Bob Barnard Track Engineering

I like Monza. It is crazy fast with chicanes as interruptions, and some great corners we don't see too many other places. The Parabolica and Curva Grande, and I like the combination of the two Lesmos, something I have wanted to replicate. It shows you do not need a lot of corners to make a great track, in fact less is more so to speak. Too often we see corners put in for the sake of it.

Nothing seems to slow down the Red Bulls. Going on this afternoon's times they are going to dominate again, much to the Tifosi's disgust. McLaren seemed somewhere this morning, but Ferrari are trailing with Massa faster of the two again. On the option tire and low fuel the times look quite equal, but when they were out on race fuel loads the Red Bulls looked a second a lap in hand. Still, early yet and we will see what Saturday brings.

At Silverstone we have the Intercontinental Cup for Le Mans cars this weekend. Peugeot snuck in a fast lap to top the timesheet ahead of the two Audis, so not much has changed there. What is interesting is the Rebellion driven by Jani and Prost the younger are less than a second off the fast time. Given the breaks the petrol cars have in the race they could cause an upset. Again let's see if they can continue this tomorrow. Ferrari look to have it all their own way in GT Pro, with America's Tracy Krohn doing well in the GT Am ranks. There is an amateur who takes his racing very seriously.

Going back to F1, Pirelli have asked the FIA to get involved to enforce the camber limits following the issues at Spa, particularly with Red Bull. Not that they became a problem, Red Bull won, no one blew a tire, so what's the problem? How many more parameters of the car design and set up are the FIA going to proscribe? The safety of the drivers is a concern for everyone of course, no less for the team involved, so why the need for the FIA to set the limit? What else that the teams do with set up, wing size or angle, brake cooling etc, are they going to limit? And before anyone writes in I know they set parameters for most of these, but the team can still go for an extreme set up within that. The tires are just the most visible. Trulli is still going off about his steering, how about making that a standard part too! Where is the line between competition between the teams designers and engineers and spec racing? Indycar anyone?

We have news today of the tragic bombing in Delhi, a reminder that Bahrain is not the only F1 track located in a state of unrest. Chandook assures us that sporting events have not been targets and this is in the next State, but it is the Delhi circuit. It's splitting hairs a bit to say it is otherwise, like saying the Oval is not in London. Let us hope Chandook is right.

And so we go on to Iran which is to have an F1 circuit! I was contacted by email one Sunday a few months ago to be asked if I was interested in working on it, and politely declined. It seems my friends at Apex have no such qualms about going there, but I bet the teams have, at whatever level. A columnist was unkind enough to say that if the money was right Bernie would go anywhere. Bernie would probably point out that they organized things well in Iran. I have come to a time in my life when I no longer feel the need to go places and do things just for money, however short of a supply it might be in at the time. 

I guess you could say that almost every country F1 goes to has its share of risk. Britain had the IRA and Spain ETA, neither of which chose to target a race. Even the US has had the Unibomber and of course 9/11 is almost on us. Germany had the Munich Olympics, and most of Europe has had its share of terrorists, so what is safe? A relative term I guess.

Joe Saward addresses the new date for Austin in November. Now I was thinking of the clash with the NFL, but Joe reminds us that the NASCAR final race is that weekend this year, and they are unlikely to move it for F1. It is true that whatever date you pick here in the US you are fighting NASCAR, and probably baseball and basketball, so November is as good as any I guess. Not sure there is a crossover crowd for NASCAR and F1 like Joe suggests for the Indy 500 and Charlotte 600, so running the Austin race to avoid the clash of television times probably is not worthwhile. Tavo and the boys should only care about who turns up in person and that is unlikely to be influenced by NASCAR, more likely college football.

There are at least two versions of this video from the start of the Baltimore Indycar race.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V-WtU2ONNjw&feature=share

Now I know there are a few people out there who have worked with me who think I am a bit over the top about following the rules. One that I insist on is that no one should drive in the wrong direction on a race track. Drivers get penalised for it, the recent Nurburgring 24 hour being a good example, so why should race control and the safety crew do it? This could have been fatal. Now I am not saying I have not had near misses when in race control, but at least all the vehicles were going the same way.

We hear over the last couple of days that Imola wants and F1 race back now the track is licensed for it, and Thailand wants one. How many does that make? As Joe Saward points out, Thailand is the home of Red Bull, so it has more than a sporting chance. We could hold all the races in Asia and the Middle East, cut down on the shipping cost. Or perhaps we will have a whole calendar of alternating races.

Bradley Smith, the up and coming English rider in Moto2 has decided to do the smart thing and stay there for another season. So that leaves a seat open at Tech 3 now Colin Edwards has confirmed he is going to a new team, Forward, next season. So who is going to step up? Bradl is down for a Honda in MotoGP already. Marquez, or someone from WSBK?

The Baltimore Indycar weekend has been run and won as they say. As an event it appears a success. As with most street races they had a great party atmosphere, which it should have given the location. Not sure they really needed an Indycar race to show off Camden Yards ball park, I would bet there are a few baseball fans who might have seen it anyway.

The races were pretty much non-events for me. Very few cautions, no red flags, and not much action. We were treated to lap after lap of the second and third place GTC cars during Saturday's ALMS race. That tells me the boys did not like the look of the track much and were running to avoid contact. No one as much as brushed a wall that I saw. It is a typical US street track, built down to a price and not up to a standard. The track was designed to avoid the obstacles rather than the other way around. You really could not move that traffic island at Turn One?

We had the manhole cover come up despite being welded and/or bolted down, but I have to give them points for fixing it in a timely manner. More than I give for the coverage. When we were first treated to live streaming of ALMS on ESPN3 it was great. Very few ads, the Le Mans radio boys commentating, and a lot of racing. This weekend may as well have been Speed. It was clearly shot to allow the minimum editing for Sunday's highlight show on ABC. We were three laps into the race when they went to an ad, except we did not get an ad, just a blank screen, and then after what would have been an ad break we got the ad. It carried right along with infomercials and repetitive ads and annoying commentary.

Over in Misano Mr. Lorenzo has kept the Championship interesting by winning in MotoGP with Stoner demoted to third by his team mate. As I say no team orders in MotoGP. The Moto2 race again sounds like the one to watch with Marquez beating Bradl to close that title race down. Scott Redding and Ianonne added to the fun. In the 125cc event Terol won by 22 hundredths passing Zarco on the line. At the Nurburgring, not Brno as I incorrectly said, Biaggi withdrew from both races due to a foot injury in practice, leaving Checa to win the first race, and coast in the very wet second race to eighth. With a 72 point lead it looks all done and dusted for Checa this year. Staying with motorcycle racing, Indianapolis announced it has extended its contract with MotoGP until 2014. So, are we to see three US MotoGP's after all, or is Laguna in trouble?

In other racing Josef Newgarden looks like he has wrapped up the Indy Lights Championship, while in British F3 Kevin Magnussen won the final race but team mate Felipe Nasr won the title. It will be interesting to see where these three go next year.

The start of proceedings for the Baltimore "Grand Prix" have been delayed. Oh how Americans love to devalue that Grand Prix title, it's about time Tavo put his foot down as he has the only four wheel GP in the US next year. It can be done, I did it for the US Motorcycle GP at Laguna in '93. Anyway the story is the track is ready, they just have to put the perimeter fence back up that they took down for Hurricane Irene. I don't really believe that but I am not there, but some good friends are. Of course we have the now compulsory tram tracks to cross a la San Jose and Detroit to name two. Do we not learn? Traffic is a mess so the natives may not think this is such a good idea. Let's see what happens when we do get some racing. USF2000 supposed to be on track about now but it is not looking good.

Lorenzo is on track in Misano leading the way in the second practice session, but only just. Interesting that Yamaha see this as a "home race," the team is based just down the road. All the usual suspects at the top of the time sheets, with the factory Ducatis way down behind even the privateer team.Over in Brno Checa lead the first practice but was just pipped by Biaggi in the first qualifying session. Biaggi desperately needs to win here with Checa well behind or DNF to have any chance of winning the title this year.

News out today that the British Parliament is to hold hearings on the BBC/Sky TV deal. Seems the story coming out of Bernie and the one from the BBC is not one and the same, and MPs are not happy. As they rightly say only having half the races on BBC is like being slightly pregnant, if you want to watch the other half of the races on Sky you do not get a 50% discount on the fee.

Stories also out today link Toro Rosso with either improved sponsorship from Cepsa, the Spanish oil company owned by an UAE investment group, or that the UAE group has bought Toro Rosso and will move it to Spain. Either way Toro Rosso will get a large boost to its fortunes, in more ways than one.