Bob Barnard Track Engineering

What is it with Bernie and Bahrain? Apparently he had a meeting with the Teams and said "They are happy, but there is a problem with the date: that is the only thing." Oh, that's the only thing is it? When asked about safety he said "I don't know. I've no idea. It can be safe on the Friday of the race and on Sunday...I don't know." So how on earth can you "hope" that the new date will get approved by the FIA? All this supposes India is going to give up its date in October and move to a December date. December 4th is the one being bandied about, but flying the circus from Brazil to India in one week is a stretch. It probably can be done, although some teams doubt it. That would put the race back to Dec 11th, which really stretches the friendship for the workers, so expect a push back on that. All this cannot just be about the money? By the time October comes around Bahrain may as well wait until the start of the 2012 season.

There is scuttlebutt that Bernie may be assembling his own group to buy back F1. It is like a pea and thimble game the way he sells and buys it, and makes money every time. Can it be related to Bahrain?

It has been an odd day, that's why the blog is late. Woke up at 1 am to watch the live streaming of first practice to see if the asphalt patch worked, which it did nicely. Hats off to the Monaco team. Only problem with the track was a water main leaking in the middle of the start straight, so a little man from the water board had to come out with his large valve key and tighten it up, under a red flag of course. Back to sleep at 2:30 am so recorded the second practice and have not had time to watch all of it yet. Working on the next venture to construct a couple of country clubs here in the US. So, I will have to rely on the results and reading the blogs. Monaco is interesting in that it has so much less reliance on aero and more to do with the drivers skill and attachments, if you get my drift. It levels the playing field, except that the top teams have the best drivers. But there is Alonso in the Ferrari that was lapped last week. No problems with hard tires this week. Mark Webber's bad luck continued with gearbox issues keeping him in the garage this morning and KERS issues keeping him down in eighth this afternoon. As Barry Sheene would say "If he had a duck it would drown!" Mind you Vettel is only in fifth at the moment, with Rosberg looking very racy today. Everyone moved to the super-soft compound this afternoon, their first experience with these. It was said they waited to try them until the track had "rubbered in," but one trait of these Pirelli's is that they do not lay rubber, so go figure. What is hard to figure is that with no testing you would think the teams would be on track from the green light in the first session, but no, those that ventured out did one lap and came back to the pits. OK, so they want to make sure the car is good to go, but it was the last half an hour before they all got serious, and then of course they were being balked by traffic. HRT at nearly 7 seconds off the pace again look in trouble with qualifying if one of the top teams goes for it in Q1.

Daniel Ricciardo had a busy day, driving the Torro Rosso in the morning and then taking pole for the FR 3.5 race.  Canadian  Robert Wickens was second fastest and American Alexander Rossi fifth. GP2 qualifying sounds like a real crash fest due to drivers slowing at the end of a lap to try and get a clear run. Massa nearly caused Alonso to run into him doing the same thing. Something needs to be done to stop this around here as most corners are unsighted.

It seems we are to find out who really is Lotus tomorrow. Did they bring spare bodywork with different colors?

So the race was not quite the procession we expected, but Alonso in the Ferrari being lapped was something no one expected! I want to be a fly on the wall when Montezemolo talks to the team. Yes the race was exciting at times, but we are back to the days of refuelling and sprints between pit stops to decide who leads. Think about it, how many actual passes were there between competitive cars? Alonso passed Webber at Turn Ten, only to be re-passed. The DRS zone did not work. Even with Vettel struggling with KERS Lewis could not get close enough to trouble him using the DRS. The Mercedes underperformed again, with Michael beating Nico, for the first time? Nico blamed the lack of the DRS system that quit on him for not being able to overtake Michael. Sad. The highlight of the race for me was Michael getting out of the way for Vettel and Hamilton when being lapped, not what I expected at all, but well done Michael. Keep that up and I might become a fan.

I commented at the time about a fastest lap being set while the yellow flag was out for Kovalainen's accident, and it is nice to see that the Stewards took note, even though they only gave a warning this time. We've seen guys lose their qualifying times for this sort of thing.

The pace of the McLarens was surprising given the practice times, and Red Bull may as well take the KERS off the car, they can win without it and would be even quicker if they took it off and lightened the car, or at least moved the ballast where it does most good. The other surprising thing was the empty grandstands. If it wasn't for the people on the grass banks it would look like Turkey, not a good omen for keeping the race here.

I don't know if Pirelli are just paying SPEED a lot of money or Bernie is leaning on the TV to talk them up, but Paul Hembery, their chief, is getting more airtime than the drivers and there are "infomercials" during each broadcast. In a time when the FIA is trying to appear green, how can you justify the waste of resources on tires? Give them one set for the race and let's see who can manage their tires.

Is anyone else tired of this nonsense with bad tyres? One of Bernie's best ideas was the three stage knockout qualifying to make teams put cars on track. Now we have the situation where they are once again sitting in the garage during qualifying to save tires. Of course it is made worse by the domination of Red Bull and to some extent McLaren. Why not just give them one or two more sets? In the race they are still going to have to use both compounds, and gamble on a two or three or four stop race. Better still make the tires better. As the editorial in this month's Motor Sport says the current gimmicks are a band aid to cover up the basic problem with the current car specs.

Then we have Lewis Hamilton admitting in the post qualifying press conference that he will not be able to challenge the Red Bulls tomorrow as he has to look after his tyres! Great racing this is. We also have Vettel admitting his KERS did not work in Q2 & 3. Good, can you imagine how much more than the one second advantage they would have? Let's hope Mark can put on a show, otherwise it will not matter how many DRS, KERS and bad tires there are, it will be very boring.

You all know I am no fan of KERS and the whole green racing deal on the basis that racing is about efficiency anyway. It is nice to read the piece, again in Motor Sport, about the new Audi for Le Mans. Dr. Baretzky, the Audi engine Chief, puts it nicely. Talking of hybrids and why they are not planning to use it he said that at the moment the extra weight on the car would need more fuel to propel it than you are gaining from its use. "The system should pay for itself...Motor Sport should be about the truth: the more efficient, quicker, better car should win, and the rules should be made according to that. The ACO says we have to encourage this technology. Why? If this technology is a better solution, it will come. If we have to encourage it and it turns out to be the wrong route, it is a waste of energy and time." Here here.

The FIA has announced that DRS is so successful we are to get two zones of it at Canada and Valencia! Personally I never saw that Canada has a problem with overtaking with Turn 1, the hairpin and the last corner being full of action in the past. Valencia now is different, it needs all the help it can get. They have also decreed that the DRS cannot be used in the tunnel at Monaco, or Eau Rouge.  It would be a very brave, and stupid, man to try it through Eau Rouge. The tunnel might entice some to try. Why all this manipulation of where and when? If it is so good then rely on the drivers common sense and self preservation to decide when to use it. Or are we protecting the drivers from themselves?

So who watched Kimi at Charlotte? I did, and was very impressed. He kept it going in the right direction unlike some of the much more experienced drivers out there, including his team owner Kyle Bush. Kimi never saw Charlotte until Friday morning and raced there that night! He certainly was not intimidated by running in close company, and the other drivers did not seem to have a problem racing around him. Great job, not that I expected anything less. So now what, Nationwide?

Back at Barcelona we potentially have the situation where the Cosworth teams could protest the engine mapped exhaust blown diffusers. This the off and then on again ruling by the FIA, which leaves the door open as they did not say its use was legal, just that the teams had a stay of when they needed to undo it. That would be a nice mess at the end of the race wouldn't it?

As reported a few months ago the success of the greens in recent German elections has made the support for the German GP unlikely to continue past 2015, two more races at the Nurburgring as it alternates with Hockenheim so that track only loses half as much!

I was resigned to listening to the Spa 6 hour race this morning on Radio Le Mans, but thanks to Greg Sarni and his buddy I was told where to find a live stream of the race. It was on a web site I had not heard of, no surprise there, and I think it was a German TV feed, so listened to John Hindhaugh and his mates anyway. It is an amazing lack of vision on the part of TV stations in the US that races such as Spa, with the best cars in the world competing, on I think the best track, are not given any coverage whatsoever. We all know SPEED has gone the way of pandering to the lowest common denominator, i.e. NASCAR fan, but what about espn3.com who are streaming the ALMS series, and just about any sporting event on earth? Versus thinks it is a sports channel, and is there no one out there who can go back to where SPEED started and launch a channel for race fans? I know someone will say there is not an audience for it, but how did the original SPEED gather enough audience to make Fox want to buy it?

It makes no sense to me for the whole endurance race series not to be shown. It would be like showing one F1 race a season. Or one football match. How are you going to build or keep a fan base if you are not showing the whole series? Is SPEED covering Le Mans this year does anyone know?

More to the point this situation shows a complete lack of vision by the ALMS management. If your two key races that you promote, Sebring and Petit, are rounds of the Intercontinental Cup, the unofficial world sportscar championship, why on earth would you not do a deal for coverage of the other races in that series? You wonder why sports car racing is dying in the US. If the FI Teams think the series owner needs to do more to promote it, come and look at what is not happening here!

Peugeot won the Spa race by the way, a reverse of last year at Le Mans where they were fast and fragile, and Audi not quite as fast but luckier and reliable. Good race right through all the classes and down to the wire in most. Ferrari won the GT battle but BMW kept them honest, with Porsche in trouble. The winning Peugeot also won the "green challenge." And why not? As I have been saying, there is no need for another trophy, racing is about maximizing efficiency, so the winning car should by definition be the most efficient, especially if it is a diesel. Let's stop this pandering to the greenies and PC, or should I say BS.

Biaggi wrapped up pole at Monza with Checa still way off the pace. Troy Corser found some pace, or enthusiasm, to put himself on the front row, so tomorrow should be interesting.

Turkey threw up few surprises. I was not surprised the Red Bulls did not go out again in the final Q3 session. It was worth the very small risk one or two guys were going to pip them for the front row to have an extra set of tires. Not sure that this is F1, but it is today's reality. Rosberg followed up his China performance with third on the grid and the Mercedes crew are getting on top of the car set up. Williams lifted their game, but not soon enough to save Sam Michael and co, but Sam says he already has something lined up. Virgin's supposed corner turning upgrade left Glock behind the HRT! Nice going Nick. Lotus are clawing their way closer to getting out of Q1, and it will be fun to watch Kobayashi doing a "Webber" from the back tomorrow. He is a demon overtaker anyway, so watch your mirrors boys.

Three series enjoying Friday practice with interesting results. In Turkey the weather spoiled the morning, especially for Vettel who stuck it into the wall in a big way and could not take part in the afternoon session. Neither McLarens bothered in the morning, they must expect a dry race, or perhaps they are expecting a wet one and wanted to save their wet tires as Pirelli are concerned that not enough sets of wets have been provided for a complete wet weekend. Button finally topped the times with the McLarens and Mercedes swapping fast times, yes even Michael. Webber apparently did not try for a fast time so the Red Bulls were for once missing in action. Alonso is down in 11th, with both Massa and Petrov faster than their team leaders. Lotus were split either side of the Sauber of Kobayashi, while the corner Virgin turned must have been a wrong turn as they had trouble beating the HRT's.

Meanwhile at Spa it was dry, fancy that, and the Audis continued to set the pace, and the closest petrol car still nearly 5 secs off their fast time. Some big accidents seen here so far, with Peugeot doing an overnight rebuild and the RML car being withdrawn. In the GT class Porsche managed to get one car amongst the Ferraris, but your money must be on the new 458 in this class. Still in 1000km around here anything can happen, even rain!

The Superbikes are at Monza and Checa is in an uncustomary mid field position. Leon Haslam leads the way on the BMW from Mad Max Biaggi. Let's see what Saturday brings for all these series.

Elsewhere the Authorities have frozen Mr. Gribkowsky's money so it looks like he is going to trial. Should make interesting theater. Bernie is going to have fights on two fronts it seems. There are now reports that News Corp is also going to be at the Stuttgart meeting. It appears that this meeting surprised the other teams and is making them "nervous." And we thought politics was dead in F1.