Bob Barnard Track Engineering

Now before you all write and tell me that is old news, this is the next generation. Wayne's two sons, Luca and Remy. This was their first time at a track where their World Champion father won the first Australian MotoGP back in '89, and Luca won one race in the rain and finished second in four others. Nice going. Remy had a bit more torrid time of it but still managed two seconds, two thirds and a fifth. Great future for these two I think, but Dad needs to lift his game as a mechanic. Still, Wayne did beat them when they took time out to go kart racing. The boys loved the Island, who wouldn't, and cannot wait to go back.

Over in Italy at Monza, another great track, the cream rose to the top with Ricciardo leading Alexander Rossi home in the second race. I loved the teams explanation why there were "loose bolts," apparently not just one but all of them. The rule only says "tight," but not how tight. Classic motor racing, if you do not define it with a torque value how tight is tight? He did not win the argument though.

A lot is being made about News Corp not being allowed to buy F1 because it will have a conflict of interest, being a media company. How short the memories are. How did all this get started? When Bernie decided to make a bunch of money and sell it to the Kirsch Media Group out of Germany. That's right, the Kirsch MEDIA Group. So what has changed in the last twenty years? If it was good enough then why not for Rupert and Co? I'm sure Rupert can put in place enough cut-outs, like Bernie and the boys have now, to put a fire wall between the company owning F1 and Sky. And why are they only carrying on about Sky? What about Fox and Speed in the US, and all the other stations he owns. We pay for Speed via the cable here in the US, so define "free to air."

Casey won at Le Mans, no surprise there, but Rossi third? That was largely thanks to Simoncelli and Pedrosa coming together and Lorenzo having a bad day, but the Ducati seems to be coming good. The Simoncelli incident earned him a ride through penalty, which has sparked a lot of debate on-line as to who was at fault here. I have not seen anything but the stills, and it does look like Simo did not leave him much room, unlike what we saw at Turkey last week, and he is making a habit of this and making himself very unpopular with his fellow riders. The Tech3 boys did not manage to repeat their qualifying form, and Spies was down in sixth. Marquez finally learned how to keep a four stroke upright and won his first Moto2 race, so look out everyone else if he repeats his form from the 125's.

Rockenfeller won his first DTM race, and about time. It is hard to believe that with all else he has won he has had to wait this long for a good car. Let's hope Grand-Am can bring this series here in 2013. Talking of Grand-Am the race from Virginia started with an hour behind the pace car for rain. Someone finally beat Ganassi and Co, but given how easily Pruit caught the lead car on the last lap I wonder if that was not a set up to try and make the series more interesting. $25,000 reward was posted by Grand-Am for anyone beating Ganassi which received more press than anything else they have done.

Kevin Magnessun won the third F3 race of the weekend at Snetterton after finishing ninth in the second "reverse grid" race with fastest lap of the race.

Bernie made a surprise visit to the reopening of the Austrian track owned by Red Bull magnate, Mateschitz, and told him that even though "Didi" does not want an F1 race, he should have one. Didi probably knows what it will cost him.

It's a sad day when your team boss tells you that you should not be trying to overtake on the first lap and not race your team mate. That's what Martin Whitmarsh is telling Lewis Hamilton after Turkey. "We want Lewis to attack but sometimes it does not pay off," Whitmarsh said. "If you look at Lewis's race pace it was OK later in the race but the tyres are so delicate and if you scrap with others including your own team-mate you will damage your tyres. In a race that critical you can't do that." So what is he supposed to do, just run around waiting for others tires to go off, or go back to waiting till the pit stops as we had in the refuelling days? I did not see that Button's supposed tire conservation mode worked as he finished behind his team mate even though he made one stop less. F1 is about racing, and it's a sad day when that is no longer the case, unless you are Red Bull.

A lot is being made of the amount of "overtaking" now due to the tires and DRS, and KERS. Those of us who now think this has reached a ridiculous situation where it is not overtaking but "passing," and yes there is a difference, are being told to shut up and enjoy it. I for one subscribe to the Max Mosley school, and I can enjoy one overtaking manoeuvre a year if it is Hakkinen on Schumacher at Spa. We do not have to worry about team orders any more, overtaking your team mate is easy.

Not only are we to have a small turbo engine in 2013, we are now to have a spec chassis it seems with drag and downforce targets set. The option to go back to ground effects has been dropped by the teams as unworkable when trying to meet these targets, I presume meaning there would be less drag and more downforce than allowed. I know Ferrari say we should get away from too much reliance on aero, but spec racing?

Much continues to be made of Turn Eight in Turkey, and a great corner it is, but how much better if it were not to have the "four apexes?" They are pinch points that turn it into a one line race track, especially when the marbles build up. Yes it is quick and we do not see much overtaking on such quick corners, but if the track actually paralleled the race line there would be room for someone with some large attachments to try. On Sunday I think I saw one time where a driver started to put his nose under the car in front, and then had to back off. Think of the Spoon Curve at Suzuka, or the Parabolica at Monza.

The Judge in the Lotus case must be having a hard time coming up with a decision. It was originally late March and it is now suggested that it will be later this month.

In a similar fashion the Bahrain on again/off again decision is being allowed to fester. There is a good reason things have "settled down," and it is not because the problems have gone away. As we saw in Northern Ireland you can suppress opposition, but it does not go away, especially when it is the majority being suppressed.

I think I have read every possible argument why News Corp cannot buy F1, and what they are attempting to do by saying they want to. We have the FIA saying they have to agree, the EC won't allow it says Bernie and a bunch of scribes, and now even Max Mosley is against it. Well that seals it if Max won't allow it because Rupert had the guts to show Max's little hobby in his rag. I may be wrong, but when so many people are saying something cannot be done, then it seems likely it will. "Me thinks they protesteth too much." If Murdoch does not want to buy F1 he must be having a good laugh at all these people beating themselves into a lather.

I was resigned to listening to the Spa 6 hour race this morning on Radio Le Mans, but thanks to Greg Sarni and his buddy I was told where to find a live stream of the race. It was on a web site I had not heard of, no surprise there, and I think it was a German TV feed, so listened to John Hindhaugh and his mates anyway. It is an amazing lack of vision on the part of TV stations in the US that races such as Spa, with the best cars in the world competing, on I think the best track, are not given any coverage whatsoever. We all know SPEED has gone the way of pandering to the lowest common denominator, i.e. NASCAR fan, but what about espn3.com who are streaming the ALMS series, and just about any sporting event on earth? Versus thinks it is a sports channel, and is there no one out there who can go back to where SPEED started and launch a channel for race fans? I know someone will say there is not an audience for it, but how did the original SPEED gather enough audience to make Fox want to buy it?

It makes no sense to me for the whole endurance race series not to be shown. It would be like showing one F1 race a season. Or one football match. How are you going to build or keep a fan base if you are not showing the whole series? Is SPEED covering Le Mans this year does anyone know?

More to the point this situation shows a complete lack of vision by the ALMS management. If your two key races that you promote, Sebring and Petit, are rounds of the Intercontinental Cup, the unofficial world sportscar championship, why on earth would you not do a deal for coverage of the other races in that series? You wonder why sports car racing is dying in the US. If the FI Teams think the series owner needs to do more to promote it, come and look at what is not happening here!

Peugeot won the Spa race by the way, a reverse of last year at Le Mans where they were fast and fragile, and Audi not quite as fast but luckier and reliable. Good race right through all the classes and down to the wire in most. Ferrari won the GT battle but BMW kept them honest, with Porsche in trouble. The winning Peugeot also won the "green challenge." And why not? As I have been saying, there is no need for another trophy, racing is about maximizing efficiency, so the winning car should by definition be the most efficient, especially if it is a diesel. Let's stop this pandering to the greenies and PC, or should I say BS.

Biaggi wrapped up pole at Monza with Checa still way off the pace. Troy Corser found some pace, or enthusiasm, to put himself on the front row, so tomorrow should be interesting.

Turkey threw up few surprises. I was not surprised the Red Bulls did not go out again in the final Q3 session. It was worth the very small risk one or two guys were going to pip them for the front row to have an extra set of tires. Not sure that this is F1, but it is today's reality. Rosberg followed up his China performance with third on the grid and the Mercedes crew are getting on top of the car set up. Williams lifted their game, but not soon enough to save Sam Michael and co, but Sam says he already has something lined up. Virgin's supposed corner turning upgrade left Glock behind the HRT! Nice going Nick. Lotus are clawing their way closer to getting out of Q1, and it will be fun to watch Kobayashi doing a "Webber" from the back tomorrow. He is a demon overtaker anyway, so watch your mirrors boys.

Three series enjoying Friday practice with interesting results. In Turkey the weather spoiled the morning, especially for Vettel who stuck it into the wall in a big way and could not take part in the afternoon session. Neither McLarens bothered in the morning, they must expect a dry race, or perhaps they are expecting a wet one and wanted to save their wet tires as Pirelli are concerned that not enough sets of wets have been provided for a complete wet weekend. Button finally topped the times with the McLarens and Mercedes swapping fast times, yes even Michael. Webber apparently did not try for a fast time so the Red Bulls were for once missing in action. Alonso is down in 11th, with both Massa and Petrov faster than their team leaders. Lotus were split either side of the Sauber of Kobayashi, while the corner Virgin turned must have been a wrong turn as they had trouble beating the HRT's.

Meanwhile at Spa it was dry, fancy that, and the Audis continued to set the pace, and the closest petrol car still nearly 5 secs off their fast time. Some big accidents seen here so far, with Peugeot doing an overnight rebuild and the RML car being withdrawn. In the GT class Porsche managed to get one car amongst the Ferraris, but your money must be on the new 458 in this class. Still in 1000km around here anything can happen, even rain!

The Superbikes are at Monza and Checa is in an uncustomary mid field position. Leon Haslam leads the way on the BMW from Mad Max Biaggi. Let's see what Saturday brings for all these series.

Elsewhere the Authorities have frozen Mr. Gribkowsky's money so it looks like he is going to trial. Should make interesting theater. Bernie is going to have fights on two fronts it seems. There are now reports that News Corp is also going to be at the Stuttgart meeting. It appears that this meeting surprised the other teams and is making them "nervous." And we thought politics was dead in F1.

The buy out of CVC continues to be the main story with some interesting side bars. The timing of these cannot be a coincidence. Ferrari has come out with a statement that "Ferrari believes that big decisions need to be made soon about the future direction of Formula 1 - as it suggested more needs to be invested by its chiefs to promote the sport." They say that they are impartial on ownership, but if CVC stays then they must invest in promoting the sport. Clearly the teams think that News Corp with their media muscle will do a better job on this score, and I have first hand experience of what they can do when they worked with me on promoting the Australian Motorcycle GP back in '89. Domenicali has made a number of statements in the past few days, continuing the push about F1 being too dominated by aerodynamics and not about engines, which is inversely proportional to the road car business. There are reports that "teams are indeed setting out plans for simple and stable rules post 2012, the revival of key European venues, reduced ticket prices and the modernizing of media platforms for the younger audience." Admirable goals for true enthusiasts I would think.

There are some clear messages being coordinated here, more promotion, stable rules with more emphasis on other components of the car, keeping the current engine, and reviewing where they are racing. There is a meeting scheduled in Stuttgart of Ferrari, McLaren, Mercedes and Red Bull to discuss the buy-out, and it is suggested to join it. And at last an un-named team boss has come out and said what I have been saying, KERS as it is used now, is not "green." Only used for acceleration, increases the car's weight so uses more fuel, and then you have to dispose of the batteries. Someone had to say it. KERS is like the DRS, there to spice up the show, so stop pretending it's green. Capturing wasted energy is a worthwhile objective, but not like this.

Meanwhile, there is some real racing going on at Spa with the Audi fastest on the first day. It is all very close among the diesels, but the best petrol car, the Rebellion Toyota is 5 secs off the pace. In the GT class it is all Ferrari.

Virgin says it hopes to "turn the corner" in Turkey. I hope so, there are lot of them.