Bob Barnard Track Engineering

My April edition of Motor Sport arrived yesterday and Nigel Roebuck has a piece in his column about Kubica's accident and racers. He included a comment from Jimmie Johnson that "the car is never right, never good enough." That struck a cord, for the very best the car or motorcycle is never right, how can it be? They will drive or ride it until they find the limit. I recall after one practice session Wayne Rainey bitching about the bike. "Every time we fix something there is another thing wrong!" I told him of course there is, otherwise you would be doing 400 kph. There has to be at any one moment one component of the machine that is at the limit of its performance and therefore the machines. It may be power, tires, suspension, chassis or brakes, but as I told Wayne, if we find a better tire that will just move us up to the next limiting point which may be the front forks that cannot take the increased load.

Racing is about little improvements and racers who can work with their mechanics to find them and then exploit them. That is what the article said about Kubica, his "mechanics knew that if they find the minutest improvement in the car it will be instantly reflected in the lap times." That to me is the difference between good drivers and the great ones. We know all the guys who make the F1 or MotoGP grid have to be beyond good, but as I have seen, it is the three or four that have the guts, concentration, feel and determination to take it to the limit, and find it every corner of every lap that are the stars. I used to love looking in the eyes of someone like Rainey before a race. They said "If you want to beat me today you are going to have to drive faster and harder than you want to, and don't think you ever have me beat."

If  a driver feels happy or comfortable with a car or motorcycle then he is not going fast enough. Phillip Island is a great example. I can recall driving around this fast flowing track and feeling great, only to find when I returned to the pits I was ten seconds off the pace. Then there was my one and only win in my class at the Australian Hill Climb Championship. Last run of the day, trailing, so gave it everything. Threw my Morgan up that hill and it felt terrible, more off the track than on and I thought I had blown it. Came back down to find I had taken a second off my time, in 40 + seconds and won!

So, it is the real racers who can find that edge, and are willing to keep it there without stepping over it too often, and are never satisfied. That's why Kubica went off an ran a rally, he has to be racing, and more power to him. The great news is he is likely to walk in three weeks.

In Qatar the MotoGP stars are out and Honda in the shape of Stoner continue to show the way, by over half a second, and he said he was only at 8/10ths. Rossi is doing better, but not as good as the private Ducati of Hector Barbera who was third fast, but apparently had a tow from Hayden. Shades of Criville and Doohan. Still early days,  or is that nights? Despite Stoner's dominance there is only half a second between the next nine riders, so perhaps there is a good race is for second.

At Sebring the dark brought the Peugeot back to the top, and the diesels are again heading the timesheet. So much for equalization. Still, we will see in today's qualifying. As my wife commented, Sebring looks better at night.

Talking of equalization, it seems when it comes to driver's salary at Red Bull, some are more equal than others, as someone famous once said.

Sorry about yesterday, my software would not let me in.

The FIA is continuing its nonsense about the Bahrain GP, promising to "respect" the May 1st deadline for a new date to be decided. There are people dying in the streets or had they not noticed? How can you condone even contemplating staging a race there.

Bernie has also come out fighting, but only verbally. He has come out against the 2013 engine rules as not being what the spectators want. Nice of him to care, I had not noticed that we were high on his agenda before. He says that talking to the businessmen he meets, he would hardly talk to one of us, noise and Ferrari are the two things they want. Ferrari are of course the most outspoken of the teams, "Not Formula One" is Montezemolo's comment. So the businessmen are afraid that Ferrari will not participate if the engine rules are not changed. But as Joe Saward said in his blog today, the deal is done. Also from my memory the 1.5 liter turbos were louder than the current cars. But as I have said, this is back to the future stuff, hardly cutting edge and "green."

Bernie is also fighting back about the Gribkowsky bribery case, offering to go to Germany to assist the investigation, but only if they promise to let him out again. However this turns out you have to admire Bernie, he can make money coming and going. He sells his shares and eventually gets a "Finders Fee" of $61m for helping the poor bank that is now stuck with the shares to find a new buyer in the form of CVC.

Continuing the money theme, there are reports today that the Belgian F1 GP is saved by Shell buying the sponsorship for the race. Now it is my understanding that signage and sponsorship are Bernie's, if not all then a fair chunk, so how does Shell tipping money in help Spa? Maybe Bernie will cut his fee by this amount? Nah, can't see that can you?

Australia in the shape of Melbourne are vowing to be tough with Bernie over the cost of the next contract. The Major Events Minister says they want the race, "but we're not going to be bunnies in contractual negotiations." Lambs to the slaughter I would say, and Easter is coming.

Over at Superbike Planet the AMA has issued a lengthy press release to explain the debacle at Daytona. After reading it I for one think it sounds even more of a circus.

Sebring officially kicks off today, and we can all watch qualifying tomorrow via ESPN3.com.

Happy St Patrick's Day everyone.

It's terrible to see what is happening in Japan and let us hope it does not get worse, one Chernobyl in this world is enough. If you want to read a great book about Chernobyl read "Wolves Eat Dogs" by Martin Cruz Smith, the guy who wrote Gorky Park. Japanese MotoGP is postponed for a second year due to mother nature.

Trouble of a man-made kind in the Middle east with the situation in Libya beyond description. As I said, why do troops do these things to their own people? Bahrain is getting there with a "peacekeeping" force from their neighboring states, particularly Saudi Arabia, coming in to help the Royal Family keep hold on power. That is never going to work in the long term. We need to look no further than Northern Ireland to see what a suppressed people will do when desperate. So, a rescheduling of the F1 race is impossible with a  three month "State of Emergency" being declared. More to the point, does F1 want to be seen in a country that so obviously is repressing its own people? Silly me, we are already doing that aren't we?

On a happier note, it is great to see the HPD LMP1 car doing so well in practice for Sebring. Despite only turning a wheel this last weekend the Highcroft run car is mixing it with the Peugeots and Audis. We are still off last years times, but not by much and that could be down to the restrictions placed on the diesels. Are we to see a level playing field at last? Looks like being a good race, if only it was televised live.

In what must rate as one of the most outrageous pieces of spin ever Colin Kolles, when asked if he thought HRT would feature in the top 10, he said: "I think so yes. I think that others are more desperate than we are to be honest with you." Colin was responding to Bernie's opinion that F1 really only needed ten teams, and of course the media had to ask HRT where that left them. Colin supported the idea!!!

Nice to see Daniel Ricciardo setting the pace in FR3.5 testing. Let's hope he can win the Championship this year and continue his progress to F1. That other Aussie, Casey Stoner looks on course to be the favorite for this year's MotoGP Championship with another chart topping test session in Qatar. But it gets real this weekend when the first race is run under lights. Ben Spies is not far off on the Yamaha and capable of mixing it with the Hondas on paper. Strange it is de Puniet on the private Ducati that is leading the way for the marque. Rossi had another get off and ended up thirteenth. If this is sandbagging it is world class.Sorry to hear Cal Crutchlow lost the tip of his finger, but he is in some illustrious company there. Let's hope it is a good omen.

In other news, Jean Todt in Melbourne for the GP says Australia should keep its race, but he is not paying for it is he? Horner is stirring the pot suggesting Lewis Hamilton will be looking to drive a Red Bull if he has another disappointing season. Is this to replace Vettel? Lewis meanwhile has a new manager and is reported to be open to "music and film" to expand his career. Whatever.

So Vettel has ended the going to Ferrari stories for now by signing a new contract through 2014, but what then? Well, Alonso may have said enough by then so who knows. While Red Bull can give Sebastian winning cars why would he leave? Surely money cannot be a reason, prestige? Vettel is concerned that the rules for the overtaking zone in Melbourne, that area where you can trim the rear wing, are confusing. Due to the short straight and the complex of corners leading into it the FIA have decided that the one second gap is to be measured at the third corner before the straight, not the last one. As Seb says, what if I close the gap through that last complex?

HRT are assuring everyone they will be in Melbourne with their "new" car. After people commented on the similarity to the old car they admitted the chassis was the same, "but 95% of the parts are new." So what does that mean?

In Qatar another World Champion is not having such a good start to the year, although Rossi says the Ducati is getting closer, even if he did fall off during testing. The Honda boys are having no such troubles and continues to dominate, but Yamaha are not so far away. This weekends GP should be interesting with the "semi works" bikes being closer in performance than it seemed last year.

With MotoGP and Sebring this weekend hopefully the news and gossip will increase. Of course if you actually want to watch Sebring you need a good cable to connect the computer to the TV, or just watch it on the computer.

That was the Daytona 200 yesterday. What a shambles! How did it get to this? Instead of a 57 lap endurance race we got a 27 lap race which was red flagged because of tire wear problems, which is a well known problem here, a restart of a shortened 15 lap race that is red flagged at the first corner, and finally completed amid dispute about the minor placings. Never mind that the eventual winner changed an engine during the red flag stop!!! And what does the commentator say about that? Congratulations to the crew for getting it done. Where else is this allowed? To top it off the NASCAR Channel, aka Speed, switched over to the the Camping World Series before the last restart and replayed it about 11pm EST. I guess they know how motorcycle racing rates. Enough said.