Bob Barnard Track Engineering

Why would HRT, a team desperately trying to be Spanish, hire a Chinese reserve driver with no record? Does he bring a big bag of money? HRT are certainly not selling anything in China to warrant trying to gain exposure there. They now have a 30+ Spanish lady driver and a 24 year old Chinese guy, neither with any obvious credentials. Sounds like a great test and back up team. Come to think of it why would we expect anything else. As we would say in Oz, all they need is a tent and elephants and they would have a circus.

Argentina look pretty certain to have a F1 race in 2013, on yet another Tilke masterpiece, while one of his other gems, Korea, is likely to be dropped as they cannot pay the fee. That was a great investment wasn't it? Anyone in Texas watching this?

Meanwhile Magny Cours is asking why no one is looking at their track to stage a revived French GP? It is said that it is too remote, but I have been to both Magny Cours and Paul Ricard, and let me tell you Paul Ricard is not exactly downtown anywhere either. Maybe Bernie's involvement at Paul Ricard has something to do with it, or the politics of the Magny Cours Department?

Spa is supposed to be alternating with a French GP, but the Belgian locals are not much in favor of that and have a petition going. If, like me, you think only seeing a race at Spa every other year while suffering Bahrain each year is too much to bear, please go on to the web site and sign the petition.

http://www.grandprixf1.be/home.html

On a last note, unsurprisingly, Lotus, the car maker, can no longer afford the sponsorship for the F1 team that carries its name, nor will it be able to buy into the team. The real team owners say they are happy to continue with the Lotus name anyway. Thank goodness after all that wrangling.

Hot on the heels of one of the best races we've seen comes the news that the track that produces such events is only going to be seen every other year. It is reported that Bernie is OK with Spa and a track in France, presumably Paul Ricard, alternating GP's after 2013. Now I don't mind Paul Ricard, but Spa it is not, and it is a travesty to lose the wolrd's best track from the calendar every other year. Let them alternate with Valencia! The Mediterranean GP. I know your tired of hearing it but why does it make sense to only lose money every other year?

Talking of losing tracks, do we think Laguna or Indy will miss out on the MotoGP when Austin has a race? Or does Dorna seriously think the US can maintain three GPs? The attendance at Indy was reported as 64,000 on race day, but it looked pretty sparse Friday and Saturday. It's hard to see Laguna missing out as the manufacturers are all in LA, but who knows, Dorna might like the bigger pay day from three classes.

Anyway, Casey Stoner won the MotoGP race by a country mile despite saying this was his least liked track, and added he could have gone quicker. Is it me or were there more "marbles" on that track than I have ever seen for a motorcycle race? At the end the "line" was about 6 feet wide. Interesting to see riders stopping due to what looked like tire problems, and mostly Ducatis. The headline writers were at it again stating the obvious, "Ducati Boss says they have to improve." Rossi had a terrible time of it and Hayden stopped with about four laps to go and then got on the bike and went out again, what was all that about? Spies recovered from a bad start to take third in front of Lorenzo, nice to see no team orders in MotoGP.

Nice to hear Robert Kubica has had his last operation, so let's hope all is as good as his management is saying and we will see him back on track.

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.

Whatever they are. The F1 Commission met earlier today and voted to delay the new engine formula for F1 until 2014, and then go to a V6 1.6 liter turbo. Makes sense to go to V6, but not sure how this helps Bernie's problem with the noise, if there ever was a problem. This does not change the fact that manufacturers are going to have to spend a bunch of money developing a new engine, I can't see they can just lop off the end two cylinders of the existing. Still, it keeps Ferrari happy, and as I said, even Nissan makes a bunch of V6's, as does Honda, Toyota etc. These are now going to a fax vote of the WMC. Another win for Bernie?

I'm glad things had settled down in Bahrain. They just sentenced a bunch of Shiite dissidents to long prison terms, which is sure to make the 70% of the population that are Shiites happy. Next comes the trials of the medical staff, which should quieten things down even more, not.

Joe Saward has his usual informative blog today with the news that the next stop on the GP trail, Valencia, is in a State that has debts of $25 billion, and the race costs then $40m. Do we think this race has a future?

France in the shape of its Prime Minister has woken up and decided it must have an F1 GP back, as soon as 2013. Paul Ricard is the track being suggested and the track Director is saying that it will only happen if they can find a promoter. Look closer to home, who owns Paul Ricard in whatever corporate guise you want? Bernie. So like the BBC, if he really wanted a French GP it would be easy, except then he would be playing with his own money, and he knows what he will lose on that bet.

On a different note, Trulli is frustrated by the ongoing problems with the Lotus power steering. I'm not surprised, I'd be frustrated too, and worried, steering the car seems a pretty basic requirement, and one I cannot fathom that Lotus out of all the teams cannot resolve. Wouldn't you go and find the best person in the world in power steering and pay them whatever to fix this? Better yet, steal the best person in the paddock. I can imagine this is not your average power steering set up, so can anyone reading this tell us what the issue is?

Well the two events on this weekend produced some crazy action. If you have not seen it look at the youtube of the start of the LMS race.