Bob Barnard Track Engineering

Formula One returned to the A-1 Ring in Austria. Call me old fashioned but I am old enough to remember when they raced there before and Red Bull Ring does not do anything for me. This sign of obvious consumption has become somewhat odious to me. So quite happy when their cars failed to perform. It is strange that they were so far off the pace at a track with high speed corners that you would think would suit their good aero and road holding.

I have always liked this track, I guess due to the good use of the topography. Tilke did not do too much damage to it except to provide acres of asphalt and gravel run off. Pity he did not use some of that asphalt on some access roads by all account. Still, the crowd arrived and it was good to see, a bit like the Hungaroring in the early days. I expected overtaking to be difficult and limited to a couple of spots, but no, we were treated to some great moves. The best has to be Hamilton on Alonso at Turn 8 on the first lap, massive commitment on a fast corner. This track with 9 corners showed that you do not need 20 corners to provide a good race.

I do have a couple of issues though. Pit in should start before Turn 8, not after it, and there were a few close calls. Repainting the white line was like changing deck chairs on the Titanic. And then there is the asphalt emergency access strips at the exit of Turn 9 which almost caught out a couple of cars and launch them into the barrier. Shades of the BMW at Mid-Ohio.

Surprising that Mercedes struggled with overheating again. I expected a team with such an engineering base would have got on top of that immediately after Canada, and they had announced they had. Back to the drawing board.