Bob Barnard Track Engineering

Great live streaming pictures and sound from SPEEDTV.com this morning. Wish I could watch all the F1 like this, no ads, no idiot commentary, maybe ALMS has something here. No picture break up or lock up, and the quality was better than cable. Two interesting sessions today with some big accidents, two at the chicane after the tunnel. Rosberg lost the back end under braking and took off over the speed bumps put into the center of the chicane, presumably installed to slow cars down that short cut it. Thankfully these were removed before qualifying as they actually only make it worse, as demonstrated . I for one did not expect to see Rosberg back out in quali, not that he was hurt, he missed the center island between the track and the run-off, but the car had substantial damage. Great job by the Mercedes team to have him not only back out but competitive. Perez was not so lucky in Q3, hitting the island side on, and thankfully he did, a head on would probably have him under the TECPRO barrier. The jury is still out on these compared to tires, and they cost many times more. For me they are too light, as we have seen already cars go under them. Perez will miss tomorrow's race but fortunately his injuries are relatively minor.

Unlike the two HRT cars who despite not turning a wheel in qualifying have been given the OK to race, and they did not even have to buy a starting spot! The Stewards in an unfathomable piece of generosity will let them race, despite being 6-7 seconds off the pace in practice. Now on another track that may be OK, but around here there is no place for sentiment, and no room to overtake. Let us hope that decision does not turn around and bite someone.

Perez's accident showed the absolute necessity to get out early and bank a lap in these short sessions. McLaren failed Lewis and now he is stuck down in seventh despite being fastest in Q2. As I suspected, no one tried to save tires, starting position is everything here. It will be interesting to see what McLaren's pit strategy will be to try and leapfrog Lewis up the field.

I commented the other day on the efficiency of the Monaco track team in repairing the asphalt, and it was in evidence again today. Most of these incidents would have taken lesser crews a long time to clean up, and in some cases may not have repaired in time to finish a session. Indy, NASCAR et al need to go there and see how they do it. As Michael Schumacher was crashing Thursday at Ste-Devote you could see the crane operator start up. Having said that the "crest" coming out of the tunnel seems to have contributed to a few accidents this weekend and needs addressing. Given their usual rapid response it is surprising it was not planed smoother during yesterday's quiet day.

In other news it seems the Lotus sponsored Renault team is in a spot of financial trouble. The Marussia money is not flowing and since Kubica's accident interest from new sponsors has all but disappeared. The Geni Capital deal was a novel one for starters, and Lotus Cars is another work in progress. maybe Tony Fernandes just needs to wait this out. Story is Renault is owed big time for engines and may be looking elsewhere for 2012, like Williams.

I did miss a race from my list yesterday. The World of Outlaws Sprint Cars were at Charlotte last night, but got rained out anyway. Rescheduled for tonight, but will only be live streamed. Kimi qualified 15th for the Nationwide race! Outqualified not only his mentor Kyle Busch but his car owner Joe Nemechek! Need to watch that tonight.

Ferrari have now expressed their concern at extending the calendar to accommodate Bahrain. Has no one the guts to come out and say they will not go? I for one will not watch it if it is reinstated and encourage others to do the same. That is the only message Bernie and his cohorts will understand. This would be almost the last straw for me and I hope many others about what has become of our sport.

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.

Unusually for Melbourne the weather has been the same for the last three days, cool and grey, if not downright cold for late summer. It did not slow Vettel down though and we must hope he cannot repeat this in the race or it will be him and daylight. Lewis vows to take the race to him, but he needs to find something extra to do that, but who knows what role the tires are going to have on race day. McLaren really performed a minor miracle to put themselves second and fourth, splitting the Red Bulls, with poor old Mark Webber wondering how his team mate can be that much quicker.

Lots of drivers reported KERS problems during practice, and the strangest thing is the report that Vettel did not use it, despite being under last years pole time. So much for slowing the cars down, but I guess they have the DRS, or movable wing, to use everywhere during qualifying. Rumor has it that Red Bull have a very small and light KERS system that is charged in the garage and only used during the start launch. Are they that confident that as long as they are not jumped at the start they are so fast they can stay in front? If the rumor is true obviously they are, but you have to ask why carry any extra weight and added cost and complication for just the start?

Heidfeld in the Renault is one of those that said his missing Q2 was down to no KERS and being balked by traffic, but given the testing form that is really surprising, especially as his young team mate is sixth just behind Alonso in the Ferrari who looked to be driving the wheels of it to even be there. Massa had an awful qualifying and you have to wonder is this the end? His head has obviously been messed with by Alonso and the team and despite all Rob Smedley's encouragement he has just lost it, spinning on his last run as he exited the pits, even Chandook made it to Turn Three.

Thank goodness the HRT cars have been excluded under the 107% rule. I don't care how hard the mechanics worked to get two cars out there, they are slower than GP2 cars and do not deserve to be there. At ten or eleven seconds a lap slower than Vettel they would be lapped every eight laps, and the closing speed is frightening. Colin Kolles says that they will be "even better" in Malaysia. Hard to see how they could be much worse. Can you imagine the cost of transporting the cars and team around the world, and for what?

Virgin and Lotus just snuck in but are six seconds off Vettel's pace which for Lotus must be a huge disappointment. As my Wife said, perhaps they need to concentrate on the car and not court cases over names. The midfield will be tight with a second covering eighth to seventeenth. Perez disappointed in Q2 as he has been quick all weekend, but Kobayashi put his Sauber in ninth with a display of uncontrolled aggression that had you wondering if he could keep it off the wall.

In all an interesting session, and Mercedes are expecting a better showing in the race with Michael missing out on Q3 and out qualified by Rosberg yet again.

Elsewhere Checa took WSBK pole again from Leon Haslam. It's time the BMW had some reward for their investment so this may be their best chance with Leon on home soil and Checa not having the best record at Donnington.

Well done Montoya for taking pole at Fontana, let's see if he can convert that into a speedway win. Congratulations to the Marc VDS squad for winning the first race of the FIA GT1 championship in the Ford GT. Always had a soft spot for that car from the GT40 days. Will Power is leading practice at St Petersburg Indycar race, but ask me if I care. Champion Franchitti is last, but you cannot imagine he is going to stay there.

So the first day of the 2011 season has come and gone and what did we learn? The usual suspects are at the top of the time sheet, surprisingly perhaps in the shape of McLaren. They obviously did something special in the second practice as they found around two seconds. It is still a lot like testing, we won't really know I fear until the race who has the best race set up. The tires did not seem to give up as quickly as I expected, with drivers setting fast times after three laps on them. There is still an unpredictability about what to expect every time you go out on a new set, and the Stewards authorised the use of additional tires after there were problems with mounting some. Does not sound like good quality control, more like a lottery.

Chandook said he was glad to be back in F1, all 50 seconds of it. That's how far he got in the Lotus, Turn Three to be exact before plonking it against the inside wall courtesy of a heavy right foot, cold tires and damp track. Lotus must have regretted that decision. They are strangely off the pace they showed in testing where it seemed they had dragged themselves to within two or so seconds of the fast guys, but here they are back where they were last season. Gascoyne says there is a lot more left. Let's hope so, they are barely in front of the 107% rule.

Not so lucky are Virgin who are still 6 seconds adrift, only faster than HRT because that mobile, sorry bad choice, embarrasment only managed one lap with one car right at the end of the second practice. They are due an "early bath" as they say in soccer, barring a miracle. Aussies love a battler, but this is way beyond that now.

The good news for McLaren is not so much the pace they are now showing, it is the reliability that was sorely missing in testing. All the top runners looked good in that respect, and Mercedes seem to have resolved their problems. Rosberg looked like setting the morning's fastest time on a couple of laps, only to run wide and lose time, and Michael is sixth fastest on the day. Massa seems to be struggling, and Alonso did not appear until very late in the morning session for some reason, but was right on the pace immediately, impressive. Renault were strangely off the pace they threatened in testing, but new boy Perez  was an impressive eighth, a second faster than his more experienced team mate.

Adrian Newey says he is confident that they are still up to half a second faster than the pack, and if anyone knows he does. Still tires are going to play a part. Vettel had a large chunk out of a front tire that Red Bull say was due to running over debris on the track. Let's hope so. Domenicali from Ferrari is concerned about the amount of traffic in pit lane if each team is making three stops, and the new pit entry is really tight to accommodate the V8Supercar garage brought over from Homebush. I guess Tony Cochrane did not want his series to look like second class citizens.

It was interesting watching the movable wing in operation during practice, but the FIA are still playing with the rules so it is hard to keep up. The overtaking zone in Melbourne will now start BEFORE the last corner, not sure how that helps, you need the downforce to get through the corner I would have thought, and as soon as you bolt on intermediates you can no longer use the wing. They tried a race simulation during the last half hour of second practice just to totally confuse the crowd. And there are suggestions Red Bull did not use it in practice, so who knows where the times are.

The WSBK is at Donnington Park this weekend and Carlos Checa continued where he left off at Phillip Island topping the first free practice.

Le Mans Series cars tested at Paul Ricard yesterday, with the Aston Martin still to turn a wheel. The first race is next weekend. I did see a piece about the FIA talking to Peugeot about another flip by their new car. It has  had more than few big accidents during testing, although it ran faultlessly at Sebring, and the FIA are concerned about the aero on the car.

I am a little concerned about a report from the Portugese Rally special stage where a wheel came off a car and struck a spectator, and all the driver was reported to say afterward was "I can't believe I have been that stupid." To have crashed I suppose, but I would have thought he might have asked about the condition of the spectator and expressed some regret, or is rallying a sport where the spectator takes their chances?

Had a call from King Kenny last evening, very nice chat about old times and the current state of racing. I'm not really surprised, but he is still more in demand for appearances than the young guys, and he says he gets paid more now just to show up than he used to to race. Ah, the good old days. He says he is selling the ranch because he cannot stand still being quicker at his age than all the young guys who come there to train!

You know my thoughts on the failure of the spectator driven tracks as a business model, well New Jersey just filed for bankruptcy, how long has that taken? Good luck with Mid-Ohio boys. Silverstone reported a profit of 2m pounds on a turnover of around 50m. Richard Phillips the MD said “I think we are probably the only privately-funded grand prix circuit that does make a profit in the world but the UK is quite peculiar because there is a huge motorsport following, there's a lot of industry here." Well it is an achievement to make a profit of any sort, but given the level of investment in the facility, which is continuing with the new pit building which is costing around 28m pounds, that is not much of a return. Good job it is run by a club. Hard to see how the numbers stack up though. They run the British F1 GP and Bernie's fee has to be half that turnover.

HRT showed up in Barcelona with this year's car, well almost. Parts are stuck in customs apparently and it will not run today. Isn't the car made in Spain? Day four of testing is again all over the place. McLaren had an engine let go so Button has not done much running, but what he did was slow, only faster than the Virgin which has improved to being 6 seconds off the pace. Mercedes are showing their legs with Schumacher topping the charts, fastest of the four days thus far, and Rosberg carrying on where he left off in third place.  Ferrari still up there, but Red Bull stooging around today. One thing seems certain, race averages are going to be way off the qualifying times.

Daytona bike week is on but who really cares any more other than some die hards? How do you kill what was a real world class event at one time?