Bob Barnard Track Engineering

While I've been off in Germany at the Professional Circuit Owners Forum it would seem that between Bernie, the Texas State Comptroller and Tavo the "Circuit of the Americas" and the F1 GP have sailed off into the sunset. Not unexpected as any regular reader would know, none of this made any sense from the start.

The Forum was hurting from the current recession and the numbers were down, but the quality of most of the presentations was not. Some really good information being presented. If you can get to Orlando for the US Circuit Owners Convention on the 29th & 30th of this month you will not be disappointed in that respect.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, we are getting to the end of the 2011 season with one more F1 race to go. Still a few snippets of interest though. It seems the British Serious Fraud office is sniffing around Bernie's little deal with Gribkowsky, that must be fun for him. In a similar vein the Venezuelan Congress is reported to be investigating how the sponsorship deal with Williams was done without their blessing.

Suzuki has pulled out of MotoGP making next year's field even thinner, and the man in charge of DORNA who run the series says something has to change. Well your running it so what's the problem. Oh, maybe you are the problem that got us here in the first place.

At the end of the interview I did Friday I was put on the spot to say racing is safe, and I said at the time that it was bound to come back and bite me. Well it did not take long. Marco Simoncelli passed away from injuries he received on lap 2 of the Malaysian MotoGP after falling, losing his helmet, and being run over by Colin Edwards and Valentino Rossi who were too close to avoid him. Marco had his fair share of falls, and it appears to be just the wrong one in the wrong place. Did his hair contribute to his helmet coming off? Who knows but I'm sure someone will look at it. Very sad, too young, and spare a thought for Edwards and Rossi.

At least this time they red flagged the race.

Other big news is the "Grand Prix of America" F1 race to be run on the streets of New Jersey with the Manhattan skyline in the background to give Bernie his New York race. Given Austin is the "Circuit of the Americas" I would have thought that should have been given this title rather than the US Grand Prix. Rumors have abounded for this for a while, and this is still not official, press conference scheduled for Tuesday. So who is going to lose out, or are we headed for 25 races?

As expected there are lots of comments about the events at LVMS last weekend. As I am famous for saying, drivers are like attorneys, they all have an opinion. They range from "Indycar should not race on ovals" from Jimmie Johnson and Mark Webber, to Paul Tracy and Max Mosley who say "let's not over-react." Not two gentlemen with whom I usually agree. Indycar not racing on ovals? Where do they think this all came from? The series name says it all, and they have been racing ovals for over 100 years. Jimmie Johnson should look to NASCAR's short history and the deaths that have occurred.

I have been invited to participate in a panel discussion on radio "Voice of Russia," their world service out of Washington DC. It was to be today at 5 pm EDT, but Gaddafi takes precedence apparently, so it is now scheduled for the same time Friday. Should be interesting, but why does it take a fatality at a high profile race to raise this issue? As I have said before, the top end of racing gets safer cars and tracks, and the vast majority of racers are not being taken care of. In my role as an expert witness I see potential and actual fatalities weekly.

On better things Kevin Magnussen had a run in a GP2 car at Barcelona the last few days, along with GP2 returnees and young guns like Kevin and Alexander Rossi, both of whom acquitted themselves very well, worrying the top of the time sheet. Magnusssen has confirmed however that he is going to FR3.5 with Carlin next year.

The falling out in FOTA continues, and Ross Brawn announces he is concerned there are still loopholes in the exhaust diffuser rules, not that he is using them.

On two wheels, Colin Edwards has announced he is staying in MotoGP with BMW-Suter, one of the Claiming Rule Teams, CRT, i.e. grid make-up teams. Given BMW's poor showing in WSBK why would you think it would be any better in MotoGP?

It is said that in F1 one great pass can be enough in a season. Hakkinen on Schumacher at Spa. Webber on Alonso at Spa. But yesterday we saw a non-pass that made a race. That half a lap, a series of silly 2nd gear corners where it is supposed to be impossible to pass, showed two great drivers at the top of their game. Webber as I said has shown it a couple of times this season, and Hamilton forgot all those silly incidents when trying to pass Massa to join him in a masterful display of courage, strength of mind and respect for the other guy. Which other two drivers would race so close, no pushing the other wide on the grass, always giving him just enough room, and no sudden swerves or chops? Button and Alonso probably, but few others. Made it worth stopping up past midnight for.

Then we were treated to twenty or so laps of Hamilton holding off Webber, shades of Villeneuve senior at Jarama. Lewis seems to have been in a different place this weekend, subdued but determined. Martin Whitmarsh explained the strange starts and races of Lewis and Jensen by saying they "lost" 10 pts of downforce on that first lap. One web site suggested rubber build up lodging in the front wing, but that would have been spotted and removed at the pit stop. Lewis had more and more front wing added at each stop, and half way through that last fraught stint asked over the radio if he had all there was. The answer was that the wing was maxed out. The lack of dry running on Friday was blamed by some, but Red Bull did not have the same problem. Just to rub it in Vettel threw in the fastest lap of the race by a second on the last lap!

You know I do not like the DRS. It is a false solution, created by Alonso's problem of getting past a slow car at Abu Dhabi. No question it works in those situations, so far so good. It does not work with two equal cars, and nor should it. We saw Lewis driving away from Webber through the twisty bits, but not quite getting the 1 second he needed to prevent Mark from wiping that out by no more technique and skill than pressing a button on the straight. If Lewis could have kept his 0.7 seconds he made each lap after 20 laps he would have a nice cushion. As it was he stressed himself to the limit of the car's performance each lap just to stay ahead. Made for good viewing, but I'm not convinced it is fair. Let's get rid of it and leave it to the drivers.

Strange to hear Alonso say near the end "I give up, I give up." After putting in 20 laps at qualifying pace he still could not get to Button, who in turn could not get to Webber. I think neither Lewis or Alonso are very happy with their cars at the moment.

Someone who is is Kovalainen. He finished a genuine 14th in the Lotus and mixed it with the back end of the mid-field on pace, beating both Saubers. He was ready to do it again straight away he said. Good to see. 

Congratulations to Casey Stoner on clinching the MotoGP crown at Phillip Island, that must have felt great, but I'm sure he would rather have done it by beating Lorenzo who did not start after losing part of a finger in a warm-up crash. So both Yamaha riders out of the race made for a sparse field, made sparser by race crashes including Rossi. Only ten bikes finished, very sad for the top level of Motorcycle racing. In Moto2 Bradl was pipped at the end by De Angelis which allowed Bradl to retake the title lead from third finishing Marquez by three points. With a return to form by Bradl the last two races could be fun.

In NASCAR land perpetual champ Jimmie Johnson crashed out of last night's Charlotte race and is last in the "Chase." So a new champ this year, if anyone cares. Not many at Charlotte to show they did.

So here we are again in lovely Korea, where nothing has changed, not even the weather. Friday practice took place in pouring rain with no one watching and the track as awful as last year. Nothing has been built of the new city, it is still a track in a swamp in the middle of nowhere. The teams must be wondering what are we doing here? It certainly cannot be promoting Korea, just one look at the place puts me off ever going.

The inevitable accident occurred at the pit exit, and now they all want it fixed. The time to fix it was after the last race! How could Tilke design the pit in and out this way, and how could the FIA approve it? I guess you could ask that about most of this track. So what is the solution for the pit exit you ask? Run it around the back of the run off? NO, put in lights. So when a driver is coming down the main straight at 180 mph plus he sees a nice white light telling him that someone is exiting the pits. So now what? Do not misjudge your braking, stop trying so hard? Really. I guess you could tell the guy exiting with a blue light to make sure he waits until the other car goes by, but that's about all. And this is the top class in racing. And we have not mentioned pit in yet.

Of course it is a rhetorical question to ask what we are doing here, making money for Bernie and CVC. 

The McLarens had it all their own way in the rain by over 1.8 seconds, and Hamilton put in a lot of laps around the same time so it was not a one-off quick lap. Saturday is supposed to be dry, so we will see who really has the set up. Forecast for Sunday anyone?

Stoner is having it all his own way at Phillip Island, despite complaining about the bumps in the track. Maybe the V8s are the problem. Lorenzo is running in third so unless he has a problem in the race it is unlikely Casey will wrap up the title here, which would have been nice for him and Oz. 

Toyota have announced they will be back at Le Mans next year with a hybrid LMP1 car! When I was there in 2008 Toyota had Dome running an LMP1 car which was obviously a test bed, run under the banner of a university if I recall. I was told quietly then that this was the basis of a hybrid car and it has taken four years to come to fruition. If it can give the diesels a run then we are in for great racing, shades of the late nineties when they last raced that fabulous prototype and nearly won.

Superleague has cancelled its Asian races after cancelling its South American rounds. I never understood the point of this series and maybe no one else can either. Indycar is going back to Detroit, courtesy of Roger Penske I presume, who along with his mate Chip Ganassi is highly critical of races outside the US, or Canada and Mexico anyway. As he says, their sponsors get nothing out of it and no one watches. Bit like taking V8Supercars overseas. It is only done for the check to the series promoter, just like Bernie.