Bob Barnard Track Engineering

I have said for a while that the Pit Pass site is Bernie's PR company, and now I am convinced of it. Following the rumors about Austin the piece today makes you want to throw up in your corn flakes.

http://www.pitpass.com/44849-Is-the-US-GP-on-track-to-transfer-promoter-rights

Now I agree the promoter does not need to be the track owner, I have been there myself with Eastern Creek. In fact the smart move is to have them separated so if one goes broke they both do not go down. So it seems Tavo is a genius, the world authority on F1, Bernie said so if you read the last line. Hellmund is "F1's Captain America and Full Throttle synonymous with the sport in Texas." Funny, but when it was announced he was doing a deal my motorsport friends in Texas had never heard of him.

But he has promoted NASCAR and football. Really? Eddie Gossage promotes NASCAR in Texas as far as know, and who promotes football? At NFL level the teams run their own show with the League, and Colleges do their own thing. So at what level were these promotions?

It gets worse, no one has put together State funding and obtained both F1 and MotoGP events. Well the Australian GP Office is State funded and has run both F1 and MotoGP for some years. So has Malaysia, Hockenheim, Suzuka, Silverstone, Barcelona, Jerez, Jarama, Magny Cour, Paul Ricard, Donnington in the famous 1993 F1 race, Spa, and I could probably go on. All you need is money.

Work is apparently about to resume on site, there was a hiatus while the books were sorted, but now they are all go again, with fill due to be trucked to the site. Hang on, haven't we just been moving lots and lots of dirt, and now you need more? Surely they mean road base? 

I'll let you draw your own conclusions from the article, but as I said, it will be interesting to eventually find out what is going on in Austin.

The big news of the day is that, not surprisingly, Jenson Button has re-signed with McLaren, and looks set to end his driving days there. As others have said, Jenson is driving better than ever and is assuming the role of team leader.

The other story getting a lot of air time is the victory of an English Pub Owner in the EU Court of Justice over her using a foreign channel subscription, Greek actually, to show football without paying Sky's exorbitant rate. The implications for Sky and F1 are not clear as this may only apply to pubs and clubs, but it has Bernie out and about again as you will read in the other Pit Pass story, "Has Bernie lost the plot?" When they run these stories I do have to question if they are Bernie's mouthpiece, or do they have a split personality?

There are a couple of items today about the plight of promoters. This has gone on since my day and the series promoters neither know no care, promoters are like buses, there will be another one along soon. In the case of MotoGP probably in Spain and the US. Damon Hill, former Chairman of the BRDC and therefore of Silverstone raises the issue, as well he might. They have been one of the very few to make a quid out of a GP, but Bernie's demands for improvements have beaten that. As Chris Pook told me a long time ago, "If Bernie thinks you are making money he will put the price up." Not the best business model one would think.

I have long compared F1 to NASCAR, and Joe Saward has a nice piece on the cost and rewards of being a track owner in each series, but of course it helps in NASCAR if you own most of the tracks when you cut them some slack.

http://joesaward.wordpress.com/

It now turns out that Bahrain had already paid Bernie for this year's race, and no they did not want it back thank you. Very magnanimous of them I'm sure. Why would they do that do you think? I wonder if they have paid for next year's race?

It now seems that the British Parliament is not to investigate the BBC/Sky deal after all. Good news you would think, but Pit Pass who broke this are running a poll on who is likely to buy a Sky subscription, and so far 90% say they won't. Not such good news. 

More news on Bradley Smith who turned down a move to MotoGP next year. Tech 3 have agreed to run him in Moto2 next year and then MotoGP in 2013. A sweet deal for Bradley and the English hopes of another World Champion at last? Reports that Stoner could wrap up his title at Phillip Island, that will be sweet!

The start of proceedings for the Baltimore "Grand Prix" have been delayed. Oh how Americans love to devalue that Grand Prix title, it's about time Tavo put his foot down as he has the only four wheel GP in the US next year. It can be done, I did it for the US Motorcycle GP at Laguna in '93. Anyway the story is the track is ready, they just have to put the perimeter fence back up that they took down for Hurricane Irene. I don't really believe that but I am not there, but some good friends are. Of course we have the now compulsory tram tracks to cross a la San Jose and Detroit to name two. Do we not learn? Traffic is a mess so the natives may not think this is such a good idea. Let's see what happens when we do get some racing. USF2000 supposed to be on track about now but it is not looking good.

Lorenzo is on track in Misano leading the way in the second practice session, but only just. Interesting that Yamaha see this as a "home race," the team is based just down the road. All the usual suspects at the top of the time sheets, with the factory Ducatis way down behind even the privateer team.Over in Brno Checa lead the first practice but was just pipped by Biaggi in the first qualifying session. Biaggi desperately needs to win here with Checa well behind or DNF to have any chance of winning the title this year.

News out today that the British Parliament is to hold hearings on the BBC/Sky TV deal. Seems the story coming out of Bernie and the one from the BBC is not one and the same, and MPs are not happy. As they rightly say only having half the races on BBC is like being slightly pregnant, if you want to watch the other half of the races on Sky you do not get a 50% discount on the fee.

Stories also out today link Toro Rosso with either improved sponsorship from Cepsa, the Spanish oil company owned by an UAE investment group, or that the UAE group has bought Toro Rosso and will move it to Spain. Either way Toro Rosso will get a large boost to its fortunes, in more ways than one.

 

With F1 off on its summer break for the next three weeks some of my fellow bloggers are also taking a vacation. As you know I write about any form of motorsport that interests me, so I will try and amuse you and prompt some critical examination of what others say and do.

On that note there is a piece today following up the protests by farmers at the loss of access and land for the building of the Indian GP track and access expressway. Eager to assure us all is well and that a repeat of Korea will be avoided we are told there are 6000 workers toiling around the clock to finish this, with 250 engineers! Well, as the race is scheduled for late October then one would hope that the engineering has been finished. Not sure what their definition of engineer is, but I cannot imagine you need 250 of them to design and build an F1 facility, however complicated. Speaking of late October, the FIA inspection is supposed to be 90 days prior, which by my calendar was three days ago. And what do you do with 6000 workers, groom the runoffs or mix cement by hand? No offence to my Indian friends, but a few photos are worth thousands of words.

The Sky TV rumblings continue, with the Crash.Net site running a poll which presumably is taken by people really interested in F1 and racing. So far 95% of respondents have either said they will not watch or F1 will lose audience. So 5% think it's "super for F1." Not the sort of numbers to warm sponsors hearts. 

On the home front Race Resorts of America is moving forward and is in discussions with a number of resort type tracks to become part of the RRA "family."

 

So Red Bull are pulling the plug on their NASCAR team at the end of this season. As someone else asked is the writing on the wall for NASCAR, or is Red Bull just seeing a better opportunity at the US F1 GP as also suggested? Even so that suggests they see NASCAR as on the decline as its viewing numbers must still far exceed F1. They certainly have not conquered NASCAR like F1, but then again they do not have the Adrian Newey of NASCAR.

The FIA has gone a step further in its clamp down on engine mapping by placing the qualifying engine mapping in the parc ferme situation between quali and the race. It seems some teams, Red Bull for example, have been using some pretty extreme mapping for quali, but have to dial it down to last the race. Valencia and beyond is going to be interesting. Ferrari is suggesting that we will see a Championship in two halves. You watch, some bright spark will work out how to remap the engine sitting on the grid, or at the first stop.

Talking of Red Bull, well Torro Rosso actually, they were in Hong Kong for one of their demo runs, amidst rumors that Hing Kong wants an F1 race. Monaco and Singapore have one so why not? Then there are Mexico and Argentina apparently wanting races. Bernie has to be loving this, but I thought "The Circuit of the Americas" was supposed to draw all those Mexican fans to Austin, so why do they need a race? A 25 race calendar anybody?

In an interesting move Ducati are to run this year's engine in next year's chassis in an attempt to fix their current problems. Never been tested so the first practice should be fun to watch.

Engines are back on the table in F1 with a meeting of the F1 Commission tomorrow. Bernie is saying the vote by the FIA to go to 4 cylinder turbo was not valid because Todt bypassed the F1 Commission. The fallout from this is going to be interesting as someone is going to be unhappy.

Going back to the BBC and F1, I had a comment off-blog so to speak that Sky would be the alternative and it is not free to air. ITV is still there, unless someone tells me otherwise, and was until recently the F1 broadcaster. So did they let it go to the BBC as it was not worth the cost so are unlikely to want it back? It is academic, Bernie will just drop his fee won't he? Is that a pig just going by the window?