Bob Barnard Track Engineering

Bernie is doing his bit to alleviate the GFC and restore the property market in London by spending 101 million pounds for two houses, one for each of his daughters. What must it be like to have that sort of money? Not that I begrudge him one dollar, he grew up not far from me in London and earned every one. There are many great lessons from Bernie's life we could all learn. Like Bill Gates, it is not inventing the product, it is knowing its potential and how to exploit it that is the genius.

We heard a few days ago about the HPD LMP1 car, and the rejigged LMP2, but now David Brabham is saying he is looking for a ride as the Highcroft team of Duncan Dayton is not a certainty to compete in ALMS. So who is going to run an HPD LMP1?

Alonso and Massa made some comments about to many buttons on the steering wheel this year.Alonso said "we are losing focus on the driving," and Massa " we have so many things to do...but we still have to drive the car." Thankfully. I'm still confused about where and when the movable rear wing can be used by the driver. Anthony Davidson said at the Autosport Show "You are pretty much going to be able to use it wherever you want [in practice and qualifying] and it is going to gain you anything up to 15km/h on the straights - so there is going to be a huge discrepancy of speed." But as I have read the rules it will only function when the car following is one second behind, so is it only the car following? Not much point if both can do it. And is this only in the race and it can be used when you like for the rest of the weekend as Ant suggests? Then I saw a piece that said there will be a predetermined point at the end of the main straight where a signal from Race Control will allow it to be used, which lead to a comment that you do not want to be leading going into the last lap. The comment also said this would lead to some strange strategies. Now this is nothing new, there are several tracks where that is the case anyway, Monza and Phillip Island to name two, but can anyone provide a comment to explain how this is going to really work, preferably before the season starts?

Does anyone else think Mr. Lorenzo needs some better advice on his self promotion? It is one thing to try and be a bit zany for the fans, and quite another to look totally wacko. There is no question he can ride the bike, he should let that do the talking. Nothing like this happened in the old days, riders just did normal stuff like putting rental cars in swimming pools. Rossi in the meantime did not seem to be having too many problems with that shoulder at Wroom.

It seems a day for comings and goings or coming back. Eric Boullier tells how he "shook off the ghost of Briatore," but wants Grosjean back in F1. Then you should have hired him I would have thought? Mr. Chung wants back in at KAVO and is going to sue, and Pat Symonds wants back in and is looking for a job. Massa is hoping the Pirelli's will save his seat at Ferrari, while Alonso announced he has a new press secretary, Roberta Vallorosi, who has worked for Rossi apparently.

Talking of comings and goings, the Professional Circuit Forum that was to be held in LA this April will now be staged in November on the east coast and will include a trade expo. The organizers are making the change to have one Forum a year and here in the US at a location to be determined, but south rather than north at that time of year.

D'Ambrosio does, or he will till he drives it. So another shoe has dropped and we are left with HRT and Force India, barring surprises. It seems D'Ambrosio, odd name for a Belgian, has won the ride on merit and not his wallet, and no Russian driver in sight.

So "Lotus Racing" has rebranded itself as "Team Lotus." All semantics to us plebs. I'd be just as supportive if they called it Air Asia. I know the brand is valuable, but not when we know it isn't really Lotus and it is being devalued all the time with the current squabble.

It seems that we are going even further back to the future with "tea tray" front wings from 2013, i.e. flat and short, not the convoluted things we see hanging out in the breeze waiting to be knocked off these days. This is something from the early eighties to go with the eighties turbo. Patrick Head and Rory Byrne were tasked with coming up with the regs for 2013, which will see even smaller rear wings and more downforce from under the car. Hang on, isn't that called "ground effects" and didn't we ban that as too dangerous? The worst part of this whole story, which I had to check the date on to see it was not April 1st, was the quote from Patrick.

"(In 2013) We are only going to have roughly 65 per cent of the amount of fuel and a (limited) fuel (flow) rate - that was a given," Head, engineering boss and co-owner at Williams, confirmed.

"We were just told ’That’s what it will be, you’ve got to come up with a car spec that is not going to be more than five seconds a lap slower than a current F1 car’.

So slower than a current GP2 car? What are we doing here? As Montezemolo said the other day "This is Formula One which should be the spearhead of technological development."

Murphy The Bear has a new posting which gets even more gloomy for ALMS and LMP1 cars every time. Why don't we just run the series for GT3 cars and enjoy it without having to worry about those other cars coming past and pushing them off the track? Murphy has a worst projection of two cars and a unlikely max of five. Why bother for other than the Sebring and Petit races?

If you think that the row between the Australian GP and the ASN, CAMS, is over, then watch this space. Last straw comes to mind for some people down under.