Bob Barnard Track Engineering

Take that. You can change the rules but the result stays the same. Vettel and Red Bull cruised to another win in Valencia, with Alonso in the Ferrari the only one who even looked like bothering him. Webber looked at times like he was going to challenge but in the end could not hold off Alonso, and then had a gearbox issue. Why is it always Webber who has the issues? So, not a particularly inspiring race even though there were lots of battles right through the field. Button did show an unlike Jensen streak when he went past Massa at Turn Two like he was nailed to the floor, and got it done when the DRS zones could not, so do we really need this? Lewis continues to hate life. When told to slow down to conserve his tires he says he can't go slower! Then when his tires have gone off and he is told to go quicker he says he can't, doesn't sound like a man happy with his car or his team.

The best part of the race was watching it live on www.fromsportcom.com which showed the BBC coverage with Brundle and Coulthard. I do not have to put up with SPEED and those idiots again! Fox in their wisdom are showing the race at noon today, a part of their four race summer showing of F1 on the network, for some reason only a programmer would know. Due to their expectation that they will have a whole new audience they treat us as bigger idiots than usual. As I have said before, they do not feel compelled to explain the rules of baseball or football every time a game starts, so why do they do it for F1?

I also watched a fair bit of the Nurburgring 24 Hour thanks to a link provided by my friend Greg Sarni, and listened to the Radio Le Mans crew. These guys maintain their obvious passion for the sport and freshness as if they were spectators, while being totally professional and concentrating on the activity on track and not what is coming next or who is wearing what etc. This race has grown in stature over the last five years or so and is becoming a great showcase for manufacturers and new technology and ideas. Over 200 cars, and as one of the interviewees said there are more classes than he usually has entrants. The number of manufacturers was exceptional, it would be easier to say who was not there than who were, in fact I would not like to guess who was not represented. This was backed up by what must be every tire company, with some guys running on street tires. It is in some ways much more challenging than Le Mans, just the volume of cars and the bigger differences in performance on that narrow and dangerous track they call the "green hell." The number of top drivers there this year was a testament to its growth. There was Johnny O'Connell in a Renault Clio! Attendance is similar to Le Mans, so now we have two great 24 hour races.

It is interesting that the F1 Promoters, well 17 of them, wrote to the FIA to tell them they did not want the show if it was a 4 cylinder turbo. Now I have been a promoter and attended meetings with my fellow promoters, and it is hard to get them to agree to anything as we basically compete with each other over everything. A lot like the teams actually, but nowhere near as organized, so this is a new thing we are seeing. I always thought we as a group had a lot of clout, although there were always new tracks or existing ones who would take a race if I didn't, but this raises a new lobby group. I actually thought that a group of tracks that no longer have GP's could be a better bet to put together to start a new series based on better rewards for the guys taking most if not all of the risk. NASCAR's model would be a good start. Anyway, the current group is led by Ron Walker, Bernie's mate from Melbourne, so you can see where this came from, and why they would not support a breakaway series. The threat was to go to Indycar apparently. Yeh Right, let me know how that works out for you

Ben Spies breaks through and wins his first MotoGP at Assen today. I've been critical of Ben's performances this year, but perhaps he has just worked it out. I was in Hungary when Mick Doohan won his first race after trying for most of two seasons, and never looked back. Perhaps this is Ben's moment. His team mate had a Simoncelli moment and has called for a ban on him for a race or two. Sounds like the Hondas never got comfortable with the tires and Stoner had his mind on the Championship. Rossi's race went better than qualifying, so let's see what they do with this new chassis in future races.

Reminded me of when I worked for Kenny and we were at Assen. Schwantz led the race with Wayne Rainey in second and leading the Championship with Kevin no threat. I was foolish enough to compliment Wayne on running a smart race, and in Wayne's inimitable fashion he gave me an earful and said he wasn't being smart, he !!!!!! couldn't catch him.

In Valencia the engine mapping restriction made no difference it seems, with Vettel putting in the fastest lap ever seen here to take pole from his team mate Webber. Still with that half second or so over the McLaren of Hamilton, who has to be getting a bit tired of this. Rumor today of Webber to Renault, so a spare seat at RB? We again saw drivers sitting out or limiting their time on track to save tires, so let's hope common sense prevails and Pirelli get the OK to provide more tires for qualifying.

Watching the Nurburgring 24 hour on a German TV live streaming and listening to Radio Le Mans. As fun as it is I will not stay up for the 24 hours this time.

Whatever they are. The F1 Commission met earlier today and voted to delay the new engine formula for F1 until 2014, and then go to a V6 1.6 liter turbo. Makes sense to go to V6, but not sure how this helps Bernie's problem with the noise, if there ever was a problem. This does not change the fact that manufacturers are going to have to spend a bunch of money developing a new engine, I can't see they can just lop off the end two cylinders of the existing. Still, it keeps Ferrari happy, and as I said, even Nissan makes a bunch of V6's, as does Honda, Toyota etc. These are now going to a fax vote of the WMC. Another win for Bernie?

I'm glad things had settled down in Bahrain. They just sentenced a bunch of Shiite dissidents to long prison terms, which is sure to make the 70% of the population that are Shiites happy. Next comes the trials of the medical staff, which should quieten things down even more, not.

Joe Saward has his usual informative blog today with the news that the next stop on the GP trail, Valencia, is in a State that has debts of $25 billion, and the race costs then $40m. Do we think this race has a future?

France in the shape of its Prime Minister has woken up and decided it must have an F1 GP back, as soon as 2013. Paul Ricard is the track being suggested and the track Director is saying that it will only happen if they can find a promoter. Look closer to home, who owns Paul Ricard in whatever corporate guise you want? Bernie. So like the BBC, if he really wanted a French GP it would be easy, except then he would be playing with his own money, and he knows what he will lose on that bet.

On a different note, Trulli is frustrated by the ongoing problems with the Lotus power steering. I'm not surprised, I'd be frustrated too, and worried, steering the car seems a pretty basic requirement, and one I cannot fathom that Lotus out of all the teams cannot resolve. Wouldn't you go and find the best person in the world in power steering and pay them whatever to fix this? Better yet, steal the best person in the paddock. I can imagine this is not your average power steering set up, so can anyone reading this tell us what the issue is?

Is anyone else tired of this nonsense with bad tyres? One of Bernie's best ideas was the three stage knockout qualifying to make teams put cars on track. Now we have the situation where they are once again sitting in the garage during qualifying to save tires. Of course it is made worse by the domination of Red Bull and to some extent McLaren. Why not just give them one or two more sets? In the race they are still going to have to use both compounds, and gamble on a two or three or four stop race. Better still make the tires better. As the editorial in this month's Motor Sport says the current gimmicks are a band aid to cover up the basic problem with the current car specs.

Then we have Lewis Hamilton admitting in the post qualifying press conference that he will not be able to challenge the Red Bulls tomorrow as he has to look after his tyres! Great racing this is. We also have Vettel admitting his KERS did not work in Q2 & 3. Good, can you imagine how much more than the one second advantage they would have? Let's hope Mark can put on a show, otherwise it will not matter how many DRS, KERS and bad tires there are, it will be very boring.

You all know I am no fan of KERS and the whole green racing deal on the basis that racing is about efficiency anyway. It is nice to read the piece, again in Motor Sport, about the new Audi for Le Mans. Dr. Baretzky, the Audi engine Chief, puts it nicely. Talking of hybrids and why they are not planning to use it he said that at the moment the extra weight on the car would need more fuel to propel it than you are gaining from its use. "The system should pay for itself...Motor Sport should be about the truth: the more efficient, quicker, better car should win, and the rules should be made according to that. The ACO says we have to encourage this technology. Why? If this technology is a better solution, it will come. If we have to encourage it and it turns out to be the wrong route, it is a waste of energy and time." Here here.

The FIA has announced that DRS is so successful we are to get two zones of it at Canada and Valencia! Personally I never saw that Canada has a problem with overtaking with Turn 1, the hairpin and the last corner being full of action in the past. Valencia now is different, it needs all the help it can get. They have also decreed that the DRS cannot be used in the tunnel at Monaco, or Eau Rouge.  It would be a very brave, and stupid, man to try it through Eau Rouge. The tunnel might entice some to try. Why all this manipulation of where and when? If it is so good then rely on the drivers common sense and self preservation to decide when to use it. Or are we protecting the drivers from themselves?

So who watched Kimi at Charlotte? I did, and was very impressed. He kept it going in the right direction unlike some of the much more experienced drivers out there, including his team owner Kyle Bush. Kimi never saw Charlotte until Friday morning and raced there that night! He certainly was not intimidated by running in close company, and the other drivers did not seem to have a problem racing around him. Great job, not that I expected anything less. So now what, Nationwide?

Back at Barcelona we potentially have the situation where the Cosworth teams could protest the engine mapped exhaust blown diffusers. This the off and then on again ruling by the FIA, which leaves the door open as they did not say its use was legal, just that the teams had a stay of when they needed to undo it. That would be a nice mess at the end of the race wouldn't it?

As reported a few months ago the success of the greens in recent German elections has made the support for the German GP unlikely to continue past 2015, two more races at the Nurburgring as it alternates with Hockenheim so that track only loses half as much!

Casey Stoner continued his domination of testing in Malaysia with all the top Hondas under the track record. Yamahas made up places 5-7 with Edwards again in the mix with his factory team compatriots. Ducati is "sandbagging" really well if that is what they are doing, filling the 11-14th slots, Rossi being the quickest of them and nearly two seconds off the pace. Even the Suzuki is faster.

Back in Europe Valencia is now denying asking for a reduction in fees for the GP, and did not address the rumor that they have not paid for last year yet. The Minister also said he was not aware of other races pushing for a fee reduction. Why even raise these issues unless there is something to them?

Bernie is pushing for Bahrain to join Abu Dhabi and Brazil at the end of the season in back to back to back weekends of fly-away races. Not something the teams have done and a bit of a nightmare for them, especially if we have a situation like last year. Bernie obviously would like his fee. In the meantime he is not winning any friends with his comments in the new book about other personalities such as Jean Todt and Sir Richard Branson. Why would you say those things to a writer? Does he think he is invulnerable and can say what he likes? It seems so at times. It reminds me of when Kenny Roberts was running his team. On a slow news day journos would get a comment from Kenny as he was always good for something to stir things up, but never in this fashion.

If the Canadians are worried about the Renault JPS livery what are they going to say about the Williams Rothmans throwback?

Lord Paul Drayson has given up on ALMS for "greener" pastures, i.e. electric racing. His car will be missed if not Lord Paul, and good luck, I hope you have enough extension cord for your "zero emissions" vehicle. How much longer do we have to put up with this BS? He of all people should know that at the moment he is just moving the emissions elsewhere.  What now ALMS?

Glock is saying that the new Virgin is a second or more off the pace of the Lotus due to a problem with the rear wing. Nick Worth just needs to fix it apparently, oh if it were that easy. Presumably "I don't need a wind tunnel" Worth would have fixed it already if it was that easy, and just maybe a wind tunnel may have shown the problem.

On the home front it has been a busy and exciting week. More expert witness work, an overseas contact for a track, and a positive response on a major project I am trying to initiate here in the US. Hopefully I can tell you all about it in the next week or so.