Bob Barnard Track Engineering

There was a lot of talk about how great it is that in 2014 Sebring looks like it did 50 years ago. What other major track looks 50 years old and has outdated safety. Probably the other track owned by ISC, Watkins Glen. And this is good why? I have said in past years that there is a point beyond which "character" becomes dangerous, and Sebring is long past this. Turn 17 is hideous with cars "kangaroo hopping" through it. Dorsey Schroeder said he was always amazed when he got through it each lap. Well we had a reg flag for a couple of cars that did not. The wall on drivers left at exit is too close and has one row of tires not properly attached. Compare that with Turn 5 in Melbourne where there are at least four rows if not five. Again the wall comes back to accommodate the bridge abutment.

That was just one crash however. After the three hours on Fox, with all the usual infomercials and historic photos we had a car almost burned to the ground and a previous crash so had about an hour of racing. It got a little better when it streamed on IMSA.com with fewer breaks, but in the end we had almost 6 hours of yellow and red flag in a 12 hour race. Part of this the ridiculous time it takes to clear a car and get back to racing under the closed pit lane system. In the last hour we had a car off at Turn 9, not damaged, just stopped. It took 30 minutes to go back racing, so we had a 20 minute sprint and no time to catch the Ganassi car which benefited from pitting just before the yellow.

The standard of driving was so bad that even Jim France suggested that they pass out business cards for racing schools. I know "gentlemen" drivers have been part of sports car racing since the first Le Mans, but some basic level has to be maintained or as was said, they will kill someone. It says much for the design of the cars that no one was, especially the crashes at 16 & 17. 

The US commentary was right up to it's usual standard. They must think we are idiots, Radio Le Mans where are you? On Motors TV in Europe that's where. Two gems when it got dark  Varsha, " now you can see why headlights are so important." His emphasis. The Justin Bell talking about how drivers cope with the reduced visiblity at night. "Generally the track doesn't change between corners." Really, so sometimes they rush out and throw in a chicane or something? Honestly, you couldn't make this stuff up.

I am at a total loss why Fox would even show this. Three hours of a twelve hour race, and the first three, not the last. Filled with ads and nonsense. It must be a condition of the NASCAR contract.

So now we get reports of practice and qualifying from Paul Ricard LMS, and guess what, the Autosport story is about the Aston! Apparently it was there yesterday, just had engine trouble and did not run. Not that it is setting the world alight when it ran, six seconds off the pace and down with the LMP2 cars. Now it is brand new, but compare their debut with the Honda HPD at Sebring. The AF Corse Ferrari carried on where it left off at Sebring by topping the GTE standings, GT2 to most of us. The Rebellion Lola Toyota was fastest for your information, but it is close among the four, yes four, LMP1 cars.

If you thought I was being pessimistic about ALMS yesterday you need to read two excellent articles on Last Turn Club,

http://lastturnclub.com

Qualifying in Jerez for MotoGP was predictable with Stoner in front of Pedrosa, but only just. Perdosa is not likely to last the distance at a pace to worry Stoner, but Lorenzo is lurking right there, and Spies has found something to be fourth, but crashed. Valentino's good run came to an end with a crash and he ended up twelth. How many more times can he afford to crash before he says enough? Young Bradl took the pole again for Moto2, but there are 40 machines on the grid and the top 28 are covered by 2 seconds, should be some race.

Let us all wish Nicolas Hamilton well in his race debut in the Clio Cup at Brands Hatch this weekend, with big brother flying in to watch. As most will know Nicolas has Cerebral Palsey so is an example to us all to never let adversity stop us from achieving our ambitions.

So Bob Varsha, "how do ya like them apples?" Kimi is confirmed for NASCAR trucks in Kyle Busch's team no less! No mention of the Gillette connection now. Nothing like starting in a top team with a good teacher. I think Kyle and Kimi will get on well. Even I might watch that.

To follow on my personal news I am in the process of forming of a unique motorsport service for would-be and existing track owners, team owners and car collectors. I have invited some of the world's best and most experienced individuals and companies to join with me to offer a one-stop ability to provide a complete range of services from feasibility through design and construction, operations and maintenance, vehicle preparation, storage and detailing, team management, school operations, food and beverage, ticketing and credentials, race series and race direction and event management. You name it I have the people, currently a total of thirty, all known to me personally and among the best, if not the best, in their field. Any or all will be available to collaborate on a project, conduct due diligence, inspect facilities and conduct operational and financial reviews.

There is so little news the web sites are making it up with the excuse it is April Fools Day. What are they going to do tomorrow? What is not a joke is the announcement that the Victorian Government is going to audit this years race. I would have thought they would have audited every years race. Ron Walker says he is confident it will show they did not lose more than last year, and he hopes a bit less. I'm sure the good people of Victoria are glad to know that they only tipped in about the same $50m as last year, and not more!

It's good to see that the DTM have dropped that crazy street race in Shanghai as the last round of their series, both because the track was awful, and second, why would you end your major Championship half way around the world? Send the TV signal instead if you want to sell cars there.

In what must be an April Fools joke there is reported to be ongoing discussions to put Bahrain back on the calendar. I'm sure we could squeeze in Libya while we are in the area.

In Jerez the Stoner/Pedrosa/Honda show goes on where they left off in Qatar, swapping fast times in the two practice sessions. Lorenzo managed to get himself up to third in the second session, and Valentino is showing much better form in the sense of grid placings, but is still a long way off the time of Stoner. Ben Spies seems strangely off the boil.

You would not think the LMS race is on at Paul Ricard, or whatever you want to call it today. The only news I see is from Guy Smith's Linkedin. Still, I suppose if Audi and Peugeot are not there, nor the Aston, then why bother? Is this how ALMS is going to go?

On a final note this "fools day" Bob Varsha believes it is a "joke" that Kimi is going to race in NASCAR. The only joke is you Bob

So finally the sun came out in Melbourne, in time for the 5 pm start and to shine in driver's eyes. Vettel made sure there were no problems this year and as predicted by the qualifying times waltzed away with it. Pirelli Boss said it was a "thrilling race," but I found it just like last year. The tires did not "mix things up," even when Webber took the softs and was behind Alonso on the hard compound he could not get by despite the predictions that passing would be easy in these situations. The DRS, or movable wing, system, did not generate much passing either, there still needs to be a large performance gap before it works, and no, Bob Varsha, the car in front cannot use it. Bob got no better in the off season and clearly had not done his homework on the rules.

Great race by Petrov, following on from his Abu Dhabi performance. Where would Kubica have been in that car? Heidfeld was a big disappointment, and Barrichello drove like a novice. Button finally found the "killer instinct" to get by Massa near the end after failing badly at the start of the race. Who knows what is going on with Massa, and Alonso made the best of what he had. Webber apparently had a problem with his chassis which explained his lack of speed. Sad that Perez's good finish was taken away by the Saubers being disqualified due to a problem with the design of the rear wing. How do you get that wrong?

Hamilton drove an excellent race, especially with his floor dragging on the ground for half of it, but who knows, maybe that helped? Surprising really that the FIA took no action on that, but McLaren have done well to recover from the bad start during testing. Neither Mercedes finished due to being hit by other cars, but neither did they show that they would worry the front runners.

So, the answer to the KERS puzzle on the Red Bull, they did not have it on the car in any form. They decided they did not need it and could save the weight and reliability problems. What does that tell us about KERS as a green technology? The extra weight is not worth the performance, and at what cost. Now logically it makes sense to use the waste energy from cars, but this does not show the way. Perhaps if the teams were allowed to use it all the time, and not just in limited bursts? Of course Red Bull were in a situation where they had a large performance advantage anyway so could afford the luxury of racing without it.

As expected the race was run from six or more seconds a lap slower than qualifying, even when the fuel load went down. Lotus said they were happier with their race pace, beating the Virgins, and of course HRT did not start. Now, not to be nice to this joke of a team, but judging them on the 107% rule from qualifying is not really fair, as they would probably be doing the same lap times in the race as they achieved in qualifying, so actually not much slower than the race pace of the top teams, relatively.

The rookies did a good job, Di Resta leading his much more experienced team mate for most of the race, and Perez obviously putting in a stellar performance with only one stop, how did he manage that? Maldanado did nothing special, but not much wrong either. So on to Malaysia and perhaps mother nature's sprinkler system will spice things up.

At Donnington it was the Melandri and Checa show. Mad Max Biaggi will be even madder after being disqualified from race two, and the BMWs again failed to produce the goods.

We are down at the sharp end of most Championships now, with some having been decided, some decided this weekend, and some still to play for. Congratulations to Lorenzo for the MotoGP and Tony Elias for the Moto2 World Championships, but what might have been if Valentino had not crashed? But that is what makes this sport so great to watch, there are so many what ifs, but in the end it is only what was. It is not as if someone else took Valentino out, he crashed himself, so it is part of his year. Great guts and determination to come back, and to win today's race from sixth. Lorenzo is a worthy Champion, and next season should be a very good one if they can all stay healthy.

Daniel Ricciardo missed out on the FRenault 3.5 Championship, finishing fourth after a late spin following a good duel with the eventual Champion Aleshin. Daniel has still done enough to deserve a step up next year, so let's see where he goes.

At Suzuka the predictable Red Bull 1-2 occurred with Vettel leading home Webber and is now third in the championship by virtue of Alonso's extra race win. All pretty predictable, except I thought Kobayashi's drive was inspired, and how he kept the car on the track and largely one piece must have been divine intervention. Hamilton too drove a great race given his start to the weekend and apparently with an ear infection. That cannot be great with a driver relying on the inner ear so much to tell him what is going on with the car. I don't know that I expected the McLaren to be as close on times a they were, and were not using the latest wing due to their practice problems. How unlucky can you be for a new gearbox to lose third gear when you have gone through the season without problems? It robbed us of a great finish between Alonso and Lewis. Massa had a terrible weekend. Are the mind games of being a number two getting to him? That dive down the inside at Turn One at the start was never going to work, and how did he not get a penalty for that when Petrov did? Petrov's would seem an honest mistake while Massa's was totally self inflicted.

We were treated to some excellent "commentator speak" this weekend. Kobayashi had three "unofficial spins." Those official ones must be something to see. Then there was the 130R that should be called the 130L, really? Varshaisms abound. I especially liked the "slow hairpin." I personally prefer the really fast hairpins, but you do not see many of them these days. David Hobbs chimed in with the fact that Red Bull had lead all the races this year "one way or another." I personally only know of one way to lead a race, but David has had a lot more experience of this stuff.

David Brabham finished thirteenth at Bathurst, only twelve seconds behind the winning Holden driven by Lowndes and Skaife after over six hours of racing. Craig Lowndes was one of those Australian drivers I was referring to yesterday who did get to Europe, but only had money for one year, so came back to drive tin tops, and very well he does it too.

And so on to Korea for the inaugural Grand Prix. Let's hope it is not a reprise of Dallas from 1984, or Spa where the race was canceled after one practice. Charlie Whiting is going there Monday, and will probably give it the OK, seeing as how Bernie has already said so.