Bob Barnard Track Engineering

Those of you who have followed my blog will know my views on the English Autosport weekly magazine as the best there is. It turned 60 this week, nearly as old as me, and celebrates with a whopping 330 page issue looking back on those 60 years, the cars, the drivers and the tracks. It is a keeper. Have not read it all yet of course, but a look through is enough to see the quality of what they have produced, so make sure you get a copy wherever you are.

The article on iconic tracks is interesting, and they did a great job on Adelaide, but then again I am biased. I'm sure Ron Walker from the Melbourne GP is getting ready to sue them over their comments that Melbourne has yet to reach the standard Adelaide set. It is interesting to see the other tracks from each decade. I would have got them wrong. 50's Pescara, 60's Suzuka, 70's Paul Ricard, 80's Adelaide, 90's Texas Motor Speedway!, and 00's Algarve. Of course the word "iconic" does not necessarily translate to the best, but there are some interesting omissions.

I forgot for instance that Suzuka was built in the sixties. You tend to think of it in terms of its' F1 life. What a track it must have been when built, quite unique, and still is. Paul Ricard is a good choice for the seventies, but Texas for the nineties? I am trying to think of its place in the development of the 1.5 mile tri-ovals of that period, and why that one is particularly special. Guess I will have to read that article. Then the noughties. I would have picked the Chinese F1 track for sheer extravagance, and the grandstand/pit complex is certainly iconic. But there you are, we each have our own opinions, and thank goodness for that.

Of course these are tracks built in those decades, so Spa, Monza or Monaco pre-date the magazine.

Talking of Spa, it is raining, imagine that. Spa is notorious for rain. It is one of those places where that old saying, "if you can't see the hills it's raining, if you can see the hills it is going to rain" is most apt. Makes for interesting races on an already amazing track. Hamilton is still confident there is more to come out of the McLaren, and he had better be right if he and Button are going to maintain a challenge for the Championship.  The real interest is still going to be the fight inside the Red Bull team, and the FIA's latest moves to beef up the testing of the front wings and floors. There are heavier test loads at Spa, and apparently even more stringent tests to come at Monza, especially on the floor. It will be interesting reading when someone finally explains how they did this.

In a previous issue of Autosport they had a half year review of how the F1 teams were doing, and of course the RB6 was the class of the field. Gary Anderson makes the point that it is just better everywhere, it is not just the exhaust blown diffuser or the front wing, it is the skill of Newey. I have a 90/10 rule that works for lots of things, and Gary uses it here. He believes Adrian understands 90% of what makes a car work, because no one can know 100%, where others only know 80%. So the 90/10 rule, you can calculate 90%, but the last 10% is instinct, experience, call it what you like.

Roll on tomorrow when we have F1 and MotoGP practice to get our teeth into. Can Valentino win at Indy, or does Yamaha want Lorenzo to be the new hero?

Not much energy around at the moment, either personally or in the sport. Continue to feel under the weather and went to the Doctors this morning. Probably a viral infection, and a bit dehydrated. Can't understand why, I been drinking more water than ever. So, combined with a lack of any real excitement on two or four wheels I am sorry this blog has been below par as well.

Received the program for the Professional Motorsport Circuit Owners, Investors and Suppliers Forum in Cologne (Koln), Germany, in November. It's been extended out to three days and coincides with a major trade show, so the most worthwhile conference you will go to if you are in the track business. As a presenter I can provide my contacts with a discounted fee, so if you are thinking of going, contact me and I can give you the promo code. I am moderating a session on track engineering which has some great speakers, and part of a panel discussion on the future of track design.

Our enforced hiatus from F1 is about to end with Spa starting in two days. Consensus seems to be that the Red Bull cars will lose out on sectors 1 & 3, so it could be a close race. We saw with Force India last year having a great handling car in the middle sector gives you a great lap time, but does not win the race, so McLaren and Ferrari could be in with a chance. McLaren say they are still baffled by the flexi front wing, as are most outside observers. It seems they are finding a way for the airflow to bend up the front of the floor while bending down the front wing. Sounds like a difficult thing to do, but I am not an aerodynamics genius. Whatever happens it will be great to see Spa, a track with only one bad corner for me and that is that last chicane. The rest is pure poetry.

The FIA is supposed to announce the thirteenth team by the end of the month, Villenueve has appeared as the dark horse for the selection, which is surprising, he kept the fact he was bidding very quiet until the last month. Rumors continue that HRT will merge with the other strong bidder, Epsilon Euskadi, which could be very good for both of them. Whoever gets the nod will have their work cut out to be ready in time for 2011. In the meantime Jacques is off to race a Nationwide car in Montreal.

We must not forget the MotoGP this weekend at Indy. I still have a problem with motorcycles on that track, just does not seem to be where they should be. Maybe if Mr.Tilke can get his act together he could make Austin work for MotoGP, they might make some money on that. Tavo talks about all the other events they can run, like NASCAR, Grand Am and AMA motorcycles, but all these are run by NASCAR, and the word I hear is they are not going. In any event, Bernie is usually very particular what else runs on his F1 tracks. When we ran the US Motorcycle GP at Laguna in '93 Bernie controlled the bikes, and we had to get him to agree that Laguna could keep their CART race, as he normally ruled out anything that competed with something he controlled.

Only twelve hours since I wrote Sunday's blog, and nothing really happened since then. Max Mosely has come out of retirement to tell us that Ferrari must be punished more than the fine, like losing the points from the race, which I actually think is a better penalty. Ferrari say they will take the FIA to court if they do get another penalty. That will provoke a nice fight I'm sure.

The Autosport feature on iconic tracks from each of the last six decades comes out on the 26th, with Adelaide the track of the eighties, so be sure to look for it. I wonder if Spa makes the list? What would your six tracks be?

There is a connection on Facebook to Paddock Talk that has good press clippings from all over on F1, or you can go to http://paddocktalk.com/news/. In today's is a piece on how the German GP made a profit! They were hoping to break even, but the Mayor confirmed that they made about $180,000, but would have lost a bit over $9m on Bernie's original deal. Not bad though for building and maintaining a track, promoting and running an event. I hope Tavo and Red McCombs are reading this stuff. If Tavo gets his way and runs the race for forty years that is $7.2m, provided he has the same good deal as the Germans. Pretty good return on $250m plus investment, not.

Elsewhere Spa is expressing concern about breaking even with an F1 GP and staying on the calendar. This is the best track we have and it would criminal to lose it. There was a discussion on LinkedIn about your favorite sequence of corners. I have one, Spa!

On another article it says four drivers are "bying" for a seat at HRT. Is this a misprint or is it an intentional play on how to get a ride at HRT?

Rumors continue to circulate that the Korean GP track will not be finished. Surely with two months to go it is obvious if it is or not? I know with one month to go before we finished Daytona back in 2004 there were many doubters, but we had the track back and running early and knew we could make it. Bernie is reported to have offered the Aragon track in Spain the race, but Aragon will not stump up the fee.

Over at Brno it was business as usual for Lorenzo, quickest in first practice for the Czech MotoGP. Rossi was third, and Stoner, on what will soon be Rossi's Ducati, could only manage sixth. Early days though.

Sorry to hear about Hans Stuck's blood clot as a result of a racing accident a month ago, get well soon Hans.

English Premier League kicks off this weekend, go Spurs!

At home I am waiting for attorneys to show up to discuss an expert witness case, should be an interesting morning.

The flexible front wing saga is growing given the dominance of Red Bull at Hungary today. Shades of the ground effect days when the FIA mandated a 6mm clearance below the car to reduce the venturi effect under the car. They could only measure it when it was standing still, so the boys came up with suspension that lowered the car when out on track, pretty hard to measure it at 100 mph! Now clearly the front wings on the Red Bull, and the Ferrari, are touching the track at times, so they are moving when in motion, even though they pass the FIA static test.

Ideas of how they are doing this vary between laying up the carbon fibers in different directions in the wings or the floor somehow moving. It demonstrates the problem the FIA has, and always has had, of making rules that are clear, cannot be got around, and can be enforced. They are up against the smartest guys on earth it seems at times, who do nothing but sit and scheme how to beat the rules, legally of course. Bernie always said it is better to have no rules, so you cannot go around them, just decide yourself what is fair or not. Sort of what we did with the Spanish Motorcycle Championship back in 1993, keep the rules simple. No works bikes, we all knew who had them, no carbon brakes, and no trick tires, again we knew what they were with the help of the tire technicians.

The importance of ground clearance on these cars was brought home to me in Adelaide in 1986. For the first race we did not repave the main straight, it looked really good until the cars went down it at 200 mph. There was a long "hump" halfway down it that made the cars bottom out, and their titanium skid plates sent a shower of sparks skyward every time, very dramatic, but made us look bad. So between races we planed and repaved it. Come the race and the cars are sending sparks out all around the track. I was distraught, how could the track have moved that much under traffic in just one year! Saturday I woke up, the track was so smooth they had lowered the suspension so that the cars were basically sliding along the asphalt, which one of the engineers quickly confirmed.

Some surprises in qualifying at Hungary. Button not making it out of Q2, but Hamilton 5th. Confirms what we know, Hamilton will wring a cars neck, not always pretty, but effective. Button strokes it around, which has worked for him often, so let's see what the race brings tomorrow. Rosberg qualifies 6th, but his world champion team mate cannot do better than 14th. Yamamoto brings up the rear, how long can this go on, or should I not ask? Some good drives by rookies Petrov and Hulkenburg, both out-qualifying their more experienced team mates. This track is notorious for lack of overtaking, so tomorrow could be very boring, unless the Red Bull pair put on a show, or Vettel makes a mess of the start again.

Spa 24 hr going on as I write, but a long way to go, and it is raining. It is Spa after all. Love that race track.

Still waiting for the projects web site to go live, so you will have to wait another day. Remember, manana, which I learned in Spain means "not today."

A last word to Bob Varsha. I would like to think you read my blog, but thank you for the periods of silence today to just listen to the cars. See, that was not so hard was it?