Bob Barnard Track Engineering

There are two related items today about the economics of staging an F1 race. Valencia it seems has had enough of subsidising Bernie with four years left to run on their contract. Bernie of course will not let them out of the contract so they are trying to find someone to take it over, which you would think would be easy with the number of countries who want one. If you cannot make it pay in an Alonso mad country like Spain where can you? It is costing them 30m euros, about $45m, to stage the race, including Bernie's fee, which must be a cut rate, and they are only recouping 10m euros from ticket sales, so they lose about $30m a year. Why could they not work this out before they did the deal?

On a similar note Alain Prost is frustrated that France does not have the political will to "buy" a GP. He knows they will lose 8m euros, even with a reduced fee from Bernie, and no government wants to spend that, on top of building a new track. Austin, are you listening? So if Alain could work it out beforehand why is Valencia surprised?

It seems there might be moves afoot to put Daniel Ricciardo into Buemi's seat at Torro Rosso. Not sure that is a great move for either party, one season in GP2 would probably be better for Daniel than being thrown in the deep end with a mid-field car. I know Vettel made the transition from Torro Rosso, but I would not like to bet my future on that happening again. Look at the Hulkenburg situation for a driver without a big personal sponsor.

Interesting that it has been announced that HKS, an architectural firm, has been added to Tilke for the Austin Track. Whatever you say about Tilke's tracks, his architecture has been good, so why bring in another architect?

So Martin Whitmarsh believes that Abu Dhabi needs to make changes to the track to correct the "flawed" design. I think I may have been saying that from the start, but most people were blinded by the hotel and marina and all the other pieces of the development that have nothing to do with the quality of the race track. Apparently Whitmarsh saw the problems from the beginning and presumably said nothing or no one listened. As he said "There is a massive commitment here to make this a great venue, so in the scheme of things priority should be given to looking at the circuit." My emphasis. Richard Cregan the circuit boss says that "we are looking at different circuits..and we will pick the best bits and improve the circuit." Seeing as how Yas Marina is almost the last track built I would ask why they did not do that before they built it? As I said in Germany, we are being left with a legacy of a generation of bad tracks.

We enter the dark days of winter, well for most of you anyway, it is still sunny and 70 degrees here, so finding interesting items to comment on may be difficult, but there will be driver changes and team news, so I will endeavor to keep you amused and thinking. Congratulations to Jimmy Johnson for his fifth Sprint Cup Championship, not that I watched much of it, and I was surprised that Homestead had empty seats given the three way title fight. Taking nothing away from Jimmy, and obviously he and his crew chief do a great job, but it is difficult for me to reconcile the number of very good drivers in that series who cannot beat Jimmy to the title.

The Porsche hybrid cleaned up at the awards dinner in Cologne last week. Williams won for their KERS system which is fitted to the Porsche GT3 which won the car of the year and was designed by the person who won the engineer of the year. Is that a full house or royal flush?

So Daniel Ricciardo topped the tests in Abu Dhabi and one second under Vettel's pole time! Someone sign this guy up. He did very well in FR3.5 this year so he is not just a flash in the pan, winning Championships on the way up. As I said let's hope he gets the financial backing to keep moving up, and if Red Bull let him go they must be mad. Place him in GP2 next year and let him take Mark's seat when he retires. Or maybe Vettel's seeing as how he has would prefer Mercedes or Ferrari. How can you come out and say that after Red Bull have just made you World Champion, or are you so egotistical to think it was the other way around? What an ass. Is Sebastian going to be another of those drivers that you respect their driving but not them as a human being?

Great week away in Cologne, but nice to be home in some sunshine. How do those Europeans put up with that long, grey winter? Excellent Forum with tracks and speakers from 5 continents and top people Like Salman Al Khalifa, CEO of Bahrain Circuit, and Sharmila Nadrajah, COO of Sepang Circuit in Malaysia. Add to this the new track in Moscow, NRing, a new country club in Germany, all the top track designers and suppliers then you have the best and latest information being made freely available. Not to mention kart circuit operators and local tracks like Oregon Raceway Park who all learn vital information on how to operate successfully. This forum should be a must do for anyone involved in or planning to be operating tracks. Derek Muldowney, the head of ISC's facility development group, gave us some great insights into planning and developing a major speedway and repaving Daytona, and we had attorneys giving us good advice on sponsorship contracts and branding. The next forum is in Los Angeles in April, so book your time to attend.

I was appreciative of the reception to my presentation and the session on track engineering that I put together. The session on the future of track design went well, but as an open forum it covered a wide range of topics not necessarily about the future. It seems that we are going back to the future with the old tracks like Spa and Nurburgring providing the basis. To make tracks more interesting to drivers it seems we need to go outside of the FIA guidelines in respect of maximum grades and cross fall to match these great old tracks, without jeopardising safety of course.

While I have been away it seems CAMS and Australian GP have kissed and made up, at least for this year. Sad to say as an Australian but I cannot see they will have a F1 GP for long, there are too many other countries with far larger markets wanting races so someone has to go. The political backlash on the ongoing losses is growing and will result in what happened to Adelaide, Bernie will see the writing on the wall and move it.

Seems the Pirelli tires met with approval from the drivers so now we can get on and finish next years cars, which could be quite different without the F-duct and diffuser. Are they really going to use a moveable rear wing? Perhaps we will see who is finally driving for who next year.

On a final note, does anyone else think it is weird for a team to put a solid wall between their two riders? I can understand Rossi and Lorenzo this year, but Spies and Lorenzo? Just tells me there are two teams at Yamaha again next year. As much as Senna and Prost did not get along, and Vettel and Webber this year, they were still one team.

Congratulations to Sebastian Vettel and Red Bull, it is nice to see that good guys do finish first. Red Bull had the guts to stand by their ethics and beliefs when everyone was telling them to do otherwise. I personally was wanting Webber to win for obvious reasons, but Vettel will do. Nice job by Button, and well done McLaren, second and third in the race to sew up second in teams Championship, not a year of failure. Congratulations to Renault, great drive by both drivers, did that win Petrov the second seat? It should, the pressure on him must have been tremendous.

So another season is over, and the next will start tomorrow. New rules, new engines and sponsors/owners for the new teams, so there will be changes, but you can expect the usual suspects out front. The big question will be Mercedes, is Michael coming back, will the 2011 car be better?

Seems I stirred someone up over the CAMS issue, thank you Laynie. It is actually a world wide and multi sport problem. That is why the GP's went to Bernie and DORNA, Tennis the ATP and golf the PGA. I was going to write my thoughts on what is wrong with motor racing but got side tracked by the book. One chapter was to be "The Suits," the accountants and corporate types and yes "sports business consultants," who come in to a sport because it it successful and then control and change it without understanding how it got there in the first place.

Then there are the "Blazers," the sporting office holders who spent their whole life in meetings, getting elected, making political connections, and working their way to the top, forgetting what it was like to compete. Others are too busy competing to spend the time to do this. They turn up at the events in their blazers and badges and think they are important. And who pays for the trips?

How do you change it? There are more of them than us and they have time. There was a great Dilbert a week or so ago where Dilbert asks the smart garbage man why is it the stupid people get to make the decisions, and the garbage man tells him it is because the smart ones are too busy doing the work. Too true. I saw it at my last job, my "boss" spent all day in the client's trailer or our head office trailer making himself look important. I could never work out how he had the time. But perhaps they are the smart ones?

Qualifying at Abu Dhabi was excellent and we should have a good race tomorrow, it is still anybody's to win. The manager of Abu Dhabi says he wants a MotoGP there as well. I'd like to hear the riders' opinion on that.