Bob Barnard Track Engineering

Happening that is. Rain at Daytona for the bikes and Sebring where Indycars are supposed to be testing. Barcelona is fine, certainly for Perez and Sauber who top the time sheet today, pretty close to Vettel's time yesterday. Massa is next and then Webber. No McLaren today, and times all over the place again. Lotus still have reliability problems and Williams had gearbox problems. I don't know if you have followed the Williams design this year, but the gearbox is so low the top wishbones are attached the bottom of the rear wing central support. Very novel and provides a huge hole for air to the back wing, but as someone said, you then have to use it.

Mercedes have some new parts and Schumacher is only 1.13 secs off the fast time, and both drivers say they are happier with the car, and Haug says they are not running low fuel. Williams and Ferrari have gone down the Red Bull exhaust road rather than the Renault as they think it is the best solution. Still feeding exhaust gas through the diffuser, but at the rear, not in front of the sidepods. I still have not heard or seen what McLaren have done.

The drivers met with the FIA, presumably Charlie Whiting, last evening to discuss their concerns about the movable wing, so watch for some tweaks to the rules, including not using them in the wet as the  change in downforce is thought to upset the car.

The most impressive thing in testing is the amount of laps Ferrari and Red Bull have put together, over 1000 not counting today, so their reliability is not a problem. Their quick too, not a good start to the season for the others.

There is a very funny Billy Connolly sketch in which he uses this expression, and in Barcelona it is all the same, just different drivers. Vettel is atop the timesheets and the rest are struggling. McLaren had car problems again this morning and appear to have some real problems with it. Hard to believe that all that equipment needed to be on the nose just to record some stress/strain information. They had easier ways than that I'm sure. Peter Geran sent me a photo off twitter of the Red Bull front wing dragging the end plates on the ground again a la 2010, so much for stronger tests. Petrov is doing well in the Renault, but Rosberg and the Mercedes are still struggling and Virgin are still 7 secs off the pace.

HRT have finally signed Luizzi so all the seats are filled now, and the new car is supposed to be at the track Friday.

Interesting that Suzuka has only extended its deal to stage the GP for one year? Bernie usually likes multi-year deals. Suzuka says it only makes a marginal profit, which is an achievement in itself, but is owned by Honda who quit F1 so is presumably reviewing the benefit of still staging the race, especially if Bernie is upping the fee.

Nice to see David Brabham confirmed to drive Duncan Dayton's HRD LMP1 at Sebring. Not much time to get the car shaken down, but Duncan's cars are always top class so it will be a great addition to the LMP1 field.

Not if you are Jean Todt it isn't, the British press are having a field day over the FIA's lack of leadership and direction during the Bahrain saga. The FIA are in a rock and a hard place as while they are a signatory to the Concorde Agreement, the real commercial problems of canceling a race are between Bernie, the teams and the promoter. Having the Crown Prince cancel makes Bernie's life easier. The big losers are the TV companies who have paid for 20 races and now have 19. It is very hard to see where a rescheduled race is going to fit in for 2011, the calendar was already the most crowded in F1 history. It will be an interesting sort out after this between all these parties, and the teams sponsors and insurance companies.

From comments made today it would appear that Valencia has not paid the fee for last years race. No comment. Melbourne's City Councillors have been polled and most are in favor of keeping the GP, but then again they are not paying for it.

F1 testing is over for a week or so, but MotoGP and WSBK are both in action. Stoner is fastest in Malaysia on the Honda with Lorenzo third on the unsponsored Yamaha factory team. What does that tell you about the state of MotoGP? A Japanese factory team could usually be relied upon to lean on one of its' fellow Japanese corporations to put something on the machine, but not this year. Of course it is done to allow Yamaha to celebrate its 50th year with the team in Yamaha blue, right. Rossi is still a second off the pace but at least in front of Hayden. Still not time to rule him out. Colin Edwards on the second string bike is in front of his old team mate Ben Spies who has the works machine, nice going Colin, let's see you stay up there this season.

Down at the Island Carlos Checa leads the way from the usual suspects and a high number of falls. It seems that despite no factory Ducati team the marque is still the one to beat. The debate on the GP date next year has gone quiet for a while.

Vettel has raised an interesting issue with Pirelli's and overtaking. I think it was Sir Isaac Newton who said "that for every action there was an equal and opposite reaction." So we add KERS and movable wings to make overtaking easier, and ask Pirelli to spice up the tires, and now Vettel says the amount of "marbles" coming off the Pirelli's will make overtaking impossible by half race distance.

Nice to hear that Kubica has started rehab. Best wishes Robert for a complete recovery.

So Bernie is going to let the Crown Prince decide whether it is safe to stage the Bahrain GP. At least he is not asking the opinion of a cameraman. Maybe Bernie is playing the politics and "letting" the Prince look like he made the decision, or hoping the Prince will cancel so he does not sue Bernie for breach of contract. There are suggestions that the teams have agreed not to go, but do not want to say so for fear of breaching the Concorde Agreement. Insurance is apparently a problem when there are travel advisories by the UK Foreign Office and other like bodies, so there is a "force majeur" situation there that could resolve the teams issue. It looks like a situation where no one wants to make a decision in case they are held in breach of contract, they are all dancing around the subject. The FIA, apart from a couple of inane comments a week ago, are missing in action on this one, afraid of upsetting the Arab voting block I guess. The only people with the courage of their convictions are the demonstrators.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, the teams are continuing their Barcelona test. It is hard to read anything into fast laps, especially between different drivers on seperate days, but AT&T Williams keeps a running tally of all drivers on all days, which is interesting if nothing else. Check out http://www.attwilliams.com/test-timings

Rosberg is quickest overall with Vettel, Petrov, Alguersuari, Hamilton and Alonso and Barrichello within one second. Trulli in the Lotus is 2 plus seconds off the pace, which is much better than last year, with HRT and Virgin both over 3 seconds off thanks to Luizzi. Without Luizzi HRT would have been nowhere so they had better sign him up. The consensus is still Red Bull in race trim, but it is still any one's guess.

For those who like to see pairs of cars run around nose to tail for 4 or five hours then Daytona is on today, and yes they changed the rules again making the radiator slot bigger this time, just so they can last 500 miles? Can you imagine F1 doing this, or Le Mans? Just cut a bigger hole in a piece of tin plate boys, all sounds like amateur hour.

The photos of tanks in the streets of Bahrain reminded me of the Tiananmen Square situation, why do soldiers carry out such orders against unarmed civilians? Joe Saward rightly says that all the investment by Bahrain in presenting itself as a good place to visit and do business has probably been lost. Joe also suggests it is not a place that F1 should be associated with, but then again we just extended the deal with China, and I'm sure business will go on. Ever since the Munich Olympics the question of sport and politics has been raised. Still, if sponsors are concerned about their "green" image, I'm sure they are just as concerned about their humanitarian one. I've learned in my travels that there are very different cultures around the world, and we ignore them at our peril when doing business in them.

It seems Bernie's week is not getting any better with his comments on the situation in Bahrain being treated at best as "insensitive." One twitter post says Bernie thinks things are calmer now, (now they have shot a few people.) Not Bernie's words, but you see how they are being taken. He writes off the GP2 race as "only being the Asia series," "not terribly important." For the full piece go the ESPN F1, http://en.espnf1.com/f1/motorsport/story/41200.html

With some spare time yesterday I watched the twin 125's from Daytona, and have to announce that if that is what is going to happen on Sunday over 500 miles I will not be watching. A boring, bizarre pair of races. OK, the drivers are doing what they need to to be competitive, two cars hooked up are close to 10 mph faster than one, and by the second race they had worked out how to keep the car behind cool without having to waste time swapping over. So young Trevor Bayne pushed Jeff Gordon for the whole race. What was going to be his reward? They are not the same team? TV air time? Jeff Burton the winner of race two was pushed by Bowyer his Childress team mate for the whole race  so what did they do, flip a coin to see who pushed who? So what now NASCAR? The reduced restrictor plate slowed them down to about 199 mph, but we still have the strangest racing I've ever seen.

The debate over the Phillip Island MotoGP date rolls on, and the Daytona model might be a good one for Ron Walker to look at. Running the GP and World Superbike one month apart may not work, but one week could be built into a Daytona "Speedweek." If you are a fan of two and four wheels you could actually camp out at Daytona from the Rolex in late January through the Daytona 200 bike weeks in March, with non-stop action, and many do. Bike week is huge, with supercross and flat track events as well as a series of road races from pure amateur through to AMA, or is that DMG these days? In fact most motorcyclists come for the atmosphere and never go to the race. Still does not solve Ron's problem of having the F1 GP around the same time, but as I have said, that should be another "raceweek" with the Melbourne Cup in November.

It seems the Austin F1 track started again. Passers by the site report activity. What's that four starts now?

F1 testing resumes at Barcelona, which seems certain to host the final test as a result of the Bahrain problems. Track was wet this morning and no one is near last years times. Seems we are still not seeing any clear picture although the analysts are saying that from their long run times Red Bull is still the car to beat. Alonso in the Ferrari is topping the times at the moment, as they have done most days, so they must have a different strategy to these tests, or they are just quick. Hold the presses, Vettel just banged in fast time, over a second quicker than Alonso, just to show he can? Luizzi is down to test the HRT this weekend, good luck.