Bob Barnard Track Engineering

For the last few years we have seen the Red Bull/Vettel Dynasty rule F1, and now it appears we are to have a Mercedes period. A few people are probably already saying that this is going to be boring, but I for one welcome the change and applaud the engineering behind the car.

At least it is about the car. No one is suggesting that Lewis is suddenly a superman, above all other drivers like we had with Vettel. When he kept winning a few of us were unkind enough to suggest that put any one of the top drivers in that car and they would dominate. But no we were told, it is Sebastian, he is so much better than the rest. Well this year the Emperor has no clothes.

Despite being told that this complex new formula would suit his intelligent driving what do we see. "Struggling with set up." A four time World Champion struggling with set up while his novice team mate is "faster than you are." We are also told Daniel is faster because he is more used to cars with less downforce than Vettel. Didn't Ricciardo race a F1 car with diffusers for the last couple of years? Hasn't most of the field raced cars with diffusers, including Hamilton, Rosberg and Alonso etc? No, now he no longer has a dominant car we are seeing what we suspected, he is very good but no better than them with a  spoilt brat attitude and he is a sore loser. As Mark Webber used to say, "the toys are coming out of the pram."

In contrast we see other top drivers just getting on with it. Lewis is totally focussed, not god like, and while Nico hates coming second to him there is no whining to be heard. Alonso is arguably doing the best job in a second class car, as he has for some years now. Yes he occasionally has a moan, but who wouldn't driving your guts out with little or no reward.

So another good race in China, not quite Bahrain, but Nico made it interesting with a bad start, and Massa with a too good one. Pretty stout suspension on these cars. What is interesting is how Lewis is using so much less fuel while running away from the pack. We have seen before that getting out in front allows you to run your own race and choose the ideal race lines, part of Vettel's secret.

Interesting WEC race at Silverstone. Pity I did not have access to live streaming and of course a World Championship does not warrant coverage here in the US. Still, with Radio Le Mans who needs pictures. They paint the scene extremely well, and actually provide far more information as to what is happening throughout the field than TV does. Well done Toyota, and Porsche. Audi uncharacteristically had both cars DNF. Crashed out through what appeared to be driver error. We have seen this before at Le Mans a couple of years ago. I am not saying they are not great drivers, but perhaps the pressure put on them by Toyota is part of the story. Of course there could have been something involving the car that led to Treluyer spearing right at Copse and hitting the inside barrier, which in a way is worse if there is an issue with the car. Both tubs damaged and Audi working against the clock to have them ready for Spa. 

Interesting discussion on Radio Le Mans about a WEC round in Oz, and where to stage it. Adelaide and Phillip Island were the two first choices, both a Barnard track, so very chuffed.

We have other dynasties going on with the Brabhams and the Gardners. Grandsons of Sir Jack Brabham and sons of David are both continuing the family tradition. Mathew Brabham is a rookie in Indy Lights here in the US, and doing OK, and Sam is racing in British Formula Ford with some success over the weekend. Watch out for these two.

Then there are Luca and Remy Gardner, both racing in the Spanish National Championship, the CEV, which is the proving ground for young hopefuls making it into MotoGP. Both learning their craft amongst tough opposition and stepping up each year under Dad's guidance. I hope to see something of them in Spain later this year. Pity Australia cannot produce the kind of racing that would develop talent to make the top tier in the world.

I am not talking about the lights at Bahrain but one of the best races I have seen for years! So this is "taxi cab" racing is it Mr. Montezemolo? I saw the look on your face as the Force India steamed past your Ferrari on the straight and as you turned away I thought "he's going home." And he was. What a joke all that BS from Bernie and Montezemolo about the state of F1. Good on Todt for turning them down.

There were passes all over the track and great racing. Ricciardo passed Vettel twice, good on you Aussie, shows how good Vettel really is. The Mercedes pair put on a show, and it was great to see Rosberg's reaction when he got out of the car. I was fearing a lot of pouting, but no. Naturally he wanted to beat Lewis, and only Lewis knows how he did not, but he said on the podium that it was the best race of his life. It looked it from where we sat. The Mercs finally showed their true pace in those last 12 laps after the safety car, pulling out 22 seconds over Perez who also has Mercedes power. Normally two drivers fighting like that slow each other down. The race time was 98 minutes against last year's V8's 96 minutes, so who says these are slow? Allowing for a lot of laps behind the pace car they are probably faster.

Paddy Lowe and the boys must have been dying on that pit wall watching that. I was excited about the prospect of these two fighting even before the race started, and they did not let us down. Good on you Mercedes for letting them race. What a season we have in store.

How Lewis held off Nico on those harder tires shows just how good he is, not to knock Nico, but he is a racer. Not sure how Vettel gets away with running people off the track like that, and what can we say about Maldonado? 5 grid places for that when Ricciardo got 10 for a loose wheel in pit lane? Come on Stewards, sort yourselves out. Shades of Grosjean at Spa.

These new low noses have been questioned already for just the sort of accident we saw yesterday. If it were the Mercedes or McLaren nose it may not have happened, but when changing rules we have to look at all angles of impact, not just from behind.

Talking of exciting races it is now 25 years since the first World Championship Australian Motorcycle Grand Prix at Phillip Island. A lot of memories, and AMCN is having a special edition to recall some of them. Some of them are better left unsaid. It was a very difficult time with much personal pain and stress to pull it off. We stupidly believed that if we showed just how great this race could be we would receive the support we needed. But no, it just brought out the rats who then wanted what we created.

I settled down yesterday afternoon for a motorsport marathon with Bathurst live for seven hours followed by the Japanese F1 GP. Bottle of red, some cheese and salami and hamburgers for dinner, does it get much better?

Well unfortunately it did not thanks to SPEED and Channel Seven in Australia. It was the worst, or close to, race coverage I have ever been subjected to. If you read yesterday's blog you know I love this race, so it has to be bad if I give up at lap 67 and watch a movie! My Aussie friends were posting on Facebook their annoyance at the number of ads Channel Seven were putting in, about every two to three laps it seemed. To add insult to injury SPEED felt it necessary to go and interview anyone they could find in pit lane even when the race was back on. What on earth were SPEED trying to do? I know you build a following for a sport based on the heroes, but you actually have to watch the sport! I know they pander to the lowest common denominator when it comes to an audience, but this was insulting. Are they trying to capture NASCAR fans?

Now an endurance race is hard to follow at the best of times as strategies unfold over the course of hours, so only seeing snippets made it impossible to follow, so I gave up.

So at 11 pm we turned to Fromsportcom.com to watch the Japanese GP. We actually do put SPEED's coverage on in case the computer stream locks up, but they were still at Bathurst, and stayed long after the GP started. I think it was about lap fifteen by they time they started the race, so if you looked on a web site you knew who won long before you saw it. And no sense of urgency even when they went to the GP, they did the grid walk and all the intro graphics as if there was all day to see this. 

Fromsport did not have the usual BBC feed for some reason so we watched German Sky, and lo and behold their commentators did not feel the need to talk non-stop. We had periods when we could just watch and listen to the cars, please note SPEED.

So to the race. Vettel has been to the Schumacher school of racing with the move he made on Button at the start, and of course got away with it. He says he did not see Button. Well the pit exit lane is not the normal line for taking turn one so I can only presume he expected someone to come up the inside and moved to block him. In that event do you not think he should be looking up the inside instead of driving Button onto the grass? Vettel joked afterwards that having two wheels on the grass did not stop him passing Alonso in Monza, very funny. He said he was looking for Hamilton who started third and behind Vettel. If that was the case why move over and give him the race line? Sorry cannot buy this.

Hamilton and Massa had their by now required coming together at the chicane. Lewis said he did not see him, and was actually taking the normal race line from 130R to the chicane, so he did not purposely move over on him, and presumably the Stewards saw it that way too. Hamilton had a bad race while his team mate drove his usual calm and controlled race and jumped Vettel at the second pit stop and hung on despite pressure from Alonso at the end, but ran out of fuel as he went over the finish line. So he was in fuel save mode for a while there which let Alonso close on him, and then threw in the fastest race lap at the end just to show he could.

Anyway Vettel score enough points running third to close out the Drivers Championship, and Red Bull must win the Team prize if they have not already, although I saw no announcement of this. I'm afraid Vettel is one of those drivers I respect but do not like. It is hard to fathom how he can drive away from some of the best drivers in the world at the start of a race, is the car that good? If so how come he ends up third? It seems from the radio transmissions that Vettel and Webber were told near the end not to take any risks. I presume that means Seb do not risk passing Alonso, and Mark do try and not pass Vettel.

An entertaining race if not dramatic. Ricciardo beat his team mate, so job done for him. His companions in FR3.5 finished off their season by Robert Wickens taking the Championship despite being taken out on the first lap as his rival Vergne also failed to finish. Alexander Rossi ended up third in the Championship, so another big step for him. Someone in the States needs to get behind Alexander and make sure he has the right rides to make it all the way to F1, then we might see some interest here. Magnussen the younger followed up yesterday's win with a close second in the final British F3 race.

It is one of the oddities of living in the US that kerb is spelt curb. I guess the "curb" is a limit to how far you can go, so it makes some sense, or is it just another simplification of the language that America likes, like harbour and harbor.

Anyway, the bolt down kerbs in Singapore "curbed" the enthusiasm of the teams this morning, or is that evening, when they started to become unbolted during a support race, and continued to give problems during the session. Whole sections have been removed and are presumably going to be reinstalled overnight (day?). Without knowing it looked like the insert in the pavement was not holding, but after four years why would that happen now?

Not the sort of advertisement Singapore is looking for when the whole point of the race is to show off the place. It was a primary concern of mine when planning Adelaide that we should not have a red flag situation, not easy to do on a street circuit.

I had the misfortune of tuning in to Speed for the second practice as the fromsportcom.com site has a tendency to freeze, but even that was better than listening to the inane rantings of Diffey and Co, so I went back to it. 

Practice? Well the results are predictable, Vettel fastest and a big spread of times. McLaren making bad choices and Ferrari looking good on "full" tanks, but how full were they? The track does not get any better and passing will be at a premium. Lots of brake problems. Ricciardo outpaced his team mate to be not quite last, but OK seeing as how he had not been here. Schumacher continuing good form well ahead of Rosberg who seemed to struggle.

Ron Dennis chose this weekend to spell out plans for McLaren Automotive including identifying the US as the biggest market and suggesting a motorsport involvement here. Can't see it in Grand Am can you? Ron is predicting a multi-billion dollar future for the business and a stock market flotation in five years, and who is to say Ron is wrong?

Not much else going on except the continued reassurances over India. Mallya came out yesterday and said the race could be run "tomorrow." Not unless those photos were from a month or more ago, but the FIA say they are "positive" about the situation. Meanwhile the local press are suggesting that with all their money the teams ought to be paying the Indian Gov't to come and race, if they can get a visa.

Christian Horner is now saying that it is likely Mark will be re-signed for next season. When asked about Hamilton he said that "For Red Bull, the most important thing is the harmony." You could have fooled me. It does seem to have settled down this season, but harmony was the last thing you saw last year.

Bernie says that Vettel winning every week is not boring. Apparently we are all watching the races just to see if someone can beat him. Well I for one am watching to see a race, not a procession.

Not much else worth commenting on, so see you tomorrow.