Bob Barnard Track Engineering

There are a few realignments going on with the F1 teams. Williams announced that they are going to use Renault engines from next year, so Renault increases its hold on the F1 engine market, despite supposedly being down on power. Let's hope this improves the performance of the team. HRT's ownership and management just got cloudier, with a buyout of Carabantes by Thesan Capital, which is a venture capital group backed by Nomura Bank of Japan. They say they will move to base the team in Spain with the current Directors and Team in place. So presumably Colin Kolles is still on the outer. This all begs the question who really is minding the store and who owns it? And will it make any difference?

HRT's arch rival for being last, Marussia Virgin, has confirmed a technical tie up with McLaren Applied Technologies, so look for an improvement there and perhaps Mercedes engines? Cosworth are going to be left with HRT, so it is highly doubtful they are going to invest in a new for 2014 engine with just one customer.

Speaking of engines, Clive Pollock is reportedly going to push on with his proposed engine for 2014 despite the u-turn by the FIA, and Bernie is now threatening to sue the FIA if the 15,000 rpm limit impacts on the poor promoters and their ticket sales drop. Of course his concern is that the promoter will not then have the money to pay the fee to stage the race, but since when has that ever been a concern for him? Bernie is famous for not being fond of drivers in general, they are like buses, another one will be along shortly. That is why he has cleverly promoted F1 as a team sport and built Ferrari and McLaren etc as the stars. It also seemed that promoters enjoyed the same stature as drivers, as there is always someone else waiting to pay him to lose money whenever a promoter wakes up or runs out of it. Bernie has also been having a bit of a verbal spar with Williams CEO Adam Parr. Adam was crass enough to point out that sports such as NFL enjoy considerably larger TV fees and suggested Bernie could be doing better for them all on this front. Bernie of course then pointed out how well Adam was doing on the sponsorship front for Williams. Touche.

The leakage of top staff continues at the other Renault, which isn't, Lotus Renault, with designer Tim Densham reportedly heading for Ferrari. Is everything really well at Renault as Boullier continues to tell us?

I took a day off yesterday so have not commented on the racing. Lorenzo scored a great win at Mugello so perhaps the Championship will not be a Stoner/Honda procession after all. Simoncelli managed to finish a race while Rossi dragged his Ducati up to sixth. In Imola the Peugeots gained revenge for Le Mans with an easy win over the Audis

This is my last blog. Just kidding, but it is my last blog on Wordpress. I have revamped my personal web site where I always intended to base my blog, and it will be launched today. The link should not change, so you should go straight to it, but if not go to www.bobbarnardtrackengineering.com and go to the blog page. See you there.

The Tour de France kicks off, or should that be rides off, today. One of my most favorite events and this year should be as interesting as ever. It is not only a long race for the riders but also for us viewers with three weeks straight of TV coverage for several hours a day. Good job I'm not working full time!

Some predictable pole positions today with Stoner capturing the MotoGP at Mugello, Marquez the Moto2, and yes it is still raining on and off. Rossi continues to struggle down in 12th. Puts Stoner's performance on the Ducati in some perspective doesn't it?

It did rain in Imola yesterday, the results from FP2 were slow in being posted. Peugeot are on pole by a slim margin from the Audi, with Peugeot and the McNish Audi locking out the top four places. The Oak racing Pescarolo-Judd are 3 seconds off pole, but only 1.5 behind McNish, so at least they may catch a glimpse of them. The BMW's were quickest in the GTE class with three Ferraris hard on their heels.

Vergne took pole in Hungary for the FR3.5 and went on to win the first race, while Kevin Magnussen took his first British F3 pole, two in fact, following nicely in Dad's footsteps.

So, off to watch the Tour.

No not the vegetable drink but the Australian Supercar Series that is now going to Austin in 2013, having raced in the Middle East the last few years, although no one came to watch. I was told when Austin was first announced that ISC, i.e. NASCAR, were not likely to give them any races, so no NASCAR, Grand Am or AMA Motorcycles. So what were they going to run at this expensive facility to justify it other than F1, which is unlikely to make money for anyone but Bernie? The answer is to bring in other overseas series such as the V8Supercars. I bet Tony Cochrane is laughing all the way to the bank. Can you imagine what it costs to air freight these cars? They weigh at least twice what an F1 car does and cannot be broken down to a nice size to put in a plane. Volume is as big an issue as weight for planes. So this cannot be cheap for Tavo and the boys, they had better hope they pull a better crowd than the Yas Marina Circuit does.

I also heard a suggestion that the new World Endurance Championship US round might go to Austin rather than Sebring or Road Atlanta. Another great series, and one that can pull a crowd as we have seen at Road Atlanta. Sebring pulls a crowd even when the race has been cancelled, spring break and all. But again an expensive deal to put together, so a hard way to make a dollar, but I guess if you've spent the money you may as well use the place.

Martin Whitmarsh says he thinks that the US should have two F1 races, just like the old days, one on the east coast and one on the west. Not sure where that leaves Texas. Martin said he "had nothing against Texas and hopes they have a successful race,  but the natural hinterland for us is us the east coast and the west coast," which does not sound very supportive, so good luck Tavo.

It must be a very wet summer in Europe as it seems just about every MotoGP has problems with wet tracks. In Mugello hardly anyone went out in the second session due to the rain. In the morning dry session Simoncelli did his usual by now fastest lap, very closely followed by Stoner. Rossi broke down and is way down the field of only 16 bikes.

Imola seems to have missed the rain and the ILMC teams had dry conditions, Peugeot and Audi sharing the top four places with Pescarolo fifth but 3.5 seconds adrift. Look out for live streaming of the race on one of the European sites, and Radio Le Mans for live commentary.

Strange goings on at HRT, and not just in the driver line up. Colin Kolles is apparently leaving/being squeezed out, but he is the one that has the team and the workshop, so how is this all going to play out?

The quote of the weekend was "it is a week's holiday at the end of which they run a race." And what a race we were treated to this year! Xan and I both had no trouble staying awake for the 24 hours. Fourteen seconds separated first and second, Audi and Peugeot, at the end of 24 hours. There have been closer finishes, but all staged. A slow down lap was added after the 24 hours were up as the last lap was full out racing, not the usual parade for the cameras.  You could say the race was won by the length of the pit lane, as that is what it came down to with both cars stopping with about 30 mins to go, the Peugeot just for fuel, the Audi for a dash of fuel but then new tires, so a longer stop and he got out 6 seconds in front, thanks to the Peugeot being at the opposite end of the pit and Audi being close to pit out.

All four classes saw some great tussles, most of them cleanly fought. I'm not sure I am happy about the antics of the Peugeot drivers, despite their claims they were innocent and it was down to bad visibility out of the closed cockpit cars. Davidson and Gene knew all too well where the Lotterer Audi was and being laps down on the Audi should have have had more respect for the leader. It is one thing to make things hard for the overtaking car, it is another to deliberately move over on him on a straight piece of road after you have just collided in the second chicane on the Mulsanne Straight. We had already seen all to graphically what happens when a car moves over on another at those speeds, and I for one expected better from Gene. I still have not forgotten Davidson putting the Corvette into the wall at the Porsche curves.

Yes the Audi guys were aggressive too, they had to be, and the changes to the rules had an unintended consequence. The ACO reduced engine size and air intake size to slow the LMP1 cars down, but in the usual fashion the engineers worked out how to recover some of that speed by reducing drag, and therefore downforce. So the cars were more on the limit when it came to cornering and avoiding traffic, and needed to keep up the momentum, so they took chances and had less control when they did not work out. We saw two massive accidents to the Audis which thanks to the design of modern cars both drivers survived with virtually no injuries. As I said a week or so ago, car design is where safety has improved. The walls and tires did their job too, especially for McNish's accident where there were a lot of marshals and photographers. We had two long safety car periods to repair damaged guard rail, and great job by the track to get it fixed, but it showed why I prefer concrete as the hits in the Porsche Curves with the Corvette and Ferrari required no repairs at all. Guard rail is made to give, and is probably a bit better for the drivers in that respect, but McNish almost went over the guard rail perhaps due to the fact it did give and provided a ramp?

Unlike almost any other form of racing Le Mans does not red flag a race except for exceptional rain or fog, so we saw a one hour and a two hour procession. They have three cars due to the length of the track, and this makes for some interesting strategy. The race goes on, albeit at a reduced speed, and a lot happens. Drivers make mistakes due to cold tires or boredom, teams with a slower driver take advantage of this time to put him in, therefore meeting the time requirements for drivers but not losing any time. Refuelling stops have to be made and tire changes can be done without the normal loss of time, but who is behind which safety car has to be considered, and when to stop. At the start of the period, yes if you are low on fuel, or at the end to maximise your next run and if you actually wait until the final moments you can actually make time as you can leave under green without waiting for the next safety car. Great strategy games.

The strategy between Audi and Peugeot was fascinating. This year Audi were the fast cars but used more fuel, so more pit stops. So which was better, a fast pace and more stops or a slower pace, relatively, and less stops? As it turned out there was no difference. 14 seconds in 24 hours, 0.016%! Tire wear also played a part. Audi, despite running faster could run four or five stints between tire changes, and the poor drivers did those stints too! The Peugeot although slower could only run three and sometimes four stints. Either way they ran about twice the distance on one set of tires as F1 does on three or four, so who's green?

The standards applied by the Stewards both here and at Montreal make me scratch my head. Robert Kaufman who made contact with Rockenfeller in the Audi in the dark and when taking the racing line, as the slower drivers were told, is ejected from the race. Gene who deliberately moved Lotterer over almost to the barrier in broad daylight while racing with him and on a straight does not even get called to the Stewards! Hamilton gets called to the Stewards in Montreal and Button who took him and Alonso out while winning the race does not? Now, that is probably due to the past problems of Hamilton as much as anything, but it is still inconsistent.

I did not see too much of the Canadian GP. After getting up at 5:30 on Saturday and staying awake until 7:30 Sunday and being emotionally wrung out by the Le Mans race, I went to sleep and set the alarm for Montreal. Speed had given the race over to Fox who dd their usual stellar job, starting the coverage as the race started despite a paid for ad being on the half hour prior, and thankfully for them it was behind the pace car due to the rain. I got up for this? We had the usual BS from Bob Varsha and the boys. This is network so we must have a whole lot of new viewers who know nothing about F1 so we have to talk to us like we are children. Then we start, and it is all crazy, Hamilton more than most, and the outcome was all too predictable. I personally thought Button put him in the wall, but I guess his explanation stands up, that would have been out of character. Then we had the red flag, so I gave up and went back to sleep. I wrongly thought Fox would give up after the mandatory two hour broadcast but apparently no. I'm glad I did not wait up though. I have read it was an exciting race, but from what I have read it was a crap shoot. Give me Le Mans every weekend.

The coverage of Le Mans was great. I had Radio Le Mans on one computer so had all the action and information on what was happening, not a load of infomercials, FromsportCOM.com live streaming on the TV via the other computer, and SPEED if I needed it, when they were actually on and following the action. The Eurosport Director went to the same school as the SPEED guy, he would at times rather show someone asleep in the pits or media center rather than two cars racing their hearts out.

Needless to say I did not watch the MotoGP or the WSBK, both predictably won by Casey Stoner and Carlos Checa respectively. Great gutsy ride by Colin Edwards though.

Finally a word about Lewis who is reported to have met with Red Bull's Christian Horner at the weekend. A very smart man, Warren Willing, told me years ago that when a rider or driver is struggling with a slow machine one of two things will happen. Either he will get depressed and stop trying, or drive over aggressively and crash. This seems to be the consensus for Lewis' problems at the moment. The McLaren is almost there, but never quite there when it comes to beating the Red Bull, so he tries to make the difference up by driving harder. It cannot be easy to watch Vettel in that car and know you could be there too.  Something needs to change before his career will be remembered as a great talent wasted. Maybe a change of team is it?

At last the Bahrain Government has seen sense, or at least the writing on the wall, and voluntarily withdrawn for this year. That was the sensible thing to do all along and hope that by 2012 they will have come to some reasonable agreement with the opposition. They are on the 2012 calendar as the first race, but realistically that should be a provisional like Turkey depending on things getting sorted out there. Nice that Jean Todt is now throwing Bernie under the bus, "the commercial rights owner should have sorted this out." Gutless the lot of them. Interesting that Martin Whitmarsh says there's a lot of things he would like to say once the politics have settled down, Can't wait for that. There is certainly enough blame to go around in this farce. India must be wondering what it got itself in to.

Talking of 2012, Bernie is supposedly waiting for an election in Turkey to renegotiate the deal. One suggestion is Bernie gets the admission money as well! Where is this nonsense going to end?

Over in Montreal, where various Government agencies chipped in to pay Bernie's fee, our world champ added another name to the "Champions Wall" in first practice. Still he did that in Turkey and it did not slow him down one bit and is doing well in the second session so far. Rosberg is not slowing down either being fastest in this morning's session by over half a second from Alonso and then his team mate Schumacher. Early days, but this could be interesting. I started to watch the live streaming on SPEED.com, but work got in the way so I saw very little of it, and I'm probably not going to see much of this afternoons session. Still, got to keep my strength up and eyes rested for the 24 hours!

In England it is raining, shocking I know, but it is not raining on Casey Stoner's parade. He is well clear of Simoncelli with Nicky Hayden  and Cal Crutchlow both doing well. It looks like a lot of the guys played it safe, otherwise they are in trouble if the race is wet. The way Stoner and the Honda are going they are in trouble whatever the weather.

Day off in Le Mans, WSBK at Misano with Checa in his usual spot on the time sheet. Looks like all three championships will be decided early at this rate.