Bob Barnard Track Engineering

In an interview with England's Guardian newspaper Bernie was in great form. "I don't think democracy is the way to run anything." That goes without saying, you just have to look at how he has run F1 these last thirty years or more. Speaking about job satisfaction he said,"You look back at the end of the year and you see what you've achieved by working out how much money the company has made. That's it." That tells us all we need to know. No sentimentality about famous old tracks being lost, and unapologetic about the spate of "cookie cutter" tracks replacing them, blaming it on the need for track safety. In my mind safety and a great track are not mutually exclusive, on the contrary, a safe track allows drivers or riders to take chances they would not normally take if they thought the track unsafe. I think Phillip Island is a great example of this. Anyway, I do not believe Bernie is quite as hard bitten as he likes to make out. Don't get me wrong he loves winning the deal, but he started as a racer don't forget, then a driver manager and team owner. He does love the sport, just loves the deal more. Asked about retirement he repeated what he has said before that basically they will carry him out of the office in his coffin, and said they needed a car dealer to replace him. Not quite sure if Flavio Briatore was a car dealer, but he was a wheeler and dealer so I guess that counts. One very true statement Bernie makes is in respect of the money wasted by Governments on the Olympics compared to investing in say Silverstone. "The worst thing is that they have wasted a fortune on the Olympics which will come and go, and be forgotten in a few weeks, when they could have supported Silverstone and made sure the British grand prix is there forever. The only good thing about the Olympics is the opening and closing ceremony. They do a lovely showbiz job. Otherwise, it's complete nonsense." Well said Bernie.

I read yesterday that Korea is spreading cement dust on the asphalt to soak up the oil seeping out of it because it is so freshly laid. That's high tech right there, you want to be the first driver to find that slick spot.

There is a lot of comment about the bad weather at Phillip Island last weekend and why can't they pave the parking or move the race to earlier in the year? Paving the parking would be extremely expensive for just that race, even if the farmers would sell the land and the Council would let you. I always planned that the race would be one of the first of the season so even though the weather can still be iffy in the fall at least the ground would have dried out over the summer. As it is in September it has rained all winter on volcanic soils, not a good mix. The argument is that the F1 race is early in the year and you do not want to clash. Well it wasn't when it ran in Adelaide, and only runs early in Melbourne to avoid the Melbourne Cup horse race, Australia's Derby, which is run the first Tuesday in November if I remember correctly. So what if the GP  ran that weekend prior? What an experience, you don't think the sum of the two is bigger than the parts in terms of a tourist draw?

Well that's a surprise, Charlie Whiting approved the Korean circuit. There are ongoing concerns though, but to be fair to Charlie he is looking at the safety aspects which if it is built to the approved drawings then should be OK. The Koreans announced that Charlie was walking the circuit and inspecting all the corners, as if that were something special. What did they expect, he would ride around at 50 mph and say it looks OK? When I inspected Shah Allam many years ago I said I was going to walk, and the locals thought I was mad and refused to come with me. They rode around in a mini van about every ten minutes to make sure I was still alive and bring me water. They said the only other person who walked was the FIA inspector. Of course, how else are you going to have the time to properly see all the minute details that can make a track safe or dangerous. When I build a track I walk it all the time. I've tried trail bikes and scooters, but there is something about riding or driving that takes a piece of your concentration away, and it is too easy to ride past something.

So, we will see what happens. I am told that Australia is sending a bunch of marshals and officials to help run the race, so at least there will be someone there besides Charlie who knows what they are doing.

Not much else brewing on the motorsport scene, the mid week lull and there are no juicy rumors about who is going where. Saw a headline that Panasonic might sponsor Sauber. After Kobayashi's drive on Sunday I'm not surprised. Let's see some more of that in Korea.

The movie on Ayrton Senna's life premiered in Japan over the grand prix weekend, and has got great reviews from the journalists who were lucky enough to see it. It seems the rest of us will not see it until mid 2011. Have they only got one copy?

It's OK expanding racing to the far east, so long as they can build the tracks properly. We have had the earlier saga of Korea not building a track and paying Bernie a chunk of change not to run a GP, and now we are presumably still paving a track to race on in two weeks time. A couple of years back we had a Shanghai street race where the hairpin was so tight the cars had to do a three point turn, and no I am not joking, and then the manhole covers were not secured and the race was stopped to weld them down. Now we have the second practice for Superleague cancelled at a new Beijing street race because the curbs are coming up. It is actually worse than this as it is being run as non-championship race to a Chinese National Sanction as the track was not approved safe for an FIA Grade 2 status. So, the drivers are not going to race as hard if it is a non-championship race? It is OK to have a serious accident so long as the Chinese are approving it? What piece of unsafe are we missing here? As I said yesterday some people get a pass because they do not know better. Who built this anyway?

Suzuka already looks to be a Red Bull benefit. I know it is only Friday, but the signs are ominous. Ferrari nearly a second off the pace, Button struggling with the car, and Lewis dumping it into the wall almost from the get-go and doing very few laps in the second practice. Let's hope the new rear wing arrives in time for him. I guess they only had two of the new wings, and unlike Red Bull, did not want to take the one off of Button's car for him. It must be hot off the press or you would think they would have brought more than the two with them. The Degner curves are catching people out just as they did last year, despite the curbs being altered, but obviously not improved. Barrichello in particular commented that they love Suzuka as drivers, but it does have some safety issues and they have to drive accordingly. Not easy to make changes to Suzuka, being tightly wrapped in the valley as it is. Let us hope the rest of the teams can get it sorted and we can see another good race, and one not spoiled by the weather.

Trulli says he is looking forward to next year with Lotus and applauds their improvement this year. Looking at the practice times they are the class of the new teams, but are still over 4 seconds adrift of the quick guys. HRT are some 6 seconds back, so it seems not surprisingly the new teams have not made much progress this year. They are going to have to make a very significant redesign of their cars in the off season if they are to survive, which so far only Lotus seem to have put in place.

In other F1 news it seems the engine builders are agreeing with me, rule changes cost money, so they are trying to change Jean Todt's mind about the four cylinder turbo for 2013. Cosworth is saying it will cost Euro 20m to design a new engine, and who is paying, HRT,Virgin? The other guys are saying this is a Euro 100m deal, so where's the cost saving in F1 now? They sensibly suggest they can do a lot with the existing 8 cylinder if Jean wants "green," otherwise it is going cost lot of green stuff. Resource Reduction Agreement anybody?

Over in Malaysia Rossi seems to be riding around his shoulder problem, or maybe it is the chip on it that is helping? I'm sure after the comments of Yamaha management he is out to prove something. He is now saying he will go to Australia, which I am sure the Phillip Island Promoter is very relieved to hear, and make a decision after that. Stoner will be looking for a good result to take to the Island, while Lorenzo I'm sure will be looking for a nice quiet race to the World Championship.

Bathurst is on and practice times are as competitive as you would expect from this series, with 1.5 seconds separating the top twenty cars. I'm really sad we do not get the race here, although after ten hours last weekend of Petit I need to get some things done. I think we have had a highlight show on occasions. If any of my US friends know please tell me. David Brabham looks like it could be a long race as his car is well down in practice, but as they say in the classics, and F1 driver's interviews, it is a long race.

Murphy The Bear has a new post today, it is the usual mixture of rumor,opinion, and truth, but as always funny and worth logging in to.

Tony Fernandes is learning what most of us around racing already know, changes to rules cost money. They cost the car builder and the track owner money, everyone except those making the rules. I noticed this when running motorcycle GP's. I would go to meetings of the Road Racing Commission of the FIM, along with sponsors, teams and manufacturers and other track owners, and be forced to listen in silence while 16 men with not a dime invested between them discuss changes to rules. I well remember one poor soul from Yugoslavia, as it was then, who had made all the upgrades to his track as requested, and then was not given a race! He just about cut his wrists on the conference table.

The FIA and FIM keep going on about cutting costs, and then proceed to make the teams redesign the cars or motorcycles each year. And not just a little. We go from movable front wings to movable back wings next year, or has that been dropped? It is hard to keep up, let alone try and design a car for next year. The 125cc class disappears, so what happens to all those machines? Are they now so much junk?

Korea is a running sore now for Bernie, and it seems our friend Mr. Tilke is getting some flak about the lateness in completion. To put the record straight I met Peter Wahl, Managing Director for Tilke, at the Forum in New York back in April, and he said then that the Koreans only wanted them to design the track, the Koreans would build it themselves. Now it seems the Koreans are pleading that they had not built an F1 track before so should be excused for being late! I presume they knew before they started that they had not done this before. When I did Adelaide I had not done it before either, but we still got it done. I know what they mean though, it is more complicated now, but there are also people available now that know how to do it, so there is no excuse if you choose to ignore them. As I try and tell potential clients, it costs just as much to build it wrong as build it correctly, the only difference is the fee for someone like me, and that is peanuts in the scheme of things. The cost of rebuilding it, or not completing it is enormous, as the Koreans are about to find out.

If you want to see the next disaster go on the ESPNF1 web site and look at the photos of the Indian track for next years GP. They are already complaining that the weather is delaying them. When I built Eastern Creek there was a famous photo of the Minister for Sport and I under an umbrella standing in a lake it was raining so much. That was January, and we ran the first race in July. It was not pretty, but by September we ran a test for GP teams following the Oz GP at the Island. You can either get it done or you can't.

So now we have everyone calling Singapore a jewel, just because Bernie likes a parade with pretty lights. Someone said it is a great race, no it is a great event, there is a difference. Now, I know some of you think I am picking on Singapore, but my comments are intended to try and balance the overblown expressions of excellence. We have a track that is almost impossible to pass on. I say almost because we saw a few, when a driver had a much quicker car or better tires, and the overtaken car did not fight it. The rest of the time we saw the consequences of trying with one or both cars out. Vettel said it was too risky to try and pass Alonso, not conducive to good racing. Again we saw a lack of preparation for an incident, both in the track layout and the operations. Nowhere to put a damaged car or a crane to lift it, and no marshals running to remove it. Kovalainen was desperate to find a fire marshal and he was lucky he got that fire out with the small extinguisher they passed him through the pit wall debris fence. I know this is not politically correct, but I have never liked the fence on pit wall. I know the reasoning, but when did we have an accident that sprayed debris over that wall, I'm sure someone will tell me.

Then the NASCAR Channel, sorry SPEED, showed their utter contempt for F1 fans by leaving the race without the winners rostrum or the interviews, not for the first time, to go to a NASCAR talking heads show. SPEED, you know the time this race is going to run so why do you do this, especially hours before the other race is due to start?

Singapore says that they are going to study the true economic benefit of the event, and see what Bernie's fee is, before the ante up for the new contract after 2012. It was a sell-out, but the stands were largely empty Friday, and that tells me they are not tourists coming in for the race but locals, so where is the benefit?

Korea seems even more in trouble now Bernie has finally fessed up that all is not well. "We have to get lucky and hope it will happen." Not the way to run a multimillion dollar sport I think, and not Bernie's style at all.

A friend who works for Musco Lighting has responded to my comment on how "green" can you be using the power for the lights. They have a system coming, that is not for common knowledge at the moment, that will improve the situation, but it still needs power to run which would not be required for a daytime race. And let's not forget the lighting required for the spectators, it is not just the track.

I made a silly comment a month or so ago that Vettel must be dreaming if he thinks he can still win the Championship. Well, here we are and he can still do it, as can Alonso, Webber and Hamilton, and maybe Button. As we have seen anything can happen in the last four(three?) races, it is the Championship no one wants or can take control of.