Bob Barnard Track Engineering

Sunday afternoon I watched two very different races, NASCAR at California and MotoGP from Qatar. As different as you could want apart from the empty seats in the grandstand.

MotoGP gave us an exciting race from start to finish with up to 6 riders at times vying for the lead. A few crashes, and no full course yellows. No one had tire problems, and we saw some breath taking overtaking manoeuvres. The race was won by a guy who broke his leg 6 weeks ago and still had a brace on. Only two short ad breaks, no infomercials or stupid commentators. Great stuff and it will make me want to see the rest of the season.

And then there was the NASCAR race. 400 miles with no green flag pit stops due to the plethora of full course cautions. Tires blowing all over the track, including the race leader with three laps to go despite not having had problems all weekend. Jeff Gordon asked after 80 laps of a 200 lap race if they had enough tires? Goodyear supplies 11 sets for a 400 mile race, and they were lasting as few as 15 laps. What a joke, and makes Pirelli look really good. This is what happens when you do not allow testing at tracks on the schedule. The VP of Racing, Robin Pemberton, said that "they are the same tires as last year," and then added "but it is a new car." Exactly, so why would you think you can just roll up with the same old tires, especially on the oldest asphalt in NASCAR, with the biggest bumps.

Then of course we had MIke Joy, who repeated his previous weeks lies about attendance, not once but three times while we were looking at empty seats in the stands. "There are 68,000 seats and they are all sold." So what, did those people stay home, or were they all in the bar? As I recall the speedway was supposed to have over 100,000 seats when I went when it opened, or was that the temperature? Felt like it. Then there is good 'ol boy Darrel Waltrip. "Everywhere I look there are people racing." Duh, it"s a race idiot.

Finally, if you want to know what's wrong with the state of motor racing you need to go no further than to read Marshall  Pruett's interview with TUSCR Chief Scott Atherton in Racer Magazine. Talk a lot and say nothing, that is what he is really good at. Can't say anything wrong that way I guess so you keep a job.

http://www.racer.com/index.php/imsa/item/102091-imsa-sebring-q-a-with-series-coo-scott-atherton

We were treated to a very good race today in Melbourne, much better than most of us expected. All the cars started, albeit three from pit lane, and some got only as far as the first corner thanks to Kobayashi. We can only surmise where Massa would have finished if not taken out after the showing of his young team mate Bottas. Indeed where Bottas may have finished if he had not fallen victim to that wide exit I have spoken of and kissed the wall and broken a wheel. Recovering to finish 7th was a great effort and must give Williams cause for hope. Hamilton and Vettel both demonstrated what a fine line there is between winning and not really starting with this complex car, and Ricciardo after a stellar performance has also found out the hard way. I hope the Stewards get out of Australia OK.

I am glad I waited to write this blog as it took 5 hours for them to decide to exclude him from the results due to exceeding the fuel flow rate. This was not hard as the race finished at 4 am my time, so back to sleep. This fuel flow rule is so complex it does not bear thinking about. How do you have a maximum flow rate of 100kg an hour when you only have 100kg for a whole race? Mercedes are reported as exceeding it in practice, but then the rule was "clarified?" Red Bull are adamant that they did not exceed it, so wait for the appeal. Whatever the outcome Daniel showed he is well worthy to succeed Mark and we can only look forward to more of the same. A very cool drive under a lot of pressure.

Magnussen the younger also showed what we can look forward to, with Jan now being referred to as "Kevin's Dad" by the Corvette team. McLaren have to be well pleased, especially if the Red Bull exclusion holds up.

Mercedes confirmed what we all expected and dominated the race. You had the feeling that Rosberg could have won this by a lot more, but did not need to. He was pulling away from Ricciardo at a second a lap at one point, and even after the safety car closed it all back up just drove off into the sunset, even with the clouds. Hamilton must be gutted, but there again looking forward to the future with positive expectations.

So winners and losers. Clearly Mercedes with Red Bull, Mclaren and Williams all there abouts, Force India with good pace, Toro Rosso not so bad. Ferrari finished both cars in the points, but struggled to really challenge. apparently both cars had electrical issues, but managed them, and Kimi clearly not happy with brake by wire. Still, something to be confident about for the future. Lotus did get both cars to start and ran for more than half the race, with Grosjean getting within 12 laps of finishing. They were ecstatic just to be out there. Marrussia had both cars finish 13th and 14th, but Bianchi lost a lot of laps. Sauber did not look good, but Sutil did the race on one stop, so still tire friendly. Caterham had a race to forget with that first corner brain fade of Kobayashi, for which he escaped punishment, and Ericson stopping with a power problem.

What no commentator, either on TV or in print has mentioned is the sheer fact that the race was run succesfully at a very good pace, and no cars ran out of fuel, despite having 33% less! So the real winner will be us. Can you imagine the impact on our fuel usage globally if we can improve efficiency by 33%! That is huge, and I'm sure that if not racing our vehicles can achieve even more. It now points the way for the foreseeable future that vehicles will be powered by multi-system power plants. Not just electric, we barely have enough of that now let alone powering all those cars, but a mix of carbon based fuels with waste energy being recovered in the form of heat and kinetic energy recovery through braking. Congratulations to the powers that be that forced this change. I must admit to being a doubter, but we have better racing and a strong path forward. Wait till Honda come on board. Congratulations too to the engine manufacturers who have unravelled this complex specification and made cars we will still enjoy to watch. And at the same time giving us purists cars that again require drivers to drive, and be seen to be doing it. 

Also not mentioned was that tires were not an issue for anyone, and there was a considerable reduction in the marbles, which allows more overtaking by itself. DRS did not seem a big factor in most overtaking, and perhaps we can do away with this gimmick.

I cannot finish without mentioning the wonderful NBC coverage. I watch Sky on the computer, but have the TV on just in case the streaming stops, which it does now and again. I do not listen to the NBC commentators of course, and if I relied on seeing the race on NBC I would probably not watch. There must be a sense in the US that viewers cannot concentrate for more than a few minutes, so we have to have lots of ad breaks, and in between cameo pieces about Ricciardo racing a jet on take off, or photos of the new noses etc, etc. Absolute nonsense.

Who else is tired of this whole Pirelli tire deal. Paul Hembery says that it is "just a phase" we hear it every year and by the eighth race the teams work it out. Eighth race, that is nearly half a season of a lottery! I logged in at 10 pm to Sky F1 on line to watch first practice from Sepang. What did I see? Nothing for 45 minutes, the teams were conserving tires. I bet the spectator, and yes I only saw one, and no wonder with nothing to watch, was as annoyed as I was, and I went to sleep. When teams do not have enough test time, according to them, why would they just sit in the garage. Oh yes, saving tires, great show that is.

Apparently the boys finally came out and proceeded to "melt" the tires in the heat and green track. One of the Team Principles wrote an email to Pirelli suggesting an extra set of tires to be used by Friday drivers. Well I guess it would have cars on track, but we pay to watch the real drivers, not the reserve team. How would football fans like it if the teams put their reserves out for the first half?

To digress and follow the football analogy, why is motor sport stuck on this performance balancing? Success ballast? Manchester United players would be wearing diving belts by now. Federer would have a heavier or smaller racquet. They all do it one way or another, spec racing or regulations so restrictive that it may as well be. NASCAR thinks having 43 cars within a second and racing in big packs is what the spectators want. It did not seem a problem when Richard Petty won 200 races back when the sport was growing. There is an old saying that if you develop a better mousetrap the government will invent a better mouse. Well the FIA and NASCAR have done that very well lately. What happened to racing as innovation? There is a good article on where the "United Sports Car Series" should go:

http://www.racer.com/opinion-back-to-the-future-for-american-sports-car-racing/article/285560/

Without innovation where would the Chapmans and Halls be? Like Adrian Newey. Every new idea gets trodden on. You can't do that, all the teams will have to do it. So what, isn't that the point. And then there is the cost containment mantra. Let them spend what they want, if they go broke so what? Look at Rangers in Scottish Football. They survive even if it is back to square one. How about a relegation system for F1? Impossible you say, but what if the GP2 winner of 2012 is told he will get the spot in 2014 of the last team in 2013. That gives them a year to get ready, and if the winner does not want it then offer it down. Get some fresh blood in.

Bernie has success ballast of course. If you win you get loaded down with bags of money, bit like the Premier League actually, except if you try and spend it the FIA will stop you, or now take more off you. Bernie giveth and the FIA taketh away.

Sorry to wander around, but this blog is about what stirs me. Joe Saward has a great piece in his blog today about the disclaimer on Mercedes press releases:

http://joesaward.wordpress.com/

Scroll down it is the third or fourth article. Now you will have heard me talk about "the suits," the corporate men who run things now, lawyers and accountants. Well if you ever needed convincing then this disclaimer will do it. I know Mercedes is a public company and they need to be careful with what they publish, but this is a race team, a separate entity!

Talking of suits reminds me of "the blazers." These are another dangerous species in our sport, the people in the sporting bodies who spend their life being elected to higher and higher positions nationally and finally internationally. One of these, the FIA, has organized a conference this year at Goodwood to discuss the future of the sport. Being interested I checked it out, and who do you think the attendees are? The ASNs, the FIA member bodies. I would have thought that if they knew how to fix the current problems they would be doing it? How about bringing in the stakeholders, the people who have money invested in the sport. Teams, promoters, manufacturers, sponsors, drivers, and the media, and maybe Joe Blow public? This remind me of going to the FIM where the only people allowed to talk where the "blazers."

And so back to Sepang for practice two, at 2 am my time. Alarm set, ready to go, and so were the drivers this time. We were treated to lots of shots of some very nasty looking tires, but we are assured that the track is "rubbering in." I bet it is with that amount coming off the tires. We saw the usual suspects at the top of the time sheets, but as always it is hard to work out who is actually doing what. It is great that Johnny Herbert can hear and spot what is going on in the car, but at that time in the morning I am not awake enough to notice. Inevitably the rain arrived with 30 minutes to go. What did the teams do? Go out on inters to see what conditions where like in case it rained on Sunday? Hell no, they sat in the garage to save the inters, and I went back to sleep. It was bad enough when we saw teams saving tires in Q3, but it has now spread to the whole weekend, it is time this nonsense ends. If you want to know why spectator racing is dying, it is because the show is bad and getting worse.

So this morning we saw the Monaco street parade, with no changes of leaders if you discount the pit stops, and Indianapolis with a record number of lead changes. Which is right? Neither. Indy was all too easy to draft past someone, and until the end was a fuel strategy race. Congratulations Dario, but can't say I enjoyed it, in fact I fell asleep on the couch for the first half of the race. I expect we will see the same multi-leader race tonight in Charlotte, although the All Star Race was pretty spread out.

Monaco may have produced the sixth winner as expected. Now Monaco is very difficult to pass on, but we hardly saw any attempt being made, it was alll about saving fuel and preserving tires. Not racing in my book. The field has certainly bunched up on performance, making passing even harder, just ask Jenson who made an un-characteristic move on Kovalianen.

So Alonso leads the drivers Championship. Not that much wrong with the Ferrari is there, even Massa managed a decent race. Perez did not cover himself in glory today, he seemed intent on hitting everyone he could. And how about Maldanado? He makes the same move on Perez in practice that he did to Lewis in Spa and Lewis was supposed to be at fault. Here Maldanado gets a ten grid place penalty for a blatant move, but Lewis gets put to the back at the last race for a team failure to fill the car. Where's the consistency?

But how is it that last race Lewis could look after his tires to do a two stop race when everyone else did a three stop, and today seemed to have to nurse them? McLaren really have not got on top of these tires or their car set up. Lewis' contract talks must be interesting, but it is hard to see where else he can go. 

Now I know Nico is not Finish like his Father, but he does know how to finish a race off. There have been the doubters, but he has not been one of them, he just needed the right equipment, set up, and strategy. Congratulations Nico, great drive, but it did bring home the importance in today's era of deteriorating tires that being at the front is a huge advantage. We saw that last year with Vettel, although it was masked by a great car, but we also saw it with Button in Australia. Fighting through traffic after pit stops is quickly taking the edge off the tires, so qualifying at the front and getting there early is key.

Was anyone else surprised my the amount of "marbles" at this race, and so early on? Not something we saw at the end of last year, or at the first two races this year. Not great to see as it limits the overtaking options, although we did see a lot of that despite them.

What an excellent race though, and we are sure to see more of them. Mercedes have cured their tire problem it seems, in these temperatures anyway, but there is Lotus, Sauber, and yes Williams all showing signs they can compete. Now McLaren and Red Bull are going to be at the sharp end week after week, but surely Kimi is going to get in the mix soon, and Perez has also shown he can mix it. Who knows what Ferrari are going to do with that dog of a car. Sad to see Michael's race end that way, and I know I do not like him, but there you are. That's racing, ask Lewis after Malaysia and Jenson yesterday. Pit stops do have the ability to produce some different results. 

I loved our SPEED commentators carrying on about amazing it was that Mercedes won after 57 years! Well they did not race for 55 of them so what's the big deal? I suppose when Lotus win we will have the same carry on? Yes I had to suffer through a recorded SPEED coverage as when it was on I was on a plane coming home from a "Racing Goes Safer" conference in Long Beach where I continued my call for better track safety here in the US. If you have not gone on line and watched the Sky coverage and heard Alguersuari's comments then you are missing a lot, and David Hobbs misses most. Love David, but Jaime has current knowledge and what he can tell about what the driver and car is doing is amazing. An eye for detail I have always admired and wondered at in real racers.

I did watch part of the ALMS race live at Long Beach but cannot admit to being very excited by it. The GT's put on the usual show, but we miss the RISI Ferrari and the other overseas cars. Dyson has decided not to go to Le Mans due to the cost and not being able to raise more sponsorship or drivers who can pay. Sad for Rob and Chris, but an expensive experience if you are not competitive.

Watched part of the Indycar race, and let me say they do not look any better in the flesh. Ask Marco Andretti how well the new design of the cars works to prevent flying after riding over the rear wheels of another car. Waste of time and money come to mind? 

Finally Bahrain. Enough is being written about the situation without me adding my two bob's worth. Bernie and Jean Todt are getting rattled by the press pressure as they should. At least one team member had the courage to say they would not go for moral reasons, and got fired for their efforts which I think is outrageous. As I said, I for one will vote with my TV remote and will not be watching.