Bob Barnard Track Engineering

So Michael Waltrip's team fixed the NASCAR race at Richmond with Bowyer spinning in response to a radio conversation? Shades of Renault F1 and Nelson Piquet Jr. There the driver had to leave F1 as did the team chief and chief engineer. What happens in NASCAR? 50 points deducted and a fine, a large fine, but that's all. Bowyer can still win the Championship. Helton says there was no conclusive proof, so how can you dock points and fine people? Either they did or they didn't. If they did why are they still racing? I know everyone pushes the envelope of the rules, but does this say cheating is just a part of NASCAR? This is stretching team orders a bit too far.

So the hot rumor is Kimi is going to Ferrari to join Alonso. That should be interesting, I doubt Kimi is going to move over when asked. Is Alonso staying? That is the next question. I am not surprised Kimi is going back, he did not want to leave and is smart enough to know to not cut off his nose to spite his face. So, Alonso to McLaren? No Lewis there now. 

So this morning we saw the Monaco street parade, with no changes of leaders if you discount the pit stops, and Indianapolis with a record number of lead changes. Which is right? Neither. Indy was all too easy to draft past someone, and until the end was a fuel strategy race. Congratulations Dario, but can't say I enjoyed it, in fact I fell asleep on the couch for the first half of the race. I expect we will see the same multi-leader race tonight in Charlotte, although the All Star Race was pretty spread out.

Monaco may have produced the sixth winner as expected. Now Monaco is very difficult to pass on, but we hardly saw any attempt being made, it was alll about saving fuel and preserving tires. Not racing in my book. The field has certainly bunched up on performance, making passing even harder, just ask Jenson who made an un-characteristic move on Kovalianen.

So Alonso leads the drivers Championship. Not that much wrong with the Ferrari is there, even Massa managed a decent race. Perez did not cover himself in glory today, he seemed intent on hitting everyone he could. And how about Maldanado? He makes the same move on Perez in practice that he did to Lewis in Spa and Lewis was supposed to be at fault. Here Maldanado gets a ten grid place penalty for a blatant move, but Lewis gets put to the back at the last race for a team failure to fill the car. Where's the consistency?

But how is it that last race Lewis could look after his tires to do a two stop race when everyone else did a three stop, and today seemed to have to nurse them? McLaren really have not got on top of these tires or their car set up. Lewis' contract talks must be interesting, but it is hard to see where else he can go. 

Why is it that the 2012 Ferrari is seen as a dog, especially by the team? While we have had five different winners this year, including Ferrari, Alonso has been there abouts in each race. Now I am a fan of his and feel he can impact the performance of a car more than the average F1 driver, but even he cannot be doing this with a car as bad as everyone makes out. Quickest in first practice in Monaco, and right there in the second without using the super-soft tire that Jenson did. So how bad can this car really be?

On the other side McLaren were seen after the first race to be odds on to win both Chamionships, but look what's happened to them. OK, they have shot themselves in the foot a few times, but that does not tell the story of Button's bad races in China and Spain. So what's real here?

Like Ferrari the Lotus team seem to able to competitive everywhere this year, so perhaps a sixth race winner?

Nice to see the changes to the chicane on the harbor this year, much better.

While the racing goes on the fight to make money from the sport continues unabated. If $1.6bn can be raised by selling shares privately why do CVC, or is it Bernie, feel the need to float it public? A normally very private man when it come to money it is hard to understand why Bernie would want the public scrutiny that comes with a stock exchange listing. Bernie is right though, if Facebook is worth $100 bn then F1 with its returns to investors is a steal at $10 bn. I loved the comment about his replacement, comparing it to trying to find a replacement for Frank Sinatra.

F1 is only worth $10 bn though if the race promoters continue to cough up the exorbitant fees. Let's look at the current calendar. Australia is losing north of $50m on each race and the Government is under pressure. Malaysia has less attendance than Australia and by reports is not happy. China has never had a crowd, but will probably hang in there. Bahrain has plenty of money but no one wants to go. Barcelona cannot fill the seats even with Alonso and is hurting, but still wants the race. Their mates in Valencia keep reducing the number of seats and want to alternate with Barcelona. Monaco is Monaco and does not pay Bernie anyway. Then we have Canada where the students are threatening to stop the race, and Bernie wants a bunch of money spent on the track, i.e pit building, before next year. Silverstone is desperately trying to find someone to lease the facility to pay off their debts. Germany has Nurburgring and Hockenheim, neither of which can afford it. Hungary has always been an enigma, Bernie presumably promotes this race. Belgium is in trouble like Germany and was touted to share with France, except France is not playing ball with them or Bernie. In Italy the financial police have just raided Monza over dodgy accounts. Singapore will presumably continue at a lower price as their reward for floating F1. Japan is a year by year deal and could stop. Korea already wants to stop and apparently Bernie has done them a deal. India has not yet worked out what it is really going to cost them, as with Austin, which is still fighting within themselves. Abu Dhabi has spent so much money on Yas Marina they have to keep going, and then there is Brazil which is faced with building a new pit building. So, not all rosy in the F1 world.

What of the new races I hear you ask. Well we have New Jersey here in the US which no one knows who is paying for it. France is having second thoughts, and all is not smooth in Russia. Argentina is scheduled to join the Bernie supporters club, and there are always countries willing to pay Bernie what he wants it seems, but for how long?

Over at MotoGP things aren't much better with the current World Champion saying he is retiring at the end of the season as he does not like where that sport is heading, and neither do most of us.

On a final note the extensions to the track I built at Eastern Creek in Sydney back in 1989 have come in for some stick, particularly from motorcycle racers. Perhaps now I will receive some recognition for what I built originally on a difficult site. No, it was not Phillip Island, but there again, nothing else is.

The Malaysian F1 Lottery has been run and won by Alonso in the Ferrari. Hats off to him and the team for that result, but as one commentator said, they rolled the dice and it came up double six. Not my preferred way of deciding a motor race, and yes I know strategy plays its part, but this is a contest between men and machines, not weather forecasters. Team mate Massa, for how much longer is the question, had another dreadful race and finished 97 seconds behind Alonso, despite his new car. Young Ferrari driver and a nominee to replace Massa, Sergio Perez, drove the race of his life to finish second in the Ferrari powered Sauber. Who knows what he might have done if it were not for the suspicious radio message that "we need this place" when running second. In my view this was a message from their engine supplier running in front of him.

It is interesting that in all the speculation about who could replace Masssa now no one has mentioned two out of work young ex-Ferrari powered drivers, Buemi and Alguersuari. I know they lost their drives for not performing as potential champions, but as a number two to gain Manufacturer points one of these could step straight in. The next question is, if Perez goes to Ferrari, where does the Telmex sponsor money go?

An odd race really. The two supposed "rain masters," Button and Schumacher, both failed to produce the goods, with Michael being the victim of a bad start and Grosjean finding him before his solo accident put him out. Roman is looking fast but fragile, while Kimi is doing a great job. As the "Iceman" said, it will be nice to have a normal weekend so they can see where they really are at. Kimi said he had only done an installation lap on the intermediate or wet Pirelli tires so not too shabby. Rosberg faded badly again and Mercedes need to work out what is going on, it would be a better show with them competitive in the race.

Word on the street is that Mercedes is not at all happy with the way the spoils are being divided in the next Concorde Agreement and are holding out to the point of taking Bernie and the boys to the European Court for non-competitive practices. That would mess with the float methinks.

Williams had another good race, but unusually Maldanado's Renault engine let go right at the end. Don't see that often. Red Bull have lost the plot a little, which makes a change for us fans. Vettel made a mistake again, perhaps he is vulnerable to pressure, while Mark drove his now usual steady race to fourth. McLaren once again cost Lewis the race with two botched pit stops, but he took it well, and could do nothing about the two guys in front. Were McLaren set up for a dry race and the others compromised? The Sauber is soft on tires anyway, so the rain worked for them, and the Ferrari chassis also seemed happier in the wet, at least with Alonso at the wheel.

So back to Malaysia. Why do we have to run this event at the time of year, or the time of day when you know it is going to rain. Not just rain, that's OK, it is the track flooding monsoon that is the problem. Getting up at 4 am to watch is bad enough, but having to sit through a red flag is punishing. Add to that my Fromsportcom.com connection was not behaving and were forced to listen some of the time to the inane Speed commentary. I swear they get worse.

If my French is correct, very doubtful, Concorde means agreement, peace and all that. Bernie announced yesterday to the world that he has Concorde with "most" of the F1 Teams for beyond 2012, i.e. after the current peace agreement runs out. Of course it is not a peace agreement, it is a way to divide up the spoils of the rape and pillage of promoters. Bernie names Ferrari and Red Bull as expected, and McLaren, which was not. Joe Saward suggests McLaren are just trying to outlast Bernie, which some of us may not get to see on Bernie's current form.

So, now Bernie has most of what he needs to float all or part of F1. Again Joe Saward suggests that the lack of a clear successor to Bernie would put off investors, but I think greed wins every time over common sense.

Meanwhile, out on track in the real world, McLaren are beating Red Bull and Ferrari, and everyone else as they did in Melbourne. An interesting few sessions with different teams being fast at different times, so hard to tell who was doing what. In the end McLaren are fastest, but looked very nervous at the back end under braking with Lewis losing it in Q1. Mercedes look fast, with the car suiting Michael a bit more than Nico it seems. Lotus have speed and it will be interesting to see what Kimi can do from his five grid place penalty, could be fun. You can't help thinking Jenson will have the measure of Lewis over a race distance, but let's see, if Lewis can win the start he might just drive away. There again Michael might just drive the pair of them into the pit wall. 

There have to be some disappointed teams. Caterham looked like they made the jump to the mid-field, but now we are racing they are stuck back with Marussia and HRT, with Petrov giving Kovalainen a hard time, and Force India seems to have lost some of the "force." Williams with Maldanado continue to surprise, but Senna is doing an imitation of his Brazillian mate Massa. Ferrari are probably the most disappointed. Massa managed to get his new for Malaysia chassis within 0.3 seconds of Alonso at the end, but for most of the time he was up to a second off the pace. He cannot be long for this seat. 

Sauber are a bit of a mystery. At one point they are among the fastest, and then off the pace. Low fuel runs?

Let us hope for a dry race as I think it will be a good one. Vettel said that using the hard tire to set fast time was not a strategy for the race, and he may be right, there is not much between the compounds and some cars were quicker on the supposedly slower tire, but as he can presumably run longer than those around him on the grid he just may have made the winning move.

Elsewhere Stoner continues to be fastest in MotoGP testing, but we also have a CRT machine getting in amongst the prototypes, so maybe they will not be a complete waste of time.

Indycar kicks off in St Pete if anybody cares.