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.

Now before you all write and tell me that is old news, this is the next generation. Wayne's two sons, Luca and Remy. This was their first time at a track where their World Champion father won the first Australian MotoGP back in '89, and Luca won one race in the rain and finished second in four others. Nice going. Remy had a bit more torrid time of it but still managed two seconds, two thirds and a fifth. Great future for these two I think, but Dad needs to lift his game as a mechanic. Still, Wayne did beat them when they took time out to go kart racing. The boys loved the Island, who wouldn't, and cannot wait to go back.

Over in Italy at Monza, another great track, the cream rose to the top with Ricciardo leading Alexander Rossi home in the second race. I loved the teams explanation why there were "loose bolts," apparently not just one but all of them. The rule only says "tight," but not how tight. Classic motor racing, if you do not define it with a torque value how tight is tight? He did not win the argument though.

A lot is being made about News Corp not being allowed to buy F1 because it will have a conflict of interest, being a media company. How short the memories are. How did all this get started? When Bernie decided to make a bunch of money and sell it to the Kirsch Media Group out of Germany. That's right, the Kirsch MEDIA Group. So what has changed in the last twenty years? If it was good enough then why not for Rupert and Co? I'm sure Rupert can put in place enough cut-outs, like Bernie and the boys have now, to put a fire wall between the company owning F1 and Sky. And why are they only carrying on about Sky? What about Fox and Speed in the US, and all the other stations he owns. We pay for Speed via the cable here in the US, so define "free to air."

Casey won at Le Mans, no surprise there, but Rossi third? That was largely thanks to Simoncelli and Pedrosa coming together and Lorenzo having a bad day, but the Ducati seems to be coming good. The Simoncelli incident earned him a ride through penalty, which has sparked a lot of debate on-line as to who was at fault here. I have not seen anything but the stills, and it does look like Simo did not leave him much room, unlike what we saw at Turkey last week, and he is making a habit of this and making himself very unpopular with his fellow riders. The Tech3 boys did not manage to repeat their qualifying form, and Spies was down in sixth. Marquez finally learned how to keep a four stroke upright and won his first Moto2 race, so look out everyone else if he repeats his form from the 125's.

Rockenfeller won his first DTM race, and about time. It is hard to believe that with all else he has won he has had to wait this long for a good car. Let's hope Grand-Am can bring this series here in 2013. Talking of Grand-Am the race from Virginia started with an hour behind the pace car for rain. Someone finally beat Ganassi and Co, but given how easily Pruit caught the lead car on the last lap I wonder if that was not a set up to try and make the series more interesting. $25,000 reward was posted by Grand-Am for anyone beating Ganassi which received more press than anything else they have done.

Kevin Magnessun won the third F3 race of the weekend at Snetterton after finishing ninth in the second "reverse grid" race with fastest lap of the race.

Bernie made a surprise visit to the reopening of the Austrian track owned by Red Bull magnate, Mateschitz, and told him that even though "Didi" does not want an F1 race, he should have one. Didi probably knows what it will cost him.

So Turkey turned out to be a turkey for Michael. It brought him "no big joy." Must be a German expression. Still, Mercedes say he has their complete support. I think that is what Williams said about Sam Michael about a day before he quit. In the same web site Johnny Herbert is predicting Michael will retire again at the end of the season. So take your pick. It was very strange how he was right on the pace up to the Q3 session, and then lost it.

His old mate Rubens is saying the FIA decision to allow the DRS system at Monaco is wrong. The answer is simple Rubens, don't use it. The FIA is not saying you have to use it, only that you can, and as the driver you have the choice. Talk to your mates and just agree that you won't use it, and then see who does!

Trulli picked up that the tire situation is changing qualifying. This format was put in place to make sure the punters had cars on track to watch, but now it seems teams would rather sit in the garage and conserve tires.

Poor Max Mosley lost his case in the EU Court to have the nasty media tell people before they write bad things about them so they can obtain an injunction. He is looking very bitter and twisted these days. What's he going to look like when Rupert runs F1?

D'Ambrosio is supposedly in danger of losing his drive in the Virgin as his sponsors have not paid up. I wonder why? Could it be the lack of performance of the team and lack of exposure?

So Bernie says the return of the Austrian GP is possible, and Turkey is saying talks yesterday made it 50% more likely it will stay on the calendar. Not sure if that means the price only went up 50% of what Bernie was asking or not. So who is going to miss out? Getting awfully crowded.