Bob Barnard Track Engineering

Very sad to hear of Robert Fearnell's passing at the age of 57. I met Robert first at Donnington in 1988 and on several occasions after as part of ROPA. One of the real good guys with a solid background in the sport, like so many that England produces. Too young.

The last test for F1 has been completed and produced very close times, with Caterham doing surprisingly well. The other two new boys were conspicuous by their absence, so not expecting too much from them. Kimi and Lotus set the fastest time of the week, but we will really have to wait until Melbourne to see who was sandbagging. Red Bull brought out their real parts this week and suffered a lot of reliability issues, but don't count them out. They seem to have found a way to still use the exhaust gas, but my understanding is that Charlie has said anything that helps the aerodynamics will be ruled out. Could be interesting.

Elsewhere the situation in Austin just gets worse with Tavo now suing the rest of the boys. I've been in this sort of mess when I promoted Phillip Island so I know how it distracts you from the real problems. Following the USF1 debacle the rest of the world must wonder if we know what we are doing.

VJ Mallya's problems continue to mount with the Indian Tax Authorities freezing his airline's accounts.

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?

Sorry to have gone missing for a couple of days, my back has been playing up so lying low. One of the things that has come up and not commented on by the general media is the goings on in Austin over the Promoter. Here is the original story from Friday:

http://motorsport.nextgen-auto.com/Report-hints-US-GP-project-to-lose-promoter-Hellmund,30873.html

Joew Saward has followed this up with his own view on what is going on:

http://joesaward.wordpress.com/

This is about the fourth article so scroll down. Mind you the other articles are interesting. The Argentina track by Populous looks like a big kart track. Stick to football stadiums. Anyway Joe suggests Tavo might be looking to make more money consulting to other would be F1 race promoters. That says a lot about how much (or little) there is to be made in promoting one himself. I guess one day we will find out what is going on in Austin.

Joes first article on the Hamilton/Massa incident is responding to a number of web sites commenting on how Massa was told over the radio to "destroy" Hamilton's race by holding him up. Nothing wrong with that, except you would think Smedley would be encouraging Massa to go faster to stay in front, not slow down and keep Hamilton behind. Shows a lack of confidence in his driver. What is really the story here is the hypocrisy of Massa to complain of Hamilton's driving after the race! Adding insult to injury. And I find it amazing that in race after race I hear drivers in following cars being chastised for hitting the one in front, and yet at Spa Hamilton is in the wrong when Kobayashi hits his rear wheel!

The 14th annual Petit le Mans has been run, and who knows if we will have a 15th. Sebring is announced as a round of the WEC, but not the Petit? Scott Atherton did his usual "everything is getting better" speech but did not address the ALMS cars not being able to run in a WEC event. Has that been sorted? If it had you would think he would have mentioned it. And now we are "grandfathering" museum pieces like the V12 Aston Martin! Must be embarrassing for Aston that their 2011 car does not run but a collectors car finishes third!

ESPN3 coverage was very good except the ads were getting very old by the end of ten hours. A very eventful race. Not sure how they could edit that down to two hours, allowing for ads. I tuned in with 15 minutes to go and the race had ended, so the "highlights" were probably an hour at best. The major talking point was the Dumas crash, and I would like to know if he actually hit the front of the Porsche. Shades of Le Mans for me, stuck his nose in too far when the hole was closing. Now I am no fan of Montagny and the tactics of Peugeot, but Audi should know by now that they need to take no chances when passing them. Not sure why they had to start 53 cars? Do they need the entry fees that bad? Track density by FIA rule is 43, so 20% less and would have made life easier for the real competitors rather than those making up the numbers.

Over in Japan Honda managed to win its home MotoGP for a change in a crash fest. Stoner did well not to crash and recover to third behind Pedrosa and Lorenzo, so Casey still has a handy lead in the Championship. Rossi fell off at the second corner and took a few with him. Bit of a nightmare season for him and Ducati. Marquez failed to win the Moto2 class but still takes over the lead in the Championship from Bradl by one point.

Elsewhere lots of Championships were decided. Checa went out in style to clinch the WSBK, Tomszyk won the DTM title for Audi, Ceccon won the AutoGP title if anyone noticed or cared, Mehri won the Euro F3 title, Botolotti clinched the F2 title, and Peugeot took the inaugural, (and only?), ILMC Manufacturers Trophy. Dario Franchiti retook the lead in the Indycar championship with one race remaining.

In other news Tilke is the latest person to be trotted out to reassure us India will be "finished" on time. It is normal that the work is finished at the last minute he said, well most of it will be apparently. That may be true of a street course, but there is no excuse for a permanent facility. Bernie is due in court in Germany in November to testify in the Gribkowsky case, so perhaps we will learn what really went on.

Jean Todt is continuing his world tour. After telling us Mexico should have a grand prix he is now in Sao Paulo and telling us the Interlagos track is safe, it was the cars that caused the deaths not the track. So now Jean is a track design expert? He may well be right, F1 cars have become very safe for the drivers so they would probably survive a similar accident, but why not remove the cause of the accident?

Not a lot else going on today. Interesting article by Miles Geauxbye, sounds like he is from Louisiana, on The Last Turn Club about the future of ALMS. Some of us have suspected for a long time it does not have one, but it is still there.

http://lastturnclub.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=786&Itemid=51

A couple of articles in this month's Motor Sport. Mat Oxley talking about the lack of overtaking in MotoGP, sound familiar? Too many rider aids, and too much manufacturer influence, something I've said for years. I think if you asked the fans we would still be racing 500cc two strokes.

The other is about our friend Tavo and Austin. I think Austin is probably a great place to stage it, like Adelaide, small enough to have everyone involved but big enough to have all the restaurants and entertainment people want. The Oz GP went missing when it moved to Melbourne. Tavo had an odd statement though that "many of the circuit's details will be unfinished by next year's race." He went on to say he hoped "the fans understand that there will be some components that aren't exactly ironed out...some things will have to wait until 2013, 14 or 15." Sounds like the Indian GP, the pits are finished but sorry about the grandstand. 

No, I am not finally sick of cars, no one ever gets over that, but the last time I can recall ever being car sick was about eleven years old, until I got in a simulator that is. It seems Michael Schumacher and I have the same problem, simulators give us motion sickness. Now I have raced cars, flown in small planes across the heat of Australia's deserts, sailed boats and been on a Catamaran out to the Barrier Reef when everyone on board except four of us were sea sick, so this came as a great shock to me. Can anyone explain this phenomenon? After I designed the track here in Arizona the client bought a locally made simulator and they loaded the track layout. It worked great, but I could only do a few laps before feeling very disoriented and queasy. Not much of an inconvenience for me, but it must be a huge problem for Michael, everyone else has the car set up before they even get to the track and he starts from scratch.

There is the start of a nice article by Julian Ryder on Superbike Planet today about how Superbikes started.

http://superbikeplanet.com/2007/Nov/071119l.htm

It interested me as it talks of Steve McLaughlin, "motormouth" who was instrumental in the first World Championship. I happened to be in Geneva for a meeting of the FIM Management Council the day Steve was there to have the agreement with the FIM signed. Sitting in the lobby for most of the day with Steve was an education.

Joe Saward in his F1 blog today asks the question "why are the media publishing comments from Briatore and Symonds?" As two of the key figures in the "crashgate" debacle he believes that they should not be heard of again, let alone be involved in the sport, and cites numerous examples of life time bans from other sports. He asks if he is on his own with this view, so Joe, since you asked, no.

Is it just me or has the USGP announced three times now that they have started? We saw before the New Year machines on site, but that was only a soil sampling exercise and putting up silt fence.  Then we had a "photo op" the other day of Tavo driving some machine on site, started again. And now today we read that USGP is set to receive digging permission. Now I do not doubt they will get it done, but please quit the over hype, it does them no favors.

The judge in the Lotus case quickly disposed of the first hearing refusing Lotus Groups submission to throw the action out even before their lawyers said anything, and rather than let it drag on he has set it down for March 21, suggesting they sort themselves out before then. Nice one judge. Tony Fernandes is quoted as saying the good do always win. Not in my world Tony unfortunately, so good luck.

Sounds as if Force India are set to announce Paul Di Resta as a driver for 2011 tomorrow in Glasgow. Why else would you go to Glasgow? So, what now for Luizzi, and his contract?

Pat Symonds, yes the one I said should not be heard from, but is, suggests that F1 needs to do a lot more research on just how much overtaking it needs. Good point, I don't think F1 fans want a NASCAR type lead change every lap, and Lewis Hamilton did not seem to have too much trouble to pass people at most tracks this year, and how about Kobayashi, so perhaps it is attitude not the car? We certainly do not want to see manipulated races.