Bob Barnard Track Engineering

As a few have commented already the FIA and presumably Bernie have lost all contact with the outside world. On the day that news reports tell us of a 14 year old boy killed in clashes with police in Bahrain,

http://www.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/meast/08/31/bahrain.death/

the World Council of the FIA unanimously approve a calendar moving Bahrain up to be one of the early GP's just so India does not have to run in the heat. The whole idea of leaving Bahrain till the end was to give them time to sort themselves out, not that that was likely, so why just casually move it back to the beginning? And we lose Turkey from the same calendar, nice one guys.

Meanwhile Charlie has been to India and is very happy with the circuit which is good news for a change. Now to just keep the farmers off it. We have another new track here in the US, the Baltimore Street race for Indycar and ALMS is this weekend so it will be interesting to see how that works. There is a virtual drive on Motorsport.com:

http://www.motorsport.com/#/all/video/main-gallery/?s=2&i=2&id=1209

I will reserve my comments until after the race.

MotoGP from Misano where Loris Capirossi has just announced his retirement after a record 324 races, winning the 125 and 250cc World Championships along the way, the first at my event at Phillip Island in 1990. If you have not seen that race find a copy! Wayne Rainey will also be in Misano, the track that ended his career 18 years ago, what a tragedy.

Elsewhere Gribkowsky's attorney wants the charges dismissed for lack of substance, but the Prosecutor is having none of it. Even if the shares were valued correctly there are still a lot of unanswered questions here.  

It seems Wayne Gardner and I are on the same wavelength with respect to Indy and the MotoGP:

http://www.waynegardnerapproved.com/index.php?option=com_content&amp%3Bview=article&amp%3Bid=228%3Awaynes-weekly-65&amp%3Bcatid=62%3Awaynes-weekly&amp%3BItemid=514#.Tl2P1aTtZEY.facebook

He remarked on the "marbles" as well. Not sure what they did for the resurfacing, but one thing they did do is ignore advice. When we heard they intended to repave part of the track I contacted them to recommend they approach a good friend, Jarno Zaffelli, who had just completed a similar project at the Mugello Circuit in Italy with great results, but of course they ignored us. 

Toby Moody, writing an opinion piece for the Autosport web site suggests it would be a pity to lose the Indy MotoGP because they put on a good supporting show. Well I agree that it needs to be an "event," Adelaide in 1985 probably started that and I continued it with Phillip Island in 1989 and Laguna Seca in 1993, but unless the core of the event is worth watching then all the "show" in the world will not make it successful. It is what goes on on the race track that needs to be right for the rest to succeed, and that seems to be what's missing. People will travel miles and put up with muddy fields and cold weather to watch a race at The Island.

More news this morning about Lotus Renault's money woes, with David Richards of Prodrive reported to be looking at a rescue with a Belgian entrepreneur. 

Despite the summer break being over it is still quiet times, let's look forward to it revving up.

In an unfortunate headline "Maldanado vows to keep fighting." I would have thought he should keep his head down, I am not alone in thinking he should have been excluded for that move on Hamilton.

On the business scene the upcoming meeting of CVC shareholders promises to be interesting with some major investors wanting answers as to what CVC actually knew and why it has not done something about its management since all this broke?

The Qatar wealth fund has denied it is the likely investor in Silverstone while there are no shortage of rumors. Joe Saward says the deal is done but no one is saying, while the BRDC has told members that the deal will not be closed until later this year. They sold their soul to Bernie to keep the F1 GP and now they have to find someone else to pay the piper.

Following on my comments yesterday about Indy and the MotoGP there is news today that this was the last year of their contract and Indy is not sure it will be renewed. Laguna has a contract for the next two years and Austin has a contract from 2013. It is hard to imagine Indy makes any money on this after paying to rebuild the track for it and then repaving it.

Not much else exciting going on. Baltimore ALMS and Indycar race this coming weekend on the new street circuit, so that will be interesting to see how that works.

Hot on the heels of one of the best races we've seen comes the news that the track that produces such events is only going to be seen every other year. It is reported that Bernie is OK with Spa and a track in France, presumably Paul Ricard, alternating GP's after 2013. Now I don't mind Paul Ricard, but Spa it is not, and it is a travesty to lose the wolrd's best track from the calendar every other year. Let them alternate with Valencia! The Mediterranean GP. I know your tired of hearing it but why does it make sense to only lose money every other year?

Talking of losing tracks, do we think Laguna or Indy will miss out on the MotoGP when Austin has a race? Or does Dorna seriously think the US can maintain three GPs? The attendance at Indy was reported as 64,000 on race day, but it looked pretty sparse Friday and Saturday. It's hard to see Laguna missing out as the manufacturers are all in LA, but who knows, Dorna might like the bigger pay day from three classes.

Anyway, Casey Stoner won the MotoGP race by a country mile despite saying this was his least liked track, and added he could have gone quicker. Is it me or were there more "marbles" on that track than I have ever seen for a motorcycle race? At the end the "line" was about 6 feet wide. Interesting to see riders stopping due to what looked like tire problems, and mostly Ducatis. The headline writers were at it again stating the obvious, "Ducati Boss says they have to improve." Rossi had a terrible time of it and Hayden stopped with about four laps to go and then got on the bike and went out again, what was all that about? Spies recovered from a bad start to take third in front of Lorenzo, nice to see no team orders in MotoGP.

Nice to hear Robert Kubica has had his last operation, so let's hope all is as good as his management is saying and we will see him back on track.

Spa did not disappoint and the world's best track turned on a world class race. DRS worked a bit too easily on the run up to Les Combes, but we saw some amazing passes all around the track, Rivage and Poohon, and even Blanchimont! The pass Webber made on Alonso on the entry to Eau Rouge has to rate as one of the best and bravest we have ever seen, certainly up there with Haikenen and Schumacher at this same track, but probably braver. How did Alonso make his car disappear? One nano-second his front wing is in shot with Webber's, the next it is gone, saving a huge accident. David Coulthard said he had to turn away from the screen! Pity Kobayashi could not show the same sense. Views will differ on who did what to who here, but Lewis's hands did not move on that wheel. Yes he was moving left relative to the track edge but he took a straight shot from the exit of Raidillon to the turn in at Les Combes. Kobayashi had been passed and it's OK he tried to come back, but he was never going to make that move, just back off and attack again. Spoiled a good race for us.

Button showed us that Hamilton is not the only McLaren driver who can pull off some great passes, quite out of character at times but great to watch. His pass on Massa at the last chicane should be watched by Maldanado as how two great drivers can run hard and close without taking each other out. As I predicted the odd qualifying made for some great racing with Michael coming through to 5th ahead of team mate Rosberg for once. Rosberg looked like running away with it in the first couple of laps, as did Alonso at one point, but the Ferrari and Mercedes fade at the end of races. The Ferrari still does not like the hard tires, but there has to be more to it than just that. 

It would be interesting to know what went on with Vettel's read out on the steering wheel on that last lap, along with that and the tire issues they had from the very start of the race they definitely not only dodged a bullet(s) but came up smelling of roses. Andrian Newey was almost crying with relief.

Pity about Ricciardo's HRT stopping, he was having a great race and running 16th. Not sure if this was due to good fortune in avoiding the crashes at La Source on the first lap, but even if it was he hung on to it until something failed. This is the sort of drive he needs. Senna was a prime suspect in the first lap crashes but at least he owned up to it unlike some other drivers out there, and actually ran a good race in the end, only finishing twenty seconds behind Petrov despite the stops for a new nose and a drive through penalty. Both Lotus cars and the Virgins finished the race, with the Lotus cars both beating the Williams of Barrichello.

And all this and it did not rain! Amazing. Looks like nothing is going to stop Vettel and Red Bull now, but let us hope for some more races like this.

The reported potential lessee of the Silverstone Circuit is the Qatar's Sovereign Wealth Fund, why not, it owns everything else?  Still does not make any sense, the BRDC lost nearly 2m pounds last year despite running the F1GP, MotoGP and WSBK rounds with crowds that many others would envy.

Stoner on pole for the US MotoGP from Indy, with Spies and Lorenzo snapping at his heals, so should be a good race, except for poor old Valentino.