Bob Barnard Track Engineering

Well the race has been run and won without further issues with the kerbs, although some were just left out and replaced by paint. The Turn Ten chicane, the "Singapore Sling" as it has been dubbed lived up to expectations and "slung" Kobayashi into the wall yesterday. This is the wrong solution to this corner and just results in a one line race track with the potential for cars to fly and lose control. The only passing move I've seen into it was Webber at the restart who jumped Alonso as he did in Spa.

Vettel predictably won the race going away from the start while Mark had his usual bad start which compromised Hamilton's who then had the now usual difficult race not helped by the lack of the patience he showed behind Schumacher at Monza. We saw a lot of passing for a change, but mostly by faster cars out of position getting past slow ones, but at least the DRS avoided the problems we saw at Abu Dhabi last year. The Stewards continue to issue inconsistent penalties. Rosberg misses turn 2 at the start and is not penalised, and then shoves Perez off there later in the race, improves his position and again no penalty. Now when Alonso was pushed to miss the chicane at Silverstone last year, or Hamilton at Spa a couple of years ago they get told to give back the spot. Schumacher drives straight over the back of Perez and gets a "reprimand" after the race. I guess he could hardly do a drive through.   

Renault had a terrible event, beaten by a Lotus on merit, so Tony Fernandes was happy and is apparently closing in on approval to change his team name to Caterham.

Button continues to show he is becoming, (has become?), the McLaren team leader with another great drive, while Ferrari is still around but not quite there as they have been all year. Aside from Red Bull Force India are probably the happiest with their results in Singapore.

In other news the teams are saying they are not happy with some of next year's calendar and were not asked to approve it, the "loophole" that tripped up the Bahrain changes this year, but this time Todt says it is a matter between FOTA and Bernie, and Bernie just says they are lucky to have somewhere to race. That's what I call negotiation.

 

 

It is one of the oddities of living in the US that kerb is spelt curb. I guess the "curb" is a limit to how far you can go, so it makes some sense, or is it just another simplification of the language that America likes, like harbour and harbor.

Anyway, the bolt down kerbs in Singapore "curbed" the enthusiasm of the teams this morning, or is that evening, when they started to become unbolted during a support race, and continued to give problems during the session. Whole sections have been removed and are presumably going to be reinstalled overnight (day?). Without knowing it looked like the insert in the pavement was not holding, but after four years why would that happen now?

Not the sort of advertisement Singapore is looking for when the whole point of the race is to show off the place. It was a primary concern of mine when planning Adelaide that we should not have a red flag situation, not easy to do on a street circuit.

I had the misfortune of tuning in to Speed for the second practice as the fromsportcom.com site has a tendency to freeze, but even that was better than listening to the inane rantings of Diffey and Co, so I went back to it. 

Practice? Well the results are predictable, Vettel fastest and a big spread of times. McLaren making bad choices and Ferrari looking good on "full" tanks, but how full were they? The track does not get any better and passing will be at a premium. Lots of brake problems. Ricciardo outpaced his team mate to be not quite last, but OK seeing as how he had not been here. Schumacher continuing good form well ahead of Rosberg who seemed to struggle.

Ron Dennis chose this weekend to spell out plans for McLaren Automotive including identifying the US as the biggest market and suggesting a motorsport involvement here. Can't see it in Grand Am can you? Ron is predicting a multi-billion dollar future for the business and a stock market flotation in five years, and who is to say Ron is wrong?

Not much else going on except the continued reassurances over India. Mallya came out yesterday and said the race could be run "tomorrow." Not unless those photos were from a month or more ago, but the FIA say they are "positive" about the situation. Meanwhile the local press are suggesting that with all their money the teams ought to be paying the Indian Gov't to come and race, if they can get a visa.

Joe Saward followed up where I left off on Bernie's idea of purposely engineering wet races. Encouraged no doubt by Pirelli coming out in support of the idea Joe has really said it all in today's blog on how desperate F1 is becoming.

Check it out at http://joesaward.wordpress.com/

I said Bernie should retire gracefully but Joe suggests he goes off to Las Vegas instead, but he tried that once didn't he? I really like the Ferrari tank though.

Mid-Ohio has finally been sold to Kim Green and his partner Kevin Savoree. Kim is an Australian who has lived and raced here in the US for a long time, most recently partnering with Michael Andretti in the IRL team and race promotions like St Petersburg until Michael kept the team and Kim took the promotions arm. I wish him luck with it, it is a tough sell making money from spectator races as we just have seen at Jerez.

Times are tough for other promoters too, with Korea severely reducing ticket prices to try and fill seats, and Singapore giving large early purchase discounts. Now the prices we are talking about would make the average NASCAR fan have a heart attack, $200 plus, with the most expensive $400. Korea is offering a 50% discount if you buy your ticket this month. Now they are saying they had 80,000 there last year, so doing the math at say an average of $300 a ticket that is $24m. Now Bernie's fee is north of $30m, probably more like $40m, so how do you make money on that? Halving the price even if it doubles the attendance only gets you back to square one. And Austin is going to make money?

Sad to hear that Aston Martin is not going to debut it's LMP1 car at Sebring this year. With Audi saving their new car for later that means Peugeot should have it all their own way, in theory.

Sorry to hear about Sir Jackie Stewart's health problems and hope he makes a full recovery.

And sorry the blog is late. I had an appointment this morning to go and look at some land for a track. Interesting and has potential, so we will see what sort of deal there is to be done.

So Bernie thinks Singapore is a "jewel" that gets polished better every year? That may be the 5000 feet view, or the one from the balance sheet, but closer to the action it's not much of a jewel for us race fans. Why did Massa's Ferrari sit in the middle of the track with no marshals trying to move it, in fact not one in sight, and no cranes to lift it. Do these people not look at other races? Monaco, which is a jewel, shows every year how to do it

Massa apparently had a gearbox problem, but they chose to change the engine as well as he was last on the grid anyway. Sort of follows from my blog a couple of days ago about potential problems for Ferrari. Let's see how Alonso goes in the race. Should be interesting as it is still very close among the five championship contenders. It is really anybody's race, and anyone's race to lose. Webber and Button are the two most likely not to put it in the wall, but I guess we will see.

Murphy The Bear has a new posting today on the state of sportscar, and notes, as I have been saying, the lack of "buzz." Makes it hard for us bloggers when nothing stirs the spirit. Petit Le Mans next weekend, so let's hope for some more interest. Always a great race, second only to the 24 hour for me, and don't forget the Radio Le Mans feed for those of us who do not want SPEED's endless nonsense. I have to take my hat off to them, I could not remember so much useless verbiage to keep spouting, unless they have someone supplying a script. If they do we need to find that person and take away his pen.

The ongoing saga of Korea. Apparently the surface was still not down this last week, and the final inspection is supposed to be Tuesday. Bernie has his money they say, so the race will go on regardless. He who has the gold makes the rules?

I want to thank Peter G for his comments, especially pointing out that for a series that is trying to be "green," night racing uses an enormous amount of unnecessary energy. I have made this comment in respect of NASCAR, video boards at the Cowboys stadium, soccer night matches, etc. Why is F1, or motor racing in general, the only one who has to be relevant in terms of energy saving? Has anyone an idea on the amount of energy required to light Singapore or Abu Dhabi, compared to say, the amount of fuel the cars use?

You have to be sorry for the young guns coming into F1 at the moment, it is like a revolving door. With the ban on testing they get no seat time before being thrown in at the deep end, and then if they do not perform straight away they are tossed out in favor of the next rising star with a bag full of money. Di Grassi is the latest that looks to be headed that way with D'Ambrosio getting to practice in the Virgin and reportedly bringing $5m with him to do it. Is this getting to be IRL? Seriously, Jerome is a very good young driver, but how long is he going to have to prove himself? This is getting ridiculous. HRT had Chandook and Senna, then "look at the size of my wallet" Yamamoto turns up, and now Christian Klein is in the car, with or without a sponsor? Petrov took over from Grosjean, who was supposed to be the next great French driver, and now he is under threat. As Steve Matchett said during this mornings practice from Singapore, how can a team set up a car when there is no continuity?

Let's compare the approach of Lotus, under whatever name combination. Tony Fernandes goes out and hires Mike Gascoyne, Trulli and Kovalainen, and puts a decent car together. Rehires the drivers for next year, no messing about with rent-a-rides, and moves from Cosworth power to Renault. Tony is obviously very serious about being a long term success and putting his money where his mouth is. Compare that with his airline rival, Sir Richard Branson, who owns Virgin. Puts a team together on the cheap, yes they have some experienced people from racing, but not the top of F1. Yes he has Glock, but where else was he going to go, and now more young guys. You do not get the feeling he is totally committed to this do you?

As I may have mentioned a while ago I was approached by the Singapore GP to put in a bid to redesign some of the corners to improve overtaking. Well, they decided they did not need my expertise, or maybe it was my cost to do it? Anyway, they have fiddled while Rome burned, a few bumps removed here, pit lane lowered half an inch? They changed that stupid chicane, something Hamilton and I both agree on, and made it worse! That chicane just turns the track into a one line track, so most of the problem with lack of overtaking is in the corners leading up to one where there is an opportunity, because you cannot get close enough. Instead of messing about with a Government style "request for a quote" they should have given all the respected track designers a stipend to come up with alternatives and then pick what looks the best to be refined. That way they would get a lot of different ideas, not just one.  But who asked my opinion?

Rain continues to be a threat, not while they are racing, as it seems to be a typical tropical 4pm shower, but because the track does not dry, or worse, does not dry evenly.

Unfortunately everyone seems in love with Singapore for the wrong reasons, just like Abu Dhabi. It's not about the backdrop, or the celebrities, or the rock and roll show, it's the racing stupid! This track has yet to show us it can deliver on that score.