Bob Barnard Track Engineering

Not if you are Jean Todt it isn't, the British press are having a field day over the FIA's lack of leadership and direction during the Bahrain saga. The FIA are in a rock and a hard place as while they are a signatory to the Concorde Agreement, the real commercial problems of canceling a race are between Bernie, the teams and the promoter. Having the Crown Prince cancel makes Bernie's life easier. The big losers are the TV companies who have paid for 20 races and now have 19. It is very hard to see where a rescheduled race is going to fit in for 2011, the calendar was already the most crowded in F1 history. It will be an interesting sort out after this between all these parties, and the teams sponsors and insurance companies.

From comments made today it would appear that Valencia has not paid the fee for last years race. No comment. Melbourne's City Councillors have been polled and most are in favor of keeping the GP, but then again they are not paying for it.

F1 testing is over for a week or so, but MotoGP and WSBK are both in action. Stoner is fastest in Malaysia on the Honda with Lorenzo third on the unsponsored Yamaha factory team. What does that tell you about the state of MotoGP? A Japanese factory team could usually be relied upon to lean on one of its' fellow Japanese corporations to put something on the machine, but not this year. Of course it is done to allow Yamaha to celebrate its 50th year with the team in Yamaha blue, right. Rossi is still a second off the pace but at least in front of Hayden. Still not time to rule him out. Colin Edwards on the second string bike is in front of his old team mate Ben Spies who has the works machine, nice going Colin, let's see you stay up there this season.

Down at the Island Carlos Checa leads the way from the usual suspects and a high number of falls. It seems that despite no factory Ducati team the marque is still the one to beat. The debate on the GP date next year has gone quiet for a while.

Vettel has raised an interesting issue with Pirelli's and overtaking. I think it was Sir Isaac Newton who said "that for every action there was an equal and opposite reaction." So we add KERS and movable wings to make overtaking easier, and ask Pirelli to spice up the tires, and now Vettel says the amount of "marbles" coming off the Pirelli's will make overtaking impossible by half race distance.

Nice to hear that Kubica has started rehab. Best wishes Robert for a complete recovery.

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.

As foreshadowed yesterday the questions over the Bahrain GP increase. As Joe Saward points out, the opposition have worked out that if a GP can give world wide exposure to a country, then it can give world wide exposure to its problems. GP2 Asia is due there this weekend and the F1 test is on March 3rd, so I guess we will see what happens. The opposition are saying that now there have been deaths due to the heavy handed response by the Government the protests are not just going to go away.

Meanwhile, back with the "good ol' boys" of NASCAR it has been decided to reduce the cooling system efficiency to try and prevent the pairs of cars running together for extended periods and raising speeds to 206 mph. This has to be a first, especially since the field has already qualified. More changes are expected, including a smaller restrictor plate. The engine builders must be tearing their hair out trying to figure out how to set up for the 500 on Sunday. Could be worth watching.

The argument goes on about the date for the Phillip Island MotoGP after this year. DORNA and the riders are pushing for a return to March, and Ron Walker, who controls the GP Organization for both cars and bikes, does not want it to move. But if, as appears likely, Bernie pulls the plug on the F1 GP, then Ron could easily move the bike GP, or is he going to lose both?

Other than these snippets there is again very little to talk about. Barcelona F1 test starts Friday, more opportunities to be fooled by the teams about what they are actually doing.

On the home front most of our friends seem to have had the flu, including us. The Arizona project has taken a different direction and will take a year to get going, but I am hoping for some news on another project tomorrow.

Renault with its forward exhaust is fastest on the last day at Valencia, so obviously they have something working. So much for Helmut Marko's assertion after day two that "If we had run a race today we would have lapped the field." Helmut also vehemently denies they overspent, but even if they did the fines should go to charity, not the smaller teams who came in expecting some equality in spending. Not so fast Helmut, and why don't you just shut up and go away. A friend sent me a link to an F1 technical blog which showed how Newey has used a different way to use the exhaust gas through the diffuser, through a loophole in the rules. You have to love these guys. Apparently this did not show up until the second day. Here is the link.

So Kubica was quickest over the three days, and Lotus are back to having hydraulic problems, this time with the power steering. How does that happen, surely you buy this stuff from a specialist? Glock in the Virgin was well up, but Force India still continued to shine with Sutil second fast. Now, it is all very early days, but it is still interesting. McLaren are to unveil their car tomorrow in Berlin, and Lewis says it looks different to the other teams and is not sure if that is good or bad. The Mercedes is having teething troubles, with the HRT faster at this point. Ross Brawn says he is encouraged though, but is sitting on another payout from Mercedes for his remaining shares, so is probably feeling pretty good about life at the moment. So it is all over the place. Next test Jerez in a week.

The FIA have set the rules for the movable wing for the first three races. A line will be painted on the track at the entrance to the last corner onto the straight where the car following will have to be within one second to allow the wing to be triggered, and another line 600 m from the corner at the end of the straight to show is plebs where the wing can be used by the driver. Ferrari have suggested that 600 m may not be enough, but the FIA say they will tweak it once we see how it works. As I said, are we going to see processions waiting to get to that point?

Mike Gascoyne blames the tracks, as he should, especially the boring desert tracks, Bahrain and Abu Dhabi. As Mike says, they had a clean sheet and as much money as they wanted and still got it wrong. Let's include Korea in that, and wait to see how India works out, if they can sort out their corruption problems. Apparently the first layer of asphalt started being laid yesterday.

In Malaysia Simoncelli on a non-works Honda ended the last day fastest, with Stoner a hair's breadth behind. The Hondas all populated the top of the time sheet with Lorenzo and Spies mixing it with them. The Ducatis improved to 8th and 10th, with Hayden again the quicker, but Valentino thinks his shoulder is costing him 7 tenths or more, so he feels they are closer than it seems. Nice to see that a second string Honda is not too shabby, could make the racing more interesting this year. Some of us can recall when there were several "works" teams out there, especially Yamaha, which definitely made it more fun.

So Mother Russia is taking a bigger role in Virgin. Ian Phillips comes in as COO and brings many years of experience with him, but the new Technical Director is Nikolay Fomenko, President of MaRussia, who has no experience, despite the claim that "MaRussia's wealth of knowledge and experience provide us with a solid foundation with which to enter the second season." Wealth of knowledge and experience? They were only formed in 2007 and most of us had never heard of them until they bought into Virgin. I've heard some spin, but this is a good one. Maybe I am missing something here, did Nikolay work in F1 before starting MaRussia?

So Melbourne GP has the Government's full support? As has been said before, that is sometimes the last sound anyone hears before being fired. I have questioned before the benefit to sponsors of being in Australia, and The Mayor of Melbourne might just have given Bernie the opening he wants. Bernie has also come out and said that having two races in Spain is a problem, so which one is going? Meanwhile the Indian GP is having further management changes as the head of the company promoting it has stepped down over corruption allegations. Don't you just love going to these new and exciting places?

The Renault exhaust is directed to come out in front of the sidepods to increase the airflow under the car to the single diffuser as I suggested, and apparently McLaren has a similar arrangement, with Mercedes considering it. This must take some plumbing to get it there. Does not seem to be doing Renault that much good in testing, but it is very early days. Force India are still sitting around the top of the timesheets with Di Resta and Hulkenburg third and fourth.

Over in Malaysia Danny Pedrosa laid down a lap two thirds of a second quicker than team mate, make that rival, Casey Stoner. Ben Spies was third fast amongst a gaggle of Hondas. Nicky Hayden and Rossi were 11th and 13th respectively, but not respectably, not even being the quickest Ducati's. It would seem that test times in the world of MotoGP are more representative of what to expect for the season than F1, or am I wrong?

Down in Sebring Audi have been testing both the R18 and the old R15, but no details seem to have emerged. Anyone out there get a whiff of times or other goings on?

On a serious note our thoughts go out to my Australian mates who are suffering through Cyclone Yasi, and my American ones who are experiencing blizzards and freezing rain. It froze overnight here in Phoenix and will be colder tonight, but nothing to compare with these problems.