VOLUME 3 - ISSUE 10
it’s our best oil yet... www.castroledge.com.au
29th MAY 2013
TEAM EDGE WEEKEND WRAP: V8 Supercars - Austin 400 Castrol-backed Nissan Motorsport driver Rick Kelly vaulted himself into 12th place in this year’s V8 Supercars Championship after his best event of the 2013 season. Kelly took his Nissan Altima to two more top 10 results on Sunday (ninth and eighth), adding to his sixth and eighth from Saturday. Castrolbacked Pepsi Max Crew FPR endured a tough end to its initial American sojourn despite the fans of Austin, Texas embracing the first ever V8 Supercars event in North America. In Race 15 Mark Winterbottom looked set to capitalise on a flying start and race-leading pace only for a slow pit stop to drop him down the order to an eventual seventh place. The issue was unrelated to other similar wheel fitment problems early in the season and the team believe they have a fix for Sunday’s problem. Will Davison suffered the effects of a low qualifying slot and contact with Scott McLaughlin hampered his progress and after starting 11th he finished 14th.
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Davison was much happier with his race pace and made a number of passing attempts on Craig Lowndes only to get squeezed on his fourth attempt. He locked the rear brakes which led to contact with McLaughlin, ending his race. The improving pace of the Nissan Altimas was exemplified in qualifying, with Kelly starting both races from fifth place – the best qualifying result for Nissan in its return to top-level Australian motorsport. “To find some points this weekend and do our best to stay out of trouble whilst we’ve got such a great car is very exciting,” Rick Kelly said. “The team have worked so hard to deliver this project, it’s really good to be able to deliver that solid result for them and they should hold their head high with that. We’ve got a great team, the car was fantastic all weekend, so we tuned it really well, all the stops were great, everything really went to plan this weekend. Obviously the straight line is still hurting us here and the other
frustrating thing is we got ran off three out of the four races by the same guy and not much has been done about that, which is a little disappointing. All in all we’ve got to really happy with that and we learnt so much. The next round might be a little bit tougher for us, but I’m really glad we made some good progress while we had the car to do it.” Castrol ambassador Russell Ingall drove his Stanley Racing Holden VF Commodore to a pair of 22nd place finishes in Races 15 and 16 of the V8 Supercars Championship in Texas. While Kelly took a healthy haul of points at the United States of America venue, it was a frustrating day for the other three Nissan Motorsport drivers. Todd Kelly also enjoyed a top 10 starting position, qualifying ninth for Race 15, but found it difficult to move forward in either race. The former Bathurst 1000 winner eventually finished 14th and 19th in the 100km races. Norton 360-backed drivers James Moffat and Michael Caruso were also
rueing mistakes and misfortune. Moffat had a steady run to 17th in the first race, but was the victim in a clash with Dean Fiore early in the second race. He spun to the rear of the field, but put in a stellar comeback to take a credible 14th. Michael Caruso started from 18th and finished 15th in the first race, but found the optimum set-up in the final qualifying session, starting from a season-best ninth. Caruso ran with the front-runners for the majority of the race, only to be taken out by James Courtney and spun to the back of the pack. He eventually finished 24th.
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2013 V8 Supercar standings
The next event of the V8 Supercars Championship will be held at Darwin’s Hidden Valley Raceway on June.
Pos
Driver
Points
1
Jamie Whincup
1247
2
Craig Lowndes
1105
3
Will Davison
1029
4
Fabian Coulthard
984
5
Jason Bright
945
6
Shane Van Gisbergen
907
7
Garth Tander
888
8
Mark Winterbottom
861
9
James Courtney
825
10
Jonathon Webb
768
11
Scott McLaughlin
695
12
Rick Kelly
651
13
James Moffat
638
14
David Reynolds
619
15
Alex Davison
619
16
Alexandre Premat
558
17
Russell Ingall
527
18
Tony D’Alberto
502
19
Dean Fiore
497
20
Lee Holdsworth
451
21
David Wall
435
22
Michael Caruso
434
23
Tim Blanchard
398
24
Tim Slade
391
25
Scott Pye
366
26
Todd Kelly
328
27
Chaz Mostert
252
28
Maro Engel
246
V8 PREDICTOR: The battle rages for V8 Predictor supremacy The first V8 Supercars Championship round on US soil has concluded and while Red Bull Racing’s Jamie Whincup leads the title, there’s another competitor who has taken an early lead. For the second week running top honours in the Castrol EDGE V8 Predictor currently sit with with Dark Knight Racing who holds a 14 point advantage over JBM_22 in the overall standings. Round 5 of the V8 Supercars Championship saw a dead-heat for the top round score between Stilled Racing and team bodyshop with both predictors scoring 72 points with a prediction accuracy of 63%. For that the prize for the round win is an awesome merchandise pack including
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Castrol Racing and Speedcafe t-shirts, hoodies, retro caps, bar runners, The Annual season review book and plenty more goodies. Its never too late to signup for the V8 Predictor with great roundby-round prizes on offer as well as the major prize. CLICK HERE to see how you fared in rounds two and three, or register and play for awesome event prizes. Castrol EDGE’s four experts for the inaugural Castrol EDGE V8 Predictor – Russell Ingall (V8 Supercars champion), Oliver Gavin (2012 American Le Mans Series GT Champion), James O’Connor (Wallabies rugby superstar) and the Speedcafe.com team – remained the same if their battle for Expert supremacy. The Speedcafe.com Team remain on
top of the Expert leaderboard but are trailed closely by Oliver Gavin who sits just six points behind after the strongest round by all four Experts in Texas. James O’Connor sits in third on 132 points while Russell Ingall has some catching up to do as he trails the international rugby star, on just 89 points in fourth. Using the same software as the popular ‘Grand Prix Predictor’ that international website Autosport.com uses for its Formula 1 tipping competition, V8 Supercars can now put their knowledge to the test with the Castrol EDGE V8 Predictor in 2013. The major prize for the ultimate winner is a trip for two to the 2014 Clipsal 500 – including a hot lap of the track.
Global leaderboard Rank
Team Name
Points
1
Dark Knight Racing
225
2
JBM_22
211
3
Kiwichik racing
206
4
Rampage Motorsport
205
5
WFD Motorsport
203
6
The dazlers
203
7
Muppet Racing Team
201
8
TEAM RED BULL
200
9
Cropduster Racing
200
10
nickellen.24
197
11
Holden 1 2 3
195
12
purplesp8y
194
13
Full House Motorsport
194
14
BRIGHT sparks
193
15
Schultzys 500
192
16
BuzinR33
192
17
tony501 racing
192
18
Scuderia NWAB
192
19
Drive4SafetyDrive4Growth
191
20
Dazzatron
191
Expert leaderboard
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Rank
Team Name
Points
1
Speedcafe.com Team
150
2
Oliver Gavin
144
3
James O’Connor
132
4
Russell Ingall
89
Castrol-backed Bautista sixth in slippery Le Mans race Castrol-backed Alvaro Bautista (Team &FUN Honda Gresini RC213V) has finished sixth in a rain filled MotoGP round at Le Mans with the top spot of the podium going to Honda’s Dani Pedrosa. Bautista rode a solid race to finish sixth, behind the Ducatis of Andrea Dovizioso and Nick Hayden. Despite not getting the best of starts he ran a good pace in the early stages and was happy with the end result, considering he’s never liked the Le Mans circuit. “That was a particularly difficult race, because the conditions were so different to how they’d been for practice,” said Bautista. “I also didn’t get a great start and that was a shame, because looking
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at the lap times it cost me the chance to fight at the front. When the track started to dry the bike was cutting the power on the straight and I was losing time, but sixth place is a positive result if not a great one because we’ve improved on last year and I don’t like this track. I am satisfied with the result and I want to thank the team and the sponsors. This is a nice boost before we go to their home race at Mugello.”
“I made a rookie mistake and ruined the opportunity to get some valuable experience in the wet on this bike, so I am really angry with myself right now,” said Staring. “I needed to ride a steady race and instead we’ve ended up with nothing to show. I want to apologise to the team because their efforts this weekend deserved a better result. I will try to make it up to them at Mugello in a couple of weeks’ time.”
Australian MotoGP rookie Bryan Staring (Castrol-backed GO&FUN Honda Gresini FTR Honda) was one of the early fallers, sliding off his CBR100RR-powered CRT bike on the second lap.
The MotoGP 2013 World Championship continues with the Italian Grand Prix – one of the sport’s favourite events – at Mugello on June 2.
2013 MotoGP Standings
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Pos
Rider
Points
1
Daniel Pedrosa
83
2
Marc M谩rquez
77
3
Jorge Lorenzo
66
4
Cal Crutchlow
55
5
Valentino Rossi
47
6
Andrea Dovizioso
39
7
Alvaro Bautista
38
8
Nicky Hayden
35
9
Aleix Espargar贸
20
10
Andrea Iannone
18
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Castrol-backed BMW score seventh consecutive SBK podium finish At the fifth round of the 2013 FIM Superbike World Championship the Castrol-backed BMW Motorrad GoldBet SBK Team celebrated its seventh podium position of the season at Donington Park. Factory rider Marco Melandri finished second in race one at the British track onboard his BMW S 1000 RR. In race two, the Italian crossed the line in fifth place. “It was a weekend of mixed emotions. Race one was really nice, but not easy. I had quite a good start, then I began pushing to gain positions,” said Melandri. “Now we have to continue working. This week we will go testing and try some new solutions.” Jonathan Rea took fourth place in the first of Sunday’s two fifth-round World
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Superbike championship races at Donington Park but there was no such luck for his Castrol-backed Pata Honda team-mate Leon Haslam to celebrate this weekend. Haslam broke his leg badly in a practice crash at Assen in The Netherlands four weeks ago and had undergone intensive therapy to compete at Donington, which is his home round. However, despite qualifying on the fifth row of the grid, his discomfort during warm-up prompted the team’s decision. Melandri’s BMW team-mate and local hero Chaz Davies finished eighth and sixth respectively. In the Riders’ Classification, Marco is fourth with 127 points, directly followed by Chaz who is fifth with 112 points. Round 6 of the Superbike World Championship takes crews to Portugal - June 7-9.
2013 SBK standings Pos
Rider
Points
1
Sylvain Guintoli
173
2
Tom Sykes
169
3
Eugene Laverty
149
4
Marco Melandri
127
5
Chaz Davies
112
6
Loris Baz
95
Castrol Honda’s Gabriele Tarquini remains second in WTCC standings after Austrian round An eventful World Touring Car weekend ended with James Nash enjoying a first career win in the WTCC, ahead of a charging Yvan Muller and Zengo’s Norbert Michelisz. For the Castrol Honda WTCC team it was a strong result after the disappointment of Saturday’s race, with Tiago Monteiro finishing fourth and Gabriele Tarquini placing eighth thanks to some great defending from Rob Huff after dropping back early on. After the damage sustained to the Castrol Civics in recent rounds, it was reassuring for the team to come away from Salzburg with two complete and competitive cars. Race 1 saw a win from the front by Michael Nykjaer,
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under real pressure from James Nash. Behind Nash were championship leader Yvan Muller, up from 13th on the grid, Bennani, MacDowall, Barth and Chilton. In Race 1 the Castrol Hondas stayed out of trouble ahead of Race 2. Tarquini’s final lap included a best sector three of all to finish 12th, followed by teammate Montiero in 13th and Norbert Michelisz 14th. The Hondas capitalised on incidents ahead of them, notably a crash between Engstler, Ng and O’Young. Round 6 takes crews to Moscow Raceway for the Russian round of the WTCC, June 8-9.
2013 WTCC Standings Pos
Driver
Points
1
Yvan Muller
198
2
Gabriele Tarquini
118
3
James Nash
108
4
Michel Nykjær
96
5
Robert Huff
77
6
Tom Chilton
77
7
Alex MacDowall
73
8
Tom Coronel
66
9
Norbert Michelisz
63
10
Tiago Monteiro
60
Castrol-backed BMW on podium at Brands Hatch for DTM round Castrol-backed BMW Team Schnitzer driver Bruno Spengler crossed the finish line in second place in the BMW Bank M3 DTM at the 1.929-kilometre “Brands Hatch Circuit”, a repeat of last year’s result in the DTM series. At the end of 98 laps, the reigning DTM champion came home 7.641 seconds behind winning Audi driver Mike Rockenfeller. Robert Wickens finished third in his Mercedes to complete the podium. The second best-placed BMW driver was Marco Wittmann from BMW Team MTEK in only his second DTM race. The 23-year-old was fourth in the Ice-Watch BMW M3 DTM, ahead of BMW Team RBM driver Joey Hand in fifth. This marked the best result of both drivers’ DTM careers. Augusto Farfus was extremely unlucky. Running second, the
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winner of the opening race of the season in Hockenheim had no choice but to retire after 65 laps due to a technical problem on the Castrol EDGE BMW M3 DTM. Dirk Werner, Timo Glock and Martin Tomczyk finished 12th, 13th and 14th. BMW Team Schnitzer has taken over at the top of the team competition followed by BMW Team RBM. In the Manufacturers’ Championship, BMW still leads with 101 points to its name. Jens Marquardt (BMW Motorsport Director): “Generally speaking, we can be happy with the second race of the season. Three drivers in the top five is a very good result at any race. However, when you start the race with six drivers in the top ten, you have to admit it could have been even better. Runner-up Bruno Spengler and his team did an excellent job. I am also delighted for Marco Wittmann, whose fourth place in only his second
DTM race shows what huge potential he possesses. A number of manoeuvres out on the track were right on the edge, and our drivers were the ones who suffered. Congratulations to Audi and Mike Rockenfeller on their victory.” 2013 DTM standings Pos
Driver
Points
1
Mike Rockenfeller
29
2
Bruno Spengler
28
3
Augusto Farfus Jr.
25
4
Gary Paffett
20
5
Christian Vietoris
19
6
Dirk Werner
18
7
Joey Hand
16
8
Robert Wickens
15
9
Marco Wittmann
14
10
Timo Scheider
10
Castrol EDGE-backed ŠKODA driver Kopecký extends his lead in the ERC Castrol-backed ŠKODA and driving duo Jan Kopecký/Pavel Dresler (CZ/ CZ) finished runner-up at the iconic Corsica Rally to extend their overall lead in the FIA European Rally Championship (ERC). Bryan Bouffier ended Kopecký’s run of success in the FIA European Rally Championship with his maiden victory on Giru di Corsica-Tour de Corse, which reached a thrilling climax live in France. On both days of the event the weather on the winding route at the foot of snow-covered mountains played a major role in the dramatic duel for victory. “It was very difficult with the weather here: one minute dry, the next rain, then damp,” said Kopecky. “However, it was the same for everyone. It was a good battle with Bryan Bouffier,” said a happy Jan Kopecký. “We have three wins and a second place to our name from four
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races, as well as the overall lead in the ERC. We can certainly live with that.” As if the routes were not already tricky enough, showers made the eleven special stages a real challenge for both driver and car. However, the ŠKODA Fabia S2000 and Kopecký both mastered everything that was thrown at them, without taking any unnecessary risks that could endanger their title challenge. Just as he was last year, Kopecký was rewarded with second place. He won two of the rally’s eleven special stages and once again demonstrated his unbelievable consistency. The Czech driver extended his overall lead in the ERC over Ireland’s Craig Breen, who finished fourth this time around. After five of the twelve ERC events, Kopecký is on course to clinch the title.
The next round of the European Rally Championship sees the competitors head to Belgium for the Geko Ypres Rally from 27th to 29th June. 2013 ERC Standings Pos
Driver
Points
1
Jan KOPECKY
146
2
Craig BREEN
109
3
Bryan BOUFFIER
69
4
Francois DELECOUR
48
5
Jari KETOMAA
39
6
Andreas AIGNER
25
7
Luis MONZON
24
8
Ricardo MOURA
24
9
Stéphane SARRAZIN
24
10
Raimund BAUMSCHLAGER
23
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Runner-up spot for Castrol-backed JFR at NHRA Kansas Nationals For the third time in four years Castrolbacked John Force Racing driver Robert Hight and the Auto Club Ford Mustang was running for the money on Sunday afternoon at the NHRA Kansas Nationals. Facing veteran Johnny Gray and his Pitch Energy Dodge Charger in the final round Hight had lane choice but for the first time in four final round meetings Gray took the win. Gray posted a solid 4.067 second pass as Hight’s Mustang smoked the tires for the first time this weekend. “I really believed we were going to get this one today. Not to take anything away from Johnny Gray. If this thing would have made a run like it had been all day we would have given Johnny a better race,” said Hight, the 2010 and 2011 Kansas Nationals winner. “It is hard to explain why we do well here. I don’t really know why. We have had
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some team members through the years that have been from this part of the country. This is just a great race track. (Crew chief) Jimmy Prock has won here in Top Fuel and Funny Car.” Hight moved up on the Mello Yello point standings from 8th to 7th and now has a firm position in the Top Ten heading into a critical stretch of the season. For his entire Auto Club team the qualifying success and then race day success really had an impact. John Force led the team in qualifying grabbing the top spot in qualifying with a track record 4.043 on Saturday. Force opened Sunday with a win over former teammate Tony Pedregon. In the second round Force was outrun by Jack Beckman due to a wiring malfunction in his Castrol GTX Ford Mustang. At the end of the day the
15-time champion was pleased with the overall improvement in all his cars. Courtney Force qualified in the No. 2 spot coming into race day and took on Dale Creasy Jr. in the first round for the first time ever. Force took the win with a 4.136 ET at 311.63 mph and moved on to the next round. “We came out strong in eliminations. Our cars qualified 1, 2 and 3 and all of our Funny Cars got past first round. It was a great start to the day. Our Traxxas Ford Mustang machine was running strong. We had a problem with a dropped cylinder on the first pass, which slowed us down a little, but we were still able to get the win over Creasy,” said Force. “It was tough racing him because my brother-in-law Danny, his dad works on that team. It’s like second family over there and it
makes it that much tougher when you have to race family,� said Force. In Top Fuel Brittany Force and the Castrol EDGE Top Fueler ran into a tough first round opponent, Khalid alBalooshi racing for Al-Anabi Racing. Both Top Fuel dragsters launched together but unfortunately for the rookie driver the maroon and gold alBalooshi dragster pulled away. For Force just getting four qualifying runs was a win. MELLO YELLO POINT STANDINGS - FUNNY CAR Pos
Driver
Points
1
Johnny Gray
591
2
Cruz Pedregon
581
3
Matt Hagan
568
4
Ron Capps
512
5
Courtney Force
485
6
TIm Wilkerson
457
7
Robert Hight
447
8
Jack Beckman
444
9
Del Worsham
397
10
John Force
385
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TEAM EDGE WEEKEND WRAP: V8 SuperTourers Pukekohe Brother 350 Castrol EDGE-backed Greg Murphy had the final say in the final race of the Brother 350 round of the BNT V8 SuperTourers Championship at Pukekohe Park raceway. The overall round win went to Shane van Gisbergen (Koba Batteries Falcon), set up by his wins in the opening two heats on Saturday.
back into the 2013 championship.
2013 V8ST standings
After a long three weeks travelling and racing in Austin, Texas in the V8 Supercars round and then flying back for the Brother 350, both McLaughlin and van Gisbergen had been tested by a tough schedule.
Pos
Driver
Points
1st
Greg Murphy
1840
2nd
Ant Pedersen
1632
3rd
Shane van Gisbergen
1394
4th
Daniel Gaunt
1335
5th
Richard Moore
1042
Murphy passed SVG around the outside of turn 1 to establish himself an early lead in the 32-lap race and from that moment on was able to edge away in a race absent of safety cars and red flags. van Gisbergen gave chase, but was unable to deliver the clean sweep finishing second.
Andre Heimgartner capped a clean weekend with a fine fifth place, while Paul Manuell had a quiet run to sixth behind him. Dan Gaunt started strongly but faded towards the end and had to be content with a seventh place finish. The Tasman Motorsports ace never quite recovered from a below-par qualifying run.
6th
Andre Heimgartner
1014
7th
Paul Manuell
940
8th
John McIntyre
896
9th
Scott McLaughlin
791
10th
Ashley Walsh
766
11th
Craig Baird
750
12th
Tim Edgell
699
Castrol-backed Supercheap Auto driver Scott McLaughlin was third having battled throughout with fellow Castrol-backed team driver Ant Pedersen but delighted to have made the finish in all three races and taken a big points haul to propel himself
Tim Edgell, Dominic Storey and Eddie Bell rounded out the top ten. Richard Moore’s crew did an amazing job to get him back out for the final race, but a late puncture relegated him to 13th and last of the classified runners.
13th
Dominic Storey
508
14th
Andy Booth
498
15th
Simon Evans
474
16th
Angus Fogg
434
17th
Mitch Cunningham
387
18th
Eddie Bell
295
19th
Simon McLennan
294
20th
Kayne Scott
219
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Castrol-backed Ford Innate Motorsport squad perform well on Scouts Rally The Castrol-backed Ford Innate Motorsport team wrapped up the Scouts Rally SA - Round 3 of the Australian Rally Championship - with another strong performance in their Fiesta RS. The team’s international guest driver and expatriate Australian rally star Molly Taylor finished seventh alongside British codriver Seb Marshall. The team’s regular driver Adrian Coppin finished eighth with the gap between the pair just 37 seconds after 100 kilometres of fast shire stages. Coppin is now in 8th place in the 2013 Australian Rally Championship. “I am really happy. Both Molly and I were leading the group of non-G2 vehicles all weekend and setting a good pace. In
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our personal duel, Molly was the winner beating me on both days,” said Coppin. “However, I now have Molly’s times as a benchmark and I am very satisfied with my pace in the Fiesta R2 at the moment. Molly has been rallying for 5/6 years and I am a newbie only taking up the sport properly about two years ago.” Finishing the event with no major issues on both cars is a positive sign for the team as they look towards their local round of the World Rally Championship, Rally Australia in Coffs Harbour in early September. The team was using the Adelaide-based event as a dress rehearsal for running both cars at Coffs Harbour and sorting out any issues
that might arise as well as developing a rapport with Molly and Seb. “The Innate Motorsport team dealt with the complexity of running two cars over the weekend. We found and sorted a couple of small problems with Molly’s car, so in terms of preparations for Rally Australia, which is the reason we bought Molly back to Australia for this event, it has been a success,” added Coppin. “Moreover, Molly has had the chance to work with the crew that is going to support her later this year and show her Australian fans and supporters her speed. I learned a lot from her professionalism and dedication to the job over the weekend.”
The Australian Rally Championship now has a mid-season break for seven weeks before the next round, International Rally of Queensland, Round 3 of the Asia Pacific Rally Championship to be held on the Sunshine Coast from 12-14 July 2013. 2013 ARC standings Pos
Driver/Co-Driver
Points
1
Evans/Weston
243
2
Pedder/Moscatt
214
3
Wilde/Hayes
155
4
Reeves/Smyth
124
5
Monkhouse/Allen
108
6
Boaden/Cheers
106
7
Pedder/Ryan
88
8
Coppin/Batten
78
9
Mackenzie
70
10
Box/Payne
58
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