Bob Barnard Track Engineering

Now I was pretty good at mathematics at school and college, so I have to wonder what subjects the new COO of Nurburgring took? He used to be the COO at Hockenheim and negotiated the "good deal" for that track with Bernie. He is looking to do the same at Nurburgring to save the race now the Government is not footing the bill. What is this deal you ask? Well Bernie reduces his fee but the track gives him a % of the ticket sales, which is basically their only revenue. Now isn't this just paying Bernie his fee another way? OK, Bernie may be taking some of the risk if no one turns up, but in my world Bernie is pulling a pea and thimble trick here.

In similar news the Oz GP is reporting a loss north of $50m again, which is strengthening the calls to let it go. I wonder if Bernie can do them a nice deal like Nurburgring? I know we do not have six drivers, but we have two good ones. Bernie is actually very busy with tracks, saying he is talking to Barcelona and Valencia to alternate the GP in Spain. Is there a GP that is not in financial trouble? And I do not see the point of alternating, yes you only lose money every other year, but then you only reap the benefit every other year, and if there is no benefit why are you running it in the first place? There is a report today that there is a "serious" buyer for the Spa circuit, and they do not even have a driver. Has he done his maths on this?

The driver silly season is hotting up. Red Bull are saying they are keeping their two drivers, well Horner is anyway. Should be announced this weekend in Hungary. Renault nee Lotus appear to be running out of love for Heidfeld and Grosjean seems to be heading back to F1. Williams are being coy about whether Barrichello will be back in 2012, so who else would they bring in? Frank seems to like Maldanado but is he ready to be a number one? HRT appear to be favoring a Spaniard for Luizzi's seat, maybe before the end of the year, but where will Ricciardo go for 2012? Toro Rosso? Paul di Resta did not seem sure of where he will be next year when interviewed in Germany, but unless Michael retires why would he go anywhere else? Michael is doing OK as a back up to Nico, who must be wondering when he is ever going to get a competitive car. Ferrari seem to be keeping Massa for one more year, waiting for Bianchi to get experience in GP2? Italian drivers in Ferrari are under enormous pressure though, but if he could do the business can you imagine! Virgin have Glock but D'ambrossio is not a certainty to stay. Team Lotus are playing musical chairs but Kovalainen should be safe, Trulli must be a question mark, and I'm not sure Chandook really has what it takes. Sauber should keep their two and Sutil will stay at Force India as there is nowhere else to go, and why would he? McLaren will surely have Lewis and Jensen. All Lewis needs is a fix of winning now and again to keep him there, and as with Sutil, where else can he go? The are a lot worse situations to be in in life.

 

Pretty amazing comeback from injury for Dani Pedrosa, beating team mate Stoner and Champion Lorenzo in Germany last weekend. Not a bad race and I still can't work out how Stoner let Pedrosa by at that last corner, but it makes the season interesting. The Ducatis continue to struggle and even though Rossi finished a lot better than his qualifying, they both finished behind the Suzuki! Marquez has worked out how to win on the Moto2 machine and looks impressive, both on and off the bike. Good race again though.

The Japanese MotoGP looks to be in trouble with top riders saying they will not go due the radiation danger, which is a bit rich when they have been riding all year with "support Japan" logos. If I were Honda or Yamaha I would not be very impressed. Run the race and put their top local riders out there.

Pretty lean weekend of racing for me though, so not much to talk about. The Nurburgring will apparently not receive Government support after this year, so it has a problem, and the French seem to think alternating a GP with Spa is the best way to go to restore French pride and bring back a race to Paul Ricard.

The summer break is nearly upon us, so stories are going to be harder to find, unless the silly season gets revved up.

Take that. You can change the rules but the result stays the same. Vettel and Red Bull cruised to another win in Valencia, with Alonso in the Ferrari the only one who even looked like bothering him. Webber looked at times like he was going to challenge but in the end could not hold off Alonso, and then had a gearbox issue. Why is it always Webber who has the issues? So, not a particularly inspiring race even though there were lots of battles right through the field. Button did show an unlike Jensen streak when he went past Massa at Turn Two like he was nailed to the floor, and got it done when the DRS zones could not, so do we really need this? Lewis continues to hate life. When told to slow down to conserve his tires he says he can't go slower! Then when his tires have gone off and he is told to go quicker he says he can't, doesn't sound like a man happy with his car or his team.

The best part of the race was watching it live on www.fromsportcom.com which showed the BBC coverage with Brundle and Coulthard. I do not have to put up with SPEED and those idiots again! Fox in their wisdom are showing the race at noon today, a part of their four race summer showing of F1 on the network, for some reason only a programmer would know. Due to their expectation that they will have a whole new audience they treat us as bigger idiots than usual. As I have said before, they do not feel compelled to explain the rules of baseball or football every time a game starts, so why do they do it for F1?

I also watched a fair bit of the Nurburgring 24 Hour thanks to a link provided by my friend Greg Sarni, and listened to the Radio Le Mans crew. These guys maintain their obvious passion for the sport and freshness as if they were spectators, while being totally professional and concentrating on the activity on track and not what is coming next or who is wearing what etc. This race has grown in stature over the last five years or so and is becoming a great showcase for manufacturers and new technology and ideas. Over 200 cars, and as one of the interviewees said there are more classes than he usually has entrants. The number of manufacturers was exceptional, it would be easier to say who was not there than who were, in fact I would not like to guess who was not represented. This was backed up by what must be every tire company, with some guys running on street tires. It is in some ways much more challenging than Le Mans, just the volume of cars and the bigger differences in performance on that narrow and dangerous track they call the "green hell." The number of top drivers there this year was a testament to its growth. There was Johnny O'Connell in a Renault Clio! Attendance is similar to Le Mans, so now we have two great 24 hour races.

It is interesting that the F1 Promoters, well 17 of them, wrote to the FIA to tell them they did not want the show if it was a 4 cylinder turbo. Now I have been a promoter and attended meetings with my fellow promoters, and it is hard to get them to agree to anything as we basically compete with each other over everything. A lot like the teams actually, but nowhere near as organized, so this is a new thing we are seeing. I always thought we as a group had a lot of clout, although there were always new tracks or existing ones who would take a race if I didn't, but this raises a new lobby group. I actually thought that a group of tracks that no longer have GP's could be a better bet to put together to start a new series based on better rewards for the guys taking most if not all of the risk. NASCAR's model would be a good start. Anyway, the current group is led by Ron Walker, Bernie's mate from Melbourne, so you can see where this came from, and why they would not support a breakaway series. The threat was to go to Indycar apparently. Yeh Right, let me know how that works out for you

Ben Spies breaks through and wins his first MotoGP at Assen today. I've been critical of Ben's performances this year, but perhaps he has just worked it out. I was in Hungary when Mick Doohan won his first race after trying for most of two seasons, and never looked back. Perhaps this is Ben's moment. His team mate had a Simoncelli moment and has called for a ban on him for a race or two. Sounds like the Hondas never got comfortable with the tires and Stoner had his mind on the Championship. Rossi's race went better than qualifying, so let's see what they do with this new chassis in future races.

Reminded me of when I worked for Kenny and we were at Assen. Schwantz led the race with Wayne Rainey in second and leading the Championship with Kevin no threat. I was foolish enough to compliment Wayne on running a smart race, and in Wayne's inimitable fashion he gave me an earful and said he wasn't being smart, he !!!!!! couldn't catch him.

In Valencia the engine mapping restriction made no difference it seems, with Vettel putting in the fastest lap ever seen here to take pole from his team mate Webber. Still with that half second or so over the McLaren of Hamilton, who has to be getting a bit tired of this. Rumor today of Webber to Renault, so a spare seat at RB? We again saw drivers sitting out or limiting their time on track to save tires, so let's hope common sense prevails and Pirelli get the OK to provide more tires for qualifying.

Watching the Nurburgring 24 hour on a German TV live streaming and listening to Radio Le Mans. As fun as it is I will not stay up for the 24 hours this time.

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!