Bob Barnard Track Engineering

Sorry to have gone missing for a couple of days, my back has been playing up so lying low. One of the things that has come up and not commented on by the general media is the goings on in Austin over the Promoter. Here is the original story from Friday:

http://motorsport.nextgen-auto.com/Report-hints-US-GP-project-to-lose-promoter-Hellmund,30873.html

Joew Saward has followed this up with his own view on what is going on:

http://joesaward.wordpress.com/

This is about the fourth article so scroll down. Mind you the other articles are interesting. The Argentina track by Populous looks like a big kart track. Stick to football stadiums. Anyway Joe suggests Tavo might be looking to make more money consulting to other would be F1 race promoters. That says a lot about how much (or little) there is to be made in promoting one himself. I guess one day we will find out what is going on in Austin.

Joes first article on the Hamilton/Massa incident is responding to a number of web sites commenting on how Massa was told over the radio to "destroy" Hamilton's race by holding him up. Nothing wrong with that, except you would think Smedley would be encouraging Massa to go faster to stay in front, not slow down and keep Hamilton behind. Shows a lack of confidence in his driver. What is really the story here is the hypocrisy of Massa to complain of Hamilton's driving after the race! Adding insult to injury. And I find it amazing that in race after race I hear drivers in following cars being chastised for hitting the one in front, and yet at Spa Hamilton is in the wrong when Kobayashi hits his rear wheel!

The 14th annual Petit le Mans has been run, and who knows if we will have a 15th. Sebring is announced as a round of the WEC, but not the Petit? Scott Atherton did his usual "everything is getting better" speech but did not address the ALMS cars not being able to run in a WEC event. Has that been sorted? If it had you would think he would have mentioned it. And now we are "grandfathering" museum pieces like the V12 Aston Martin! Must be embarrassing for Aston that their 2011 car does not run but a collectors car finishes third!

ESPN3 coverage was very good except the ads were getting very old by the end of ten hours. A very eventful race. Not sure how they could edit that down to two hours, allowing for ads. I tuned in with 15 minutes to go and the race had ended, so the "highlights" were probably an hour at best. The major talking point was the Dumas crash, and I would like to know if he actually hit the front of the Porsche. Shades of Le Mans for me, stuck his nose in too far when the hole was closing. Now I am no fan of Montagny and the tactics of Peugeot, but Audi should know by now that they need to take no chances when passing them. Not sure why they had to start 53 cars? Do they need the entry fees that bad? Track density by FIA rule is 43, so 20% less and would have made life easier for the real competitors rather than those making up the numbers.

Over in Japan Honda managed to win its home MotoGP for a change in a crash fest. Stoner did well not to crash and recover to third behind Pedrosa and Lorenzo, so Casey still has a handy lead in the Championship. Rossi fell off at the second corner and took a few with him. Bit of a nightmare season for him and Ducati. Marquez failed to win the Moto2 class but still takes over the lead in the Championship from Bradl by one point.

Elsewhere lots of Championships were decided. Checa went out in style to clinch the WSBK, Tomszyk won the DTM title for Audi, Ceccon won the AutoGP title if anyone noticed or cared, Mehri won the Euro F3 title, Botolotti clinched the F2 title, and Peugeot took the inaugural, (and only?), ILMC Manufacturers Trophy. Dario Franchiti retook the lead in the Indycar championship with one race remaining.

In other news Tilke is the latest person to be trotted out to reassure us India will be "finished" on time. It is normal that the work is finished at the last minute he said, well most of it will be apparently. That may be true of a street course, but there is no excuse for a permanent facility. Bernie is due in court in Germany in November to testify in the Gribkowsky case, so perhaps we will learn what really went on.

A not so little field is contesting the Petit Le Mans this year, with 58 cars on track. As Tom Kristensen said, "It's like being under a yellow except you can overtake!" The Peugeots lead the practice by around a second from the Audis, with the Dyson car leading the gasoline brigade over some fancied European teams, so well done, but I suspect it is the knowledge of the track that is responsible. The GT's are typically going to be the show with the Risi Ferrari leading the pack, but with a whole bunch of Porsches, BMWs and Corvettes hot on their heals. The Jaguars continue to embarrass the marque and the team.

Stories continue to circulate if this is going to be a round of the WEC next year, but I guess only the ACO knows that. If so Road Atlanta is going to need an FIA level 2 license and will be subject to a limit on track density, so this could be the year to watch. Qualifying on ESPN3 tomorrow at 2.35pm EDT, and the race is live streamed starting at 11.15 EDT Saturday, with a "highlight show" on ABC Sunday. Good luck condensing ten hours of what should be non stop action.

The MotoGP teams are taking no chances. They have reportedly taken their own food and water to Motegi. A bit extreme and expensive. Aoyama said he thought he was in with a chance of winning his home GP when the stars said they would not be going. A 29 year old Australian, Damian Cudlin, has got the chance to shine by taking over the Ducati of injured Loris Capirossi. Damian is a somewhat unlikely choice, having been an endurance rider for most of his career, but good luck to him, although he will have his work cut out on the Duke. Perhaps he can still beat Rossi though?

Magnussen Jnr is testing for British F3 where he spent this season while dad is peddling a Corvette at the Petit. Kevin is leading the way amongst a group of returning drivers including this year's Champion, Nasr. Over in Jerez the would-be GP2 drivers are showing their paces with GP2 fixture Fabio Leimer topping the times. Alexander Rossi did not disgrace himself with 18th in the morning and 8th in the slower afternoon session, amongst some illustrious company. Missing is Robert Wickens who you would have thought would have earned a test. Maybe he does not have the sponsorship?

Kubica is making excellent progress and his doctor has no hesitation to say he will be able to return to F1. Whether he will have a seat is the next question. Apparently Lotus Renault, or whatever they are or will be, need an answer in the next two weeks. The team continue to be plagued by speculation about their financial stability and who will eventually own it, if anyone can work out who owns it now.

The Rescource Restriction Agreement,RRA, is the subject of rumblings again, with Red Bull once more accused of exceeding this "gentlemen's agreement," which as heard on a movie lately, assumes there are gentlemen involved. Mercedes is not happy, having downsized themselves, but probably out of necessity after the Honda pull out rather than the adherence to some vague constraint. Ross Brawn is calling for more tighter controls and independent audits, much as how the cars are scrutinised. When you have a system that is designed to reward the successful it is inevitable that if they have the money the top teams will find something to spend it on. Very few answer to shareholders, so it is not as if they have to give it to anyone but the owners, and Sir Frank for one would probably have a winning car than be rich.

It seems that despite being dropped from next year's calendar Turkey is still keen to have a GP and are ready to be the stand in if Bahrain cannot sort out its problems, which from current reports is not likely whatever Bernie says.

Very little going on worth writing about at the moment. Tost of Toro Rosso is echoing my thoughts on the Stewards at the last race and calling for professionals. In one of the most professional of sports it remains an oddity that the final arbiters of events are unpaid amateurs, and are different at each race. 

Over in the NASCAR world the "Chase" is on. When are they going to drop this stupid idea? Anyway Tony Stewart has won the first two races, so there is some justice in my opinion, but you can feel free to differ.

Petit le Mans testing was on at Road Atlanta on Sunday and the Peugeots are quick, and the gasoline cars nowhere. Qualifying is streamed live on ESPN3 on Friday, with the race on Saturday.

MotoGP from Motegi this weekend and all the riders are there despite the threat not to go because of radiation fears. Capirossi is not there due to his collar bone.

Finally the Indian Tax issue is not resolved. The customs duty may be, but the 70% tax on the team and drivers income from this race is not. Whitmarsh is not happy but it does appear the teams will go anyway.

Well the race has been run and won without further issues with the kerbs, although some were just left out and replaced by paint. The Turn Ten chicane, the "Singapore Sling" as it has been dubbed lived up to expectations and "slung" Kobayashi into the wall yesterday. This is the wrong solution to this corner and just results in a one line race track with the potential for cars to fly and lose control. The only passing move I've seen into it was Webber at the restart who jumped Alonso as he did in Spa.

Vettel predictably won the race going away from the start while Mark had his usual bad start which compromised Hamilton's who then had the now usual difficult race not helped by the lack of the patience he showed behind Schumacher at Monza. We saw a lot of passing for a change, but mostly by faster cars out of position getting past slow ones, but at least the DRS avoided the problems we saw at Abu Dhabi last year. The Stewards continue to issue inconsistent penalties. Rosberg misses turn 2 at the start and is not penalised, and then shoves Perez off there later in the race, improves his position and again no penalty. Now when Alonso was pushed to miss the chicane at Silverstone last year, or Hamilton at Spa a couple of years ago they get told to give back the spot. Schumacher drives straight over the back of Perez and gets a "reprimand" after the race. I guess he could hardly do a drive through.   

Renault had a terrible event, beaten by a Lotus on merit, so Tony Fernandes was happy and is apparently closing in on approval to change his team name to Caterham.

Button continues to show he is becoming, (has become?), the McLaren team leader with another great drive, while Ferrari is still around but not quite there as they have been all year. Aside from Red Bull Force India are probably the happiest with their results in Singapore.

In other news the teams are saying they are not happy with some of next year's calendar and were not asked to approve it, the "loophole" that tripped up the Bahrain changes this year, but this time Todt says it is a matter between FOTA and Bernie, and Bernie just says they are lucky to have somewhere to race. That's what I call negotiation.

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.