Bob Barnard Track Engineering

Now I was pretty good at mathematics at school and college, so I have to wonder what subjects the new COO of Nurburgring took? He used to be the COO at Hockenheim and negotiated the "good deal" for that track with Bernie. He is looking to do the same at Nurburgring to save the race now the Government is not footing the bill. What is this deal you ask? Well Bernie reduces his fee but the track gives him a % of the ticket sales, which is basically their only revenue. Now isn't this just paying Bernie his fee another way? OK, Bernie may be taking some of the risk if no one turns up, but in my world Bernie is pulling a pea and thimble trick here.

In similar news the Oz GP is reporting a loss north of $50m again, which is strengthening the calls to let it go. I wonder if Bernie can do them a nice deal like Nurburgring? I know we do not have six drivers, but we have two good ones. Bernie is actually very busy with tracks, saying he is talking to Barcelona and Valencia to alternate the GP in Spain. Is there a GP that is not in financial trouble? And I do not see the point of alternating, yes you only lose money every other year, but then you only reap the benefit every other year, and if there is no benefit why are you running it in the first place? There is a report today that there is a "serious" buyer for the Spa circuit, and they do not even have a driver. Has he done his maths on this?

The driver silly season is hotting up. Red Bull are saying they are keeping their two drivers, well Horner is anyway. Should be announced this weekend in Hungary. Renault nee Lotus appear to be running out of love for Heidfeld and Grosjean seems to be heading back to F1. Williams are being coy about whether Barrichello will be back in 2012, so who else would they bring in? Frank seems to like Maldanado but is he ready to be a number one? HRT appear to be favoring a Spaniard for Luizzi's seat, maybe before the end of the year, but where will Ricciardo go for 2012? Toro Rosso? Paul di Resta did not seem sure of where he will be next year when interviewed in Germany, but unless Michael retires why would he go anywhere else? Michael is doing OK as a back up to Nico, who must be wondering when he is ever going to get a competitive car. Ferrari seem to be keeping Massa for one more year, waiting for Bianchi to get experience in GP2? Italian drivers in Ferrari are under enormous pressure though, but if he could do the business can you imagine! Virgin have Glock but D'ambrossio is not a certainty to stay. Team Lotus are playing musical chairs but Kovalainen should be safe, Trulli must be a question mark, and I'm not sure Chandook really has what it takes. Sauber should keep their two and Sutil will stay at Force India as there is nowhere else to go, and why would he? McLaren will surely have Lewis and Jensen. All Lewis needs is a fix of winning now and again to keep him there, and as with Sutil, where else can he go? The are a lot worse situations to be in in life.

 

Pretty amazing comeback from injury for Dani Pedrosa, beating team mate Stoner and Champion Lorenzo in Germany last weekend. Not a bad race and I still can't work out how Stoner let Pedrosa by at that last corner, but it makes the season interesting. The Ducatis continue to struggle and even though Rossi finished a lot better than his qualifying, they both finished behind the Suzuki! Marquez has worked out how to win on the Moto2 machine and looks impressive, both on and off the bike. Good race again though.

The Japanese MotoGP looks to be in trouble with top riders saying they will not go due the radiation danger, which is a bit rich when they have been riding all year with "support Japan" logos. If I were Honda or Yamaha I would not be very impressed. Run the race and put their top local riders out there.

Pretty lean weekend of racing for me though, so not much to talk about. The Nurburgring will apparently not receive Government support after this year, so it has a problem, and the French seem to think alternating a GP with Spa is the best way to go to restore French pride and bring back a race to Paul Ricard.

The summer break is nearly upon us, so stories are going to be harder to find, unless the silly season gets revved up.

It took Kimi to make me watch the NASCAR Camping World Series! Me and a lot of others I suspect. Watching him out on a mile and a half tri-oval for the first time I thought he did really well, although the truck was so loose it looked like rallying at times. Still, his reflexes and ability kept it on the track and tonight's race should be fun. You have to admire the guy, just like the old days when F1 drivers drove everything and raced every weekend, sometimes two races a weekend in Europe and America. F1's loss is the world's gain.

The really big news of the weekend for me is the ACO moving to live up to it's regulation on parity between the diesels and petrol cars. Petrol cars will have an air restrictor increase of 0.3 mm and can lose 10 kg, and if they cannot take weight off the car then they get a 0.5 mm increase. In addition the fuel hose for the petrol cars is increased by 10 mm, nearly half an inch, and the diesels decreased by 0.3 mm, so faster refuelling for the petrol cars. The ACO have made the changes after seeing all the new cars in action at Spa for the first time, and believe they will allow the petrol cars to do an extra 5 laps during the 24 hours. The older ORECA Peugeot benefits from a 15 kg weight reduction. It will be interesting to see how all these pan out in a few weeks time.

F1 is in Barcelona and not much has changed, Red Bull and McLaren on top with Alonso and Ferrari fifth. Mercedes big step forward has not improved their position. News is that Williams are the team that pushed the FIA to act on the engine mapping, but it seems that Cosworth are the problem in not being able to match the big guys. The top teams are of course resisting any changes, as they are the new engine for 2013. The opposition to the change to 4 cylinder turbos is growing, with Renault apparently the only manufacturer now in favor, for obvious reasons. Talking of Renault, the big rumor from Barcelona is that Kubica has signed to drive for Ferrari, the latest in a long line of drivers similarly rumored to go there. Massa must be feeling very unloved, despite Montezemolo telling the world Massa will drive for them next year. He did not look very happy with the car during practice.

The gap between the teams seems to be growing, with HRT still 7 secs off the pace, but then Lotus and Force India are around 4 secs off, and so on up the order. Alonso is a second off, and you quickly get to 2 seconds around tenth place. On these times the HRT are in danger of not making the cut at their home race, but I guess with Q1 times on hards they may make it. Lotus seem to have made the jump across the gap to the midfield teams, only to see the front of the pack just as far away as ever.

To follow up my piece on why we do not see great races and series from around the world I have asked a series of friends questions on the reasons and costs. Chet Burks who's company produces many motorsport race coverages told me the obvious, that the audience is not big enough for the big channels. But here we are, Sunday afternoon prime time and we have two hours of World Superbike on. Now Gill Cambell from Laguna told me the other week she thought there were no more than 65,000 fans for MotoGP in the US, so one would suspect a similar number for Superbike. Don't tell me there are not more than that for races like the Spa 6 hour that ran yesterday. I would suspect that the F1 audience would crossover to endurance given the similar high tech of the cars. So how is Superbike on TV? Someone like Honda or Yamaha must be paying for it I suspect. Pity Peugeot do not sell cars here, and Audi do not seem too bothered it is not shown.

Just for fun I logged on to MotorsTV, an English channel which does show all those great series we do not see. It goes to most of Europe, and I know there all sorts of rights issues, but surely someone can do something similar here, or just buy the MotorsTV feed? But I am just a simple track builder, what would I know?

Good racing from Turkey. Lots of overtaking, not quite sure if that is what I want to see the way it is happening, but you have to be impressed by how clean the boys kept it. A few biffs and barges, but basically everyone making room. Lee Diffey carrying on about a record number of pit stops. Personally I do not tune in to watch pit stops, it is about racing not stopping and parking. Sorry to harp on it but if overtaking and pit stops are the measure of great racing watch an endurance race! Not sure how many passes there are a lap, and yes there are cars of different performance out there, but each pass has to be judged just right. Back to F1, it is good to see Ferrari and Mercedes so competitive, makes for more interesting races. Also interesting to see Bridgestone advertising during the race. They worked out you do not need to supply the tires to get coverage, especially when the tires of your competitor are wearing out so fast. Ambush marketing anybody?

Speaking of Superbike, good racing from Monza. As with Turkey you get good racing on fast tracks.

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.