Bob Barnard Track Engineering

One person not on vacation is Bernie, he continues to speak out on topics and is obviously still hard at it making deals. That is what he loves to do, so I guess that is as good as a vacation.

Turkey are desperate to get themselves back on the calendar and their negotiating ploy is a bit unusual." The Sports Minister is "ready to do everything" to keep the race. Music to Bernie's ears I would think. The "everything" includes "publicity and promotional campaigns to raise attendance and earnings." Well there's a novel idea, pity they did not think of this for the last 6 or 7 years, they might not be in this position.

Bernie is back talking about next year's calendar and giving a hint that Turkey could get back on. He is suggesting that the calendar could grow, and says that the teams would accept it if one of the ones to be dropped were to be Monaco or another team favorite. Nice one. The last seven races next year take place on four continents over ten weeks, the worst back-to-back being Sao Paolo and Austin, no direct flights. All this to be nice to Bahrain he says, "They" didn't want it up front apparently. Now the article seems to suggest that "they" were the Bahraini Gov't, but they seem happy just to have the race back as long as it is not in summer. From my recollection it was the teams who did not want to risk another embarrassing fiasco at the start of the season if the situation in Bahrain was not settled, but obviously felt that a race at the end could quietly be dropped. Now the teams are complaining about the logistics of those last seven races. Can't have your cake and eat it too. 

There was an odd reference as a footnote to this story about Austin and the State of Texas approving the funds. The State funds can only be distributed a year in advance, so presumably within twelve months, not a calendar year. So that $25m is not available until November, and presumably someone has read the contract to find out when Bernie's fee has to be paid. The writer suggests that this will delay the construction of the circuit, but this is not construction money so I don't get that.

On a positive note Robert Kubica's thumb has regained full movement, very necessary to push all those buttons. In similar news the likelihood of seeing Barrichello in a Williams next year is diminishing fast. I think Rubens is very disenchanted with the way the team is run.

The Renault chassis involved in the fire in Hungary has been written off, and the explosion explained as the air bottle that drives the valves getting too hot. The fire was caused by a cracked exhaust as a result of a "slightly different engine mapping in qualifying." Now I thought engine mapping had to be the same for qualifying and the race since Valencia, so are they saying they changed the engine mapping for both qualifying and the race? Strange way of saying it. No one noticed the crack which then got worse in the race and finally caused the fire after raw fuel was being burnt in the exhaust while it sat at the pit stop. No word on the marshal though.

Stating the obvious the Virgin CEO said that the fans will decide the success of the Sky TV deal. "From the point of view of the commercial model there are potential mismatches between a broadcasting that maximises viewers and one that maximises revenue." And we all know which one is more important don't we? He goes on to say that 90% of his income comes from sponsors and partners, which could be hurt if the audience goes down, but we are only talking of Britain here, so why is this getting so much play from the teams? Is the British market so dominant to the sponsors? Hard to imagine. 

Here we are, Monday morning after a GP, Spa 24 hour and WSBK and not much to stir the blood.

A couple of things caught the eye. Yamaha is withdrawing its WSBK factory team. This is despite currently running third and fourth in the Championship. They have obviously taken notice that Ducati are leading the Championship with Checa despite the works team dropping out for the first time this year. Yamaha say they are going to support private teams, which clearly works. I think back to what I see were the good days of GP when Yamaha had several "private" teams running their equipment, Kenny, Ago, Sonauto with Sarron, and all were "works" bikes and we had good racing. Honda had a works team, but also Kanemoto, HB and Cabin, and Garry Taylor ran Suzuki for Schwantz. This to me is the right way for series to run, not just one "works" team for each and really only three or four guys likely to win. Not a bad model for four wheel racing either, like we saw at Spa, six Audis in three private teams racing each other, which is how McLaren are going with the GT.

The other is the ongoing Gribkowsky deal, with the six others being named, and behold there is Bernie's friend Briatore, the man banned from F1 helping Bernie out.

The furore over the Sky TV deal continues, with Pit Pass suggesting it is not poor Bernie's fault, nothing to do with the high cost of TV rights and everything else to do with F1, no it is the Teams' fault. They should do something, but what? He suggests that the teams subsidise the Sky fee for F1 fans. And how are you going to identify them? And 10 m households at 475 pounds apiece is a rather big ask. Why not the teams accept less TV money, say $20m, and reduce the cost of the rights to BBC? But that won't work either as then you set a precedent for all the other broadcasters. But if "free-to-air" is so important for the sponsors? If that were the case then F1 would be on Network TV here in the States and we might get a few people interested in it, and cheaper than building a track and running a race. How about funding Alexander Rossi in to a good seat as Red Bull are doing, then you might see some interest. But no, all these spend money, and of course the poor teams just need more and more. As Adam Parr said it is expensive for them to go racing, you can't just buy a tennis racquet and some shoes. I thought that was what sponsors were for. So are we really interested in building a sport or making money? If the Sky deal loses audience then we will see. This whole series is run on unrealistic income streams that if one or two start to fall by the wayside could fold up like a house of cards. If Bernie cuts a deal for Germany what does he do for Oz and Valencia, Barcelona, Spa etc? 

Interesting qualifying session today in Hungary. Vettel's car was worked on all night, breaking the F1 curfew, as he was not happy with it, and was fast this morning in P3 and just pipped Hamilton for pole. Obviously the team did not work on Mark's car, he is stuck down in sixth behind the McLarens and Ferraris. I bet that feels good. Hamilton really pulled one out of the bag at the start of the Q3, having got there without using the super soft tire, and must look good for the race with that sort of speed on the prime. Strangely Lewis had a poor P3 and never did set a time on the super softs, complaining of brake problems. The durability of the super soft is questionable, so it should be an interesting race. Lewis will probably start on the dirty side of the track, so it will be tough to jump Vettel at the start, but who knows, Red Bull have not been great off the line lately.

Button showed a renewed pace here and his driving style should suit this place, with Massa out qualifying Alonso for the first time in a while. Contract time? Talking of that, Trulli has come alive and is now very happy with the power steering. Did they fix it or his attitude? Kovalainen did eventually out qualify him and was only about 0.3 seconds off the Toro Rosso of Buemi. Everyone qualified inside the 107%, which did not look likely earlier on, with HRT beating D'Ambrosio in the Virgin.

The fall out from the news of the Sky/BBC deal continues, but it seems the Concorde Agreement did not quite prevent Bernie from accepting a pay-for-view broadcaster as long as some of it was still "free-to-air." Of course the extra TV income helped the Teams get over their conscience about the poor viewers now having to pay 470 pounds to subscribe to Sky. That is a lot of money, and as one journalist points out you could actually buy a ticket to six GP's for that. A poll in Britain shows around 81% of readers on one sports reporter's web site would not pay the extra to watch F1. A major point still unclear is whether the BBC is going to show highlights of the races it does not cover live, or a delayed coverage. Whitmarsh says Bernie has told him that they will definitely show the whole race, but that is not what the BBC are saying. Bernie says the delayed coverage is better anyway as who wants to get up at 4 am to watch races? Well actually I have to Bernie, but it is nice of you to care. Who wants to watch a delayed race when in this day of Twitter and Facebook it is impossible not to know the result?

The delayed date for Austin is seen to have a couple of benefits other than the weather. As I said the other day the Texas Comptroller is only just considering the application for the $25m fee for Bernie, so moving the date back presumably delays when that is paid, if anyone has read the contract. The other is time to finish the track with buildings yet to start, the last we heard they had not been approved. I loved Nick Craw's comment after a recent visit, "a great deal of dirt has been moved."

Spa 24 hour just started and www.audi.tv.com has live streaming.

As always it is necessary to watch what Bernie does rather than what he says. Not long ago the Big Bogie Rupert Murdoch was going to steal F1 and heaven forbid put it on Sky! That just cannot happen, we have to have it on free-to-air, whatever that means. I pay for SPEED to show it so it is certainly not free-to-air here and we have to put up with ads, lost of ads, and Bob Varsha! Lo and behold, Sky is now the best thing to have come along, it is "super for F1," Bernie says, "it will mean a lot more coverage for the sport." Not sure how that can be as Sky only has 24 million households while the BBC covers everyone. The key words here are "super for F1." Note it is not super for the fans.

The BBC said it could not afford to continue so it seems a deal was done to keep half the races on the BBC and all of them on Sky. I'm sorry, but this is like having a race every other year. If it is worth having for half the races then why is it not twice as valuable to have all of them? Prestige to have any it seems, what BS. At least the Brits will have an ad free broadcast from Sky for their money. 

And what do the teams make of this with all their posturing about how important it is to their sponsors to have it on free-to-air? Martin Whitmarsh says they must withold judgement, and he was the one who said the other day that F1 must broaden their reach to the new media. Adam Parr is more honest. If they get more money from the TV deal to compensate for any potential loss in sponsorship then he is happy. Of course he is, it's all about the money.

Meanwhile, back at the track Lewis Hamilton continued where he left off in Germany by topping the timesheets in both sessions, but in race simulations it seemed very close between McLaren, Red Bull and Ferrari. Mercedes continue to struggle and Ross Brawn says it's all his fault. Ricciardo is ahead of his team mate by half a second, while Trulli's wake up call has him a similar distance in front of Kovalainen. 

Bernie has revamped next years calendar moving Bahrain to the end of the season so they can sort their problems out. So it starts in Melbourne, then Malaysia, China and India before a three week break which could include in-season testing. Turkey is missing, and as Allen Petrich said, there goes Tilke's best track. Austin is moved back to team with Brazil, but as someone pointed out this now competes with the NFL season, so good luck with viewers watching that.

BMW took pole for this weeks Spa 24 hour, and I need to find a live stream for that. In the Intercontinental Cup Aston Martin have given up of the new car and will run the old car for the rest of the season, very sad.

On the "green" front, a couple of snippets to share. It seems we are not all going to fry anytime soon from global warming, or as they say now, "climate change," as it seems to have not got any warmer lately.

http://news.yahoo.com/nasa-data-blow-gaping-hold-global-warming-alarmism-192334971.html

And to follow on about my thoughts on hydrogen, I saw a piece on TV yesterday about a new German stealth submarine that runs on hydrogen fuel cells. No moving parts, no noise, and no heat signature, very clever. Hydrogen and oxygen stored in tanks on the outside of the hull so reducing the danger of an explosion in the hull. Damn smart, good job they only just worked this out.