Bob Barnard Track Engineering

I commented the other day that if Boullier wanted Grosjean in F1 then he should give him a seat at his team, so what does he do? He hires Fauzy, a 28 year old Malaysian who has shown nothing in his previous trip to F1. Must be the long arm of Proton the Malaysian car maker backing Lotus cars, and they need some backing. Joe Saward in his blog today presented their latest earnings (losses) figures and the need for $64 in finance with a $700m loan being sought. These are the guys who intend taking over the world?  The naming court case is due to start Monday, so they had better get talking if they want to settle this as Bahar says.

While the Canadians are expressing concern over the Lotus fag packet livery Marlboro confirms it will continue to sponsor Ferrari and Ducati. How does that work? Are the Canadians color blind. Do they not sell Marlboro in Canada so it's OK? More power to Marlboro, if it is legal to sell them then it should be legal to advertise, or is the tax too convenient? I am no fan of smoking, in fact if cigarettes were banned it would suit me just fine, but I have been on the receiving end of this hypocrisy.

Qatar seems to be quietly taking over motorsport, along with some of its Gulf friends. Qatar Holdings LLC. is buying more of Porsche, and strengthening links with Williams. Joe again believes that this is a move to bring in VW-Porsche to F1, but that was countered by Porsche saying today that Le Mans is more interesting, affordable and a lower risk of failure than F1. I am old enough to remember the last time Porsche ran in F1, and it was not pretty.

The Mayor of Rome now says he wants the Olympics in 2020 rather than the F1 race, so I guess that is over. Can my Italian friends keep an eye on Flammini's land deal?

A1GP is to be resurrected it seems as A10 World Series, whatever that is. Never quite understood what A1GP was about except losing bucket loads of money. This has to rely on a big series sponsor and the promoters paying lots of money to have a race, without any "name" drivers, at least none that the general punter would know, and in spec cars. "The ethos is completely different in terms of the business model." a spokesman for A10GP said. It had better be. The series will run in the off season in non-European countries, so perhaps these racing starved people will not care who is driving? Now I know there are a bunch of Englishmen who just love "Our Jens," but I have never bought in to the jingoistic "our nation is better than yours" concept in motor racing. I, and I would believe most fans, like drivers and cars from wherever. Drivers I admire because of their ability and character, not nationality, and cars for their engineering and style. I can admire both the Peugeot and Audi equally at a Le Mans race without being French or German, and in the case of A1(0)GP we do not even have the difference in nationality of the cars, other than the color, and who really cares about that? We already have the Superleague based on soccer teams, which probably has more chance of motivating followers, although despite the success of my soccer team's car, Tottenham, I personally am unlikely to walk across the street to watch it. Good luck.

I loved yesterday"s quote from Lotus Renault designer James Allison who said the design of this year's car "would be on the brave end of brave." That's what we want to see, and Chapman would be proud. Or was it Lotus drivers who were the brave ones?

Tires are in the news today with Pirelli saying their tire will mean two or three stops during a GP. Hardly green is it, and I am not convinced it is good for the show, we are back to sprint races. Some of the best races last year were when someone made their tires last much longer than the opposition thought. In fact you could argue Ferrari lost the Championship because they did not expect Vettel et al's tires to last. We know Button can extend the life, and didn't Webber win in Hungary by making the softs last and Vettel ran the whole race in Italy to finish fourth. Now we are back to "wait for the pit stop" to overtake.

Hankook have been announced as the official tire of DTM. It is not long ago that the idea of a South Korean tire manufacturer supplying race tires to the DTM would have been laughable, but not anymore. I am actually having Hankook fitted to my street car, before hearing of the DTM deal. The reports from other users are great and the price is certainly right. Falken have been running a car in GT2 in ALMS and are stepping up with Derek Walker taking over the team for 2011. They put in some good performances last year that tended to fade away as the race progressed, so it will be interesting to see what they learned and what Walker can do. All adds to the interest of the GT2 class.

Well we are nearly at the end of the winter wait, with the first F1 test due in 15 days. Not that the tests are always a good indication, but it will be great to have some action on track again. The Rolex is due to run the weekend before that, so we can get our sportscar fix starting in just over a week. The "Lotus" court action is due to start next Monday, but this is not the sort of action I think we wanted to see. Can't Bernie bang their heads together?

It seems the Tobacco Police in Canada are not happy with the new (old) Lotus Renault paint job. JPS fags are still sold in Canada, so any likeness to a cigarette packet is against the law. This is just the sort of nonsense I went through at Phillip Island twenty years ago. I doubt anyone else would have noticed if they had not raised it, and since when has a driver been used to promote smoking? What other color schemes are suggestive of cigarette packets? Are they to be banned too? This is just what the Victorian Government wanted, a "white out."  But I suppose there is a white fag packet somewhere in the world.

Bernie is doing his bit to alleviate the GFC and restore the property market in London by spending 101 million pounds for two houses, one for each of his daughters. What must it be like to have that sort of money? Not that I begrudge him one dollar, he grew up not far from me in London and earned every one. There are many great lessons from Bernie's life we could all learn. Like Bill Gates, it is not inventing the product, it is knowing its potential and how to exploit it that is the genius.

We heard a few days ago about the HPD LMP1 car, and the rejigged LMP2, but now David Brabham is saying he is looking for a ride as the Highcroft team of Duncan Dayton is not a certainty to compete in ALMS. So who is going to run an HPD LMP1?

Alonso and Massa made some comments about to many buttons on the steering wheel this year.Alonso said "we are losing focus on the driving," and Massa " we have so many things to do...but we still have to drive the car." Thankfully. I'm still confused about where and when the movable rear wing can be used by the driver. Anthony Davidson said at the Autosport Show "You are pretty much going to be able to use it wherever you want [in practice and qualifying] and it is going to gain you anything up to 15km/h on the straights - so there is going to be a huge discrepancy of speed." But as I have read the rules it will only function when the car following is one second behind, so is it only the car following? Not much point if both can do it. And is this only in the race and it can be used when you like for the rest of the weekend as Ant suggests? Then I saw a piece that said there will be a predetermined point at the end of the main straight where a signal from Race Control will allow it to be used, which lead to a comment that you do not want to be leading going into the last lap. The comment also said this would lead to some strange strategies. Now this is nothing new, there are several tracks where that is the case anyway, Monza and Phillip Island to name two, but can anyone provide a comment to explain how this is going to really work, preferably before the season starts?

Does anyone else think Mr. Lorenzo needs some better advice on his self promotion? It is one thing to try and be a bit zany for the fans, and quite another to look totally wacko. There is no question he can ride the bike, he should let that do the talking. Nothing like this happened in the old days, riders just did normal stuff like putting rental cars in swimming pools. Rossi in the meantime did not seem to be having too many problems with that shoulder at Wroom.

It seems a day for comings and goings or coming back. Eric Boullier tells how he "shook off the ghost of Briatore," but wants Grosjean back in F1. Then you should have hired him I would have thought? Mr. Chung wants back in at KAVO and is going to sue, and Pat Symonds wants back in and is looking for a job. Massa is hoping the Pirelli's will save his seat at Ferrari, while Alonso announced he has a new press secretary, Roberta Vallorosi, who has worked for Rossi apparently.

Talking of comings and goings, the Professional Circuit Forum that was to be held in LA this April will now be staged in November on the east coast and will include a trade expo. The organizers are making the change to have one Forum a year and here in the US at a location to be determined, but south rather than north at that time of year.

Even if the 2013 engines do not make a lot of noise the decision to go to a four cylinder turbo certainly is. Bernie is the latest one to chime in on the possible lack of an F1 sound and how that would hurt the sport. It's OK though because Jean Todt has said it will be, " the smaller engine is very important to the manufacturer."  Number one it should be what is important to the fans, without them there is no F1, and since when is the FIA a department of the MIA, the Motor Industry Association? It is there to promote and regulate the sport, it is time to bring FISA back to look after it. Who are these manufacturers? The ones who left F1 or have never been in it? We currently have Ferrari, who yes are owned by Fiat who make a lot of 1.6 lite engines, but Ferrari are the most vehement in their opposition. Then there is Mercedes who probably make a small engine but that is hardly their brand image, and Renault who does build small engines, but are in the process of downsizing their interest to an engine supplier. Cosworth will build whatever someone will pay for and don't care about road cars. So who are these manufacturers? VW? Or maybe Tony Fernandes' Toyotas and Hyundais? Todt clearly has an agenda, it would be nice if he let us in on it, or better yet ask us if that's what we want to watch. He should look over the wall to his mates at the FIM and see what the manufacturers have done to that sport.

Now we have Mallorca wanting an F1 GP, presumably Valencia's. If Valencia is having trouble filling seats then why would Mallorca, an island, do any better? I can hardly imagine it needs promoting as a tourist destination. Still Bernie says to go ahead with their plans, he just loves to have promoters waiting so he can squeeze the existing ones. His mate Phillipe Gurdjian is involved, the guy who planned that white elephant at Abu Dhabi.

Looks like Chris Dyer is the scapegoat for the Ferrari screw up at Abu Dhabi, despite years of great calls he is to be punished for one bad one. As someone asked about me once, "do you think he forgot how to do it?" Maybe time and circumstance played a big part.

There are signs that McLaren might be dropping the silver paint job now Mercedes are not a big part of their team other than an engine supplier. So, what will the colors be? I think I mentioned a great article about watching paint dry, about McLaren and how they paint the cars. Still worth a read. http://en.espnf1.com/mclaren/motorsport/story/27211.html?wrapperetype=print

Must be nearly New Year as the news has died down to a murmur. Just to give us hope, like the first flower poking through the snow, comes the news that the 2011 Ferrari monocoque has passed the crash test, so the new season must be getting close. The Rolex 24 hr is less than a month away, so we just have to hang in there. The Dakar starts Saturday, so there is another glimmer to maintain the faith. It's sad isn't it, we are just motorsport junkies. In the "good old days" we would have had the Tasman Series to keep us going through the dark days of winter.

At least I have a new track to keep my brain occupied, and it is a challenge. It is the old No Problems Raceway which was essentially a drag strip, which is now the "Circuit Grand Bayou" in Louisiana. So to wrap a track around the strip on a flat, narrow, long site and make it safe and fun. I am in mind to do something like the straights either side of the main stand in Malaysia, but still in full 'dream' mode, let it come.

Down to the last couple of chapters on the book, up to Daytona 2004, and 2011 could be busy so I need to finish it off.

Interesting to read that Team Lotus, or whoever they are, Mike Gascoyne's team, are building a wind tunnel. This is serious stuff and shows the level of commitment that Tony Fernandes is making to bring this team up to par with the big guys. I look forward to seeing the 2011 car with Renault power and Red Bull power train getting amongst the second half of the top teams. They have the drivers to do it.