Bob Barnard Track Engineering

So Sam Michael has to move on from Williams, and where does he go? McLaren as Sporting Director. Now I call that a very good move, nice one Sam.

Someone else moving on is Stephen Mullens, long time legal advisor to Bernie. Now this story has been angled two ways. Some sites are slanting this as Stephen leaving because of the Gribkowsky affair, in which he has been implicated. He is said to have resigned from seven of Bernie's companies. Pit Pass of course has their own view. He is only involved in the family trust, and another lawyer from the same firm has taken over, so just a handover? Read it how you like, but in my experience very few people ever leave Bernie, either he looks after them too well or they know where the bodies are buried, or both. So unless Stephen has a health issue, this does have some "legs" as they say in the classics.

Bernie and the boys are not the only ones being sued, our old mate Tavo is being sued by an attorney who says he did work on the basis that he would end up with 5% of the GP deal. Tavo says he was working for free and never sent an invoice. Sounds like sweat equity to me then. Not content with having to manage the US GP and a new track Tavo has found time to advise South Africa, Mexico and Argentina on F1 GPs, despite not having staged one himself yet. The newspaper reporting all this went on to say "actual construction of the Circuit of the Americas’ infrastructure will begin "soon." What have they been doing all this time? 

 

A friend of mine involved with the sport confessed to me recently that he did not realize that tracks paid series to come and race. I was not surprised, most fans of the sport do not know of the commercial arrangements, mainly because they are usually confidential. I know some of you think I carry on about the business, but unless you understand how this runs then a lot of things don't make sense.

Not that many do even when you know. There is a good article today on ESPN F1 by Formula Money about the economics of promoting F1 races and why it is mainly Governments doing this.

http://en.espnf1.com/f1/motorsport/story/56182.html

The most telling paragraph is the one where they explain that "The race promoters' sole source of income from a Grand Prix is ticket sales and this usually barely covers the hosting fee paid to the F1 Group. Most promoters would then be pushed into loss by the costs of running the race itself and obviously no one would be prepared to do it on this basis. This is where the governments step in." I wonder if Tavo reads this, or Red McCombs.

Again, I do not wish to harp on the Indian GP, but why do we get a string of people reassuring us all is well if there is no reason for us to be concerned. VJ Mallya is the latest one to tell us "Everything may not be 100 per cent in terms of the grandstands and the spectator facilities, but the technical areas, the pits, the motorhomes, the paddock club and of course the track itself seems to be almost ready already." Well that's OK then, as long as the teams are taken care of why worry about the poor paying public?

Then we have Carlos Slim Domit, son of reportedly the world's richest man, talking about bringing an F1 race back to Mexico. "We know that racing is costly. There are a series of criteria that need to be met for the event, most importantly security." Really! One cannot help thinking that Carlos could do a lot more good with his money to help that problem rather than give a bunch of it to Bernie and CVC.

It used to be that a "Grand Prix" was THE motorsport event of the year in a particular country, and each country was supposed to only have one such event. Now we know Bernie has got around that with F1, and here in the US you can and do call anything a Grand Prix, totally devaluing the name. Dorna is not only emulating Bernie but has gone straight passed him in the search for the mighty dollar with now three races in the US and four in Spain. Half the World Championship is run in two countries? Italy only has two, which is surprising given the popularity of Rossi. Can the US support three GP's given the lack of interest in the National Series? There are suggestions that Indy is in trouble, but at least they run a real GP with all three classes. Laguna only pays for the top class to come, and I know it will upset a lot of motorcyclists who see this place as the Phillip Island or Assen of the US, but might they just be the one to go?

"Circuit of the Americas?" Sounds like it should be in Costa Rica or Bolivia. Setting some high standards for this track, let's hope it delivers. I staged an event in Australia back in '88 with Frank Sinatra and Whitney Houston in two concerts, and a whole range of top sportsmen and women over five days. We were silly enough to call it "The Ultimate Event," which it was and still is, but the media spent six months trying to convince the public it wasn't. Hard to fight that. Still Tavo and the boys seem to be in a honeymoon phase. India has done something similar, naming the circuit "Buddh International Circuit," invoking a connection to Buddah.

Bernie is not letting up on the engine debate, and Jean Todt is learning that just because someone voted for it they can change their mind. This is F1, they will do what they think is best for their team now. Bernie has a powerful ally in Montezemolo who continues to agitate for larger engines, a move away from too much aero, and a return to testing. Once he is President of Italy with Alonso as his Prime Minister then it will get interesting.

My buddy Allen Petrich asks a good question. Why are teams allowed to charge the KERS system before the start of the race? You cannot use the DRS wing for the first two laps, why I do not know, but let's be consistent, and avoid situations like Webber's, or the disadvantage at the start to the small teams that cannot afford it. Or is this all part of the "lottery" that F1 has become?

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.