Auto Action #1900

WURTH AUSTRALIA CONGRATULATE TEAM RED BULL AMPOL RACING ON AN AMAZING 2024 SEASON!

What an exciting weekend for Australian motorsport and Wurth Australia-sponsored Red Bull Ampol Racing!

Will Brown secured the 2024 Supercars Championship early with a stellar Saturday win, while Broc Feeney claimed his second Adelaide 500 victory.

Sunday’s thrilling race saw Brown fight back from last to first, sealing the season finale and the Adelaide 500 crown. Congratulations to Will, Broc, and the entire team on an incredible season!

WURTH AUSTRALIA IS A PROUD PARTNER

RIVALS PRAISE FOUR-TIME CHAMP

By LUIS VASCONCELAS

MAX VERSTAPPEN’S fourth F1 Drivers’ title was secured on Saturday night in Las Vegas after Lando Norris’ challenge floundered in the cold temperatures experienced in Sin City. But the McLaren driver was the first to praise his rival post-race, in a night where everyone recognised the Dutchman’s title was fully deserved.

Norris offered “massive congratulations to Max – he’s deserved it. He’s not put a foot wrong the whole year and that’s his strength – he has no downsides, he has no negatives.”

The McLaren driver went on to recognise that “when he’s had the quickest car, he dominated races; and when he’s not in the quickest car, he’s still been just behind us and almost winning the races, anyway.”

And summing up how he felt his rival went through the season, Norris concluded that “he just drove as Max has always driven, which is perfectly – can’t fault him anywhere.”

A man who knows exactly how well Verstappen has done with the machinery he has had is Sérgio Pérez and the Mexican

stated that “I think he has had the best season I have ever seen from a driver, because a lot of the time we did not have the best car and Max made the difference a lot of weekends.”

Pérez also praised the way his team-mate “pushed the team forwards – he was just a pure force and I think this has been the best year from him in the four we have been together. He has been tremendous; well done to him for all the success he has had – he deserves it.”

Veteran Fernando Alonso, openly a fan of the Dutch driver, was among the first to congratulate the now four-times World Champion as they got out of their cars at the end of the race. For the Spaniard “this one has to feel very special to him, I imagine, because the car is not nearly as dominant as last year. I think he did an incredible performance this year to put the car in a position that was maybe not realistic.

“The best example is Brazil one weekend ago. This is all down to him this year and he was the best. There’s always things to learn from a driver like him in this kind of

performances this year.”

The Team Principal’s of Red Bull’s rival teams were also full of praise for the Dutchman in his hour of glory.

Mercedes’ Toto Wolff didn’t hesitate in calling Verstappen, “a deserving champion. It was clear that he was one of the great ones before that, already, and now he’s a four-time World Champion.

“He dominated in the first half of the year, domination of the driver, domination of a car, then in the second half of the season, domination of a driver. And absolutely worthy of the title”, the Austrian concluded. Disappointed that McLaren couldn’t keep Lando Norris in the fight for a bit longer, Andrea Stella stated that “this title confirms that Max is one of the best drivers in the history of Formula 1. And it’s an important one for him, because in the past, like last year, people might have thought that it’s easy to win races when you have the best car, but it’s never easy to win so consistently. I think, already last year, they were operating – driver and team – at very high level.”

Then, the Italian made it clear that “this year,

when often he didn’t have the best car, what he could extract from weekends in which he didn’t have the best material confirms that we are in the era of Max Verstappen and he deserves what he is achieving.”

Ferrari’s Frédéric Vasseur also joined in, pointing out that “when he had the quickest car he had mega good races, starting from pole, winning the race, but he also had good wins starting from the back. Plus, he also had tough weekends when perhaps they were not the fastest – but he was always able to score points, to do a good job and as a performance, I think this one is probably much more difficult than the two previous ones.”

The Frenchman explained that “the easiest weekend in all sports is when you do the pole position, you start first and you win the race, and you do the fastest lap. Even if the pure performance is good, I think it’s not the most difficult for the drivers as when you have to fight in the group and to score points every single weekend.”

F1 News – p26; Opinion – p27; Race Coverage – p60

Surrounded by the colour and glamour of Vegas, Verstappen did what he needed to do to claim the title –he reckons his best. Images: MOTORSPORT IMAGES

MOTORSPORT OUT OF STEP ON CONCUSSION

TWO CONCUSSIONS IN ONE SUPERCARS RACE WEEKEND HAVE RAISED THE SPECTRE OF CONCUSSION MANAGEMENT IN SUPERCARS AND THE BROADER MOTORSPORT WORLD IN AUSTRALIA. ANDREW CLARKE INVESTIGATES ...

AUSTRALIAN MOTORSPORT is out of step with the broader sporting community when it comes to concussion management according to one of the world’s leading sports medicine doctors, Doctor Peter Larkins.

Doc Larkins, as he is more broadly known, says crashes with big G forces carry an extraordinary risk of concussion, but that research in the United States into its football code showed concussion can occur with impacts as little at 5G.

Concussion is also known as mild traumatic brain injury (mild TBI) and it has been on the FIA radar for the best part of a decade, even being a central point of discussion at an FIA medical summit in 2017, but it’s treatment and diagnosis doesn’t seem to have evolved much in motorsport since then.

Sergio Perez and Fernando Alonso have both been forced to miss races during their F1 careers as a result of being diagnosed with mild TBI.

Alonso’s was perhaps the most famous

after a pre-season crash in 2015. Following the 215km/h crash, Alonso woke up thinking he was a 15-year-old karter, despite already being a two-time world champion. On doctors’ recommendation, his missed the first race of the season, with concerns that a second major impact before settling the injury could be fatal.

In Formula 1, crash sensors on the car and inside the earpiece of the drivers indicate if a crash has exceeded a pre-set amount, believed to be 25G, which triggers concussion testing protocols.

The Australian Sports Commission has guidelines for dealing with professional and amateur sport, which have different protocols based on access to dedicated and expert medical care. Under the Commission’s Concussion in Australian Sport document, it recommends 14 days free of concussion symptoms before returning to ‘contact and high-risk’ activities, and a ‘return to competition not before 21 days post-concussion AND having remained symptom-free for at least 14 days.

Motorsport Australia in its recently updated (October 2024) Medical Standards: Fitness to Compete document deals with head injuries in section 4.6 but will soon issue guidelines for 2025.

‘Individuals with concussion, traumatic brain injury, or fracture of the skull without associated intracranial injuries are UNFIT to compete until a satisfactory report, together with investigation results (X-rays, EEG, MRI

and/or CT scan if indicated), is received and approved by Motorsport Australia.

‘Competitors with concussion should undergo a graduated ‘Return to Sport’ process and shall be declared unfit while remaining symptomatic. It is likely that individuals with concussion will remain UNFIT for seven days minimum while they progress through these ‘Return to Sport’ procedures.’

The graduated return to sport process has several steps that need to be completed before a driver is approved to race again, including a set number of days symptomfree.

But the problem is the assessment of concussion, and that is where Larkins feels the motorsport community is lacking. His radar was triggered when talking about crashes at Bathurst exceeding 50G, and Richie Stanaway and Jaxon Evans stepping aside because of concussion following Turn 8 crashes in Adelaide.

He feels motorsport needs to get a little more mature about how it handles concussion.

Doc Larkins football studies in the USA have shown concussion symptoms with impacts of less than 5G, well below what Jaxon Evans experienced in Adelaide. Image: PACE IMAGES

Dr Peter Larkins

“I think what’s happened in motor racing is there’s so many other spectacular crashes that there’s a lot of other injuries that get attention,” he says. “Obviously in Supercars and any other car racing, you get enormous g-forces, plus you get a lot of head shake and head jarring.

“The focus is always on whether they get a chest injury from the seatbelt or whether they break a collarbone or something. But with world sport going the way it’s gone with the emphasis on head injury and concussion, it’s no surprise that now they’re starting to realise that they may be missing a few of those.

“We talk about the skull as a being like a solid container, and you’ve got the brain like a bowl of jelly sitting in a liquid inside the solid frame.

“If you shake that frame, the skull, then the jelly is going to bounce around inside. And that’s what happens when you spin your head. You don’t even have to have direct contact against it to cause a concussion.”

Larkins was shocked to hear that Richie Stanaway was ruled out of the Saturday race in Adelaide with concussion, but wasn’t automatically ruled out of the Sunday race with statements indicating Stanaway would be re-assessed.

Motorsport Australia says that while Grove Racing may have been hopeful that Stanaway would be cleared to race, that it would likely have blocked his return to the driver’s seat based on its protocols after a diagnosed concussion.

In the AFL, where Larkins spends most of his time, a mandatory 12-day break from competition would be enforced. He feels that it is a lack of awareness rather than a lack of care that lives at the heart of the

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do on the sidelines, and in the first 24 hours’.

“When I say poor, it is because it is not infallible. There’s still an art to when you’re working with an athlete to know their personality, and there’s other aspects of medical assessment that aren’t SCAT related.

“It’s a concussion assessment tool – it’s not a concussion prevention tool. For baseline tests you’re talking about other things like balance testing, and neuropsychological testing is where it’s hand-eye coordination, and memory, and reaction time. That’s what the pre-season testing that the leading sports people do in the in the non-racing world.

“I’m talking about what is contemporary best practice.

“Clearly it should be made available given the sponsorship and the media coverage. I would advocate a bit of a wake-up call to realise that there’s improvements in the medical care program. And one of the improvements would be to recognise that head injury, and concussion, and subconcussion is real when you’re having those high-speed collisions with the neck and the head getting thrown around with those g-forces.

“Any system only works well if the athlete involved is also honest with reporting any lingering symptoms to the medical team after a head incident. I’m not sure it has been on their radar enough to raise the awareness of what the medical consequences might be.

issue within the motorsport community.

“I think that the emphasis is on what happens with the brain and concussion, and how you lose spatial awareness, and you certainly lose balance.

“There’s recognition that while the person may be talking sensibly, and can walk in a straight line, their ability to process information quickly, and particularly when it comes to spatial awareness in terms of around them, and the ability to react to hand-eye coordination, has been shown to be slowed down for literally up to two or three weeks on average.

“And that’s only on average.

“So now you see these exclusion periods, which are based on returning to normal on those testing protocols which are standard across international sports but not in motorsport.”

Part of the issue for motorsport is that it remains relatively isolated from the rest of the sporting world when it comes to the medical side of the sport, which Larkins feels may be populated more by doctors as motorsport fans rather than sports medicine concussion experts as in the major football codes, horse racing and other high impact sports.

“They should be in tune with current expectations, and current protocols that exist for people that have any form of head shake or head injury.

“You don’t have to be concussed to have concussion symptoms. People think concussion is getting kicked in the head

or knocked in the head, or even losing consciousness, which is an extreme version of concussion. But most concussions don’t have any loss of consciousness, they simply have a head spin. They might get a headache.

“You can resolve pretty quickly in the visible symptoms, things like being unsteady on your feet or going dizzy. They’re visible, but the internal processing is where we’re learning, and it’s a steep learning curve.

“I’m not saying we have all the answers but certainly a protocol where the professional drivers should be pre-season tested, so you get a baseline, is a start.

“You test the cars, don’t you? You know the power output, you know your grip, you know your tyre preference, you know your gear ratios, and all that sort of stuff that teams spend millions of dollars on.

“What I’m saying is the actual person who is driving the car should be tested for these brain injury signs so you’ve got a baseline, which is what happens in other sports. Then, in the event of a suspected concussion or an incident of a certain type – it doesn’t have to even be a nasty one – you can then very, very quickly test them, and show that they’re either OK, or they’re not.

“Things like, hand-eye coordination, eye movements and eye tracking. Think in motor racing how critical that is; it’s critical enough in footy when you’ve got to know where the ball is, and you’ve got to know where your opponent is, but when you’re making reactions at 280km/h, I think that’s a slightly different sort of threat if you get it wrong.”

Larkins accepts that for amateur levels of the sport, baseline testing is hard, but at a professional level he feels it is a minimum standard.

The Sports Concussion Assessment Tool, which is now in its sixth revision –SCAT6 – only works on certain aspects of a concussion, but without a baseline it is simply the ‘best of a poor group of tests that you can

“It’s interesting that when we had the big world concussion meeting in Amsterdam in 2022, there was a really interesting report from American football where they had sensors in the helmets looking at their injuries over two years, and they showed that concussion can occur with as an impact as low as 5G, and there were some that were 90G.”

He said the nature of concussion doesn’t mean that an impact of a certain reading will cause a concussion, but big g-forces in a crash should be the first sign that something might be amiss.

The next step though was how to handle a concussion once it has been diagnosed.

“In all the sports that have adopted a sensible and responsible concussion protocol, it is basically about a 12-day minimum turn around to go through the testing and return to practice, return to training, return to pre-competition exertion, and then competition.

“Those four stages take more than seven days. Hence the compulsory week off, but for some people it may three of four weeks off. But generally, everyone’s missing the following week because of the protocol that’s in place.

“How that would apply exactly to training in motorsport I don’t know, that requires more thought. But there’s a standard where you go back to low-level training, slightly higher training, training with a bit of competition.”

Big crashes like those experienced by Dave Reynolds and Will Davison at Bathurst could have ruled them out of the race if the right concussion testing protocols were in place.

Losing stars from big events has often caused discussion among naïve fans of sport, but the evidence of the long-term effects of ignored concussions in other sports means motorsport – particularly Supercars – needs to get in step with the rest of the sporting world.

Motorsport Australia says its 2025 guidelines will be released in early December.

Sergio Perez on a stretcher after the huge crash at Monaco in 2011 that cost him the next two races with concussion.

Richie Stanaway and (below) Jaxon Evens – both were ruled out in Adelaide.

Triple Eight’s latest ‘Double Act’ – Brown and Edwards – confer ... Image: MARK HORSBURGH-MOTORSPORT IMAGES

EDWARDS’ TRIPLE EIGHT RESUME 2022 van Gisbergen Championship 1st/Bathurst 1st 2023 van Gisbergen Championship 2nd/Bathurst 1st 2024 Brown Championship 1st/Bathurst 3rd

HUMBLED ENGINEER PRAISES BROWN

WITH WILL BROWN IN HIS CHARGE, ANDREW EDWARDS HAS NOW WON HIS SECOND TITLE AS AN ENGINEER, HAVING PREVIOUSLY GUIDED SHANE VAN GISBERGEN TO THE 2022 TITLE ... AA’S ANDREW CLARKE SPOKE WITH EDWARDS.

WHEN WILL Brown found out he was getting Andrew Edwards as his engineer for 2024, he did the Toowoomba equivalent of a fist pump. He knew what Edwards had achieved in his two years with Shane van Gisbergen, and he wanted a little bit of the cleverness.

In our chat with Brown on page 30, he talks about how Edwards is his own harshest critic and that he is always looking for a better way to do it – and that suits the way Brown wants to go racing.

In a mutual love-fest, Edwards, who is only three years into his Triple Eight tenure making him relatively new for that team, says Brown fitted easily into the winningest team of the past two decades.

His approach to getting the best out of himself and the desire to keep learning and to learn off others enabled him to quickly work himself into a championship-winning position. Brown led the championship on the Sunday night of every event in the season, saving his best for last with the Adelaide 500 win.

“Today’s drive was really something else from him, I think’” Edwards said of the Adelaide 500 winning drive. “To be so far back,

he just didn’t stop ... he was perfection today.

“I think that was well deserved. We had a bit of luck, obviously, but from where we were, it just shows where he’s at, at the moment. We’re all really proud of him and look forward to the future too.”

He said Brown’s superpower was the ability to absorb everything thrown at him: “he asks questions and he learns.

“He’s a sponge. We look at a lot of data and we talk about a lot of stuff. We look at Shane’s data, we look at Broc’s data. We take everything and put it together. He’s absorbing everything; he’s open to everything and that’s the major thing.

“He wants to learn. He wants to be better. I think he just fits in our environment perfectly and the outcome is what we saw this year.

“He’s not just open, he’s looking for feedback. He takes feedback and he’s selfcritical. All those things matter to us. I think everyone at Triple Eight is like that. He’s a perfect fit.

“But apart from all that, he’s got raw talent. You can’t fix that. You can have everything in the world, but if you don’t have the raw talent, you’re never going to win. He’s got it. I’m really impressed and proud of him.

“I actually think there’s more to come from him. You’ve got to remember, he’s pretty young in his career, isn’t he? He hasn’t been in Supercars that long and I think with a year under his belt and some extra confidence, I think there’s more to come.”

Reflecting on the season, Edwards says it exceeded all the team’s expectations, and it was Brown’s ability at each race meeting to maximise the return that mattered, leaving Brown as the first driver since Dick Johnson in 1984 to record a podium at every event, or what was formerly called a round.

“We never had that goal ... sorry, we never thought that would be possible. To be that consistent all year is a massive challenge. We had some bad rounds, but we somehow recovered to get podiums. That’s just from his tenacity and his competitiveness. He never gives up and he keeps fighting And we got what we got.”

What pleases and impresses Edwards more though, is the way Brown finished the season and that final race drive when nothing mattered. Brown will be in the history books as the final driver to win a championship on points alone, but by winning the final race he would have won the

title even if next year’s all-new Finals series was in play.

“Today we had a little bit of luck go our way, but we had some bad luck at the start of the race. I think even to be on the podium from where he was is an incredible drive.

“He was asking me on the radio, where am I? I said fifth, and he’s like, ‘what?’ He couldn’t believe where he was. But his pace was strong. Even passing cars he was as fast as everyone up to third, then as fast as the leaders at some points.

“We just had it all come together today.

Hopefully we got some good learning for next year. That’s what we wanted – to come here and make sure we learnt so next year we’re prepared. Learn about the car, learn about the process.

“We saw an amazing race today.”

In his three years at Triple Eight, Edwards who joined the Banyo squad from Brad Jones Racing, has now engineered drivers to two titles as well as two Bathurst wins. At times, he says he has had to pinch himself.

“For me, it’s humbling really. I don’t know how I got here sometimes. So, to have that opportunity with Shane and with Will. It’s something special.”

MOSTERT TOAST OF SUPERCARS GALA AWARDS

CHAZ MOSTERT might have fallen short of Adelaide glory, but he was the man of the hour at the Supercars Gala Awards Dinner, taking all the big awards.

Not only did Mostert become the first driver to win the new ‘Best and Fairest’ Jim Richards Medal, but he also won the coveted Barry Sheene Medal and the Drivers’ Driver Award. It makes Mostert the sixth multiple Barry Sheene medalist, having gone back-to-back this and last year.

The WAU driver was also voted by the fans as the most popular driver.

The Jim Richards Award is the newest addition to the Supercars Gala Awards, and was voted on race-by-race by select competition officials in similar style to the Brownlow or Allan Border Medals.

The votes were dominated by Mostert with the WAU driver the only one to exceed triple figures.

Mostert emerged on top with 102 votes, seven more than champion Will Brown, who edged teammate Broc Feeney 95-93.

Cameron Waters was a distant fourth with 64 votes, while Matt Payne won a tight race for fifth with Nick Percat, Brodie Kostecki and Thomas Randle all within eight votes.

Interestingly the winner of the race did not

receive the most votes in nine of the 24 races – with, for example, Bryce Fullwood topping the Tasmania round and Feeney receiving more votes than Kostecki at Bathurst.

There was a special addition to the Supercars Hall of Fame with the late Wayne Cattach inducted.

Cattach passed away in August, but was a vital figure behind the rise of the category in the early 2000s working alongside Tony

Cochrane, while he also worked with DJR in the 2010s.

After a crowd of 259,400 watched on and sung along with Crowded House and Cold Chisel, the VAILO Adelaide 500 was named as the event of the year.

Popular and longtime photographer Mark Horsburgh received the Supercars Media Award having been at every round since 1997.

Thomas Miles

YOUNG GUN HONOURED

THE LATEST recipient of the Supercars Young Gun award, Aaron Cameron, was delighted as his one shot at Super2 paid off with a strong second in the series. After shooting into title contention with a late-season flourish and finishing second in a tense Super2 title showdown with Zach Bates and Kai Allen, Cameron was voted as the 2024 Supercars Young Gun Award winner for 2024 at the recent Supercars Gala Awards.

To receive such recognition thrilled the 22-year-old, who is the second oldest Young Gun award winner since 2015 with only Matt McLean (25) ahead.

“Option one was to win the Super2 title –that would have been great.

But consolation prize second place and the Young Gun award does not get much better,” Cameron told Auto Action

“There are some really distinguished people on the list of winners.

It is great to get some recognition for such a great year with the Kelly Racing team.

“We did some really fun stuff over the year and made some lifelong friends.

“To be recognised by the media and the other teams and drivers will stay with me and the Kelly Racing team for a long time to come.”

Whilst Cameron would have loved to have won the title, he and Kelly Racing smashed all expectations.

They entered the start of the season hoping to be in the top five and, by the end, were simply happy to be in the top three, let alone coming so close.

Importantly Cameron also feels the campaign has significantly boosted his profile, having also done the enduros with BRT. Although he has been an S5000 champion and TCR star, he knew he had to make his one crack at Super2 count – and he did.

said his aim was to simply enjoy the challenge.

it having a lot of fun with GRM and Valvoline in TCR and S5000,” he said.

really cool and something I thought was fading away pretty quickly considering the drivers were a couple of years younger.

a good spot early on.

Although our car pace was not the best, we just kept finishing.

about just enjoying it.

one year shot so there was no point stressing about it with Kelly Racing and Mason.” Thomas Miles

The Auto Action motorsport podcast

The team

that’s not trying to make friends or look after

It’s hard and it’s fast and sometimes it’s a bit rough, but we call it how we see it and pull no punches. Plenty of analysis and lots of opinion from some of the most experienced

Chaz and his pile of awards, with Riarne Marwood.

ROOKIES GET EARLY TEST RUN FOR 2025

BABIES AND BIG CRASHES GAVE COOPER MURRAY AND KAI ALLEN AN EARLY START TO THEIR MAIN-GAME CAREERS IN ADELAIDE. ANDREW CLARKE REPORTS ...

SUPERCARS ROOKIEs for 2025, Cooper Murray and Kai Allen got to start their main game careers early in Adelaide when regular main gamers Jack Le Brocq and Richie Stanaway couldn’t race on the weekend, and both showed glimpses of their star quality.

Le Brocq returned to Melbourne for the birth of his first child, which happened during the first race of the weekend, allowing Erebus Motorsport to slot Murray into car #9 for the weekend, while Allen got his run when Stanaway was ruled out of the races with concussion from his Turn 8 hit on Friday.

Grove Racing wanted to run Allen on Saturday, but rules around Super2 drivers and the main-game prevented that from happening in the time frames available, so while the team worked to get clearance for the Sunday. Dale Wood ran the Stanaway car on Saturday.

For both drivers, starting next season earlier than expected in the cars they will be racing was an unexpected bonus.

“I was at dinner having a couple of beers on Thursday night when Barry called me and asked ‘Have you got your kit? Are you ready to drive tomorrow?’ I said ‘yes’,’ Murray said. “He said ‘Cool – see you at 7:30 in the morning.” So, that’s how quickly it happened.

“I put the beer to the side and started drinking water to get hydrated! Big credit and thank you to Barry for trusting me and bringing me in to replace Jack.

“At first, it was a bit daunting, to be honest. Because I looked straight at the weather and saw it was 37°C on Saturday. That’s being chucked right into the deep end with a big, long race like that – the longest race I’ve ever

done – in that heat as well. But we came out the other side of it okay.”

Murray said the long stints at Bathurst and Sandown helped, and now he’s started a ledger for scores that need to be evened up.

“I already owe Cam Waters two hits next year – one from Sandown and one today. So, he’s got to expect two coming. But that’s part of the main game – push and shove; that’s what racing’s about up here.

“The car was really good, and we showed great car speed coming back through the pack. Me and Brodie were first and second quickest on average in that last stint. So, the cars were really hooked up. Big credit to the whole Erebus team for providing us with good cars.

“I couldn’t deliver the results they needed, though. But it’s all a learning curve, and the more you learn, the better you become.”

While 24th and 18th won’t flatter the record books, 18th and 13th in qualifying showed a little of what he was about.

“We showed good race pace, made some good passes, and definitely showed the rest of the paddock that we’re not here to muck around.”

Allen’s weekend was a little more active as he tried to defend his Dunlop Super2 crown, but second place for the round wasn’t enough to do that after a rough round at Bathurst stripped him of the title lead.

After he got clearance to run in the main game on Sunday, he qualified in 19th in his first run in the car, having run a DJR car in the endurance races. After a 22-lap race in the morning, he ran 77 of the 78 laps in the Sunday decider for the VAILO Adelaide 500.

“It’s pretty full-on there; a lot of the boys didn’t like me being there,” he said. “They

were trying to drive me off the track, but we got through. I think it’s just good to try and get a result.

“Unfortunately, Richie’s quite unwell, and it was great that I could step in for him to get laps for next year, but also for the team to get a race instead of just parking the car.

“I’m pretty happy with that – I think I learned a lot. It’s a big thing. I think we were showing quite good pace in the middle until we got a fair bit of rear damage, and it just didn’t really have any rear grip.

“I learned a lot and I think it’s going to help me next year. It’s just starting a day early. So, it’s good just to get that out of the way and now I can work out what goes on and what I need to improve.”

Allen did, however, look like a school kid who had outgrown his long pants, with Stanaway’s race suit almost – but not quite – fitting him.

“I had Richie’s race suit on, it’s a little bit short in the legs. I’m sure we will have that sorted out for next year,” he joked.

He said Steven Grove, who wrapped an arm around him just before his first Supercars qualifying session, just told him to go and have fun.

“It’s also my home state race ... I’ve been watching from those grandstands just across from us since I was eight years old, so it’s pretty cool to actually be in the main race.

“I had lots of fun. Could have had more, but it was still good.”

In 2025, Murray will run the #99 car for Erebus in 2025, replacing Brodie Kostecki, while Allen will campaign the #26 for Grove Racing replacing Stanaway.

Cooper Murray got a tea-time call from Barry Ryan (right) to take over the Jac Le Brocq car next day, while (below) Penrite team boss Steven Grove told Kai Allen to just go have fun! Images: MARK HORSBURGH

‘RELIEVED’ WINTERBOTTOM RETURNS HOME TO TICKFORD

HAVING CLOSED the chapter on full-time racing, Mark Winterbottom will make a fairytale return to Tickford for the next phase of his Supercars career.

Just three days after his 645th and last solo race, it was confirmed that Winterbottom will be back in a Ford, codriving with Cameron Waters in the 2025 enduros, while also offering his services supporting Tickford Autosport’s next generation of drivers.

There is not a more fitting location for ‘Frosty’ to begin the next chapter of his successful career given it is where he enjoyed the highest of highs.

A young Winterbottom arrived at a then struggling FPR in 2006 and made an immediate impact, finishing third in the championship.

From there the #5 Falcon was one of the fastest on the grid, with ‘Frosty’ collecting 38 race wins, 117 podiums, and 35 pole positions with the team from 2006-2018.

The highlights were undoubtably the thrilling 2013 Bathurst 1000 win with Steven Richards and breakthrough 2015 championship title.

Having spent his last six seasons at Team 18, Winterbottom is delighted to return home.

“I’m so excited to come back home to Tickford Racing,” he said.

“This team played such a massive part in my career.

“I came here as a young driver in the Ford programme, and we went on to achieve incredible success together – race wins, a championship, and Bathurst.

“It feels like the right time to come full circle, and I’m here to win again, with Cam and with Tickford.

“Tickford feels like family. So many of the same people are still here, and the fans’ support has been overwhelming –Bathurst really hit home when people kept saying, ‘Go back to Tickford!’

When his full-time options disappeared, Winterbottom made it clear he was determined to land a co-drive where he could win and he has found one in Waters.

But he is equally passionate about his role as a mentor and is looking forward to giving back to the team that helped him become one of the biggest stars of the 21st century.

“I’ve learnt so much over my career, and I’m really looking forward to passing that knowledge on to the next generation,” Winterbottom said.

“Whether it’s helping them with the little tricks – what kerbs to hit, throttle control, or handling the pressure of race day – I want to help them succeed and enjoy the sport as much as I have.

“Watching these young drivers grow and achieve is so rewarding.”

Winterbottom finished his successful solo career on the same circuit it started in 2004 and fittingly the 2015 champion passed Garth Tander for the second most Supercars/ATCC starts of all time with 645 in his last in the hot seat.

The overwhelming feeling after his his successful 21-year solo career reached the finish line was relief.

“It hit me before the race when I walked down pit lane and I was really emotional, but when I finished it was more relief,” Winterbottom told Auto Action.

“I went in and saw my family, wife Renee, the kids and the race crew that are awesome.

“It (the results) didn’t change my 21 years in the sport. I just wanted to enjoy it because my career was not determined from this weekend.

“Now we can just get on with the next chapter of our lives because its so emotionally draining and takes a lot out of you.”

It was a tough weekend for the #18 as Winterbottom “struggled to hold the rear tyres” on his way to 17th and 20th in the two tough 78-lap races.

However, there results did not impact Winterbottom one bit as the overwhelming support he received from the fans at his farewell event will last with him forever.

“The support this weekend has been unbelievable,” he said.

“If you are a good person that gives back, people will stick with you forever.

“I have seen people who have been supporting me since they were four and they are now 24 and many wearing gear that is both old and new.

“People say they want their kids to go for me because they like me as a role model, which is really nice.

“It was a great way to send off and these things last forever.”

Thomas Miles

The Winterbottom family was on hand for Mark’s full-time farewell. Below: Winning – 2015 champion ... Images: MARK HORSBURGH

SLADE SIGNS OFF ON FULLTIME RACING

TIM SLADE HAS RUN THE FINAL RACE OF HIS FULL-TIME SUPERCARS CAREER. HE SPOKE WITH ANDREW CLARKE AFTER THAT RACE ...

TIM SLADE signed off on his 452 race, 15-year full-time career in the Supercars championship series, completing the full race distance in both races of the Adelaide 500 weekend. With a best championship finish of fifth and a pair of race wins in 2016, Slade says he is proud of his career, and now he will turn his attention to securing a co-drive with Bathurst winning potential.

“That’s me, I’m done,” Slade said minutes after the Sunday race. “I’m not hoping that I could have clung on to something somewhere. I’ve had a long time in the sport and I’m very grateful, and thankful for the time that I’ve spent at this level, and the teams that I’ve been with, the people I’ve worked for, and worked with.

“I’m genuinely excited for what’s ahead.

“I’m doing the enduros, and I’d really love to put together some other racing. I think you have to do that if you want to stay at a high level as a car driver.

“I’d love to get back over to Asia and do some of the GT stuff that I was doing pre-Covid. I’m talking to a few people at the moment and we’ll see what happens there, but I’m not throwing all my eggs into one basket and I’m talking to some people in other categories as well.”

He said it was nice to ‘feel some love’ while he put out his feelers for the 2025

endurance races, but the decision on what to do was not easy.

“To be honest, I guess the main ones that everyone thinks about first and foremost were full and then, after that, it is quite a hard decision. Hopefully we’ll be able announce something soon with all that stuff.”

The final seasons as a main game driver were not easy for the South Australian and he almost felt a sense of relief when he passed the chequered flag on Sunday.

“It’s been a pretty tough couple of years – I mean this year we’ve had potential at times but haven’t been able to really convert that into race results from qualifying speed.

“I just wanted to have a bit of speed this weekend and have a couple of decent results. It was pretty average the first couple of days, and then that race we actually had quite good speed, but we just got turned around.

“I’d rather have good speed and get turned around, than be wobbling around in the 20s somewhere with no speed.”

On his career he feels satisfied that, with the opportunities he had, he maximised the return, although he always wanted more.

“I look back on the amount of time – it’s been 15 years full-time, and you kind-

RANDLE EYEING FINALS AFTER PB SEASON

FINALS ARE a realistic goal for Thomas Randle in 2025 after he continued his progression in Supercars with a career-best 2024.

Having finished 23rd in his rookie year and improved to 13th in 2023, Randle continued that trajectory by finishing fifth in the 2024 Supercars Championship.

The Tickford driver snatched the top-five berth with an impressive end to the season.

After matching his career-best result of second on the Saturday at Surfers Paradise, the #55 was placed in P5 for back-to-back races.

Then, in a dramatic finale on the streets of Adelaide, Randle prevailed in a thrilling fight for the podium with the likes of Chaz Mostert, Will Davison and Nick Percat.

These results came after Randle finished in the top 10 in eight of the final 12 races, propelling Tickford to its best Teams’ championship finish since 2015.

of think you only got two race wins, 17 podiums and a couple of poles, and you wish the Stats would have been better.

“But I guess you look at the situations that you’ve been in and it’s not like your teammate’s been winning 10 races throughout the year either. To have spent all that time at this level I must have been doing something half okay.

“And to think, what I came from too … even when we first started in karts we only just had enough money to go racing. We looked at the top level of karts, and we didn’t know how we were ever going to be able to afford that. Then, somehow, we made it happen.

“Then the same with Formula Ford and you know, that meant me moving to Melbourne, and working for Sonic, and them looking after us with the budget, and letting us pay it off over two years.

“I didn’t think I would make it to this level, and then to have spent 15 or 16 years here I am proud of that. I’m massively grateful to the many people that have contributed and helped me over the years and supported me.”

He highlighted his father, James Rosenthal, Larry Perkins and Paul Morris as some of the key players early in his career.

Tim is hopeful of having his 2025 locked down by Christmas.

Having sat eighth in the standings as recently as after the Bathurst 1000, Randle was delighted with his late-season speed.

“It is a nice way to end the year, with a podium. I am stoked to not only get a podium, but also finish in the top five of the championship,” he said.

“It has been a really solid year for us and I have really enjoyed it. Cam and I have worked well together as has the whole team.”

With Finals arriving in 2025 where the final four drivers will fight for a title at Adelaide, Randle admits its a realistic goal.

“That would be unreal,” Randle said when asked about a 2025 Finals berth.

“But it’s such a super competitive championship, so we have just got to be on our A-game all year – there will be so many different formats and tyre compounds.

“I think everyone’s gonna just keep stepping it up. It just gets more and more competitive each year. it would be amazing to arrive here in 12 months time, being in that top four contention. But who knows? You know, we’ll just put our best foot forward and see how we go.”

Thomas Miles

Image: PETER NORTON EPIC SPORTS PHOTOGRAPHY

Signing off in his home town, Adelaide ... Image: ANDREW CLARKE

WOOD ‘THROWN INTO THE DEEP END’

DALE WOOD’S head was spinning after one crazy Saturday in Adelaide, losing a Carrera Cup race on the last corner before making a sudden solo Supercars return in scorching temperatures.

Due to Richie Stanaway suffering delayed concussion, the #26 Grove Racing Mustang was suddenly vacant on the eve of the opening VAILO Adelaide 500 78-lap race.

Initially Stanaway’s 2025 replacement Kai Allen was announced but, within minutes, it became clear that would not be the case due to requiring the permission of all Super2 teams.

As a result Grove Racing scrambled and Stanaway’s co-driver Wood received a last minute call-up.

Just 10 minutes after being beaten by Bayley Hall at the final corner, the 41-yearold suddenly faced the prospect of making his 172nd and first solo Supercars start

in seven years in soaring 34-degree temperatures.

Wood survived and finished 22nd, one lap off the pace after an off at Turn 5.

The veteran admitted he did not have time to fully prepare for the big race.

“It was an interesting one,” Wood told Auto Action

“This weekend my head had just been in Carrera Cup mode and making sure we finished the year on a high.

“Then 10 minutes after the race I got a call from Brenton saying we need you here for the Supercars.

“It was just one of those things that you don’t get too much time to comprehend and process.

“I was then thrown into the deep end to do 250km in that car.

“I feel grateful for those opportunities and the pressure was there.

“Anytime you jump into a car you want to perform but in that instance it was pretty bloody hard when you first laps are when the lights go out.”

Wood put his hand up for the trip to the Turn 5 gravel.

“It was hard work and mentally hard,” he said.

“I made a little hiccup at Turn 5.

“I grabbed a little bit of throttle when I hit the brake.

“Disappointed in myself on that one otherwise I felt I did what I could to keep the car in a good condition.

“I felt physically okay at the end and I got in the ice bath just to get the temperatures back down.

“The following morning I felt like I’d had a few beers the night before – which I certainly did not.”

Thomas Miles

RAY OF LIGHT FOR BRT MELINDA PRICE JOINS THE REVLIMITER

A FIRST attempt at running two cars has had its challenges for Blanchard Racing Team, but everyone in the garage has been uplifted by their Adelaide speed.

James Courtney showed strong speed across the first three days of the Adelaide finale, topping Thursday practice, qualifying in the Shootout and holding firm to secure eighth in the first 78-lap affair.

It was just the third top-10 finish for BRT all year, while rookie Aaron Love also made the one-lap dash in the #3 Mustang.

BRT boss Tim Blanchard said the Adelaide pace gave everyone in the small team a much-needed boost and identified the Gold Coast as a turning point, where Courtney also made a Shootout appearance, but the extra vindication at Adelaide has gone a long way.

“It has been a tough year and we are slowly making changes and trying things,” Blanchard told Auto Action.

“It has been a big step going from one to

two cars – it has been a tough journey for anyone who has done that over the last 10-20 years.

“Even the might of Penske took a while to get going.

“It is a big challenge and been harder than we would have liked (but) at the Gold Coast we started to see signs of that and again here.

“It does not take much to change the emotions in the team both ways.

“The potential of a few decent results on the Gold Coast definitely lifted everyone’s spirits and we were in a good mood coming to Adelaide.

“We still have a young crew and they have been learning at each event, but a few results like this gives them a bit of spark and hope that they are doing the right thing.

“We have been improving and the results vindicate it.”

The late ray of light will shine bright for BRT through the summer as it prepares for a bigger and better 2025.

Thomas Miles

RACING DRIVER Melinda Price has joined the team of The Auto Action RevLimiter podcast. Price joins host Andrew Clarke and panellist Bruce Williams each Wednesday for an analysis of the latest and news and action in the motorsport world.

Price, who comes from a deep motorsport family, has raced at many levels of the sport in Australia, including time in the Castrol Cougars car with Lerryn Brewer for Larry Perkins in the late 1990s. She competed in 19 rounds of the Supercars Championship and raced at Bathurst five times.

She is also one of the presenters on the telecast of the Hi-Tec Oils Super Series while continuing to race in the Radical Cup.

“I’ve had quite an interesting year racing the Radical Cup as well as sort-of being on the other side of the fence with the Hi-Tec Oils Super Series and doing the TV. A little bit of everything this year – now look at me, joining a podcast.

“I come from a family with a strong motor racing background. Dad and his brothers raced. My cousin Drew was DPE karts, and he was the biggest kart manufacturer in Australia.

“So, I guess motorsport was always going to be my future.”

She broke new ground as a competitive female in the sport.

“There was not a lot of girls around back

then, but there were certainly a few very good ones, but nowhere near as many as there is now. I was definitely the odd one out, but it was lots of fun and I considered myself one of the boys

“As a Castrol Cougar I picked that torch up and ran with it – it did have a different meaning back then,” she laughed, especially now she is in her 50s ...

She is actively involved with Girls on Track for Motorsport Australia, helping to develop career streams for girls in motorsport, not just as drivers but also in engineering and other roles in teams.

Price will now feature on the podcast every week.

The Auto Action RevLimiter is one of the highest rating sporting news podcasts in Australia and pulls no punches in its analysis of the sport.

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Dale Wood – short notice! Image: MARK HORSBURGH

Image: PETER NORTON - EPIC SPORTS PHOTOGRAPHY

STOP / GO

SAD END TO SUPER3

THE FINAL round of Super3 on the streets of Adelaide proved to be an anti-climax. With Thomas Maxwell stepping up to Super2 and neither champion Cody Burcher or Bailey Sweeny taking part, Tony Auddino was the last one left for the championship’s final event.

Auddino swapped his VF Commodore for Tim Slade’s 2012 SBR FG Falcon, but sadly it did not race a lap. The #4 Falcon was withdrawn on Friday morning due to unsolvable engine issues, meaning in Super3’s farewell, there was not a single starter. “Unfortunately the engine sustained some issues which could not be solved at the track,” Auddino wrote on socials. “I am absolutely gutted not to put on a show for all supporters and sponsors.

“While we may not be the fastest on the track, we were out there living a dream.” The current Super3 spec cars will be eligible to race in a standalone Super2 season in 2025.

NINE NETWORK PART OF SUPERCARS TV TALKS

SUPERCARS HAS already started negotiations for the new TV rights deal that will commence in 2026.

The Australian Financial Review’s Street Talk column has revealed Supercars CEO Shane Howard wants a deal done by the end of the year and hopes the new contract exceeds the current $200 million deal.

Not only has Supercars held discussions with current rights holders Foxtel and Seven over a possible extension, but even Nine Entertainment, which is reported to be only interested if it can have exclusive content on streaming service Stan.

The current five-year $200 million TV deal will expire at the end of 2025.

RUSSELL STICKS WITH PREMIAIR

DAVID RUSSELL will stick with PremiAir Nulon Racing for a second season tackling the enduros alongside James Golding.

Russell made the move from Erebus to PremiAir in 2024 and the big switch paid immediate dividends with a Sandown podium.

“It was great working with Jimmy over the two enduros this year,” Russell said.

It is great to be able to have the continuity – that is important when you are going enduro racing and hopefully we can give ourselves a chance to move further up the podium from where we were at Sandown.”

TENACIOUS TODD BACK ON TOP

A TREMENDOUS amount of work behind the scenes has pushed Todd Hazelwood and TFH Racing to a special Trans Am title at their first attempt.

Despite being complete newbies to the category, both driver and team put in the hard yards to understand the Mustang and reaped the rewards.

After accidentally stumbling across a breakthrough with the car set-up at Phillip Island, Hazelwood went on a charge to the title, winning six of the final 12 races and finishing no lower than fourth.

It saw the rookies surge past the dominant GRM, which had won the last three titles.

Having already won the Great Race just two months earlier and been a Super2 champion in 2017, Hazelwood also labelled the Trans Am title as one of his finest achievements considering the challenge of winning as a rookie.

“For me it was a very satisfying win based on the amount of work that went into it,” he told Auto Action

“The team worked so hard to continue to improve and make our program better as the year went on.

“If you look at how we started and ended, we are two very different teams.

“At the start of the year we were a bit rough and ready with a few mechanical dramas and it was not smooth sailing.

“Once I knew I would not be back in a Supercar until the enduros, I put a lot

of focus and energy into how could we make this program into a winning one.

“We went through every aspect of the car and analysed how we could make it better, so the championship was definitely won in the workshop.

“There were battles on the track, but it came down to the mid-season push for us to turn things around and make it better.

“It is super special because we went up against the likes of GRM, who have dominated the category since it started, and James (Moffat) – they have a lot of experience in the category.

“For us to knock them off the top was very rewarding personally.”

It completes a dream 2024 for Hazelwood, who has got the most out of every opportunity, which is impressive considering his career was at somewhat of a crossroads after

losing his full-time Supercars seat.

The South Australian admits he has felt liberated this year and is back to his best.

“For me at the end of last year I was motivated to resurrect my career to a degree and turn my fortunes around because I was not satisfied with what I was achieving in the sport,” Hazelwood said.

“I wanted to get more out of myself and had to make changes and a big part of that was working harder and surrounding myself with good people.

“When it becomes such a long time between wins, it can create a bit of a toll on you, so to get that confidence back was powerful.

“After winning Bathurst with Brodie, winning the Trans Am title was the icing on the cake.”

Thomas Miles

‘HURT’ PUSHES MARJORAM ALL THE WAY

THE ‘HURT’ of losing the title at the final corner in 2023, only poured further fuel onto the fire of motivation burning within Adam Marjoram, who finally took a long-awaited V8 SuperUte Series title in Adelaide.

Marjoram came agonisingly close in 2023, falling short to Aaron Borg in a Gold Coast thriller, but in 2024 the tables turned.

With seven points splitting the top three ahead of the Adelaide finale, a stunning finish was in store for the V8 SuperUtes.

But nothing was going to stop Marjoram on this occasion as he took the title in style, with a stunning clean sweep.

Marjoram revealed the pain of 2023 was burning in his mind as he drove to glory.

“The hurt that I felt after last year was immense so I used that as fuel for the fire this year,” a beaming Marjoram told Auto Action with the championship trophy in his hand.

“That motivation burned really deep and was something I took through the first few rounds and had some good wins.

“Then coming into this round I just remembered last year and put everything on line to make sure that did not happen again.”

Marjoram, who has raced many categories from Porsches, Super2,

Saloon Cars and more, said achieving the breakthrough title in front of friends and family made the success even sweeter.

“Words fail me. A clean sweep is something I have never done before, so to take a clean sweep, round win and championship is incredible,” he said.

“It is a massive credit to Sieders and Team Motion Racing and so proud to do it with my friends and family here.

“My dad has been with me from the very start since I was six

“We have gone through everything and all the tough parts of motorsport, so this win is for him.

“I came out of retirement so the faith Craig Dontas put in me to deliver is so special and I cannot do enough for him.”

Whilst things are still in motion, expect Marjoram to return next year as he said “it would be a great honour to carry the #1.”

There were many celebrations in Adelaide, but few would have been seen with a wider smile than Marjoram. Thomas Miles

Image: INSYDE MEDIA

Marjoram ‘cleaned-up’ in Adelaide ...Image: TAMARA JADE MEDIA

GARWOOD TAKES TCM TITLE AND CONFIRMS TRANS AM TILT FOR ’25

ADAM GARWOOD wrapped up the 2024 Touring Car Masters series with a weekend of excitement and drama, one that ultimately delivered the Tasmanian his first national series win. Following the title victory, Garwood confirmed that he will tackle the Trans Am series for the 2025 season.

After a season that saw some great and competitive racing in the rejuvenated Touring Car Masters series, which travelled from the East coast to Perth, and as far north as Darwin, Adam Garwood headed into the final race weekend at The Bend as the clear favourite for the series win.

Garwood, driving the Lincom Group backed VC Commodore, had been solid all year with race wins across the series and was always in the fight for outright race wins.

In the end, Garwood’s only real challenger for the title was Jamie Tilley in the Prolube Lubricants Mustang. However, Tilley’s title hopes were extinguished early in the weekend with a DNF in Race 1 after contact on the opening lap of the race. And while Garwood had to battle over the three races ultimately it was a comfortable series win.

“Yes, I’m happy that we ended up taking the title after a big season. I can’t complain

yes, I’m happy with the result.” Garwood told Auto Action

“While we won some races, I don’t know that we had the pace at every round, but we just put everything together over the season and it all worked out in the end.”

Garwood didn’t have it all his own way over the final round of races at The Bend, with a very fast and consistent Joel Heinrich dominating the racing and Garwood himself copping a 15-second penalty for an on-track indiscretion after making heavy contact with Andrew Fisher’s Torana on the opening lap of Race 1.

“I’m happy that we got the title, but we just didn’t have the pace for the outright win this weekend. Joel Heinrich and his team were next level all weekend, so congratulations to them.

“It wasn’t an ideal situation and, unfortunately, I tagged Andrew Fisher and ruined his race. I got penalised for that which was fair enough, but fortunately I had a big enough gap to finish sixth for the first race, and I pressed on for the last couple races.”

in other high profile national categories

competitiveness and the quality of Touring Car Masters field.

“Yeah, I think that outside of TCM people probably underestimated it a bit, and they probably don’t understand how hard these cars are to drive and set up in order to be competitive.

“The quality of the competition is of a very high standard and some of the past winners are legends of the sport, so I’m proud and honoured to be amongst the other drivers that have won the outright series title.”

Looking to 2025, Garwood said his plans are focused on a season of Trans Am, and confirmed the team has purchased a brand-new Trans Am Mustang, which will be prepared by Gerard McLeod at Maverick Performance who built

and prepped the series winning VB Commodore.

“I have raced in TCM for a couple of years now and, while there are some awesome drivers and teams in the category, I want to try and have another go at a high-level one-make series like Trans Am. It will be interesting to try and battle it out and see where we end up there.”

“I haven’t abandoned TCM and if we can find the budget, we’ll run a car in the 2025 TCM series.” Garwood confirmed.

In the series results, Garwood won the TCM series overall ahead of Ryan Hansford and Jamie Tilley. Pro Masters winner was Ryan Hansford, Garwood took Pro Am, with Peter Burnitt taking the hours in Pro Sport. Bruce Williams.

Adam Garwood, TCM champion –

THE GENERAL GOES BACKTO-BACK

GEN3 WAS the final nail in the Holden racing coffin, but it also allowed sister GM brand Chevrolet, to take over where the Australiaonly brand left off, to win pretty much all the available titles of the past two seasons.

The two Gen3 rivals, Camaro and Mustang went through extensive and expensive parity testing during the 23/24 off-season and, despite a set of numbers that said parity had been achieved, still came out on top. In 2023, Chevrolet won 79% of the races – and could have won more but for the parity shift postBathurst which swung the advantage to the Ford Mustang.

In 2024, with aero and, eventually, engine parity confirmed, it won 67% of the races, while some of its rivals continued to complain about technical parity being off … despite evidence to the contrary. With the Camaro, Chevrolet has won 38 of 52 races, two Supercars’ championship, two Bathursts and two Manufacturers’ title.

All its teams have either won a race or scored a podium, and all have won at least one pole position. The lion’s share of the results, though, have been won by Triple Eight and Erebus (33 of the 38 wins).

Jess Bala has been the GM boss in Australia and New Zealand since September last year,

and she has been a regular face at Supercars race meeting since then, proving both her and GM’s commitment to the sport.

Bala was born and educated – as a lawyer –in Melbourne and spent time in Detroit before returning as Managing Director, General Motors Australia & NZ.

“It’s been an awesome year across all of our amazing Chevrolet Camaro-based teams,” she says of her first full season in charge.

“And then to see Will win the championship, obviously awarded on the Saturday, but then finish with probably one of the best drives I’ve personally seen on the Sunday was really exciting.

“We couldn’t be prouder of our teams, but obviously in particular the team at Triple Eight Race Engineering for all of their achievements this year. It’s been an incredible year.

“I definitely don’t have favourites,” she said when asked who she wanted to see win between Will Brown and Broc Feeney.

“I was more than happy with either one winning the championship, but I will say it was really exciting to see the race pan out the way it did on Sunday … a lot of action, a lot of excitement, which I think is exactly what we would all love to see and a really stellar result.

“To be honest, Broc had an amazing race on the Saturday as well, so I think they both came away from the weekend very happy.”

Bala is acutely aware of the challenge for GM in Australia since the demise of Holden in terms of converting fans and continuing the heritage of GM in Australia.

“There’s a long, long-standing history here that we as a company and as a brand are incredibly proud of and it’s one of the reasons we’ve stayed in the sport. It’s great for our business as well. It’s great to bring our legion of fans across this evolution of it as well, but it also gives us a platform to be able to talk about what we’re doing today as a business, whether it’s selling Silverados, announcing Yukon that will launch next year, and also into the after-sales space with ACDelco.

“It’s a continuation and allows us to really promote our products and our brands going forward, but pull on our history in the right way. Obviously, we were very successful then, and we’re showing that we’re still very successful now, and it’s something that the team should be very proud of and very clearly there is a big group of friends that are more than willing to come on that journey with us as well.

“I’ve always followed the sport. I actually

lived in Adelaide for part of my career and went along to the Clipsal 500 as it was then and absolutely loved it.

“I went to a couple of different races while I was in the US and, very thankfully, the team here, led by Chris (Payne), has allowed me to come along. I’ve gone to quite a few races this year as well, including the last four, and really loving to learn more about the strategy that goes into the planning of these races going ahead, listening to the teams interact.

“I’m not there, to be honest, to go socialising the suites and things. I love being in the garages with the teams – both my team and our racing teams – and being there to support them and show that we are there to support them week in, week out.

“This was the first year I’ve been to Bathurst, and I can now confidently say I

Champion Will Brown leads team-mate Broc Feeney at the Sandown 500. Image: MARK HORSBURGH-MOTORSPORT IMAGES.

Above: GM is present in Drag Racing/Top Doorslammer world, via ACDelco, with Ronnie Palumbo in the Fabietti Racing Monaro.

understand why it’s the favourite of the year. The whole vibe, the way that Supercars execute that event is phenomenal.

“I was lucky enough to drive our Corvette E-Ray around the track myself as part of the drivers’ parade and that just gave me even more respect for what these guys do during that race, seeing how tricky that track actually is. Watching Brodie and Todd win that race for Erebus and for the Chevy Camaro was an absolute highlight of the year.”

GM versus Ford is one of the global fights that has inspired motorsport for generations. It stands and cornerstone of both marque’s sporting involvement – even heading to F1 soon – and has helped drive the sport in this country to where it is. It was always said you either bleed blue or red, but now the red is gold.

The value of the sport to the brand was driven home in the week after Bathurst, not just from the fans here, but also those in the States … especially those who work for GM.

“We got comments the following week as to how many of the employees were watching the race. I was getting texts from ex-colleagues and race enthusiasts back in the US – they were asking me for photos and things like that.

“So, it’s huge, even on a global scale through GM and not just here in Australia. Chris and the team do a great job putting together some info for our team here back on the ground so that everyone feels a part of that victory.”

But the challenge in Australia is to link Camaro –which isn’t sold here – with cars like the Silverado and Corvette and to keep the Holden fans, which shouldn’t be too hard given how many people used to replace the Holden lion badge with the famous Chevrolet bow-tie.

“I’d say the team’s done a really great job of thinking a little bit differently and outside of the box as to how do we go to market and leverage our relationship and our position within the racing to what we’re doing as a bigger business, whether it’s our GM specialty vehicles portfolio – we sell the Silverado and we’ve got the Corvette and you will see us at the majority of the races activating those cars there and people are recognising that bowtie – and then you look at some of the ambassadors that we have across our business, whether it’s with Craig Lowndes, who’s done a phenomenal job helping us with this transition and working with us with Silverado and Corvette, and then obviously into the wildcard entry.

“There’s definitely some synergies that we’re leveraging, but we do have to go to market a little bit differently as we don’t sell the Camaro here, but people are recognising that bow tie on the front, whether it’s on a different type of car, whether it’s on some merch, or just some general advertising.

“We hear that feedback from our dealers and

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marketing partners that the relationship is definitely present. “

In 2026, Bala is likely to lose one of her teams to Toyota, which for her will be a bittersweet moment.

Toyota’s arrival in the sport will help it to grow, but losing a team won’t be nice for the motorsport team.

“We’re excited and welcome Toyota to the Supercars series, I think it’s going to be a really positive thing for the sport. It’s realistic that they’re going to be having discussions with some of our teams, and while we would prefer not to lose any of them, we’ll just figure that out as that proceeds.

“From a championship standpoint, we think we’ve got the runs on the board to really show you what we can do and we will keep doing that. But as the competition evolves and grows. We’ll just need to work through whatever changes that brings.”

down to the strategy piece in the execution on the day.”

The intellectual property of the Camaro that it allows it to race in Supercars has been extended, meaning it is locked in until at least 2026, but GM, through Chris Payne, is talking about the future beyond that.

“We’re working our way through that with Supercars right now,” Payne says. “We will be on the grid with the Camaro for ‘25 and ‘26. And beyond that, we’re still in discussions as to what will happen in ‘27 and beyond.”

Supercars is the critical and most high-profile sport for Chevrolet in Australia but, with ACDelco, it is involved in many other motorsports, some of which are more about ACDelco than Chevrolet.

Perhaps more significantly though, you can’t talk about new manufacturers without raising parity. Some Ford teams still claim it is out of whack, even after all the testing, but Bala feels it is OK now.

“The Supercars team should be commended for how they’ve handled it over the past 12 months. We’ve all done a lot to significantly achieve parity across both the Mustang and the Camaro, but we think it probably will never go away.

“I think to a point all the data that’s been collected over the past 12 months will absolutely help the Toyota Supra coming in and understanding where that vehicle needs to be aligned from a racing standpoint and then hopefully we can just get the teams out there and let them go racing and really get

Drag racing is a major focus, with Ronnie Palumbo driving the Fabietti Racing Top Doorslammer Monaro as well supporting Toyota 86s, Super2 and SuperUtes – which she says is used to highlight the ‘all-makes-all-models’ standpoint. There was also the Silverado at Finke with Lowndes – and that may go ahead again. But then, there is also the exciting prospect of a Corvette GT3 program for Australia.

“The Corvette GT3 is a really exciting program globally for GM, and we know that there are some discussions going on to roll that car out further to a small number of potential customers. There’s always going to be ongoing discussions, but for right now, for here, we don’t have anything to share from a Corvette standpoint at this stage.”

For now, it is less than 100 days before the Supercars title defence starts and Bala and the team are ready to go again for one last time as an exclusive Camaro versus Mustang battle.

Second part of the 2024 GM triumph – Brodie Kostecki crosses the line at Bathurst. Image: MARK HORSBURGH-MOTORSPORT IMAGES

The GM ANZ team accepts the Manufacturers’ Championship trophy. L/R Lachlan Watts Marketing Coordinator Chevrolet Racing, Chris Payne General Manager Chevrolet Racing, Tim Price Director Network Planning & Motorsports GMANZ, Jess Bala Managing Director GMANZ and Steve Byrne, the Gen3 Program Manager Chevrolet Racing

FORMULA REGIONAL COMING TO AUSTRALIA

THERE ARE plenty of open wheel options for young racers in 2025 with Formula Regional Australia arriving and Formula 4 expanding.

Formula Regional Australia has been given the green light by Motorsport Australia to begin next year. Current Australian Formula Open promotor Tim Macrow has teamed up with Formula Regional Oceania organisers in New Zealand to ensure current-spec TRS FT-60 cars can race on both sides of the Tasman.

The cars are currently seen competing in the Toyota Formula Regional Oceania Championship held in New Zealand each Summer, which has been won by the likes of Lando Norris, Lance Stroll, Liam Lawson, Matt Payne and Thomas Randle.

No calendar is yet confirmed, but the cars will be available in Australia from March to October before returning to New Zealand.

The majority of the current spec cars are coming from Highlands Motorsport Park, while two Tatuus T318 cars are already in Australia, owned by Tim Macrow Racing. Others from around the world are eligible to enter.

Local teams already expressing interest include Volante Rosso, Gilmour Racing, EvansGP, Team BRM and of course Tim Macrow Racing..

An Invitational Class will also form part of the FRA platform for earlier-generation Formula Regional and Toyota Racing Series (TRS) racecars, like the FT-50 currently competing in AFO2.

The Australian championship will receive support in the form of technical advisors supplied by Alfa Romeo and Toyota NZ.

Formula Regional is the second step on the FIA Global Pathway from karting to Formula 1 behind Formula 4 and now both of those first options are available in Australia from 2025.

“When the Australian F3 Championship ended in 2022, there was nowhere for them to race so we created AFO so as a home for any driver with an open-wheeler to compete because we believe in formula racing,” said Macrow.

“But if we’re to support young drivers in

getting the best start to a career overseas, with the best safety standards and technical support, moving to a platform like Formula Regional is what drivers and their parents, plus our partners are asking for.

“We’re grateful for the alliance with Formula Regional Oceania which believes in what we’re trying to do for young drivers in Australia. It works out perfectly logistically and operationally for both series to work together and it maximises the opportunities for drivers in this part of the world to get relevant race miles before progressing further internationally.”

Some race teams such as Volante Rosso and Gilmour Racing have already welcomed the news.

Formula Regional Australia promises to provide aspiring young open-wheel racers around the country with two opportunities in the ‘single-seater’ pathway system.

AUSTRALIAN F4 RETURNS IN 2025

It follows the return of the Australian F4 Championship, which was brought back to life this year, while the Australian Formula Open has been taking place for four seasons.

The Australian F4 Championship will return in 2025 with an even bigger calendar, exclusively on Australian soil.

After a four-round season that wrapped up in Malaysia this year, next year’s will be spread across five rounds.

Dates are yet to be confirmed but the season will start at Sydney Motorsport Park in March before a double header at The Bend.

In August, drivers will take on Phillip Island before a Sydney finale in September.

The calendar is not the only change that is coming in 2025.

For the first time both Generation 2 Tatuus and Generation 1 Mygale Formula 4 cars will be permitted to go racing side-by-side.

Drivers can be as young as 14 to jump behind the wheel of the Generation 1 Mygale Formula 4 car, while the minimum age for the Generation 2 Tatuus is 15.

Australian Formula 4 Gen 1 Masters Cup and Australian Formula 4 Gen 2 Masters Cup cars can also be raced with a minimum age of 18. The 2025 season will also be first promoted by AGI Sport after this year’s was run by Top Speed.

Thomas Miles

NEW VENUE FOR HILLCLIMB CHAMPIONSHIP – THE BEND EURO INVASION

IN A controversial decision, the South Australian State Council of Motorsport Australia voted on November 19 to award the running of the 2025 Australian Hillclimb Championship to Motorsport Service Solutions and Hillclimb SA, with the event to be staged on the East Circuit of Shell V-Power Motorsport Park (The Bend), on October 11-12.

These two organisations are experienced in running the Legends of the Lake Hillclimb at Mt. Gambier in the state’s south east and the Backbone Hillclimb at Inman Valley near Victor Harbor. However, both of these venues, along with the Willunga Hillclimb, are unsuitable for the Australian Championship as they are on closed public roads, which would prevent

open-wheelers from competing.

The event will use approximately half of the 3.93 km East Circuit in a reverse direction, starting at the pit complex and finishing at the far northern end of the circuit.

The South Australian running of the Australian title has been held exclusively at Collingrove Hillclimb in the Barossa Valley 14 times since 1954, the most recent being in 2017. The climb’s owners, the Sporting Car Club of SA have planned updates which include lengthening the track and upgrading facilities and had expected that this would secure them the event.

Opponents of The Bend proposal have criticised the lack of elevation change at that venue. John Lemm

THERE WILL be a strong European flavour for fans to taste at the 2025 Adelaide Motorsport Festival.

The announcements in recent weeks have kept on coming with some big European names and cars revealed to join the fun on March 6-9.

Having been recently crowned the 2024 British Touring Car Champion, Jake Hill (pictured) will be coming to the Festival, the weekend before the AGP..

Hill will turn heads steering the striking Shadow CanAm MKI Mosport, which he has previous experience with at Goodwood.

Once again, Sky Sports F1 commentator David Croft will be a big part of the event.

Croft will once again be appearing in the Adelaide Marriott Grand Marquee, interviewing guests and participating in signing sessions with fans.

He will also be starring at live shows at the Arkaba Hotel and The Bend Motorsport Park across the four days.

A Group A Mercedes that has quite the history will return to the streets of Adelaide.

A Mercedes 190E that was one of just two sent to Australia in the 1980s will appear at the event.

The car took part in the 1986 Bathurst 1000 and was steered to ninth overall and second in class by 1967 F1

Denny Hulme and Austrian skier Franz Klammer.

The sister #14 was driven by Andrew Miedecke and Jorg van Ommen and the former currently owns the car and has restored it.

Fittingly the Mercedes that was first owned by Helmut Marko raced in Group A touring car support races on the streets of Adelaide and will return four decades later having also won at DTM level.

Thomas Miles

champion

Nick Streckeisen shows that there is indeed some elevation change on the East Circuit ...

Formula Regional (formerly TRS) – coming to Australia in 2025. Formula 4 (below) – back again ...

SPRINTCARS STUN THE CITY

THERE WAS a lot of promise, mystery and intrigue surrounding how a speedway could be boldly inserted into the middle of a city and a Supercars event, but the overwhelming feeling is that it was a success.

Thousands of fans flocked to the NAPA Sprintcar Invitational held on a temporary 342m track that was dropped onto a cricket ground next to the Brock Straight during the VAILO Adelaide 500. It was hoped the bold idea would take the sport to a new level and it did, with drivers, teams and fans all buzzing after witnessing both nights of Sprintcar action.

The driver who emerged victorious having accumulated the most points across the two nights, Michael Stewart, was full of praise.

Having used his Speedcar background to good use, the Bohud Racing driver labelled the temporary track constructed by Allan Barlee and his team as one of the best he has raced on this season.

“Considering the track was built in five days, what it produced was probably one of the best in the country,” Stewart told Auto Action

“We have had some great races this year, but the first night (in Adelaide) was definitely the highlight.

“To see cars wheel-standing and doing

slide jobs, showcased the sport perfectly.

“I think everyone, no matter how they ran, really enjoyed it and hopefully the fans did too.

“As a driver it is mind blowing to be here with the Supercars on such a stage like this.”

Another driver to put his name into the history books was Kerry Madsen, winning the Friday night race.

At 53, Madsen has raced at the biggest events in Australia and America and

SPRINTCAR ACTION

is excited by the massive potential of racing at Adelaide.

“I think this event is going to get huge over the next five years,” Madsen told Auto Action. “It could become Australia’s Chilli bowl. They don’t need 200 cars, but I think it will just grow and become its own unique thing.

“It exceeded everybody’s expectations with all the excitement, the buzz and press, so everyone involved needs a pat on the back.

“There was so much negativity going into it and in the end everyone involved made it something special.”

Another driver who has stunned fans on the international stage is James McFadden, who was delighted by the interest in speedway from the Supercars fraternity with team personnel on the hill and many fans being in awe of the machines.

“I think for us the main goal was to put on a spectacle and we did that really well,” McFadden said.

“Hats off to the organisers for the way it was run. To build a track in a minimum amount of time and be rewarded with one that raced really well was very special.

“I feel like there are a lot of people in the motorsport world that knew what we had, but had not really seen it and now they have and there is a great buzz.

“The atmosphere has been unbelievable and especially the interaction from fans that are not from sprintcars.

“I have had a lot of people ask what is mechanical injection doing, being amazed at what our cars are.

“I feel like we have tapped into a different market and hopefully pushed the sport to new levels.”

Thomas Miles

Image: PETER NORTON

DRIVER-LED CONSORTIUM TAKES OVER TA2

THE TA2 Muscle Car Series enters 2025 with new owners after the formation of a competitor-led consortium.

Since TA2 started in 2017, it has been run by founder Peter Robinson and headlined the Hi-Tec Oils Super Series.

But a new era will begin in 2025 after drivers Mark Crutcher, Paul Hadley and Graham Cheney joined forces to acquire the category.

Crutcher hopes to build on the foundations laid by Robinson and take the category to greater heights.

“Our series is full of passionate and loyal competitors, many who have been there

from day one and we’re all so grateful to the Robinsons for what they have created and feel privileged to be chosen as the group to lead it into the future,” said Crutcher, who finished the 2024 season third in the standings.

“Our collective goal is to continue providing great service to our customers through the PBR Distributions business which has also been acquired, and to further enhance our position in the motorsport landscape.

“Racing is our life, and the TA2 Muscle Car Series is our home so we’re excited to bring fresh energy and ideas while

A NEW ERA BEGINS

IT WAS a big weekend for Kiwi motorsport as the new NextGen New Zealand Championship roared to life at Taupo last weekend.

Over 150 competitors across six categories went racing across three days at the tight and twisty Supercars circuit.

The Bridgestone GR86 Championship, Nexen Tyre New Zealand Mazda Racing Series, Pirelli Porsche New Zealand Race Championship, Super V8s, Summerset GT New Zealand Championship, and two grids in GTRNZ showcased a large variety of racing.

NextGen New Zealand Championship CEO Josie Spillane described the maiden event as a strong foundation.

“This weekend marks the beginning of something truly special for motorsport in New Zealand,” she said.

“We’ve brought together an incredible group of competitors and delivered a weekend of fast-paced action that will only grow as the season progresses.

“The energy from the drivers has been electric, and we couldn’t be happier with how the season opener went.

“Consider this our stake in the ground.

We have a big task ahead of us, and this weekend proved we’ve got the right team and formula to make the NextGen New Zealand Championship a very successful Motorsport entertainment package. We build from now.”

The battle for victory in the all-new Bridgestone GR86 Championship was extremely competitive.

The 25-car field produced three winners from as many races.

Hayden Bakkerus and Emerson Vincent burst out of the gates with early wins, but it was Hugo Allen, who snatched the overall round honours with victory in the final race.

The Pirelli Porsche New Zealand Race Championship boasted one of the most diverse grids of Porsche models seen in recent years, ranging from classic Boxsters and Caymans to the 991s, 992s, and more.

But the 992 of Steve Brooks was too good as he powered his way to three convincing victories.

A strong haul of 55 competitors spread across two grids featured in GTRNZ.

Glenn Smith dominated in the GTRNZ

honouring the incredible foundation built by Pete and his family.”

Robinson felt the time was right to put it up for sale after seeing the TA2 series he created growing bigger than he ever imagined.

“The TA2 Muscle Car Series started out many years ago as a passion project for myself and some racing friends but has quickly grown into two National Series, a West Coast Series and a New Zealand Series,” he said.

“However we have never forgotten our core goal which was to provide drivers a cost effective, high-horsepower, rear-wheel-

drive big bang-for-buck experience.

“With over 100 cars sold, this has now become a big business and the time is right to hand the baton to a group of individuals that I trust implicitly, and I know have both the desire and resources to further grow and develop the TA2 Muscle Car Series bigger than what I ever could.”

Over the last seven years, Russell Wright, Ashley Jarvis, Aaron Seton, John McLaughlin, Jett Johnson, Dylan Thomas and Josh Haynes have been crowned TA2 champions. A 2025 TA2 Muscle Car Series calendar is expected to be revealed in coming weeks. Thomas Miles

1/2 category, winning all three races in his McLaren 650S. However, it was not one way traffic in GTRNZ 3/4.

Ben Van Der Werff started strong and won twice in his Mitsubishi Lancer Evo 8, but his hopes of a clean sweep were denied by Peter Begovich in his Holden Commodore.

Rex Edwards continued his fine form in the Nexen Tyre New Zealand Mazda Racing Series.

After taking a year out following his 2022/23 title, he bounced back immediately with a win.

Mac Templeton and Callum Pratt were

victorious in the other two races.

Marco Giltrap’s homecoming was celebrated with three wins in the Summerset GT New Zealand Championship in a Porsche 992, while Sam Fillmore and Rick Armstrong battled for the minor places.

Grant Brennan won the first two Super V8 races in his Chevrolet Corvette before Brady Wild drove his Holden Commodore to the finale.

Following a Christmas break, a return to Taupo on January 10-12 kick starts a busy period of five rounds in as many weeks.

Thomas Miles

Marco Giltrap took three wins In GT NZ. Image: SHOTS BY TAY-B

INDY NXT AUSSIES READY FOR THE FUTURE

IN AMONG the 259,400 fans who attended the VAILO Adelaide 500 were a pair of Aussies preparing to take on Indy NXT in Lochie Hughes and Tommy Smith.

Both rising open-wheel stars will join the highly competitive series that is just one step below IndyCar in 2025.

Thanks to his USF Pro 2000 Championship series win, Hughes has landed a coveted drive with Andretti Global for 2025 that is covered by a US$681,500 scholarship thanks to that win..

After two years in FIA Formula 3, Smith will move from Europe to America and steer for HMD Motorsports.

Hughes is rearing to go and cannot wait to join the six-time Indy 500 winning team.

“It’s pretty excited to get going with everything, just to be part of Andretti,”

Hughes told Auto Action

“I can go and stand with the IndyCar boys during their races and stuff and be part of that.

“And to kickstart off the season at St. Pete’s always really fun. It’s exciting. Tampa is a really fun area. It’s more fun when you’re not driving.

“The good thing, actually, is the IndyCar Paddock is so international.

“There’s more international drivers than there are American drivers, so yeah, it’s a good mix.

“It is a proper race car and you race on proper tracks where, if you make a mistake, you usually end up in the fence or gravel or something.”

Smith admitted part of him still wished he was racing in Europe but is excited by the new challenge after even considering going to Australia.

“I’m disappointed to be off that European pathway because I always wanted to even have a chance to go to F2,” he said.

“That was my goal, so not to do that is a bit of a shame, but in hindsight, to make F1 these days, it’s so hard and there is so much politics involved.

“We looked at all the options. We even thought about coming back home to Australia, but I think America was always a good option.

“I’ve always loved watching that racing and I think I have a feeling I’ll enjoy it a lot more.”

Smith admitted he is excited by the more relaxed nature of racing in the US.

“The racing’s super good and there’s less bullshit, I guess,” he said.

“You get in and you don’t have one lap, you’ve got 10 laps. It’s really a driver’s car as well.

“I think I’ll love the environment and I spoke to my team-mate – actually from a couple years ago. He he went over and made the move and recommended it.”

Whilst they will be rivals, Hughes, who has been racing in the US for the last three years, even offered to help Smith adjust to American life off the track.

“I will help him as much as I can – though it would be better if he was in the same team!” he said.

“It is new for him and the simple stuff like just life in the US, getting around, where to live, all that sort of stuff, which makes a big difference.”

Read our full chat with the Indy NXT Aussie stars in the next issue of Auto Action.

Words and Image: Bruce Williams

Hughes (left) and Smith – headed for IndyCar’s NXT series in 2025.

OJEDA JUST MISSES TITLE

JAYDEN OJEDA represented Australia with plenty of purpose in the 2024 Eneos Super Taikyu Series, but fell just short of title glory.

Ojeda raced for Craft-Bamboo Racing (above) alongside Jeffrey Lee and João Paulo de Oliveira who were in a thrilling title tussle.

After seven rounds, the championship fight went down to the wire and the CraftBamboo Racing trio sat second, just 13 points behind ahead of the Mount Fuji finale.

However, they fell just short to Zhongsheng ROOKIE Racing, which won the race and the title as the #33 CraftBamboo Mercedes finished third.

However, things were looking very promising for Ojeda and his team.

They led the opening stages and looked on course for glory. But the team lost ground due to a number of unluckily-timed Full Course Yellows and two red flags.

Ojeda, Lee and de Oliveira tried to make up ground late, but ran out of time as just 56 laps were completed in the four-hour affair.

They ended up third, behind winner and champion Zhongsheng ROOKIE Racing and runner-up GTNET MotorSports.

However, Ojeda was still very proud of the campaign, that contained three poles, two wins at Autopolis and Okayama and two podiums.

“I had a great year competing with CraftBamboo Racing in our first season in the Super Taikyu series,” Ojeda said.

“It was a truly enjoyable experience driving in the Fuji 24, Okayama, and the final round back at Fuji.

“We showed a lot of good pace during one or two races along the way – really showed what Craft-Bamboo is capable of.

“A massive thank-you to all our team involved for the year and all my team-mates across the season.”

Thomas Miles

MANSELL SECURES RODIN F2 SEAT

AUSTRALIA’S CHRISTIAN Mansell has secured a seat on the grid for the full 2025 FIA Formula 2 World Championship with Rodin Motorsport.

It continues the 19-year-old’s rise up the ladder having finished fifth in this year’s FIA Formula 3 World Championship.

Mansell’s first drive with Rodin will be the post-season Abu Dhabi test after he completes the final three rounds of the 2024 F2 championship with Trident.

The Newcastle teenager immediately impressed at Baku, finishing eighth and 10th in his first two F2 races.

Mansell is the latest of a host of Australian and New Zealand based drivers who are under the Rodin Motorsport banner including Louis Sharp, Alex Ninovic and Peter Bouzinelos.

Mansell enjoyed a breakout 2024 F3

campaign with five podiums and hopes to carry on that momentum and follow in the footsteps of Oscar Piastri and Jack Doohan at F2 level.

“I am thrilled to be returning to Rodin Motorsport for the 2025 season,” he said.

“The team has always been supportive, and I am excited to build on our past successes together.

“I look forward to the challenges ahead and am ready to give my best on the track.”

It marks a return to Rodin Motorsport for Mansell, who represented the NZowned brand at British F4 level in 2020 and impressed with a race win and five podiums, finishing seventh in the championship.

Since then he has collected trophies at GB3 Championship and Euroformula Open level.

“We are pleased to welcome Christian back to the team here at Rodin Motorsport,” said Rodin’s F2 manager Benn Huntingford.

“We’ve been impressed watching his step up to the Formula 2 championship and know how great he is to work with from our previous seasons together.

“I’m looking forward to seeing him get behind the wheel of the car in Abu Dhabi testing with us and getting our season underway.”

Having already broken new ground in F3 as the first diabetic driver, Mansell will do the same in F2 and hopes Rodin can help him continue his progression up the ladder.

The 2025 Formula 2 season starts at the Australian Grand Prix.

Thomas Miles

EYES ON DAKAR AFTER BRUISING BAJA

TOBY PRICE and Paul Weel have their sights set on Dakar after retiring from the famous Baja 1000 event.

Price and Weel entered the event hoping to replicate their memorable Baja 500 victory, but mechanical failures brought their dream to an early end.

There was plenty of praise however, as the Australian pair qualified fourth in their #46 Mason Motorsports Chev Silverado Trophy Truck.

“It was not too bad, a little tricky. I might have been a little too cautious in a couple of turns,” Price admitted after the session.

“We got the truck here in one piece and did not tear anything up. All in all, we are ready for the race. It is a long race and anything can happen.

“The truck is really good and responsive.”

The SCORE World Desert Championship finale started positively for the Aussies with Price pushing it to second on the road and third on converted times after 120 miles.

to third before Price returned.

But 505 miles into the journey, disaster struck.

An oil pump failure saw the belt snap and bring the Baja 1000 to an early end for Price and Weel.

Both were disappointed by the bad luck, but said they will return with more determination.

“You can prepare for months and even years to win the Baja 1000, but nothing can ever prepare you for the wild problems you will encounter each and every time!” Price said.

“The main thing is that our boys are safe, and we’ll be back to fight for another victory in 2025.”

“Extremely disappointed as our entire team has gone above and beyond this past three weeks which I am very grateful for,” Weel said.

“Sorry to our partners and everyone who helps us pull this all together. We’ll be back!”

Thomas Miles

Weel and Brent Bauman then took turns behind the wheel, but dropped to fifth due to an untimely flat tyre. However, the duo fought back strongly, pushing the car back

Image: HIROYUKI ORIHARA

Image: GETSOME PHOTOS

MIXED FORTUNES FOR AUSSIES IN MACAU

THE 71ST Macau Grand Prix was a wild affair and two Aussies at the centre of it all were Cooper Webster and James Wharton. Both Aussies had their moments and showed strong pace at various stages throughout the weekend won by McLaren junior Ugo Ugochukwu.

In the end, Webster starred, forcing his way into the top five from 15th on the grid thanks to some gritty racing and the disqualification of team-mates Matteo de Palo and Rashid Al Dhaheri.

The Evans GP 21-year-old from Kilmore avoided the early drama and pushed hard to surge into the top 10.

Webster secured seventh on the road thanks to a late move on Prema driver Alex Dunne.

It was an impressive effort, considering Webster has mainly been on the sidelines in 2024, and was determined to make an impression with his 2025 plans unclear.

Webster was delighted to bounce back from the 5s penalty for hitting Noel in the qualifying race, which dropped him from 6th to 15th and still salvaged the best result by an Australian at the famous street race since Ryan Briscoe’s fifth back in 2003.

“I had an awesome time out there coming from 15th,” Webster said.

“Made some good moves and loved every second I got on this track.

“It was a great weekend full of highs and lows.

“In qualifying we were sixth and then unfortunately got a penalty in the qualifying

race which meant I had a difficult time.

“But I did all I could and am super-stoked with the result.”

Wharton was an unfortunate first-lap DNF, but that masked the full story in his first outing with 2025 FIA Formula 3 team ART.

The Melbourne teenager was thrown into the deep end with practice and qualifying being impacted by weather.

After being 15th in Qualifying 1, Wharton ended Qualifying 2 in the barriers and had to settle for 14th, having suffered a threeplace penalty.

The high point for the 18-year-old was Saturday’s Qualifying Race where Wharton made up strong ground.

He rose from 14th to 10th in the first three corners alone and managed to climb to seventh by the end of the disrupted dash.

Wharton had high hopes of being in the top five himself when the Macau Grand Prix began, but they diminished quickly.

The ART Aussie tried to steal sixth from Matteo de Palo at Lisboa around the outside, but ran out of road and found the barriers.

The incident brought out the red flag and ended Wharton’s weekend on a disappointing note.

Wharton said it was a tough learning weekend having lost valuable dry running in practice.

“I was a bit unlucky at the start and overall the weekend was not the easiest with Macau being my first street track,” he told Auto Action

“It was not easy when your first laps in the dry are qualifying, so we did not qualify where we could have.

“But the qualifying race was great.

Considering it is a track where it is very hard to overtake, I was super happy to make seven spots and halve my starting position.

“That shows how much pace we had going from 14th to seventh in three laps of racing.

“But it was all about learning the new team and getting comfortable with my engineer at ART.

“It was an important learning weekend on and off the track, but mistakes happen in our sport.”

Whilst the result was not planned, Wharton said it was a special experience racing on the famous streets of Macau.

“I really wanted to do it last year, but was really gutted to miss out so to do a race there finally was an amazing thing,” he said.

“It is just crazy that so much history is still there after 71 years.

“To drive on the same corners they used to race back then was really cool.

“It was my first time racing in Asia and that was a new experience as well.

“Pumped to race there and every driver always appreciates it.”

Thomas Miles

Former S5000 and GB4 winner, and Indian F4 champion, Cooper Webster shone in his first race for a very long time ... Above: James Wharton had a mixed weekend, but showed strong pace as he settled in with his 2025 team. Images: MOTORSPORT IMAGES

CONFIRMED: GENERAL MOTORS TO RACE F1 IN ’26 AS CADILLAC

IN A landmark deal for the sport, American giant General Motors will join the Formula 1 grid and become the 11th team in 2026.

Formula 1 has agreed a deal in principal with General Motors to enter the pinnacle of motorsport through its brand Cadillac.

Whilst General Motors will become the first new F1 team since Haas in 2016 a decade on, it will not have enough time to develop works engines for its first season.

For the first two years GM will be a customer of (most likely) Ferrari or possibly Honda, but the US manufacturer will eventually become a full works team by the end of the decade and be the first new manufacturer since Toyota in 2002.

It is also expected General Motors will take over the steps Andretti Global had already taken to set up a F1 team such as its Silverstone factory, wind tunnel and staff that includes former Renault figure Pat Symonds.

With Ford supplying Red Bull at the start of the new engine era, Supercars fans will be able enjoy the famous GM v Ford rivalry in F1 for the first time.

General Motors has never been a full blown Formula 1 manufacturer before with Cadillac engines only appearing when the Indianapolis 500 was part of the calendar.

“As the pinnacle of motorsports, F1 demands boundary-pushing innovation and excellence,” said General Motors President Mark Reuss.

“It’s an honour for General Motors and Cadillac to join the world’s premier racing series, and we’re committed to competing with passion and integrity to elevate the sport for race fans around the world.

“This is a global stage for us to demonstrate GM’s engineering expertise and technology leadership at an entirely new level.”

Following the appearance of GM officials

at last weekend’s Las Vegas Grand Prix, F1 announced the deal on Monday and stated the significance of the new team given its targeted growth in America.

“With Formula 1’s continued growth plans in the US, we have always believed that welcoming an impressive US brand like GM/Cadillac to the grid and GM as a future power unit supplier could bring additional value and interest to the sport,” said outgoing Liberty Media CEO and president Greg Maffei.

“We credit the leadership of General Motors and their partners with significant progress in their readiness to enter Formula 1.

“We are excited to move forward with the application process for the GM/Cadillac team to enter the Championship in 2026.”

The GM/Cadillac entry has been approved just 10 months after the original CadillacAndretti entry was rejected.

The revamped and approved project has come with original team founder Michael Andretti stepping back from his involvement. Instead the company that owns and

Although that means the famous Andretti name is not on the car, the ties still remain with 1978 Formula 1 world champion Mario Andretti aking on a director role that is “not involved in day-to-day operations”.

“I feel very lucky that I’ve been able to stick around for this long and do what I love for so long,” Andretti wrote on social media.

“And the idea that the Cadillac F1 Team wants me around ... I’ll help where I can – a non-executive role with the team, not involved in day-to-day operations (because I don’t want a job), but offering advice, inspiration, friendship anywhere I can.

“I am beyond fortunate.

“My first love was Formula 1 and now – 70 years later – the F1 paddock is still my happy place.

“I’m absolutely thrilled with Cadillac, Formula 1, Mark Walter, and Dan Towriss. To still be involved at this stage of my life — I have to pinch myself to make sure I’m not dreaming.”

Both the F1 and FIA presidents have voiced their support of the landmark deal.

“General Motors and Cadillac’s commitment to this project is an important and positive demonstration of the evolution of our sport,” said F1 President and CEO Stefano Domenicali.

“We look forward to seeing the progress and growth of this application, certain of the full collaboration and support of all the parties involved.”

“General Motors is a huge global brand and powerhouse in the OEM world and is working with impressive partners,” said FIA president Mohammed Ben Sulayem.

“I am fully supportive of the efforts made by the FIA, Formula 1, GM and the team to maintain dialogue and work towards this outcome of an agreement in principle to progress this application to bring a GM/Cadillac branded team on the grid for the 2026 FIA Formula One World Championship.

“All parties, including the FIA, will continue to work together to ensure the process progresses smoothly.”

operates Andretti Global, TWG Global, is associated with the General Motors Cadillac team.

GM President Mark Reuss. Below right: Mario Andretti – will fill an advisory director role.

F1 ACADEMY 2025 CALENDAR CONFIRMED

THREE NEW circuits for the series have been confirmed in the 2025 F1 Academy calendar.

The all-female F1 Academy championship will travel to China and Canada with a thrilling season finale in Las Vegas.

With the new additions, the series will be featured at seven F1 rounds in 2025, with two races over each weekend.

Manager of F1 Academy Susie Wolff has taken the series to new heights, exponentially growing each season.

It’s a major step forward for the sport, allowing young female drivers to develop their skills and experience at race weekends.

Along with F1 Academy, Susie Wolff runs an event called ‘Girls on Track’ at various races around the world, including the Melbourne Grand Prix. It is a program that gives women the individual experience during a race weekend to learn more about their chosen field of interest within motorsport.

The support and recognition is pivotal to ensure programs like F1 Academy and Girls on Track continue to thrive in years to come.

The 2025 season finale in Vegas will be a spectacle for Formula 1, with F1 Academy being the first single seater support series to race down the strip.

As well as the significant growth, the 2025 extended season will be supported by a docuseries coming to Netflix, which the organisation hopes will bring new fans to the sport. Ava Stone

GROVE RACING HEADING TO THE GULF AND GOING FOR GLORY

GROVE RACING will carry on GT racing into December as it will take on the Gulf 12 Hours in conjunction with 2 Seas Motorsport.

The combined entry will see the father-son combination of Stephen and Brenton Grove team up with Mercedes-AMG Performance Driver Jules Gounon in the Pro Am category at Yas Marina Circuit.

The Grove Racing team has joined the grids of some of the biggest GT3 races around the world including the 24 Hours of Spa, Dubai 24 Hours and 24 Hours of Portimão.

The Grove Mercedes has also been a regular in GT World Challenge Australia, securing a podium finish at Phillip Island.

It will complete a big year for the team having made the move from Porsche to Mercedes having raced the former a number of years.

They will be boosted by the union with 2 Seas Motorsport, which brings the world-renowned Gounon.

The 29-year-old is a three-time

Bathurst 12 Hour winner, with the latest Mount Panorama win just part of a special 2023 that also contained IMSA and GT World Challenge Europe Endurance Cup titles.

Brenton Grove revealed Grove Racing and Gounon have been hoping to race together for some time and made their overall ambition clear:

“Finishing our racing season in the Gulf 12 Hours is incredibly exciting. This will be our third time competing, but our first attempt at the overall win,” he said.

“With a full season in the MercedesAMG GT3 under our belt, we’re confident in achieving a strong result.

2 Seas Motorsport has an impressive track record at this event, having won twice before.

“Jules has been a friend for a while, and we’ve wanted to team up with him since switching to Mercedes-AMG.

“Having him with us for the weekend will be invaluable to learning even more about the Mercedes-AMG package, and we know that he will be a great driver to work with.”

Gounon reiterated the long standing partnership.

“I am very happy to be back with the guys at 2 Seas Motorsport,” he said.

“We came together and did a great job last year in Abu Dhabi, securing the Intercontinental GT Challenge title, so it’s a pleasure to be back.

“I’m also really pleased to join the Grove family for this event – we have been working hard for some time make it possible to race together, so I am delighted that we have been able to make this all come together for the Gulf 12 Hours.

“Really looking forward to a fun weekend with everyone and hoping we can bring some silverware home to sign off the year.”

The 12th running of the Gulf 12 Hours will take place on December 15 where the return of a split-race format will feature.

Things will kick off with an initial eight-hour race of survival before a four-hour sprint to the finish.

Thomas Miles

NEW COLOURS FOR POWER

AUSTRALIA’S WILL Power will chase further IndyCar glory in 2025 with a fresh livery on his Team Penske weapon.

Power will continue to be backed by long time supporter Verizon, but his #12 car has new colours.

The usual black and white has become red with a yellow striping spread across and along the car. It is a big change considering Power has almost exclusively raced the ‘black and white’ scheme since 2010, while 20162019 were the silver exceptions.

The only previous Penske livery that carried so much red was 2022 when Power drove his way to a second IndyCar title.

In 2025 the 43-year-old will be going for more glory after returning to both victory lane and

the top five in the standings last year.

All up, Power is one of the most successful ever in IndyCar, with a record 70 poles and 44 wins.

“It goes without saying that I owe so much of my success to Verizon,” said Power. “They have been with me throughout my time at Team Penske, with a lot of success both on and off the track.

“We have run a variety of paint schemes in that time, but never one that stands out quite like this one. New paint schemes keep things fresh and add an extra level of excitement to an already exciting time to be in the NTT INDYCAR SERIES.”

Power will first race in new colours on his #12 Penske Chevrolet on March 2 at St Petersburg.

BIG WEEKEND FOR READING AND YOUNG

THE FINAL rounds (two and three) of the Tasmanian Rally Championships (TRC) were held as part of Rally Tasmania, alongside the ARC decider last weekend..

It was a memorable weekend for defending Tasmanian champions Bodie Reading and Mark Young (Subaru Impreza WRX – pictured), who not only successfully defended their Tasmanian title, but also finished second overall in the ARC MainFix Production Cup, after claiming their maiden title in the same category last year.

This year’s Tasmanian championship series was a bit convoluted to say the least, with only one round held in the lead-up to Rally Tasmania.

The opening round, also held on the North-West Coast in April, was a single-heat event, with the next two rounds cancelled due to unforeseen circumstances, including dangerous weather.

With contenders only taking a bare minimum of points into the season finale, which included two heats on the Saturday (round two) and twoheats on the Sunday (round three), the points were heavily weighted towards the back of the season.

Consequently, a consistent weekend is what was needed to wrap up the outright title, which is exactly what Reading and Young were able to produce, winning three of the four heats on offer.

The only time their colours were lowered was in the first heat on the Saturday, with second-generation driver Aiden Peterson and co-driver Mitch Newton (also in a Subaru) getting the upper hand in the morning.

They were also consistent over the weekend, finishing second in the remaining heats, added to their round one runner-up effort, to wrap-up second in the championship by a considerable points margin.

Meanwhile, veteran David Thompson and co-driver Matthew Sanders (Ford Capri Perana V8), took advantage of the back-end points loading, winning three of the four heats in the two-wheel-drive category, to take out an unexpected championship, despite not running in the first round in April.

The pair also wrapped up backto-back ARC 2WD Classic Cup championships in the process.

Full TRC report, next issue.

Martin Agatyn

WORLD RALLY CROSS FOR AUS

THE SOUTH Australian Motorsport Board (SAMSB), with the full backing of the SA State Government, is working to secure a round of the World Rally Cross (World RX ) championship for Adelaide the week before next year’s Adelaide 500.

Representatives of World RX are reportedly in Adelaide this weekend, inspecting the venue and soaking up the atmosphere of the Adelaide 500.

The proposed track uses some of the existing racetrack before heading off the tarmac and into the parklands.

An announcement on the deal was originally planned for tomorrow, but it has

been postponed until the final parts of the deal are in place.

The World Rallycross Championship (World RX) is a motor racing series that features rallycross events, which combine elements of rallying and circuit racing. The series typically includes multiple heats and a final, with cars competing on mixed dirt and asphalt surfaces.

The series also has four classes – World RX, RX2E, Euro RX1, and Euro RX.

The championship has gained popularity in recent years, but exact television viewership numbers can vary significantly by season and demographic. On average,

around 10 million viewers tune in globally each year, although these figures can fluctuate.

The South Australian Motor Sport Board has been approached for comment but has yet to respond.

PROVISIONAL 2025 RX WORLD RALLYCROSS CALENDAR

Round 1 - Canada – 23-25 January

Round 2 – Hungary – 11-13 April

Round 3 – Portugal – 2-3 May

Round 4 – Great Brittan – 30 May-1 July

Round 5 – Finland 13-15 June

Round 6 – Sweden 4-6 July

Round 7 - Australia – 21-23 November

BIG CALENDAR FOR 2025 TROPHY TOUR

MOTORSPORT AUSTRALIA has revealed a six-round calendar for the 2025 Trophy Tour, which returns with a bang next year, racing at some of the best national tracks in Australia.

After a three-round debut in 2023, the Trophy Tour has doubled in size for its return in 2025 with visits to all three major states on the Eastern seaboard.

The races are open to national level races with the door open for state-level rounds to join in the fun.

Motorsport Australia has teamed up with circuits and organising clubs to create the calendar, which could further expand with the addition of further state rounds.

The season begins at Sydney Motorsport Park on March 21-23 before going south to Winton Motor Raceway a month later.

The Trophy Tour turns to the “Paperclip” at Queensland Raceway in May.

There will be two rounds in June, the first at Phillip Island and the second at the revived One Raceway.

It all wraps up with a return to Sydney Motorsport Park at the end of August.

The Motorsport Australia Trophy Series started as a three-round affair in 2023, but has not been seen in 2024.

However, it will be bigger and better in 2025 with six weekends confirmed.

The provisional calendar announcement

follows Motorsport Australia receiving requests from 16 national categories alongside extensive discussions with clubs and track owners to build alignment.

“The Trophy Tour empowers circuits and clubs to manage events sanctioned by Motorsport Australia via a new National Permit structure for this project, within Motorsport Australia’s proven framework,” Motorsport Australia’s Sporting & Technical Director, Lisa Crampton said.

“Our priority is to facilitate motorsport events for participants at all levels, the continued development of our officials, and delivering best-practice policies that ensure

safe and fair competition.

“We are grateful for the support and cooperation from circuits and affiliated clubs to publish such an extensive list of events upon which categories can now build their national calendars.”

Steven Bossard and Christian Veiby compete during the FIA World Rallycross Championship in Istanbul 2024. Image: REDBULL CONTENT POOL Image:MTR

Image: DAVID McINTEE,DMAC PHOTOGRAPHY

COLLINSON EDGES KROEF

AFTER THREE races in the UDC V8 Utes Series Round Two at Hampton Downs, Glen Collinson emerged as the round winner in front of one of the biggest fields.

Collinson narrowly edged a valiant charge from Brad Kroef, with father Greg in third making it an all-Ford podium. Yet it all came down to the last race.

With one win apiece for Brad and Glen coming into the afternoon,  it was the Betta/ Link-up Paints Ford FG piloted by Collinson that prevailed.

Yet the less-experienced but immensely talented Brad Kroef made sure he earned it.

Race Two in the morning was a reversegrid format, with Collinson starting at the back of the field alongside Brad Kroef.

But it didn’t take long for these two talents to show their class.

Daniel Ludlam and Paul Fougere, both in Holden utes, led the field ahead of tail-enders Tyler Ward and Jeremy Hunt.

A spin for Tyler Ward on the third lap prompted a safety car and the field bunched up.

When racing re-commenced a lap later, geotech engineer Brad Kroef dug a trench through the mid-field and was up to fourth by lap four.

But Glen Collinson was menacingly close behind.

Meanwhile up front, Paul Fougere had let his lead slip to Daniel Ludlam as the deck was being shuffled behind him.

Just two laps later Brad Kroef had found his way to the front, yet a tenacious Daniel Ludlam was clinging onto second with

Collinson in his slipstream in third.

Phill Ross, meanwhile, had worked his way up to fourth after starting near the back.

Yet Ludlum’s luck was to run out on the last lap with a massive spin, gifting second place to Collinson, while Ross rounded out the podium in third.

So it was all down to Race Three in the afternoon to decide the round winner.

Collinson led the start with Brad Kroef right on his tailgate, followed by Phill Ross. Greg Kroef eventually found a way around Ross,

but by then, the leaders were already over 6 seconds ahead the chasing pack.

Near the end of an almost incident-free race, Paul Fougere went sideways on the final hairpin of the final lap, yet quickly regathered - denting his pride but not his ute.

And despite Phill Ross trying every trick in his arsenal to get around Greg Kroef in third, Greg kept his cool – and third place.

After the race, a weary Greg Kroef emerged from his helmet admitting “I think I was looking in my rear view mirror more than I

was looking in front”, such was his quest to hold off Phill Ross.

And despite the weekend hosting 15 utes - the biggest field of the season, racing was remarkably drama-free with only newcomer Tim Griffith sidelined with mechanical issues.

The UDC V8 Utes now take a Christmas break, resuming hostilities in the new year at ‘Thunder Down Under’ 24-25th January in Timaru.

Glenn Churches

BUIST CLAIMS MAINLAND RALLY CHAMPIONSHIP TITLE AFTER DOUBLEHEADER

BUIST has come out on top winning the overall 2024 Mainland Rally Championship title after the completion of the final two rounds over the weekend.

Having won the Rally of North Canterbury on Saturday, Buist (Ford Escort) finished runner up to Marcus van Klink (Mazda RX7 Group B) in the Westland Rally on Sunday.  Second overall was Robbie Stokes (Ford Escort) with van Klink third followed by James Worker (Mitsubishi Evo 6) and Dylan Thomson (Ford Fiesta R2).

Stokes led the series heading into the weekend, 17-points ahead of Buist but a sixth and fourth placed him just four-points behind on Sunday night.

Stokes was the top MRC car in the opening two events, Otago Rally (April) and the South Canterbury Rally (May) while van Klink came home first in Rally Canterbury (June).

It was Mark McMilan (Subaru Impreza WRX) who took maximum points at the Wyndham Rally.  Meanwhile Buist continued to gather points finishing strongly with a win and a second place in the last two rounds.  For overall results, it is the best five of the six round series.

The battle for seven different MRC Class titles were also decided with the best four results of the six rounds. Mike Matheson (Toyota Vitz) won Class A (0-1300cc) from Pat Norris (Toyota Yaris) and Josh Silcock

(Toyota Starlet).  Norris’ co-driver Gordon Legge was top co-driver in the class.

Jack Stokes (Ford Fiesta) edged out Harri Silcock (Toyota Starlet) in Class B (1301-1600cc) by just 12-points with Sarah Faulkner the top co-driver in class.

Deane Buist’s and Marcus van Klink were tied first in Class C (1601cc and over) with Buist given first due to his competing in five rounds versus van Klink’s four.  Toby Marsh was the top co-driver in class as well as winning the overall Co-Drivers

Championship Trophy.

While he may have missed the first three rounds, James Worker picked up enough points in Class D (4WD) to win the title from Caleb MacDonald with Gemma Thomas top co-driver in class.

Shane McKenzie (Mitsubishi Galant) was first home in the North Canterbury Rally in Class E (Pre 2000 4WD) giving him enough points to claim the title ahead Nigel Ede (Subaru Legacy RS).   Mark Grimmer picked up the co-drivers’ award in class.

A dnf for Ally Mackay (Ford Escort Mk1) in the penultimate round on Saturday gave Stephen Gill (Ford Escort Mk2) the advantage in Class F (Classic 2WD), sealing the title after the Westland Rally with his codriver Grant Molloy taking top spot as well. Amy Keighley (Subaru) and Tom Milliken (Subaru) continued their battle in Class H6 with Keighley first home in both rounds and taking the title.  Milliken’s co-driver, Chris Cunningham, picked up the Class co-drivers award.

DEANE

Image: DILLONPHOTONZ

Image: TERRY MARSHALL

WILL NEALE has extended his lead in the 2024/25 Yokohama South Island Formula Ford Championship after winning three races including the prestigious Wigram Cup at Christchurch.

While Neale initially took the lead, on the main straight Petch was able to get by on his right while Grant slipped passed on his left.

NEALE WINS WIGRAM CUP LEITCH WINS WORLD LAMBORGHINI TITLE

With home track advantage, Neale also finished second in the second race at the Wigram Revival meeting with the win going to rival, Auckland’s Dylan Grant.

“Very happy with the weekend,” said Neale.

“We made the best of what we have as we are still struggling with engine power.” It had been close racing on Saturday at the Euromarque Motorsport Park in Ruapuna.

First, Neale (Van Diemen RF94) put his car on pole position winning the Hampton Downs NZ Racing Academy $500 cash prize for fastest qualifier with Dylan Grant (Van Diemen RF03) second quickest ahead of Dylan Petch (Van Diemen RF93), Jake Bryant (Van Diemen RF94), Jack NobleAdams (Ray GR21) and Izaak Fletcher (Ray GR20).

In the first of four races on Saturday afternoon, it was Grant that took the lead from Neale, Petch, Bryant and NobleAdams.

However, it was Neale who crossed the line ahead of Grant and Petch.

Grant reversed the top order winning the second race on Sunday morning and his first of his southern season.

He took the lead after Neale bogged down on the line dropping to fourth and having to work his way through to second on the line.   Petch finished third with Fletcher fourth ahead of Noble-Adams.

The third race of the weekend had a dramatic conclusion for two of the top runners, denting both their overall title chances.

However, once both were passed, they came together causing significant damage resulting in neither driver finishing and crucially no championship points.

“We got a little bit lucky after both Dylan’s (Grant and Petch) came together,” said Neale.

“It’s still very competitive as we saw in the last race when Dylan Petch got his car together and was quick out of the gate.

“I’ve been struggling with my starts all weekend which has been stressful.”

The final race of the weekend was the 12-lap Wigram Cup which saw Neale once again take the lead from Petch, Bryant, Noble-Adams and Fletcher.  Grant had been unable to make the start while Petch made it just in time.

“The car wasn’t terrible,” said Petch.

“Towards the end it was all over the place. It was a good outcome from a skewed car. We had to put green (new) tyres on it as we destroyed two of the rims in the crash.

“We didn’t really get a chance to pressure the tyres properly so we went high, and they came in pretty much bang on at the start but then eventually Will was able to create the gap.”

Neale led all the way to the chequered flag to etch his name on the Wigram Cup with Petch second ahead of Noble-Adams and Fletcher.

“We got some good points although I would have preferred not to get the DNF (in Race 3),” said Petch.

For his efforts Petch picked up the NAPA Auto Parts Driver of the Day Award.

The next round is at Teretonga Park Raceway, Invercargill on December 7-8.

KIWI BRENDON Leitch drove his way to victory in the Lamborghini Super Trofeo World Finals at Jerez with Anthony McIntosh.

The Leipert Motorsport pair perfectly negotiated a busy four-day event that was split into two parts with the final leg of Lamborghini Super Trofeo Europe followed by the World Finals.

In inclement conditions, Leitch and McIntosh claimed third place in the opening race of the weekend before finishing fifth in the Super Trofeo Europe season finale.

But sunny skies arrived for the World Finals that featured some of the best Pro and Pro-Am line-ups from Europe, America, and Asia.

Leitch started third and won a chaotic race by 1.6s.

Meanwhile, in Race 2 Leitch started seventh and charged forward to second quickly before handing the car over to McIntosh, who inherited the lead and held it in the final stint.

As a result, the pair took maximum times to seal the World Finals.

It completes a big year for Leitch, who won races in GT World Challenge Australia and made his IMSA debut.

“Tony brought the thing home for us and did an amazing job at the end,”

said Leitch.

“He was battling in amongst the Pros and I couldn’t have asked for a better teammate myself. Crazy race for us. Nervous the whole way.

“I agreed with him when he said yesterday that it’s much harder watching than driving.”

It capped off a near-perfect weekend for McIntosh, who also claimed Am class honours in Lamborghini Super Trofeo North America.

“I couldn’t have done it without Brendon. He’s been amazing, an amazing co-driver.” said McIntosh.

“I’m going to have to come up with a new slogan because back to back, this is crazy.

“I don’t know if I’m living in a dream or am I actually still in a dream, and if so, don’t wake me up!”

Some great racing and in the Firmula Fords, but the coming together of Grant and Petch was a dramatic moment. Images: TERRY MARSHALL

PUBLISHER Bruce Williams

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LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

Email: editor@autoaction.com.au

Postal: Suite 4/156 Drummond Street. Oakleigh Victoria 3166

BROWN AND KOSTECKI HAVE BEEN BREATH OF FRESH AIR CONGRATULATIONS TO Will Brown on winning the Supercars Championship.

I don’t have anything seriously against Kiwis, but after all the wins by Shane van Gisbergen and Scott McLaughlin in the last few years it has been nice to see Brodie Kostecki and now Will Brown take the title.

Keep it up guys. All the best for 2025.

Sally Collins Gold Coast, Queensland TAKE THE BULLS BY  THE HORN ON PEREZ AND DOOHAN

SERGIO PEREZ has gotta go. He is a joke of an F1 driver.

He’s going to cost Red Bull the Constructors’ championship when for most of the season its car has still been the best in the field.

If it’s true that Jack Doohan’s Alpine drive is in some jeopardy before next season starts, Red Bull should incorporate him into RB Bulls and promote Yuki Tsunoda or Liam Lawson to be Max Verstappen’s teammate. Immediately.

Jack already has Red Bull connections.

Perez just ain’t up to it.

Apart from his money from Carlos Slim, he must have photos of someone.

Patrick Johnstone Chelmer, Queensland KEEP STADIUM TRUCKS IN CIRCUS OR THE OUTBACK

THE ADELAIDE 500 was good event, It was worth the drive and I’m glad we went.

The Supercar races were very exciting and good quality.

It was just a shame that a Ford couldn’t pull off a win.

There was also some very highquality racing across the support

classes, which added to the show.

But those off-road trucks are a dangerous joke and have no place at an event like that.

My wife Betty and I went to watch quality racing, not a bunch of clowns showing off.

The trucks that rolled, well they are lucky that no-one got killed. The fuel tank coming out of one of those vehicles on fire, bouncing down the track, I can only imagine what sort of preparation they had. They should stick to the circus or the outback.

Brian Randall Orange, NSW

TCM A MUCH BETTER  OPTION THAN BEING  CATTLE-TRUCKED

I JUST came back from the Adelaide 500.

Overall the racing was great and the event is bigger than Texas, and having the speedway in the middle of the venue with Sprintcars racing was terrific. I used to go to watch speedway before the family arrived, but having seen them racing again I might make a bit more of an effort to get down to Warrnambool and see them race some more.

The support events were pretty good. I liked the Trans Am cars, but the question I want to ask is how much did it cost the SA taxpayers, on top of the cost of the event, to have the stupid jumping trucks attend the event?

They were a joke and looked pretty dangerous. It’s bloody lucky they didn’t kill a spectator when the petrol tank came out of one them during a crash.

You would think they would be built better than that.

I heard that they had to change the track time from races to ‘demos’ so that they could go back out on track, then they had to put on a show and still managed to crash them again. Seems like a big waste of

WEBSTER’S WARBLE

Our inveterate correspondent says loyal F1 fans have been seriously disadvantaged, but has a formula to remedy the injustice.

GRAND PRIX TICKETING SYSTEM HAS BECOME A COMPLETE SHAMBLES BEFORE COVID-19, if you were a regular grandstand attendee at the Australian Formula One Grand Prix, there was GP Advantage and it was great.

money when there are other categories like TCM that can’t get on the program because of no room at the inn.

I was pissed off that they didn’t get on the program as they are normally a great part of the show.

How about we get rid of the jumping trucks and get TCM back on the show?

Brian Ward Bendigo, Victoria WELL DONE BROWN AND BULLS, BUT BEWARE THE PONIES IN 2025

ANOTHER MAGNIFICENT fourday carnival in Adelaide done and dusted.

On Saturday 888 Racing was again on song, which was heartbreaking for Ford supporters.

Tickford was outsmarted by strategy and gave up track position and the Bull was full steam ahead from there.

Sunday was just a last day at school with hard racing and plenty of penalties.

Congratulations must go to Will Brown on such a consistent year of racing and winning the championship.

So many times on the podium proved the difference between him and Broc Feeney.

Earlier in the year there was signs that the two talented Red Bull drivers would be one and two in the championship.

A lot of their success is because of the ultimate professional team they drive for.

It’s not only the ponies that need to be more competitive. All teams are behind 888. Last year proved it can be achieved.

Will 2025 be the year the Bull has to chase the Pony around the tracks?

One can only hope.

Merry Christmas to all at AA and your readers.

Nomadic Phil & Wandering Wendy

After each year’s Oz GP you would be contacted, either by email or by traditional correspondence, asking if you would like to have the same seat for the following year’s event.

If your answer was ‘Yes’, that seat was yours.

GP Advantage has now been discontinued and this has made it a lot harder for the loyal and regular fans who would like to have the same grandstand seat.

The ticketing for the 2025 Australian GP has been a complete shambles.

A lot of regular fans have missed out completely.

Ticket prices have gone up a lot as well.

People here are looking to buy tickets for other Formula One events like Singapore.

The Australian Grand Prix Corporation and Ticketmaster should revive GP Advantage and, as a way to help reduce ticket prices, why not have a Melbourne 500 Supercars event at the Albert Park GP circuit in late February?

If GP Advantage was revived it would allow the loyal and regular fans who want to have their same grandstand seat a far greater opportunity to do this and there would be a lot more satisfied customers.

If there was a Melbourne 500 Supercars event at the same circuit it could use the same grandstands, corporate facilities, food outlets and pit garage facilities as the GP because they would all be in place and could be operated in a very similar way to the Adelaide 500.

This would attract hundreds of thousands of motorsport fans. The revenue from a Melbourne 500 could go towards covering the costs to stage the GP - and maybe this could help reduce the ticket prices for the F1 event.

The Supercars could still take part at the GP as a major support event – a Victoria 400 comprising sprint races. Malcolm Webster Boronia, Victoria

Nice to see some Aussies winning says reader Sally Collins ... Image: MARK HORSBURGH

AND THE WINNER IS …

THE SUPERCARS championship is over for another year. The right guy won – as with last year, it was decided by Saturday night in Adelaide, leaving the Sunday finale as a stress-reduced all-in shootout. And the new champ put a decisive full-stop on his season by winning that too – somehow – after being turned around in the early running. It made for a pretty satisfactory end to a season during which we learned more about the newgeneration Gen-3 Supercars –including the speed with which they can apparently be repaired after seemingly massive shunts!

Parity – performance parity –remains an ongoing and more complex than ever factor in Supercars racing. The introduction of full-on (and horrendously expensive), scientific analysis – via US-based wind tunnels (replacing the ad-hoc running up and down an air strip that had sufficed for years) and extensive ‘transient’ dyno comparison of the two engines brought the two competing brands as close to even as they’ve ever been. Indeed, you’d have to think that this attention to detail and fair competition must have been a factor in finally attracting Toyota, after all this time, to join the circus in 2026. Nevertheless, there are still suggestions by some of an inequality – straight-line performance, especially at venues

with Chris Lambden CL ON CALL

with decent straights … especially Bathurst, the jewel in the crown.

Ford drivers still maintain that the Camaros are edging away as the speeds rise – and, as a result, Tim Edwards and his tech team are reportedly headed back to the US for more analytical work. Really.

But with the final points tallied, in both Drivers’ and Manufacturers’ championships for 2024, there’s a clear picture.

The two leading Chev Camaros, both from Triple Eight, went into the final round as the only title contenders. Where were the rest of the GM cars? Nowhere.

Indeed, after the Triple Eight pair, the next four drivers in the championship were Ford drivers – Mostert, Waters, Randle and Payne; and the next four teams in the Teams’ championship were Ford teams – Tickford, WAU, Grove Racing and Dick Johnson Racing.

Erebus was next but, to be fair, it might well have finished higher up without its disjointed start to the year – and they did win Bathurst … But take out Triple Eight and 2024 would have been a Ford-fest

championship-wise.

To be honest, from a distance, fans would be excused for concluding that there’s really no parity problem – it’s just Triple Eight.

Interestingly, new champ Will Brown refers to “the Triple Eight way” in his interview later in this issue, after his first – and winning –year with the team.

It points to an attention to every fine detail that has remained through different team ownerships and different drivers. More so, it points to winning relationships between drivers and engineers that have also survived the test of time –indeed opposition teams who have convinced Triple Eight personnel to join them haven’t yet quite hit the mark.

It’s interesting. Is there any other factor that keeps the team at the top? Maybe it’s budget – cash always helps, and there’s barely space on the blue cars to fit all the big commercial sponsor names these days …

Back in the Gen-2 days, I was convinced that the team had a tweak, or paid particular attention, to

looking after the car’s tyres set-upwise. They always seemed to hang in there better and come on a bit stronger at the end of longer races and endurance race stints.

Whatever that was, it does seem to have transferred across to the new generation car, which has way more ‘controlled’ structure and common parts than the previous model.

Maybe it’s just that the team focuses on just that – tyre deg –even at the cost of qualifying speed … though that too is hardly falling short.

Either way, it’s possible to conclude that breaching the gap to the front, on a regular basis, for any of those Ford teams will come from within. Less strategy muffs and minor technical issues. Fine detail.

Looking ahead to next year, there are some significant changes (and with Toyota to come in 2026, positive ones). The biggie, and most-discussed, is the move to a NASCAR-style ‘Finals’ series. Being a traditionalist, I have mixed views on it – especially when NASCAR itself is about to undertake an extensive review of its series make-up following the 2024 Cup Series win, via the late-season knockout phase, by Joey Logano – who was literally nowhere for the first half of the year.

At the same time, massive fines and suspensions were also handed out for ‘race manipulation’ as the field narrowed down to the final four.

On the other hand, Australian sport

– the various football codes and BBL cricket in particular – has a love affair with Grand Finals, a bit like the US and Superbowl.

Will motorsport fans take to it? It’s locked in for next year so I guess we’ll see. It will certainly affect team strategy as the year progresses.

Early form won’t matter so much but by the time teams assemble for the three long-distance races, there’ll be an array of different factors in play – and Adelaide will be manic.

Of all the imminent off-season changes, those at DJR are the most obvious and interesting.

Brodie Kostecki is seen as a techsavvy driver and not only is bringing his two key engineers with him, but also Erebus-spec chassis. (Note: Erebus had no compulsion to allow DJR to access its chassis builder but has done so … Think about it …).

Let’s say it’s a huge success and DJR re-emerges at the top, with Kostecki on a rampage, winning plenty, and going into the four-driver Adelaide Final well on top of the table.

Then he gets a puncture on Sunday … championship over. On the other hand, it could provide a fascinating four-way Sunday decider. All things are possible. In the end, it’ll be fan response which will guide next year’s end-of-season review. But it’s going to be very different …

Will Brown tries to match Russell Ingall’s ‘out the door’ championship burn-out ... Image: MARK HORSBURGH

GM SET TO BECOME 11TH F1 TEAM BY 2026

THE DEPARTURE of Greg Maffei from his role as CEO of Liberty Media has rekindled Andretti Global’s plans to enter the Formula 1 World Championship as soon as possible.

But with Michael and Mario Andretti no longer directly involved in the project, General Motors is said to have taken full control of the Formula 1 bid, with new Andretti Global CEO, Dan Tawriss, remaining in his position for now.

Earlier this week, the company launched a campaign to hire another 25 people to the structure that has been working on its proposed Formula 1 car at its Silverstone base, to add to the nearly 200 people that have already been working on the project for quite a while.

Spending a couple of million pounds (A$3.6m) per month on salaries, as well as facing big bills in material, software, factory maintenance and so on would seem a terrible waste of money for a team that has had its entry to Formula 1 turned down by the Commercial Rights Holder, but things have definitively changed in the aftermath of the departures of the Andretti family from the company and Greg Maffei from Liberty Media.

As both Maffei and Michael Andretti, who had a terrible personal relationship, are now out of the picture and there are instructions from the top of Liberty Media to find a compromise solution and avoid the new Judiciary Committee of the US House of Representatives concluding its investigation into Andretti Global’s complaint unfavourably.

During the Las Vegas Grand Prix, almost all team principals admitted the door could now be open for General Motors, as there’s no excuse for the sport to turn down one of the biggest car manufacturers in the world, with Christian Horner summarising everyone’s

feelings when he admitted “we’ve got no issue with them coming. We’d welcome them with open arms – but you don’t want to see the prize fund diluted. So the question will be whose side of the cake does it come out of?

“Probably a bit of everybody’s. But can you imagine Ford versus General Motors? That’s going to be pretty sexy.”

Zak Brown, who has always been the project’s only ally among the teams, admitted he’s expecting the deal to be confirmed soon.

Speaking to British TV in Las Vegas, the McLaren CEO stated that “I kind-of know what I’m hearing on the grapevine. We’ve not been officially told anything, but we’re partners with GM with our IndyCar team –

I’ve seen them here and they seem to have big smiles on their face.”

The American added that, “I believe an announcement is probably imminent and it will be exciting to have yet another manufacturer alongside Audi joining our sport. They’ve got a great history in motorsport, General Motors, so  I think it’s great, more competition and something for the fans to get excited about. They love new Grands Prix, new Power Units, new racing teams, new racing drivers, so I think it will be exciting.”

With GM’s own Power Unit program set to see track action only by 2028, and with it being impossible to accelerate the process, Ferrari has emerged as the team’s first Power

Unit supplier, for 2026 and 2027, although the branding of the Italian engines is more likely to be taken by a commercial sponsor. For the Scuderia, adding a third team at the start of the new Technical Regulations’ period will be an advantage, as its Power Units will get more mileage in testing and racing, replacing for two years the deal lost to Sauber once Audi takes full control of the Swiss team.

MONACO AND CANADIAN GPS LEAD 2026 CALENDAR SHAKE-UP

THE 2026 Formula 1 calendar will fit all European races in the same window, a move designed to reduce the amount of traveling people and cargo have to do during the season, as the sport continues its push to become carbon neutral by 2030. At the same time, from 2027, Australia’s spot as the season opener will be handed to the Middle East, with Albert Park hosting the third round.

The Canadian Grand Prix will move forward to May from the start of the 2026 Formula 1 World Championship, while the new deal that will keep the Monaco Grand Prix in the Formula 1 calendar at least until the end of 2031 includes a date change that will come into effect only in 2026, the traditional race moving to the middle of June.

The promoter of the Canadian Grand Prix, Octane Racing Group, announced that “in support of Formula 1’s efforts to rationalise the race calendar and make it more sustainable” they will be “hosting the event earlier than has been the practice in recent years.” The race promoter than confirmed that “from 2026, the Canadian Grand Prix is planned to be scheduled on the third or fourth weekend of May each year.”

According to Formula 1’s statement, “the move will allow the European leg of the season to be consolidated into one consecutive period over the European summer months and is

planned to remove an additional transatlantic crossing by the Formula 1 community each year, with significant associated carbon reductions.”

The commercial rights owner then pointed out that “this announcement builds upon the changes already made to the calendar by F1 in recent years to create a more rationalised schedule. The Japanese Grand Prix has moved to the Spring to align with races in the Asia Pacific region; Azerbaijan has moved to the Autumn as the Championship turns east to Singapore; and Qatar has moved to be closely aligned with Abu Dhabi at the end of the season. As previously announced,

as part of this wider rationalisation of the calendar, the Monaco Grand Prix will be contested on the first full weekend in June each year from 2026.”

As for Monaco, Formula 1 has been able to double the promoters’ fee paid by the Automobile Club of Monaco from the start of 2026, the new deal now worth around A$42m per year for the sport’s commercial rights owner. Having already taken away the ACM’s ability to sell its own sponsorship packages for the Grand Prix in the most recent deal, Formula 1 has now agreed the Monegasques can get some income from selling hospitality packages in the areas that are not reached by the Paddock Club or Formula 1 Experiences.

Domenicali’s new plan is to have races in Europe alone from the end of May until the end of August, squeezing 10 races around the Summer break, with six flyaway races at the start of the season and another nine closing the championship. That means Formula 1 is already planning to extend the calendar to 25 Grands Prix in 2026, when Madrid will take over the Spanish Grand Prix, but Barcelona will still have one year left on its contract.

The start of the season will also be changed again from 2027, when Ramadan will take place early enough to allow Bahrain and Saudi Arabia to return to their slots as the first two races of the year, with Australia going back to hosting the third Grand Prix of the season.

The Andrettis, Mario and Michael, chat with the Sky crew – they’re out of the equation now. Images: MOTORSPORT IMAGES

Monaco – moving to June in 2026 ...

GM even has a fresh new logo – designed to ‘focus’ on electric vehicles ...

HARSHER THAN KING SOLOMON’S RULING

I PRESUME you’re all familiar with King Solomon’s famous ruling regarding the fate of a baby claimed by two women as their son. In summary, the King ordered the baby be cut in half, with each woman to receive one half; while one accepted the compromise, the second begged Solomon to give the baby to her rival, as he would live, even without her and it was her who got handed the child. Well, Liberty Media owner/ chairman John Malone and General Motors have gone further than the King in the way they seem to have resolved the conflict between Andretti Global and Formula 1. That conflict had, so far, prevented the American manufacturer from gaining entry into the sport and was threatening to be tremendously costly for the Commercial Rights Owner, as there were strong indications the Judiciary Committee of the US House of Representatives would soon

rule against the sport’s decision. For General Motors it would be humiliating to see its Formula 1 project turned down by the sport and it quickly became clear to the big bosses in Detroit that as long as Michael Andretti was leading the proposed team entry, they would be going nowhere. The 1991 IndyCar Champion had managed to upset everyone involved in the sport since the start of the process, from Greg Maffei to all the team principals, with the exception of Zak Brown, his attitude being labeled as tremendously arrogant all round … Fearing for its project, General Motors has decided to go the

extra mile and take over the proposed Formula 1 entry – but, according to solid American sources, found that Liberty Media’s CEO Greg Maffei was still blocking their efforts. So, they did what big corporations do: they went over Maffei’s head, negotiated directly with the 83-years old Malone, who called Stefano Domenicale to the table, and between them a compromise was reached. GM was the first to make a public move, with Michael Andretti announcing he was stepping down from all executive roles at Andretti Global, with the not particularly credible excuse he wanted to spend more time with his young

grandchildren. Then, after the Brazilian Grand Prix, Liberty Media announced Greg Maffei would be leaving the company … so the two stumbling blocks for the deal to be done have now been removed.

Two heads were cut off and suddenly everyone is prepared to welcome the new team with open arms.

Which they should because who, in their right mind, would turn down an entry from General Motors? Of course the prize money will be diluted, as there will be 11 teams taking a cut rather than 10, but the potential to find sponsors in the US will continue to grow with the country’s biggest manufacturer involved in Grand Prix racing and the fan base there will also improve.

I know Formula 1 is making all the right noises about TV numbers in the US growing a lot, but the fact is, for a country with a population of 345 million, a Grand Prix viewership of just

above one million per race is not great. General Motors and Ford coming into Formula 1 in 2026 will surely raise the sport’s profile in the USA – they will invest in TV advertising, so they’ll generate, in short, more public interest, more sponsors, more money …

How competitive the team will be from day one; how it will operate from a base in Indiana and another in Silverstone; who’ll be leading the technical and the sporting side; and how good will their Power Units be once GM has its own engines ready by 2028 are all questions that will take a few years to start being answered.

For now, having GM joining Formula 1 has to be considered good news for everyone involved in the sport. Even if there’s going to be a short-term loss of income for the teams and the Commercial Rights Holder, the big manufacturer’s entry into Grand Prix racing will bring more money to all.

with Luis Vasconcelos

Then there was one ... With F1 Chairman Chase Carey (right) long gone and Liberty Media President Greg Maffei (left) about to depart, and the Andrettis sidelined, the pathway was cleared for Liberty Chairman John Malone (centre) to put the GM deal together, with Stefano Domenicali, for an F1 entry from 2026. Image: MOTORSPORT IMAGES

WITTICH STATES HE WAS PUSHED – DIDN’T RESIGN …

NIELS WITTICH’S sudden departure from his role as Formula 1 Race Director was far from consensual, according to the German official.

While a brief statement from the FIA claimed that “Niels Wittich stepped down from his position,” the man himself gave a brief quote to a leading German motorsports website in which he made it clear that “I have not resigned!”

The fact Wittich ‘stood down’ from his role when there are still three Grand Prix to go until the end of the Formula 1 season was already a good indicator that the German’s departure from the FIA structure was a rushed one. Had there been a mutual agreement about parting ways, it would have made a lot more sense to have Wittich complete the season before handing over the role of Race Director to Rui Marques,

giving more time to the man who has been Formula 2 and Formula 3 Race Director in the last two years to ease himself into this new role.

There were also signs that FIA president Mohammed Ben Sulayem had been preparing to ditch the German official sooner rather than later, as Marques was called up for the American races – the US, Mexican and Brazilian Grands Prix – to work closely with Wittich as Deputy Race Director when, on previous occasions, when he wasn’t on site to look after the junior categories, the Portuguese had been stationed at the FIA’s remote race control in Geneva, to help Wittich and the on-site Stewards reach their decisions quickly and more efficiently.

It is now clear than the FIA president wanted Marques to have a crash course on everything related to running a Grand

Prix as Race Director and, with the Brazilian weather at Interlagos, Marques certainly got a quick education on how the sport must operate when quick and efficient changes are necessary.

Given Marques’ CV and his recent record in Formula 2 and Formula 3, the drivers and the teams are going into the last three Grands Prix of the season with the certainty the Race Director’s decisions will be logical and consistent with what has been done in the last few years.

But with Wittich being sacked around two years after Eduardo Freitas was also let go from the same role – one he was sharing with the German during the 2022 season –Marques becomes Formula 1’s fourth Race Director in less than three years, a clear sign that there’s something seriously wrong with the FIA structure.

… AS DRIVERS ADMIT SURPRISE

THE FIA’S sudden decision to sack Neils Wittich from his role of Formula 1 Race Director caught all the Grand Prix drivers by surprise, as became clear by their reaction in Las Vegas, on the eve of the night race.

All 20 drivers, without exception, only found out about Wittich’s departure and his position being taken by previous Formula 2 and Formula 3 Race Director Rui Marques at the same time as the fans, reading about the Federation’s statement online.

A critic of some of Wittich’s decisions, especially during the Brazilian Grand Prix, Max Verstappen confirmed that “I just read the news and I just continued with my day,” admitting, though that “of course it is a bit weird with three races to go and do that.”

Asked about his views about the way the German played his role, the Red Bull driver said that “it doesn’t matter if you are positive or negative about certain things. I thought in Brazil, for example, there was definitely room for improvement,” but admitted that,“it is still

weird now having to deal with a different Race Director.

“Normally if you want to change a race director, then do it after a season and then you have a bit of time for the Race Director himself to get up to speed with things. Then you have pre-season testing, you get into your role a bit more … but let’s see how it goes – they have decided it and we have to deal with it.”

Fellow front-runner Charles Leclerc also found that “the news came out a bit of nowhere. I think we were all surprised. I think more than speaking about the decision, which we can all have our own opinion, I think the timing was a bit surprising – and to do it so late in the season, at such a crucial moment of the of the season … It could have probably been managed in a better way.”

The surprise was extended to all the drivers, with Oscar Piastri confessing that “I had no idea that anything was even being planned,” but also adding that “I think Niels

F1 TEAMS CONFIRM INDIVIDUAL CAR LAUNCHES

FORMULA 1’S recent announcement that it will host a season launch for the 2025 Formula 1 World Championship doesn’t mean the 10 competing teams won’t be doing their traditional individual car launches.

When the sports’ commercial rights holder made the announcement of the mega event scheduled for February 18 at London’s O2 Arena, it was feared that would be the only opportunity the fans would have to get a glimpse of the new cars before the start of the only pre-season test session, in Bahrain, just over one week later.

Now it has emerged that not only are the cars that will be on display in London unlikely to be the real 2025-spec ones, but also that the vast majority of the teams will still conduct their traditional car launches, meaning the fans and the media will be able to get a better look at what the new chassis will look like before everyone hits the track in Sakhir, in the last three days of February.

While Formula 1 has promoted the F175 event as an innovative general car launch, several teams have already confirmed that what they plan to have in London is a livery reveal using the 2024 cars, to give a chance to the fans to see up close their 2025 color scheme and put on display their new sponsors in the new livery.

was doing a reasonable job. I think there was some things that we wanted to improve, that some got better, some maybe didn’t, but certainly don’t think it warranted an immediate sacking for – I don’t know how it got phrased – but it seems like a bit of a different picture than how it was phrased, so I don’t know. … We’ll see what the new Race Director is like. I’ve not had any experience with him before, but it was definitely a bit of a surprise.”

Veteran Fernando Alonso also admitted that “I was surprised. I read the news, as you all did, and I don’t have any other information apart from the press release.” Speaking before the start of the race weekend in Las Vegas, Alonso added that “we’ll see the new Race Director in the Drivers’ Briefing – we’ll try to be supportive, we’ll try to help him as much as we can in anything that he may need, and hopefully have a long relationship with this new Race Director, and get things better and better for the future.”

That’s because they want to give the sponsors as much individual return as possible and that can only be done if your car is the only one on display at a given event. Given the entire F175 event will last only two hours, each team is likely to get little more than 10 minutes to display its new colors, so there won’t be really any valuable time for drivers, team principals and technical directors to say much of consequence at all.

Ferrari was the first team to confirm it will still conduct its normal car launch in the second half of February, without yet giving any details about the day and the location of the event. However, given the tight schedule that all teams will be running before the start of the 2025 season and the need to fly everything out to Bahrain on February 23 latest, it is expected that the five days after the F175 event will see a flurry of car launches where the new cars will be on display.

However, as we’ve seen in the most recent years, the parts the teams believe will offer them a real competitive advantage, like the diffusers, will still be well hidden, to make sure the other teams don’t get a proper look at the new cars until they actually hit the track at the start of the three days of pre-season testing.

Niels Wittich (left) with F1 Safety Car driver Bernd Maylander. Images: MOTORSPORT IMAGES

WOLFF: YOU CAN’T RELY ON WHAT HORNER SAYS!

MERCEDES TEAM Principal Toto Wolff has taken (another) big shot at Christian Horner, his Red Bull counterpart, claiming “you can’t rely on what he says,” in an interview with British daily newspaper The Guardian.

In this lengthy interview, the subject of the investigation launched by the FIA into Susie Wolff’s dealings came to the fore and the Austrian revealed that Horner’s actions in the aftermath left him with a profound distrust of the Red Bull man.

For context let us remind you that ,early last year, following a story published by a sensationalist magazine that claimed Susie Wolff was pocketing a lot of money from what they called ‘a conflict of interests,’ the FIA opened an investigation into her affairs but shut it within three days after the move received a massive backlash from almost the entire Formula 1 community, from FOM to all the teams … well, almost all the teams, as Wolff has now explained.

The Austrian started off by saying that “I can take lots of shit, I’m used to it. But if your wife is being dragged into a conflict she has nothing to do with, and her reputation is immaculate, that’s where the fun stops.”

The Mercedes man revealed he was very pleased that “the response was great,” adding that “I didn’t make a single phone call to any team but Fred (Vasseur) took it into his hands and said ‘This is just so unfair.”

The Frenchman is such a good friend of the couple he was Toto’s best man at their wedding – but the support from his other peers was instant, as Wolff explained: “From Guenther Steiner to James Vowles, everybody jumped onto this. They were all

ready, but for Christian, to sign a document in our support.”

Detailing the British manager’s actions, Wolff explained that “as far as I understand it, he said ‘I’m having my own Sky interview and I’m going to say I’m not part of it. I’m not signing the document.’  The other nine teams said: ‘Fine.’ But obviously he was advised that wouldn’t look great and he

should be part of the statement.”

But there was more to it, as Wolff added: “In the second iteration, he tried to get the word ‘official’ in the statement. He wanted a note to say that no one officially complained to the FIA, but the other teams said: ‘Fine. We do our declaration and you do your own.’

At the end, he signed it …”

Then, came the stunning statement that

“I don’t think you can rely on what he says,” before adding that, “I think Susie was collateral damage and lots of it was out of disrespect for her achievements as a female racing driver and as a contributor to change.  It was also trying to cause shit to me by disrespecting my wife, diminishing the painful journey she went through to achieve what she did in and outside of the car.”

ZHOU LINKED WITH FERRARI RESERVE ROLE

DEPARTING SAUBER driver Zhou Guanyu seems to have found a lifeline to remain in Formula 1 after being informed there will be no room for him in the Swiss team from the end of this year.

According to Italian sources, the Chinese driver is in advanced negotiations with Ferrari to become the team’s main reserve driver, but sources close to Zhou insist his priority is to join a team that will allow him to race in other categories, so he can remain race-ready to return to Grand Prix racing in 2026. Ferrari’s potential interest in Zhou may be surprising, but there are a few good reasons to explain why the Chinese driver could be a perfect fit for the Scuderia.

First of all, with Oliver Bearman confirmed as a Haas race driver for 2025 and Robert Shwartzman on his way to IndyCars, where he’ll race for Prema, two of the Italian team’s current reserve driver won’t be available for them next year. The only one left will be Antonio Giovinazzi, but the Italian driver’s first priority are his commitments with Ferrari’s WEC program and, on top of that, his last Grand Prix came at the end of 2021, with Sauber, so he’s never raced one of the current generation of cars.

Zhou, on the other hand, is currently racing in Formula 1, so he’d be better prepared than Giovinazzi to jump into a car at short notice and comes with the added advantage of having perfect knowledge of the Ferrari Power Unit and gearbox, as they are identical

to the ones he’s currently racing with at Sauber.

On top of that, having Zhou in the team would be extremely appealing for the Ferrari brand, as the Chinese market is extremely important for the Italian manufacturer as well

as for some of its sponsors, including title sponsor HP, that sells more than five million computers per year in that country.

Finally, there’s another element that may have opened the doors of Maranello for Zhou and that is not an insignificant one. One of the Chinese driver’s managers is Mark Hynes – the former Formula 3000 driver also represents Lewis Hamilton, who is joining the Scuderia at the start of next year. Hynes enjoys a very good personal relationship with Ferrari Team Principal Frédéric Vasseur and has spent a lot of time with the Frenchman in the last 10 months, as they have a lot to discuss before Hamilton first sets foot in Maranello.

Therefore, it would have been easy for Hynes to open negotiations about placing Zhou at Maranello as one of the team’s reserve drivers, especially after Shwartzman’s move to IndyCars was confirmed.

The only others current Formula 1 drivers that are yet to find a job for 2025 are Zhou’s team-mate Valtteri Bottas, who seems set to return to Mercedes; and Kevin Magnussen, but the Dane has never been on Ferrari’s radar and his only known target seems to be remaining at Haas but in a different role.

Check out the body language – Horner (left) and Wolff ... not exactly buddies.

WILL JUST WANTS TO HAVE FUN … AND TITLES

WILL BROWN put together one of the most complete seasons of racing in a long time to seal the 2024 Repco Supercars Championship. Five wins doesn’t compare with some of the previous ‘great’ seasons of drivers like Shane van Gisbergen or Scott McLaughlin who won piles of races, but that was pre-Gen3 and the level playing field the new cars represents.

“Now, it feels pretty good,” Brown said in the days after sealing the title. “It was just an amazing weekend on top of the championship; a bit of a relief as well to wrap it up because it was a tough season. It was exciting, but, yeah, it’s pretty cool.”

but this year when you’re leading the championship at every round, I had an expectation on myself that I had to perform to a level.

“I feel like the past three seasons I’d go there hoping you got to win or get on the podium, where it was a bit different this year.”

title, which justified to him the off-season switch from Erebus.

A podium at each event equals a feat last achieved in 1984 by Dick Johnson, and finishing 23 times inside the top 10 of 24 races is phenomenal set of numbers. There were some great drives too, but none better than the final race of the season when he went from second-last early in the race to win, putting an emphatic exclamation mark on the end of the season and the final championship to be decided on points alone.

For Brown, the season had extra complexity because of the off-season change of teams from Erebus Motorsport to Triple Eight, playing a part in the Teams’ Championship wins for both teams. He had a new team, new engineer and a teammate – Broc Feeney – well established inside the team.

His engineer for the season was Andrew Edwards who had looked after van Gisbergen in his final couple of seasons in WILL BROWN LOCKED DOWN HIS FIRST TITLE IN A YEAR HE SAYS WAS BOTH TOUGH AND A LOT OF FUN. THE EVER-SMILING DRIVER FROM TOOWOOMBA SAYS THAT ASPECT WAS THE KEY TO IT ALL AS HE EYES MORE SUCCESS. HE SPOKE WITH ANDREW CLARKE ...

“I didn’t find the transition too bad – the team at Red Bull Ampol Racing has been great and I felt right at home within a round or two. I felt like I was racing for the championship last year, but probably towards the end of the season I wasn’t,

Despite being unheaded at the top of the championship from the fourth race of the year, he says he didn’t start to feel that pressure until after Bathurst when the spectre of the walls of the Gold Coast and Adelaide loomed deep and threatening. But it wasn’t just about surviving those two events and cruising to the title, it was about running out the season the same way he started.

In those four races, he added two more podiums and a win and locked down his first

“There was a lot of things that stand out,” he said of the move. “It’s a different team at the end of the day. Erebus was on the rise when I was with them and coming up through the ranks, Triple 8 has been like that for 20 years.

“I feel like Triple 8 is more established in some of their procedures and processes, where Erebus have just been improving them over the years. It was a big step up for me to learn all of how Triple 8 does things –there is a Triple 8 way.

“There was a few changes I had to make that helped me as a driver to improve and be more consistent this year.”

Bathurst win.

“Andrew’s done a fantastic job all this year, you can see why he is so good. I was stoked when I found out that Andrew was going to be staying and would be my engineer. We worked so hard together in the off season to try and improve. I felt like I had the raw pace, but it was just trying for consistency throughout the year that would win us the championship.

“We went through a lot of stuff like tyre life and improving certain areas, even looking at what Andrew can do better.

He’s always trying to improve himself, and I think he’s probably one of the toughest guys on himself that I’ve ever seen.

Even if we win and he feels like he didn’t do the best strategy, he’s not happy

“It’s been amazing seeing that side of it, but he has become a great friend as well.”

the championship lead by the second. He lost the lead at the first race of the Grand Prix meeting but regained the upper hand on Friday at that meeting and never ceded that ground again.

As the contenders fell away, his working relationship with Feeney proved critical.

As a team-mate he had to race him with a respect that is different to how you treat others. There was contact a couple of times – we all remember that cracking dice in the race in Taupo – but nothing that caused any concern at the team.

“I think Broc and I did a very good job of working together this year and making sure that we did the best job we could for the team. Obviously, we both want to win, but we didn’t do anything that I think was selfish. I felt like we played the team game. We worked together really well, and it ended up good.”

The one rub on his season was his qualifying, and he wants to improve that in 2025 as he chases back-to-back titles. He had two poles for the year while Feeney had five and Cam Waters seven.

Sitting on pole for the Sandown 500 he feels was his best qualifying effort for the season, but he says being outqualified so often cost him race wins.

“It is something I want to work on a lot over the off season and try and come back stronger. Broc was a stronger qualifier than me and I think, while I had really good race pace, I feel like we could have won a lot more races this year if I was able to qualify a little bit better.

“There was a lot of highlights throughout the year, to be honest. It was a tough year, but I made sure I kept it fun and made sure I enjoyed the whole year. That’s why I go racing; there’s no other reason.”

NASCAR is on radar again with his manager Dave Ellis working on a couple of outings for 2025. The Chicago street race is one he’d love to do, but that is a hot ticket and there are plenty of drivers trying to get into cars for that one.

He has a good relationship now with Richard Childress Racing, but the races still have to be funded.

His working relationship with Edwards started with some beers in the off-season and progressed from there.

Brown’s career started without lofty ambitions in Toowoomba. He was just out to have some fun with mates at 13 when he started karting. But then when he switched to cars – Formula 4 and Toyota 86s in 2016 – he realised that he could do a little more than just have fun. He won both those titles and lifted his goals, and it was Supercars that he set in his sights.

He also packed away a TCR title while driving as many different cars as he could. Then came Erebus, first as a co-driver to Anton De Pasquale, and then as his replacement.

“I looked at Red Bull Ampol as somewhere I can have success for years to come. They don’t change their drivers very often – it’s an environment where they want to keep drivers for a long period and make sure they have what they want. That was probably why I made the decision, I can see myself at Triple Eight for the next 10 to 15 years and being able to win championships.

“For me, it was pretty much a golden ticket.

“Triple Eight was always the dream. I think Betty and Barry knew that as well – it was a place where I wanted to end up. I nearly did a deal with Roland in 2018 and it just didn’t come about at the end of the day. Roland is a used car salesman as well and he was trying to lowball me ... we actually had a joke about that on the weekend.

“I decided to opt out and go a different direction, and to be honest, I’m actually glad it happened that way. I think as a driver, I did my apprenticeship.”

Brown started with his new team at Bathurst with a pole in the first race, and

“I think I can always improve no matter what. I think Sandown in those conditions, I did a great job. There’s always improvements and that’s race car drivers. We always want to improve ourselves.”

He agrees with most people that his best drive of the season was saved for Race 24 of 24 races and that drive from the back of the field to the win – which would have also won him the title had there been 'Finals' in play in 2024 rather than 2025.

“I don’t think many people come from last to first and I didn’t think it was possible, but Chaz and Broc crashing helped me a lot. But even to get on the podium, I think it would have been my best race of the year.

That is all part of the dream. In the meantime, he’ll head home to Toowoomba and sell a few cars from the family car yard and maybe have a holiday in January.

“I already said to my engineer it’s going to be hard to back up this season, but we’re going to go out there and try to defend the championship. It all changes next year with new finals system.

“I’d love to win in the way the final system is because I think it changes the way we’re going to look at the championship – I’m excited for that change. I want to try and win the championship and Bathurst. You win one championship, and you want to win more.

“Nothing changes in my world; I just try and improve myself and I’ll be racing for Red Bull Ampol racing. That’s about it.” Australia,

With two key people – team-mate Feeney (below) and engineer Edwards (above). Images: MARK HORSBURGH/LAT

BUILDING THE LEGACY

THE BATES FAMILY ARE NO STRANGERS TO CHAMPIONSHIPS, BUT NOT ON TARMAC. ZACH BATES HAS ADDED HIS OWN PIECE OF SILVERWARE TO THE FAMILY COLLECTION WITH A CLUTCH SUPER2 TITLE. THOMAS MILES SPOKE WITH THE WAU WINNER …

WINNING CHAMPIONSHIPS is in Bates’ blood. Between Zach’s father Neal and his nephews Lewis and Harry, the Bates family have won nine Australian Rally Championship titles.

Now that legacy has expanded to circuit racing with Zach Bates adding his name to the list of Super2 Series champions.

It was no walk in the park for the Walkinshaw Andretti United youngster either as he came from behind before holding his nerve in an intense and pressure-packed finale on the streets of Adelaide.

Having trailed Kai Allen by 126 points after Sandown, in the final two rounds Bates overturned that deficit and won the crown by a convincing 86.

But that was only after an epic three-way showdown, also involving Aaron Cameron, where the trio traded punches in a league of their own at the front of the field.

As Bates basks in the Super2 success, he admits it is simply nice to give back to those who have helped him rise from karts to Formula Ford to Toyotas and, next year, Supercars.

“I still cannot believe it. It is obviously great just to get it done for everyone who has

helped me get this far,” he told Auto Action

“It is great to repay everyone who has helped me, from my family, partners and sponsors and of course Walkinshaw Andretti United have done a great job over these last two years developing me both on and off the track.”

Whilst it was an emotional success for Bates, it was also deeply meaningful for Walkinshaw Andretti United.

Having once been the dominating powerhouse that was the Holden Racing Team, the organisation now known as WAU, running Fords, had not won a Supercars title in both tiers since 2009 when Garth Tander and Will Davison led it to the teams' title.

The relief after 15 years was clear on the faces of CEO Bruce Stewart and Owner Ryan Walkinshaw as they jumped arm-in-arm in the pit lane.

Bates was simply happy to give back to the team which played a massive role in his journey.

“I honestly cannot thank the team at WAU enough,” he said.

“We all worked together to make it happen and it is very much a group effort.

“It was great to get it done for them and to

see everyone so happy makes me happy in terms of being able to give it back to them.

“I am sure they are hunting for a main game championship, but it is a great feeling to get a Super2 one for them.”

The 2024 season was always going to be a big one for Bates.

Despite getting three podiums and finishing fifth, Bates was still overshadowed by fellow rookie Ryan Wood in the same garage in 2024.

As a result, the kid from the Capital had to step up in his sophomore season and thrived on the extra responsibility.

Bates said simply returning to tracks for the second time in the same equipment made a world of difference as he could put the foot down from the opening lap instead of easing into it.

“Going into the second year you are going to the tracks for a second time – you can focus on the finer details instead of the basic elements of driving the car,” he said.

“I definitely made a step forward in terms of my driving and also my ability to feel what the car is doing and not second-guessing myself in terms of set-up.

“I am fortunate enough the WAU guys gave me a fast car regardless but it was just easier in the race.

“It was not as full-on and great to really turn up to the tracks and focus on other things instead of just learning the track.”

Despite being much more confident, Bates admitted the title was never on his mind until the very end.

This was mainly due to being caught up in the Cutting carnage at the Bathurst opening round and

COOKING UP PROGRESS

JARROD HUGHES took the big step of skipping Super3 and diving straight into Super2 and it paid off.

Hughes quietly pulled together an impressively consistent season and not only emerged fourth as 'best of the rest' behind the championship contenders, but also the top rookie.

It is no mean feat given the Image Racing driver did not stand on the podium, whilst rookie rivals such as Jobe Stewart, Max Vidau, Rylan Gray and Cameron McLeod did so on regular occasions.

However, Hughes was always there, finishing every race and flew home, recording top fives in each of the final four races.

The bubbly Queenslander was delighted to find himself as the leading rookie, having felt at home in the ZB straight away.

“It was a wicked way to end the year,”

Hughes told Auto Action.

playing catch-up to Allen until the reigning champion was also bitten by the Mountain.

The WAU driver was a master of consistency, finishing outside of the top five just once in the last 10 races.

“Basically, I did not think I was going to be in this position, especially after Round 1 at Bathurst which did not go our way,” Bates said.

“It was one of those things where you cannot count yourself out because it is just the nature of the category.

“All I was focused on was putting my best performances in each race and how I could maximise everything from myself.

“I cannot control what others do so that was the mindset I had throughout the year.”

As a result, due to Allen’s struggles at Bathurst, Bates found himself in the championship lead heading into the finale and made it count.

Despite Cameron and Allen breathing down his neck, the WAU driver also rose to the occasion and finished a close second in Race 1 before masterfully closing out the title with a cool victory on Sunday.

The finale was a thriller as the three title contenders were a cut above the rest and Bates said it was vital he continued to stay in his bubble as they pushed themselves to new lengths behind the wheel.

“Kai and Aaron also did a fantastic job

and we were in the top three for every single session of the weekend. We were all pushing each other,” he said.

“It was one of those things. I knew it was going to be difficult heading into the weekend and those two guys would be fast.

“All I could do was focus on my own program and work with the team to get us ready for qualifying.

“That is what I was really happy with, in terms of being able to execute the single laps and the team gave me a fast car.

“I knew we had a fast car the year before so it was just about trying to put everything together on my side as well.”

However, even when it all seemed to be wrapped up, Bates revealed he was far from calm as he took the chequered flag.

Infamously the #25 WAU ZB Commodore crossed the line slightly out of control with the youngster trying to do a victory slide – fortunately he used his rallying genes to catch it before creating a viral moment!

Bates said it will be a once-off celebration.

“I am not sure I will be doing that again. That is the biggest thing and my dad gave me a bit of a rev up for that,” he laughed.

“I wanted to do a slide but it ended up being a fairly big one.

“It looked cool but my heart skipped a little moment there!”

“If I told myself I would be fourth at the end of the year as top rookie I would have said I am an idiot.

“To be honest, in the very first test I did, it just felt natural. It felt really good and I was comfortable in the car.

“My aim all year after starting the first round fifth in the points was to get in the top six.

“So to beat that by two spots and be the top rookie, whilst learning heaps and feeling like I was making really big steps throughout ... I am ecstatic.

“There are things where I look back and wish I did better, but to be the best of the rest is great.

“We got the maximum out of what we could.”

Hughes said his busy schedule that included making the odd appearance in a TA2 and a full season in GT4 with Mark Cotterell in a Ginetta, plus his usual work at Norwell Motorplex were vital to his progression.

However, he revealed the big turning point was a clutch change that overcame

his mystery start gremlins.

“In Townsville we had good speed but struggled a lot with starts and could not get off the line,” Hughes said.

“We put a new clutch in at Bathurst and finally got back to how I remembered to start a car – our starts in Adelaide were awesome.

“It was such a big difference when we changed the clutch and I wish we'd had that in for the whole year.

“Before at the start line I thought ‘I hope I don’t screw this up’ but at Adelaide it felt easy again.

“I just wished we had that for the whole year.”

Whilst Hughes could not reveal his 2025 plans with sponsor negotiations still taking place, he made his Super2 intentions clear.

“There are cool things in the pipeline and hopefully we are on the right track, but just sorting things out with sponsors,” he said.

“Of course Super2 is my aim and we definitely want to do that again. It would be quite sad to have such a good year this year and not come back to go even harder.”

"It hasn't always been easy, and I have to thank all the people that have supported me so far – my family and close supporters, my sponsors, Terry Wyhoon and his team at Image Racing. And of course Barry and the team at Erebus Motorsport – without them all, I wouldn't be here to look good." Thomas Miles

Bates locked in the Super2 title with a mature Adelaide finale. Below: Under pressure from Kai Allen and fast rookie Jarrod Hughes. Images: RACE

Jarrod Hughes – top Super2 rookie, fourth outright. Images: PACE IMAGES/PETER NORTON EPIC SPORTS PHOTOGRAPHY

GRABBING A BULL BY THE HORNS

AUSSIE RACER SCOTT ANDREWS IS NOT A HOUSEHOLD NAME, BUT HE IS A SUCCESSFUL AUSSIE RACER WITH A SOLID CAREER IN THE USA WITH LONE STAR RACING IN GT RACING. AA'S ANDREW CLARKE CAUGHT UP WITH HIM AS HE ENJOYED THE OFF SEASON ...

karter with talent and a bit of motivation, has a set of goals for their future racing career. Until recently many focused on a career locally in Supercars or in Europe as a Formula 1 driver. These are the obvious targets depending on the type of cars you want to race. And for many years, they were the only ways to make

But in 2024 the pathway to being a professional driver is diverse and evolving. One emerging and growing stream is via the global emergence of GT racing under the guidance of SRO, and it is into that stream that 33-year-old Aussie Scott Andrews has followed.

Andrews grew up in Torquay on Victoria’s Surf Coast as a kart racer without as much money as some and the son of a motorcycle drag racer. His dreams may not have played out as they were in his head – he did open wheelers

so you can pick what was on his mindbut he’s happy with where he is today.

He is a professional racing driver, earning a more than adequate living, and his star is still on the rise as he enters the second and more mature phase of his career.

He runs a Mercedes AMG GT3 in America’s IMSA championship for Lone Star Racing out of Texas. He is hoping to get slotted in as a Mercedes factory driver, which would open extra opportunities globally, but even without that he is having fun and living the dream.

“I just moved to Texas to be closer to my team, Lone Star Racing,” he told Auto Action while holidaying on the Gold Coast.

“It’s good to be back in Australia – I caught up with my parents for a couple of days and then shot up here to hang out with Jimmy [Golding] and a couple of my other friends.

“I’ve known Jimmy since our days in karting and he’s just he’s a nice guy. We’re good mates and we go cycling together

when I’m back and it’s cool to see his career flourishing because he’s super tough, talented and he deserves it.”

As for his own journey, he maps it out as something fairly typical. Karts to Formula Ford, but then it moved on to LMP3 Sportcars the next season and his path was gaining clarity.

But it wasn’t without its sacrifices from his family.

“My dad used to race drag bikes back in the day and he did it as a hobby and then he was sponsored to do it professionally. Some of his friends that used to help him out, got on board to get me into cars and then basically we mortgaged the house a couple of times and then pretty much the ultimatum was, 'we’re going to have to sell the house or you’re going to have to figure it out on your own.'

“Thankfully, I had a couple of friends in the US at the time and they introduced me to some teams.

They were doing IndyCar with Indy Lights, and the teams that I talked to led to a test which led to racing which led to the start of it all.

“It started off with JDC Motorsports in their USF2000 car. The first race that I did for them was at Laguna Seca and I topped three of the four practice sessions, which obviously they were quite pleased about and helped them get some customers for the year after.

“My next biggest break was when I drove their Cadillac DPI in 2020 at the Sebring 12 hour, then this year I raced LMP2 with them at the Road America IMSA sprint round.

It’s been almost a 12-year relationship, that’s not full time… I always seem to go back to them.

“I really wanted to do Supercars. When I was four years old, my dad had this Momo steering wheel and pedals. I remember watching Craig Lowndes at Calder Park in the mid-90s. I would like literally try to drive like him and match his inputs and stuff.

I just moved to Texas to be closer to my team, Lone Star Racing ... “ ”

“Ever since then I have been infatuated with Supercars and that’s all I really wanted to do. It became apparent quickly that it wasn’t really a career path for me there though, and I had to look for other options elsewhere. So that’s when the whole US thing came about.”

Readjusting

his goals, IndyCar was the next target, although you could argue it was a higher and harder target than Supercars, but the US is different. There

By hitting it out of the park early in USF2000, it felt the doors were opening. “I felt like that was me making my mark and that everybody saw me.

Scott Andrews (left) – has built a career which includes seeing him sharing a Lone Star Racing Mercedes AMG at huge events such as the 2024 Daytona 24 Hours (below and lower left). Above: It all really kicked off in 2021, when Scott was among the four drivers sharing the classwinning Riley Motorsports Ligier JS P320 LMP3 car at the Daytona 24 Hours. Top right: Yes, that was Covid-time ... the podium. Lower: Scott took the Motul Pole Award at IMSA's Petit Le Mans this year in the Lone Star Mercedes.

Images: MOTORSPORT IMAGES AND SUPPLIED

dreams of IndyCar and Supercars, it was like being a factory driver in GT seemed realistic.

with that, but I am doing way better than that.”

It stirred up a lot of interest and I had a lot of people talking to me, but no matter how good the deal was, it still it required sponsorship and everything like that … it just wasn’t possible for me.

“So, I went the coaching route and I started doing a lot of coaching and I worked for a business in the US similar to Norwell, where they have a full-time facility and have their own infrastructure. I did that a lot and I met some people there who wanted to be coached and from there I met other people. Basically, the goal with coaching people is hoping that you meet a guy that ends up wanting to take it more seriously and wants to go professional racing and wants you to be his co-driver.

“That’s how it worked for me; that’s the way that I did it and that’s definitely the way that I would recommend for anybody who’s looking to make a good living out of racing. Maybe you don’t become a superstar or anything like that, but you get to do what you love for a living and for me that was super important.”

He’s not earning the squillions that some at the top of the sport’s big categories do, but it's more than most in Australia.

“It’s a good living – we don’t have to talk numbers but when I tell some of the boys over here how much we make, their jaws hit the ground. It’s definitely a comfortable living. You always want to go back to the heydays in the 90s and the 2000s where drivers were making millions of dollars, but that doesn’t really exist any more.

“Even the top guys in IMSA aren’t doing that. You pretty much need to be upper echelon openwheel, which is IndyCar or F1, or NASCAR to be looking at those numbers. I was happy to find a drive I didn’t have to pay for and to be able to pay the rent – I would have been happy

What he is now hoping is to take the next step and become a factory driver for Mercedes in GT racing. If he can do that, and his results say he should be there, then that opens the rest of the world, including events like the Bathurst 12-Hour

Then I got an opportunity to race at Fuji for the Asia Le Mans series in an LMP3 and again it went really well,

“At the time I was a Silver-rated driver, which is important for teams, and I just kept getting drives. Teams kept calling or emailing saying we need a Silver driver. At that point I thought I could make a

I’m not going to go banging down anyone’s door because obviously I’m still committed to the US and my sports car program ... “ ”

and a pile of other series.

The unique format promoted by SRO across the globe, with the need for professional drivers (Platinum, Gold, Silver) to be driving with amateurs (Bronze), opens the doors for drivers like Andrews.

“It’s funny as well because when I went to Europe to do a lot of my prototype stuff, I got into LMP3 accidentally. I didn’t want it – I wanted to go straight to GT3 because that’s where I wanted to be a factory driver.

“Obviously after I’ve been kicked out of my dreams of F1, then kicked out of my

business out of it.”

He started wrangling like all good racing car drivers, cutting deals here and there on his way to what he saw as a bit of an end goal.

“I just faked until I made it – thankfully on-track the results and the lap times spoke for themselves. The other drivers appreciated my coaching and I obviously helped with the car setup.

"I had a good mentor – Sean Scott who works for Race Fuels here in Australia – when I was young to help with all that stuff.

“What he did for me in my early career was unbelievable. Without him I wouldn’t have made a professional career. I might have had some opportunities because of my speed, but he really refined it. He was awesome.”

Years of playing the game have finally landed him in the right place.

“I think the thing is that everybody has to realise that everyone’s got a different timeline. It’s really hard, especially with social media and stuff, to judge yourself against somebody else your age, but opportunities just come and go and it really is 'right spot, right time.'

“There are so many times where you think 'that guy’s got that opportunity, why don’t I have that opportunity? I beat him in there, there and there and the team owner knows that I beat him.' But it’s not about that – there’s so much more to being able to land a drive.

“I’m really happy with what I’m doing. When you’re in Australia you don’t see how big the events are in IMSA, but it is in the two biggest sports car championships in the world. I’m absolutely stoked that I’m racing in IMSA – I love it and I’m in a competitive car and it’s awesome.”

Now that he is in the right place, and he has moved to Dallas, TX, he wants to bed that down before he starts casting his eye around. His motivations are different now.

As a young racing driver all he wanted to do was prove people wrong if they hadn’t taken him. Now he doesn’t feel the need to do that, which is partly about maturity, but also about having a career that is tracking along nicely.

“I’m really happy. I make comfortable living – I’m probably not going to be a millionaire, but I never really have to worry about money and I’m

Scott has raced, successfully, a significant range of hot race cars! Below: At speed in the Miller Motorsports ORECA LMP2 07 at Road America, in August. Right: The Kessel Racing Ferrari 488 LMGTE car at Le Mans, 2021. Above: Winning LMP3 at Road Atlanta in the Riley Motorpsorts Ligier, and (top) Sebring 12 Hours (2020) in a Miller Motorsports Cadillac. Opposite (top): Scott (left) celebrates the LMP3 Road Atlanta win on the podium with team-mates Gar Robinson and Felipe Fraga; and chats with the media after taking GTD pole at Petit Le Mans, this year.

doing what I love. I get to race a GT3 car against the best factory drivers in the world and at some of the coolest racetracks and race events in the world like Daytona, Sebring, Petit Le Mans and Watkins Glen.

“But that’s not to say that I’m not always searching for more. I think 'content' is a hard word – but am I happy? Yeah.

“You always want more – that’s part of being a race car driver. It’s like, ‘how is the car?’ Oh, a little bit of understeer here and there, but it’s fine. No, you make sure that you try to fix the understeer.”

In Australia, he has a post-season test coming with PremiAir Racing which he is really looking forward to, but his schedule in the States blocks him out of the endurance races next year, so that is about playing a longer game, which is something he’ll have to do if he wants to fulfil that dream.

There’s the Bathurst 12-Hour Race, and he’s hoping something falls into place organically there because of what he is doing outside of Australia.

He hopes the Aussie Mercedes teams are aware, and maybe there are some other races on the local 2025 GT schedule that will work as well.

He does feel like he’ll return to Australia at some point, but he also thinks he’s got at least 15 competitive years in front of him to make the most of, both in terms of earning a living, but also scratching the

motor racing itch. Physically, he feels like he runs at a good level and he’s nowhere near showing signs of ageing.

GT Racing is a strange beast in terms of titles and the like, so he guns for race wins and wants to be the fastest of the drivers with his coloured grading. It isn’t quite like other series – he’s limited by his co-driver and the gradings, but that only makes it harder to understand from the outside.

“When it comes to sharing a car with other drivers, there’s only so much you can do when you jump in the car and you’re up against 20 of the best factory drivers in the world. It’s very much a team sport.

that we’re going on it.

"Matt is great because we speak the same language.”

His off season is winter in the States, so he can come home and have a bit of fun in the sunshine. But he’s also home to meet people.

Obviously, the Golding connection has opened up PremiAir Racing owner Peter Xiberas, but there are plenty of

Mercedes GT3 owners in Australia who need to know about him.

“I’m definitely here to meet people and let people know that I’m interested. I’m not going to go banging down anyone’s door because obviously I’m still committed to the US and my sports car program.”

But one day, he says that won’t be the case. And then maybe he can fulfil his Supercars dream.

“I’m fortunate that the team gives me the responsibility to finish the races. But everybody knows in the sport and in the team that there’s only so much I can do depending on where I get the car. This year we’ve had, I would argue, equal to or the quickest Mercedes all year, which is a huge feather in the cap for Lone Star Racing in its first full official year of IMSA racing.

“One of our engineers, Matt Harvey, is an Aussie, so we’re very grateful to have him and it’s great to have another Aussie to work with because sometimes I’ve accidentally hurt someone’s feelings when I’m across the pond. It’s a job and you don’t have a lot of time between sessions and if there’s a clear direction that we need to go, I want to make sure

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SPEEDWAY

FOR THE second year in a row, Dayne Kingshott (pictured) took the Scardifields Smash Repairs King of Wings event, the third round of the 2024/25 Maddington Toyota Sprintcar Series.

The defending champion won a drawn-out and drama-filled 40-lap feature race at the Perth Motorplex on Saturday night.

It was a case of history repeating as Kingshott started from sixth, the same grid position as last year.

With Callum Williamson and Kris Coyle filling the minor places, Kingshott now enjoys a 14-point lead over Williamson.

Kingshott was able to control his car enough to win on the rubber-down track that proved brutal on tyres and put some of his rivals out of the contest when their tyres ran out of rubber and deflated.

It was a war of attrition as only seven of the 23 cars made it to the finish.

Williamson almost joined that list, having

KINGSHOTT AGAIN BOHUD GOES BACK TO BACK

MICHAEL STEWART (right) has pushed Bohud Racing Team to back-to-back Sydney Speedway Sprintcar successes.

After winning in Sydney in October, Stewart won the follow-up 410 Sprintcar meeting at the same venue on November 9. It proved the perfect stepping stone to his memorable overall victory at the VAILO Adelaide 500.

Stewart won the feature from fifth on the grid, but soared to the lead within five laps and was unstoppable from there.

The #NS14 flew home to the finish and ended up winning by a commanding 4s over Jessie Attard and Jordyn Brazier as contenders faded throughout the 30-lap affair.

Brock Hallett started from pole, but only

suffered electrical issues in the A-Dash.

This meant he started the A-Main 11th, but flew up to third by quarter race distance and hit the lead by lap 25.

Williamson dropped back to third for a period before getting into second late and recording his second podium result of the season, bettering his third at the last outing.

Coyle impressively came from 14th as he chased grip on the low lines of the track with success.

Brad Maiolo, who started from second, staked an early claim on the race, leading until lap 24.

In the next handful of laps he dropped back to fourth before getting back to second until he suffered tyre failure with only a few laps to the chequer.

Kaiden Manders qualified on pole after being second in his heat race and winning the A-Dash.

After jockeying between the podium

positions early on, he was out of the contest just over mid-race distance after being tagged by another car which set off a chain reaction, resulting in damage to a couple of cars.

Daniel Harding started from third and dropped back as far as seventh at one point, before making up lost ground, getting to second, before heading infield with a flat left rear tyre.

New Zealander Michael Pickens, in his second outing in the Sean Carren-owned W95, took fourth, backing up his second in the season opener back in November.

Jason Kendrick was fifth after being caught up in a few incidents and going to the rear of the field on two occasions, including once where the team had to replace the front end of the Triple M Kendrick Racing W11.

The series will head south for the first appearance at Bunbury Speedway on November 23.

The Limited Sprintcars were also on show where Michael Keen made history. Keen took a record fifth successive win in the Kings of Wings event.

He ran second for the majority of the 20-lap feature, but snatched the lead in the closing stages.

Keen was overjoyed with the success.

“To win my first King of Wings five years ago was a big deal, so to win my fifth in a row is a truly amazing achievement, not only for me, but the entire team,” he said.

“It was without a doubt one of the biggest weekends of my speedway racing career so far with running the Limited Sprintcar on both the Friday and Saturday night and the 410 Sprintcar on the Saturday night, so the team and I had a fair bit going on throughout the weekend, but it was very satisfying to be able to handle all of the pressure that came with it.”

Thomas Miles

lasted three laps, while Alex Orr, Sam Walsh and Daniel Sayre all retired from top-three positions.

“The Bohud Racing team and I have made a fantastic start to the season, and it’s been a massive team effort that has allowed us to enjoy the early success that we have,” said a delighted Stewart.

“On Saturday night, I had a bit of fortune come my way early on in the feature race with a couple of my main rivals dropping out, but that’s just the way it goes sometimes.

“I was able to get to the front and stay there all the way through to the finish by virtue of the team providing me with an awesome race car to get the job done.”

Thomas Miles Image: ZP IMAGES

Image: RICHARD HATHAWAY PHOTOGRAPHY

STATE CHAMP ON TOP

QUEENSLAND CHAMPION Scott

Thomsen was a deserved winner in Round One of the AWSR Wide Open Clothing Wingless Sprint Series at Hi-Tec-Oils Toowoomba Speedway.

In a night of frantic racing, Thomsen managed to avoid misfortune as he negotiated his way through the quality field.

He was on the pace from the start setting a quick time of 13.813s and won a heat to secure pole for the feature.

Thomsen was a dominant force, leading all the way to win the 30-lap opening round.

This forced Brad Warren and Brad McCarthy to settle for ‘best-of-therest’ honours – podium image above Bruce Marshall won the AMCA feature after having to work at it all race long.

The current National Champion is now looking toward the defence of his Australian Title on March 7-8 next year in Toowoomba.

In the Late Models, Toowoomba’s Jordan Cunningham finished second to a very dominant Daniel Cassidy and Carter Armstrong finishing third.  Darren Ciesiolka got the double in the twin feature Street Stocks main event in the Engage Ag Ironman Series Round 2.

Luke Wilkinson finished second ahead of Garry Bondwick.

After the first 10 laps they flipped around and raced the other way for the final 10 laps and Wilkinson led early, but with a few laps remaining Ciesiolka slipped by on the bottom line to take over the race lead.

The Formula 500s produced some fast and entertaining racing with Liam Williams running the high banks in style.

A hard charging Bailey Leeson finished second from Amanda Chaffey  who was third.

In the Juniors Blake Duggan was first to greet the checkered flag from Ari Perry and Sam Nucifora Jnr.

In the Junior Sedans Top Stars Jackson Kunny won their feature from Tyler Beer and Lachie Burke.

In the New Stars it was Jaiden Houldsworth who got the win from Kaitlyn Humphreys and Lucas Welke.

The next event at Hi-Tec-Oils Toowoomba Speedway is on November 30 headlined by round 3 of the Ultimate Sprintcar Championship.

David Budden

LOCALS STEAL THE SHOW

ALEXANDRA SPEEDWAY opened its 2024/25 season on November 17 and a number of locals stole the show to the delight of an enthusiastic crowd.

The biggest field was the JP Asphalting Extreme Sports Sedans Series.

Damien Miller, Dale Smith and Tommy McDonald were fast, winning multiple heats as crash damage and mechanical issues along the way putting drivers out of the event before the final, some of them being favourites for a potential victory.

Donegan started strong securing the lead for the 25-lap feature before McDonald went past him on lap three.

Smith moved to the lead on lap six whilst Donegan dropped back into third spot before he passed McDonald for second on lap ten.

It took until lap fifteen before Donegan

passed Smith and assumed the lead spot once again, while Ian Thomsen’s car unfortunately ignited in flames.

McDonald also moved passed Smith before Donegan cleared off to victory.

In Top Star competition, drivers raced in three of the four heat races with Cruz Carlin winning the closest sprint.

Victorian state champion River Paterson put himself out in front on lap one with Tamika Simpson moving inside the top six until lap four, while Peacock and Carlin swapped spots for third.

However, no one could come close to Paterson.

New Stars action began with Noah Basten winning the first two heat races ahead of Luke Morrison who won the final qualifier.

Cruz Abela hit the concrete wall to create an early caution.

Basten hit the lead but Morrison kept the pressure on and snatched the lead on Lap 8. Morrison then created a little gap in the closing stages to defeat Basten.

The Street Stocks were decided by a 25-lap feature and Nelson led early with Paterson right behind.

Tim Hutchinson made some early moves to third but Nelson held a comfortable lead throughout and won by 4s ahead of Cornwall.

In Late Models Dylan Barrow and Chevy Edwards shared wins in the two qualifying races before Barrow led all ten laps in the final.

Alexandra Speedway will next hold competition on December 7 with a state Production Sedan series round.

Dean Thompson/DMT Speedway Media

VEAL SNATCHES IT

THE OPENING round of the Welsh’s Garage Doors and Gates 360-LS Sprintcar Track Championship, presented by Dirt X Ind and the prestigious 2024 Jack Willsher Cup went down to the wire at Premier Speedway.

Sprintcar racing returned to Warrnambool on November 16 and the feature was marked by multiple stoppages.

Eventually a consistent run finally took place and set up an epic 10-lap showdown to the end. Home-track favourite Jamie Veal delivered a masterclass performance, chasing down the win in trademark fashion.

Rusty Hickman led all race, but had to settle for second after losing the lead to Veal just two laps from the finish.

Having travelled 600km from a successful Adelaide 500 the previous night, Brett Milburn claimed third, while young talents Parker Scott and Harry Ross rounded out the top five.

The 2024 Jack Willsher Cup also provided an unforgettable finish for the

Pole-sitter Tim Rankin was a surprise DNF due to a safety belt issue.

Luck finally appeared to be on Hickman’s side as he looked poised for victory, only for lightening to strike twice as a lapped car incident ended his race.

Terry Rankin (pictured) then seized the opportunity, taking the lead and never looking back to secure a well-deserved win and adding his Jack Willsher Cup to an already impressive resume.

Brooke Buckingham, also competing in double duties, finished second, with Caleb Langdon completing the podium.

The next event at Premier Speedway is Max’s Race featuring Sprintcars, V8 Dirt Modifieds and Junior F500 on December 14. Thomas Miles

Image: AIDAN FREEMAN PHOTOGRAPHY

Top Star winner was River Paterson. Image: NAPIER PHOTOGRAPHY/ LOURISE NORMAN

SPEEDWAY

SUPPORTS IN THE CITY

THE NAPA Speedway in the City proved to be a huge success for the Speedway community as it ran in conjunction with the VAILO Adelaide 500.

While the Sprintcars took centre stage on the Thursday and Friday night, with match racing/demonstrations on the Saturday afternoon they were well supported by the selected Wingless Sprints and Street Stocks who were given the opportunity to showcase their respective grassroots divisions.

On the opening night the Wingless ran their supporting heat races with Matthew Kennedy and Joel Heinrich claiming the honours.

Sadly their feature race was cancelled due to the time curfew.

On the Friday night Heinrich added another heat win to his tally and Jesse Alexander picked up the other.

Going into the 12-lap final, Sam Martin started from pole position having been the top point scorer with two thirds from his heats, with Heinrich alongside.

At the drop of the green Martin got the hole shot while Heinrich dropped back through the field.

Martin took a flag-to-flag win, from Alexander and Kaitlin Vickers who was a last

was Kennedy followed Bradley Vaughan, who was also racing Super 2s over the weekend. Tate Cowie was the lone retiree.

As an added bonus, Michael Stewart was granted special permission to run six demonstration laps in a Speedcar.

Stewart sizzled sideways around the track, wowing the capacity crowd with a best lap of 14.558s; the quickest Sprintcar was Kerry Madsen with a 12.066s.

An invited field of 10 Street Socks were scheduled to run both Saturday and Sunday.

The three demonstration races on

The opening eight-lapper was won by Phil Watson over Anthony Beare and Darren Brumfield.

Heat two saw Beare and Brumfield go one better for the win and runner-up position respectively, while Craig Buchanan claimed the final minor placing. The third and final run would see Jason Duell add his name to the winners list while a consistent Beare was second and Watson third.

Sadly, overnight racing on the Saturday ended any chances of Sunday activity however the 2-Seater Sprintcar corporate

THE NEW KING OF THE ROCK

THE NEW Bairnsdale Speedway Association season got off to a flying start with the annual King of the Rock feature taking place.

Starting the nights action in Limited Sportsman both Matt Hurley and Darren Adams led before Dillon Siely in Heat 1.

Mal Siely took the second heat before Darren Adams led every lap of the third sprint, but just held out Siely by 0.080s.

In the final, trying as hard as he could to get in front of his father, Dillon Siely had to settle for second behind the old man who set a record 15-lap time of 4:40.063 in clinching his victory. Third was Adams, Matt Hurley and Daniel Hurley finished fourth and fifth.

State champion Shannon Meakins started the Hot Rod action with a win in the first and third qualifying heats whilst Brendan Roberts won the second.

Due to a mechanical problem, Meakins

would not start the final and, in a reverse grid line-up, Andy Kemp and Roberts started at the back with Roberts moving into the race lead by lap seven. Roberts took the win from Kali Hovey, Kemp, Allan Borradale and Phil Jenkins.

In a state championship preview, the Junior 1200cc Sedans appeared with Chase Doherty claiming an edge over competitors by winning the night’s final in record time.

Doherty started the evening winning Heat 1. Riley Taylor then won the second and third heats before nine drivers started the final.

In a 12-lap record time of 4:45.809s, Doherty claimed the win in front of Xander Baxter, Riley Taylor, Ella Sheedy and Ryder Taylor.

Mel Tatterson claimed the first two heats of the Division Two Hot Rods while Ben Crittenden was also victorious.

The final would not go the distance after a crash involving race leader Crittenden. He

McDONALD AND WALKER WIN OPENER

SPEEDWAY MARKED its return to West Gippsland for the start of the 2024/25 season.

A 25-lap final was held for the Wingless Sprints where got underway with Thomas McDonald and Marcus Fraser off the front row.

McDonald (pictured) led Fraser who chased hard with Irons in third until lap nine when he collected the concrete wall at Turn 4 and his race ended.

Ricky Mills had a strong race having won at Drouin previously. He moved to third and then second on lap 15 when Fraser’s challenge came to an end as he spun out of contention and Thomson moved into third.

The field circulated faster and faster as the race cycled through, and the track took more rubber.

McDonald clicked past the chequered flag more than two seconds in front of Mills, Thomson, Fitzpatrick and Daryl Coon, who rounded out the top five.

Bree Walker began the first round of the Ladies Standard Saloon series with a win in Heats 1 and 2 before Kate Stuchbery won the third.

Stuchbery, Tasharni Murray and Michelle George had a great little battle amongst themselves before the latter on lap five secured the second spot.

Walker stormed to the finish 5s ahead of George and Murray.

Nathan Miles won every race in the Junior Standard Saloons whilst Ella Sheedy and Cooper Irons swapped second and third spot amongst themselves.

was trying to pass another competitor and as he did so contact was made ending in his car catapulting into the air, sustaining considerable damage.

Mel Tatterson, who was second at the time, was declared winner in front of Josh Thomas and Kate Stuchbery.

Tyson Cull had a big win in the first and third Standard Saloons heats before Gus Argoon claimed the second.

In the final Argoon and Cull started at the front with perennial winner Josh Thomas close behind them.

Argoon and Cull had short races as both would exit on lap three, handing the lead to Thomas from Curtis and Josh Kokshoorn.

Thomas would lead every lap from lap four to go on and claim the win ahead of Curtis, Beau Stuchbery, Kokshoorn and Brendan Sheedy.

Dean Thompson/DMT Speedway Media

Club legend Leigh Gooding got his day off to a great start when he won the first of four heat races in Open Standard Saloons.

In the 15-lap final, Chris Miles claimed the front spot on lap one as brother Andrew took six laps before he could pass Gooding and move to second spot whilst Kacey Ingram exited to the infield early with car damage.

Andrew chased Chris with vigour and closed the gap late but fell 0.306s short.

In Ramp Racing, Jeff Blencowe, Brendan Sheedy and Darwyn Lee put on a fun-filled finale to the day with plenty of air between the bottom of the car and the track.

Drouin Speedway returns on December 8.

Dean Thompson/DMT Speedway Media

Mal Siely – won a family affair ... Image: IMAGE WORX

Sam Martin led all the way in the Friday night feature. Image: MATT CHRISTIE / NETWORK R

Image: IMAGE WORX/STEVE MITCHELL

GRIZZLY CHASSIS COMES OF AGE

AFTER A false start to the 2024/25 racing season for the NSW Grand Prix Midget Racing Association, Goulburn hosted the Bart Wilkinson Memorial and Round 2 of the NSW Grand Prix Midget Super Series.

Goulburn Speedway has undergone a complete reshape of the infield and also added extra banking which presented a new challenge for drivers.

The feature race for the Bart Wilkinson Memorial was much anticipated by the competition and prior to the event Sue Hardy piloted the immaculate BWS Special 1960 Micro Midget around Goulburn Speedway in a few parade laps.

The lineup for the feature race, based on highest point scorers through the heat races starting from the rear saw Gavin Black start from pole position with the returning Graham Lucas alongside.

Then came Jay Hall, Adam Buckley, Gary Bowyer, and Riley Bowyer. Dylan Lees was a non-starter with the gear drive issues his car suffered not being able to be rectified in time.

The 15 lap feature race got off to a clean start with Black taking advantage of his starting position to hit the lead followed by Hall and Buckley.

Towards the end of lap one, it was evident that Black had trouble with his car appearing very loose in the rear end as Hall went past into the lead and two laps later Buckley also moved up past.

The following lap, Bowyer Snr moved ahead of Black into third, while both he and Buckley then set about chasing down Hall ahead of them.

Hall then came up to lap Lucas on lap 11 and this was enough for Buckley seriously contend for the lead.

However, Hall (pictured above) remained rock solid and took the chequered flag a split second ahead of Buckley, closely followed by Bowyer Snr, Bowyer Jnr, Black and Lucas. The win for the NSW #6 Central Coast Motor Group team was full of meaning and certainly vindication for the many years of arduous work in developing the new chassis design. Hull now leads the championship by seven points over Buckley and Bowyer.

DOWN TO THE WIRE

BALLARAT MOTORSPORT fans were treated to a special Redline Raceway season opener that produced arguably the closest dirt-track finish recorded in Australia.

The Sports Sedans produced the most entertaining event as Nathan O’Brien defeating his brother Shane by just 0.001s in the finale.

The O’Briens dominated from the outset, winning the heats and they shared the front row.

Shane hit the lead early as Scott Bull and Connor Claridge swapped third and fourth a couple times early before Claridge had the spot to himself.

Jasmin Molloy and Emma Threlfall clashed early.

The fight for victory went down to the very last lap and the very last corner of the track.

Shane’s car drifted a little higher than it had been, and Nathan shot up the inside and won the drag race to the finish line with the transponders clocking the finish margin at 0.001s.

Speedcars were competing in a round of their Southern Speedcar Tour with eight drivers on show.

In a 15-lap final Zoe Pearce led every lap with the top three drivers for much of the race barely separated by a second.

Pearce took the win from Mills and Parker with six tenths covering them.

Scott Secombe started his season well by winning the first heat in the local Street Stock season, but he then discovered he had blown a head gasket

Jayden Blomeley began from pole and pressed ahead of Jensen Wilson and Matthew Martin catching quickly to make it a three-way tussle.

Blomeley in the end used his race smarts to record the win from Wilson and Martin.

Austin Chivers and Rick Stowe were heat race winners in the Standard Saloons before drivers lined up for a 15-lap final.

Jacob Head quickly moved from fifth to the lead in two laps whilst Stowe was

despondent as he made his way to the infield.

Austin Chivers hit the front on lap nine but there was some contact between the two lead drivers and Head took the lead back on lap 11.

He crossed the line believing he had won as he pulled up to grab the chequered flag to do a victory lap. However, stewards reaffirmed that he had been penalised for affecting the racing line of Chivers with a one spot penalty and Chivers was declared the winner from Head.

In the final, Trent Susol would win by a whopping 10s margin from Darren Clarke and Gavin Ough.

Wingless Sprints saw Blaine Densley start from pole ahead of the fast-starting Cameron O’Brien and Michael Conlan. They held the positions throughout the feature.

Racing returns to Redline Raceway on November 30.

Dean Thompson/DMT Speedway Media

EDWARDS AND MOON LIGHT UP WAHGUNYAH SPEEDWAY

A PACKED house watched Super Sedans and Late Models light up Wahgunyah Speedway recently.

Jacob Croker set a new record in his Late Model class, but could not stop Chevy Edwards winning the final.

Lachlan Onley, Croker with his 10-lap distance record of 3:25.069 in an all the way heat race victory and Ben Nicastri shared the qualifying races.

Edwards started the 40-lap final from the front row and led the first five laps with pressure coming from Onley.

With 20 laps to go Brock Edwards had moved to third, however Nathan Disney stormed into the picture and moved to second.

Brock Edwards then passed Disney with five laps still to go and would go on to finish in second with Chevy Edwards winning by one second over his brother Brock. Disney finished in third with Only and Nicastri rounding out the top five.

Tyson Moon won the Super Sedans setting two track records along the way.

Moon quickly set the tone when he set

a new ten lap record in the first heat race with a time of 3:36.590s whilst Lucas Roberts missed the race altogether with fuelling issues.

Travis Ramsdale’s night ended in Heat 2 with a blown engine whilst Roberts was now working on brake issues in his car.

Moon then went on to win the second

heat race before Brock Atkins won the last. Moon then won the 20-lap final in a record time of 7:21.967s by a two second margin in front of Jamie Collins, Atkins, Ash Bergmeier and Lionel West.

Early tricky track conditions didn’t seem to trouble visitor Tyler Smith from Tasmania who complemented the local

Junior Sedan field and clean-swept the night, winning all three heat races and then the final. He was 7s clear of Cooper Lack and Taijan Ussher.

In Sports Sedans, Danny Cox, Tristan McGraw, and Rhys Meakins won heat races that were incident-filled.

Meakins led much of the final until, on lap seven of eight, Cox hit the front.

Meakins had to settle for second ahead of Rhys Collins.

Tara Johannesen won two of three heat races in Ladies Sports Sedans to win the night on points in front of Larissa Ahearn and Cobie McGraw.

A crash into the wall in heat three to McGraw ignited a small fire underneath her car which the crash crew and fire rescue team quickly extinguished.

Rounding out the evening’s results were the Standard Saloons with club class champion Micheal Fleming–Robertson sweeping it all.

Racing returns to Wahgunyah on December 28.

Dean Thompson/DMT Speedway Media

Super Sedan victor Tyson Moon. Image: VERN PARKER PHOTOGRAPHY

Nathan O’Brien took out the Sports Sedans contest by a mere 0.001 seconds ... Image: DEAN MILLER

SPEEDWAY DIGITAL NEWS

McFADDEN LEADS WA TITLE FIELD

WA SPRINTCAR Championship at the Perth Motorplex this Saturday night, November 30. Spearheading the stars will be James McFadden, who is hoping to defend his WA crown.

McFadden will drive a #W23 Brady Motorsport machine in his first race of his summer in the west.

The World of Outlaws and High Limit race winner will also take part in a number of 202425 Maddington Toyota Sprintcar Series events and most notably the High Limit International at Perth at the end of the year.

This time 12 months ago, McFadden won the WA championship when subbing in the Callum Williamson Motorsport W3.

Williamson is back and back in form having won the last round of the Maddington Toyota Sprintcar Series.

He will be joined by former national champion Kerry Madsen, no stranger to WA racing over the years, having driven for local big-name teams including Kendrick Racing and Krikke Motorsport, while another former winner is Dayne Kingshott.

McFadden is just one of a number of interstate racers all including Luke Oldfield, who is ready for his first race out west.

Ryan Newton is carrying on at Monte Motorsport having contested the first four rounds of the WA-based series so far and finished third last start.

And if that is not enough, New Zealander Michael Pickens jets back into WA for his third appearance in the Sean Carren-owned W95 –he has claimed a second and a fourth already in this car.

In addition to the fight for the WA Sprintcar title, the battle for the 2024-25 Maddington Toyota Sprintcar Series is also one to watch. Williamson’s win saw him reduce Kingshott’s points lead to just four points, while Kris Coyle is the only other to exceed 700 points so far. Thomas Miles

Image: RICHARD HATHAWAY PHOTOGRAPHY

WILLIAMSON STEALS THE WIN

CALLUM WILLIAMSON opened his account for the 2024-25 Maddington Toyota Sprintcar Series in thrilling fashion in round 4 at Bunbury Speedway.

Williamson claimed his first feature race win of the season when he picked the pocket of Kaiden Manders on the last lap in a Saturday night thriller with the difference just 0.786s, while Queenslander Ryan Newton was third.

Williamson’s win seemed unlikely for much of the race.

He started from third but dropped back to sixth early on, before gradually clawing his way back into contention and was in third by mid-race distance

The W3 slipped under Dayne Kinghsott to take second with three laps remaining, but Manders was still in control.

However, as the cars bunched up in heavy lapped traffic, he pounced on Manders for the win in the dying seconds.

The victory came after Williamson was second quickest in his qualifying group and

also raced from third to victory in his heat race.

The third round had to use a modified format after challenging track conditions meant the race surface had to be reworked, forcing a late start to the show.

While it was his first podium of the season, following a pair of fourths and a DNF, seeing victory slip was a disappointing outcome for Manders.

He had started on the front row with Kingshott and was second until he also snatched the lead with a handful of laps remaining.

At the start of the show he was second quickest in his qualifying group and took a heat race win after starting from third.

Newton, who has contested all four shows of the series so far, two in his own Q66 and the last two in the Monte Motorsport W17, continued his good earlyseason form with the third - on the back of a win, a second and a DNF so far.

He started from 12th in the final and

by mid race distance was eighth before settling into fifth with about eight laps remaining.

Newton finished very strong, gaining two more spots in the last few laps.

Kerry Madsen, in his first race with Diamond Bay Motorsport for the season, was fourth, after starting from seventh. Kingshott, who led for led for about 25 laps, held on for fifth, ahead of Brad Maiolo, Jamie Maiolo and Taylor Milling.

The race was only seconds old when Jack Williamson and Daniel Harding were both facing the wrong way just on the edge of the infield.

The red lights came on a couple of laps later after Harding and Joel Ettridge crashed hard in pits bend, putting them both out of action.

Another caution arrived with 17 laps remaining when Andrew Priolo spun from ninth, while Jaydee Dack did the same shortly after.

Thomas Miles

SPEEDWAY DIGITAL NEWS

FOWLER WINS VICTORIAN TITLE

IN SEARING heat, Chris Fowler rose to the occasion to win the Victorian Grand Prix Midget Racing Association state title for the first time at Rushworth Speedway in the Goulburn Valley with temperatures at 35 degrees.

The feature race was reduced to fifteen laps, with wet weather in Victoria on its way and also due to the condition of the track after the beating it had already taken after the heat of the day and the non-stop racing.

As the flag marshal and Steward sent the field on its way Fowler positioned himself on the racing line leaving the field behind him needing to force a mistake, wait for him to make one, or make a bold move to get passed.

Robotham, Myers, Perry, and Shawn Ward settled in the top five in the early race stages with Luke Ward out of the race on lap two and Kamolins out of the race on lap three, whilst Myers passed Robotham into second spot on the same lap.

Eight laps into the race and over the halfway mark, Fowler still led Myers.

Florrimell was behind Shawn Ward with Rouse tailing the field as Meredith pulled out of the race with drive shaft bearing damage.

On lap 14 Florrimell suffered undiagnosed issues in the engine bay, possibly Fuel Injectors and his race ended and despite a spin on the final lap.

MITCHELL AND TAYLOR WIN BAIRNSDALE SPEEDWAY MAIN EVENTS

FOR THE second year in succession the Bairnsdale Speedway Association played host to the Victorian Speedway Council Junior 1200cc Sedan state title with Andrew Mitchell coming out on top.

The day started with weather in the high thirties and after the green flag waved the field away, Hutchinson dropped down to fifth on lap one as he got a little wide at turn four opening the door for others right behind to drive underneath and pace him. Doherty led the race until the lap five rollover of Ryder Taylor just in front of his little brother Cruz Taylor as Ryder and others made passing moves around the backmarkers of the race.

At the restart Doherty continued out in front of the field before another racing incident with Max Murdoch and Xander Baxter crashing into the back straight concrete wall after they collided as Baxter tried to pass.

Baxter became the first of the big favourites to exit the race.

On lap 11 Hutchinson pulled infield with engine concerns as his car went up in smoke under the hood.

Doherty at this point led Mitchell who had started back in eighth, with Riley Taylor in third, Dayne Murdoch and Knight the top five on lap twelve.

On lap 14 Mitchell hit the front of the race whilst a couple of laps later Riley Taylor spun himself out of a podium place down the back straight.

After 25 gruelling laps Mitchell crossed the finish line just under two seconds ahead of Doherty, Murdoch, Ella Sheedy and Knight rounding out the top five.

Warrick Taylor competing on race day in Unlimited Sedans whilst supporting his two sons and his nephew and niece all competing in the Junior title, won two of the three heat races whilst Anthony McKean won the other.

In the 15 final Taylor set a race distance track record, Corey McDonald raced to second place with McKean third the Troy Hutchison and Daryl Nicolson rounding out the top five.

In Open Standard Saloons Justin Smith’s great night went backwards early as he dropped down to thirteenth in the field and after five laps Yeomans led Argoon. But Ingram surged ahead of Argoon on lap seven.

In the closing stages Blake Smith pulled infield and Yeomans finished off the race just over three seconds ahead of Ingram and Argoon.

Nathan Miles won all three of his heats in Junior Standard Saloons he raced out to a

big lead early and stretched it lap after lap to claim a feature race win over ten laps distance with Ella Sheedy second after having just finished fourth in the Junior 1200cc Sedan title minutes earlier. Cooper Irons finished in third place with Aliyah Westwood and Toby Greaves rounding out the top five.

Fraser Crittenden and Troy Wilson had some great battles for the lead in the Division 2 Hot Rods with their closest margin being .343 of a second. Crittenden won all three qualifiers before winning the final ahead of Troy Wilson.

Bree Walker won one and Caroline Allen two heats on the way to the final for the Ladies Standard Saloon final.

Allen then led the way in the final to defeat Walker, Tasharni Murray, Michelle George and Sharni Stuchbery.

Bairnsdale Speedway Association is back in action on Boxing Day.

Dean Thompson

Perry dropped in behind Ward in fifth position as Fowler claimed the Victorian title victory ahead of Myers, Robotham, Shawn Ward. Perry and Rouse.

“First thing I want to say is that I dedicate the victory tonight to the late Ross Stainer who built the HMJ Chassis’ cars that Locky and I drive,” Fowler said.

“Also, a huge thank you to my father John Fowler who preps the car each week and maintains everything, I just zip up and drive, this win is a team effort, I am the driver he is the man who makes this team what it is.

“It is as much his win as it is mine. I want to thank the Goulburn Valley Auto Club for their efforts in difficult weather and for bringing the fans into the pits to have a look around, we need to do these things to find new racers, well done to them.

“Congratulations to the other drivers who achieved podiums and their best possible results tonight.”

Dean Thompson

HEALEY MAKES LATE MODEL DEBUT

DESPITE BEING thrown into the deep end, youngster Kaiden Healey fought hard in his Late Model debut during last Saturday night’s NSW Title at Dubbo Speedway.

The 19-year-old from Portland in NSW made his debut with the Croker Family Motorsport team in the #15 and finished fifth.

“I can’t thank the Croker family enough for the opportunity to drive one of their cars to make my Late Model debut, as it was a dream come true for me and my family,” Healey expressed.

“The Croker family and I have been friends for a few years when Jacob and I raced Junior Sedans against one another, and Jacob and I have been good mates since.

“When Jacob moved into Late Models last season, I’ve been helping on his pit crew when it wouldn’t clash with my own racing commitments, and a few weeks ago, the Croker family asked if I wanted to drive their second Late Model, and it was a question that I didn’t have to be asked twice.”

“My goal heading into my Late Model debut was to just stay out of the trouble and get laps, so it was wonderful to exceed my own expectations and bring home a top five result in the NSW Title.”

For Healey’s team-mate on the night, Jacob Croker, he was unlucky to not win the NSW Title.

Starting the NSW Title decider from pole position, he was a front-running contender for 33 of the 40-lap distance, before an error saw him drift wide and into the fence and come to a stop.

He managed to restart at the rear of the field and went on to finish in seventh.

It was certainly a case of what might have been for Croker when it came to his NSW Title hopes.

Daniel Powell

Image: MICHAELA EADE PHOTOGRAPHY

Image: LONE WOLF PHOTOGRAPHY

Image: Supplied

NATIONALS WRAP

CHAPMAN CROWNED

TOM CHAPMAN (above) emerged as champion after a tense Australian Formula Ford 1600 Nationals finale at Morgan Park.

It all came down to a winner-takes-all finale after a big weekend on track.

Brock Brewer took pole ahead of Liam Loiacono, but the heats would determine a progression grid.

Brewer was able to hold position in Heat 1, but fired off the track at the start of the second, which was won by Todd Vince after a host of battles.

The third and final heat arrived on Sunday morning, and Loiacono overhauled Vince.

Once the times were calculated and the grid was set, Loiacono took pole position followed by Brewer and Vince, while Chapman was fourth.

When the lights went out Brewer got the best jump on the outside line, edging ahead of Loiacono.

But disaster struck after only a few hundred metres, with Brewer clashing with Loiacono.

Brewer lifted and rotated in front of the pack which set off a chain reaction.

AJ Gealy had nowhere to go while running along the pit wall and he ended up sandwiched with Brewer.

Loiacono only limped as far as Turn 2 when broken front left suspension brought him to a halt, while Andrew Torti had pulled up after The Bridge with mechanical trouble.

The second-row starters somehow navigated around the spinning Brewer, and after a red flag and Safety Car the race resumed on lap three.

This is where Chapman made his move, immediately fending off pressure from Vince and Marc Redman.

Vince added to the unpredictable script, running off track on lap four in his pursuit of Chapman and dropping to last place.

Despite being 24s back, he put in a storming recovery drive to fourth and fell just shy of a podium on the last lap.

In clean air, Chapman charged away and ended up cruising to an 11s triumph.

Marc Redman ended up having a lonely drive to second being 19s ahead of third placed Matthew Dicinoski.

Dicinoski only just held onto the place with the charging Vince coming within a second.

Meanwhile the battle for The Analogue Cup came down to two, with Shane Baumer and Wes Young putting on a spectacle.

By mid-race though it was clear that something was amiss for Baumer after having edged into the lead of the battle, only for a cut tyre valve stem to deflate his tyre.

Wes Young would continue to the flag and collect the Analogue Cup honours with a seventh-place outright finish.

Thomas Miles

RX8 CUP WRAPS UP AT MORGAN PARK

THE RX8 Cup Series headed north to Morgan Park Raceway in Queensland for the sixth and final round of the 2024 championship.

A good field of 15 cars hit the track on Saturday morning for qualifying in warm conditions and Michael Hazelton claimed pole with a time of a 1:29.3s.

Jett Blumeris locked out the front row 0.666s behind Hazelton with debutant Hayden Jackson in third.

Hazelton started the weekend off in style leading from lights to flag in race 1, coming home with the race win.

Jackson found himself beached at Turn 4 after an ABS failure, allowing Blumeris and Rob Scott to tussle for the podium positions.

Race 2 on Saturday afternoon would see Hazelton lead majority of the race before striking late drama, with a hub failure bringing an end to his race.

Blumeris took the lead with only a few laps to go holding off Scott to claim his maiden RX8 Cup win.

Tom Donohue was close behind Scott bringing home his first podium finish.

Newcomer to the series Rod Cannon would unfortunately come across a traffic cone on the exit of Turn 12 damaging the front of the #88 car.

Robert Scott got a great jump in Race 3 and claimed the lead over Blumeris.

Blumeris applied plenty of pressure on Scott but couldn’t find a way past before losing a spot to Jackson.

Track limits at Turn 12 was the headline of this race with a number of drivers receiving drive-through penalties after multiple infringements.

Unfortunately Grice and Donohue failed to serve their drive throughs seeing them disqualified from Race 3.

Bailey Scott’s weekend came to an end with mechanical issues bringing him to a stop on the circuit, while Rod Cannon had a brilliant drive from 14th to sixth in just his second RX8 Cup race. Jackson made a statement in the final race of the weekend getting past Blumeris into Turn 4 on the first lap.

Jackson gapped the field before an offtrack excursion saw Blumeris, Scott and Hazelton pass the TA2 driver.

Hazelton was looking to finish the season on a high making the move on Scott before passing Blumeris for the race lead.

With the round win on the line Blumeris continued to battle hard with Rob Scott.

Hazelton took the chequered flag but would receive another track limits penalty, adding 5 seconds to his finishing time.

Blumeris thus took his second race win of the weekend and secured the round win over Robert Scott in second.

Trans Tasman Drive Prize Champion Robert Scott will make his way over to New Zealand to compete at Levels raceway in the Mazda Pro8 Championship. Thomas Miles

RX8 CUP CHAMPIONSHIP POINTS 2024

1st – Robert Scott 607 points

2nd – Mik Hazelton 498 points

3rd – Jett Blumeris 466 points

4th – Martin Lyall 427 points 5th – Jackson Noakes 286 Points

Image: AMELIA FOSS/TIA WATT

Michael Hazelton shows the RX8 field the way ...

ONE LAST DASH

FOR THE final time the Queensland Racing Drivers Championship raced around the ‘Paperclip’ for the 2024 finale at the start of November.

It was a big weekend for the Replica Tourers (pictured, right) with multiple driver combinations taking on multiple races.

The Commodores were dominant early, filling three of the top four grid spots with Jason Grimmond leading the charge by 1.9s.

Grimmond carried on his momentum by taking out the first two Driver B races comfortably ahead of John Robinson.

But Robinson had his time in Race 3 as Grimmond fell to third. But the latter went back to back in the final sprints to cement his dominance.

But the Driver A races was a different story as Matthew Ross won a thriller in his Mazda RX8, six tenths ahead of Tony Rowe.

The second race was even closer with Ross falling short on this occasion, by a mere three tenths to Chris Soloman, who took the first Sunday sprint in a Toyota Sprinter.

It was Tony Rowe’s turn in Race 4 and he carried on that momentum to win the finale.

It was set to be competitive straight away in Queensland Production Cars as Lindsay Kearns took pole by 0.08s.

But the races were all about one driver, Beric Lynton, who swept all four races.

Ewen Burg made his intensions clear in Superkarts by taking pole by 3s and winning the opener.

However, he was one of many first lap

retirements in Race 2 where Tim Weier was victorious and he proceeded to dominate the next three races.

But his run ended in a crazy final race where winner Tim Philp was the only one from the 14 drivers to finish the eight-lap race with seven retiring on the penultimate lap.

Caleb Paterson held his nerve to keep a big pack of Excels behind him in the 10-lap opener.

However, Paterson was a lap five DNF in Race 2 where Josh Richards held off Kade Davey.

Richards did it again in Race 3, being just four-tenths clear of Riley Beggs.

Paterson was back to his best by Race 4 and won by 4s before Beggs had his time in the finale.

The stage was set for a thrilling fight in the Queensland Touring Car Championship with Cameron Haak taking

pole by just 0.0050s.

The fight for Race 1 victory was just as close as Robert Bellinger trumped the Commodores in his BMW and won by three-tenths.

Bellinger was able to stay ahead in Races 2 and 3, but he dropped to third in the fourth race on the Sprint circuit as Haak took a comfortable 7s win. But Bellinger was back in front for the finale.

Thomas Miles

STATE SUCCESS

THE FINAL round of the Motorsport Australia Queensland State Circuit Championship was held at Morgan Park Raceway on November 7-8.

One driver who dominated was Matthew Boylett as he swept everything on offer in the Hyundai Excels.

Whilst Boylett reigned supreme, it was no suer thing as he won the first race by a single tenth, but enjoyed easier races afterwards.

In 3J, 3E and Invited Ashley Isarasena started strong in a 1979 Mazda RX7, but was not seen in the final two races.

From there Bruce Cook was on song, recording back to back wins in the 1974 Ford Escort which proved instrumental to his round win despite Matthew Birks winning the finale.

It was all one way traffic in Sports, Racing and Formula Ford Duratec as Michael McMillan not only took pole, but won all four races.

This left Adam Beesley to overcome Anthony Shore for second place.

There were eight Sports Sedans roaring around the 2km circuit and consistency paid off for Phillip Sutcliffe.

Daniel Crompton’s 2012 Ford Mustang was the fastest in the field, taking pole by eight tenths and won the opener comfortably.

However, he retired three laps into race 2 and Sutcliffe took full toll, rising from fourth to first.

Despite Crompton fighting back and going back to back in the final two races, it was not enough as runner-up finishes were enough for Sutcliffe to hold onto round honours.

The Holden HQ and Gemini honours started strong for Justin van Twest before Seth Mathie put the foot down.

Van Twest started strong by taking pole by a tenth and winning the opening race which was a thriller.

Just three-tenths split van Twest and Mathie, with the latter passing Brandon Madden on the final lap.

But Mathie responded in Race 2, getting a strong start and holding on by five-tenths of a second.

With a win under his belt he was then unstoppable and dominated the rest of the weekend as van Twest retired in Race 3.

Glen Ebert made his intentions clear in Production Sports Cars by taking pole by a second and half.

However, the race pace was not there as Ebert slumped to sixth and Gerard Murphy dominated by 15s.

Murphy completed the clean sweep in the 29-lap finale by beating Wayne Hennig as Ebert improved to third.

The Formula Vees were busy with four races and Alexander Hedemann was the class of the field.

Hedemann took pole by a huge 2.3s and carried on that momentum by winning the first two races.

However, his winning run was disrupted by Jeffrey Robinson, but he retired from the final race which was taken out by Oliver Seibel.

But Hedemann remained in the top five and won the round comfortably.

National Formula Ford and RX8 Cup reports are on pages 42 and 40 respectively.

Thomas Miles

The Queensland Tourers pile into Turn 1 ... Above right: A packed grid of Excels. Images: MTR IMAGES

NATIONALS WRAP

SUPER SUBARU

DANIEL LEITNER (pictured)

powered his way to a dominant win in the Historic and Classic Hillclimb held at Rob Roy on November 17.

Leitner shot out of the blocks in his Subaru WRX and was never seriously challenged on his way to victory.

After being more than 2s clear after the opening run, the #211 set the winning time as early as the second run.

Leitner posted a smashing 20.73s time in Run 2 and only hit the track one more time for the rest of the events are in the knowledge it was all sealed as he also claimed D Classic 3001cc over honours.

Next best 2.3s back was Mike Barker in his Elfin Type 3 Clubman.

Despite having a greater top speed, Barker’s best was a 23s flat.

Whilst he had to settle for second, he still emerged with F Clubman Sports post 1975 honours.

He also emerged on top in a very close fight for the runner-up position.

Having two similar low 23s times in his first two runs, Barker looked safe, but Paula Elstrek fired a 23.39s on run #2 but did not appear again.

Benjamin Snowball secured fourth as just six tenths covered positions 4-6 also made up of Chris Randall and Gerardo Rabbi.

Brian Garrett in a Fiat X1/9 took out A Classic up to 1500cc.

John Read snatched B Classic 1501-2000cc from Ayrton Williams with his final run of the day where he improved by eight tenths.

The battle for C Classic 20013000cc was a classic as just three tenths covered the top three with Michael Hill’s Datsun sneaking clear of a pair of Mini Coopers.

There were only four cars in J Post Vintage Racing 1930-1940, but that did not stop them from putting on a show with 0.05s the difference.

A fast opening run saw Phillip Gray take it out in a Ford Special, only just ahead of Jayden Cresswell, who fell just short.

Mark Burns, Phillip Hallo, Rodney North, Barry Brickland, Robert Osborn, Craig Webb, Maurice Harper, Russ Mead, Jane Vollebregt, Donald Hume, Noel Lindsay and Russell Van also won their respective classes.

Thomas Miles

DAY DELIGHT

THE 2024 Trident Tyre Centre Legends of the Lakes Hill Climb has proved yet again a raging success as drivers from across Australia put the pedal to the metal on the iconic tight, windy and steep Valley Lakes track.

The event was owned once again by Dan Day ( above ) who claimed his ninth consecutive hillclimb title.

Day was unstoppable all weekend, setting a new record three times with his best effort of 48.05 seconds, breaking the previous record that sat in the low 49 seconds set in 2022.

Rounding out the podium was Adelaide’s Douglas Johnson who took home second place and Kevin Mackrell who finished third.

Event director Kevin Raedel said the event ran well with the drivers getting 15 runs across the weekend.

Raedel was also impressed with how well the track performed during the weekend.

“The track had some pretty good times out of it,” he said.

“There was lots of grip and the right temperature made it a very fast track with lots of people getting personal bests quite a few times which is good.”

Raedel thought Day had a very strong weekend on the track.

“He pushed as hard as he could, right from the very start Saturday morning he pushed really hard,” he said.

Raedel said the on-site big screen broadcasting the racing live was a hit among the spectators at the event.

“The big screen was a big hit again, everyone loved the big screen back again, it’s very expensive to have but people loved it,” he said.

Raedel said the locals had a variety of

results during the weekend with some doing better than others while one the junior drivers had a great result.

“It was a mixed bag, Tristan Crowe and Kylie Howard had a good weekend in their classes, they did not win their classes but did really well,” he said.

“Lots of the local juniors had a good weekend with young Charlie Evans, he won the junior class, he was really, really fast.”

Raedel enjoyed the overall atmosphere of the event during the weekend with a solid crowd.

“It was really good, on Saturday it was really good and on Sunday it was a bit down than normal but Saturday was huge,” he said.

“There were around 2000 people on the premises on the Saturday.”

Will Boston/The SE Voice

TESTING SKILLS

IT WAS a busy time for the South Eastern Automobile Club recently with a doubleheader motorkhana and ‘mystery tour’ on the same weekend.

The Glenburnie Saleyards was the scene for the fifth round of the motorkhana series.

Phil Wilson (right) was dominant in the motorkhana, topping 10 of the 15 tests behind the wheel of his EA Falcon.

Jason Sims showed some initial fight by being the best on test #2 but often had to resort to being the bridesmaid.

Dillan Young turned up the attack knob in his Pulsar on the second attempt at ‘Crossed Four Point.’

That breakthrough was sandwiched

between some Wilson winning streaks. Henry Sims finished his day on a high, taking out each of the last two runs in his Celica.

The fifth round of the SEAC Motorkhana season doubles as a SA State event on December 7. SE Voice

Image: AUTOPIX IAN SMITH

IMAGE: DARREN ARCHIBALD/TURN 8 PHOTOGRAPHY

HOME HAT-TRICK

A BIG year of Touring Car Masters finished with a bang at The Bend where a home hero shone and a new champion was crowned.

The fight on the track was dominated by South Australian Joel Heinrich, who continued his love affair with The Bend.

After winning the final two races in 2023, Heinrich was untouchable in the Whiteline Racing Camaro, taking a home hat-trick to be the only driver to record a clean sweep in a competitive season and end an up-anddown year on a high.

Behind him Adam Garwood raced his way to ‘best-of-the-rest’ honours and, more importantly, a maiden Touring Car Masters crown with ease.

Having enjoyed a formidable 82-point advantage over Jamie Tilley coming into the final round, he ensured there was never a late challenge.

Heinrich’s pace was clear in qualifying as he took pole by seven-tenths with a 2:00.2312s.

Next best was Andrew Fisher, who threw his Jesus Racing Torana SLR500 to the limit to edge Garwood and Ryan Hansford.

The #95 charged into the lead when lights went green as light rain started to fall and a big battle erupted for second.

Garwood was in an attacking mood on the opening lap and made a big dive past Hansford before having a crack at the inside of Fisher at Turn 6,.

But in a tyre smoking moment, Garwood made heavy contact with Fisher and the pair spun to the back of the field.

But Fisher did not let the setback and ‘disappeared’ door impact him and the determined driver charged back to third ahead of Scott Cameron and Dean Lillie subbing for Steven Johnson in the Hancock Racing Mustang.

Garwood also regained ground to sixth, which was important as his nearest title rival Jamie Tilley retired with mechanical issues in his Mustang. Unfortunately there were more issues for Tilley as he limped home with more gremlins in 12th.

Off the rolling start fior the next, it was an even getaway for the front row of Heinrich and Hansford, but Garwood had the best launch and made it three wide.

By the time they got to the first turn, Heinrich hit the lead on the inside, while Fisher followed him to soar up to second ahead of Hansford and Garwood.

But Garwood only needed one lap to launch an attack on Hansford thanks to a mighty exit from the opening complex.

Hansford then had his work cut out keeping Cameron behind and the DFH Camaro tried to go around the outside into Turn 1.

But contact was made sending Cameron into a smokey spin and he would fall from fourth to 12th, while Lillie took to the grass.

Cameron would have a second spin at Turn 17

Hansford still ended up losing fourth in the process with Danny Buzadzic pouncing on the opportunity.

The fight for second, well behind Heinrich, would go down to the penultimate lap.

Fisher held the high ground but made a mistake, locking up at Turn 6, which offered an open invitation to Garwood to slip past.

In the finale, Heinrich again made good use of the inside line to defend the lead as Garwood slipped in behind, while Fisher held off Hansford for third.

Fisher struggled to keep up with the top two and got a fishtail coming out of the final corner at the end of the opening lap, which left him vulnerable to Hansford.

The Multispares Racing driver went on the attack across both the pit and back straights and it was not until the Turn 6 hairpin where the former snatched third in the all-Torana tussle.

But it was not over as they were door-todoor once again three laps later and Fisher was able to sweep past on this occasion. However, a lap later it was over in dramatic fashion.

Fisher and Hansford went side-by-side into the opening corner and clashed,

seeing both of them rotate and drop to the tail of the pack.

This promoted Zukanovic to third ahead of the multi-car furious pack, but the Falcon did not hold the position for long as he speared off at the opening corner.

Buzadzic was now in third, but by the skin of his teeth, with Jamie Tiley on his back.

But two corners later the Mustang dropped a wheel in the dirt and lost ground.

Just when things were really getting tasty, a Safety Car was called due to both Tony Karanfilovski and David Hender coming to a stop.

This set the scene for an exciting one-lap dash tothe finish.

As Heinrich put the foot down, Garwood suffered wheelspin which allowed Buzadzic to roar up alongside down the pit straight.

But Garwood got his elbows out through the tight Turns 1-3 complex, which meant Buzadzic found himself on the back foot down the back straight.

Jamie Tiley had already passed Zukanovic and set his sights on Buzadazic, but went too deep at the hairpin, escorting both the Mustang and Torana wide.

This looked to open the door for Zukanovic, but smoke suddenly appeared from the XD Falcon and it gave up the ghost by Turn 13 and dropped to the back of the pack and, after all the drama, Buzadzic retained third.

As had been the case all weekend, there was no challenging Heinrich, who shot clear by 2s, while behind him Garwood took the title and celebrated with some impressive Holden doughnuts.

It was an exciting end to a breakthrough 2024 season for Touring Car Masters.

In the series results, Garwood won the TCM series overall ahead of Ryan Hansford and Jamie Tilley. Pro Masters winner was Ryan Hansford, Garwood took Pro Am, with Peter Burnitt taking the hours in Pro Sport.

The 2025 season will begin at Sydney Motorsport Park on February 21-23.

Thomas Miles

Joel Heinrich (Whiteline Camaro) took the points on the day, but Adam Garwood took the crown. Images: JAMES SMITH PHOTOGRAPHER

Heinrich and Fisher lead the field away, with champ-in-waiting Garwood (#2) on the second row alongside Ryan Hansford. Below: Hansford and Buzadzic tough it out side-by-side. Right: Fisher fought on without his passenger door ...

NATIONALS WRAP

MOUNTAIN MEN WIN

ENDURANCE BATTLE

THE PANORAMA Mountain Men lived up to their name by surviving an arduous race around Winton in the 2024 Alfa Club 10 Hour Regularity Relay.

The Panorama Mountain Men not only overcame 10 hours of racing, but also 114 drivers from 25 teams that took on Winton.

The Mazda MX-5 entry overcame Just Regular Guys, who made it a Mazda 1-2 as last year’s winner Maschi Di Alfa had to settle for third.

It proved to be a nail-biter as it ended up with just a handful of seconds between each other.

However, the competitors had no idea until after the chequered flag as there were no progressive results posted throughout the event, making it a complete guessing game.

Victory ensured the Panorama Mountain Men cemented themselves as one of the finest regularity teams in the country having also won at Sandown.

Despite being from NSW, they have a perfect record in 2024 Victorian Regularity Relay Series starts.

“You just have to go and do your best and hopefully when they have the presentation, you’re towards the pointy end of the field,”

Panorama Mountain Men team manager Stewart Temesvary told Motorsport Australia.

“You’re always wondering how other teams are doing, but you just go out and keep doing laps and hopefully achieving your goal, which is being as consistent as possible.

“Effectively you need to be within one second of your nominated time to get a bonus. It’s a pretty fine margin.

“We start planning four to six months out from the event. We analyse previous results and then go with a goal of what we want to achieve, and then we work out how we can hit that. It all comes down to good strategy.”

Thomas Miles

SYDNEY IS HOLESHOT CITY

THE INAUGURAL round of the Pro Drag Racing Championship at Sydney Dragway was hailed as a success despite the threat of rain.

Over 50 Professional racers took to the Sydney Dragway quarter mile, supported by the Grand Finals for the NSW Championship Series sportsman racers. The event counts towards the National Drag Racing Championship Points score with the NDRC and PDRC

The A-Final in Pro Alcohol saw the two highest-seeded racers at the event, the championship winner and #3 Russell Mills and Chris Hargrave doing battle, off the back of two wins each in the All Run Format.

Mills logged a 5.52s in a round one solo and backed it up with a 5.51s win over Cruz Lovering, while Hargrave recorded a victory over a tyre shaking Cheyne Phillips in Round one on his way to a 5.64s and improved to a 5.57s in Round 2.

Mills was once again on song in the final, his 5.53s enough to best Hargrave’s 5.60s in a race decided by only .0095s.

Pro Mod was the largest category in the professional ranks, with 15 competitors facing the starter.

The A-Final came down to the two most consistent cars throughout the event in the form of Former Champion Zoran Gajic and first time Pro Mod Finalist Peter Gratz.

Gajic logged wins over Danny Makdessi and Joe Gauci, while Gratz bested Neil Murphy (courtesy of a red light start) and Rob Campisi respectively.

The final saw a holeshot advantage to Peter Gratz, but Gajic had made the difference up by half track and went through for the victory, a 5.89s besting a 5.94s from Gratz.

The class of the Pro Stock field was undoubtedly Rob Dekert and John Barbagallo, the only two cars in the Pro Stock Category to run into the six second zone through the first two rounds of racing whilst taking two wins from two.

Chris Soldatos was unlucky not to take a place in the final round, but a late reaction time in Round one that resulted in a loss to Barbagallo cost him dearly.

The final saw a marginal start line advantage to Barbagallo, and that was the difference in the end with his 6.99s enough to hold off a fast finishing 6.95s from Dekert by .0093s .

Pro Bike was a war of attrition with only six bikes fronting the starters orders, after licencing issues cruelled the hopes of Callam Godeassi and Brendan Sanders in their hope of making the field.

Reigning champion Luke Crowley was the quickest bike through both of the first two rounds of racing and rightfully took his position in the final alongside Jason Lee, in his second season returning to the sport after a 10-year-plus break.

In the Final a massive holeshot to Jason Lee saw him take an upset victory over Crowley, his 7.31s enough to hold off a 7.304s from Crowley.

The Pro Import exhibition featured six cars, with three rotary powered cars taking on two Toyota 2JZ-powered cars.

The final featured Paul Mouhayet and Frank Tarabay, the two most consistently quick cars throughout the event.

Mouhayet took the win on yet another holeshot, his 6.04s enough to account for Tarabay’s 5.997s.

The win saw Mouhayet take home $2,000 cash.

The PDRC moves to Adelaide for the second round of the Championship on February 8-9 2025.

SPRINTING AROUND THE ISLAND

THE ISLAND was busy on the second weekend of November as the Phillip Island Auto Racing Club hosted Superkarts and a series of SuperSprints.

A total of 41 cars of all shapes and sizes took part in the SuperSprint sessions, providing plenty of colour for those in attendance to enjoy.

Setting the fastest time of the day was

Tabitha Ambrose in a Ford 15.

Ambrose’s 1:39.0991s was 1.7s clear of nearest rival Tyler Edney to take out Open Racing Cars honours.

Leading the way and turning heads in Closed Racing Cars over 2500cc were a pair of former Ford V8 Supercars.

Driving a #888 Budweiser Ford AU

Falcon was Andrew O’Connell, who set an impressive pace recording a 1:40.2274s.

He managed to sneak ahead of Andrew Cook, who was driving the #66 Dean Canto BA Falcon (pictured) that Triple Eight fielded in Marcos Ambrose’s maiden championship winning 2003 season.

Paul Lummis and his Mitsubishi Scorpion dominated Closed Racing Cars up to 2500cc, taking that by over 7s.

Daniel Harvey (up to 1600cc) Patrick Kan (1601-2000cc) Tuck Ee (2001-3000) and Graham Bentley (over 3000cc) won the respective modified classes.

Tyler Jones (up to 16000cc) Robert McMahon (1601-2000) Warren Hutchinson (over 3000cc) claimed their respective standard events.

There were plenty of classes to watch when the SuperKarts went racing.

In 125 Gearbox Brad Stebbing won an attritional opener before not starting a second that went to Lachlan Jay. Kristian Stebbing and Tyler Edney ensured it was four winners from as many races.

Patrick Ross enjoyed a fast start taking the first three 125 Max Heavy races, but not were all smooth sailing as he held on to Race 2 by a slender 0.05s over Colin McIntyre.

Ross’ hat-trick was completed with an

even closer race beating McIntyre by only 0.011s in Race 3.

The best finish was saved for last however, as Tony Moit trumped McIntyre and Ross in a photo finish for the ages as a tenth covered the top three.

In 125 Max Light, Russ Occhipinti recorded a clean sweep, but only after surviving some serious challenges from Lucas Quattrocchi. There were more fantastic finishes in

Max Super Heavy.

The tone was set in Race 1 where Rod Clarke led home a top four covered by only eight-tenths.

Although Clarke would go on to take a clean sweep, it was far from easy with no win more than a second. His last was especially close with the top three covered by a tenth.

Thomas Miles

125

Zoran Gajic took a strong win in Pro Mod. Image: CACKLING PIPES PHOTOGRAPHY

Image: REBECCA HIND/REVVED PHOTOGRAPHY Image: REDBOOK PHOTOGRAPHY

BATES & CO ENCORE

FOR THE fifth time in a row, a Bates has won the Australian Rally Championship with Harry and co-driver Coral Taylor wrapping it up in style.

Bates and Taylor celebrated back-to-back titles by winning the season-ending Rally Tasmania event last weekend.

The #1 Toyota pairing were never under major threat of losing their title, having entered the finale with a 75-point advantage over Eddie Maguire.

But to leave no doubt over who is the class of 2024, Bates flew in his Toyota to take the rally and championship convincingly.

It only further builds the Bates dynasty being the ninth ARC title in the family trophy cabinet and fourth for Harry, while Taylor has been the co-driver for three of them.

“Three Championships feels very special –it’s almost surreal the sort of names you’re up there with once you’ve got three,” Bates said.

“It’s been an incredible year; thank you to my amazing team, thanks to Coral Taylor for doing such a great job in the car, and we’re very excited for 2025.”

A 50-car field, including Tony Dowel who returned to the hot-seat after a special comeback from cancer, arrived in the Burnie forests.

With 110 points left on the table, four entries had mathematical chances to win the ARC title.

Tasmanian local Maguire had the home crowd cheering him and co-driver Zak Brakey on as they were the nearest challengers.

Maguire had been a consistent force all year with four straight podiums since Western Australia and sat 75 points back.

But it was a long shot as the Skoda entry needed to win both the rally and Power Stage, and rely on Harry Bates to finish outside the top 10.

Previous champions Scott Pedder (2014) and Lewis Bates (2022) also hoped to take the fight to the #1, but needed trouble to strike. Determined to wrap up another title, Bates and Taylor started strong by topping the opening day and effecting getting one hand on the trophy.

However, it was not one way traffic early on.

and making a statement.

But not to be outdone, Bates and Taylor hit back taking out the next two as just 17s covered the top five after the first five stages. Bates and Pedder continued to jostle for the lead until the turning point arrived on Stage 7.

The #1 Toyota flew to the overall lead and did not look back after Pedder initially lost 15s and fell to seventh.

However, Pedder was unable to recover from the radiator damage and ended up retiring the #2 Skoda Fabia at the end of the stage.

To further cement their opening day dominance, Bates won the final two Power Stages convincingly.

“Very solid, great afternoon. The stages were pretty much what we expected, reasonably well swept and even though there’s been a bit of rain around there really wasn’t much rain on the surface so, yeah, it was all very nice and to be leaders at the end of day one is nice,” Bates said.

“Today we pretty much stuck to our plan and it was really nice. We just focused on ourselves, made sure we were always in a

nice rhythm, didn’t push beyond our limits and its landed us with a nice little lead ... so yeah very happy.”

With Bates driving into the distance, attention turned to the fight for best of the rest honours.

The sister Toyota of Lewis Bates made the first move, winning Sunday’s opening three stages with Harry less than a second adrift. These results cemented second in the rally, with Lewis ending up 13s adrift of Harry to complete a crushing Toyota 1-2.

However, a distant third was enough for Maguire to hold off Lewis and win the fight for second in the overall championship standings.

Alex Rullo and steve Glenney were able to put themselves into the top three across a variety of stages, but limped home due to

turbo boost issues in the Hyundai i20 Rally2. In the MainFix Production Cup, Clayton Hoy and Erin Kelly continued their commanding pace.

In the Junior Cup, Victorians Mitch Garrad and Taylah Murphy won comfortably, while Jack Monkhouse and Neill Woolley claimed 2WD Classic Cup.

The 2025 Australian Rally Championship kicks off with Rally Canberra on March 21-23.

Thomas Miles

ARC FINAL POINTS

1: Harry Bates 398 points

2: Eddie Maguire 323

3: Lewis Bates 306

4: Scott Pedder 290

5: Alex Rullo 214

Pedder and co-driver Glenn Macneall started strongly, winning the first two stages

Bates/Taylor maintained a solid but safe pace to take the rally and the championship and (top) shared the spoils. Above left: Brother Lewis (Bates) took second in the rally, third outright for the championship. Above right: Third was enough for Eddie McGuire to cement the runner-up spot in the championship. Images: PETER NORTON EPIC SPORTS PHOTOGRAPHY

SUPERCARS

SPEEDING IN THE CITY

FOR THE first time ever, Sprintcars raced at the VAILO Adelaide 500 – and they put on show, with Michael Stewart taking the $25,000 prize.

A total of 38 cars entered the historic NAPA Sprintcar Invitational that brought Sprintcars to Supercars with great success on a 342m makeshift speedway hastily but impressively constructed on a cricket ground called King Rodney Park.

Jock Goodyer stole the show with an impressive drive to victory on the historic opening night before Kerry Madsen gave the South Australian based Downing Brothers Team an emotional win on home soil. However, the biggest cheers were saved for the Bohud Racing squad as the consistent Stewart flew under the radar to the big outright prize with a P6 and P4.

““It is a bit of a shock to us. We were not even worried about this. We came here thinking with such a fast field here if we could just make the A-Main we would be stoked,” Stewart told Auto Action.

“There were no expectations when you are against the best.

“We were consistent in the first night and would have liked to have got on the podium – night two was tough, but it is great to get the overall win.”

The track was the big unknown and it delivered on the opening night, producing entertaining multi-lane racing.

Come the Thursday feature, Grant Anderson led from pole and shot clear of Dayne Kingshott and Goodyer.

As drivers felt their way into the 35-lap, it was clear Goodyer had the most pace to burn, easing past Kingshott to snare second with a neat move around the outside.

Just three laps later Goodyer completed his storm to the lead with a nice slide job down on Anderson the inside at Turn 3.

As Goodyer pulled away, Brock Hallett

was also on the move and sparked a battle for second with Anderson, which led to the race-defining moment on lap 15.

Hallett clipped Anderson as they battled through Turn 2 before the #Q5 then hit Goodyer.

The contact sent Hallett into a spin, seeing him fall from second to 17th before eventually recovering to 11th.

Goodyer was extremely lucky to survive the whack to his left rear and carried on, controlling the remainder of the race.

At each restart the #T22 shot out like a cannon, while American Chase Randall also had his foot down and he swooped past Anderson to snare second place.

James McFadden had fought his way from 14th to fourth, but retired due to a loose throttle rod.

Kingshott ended up falling to 15th after a spin at Turn 3.

But most importantly many were buzzing after they left the speedway following opening night.

The momentum carried on into Friday with another big crowd to watch the decider.

Unfortunately with the extra rubber laid on the track, the clay was not as conducive to racing, but there was still plenty of drama as it took three attempts to get a proper green flag run.

From pole, Madsen got a grand jump and controlled the opening loop ahead of Anderson and Egel.

However, only one lap was possible as Brett Milburn spun out at the second trip through Turn 3.

The second attempt at racing was disrupted by Australian champion McHugh, who had a small spin at the opening corner.

There was some busy wheel-to-wheel action at the following restart, but this led to Chase Randall being stopped at Turn 2

having tangled with Goodyer and Brendan Quinn, who got airborne briefly.

It was eventually third time lucky as Madsen was finally able to put the foot down and build a lead.

The top four that also featured Anderson and Egel spread out away from the pack as drivers enjoyed a chance to come to grips with the clay surface, which was only mainly offering the one line.

Madsen controlled the race, but there was one nervy moment with around 10 to go where Anderson slashed the deficit.

He came to the wing of the #S97 but Madsen had all the tricks up his sleeve to pull away and win comfortably.

But there was late drama behind as Anderson’s race faded.

A late slip-up saw the #V37 called all the way down to ninth in the closing stages.

This allowed Egel to soar to second ahead of Dillon, while Brock Hallett and Thomas Meseraull completed the top five.

But the night was all about Madsen and even a nervous wait on the scales did not stop him and the team from getting a special win.

“Just to come and jump into a car for the weekend, you never know what you are going to get,” Madsen told Auto Action

“We were pretty quick from practice, but messed up on the A-Main.

“But tonight we put it all together and at the end of the race we just managed it.

“I was pretty relieved at the end.

“It is a pretty emotional win for an iconic South Australian team that has been around for so long.

“It feels nice to be part of it for them.”

Drivers and fans are already looking forward to the NAPA Sprintcar Invitational returning to the VAILO Adelaide 500 next year.

Thomas Miles

Image: Matt Christie / Network R

A consistent run over the two nights netted Michael Stewart the $25,000 prize. Below: Goodyer dominated Night 1. Bottom: It was Madsen’s turn on the second night.

Images: MATT CHRISTIE / NETWORK R

MIGHTY MARJORAM

ADAM MARJORAM rose to the challenge and produced the perfect finale to finally become the V8 SuperUte Series champion.

It is a case of sweet success for Marjoram, who was second best to team-mate Aaron Borg by the barest of margins last year.

However, 2024 is now Marjoram’s time in the sun after he gave Borg and Cameron Crick no chance by sweeping all four races this weekend.

A thrilling fight for the 2024 V8 SuperUtes title was in prospect with just seven points splitting the top three.

Marjoram drew first blood by controlling a quiet opening race that was greeted with a record and capacity grid.

The #15 led all 11 laps ahead of Crick to take a 3s win, while the top five spots were unchanged throughout the race.

Critically Borg fell to fourth on the line and could not regain third from David Sieders and lost some ground.

The aim of the game in the wild reverse grid affair for the championship contenders was to somehow avoid the chaos.

Marjoram won a battle with Borg as they snuck through the congestion into the top four as

former leader Cottrell got stuck in the Turn 9 run-off.

Wanzek had passed Cottrell for the lead, while another stoppage was required for Ben Walsh’s hit with the Turn 8 wall.

This created an exciting onelap dash where Harris dived down the inside of Wanzek at Turn 9 and the pair tried to go side-by-side through the following left hander.

However, they made contact which sent Harris into the tyres.

This opened the door for Marjoram to fly from fourth to first and take a critical win.

Ryan How made a similar rise from sixth to second, but was hit with a 5s time penalty which dropped him to 12th, promoting Brewczynski and Borg to the top three, while Crick only managed 14th after also suffering a 5s penalty.

In another dramatic Race 3, Marjoram further strengthened his championship aspirations as Crick was involved in more carnage.

Once again the field had to contend with a one-lap dash, this time due to a tangle between Holly Spray, Jason Norris and Jayden Wanzek in the Senna Chicane.

Marjoram kept his nerve to take another important win

over Brewczynski who had passed Borg on Lap 3 to take second.

Crick was running in the top five until the final corner where he and Sieders both spun, which saw the former fall all the way down to 18th and effectively out of the title race.

With Crick not starting, Borg was the only man who could stop Marjoram in the final race.

But Marjoram effectively wiped out any title challenges by producing another grand start when it mattered most and powering away from the pack.

To make matters worse for Borg, he went backwards and fell to sixth.

Despite a number of incidents, the race stayed green, allowing Brewczynski to hunt down Marjoram and set up a grandstand finish.

Marjoram covered at both Turns 9 and 14 as Brewczynski did his best to draw up sideby-side on the exit of the final corner, but Marjoram won the drag race by 0.172s to take the title in perfect style.

Thomas Miles

V8 SUPERUTE SERIES STANDINGS AFTER ROUND 6 1: Adam Marjoram 1287 points

Aaron Borg 1240 3: Cody Brewczynski 1170

Adam Marjoram heads for victory, and the title ... Image: PETER NORTON

SUPERCARS SUPPORTS

TERRIFIC TODD WINNING WOOD

IF 2024 could not get any better after winning Bathurst for Todd Hazelwood, it just did after he and TFH Racing won the Trans Am title as rookies, on home turf, in Adelaide.

After a solid run at Bathurst, Hazelwood entered the Adelaide finale with a slender 24-point lead over reigning champion James Moffat, while Jordan Boys was also in the mix.

A showdown on the streets between two sought-after Supercars co-drivers lay ahead and the local delivered.

Hazelwood was in a league of his own throughout qualifying, being the only driver to record a 1m22s time.

His impressive 1:22.3263 was a huge seven-tenths clear of Boys and Moffat.

The title fight literally took off in Race 1 as the battle entered a new universe.

From pole, Hazelwood struggled to shake off Boys and the pair thrillingly went into the Senna Chicane side-byside.

Despite flying over the kerb and finding the gravel, neither backed out and kept the foot down, simultaneously getting airborne.

Hazelwood was the big winner from the daring take off, storming into the lead, while Boys’ race and title dream was effectively over one corner later. The Racing Academy driver was spun by Nathan Herne on the exit of Turn 3.

The early chaos saw Hazelwood and Moffat sprint away from the pack with the TFH driver winning an intense sprint by a second, while Herne nursed his way to third.

The second race was restricted to just five crazy laps due to a huge crash at Turn 13.

Before the red, Hazelwood maintained

the lead, while Herne jumped Moffat.

Then, on lap five, there was chaos at the penultimate corner as Tim Brooks’ engine exploded before dumping a load of oil and spearing into the barrier.

First onto the scene was Boys, who could do nothing but follow Brook, sliding into the tyres.

Chaos then unfolded with cars spearing off left, right and centre as Brad Gartner, Josh Thomas, Josh Webster, John Holinger, Mark Crutcher and Jason Pryde all crunched hard.

Holinger was the last on the scene and spun out well after the others, while the TFH team-mates crashed into each other.

Having gone back-to-back, Hazelwood now had 29 points up his sleeve ahead of the final race, meaning sixth was enough to wrap it up.

But it was not all smooth sailing as Moffat was on a mission and hit the lead off the rolling start and Herne demoted Hazelwood to third.

Ben Grice then launched a dive-bomb on the champ-elect at Turn 4 and pushed the #111 to fourth.

To ease Hazelwood’s nerves, a Safety Car arrived on lap wo due to Mark Crutcher going into the Turn 5 tyres.

Racing resumed with 11 minutes left and Herne was pushing hard to put the pressure on Moffat.

But in doing so he became the latest to drive into the Turn 5 exit barrier and dropped from the podium places.

Hazelwood also took the opportunity to snatch second from Grice and did it with a sparkling move down Bartels Road.

Although Moffat won by a comfortable 3s, Hazelwood did all he needed to do to make 2024 even more memorable.

Thomas Miles

IT WAS a big weekend for Dale Wood as he not only raced a Supercar, but also achieved his mission by taking the Porsche Carrera Cup finale.

There was little on the line with Harri Jones the champion and David Russell comfortable in second, so Wood was determined to end an up-and-down year on a high and did just that.

After taking pole by a tenth, Wood controlled the field in the opener, but all the drama was behind him.

It started in the fourth corner of the race where a Mat Belford and Sam Shahin sparked an immediate Safety Car.

A second attempt at racing did not last long either as Lachlan Bloxsom took out David Russell at Turn 9.

A stretch of racing finally took place at the third attempt and an intriguing battle for third took place between Bayley Hall and Harri Jones.

Determined to gain ground in the Enduro Cup on second placed Jackson Walls, Jones made a move on Hall at the hairpin.

But the champion got it wrong and sent Hall into a spin.

Jones received a 15s penalty for the clash, which saw him fall to 14th.

Dylan O’Keeffe was the beneficiary, being promoted to third.

The second race was an instant classic thanks to a stunning battle for the lead that was not decided until the very last corner.

Wood put himself in the best spot to go back to back with a perfect start.

However, Hall was on the move and only needed one lap to dispose of Russell and take second.

This led to a stunning race-long battle that came down to the final corner.

Hall went for it and squeezed his Porsche between the inside kerb and Wood and muscled his way past to complete a stunning last-corner move to steal the win.

“I was surprised but, credit to him,

if the opportunity is there, a race car driver should take that opportunity,” Wood said.

“I did not like it, but we are not supposed to like being passed.

“I will cop it and move on.”

However, Wood hit back by winning the final race and completing the year on a high.

Only seven laps were possible in the final race of the year after Jones followed Glen Wood into the Turn 8 concrete.

Glenn Wood was first on the scene and became the latest to clip the inside kerb and fire hard into the outside fence.

Right behind him was Jones, who was slightly off line and followed the #911 into the concrete, recreating scenes of 2006 when Mark Skaife and Greg Murphy did the same.

Both Porsches were stricken in the middle of the track, meaning the race ended under yellows.

Before then O’Keeffe and Walls put on a mega fight for second on the road and third in the champion in a winner takes all scenario.

Despite Walls making a good dive at Turn 9, O’Keeffe had the last laugh by making an even more opportunistic and well executed pounce at Turn 7.

It was a dramatic race with a number of incidents taking place all over the track before the Turn 8 drama with Ryder Quinn, David Wall, Indiran Padayachee, Stephen Grove and Matt Belford all caught in chaos.

Marc Cini was the only DNF, while Russell did not complete a lap with mechanical gremlins.

Thomas Miles

CARRERA CUP STANDINGS

AFTER ROUND 6

1: Harri Jones 1150 points

2: David Russell 934

3: Dylan O’Keeffe 915

4: Jackson Walls 910

5: Bayley Hall 860

Champ Hazelwood (111) and Boys fly high ... Image: PETER NORTON EPIC SPORTS PHOTOGRAPHY

The Porsche win completed a big weekend for Dale Wood. Image: PETER NORTON EPIC SPORTS PHOTOGRAPHY

BREAKING FREE

THE FIGHT for the 2024 Super2 crown went down to the wire with three young guns pushing themselves to the limit – in the end Zach Bates kept his cool and emerged on top.

The stage was set for a heavyweight battle on the streets of Adelaide with Bates, Aaron Cameron and Kai Allen split by just 42 points.

They lived up to expectations, occupying the top three spots in almost every session and showing why they were the class of the field.

Bates drew first blood, taking the first pole on offer before Cameron hit back in the second session.

The opening qualifying was marred by a big crash for Rueben Goodall. The Gomersall Motorsport driver struck the barrier coming out of the Senna Chicane, which not only tore the right front wheel out, but also the rear brake rotor, turning the youngster into a passenger as he flew down Wakefield Street.

Goodall had to use the tyre barriers as a brake and the impact was so hard he knocked the concrete wall, tyre barrier and catch fence over completely, while the ZB Commodore ended up beyond the run-off area.

When it was time to race, there was not a single Super3 car in the field as Tony Auddino had to withdraw his FG Falcon with engine issues.

Cameron got the holeshot off the line to lead Bates and Allen through the first lap before a Safety Car stopped their progress on lap two with Matt Chahda being beaten up at Turn 6.

Chahda was spun by Mason Kelly, leaving the #118 ZB Commodore stuck on the exit kerb with Rookie Cup contender Max Vidau and Eggleston rookie Thomas Maxwell left with nowhere to go.

Vidau went to the outside and found the tyre barrier, while Maxwell went head

on straight into the front of Chahda’s Commodore.

It was a cruel blow for Chahda in his last Super2 round, while it was very costly for Vidau as he entered the round level with Hughes in the fight for the Rookie cup.

Racing resumed with 24 minutes remaining and Cameron again perfected the launch.

However, another Safety Car arrived more than instantly with Vidau in the action again.

This time he did it on his own, sliding hard into the Turn 8 concrete.

He tried to nurse his Anderson Motorsport Mustang back to the pits, but fell an agonising two metres short.

The left front of the #17 Mustang was destroyed and finally cracked, sending him into the inside wall at pit entry.

The latest stoppage left only 12 minutes

of green flag racing, but they were decisive, as Cameron maintained his lead with Bates and Allen pushing hard to stay in touch.

The latter fell 1.5s back before it all came undone at the final corner.

Allen got unsettled going over the Turn 13 kerb, lost the rear and found the grass on the other side of the track, which led to a lock-up and an off at the hairpin.

It was extremely costly as Allen fell from third to seventh.

Suddenly the fight for third was on between two rookies, Jarrod Hughes and Cam McLeod.

The pair sliced and diced from the final hairpin to Wakefield Street with McLeod emerging on top.

It all came down to the finale with Bates having the edge and Cameron and Allen needing to race their way past.

The final race was reduced to 27 minutes due to earlier track repairs, but the contenders still gave it everything.

Nothing could split Bates and Cameron as they had an even launch from the front row and went side-by-side through the chicane.

Bates was the bravest, surfing the kerbs and gravel to hit the lead, while Allen slotting into third and the trio ran nose to tail.

Desperate to get in front, Cameron had a big lunge at Turn 9 and got past Bates, but went too deep, allowing the WAU driver to perform the switchback.

Cameron thought about making the same move when they returned a lap later, but backed out.

The tension was extreme as nothing separated the three contenders until lap five, when things boiled over.

Allen launched a move on Cameron at the end of Turn 4 and climbed the kerb as the Kelly Racing driver tried to shut the door. Contact was made and it result in heartbreak for Cameron as he careered into the outside wall and slumped to fifth. He crawled home with significant left-rear damage to pick up points.

The moment released Bates, who now enjoyed a 1s lead.

Chahda’s final Super2 race had an unfortunate finish as he got into a strange tangle with Mason Kelly at the final turn.

The fight for third on the road was between the Image Racing teammates with Jobe Stewart beating Hughes.

But all eyes were up front and despite the best efforts of Allen, the ice-cool Bates maintained the gap to secure the Super2 crown in style with a second win under extreme pressure.

It was not only a sweet moment for the second generation driver, who added more silverware to the Bates family, but also WAU.

The Super2 title was WAU’s first championship title in both levels of Supercars for 15 years since its teams title back in 2009.

Thomas Miles

SUPER2 STANDINGS AFTER ROUND 6

1: Zach Bates 1425

2: Aaron Cameron 1359

3: Kai Allen 1335

4: Jarrod Hughes 1167

5: Jobe Stewart 1167

Bates comes in to land, leading Cameron and the Super2 field.

Below: Cameron was in contention until being bundled into the wall in the second race. Bottom: Kai Allen –third in the series ...

Images: RACE PROJECT, PETER NORTON EPIC SPORTS PHOTOGRAPHY CARRERA

SUPERCARS

BROWN BLASTS

A TEAM-MATE TITLE TUSSLE WAS IN PROSPECT ON THE STREETS OF ADELAIDE, BUT WILL BROWN WON IT RESOUNDINGLY AS HE PROVED HIS CLASS IN A CRAZY SEASON FINALE. ALTHOUGH BROWN BLASTED AWAY, THAT WAS JUST ONE OF THE COUNTLESS STORYLINES AS THERE WAS DRAMA FROM START TO FINISH IN A FITTING CELEBRATION OF A QUARTER OF A CENTURY RACING AT THE ADELAIDE 500. THOMAS MILES LOOKS BACK ON A SPECIAL SALUTE TO 2024 ...

TEAM-MATE TUSSLE

IT WAS a certainty that a Triple Eight driver would again lift the Supercars champion’s trophy – it was just a question of who would write their names into the history books?

Triple Eight team-mates Will Brown and Broc Feeney were the only drivers in title contention ahead of the season-ending VAILO Adelaide 500.

Brown was the odds-on favourite with both history and points in his favour.

After carrying on his podium run on the Gold Coast, Brown enjoyed a 180-point advantage over his team-mate as the trucks unloaded in the South Australian capital.

In the 21st century, there were only three occasions where the championship lead had been overturned during the final round - Garth Tander (2007) and Jamie Whincup (2013, 2017) but none had anywhere near the deficit

Feeney had to deal with.

Despite a mighty drive by Feeney, Brown sealed the crown with ease with one race still to spare.

Although Feeney gave it everything and recorded a special victory in the Saturday opener, Brown put in a rapid final stint to finish right behind the #88 in second and secure the title.

To put the cherry on top, Brown produced one of the greatest Adelaide 500 wins ever, spinning and winning a crazy Sunday race.

The #87 ran as low as 22nd after being spun by Brodie Kostecki at Turn 7 in the early stages.

However, Brown put his foot down as chaos unfolded around him to make an incredible win possible.

It was the final exclamation mark on one of the great seasons.

The Toowoomba driver was unrelenting in the #87 Camaro, being the first champion in four decades to finish on the podium at least once in each round of a season.

Brown produced it all in his very first year at Triple Eight and his final act proved why he is the man of 2024.

However, Brown’s heroics were just one of the numerous headlines from a wild final stop on the 2024 Supercars calendar.

TURN 8 TRIFECTA

THE FIRST 24 hours of the Adelaide 500 were relatively tame with drivers staying away from the concrete throughout practice.

However, come qualifying, the calmness ended very suddenly as not one, but three drivers were caught out by pushing the boundaries at the infamous Turn 8.

Richie Stanaway, Cameron Hill and David

Reynolds incredibly all made the same mistake, at the same corner, at effectively the same time.

Stanaway was the first on the scene, clipping the inside kerb and hitting the outside barrier side-on. The impact was so great, the #26 Mustang went airborne.

Whilst the Kiwi was able to drive the car back to the pits, it emerged he would be diagnosed with delayed concussion less than 24 hours later.

Just a second later, Hill followed in Stanaway’s wheel tracks, but the damage was much more severe.

With the #4 Camaro bouncing from the inside kerb to the outside wall and then going head-on into the inside concrete and back across the road, the shaken MSR driver was left stricken in the middle of the straight.

OFF

flew home on Thursday night to be with his wife as they welcomed their first child.

As a result, Murray got to race alongside the driver he will replace at Erebus in 2025,

“Betty predicted it two weeks ago and said to Jack ‘you need to be ready to be at home with your wife and seeing your kid,” Barry

“Jack just felt bad and did not want to leave the team ... But we are fully supportive.

“It is family and this is just motor racing. You can race again for the rest of your life, but you cannot miss the birth of your first child.”

two make the same mistake after me, it kindof made a bit more sense.”

“I was actually equal quickest through Turn 8 — and then I got it wrong. It was probably the biggest crash I’ve had in my career – it was a real bell-ringer,” Hill reported.

“There were some yellow flags and I did not know what was going on on the other side so I tried to lose a bit of speed but stayed on the brake a bit too long and turned myself into the fence and had a crash myself,” Reynolds said.

“I was probably a bit over-committed so it was a stupid mistake.

“There were shadows across (the apex) but that is not my excuse.”

Not only did Turn 8 destroy some cars, forcing Team 18 and MSR to work until the early hours of Saturday morning, but it made a

“Motorsport Australia acknowledges there was an error with yesterday’s published grid sheet for Race 23 of the Supercars Championship. The error was made following the miscalculation of the cut off times from the shortened qualifying session and impacted the starting positions of some cars between positions 13 and 22,” an MA statement read.

CALL IN THE SUBS

THE EVENT saw three drivers make completely unexpected Supercars starts for different reasons.

The first super-sub required was Cooper Murray, who got to make his Erebus Motorsport debut a round earlier than planned.

After taking part in Practice 1, Jack Le Brocq

Murray was unable to get a proper crack at qualifying (but still p17), but in the race he certainly gained the attention of the stewards. Due to loose front right bodywork, Murray received three mechanical black flags throughout the race, while he was also penalised for a clash with Winterbottom and ended up eight laps down.

However, Sunday was much more promising.

The #9 rookie worked his way up to ninth before being punted into the Turn 9 tyres by Waters, having to settle for 18th.

Whilst Murray thought his opportunity was rushed, it had nothing on Grove Racing.

Just 58 minutes before lights out, Stanaway’s concussion became public and his replacement, Kai Allen, was initially named to drive the #26.

But with Eggleston hoping to field Allen in the remaining Super2 race with the title still alive, the Groves needed written approval from all Super2 teams and there was not enough time.

Then, with less than half an hour before the race, it was revealed co-driver Dale Wood had jumped out of his Porsche to race the #26 Mustang.

Having been “thrown in the deep end” in searing heat, it proved to be a tough solo return after seven years for Wood as he went off at Turn 5, but importantly finished 22nd.

“Ten minutes after the (Porsche) race I got a call from Brenton saying we need you here for the Supercars. It is one of those things you don’t have time to comprehend and I was thrown in the deep end.

“It was mentally hard and, at Turn 5, I grabbed a little bit of throttle when I hit the brake ... but grateful for the opportunity.”

Having been ready to race on Saturday, Allen finally got his chance on Sunday and qualified 19th and finished 22nd in his solo and Grove Racing debut.

The Mount Gambier teenager got bullied early and suffered significant rear end damage early on from both BRT cars, but nursed it home.

“They were trying to drive me off the track, but we got through. I think it’s just good to try and get a result,” Allen said.

FAMILIAR STORY

THE FIRST 78-lapper of the weekend was a relatively tame affair as Triple Eight and Tickford wrestled for supremacy and once again the GM powerhouse proved too strong. Tickford held the high ground with Cameron

by winning on Saturday, Brown (below) also did everything he needed to – still snaring second (and the title) on Saturday,and a big Sunday win.

Images: MARK HORSBURGH/PETER NORTON EPIC SPORTS PHOTOGRAPHY

Randle took the early lead on Saturday after a destructive qualifying which saw Reynolds (below) and Hills’ (top left) cars among three badly damaged. Top right: Cooper Murray made an unplanned and last-minute debut and gained valuable race experience.

SUPERCARS

Waters storming to pole and Thomas Randle leading the entire opening stint with his teammate right behind.

However, Triple Eight used its strategy smarts to snatch track position and victory from Tickford convincingly.

After 27 laps Triple Eight was the first to hit the pits with Feeney boxing from third, but a short-fuel stop saw the #88 rise from third to first and snatch track position from the Tickford Mustangs.

Meanwhile, team-mate Brown took on around 10 extra seconds of fuel and emerged fifth. However, the contrasting strategies paid off handsomely.

Feeney put the foot down and pulled 5s clear before the second round of stops.

Triple Eight timed the longer fuel stop to perfection as the #88 retained track position, coming out just ahead of Waters.

Within four laps, any prospect of a fight for the lead disappeared as Feeney pulled 2s clear and eventually a commanding 12s by the chequered flag.

Having pitted on Lap 53, Brown was now back in the game and produced a rapid final stint to make his strategy pay dividends.

Even though he already had the title sewn up in fourth, Brown did not cruise home and put the foot down.

He picked off both Tickford Mustangs with ease, to create a seventh Triple Eight 1-2 of the year and possibly the most unlikely.

“Today is not about me. It is cool to win the race, but massive congratulations to Will for winning the championship,” Feeney said post-race.

“I knew we had to win the race. I struggled in the first stint a little bit, but the team did a great job putting me in clean air, and we had a really fast race car in the end. I did all I could and I’m proud of the effort we put in.”

Meanwhile, strategy was one of the downfalls for Tickford.

Waters’ victory hopes were hurt by the team’s error in putting a used left-rear tyre on the right-front at the stop.

As a result Waters lost second to Brown and only just held onto third, having had to keep a hungry Matt Payne behind in the closing laps.

“One that got away probably, but still happy with the day,” Waters reflected.

“To get pole was awesome and we had a fast race car.

“The end of the stints were really good ... I lost it in the pit stop, running the old tyre.

“It was the left rear from first stint and I had beaten up on it pretty bad so it was not ready to go back on the car for sure.

“It was a bit of a battle out there. I struggled to brake and struggled to turn.”

Randle completed the top five, while Kostecki and Andre Heimgartner both rose six spots to be next best.

BRT was buzzing after having both cars in the Shootout and James Courtney recorded a confidence-boosting eighth place.

There was more pain for Team 18 in Reynolds’ rebuilt #20 Camaro where a damper failed and a roll bar broke.

SHAKEN

KIWI

WHEN QUALIFYING returned on Sunday morning, Turn 8 bit again and it was hard.

The session was once again cut short, albeit having a smaller impact, and this time Jaxon Evans was the victim.

Evans became the latest to hit the inside fence and spear into the outside wall before careering head-on into the inside concrete.

Whilst Evans was cleared initially by the on-site medical centre, he was eventually also ruled out with concussion and BJR’s attempts at bravely repairing the crashed #50 Camaro ended, leaving 23 cars on the grid.

“I’m feeling a little bit shaken up after that,”

the Kiwi said on the broadcast.

“I felt like I didn’t turn in super early, maybe a little bit in the end, and I just caught the inside fence, which put me into the outside fence, and from there on you’re a passenger.

“So it just felt like I was ping-ponging off the walls down the back straight.”

Determined to end the year with a bang and carry on his momentum, Feeney took his first Adelaide pole with a statement Shootout lap. He was the only driver to record a 1m19s time in the one-lap dash ahead of Mostert and Randle, while Waters had a costly lock up and would start 10th.

A CHAMPION’S DRIVE

FOR THE majority of the race, Brown appeared to have no hope of celebrating his maiden Supercars title with what turned out to be a stunning race win.

During the intense opening laps, Brown settled into third behind the battling Feeney and Mostert.

But when the #87 tried to join in, it ran wide through Turn 6 and Kostecki sniffed an opportunity.

The Erebus driver stuck his nose in at the following right hander, but did not get up far enough and contact was made, sending Brown around.

Having been forced to watch the entire pack drive past, Brown found himself down in 22nd.

But across the next 69 laps, the new champion lived up to his new title by flying through the pack.

Whilst Brown was assisted by Feeney and Mostert tangling at Turn 6, he still had to put in the drive of his life to be in the position to pounce.

He was lighting fast, passing a car almost every lap to soar to seventh before his first stop. In the second stint he kept on charging and

Feeney and Mostert made up the front row on Sunday, while (below) Jaxon Evans joined the ‘Turn 8 Club’ and missed the race. Right: The Sunday podium – the champ took a fitting win. Far right (top): Will Davison ended a middling season with a solid fourth on Sunday while, (below) Percat, here side-by-side with Cam Hill, sealed his season with another top five.

picked off Golding, Heimgartner and Reynolds with ease to shoot up to sixth.

Then Brown only had the leading contenders to deal with and none could match his pace. He picked off Reynolds, Randle and Davison in consecutive laps before his march to victory was complete when he cruised past a wounded Mostert.

“I was pretty stoked to finish the year off with that race,” he said.

“I think how the year finished off highlighted how cool the year was. I am very glad it finished in that way and wasn’t disappointing.

“I got turned around and I then had a moment to myself and thought there is no pressure now, so lets have some fun and drive back through as much as I could.

“I started picking off some people then Andrew (Edwards) was on the radio and said we were seventh and then fifth.

“Then when I got onto the podium I thought this is pretty cool and all the commotion at the lead happened which I was extremely disappointed about!

“It was cool to get the win after what had happened.”

Whilst Kostecki received a 15s penalty and also bounced back to sixth, Brown celebrated his success in style, producing a stunning smoke show on the main straight before attempting to recreate Russell Ingall’s 2005 trademark.

“I thought about trying to hang out (the door) like Russell Ingall but I was too inflexible with my Hans device on so I will have to do some pilates or yoga!” Brown joked.

FEENEY V MOSTERT

BEFORE BROWN’S brilliance, the final race of the year appeared to be a stunning showdown between Feeney and Mostert.

The pair had an even start off the front row and went side by side through the Senna Chicane where the WAU driver snuck ahead. They ran nose to tail until the first round of stops where the #25 was the last to pit and used fresh tyres and clean air to pull up to 3s clear.

However, Feeney reduced the deficit before they both performed their final pit stop on Lap 49.

With the #88 taking less fuel, it was always going to be tight, but no-one thought the rejoin would be so close.

Triple Eight released Feeney straight into the path of Mostert and significant contact was made in the lane.

Eventually Feeney pulled over at pit exit to give Mostert track position – but the stewards did not care and handed the #88 a 15s penalty.

As a result Feeney had to pass Mostert to have any hope of victory and made a move coming into Turn 6, but did not get up far

enough and struck the rear of Mostert, firing the WAU Mustang hard into the outside tyres.

This led to yet another 15s penalty and although Feeney crossed the line first, he fell to seventh.

Meanwhile, Mostert heroically manhandled a wounded Mustang to second.

Despite having Randle, Davison and Percat all breathing down his neck in a thrilling run to the flag, the WAU driver fought like hell to hang on to a special second.

Mostert admitted he was unsighted and did not appear to be aggrieved by the accident.

“I did not expect him to have much overlap into Turn 6 and I did not have my mirror, so I don’t know if he was far enough up,” Mostert said.

“The penalty suggests he was not far enough up, but that is motor racing.

“I have done it to plenty of people in this category before.”

WHACKY RACES

THE RACE-deciding Turn 6 clash was just one of a number of flashpoints in a wild and whacky race to round out the 2024 season.

The drama started as early as Lap 3 when Payne went speared straight into the Turn 11 tyres after a wheel clash with Percat on corner exit.

Despite being buried under the barrier, the

Kiwi managed to escape and complete the rest of the race without a bonnet.

On the same lap as the Brown spin, Anton De Pasquale spun Ryan Wood at Turn 9 from sixth.

The WAU driver would eventually settle the scores by sending his DJR rival into a spin at the final corner with 14 laps to go and the Kiwi was penalised.

But back on lap nine, Turn 9, Waters climbed over the left-hand side of Will Davison.

Davison was undeterred however, as the DJR veteran put in a fighting drive to fourth and was devastated to fall two-tenths short of the podium.

A lap later Waters escorted Murray into the outside wall.

Then it was the turn of the retirees.

Slade and Winterbottom were battling hard for 12th and the under pressure PremiAir driver covered off a move by the Team 18 veteran in the Turn 4 braking area.

But nose to tail contact was still made, sending Slade into a spin.

The race finally settled down after the first 20 laps before Mostert and Feeney put on a show.

It left fans with no shortage of debate as Supercars cool down for the summer break.

As memorable as 2024 has been, bigger and better things await in 2025 and we cannot wait

INTERNATIONAL

MARTIN ON TOP OF MOTOGP WORLD

FRANCESCO BAGNAIA MIGHT HAVE WON THE BARCELONA FINALE, BUT HE HAD TO CONCEDE THE MOTOGP TITLE TO JORGE MARTIN, WHO COMPLETED HIS REDEMPTION MISSION IN 2024 ...

THIRD PLACE in the Solidarity Grand Prix was enough for the consistent Martin to win the 2024 MotoGP World Championship and write both rider and team into the history books.

The 26-year-old gave Pramac Racing a special maiden MotoGP title, having finished 10 points ahead of Bagnaia after a second successive exhilarating championship battle.

Even though Bagnaia resisted a challenge from Marc Marquez to take the win, Martin only had to finish in the top nine and was never threatened in third.

Although the #1 Ducati won a record 11 Grands Prix, consistency and Sprint success was the key for Martin, who onl y won three GPs, but finished on the podium in all-but four.

To make the maiden world championship even sweeter for Martin, it came a year after he ran second best in his first bout with Bagnaia.

But in 2024, a season where Ducati let him go, Martin got revenge and rode his name into MotoGP history books.

He admitted he struggled to hold back the tears as he crossed the line.

“It sounds amazing, I don’t know what to say – I’m completely shocked,” Martin said.

“This is for my people, for my family, for the people that are supporting me ... this is for them.

“In the last laps I couldn’t even ride, I started crying a bit. It was a really emotional race.

“It’s been a long journey – a lot of crashes, big injuries and finally we are back here. So thanks to all the people, thanks to the fans. It is also for Valencia ... a Spanish rider.”

Bagnaia did everything he needed to do, taking pole and winning the Sprint, but the

latter was no sure thing initially.

It was actually the sister Ducati of Bastianini that got a stunning start, rising from eighth to first.

However, by Turn 3 the reigning champion surged his way into the lead.

Martin tried to do the same and launched a number of counter-attacks on Bastianini, but the #23 was the perfect ally for his team-mate, holding firm and restricting Martin to third.

After Bagnaia won the Sprint, he faced a 19-point deficit ahead of the final race of the year.

Although the factory Ducati rider did what he needed to do from pole, Martin

also nailed his objective.

The Pramac Ducati rider bolted past both Espargaro and Marquez to shoot from fourth to second and sat right behind his title rival. Maverick Vinales went off off in an otherwise clean opening corner as Bastianini leapt from eighth to fourth as Espargaro slipped to fifth.

Miller had made some early ground and settled into 13th.

At the end of the first lap Bagnaia had pulled two-tenths on Martin, who had Marquez to worry about.

The #93 was lightening in the slipstream, leaving the #89 with no choice, but to concede second place at the end of the main straight.

The leading pair exchanged fastest laps as they pulled the best part of a second on Martin by lap six where Marquez started to think about threatening Bagnaia’s lead.

Further back, Espargaro and Bastianini put on a grand show wrestling for fourth and the Aprilia rider won the first contest.

To make matters worse for the #23, the Italian went off at Turn 1 and fell two spots to seventh.

As the race approached the second half, it became a tense stand-off with little splitting the top two, while a second back was Martin leading a five-bike train.

However, a battle between Espargaro and Alex Marquez for fourth released the pressure off Martin, who was soon a second up the road.

One rider who could not make it to that distance was Joan Mir, who had another crash on his Repsol Honda.

With 10 laps to go Bagnaia was able to open half a second on Marquez for the first time, while Martin was doing exactly what he needed to do, being on his own in third.

However, there were still plenty of pensive onlookers as riders still could not afford to make a mistake.

On lap 17 Bastianini was back making moves, launching a successful dive on Pedro Acosta for sixth, while Binder followed through.

As the chequered flag neared, Bagnaia kept inching further ahead of Marquez to ensure there would be no fight for victory.

Bagnaia took the chequered flag 1.4s ahead of Marc Marquez with Martin taking the title, 3s back.

Alex Marquez raced his way to fourth with Espargaro completing the top five as Miller ended his KTM career in 13th.

The finale was moved to Barcelona due to the tragic Valencia floods.

Thomas Miles

MOTOGP STANDINGS AFTER ROUND 22

1: Jorge Martin 508 points

2: Francesco Bagnaia 498

3: Marc Marquez 392

4: Enea Bastianini 386

5: Brad Binder 217

Bagnaia and Marquez battled it out as Martin (above) just did what was needed – third was plenty, and he celebrated hard! Below: In front of a huge crowd, despite the race being transferred to Barcelona, Bagnaia toook an early lead. Images: GOLD AND GOOSE

NEUVILLE ENDS WRC TITLE WAIT

PERENNIAL WRC HYUNDAI CONTENDER THIERRY NEUVILLE HAS FINALLY ENDED HIS TITLE DROUGHT, WHILST TOYOTA HAS KEPT ITS RALLY1 DOMINATION INTACT BY CAPTURING THE MANUFACTURER CROWN YET AGAIN AFTER A DRAMATIC FINAL DAY AT RALLY JAPAN. TIMOTHY W NEAL REPORTS …

AT THE FIA World Rally Championship finale in Japan at the weekend, five-time runner-up Thierry Neuville finally ended his painful wait for a world championship alongside co-driver and Belgian compatriot Martijn Wydaeghe.

The win gave Hyundai its first ever Drivers’ title via its 2024 i20N Rally1 machine, as Neuville scrambled back through the field following early issues, capturing the crown with a fighting sixth place finish.

The only realistic contender for the title was teammate Ott Tanak, who was on track for the overall win on the final day whilst also carrying the teams title hopes on his back.

But a dramatic crash in Sunday’s opening stage saw him hand the championship to Neuville whilst also elevating Toyota’s Elfyn Evans into the rally lead with teammate Sebastien Ogier in second.

That gave the hometown brand its fourth straight Manufacturers’ title by just three points, whilst it will end the WRC’s hybrid era as its only winner.

Ford M-Sport’s Adrien Fourmaux was third as a result of the crash; the Frenchman’s fifth podium of the season.

Neuville, the 36-year old who joined Hyundai in 2014 became the first Belgian driver to win the title. He only needed two points on the last day to ensure it after fighting back from 15th place following a turbocharger failure, but Tanak’s crash made the long standing dream a reality.

“Honestly it has come as a surprise. I don’t know what to say at the moment but I think we deserve it,” Neuville said on hearing the news at the end of the stage.

“It has been a very challenging year, very tough. Obviously we had much more pressure than we needed, especially for this last event.”

Leading the championship from Round 1 in Monte-Carlo, his reaction at the finish line in Japan carried an enormous sense of jubilation.

“I am feeling great to be honest – we worked so long for this. I don’t have the words, but I want to thank everybody who was part of it, who fought for us and all of the team as well. We were many times very close; we always give it our all, but this year we have been rewarded for it.”

He ended the year with wins at Rallye Monte-Carlo and the Acropolis Rally Greece with podiums in Croatia, Portugal, Finland and Central Europe, whilst he finished in the top-five for 10 of the 13 rounds; topping the title chase by 32 points from Evans, with Tanak 42 points in arrears in third.

Heading into ‘Toyota City’ the Belgian carried a 25 point advantage over Tanak, with the rally that is notorious for its challenging levels of grip offering up 21 stages over 300km in the Aichi and Gifu mountain ranges on the central island.

To kick things off, Fourmaux took out Thursday’s 2.15km two-at-a-time stadium super special, marking the first time leading a WRC rally in 58 attempts.

Friday saw 126km of action with no midday service and a twist in the tail as Tanak ended the day with a 20.9s lead over Evans following Neuville’s SS4 drop out.

Fellow i20N driver Andreas Mikkelsen also crashed, leaving Tanak as Hyundai’s only hope.

Saturday’s six repeated stages saw Tanak repeat his dominance, adding another two stage wins whilst Evans slipped a further 18 seconds back, with Ogier moving into third. The story of the day however was Neuville’s fightback into seventh place, with the WRC’s ‘nearly man’ putting one hand on the crown as a result.

As it stood, those four earned points, which left him needing two more points, whilst Hyundai still had a live 11-point lead over Toyota.

The final five stages of the season delivered

on top of his i20N in his GR Yaris Rally 2) saw him lose his front and become airborne into a ditch, with the Estonian simply describing it as a “complete f*** up”.

That ended the Korean marquee’s hope for a first manufacturers crown since 2020, with Evans taking his first win of the year by 1:27.3s over Ogier, with Fourmaux a further 28.2 seconds behind him.

With Takamoto Katsuta, Gregoire Munster, and Neuville filling fourth to sixth, Citroen WRC2 winner Nikolay Gryazin took seventh.

But it was the GR Yaris Rally2 of Finnish driver Sami Pajari with the ultimate spoils, capturing the second tier title after finishing second in class. His title came by three points over Swedish Skoda driver Oliver Solberg.

The 2025 WRC season, which will be hybrid-free at the top level, commences on January 23-26 with the traditional MonteCarlo opener, with an expanded 14-round calendar, Hankook as the new tyre supplier, and more tweaks to the new and somewhat controversial points system.

FINAL WRC POINTS AFTER 13 ROUNDS Neuville/Wydaeghe 242 (champions) Evans/Martin 210 Tanak/Jarveoja 200 Ogier/Landais 191 Fourmaux/Coria 162

At last! World Rally Champions – Neuville and Wydaeghe on top of the world ... Above: Evans was Toyota’s best, winning here, second in the title. Top right: Tanak’s season ended up in a ditch ...

Images: MOTORSPORT IMAGES

MERCEDES DOMINATES, VERSTAPPEN CELEBRATES

GEORGE RUSSELL led Lewis Hamilton to an unexpected Mercedes one-two in Las Vegas, the speed of the W14 shocking everyone in the paddock, including the two British drivers and their entire team!

But the biggest story of the day was Max Verstappen’s confirmation as the 2024 Formula 1 World Champion, fifth place being enough to claim his fourth title, as McLaren was nowhere near its normal pace and Norris never stood a chance of cutting the gap to his rival in the championship.

Mercedes’ domination was complete, as Hamilton set the pace on Thursday night’s practice sessions, with Russell leading the field in FP1 and Q1. The veteran was back on top in Q2 but made two unusual mistakes on the final session, dropping to 10th on the grid, while Russell secured pole position.

In the race, the younger Brit held off Leclerc’s challenge for the first five laps and then pulled away easily, being quicker and having better tyre management than his rivals. For the remaining 45 laps, Russell’s main challenge was avoiding mistakes and keeping the tyres in the right operating window, for what was the easiest and most dominant win since he got to Formula 1.

For Hamilton, starting from P10, the story was, naturally, completely different. Avoiding risks at the start, he brought his tyres into the right window before passing Hulkenberg and Piastri in quick succession, between laps six and eight, and still had enough tyre life to

extend the first stint for longer than all in front of him.

Resuming close to Norris and the Ferrari duo, Hamilton made quick work of the McLaren driver but didn’t have enough top speed to pass Leclerc before the second pit stop. Stopping on lap 27, the Mercedes driver passed Verstappen and got the undercut on the red cars, moving up to P2 but already 11.2s behind Russell. With the leader taking no risks, Hamilton showed how much pace he had in hand to cut the gap to 4.9s with six laps to go before settling for P2.

A delighted Russell admitted that, “it’s been a dream of a weekend. I don’t know how

we’ve been so quick, but I’m just riding this wave right now.” He then confessed that “I was just waiting for something to happen – in the other two races I’ve been on pole before, there’s always been chaos, rain, dry and always something happening, like in Brazil, with the red flag. So, I was feeling confident here, I’ve got a good gap, but I’m just waiting for something to happen. And it didn’t. So, I guess, luck has turned and, I’m just so, so happy right now!”

Proud of his recovery, Hamilton clearly rued his mistakes from Q3, believing that “it would have been a breeze”, had he started at the front of the field. Like Russell and

Team Principal Toto Wolff, Hamilton’s only explanation for the W14’s tremendous pace was the low temperatures, as he detailed: “Clearly our car doesn’t like high temperatures and here it’s the coldest race of the year. We were quick in Silverstone, we were quick in Spa and we were super quick here, so that’s the only explanation I can come up with …”

TEMPERS FINALLY FLARE AT FERRARI

IT HAD to happen, didn’t it? After nearly four years fighting hard on track, with a lot of freedom to do so handed by Frédéric Vasseur, tempers finally flared at the end of this race, Charles Leclerc completely livid about what he labelled, “lack of respect” from team-mate Carlos Sainz.

The Spaniard started from the front row but went wide into Turn 1 to defend from Gasly, with Leclerc getting ahead of both of them. Pushing too hard, the Monegasque tried to wrestle the lead from Russell at the start of lap five but demanded too much from his tyres, dropped two places in the next three laps and headed for the pits at the end of lap eight. Having learned his lesson, he nurtured the Hard tyres in the first couple of laps and was still in P4 after everyone stopped but had better pace than his team-mate.

Being waved through on lap 27, Leclerc did enough to pit three laps after his team-mate and still return to the track ahead of Sainz,

Russell heads for victory (left) under the watchful eye of the Dome ... Below: He led into the first corner and was never challenged. Bottom: Merc 1-2 – who’d have predicted that! Images: MOTORSPORT IMAGES

Top: Lewis drove a superb race to second, emphasising the Merc’s pace. Above: Russell slices inside Leclerci after his tyre stop. Right (top to bottom): Tsunoda heads Hulkenberg, through ‘The Hulk’ would prevail. Another Colapinto crash rebuild ... the gloss is going off the young star; ‘Rocky’ waved the chequer ...

taking it easy in the first couple of corners as his engineer had told him the Spaniard wouldn’t attack. But by Turn 4 Sainz moved ahead, prompting Leclerd to radio in that “next time give him the instruction in Spanish …” and stayed there until the end, both unable to keep Hamilton behind but keeping their respective positions as they got ahead of Verstappen.

A furious Leclerc dished it out on the radio as soon as the race ended, stating that “yes, I did my job, but he f*** me over every time. Every f****** time. And it’s not very nice. It’s about respect.” Even with Vasseur trying to calm him down immediate, Leclerc insisted that “I know I have to keep quiet, but the situation is always the same... S***, s***, s***!”

Vasseur did his best to play down the incident, saying that “it’s always the same story that they talk or they don’t talk, but they are speaking as they race and they don’t have always the full picture. We will discuss and it won’t be an issue:”

VERSTAPPEN IN CRUISE MODE

THINGS LOOKED quite bleak for Max Verstappen and Red Bull after Thursday night’s practice.

Granted, the Dutchman’s P17 in FP2 was misleading, for he was on a much quicker lap when the session was stopped, but there was a good gap between the RB20 and its main rivals, over half a second per lap, according to the best sector times.

Arriving in Las Vegas without a rear wing suited for this track, Red Bull found its car too draggy and, therefore, slow on the straights and there was quite a lot of DIY done in the garage to reduce the drag level without losing too much downforce.

Things clearly improved and Verstappen qualified fifth, crucially ahead of championship rival Lando Norris. In the race that extra downforce generated by the rear wing helped with tyre management and, with McLaren on the back foot, Verstappen didn’t fight Hamilton or the two Ferrari drivers too hard, keeping in mind that there were more important things

HOW McLAREN GOT LOST IN THE DESERT

ARRIVING IN Las Vegas with the need to get Lando Norris to finish ahead of Max Verstappen to keep the Brit’s title chances alive, McLaren was never in contention at the front. Reasonably competitive in practice, the papaya cars never cracked into the top four in qualifying, with Norris starting in P6, behind Verstappen, while Piastri was down in P8.

On race night the temperatures did rise quite a bit, but nothing seemed to help the MCL38’s pace. Norris did manage to get past the surprising Gasly on lap eight and pitted immediately to try and undercut Leclerc and Verstappen, to no avail. Hamilton just breezed past the McLaren on lap 16, with Norris quickly losing contact with the front group to finish the race in P6.

to achieve this weekend than finishing on the podium.

As it was, fifth place was enough to secure his fourth title and the Dutcan couldn’t have been happier with his success:

“This year, we hit the ground running but then we had a lot of tough races. And that is something I’m very proud of – in those tough races where we were definitely not the fastest car, we kept it together as a team. We worked very hard back at the factory as well, remained calm most of the times and we barely made any mistakes. We really maximised or even overperformed in some places.

“Plus, our opposition also in a few places definitely didn’t grab the points that they should have. And all those things, of course, matter at the end of the day when you fight for a championship.”

With many considering this was Verstappen’s best season ever, the Dutchman

concurred, saying that “I think so, too. Last year I had a dominant car, but I always felt that not everyone appreciated what we achieved as a team, winning 10 races in a row. I’m also very proud of this season ,because for most of it, I would say for 70% of the season, we didn’t have the fastest car, but actually we still extended our lead. So, that is definitely something that I’m very proud of.”

In the all important battle for sixth place in the Constructors’ Championship, unable to challenge the two McLarens, Nico Hulkenberg made a crucial pass on Yuki Tsunoda with six laps to go to claim P8 and haul Haas ahead of Alpine and VCARB in the points standings, but the biggest losers were Alpine. Gasly, starting from a sensational P3, retired when his engine expired, while Ocon’s chances of scoring points were thrown away when he dived into the pits to find no-one was expecting him, carrying for another laps and losing more than 20s in the process… RESULTS

For Piastri the issues came before the start, as the Australian stopped too far forward on the grid and made a 5s penalty inevitable. Losing a position to Hulkenberg on the first lap, the McLaren driver got back at the German on lap two, but made no further progress until the second pit stop, on lap 25. That allowed him to undercut Tsunoda and move up to eventh place, the final result seeing McLaren’s gap to Ferrari in the Constructors’ shrink to 24 points, from the 36 the British team had before this night race.

Team Principal Andrea Stella explained that, “the review of Lando’s third stint will give us some important information as to what you need to achieve in tracks like this with our car in order to be competitive, because the way we were using the car, driving the car, is definitely outside the way we normally would do”.

The Italian engineer, explained that, however, “you can do it to some extent, because at the end of the race there was much more grip than at any other time during the weekend and Lando didn’t have anybody ahead of him – so he got the clean air, so he had some conditions that helped. But definitely we tried to use the car in a significantly different way, and this seems to make the lap times happier.”

Front tyre graining seemed to be the problem in all compounds, with Stella admitting that, “some of these inherent limitations, especially with the behavior of the front end, sometimes pop out when track layout or grip level or downforce level mean that you need to get a certain response from the front end. And at the moment, this response from the front end we are not able to offer to our drivers.”

At the end of qualifying a despondent Norris half-joked that the lack of speed came from “maybe the water in the tyres or something … all of this stuff”, laughing that their rivals, “are right about everything.” On a serious note, the Brit explained that “it’s just it’s very low grip, and it doesn’t suit the characteristic of our car.”

Alluding to the front tyre graining, Norris explained that, “it’s been a complaint of mine for the last six years, and we’ve still not been able to iron it out and get it out enough from our car. In some tracks that are more rear limited, then these issues don’t arise, but we’ve always been one of the worst teams for front graining.”

Team mate Oscar Piastri concurred that the car’s pace had been, “pretty poor”, explaining “for qualifying, we’ve got some ideas why it didn’t really come to us in Q3. But the race was more difficult than than we expected, especially on my side – it was a much, much more difficult race with the tyres than I expected going in. I mean, we knew it would be tough with graining, but the graining was a lot, lot worse than I feared.”

As for what led to his 5s penalty, Piastri admitted that, “I wasn’t aware that I was so far forward, but I must have been”, before adding that “I don’t think it changed much. Yes, it made the middle part of the race a bit more difficult, but I don’t think it affected the result. We were just not quick enough, so there are some things to look at, for sure.”

1994: SCHUMACHER’S CROWN OF THORNS

WAS IT an accident or did Michael Schumacher put his car – and body – on the line to win the 1994 F1 world championship?

Germany had its first world champion, but the manner of his victory left many arguing its merit after clashing with Damon Hill.

Schumacher himself admitted: “I did not want to win the title like this.”

“It would have been a lot sweeter to race to the end, win and get the world championship that way.

“But if you take the whole season, it’s safe to say I deserve the title because we fought really hard and led the championship by a big margin.

“Accidents like this happen in racing. We fought very hard and we touched and it could have well have been that I stopped and then he took the title. That is the way it is.

“The steering was not working completely and and I wanted to turn into the corner.

“Suddenly I saw Damon next to me and we just hit each other.”

“When I was in the wall and even before that, when I was up in the air, I thought the championship had gone and it was not a nice time.

1974

COLIN BOND drove Holden to the 1974 Australian Manufacturers Championship with victory at Surfers Paradise.

Bond was unstoppable at Phillip Island, beating Murray Carter by more than a lap and Russ McRae.

Early attacks by Peter Brock and Allan Moffat failed due to mechanical misfortune as the “destruction track takes toll on cars.”

In the Formula 5000s, Kevin Bartlett was victorious as many struggled to make the finish. For the first time since 1957 when he drove an FX Holden at the age 17, Ian ‘Pete’ Geoghegan returned to the General.

His new Craven Mild Monaro GTS, designed and built by John Sheppard, was revealed ahead of a debut at Calder Park.

“I just had to wait and listen to the speaker whether he (Hill) was coming back and it was certainly the longest three laps of my life.”

Hill refused to blame Schumacher.

“I couldn’t really do any more than I did.” said Hill. “At the time he went off the road I had no idea what condition his car was in.

“It’s very painful to look back and realise it must have been damaged to the point that he was out of the race.

“I just saw him coming across. I went to the left, and so did he, to seemingly stop me passing. I got down to the apex and he got across very quickly and we collided.

“Almost immediately after that I knew that my suspension was damaged, probably irreparably. But I also knew he was out of the race, so that was the end of the championship.

“That’s motor racing,”

Barry Sheene was highly critical of Schumacher, while Sir Jack Brabham thought “Hill’s reactions were too slow.”

It is an incident that still splits opinion three decades later.

1984

FOR THE 49th and final time before Formula 1, the Australian Grand Prix was held and Roberto Moreno dominated.

Moreno outpaced his more illustrious international rivals in his Ignis Ralt to cruise to victory.

Australian champion John Bowe provided the most significant opposition before a loose plus lead delayed him.

Fresh from his F1 title, Nike Lauda’s pace was disappointing, while Keke Rosberg was knocked to the tail of the field at the opening corner.

However, Rosberg’s special recovery from last to second was the highlight of the race.

The opening stages of the 100-lap affair were almost farcical as Andrea De Cesaris blasted out of pit lane seconds before the green light following an engine misfire.

2004

IT WAS an open affair at Symmons Plains as three races produced three different winners, while a fourth took the round overall.

A record crowd of 60,202 fans packed into Symmons Plains for its first V8 Supercar round since 1999 to see home hero Marcos Ambrose, who had a rare mechanical issue. But the weekend went down to history due to a bizzare drama in the final race where officials incorrectly deployed the Safety Car. Drama occurred as Bright, Besnard, Skaife and Tratt gained a free pit stop, but then the quartet were waved around the Safety Car and completed one lap less than the rest.

Murphy was initially named the winner, but CAMS immediately investigated the results and eventually reinstated Besnard and WPS Racing with a win no-one saw coming.

2014

MARCOS AMBROSE was back racing a Supercar for the first time in nine years, fresh from NASCAR.

To prepare for what was planned to be a full-time assault in 2015, Ambrose made a one-round cameo return on the soaked streets of Sydney.

“Im certainly committed to this and it is going to take years to get where we want to go,” Ambrose said.

“Don’t expect us to be a championship contender, it is going to take time to piece this all together.”

Over in Abu Dhabi, the first chapter of Mercedes domination and the Lewis Hamilton vs Nico Rosberg rivalry was complete.

Hamilton won his second F1 title in style by winning the finale over Felipe Massa, while Rosberg struggled to 14th with a failed Energy Recovery System.

7 - 9 February 2025, Sir Jack Brabham Park, Orange

The 2025 Gnoo Blas Classic celebrates 65 years since the first Australian Touring Car Championship at the Gnoo Blas racing circuit in 1960. As always we’ll have a huge display of classic vehicles, motorbikes, trucks, even boats and caravans – everything on wheels!

2nd week of February at Sir Jack Brabham Park 3 HUGE DAYS!

• Cost Effective and Convenient Alternative

• Meet/Exceed OE Specs and offer New Vehicle Warranty

• Premium Materials for performance and longevity

• Perfect for Professional Mechanics & DIY Enthusiasts

INCLUDES: Air, Cabin, Oil and Fuel Filters (Where Applicable)

• Ford Ranger

• Mitsubishi Triton

• Toyota Hilux

• Isuzu D-MAX

• Nissan Patrol

• Holden Colorado and many more! • Mazda 2 & 3 • Ford FG, BA & BF Falcon • Toyota Camry • Holden VE/VF Commodore

• Hyundai 120/130

• Toyota Corolla and many more!

• Toyota Hi Ace

• Hyundai iload

• VW Transporter

• Ford Transit

• Isuzu Truck

• Hino 300 and many morel