Bob Barnard Track Engineering

So welcome to 2011, wasn't that the sequel to "2001 A Space Odyssey?" At least we do not have HAL running the cars yet. But as Rubens Barrichello said in his interview with Autosport, "As a driver we're just concerned that we're going to have to press so many damn buttons that it's going to be tough!" Rubens was talking about the 2011 Williams which he believes will be a more "aggressive" design thanks to his input. With over 300 races under his belt he certainly has the experience, and with top teams, and it is nice that the team at Williams are listening. I'm sure most of us fans have a soft spot for Sir Frank and wish him well for the new season.

Luca di Montezemolo is not giving up on the four cylinder turbos for 2013 and is looking for "friends" to help him get it changed to at least a V6. Cosworth are saying it will only cost 30m Euros to design, only? I suspect teams like HRT would like that as a budget. What happened to cost cutting? It's like the ethanol deal, it seems to be "green" until you look at what it takes to produce it.

I talked about losing the sound of F1 and Mark Hughes of Autosport also raised the likely sound of these new four cylinder cars. "A 12,000 rpm turbo four will sound flatter in tone and lower in volume." Perhaps that is another "green" agenda? Noise is a bigger issue for tracks than fuel economy, but it seems that people living near tracks will accept the major events such as F1, NASCAR, V8Supertourers etc, it is the daily use all year long that gets to them. When I ran Phillip Island the locals asked if we could just have the MotoGP thank you.  They certainly make enough money from that one event, it is a pity that the tracks do not. So, do not mess with the sound of F1. Wait till we have electric cars racing, they will have to have extra horsepower to run the "boom boxes" providing the noise.

Talking of noise, I always loved the sound of a Ducati, so distinctive, so I am glad that they say they are not out to produce a Yamaha "replica" with the GP bike, despite Rossi and his crew coming into the team. I've not had the pleasure of hearing the GP bike so maybe it does not enjoy the same notes as the street versions.

It is still the "silly season" it seems, with a Spanish web site sending false messages about Santander buying in to HRT. So not to be left out I will pass on a bit of fun I read in Nigel Roebuck's piece in this month's Motor Sport about a pilot coming in to land at Gatwick and announcing to the passengers "Welcome to Gatwick, the only building site with its own airport." That struck a chord with me, it seems every airport in the world, at least the ones I go through, are building something. You hear about problems for airlines making money, but the amount of travel must keep going up to warrant all this building.

Seems like no one is happy about what is happening to the Nurburgring, and nor should they be. A friend, Allen Petrich, asked the question about how the current drivers would fair on it against the likes of Nuvolari and Fangio, especially if they had to drive those old cars. He suggests building a new Auto Union and letting the youngsters try to match the times the old guys set, but it occurred to me that some bright programmer must be able to simulate a race between these guys. There is always going to be talk about who was really "the best" which is usually defined by whoever is doing the talking, and it makes for good discussion and often argument, so maybe we do not really want to find out?

In other bits and pieces Adrian Newey says the RB7 will be an evolution not a revolution, but Red Bull might build its' own engine one day. Don't know why you would want to do that with the new regs being sold as the way to bring the likes of VW and the Japanese companies in. Ferrari is really the only chassis/engine manufacturer that has succeeded on a consistent basis, but perhaps Mercedes will change that, and what of McLaren? BMW, Honda, Toyota and Renault tried it, with Renault the only modern success story, but even they really did not build the chassis.

HRT's engineer says KERS is an inefficient system and is only being used in F1 for the manufacturers to sell it on their road cars. If it is inefficient on F1 cars why is it not the same on road cars? The Williams flywheel system seems efficient enough for Porsche, so perhaps he is just talking of the electrical systems. I am all for using the energy out of the current engines as efficiently as possible and think we are still scratching the surface. Gordon Murray's town car just did London to Brighton on less than a gallon, which must be getting close to 100 mpg, and not an electrical cord in sight. But if we are going to all the trouble and cost of developing these systems and putting them in a race car why are we limiting the amount they can store and when they can use it? It just seems another "push to pass" deal, why not just use the energy as efficiently as you can whenever you want? That rewards the best engineering, which is what most of us want to see, until the FIA ban it.

Talking of HRT they are going to use the 2010 car for the first test so they can try out drivers. Yeh right.

Niki Lauda wants Sutil and Hulkenburg at Force India. Well I suggest he buys Force India, then he can have who he wants, until then who cares and why do we keep reporting what Niki wants? It's like Mosley, just fade away.

As you may have gathered by the absence of a posting yesterday there was "nothing stirring" as they say in the Christmas poem. Very little going on except Bernie and his mate Luca exchanging pleasant shots across the bows. Luca is clearly upset about the engine changes, "Ferrari does not make a four cylinder," and about CVC and the money they take out. He is quick to reassure Bernie that it is not a criticism of him personally, in fact he would need him to lead the new order, what ever it is called. He does not see the problem if it is not "F1," presumably as long as Ferrari are in it people will know they should be watching it. Ferrari did not seem to have a problem last time we went to 1.5 liter turbo cars when they ran V6's, but I see his point, it does not relate to the road cars Ferrari make, which is what this is supposed to be about, not that I agree with it.

The boss of the Russian GP says they are not behind schedule. Good, seeing as how they only just started it is hard to see how they could be late. Especially for a race in 2014, personally I have never had more than a year to design and build a track.

Joe Saward picks up on the hypocrisy of the French Sports Minister in respect of F1 compared to the Tour de France. Not sure if it is great minds thinking alike or Joe liked my blog, either way it is correct.

Disappointing to see the Piquets involved in another scandal, this time tax evasion. Thought more of Nelson Snr. than that.

Nice to see Sir Frank Williams being honored by the BBC Sports Awards for "outstanding courage and achievement in the face of adversity." I'll second that. He threw his mate Patrick Head under the bus though. "In those days he really made the world's best racing cars." My italics. Pity about these days Patrick.

I saw a piece today that said Mark Blundell and Martin Brundle, say that a few times fast, are teaming up for next months Daytona 24 hour! That's pretty scary, time goes by so fast. We have just finished this season and we are talking about next month's races. I know it is late in January so it is closer to two months, but still. Only 90 days to the Bahrain F1 GP.

F1 news still centers on drivers and teams with HRT reported in big trouble following the falling out with Toyota. Seems Toyota wants paying, how rude of them. So no new chassis, no drivers, no money, but a Cosworth engine, presuming they have paid them. Petrov is being told to move to England near the team and improve his English, that will improve his consistency apparently. I suppose being around the team can keep an eye on him, but not sure really how it improves his consistency. Hulkenburg is being tipped to fill one seat at Force India, let's hope so, he is good enough to stay in F1, unlike some.

Interesting that Mazda is setting up a scholarship to help young drivers step up from Star Mazda to Indy Lights and then Indy Car. They have a big motorsport image here in the US so this is part of that, but what about a Mazda engine in Indy Car?

Alain Prost regrets the Renault sale of it shares in the F1 Team and believes that France has become "auto-phobic." It would appear so with no French F1 GP, but what about Le Mans, Peugeot and Citroen in WRC? Vergne is on the brink of an F1 drive and Renault are still producing engines for F1 and reviving the young driver program that was so successful in the past. So things are no quite as gloomy as Alain would see them.

The "green" engine rules are due to be approved by the FIA World Council today, and it seems it is Jean Todt who has pushed this through against the protests of the engine manufacturers. I was never quite sure why we went away from turbo cars in the first place. I know the power was getting out of control, but presumably that is being addressed now, so why not then? In an Autosport piece about how this green engine will be better for the sport David Tucker, director at sports agency KTB, told Brand Republic: "The potential rule change will allow F1 to appeal to a wider potential sponsor audience, and demonstrate to fans F1 is still at the cutting edge of technology." Seeing as how we had 1.5 liter turbo engines in the eighties I'm not sure how cutting edge this is. Turbo cars running around in some sort of efficiency run may appeal to would be "seen to be green" sponsors, but what about the F1 fans? If Tucker is talking about all the energy recovery systems, we did not need a new engine to do that, just ask Williams and Porsche. It seems we are headed to a world engine of 1.6 liters, turbo charged, with fuel monitoring in F1, Touring Cars and presumably sports and rally cars. Where is the "cutting edge" in that? All looks like "Spec Racing" to me. Common ECU, common chassis in BTCC and V8Supercars, where is this all going? Tony Dowe said the other day, go back to big block V8's that will run a season and put them in F5000 and Can-Am style cars. Cheap, fun and people want to watch.

So Mark Webber is Australia's top earning sportsman, displacing Greg Norman from top spot. I would hope so, how long is it since Greg really played apart from cameos? Greg has been very smart and is making lots from developments, so he should be in the business section. Nice to see Mark being rewarded for years of effort, and he did it without a big sponsor backing too. I like Bernie's comment that Enzo would have loved Mark and Mark would surely have been a Ferrari driver back in Enzo's day, and a World Champion by now.

Maldonado has been confirmed as the second driver at Williams, probably the worst kept secret of this silly season. Let's hope he can live up to his GP2 winner status and his sponsors checkbook. The other seats remain open on the FIA entry list for 2011, so we still have some interest in who's going where. Lotus is still listed which the Team says is due to the public's positive response to Tony Fernandes Team, and it seems the Malaysian Government who owns the Proton/Lotus car group has told them to chill it on the public fight over the name. As Mike Gascoyne said, why are they fighting us, they are getting the exposure for free? I guess Lotus Cars has intentions of their own in F1, they seem to want to be in everything else. This smacks of overreaching, if large companies like Renault, Toyota and BMW cannot do it, then why try?

Bernie now blames Max for the poor showing of the new teams by bringing them in on the pretext that costs will be capped. But Bernie is happy for them to stay,"provided they don't walk around with begging bowls, it's good to have them."

Alonso thinks his margin over poor Massa shows how much better he is this year. Still had to get his team to ask Massa to move over in Germany though didn't he?