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?

Sung by Dean Martin originally, but by Bernie today. He has written to the Mayor of Rome to tell him there should only be one F1 race in each country. Never mind Spain has two, don't bother me with details, and Mallorca is an Island like Singapore. So given the Mayor's commitment that he would not push Rome if it means Monza losing the race, it's arrivederci. I wonder if Flammini's  little city redevelopment scheme will go the same way?

There is a curious piece from Marussia Virgin today telling us they have doubled the computing power of their CFD, and "With the new CFD facility due for completion in the next few weeks, Wirth believes his team will be unmatched in terms of how much it uses computer simulation to design its 2011 car." With the first test a couple of weeks away I would have thought that it is a bit late to be using this new simulation power to design the 2011 car?

Ian Gow is all up beat about the British Touring Cars for 2011 with the inception of their version of the "Car of Tomorrow," the NGTC, i.e. next generation. The cars will be better looking, better looking all the same, and "We are not trying to make a race car out of a production car, it is a proper race car underneath," Oh good, it just looks like a Toyota Corolla on the outside. We will put on our X-Ray glasses to see it is a real racing car underneath. More spec racing is what this is about, and he should ask NASCAR how the CoT worked for them. Now I am not saying people will not pay to see a bunch of biffing and barging, BTCC is good fun and good TV, so maybe I'm just an old fashioned purist. I can see DTM taking over the world.

According to Auto Motor und Sport in Germany only Ferrari, Red Bull, McLaren and Mercedes have their finances in place for this and future years. That leaves eight teams they see as struggling to survive, and given the numbers for those they are not in danger of worrying the RRA anytime soon.

Not many compliments going around about the Rossi/Ducati color scheme. Rhubarb and custard seems to be the theme.

Alonso says he is most afraid of Michael in 2011. "There will be five world champions on the track and the most dangerous champion for me is always Michael." After Michael's move on Rubens last year I'm not surprised.

Not me, Joe Saward. Joe has decided that as there is so little going on he may as well stop blogging for a couple of weeks. Well I am not stopping except for Christmas and New Year, but excuse me if the news is slim to none.

There are still important items like Petrov being confirmed at Renault, can't quite get used to Lotus Renault yet. That's a good move, and let's look forward to a really competitive car again from them, Kubica certainly deserves it.

It seems the residents in the area where the Rome F1 street race is supposed to be staged are not very happy with the prospect. A very good Italian friend of mine suggests there is more to this story than an F1 race, in fact it has little to do with an F1 race, so let's see how this plays out. Mr. Flammini is a close relation to Machiavelli.

The ACO has released next year's Technical Regulations with the all important "performance leveling" clause that lets them adjust the weight, restrictor size etc to keep the petrol cars within 2% of the times of the diesel cars. Now I know us fans want to see close racing, but this smacks of going down a spec racer path. Sports cars are seen as the last bastion of technical innovation now F1 is so restricted, and I would say many of its fans do not want this stifled. The promotion of new technologies is also the much sought after "green" racing, so why penalize Peugeot and Audi for introducing the diesels ? Let's encourage the petrol cars to improve. What's to stop the diesels from sandbagging in the early races to make sure they stay within two seconds, or just take their bat and ball home if they are not winning? They have invested a lot of money to get to this point, much more than Aston or the other petrol cars I would suggest. When Ford GTs and Ferraris were slugging it out in the sixties did anyone suggest it was unfair on the others? No we just enjoyed the fight. And when the Porsche 956 and 962 were the only car to have, did we complain? Le Mans is always about different classes of cars competing on the same track, so what is wrong with the diesel and petrol classes?

There is also the gentleman racer bit in the LMP2 class and two level GT class. OK to have two levels there I note. Gentlemen racers, i.e. amateurs, usually rich amateurs, have been part of Le Mans forever, think back to the "Bentley Boys." They pay for the cars that pros drive, and make for an interesting strategy mix. Now there are probably some that should not be out there, and that is why there are license standards. Now when I read the reported rules for GT Pro it says that the class is unrestricted whereas the Amateur class must have one gentleman driver and a year old car. So does unrestricted mean just that, it can also be a one year old car and a gentleman, or does it mean three pro drivers and a new car, and who is paying for it? And oh yes, we have performance leveling there as well. Why? It has been the closest fought class for many years now between makes, what do they think will change?

Ducati are concerned with Rossi's potential fitness problems during the testing for next season following his shoulder injury. The interview with the team principal seemed very weird to me, suggesting they would limit his miles on the machine. Surely that is the best way to improve his fitness?

Why is Max Mosely getting air time lately? First there were the rumors of a coup at the FIA to bring Max back. Pretty poor security if you really are planning a coup? Then there's Bernie on his eightieth birthday singing Max's praises and saying it would be good to have him back and how he is sure the teams would not mind. Really? Now here is Max saying that "He (Todt) must be given a chance to get on and run it in his own particular way." Well why shouldn't he, he was elected after all. It sort of smacks of "give him enough rope," or Todt only has a certain amount of time to do something before we take over again. Why should Max even comment? All very strange. I would have thought after the prostitute business he would want to keep his head down in the bunker.

It seems the rain does not only fall on the plain in Spain, it rains on its way there in Portugal. Usual suspects top first practice, which was actually the second as the first was canceled. Nicky Hayden ahead of Stoner, let's see if he can keep that up after his good run at PI. Lorenzo seems to want to show his rightful ownership of the title, so let's look forward to a good race.

Rumors of a Bulgarian F1 race in 2012 have resurfaced. The head of the country's motorsport body, Bogdan Nikolov says that the contract could be signed next month, and that the circuit would host both F1 and MotoGP"s. Now a Bogdan from Bulgaria was entered for one of my MotoGP's, I remember as we were trying to find a flag and anthem should he make the podium, but he was a no-show. Is this the same guy, or is Bogdan a Bulgarian "Joe" or some other common name? There are rumors that Rome may not be such a done deal, only a letter of intent which is good to the end of the year. Still, how is Bernie going to squeeze all these races in. He says that Europe is finished economically and that is why he is looking east, but I never knew Bulgaria had an economy, and isn't Russia in Europe? And Italy last time I looked and we possibly have two races there. We have two in Spain, so it cannot be all bad.

Well we now have the design for the Austin F1 track, and I think it is everything we feared. They say it will be a classic track, and it is, classic Tilke. How many corners can we fit in? Over 20 is the answer.

In other bad news, Cycle News has ceased publication, the only weekly motorcycle magazine here in the US. When I came over to run the USGP for Kenny in '93 I was amazed at the lead time for the other monthly's, we could barely run a couple of ads for a race nine months away. Victim of the internet or is there something else going on here?

Rome is the latest place that says it is going to run an F1 GP in 2012. Is anyone keeping track of how many races there will have to be in 2012 to accommodate all these? Or who is going to lose their race is probably the better question. Spa? One thing is for sure, Bernie has plenty of options for squeezing more money out of, Russia, India, Qatar, Bulgaria, Rome and Austin. We won't have a race at a track we recognize soon, or worse, one that we want to watch.

On the home front I moved house over the weekend, not a lot of fun even though we have done it often. Still sorting out the mess. Looks as if the Grand Bayou track in Louisiana is ready to move on a redesign, and still having contacts with overseas potential circuits. Sol Real has been going through some introspection and rethink on the site, but we are about through that. Basic layout will not change as the lots here are all based around a section, one square mile. So I can now get into the detail of the layout and look at how to build in some elevation without moving a million cubic yards of dirt! Good presentation again last evening and another likely founder. Once we have the legal documents finalized we can move on closing some deals.