Bob Barnard Track Engineering

Well I think the Stewards wimped out on that one. Five grid places for deliberately driving into someone? Joe Saward said it well, "less than severe given what happened." He should be excluded for at least this race. And Sir Frank should have the guts to fire him, deliberately damaging his car. I know he brings a lot of sponsorship, but also disrepute. How is Hamilton reprimanded? Why would he deliberately move right to hit Maldanado, or was it for the pass at the bus stop? That to me was clear cut, Maldanado was wallying around, slow, stayed right as if to give Lewis room and then when Lewis is alongside cuts back left, no problem for me. Has Maldanado been watching "Days of Thunder" too much? I can just see Sir Frank, "now I want you to go out and hit the safety car."

Vettel took pole from Lewis in his repaired McLaren at the last gasp, but tomorrow's race should be interesting. Button starting from 13th, Michael from the back after his loose wheel incident, lucky that was not at Eau Rouge, and Alonso down in 8th after an unhappy qualifying session. Senna drove well for his first drive on Pirelli's after a long absence and outqualified his team mate Petrov by over a second. Ricciardo needs to lift his game, over a second slower than Luizzi is not going to get him into Webber's seat. Mark has predictably re-signed for Red Bull for next year, so Daniel has another year to prove himself, but where? The new owners at HRT will want a Spaniard in at least one of the cars. Fortunately the Stewards waived the 107% rule and all cars will start, including Michael's three wheeler. Not sure what the point of having a 107% rule is if you are not going to enforce it. I can understand Michael, but the conditions were the same for everyone in that Q1 session.

Roman Grosjean predictably wrapped up the GP2 title after finishing third in the Saturday rain affected race, now let us see where he goes next year.

At Indianapolis for the MotoGP Casey Stoner is dominating practice despite being highly critical of the new track surface. It started out very slippery Friday morning and has improved as it cleaned up and has some rubber, but there are comments it is wearing tires very fast. "Most" of the bumps have gone, and Casey has this morning run the fastest lap around here, but still considers it his least liked track. Ben Spies is flying the Americans flag with second fastest, and Colin Edwards is inspired by home soil to be the quickest non-works bike. Lorenzo is not happy in seventh behind Colin, while the Ducati boys continue to struggle, Rossi being the quickest in eighth but over a second off the pace. Let's see what qualifying brings, although of course here in the US SPEED would rather show off-road racing or a chopper show than an actual MotoGP, so we won't see it.

Stories today that the BRDC, owners of Silverstone, are looking to lease the place out now they have spent all that money on it. A one hundred year lease term is suggested, although how anyone can predict what will happen in the next decade I don't know, let alone the next century. $400m is the asking price, so they can then spend all that on their grand scheme of hotels etc. So what does the lessee get, the track? And how does he make any money? I know it is only $4m a year, but then there is the interest or opportunity cost. The BRDC is not making money on the F1 GP at the moment, and I know the place runs all year, but then it costs money to run it all year. It was suggested Bernie might want it, but he know better than most that owning tracks and running races is not where the money is at, he makes his from the poor track owner, just ask him about how well Turkey is going. As I said before, do they not learn from history? Octagon went down this road and bought their way out of the deal, and the Nurburgring is currently in all sorts of trouble with their hotel/theme park/conference center development. Donnington should still be burned in everyone's memory, what a farce that was. Now Silverstone is not so remote as the Nurburgring, but it is not in the middle of Europe either. 

Who would have thought, well I would and anyone else who has watched racing at Spa. I recall being there for bike GPs, now that was scary. They were still public roads with oil and white lines, and Blanchemont had no run off. Not quite the Isle of Man but close.

Anyway we have F1 back with us, even if at a reduced pace. The boys did get half an hour in the dry with Webber fastest, but nothing very exciting. Schumacher's 20th anniversary is getting all the attention. That's a long time to drive and I still say he and Rubens and perhaps Trulli should move over and give the young guys some options. To follow on my comments on GP2 there is an article in Autosport about how hard it is to move up from there and to keep finding the 2 m Euros budget each year when the prospect of an F1 drive is fast disappearing.

Senna is in the Renault and had a crash in the first session, but is quicker than Petrov who is very unhappy with his car. Reports are that it is a financial deal rather than Boulllier expecting Senna to be quicker than Heidfeld. Rumors of Renault's money problems continue. These are not helped by Boullier whining about the money coming to the teams from the Commercial Rights holder and how it is split up. He says that in no other sport does the rights holder keep 50% of the income. Not sure that's correct. One would suspect NASCAR keeps a chunk, although it is fairer, and I'm sure there are others. Anyway he seems to think teams should not have to raise their own money, a bit like Premier League paying everyone to play, can't see that. He goes on to suggest that the current set up that rewards success should be changed so the top four teams get nothing and the rest is shared equally. Goes against Bernie's whole rational so good luck with that one Eric. Bernie's a bit of a "law of the jungle" man, or as Trueman put it, "if you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen." You knew the rules coming in, so don't complain now.

A lot of people are all of a lather over a girl riding a MotoGP Suzuki at Indy. No, not in the race, but doing some laps. Like F1 there have been females in racing for a long time, perhaps not in the top class, but back in the days when the 125s and 250s were real classes we had them. Let's not get all gender conscious, if a person is good enough let 'em race, but let's not get into reverse discrimination. On that note Danica has said she is leaving Indycar and going to NASCAR full time. So after never really achieving much in open wheel she has followed the money. Let's see how long that lasts.

I don't know who rattled Max Mosley's cage but he had a Bernie day yesterday, pontificating that "F1 does not always have to be exciting," "It will survive the Gribkowsky scandal," and "the Sky TV deal will be good for fans." Max apparently cannot waste an afternoon watching soccer on TV so likes just the highlights, not someone in touch with real fans I suspect.

David Coulthard is a busy boy, not only driving his Red Bull at Austin he also visited Willow Springs out there in the Mojave Desert to coach Tom Cruise on how to drive an F1 car. What's next on his tour of rocky race tracks? And why Tom Cruise? This is of course the Red Bull marketing circus and not a test team, so I guess why not.

Word today is that work at the Austin track is stopped, and not just to let David drive around. Here is the story:

http://motorsport.nextgen-auto.com/Work-currently-stopped-at-2012-US-GP-venue,28472.html

Now I don't know about you but there looked like plenty to do around that track and I've never known a contractor to stop work because he is ahead of schedule, you never know what's coming tomorrow to delay you. Being ahead is money in the bank, which apparently is what Tavo does not have.

Honda is suggesting that the Japanese MotoGP could go to Suzuki for this year to avoid the situation of teams and riders not wanting to go to Motegi. It would suit me, Suzuka is a way better track, and as they said the 8 Hour is run there so what's the problem? This comes as it seems that not only is Rossi not wanting to go, the team doesn't either. As I already said, they can stay home and lose badly.

News that Bradley Smith is going to get a start with Tech 3 in MotoGP next year, so who is leaving? Colin Edwards is the obvious choice and he and Capirossi are looking for a ride in WSBK for next year. So instead of WSBK being a stepping stone to MotoGP, or an equal series, it is now the retirement league.

They are not the only ones likely looking for a ride. Nick Heidfeld looks like he will lose his to Bruno Senna as early as this weekend, and he is threatening to sue someone if that is the case, but he can hardly argue his performance justifies his retaining it. Not sure Bruno is the right choice though.

Talking of this weekend, the FIA has banned the use of DRS through Eau Rouge during practice and qualifying. Several drivers raised the potential risk, but why does it need the FIA to say don't use it? Surely the drivers can elect not to use it, or will some silly person try it like Luizzi? Eau Rouge is scary enough without trying without downforce.

Today we have video and photos of David Coulthard driving the Red Bull F1 car around the gravel pit called the Austin GP track. Glad i do not have to clean the dust and rocks out of that car. Now there was a planned Red Bull demo in the city as we have become used to, but apparently a filming permit was not forthcoming, the city must be right behind this! So we have seen Coulthard at a ranch with cowboys, a still photo in front of the Capitol building, and now at the track. Someone is working very hard to convince the sceptics or average American that this is going to be great, but so far as I have said before, it is like putting Frank Sinatra on in your local farmers barn. Why not put Travis Pastrana out there in his Red Bull rally car? 

Courtesy of ESPNF1 and Getty Images here is Turn Two.

http://en.espnf1.com/

 I particularly like the person crouched in the inside of the corner behind one plastic barrier, fat lot of use that would be, why not put him up on one of those high banks out of the way? And does this really want to make you go? Here is some video footage that gets better.

http://motorsport.nextgen-auto.com/Videos-Red-Bull-demo-at-the-Circuit-of-the-Americas,28426.html

Now I have done something like this at Eastern Creek with Dick Johnson's V8Supercar, but all the earthworks were done and most of the first layer of asphalt, the rest finished base course, so it actually looked like a race track.

The only other news on a slow Monday is Kimi possibly going to drive the Peugeot 908 at Le Mans next year. Kimi is currently still rallying his Citroen, which is part of the same group, so it makes sense and would be great to see. His interest in NASCAR seems to have all but disappeared.

Formula Renault 3.5 was at Silverstone this weekend, and with the talent in that field it looks like it is becoming the main series for stepping up to F1. As I've said before, GP2 looks like a series for guys who are very good, but not quite good enough. Grosjean will wrap up that championship at his second coming and will probably get another crack at F1 with Renault. But there are a lot of drivers that won't progress.

F3 has traditionally been a great breeding ground, and drivers like Senna made the jump to F1 on the basis of a great season in it. Not sure that is likely these days. But back at FR3.5 you have Canadian Robert Wickens winning both races to take over the lead in Championship over fancied French driver Jean-Eric Vergne who finished sixth in Sunday's race after a bad pit stop. Second was American Alexander Rossi from new F1 driver Daniel Ricciardo. You get the picture? This is a field packed with talent and winning here means people are going to take notice. Watch out for these guys. And it is likely to get better with Grosjean demonstrating the new car, more horespower, better downforce, lighter and more adjustable.

We had a few races this weekend as the summer break is nearly over, Spa F1 next weekend! That Aussie Marcos Ambrose won again on Saturday in Montreal in the Nationwide series. Another road course to show off his talents, but winning becomes a habit. I saw an article about where are the next generation of NASCAR drivers coming from, Australia perhaps? Still in Montreal the Grand Am boys shared the bill and for once Ganassi's team did not have it all their own way, but can still wrap up another championship at the next race. Dan Gurney's son Alex won for Gainsco with Wayne Taylor's team, trying to catch the Ganassi boys, second. The big news is the test of the Grand Am Ferrari 458 at Daytona for next year's championship. I wonder how Ferrari are going to like losing to Mazda?

At Road America we had the ALMS 4 hour race with four LMP1 cars of which only two are contenders, and one LMP2 car. Sad. GT's were where the action and interest was at, with the Risi Ferrari 458 taking its first win of the season despite a few glitches. Nice bit of synchronised spinning at Turn One with the Corvettte. Nice driving actually by both drivers to avoid serious contact and keep it on the track and not lose a place. Not sure I like the safety car procedures. I know it is the interest of fairness, but who said life is fair, and it extends the yellows and makes for boring periods for spectators. And opening the pits for the LMP1 &2 cars? There are only four, let all of them come if the pit lane is long enough as Road America should be. I can understand it at Lime Rock, but we saw the weekend where yellows went on for lap after lap when the car that caused the yellow was long gone.

Finally, there is an article on Autosport about how F1 can maybe learn from MotoGP. Now I think it is mainly aimed at the pricing and access, but seriously, have they really looked at the state of MotoGP? 17 bikes at the most and some of these are make weights, and moving more and more to street bikes and spec racing. And as I said the other day commentators like Mat Oxley are worried that the lack of overtaking is looking increasingly like F1. Yes F1 needs to look at its business model as it does not look sustainable, but let's not go down the MotoGP road where the manufacturers wag the dog. Although having said that we almost got there with 4 cylinder engines!