Bob Barnard Track Engineering

Today's news seems all about money. Max Mosley accused Red Bull of exceeding the Resource Restriction Agreement, i.e. overspending, in 2010. Red Bull denies this, but this agreement is so full of get out clauses it will be hard to tell. The boys cannot agree on what is "Restricted" in 2011, and presumably they have committed most of their spending already. The RRA was a way for the teams to do what Max wanted and reduce spending without him unilaterally decreeing it, so of course it is full of loopholes on what is restricted and what is not.

Then there is the great article by Dieter Rencken in this weeks Autosport on the problems F1 tracks have making money. It is really a case of restricting the losses, and reflects what I have been saying here since I started the blog. All fans of motorsport need to read this to see the mess it is in, and how it is unsustainable. As we saw with manufacturers, as soon as Governments wake up there will be no more billion dollar race tracks, and we will need all those great tracks that have been cast aside in the name of CVC's wealth generation.

Dun and Bradstreet have just released a report card on when F1 teams pay their bills. Red Bull pay promptly, which may be why they are over the RRA. If you delay paying, like Lotus which is the worst offender with 180 days late, then presumably you can delay recording the expenditure? The bottom line seems to be suppliers know they are going to get paid. One supplier commented that "if Yijay Mallya sold his yacht he could pay the team bills for the next two years." Now paying bills late is not unusual, it is "good business" for lots of companies, including the one I worked for back in the eighties. I was running a State Branch of a construction company in a small town and would meet my subs and suppliers every day, and be asked when they are going to get paid. Now they knew they would be paid, but it got wearing, so I complained to our accountant, who was also a co-owner, who just told me the money was better in our bank than theirs, and putting up with the whining was what he paid me for. Touche.


And of course there is the ongoing "Banker Bribery" scandal to fully unfold, and the situation with "pay for ride" drivers, but we all knew F1 was really about money didn't we?

Here in the US Monday Night Football was a huge success and has since been followed by Sunday and Thursday night games. Someone worked out that people are at home in prime time, and there is not much else to watch in "prime time." Now Luca di Montezemolo is at it again stirring things up, don't you just love him, by suggesting that 2 pm starts should be moved to 5 pm as "most people are on the beach." In a European summer that would work, and if not there are always lights. Not sure what that does for the Asian races though. Luca probably does not realize that people like myself record the races anyway so we can watch them when it suits us and we can skip through the ads.

Talking of moving times of races, I commented a couple of months ago that the Phillip Island MotoGP was always intended to be run in March/April, it was only the fight over tobacco that moved the race location and date. But of course now the F1 GP has moved from Adelaide to Melbourne, and November to April, so the GP Board, who promotes both races, have a problem. It seems Dorna, after twenty years, have decided the MotoGP needs to be in that time slot, and have threatened that the FIM will not license the track if it is not moved. Don't really see what the date has to do with a track license. I have heard of licensing a track for different levels of competition, never for different times of the year?  As I said before, move the F1 race to November and run it with the Melbourne Cup, what a week for partying!

I don't know if any of you have thought through the ramifications of the arrest of Gribkowsky, the banker who managed the sale of the shares to CVC, but if it is true he took a bribe then the person who paid it would also be in trouble presumably, and perhaps the whole deal could be in jeopardy? The bank that sold the shares is State owned and has lost a bundle in the last few years, so I am sure the State would like to get some of that back.  I am no lawyer, but this could get really messy, or just maybe it will get the sport out of the hands of people who care nothing for the sport and only its earning potential.

Senor Carabante of HRT has been ordered to pay an ex-partner an amount of 47 m Euros, that's a lot of dollars! With HRT already strapped for cash it will be interesting to see what this does. Still, they have money in from Tata for Karthikeyan's ride and another seat to sell, and there is always a new investor coming with these guys.

Practice for this year's Rolex started today with the two Ganassi cars at the top of the time sheet, no surprise there. Watch for the Aten entered Ferrari 430 run by my buddy Tony Dowe. This is the first outing for this car, but Tony has a good driver line up and is no slouch in long distance racing.

I wrote a couple of weeks ago about how the Rome F1 GP may not be all it seems based on some information from an Italian friend. I did not go into detail, but today there is a statement from the Promoter,"Flammini argues that a Grand Prix would revive the neighbourhood by not only drawing attention to it, but also by restoring the Tre Fontane sports grounds with a total investment of $200 million from private investors. All that the city would have to provide for the event would be construction permits for the work, which would create a new park in which there would be venues for volleyball and skating and two theatres." Now this fits with my connection who said this is more about getting hold of this property and construction permits than running a GP.

As I also wrote a couple of days ago, how are we bloggers supposed to work if every rumor turns out to be wrong? Now McLaren are saying they are not changing their silver and red livery, just the merchandise. Not that I blame them, always thought the silver jackets etc looked tacky.

Your friendly banker is now in custody as a result of his dealings over the sale of the F1 shares to CVC, a nice little earner that seems to have been. $50m seems to have been the going rate, and CVC vehemently deny any involvement or knowledge, so the question remains who else stood to gain? This has the ability to turn very ugly if true. It is hard to see Mr. Gribkowsky taking the fall for this on his own.

As noted on Superbike Planet, running a non-profit does not mean that someone is not making money. The AMA certainly pays its' Chief a bundle, which I guess is the way you avoid making a profit. There are several other examples of this if you look around. My wife worked at a track that ran five major events a year, including a very large CART event, and did it with 13 staff. Now they run three events, non of which match CART, and need 30, go figure? In a similar vein I received a press release from ALMS yesterday about their TV contract for 2011 which involved the VP of Communications, the Director, and the Manager. Now ALMS is not F1, so it is hard to see it takes three people to do this job, and I suspect the Manager is managing others. So many tracks and series cannot help themselves, they just keep creating jobs and spending money. When I ran Phillip Island, and yes it was before the Internet, aside from the GP I had a Manager, lady in the office and a security guard. No wonder there are so many "non-profits."

Speaking of ALMS and their TV, it hardly seems a giant leap forward, sorry "a game changer," if your major event the Sebring 12 hour is now shown not live but the next day and the "ABC will feature race telecast coverage." Whatever that means, but I suspect not all the 12 hours. We can watch all the races live on ESPN3.com, which I for one will probably prefer, certainly if the broadcast TV is the sort of made for TV "documentary" we saw last year. Puke!

Cytosport are to contest the LMP1 class in a new Aston Martin, which will be a welcome addition to that class, if there enough cars to call it a class. Greg Picket is down to drive it again, but hopefully not often or for long. No offence Greg but this car deserves to be driven by the other great drivers you have. Maybe Lord Paul Drayson, if he is racing in ALMS this year, and yourself can have a separate race?

So Tony Fernandes likes the new engine regulations for 2013, "F1 becomes so relevant because everybody has a 1.6 engine. And costs go down and money goes into better uses than just making a car as fast as possible so I think it is fantastic, it is a really, really great step forward." It gets worse, "I hope the next step is to make the wheels and tyres the same size as [road] cars so tyre manufacturers benefit from the safety that is learned, and engineering that can be put onto a 1.6-litre, Toyota, or Hyundai or Renault," said Fernandes. I tell you what Tony, why don't we just race Toyotas, Hyundais or Renaults, road cars that is, and be done with it? Since when has redesigning engines been "cost saving?" And the last time I looked the whole point of racing was about "making a car as fast as possible." What is it otherwise, a reliability or economy run? It is also the point of F1 that not everybody has one. And I am so tired of the "we must be relevant" BS. What is horse racing relevant to except the betting industry?

Joe Saward is back and obviously refreshed. Some nice scuttlebutt about Dr Gerhard Gribkowsky, a Director of the Bayerische Landesbank who owned the shares in F1 of the failed German Media tycoon. Too much to include here, but it seems he has a bundle of money that he will not, or cannot explain where it came from. Check out Joe's site.

It seems the Force India seats are not actually sorted yet, seems there is the problem of what to do with Liuzzi's contract. In a similar "that rumor is not correct" it seems the reported sale of Torro Rosso is not true either. How are us bloggers supposed to keep up if the stories are not being checked first?

So welcome to 2011, wasn't that the sequel to "2001 A Space Odyssey?" At least we do not have HAL running the cars yet. But as Rubens Barrichello said in his interview with Autosport, "As a driver we're just concerned that we're going to have to press so many damn buttons that it's going to be tough!" Rubens was talking about the 2011 Williams which he believes will be a more "aggressive" design thanks to his input. With over 300 races under his belt he certainly has the experience, and with top teams, and it is nice that the team at Williams are listening. I'm sure most of us fans have a soft spot for Sir Frank and wish him well for the new season.

Luca di Montezemolo is not giving up on the four cylinder turbos for 2013 and is looking for "friends" to help him get it changed to at least a V6. Cosworth are saying it will only cost 30m Euros to design, only? I suspect teams like HRT would like that as a budget. What happened to cost cutting? It's like the ethanol deal, it seems to be "green" until you look at what it takes to produce it.

I talked about losing the sound of F1 and Mark Hughes of Autosport also raised the likely sound of these new four cylinder cars. "A 12,000 rpm turbo four will sound flatter in tone and lower in volume." Perhaps that is another "green" agenda? Noise is a bigger issue for tracks than fuel economy, but it seems that people living near tracks will accept the major events such as F1, NASCAR, V8Supertourers etc, it is the daily use all year long that gets to them. When I ran Phillip Island the locals asked if we could just have the MotoGP thank you.  They certainly make enough money from that one event, it is a pity that the tracks do not. So, do not mess with the sound of F1. Wait till we have electric cars racing, they will have to have extra horsepower to run the "boom boxes" providing the noise.

Talking of noise, I always loved the sound of a Ducati, so distinctive, so I am glad that they say they are not out to produce a Yamaha "replica" with the GP bike, despite Rossi and his crew coming into the team. I've not had the pleasure of hearing the GP bike so maybe it does not enjoy the same notes as the street versions.