Bob Barnard Track Engineering

With F1 off on its summer break for the next three weeks some of my fellow bloggers are also taking a vacation. As you know I write about any form of motorsport that interests me, so I will try and amuse you and prompt some critical examination of what others say and do.

On that note there is a piece today following up the protests by farmers at the loss of access and land for the building of the Indian GP track and access expressway. Eager to assure us all is well and that a repeat of Korea will be avoided we are told there are 6000 workers toiling around the clock to finish this, with 250 engineers! Well, as the race is scheduled for late October then one would hope that the engineering has been finished. Not sure what their definition of engineer is, but I cannot imagine you need 250 of them to design and build an F1 facility, however complicated. Speaking of late October, the FIA inspection is supposed to be 90 days prior, which by my calendar was three days ago. And what do you do with 6000 workers, groom the runoffs or mix cement by hand? No offence to my Indian friends, but a few photos are worth thousands of words.

The Sky TV rumblings continue, with the Crash.Net site running a poll which presumably is taken by people really interested in F1 and racing. So far 95% of respondents have either said they will not watch or F1 will lose audience. So 5% think it's "super for F1." Not the sort of numbers to warm sponsors hearts. 

On the home front Race Resorts of America is moving forward and is in discussions with a number of resort type tracks to become part of the RRA "family."