Bob Barnard Track Engineering

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.

It seems the two newest team owners in F1 know more than the powers that be that have been running the thing. Tony Fernandes has come out and said we should get rid of blue flags because it is slowing his cars down, and Sir Richard agrees with him. I think there a lot of things slowing their cars down, that is why they are seeing the blue flag. It cannot be the engine though as Williams is using the Cosworth to great effect. Cannot be the drivers, Glock, Trulli and Kovalainen are no slouches. Cannot be the tires, they are all the same, so it has to be the car. Fix the car, don't try and fix the sport. If there were no blue flags then presumably his drivers would be looking in the mirrors even more than they do now as they would have no other warning.

It seems everyone except Lorenzo enjoyed seeing the fight with Rossi, and more than a few took exception to Lorenzo's comments after. Personally I interpreted them as not bemoaning the forcefulness of Rossi, just that it should not be what a team mate does when the other rider is trying to win a Championship, which is not unreasonable. Bit like Vettel on Webber at Turkey. Once Lorenzo seals the Championship then it will be something to watch.

Alonso says he is ready for some pain in the four remaining races. Not quite sure what he was referring to other than perhaps a lot of extremely long hours and hard work for the team. Let's hope he does not expect physical pain. Looking forward to Suzuka, should be a cracking race, and the tension gets ramped up every race.

Also on next weekend, not that we get to see it here in the US, is the best touring car race in the world, Bathurst. If you have the chance be sure to watch. David Brabham is a glutton for punishment and after a ten hour race at Road Atlanta is heading to Bathurst for another one on an equally challenging track and, if possible, even more competitive cars!

It comes as no surprise that Sergio Perez will line-up alongside Kamui Kobayashi at Sauber next year in a new deal involving Mexican communications giant Telmex. Let's hope he gets a better chance to show his talent than most of the recent new boys, but Peter Sauber has demonstrated that in the past and has brought in some very good drivers, so good luck Sergio. Hopefully the Telmex sponsorship will move Sauber up the grid, it has not hurt Chip Ganassi in the Grand Am.

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.

Sitting at home yesterday watching the first Sunday of football, American style. The night game was the Cowboys and Redskins, and towards the end there were two incidents where players went down with potential neck injuries. It struck me the difference in approach to the Misano accident at MotoGP. Play stopped, medical staff ran out, the first guy there knelt at the players head and held it in position so as not to endanger a spinal injury. Everyone took their time. There seemed to be no pressure to restart the game despite what must be a similar situation to the MotoGP telecast, if not more due to the network's schedule. The player is given the opportunity to walk off, no one rushes out with a stretcher and throws him on it just to clear the pitch. When footballers can run 40 yds in just over 4 seconds, or less than 20 mph, and bikes are running at over 100 mph, it makes you think. The NFL has learned the hard way about head and spine injuries, and sometimes I wonder if motorcycle racing has learned anything.

Hero to zero? Hamilton is now the one being questioned by journalists over his rashness after his dive down the inside of Massa resulted in broken steering. It is called racing guys, and Martin Whitmarsh rightly has told Lewis not to change. I do not put it in the Vettel at Spa class, even if it was very optimistic. When he pulls these passes off we all applaud his skill and bravery, he seems to be able to create passing maneuvers where others cannot or will not.

The rumors about Lotus switching to Renault power next year seem to have come true with the announcement that they are ending their contract with Cosworth. Interesting decision given that the Williams is doing very nicely thank you with the Cosworth.

In the years leading up to the 2000 Sydney Olympic Games the Australian Broadcasting Company, the PBS of Oz, ran a series called "The Games." which spoofed the preparations. It was extremely funny with John Clark as the lead. At one point he makes the comment on F1 that they are the fastest cars in the world but you can't pass, the race is decided by parking! He meant pit stops of course, and we saw it again today. Not that it was not an intriguing race. It reminded me of the Gilles Villenueve win at Jarama many years ago when he had a train of five or six cars right behind him, who could not pass for the whole race. His win was helped that day by the fact there were no pit stops in those races. The tension of watching drivers strain for every inch, and striving for perfection of braking and placement, is sometimes more exciting than non-stop passing.

So, the question of who chose the correct downforce setting was answered. Hamilton I believe was forced into the mistake by him knowing he had to get to the front to make his setting work, which they did for Ferrari.  But, if only McLaren could have matched the pit stop time, but that is why you run the race. A simulation would probably have Button winning. Vettel's race was weird, with the inevitable suspicion that his "engine trouble" was a team orders ruse, but then he goes and beats Mark anyway. Apparently it was a sticking brake that fixed itself. Very clever strategy to keep him out, the super softs do not seem to wear out anymore. I thought for a moment they were going to try the "pit on the last lap" trick and roll across the timing line in pit lane. Didn't Ferrari do that at Silverstone for Schumacher some years ago? Is that a legal move does anyone know?

And why does Hulkenburg get away with not only cutting the chicanes but clearly blocking? Alguersuari gets a drive through for cutting the first chicane without gaining an advantage, where clearly Hulkenburg gained the advantage of not losing a place. Seems it is OK as long as you do not gain a place, you can avoid losing one. Isn't that the same thing?

It seems to be the World Championship no one wants to win. Every time we seem to get a clear leader or leaders, they screw up and it all closes up again. No one is taking it by the scruff of the neck and making it their own. Keeps it interesting for us, but as Lewis commented, not for the guys involved.

Bob Varsha was back to his best form, or worst if you have to listen to him. I muted the race because he would not shut up, which is very annoying as I like the sound of F1 cars, but if you cannot hear them for Bob rabbiting on then what's the point?

Peugeot won the inaugural Intercontinental Cup race of the Le Mans Series at Silverstone as I predicted, although McNish suffered the first mechanical breakdown of the Audi since the R10 days. Dindo says they learned a lot in their preparation for the Petit Le Mans at Road Atlanta, so we should look forward to a cracking race as usual. At least I can listen to Radio Le Mans commentary, which I know some of you do not like, but I do.

Pruett and Rojas won the final race of the Grand Am series, no surprise there. Who is going to step up and challenge these guys next season, Dyson?