Bob Barnard Track Engineering

So Nick Heidfeld has gone from reserve driver at Mercedes, to Pirelli tire tester, and now Sauber driver. Is Peter getting a jump on the opposition with the experience Nick has with the tires? I thought the point of using Nick was he was not driving for any of the teams? Pedro de la Rosa has done a decent job, if a bit up and down, but for a guy who was test driver for McLaren for many years he did better than Luca Badoer. Must have been a shock for Pedro, but it is a smart move by Peter Sauber. Will make Singapore even more interesting.

Martin Whitmarsh says we should all be very happy with the racing this season, and he is actually right. No team has dominated, even though Red Bull probably would have if they did not shoot themselves in the foot so often. They have more issues with brakes than all the rest put together, why is that? It has been interesting how car and driver combination have suited different tracks, and the technical side has been up to par. The remaining tracks are all different. A street track with little passing, Suzuka, one of the great tracks, Korea and unknown but looks like a street circuit which might break up, Brazil, always a good race, and the Abu Dhabi. Martin says it will be great to have a finale there with the championship on the line, but at a track where there was no passing and very little action I'm not so sure.

So Kimi is looking to come back to F1 with Renault. I'm not surprised. He might enjoy rallying, but has crashed so many times you must wonder if he has a future. It would be good to have him back. I know I say we need to make room for young guys, but Kimi will add to the show and make the driver line up even stronger.

A friend sent me a piece from the Isle of Man local Radio which is questioning the future of road racing, on real roads, as they do on the Isle and in Ireland and parts of England. They lost another rider last weekend in Ireland. It takes enormous courage to race a motorcycle around these roads, but common sense says it is not the smartest or safest thing to do. It mentioned insurance. How do you insure something like that? Sure, the riders all sign a waiver, but the insurer must know that sooner or later a spectator is going to be seriously hurt or worse. The question is, if you want to keep doing this how do you make it safer, and if it is do these guys still want to do it?

Well is seems the summer season has woken up and we have some news to comment on. Casey Stoner is off to Honda next year in MotoGP, not a surprise really, and the other shoe to drop will be Rossi to Ducati to get away from Lorenzo.

Over at F1 at Silverstone the HRT Team have put Yamamoto in to replace Bruno Senna, only for this race they say, and only for money is what they are not saying. Yamamoto has raced in F1 before but made such an impression I cannot remember. In practice he is was not the slowest, but only because Trulli's Lotus broke after three laps! Red Bull have led both sessions today with Vettel quickest in the morning and Webber this afternoon. Times are all over the place with Ferrari struggling in the morning and second fastest in the afternoon. Teams working out the new layout. Eddie Oliver, you mentioned the bike times were slower than the simulation, can you tell us how much? It would be interesting to know the prediction for the F1 cars. Drivers not saying too much about the new section, mainly worried about the high curbs at the Maggotts/Becketts complex and are asking for them to be removed. I can understand why being a really high speed corner, and that style of curb is used for slow chicanes. Why would you put those in and why did the FIA OK them? Nice quote in one report that Rosberg was half a second quicker than his "elderly" team mate!

Bernie is calling for tire with a maximum life of 100km so the cars have to stop twice and spice up the show. You know my thoughts on that sort of idea, a circus is entertaining but that is not what we are running here. Seems that Bernie did not keep his mates at the FIA informed of the deal in Austin, with both Jean Todt and Nick Craw, head of ACCUS, and I know no one knows what that is but look it up, reported as saying they knew nothing and still do not. Todt is saying it is a "project," i.e. not yet real. This all comes from an article in the Austin Business Journal, seems they are still sceptical of the whole deal. Tavo Hellmund is reported off in South Africa, at the World Cup or raising money? Tilke say they will have a track layout in September, but no one knows where the site is yet.

Jonathon Summerton seems to have become the spokesperson for Cypher, the latest would be US F1 team. Jonathon tells us there is a lot going on and he is learning a lot from these ex F1 guys. Hard to see how they are keeping this so secret, surely someone out there knows who these guys are? Tony Dowe, you always know everthing.

Sir Frank Williams is handing over the CEO role at Williams to Adam Parr, but will remain the Team Principal and front up at the shop every day. Amazing man, it would be great to see Williams bounce back. Not that they are doing bad at the moment, but we remember the glory days and their innovations.

Over at the Rally of Bulgaria there are two headlines almost side by side, have to laugh, "Raikkonen for a podium," "Raikkonen crashes and stops special stage." Just about sums up Kimi's year. I hope you are enjoying it Kimi.