Bob Barnard Track Engineering

Hollywood loves sequels, but I am not sure F1 fans do. The situation in Bahrain is worse now than when they cancelled last year, with demonstrators becoming more violent. As many pointed out, that is what happens if you repress reasonable dissent. The Bahrain Government had only to look to Israel and Gazza, or Northern Ireland, to see just two situations where a majority is not represented. If the human rights activist now on hunger strike dies then we can only imagine what will happen.

How did it get to this, again? Who put this race back on the calendar and why? Bernie has to submit the calendar to the FIA, and I guess he has a contract with Bahrain so is obliged to, but could have chosen not to and borne the consequences. As it is the FIA agreed, and we are all now seeing the consequences. Thanks to a major PR campaign the lid was kept on the teams this year, we were all going to go, except now it is a week away and people are being shot and bombs going off and the cracks in that unity have appeared. One hero who did not want to be named said that the teams want it cancelled. Do the Bahrain Government own so much of F1 and the FIA that everyone is scared of them?

Bernie comes out today and says that the teams don't have to go if they don't want to. Really? At what price? Isn't that what the Concorde Agreement is about, you have to show up? None of the drivers have said a word this year, very strange. The only way the safety of people at the event can be guaranteed is for the place to be an armed camp. Unless you have police or troops linking arms along the track fence you are never going to stop someone climbing a fence. Remember the suffragette who threw herself under the King's horse at the start of the last century? More recently the idiot at Silverstone, and apparently someone tried to disrupt The Boat Race last weekend. I've seen the end of the Suzuka 8 Hour when the crowd comes over the debris fence, and of course who can forget the first Phillip Island MotoGP?

That's just at the track, presumably they are not going to camp there so need to be able to get in and out. Do they have that many troops? Far from being a unifying event I can only see it dividing the country more.

The FIA are missing in action , again. They are monitoring the situation. Someone needs to find enough courage to stand up and say "We're not going." Then we need to find some answers as to why someone thought this was a good idea in the first place.

Well the racing season kicked off with a marathon. F1 practice in the middle of the night Friday and Saturday, Sebring all day Saturday, and the F1 race at 2 am Sunday. Thank goodness Sunday was quiet.

Thankfully it was all worth watching. The F1 race threw up a few surprises after qualifying. McLaren looked like they would run away with it, 0.7 seconds a lap quicker than the Red Bulls who recovered from some poor practice sessions, as we knew they would. Jensen basically did, jumping Lewis at the start, and apparently both cars fueled light in anticipation of cruising to the win. Not sure what went on with Lewis unless he was conserving fuel. I can understand him not catching Jensen, but he seemed to be able to manage the gap to Vettel until the safety car deal. I know good athletes make their own luck, but Vettel sure seems to get more than his fair share. Still, I expected Lewis to go back past as the McLaren was faster in top speed anyway, and with DRS you would expect him to blow past. Not to be, struggled to stay in front of Webber and not at all happy with third.

A lot of drivers would have been, Grosjean for one, and Maldanado after a very strong drive in the Williams which looked good. Not sure what happened to Senna who could not produce the same performance. Ferrari, well Alonso, recovered from a disastrous qualifying to show that the Ferrari still seems to have trouble getting heat into the tires. I expected Montezemolo to have fired them all overnight Saturday. Let's see what Malaysia brings. Massa had another shocker, how long are they going to put up with him, and who is there to replace him? 

Great to see Kimi fighting back after mistakes in qualifying, but presumably they don't have blue flags in rallying or NASCAR. Force India were disappointing after last year and what seemed to be a good test season. HRT. What can you say? Please just go away. Marussia at least qualified, but that's the best you can say, and Caterham must be disappointed after also looking like they made a big step in pre-season. Ricciardo and Vergne acquitted themselves well and well fought Daniel after a fraught start. 

Sauber are about where they were last year, which is not so bad, and it would have been interesting if Michael's Mercedes had not broken so early. Strange how Rosberg was off the pace. The F-Duct is still creating some controversy, but on this showing is not doing a a lot for the Mercedes.

A good entertaining race though, even if Button was not really challenged, and he already seems to be the teams focus for the Championship judging by Whitmarsh's comments. On to Malaysia, and watch out if McLaren put enough fuel in the cars this time.

Much angst in the paddock apparently over the reported special deals done with Ferrari and Red Bull. My assumption that Bernie is planning to float F1 seems to be at the center of this as to float he has to secure the major assets. Why this does not include McLaren and Mercedes I don't know, unless Ron is too much of a straight shooter to agree to a deal that shuts out the rest of the teams. We all know Ferrari have done this before, and Red Bull is all about money. Mutterings of the other teams taking their bat and ball home if this is true.

Sebring produced an interesting race, even with the Audis obviously going to win and duly did. GT's put on their predictable great show, with the Ferraris being fast and fragile, and the local BMWs still capable of producing the goods. The LMP1 HPDs kept the Audis honest though, a good showing for brand new cars. The Dyson Lola was never in the hunt and the ALMS season will have to be all about the GTs on this showing, Muscle Milk will have it all their own way. Still early days. Way too many cars out there this year, we could have done without the LMPC and GTC cars to get in everyone's way. The early story was the FIA/ACO were not going to allow non-WEC cars at Sebring, and that is the word for next year. I can't see Don and the boys being happy with that. It would be nice to see some money spent on the track before then.

Who would have thought! It rained in Melbourne, spoiling the fun and stopping us from seeing who is really fast. Mercedes looked good in both sessions, with the morning drying out enough to see some respectable times and Button fastest. It was really a story of who was out last to set a time as the track improved. Star of the day was Kobayashi who had a massive spin coming out of the last corner and managed to keep it off the walls, although Ricciardo managed the same thing at the Turn 11-12 complex with a bit more room available. Daniel did a lot of laps and put in some good times.

A lot of the big guns like Hamilton chose to do very few laps, and Vettel said he did not like his car today and was well down the order. The fact that Glock in the Marrussia was mid-field this afternoon tells you what was going on. Poor Pedro de la Rosa did one sighting lap all day in his HRT, while Karthikeyan did a few more, but the best that can be said is that the paint job looks better. Inside the 107%? I would think not, and I don't think they expect to race.

The Lotus boys did few laps, Kimi not liking his power steering, but throwing in a couple of decent laps at the end. Not sure what is going on at Ferrari.

Anyway, McLaren looked pretty confident that they have a good car and did not need to run much, and don't count out Red Bull. Mercedes said they were not running their new F-Duct, but there are photos of it. It is a hole in the rear wing end plate that is uncovered when the top element opens during the DRS deployment, allowing air into the rear wing mainplane which is then dispersed to stall the wing further. Ross says it is not a big gain on the DRS alone, but every little bit is gold in today's restricted rule book.

There is chatter about big news on the commercial side of F1, with a major announcement due soon. Joe Saward thinks it is that Ferrari and Red Bull have stolen a jump on their mates and done a deal with Bernie. This leaves the rest picking up the crumbs, divide and conquer. Pit Pass was hinting at something far more radical and comprehensive, a game changer for the future. Is Bernie going to try floating F1 again?

Over at Sebring the night practice saw a crash fest with the session extended due to so many red flags. Let's hope the race does not go this way. The Audis, despite being involved with two of the cars, still top the time sheets, with the Muscle Milk HPD and the Brabham driven JRM sister car next, but a few seconds off the pace of Kristensen. The Dyson Lola is surprisingly well down the order. In GTE Joey Hand snuck his ALMS BMW in front of the Bruni 458 Ferrari, and the two Corvettes, but you could throw a blanket over them on time. Should be fun. Qualifying today at 3:15 pm EDT. 

Our patience usually. Here we are with withdrawal symptoms from a cold and dark winter with no racing and needing something to stir the blood. What do we get? Testing. Just to show how irrelevant testing is, yesterday Hulkenburg in the Force India is fastest, and Senna in the Williams is among the slowest. Today Maldanado sets the fastest time of the week, in the Williams, and Di Resta in the Force India is way off the pace!

While testing does not show us who is really quick, it does throw up who is in trouble. HRT are not here at all and Marussia are running last year's car. Nothing much changing there. Lotus have a real problem with their chassis design and called off this week's test after seven laps when Grosjean said the car felt strange. Back to the factory. Ferrari are not on the pace and Alonso is saying the car is hard to understand. Sound familiar?

Indycar is testing the "Car of Today", the DW12, on ovals, and the drivers believe the problems have been solved with the handling. Pity there will not be many ovals left for them to drive on.

Over in Jerez di Puniet on the Aprilia powered CRT is putting in some good times, about 0.3 secs a lap off the Ducatti of Hector Barbera, which is better than the 5 seconds Colin Edwards managed, but it is a Ducatti and not the Honda, so let's not get too excited. The Duke is better this year by the sound of it, but still not on the pace of the Hondas.

World Superbike kicks off its season at Phillip Island, and testing there has seen a fair share of injuries. Leon Haslam for one has had surgery and may not start. Let's wait and see if Checa can keep it going from last year. He has been quick in testing so far.

NASCAR has its Dual 125's today, so I guess you can say the season has started.

30 days to go for the F1 season to start, and Australia loses its major sponsor, DHL! Of course good old QANTAS will step in, for a lot less I bet, but the CEO says sponsorship, corporate, ticket sales are all up! And they forecast to only lose $56m this year! But it is better value for money than the tennis.

Bahrain continues to be a political "bun fight" with British politicians and peers of the realm taking opposing sides of "should we go or not." Joe Saward has booked his ticket so it sounds as though it is on. Bernie had better be right "that it is only a couple of kids in trouble with the police." Nice one as always Bernie.  Like the guys in Sao Paulo just wanting to sell Jenson Button a hat. 

Just returned from a quick trip to Beijing to present on a new race facility there. I went to China twenty years ago, and the change since then is amazing. Then there were millions of bicycles and the odd truck, now there are millions of new cars of every make you can name, and I mean new! The only old cars were taxis. And then there were the car showrooms next to the hotel, every performance brand you could want except BMW, but there was Schnitzer, and Rolls and Bentley.

People seem happy and prosperous, and the buildings very impressive. Did not seem like a communist country to me, born capitalists I would say. I think the US and Europe are in trouble.

Not many motorcycles though, they seem to have gone straight past them. Interesting to read Mat Oxley's piece in this month's Motor Sport about Dorna the MotoGP rights holder looking to break the manufacturers hold on the series by bringing in the CRT, the street based bike. Kenny Roberts and I talked about this twenty years ago, how the manufacturers will race what they want to sell and not what fans want to watch. Where are the two-strokes? Kenny building his own machine was part of that, but he was on his own at that time. It now seems, almost too late, that Dorna has woken up.

Kenny and I used to look to F1 where the teams were their own manufacturers, and the cars were built as pure racers, not something "relevant" to what is sold. Gone are the days, as we can look forward to 1.6 liter V 6's, because that's what the manufacturers wanted just before they bailed out of F1. Racing is better off without the manufacturers as team owners, look at Peugeot. They come and go as they please without regard for the sport. It is people like Ron Dennis and Frank Williams that have made F1 what it is, not Mercedes or Honda. F1 should just look at Indycar, and even NASCAR, to see that fans will not watch what they do not like, whatever you call it. 

On a similar note, it is interesting that Nissan is entering V8Supercars. I believe Toyota tried to do this a few years ago and even went to court over being refused. V8's are popular in Oz because it is Red against Blue, Holden against Ford, it is a tribal thing. In the old ATCC days we had Nissan, BMW, Toyota involved, and yes it was big, but that was because of the personalities. Brock v Moffat and then Johnson, but still essentially Holden against Ford. If Nissan starts beating these two brands then V8's could have a problem, but now it is owned by a venture capital group they probably just see the dollars, for now.

The first days of F1 testing have come and gone with the usual suspects at the top of the time sheets, joined by Lotus, but we saw that last year didn't we? Apparently Kimi is giving the team great feedback and all seems well. Let's hope so, we would all enjoy Kimi mixing it again. But oh, aren't they ugly this year. It seems hard to me, as a non-aerodynamicist, to see the reason for the step in the nose, but they nearly all have it so it must do something. And have McLaren got it wrong? Doesn't seem so by the lap times. Let's see what Mercedes wheel out as their new car, time for them to perform. The new boys in Toro Rosso seem to be doing well, but it is all too early yet to really now who is doing what.

Over at the MotoGP tests Stoner and the Honda started where they left off last year, in front. Rossi is happier with the Ducatti and even talks of podiums, but no wins you notice. He is still about a second off the pace, which is a lot better than the CRT teams who are 5-10 seconds off. So much for equalizing the performance, no one is going to want to claim these yet. At those speeds a Moto2 might be the machine to have.