Bob Barnard Track Engineering

Interesting qualifying session today in Hungary. Vettel's car was worked on all night, breaking the F1 curfew, as he was not happy with it, and was fast this morning in P3 and just pipped Hamilton for pole. Obviously the team did not work on Mark's car, he is stuck down in sixth behind the McLarens and Ferraris. I bet that feels good. Hamilton really pulled one out of the bag at the start of the Q3, having got there without using the super soft tire, and must look good for the race with that sort of speed on the prime. Strangely Lewis had a poor P3 and never did set a time on the super softs, complaining of brake problems. The durability of the super soft is questionable, so it should be an interesting race. Lewis will probably start on the dirty side of the track, so it will be tough to jump Vettel at the start, but who knows, Red Bull have not been great off the line lately.

Button showed a renewed pace here and his driving style should suit this place, with Massa out qualifying Alonso for the first time in a while. Contract time? Talking of that, Trulli has come alive and is now very happy with the power steering. Did they fix it or his attitude? Kovalainen did eventually out qualify him and was only about 0.3 seconds off the Toro Rosso of Buemi. Everyone qualified inside the 107%, which did not look likely earlier on, with HRT beating D'Ambrosio in the Virgin.

The fall out from the news of the Sky/BBC deal continues, but it seems the Concorde Agreement did not quite prevent Bernie from accepting a pay-for-view broadcaster as long as some of it was still "free-to-air." Of course the extra TV income helped the Teams get over their conscience about the poor viewers now having to pay 470 pounds to subscribe to Sky. That is a lot of money, and as one journalist points out you could actually buy a ticket to six GP's for that. A poll in Britain shows around 81% of readers on one sports reporter's web site would not pay the extra to watch F1. A major point still unclear is whether the BBC is going to show highlights of the races it does not cover live, or a delayed coverage. Whitmarsh says Bernie has told him that they will definitely show the whole race, but that is not what the BBC are saying. Bernie says the delayed coverage is better anyway as who wants to get up at 4 am to watch races? Well actually I have to Bernie, but it is nice of you to care. Who wants to watch a delayed race when in this day of Twitter and Facebook it is impossible not to know the result?

The delayed date for Austin is seen to have a couple of benefits other than the weather. As I said the other day the Texas Comptroller is only just considering the application for the $25m fee for Bernie, so moving the date back presumably delays when that is paid, if anyone has read the contract. The other is time to finish the track with buildings yet to start, the last we heard they had not been approved. I loved Nick Craw's comment after a recent visit, "a great deal of dirt has been moved."

Spa 24 hour just started and www.audi.tv.com has live streaming.

As always it is necessary to watch what Bernie does rather than what he says. Not long ago the Big Bogie Rupert Murdoch was going to steal F1 and heaven forbid put it on Sky! That just cannot happen, we have to have it on free-to-air, whatever that means. I pay for SPEED to show it so it is certainly not free-to-air here and we have to put up with ads, lost of ads, and Bob Varsha! Lo and behold, Sky is now the best thing to have come along, it is "super for F1," Bernie says, "it will mean a lot more coverage for the sport." Not sure how that can be as Sky only has 24 million households while the BBC covers everyone. The key words here are "super for F1." Note it is not super for the fans.

The BBC said it could not afford to continue so it seems a deal was done to keep half the races on the BBC and all of them on Sky. I'm sorry, but this is like having a race every other year. If it is worth having for half the races then why is it not twice as valuable to have all of them? Prestige to have any it seems, what BS. At least the Brits will have an ad free broadcast from Sky for their money. 

And what do the teams make of this with all their posturing about how important it is to their sponsors to have it on free-to-air? Martin Whitmarsh says they must withold judgement, and he was the one who said the other day that F1 must broaden their reach to the new media. Adam Parr is more honest. If they get more money from the TV deal to compensate for any potential loss in sponsorship then he is happy. Of course he is, it's all about the money.

Meanwhile, back at the track Lewis Hamilton continued where he left off in Germany by topping the timesheets in both sessions, but in race simulations it seemed very close between McLaren, Red Bull and Ferrari. Mercedes continue to struggle and Ross Brawn says it's all his fault. Ricciardo is ahead of his team mate by half a second, while Trulli's wake up call has him a similar distance in front of Kovalainen. 

Bernie has revamped next years calendar moving Bahrain to the end of the season so they can sort their problems out. So it starts in Melbourne, then Malaysia, China and India before a three week break which could include in-season testing. Turkey is missing, and as Allen Petrich said, there goes Tilke's best track. Austin is moved back to team with Brazil, but as someone pointed out this now competes with the NFL season, so good luck with viewers watching that.

BMW took pole for this weeks Spa 24 hour, and I need to find a live stream for that. In the Intercontinental Cup Aston Martin have given up of the new car and will run the old car for the rest of the season, very sad.

On the "green" front, a couple of snippets to share. It seems we are not all going to fry anytime soon from global warming, or as they say now, "climate change," as it seems to have not got any warmer lately.

http://news.yahoo.com/nasa-data-blow-gaping-hold-global-warming-alarmism-192334971.html

And to follow on about my thoughts on hydrogen, I saw a piece on TV yesterday about a new German stealth submarine that runs on hydrogen fuel cells. No moving parts, no noise, and no heat signature, very clever. Hydrogen and oxygen stored in tanks on the outside of the hull so reducing the danger of an explosion in the hull. Damn smart, good job they only just worked this out.

This soap opera is going to run for a while, and keeps getting stranger by the day. Today it seems there are to be six more people charged over this, but no names. Gribkowsky's original lawyer looks set to go in the frame though. Bernie has told Pit Pass, who I have suspected of being Bernie's back door mouthpiece, but that is not consistent, that he did not give Gribkowsky 27m pounds, only 14 m. Now that begs the question, where did the rest of Mr G's money come from? Bernie goes on to say he did not "launder" it through the offshore companies, but paid it into a bank account, the number of which Mr. G gave him on a piece of paper. Wait for it. The payment "bounced." What, Bernie was overdrawn! So Bernie then said he gave the money to the lawyer, who is then presumed to have washed the money through the offshore companies and  therefore becomes entangled and likely to be charged. But I thought it was reported that those offshore companies could be traced to Bernie, or are they just sounding that way? It is confusing, and probably designed to be. 

What of CVC in all this I hear you ask? Well they have been talking to London's Financial Times complaining about the lack of communication. They are not complaining too hard though as it seems they are prepared to put up with anything as CVC "has simply shown such great returns." Oh well that's OK then.

Back to real life, or almost. Sauber has as expected announced it is keeping Kobayashi and Perez. Webber has yet to sign on at Red Bull but Horner says that is a formality. Well yes it is, and an important one too. VW have announced they "could" enter F1 in 2018! So why is everyone running this story? And what is so magical about 2018? Who knows what the regs will be by then, or the world come to that. Look at the last seven years. "We have enough good brands that could do that," the story goes. Well yes they do, they do right now, so what? Is this corporate planning in the extreme, and are we so desperate for news, or for another manufacturer to come and go that we need to get in a lather about it? 

Just for fun, you have to love headline writers. "Hamilton to race in BTCC." No Lewis is not quitting F1, This is Matt Hamilton, but it made me look. Then there is, "V8's stick with Dunlop tires." Let's hope they do.

The numbers are out and the German GP lost 13.5 m Euros last weekend after paying Bernie a fee of 20 m Euros. That's some pretty fast work to put those numbers together. The promoter said before the race he expected a crowd of 65,000, and that's what it looked like, a lot of empty seats despite 6 German drivers, and one that should have been expected to win. That's pretty bad. On those numbers you can't really see the point apart from ego. The 24 hour race on the old track attracts four times that many people and there are probably no fees to be paid to anyone. 

Now Bernie is saying he will cut them a deal the same as Hungary, which is much cheaper apparently. It would have to be. The Hungarian GP has been with us for about 25 years on a track that no one really likes and in one of Europe's smallest countries, so how does it survive and why does it get a break from Bernie? The doings of F1 are strange to behold when Hungary has a race and France does not. 

In an equally puzzling piece it seems the City of Austin is submitting to the Texas Comptroller for the $25m for next years race, and the Comptroller has 30 days to think about this. The puzzling piece is the statement that "it is unclear when the funds need to be paid to F1 officials." I would suggest someone read the contract, I'm sure it is pretty clear there. Why would you say something like this?

Now for something completely different. Regular readers will know of my scepticism about electric vehicles, mainly because at the moment they are still fossil fuel powered, just one step removed. Now that step is causing a problem as an article I read yesterday explains.

I was saddened to read of the death at 57 of Ken Wooten, motorcycle journalist and competitor from Australia. He was found dead of a presumed heart attack in his hotel room in the Czech Republic. It is a long time since I have seen Ken and cannot claim to have been a close friend, but knew him pretty well back in the Phillip Island days. Always found him to be very professional and fair, unusual among some journalists at the time.

It is a wake up call to all of us when someone we know passes away so young. I turn 65 in two months time, already have my Medicare card, and apart from some minor irritations I am fortunate to be in pretty good shape. No intentions of retiring just yet, and will continue to live life to the full because as they say in the classics, "this is not a dress rehearsal."

That being said, the work front is very quiet at the moment and I am somewhat in despair of the state of racing here in the US. So who knows where the next challenge is coming from.

Today's blog is a challenge, nothing new worth a comment on, so see you tomorrow.