Bob Barnard Track Engineering

Sorry to have gone missing for a couple of days, my back has been playing up so lying low. One of the things that has come up and not commented on by the general media is the goings on in Austin over the Promoter. Here is the original story from Friday:

http://motorsport.nextgen-auto.com/Report-hints-US-GP-project-to-lose-promoter-Hellmund,30873.html

Joew Saward has followed this up with his own view on what is going on:

http://joesaward.wordpress.com/

This is about the fourth article so scroll down. Mind you the other articles are interesting. The Argentina track by Populous looks like a big kart track. Stick to football stadiums. Anyway Joe suggests Tavo might be looking to make more money consulting to other would be F1 race promoters. That says a lot about how much (or little) there is to be made in promoting one himself. I guess one day we will find out what is going on in Austin.

Joes first article on the Hamilton/Massa incident is responding to a number of web sites commenting on how Massa was told over the radio to "destroy" Hamilton's race by holding him up. Nothing wrong with that, except you would think Smedley would be encouraging Massa to go faster to stay in front, not slow down and keep Hamilton behind. Shows a lack of confidence in his driver. What is really the story here is the hypocrisy of Massa to complain of Hamilton's driving after the race! Adding insult to injury. And I find it amazing that in race after race I hear drivers in following cars being chastised for hitting the one in front, and yet at Spa Hamilton is in the wrong when Kobayashi hits his rear wheel!

The 14th annual Petit le Mans has been run, and who knows if we will have a 15th. Sebring is announced as a round of the WEC, but not the Petit? Scott Atherton did his usual "everything is getting better" speech but did not address the ALMS cars not being able to run in a WEC event. Has that been sorted? If it had you would think he would have mentioned it. And now we are "grandfathering" museum pieces like the V12 Aston Martin! Must be embarrassing for Aston that their 2011 car does not run but a collectors car finishes third!

ESPN3 coverage was very good except the ads were getting very old by the end of ten hours. A very eventful race. Not sure how they could edit that down to two hours, allowing for ads. I tuned in with 15 minutes to go and the race had ended, so the "highlights" were probably an hour at best. The major talking point was the Dumas crash, and I would like to know if he actually hit the front of the Porsche. Shades of Le Mans for me, stuck his nose in too far when the hole was closing. Now I am no fan of Montagny and the tactics of Peugeot, but Audi should know by now that they need to take no chances when passing them. Not sure why they had to start 53 cars? Do they need the entry fees that bad? Track density by FIA rule is 43, so 20% less and would have made life easier for the real competitors rather than those making up the numbers.

Over in Japan Honda managed to win its home MotoGP for a change in a crash fest. Stoner did well not to crash and recover to third behind Pedrosa and Lorenzo, so Casey still has a handy lead in the Championship. Rossi fell off at the second corner and took a few with him. Bit of a nightmare season for him and Ducati. Marquez failed to win the Moto2 class but still takes over the lead in the Championship from Bradl by one point.

Elsewhere lots of Championships were decided. Checa went out in style to clinch the WSBK, Tomszyk won the DTM title for Audi, Ceccon won the AutoGP title if anyone noticed or cared, Mehri won the Euro F3 title, Botolotti clinched the F2 title, and Peugeot took the inaugural, (and only?), ILMC Manufacturers Trophy. Dario Franchiti retook the lead in the Indycar championship with one race remaining.

In other news Tilke is the latest person to be trotted out to reassure us India will be "finished" on time. It is normal that the work is finished at the last minute he said, well most of it will be apparently. That may be true of a street course, but there is no excuse for a permanent facility. Bernie is due in court in Germany in November to testify in the Gribkowsky case, so perhaps we will learn what really went on.

It seems that despite being dropped from next year's calendar Turkey is still keen to have a GP and are ready to be the stand in if Bahrain cannot sort out its problems, which from current reports is not likely whatever Bernie says.

Very little going on worth writing about at the moment. Tost of Toro Rosso is echoing my thoughts on the Stewards at the last race and calling for professionals. In one of the most professional of sports it remains an oddity that the final arbiters of events are unpaid amateurs, and are different at each race. 

Over in the NASCAR world the "Chase" is on. When are they going to drop this stupid idea? Anyway Tony Stewart has won the first two races, so there is some justice in my opinion, but you can feel free to differ.

Petit le Mans testing was on at Road Atlanta on Sunday and the Peugeots are quick, and the gasoline cars nowhere. Qualifying is streamed live on ESPN3 on Friday, with the race on Saturday.

MotoGP from Motegi this weekend and all the riders are there despite the threat not to go because of radiation fears. Capirossi is not there due to his collar bone.

Finally the Indian Tax issue is not resolved. The customs duty may be, but the 70% tax on the team and drivers income from this race is not. Whitmarsh is not happy but it does appear the teams will go anyway.

Amazingly most of the motorsport web sites have nothing new to say this morning, so little, or "petit" to stir my comments. There does seem to be a lot of interest though in the number of cars likely to enter this year's Petit Le Mans, and the tracks' ability to handle them. Check out Murphy The Bear's very latest offering:

http://murphythebear.com/blog/index.php/2011/02/26/185-le-grand-petit-how-many-at-road-atlanta/#more-1019

When I was there running Road Atlanta for the first one we were just happy to have entries without worrying about if we had too many. I recall one SCCA event that was delayed in starting and they threw out most of the entries in one session of practice, over eighty cars from memory. Bit of a nightmare and would not want to do that again, but amateur drivers going in all directions. No red flags though.

No such problems for motorcycle racing these days, lucky to have a field. Down at the Island Carlos Checa preserved his pole position for the Superbike Round by winning the "superpole" shootout by a slim margin over his arch geriatric rival Max Biaggi. So the race is anybodies it seems, should be worth a look.

See you all tomorrow.

The Petit Le Mans is now on the Intercontinental Cup Calendar for 2011 on October 1st. So, was that just a negotiating ploy? I am personally glad to see it included as I was very much involved in the inaugural race when there was no ALMS, and it deserves to be on the calendar. To me it is a better race than Sebring.

Luca di Montezemolo, Mr. Ferrari, is concerned that the rules for 2011 are still somewhat open to interpretation, particularly in respect to the movable rear wing. Patrick Head warned recently that the latter innovation is "not set in stone," and that is my understanding, so when is that going to be clarified?

It seems the Olympic Commission is concerned about the planned staging of the first Russian F1 race the same year as the Winter Games in Sochi. They question whether you can run two such events in one city in the same year, but I would have thought that many of the facilities, especially temporary stands for instance, could work for both and save money.

There can only be two stories today. Rossi rides the Ducati, which has Rossi fans lathering at the mouth. Could they really not have painted the bike red? Lot of discussion about how far off the pace he is, but it's November, so what does it matter. Vale will go off and have his operation and come back all new and refreshed, then we will see. Did Jeremy and all the Yamaha boys all just change shirts overnight as well? Sorry to hear Stu Shenton has been let go by Suzuki, he is too good to be walking the street, but then again aren't we all?

The other is Red Bull and team orders. The team owner says there will be no team orders, he would rather lose the championship than win it that way. Well said, but there are a couple of people asking if it were Vettel who was in front of the two on points would the answer still be the same? A few others have echoed my thoughts that Red Bull would rather Alonso have it than Mark Webber. Talking of Alonso, I would have thought he would have done well to keep his opinion to himself on team orders. No one commented on my questions as to team orders in motorcycle racing?

Murphy the Bear has his latest offering about the state of sportscar racing and the omission of the Petit from the Intercontinental Cup. I think we would all like to know what that is about, sanction fee, TV rights, dates? The TV schedule for the ALMS is whacko, I'll be watching on live steaming and listening to Radio Le Mans I think, if there is anything worth watching. Sounds as if the GT class will be the thing, even more than this year.

What is going on with the whole Lotus thing? Do the Lotus Group i.e. Proton and the Malaysian Gov't really dislike Tony Fernandes that much? Why would they sponsor the Renault team when by stopping the stupid fight over the name they can have the existing team running around with their name on it, or is it an embarrassment at the moment? That is likely to change, and with a Renault engine. As Mike Gascoyne said "If they want to advertise their road cars, why spend so much money on it?" he told Auto Motor und Sport. "With us, they could do it free of charge."

Then there is the rumor that Virgin might be bringing in Russian backers, Sir Richard's exit strategy?