Bob Barnard Track Engineering

Crazy weekend, and the next few weeks with the World Cup, Le Mans, and then Tour de France, without mentioning MotoGP. F1 and NASCAR races. Made it through the Le Mans 24 Hour again! What a great race. As they said, a lot like old times with cars not running like clockwork and some great mechanics keeping the Audis, Porsches and the Toyota in the race and in the hunt. Made it a lot easier to stay awake with so much going on. Close racing in every class, and for a while a race no one seemed to want to win. Every leader ran into trouble, but then fought back.

I heard Gary Lineker has said that football, the English version, is eleven men running around after a ball for 90 minutes, at the end of which Germany wins. Watching them defeat Portugal today you would not bet against them winning it all. At Le Mans lately it seems it is a race in which 55 cars drive around for 24 hours at the end of which Germany wins. You have to admire Audi for their preparation and ability to keep cars in the race. Completely building a new car at the track in a day, to end up second. 20 minutes to replace a turbo, not once but twice, crazy stuff given the temperature it must have been at. Toyota got the 8 car back to finish third, and Porsche were unlucky for their first time back in LMP1.

So who is going to beat the German cars? Porsche will be stronger next year, but so too should Toyota. Nissan is joining them, but it better not be a gimmick like the Zeod. What a joke. They are behind the real cutting edge cars in the Audi, Porsche and Toyota. The same speed and distance with 25 - 30% less fuel. Like F1 we are the real winners in this amazing technology race.

On other matters Marquez keeps winning, as does Jimmy Johnson. The new kart track opened to the delight of the members at the Monticello Motor Club. and there are some more interesting projects in the wings.

Going back to the Canadian F1 race, I cannot get over the way in which Perez could not overtake Rosberg, but as soon as Ricciardo got passed perez he soon dispatched him to win the race. Some how this did not compute to me. Perez has the Merc engine with full power, and Ricciardo has a Renault supposedly down 30 - 40 hp. Shades of Perez not passing Alonso when he had a Sauber with a customer Ferrari engine?

Good news on Michael, let's hope it continues.

Now we have these extraordinarily complex F1 cars with several forms of energy recovery and storage I have to wonder what the significance of Formula E is anymore? If it supposed to be cutting edge technology then they are already out of date. The components are made by F1 companies McLaren and Williams drawing on their past F1 experience, so what's new? They cannot run a whole race with one set of batteries, so how good will that look in comparison to what F1 is now doing? 

It continues to look more of a gimmick or side show, or perhaps a money maker for the series owner. It is in the same league as the Nissan "electric" car at Le Mans this year that can run one lap on electric power and has to run the rest of the stint on a fuel powered engine. The Audis, Porsches and Toyotas are already far more sophisticated.

Tony Fernandes says he built his Lotus Team from one screw. Well he should be happy, Dany Bahar just provided the second one. Nothing I have read makes me like Dany, so let's hope the judge sorts this out the right way.

The other Lotus say they have five weeks to sort out a replacement for Kubica. Well the Jerez test starts tomorrow with only one more opportunity for a new driver to get up to speed in the car at the Barcelona test one week later. Let me know how this works out for you. Some people are just working out what I said two days ago, Kimi is not contracted to anyone as he is running his own rally team, renting the car from Citroen.

Nice to see Nissan back in Le Mans as an engine supplier to the Signature LMP2 team. We are seeing some new manufacturers coming in which is good as long as they do  not all bail out when they have had enough as past history has shown.

Aside from these tidbits there is little news, but let's look forward to Jerez and a lot of new cars.