Bob Barnard Track Engineering

For the last few years we have seen the Red Bull/Vettel Dynasty rule F1, and now it appears we are to have a Mercedes period. A few people are probably already saying that this is going to be boring, but I for one welcome the change and applaud the engineering behind the car.

At least it is about the car. No one is suggesting that Lewis is suddenly a superman, above all other drivers like we had with Vettel. When he kept winning a few of us were unkind enough to suggest that put any one of the top drivers in that car and they would dominate. But no we were told, it is Sebastian, he is so much better than the rest. Well this year the Emperor has no clothes.

Despite being told that this complex new formula would suit his intelligent driving what do we see. "Struggling with set up." A four time World Champion struggling with set up while his novice team mate is "faster than you are." We are also told Daniel is faster because he is more used to cars with less downforce than Vettel. Didn't Ricciardo race a F1 car with diffusers for the last couple of years? Hasn't most of the field raced cars with diffusers, including Hamilton, Rosberg and Alonso etc? No, now he no longer has a dominant car we are seeing what we suspected, he is very good but no better than them with a  spoilt brat attitude and he is a sore loser. As Mark Webber used to say, "the toys are coming out of the pram."

In contrast we see other top drivers just getting on with it. Lewis is totally focussed, not god like, and while Nico hates coming second to him there is no whining to be heard. Alonso is arguably doing the best job in a second class car, as he has for some years now. Yes he occasionally has a moan, but who wouldn't driving your guts out with little or no reward.

So another good race in China, not quite Bahrain, but Nico made it interesting with a bad start, and Massa with a too good one. Pretty stout suspension on these cars. What is interesting is how Lewis is using so much less fuel while running away from the pack. We have seen before that getting out in front allows you to run your own race and choose the ideal race lines, part of Vettel's secret.

Interesting WEC race at Silverstone. Pity I did not have access to live streaming and of course a World Championship does not warrant coverage here in the US. Still, with Radio Le Mans who needs pictures. They paint the scene extremely well, and actually provide far more information as to what is happening throughout the field than TV does. Well done Toyota, and Porsche. Audi uncharacteristically had both cars DNF. Crashed out through what appeared to be driver error. We have seen this before at Le Mans a couple of years ago. I am not saying they are not great drivers, but perhaps the pressure put on them by Toyota is part of the story. Of course there could have been something involving the car that led to Treluyer spearing right at Copse and hitting the inside barrier, which in a way is worse if there is an issue with the car. Both tubs damaged and Audi working against the clock to have them ready for Spa. 

Interesting discussion on Radio Le Mans about a WEC round in Oz, and where to stage it. Adelaide and Phillip Island were the two first choices, both a Barnard track, so very chuffed.

We have other dynasties going on with the Brabhams and the Gardners. Grandsons of Sir Jack Brabham and sons of David are both continuing the family tradition. Mathew Brabham is a rookie in Indy Lights here in the US, and doing OK, and Sam is racing in British Formula Ford with some success over the weekend. Watch out for these two.

Then there are Luca and Remy Gardner, both racing in the Spanish National Championship, the CEV, which is the proving ground for young hopefuls making it into MotoGP. Both learning their craft amongst tough opposition and stepping up each year under Dad's guidance. I hope to see something of them in Spain later this year. Pity Australia cannot produce the kind of racing that would develop talent to make the top tier in the world.

I am not talking about the lights at Bahrain but one of the best races I have seen for years! So this is "taxi cab" racing is it Mr. Montezemolo? I saw the look on your face as the Force India steamed past your Ferrari on the straight and as you turned away I thought "he's going home." And he was. What a joke all that BS from Bernie and Montezemolo about the state of F1. Good on Todt for turning them down.

There were passes all over the track and great racing. Ricciardo passed Vettel twice, good on you Aussie, shows how good Vettel really is. The Mercedes pair put on a show, and it was great to see Rosberg's reaction when he got out of the car. I was fearing a lot of pouting, but no. Naturally he wanted to beat Lewis, and only Lewis knows how he did not, but he said on the podium that it was the best race of his life. It looked it from where we sat. The Mercs finally showed their true pace in those last 12 laps after the safety car, pulling out 22 seconds over Perez who also has Mercedes power. Normally two drivers fighting like that slow each other down. The race time was 98 minutes against last year's V8's 96 minutes, so who says these are slow? Allowing for a lot of laps behind the pace car they are probably faster.

Paddy Lowe and the boys must have been dying on that pit wall watching that. I was excited about the prospect of these two fighting even before the race started, and they did not let us down. Good on you Mercedes for letting them race. What a season we have in store.

How Lewis held off Nico on those harder tires shows just how good he is, not to knock Nico, but he is a racer. Not sure how Vettel gets away with running people off the track like that, and what can we say about Maldonado? 5 grid places for that when Ricciardo got 10 for a loose wheel in pit lane? Come on Stewards, sort yourselves out. Shades of Grosjean at Spa.

These new low noses have been questioned already for just the sort of accident we saw yesterday. If it were the Mercedes or McLaren nose it may not have happened, but when changing rules we have to look at all angles of impact, not just from behind.

Talking of exciting races it is now 25 years since the first World Championship Australian Motorcycle Grand Prix at Phillip Island. A lot of memories, and AMCN is having a special edition to recall some of them. Some of them are better left unsaid. It was a very difficult time with much personal pain and stress to pull it off. We stupidly believed that if we showed just how great this race could be we would receive the support we needed. But no, it just brought out the rats who then wanted what we created.

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. 

Ferrari are to give Massa a new chassis for this weekend's Malaysian F1 GP to see if it is him that is the problem, or the car. There are no shortage of opinions on who should take his place at Ferrari, so I guess most of us have made up our minds already. Perez, Trulli and Sutil are three named this morning, and there has to be others like Bianchi who could step in. Given the form of Vergne and Ricciardo in their first race for Toro Rosso it could be a good idea to give a young turk a go. Alonso is not going to be around for ever. 

Martin Whitmarsh says he his happy Lewis was so annoyed after the Melbourne race, and so he should be. I think I told you the story of my mistake on congratulating Wayne Rainey on a good second place at Assen, and receiving an ear full of abuse. Champions never, ever, want to lose.

The stories continue to come out about floating F1, and Singapore seems to be the favored stock exchange. Bernie has looked at Britain and the US before, but it seems they want a bit too much information about your business for Bernie's taste. Ferrari and Red Bull are not denying they are doing a special deal, and one commentator suggested that Bernie's recent opinion about letting new teams use old cars from the top teams could be targeting filling the grid if teams like McLaren don't want to play anymore. It was also suggested that some teams, like McLaren, have other revenue streams, so sitting out for a few years from F1 would not be the end of the world. 

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.