Bob Barnard Track Engineering

Yes folks it was still polluted and dusty. What amazes me is the amount of dust that was thrown up at pit stops. The teams are meticulous about keeping the pit stall clean, so how after they have been there four days is it still throwing up clouds of dust. Is it raining dust? Is the concrete not finished properly? From the look of the sky you would think it was raining dust.

I hope the Indians like a parade as that is what we got. Predictably there was only one place to overtake, and even with DRS evenly matched cars could not do it even there. Button passed Alonso at Turn One, where the predictable major accident happened, and somewhere Webber on that first lap but I did not see it. After that Alonso passed Webber at a pit stop, and that basically was it. Yes there was some shuffling down the order, but mostly because of fast cars catching up after the first corner accident.

Hamilton proved how hard it was to pass by his now compulsory accident with Massa. It was a replay of Singapore and Monaco, but this time the Stewards pinged Massa for it. Even I as a Hamilton fan thought he was the one in the wrong, not sure he is not a liability to McLaren at the moment. Massa then changed his "bouncing" front wing, not damaged in the accident, so what was that about, and then ran over a different curb and broke the other side of the front suspension. He cannot have been the only driver to run over an orange curb can he? Is Ferrari the new "Lotus" where the suspension is designed down to a weight and not up to a strength? Like Lewis, Massa is not doing Ferrari any favors. Not that it was his fault but he nearly took out Alonso exiting after his first pit stop, and was not alone in nearly contacting someone at this badly designed exit.

Oh yes, Vettel won, Button could not catch him, and that was the race. Hope the crowd enjoyed modern F1. There was a stupid piece about how India could become an F1 "Highlight." Not on this track layout it won't.

Schumacher beat his team mate to fifth place, and both Mercedes beat Hamilton home, Lewis having no answer to their pace.

I came across this nice quote today from a script writer. You know my thoughts about physically drawing tracks rather than using a computer. Now this,"When I write a script, I write a script. The last thing I do is put it into a computer. If you actually have the physicality of writing down the words, you take it in."  Absolutely.

I have said for a while that the Pit Pass site is Bernie's PR company, and now I am convinced of it. Following the rumors about Austin the piece today makes you want to throw up in your corn flakes.

http://www.pitpass.com/44849-Is-the-US-GP-on-track-to-transfer-promoter-rights

Now I agree the promoter does not need to be the track owner, I have been there myself with Eastern Creek. In fact the smart move is to have them separated so if one goes broke they both do not go down. So it seems Tavo is a genius, the world authority on F1, Bernie said so if you read the last line. Hellmund is "F1's Captain America and Full Throttle synonymous with the sport in Texas." Funny, but when it was announced he was doing a deal my motorsport friends in Texas had never heard of him.

But he has promoted NASCAR and football. Really? Eddie Gossage promotes NASCAR in Texas as far as know, and who promotes football? At NFL level the teams run their own show with the League, and Colleges do their own thing. So at what level were these promotions?

It gets worse, no one has put together State funding and obtained both F1 and MotoGP events. Well the Australian GP Office is State funded and has run both F1 and MotoGP for some years. So has Malaysia, Hockenheim, Suzuka, Silverstone, Barcelona, Jerez, Jarama, Magny Cour, Paul Ricard, Donnington in the famous 1993 F1 race, Spa, and I could probably go on. All you need is money.

Work is apparently about to resume on site, there was a hiatus while the books were sorted, but now they are all go again, with fill due to be trucked to the site. Hang on, haven't we just been moving lots and lots of dirt, and now you need more? Surely they mean road base? 

I'll let you draw your own conclusions from the article, but as I said, it will be interesting to eventually find out what is going on in Austin.

The big news of the day is that, not surprisingly, Jenson Button has re-signed with McLaren, and looks set to end his driving days there. As others have said, Jenson is driving better than ever and is assuming the role of team leader.

The other story getting a lot of air time is the victory of an English Pub Owner in the EU Court of Justice over her using a foreign channel subscription, Greek actually, to show football without paying Sky's exorbitant rate. The implications for Sky and F1 are not clear as this may only apply to pubs and clubs, but it has Bernie out and about again as you will read in the other Pit Pass story, "Has Bernie lost the plot?" When they run these stories I do have to question if they are Bernie's mouthpiece, or do they have a split personality?

We have news today of the tragic bombing in Delhi, a reminder that Bahrain is not the only F1 track located in a state of unrest. Chandook assures us that sporting events have not been targets and this is in the next State, but it is the Delhi circuit. It's splitting hairs a bit to say it is otherwise, like saying the Oval is not in London. Let us hope Chandook is right.

And so we go on to Iran which is to have an F1 circuit! I was contacted by email one Sunday a few months ago to be asked if I was interested in working on it, and politely declined. It seems my friends at Apex have no such qualms about going there, but I bet the teams have, at whatever level. A columnist was unkind enough to say that if the money was right Bernie would go anywhere. Bernie would probably point out that they organized things well in Iran. I have come to a time in my life when I no longer feel the need to go places and do things just for money, however short of a supply it might be in at the time. 

I guess you could say that almost every country F1 goes to has its share of risk. Britain had the IRA and Spain ETA, neither of which chose to target a race. Even the US has had the Unibomber and of course 9/11 is almost on us. Germany had the Munich Olympics, and most of Europe has had its share of terrorists, so what is safe? A relative term I guess.

Joe Saward addresses the new date for Austin in November. Now I was thinking of the clash with the NFL, but Joe reminds us that the NASCAR final race is that weekend this year, and they are unlikely to move it for F1. It is true that whatever date you pick here in the US you are fighting NASCAR, and probably baseball and basketball, so November is as good as any I guess. Not sure there is a crossover crowd for NASCAR and F1 like Joe suggests for the Indy 500 and Charlotte 600, so running the Austin race to avoid the clash of television times probably is not worthwhile. Tavo and the boys should only care about who turns up in person and that is unlikely to be influenced by NASCAR, more likely college football.

Well I think the Stewards wimped out on that one. Five grid places for deliberately driving into someone? Joe Saward said it well, "less than severe given what happened." He should be excluded for at least this race. And Sir Frank should have the guts to fire him, deliberately damaging his car. I know he brings a lot of sponsorship, but also disrepute. How is Hamilton reprimanded? Why would he deliberately move right to hit Maldanado, or was it for the pass at the bus stop? That to me was clear cut, Maldanado was wallying around, slow, stayed right as if to give Lewis room and then when Lewis is alongside cuts back left, no problem for me. Has Maldanado been watching "Days of Thunder" too much? I can just see Sir Frank, "now I want you to go out and hit the safety car."

Vettel took pole from Lewis in his repaired McLaren at the last gasp, but tomorrow's race should be interesting. Button starting from 13th, Michael from the back after his loose wheel incident, lucky that was not at Eau Rouge, and Alonso down in 8th after an unhappy qualifying session. Senna drove well for his first drive on Pirelli's after a long absence and outqualified his team mate Petrov by over a second. Ricciardo needs to lift his game, over a second slower than Luizzi is not going to get him into Webber's seat. Mark has predictably re-signed for Red Bull for next year, so Daniel has another year to prove himself, but where? The new owners at HRT will want a Spaniard in at least one of the cars. Fortunately the Stewards waived the 107% rule and all cars will start, including Michael's three wheeler. Not sure what the point of having a 107% rule is if you are not going to enforce it. I can understand Michael, but the conditions were the same for everyone in that Q1 session.

Roman Grosjean predictably wrapped up the GP2 title after finishing third in the Saturday rain affected race, now let us see where he goes next year.

At Indianapolis for the MotoGP Casey Stoner is dominating practice despite being highly critical of the new track surface. It started out very slippery Friday morning and has improved as it cleaned up and has some rubber, but there are comments it is wearing tires very fast. "Most" of the bumps have gone, and Casey has this morning run the fastest lap around here, but still considers it his least liked track. Ben Spies is flying the Americans flag with second fastest, and Colin Edwards is inspired by home soil to be the quickest non-works bike. Lorenzo is not happy in seventh behind Colin, while the Ducati boys continue to struggle, Rossi being the quickest in eighth but over a second off the pace. Let's see what qualifying brings, although of course here in the US SPEED would rather show off-road racing or a chopper show than an actual MotoGP, so we won't see it.

Stories today that the BRDC, owners of Silverstone, are looking to lease the place out now they have spent all that money on it. A one hundred year lease term is suggested, although how anyone can predict what will happen in the next decade I don't know, let alone the next century. $400m is the asking price, so they can then spend all that on their grand scheme of hotels etc. So what does the lessee get, the track? And how does he make any money? I know it is only $4m a year, but then there is the interest or opportunity cost. The BRDC is not making money on the F1 GP at the moment, and I know the place runs all year, but then it costs money to run it all year. It was suggested Bernie might want it, but he know better than most that owning tracks and running races is not where the money is at, he makes his from the poor track owner, just ask him about how well Turkey is going. As I said before, do they not learn from history? Octagon went down this road and bought their way out of the deal, and the Nurburgring is currently in all sorts of trouble with their hotel/theme park/conference center development. Donnington should still be burned in everyone's memory, what a farce that was. Now Silverstone is not so remote as the Nurburgring, but it is not in the middle of Europe either. 

There are a few realignments going on with the F1 teams. Williams announced that they are going to use Renault engines from next year, so Renault increases its hold on the F1 engine market, despite supposedly being down on power. Let's hope this improves the performance of the team. HRT's ownership and management just got cloudier, with a buyout of Carabantes by Thesan Capital, which is a venture capital group backed by Nomura Bank of Japan. They say they will move to base the team in Spain with the current Directors and Team in place. So presumably Colin Kolles is still on the outer. This all begs the question who really is minding the store and who owns it? And will it make any difference?

HRT's arch rival for being last, Marussia Virgin, has confirmed a technical tie up with McLaren Applied Technologies, so look for an improvement there and perhaps Mercedes engines? Cosworth are going to be left with HRT, so it is highly doubtful they are going to invest in a new for 2014 engine with just one customer.

Speaking of engines, Clive Pollock is reportedly going to push on with his proposed engine for 2014 despite the u-turn by the FIA, and Bernie is now threatening to sue the FIA if the 15,000 rpm limit impacts on the poor promoters and their ticket sales drop. Of course his concern is that the promoter will not then have the money to pay the fee to stage the race, but since when has that ever been a concern for him? Bernie is famous for not being fond of drivers in general, they are like buses, another one will be along shortly. That is why he has cleverly promoted F1 as a team sport and built Ferrari and McLaren etc as the stars. It also seemed that promoters enjoyed the same stature as drivers, as there is always someone else waiting to pay him to lose money whenever a promoter wakes up or runs out of it. Bernie has also been having a bit of a verbal spar with Williams CEO Adam Parr. Adam was crass enough to point out that sports such as NFL enjoy considerably larger TV fees and suggested Bernie could be doing better for them all on this front. Bernie of course then pointed out how well Adam was doing on the sponsorship front for Williams. Touche.

The leakage of top staff continues at the other Renault, which isn't, Lotus Renault, with designer Tim Densham reportedly heading for Ferrari. Is everything really well at Renault as Boullier continues to tell us?

I took a day off yesterday so have not commented on the racing. Lorenzo scored a great win at Mugello so perhaps the Championship will not be a Stoner/Honda procession after all. Simoncelli managed to finish a race while Rossi dragged his Ducati up to sixth. In Imola the Peugeots gained revenge for Le Mans with an easy win over the Audis

This is my last blog. Just kidding, but it is my last blog on Wordpress. I have revamped my personal web site where I always intended to base my blog, and it will be launched today. The link should not change, so you should go straight to it, but if not go to www.bobbarnardtrackengineering.com and go to the blog page. See you there.