne have screwed it up. Eh? Weren't they the ones who screwed it up enough that Bernie went to Melbourne in the first place? Most people think Australia is one country when it is actually a collection of States each with a direct line to The Queen, and who loosely agreed to work together at the start of the last century. They could not even agree then about where the capital should be so they had to build a new one, Canberra, in the middle of nowhere, and get an American to design it. When I worked for the South Australian Commissioner of Highways we were arguing about what color the lines should be down the center of the road! So you can see how they will all squabble over almost anything.

The new F150 Ferrari was unveiled today, the first of this year's cars, and to an untrained eye it does not look unlike last year's. But that is what the Designer said himself, but then said it wasn't. I guess the designers are so prescribed now it is hard to make the car look much different. Of course there is the disclaimer that the car that hits the track in Bahrain will look very different. So why "launch" it? I thought the front wing was supposed to be narrower and simpler this year, does not look it. Apparently the rear suspension is very trick, but it is hard to see from the photos.

Luca di Montezemolo is still sounding off about how F1 needs to stay the technology leader and decries that aerodynamics are over emphasized compared to the mechanics of the car. Keep pushing Luca, someone has to, until you go off to run Italy that is. It is suggested that naming the car the F150 in honor of the years since Italy was created from a number of States, sound familiar, is a political ploy to promote Luca's strong feelings for his Country.

It is interesting that Audi have gone from an open cockpit car to a closed for this year's Le Mans contender the R18, and Aston Martin has gone from a closed cockpit to an open. Can they both be right? Audi have preferred the open cockpit since they built the R8 due to the easier driver changes and less problems with visibility. They had power to burn presumably to overcome the extra drag. Now they say the restrictions on the engine mean they have to minimise drag, hence the closed cockpit. Allan McNish at the Autosport Show said that the petrol cars will be very competitive this year due to Article 19, and that the Aston was already very fast last year. So does Aston now have power to burn over the diesels and can therefore go to the open cockpit? I recall when Tony Dowe was running the Panoz he cut the roof off as the open cars at that time had some rule breaks which if I recall correctly allowed larger rear tires and a bigger fuel tank. Who makes this up? Although it did not have the elegance of the Coupe, it won races.  All part of the "knowing the rules and exploiting them" game that is motor sport.

Every journalist on earth must be at the Autosport Show or Wroom with Ferrari and Ducati. Not sure how much Ferrari and Co. spend on this bash but it is worth every penny in the PR onslaught they achieve at a time when there is not much else happening. Some one must have been in Venezuela to cover Maldanado in the Williams with Hugo Chavez and the deal with PDVSA. As I think Joe Saward commented, there ways of being a "pay for ride" driver without actually paying for it yourself, which is what most of these deals are. So Williams protesting that this is not a pay for play deal sounds a little far fetched. I don't really care if PDVSA give Sir Frank the money he needs to be competitive again  as long as Maldanado does not turn out to be another Eliseo Salazar.

I love Luca di Montezemolo, he says such great quotes. "maybe when others have won 10% of what Ferrari has won, then they can also have their say." He does not think Red Bull know how to behave as Champions, and is also using their overspending to point out the silliness of the RRA. And I love the comment on Brawn winning due to "technical drug taking." F1 on steroids. They presumably grew bigger diffusers.

On the home front I completed the text for my book, so now to find a publisher, edit and select the photos. I need a shot of me on the winners rostrum at Phillip Island in '89 if anyone knows a photographer who was there. I have a concept plan for the Circuit Grand Bayou and waiting on feedback from the client, who at first sight liked it a lot. Busy on a business plan for another project, so watch this space. Don't forget the Circuit Forum in LA in April, the program is just about done and will be out probably next week.

Here in the US Monday Night Football was a huge success and has since been followed by Sunday and Thursday night games. Someone worked out that people are at home in prime time, and there is not much else to watch in "prime time." Now Luca di Montezemolo is at it again stirring things up, don't you just love him, by suggesting that 2 pm starts should be moved to 5 pm as "most people are on the beach." In a European summer that would work, and if not there are always lights. Not sure what that does for the Asian races though. Luca probably does not realize that people like myself record the races anyway so we can watch them when it suits us and we can skip through the ads.

Talking of moving times of races, I commented a couple of months ago that the Phillip Island MotoGP was always intended to be run in March/April, it was only the fight over tobacco that moved the race location and date. But of course now the F1 GP has moved from Adelaide to Melbourne, and November to April, so the GP Board, who promotes both races, have a problem. It seems Dorna, after twenty years, have decided the MotoGP needs to be in that time slot, and have threatened that the FIM will not license the track if it is not moved. Don't really see what the date has to do with a track license. I have heard of licensing a track for different levels of competition, never for different times of the year?  As I said before, move the F1 race to November and run it with the Melbourne Cup, what a week for partying!

I don't know if any of you have thought through the ramifications of the arrest of Gribkowsky, the banker who managed the sale of the shares to CVC, but if it is true he took a bribe then the person who paid it would also be in trouble presumably, and perhaps the whole deal could be in jeopardy? The bank that sold the shares is State owned and has lost a bundle in the last few years, so I am sure the State would like to get some of that back.  I am no lawyer, but this could get really messy, or just maybe it will get the sport out of the hands of people who care nothing for the sport and only its earning potential.

Senor Carabante of HRT has been ordered to pay an ex-partner an amount of 47 m Euros, that's a lot of dollars! With HRT already strapped for cash it will be interesting to see what this does. Still, they have money in from Tata for Karthikeyan's ride and another seat to sell, and there is always a new investor coming with these guys.

Practice for this year's Rolex started today with the two Ganassi cars at the top of the time sheet, no surprise there. Watch for the Aten entered Ferrari 430 run by my buddy Tony Dowe. This is the first outing for this car, but Tony has a good driver line up and is no slouch in long distance racing.