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Issue #1758
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Courtney driving for Walkinshaw future
PARC FERME PREVIEW WILL SUPERCARS QUALY SHAKE-UP WORK?
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LATEST NEWS
UNDER THE PUMP W lki h ddrivers Walkinshaw i involved in “a pretty interesting� silly season
MARK FOGARTY explains why James Courtney and Scott Pye are driving for their jobs at ambitious Walkinshaw Andretti United ODD COUPLE James Courtney and Scott Pye could figure in what their team boss Ryan Walkinshaw predicts will be a lively ‘silly season’ for driver changes later this year. Courtney and Pye, who are very opposite personalities, are both understood to be in the final season of their current agreements. High-priced star Courtney was overshadowed by Pye last year in the first season of the Walkinshaw Andretti United partnership, scoring a dramatic win at Albert Park and finishing runner-up for the second consecutive year at Bathurst. Pye finished seventh in the Supercars championship last year, while Courtney languished in 14th. But after a slow start by WAU this year, Courtney is ahead in the standings after two events, sitting in 12th to Pye’s 19th. Courtney is outgoing and a high-profile character with a colourful lifestyle, while Pye is more restrained and reserved, filling his hours outside racing running his own digital media company. Courtney defected to Walkinshaw at what was then the Holden
Scott Pye and James Courtney (above in Mobil 1 Mega Racing Commodore) are smiling now, but will they still be at the end of this year?
Racing Team in 2011 after winning the 2010 title with Dick Johnson Racing. It is widely believed he joined HRT on a multi-year contract worth close to $1 million a season. The former world karting champion renewed from 2017 despite the Clayton team losing its long-standing HRT deal, reportedly taking a pay cut that sees him earning several hundred thousand dollars a year. Courtney is managed by expat Aussie BTCC boss Alan Gow, one of the most astute driver agents in the business. Pye joined Walkinshaw Racing in ’17 after being dumped by DJR Team Penske for Scott McLaughlin. He replaced veteran Garth Tander in a budget-saving move, but has proved to be a bargain buy with strong performances in struggling equipment. WAU co-owner Walkinshaw vaguely admitted that both Courtney and Pye are up for renewal by the end of the season, in which the team has targeted regular podiums and multiple wins. Asked if Courtney and Pye were
driving for their jobs, Walkinshaw told Auto Action: “I’d say every driver is driving for their job every year. We have contract negotiations that will be on-going and when we have something to announce there, we will do, but I’m not going to go into details on that. “It wouldn’t be fair on us or the drivers or anyone else we might possibly be talking to if I were to go into any details there. “Currently, as it stands, they both have the opportunity to stay with us and we’ll be working with them for the rest of this season to go and win as many races as possible, and we have full confidence that they have the ability to go and do that.� Despite his tacit admission their deals are up for renewal, Walkinshaw declined to confirm that they were among key drivers out of contract at the end of the year. “I’m not going to go into details about it,� he said. “People can speculate about when their contracts come to an end.� However, he predicted that the
UP COMING RACE EVENT CALENDAR
driver market would come alive around September/October, the traditional time for negotiations and potential moves. “I’m sure that the silly season this year is going to be pretty interesting,� Walkinshaw said. “That’s something I’d be willing to take a pretty big bet on.� As well as bankable star Courtney, the other likely big player
in the driver shuffle is Chaz Mostert, who is widely tipped to be in strong contention for Fabian Coulthard’s seat at DJR Team Penske. Coulthard could then also be on the market, although a long-term co-driver/ambassador deal with DJRTP would be more likely. Jamie Whincup and Shane van Gisbergen are already locked in at Triple Eight for 2020.
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! P O O C S R E P U S LATEST NEW NEWS WS
“The M “The Mustang’s usta us tang ng’s ’s aero tweaks alsoo en enco encompass coomppas a s the shape wheel th he sh hap a e of o tthe h ffront he ront ro nt w heell aarch, he rchh, tthe rc hhee ddesign esiggn esig es sills kick-up of tthe of he sside he i e si id sill ills llls and and a ki an kic cckk-uup on the the he rrear eaar de deck deck extension.” exte ex tens nsio ionn.””
“With the Mustang taking all six pole positions and race wins so far this season, aerodynamic parity has understandably become a raging debate in pitlane.”
MUSTANG AERO SECRE
Parity row far from over as Supercars probes Ford cou
In an exclusive investigation, BRUCE NEWTON uncovers the aerodynamic ‘hot spots’ that Holden rivals claim give runaway Mustangs the winning edge REVEALED EXCLUSIVELY here are the six key aerodynamic features of the all-conquering Ford Mustang that rival Supercars teams are desperate to blunt. Auto Action has uncovered the contentious aero ‘hot spots’ that are being questioned by Holden teams and also the ex-factory Nissan squad. These are the photos and details that identify the new aero freedoms allowed on the Ford super-coupe which ensure the parity row will continue beyond the centre of gravity (CoG) controversy. The CoG disparity was addressed by Supercars last week (see accompanying story), but its probe into a possible aero imbalance is unlikely to be resolved until after the April 12-14 Phillip Island SuperSprint. The Mustang’s aero tweaks start at the flat-topped front splitter and
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stretch all the way to those long rear wing endplates, also encompassing the shape of the front wheel arch, the design of the side sills and a kick-up on the rear deck extension. Before anyone jumps to the wrong conclusion, they’re all legal and all were on the Mustang at last December’s Supercars VCAT aerodynamic parity testing against the Holden Commodore ZB and Nissan Altima. And, yes, representatives of the respective Holden and Nissan homologation teams, Triple Eight Race Engineering and Kelly Racing, signed off on the Mustang’s aerodynamic homologation at that time. But what had them concerned then and furious now is their belief that the disputed aero items were all previously applied for and rejected by Supercars. They say those six features were nixed for the ZB during the initial
homologation by Triple Eight or when applied for later, but were accepted for the Ford during its development in 2018. “Our view of the aero on the cars is purely around the availability of the same tools on all the cars,” Triple Eight boss Roland Dane told AA. “There are parts of the aero kit on the Ford which were denied to us. “So all we need to do is have the same basic tools, frankly, and if they then do a better job than us, that’s down to them and good luck to them.” AERO INVESTIGATION Supercars was been approached for its reaction to the claims of aerodynamic disparity, but didn’t respond before AA’s deadline. Ford teams DJR Team Penske and Tickford Racing have also been approached for their views, but both declined to comment.
With the Mustang taking all six pole positions and race wins so far this season, aerodynamic parity has understandably become a raging debate in pitlane. That’s especially the case now centre of gravity concerns have been acknowledged and Supercars has had a crack at addressing them with the new equalisation rule. The widely held view beyond the Blue Oval garages is that while CoG adjustments will reduce some of the Mustang’s advantage, only a rebalancing of aerodynamic parity will level the playing field. Holden team owner Brad Jones estimated the Mustang’s pace advantage is coming from roughly 80 per cent aerodynamics and 20 per cent CoG. “I think the aero is a bigger thing and we need to have some science behind that, and that’s what Supercars is working on currently,” Jones said.
Cam Waters has regularly shown the speed of the new Mustang.
The ongoing study of relevant aerodynamic performance is being conducted by Supercars head of motorsport Adrian Burgess and his technical team, led by veteran engineer Campbell Little. No details have been made public about the process they are following that could lead to an aerodynamic change. But Dane insists if any aerodynamic disparity is established, Supercars has a legal obligation to correct it, during the season if necessary. “The rules call for an incoming car to have to match the incumbent
MUSTANG AERO ‘HOTS SPOTS’
“Before anyone jumps to the wrong conclusion, the aero tweaks in contention are legal and all were on the Mustang at last December’s Supercars VCAT aerodynamic parity testing.”
HERE ARE the six areas of aero contention the Ford teams don’t want you to see – and how they enhance performance.
FLAT FRONT SPLITTER: Check the Mustang’s rivals and you’ll see they’re rounded. This one slices through the air.
ROLLED FRONT WHEEL ARCH: Works with cutaway sill to optimise the wake off the front tyres while turning.
ETS EXPOSED
upe’s ‘unfair advantage’
SILL DEPTH: Rivals claim it extends beyond the guidelines. Helps deal with the wake created by the rear tyres.
Roland Dane claims Holden asked for the same aero allowances for the ZB, but were denied.
REAR WING ENDPLATE: As the car turns (yaws), the end plate stops the air ‘spilling’ off the end of the rear wing and provides a side force to aid cornering potential.
cars, so that’s really the most important point,” he said. “That’s what the rules say, that’s what our commercial agreements with Supercars say. “If Supercars can verify the view of some of the grid that there is a disparity and it can be seen, it isn’t a question of if it is done, it is when, because it has to be. There is a legally binding obligation to do it.” WHAT’S NEXT? If Supercars goes down that path, the most likely outcome is the Mustang losing some
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aerodynamic proficiency rather than trying to add aero capability to the other cars. After all, it would cost less to fabricate new parts such as splitters and/or endplates for six Mustangs than 14 Holdens and four Nissans. Before that, though, revisions to aerodynamic parity and parts would have to be the subject of another round of VCAT homologation testing. Even then there are issues as VCAT only tests in a straight line, whereas much of the Mustang’s aero advantage is believed
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to lie in cornering, or yaw, performance. As outlined in our feature story on pages 28-29, the concerns about the Mustang’s aerodynamics run very deep. Not only is it the first coupe in the category, it is also the first model not to share a single panel with the production car on which its body shape is based. Mustang is also the first Supercar to be developed predominantly by a factory owned, globally recognised race car design group – in this case Ford Performance in the USA.
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Rear deck extension kick-up: Maintains the air flow over the rear wing in the corners to improve efficiency. AA’s take: The design intent is maintaining the straight-line characteristic of the previous car/competitors while giving better downforce with yaw. That way, the Mustangs can run less wing (so faster on the straight) while matching their rivals in the corners in terms of downforce. Alternatively, they can run the same wing as their rivals and have improved corner performance. Images: LAT & Ross Gibb
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FORDS COP BIG HIT Ballast shift raises Mustang’s centre of gravity – weight and height revealed
THE MUSTANG’S centre of gravity ‘penalty’ is precisely 28 kilograms of lead ballast taken from the floor and bolted to the roll cage under the roofline, Auto Action can reveal. The radical relocation is the headline change – but officially unspecified – resulting from Supercars’ post-AGP centre of gravity (CoG) parity testing. AA has gained confirmation of the 28 kg figure, which equates to a 20 mm lift for the Mustang’s CoG. The Mustang previously required at least 50 kilos of ballast bolted to the floor to reach the category’s 1395 kg minimum weight limit. Following the CoG test, Holden teams are required to shift 6.7 kg from the leftrear corner of the Commodore ZB’s cabin (diametrically opposite the driver) and bolt it in under the roof on a cross-brace above the windscreen. Moving nearly seven kilograms higher in the ZB equates to about 13-14 kilos of floormounted ballast. According to Supercars’ calculations, shifting this amount of weight brings the CoG of the Mustang and Commodore into line with the older Nissan Altima, which continues with its weight distribution unchanged. Put simply, the lower a car’s centre of gravity, the better its cornering capability. Building a Supercar under-weight allows ballast to be strategically placed lower in the cabin to aid handling performance. Some engineering sources within the Supercars championship contend that at a
fast circuit like Albert Park or Phillip Island, a 20mm lower CoG provides a 0.6-0.7 seconds advantage per lap. Ford teams dispute this, but not that a lower CoG provides an advantage in faster corners. On shorter, tighter circuits such as Symmons Plains, where the six Mustangs will run in revised form for the first time this weekend, the change in CoG is expected to cost only a tenth or two on a qualifying lap. But it could accelerate tyre degradation – an area where the Ford coupe has been impressively strong. As Auto Action has reported extensively, Supercars moved on CoG parity after the Adelaide and AGP Mustang whitewashes, testing the centre of gravity of 10 Supercars at Kelly Racing on the Monday and Tuesday after the Melbourne 400 at Albert Park. An imbalance was identified, prompting a new CoG parity rule passed by the Supercars Commission and ratified by the board last week. Response to the change has been muted from the rival teams. As revealed alongside, they’re already thinking more about the Mustang’s aero package and how to nobble that. “I don’t know if it’s a big deal with the CoG,” Holden race team owner Brad Jones said. “In terms of the performance difference between the Mustang and the Commodore, currently I think the CoG is a small portion of that.” Jones added: “We needed to be doing something to get the Nissan back into the game and I feel this is a step in that direction.”
Images: LAT
Between them, the four Nissans have managed one top 10 start and one top 10 finish from six qualifying sessions and six races in the first two events. Mustangs have claimed every pole and every win. And the view of the Ford teams about all this? Apart from short official statements accepting the parity testing results, both DJR Team Penske and Tickford Racing are staying quiet heading into this weekend’s Tasmania SuperSprint. “We are not thrilled with the situation,” the Tickford release noted in something of an understatement. In its statement, DJRTP referenced a CoG testing process that it wanted developed instead of the methodology used by Supercars. The clear implication? It doesn’t have that much faith in the CoG results Supercars head of motorsport Adrian Burgess and his technical chief Campbell Little came up with.
Meanwhile, despite a previous commitment to share details of the testing results, Supercars provided only a general motherhood statement to AA. “The details of the ballast applied varies from vehicle to vehicle and will therefore be placed in different areas of those vehicles,” it said. “The details of how much ballast will apply and where it will be placed is confidential, and anything else is pure speculation. “Clearly, any additional ballast would be placed higher in the car. “The same and equal change is being made to each model. That is to say, there is no change in relative performance between teams using the same model of vehicle, only a redressing of the technical differences between the models in accordance with Supercars’ constitution. “All three homologated vehicles have been built within the rules.” In other words, blah, blah, blah… BN
whatever it has it has. If I worry about it, I am just going to go slower.” McLaughlin concedes there may be slight set-up changes, but insists he won’t really know what impact the Mustang’s 20 mm raised CoG change has until he hits the track. He believes it may become more apparent the following weekend at the faster, longer Phillip Island circuit, where he has a dominant record. “When you get to tracks with more turns, the weight above your head
is going to make more difference,” he said. “It’s just one of those things, you just have to get on with it. It’s annoying, but it is what it is.” McLaughlin has one pole position and no wins at Symmons Plains in the six seasons he’s raced there. Jamie Whincup, who trails him by 31 points in the title chase, has amassed 12 wins and eight poles since 2008. Triple Eight won both races there last year with the then new Holden Commodore ZB. McLaughlin has amassed six wins and eight poles at Phillip Island.
MCLAUGHLIN PLANS MESSAGE TO CRITICS If he wins at Symmons, the Mustang ace plans to stick it up a few people BY BRUCE NEWTON
HE PROBABLY WON’T sing, but DJR Team Penske’s Scott McLaughlin is planning a special message for a few detractors if he wins at Symmons Plains this weekend in his top-heavy Ford Mustang. McLaughlin, who celebrated the Mustang Supercar’s first win in Adelaide last month by singing Darryl Braithwaite’s ‘The Horses’ as he crossed the line, admits he has been pondering something more pointed in the wake of new centre of gravity technical parity rules introduced primarily to slow the allconquering Ford. “I’ll pull out something, it may not be a song,” the defending Supercars champion told Auto Action. “I plan to go out there and drive the thing 100 per cent, and if we win it, that’s an absolute bonus and obviously we’ll stick it up a few people. “We’ll see how we go. I have to do it first and I am very spontaneous.”
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Despite planning that riposte, McLaughlin insists he’s not emotional about the changes to the Mustang. They came in the wake of six straight pole positions and wins in the first six, of which he’s collected four poles and five wins. “It’s more a disappointment for our people who built a great car,” the championship leader said. “I’m focussed on one thing and that’s just getting on with it. “I use it as motivation. The one thing they can’t take away from me or Fabian (Coulthard, his Shell V-Power Racing teammate) is our talent behind the wheel and what we can do for the team. “I’m just going to go out there and drive the thing to 100 per cent, and
SUPERCARS ‘SUMMER SERIES’ ALL BUT DEAD BY MARK FOGARTY
A SUPERCARS summer series won’t happen next year – and is unlikely to go ahead in the foreseeable future. Next year’s schedule, set to be finalised by June, will be a split season within the calendar year, separated by a long winter break. Auto Action has learned that that the 2020 Supercars calendar will start in January and end in December, with a hiatus in July/ August/September. In the current thinking, AA understands the series would start with a return to Sydney Motorsport Park in late January for after-dark racing under new permanent lighting and continue to Townsville in early July, then taking a break until resuming at Bathurst in mid-October with an enduro-led run to the finale at Newcastle in early December. “What we’re looking at is starting a little bit earlier, finishing a little bit later, enabling us to get a couple more events out of the middle of the year into better weather windows or on the fringe of better windows,” Supercars chief executive Sean Seamer confirmed. “Having a bigger break around winter will enable us to have some clear air away from NRL and AFL, but also allowing our drivers to go and do different things – Spa (24 Hours) and all the stuff people want to do.” Seamer also confirmed that July/August/September was the projected ‘winter’ break of the new-look split 2020 season. “We believe that this (split season in same calendar year) could actually be a very happy medium for everybody without the commercial complexities of 18 months or rolling over summer,” he said. “So we’ll get there and see how it works, and then assess from there.”
Seamer also indicated that a true summer series across two calendar years was unlikely because of scheduling difficulties, although it hadn’t been completely ruled out in the further future. “It is potentially still being discussed, but let’s get this (separated single season) done first and make that work, and then see if we want to go to a split-year summer calendar,” he said. Seamer acknowledged that a summer series would be hard to implement. “It would be very difficult and we’d probably have to change financial years and all of those associated things that go with it,” he said. “So it’s not the work of a moment at all, but what we can do is, within a calendar year, place events in better spots – which achieves a very similar outcome. “The challenge on us then is to bring viewers back in the second half. And that’s not impossible – not with Bathurst in October.” He confirmed that the thinking now is to run split-season schedules in 2020/21 before a review for 2022 and beyond. “As it stands today,” he said. “Now, I could call you in a month and it might change, but as it stands today, that’s the plan.” Seamer is also adamant that next year’s calendar will be finalised by June instead of October, when it has been released in recent years, and possibly for the next three years. He doesn’t see the late finalisation of international events like the F1 Australian Grand Prix as an impediment. “I think we’ll be able to get a pretty accurate date on the AGP,” he said. “We’re working on Adelaide, the Bathurst 12 Hour and we’re in discussion with IMSA about the Daytona 24 Hours to see where they’re at on their date.
“And from there, we’ll just start locking in Adelaide. So we’re already working on it – and, hopefully, it’ll be done in advance of June. And then, even try to lock it down for three years. “The calendar’s been in flux for too long, a lot of it because of efforts to get overseas. So let’s lock down the calendar and then if we have time to get overseas within that, then great.” That comment suggests Supercars’ ambition to race in Asia is on the backburner, but not abandoned despite none of previous CEO James Warburton’s ideas coming to fruition.
Image: Ross Gibb
QUALLY QUIET TIMES?
Cars could park in pit lane early because of new parc ferme rules BY BRUCE NEWTON
THE SYMMONS Plains track could be almost empty during what is normally one of the most exciting times in a Supercars championship weekend, the closing minutes of qualifying. That’s one unexpected potential result of new parc ferme rules being trialled this weekend at the Tasmania SuperSprint, with teams prevented from making significant changes to their cars between the end of qualifying and the race. Designed to both reduce workload for teams and inject some unpredictability into the racing, it means drivers and their engineers will have to choose whether to qualify with a race set-up or race with qualifying set-up. The latter delivers you track position for the start, the former better tyre life for the race. But Penrite Racing CEO Barry Ryan has put forward a different possible scenario – essentially having your cake and eating it, too. “You are going to be racing to try and
qualify the best you can, and then try and get back to pit lane with a couple of minutes left so you can quickly change your cambers to a race set-up before the chequered flag comes out and parc ferme starts,” Ryan told Auto Action. “Some real confident teams will get their times done early in qualifying, leaving it a few minutes early, getting into pitlane and then you’ll see lots of activity – changing cambers and rear springs, stuff you’d do for a race set-up and then stop touching the car when the chequered flag comes out. “I reckon you’ll even get teams getting caught out and not being finished by the time the chequered flag comes out. They’re going to have to sort out if they will let them bolt up what they didn’t get done up or what’s the penalty if they have to finish something they didn’t finish. “It’s going to be interesting.” Red Bull HRT team principal Roland Dane played down any prospect of his team indulging in such a risky strategy because of
the split three-part qualifying system to be employed in Tasmania. “Because they are only 10-minute sessions, that is a high-risk strategy,” Dane said. “Certainly from our point of view, it’s too risky.” The bottom 15 cars from a pre-designated practice session are in the opening session, with the slowest 10 knocked out (there will be 25 cars at Symmons, with BJR wildcard Jack Smith joining the reduced field). Five cars go on to part two, joined by the fastest 10 cars from practice. The top 10 then go on to the final 10-minute session to vie for pole. “For us to presume we are going to be in the final part of qualifying is pretty dangerous,” Dane added. “If you were to get knocked out in that second part of qualifying, your car would be in parc ferme in qualifying spec.” Cars will enter parc ferme as they are knocked out of qualifying. While suspension set-up cannot be altered, tyres and fuel levels can be changed, both of which Formula 1 prohibits under its post-Q3 parc ferme rules.
SAFETY CAR STRATEGY
WHILE THERE seems to be potential for more unpredictable racing via the Symmons Plains parc ferme trial, there seems little chance the decision to close the pit lane during safety car periods of the two Supercars races the following weekend at Phillip Island will have a similar result. The widespread belief Among teams is that the closure will force drivers and teams to take a safety-first strategy approach and pit as early in the race as possible. “The first team car will pit when the
window opens and the second team car will pit the next lap,” predicted Penrite Racing’s Ryan. “Then it will be a tyre degradation race to the end, because there is no better way to do it.” The Supercars Commission decided to conduct this trial after the pit stop stacking shambles in Adelaide. Phillip Island has a narrow pit lane and has had its own stacking dramas in the past. “I wouldn’t like to see it at every track because it will impact on the racing,” BJR co-owner Brad Jones said. “But I totally get why this has been decided for Phillip Island and we’ll see how affects the racing.”
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DUNLOP WILL back Nick Percat at the next round of the Supercars Championship in Tasmania in a relationship that has lasted three years. “This is the third year we’ve been able to showcase a Dunlop Tyres Supercar as part of our livery line-up, said Percat. “The Dunlop brand is synonymous with Australian Motorsport and the Supercar fans continue to give us great feedback when we roll out in the iconic yellow and black livery.”
NO FORMULA E SPARK FOR FORD
‘Product relevance’ the key for Blue Oval racing AUSTRALIAN CALAN Williams will return to compete in a second season in Euroformula Open with Fortec Motorsports. Originally slated to compete in the new Formula European Masters this year, that series was cancelled six weeks out from its opening round, leaving the young Australian and the Fortec team to assess alternative options. Williams finished 11th in the Spanish series in his debut season, with his best result a sixth at the Hungaroring.
MOLLY TAYLOR will line-up for this year’s Australian Rally Championship in a freshlybuilt by new car preparer Orange Motorsport Engineering based in Devonport, Tasmania. “It’s probably the most change we’ve had in both the team and championship in the past three years since Subaru do Motorsport launched in 2016,” said Taylor. “We’re really excited by the gains we’re achieving in the new car. There are lots of detail changes that combine to give us a really competitive package against the AP4 and R5 cars. Factor in the WRX STI’s reliability and our good track record in WA, and we’ve got plenty to look forward to.” Taylor and co-driver Malcolm Read will kickstart their championship tilt this weekend in Perth.
PORSCHE HAS confirmed that the 2019 Porsche Michelin GT3 Cup Challenge field will feature seven Michelin Juniors. Three of the 2019 Michelin Juniors in GT3 Cup Challenge return for a second season. Reigning Class B champion Christian Pancione will move into a 991-series 911 GT3 Cup car, joining Max Vidau, who returns to the Pro class having placed third in the 2018 standings.
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AA GLOBAL EXCLUSIVE By BRUCE NEWTON ALL-ELECTRIC Formula E racing is attracting automotive brands like bears to a honeypot, but don’t expect Ford to join the sparky scramble. The Blue Oval’s racing boss has ruled out a presence in FE and any other major openwheeler categories such as Formula 1 and IndyCar to focus on racing that more directly promotes the cars the Detroit giant makes. Ford Performance global motor sport chief Mark Rushbrook revealed exclusively to Auto Action that he compiled a study into Ford’s future racing options – and FE doesn’t make the cut. “What we like about Formula E is it does focus the development into the electrified powertrain,” Rushbrook said. “But with open-wheel racing, you lose that product relevance and it’s hard to make that connection.” Early in 2018, Rushbrook seemed publicly interested in FE and Ford was linked with Dragon Racing, the team owned by Roger Penske’s son Jay. But that is clearly no longer the case.
Rushbrook also cited cost escalation as more manufacturers commit, including Nissan, Jaguar, BMW, Mercedes-Benz, Porsche and Citroen’s DS. “If you look at Formula E, it’s good that a lot of manufacturers are going there, but if you look at the budgets that are starting to be spent there, they are going pretty high, pretty quickly,” he said. However, Rushbrook made it clear Ford sees electrification as an important part of its future motor sport mix. “We do need our motor sport cycle plan to be tied to our road car cycle plan, and with a number of hybrid and full electric vehicles we have coming, we know we do need to be racing something electrified,” he conceded. “That means hybrid and/or full electric, and we have been studying that for the last year. “We are literally looking at all the options that are available today and even how some of the current series may switch or adopt hybrid at some point in their future.”
Rushbrook highlighted NASCAR as one of those categories, as it has been linked with hybridisation as early as 2022. The World Rally Championship is looking to head hybrid in the same timeframe. Supercars could allow low-level hybridisation as part of its Next Generation evolution, due as soon as 2021. Ford is involved in NASCAR and Supercars with Mustang and in WRC with the Fiesta. “That would be fantastic for us, although we don’t need to race hybrid everywhere,” Rushbrook said. “We just need to see where all the series go and what are the rules.” As well as ruling out Formula E, Rushbrook dismissed a return to F1, which is already a petrol-electric hybrid formula – albeit an incredibly expensive one. “We look at return for our investment in terms of both racing fans and customers, and innovation and tech transfer and the product relevance, and right now we don’t see F1 making sense for us.”
“It (the adjustment to CoG) will definitely have a bit of a negative effect on those cars (Mustang and Commodore), but we are in a little bit of no-mans land with our car,” admitted Kelly. “With the changes made at the last aero test, it has put it out of the
window and how we need to set the car up around the changes means, basically, learning everything from scratch., “So our performances aren’t really indicative of where the Altima is or should be.” BN
NO BOOST FOR ALTIMA
NISSAN’S NEW aerodynamic package is proving such a challenge for Kelly Racing that it could minimise any benefits derived from the centre of gravity technical parity adjustment. The CoG of the Ford Mustang and Holden Commodore ZB has been adjusted for this weekend’s Tasmania SuperSprint at Symmons Plains, equalising them with the aging Altima. “We won’t be moving up to the pointy end of the field,” predicted team owner Todd Kelly. “We just won’t be as disadvantaged as we were.” As reported separately, the Mustang goes to Symmons Plains with 28 kg shifted from the floor to the roofline and the Commodore gets 6.7 kg higher up, while the Altima’s centre of gravity is unchanged. Theoretically, that delivers an instant leg-up for the Nissans in comparative performance, but the ex-factory team has yet to sort out updates delivered over the summer, which shifted the aero balance forward.
V8 VS SUPER TOURERS: SECRET TALKS Now it can be revealed that warring touring car factions tried to negotiate a truce
By BRUCE NEWTON
AUSTRALIAN TOURING car racing may have taken a very different course over the last 20 years if secret 1997 peace talks between V8 Supercars and Super Touring had been successful. The negotiations were revealed to Auto Action by Peter Adderton, the outspoken current day Supercars sponsor who was an investor and driver in the Australian version of the emerging two-litre touring car formula in the mid-to-late 1990s. The mergers talks failed, which Adderton now admits was “the worst decision I ever made in my entire life”. He explained: “They asked to partner with us. They said ‘Let’s partner, bring Group A back, let’s bring it together, get manufacturers involved’. We said ‘No’.” The partnership discussion has also been confirmed to AA by former Supercars supremo Tony Cochrane, who sat across the table from Adderton and Super Touring supremo Alan Gow at the Sydney meeting. However, the Adderton and Cochrane accounts differ significantly in terms of the meeting’s tone and content. While Adderton says Supercars came to Super Touring asking for a merger, Cochrane says the meeting was brokered by long-time BMW Australia boss Ron Meatchem and that he attended out of courtesy rather than need. “Ron Meatchem was trying to make peace and see if there was a way us guys and two-litres could work
together,” Cochrane recounted. “There were a few joint things thrown around to see if we could work together, but, fundamentally, it came down to that old thing as to whose dick is bigger than whose.” Cochrane maintains Super Touring was convinced it had the upper hand because it had won the rights to the Bathurst 1000 and its Channel 7 telecast. What they didn’t know is was he was close to securing a date for V8 Supercars to run its own 1000 km race, telecast by Channel 10. “I didn’t let on to them I had that deal up my sleeve because I don’t think it was across the line at that time,” Cochrane recalled. “They were proposing they would bend over backwards and include us on the Saturday at Bathurst, and we were saying ‘No, no, no’, we’re the main show, you have to run according to our schedule. “The bottom line was Adderton rejected that and told us there was no way we could work together.” The two Bathursts ran head-to-head for two years before the V8s won out. Super Touring wound up in Australia in 2001, while what is now known as Supercars has come to dominate the motor sport landscape, with Cochrane running the show until 2012. Adderton is now naming rights sponsor of Supercars squad Garry Rogers Motorsport via his telecom reseller Boost Mobile. “When I was running Super Touring, we had got
the upper hand,” Adderton now claims. “Cochrane was running V8s and they only had 17 cars at one race and of the 17, three or four were smoking piles of junk. “We had Audi, Volvo [and BMW]. Cochrane and all the TEGA boys came and saw us in my boardroom. We said ‘No, we’ve got you’. “Worst mistake, underestimated Tony and truly underestimated the fans’ love for V8s. We blew it, it was a big mistake of ours. “Had we accepted the deal with TEGA and Cochrane, motor sport in this country would have changed. You would not see what you are seeing here today. “At that pivotal point, we blew it.” Cochrane also revealed a later second critical meeting involving Super Touring when the Adelaide 500 meeting was being developed. A proposal was put forward that the two-litre touers would race on Saturday at the Adelaide Parklands circuit at the inaugural 1999 event.
TCR TROUBLE
instead, I am on the back foot. But having said that, I had a brake issues (in Adelaide), and the next day I went out in qualifying and braked where I normally braked. I have a full faith in the team.” Despite the setbacks, Jones has still picked up valuable knowledge and pace on and off the track. “Laps are vital and almost everyone out there has more experience than I do, so circulating is a
big part of it,” he said. “I’m just trying to get the basics down and work on little techniques. “The AGP was a big highlight for me, just working on these tiny techniques and eliminating every mistake I can. After the grand prix, I was able to sit down and look at some data and footage, and really try to work out in my head how to drive these cars at such a high level.” BN
AT WAR in 1997, Peter Adderton and Tony Cochrane are in furious agreement 22 years later that the new TCR two-litre touring car formula launching in Australia next month will struggle to capture the attention of Australian motor racing fans. “It’s not going to work,” Adderton declared. “TCR’s argument is they’re going to create a new fanbase of 20-something young kids who are buying those cars. “But they’re street racers. They’re about going out together on a Saturday night and going up and down the street as loud as they possibly can. “They don’t race. If they do, it’s more of a drag race. So I think they (TCR) are going to struggle.” Added Cochrane: “It’s no different to why Super Touring didn’t work all those years ago. It’s not what the general public want from their motor sport. “They want noise, they want action and they want speed – they want the whole nine yards. That’s not TCR.” BN
MACCA AIMS FOR TURNAROUND Two crashes in two events have Jones Jnr ruing lost laps AFTER A horror start to his rookie Supercars season, Macauley Jones is looking for better results and less damage in Tasmania this weekend. Son of Supercars team owner Brad Jones and driver of the Team CoolDrive Holden Commodore ZB, Macauley suffered a car-wrecking accident in Saturday practice in Adelaide after a brake failure and then was fired into the wall by fellow rookie Garry Jacobson in race four at Albert Park. Thankfully, the second car, which started life as Brad Jones Racing teammate Tim Slade’s VFII Commodore in 2016 and became Macauley’s 2018 wildcard ZB, was repairable. Jones is now headed to the Symmons Plains bullring, where during his Dunlop Super2 career he experienced the high of a podium last year and
the low of weekend-ending crash in 2017. “I’m just excited to get to another race meeting and get more laps,” he said. “I quite enjoy the track, it is quite simple, with just four corners, really. “It produces awesome racing, which is something I really need.” Jones maintains his traumatic start to the year hasn’t dented his confidence. Instead, it’s more frustrated him because he’s missed out on so much experience. “It’s definitely been a difficult start and its’s not how I wanted to come into the season, watching the first race from the sidelines,” he said. “There was lot of hype leading into my first event and to have that happen was definitely disappointing. “I want to be building my confidence and
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THE DAVISON brothers have reunited again for the 2019 Enduro Cup, as Milwaukee Racing’s Will Davison will be joined by brother Alex for the three-event series later this year. On the back of top 10 finishes in each of the season’s first six races, Will heads into the Tasmania SuperSprint fourth in Supercars points, showing enormous potential for the 23Red Racing squad in the early stages of the year. “It’s great to be back with Will and 23Red Racing,” said Alex Davison. “They punched above their weight last year and obviously have made huge strides as a customer of Tickford Racing and are off to a great start this year. I have no doubts they’ll continue to improve throughout the year and we’ll be right in the thick of it come the Enduros.”
FOX SPORTS has hosted a record-breaking time with the 2019 Rolex Australian Grand Prix becoming the most watched Formula One race on FOX SPORTS ever, reaching 514,000 viewers. An average audience of 320,000 tuned in to watch Mercedes driver Valtteri Bottas take victory on FOX SPORTS’ live, ad break free and 4K Ultra HD coverage, up 4 per cent on the previous record set in 2018. In a huge weekend of motorsport, Formula One led the way with Saturday’s Qualifying session the highest ever recorded up 21 per cent with 225,000 viewers, and Practice 3 on the same day up 28% on the previous records set for both sessions in 2018.
THE BIO PIC movie of American racing driver Hurley Haywood has just been released. Following hot on the heels of his autobiography titled Hurley: From the Beginning that hit the shelves last year, the movie also details how Haywood kept the secret of his sexuality over the duration of his 40year career, as well as being posted to Vietnam when he wasf 20. Directed by Derek Dodge and executive produced by actor-turned-racing driver Patrick Dempsey, the film is out now on Netflix.
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FIFTH BATHURST EVENT ON THE CARDS THE BATHURST Regional Council is calling for expressions of interest to host a fifth event at the Mount Panorama Motor Racing Circuit. Currently, the historic circuit already hosts four major events annually which require it to be fully closed – the Bathurst 12 Hour, Bathurst 6 Hour, Bathurst 1000 and
Challenge Bathurst. The scenic road can – under the Mount Panorama Motor Racing Act 1989 – have up to five full-track closures a year to hold motor sport events. Mayor of Bathurst Graeme Hanger OAM explained that an opportunity exists for a fifth motor racing event to be conducted at
Mount Panorama, with the council now seeking expressions of interest from promoters. “Mount Panorama is an iconic motor racing venue and Council is keen to hear from experienced motor sport promoters about their ideas for a fifth motor sport event at the circuit,” said Hangar. “Each of the motor
sport events currently held at Mount Panorama are unique in their own right. We are looking for options for a fifth event that adds to the offering available to motor sport fans at Mount Panorama.” Expressions of interest remain open until April 23, just after the weekend of the Bathurst 6 Hour.
“It is very pleasing to have someone of the profile, experience and capability of James join the ARG Board. “His appointment endorses the future plans for the business and James will be integral in assisting and guiding the delivery of those plans over the coming years. “ARG currently has two new
to market categories. The experience and skills that James brings will ensure we deliver a great product that is sustainable commercially and market relevant.” The opening round of TCR Australia will be held at the Shannons Nationals opener at Sydney Motorsport Park on May 17-19.
WARBURTON JOINS ARG FORMER SUPERCARS supremo James Warburton has been announced as a Non-Executive Director of the Australian Racing Group and joins the board, effective immediately. Warburton brings with him vast experience within the media, marketing and advertising areas at companies including Universal McCann, Seven Media Group, Network 10 and recently APN Outdoor. This in addition to the five years he spent as Chief Executive Officer of Supercars from 2013. In his role, Warburton will represent the stakeholders of ARG. “I’m excited about getting involved with ARG as it brings together my passion for motorsport, media, events and business,” Warburton said.
“The TCR Australia Series, in particular, is dynamic as well as being market and manufacturer relevant. “It is targeted to a growing demographic and features cars people are buying and driving on a global basis. The Board of ARG is a very experienced and capable team and I look forward to working with them and assisting the business with executing its plans for growth and other commercial matters.” ARG Executive Chairman John McMellan was excited that the company could attract someone as credentialled as Warburton.
S5000 CONSTRUCTION UNDERWAY THE FIRST four S5000 tubs have arrived at Garry Rogers Motorsport’s Melbourne workshop, with the build of the new OnroakLigier based racers now beginning. Direct from the USA, the French-designed Onroak-Ligier carbon-fibre chassis forms the basis of the uniquely Australian S5000 concept, the brainchild of Chris Lambden. The cars will be constructed at GRM, with only the FIA-approved safety cell being engineered and built outside of Australia. Lambden is excited by the arrival of the first batch of S5000 chassis and admits the logistics of getting his idea off the ground have been tough. “While it may seem like things have been a bit quiet over recent weeks, there’s been heaps going on behind the scenes, especially at GRM,” said Lambden. “Garry’s crew have been flat out getting themselves set up for the arrival of this first
batch of chassis, and it’s pretty exciting to see the ‘production line’ taking shape. “Getting anything as new and big as this off the ground is a big enough challenge when you can simply go out and buy the respective cars – in this case we’re manufacturing them. It’s a huge undertaking and a great boost for the local motorsport industry and suppliers. “The refinements that have come from the initial running and testing of the car are all logical and will contribute to what we are confident will be an exciting, solid package.” The four new chassis will feature a number of developmental changes that have been initiated since the S5000’s opening run at the Australian Racing Group’s
media day at Sydney Motorsport Park in November. The changes have been focused on the cooling system and exhaust, plus the finalisation of the suspension and brake package. The aim for the GRM crew is to complete the initial batch of four cars before the next nine chassis arrive. “We’ve had the first car for some time now and we’ve been doing a considerable amount of testing, alterations and modifications to get to the next stage,”
explained Barry Rogers “Interest in the category has been enormous. We get calls daily about when we will have these cars ready for sale and we’re finalising the project plans now. “Everyone relates back to the old Formula 5000 days. Well, this is a much safer and modern version of that great racing category of that era.” Including the original chassis, 14 cars have been ordered ahead of S5000’s debut at Sydney Motorsport Park on May 17-19.
AUSTRALIAN GT APPOINTS NEW CATEGORY MANAGER AUSTRALIAN GT management has announced that David Vervaart will take over from Ken Collier as category manager. As previously reported by Auto Action, Collier announced his resignation just prior to the championship’s opening round at the Australian Grand Prix, signalling that it would be his final event in the role. His replacement has more than 30-years’ experience in the sports industry worldwide, with his motorsport background extensive. Vervaart was a commercial manager at the then Ford Performance Racing but has also served as circuit manager, team manager and driver manager. Vervaart is delighted to be in the new role and sees great potential in the class as it goes through a significant period of change. “Having been a part of almost every angle you can approach the sport from – I can honestly say I am better prepared than ever to assist with the growth of Australian GT, and excited by the prospect of what’s to come,” Vervaart said. “Having been involved with the SRO organisation over a 20-year span, and having seen the way the category has both evolved and
recently re-energised, gives me the comfort of knowing there is nothing wrong with the model, and that GT3 still remains one of the most vibrant and successful categories of motorsport worldwide. “I have already spoken with some of the stakeholders, and over the coming weeks will make direct contact with all of them to get a better picture of what we need to do to get the championship flourishing again, and I have no doubt that it will do just that over the coming seasons with the right ideas and the right kind of communication.” For Australian GT category owner Jim Manolios, it signals a new era for the class which started when its ownership changed hands last year. “Looking forward from the foundations that were laid over the last seven years, it was important to take the next step in the development of Australian GT with an experienced hand at the helm,” Manolios admitted. “CAMS shared my view in that and were keen to meet and endorse David in the role, as we all look to re-establishing Australian GT as one of the premier categories in Australian motorsport. “We have some big plans for the coming
The new face of Australian GT: David Vervaart, Jim Manolios and CAMS’ Michael Smith.
seasons, but we also need to work more closely with the stakeholders of Australian GT to ensure we achieve the best result that we can moving forward. “The motorsport landscape is changing constantly but also becoming very splintered with the growing number of new categories emerging,
however GT3 competition worldwide is on a resurgence, and with quite a number of cars already on the ground in Australia, our aim is to get them out of garages and back on track. “For us, this new appointment signals the start of the next chapter in Australian GT, and we’re very excited about what’s ahead.”
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OZ FERRARI BOYS WIN LAGUNA SECA
AUSTRALIA CONTINUES to enjoy success in the Intercontinental GT Challenge when Supercars driver Tim Slade and ex-pat Nick Foster joined by Italian Miguel Molina to take victory at the second round of the series in the California 8 Hours. Driving the HubAuto Corsa Ferrari 488 GT3, the trio headed home the Mercedes-AMG Team
GruppeM Racing driven by Raffaelle Marciello, Maxi Buhk and Maxi Goetz by 12.5s, while rounding out the podium places was the Park Place Motorsports Porsche 991 GT3 R team comprising Romain Dumas, Sven Muller and Mathieu Jaminet. “This is about as good as it gets, really,” Foster said. “It’s HubAuto’s first time here, so it’s a massive credit to our engineering group and team for slowly chipping away through the week and putting together what they needed to do. Right from the word ‘go’ we focused on the race car and with that came a bit of qualifying performance – I think that’s what really set us up for the day, as we were quite good in the cool conditions compared to everyone else. I think that really set up the race for us in terms of performance. “Miguel was able to do a really good job early, and when everybody else started to switch their tyres on through the race, we had that gap. And if it wasn’t
for our pitlane dramas, we’d have been even further ahead.” In a largely event free race, no cautions were required over the duration with a new Laguna Seca distance record of 731.82 miles completed over the eight-hour event. Honda made a perfect start to its debut in the series after missing Bathurst, Mario Farnbacher putting the NSX GT3 on pole position setting a 1m 23.156s lap. It was a Japanese front-row as Alex Buncombe placed the KCMG Nissan GT-R GT3 he shared with Australian Josh Burdon and Katsumasa Chiyo in second. Foster qualified the Ferrari fourth ahead of Bathurst 12 Hour winner Matt Campbell. Buncombe led the opening stanza of the race, but a slow pit stop proved costly, giving Molina the lead, which was then further extended by Slade to 14s. Further pit issues helped the Porsche teams out,
CAPRI NAMEPLATE RETURNS TO TCM THE FORD Capri will make a return to the Touring Car Masters grid at the next round of the series at Phillip Island, in the hands of reigning Australian GT Championship GT4 class winner Jeremy Gray. Gray will compete in a car that was owned by the Miedecke family and contested a variety of tarmac rally events across Australia, but has now been converted to TCMspecification ready for its debut, which Gray can hardly wait for. “It’s Andrew Miedecke’s old tarmac rally car,” Gray said. “After racing in GT4 with Andrew last year, he and I got talking about it. I wasn’t keen on doing GT any more and have always loved TCM, so I asked if he’d be willing to part with the car. “We got the car in November and stripped it to put into TCM specification. We changed brakes, fuel cell, gearbox and the engine to make it legal for TCM but the car, as it looks, stays the same. It looks so good.” Part of the conversion to TCM specification included installation of the new category-spec engine, which Gray found had more than enough power compared to the top competitors in the class. “We put the category engine in it, it’s quite impressive,” he said. [In the Torana] At Adelaide even when I was in behind [John] Bowe he didn’t have any more horsepower than me – it was braking and handling only. “It’s been a challenge fitting it into the Capri but it
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Image: Sam Law looks really good. The guys at Fataz in Queensland have got the engine in and have had it on the Dyno running properly.” Gray can’t wait to hit the track at Phillip Island and is confident the car will be able to challenge the bigger cars including the Mustangs, Camaros and Toranas that are expected to set the pace. “I’m really looking forward to Phillip Island,” enthused Gray. “The car is small and agile so may well be better suited to the tight street circuits but I think it might be okay. It’s a lot lighter than some of the other cars and Capri followers always talk about how slippery the car will be. “We’re having another run on Thursday before Phillip Island and then we’ll be on track.” The last driver to contest the series in a Capri was young Tasmanian Adam Gowans in 2017.
but was detrimental for the HubAuto team, but bad luck soon afflicted the Wright Motorsports 991 GT3 R of Campbell and Bathurst-winning co-drivers Dirk Werner and Denis Olsen, when a gearshift component broke forcing their retirement. A mammoth stint from Foster placed the HubAuto team with an enviable 17s lead heading into
BATHURST 6 HOUR FIELD SET A 45-CAR entry list will take the starters orders at Easter for the Bathurst 6 Hour, down on previous years’ 60 cars. The reigning winners of the event, brothers Grant and Iain Sherrin, will return in their BMW M4, as will rivals from last year Beric Lynton and Tim Leahey in an M3. Numbers of the Bavarian marque are bolstered by another M4 for Anthony Soole, who will be joined by Touring Car Masters driver Andrew Fisher. Australia is represented in the top class by Jeremy Gray in the everimproving FPV GT-F, sharing the drive with father-son team Andrew and George Miedecke. From the red side, Joe Krinelos will give the HSV GTS its Bathurst debut alongside the experienced Tony Virag and Bathurst 1000 winner John Bowe. Rally-bred four-wheel-drive machinery is again well represented with Mitsubishi Lancer Evo Xs and a pair of Subaru Impreza WRX
STIs rounding out the list, and the Mercedes A45 AMG is a notable absentee. BMW and Holden make up the Class B battle, while Hyundai’s i30N performance hot hatch makes its Bathurst debut, headlining Class C. Toyota 86s fill the Class D entry. A packed support program comprising of Hyundai Excels, Production Sports Cars, Improved Production and Heritage Touring Cars will be contested by 241-cars. The event will be held on April 19-21.
the sixth hour, while the GruppeM Racing Mercedes overhauled the Park Place Porsche to take second. The two front-row starters finished well back, the Honda spending a lengthy time in the pits after damaging the front suspension. As for the Nissan, underfloor damage necessitated a long stint for repairs and Bentley continued its struggle with electrical issues ruling out its
lead car, and the second car was off the pace in 11th. Mercedes-AMG has extended its lead in the manufacturers’ title to 19-points over Porsche, whilst GruppeM Racing trio Marciello, Goetz and Buhk head the driver’s standings after two second-place finishers. The next round of the IGTC takes place at the 24 Hours of Spa on July 25-28. HEATH McALPINE
OJEDA AMONG RECORD S3 FIELD
A RECORD field for the opening round of the newly named Kumho Tyres Super3 Series will compete at Phillip Island, as support to the Supercars on April 12-14. An influx of youngsters will try to replicate Tyler Everingham’s title win from last year at the first time of asking. Everingham’s rival and teammate last season Zac Best returns, but will face stiff competition from Aussie Racing Cars title contender Kyle Ensbey, Brad Jones Racing’s Madeline Stewart and Josh Fife, Formula Ford convert Hamish Ribarits, Toyota 86 race winners Nic Carroll and Broc Feeney, Aussie Driver Search’s Matt Powers and perennial series frontrunner Jon McCorkindale. Another to join the series is Formula 4 champion Jayden Ojeda, who enters his first season in tin tops with the experienced Anderson Motorsport team, with driver and owner Michael Anderson stepping back due to recently becoming a father. “I’m stoked to be doing Super3 with Anderson Motorsport. The field looks pretty fierce and is a record grid for the category down at Phillip Island so I’m looking forward to getting started,” Ojeda told Auto Action. A strong test at Winton has given the Sydneysider plenty of confidence heading into the opening round, posting an impressive performance that was comparable to the top runners in the field. “We had a test day last week at Winton, which was really beneficial for both myself and the team to get to
Image: Ross Gibb grips with everything. We had a really successful day, completed a lot of laps, any issues within the car or myself we found out, so I think we should be roughly on the pace at Phillip Island. “It’s hard to make a judgement before the first round, but it comes down to how all the races play out. It’s a bit of a different structure to what I’m used to with Formula 4, the whole scheme of things will be completely unique to me. Whether or not we’re in the championship fight, there are plenty of tough opponents, it’ll be a tough gig.” Anderson is a former race winner in the series and will mentor Ojeda through his debut year, an experience that the 19-year-old is already reaping the benefits from. “The test day at Winton was my first time in the car and a lot of the things were new to me,” Ojeda explained. “As soon as I jumped out of the car, Michael came up to me and wanted to talk about this, that, and how I was finding it all. He’s definitely taken to the team manager role well.” HEATH McALPINE
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POUNDING OUT THE MILES TWO OF Australia’s openwheel protegees have starred in testing ahead of the new season for their respective categories. Oscar Piastri and Alex Peroni have both been well in the mix despite both entering the new year in unfamiliar machinery. Although Piastri competed in Formula Renault Eurocup last year, finishing as one of the top rookies, the chassis has gone through a major change with a halo added making the car 100kg heavier, but power has also been upped by 80hp. After Victor Martins led the opening days running at
Magny-Cours, Piastri topped the next two days in less than ordinary conditions, marking the Victorian as a driver to watch this season. “These first tests have been positive,” said Piastri. “We have learned a lot, but everyone is discovering the new car and I think that we can improve in all areas leading up to the first qualifying session of the season. There are four more pre-season test days, a practice day and two qualifying sessions at Monza
… it is a good starting point, but I am not taking anything for granted as things can change quickly!” Peroni on the other hand was on the pace at Paul Ricard in his first taste of Formula 3 finishing the sessions seventh, 11th, 11th and sixth. Driving for
the Campos team, he is relishing the opportunity of driving in the FIA Formula 3 Championship this season and feels he has made a good start. “It’s great to be back in a race car for a big session after so many months,” said Peroni. “I just love this new 2019 car
and we had a very productive two-day test to get to know the car more and for me to get my eye in again. We go away with some things to work on before our next test in Barcelona in two weeks. Campos are a great team and I’m sure we will build on the good test here in France.”
THE INITIAL S5000 has been given a makeover. In time for an upcoming Valvoline convention, Garry Rogers Motorsport has dressed it in the famous blue, white and red of the oil giant that has been a long-time sponsor of the team. How good does it look?
WOOD MAKES THE GRADE AUSTRALIAN CAITLIN Wood has been selected as one of 18 female drivers who will compete in the inaugural W-Series. The all-female single-seater racing series grid will feature 13 nationalities after a field of 28 finalists was cut down over four days of testing in the series’ Tatuus T-318 cars at Almeria, Spain. “After four intensive days’ testing in Almeria, finishing yesterday, and four equally rigorous days’ trials in Melk in January, as you can imagine we’d amassed a huge amount of data,” said Catherine Bond Muir, W Series. “So our judges, led by Dave Ryan, then crunched that data in order to determine who would be the 18 drivers to contest the first ever single-seater racing series for female drivers: W Series.”
“To those drivers who didn’t make it through, I offer my commiserations, of course, but I also say ‘well done’. “All our drivers worked diligently, studied hard, and drove well, including those who didn’t make it through. “To the 18 drivers who did make it through, I say ‘big congrats and very well done’. “But I also want to mention our four reserve drivers, who didn’t quite make the final 18 but all impressed our judges. They’ll be disappointed, inevitably, but they’re still part of the W Series family. “So that’s it then. Our driver selection programme is complete. Let’s go racing!”
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AA’s puzzled pundit tries to work out what’s happening – if anything – with IndyCar’s return to Surfers Paradise and where NASCAR fits into the picture – if at all PAY ATTENTION, this could get confusing. Supercars has talked with both NASCAR and IndyCar about joint events in Australia, but not necessarily the one you think. Yes, both IndyCar and NASCAR have been touted as co-sharing top billing at the Gold Coast 600, which since 2009 has been Son Of Indy. IndyCar is talking about a return to Surfers Paradise to revive the golden years of ‘The Indy’, while Supercars floated the idea of NASCARs of some sort supporting the homegrown V8s at Surfers. Clearly, they both can’t be accommodated and the Queensland government has expressed its desire to bring back the Indycars to recreate the international open-wheel glamour of 1991-2008. Supercars is continuing talks with NASCAR, but now it’s looking at a different format at a different event. IndyCar is serious about returning to Surfers. Michael Andretti confirmed the interest during his visit to the F1 Australian Grand Prix, noting the will was there if the terms – that is, a reasonable sanctioning fee – and the date were right. And there’s the sticking point. IndyCar wants to start its season here in February. It has no interest in ending here in October. No wriggle room there. So assuming the state government is willing to bankroll the IndyCar Series excursion, can Supercars accommodate shifting its Surfers appearance to very early in its new-look season?
As reported on page 7, Supercars is moving to a split season next year, beginning in January and ending in December, with a big break in winter/early spring. According to Supercars supremo Sean Seamer, shifting the Gold Coast event to early in the year wouldn’t be a dealbreaker. “No, not necessarily,” Seamer said. What is a bigger obstacle to racing in February on the Gold Coast is the rainy weather and the track build disruption during the January school holiday peak season. Plus another big event in a crowded part of the early season Australian motor sport calendar. “You’d have the track build coming out of Christmas and also you have the Adelaide 500, then you’d have a Gold Coast Indy, then you’d have the AGP and that is an awful lot of high-level motor sport in a very short period of time,” Seamer observed. “Which could be good or it could prove challenging for all three events.” With the 2020 schedule due to be locked in by June, Supercars needs to know soon if and how IndyCar is coming as soon as next year. As recently as two weeks ago, it had no indication if it was happening. “The headline is, we don’t have any further update in terms of when and how things are going to happen at this stage,” Seamer said. “We continue to talk with IndyCar and the Queensland government about what could happen, when. We are supportive
of it, we’d very much like to see them back and I think people like Michael Andretti will tell you the same thing. “But a decision hasn’t been made as to what that’s going to look like or when.” Then there’s NASCAR. During his visit to the USA over Christmas/New Year, Seamer had talks with senior NASCAR executives – as well as topranking IndyCar management – and some sort of involvement out here was part of wide-ranging discussions. Following his trip, Seamer told me: “We talked about a lot of different things. Strategic direction, where they’re going, where we’re going. Spoke with them about what they’re doing around the next generation of their platform; they’re going into a general change much like what we’re looking at as well. “Talked about potential
opportunities to do things. If we can’t get all of them out, maybe some of their drivers can come out. We didn’t arrive at a final decision on anything. We certainly won’t see them out here in 2020, but potentially 2021. “Whether it’s the drivers, the cars, the trucks, who knows? But we’ll just keep talking.” Seamer raised the intriguing possibility of NASCAR stars coming out as guest co-drivers at a special event, reviving the popular international co-drivers format of the Gold Coast 600 for a few years “Potentially, yes,” he said, emphasising that Supercars was not fixated on a NASCAR component if the GC600 stays in October. “No, no, no, no, no,” he cried. “It may not be the Gold Coast. The thing that I’m trying to do, particularly with the folks at NASCAR, is expand the relationship, share more
information, try to learn from them as much as possible. “They have the same challenges that we have, with their (rival) ball sport being NFL. Talking to them about days of racing, formats, all of those things. It’s not just about would they come out here. That’s just one element of what we’re talking to them about. “What I’m saying is, I don’t want to pigeon-hole a relationship or dialogue with NASCAR into Gold Coast. That’s what I’m saying. So until we land on our calendars – they’re doing a change for 2020, we’re doing a change for 2020 – that’s when we can revisit any potential of our guys going there or their guys coming here.” So IndyCar and NASCAR partnering Supercars at different events? “Yes, correct,” Seamer said. “It could be both.” I kinda, sorta understand. I think…
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CHARLES IN CHARGE IT IS a case of déjà vu for Sebastian Vettel who was king of the hill at Red Bull when an upstart called Daniel Ricciardo arrived in 2014. The Aussie promptly won three Grands Prix that year while Vettel won none. The next year Vettel departed for Ferrari where he remains to this day. And now an upstart called Charles Leclerc is Vettel’s new teammate and is challenging him as well. Leclerc could have beat Vettel in Australia but heeded team orders and finished fifth behind him. In Bahrain Vettel didn’t need to look over his shoulder in qualifying because Leclerc was already in front of him. The fact that Leclerc beat Vettel to the pole in Bahrain does not mean that the Monégasque driver, with just one F1 season under his belt, is always going to always beat the veteran German who has won four world championships. But it does means Vettel won’t have things all to himself. Ferrari is desperate to win its first world championship since 2008. Even before the 2019 season started, team boss Matteo Binotto was talking about how Leclerc might have to yield to Vettel.
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Kimi Räikkönen, Vettel’s former teammate, far too often found himself in a position where Ferrari’s pit stop strategy or team orders resulted in him losing a position on track to Vettel. One of the exceptions was last year’s United States Grand Prix, where there were several drivers between Räikkönen and Vettel so that the team had no choice but to let Räikkönen win. After qualifying first and second in Bahrain, Leclerc and Vettel were both diplomatic and vague when asked about team orders. But in the race itself there were no orders. Leclerc twice passed Vettel, and he would have won but for an engine problem that sent him back to finish third. There is another similarity to Ricciardo and Leclerc upgrading
to top teams. In a way it made their job easier. Ricciardo had been at Toro Rosso and Leclerc at Sauber, whose cars simply are nowhere near as good as the Red Bull and Ferrari. “In Charles’ situation coming into his seat this year, it is a bit like me when I came from Toro Rosso to Red Bull,” Ricciardo said at a press briefing attended by Auto Action. “Everything becomes easier. You have more grip. It is like: ‘Oh wow the car can do this?’” This year’s Ferrari can win races although the Scuderia failed to get the job done in Bahrain. The question now is which Ferrari driver will be behind the wheel of the winning car. And if Leclerc can continue the form he showed in the desert sands, it is clear Vettel will have to cope with Charles in charge.
RICCIARDO TAMING THE BEAST “IT SUCKS!” Australian ace Daniel Ricciardo, speaking exclusively to Auto Action, said after he and Renault teammate Nico Hülkenberg retired from the Bahrain Grand Prix. Both were running in the points when their engines expired at the same time, with four laps to go. “I am going to test here on Tuesday,” Ricciardo said. “That will help quite a lot just to keep learning about the car. I am still struggling a bit, but also our one pit stop strategy made life difficult for me in the race when all the other drivers pitted twice. We committed to that strategy but for sure it was not great. We will keep learning. Keep moving on.” He and the Renault team have work to do before he can tame the beast. Ricciardo was, Hülkenberg says, “spoiled at Red Bull” because that team created superb cars under the design team led by aerodynamic guru Adrian Newey. That’s now in the past. In Bahrain Ricciardo searched for answers about his Renault. “I was just a bit confused why I was so far off the pace all weekend up until qually,” he said in a press briefing after qualifying on Saturday. “I just need to figure out what I need in the car as far as the set-up goes. It is not just like it has oversteer or understeer, it is the way the car rides and absorbs kerbs and bumps, and all these kinds of things and compromises. “I would love and expect from myself that
HEADING UP A MESS THE WILLIAMS team has finally asked its retired co-founder Patrick Head for help. While it is better late than never, the request came years later than it should have. In the meantime this once fabulous team has slipped deeper and deeper into the mire, and it is going to require a long, hard slog to get things moving in the right direction again. Head and Frank Williams co-founded the team in 1977 and it went on to win numerous races and world championships. Head was the team’s technical director until 2004, when Aussie Sam Michael took over the post. In 2012, Head stepped down from his duties as director of engineering for the team. In 2013 Williams’ daughter Claire Williams was named as deputy team principal and Mike O’Driscoll the CEO. In the ensuing years, a source revealed to Auto Action, Head would send messages to Claire Williams and O’Driscoll offering his advice and help. The latter, whose background and expertise are in commercial and marketing business rather than racing, would reply politely and do nothing. Williams, meanwhile, did not reply at all. And so the team continued to decline. The arrival of Mercedes man Paddy Lowe to become chief technical officer at Williams ended with him being put on leave and the team in even deeper disarray. Turns out he was not the person to turn the team around. Now, finally, the team bosses have admitted they desperately need help.
I can just be on it, and it is all easy and wicked. But to really maximize it, it is a different beast to tame so it is just taking me a bit of time.” Ricciardo is used to carrying speed into the corner but now finds that with the Renault it all goes wrong at the exit of the bend. “In a way part of it could be overdriving with the current grip I’ve got,” he said. “So I just need to bring that back and understand the best way to execute a fast lap with this car. In debriefs I hear the way Nico describes the car. I am starting to get that this is a different beast, and he is obviously very comfortable. I made some comments about the way the car responded, and I was a bit surprised as he said that is just normal and how this car is.” Ricciardo sent his new team a long email after the race in Australia listing the changes it needs to make to become more competitive. Some upgrades are already in the pipeline and will be fitted to the car at the next race in China. Overall, the Aussie is optimistic about the future. “I feel even with the current car we have, even before we start putting big updates on it, there is still more to extract from this car,” he said. “I can still get more out of it, just getting more comfortable driving it and also a few things with set-up. Some things that I had last year can be implemented in a few areas. We are looking alright.”
Head will spend three days a week at the factory in a consultancy role. Insiders at Williams talk about the lack of direction. The development and production departments are not operating efficiently. For example, Williams had only two updated front wings for the race in Australia. Both were damaged so drivers Robert Kubica and George Russell had to revert to the pre-season test specification wings. And the old wings had to be used in Bahrain as well because no new ones were ready to be shipped out. Another example: The chassis should be identical but when the exact same setups were put on the two cars, they each showed different downforce levels and other vital statistics on the telemetry. The car itself is dreadfully slow because the aerodynamicists and engineers tried to go for a uniform plan where the car has equal and balanced downforce, so that it could transition smoothly between different corners. That goal was achieved at the expense of the overall downforce, so critical in F1, being far too low. What the team needs is someone to take charge and tell people what to do. And the gruff no-nonsense Head is the man for the job. Head, 72, was enjoying a quiet life but no longer. Those that know him predict he will soon be spending more than three days a week at the factory, and they will be long days. It’s going to take a long time, an experienced hand and a knowledgeable Head to change the course of the Williams ship.
MCLAREN IN THE MIX TEAM MCLAREN showed in Bahrain that it can be in the mix to fight at the head of the competitive mid-pack. The McLaren drivers qualified in the top 10 – with Carlos Sainz starting seventh and Lando Norris ninth – and Norris finished sixth in the race. “We’ve definitely taken a step forward since (pre-season testing in) Barcelona,” Norris said. “Overall there are still similar problems, characteristics, that we seem to struggle with. But as a whole package itself we have taken a step forward, so that’s definitely helped us get to the position we are now. The car is still far from perfect, but it is a good improvement from where it was. The guys have done a good job but there’s still more to come.” McLaren’s sporting director Gil de Ferran
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noted that the car is behaving as the team expect basically. “Our engineers understand the weaknesses of this year’s car,” the IndyCar champion said in Bahrain, “and little by little we’re trying to address that and improve the car. This race we brought a few upgrades that I think generally improved the car. Hopefully we’ll continue to use in incremental steps as fast as we can.” While the potential of the Honda power unit in the Red Bull and Toro Rosso cars is very apparent this year, the McLaren bosses still believe the team made the correct decision to switch to Renault last year. This year’s Renault has also made a step. “It feels like we are getting good power in both race and qualifying,” Sainz said. “Our top speed last year was around 10 to 12 km/h down and
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this year we are only two or three km/h down, partly down to downforce but also as the engine has improved.” James Key, McLaren’s new technical director, joined the team in Bahrain following his “gardening leave” after departing Toro Rosso. Former Porsche LMP1 boss Andreas Seidl takes up his post as McLaren’s managing director of
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Formula 1 on May 1. Aussie Mark Webber, who worked with Seidl at Porsche, sings his praises and is convinced that Seidl will make a significant contribution to McLaren. Fernando Alonso was set to do two days of testing in the McLaren on the Bahrain circuit after the grand prix. While he was strictly going to do tyre testing for Pirelli, the veteran driver would also be able to give feedback on the car so that McLaren can make another step. Unlike another famous and once dominating British team – Williams – McLaren has been taking far more organized and logical steps to work its way back to the front.
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F1 INSIDER
with Dan Knutson
F1 VS INDYCAR THE RESULTS are in. When it comes to an almost direct comparison between the speed of Formula 1 and IndyCar – and it’s been quite a while since one could be made – the F1 machines are distinctly superior. No real surprise, but the recent IndyCar Classic at the Circuit of The Americas outside Austin, Texas, was the first chance in modern times to compare the world’s premier open-wheelers on the same track. Lewis Hamilton holds the official lap record at COTA. During last year’s United States Grand Prix, the Mercedes driver set the in-race mark at 1m37.392s around the 20-turn, 5.515-km track, at an average speed of 203.782km/h. He was even faster in qualifying, winning the pole with a time of 1m32.237s. During the last weekend of March this year, the IndyCar series competed on the exact same COTA track for the first time. Colton Herta won the race in his Dallara Honda, and the 18-yearold also set the race lap record with a 1m48.895s, an average speed of 181.424km/h. Will Power won the pole in a Dallara Chevrolet with a 1m46.017s. So a slam dunk for F1 – as you’d expect. One-third more horsepower, way more downforce and much greater technical sophistication – not to mention cost – will do that. But comparing F1 and IndyCar speeds is not fair, as they have very different agendas. When I talk about IndyCars, I’m using the designation to cover all the names and various sanctioning bodies of that type of racing over the years such as Champ Cars, CART and IRL.
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The field may be smaller but there’s now no doubt that the Formula 1 cars are considerably quicker than IndyCars.
Images: LAT
For convenience, let’s call them generically Indycars. Comparing their lap times with F1 has always been difficult because the two series have almost never been on the exact same track. When the Indycars went to former F1 tracks Mexico City, Caesars Palace, the Detroit street circuit, Long Beach and Watkins Glen, the track layouts were different. Both raced on the same Circuit Gilles Villeneuve in Montreal. Juan Pablo Montoya won the pole position for the 2002 Canadian Grand Prix by clocking 1m12.836s
in his Williams BMW. A few weeks later for the Indycar race at the same venue, Cristiano da Matta gained the pole with a 1m18.959s in his Lola Toyota. The last time the two series competed on the same Montreal track was in 2006, when the F1 cars were five to seven seconds faster. The only time in history when F1 and Indycar actually went head-to-head were the famous Race Of Two Worlds at Monza in 1957 and ’58. But very few F1 cars showed up. The event, also called the 500 Miglia di Monza (500 Miles of Monza), was staged on the
Autodromo Nazionale Monza oval that had been completed in 1955. Each event consisted of three 63-lap heats for a total of 500 miles (805km). Ferrari and Maserati withdrew their modified F1 cars after practice for the 1957 event, leaving the Indycars to dominate over a trio of Jaguar D-type sports cars. The closest the modified F1 cars got to the Indycars in the 1958 ROTW was in the first heat, when Stirling Moss finished fourth in a Maserati, one lap behind the winning Watson Offenhauser driven by Jim Rathmann.
After failing to make a profit, the Automobile Club of Milan cancelled the event in 1959. Rathmann won all three heats in ’58, at an average speed of 268.367km/h. During qualifying for the 2018 Italian Grand Prix on the Monza road circuit, Ferrari’s Kimi Raikkonen turned the fastest lap ever in F1 when he averaged 263.587km/h. The fastest Indycar lap ever was achieved by Gil De Ferran, who won the pole for the 2000 California 500 by averaging an astounding 388.541km/h (241.428 mph) in a ReynardHonda around the California Speedway. Even today, 20 years later, IndyCars are supers-speedsters on high-speed ovals. But on a road course like COTA, they’re not even close to F1. The 2019 F1 technical regulations were supposed to slow the cars by as much as three seconds a lap in racing conditions. And, indeed, when the engineers and designers first started looking at computer models, it was about three seconds. But then they got down to work, clawing back the speed – and Hamilton set a lap record to win the pole for this year’s Australian Grand Prix. It will be interesting to see what speeds the F1 cars reach at Monza in September. Of course, an IndyCar would not be able to match that speed at Monza, but how well would an F1 car do on an oval? Now that would be a fascinating comparison. Of course, F1 would kill for the diversity of race winners from both big and small teams in IndyCar racing, and the routinely close and unpredictable racing in the series, which features street and road courses, short ovals and superspeedways. When it comes to F1 vs IndyCar, though, it really is a case of apples and oranges. And I like both.
OPINION WHY WASN’T DJRTP PINGED FOR ‘MUFFLERGATE’? By MARK FOGARTY Editor at Large
Bruce Williams 0418 349 555 Associate Publisher Mike Imrie Editor-At-Large
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DESPITE BEING found guilty of running ballast outside the interior, DJR Team Penske wasn’t penalised. That’s the layman’s interpretation. Running heavyweight exhaust silencers wasn’t deemed by Supercars technical officials to be a breach of the rules. And yet, they were at least four times the weight of anyone else’s mufflers, clearly indicating they were in excess of normal mass. On the surface, a creative way to relocate ballast as low as possible. Image: LAT It was, to most people, an obvious ploy, once revealed. But look a little closer running overweight mufflers to and it could be deemed no quite locate ballast as low as possible, kosher. aiding cornering. For a start, there is an overThe ‘fat boy’ silencers on arching rule that components DJRTP’s Mustangs were are to conform to their primary discovered at the Adelaide 500 purpose and not have a and the team was instructed secondary use – or an extra to remove them at Albert Park. benefit not foreseen by the It complied with much lighter regulations. mufflers. So the mufflers are meant to Subsequently, it seems DJRTP keep the engine sound within had been running 20 kg-plus the 95dB noise limit, nothing silencers since last year on the else. Falcon FG X. The overweight units also, That was approved by the you’d think, fell foul of the strict previous Supercars technical requirement that ballast has to leadership, but upon closer be mounted inside the car, not examination of the Mustang, anywhere on its exterior. Like the the new regime ruled that the exhaust system under the floor. bar bell-like mufflers weren’t The reason ballast must be acceptable. contained is for valid safety Clearly, they weren’t overreasons. Don’t want great engineered for any reason other chunks of lead letting loose than contribute to lowering the outside the car in an accident. car’s centre of gravity. You don’t need to be a rocket Clever, but ostensibly in scientist to know that DJRTP was contravention of the requirement
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Contributing Writers Australia Garry O’Brien, Mark Fogarty, Bruce Newton, David Hassall, Bob Watson, Dan McCarthy F1 Dan Knutson Speedway Geoff Rounds Photographers Australia Ross Gibb, Rebecca Thompson, Mick Oliver, David Batchelor, Randall Kilner, Rhys Vandersyde International LAT Images Cartoonist John Stoneham
that ballast is to be contained inside a car for safety reasons. And yet, when examined, Supercars ruled the Mustang’s mufflers were borderline. They were changed to much lighter silencers at the AGP without sanction. So despite their apparent intended purpose of lowering the Mustang’s centre of gravity, officials by-passed the illegality. When queried, Supercars told Auto Action: “DJRTP modified their exhaust following the Adelaide 500. This was deemed an acceptable outcome in response to a request from the Supercars technical department. It was not a breach of the rules.” In other words, blah, blah, blah. Effectively, DJRTP broke the rules until discovered – again. It’s about time the regulations were enforced properly and applied equitably. Supercars chose to view
DJRP’s transgression as a misdemeanour, conveniently overlooking the safety issue of ballast being mounted externally. It ruled on unnecessarily heavy mufflers rather than the relocation of ballast, which was clearly the main purpose. Cleverly manipulating the rules is fair game, but once you’re caught out, a points or position sanction should be automatic. Otherwise, the big teams will stretch the boundaries until told not to. It beggars belief that no penalty was applied for a creative interpretation of the rules that was deemed non-complaint upon review. If no stern action is taken, some teams will continue taking the risk. That should not – and cannot – be allowed to continue. Is it any wonder Supercars finds itself embroiled in a raging parity controversy after the fact?
We take a look back at what was making news 10, 20, 30, 40 years ago 1979: BOB MORRIS extended his
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Australian Touring Car Championship lead after a dramatic round at Sandown, where teammates Peter Brock and John Harvey clashed. In shock touring car news, it was revealed that Allan Moffat was to jump ship to Holden as tail-gunner for Morris at Amaroo Park.
1999: MARK SKAIFE was the winner
1989: THE INTERNATIONAL motor sport body FISA was beginning to prepare regulations for the post-Group A era, the plan being for a new set of rules to be introduced across the board in the early to mid-1990s. On Australian shores, the Lakeside round of the ATCC was a wash out and delayed until the following weekend.
2009: BRAWN WAS the fairytale story after the Australian Grand Prix, winning the event after an off season where Honda had pulled out and team principal Ross Brawn scrambled to keep the outfit together. Opinions were split over the V8 Supercar schedule at the Australian Grand Prix which saw a manufacturer’s based challenge.
at the opening round of the V8 Supercars Championship at Eastern Creek. In other news, Colin McRae was set to sample a Stewart F1 later in the year, the second time he’d driven a Formula 1 car after testing a Jordan in 1997.
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Having masterminded world championships at several teams, including his own, Ross Brawn is now the architect of a revolution aimed at addressing the institutional ills that have afflicted F1 for nearly two decades
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THE FUTURE OF FORMULA 1
UCH SLEEKER cars that sound slightly better and race much closer in a more competitive field. That’s the mandate change agent Ross Brawn has outlined for Formula 1 from 2021. Brawn is just three months away from unveiling his new vision of F1, which he’s been working on for two years, since coming out of retirement to join Liberty Media as managing director of motorsports and technical director. As well better looking and sounding cars with simpler aerodynamics to promote closer racing, his masterplan includes equally radical upheavals of the teams’ finances to give the field more competitive depth. There’ll be a
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more equitable distribution of prizemoney, taking from the super-rich teams and giving to the poorer outfits, and phased-in resource restrictions to eventually cap annual spending to sustainable levels. Brawn, 64, is just the man for the job. He’s one of the most decorated and successful F1 technical directors of his generation. The lightly beared, heavyset and towering British boffin has won a slew of world championships with Benetton (1994-95), Ferrari (1999-2004) and his own Brawn GP, which rose from the ashes of Honda’s sudden withdrawal to score a fairy tale title with Jenson Button in 2009. He laid the foundations for the Mercedes AMG
juggernaut that has dominated since 2014, leaving before then to take a sabbatical until he was targeted by then new F1 owner Liberty to direct the sport’s overhaul, starting in 2017. Following presentations to the F1 Strategy Group last week, Brawn’s raft of technical rule changes and restructured financial system will be finalised over the next several weeks before their planned announcement by the end of June for implementation from 2021-24. Brawn is measured and conciliatory, with his calm approach backed by the confidence and reputation gained from experience and success at the highest level. If his plan works, it will save F1 by reversing waning fan interest.
How far away is a firm plan for Formula 1 from 2021? I think on the technical side, which was the first priority for me, we’re in pretty good shape. I think because of the long-term objectives not affecting the short-term competitiveness of the teams, the teams have been very co-operative on the program for ’21 and all the teams probably for the last six to 12 months have been actively engaged in helping support the program. A group we formed in London has been the core of it and one of the consultants we have in that group, Nicholas Tombazis, moved across to the FIA, which was perfect. It meant the easy integration with the FIA in this program, which is a great asset. So the aerodynamic and car program has worked well and is progressing well, and achieving the objectives we want, which is better raceability for F1 cars. To have that raceability, you need cars which are closer in performance than we have today. And with the commercial platform, there’s too much disparity between the front and the back to give the best chance of close competition, and that is the other aspect which we’re focused on. I’d say that’s made good progress and the teams have a good idea of where we’re thinking, and that will be cemented and formed up in the next few weeks. When will you present the technical plan? When will we see that? There is a firm timetable by which we have to do that, which is the middle of this year. So by the middle of this year, within the governance of the FIA, we have to have a pretty clear set of regulations presented to the teams for them to be implemented in
2021. If we miss that deadline, then of course we’re in the hands of everyone agreeing that’s what we want to do, whereas before that deadline we could be fairly assertive in saying this is the way it’s going to be. Now, I’d say there’s good co-operation. I think the teams are all working together well on that. But, of course, you never know and I’d rather not take the chance of a later introduction of the regulations and relying on everyone agreeing. I think it’s safer to say we target the middle of this year and that gives us and the FIA the opportunity to say this is the way we’re going. Normally, getting the F1 teams to agree on the time of day is difficult. So are they buying into this whole concept? Do they accept that big change has to come? You get degrees of agreement. You get some teams who are very radical with what they feel needs to be done and some teams who accept that changes need to be made but they’d prefer they were at the minimum because they want to preserve their competitive or financial advantage. So it’s different with every team, quite frankly, but I think there definitely is a following wind from all the teams that there’s a recognition that we have to change and that some concessions from the grandees to help the sport will do them some good as well as the teams that would directly benefit because of a closer competition and more interest in the midfield. At the moment we have Haas, which is a nice story and the fans love it. The fans love the fact that there’s
a minnow in amongst it. I know from my own experience 10 years ago with Brawn GP, the fans love an underdog and we must always have the opportunity for that to occur. In the last few years, that’s been unlikely. So I think the grandees, the major teams, recognise there has to be a rebalancing. I think the current commercial structure was born in a period when there were other objectives. An IPO was being mooted (still-born plan to float F1 on the stock market), there was a need to get everyone’s name on a contract and probably less priority on what was good for F1. If you can get Ferrari to agree to accept less money, that will be a genuine breakthrough, won’t it? Well, what you have to think about is, is it less money now or more money later? If you look at the bigger picture, we take F1 forward, everyone benefits. So you may get a slice of the pie at the moment which
is a certain size, but there’s nowhere to go. That’s all you’re ever going to get and, OK, you have the biggest slice, but that’s all there’s every going to be. If you can take a view that perhaps your slice of pie is a bit smaller, but in doing so the pie gets much bigger and your net figure is much better, and that’s what we feel we can convince the big teams is the right rationale for going forward. Do the big teams also accept that there will be resource restrictions? Yes. If you’re a large team and there’s a constraint on how much money you can spend, in fact we can demonstrate that your bottom line will be much better. So any of the big teams will have a much better bottom line with the constraints on how much can be spent, so even if the revenue model changes, they’ll be much better off than they would be today. It’s not stopping. All the big teams are spending an increased amount
Brawn promises that 2021 F1 cars will look more like this concept than the current aerofestooned machines..
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every year to try to be competitive. So the three big teams are driving each other and none of them knows where it’s going to stop – and it could be in driver fees, it could be in engineers’ fees, it could be in resources they spend on other things. Where does it stop? What they thought was a natural limit has been well exceeded, so they’re all asking to be saved from themselves.
performance. Now, that’s a critical second in terms of your competitive position, but in terms of the fans and enthusiasts, it’s irrelevant. And we don’t want to sport to become standardised or dumbed down. I think you’re right. You can do a tremendous job for $100 million. It’s still a spaceship. You don’t need to spend the sums that are being spent to blow people’s minds.
They need to be because anyone would agree that 300 million to 400 million euros (A$473.6 million-A$631.5 million) a year is an extraordinary and unnecessary level of spending. Even US$100 million (A$140.5 million) is a huge amount, but it’s more reasonable and no one would notice from the outside, would they?
I assume it would involve a wind-down period?
Yeah – and it’s diminishing returns, like everything else in life. If you spend twice the amount of money, you don’t twice as fast a car. You spend twice the amount of money and you get maybe one second of
I think it would be sensible to do that. That’s not agreed yet, but I think for the larger teams, they need to be able to adjust. It would be quite brutal just to apply it one day to the next, so I think that’s part of the negotiation discussion. Of course, what the fans want to know, Ross, are the cars going to better looking? Yes.
Ross Brawn has a strong relationship with all the Formula 1drivers, including five-time World Champion Lewis Hamilton.
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Noisier? A little bit. Closer on the track? Yes. So, in broad terms, how are you going to achieve all that? Better looking because we’re paying attention. I mean, there’s never been any consideration about the way a car looks, so we’ve had some fairly horrible aerodynamic developments and I think we’ve made a little bit of progress this year. We’ve got rid of a lot of the barge boards and the front wings are simpler. Noise is a challenge because we have four engines in F1, four manufacturers in F1, and in reality, at the end we didn’t have anyone who was committing to come in. So to radically change engine rules with the incumbents we have already seemed unfair. If we had some new engine suppliers coming in, we could justify changes because we’d be kind of resetting the mark. But there weren’t, quite frankly. We tried to make the opportunity for new people to come in and they weren’t queuing up, and I think it’s made us focus on how we can make the engine more economical in the future as well for new competitors. But the race fuel restriction has been removed and there are some things on the way the engine’s going to be used which will help a bit and we want the driver to have more input into the way the engine’s used. The energy recovery system of the car is very automated these days and we think it would be more fun, rather like they did with prototype sports cars, where the driver has to strategically manage the energy recovery system, so we can add that as an element. So the cars will be better looking because we’re paying attention.
They’ll be able to race each other much more effectively because the aerodynamic characteristics of the cars will be much more benign. They won’t screw each other so badly. We’re looking at a lot of components which may have a very small competitive advantage and these are the areas where spending twice as much money can get you a bit of an advantage. We’ll be standardising or prescribing those. So, for instance, the fire extinguisher, they’ll all have the same. That’s not the case today. They have to meet a standard, but you can build a custom fire extinguisher that’s a fraction more efficient than one you buy off the shelf and that’s what F1 teams do. But the fan can’t see that. It doesn’t mean anything to a fan – doesn’t engage them, doesn’t thrill them. So all those sorts of areas where we feel there is no impact on the DNA of F1, we’re going to standardise. And that will bring the competitive difference down. So there’s a whole host of things we’re doing to keep F1 at the cutting edge, but remove all this stuff that teams have been which have had little impact on the value of F1. You’re pretty confident you can come up with cars that will look similar to the concepts you showed during the Singapore Grand Prix last year? They are things of technical beauty that also look like 21st century racers. Yes. Whenever you come up with a set of regulations in F1 with good intent, there may be some aspects that you hadn’t considered a certain interpretation of – and that was my job for many years, to look at the interpretation of regulations. And that’s the nature of F1 and we may find ourselves with a set of regulations intended to create a car that would be elegant, exciting, beautiful, and then you realise that you’ve left the door open for someone to screw it.
But that door will only be open for a short while and then we’ll make sure it gets fixed. I can’t guarantee that when these cars first appear, they’ll be exactly how we conceived them because of the very nature of F1. But as soon as it deviates, we’ll stamp on it and make sure it gets back to where we want it. And I guess that part of the package will be a refinement of the halo? Yes. The halo has been an add-on, but it’ll now be an integrated part of the car – and as your saw from those concepts, it is feasible to make it much nicer looking. With these hybrid power units continuing, are we going to have to accept that the days of the screaming, howling V12s and V10s are gone? The main criticism of these power units is the aural quality of the noise they make, so can you improve that? We like to, but there are limits on that. I’m not going to make any promises in that area, but we are seeing how we can increase the revs, how we can improve sound. But one of the things we have with this power unit, which is very undersold, is the efficiency of the device. It’s massively efficient and we want to put in a big effort to really engage the fans with the efficiency of the units, how powerful they are for their size and weight. It’s grossly undersold. So what we don’t want to be doing is doing things which push us backwards in order to improve the sound because I’m not sure it’s worth it. So we’re finding that balance. Their efficiency is quite spectacular. Isn’t thermal efficiency up around 60 per cent? Not quite that high, but it’s far higher than any other internal combustion engine in the world. It’s around 50-55 per cent thermal efficiency, whereas a normal road car engine is 30-40 per cent. And that’s because of the constraint on the amount of fuel you’re allowed to burn
in F1. It’s developed combustion technology which is super-efficient and is finding its way now back into the road car side. So we want to celebrate that, but the racing comes first. We’re not talking about having an approach or a philosophy which spoils the racing. We want to enhance the racing, we want to make the hybrid unit we have in F1 attractive to more manufacturers. Electric vehicles are very exciting, but the reality is that the world will be hybrid-powered for another decade at least – and maybe more – and I think as the efficiency of (petrol-electric) hybrid power improves, as the type of fuels we burn change, then we may find that the model moves in terms of what will be future transport and what sort of cars will people be buying? Aerowise, the armchair engineers, the bench racers, would say the answer’s simple: ground effects, single-plane front wings, big single-element rear wing. Could it be that simple? It’s not quite that simple, but it’s heading in that direction. There’s a lot more ground effect with this new car than the current car. And the way that ground effect is generated is such that what we’re trying to do with the wake of the car is lift it up. So the wake of the new car is quite high and a car following sits in relatively clean air underneath the wake of the car that’s in front of it. A lot of that is achieved with ground effects, so you’ll see when the car’s properly announced that there is more ground effect, much more tunnel effect, than exists now. Simpler front and rear wings – not quite single-plane, but simpler. So it’s headed in that direction and I think what we learn from this year is going to be good. After the first three races, we’ll have had a variety of tracks and we can take stock of the changes we made and understand what impact they’ve had – because they’re
Brawn worked with the late Charlie Whiting on the raft of F1 reforms. Images: LAT
only 10 per cent of what we’re going to do for ’21, but they’re still a step in that direction and we want to understand how it looks. You’re two years into this project to reinvent F1. Has it been more difficult than you expected? Not really, if I’m honest. It would have been nice to have walked in and everyone said “Fine, do what you like”, but that was never going to be the case. So it’s been fighting tooth-and-nail on a lot of things, but we’re getting there. Compared with where we were two years ago, I think even some of the teams thought we’d come in, we’d dictate what was needed and everyone would say that’s fine. But they’ll never do that, so we’ve cajoled them, we’ve levered them, we’ve pushed them along, and w have partners in this, the FIA. We have to work hand-in-hand with the FIA to achieve the objectives and they’ve been part of this process. So I don’t think it’s been any more or less difficult than I thought it would be. Of course, if you were given autonomy and a clean sheet of paper, because of your
experience, you’d know exactly what to do, wouldn’t you? Yeah, you do, but, in fact, this debate, this argument, sometimes brings you to a different conclusion because of all the expertise that is in F1. You may have a vision in your own mind of w here you want to be, but, in fact, if the debate is healthy, if the input is constructive from other teams, there’s a vast level of experience and knowledge out there. And that was the way I ran teams. I’d run a team and I might have a vision of where the team should go, but as members of our team came in and said “Hey, have you thought about this or what about that?”, if it was logical and sensible, why would you not change your view? And that’s been the case with Formula 1. I think there’s a vision that we want much more competitiveness between the teams, we want the teams to be sustainable, we want the cars to be better looking. We all know those things and maybe how we achieved it has been changed a bit as we’ve moved along, but those objectives are still strong. Perhaps the way to achieve it has been tuned a bit as we’ve moved along, but that’s not been an unhealthy process.
Bigger 18-inch diameter wheels and lower profile tyres, plus a return to ground effects, are part of the 2021 F1 technical revolution.
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Inside the mysterious world of power-boosting F1 petrol and lubricants
FUEL’S GOLD With the help of ExxonMobil’s high priest of hydrocarbons, MARK FOGARTY delves into the increased importance of go juice and slippery stuff to eke extra from the high-tech hybrid power units
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IKE TYRES, fuel and oil aren’t glamorous. Still, like those black and round things, the liquids you don’t even see are vital to performance. In top-level racing, fuel and lubricants can make a significant difference, with sophisticated versions of what you get at the pump or at a regular service for your car producing measurable gains in power and efficiency. Oil companies have been the most enduring technical partners/ suppliers/sponsors in the history of motor sport. Major brands have been there right from the start. Formula 1 remains an important battleground, with most of the world’s petro-chemical giants forming alliances with teams and engine manufacturers. In some cases, those associations with F1 have lasted for many decades. They range from racing stalwarts Shell, BP/Castrol and Esso/Mobil1 to relative newcomers Petronas and Petrobras. Their high-end fuels and lubricants are showcased in F1 and, increasingly, contribute to unheard of levels of thermal efficiency in
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combustion engines. The hybrid power units used in F1 since 2014 have reached unprecedented outputs and minimal fuel usage for their battery boosted size. Single turbo 1.6-litre V6s producing a combined maximum approaching 1000 horsepower, yet until this year using only a maximum of 105 kilograms of fuel per race. The Internal Combustion Engine (ICE) component of the Mercedes, Ferrari, Renault and Honda power units operates at more than 50 per cent thermal efficiency. For a fossil fuel-burning motor, that’s a big leap in extracting the most from every millilitre of petrol. Oil companies have been important technical partners in F1 for at least 30 years. Getting more power for less consumption from fuel has been the subject of intense research and
development, as has reducing engine and drivetrain friction with ever-slipperier lubricants. But in the hybrid era, those incremental gains have never been more important – or so intensely developed. For some time now, F1 has imposed strict limits on the composition of fuel, which is regulated to a close relative of premium unleaded pump petrol, and this year there are increased restrictions on oils. A technical partnership with a major oil company can also involve commercial sponsorship, but the main benefit is the constant development of improved fuel and lubricants, resulting in incremental gains to complement mechanical and electronic upgrades. Along with Anglo-Dutch Shell and British BP, American giant ExxonMobil has been supplying fuels and oils to teams since the start of the F1 world championship in 1950 – and even before then – through its Esso subsidiary. Small Esso branding appeared on Jack Brabham’s BT33 during his final F1 season in 1970. ExxonMobil’s main fuel brands ExxonMobil’s global motorsport team leader David Tsurusaki is adament that F1 technology improves road car fuels and oils.
worldwide are Mobil (including the USA, Australia and New Zealand), Esso (mainly Canada and Europe) and Exxon (USA), while Mobil 1 is its global motor oil product. Once known for its famous flying horse logo, Mobil is the petro-chemical group’s most prevalent brand across fuels and all lubricants. ExxonMobil switched its twodecade involvement with McLaren to Red Bull Racing last year, with the technical partnership and sponsorship including Toro Rosso. Now that both Red Bull-owned teams are powered by Honda, the oil company’s expertise is not split between different engine suppliers. Mobil 1, the world’s first synthetic motor oil, has been in F1 since 1979, when it joined Williams as a sponsor. Mobil’s first race win as a technical partner was Alan Jones victory in the 1981 USA Grand Prix West at Long Beach. Houston-based ExxonMobil’s F1 fuel and lubricants are closely – or, in some cases, directly – related to its consumer products. They are developed by the same research and engineering division in Clinton, New Jersey, that concocts the company’s road vehicle and industrial fuels, oils and lubricants. As well as F1, it is involved in the WEC and WRC with Toyota, in
EXXONMOBIL F1 FAST FACTS
Product placement? Through associated brand Esso, Mobil has been involved with F1 since 1950. Now it is helping Red Bull and Honda close the power and efficiency gap to Mercedes and Ferrari.
NASCAR with Stewart-Haas Racing, Porsche Supercup and Carrera Cups, and Walkinshaw Andretti United in Supercars. According to ExxonMobil global motorsports technology manager David Tsurusaki, developments in F1 – and other racing series – result in improved fuels and oils for motorists. “The whole reason we do it, the reason we spend the time and the money and the investment on the technical side to develop fuel for one engine, is because it teaches us and we get learnings from that that eventually lead to better road fuels,” Tsurusaki explained. “If you go back 20 years ago, the fuel economy wasn’t that great and engine sizes have continually gone smaller and smaller, but the power is actually higher in some cases. Fuel and oil improvements learned in racing have contributed to that. “We wouldn’t do it otherwise. We are funded out of our research department and research would ask why we’re spending that kind of money if got nothing out of it. Our research objective is to improve fuel economy and performance for modern cars – and F1 is the epitome of modern technology.” Minneapolis-based Tsurusaki attends 10-12 F1 races a year – in
addition to many other events – and oversees the program, which involves eight engineers and chemists. ExxonMobil has a portable testing lab on-site with RBR and Toro Rosso at each race, with a technician dedicated to each team. “The lab is two main things,” Tsurusaki said.” We’re testing to make sure the fuel is of the quality that we sent it, so every drum comes in the way we expect it to be, maintaining the quality and consistency of the fuel. “The other part of their job most of the weekend is testing used oil. They’re monitoring the condition of the oils. “My best analogy is that they’re like doctors taking blood samples from patients and determining the condition of their bodies. We do the same thing with the oils.” The technicians also continually test the fuel and oils during a race weekend to endure the comply with the FIA’s strict rules, which specify in fine detail their composition and use. “Both fuel and lubricants have to be declared to the FIA before you race and once you declare them, you cannot change or deviate from that,” Tsurusaki said. “So if they pulled your sample of fuel or oil anytime during the weekend and it
doesn’t match, you’re in for some trouble. And they do do testing throughout the weekend.” ExxonMobil’s racing division supplies close to 200,000 litres to RBR and Toro Rosso during a season, including testing. For the Australian Grand Prix, for example, 20 50-litre drums of fuel were shipped to Albert Park. Transporting the fuel drums – which are actually more like kegs – and containers of lubricants is a logistical nightmare because of safety and customs requirements.
• Two new powerful blends of Synergy race fuel were used in the Red Bull Racing cars in 2018 • Synergy race fuel upgrade introduced at the 2018 Hungarian Grand Prix gave Red Bull Racing a performance gain of over a tenth of a second per lap • The 1.6-litre turbo-charged V6 is 40 per cent more fuel efficient compared with pre-2014 engines, reflecting the global demand to develop more fuel-efficient cars and increased road relevance • ExxonMobil trackside technicians test more than 400 fuel samples from the race cars per season • Synergy race fuel helps provide improved engine power. Each car has a 110 kg maximum fuel limit per race • ExxonMobil introduced an innovative new blend of Mobil 1 motor oil to the Red Bull Racing RB14 race car in 2018 • Oil lubricates more than 4000 moving parts in the power unit, including the ICE, turbocharger and MGU-H • The turbocharger, lubricated by Mobil 1 motor oil, can reach up to 950ºC and rev up to 125,000 rpm • ExxonMobil trackside technicians test more than 1100 oil samples from the Red Bull Racing cars per season • Oil circulates around the engine up to nine times per minute • Lead, indium, copper, tin and iron are five of 15 elements monitored during oil-analysis tests to help keep the race cars on the track • The oil film protecting the race car’s gear teeth is ~20µm thick – that’s about half the thickness of a human hair • A driver changes gear up to 4000 times per race. In the Canadian Grand Prix, for example, a driver shifts gear on average every 1.3 seconds • Oil analysis carried out by ExxonMobil trackside technicians helped to detect two serious internal power unit issues in 2018. In both instances, this diagnosis helped the team to prolong the life of the PU
Red Bull Racing newbie Pierre Gasly (left) talks with Tsurusaki (middle) and designated technical advisor Sean Dunnett.
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ExxonMobil technicians take regular samples of fuel and oil to ensure quality as well as conformity with the FIA’s strict regulations. Samples are taken and tested (inset) regularly during an F1 race weekend.
“It’s extremely complicated,” Tsurusaki said. “We have people assigned for logistics for both fuel and for lubricants, and they spend the majority of their time just getting these products around the world – the timing, the sequencing. “You have to use brand new containers, you have to use dentfree containers, otherwise they’ll be rejected.” For many years now, F1 fuel has
been mandated as a sophisticated version of premium unleaded pump petrol. “The FIA has very strict standards,” Tsurusaki continued. “They even have, in some cases, chemicals you that you can’t use. They’ve already ruled out things that are highly flammable or carcinogenic or something that could cause problems. “So the rules are quite specific, but
within the rules you can still do small levels of optimisation and it’s really getting it designed specifically for the team you’re working with – and that’s really where the advantage is. Working with one engine manufacturer, you can optimise the fuel specifically for that engine. “And that could be a significant difference. You can improve the performance of the engine beyond on what most people would think –
more efficiency and horsepower.” However, he demurs when pressed on just how close ExxonMobil’s Synergy petrol is to the consumer product. “It depends how you define it,” he hedges. “It’s a hydrocarbon, so you could say it’s basically the same. Functionally, it would work in your road car.” Tsurusaki is also coy about the octane rating. “We don’t really publish an octane rating for it, so I don’t even know. Couldn’t tell you. It may be [a meaningful figure] to somebody, but it’s not a design concern. “In Australian Supercars, the spec fuel is E85 and it has an octane rating, and that’s probably all they ask for. They may say it’s E85 and 100 octane (actually, it’s 105), and that’s it. “Usually, racing fuels are 100 to 110 octane (compared with 95 and 98 for commercially available premium unleadeds in Australia). That’s typical.” The aim is simple – although the process is highly complex – and the benefits are clear. “In F1, you’re trying to optimise the fuel to the car to achieve maximum efficiency with power and consumption,” he said. “We’re trying to get the most amount of power for the least amount of fuel.” Shell claimed it was responsible In-garage test lab goes to all races to monitor performance of fuels and lubricants.
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THE GOOD OIL ON F1 FUEL
FOR MANY YEARS NOW, F1 FUEL HAS BEEN MANDATED AS A SOPHISTICATED VERSION OF PREMIUM UNLEADED PUMP PETROL for 21 per cent of Ferrari’s lap time improvement last year. Tsurusaki is not impressed. “You have to read between the lines,” he noted. “A 21 per cent gain of the total lap time improvement is really a fifth of whatever the improvement was. If the improvement was five kilowatts, they’re saying they provided a 1 kW improvement, so that might be reasonable, yeah.” However, he conceded that such tiny incremental gains could be “the difference between first and second sometimes”. As well as power-boosting fuel, lubricants are important because reduced friction of engine, gearbox and other mechanical components improves efficiency. “There are gains to be made with lubricants, too,” Tsurusaki said. “Engine oil is the primary one, but the gearbox is also a key area. Any efficiencies you can get on the engine, gearbox and other areas make a small contribution to the performance of the car.” Mobil lubricants closely related to products you can buy are used in the engine, wheel bearings and driveshafts, along with miscellaneous assembly greases
and lubes, plus hydraulic fluids. “We slightly modified the hydraulic oil only because we do some leak detection,” he said. “We put a tracer in there so we can check very quickly if it’s hydraulic oil, gear oil or engine oil. But, otherwise, it’s a high-quality commercial synthetic hydraulic oil. “The greases are commercial Mobil greases that are industrial synthetic greases, so while they’re not common, you can purchase them commercially.” The only exception is the ultralow viscosity gearbox oil, which is bespoke for RBR and Toro Rosso. “It’s a product we developed at the end of 2017 and we started using it in the early part of ’18. A very, very unique product. There’s nothing in our product line-up like it. “By mid-last year, we’d replaced every product that RBR had been using.” According to Tsurusaki, working exclusively with Honda is not only simpler, but provides a lot more scope for development. “Over the off-season, there were 36 different variations or modifications of the engine oil and over 40 different modifications of the fuel, and each time what
Max Verstappen examines a fuel sample - like he’d know. Clearly, a staged photo. And that poor bloke (below) went to all that trouble ...
we’re trying to do is get that small incremental improvement,” he said. “So from last year to this year, that’s been our pace and we haven’t stopped. “We just finished seven more engine oils that are optimised for what we learned in the last (preseason) test. It just keeps moving. As long as we can be given the opportunity to test, we just keep going – and Honda’s given us the ability to continually test with them (at Honda Racing Development’s HQ) at Sukura in Japan. “In comparison with working with Renault, it’s much cleaner and smoother because we’re the only fuel and oil supplier Honda is working with. Renault was working with another oil company and another fuel company. It’s a much cleaner process now.”
• ExxonMobil’s racing engineers create highly efficient Synergy racing fuels for the race engine, minimizing volume and reducing deposits while maximizing power from each drop • Synergy fuel for the road is developed in the same ExxonMobil research and engineering labs as the Formula 1 racing fuels • F1 cars run on fuel similar to that used in regular road cars • A F1 car is only allowed to use a maximum of 110 kg of fuel per race distance (with fuel flow rate of 100 kg/hour) • Each team is only be able to nominate five new fuel blends for the season – and only two at any given race weekend • Before each race, the teams must supply the FIA with two five-litre samples for analysis and approval. Fuel samples will also be taken during an event to ensure the fuel being used is within the regulations • ExxonMobil brings a mobile analytical laboratory to every Grand Prix. More than 50 fuel and lubricant samples are taken from the two cars during a race weekend • These sample tests provide ExxonMobil with more than one thousand points of analytical data • More than 20 fuel samples are tested to ensure compliance with FIA regulations, avoiding any track penalties. The analysis also gives detailed information on mechanical component issues and dirt contamination • The lubricant samples are taken from the engine and gearbox systems primarily to monitor their condition • Oil sample results can detect any high friction or metal wear points, potential component faults, improve reliability and reduce the risk of unexpected failures
OILY BITS DEPARTMENT
The fuel and lubricants used by Red Bull Racing-Honda – and what they do MOBIL 1 OIL – Improves engine efficiency while maximizing power and performance by protecting, cooling and reducing friction SYNERGY RACE FUEL – Improves engine power, reduces power degradation and debris build-up MOBILUBE RACING GEAR OIL – Protects, cools and improves gearbox efficiency and reliability, giving more power to rear wheels MOBILITH SHC SYNTHETIC GREASE – Lubricates drive-shafts and minimizes resistance in wheel bearings to help maximize speed and withstand extreme temperatures MOBIL SHC HYDRAULIC OIL – Enables hydraulic systems to function (gear shift, clutch, differential, power unit actuators, rear brakes, steering and DRS) with extreme temperatures and pressures
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Why Ford’s all-conquering coupe is the next step in wind-cheating Supercars design
AIR FORCE WON
As the Mustang aero debate rages, BRUCE NEWTON gets the thinking behind the controversial shape from the aero expert who headed the project
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F YOU think rival teams are up in arms about the sizable rear wing endplates that endow the Ford Mustang Supercar, then it’s easy to imagine how apoplectic their responses would have been if the larger original design had navigated its way through the homologation process. “I made a very long one that went all the way down,” Ford Performance aerodynamicist Sriram Pakkam revealed. “It looked like the James Bond Lotus Esprit in submarine mode”. Pakkam, who led the aero team on the Mustang, wasn’t just taking the piss. The diagram showing the box the Mustang’s endplate had to fit into had no defined bottom edge. It was an invitation he could not ignore. “We were told to cut it off pretty quickly,”
he laughs. “But I am a racer, I am a race car developer, I will go for everything and then the people above me temper what I do.” And there in a nutshell is the Supercars Mustang’s contentious aerodynamics. Ford Performance, the Blue Oval’s in-house racing and high-performance road car design and development arm, didn’t design the first coupe entered in Supercars to be merely OK. It set out to build the fastest racer it could within its interpretation of the technical specifications of the category. It was then up to Supercars to rein it in, regulate its speed and achieve technical parity with the Holden Commodore ZB and Nissan Altima. With six straight wins and poles for the Mustang, followed by a centre of gravity
(CoG) adjustment that comes into force from Symmons Plains this weekend, the clear message is that parity equalisation is still a work in progress. The problem is, Supercars may have so far only plucked the low-hanging fruit. The big deal yet to be resolved is the aerodynamics. Sri Pakkam’s work is going to be a whole lot more challenging to adjust than moving some ballast around in the cabin. You’ve already seen our lead story this issue detailing six areas of Mustang Supercar aerodynamics that have Holden and Nissan teams in a lather. How many of those features survive concerted lobbying from the opposition in coming weeks and months will be fascinating to see. Why these aerodynamic tricks are on the Mustang and not the Commodore are the Rare sight of a Mustang behind a Commodore. Mostert charged from 22nd to fifth in the Albert Park opener, setting off more alarm bells.
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source of much contention. Those in the blue corner contend Ford Performance and local homologation team DJR Team Penske – led by widely acknowledged engineering guru Ludo Lacroix – were simply smarter. After all, Mustang is the first Supercars racer developed by a globally recognised, factory-owned organisation with cuttingedge knowledge of computational fluid dynamics (CFD), which is essentially a digital wind tunnel. Over in the red corner, it’s all about the approval process and who got permission from Supercars to do what when the ZB was in the works in 2017. And it’s not like Holden homologation team Triple Eight lacks in brain power or local knowledge. It too called in international technical reinforcements for CFD aero development from UK-based Wirth Research. One myth this whole debate debunks is that aerodynamics isn’t a big player in Supercars racing. “If you go to somewhere like Phillip Island, it’s a big factor,” says Pakkam. “It all depends on where we are and what we’ve tuned it to do. But, definitely, aero plays a big part in this series.” Aero has been downplayed over the years because Supercars generate only modest amounts of downforce (aero grip) in comparison with other categories. But it’s all relative. If your Supercar generates more grip than a rival, then it has an advantage. On a grid where pole can be determined by thousandths of a second, finding a tenth is huge. And as other areas of potential technical
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Ford Performance aero guru Sriram Pakkam answers three key questions about the Mustang’s Supercars shape
Holden teams claim Mustang has driven a horse and cart through the aero rules, gaining an ‘unfair advantage’ – a reference to Roger Penske’s famous half-century history of pushing the regulatory boundaries.
gain have been paritised, so the importance of aero has become more pronounced, especially as Supercars’ attempts to achieve technical parity are limited to straight-line testing at 200km/h and below. Cornering, or yaw, aero is unregulated. To back-to-back test something like that, you really need a wind tunnel and a substantial budget. Achieving yaw parity using CFD or real-world circuit testing is extremely difficult. Try to zero Pakkam in on the aero details and he is understandably evasive. Instead, he stresses how interdependent the entire surface of the Mustang Supercar’s body shape is in achieving aerodynamic efficiency. “It all has to come together as a package,” he explains. “There’s no one panacea, one little pill. It’s an agglomeration of many bits that have to come together, and that’s how sub-sonic aerodynamics is. “If you change something at the back, it will affect the flow field at the front because everything is connected. “Sub-sonic is complicated because everything is interacting. So, unless you have a whole package with everything tuned to work with each other, you’re not going to get a good result.”
Now here’s the rub. A lot has been said and written about the compromises imposed on the Mustang development team by the standard Gen2 chassis and roll hoop extension that forced the roof to be raised and the proportion of the racer to be changed substantially compared with the road car. As a result, the Aussie Mustang racer is longer and narrower than the road version and – unlike any Supercar that has gone before it – not one panel is interchangeable. In theory, that is a major issue for the development team. And maybe whoever opposed the deletion of the roll hoop extension saw it as a way of poking a stick in their spokes. If so, it backfired. The result was that Pakkam and his American colleagues started with a pretty free hand to shape the Mustang’s Supercars body. Sure, Ford’s Melbournebased Asia-Pacific design department was a gatekeeper, maintaining a visual linkage to the road car, but usually the restrictions Ford Performance works within are far more prescriptive than that. For instance, the NASCAR Mustang is based on a control silhouette, the Mustang GT4 uses a standard body, and the world rally championship Fiesta
uses aerodynamic add-ons to generate downforce. These are cars on which Pakkam also worked. “This has been one of my most satisfying programs because of how much freedom we’ve had on the shape of it,” he says of the Mustang Supercar. “It’s different to a WRC or GT4 development where you are developing different bits onto it. This is more all-encompassing. “It’s not about the widgets, it’s about the whole thing working.”
Is the bluff front-end of the Mustang an aerodynamic challenge? It is a challenge in the sense of trying to achieve low Cd (coefficient of drag). Unlike the other family sedans we race against in the series, the Mustang is an out and out sports car. The sedans were designed with one goal in mind (aerodynamically speaking): get the lowest drag possible in order to reduce CO (carbon dioxide) emissions and help the parent companies sell more larger-platform vehicles. But the ’Stang was designed with other performance goals in mind: stability and control, a more planted front end, etc. So these design differences lead to differences in drag as well and make it harder to then go back to make a low-drag race car out of a sports car as compared with using a sedan. Is the two-door coupe body more or less efficient than a sedan? If so, why? And does the standard cage underneath help or hinder equalising it with more traditional body shapes and smaller, slipperier cars? The two-door coupe is less efficient than a sedan for drag reduction. This goes back to an aerodynamic principle called fineness ratio. It’s the ratio of the length of a body to its maximum width. Shapes that are short and wide have a low fineness ratio, and those that are long and narrow have higher fineness ratios. So a higher fineness ratio typically entails lower drag, so the sedans tend to have a leg up there. The traditional roll cage hinders both, I would think. It definitely hurts us because of having to raise the roof so much (creating drag). The sedans in the series would have had to increase their roof heights – perhaps not as much as us, but to some extent. Explain the reason for the big rear deck extension? The C-pillar and rear glasshouse area are quite messy from a flow standpoint. There are multiple large vortices in various states of burst swirling around there. So the more space you give for those complex flow structures to settle and sort themselves out, the better it is for your rear wing. So the deck extension helps because the sedans have the advantage going in and the extension basically supplies the flat space to equalise that advantage.
Nice legs, shame about the face: Ford Performance in the US used CFD to optimise Mustang’s shape within the Supercars rules. Gives a new meaning to “winning ugly”...
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Hazelwood describes Matt Stone’s small team as being like a family. Stone and Hazelwood experienced success together in the 2017 Super2 title.
TOUGH INITIATION Todd Hazelwood’s debut season in Supercars last year was full of hard lessons. However, 2019 has already shown glimpses of what both driver and team are capable of, as the 23-year-old detailed to HEATH McALPINE
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T WAS a forgettable 2018 campaign all round for Matt Stone Racing for both its debut season in Supercars and going back-toback in Super2. Todd Hazelwood knows only one way – the nuggety South Australian has struggled with budget throughout his career, with his determination being the key ingredient to how he got on the Supercars grid. A reduction in the role he plays within the small Queensland-based team has meant that he can focus more on the qualities that make him a better driver. “It’s probably the first time in the last seven years that I’ve actually put a lot of effort into being a racing car driver and not putting a lot of aspects that go with it, whether that be marketing, commercial or media,” Hazelwood told Auto Action. “It’s a really refreshing time for me at the moment, and I’m just trying to make the most of that. “I’ve been the underdog my whole career. In go-karts people wrote me off
because we didn’t have the money and that steam rolled from there. I think we’ve defied a lot of logic over the years, but to get to this point now and to start to show some sort of promise, it’s still very early days but hopefully we can start getting good results as the year goes on.” A glimpse of that promise shone in his hometown of Adelaide when he made the Top 10 Shootout for Race 2 and went on to finish a creditable 10th, despite being held up by Chaz Mostert and Rick Kelly tangling in pit lane. “The coolest thing coming out of qualifying was that we were the e top Triple Eight car. It was pretty cool for a small team to achieve that on our first weekend with the ZB Commodore,” Hazelwood said. “That put a bit of a pep in the step
A change of cars mid-season last year led to a refresh for the whole team and a deal was brokered to use Triple Eight machinery in 2019.
for the whole team. We all work hard behind the scenes to achieve those sorts of moments, and you can’t take it for granted because you don’t know when your next major moment may be. It was very special to do it in front of the home crowd and start the year on a high.” Even though Hazelwood has signalled qualifying as an area he needs to improve on, race-wise he is confident of mixing it with the big boys. He is also keen to prove himself among the stars of the sport. “It’s a big step up [from last year]
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and probably the biggest thing now is to show the other drivers that I’m not here to sit behind them and consolidate points, I’m here to race hard like the rest of them do. “Probably the most bruising thing last year was that I wasn’t really racing anyone, and I wasn’t showing everyone what I was capable of. Now I have to start again this season and really show that I’m here to have a go, and race hard. Hopefully, I can earn that respect in the meantime.” Last season may have been a tough initiation, but a lot was taken out of it by both Hazelwood and MSR to make sure 2019 is a much better season. And clearly it has already paid some dividends.
“We learnt a lot and I think the best thing was that we did have a tough year, but that made us stronger,” Hazelwood says. “We understood where our weaknesses were, and we worked hard over the off-season to rectify all that.” “Even throughout the year, we hit the reset button halfway through the season. “We understood that there were some issues we had to rectify and I think the best thing we ever did was call it quits with the car we had. We set a direction where we thought it was best and Adelaide showed what that sort of partnership can achieve for us. “We were pretty firm that that was going to work in our favour. It’s good to silence those critics that didn’t believe what we were doing and move forward from that.” A car change to the Super2-winning VF Commodore proved a turning point, as at the same time MSR announced that an ex-Red Bull Holden Racing Team ZB Commodore was to be utilised for this year, along with
Adelaide was a breakthrough weekend for Hazelwood in front of a record home crowd.
support from Triple Eight Race Engineering. Hazelwood is optimistic about the partnership and sees a bright future with the path currently being taken. “They [Triple Eight] are the most successful team of the last decade, so to be able to link up with a team and the engineering capabilities they have is great, but from a driving point of view, to have access to some of the data from two of the best guys in championship will help myself as well. “For us – a small team – we’re still building, and to have access to those sorts of capabilities is a huge asset for us. “The best thing about the whole Triple Eight alliance is that when you sign up for something, you know exactly what you are going to get, there are no ifs or buts. They are very professional how they run their business, and we feel pretty lucky that we can be a part of that.”
So, what are the goals for the rest of the season? Hazelwood has his eyes set on shaking up the established runners on the edge of the top 10, and to remain there. “I’d love to have a consistent season where we can bank really good points,
put a whole championship together and really stamp our authority on what we can achieve as a team moving forward. “I definitely feel the capabilities are there if we have the right day and I can put the program together.”
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Supercars
RULES ARE CHANGING With new regulations set to be implemented at the next two Supercar rounds HEATH McALPINE and BRUCE NEWTON investigate the impact these rules changes will have on team preparation and strategy
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HE NEXT two Supercars rounds could prove pivotal in the final wash up, as each may throw up a new dimension to a championship battle that has only just begun. At Symmons Plains this weekend, the new Parc Ferme trials will commence as will a re-jigged three-part qualifying format that has been simplified after debuting last season. As reported by Auto Action last issue Parc Ferme rules will be imposed for the first time between qualifying and the race, meaning teams are not permitted to make significant changes to the set-up of the cars. Fuel loads and tyres remain unchanged, but rotating the wheels is permitted, cooling fans can be placed in front of the radiator, while in the garage fluids can be topped up, tyre pressures checked and servicing the driver’s water bottle system is the extent of the tasks teams can complete. Parc Ferme will test the efficiency of teams according to Barry Ryan, believing that most will use a qualifying set-up then adjust as the session comes to a conclusion. “You are going to be racing to try and qualify the best you can, then try and
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New Parc Ferme rules will change how the teams approach qualifying at Symmons Plains.
Trial rule changes and a new qualifying format are going to make for interesting times at the next two Supercar Championship rounds at Symmons Plains and Phillip Island.
get back to pitlane with a couple of minutes left, so you can quickly change your cambers to a race set-up before the chequered flag comes out and Parc Ferme starts,” Ryan explained. “I think you’ll see some real confident teams will get their times done early in qualifying, leaving it with a few minutes early, getting in to pitlane and then you’ll see lots of activity, changing cambers and rear springs, stuff you’d do for a race set-up and then stop touching the car when the chequered flag comes out.” “I reckon you will even get teams getting caught out and not being finished by the time the chequered flag comes out and they are going to have to sort out if they will let them do that bolt up they didn’t get done up, or what’s the penalty if they have to finish something they didn’t finish. “It’s going to be interesting.” Matt Stone believes the Parc Ferme conditions won’t be an issue for his team as only minor changes are carried out at that stage of a race weekend. “We’re not talking big changes in terms of race and qualifying anyway, I think it’s just some of the minor tweaks, some people might do a radical set-up between practice and qually, we certainly don’t so it’s not a massive effect on us,” Stone told Auto Action. According to rookie Macauley Jones, qualifying is important at Symmons Plains due to the tight nature of the circuit and this will play on the minds of teams
when deciding on the set-up needed for qualifying. “For Tasmania, qualifying is very important,” Jones emphasised. “It’s not the easiest track to pass on and the further up you start, potentially the better you finish, so I think it is going to be very important to qualify good and then tyre life is going to be okay.” The second trial that Supercars will undertake is closing the pit lane at the Phillip Island round under Safety Car. This is a more controversial move with opinions mixed, however the circuit’s tight pit lane has in previous years caused chaos. Red Bull Holden Racing Team’s Roland Dane is disappointed that the rule change has been forced by Supercars officialdom based on the tight conditions of a number of pit lanes the category goes to. “The reality of Phillip Island is you have one of the greatest strips of tarmac in the world and one of the worst pitlanes and pit buildings in the world,” lamented Dane. “I find that massively disappointing it hasn’t been re-developed properly over the years. “What we saw in Adelaide shows when we have stacking it drastically increases risk. Some of our pitlanes are more than wide enough to accommodate stacking with vastly reduced risk, but some of them are not and Phillip Island is the worst. “Whether closing pitlane at certain times is the right thing - and yes it can change the strategies of the races and can make
them boring – we still need to face up to the fact that piling cars into pitlane in that environment is a recipe for disaster.” IndyCar has implemented this ruling for a few seasons, a rule that last round cost Australian Will Power a certain victory when a late race Safety Car occurred just before his final pit stop was due. Brad Jones has mixed opinions on the ruling but is understanding of why it has been made, after the scenes previously witnessed at Phillip Island and earlier this season in Adelaide. “I am never a big fan of closing pitlane under a Safety Car, I feel that it drives competitors into the pits much earlier than they need to be in the race,” Jones explained. “And then it becomes a very high risk-reward ratio, especially at a place that has the sort of tyre degradation that Phillip Island has. “This is a rule you see used in Indycar racing and if you are brave you can really reap a benefit from it. I will be interested in seeing how successful it is, but the other side of the coin is Phillip Island is a very narrow pitlane and that’s why the commission has decided to go this way, to try and stop the bottlenecks that happen under caution.” The consensus from the Supercars paddock is that both moves will make for an interesting two rounds. Add the simplification of the three-part qualifying session, with the top 10 from opening Friday practice automatically entering Q2, it will all make some interesting viewing.
SCHEDULE
Symmons Plains Friday: 10:30am-11:00am Additional Drivers Practice 11:50am-12:20pm Practice 1 2:20pm-2:50pm Practice 2 Saturday: 11:10am11:40am Practice 3 1:50pm-2:00pm Qualifying Part 1 2:05pm-2:15pm Qualifying Part 2 2:20pm-2:30pm Qualifying Part 3 4:40pm-5:35pm Race 7 Sunday: 11:15am-11:25am Qualifying Part 1 11:30am-11:40am Qualifying Part 2 11:45am-11:55am Qualifying Part 3 2:05pm-3;30pm Race 8 TV SCHEDULE Fox Sports – Friday: 10:15am-3:15pm Saturday: 8:50am-6:00pm Sunday: 8:40am-3:30pm Ten – Saturday: 10:30pm11:30pm Highlights Sunday: 4:00pm-5:00pm Highlights Phillip Island Phillip Island – Friday: 11:50am12:20pm Practice 1 2:45pm-3:15pm Practice 2 Saturday: 10:30am-11:00am Practice 3 1:15pm-1:25pm Qualifying Part 1 1:30pm-1:40pm Qualifying Part 2 1:45pm-1:55pm Qualifying Part 3 3:50pm-4:50pm Race 9 Sunday: 9:25am-9:55am Practice 4 11:20am-11:30am Qualifying Part 1 11:35am-11:45am Qualifying Part 2 11:50am-12:00am Qualifying Part 3 2:05pm-3;30pm Race 10 TV SCHEDULE Fox Sports – Friday: 9:15am4:00pm Saturday: 9:15am-5:00pm Sunday: 9:20am-4:10pm Ten – Saturday: 10:30pm11:30pm Highlights Sunday: 4:00pm-5:00pm Highlights
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NEVER GIVE UP Bob Watson explains how Ross Dunkerton carried a Volvo around Australia in the Repco Trial
rton rt Rosss Dunke al i it li i il b a lia tyy Tri 1979 Reli
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he 1979 Repco Reliability Trial is acknowledged as the toughest round Australia trial ever. Unlike the early Redex Trials, where competitors had enough problems just following the main roads around Australia, the Repco had designated “Trial stages”, some so rough that competitors had to get out of their cars to shift rocks and boulders out of their way, and the time schedules were impossible. The 20,000km course was to be covered in two weeks, barely achievable even if only main roads were used. Rest breaks were virtually non-existent for the slower competitors – the author and co-driver Garry Harrowfield driving a diesel-powered Peugeot 504, were in the vehicle with no rest break for 67 hours on the Adelaide-Perth leg. The pace of the Trial was so fast that many service crews could not keep up with the cars they were servicing, and hardly saw them during the event. Statement by the organisers Trial Director Stewart McLeod, a top South Australian rally driver in the 1960s and 1970s, promised “the toughest event I can organise”. The road director was Frank Kilfoyle, the second-ever Australian Rally Champion. He spent week after week in the outback, finding roads that would live up to McLeod’s promise. He succeeded in spades. History shows the Repco was a whitewash for Holden, Peter Brock leading a crushing 1-2-3 victory. Ford decided very late to compete and gave Colin Bond the job of preparing three six-cylinder Cortinas, but lack of development time cost the Ford effort dearly. The only other car to provide any resistance to the Holden domination was a factory-entered Volvo driven by five-time Australian rally champion Ross Dunkerton. This is the story of his epic drive. Dunkerton was originally slated to drive a factory-backed Peugeot 504, one of three to be entered by Peugeot. The other cars were to be driven by Timo Makinen/Jean Todt and myself with my chosen co-driver. The cars would be in East African Safari spec, with 140hp (104kW) engines and all the factory goodies. These cars would have given the Commodores plenty of hurry up. However, during a trip to France to explain the event to Peugeot executives and
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Ross Dunkerton was leading the Australian Rally Championship for Datsun when he was loaned to Volvo for its attack on the Repco Round Australia Trial.
organise the required logistics, I was informed that Makinen and Todt considered the long distances between service points and the short rest breaks would make it too difficult for Peugeot to achieve a good result. What utter rubbish! My assessment is that Timo was nearing the end of his rally career and the Repco was going to be too much hard work for him. Bitterly disappointing. Peugeot’s withdrawal left Ross Dunkerton without a drive in this important event, but salvation came in the form of an offer from Volvo to drive in a team of factory-supported Volvos, which included Volvo Australia managing director Harry Jensen. Naturally Ross grabbed the opportunity with both hands. The Dunkerton car was prepared by a Volvo dealer in Queensland.
Dunkerton had as his crew experienced NSW co-driver Geoff Jones and Peter McKay, a respected journalist with motor sport experience who could hopefully file stories on how well the Volvos were doing. In the other team cars were Jensen and another experienced rally and off road driver from WA, Frank Johnson. Gate opener Peter McKay and navigator Geoff Jones Dunkerton says: “Peter McKay is a really cool dude. At the time he was motoring editor for Penthouse magazine, so he would come in handy by bringing some reading material with him, and maybe the odd introduction to Penthouse Pets.” McKay was a stylish guy; dirt and dust just weren’t his thing. Dunkerton said: “I had serious doubts about whether he would go the distance, especially after I saw that his small baggage contained a hair dryer”. Within a couple of days after the start at Melbourne Showgrounds, the special limited slip diff on Dunk’s car had failed. “We were within 100km of Adelaide. I dived underneath to discover the metal cover plate for the diff had opened up like a can of baked beans, and oil was pouring out. Something horrible had happened to the diff. I grabbed a rock and bashed the damaged metal back into shape, reducing the oil flow to a trickle”. They arrived in Adelaide out of late time, which should have put the car out of the rally. When they pulled into the iimpound, d an official ffi i l asked Geoff Jones how the traffic had been. “Atrocious,” he said. The official replied that they were the 10th crew to complain about traffic holdups and that he would recommend that the penalties for lateness arriving in Adelaide be deleted. It happened, so they were still in the event! The diff was replaced in Adelaide with a standard non-LSD unit, but there were other problems. Rear shock absorbers on the Volvo were failing regularly, and the crew had already replaced several sets. After the event, team manager
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The Volvo encountered many issues over the course of the event, but Dunkerton, McKay and Jones still finished the arduous event in a fine fourth place.
John Cotter said: “The Bilsteins were specially built Jo but were completely unsuited for the rally, and they b blew seals and generally fell apart every time they b put p them on. They just didn’t last. So they fell back on o to standard Volvo GT shocks – the mechanics got g down to seven minutes for a rear shocker change every time service permitted. That’s how c the car finished the rally.” finis After headed north into the Flinders Ranges. There were Aft Adelaide, Ad l id the th Repco R h a lot of gates on the course, and the rally rule is that a gate must be left as found – if it was shut when you arrived, you had to shut it. At one point Jones said, ‘Two gates coming up, they are only 800 metres apart.’ Dunkerton suggested that McKay should jump onto the bounce bar on the rear of the car between gates to save some time. After the first gate McKay jumped on the back, but as they arrived at the second gate Jones shouted, ‘It’s open, keep going.’ They were doing about 140km/h up a dusty
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Competitors await the start of the of the toughest Round Australia Trial ever held. The event finished as a 1-2-3 for the Holden Dealer Team Commodores.
track and the next gate was about ffive kilometres away. “I looked in the rear view mirror to see a look of sheer terror on Peter’s face,” Dunkerton recalled, “but in the context of a 20,000km event, five kilometres was not very long, so we kept going. I thought, ‘Now Peter knows how a grasshopper feels hanging on to a windscreen wiper blade’.” A day or two later they were in desert country, low scrub with dust and lots of gates. They were chasing a Datsun, but each time they arrived at a gate the navigator of the car in front was just closing it. Normally, if you have caught a car he should let you through, but the Datsun driver was determined to hold his position. After a while they came to a long sweeping left-hand bend, and the wind was pushing the dust away enough for them to see the Datsun’s navigator running with the chain in his hand trying to close the gate. Dunkerton said, “Hang on boys we’re going to cut the corner and have a go at getting through.” They hit the gate with the navigator still attached to one end of it and it swung wide open, sending him soaring through the air as they hit the Datsun. “It was like a scene from Mad Max, with crunching panels and smashing glass. I slammed the Volvo into reverse, drove around the Datsun, and we were through.” These incidents were a minor part rt of the w In the late Bill Tuckey’s book An Old tribulations of the Volvo and its crew. Dog for a Hard Road, he lists Dunkerton’s adventures. There is hardly a page in the book where the Volvo is not in strife: • “Dunkerton had changed the rear shockers – the first of a long trail of Bilsteins he was to leave round the course.”
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• “Dunkerton limped the Volvo in, another shocker gone and the differential crunching and grinding. Ross also had a badly bruised arm, the result of the car falling off the jack while they were changing another rear shocker.” • “Dunkerton broke two shockers at Lake Frome and then had the alternator come loose.” • “Dunkerton had dropped 61 points into Nullarbor and was still fighting with his alternator.” • “Dunkerton, incredibly up to 8th place, was protesting that someone was wiring up the latches of gates to make them difficult to open.” • “At 4.40am Dunkerton’s lights appeared out of the blackness and we heard that they had modified the rear axle with metal straps to stop the rear shockers from bottoming out.” • “The fourth car in was Dunkerton’s Volvo after replacing two more rear shock absorbers and being bogged twice. Volvo by now realised that their attention should be focused on the Dunkerton car and the mechanics set to to fix the problems. Peter McKay said, ‘It was so rocky it was ridiculous. I’d hate to look under the car’.” • “The Volvo arrived at the control 120 points down, with navigator Jones nursing a yellow jerry can that was feeding petrol straight into the engine fuel pipe. Their fuel pump had packed up and the spare didn’t work. Before that the car had landed hard in a boulder-filled creek crossing and broken a steering tie rod and had three flat tyres.” • “Dunkerton arrived, now in fourth place following Andrew Cowan’s retirement in the Citroen, but the car was a wreck. He re had lost 34 minutes with a broken rear trailing arm, been ha bogged five times, had a navigator who was fast asleep, b and changed more shock absorbers. He was as tired as an you could ever see a man tired”. yo Then there was the incident of the Falcon wheel... T They started a section that was more than T
Author Bob Watson had planned a factory involvement for Peugeot in the event, but it failed to materialise and he ran as a privateer (above). Winner of the 1970 event, Edgar Hermann had a disastrous start and finished eighth in a Porsche (right). The winning crew sit wearily in their HDT Commodore (below).
400km long, via the notorious t ious Gibb River Road, and after suffering the fuel pump failures, Dunkerton was driving like a maniac to make up the lost time. Almost immediately they had a flat tyre, leaving them with a long way to go and only one spare tyre. Thirty kilometres before the control at the end of the section they came over a crest to find the road strewn with boulders. The impact tore off a steering tie rod and flattened two more tyres. They got the car back on the road, fitted a wheel with a flat tyre to the lefthand rear, wired the broken steering joint into position with fencing wire and set off again. With five kays to go, the flat tyre and wheel were destroyed. The remaining wheel with a flat tyre was fitted and the car limped into the control. Dunkerton relates: “The boys at the control had obviously had a big party while waiting for the rally cars; there were empty beer bottles everywhere. “I grabbed a screwdriver and started removing hub caps from the surrounding cars, looking for a five-stud wheel that would fit the Volvo. I found a Falcon that looked a bit rough, and the owner even more so, passed out on the front seat. “I decided the Falcon wheel stud pattern was close to the Volvo’s, so I borrowed one of the rear wheels and with a bit of chisel work the stud holes could be elongated to suit the Volvo. We set off into the rising sun towards Kununurra with the Volvo not handling too well on its three 15-inch wheels and a Falcon 13-inch on the rear.” Dunkerton arranged that the borrowed wheel would be left at the Kununurra pub for the owner to collect. He left it with a $50 note and a note saying: ‘This wheel now fits a Falcon and a Volvo.’ In Savannah country south of the Gulf of Carpentaria, they rounded a corner to find a queue of 15 or so cars waiting to cross a wide, sandy creek. Dunkerton looked at the situation and decided to drive further down the creek to have a go at crossing it. “I launched the car into the sandy crossing and drove back towards the other cars, which were conducting de-bogging operations. We got back to the main crossing and then got stuck, right on the exit the others were using. There were rumbles of discontent from the de-boggers, because they had to move my car before they could get the next car out.” The Holden Commodores, of course, had none of this inconvenience,
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having tow cars positioned at each creek crossing to assist their cars through. Throughout the event, Holden team manager George Shepheard had done a brilliant job of looking after the team Commodores in this fashion. Dunkerton: “We were helped out, with fairly bad grace, and set off, only to get bogged to the axles in the next creek crossing. To my dismay, there was enough room for the other cars to pass, which they did, leaving us stranded.” The crew attempted to winch the car out of the sand, but the winch failed. Disgusted, Dunkerton threw it into the boot of the Volvo, where it shortcircuited the battery and started a fire. He used McKay’s rally jacket to put the fire out. “At this point I had had enough, and told my team-mates that they could stay there; I was going home.” The next car to arrive was George Fury in one of the Ford Cortinas. Dunkerton asked for a lift, but was refused in no uncertain terms. A little way down the road, Fury’s navigator, Monty Suffern, said to George: “Bad decision George.” Later, when Dunkerton, having got out of the bog by courtesy of a bloke in a four-wheel-drive who appeared from nowhere, passed the Fury car, Suffern said to Fury: “We should never have left that bastard with his car.” One of the many repair jobs Dunkerton had to do to keep the Volvo going was to make a new rear spring platform to replace one that had gone missing. “I found an old plough disc that would do the job, but it needed to be welded to the axle. We were in a small town, and I managed to get the publican out of bed to use his welder. He tried to weld it but the power output was too low. I insisted he wind up the power, but he refused, saying the town power supply could not take it. His wife called him away for something, so I wound the power right up and managed to get enough runs of weld done to do the job before the town blacked out completely.” Incredibly, Dunkerton and his crew finished fourth in the Repco Reliability Trial behind the Commodores of Peter Brock, Barry Ferguson and Rauno Aaltonen. Only 13 of the original 187 cars that started the event completed the entire course. Ross Dunkerton’s tale of persistence bears out a comment made by the late Howard Marsden when he was running the Nissan Rally Team: “If I had to rely on one of my drivers to get a car to the finish, it would be Ross. His mechanical sympathy is without parallel.” His determination wasn’t bad either! Most of the material in this article is from the biography of Ross Dunkerton, Dunko, written by Bob Watson. Watson co-drove with Dunkerton in the 1977 Singapore Airlines London to Sydney Marathon in a Peugeot 504, in which they finished fifth.
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UNDER THE SKIN
Sports Sedans is going through an evolving period, with aerodynamics taking priority over horsepower when building a car due to the regulations freeing up the possibilities for extensive aerodynamic development. One car that demonstrates the new rules is Shane Woodman’s BMW M3, as HEATH McALPINE discovered
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NEW era of Sports Sedans is upon us. Rapid development of the class in recent years has produced some incredibly wild machines as the regulations aerodynamically have freed up the potential of Australia’s fastest tin tops. The category has a long history of cars built with ingenuity, and has always produced some wild combinations, including Harry Lafoe’s Hillman Imp, Bryan Thomson’s Volkswagen Type III Fastback, Mike Ceveri’s Ford Sierra and, most recently, the Kerry Baily Aston Martin. Another car that has continued this trend, although in a much different way to the cars that mentioned above, is Shane Woodman’s BMW M3, which has taken the new freedoms to the fullest. Built by Melbourne-based Riverside Racing, Woodman’s M3 has been a labour of love, according to Liam Hill, who has
helped throughout the build, which commenced in 2012. Hill has previously featured within these pages with his Hyundai Excel Sports Sedan. Although the M3 suffered a number of reliability issues early on, it is starting to emerge as one of the top Sports Sedans in the country, having finished on the podium at last year’s Queensland Raceway round and given Woodman third in the title. “From go to whoa, it was a little bit over two years,” said Hill of the build period. “There was a little time to collect the parts, but once we got into it, the build was just over two years. Sports Sedans are very labour-intensive.” The crew at Riverside Racing initially use computer-aided design (CAD) to design the chassis, but once the build gets going the chrome-moly structure can take a
different course. “The basics of the car were originally modelled, and then we free-handed it from there on ... we were confident and backed ourselves,” Hill explained. “All the geometry is fundamental – you have to run that through the computer to make sure it’s spot-on – but the chassis itself you can go a bit wayward if you have to. “The best way to look at it is that you start with the wheels and build in-board; the chassis has to complement all of your components. That’s why every Sports Sedan on the grid is different, because not two of the same parts are within them. No two cars are anything alike, but at the end of the day they’re all pretty similar in speed, which is amazing.” The engine has just recently been changed. Until recently it ran an Australianbuilt Chevrolet V8 utilising mostly NASCAR parts such as heads and so forth, but Riverside Racing has just imported a naturally aspirated NASCAR Chevrolet SB2 engine from top team Richard Childress Racing to power the M3. The engine has required some tweaks to adjust it to Australian circuits, and The spaceframe chassis was initially modelled using CAD technology, but once construction took place, some liberty was taken (left).
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that work has been carried out by Mark Busscher at MB Performance Competition Engines. “The engine has had a few minor tweaks," Hill said. "It’s had the compression raised on it, it’s had camshafts played with, which means the power is nearing 800hp, and it’s revving to 7800rpm, which is the national rev limit.” A forced change has been the move from leaded to unleaded fuel, which was announced in July 2017, giving competitors, teams and categories a two-year phase-out period. According to Hill, the move has been good for engine performance because even the older Australian-built engine is now near the same levels as the Childress engine. “We’ve now moved from Avgas to a fuel called ETS, which is an unleaded fuel, and seen genuine gains. Not all doom and gloom with Avgas gone.” The cooling system uses a NASCAR radiator, but also uses much ducting and venting within the aerodynamic body designed by Scott Beaton of Aero Design. The car has not had a cooling issue, which is quite amazing considering how much power and stress is produced from such a brutal car. “We’ve never had a problem with cooling,” Hill said. “It runs with a NASCAR radiator in the car, which is tilted forwards in the front of the chassis, and it has a
Supercar stopping power is utilised to slow the Beemer down, whilst handling is aided by modified Ohlin shocks. (right). It's been a work in progress between engineers James McCabe and Adam De Borre. large oil cooler set-up in it, making it one unit. “We had Scott Beaton from Aero Design do the aerodynamics and designed the airflow into and out of the radiators, and where to duct it. No matter how hot the day is, the car just sits on the thermostat.” The M3 currently runs a Motec M800 ECU, but the regulations now allow paddleshift units, so it will race for the last time with a sequential gearstick at Sydney Motorsport Park for the opening round of the Australian Sports Sedan Championship before the ECU is changed to the latest Motec M150. Hill sees the move as positive for the class. It has been a long road to allow paddleshifts in the class after the idea had initially been thrown up three years ago, about the same time the aerodynamic freedoms were passed. “That’s a step in the right direction for Sports Sedans; it definitely modernises the category,” Hill said. He believes the advantages will be minimal, but for car builders paddleshift provides an opportunity to give the drivers a better working environment, which is very important for a machine that produces a large amount of heat due to the position of the engine.
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“There wouldn’t be much difference in the overall lap time, (but) I think the cars will be a neater cockpit layout. “Packaging and sealing of the cars are a huge thing for us. Because the engines are mid-mounted, the transmission tunnel and firewall can be removed, making it difficult to make each air-tight. With the paddleshift, there is no need to have a gearstick pop up through the tunnel, meaning you can seal up the cabin a bit better.” A part from the imminent paddleshift conversion, the rest of the gearbox is taken from an ex-V8 Supercar and is strictly Holinger. A sequential RD6S sends power to a live axle and nine-inch differential with a Holinger LSD, so this section of the car is conventional, which is done on purpose due to the easy workability. Another key area in development that has been led by the improved aerodynamics is suspension. Again, more ex-Supercars componentry has been utilised, with Ohlins shocks, but these have been heavily modified by James McCabe working alongside Chaz Mostert’s engineer, Adam De Borre, to accommodate the dramatic changes in aerodynamics. “We bought an ex-Supercar set of Ohlins shocks and ran them as is for quite a bit of time,” Hill said. “With James McCabe
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UNDER THE SKIN
The National Sports Sedan Series starts this weekend at Sydney Motorsport Park, with some upgrades planned after the event. Photo: Rebecca Thompson
engineering and the aerodynamics of the car continually improving, we went past where the Supercars shocks were, so McCabe, aided by De Borre, came up with a bit of a plan, fettled with the shocks and came up with a new direction, which has moved the shock set-up far away from where it was originally. “The springs are just something we buy off the shelf – it’s almost at a truck spring rate because it sucks to the ground that hard – and the anti-roll bar is a blade adjustable roll bar front and rear manufactured in-house at Riverside Racing.” The brakes have also evolved, but The flat floor is a key aerodynamic feature and has changed the car's set-up significantly, due to its efficiency (above left). More Supercars it is a conventional set-up. The M3’s componentry can be found in the driveline with a nine-inch diff with Holinger LSD helping to lay down the 800hp on tap (above right). stopping power initially utilised an ex-Supercars Brembo system, but bigger rotors meant that the clearance Wrapping the custom rims are control has now progressed to a Car of The it with the layout, we worked really hard on Future-specification AP set-up, which between the rim was unsatisfactory, which Hankook tyres. moving the driver inboard from the door Safety in Sports Sedans is especially consists of 390mm diameter rotors and six- forced the team to make its own wheels. cavity as far as possible. important for the class, as cars reach in piston calipers up front, with 355mm rotors This has been a success, as 60 rims have “We also worked really hard to make and four-piston calipers at the rear. been made for a variety of customers using excess of 300km/h at some circuits, so the sure there was enough length in the driver M3 features a robust rollcage, which Hill The new brakes provided a problem for forged steel from overseas, but machined cockpit to accommodate a larger driver. here in Australia. said has nearly every bar possible included With that, we were able to buy an off-thethe team at Riverside, however, as the in its design to ensure Woodman remains shelf Tilton unit, a 900 Series billet box.” safe. Traction control is permittable in Sports The other safety mechanisms include Sedans, so Woodman utilises a 10-position a Supercars-specification Racetech seat traction control set-up that runs through made out of carbon and kevlar, with a the ECU and has helped immensely back mount built in. A six-point Willans putting power to the ground. harness keeps Woodman strapped in, “We first ran the traction control system while a Sparco steering wheel features at the start of last year, just before the first the essential buttons for traction control, round, and we’re really happy with it. It’s the starter button and radio, plus one for a just enough to knock the edge off the car recently fitted electric water bottle. to not make it aggressive. A Motec dash provides Woodman “Anything like first, second or third gear, it with all the key details on how the car is goes flat out into wheelspin in any of those functioning. gears.” The pedal box, especially with all the Now to the key developmental area – the change of layout, is normally a customaerodynamics. made item, but there was more room to A new body was designed for the play with because of the positioning of the car in 2016 to take advantage of new engine within the chassis, so an off-thefreedoms in terms of wings, diffusers and shelf item was fitted. canards. Riverside decided to mould a “Because we had a bit of room building new carbon body at the same time, as
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BMW
M3 SPORTS SEDAN ENGINE
Chevrolet SB2 NASCAR V8 with tweaked camshaft, raised compression, fuel-injected, 6.0L displacement, 30 per cent engine setback
ELECTRONICS
Motec M150 ECU with traction control
SUSPENSION Supercars-based Ohlins shock absorbers modified by Race Engineering Services, blade adjustable anti-roll bars front and rear manufactured by Riverside Racing
DRIVETRAIN
Rear-wheel drive, Holinger RD6S six-speed sequential paddleshift gearbox, live axle, nineinch differential, Holinger LSD
BRAKES
Front: AP Racing 390mm rotors, AP Racing 6-piston calipers Rear: AP Racing 355mm rotors, AP Racing 4-piston calipers
SAFETY
Custom chrome-moly rollcage, Racetech carbon and kevlar race seat, Willans six-point harness, Sparco steering wheel
WHEELS
Riverside Racing custom 18x12 at the front and 18x13 on the rear, Hankook control tyres
JOHN BOWE DRIVES IT LAST YEAR to help develop the beast, Shane Woodman handed the keys to his prized BMW M3 Sports Sedan to none other than Australian Touring Car Champion and Bathurst winner John Bowe. To say Bowe was impressed is an understatement, the Touring Car Masters frontrunner left in awe after driving the machine. “The boys from Riverside Racing, I know them very well. They are very clever and what I call 'unheralded heroes' in the sport because they are not in Supercars, (so) they’re not well known,” said Bowe of the initial connection. “They asked me to go for a drive in it to see what I thought of it. The first drive was at Winton (and) there were a couple of little issues with it. James McCabe helps out with all the engineering, who I know quite well because he helps out with Maranello Motorsport, and another person, who is under the radar and smart. “Then I had another drive at Sydney Motorsport Park on practice day at Muscle Car Masters. It is a fantastic car and I was so
Beaton completed an analysis on the aero properties of the body shape. This was a massive job, which was advantageous because it reduced the weight by 50kg and the direction led by Beaton has proven to be successful, and more teams have followed in their footsteps. “That aero really helped the car, but
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surprised because the last Sports Sedan I drove was in 1980, and it wasn’t great.” Bowe lamented that racing has become more and more controlled, with Sports Sedans left as one of the few categories that still allow a large number of freedoms. “This thing is great. Sports Sedans are the last frontier of expression in motor sport, in a world where everything is almost spec or parity, these things are very open slather,” Bowe told Auto Action. Reflecting on the car, Bowe had few, if any, bad things to say about it – except the heat in the cabin – and he was surprised by how well the car performed. “In terms of enjoyment and how shocked I was at how good it was, it’s right up there with the best of them,” Bowe enthused. “It’s a terrifically innovative motor car, it's really well executed, well engineered, well built, it’s just a clever car.” HM
now everyone is starting to go down that path and it’s an exciting direction for the category as well," says Hill. "I think it’s something that fans are quite interested in.” The car features a flat floor from the front axle to the leading edge of the rear wheels, a rear diffuser, and front venturi set-ups,
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which Hill describes as quite elaborate. The car is still in its development phase as further competition in the category continues to emerge, but the BMW is beginning to hit its stride. However, Hill admits there are still plenty of things to tick off the list. “It’s a bespoke race car and you have to
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AERODYNAMICS
Swan Neck rear spoiler, rear diffuser, front venturis, flat floor
Length 4792mm Width 1950mm Weight 1200kg with driver BODY
Carbon-fibre body, spaceframe chassis
The interior is very different to Sports Sedans of the past, with the gearstick to shortly be replaced with paddles (below left). The two engines used contain many NASCAR parts.
find the direction. To try and go down the right path, it doesn’t always happen, but with this car the direction is right, though it has been a huge amount of development to get it to this point. “It's something that doesn’t stop; there are a couple of lists after every race weekend – the wish list and the fix list.”
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Formula One
Round 2 Bahrain
BITTER DISAPPOINTMENT
Charles Leclerc suffers the agony of losing what should have been his first Grand Prix victory reports Dan Knutson THE WAY Charles Leclerc handled himself with such mature dignity after cruel fate intervened to rob him of victory in Bahrain, makes him a winner. He is only beginning his second season in Formula 1, yet he started from pole in his Ferrari, twice overtook his teammate Sebastian Vettel, and left Mercedes drivers Lewis Hamilton and Valtteri Bottas in his wake. But a turbo failed with about 10 laps to go and Leclerc had to nurse the car to the finish line. At least he was still third and became the first Monégasque driver to stand on an F1 podium since Louis Chiron in 1950 at Monaco. “Today was not our day,” said Leclerc, who had earned his first F1 pole the day before. “It’s sad because obviously I was so close of realising a dream that you have since childhood, which is your first win in Formula 1 – but hopefully this day will come one day in the future. I’ll work for that.” Daniel Ricciardo and his Renault teammate Nico Hülkenberg didn’t have the luxury of nursing their cars home. They were running 10th and 6sixh respectively when, bizarrely, both their engines failed at the same time. Lots of disappointment in the Renault camp as well, in Bahrain. A race driver will never turn down a victory, but Hamilton was also disappointed to
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be handed the win. He would rather fight for it. Bottas finished second and now leads Hamilton by a single point in the drivers’ championship. Ricciardo was the only driver to pit only once for new tyres. It turned out to be a mistake and the Aussie faded back from sixth to 10th before he retired. “A lot happened in this race,” he said. “Initially it looked like we had not bad pace, and we then committed to a one stop. But as we got deeper into that first stint, I could tell that the tyres were struggling a lot. It felt like the one stop was too optimistic. In hindsight for sure a two stop would have been better. Towards the end the others were coming through and I couldn’t do much to defend. It was sad because I wanted to put up more of a fight. When I tried to out brake them it was quite difficult. I struggled a lot to preserve those tyres to the end. Then Nico and I had MGU-K problems. A crazy coincidence at the same time and same corner. Really, really strange. A very up and down race. A lot happened.” Hamilton and Mercedes had expected a
Daniel Ricciardo’s one stop strategy was a mistake. Then the MGU-K failed.
very, race. very very tough race “Clearly the Ferraris had been quick all weekend,” Hamilton said. “Charles (Leclerc) had been incredibly rapid all weekend and was quickest in all sessions and truly deserved the win. I got a terrible start once again, which is a bit disappointing, as I’ve put a lot of work in to try and improve those. You fall down and you just keep going, get back up and I’ll keep trying. After that, I think it was up and down clearly throughout the race. We were very lucky today to get the 1-2 as a team. Ferrari had out-performed us from the get-go.” Leclerc had felt very comfortable out in front.
“The car felt amazing,” he said. “There was quite a lot of wind, which “T was extremely tricky, especially out of w TTurn 4. So it was a very difficult race. I hhad to stay on it absolutely every lap. IIt was very enjoyable, especially in tthe first part of the race when I had tto catch back the position lost at the start.” He lost that position to Vettel who qualified second and led the for the first five laps. Vettel was running second and battling with Hamilton when he spun the Ferrari, probably due to a gust of wind. Then the
front wing tore itself off. “I lost the car very suddenly,” said Vettel, who wound up fifth behind Max Verstappen’s Red Bull. “Unfortunate that we had so much damage with the tyres that it caused the front wing to fail.” Honorable mention goes to rookie Lando Norris who finished sixth in his McLaren. “After getting tangled up early in the race and losing some positions, Lando’s drive to sixth place was perfectly judged with the right blend of determination, aggression, pace and tyre management,” said McLaren’s sporting director Gil de Ferran. While some race fans might have been disappointed for the problems that certain drivers encountered, they certainly were not disappointed with what was a very entertaining race that had
battles and incidents and overtaking and drama. Hülkenberg summed it up well: “Lap one was like a war zone. It was crazy, cars all over the place, contact, sparks, parts flying around. One hit my helmet. Everything was in that race, it was a spectacular race to be in. I did a lot of overtaking, which was fun.” Like the race in Melbourne two weeks earlier, the top dozen finishers contained a variety of midfield teams with McLaren, Alfa Romeo and Racing Point all in the mix. Renault and Haas should have been there as well. The true hero and the moral winner in Bahrain was Leclerc. “He did an incredible job this weekend and he’s got a beautiful, bright future ahead of him,” Hamilton said, “so this will only make him stronger.”
Alexander Albon was impressive all weekend, scoring his first World Championship points.
Charles Leclerc twice passed Ferrari teammate Vettal (above left), while Lando Norris impressed again with a strong run to sixth for McLaren (above). Teammate Carlos Sainz contended too but a clash with Max Verstappen damaged the McLaren (top) and put him out.
RESULTS ROUND 2: BAHRAIN GRAND PRIX Pos 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 -
Driver Lewis Hamilton Valtteri Bottas Charles Leclerc Max Verstappen Sebastian Vettel Lando Norris Kimi Raikkonen Pierre Gasly Alexander Albon Sergio Perez Antonio Giovinazzi Daniil Kvyat Kevin Magnussen Lance Stroll George Russell Robert Kubica Nico Hulkenberg Daniel Ricciardo Carlos Sainz Jr. Romain Grosjean
Car Mercedes Mercedes Ferrari Red Bull/Honda Ferrari McLaren/Renault Alfa Romeo/Ferrari Red Bull/Honda Toro Rosso/Honda Racing Point/Mercedes Alfa Romeo/Ferrari Toro Rosso/Honda Haas/Ferrari Racing Point/Mercedes Williams/Mercedes Williams/Mercedes Renault Renault McLaren/Renault Haas/Ferrari
Laps 57 57 57 57 57 57 57 57 57 57 57 56 56 56 56 55 53 53 53 16
Gap 1h34m21.295s 2.980s 6.131s 6.408s 36.068s 45.754s 47.470s 58.094s 1m02.697s 1m03.696s 1m04.599s 1 Lap 1 Lap 1 Lap 1 Lap 2 Laps Power Unit Not running Not running Retirement
POINTS: Bottas 44, Hamilton 43, Versatppen 27, Leclerc 26, Vettel 22, Raikkonen 10, Norris 8, Magnussen 8, Hulkenberg 6, Gasly 4, Albon 2, Stroll 2, Kvyat 1. Constructors’: Mercedes 87, Ferrari 48, Red Bull-Honda 31, Alfa Romeo-Ferrari 10, McLaren-Reanult 8, Haas-Ferrari 8, Renault 6, Toro Rosso-Honda, Racing PointMercedes 3, Williams-Mercedes 0.
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46WRC AutoAction FEATURE
NEUVILLE OPENS ACCOUNT AFTER WATCHING his 2019 title rivals Ott Tanak and Sebastien Ogier take victories, Hyundai’s Thierry Neuville capitalised on a puncture for event-long leader Elfyn Evans on the final test, to win the fourth round of the World Rally Championship in Corsica. Neuville comfortably beat home Ogier by 40.3s to win in Corsia, with a disappointed Evans finishing third. Evans was the surprise leader at the conclusion of Day 1, this was despite being delayed on the final stage of the day by a limping Kris Meeke, dropping 11s and plunging to third, giving Tanak the advantage. However, officials credited Evans with the same time as the championship leader, restoring his 4.5s margin at the head of the table. It was a rightful end to the day after a seesaw battle between the duo throughout the leg, Tanak leading throughout the morning section only for a damper issue to arise and give Evans the advantage in the afternoon. Neuville trailed Tanak by 5.3s, the Belgian struggling with the handling of his Hyundai i20, but closed the day with a stage victory. Another to struggle was his teammate Dani Sordo who was third for much of the morning, but his pace dropped away and he fell to a distant fourth. To confirm Ford’s strong performance, Teemu Suninen was fifth ahead of Citroen’s leader Ogier. Another to struggle, the sixtime World Rally Champion spun on the opening stage and had understeer issues throughout the day, as did teammate Esapakka Lappi, languishing in seventh. The first victim of the WRC weekend was a surprise, with Sebastien Loeb sliding into a kerb and damaging his rear suspension, losing two-minutes on his way to eighth. The final stage again proved pivotal on Day 2, this time it was Neuville that conquered the test 16s faster than Evans to snatch a 4.5s advantage into the final leg. It came after Tanak fell out of the lead battle when he picked up a puncture on the penultimate stage, losing two-minutes and all hope of adding to his victory in
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Thierry Neuville was a surprise winner in Corsica (above left) as a puncture on the final stage robbed Elfyn Evans of victory (above right). Sweden. Evans and Tanak renewed their battle from the opening day with Tanak again took the early advantage before disaster struck for the Estonian with the margin now a mere 1.6s. In a comeback worthy of a world champion, Ogier moved from sixth to third, but still sat 40.8s adrift of Evans in second. Behind, Suninen maintained fifth, 42.2s behind Sordo and 22.4s ahead of Tanak. Lappi and Loeb’s rally failed to improve, another rare mistake from the nine-time world champion lost him further time when he slid into a ditch. Meeke and Jari-Matti Latvala both struggled with punctures and closed out Sebastien Ogier had his share of dramas but staged a comeback to second.
the leaderboard. The final day belonged to Evans as he extended his overnight margin, but a puncture on the final test lost the Brit 90s and sent him back to third, an impressive display regardless. “It’s difficult to accept but it’s the nature of the sport,” he said. “I think it happened on a straight piece of road, a hole or piece of stone that had lifted. I felt it straightaway but tried to drive on it to see if we could minimise the time loss.” Neuville believed he had finished second while on route to the podium celebrations, but once he had arrived, he realised that he had snatched his opening win for the year.
“I tried to contact the team to get information, but we were unsure if we had won or not,” said Neuville. “Arriving at the podium I saw my mechanics and only then I understood we had. “I’m really disappointed for Elfyn, who did a really good job, but we deserved it as well. It was a great battle.” Rounding out the results were Sordo, who struggled with brake problems, Suninen, Tanak, Lappi, Loeb, Meeke and Latvala. Neuville holds a two-point advantage heading to Rally Argentina on April 25-28. Points: Neuville 82, Ogier 80, Tanak 77, Evans 43, Meeke 42, Lappi 26, Loeb 22, Sordo 16, Latvala 15, Suninen 14 .
FORMULA E
AUSTRALIA’S LARGEST SUPPLIER OF HIGH PERFORMANCE ENGINE PARTS!
Jean-Eric Vergne took a crucial win.
DEFENDING CHAMP TAKES CHINA VICTORY REIGNING FORMULA E champion Jean-Eric Vergne won the Sanya ePrix in China, becoming the sixth different race winner in as many races and propelling the Frenchman from 11th to third in the standings. Vergne started the race in second position behind Nissan e-DAMS driver Oliver Rowland, who scored his first pole position, while championship leader Sam Bird started the race down in 16th. Rowland made a great start and comfortably led into Turn 1, while Vergne struggled to get off the line and had to defend from Antonio Felix da Costa and Daniel Abt, who made side-to-side contact with each other around the corner, with da Costa holding onto third. Before the first lap was completed, Bird was out of the race – and the series lead – after colliding with Stoffel Vandoorne. Felipe Nasr was still stationary on the grid, so a full course yellow was called, but just as it was deployed he managed to get going, though nearly a lap behind the leaders. With 31 minutes remaining, Vergne closed right onto the back of Rowland, forcing the young Englishman to defend into Turns 8 and 9. The moves slowed the leading group and allowed Andre Lotterer to make it a six-car fight at the front. On lap 19 Vergne made a late
Victory in China launched Vergne into title contention.
lunge up the inside of Rowland to take the lead. Rowland looked up the inside at the following corner but was unable to get back through. Da Costa then made a move on Rowland into Turn 3 and again at Turn 5, but two robust defensive moves kept the Portuguese driver at bay. On the following lap Vergne used his first Attack Mode, coming out alongside Rowland but holding onto the lead around the inside of Turn 4. Lotterer and Sims, fighting for fifth, went side by side around Turn 5, but into Turn 6 Sims slid wide and clouted the wall suffering damage and forcing him to come to a stop on the circuit. The Safety Car was called. Under the Safety Car, Rowland, da Costa, Abt and Lotterer became the last drivers to use their first Attack Mode, but
Oliver Rowland started on pole, but the Englishman was unable to keep the lead.
th turned out to be a waste this b because seconds later the race w red-flagged. was After the stoppage, racing re resumed behind the Safety Car, th top five drivers choosing to the us their final Attack Modes. use T race returned to green The w 10 minutes remaining, and with a few minutes later Lotterer m made a clean move at the Turn 8 ha hairpin to take fourth from Audi dr driver Abt. R Rowland also began applying the pressure on Vergne, the DS Techeetah driver cleanly defending from the Brit. de Sebastien Buemi had fought his way up to eighth after starting the race from the pit lane, but attempting a move on Robin Frijns into Turn 8 Buemi made heavy contact into the rear of Frijns, sending him firing into Lucas di Grassi. Frijns and di Grassi were unable to finish the race, and Buemi received a 10-second penalty, demoting him from sixth to eighth. A full-course yellow was deployed, allowing Vergne to cruise to the line ahead of Rowland and da Costa, who took the championship lead by the slim margin of one point. POINTS: Da Costa 62, d’Ambrosio 61, Vergne 54, Bird 54, di Grassi 52, Mortara 52, Abt 44, Frijns 43, Lotterer 41, Wehrlein 36
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INDYCAR 48 AutoAction FEATURE
HERTA MAKES HISTORY Colton Herta crosses the line to create history, left, but Will Power can consider himself unlucky to have missed victory, below.
INDYCAR ROOKIE Colton Herta made history in the second round of the 2019 series at the Circuit of the Americas by becoming the youngest winner of an IndyCar race. At 18 years, 11 months and 25 days, Herta beat the previous mark of 19 years, 3 months and 2 days for Graham Rahal – also the son of a former IndyCar winner – in 2017. Herta took the chequered flag 2.7182s ahead of series leader Josef Newgarden (Team Penske), with Andretti Autosport’s Ryan Hunter-Reay rounding out the podium. After taking his second successive pole position, the race was again disappointing for Australian Will Power. The Team Penske driver suffered first at the hands of the only full-course caution of the race, which caused the pit lane to close and put he, Scott Dixon and Alexander Rossi at a disadvantage. The trio were passed by every unlapped competitor when they pitted. And that wasn’t the end of the drama because Power failed to exit pit lane, a suspected driveshaft issue ending a miserable final quarter of the race for the reigning Indy 500 winner. Up until the safety car, Power had dominated from pole ahead of Rossi and Herta, who had overtaken Hunter-Reay at the start. A casualty on the opening lap was Zach Veach, who damaged his suspension in a clash with Rahal. After fighting off the advances of Herta, Rossi mounted an attack on Power on lap 3 at Turn 1, but the Australian defended ended well and resumed lapping consistently. Meanwhile, Hunter-Reay Reay had dropped 3.5s off the back of the lead trio until he pitted on lap 11 and was overtaken by a charging ng Newgarden on used red ed tyres, having pitted twoo laps earlier. Herta was the first off the lead trio to pit on lap 12, followed by Power, Rossi and Dixon a lap later. A fantastic out-lap by Herta elevated him to second, passing Rossi at Turn 1, and ut the youngster set about der. attacking the race leader.
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He couldn’t break away from Rossi, but the pair moved six seconds clear of Newgarden. After an impressive debut in St Petersburg, Felix Rosenqvist was finding the going a bit tougher at CoTA. He was sixth after leaving pit lane among traffic, but dropped down the leaderboard as Marcus Ericsson, James Hinchcliffe and Patricio O’Ward passed the Ganassi driver over three O’ consecutive consecutiv laps. Dixon had also come out in traffic and was way back in 13th. 13 Up front, front there was a change for second when Herta made ma a slight mistake, allowing Rossi to make a better be exit onto the back straight and use the push-to-pass boost to complete the pass before push-toTurn 12. 12 Rossi dropped Herta by three seconds before befor the latter pitted on lap 27. Two Tw laps after Herta pitted, Power and Rossi Ro followed suit, retaining the leading two positions, though Herta was well within p touching distance. The Harding Steinbrenner to Racing driver had bridged a 6.3s gap over R Newgarden as Ericsson sat fifth, a further Ne 4.5s in arrears. Rossi was now pressing Power as the Australian used the push-to-pass function functi to keep his narrow one-second margin, u his sparingly, having already used half while Rossi had to use amou of his allotted amount. Herta had been content to finish third until the race turned with a late-race safety car.
Reigning champion Dixon had been struggling, but hit a second wind during his third stint, climbing up to sixth just past the halfway mark. Herta had by now dropped back to 10s behind the lead duo, but the race was about to turn in his favour. A fullcourse caution arrived after an incident at Turn 20 between Rosenqvist and Hinchcliffe that sent the Swede into the inside wall while duelling for 10th. As the lead duo undertook service for the final time, the field passed them as well as Dixon, bringing to an end his charge. This gave Herta the lead and he held it to the end, defeating two IndyCar champions in the form of Newgarden and HunterReay to become the youngest winner in IndyCar history. “Just to be up with the names of people that have won a race, I’m going to live and die an IndyCar Series winner, which is spectacular in itself,” Herta said. “I didn’t think it was going to happen. Seems like Will [Power] and [Alexander] Rossi had a bit of a pace advantage on us. I thought the max we were going to get was third without a caution, but the caution came out. “On the restart, we were quick. I know we got the quickest lap on that first lap, which was pretty crazy to have the tyres up to temp and everything ready.” Newgarden now holds an 18-point lead in the IndyCar Series over Herta heading to the third round at Barber Motorsports Park on April 7. POINTS: Newgarden 93, Herta 78, Dixon 57, Rossi 53, Rahal 50, Power 47, Andretti 45, Hunter-Reay 42, Hinchcliffe 42, Rosenqvist 40
NASCAR
HAMLIN TAKES HARD FOUGHT VICTORY DENNY HAMLIN overcame two penalties to win the O’Reilly 500 at Texas Motor Speedway, (race 7 of the 2019 NASCAR Cup Series) after leading just 45 of the 334 laps. Hamlin’s Joe Gibbs Racing teammate Erik Jones caused the first caution after only 15 laps when he spun, but emerged without damage. This split the strategy as half the field took the opportunity to pit, whilst the rest completed the stop under green much later into the Stage. Jimmie Johnson led Joey Logano before they made their green flag stops, falling outside the top 20, but with 10 laps to go in the Stage, drivers who pitted under the Safety Car were forced to stop again for a second time for fuel, handing the Stage win to Logano ahead of Johnson. Stage 2 was clean throughout, the green flag stops beginning on lap 139 as Kurt Busch was the first to pit from fourth.
Many more stops were made before lap 149 when Kyle Larson hit the wall at Turn 2, leaving fluid all over the track as he returned to the pits in his smoking Chevrolet.
Dani Daniel Da aniel niel ni el SSuarez uarez ua rez (a re ((above) abo bovee) bove bo and Clint Bowyer, (below) were on the podium.
A long caution period occurred and all drivers who hadn’t stopped elected to do so, and it was Hamlin who left the lane first taking on only fuel. This strategic gamble allowed Hamlin to take the stage win, finishing just ahead of Kyle Busch and Ryan Blaney. Blaney elected not to stop in the break between the stages and led the field away on the restart. Hamlin and Kevin Harvick were penalised for uncontrolled tyres during their stops and had to restart from the back of the pack on lap 178. On lap 218 Blaney was the first to stop. The race was running smoothly until his car started to pour with smoke, forcing him to retire. After all the green flag stops were made, Suarez found himself in the lead ahead of Kyle Busch, Clint Bowyer and Aric Almirola.
L 255 saw Daniel Hemric spin Lap int the wall at Turn 2 to bring out a caution. into Mo of the leaders pitted under the caution, Most tho Almirola, Jones and Chase Elliot stayed though ou out. A pitting under caution it took Kyle Busch After jus three laps to find his way to the front of the just fie again. field W 60 laps to go Busch ran wide and fell With ba to fourth, before touching the wall a few back lap later, forcing him to pit for repairs, he laps fin finished the race 10th. This left Jones in the le with 50 laps to go ahead of Hamlin and lead Alm Almirola. C Chase Elliott was first to make his final stop from fifth on lap 295. On lap 304 Hamlin was in the lead but yet to stop. When he eventually made his stop he used his Stage 2 tactic of fuel and no tyres to emerge in the lead. He held on to win by 2.7s from Bowyer, Suarez, Jones and Johnson. The previous race at Martinsville was won by Brad Keselowski, who beat Elliot by 0.5s, the Penske driver taking maximum points as he was able to win all three stages. In Texas, however, he failed to finish with a mechanical failure. Points: Ky Busch 301, Hamlin 302, Harvick 277, Logano 275, Almirola 245, Keselowski 237, Truex Jr 232, Blaney 219, Elliott 218, Ku Busch 213. Denny Hamlin revelled in the Victory Lane festivities.
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s w e n Y A SPEEDW Image: Geoff Rounds
JACK BELL continued his handy season form and eventually grabbed victory in the 65 Roses Formula 500 50-lapper at Murray Bridge. The Warrnambool ace received some close attention from NSW youngster and runner-up Lachlan Caunt in the dying laps, but Bell proved too good. Brothers Ash and Dale Sinclair finished third and fourth, with Chris Bellman in fifth.
Image: Nelson Photography
GEELONG RACER Scott Whittle led all 35 laps to win his sixth Victorian Speedway Council Standard Saloon title at Nyora Raceway. He defeated Marcus Reddecliffe by five seconds, followed by Aaron Marshall, Nick Christie and Andrew O’Connell, who came from 14th on the grid. Whittle donated his prizemoney to the Bunyip Bushfire Appeal. Also on the program was the Speedway Sedans Victoria Juniors Top Stars final, which was won by Courtney Meakins from Harry Orme and Rhys Meakins, and the New Stars top three were Kiarna Barton, Jayden Bryant and Linken Paterson. IT WAS a lockout for the Storer brothers in the 2019 South Australian Wingless Championship. Daniel Storer beat home his brother Luke, the current Victorian Wingless champion, and third was outgoing SA titleholder Joel Chadwick, who led 25 laps of the 30-lap feature. TRAVIS MILLAR proved too good in the annual Stonyford 5000 at Mid-Western Speedway, Darlington. Millar defeated Phil Micallef and Matt Bartlett in the 25-lap feature, while in the Tasmanian Wingless title Luke Redpath went back-to-back to win from polesitter Jeremy Smith and Bradley Walkley. Image: 44Photography
JAI STEPHENSON successfully defended his Victorian V8 Dirt Modified Title at Moama’s Heartland Raceway. He won the pole shootout for the 30-lap feature race and then quickly pulled away from the field in the feature and was never headed. Mark Robinson came from eighth to finish second, with Paul Tindal putting in the best performance of his career to clinch the final podium spot. Former Victorian champion Scott Cannon and Joshua Rose completed the top-five finishers.
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BEARE CLAWS TO HISTORY ANTHONY BEARE has again shown why he is the most successful sedan driver in Australian speedway racing history. Just as he’s done time and again, the Mount Gambier driver added both the 2019 Australian and Victorian Street Stock Championships to his amazing racing resume, held over consecutive weekends. It was Beare’s 25th state title and his fifth national title. He has won more championships than any other speedway Australian driver. Up against a field of 132 entrants for the national title, Beare in his VF Commodore used his front row start to lead most of the 40-lap final and record a comfortable win from Mick Dann and Darren Giacometti at Timmis Speedway, Mildura. “We took a gamble on the set-up and got it right. I ran hard against the wall for the whole race,” Beare said. “I was asked if I was sick of winning, but I am already thinking of Tasmania in 2020. I’m already trying to work
out what we can do to make this (car) good.” In the Victorian title, Beare didn’t quite have everything his own way in the final, with former Australian Champion and current NSW champion Rhys Heinrich pushing him for the duration of the race and even leading some of it. “I was never confident, even on the last corner,” Beare said. “I had nothing left. “It took everything just to keep up with him, let alone to pass him again. So it was just picking the best line through the holes. But it made the track racier. “Extremely good car maintenance is the most underused thing in our class, and never give up until the chequered flag.” Beare will park his Street Stock until the new speedway season, as his focus shifts to circuit racing. “Nash Harris has given me an opportunity to race his saloon car for the season, so there are rounds at Phillip Island in May, Winton in June and Sandown in July, so that will still keep us pretty busy.”
FARR FIRST TO 60 RO ROBBIE OBBIE BBIE E FARR’S FAR ARR’ R’S R’ S superb supe su perb bs season easo on continued when the veteran driver raced to an emphatic victory in the historic ‘60 for 60 for 60’ Ultimate Sprintcar SA Spectacular at Murray Bridge Speedway. Presented by The Rural City of Murray Bridge to celebrate 60 years of racing at the famous venue, the inaugural 60-lap affair saw Farr victorious over a fast -finishing Brad Keller in second and James McFadden in third. Farr pocketed the $15,000 winner’s cheque from winning the A-Main and will look to defend his title, with organisers announcing that the corresponding weekend in 2020 will see the second annual running of the ‘60’. The meeting will also again feature Wingless Sprints in a similar concept over two nights.
Just Just a week wee eek k later, latter la te Farr Farrr was was lured lu lure back to the Bridge with the chance of a winning a possible $100,000 for winning main events in all three categories – the Sprintcars, Late Models and Speedcars – but he fell just short. Farr finished with a pair of second places and a fourth after driving a total of 150 laps across the three categories of the Ultimate Speedway Challenge. “I’m not looking to doing that again, but it’s a bucket list item ticked for sure,” Farr said. “Who said an old man couldn’t do 60 laps? “I can’t thank my guys enough – they gave me a great car. “We were a bit worried about what the track might do, but it hung in a lot longer than we thought it would.”
Image: Ray Ritter
Image: Richard Hathaway
CALCULATED COREY’S SRA CROWN MANDERS GRABS AUSSIE GOLD
Image: Geoff Rounds
SOME SERIOUS number crunching was needed before Corey McCullagh was eventually crowned the 2018-19 Sprintcar Racing Association series champion. McCullagh, who bowed out early in the 30-lap feature , finished the final aggregate with 3159 points – 54 clear of runner-up Bobby Daly and 55 ahead of third placegetter Brayden Parr.
Charles Hunter, who held a 26-point buffer entering the final round at Premier Speedway, Warrnambool, finished fourth after a heat crash dashed his chances. McCullagh said he was happy to win for car owner Domain Ramsay in his Indy Race Parts machine and pocket the $10,000 bonus. “It feels pretty cool,” he told Fairfax Media. “We were lucky to get it done; you’d hate to
lose it by 10 or something points.” Darren Mollenoyux won the A-Main from fellow Warrnambool competitor Jamie Veal and Albury’s Grant Anderson. Final SRA standings: McCullagh 3159, Daly 3105, Parr 3104, Hunter 3060, Rankin 3031, Milburn 2767, Farrer 2749, Jones 2707, Charge 2598, Wren 2577.
NICOLA’S IN A GOLD RUSH FOR MANY years, Peter Nicola has failed to finish the annual Super Sedan Gold Rush. But this year, in his final season in the class, he finally struck it rich and not only finished but won the prestigious race held at Rushworth Speedway in eastern Victoria. In a glittering career for the 51-year-old Traralgon driver, who has collected three Victorian titles, a Queensland title and four K-Rock Cups, the Gold Rush seemed elusive. “I can’t express how much of a relief it was just to finish a Gold Rush event, let alone win it,” Nicola said. In last year’s event, Nicola topped the point standings until mechanical issues stopped his run. This year he collected a pair of runner-up placings in his qualifying heats and lined up on the outside of polesitter Neil Witnish. The 35-lap final didn’t go quite to plan for Nicola, getting tagged by another competitor, which caused him to spin. He then had to play the waiting game and eventually settled into second place behind Witnish.
Image: 44Photography
Image: Rock Solid Productions
With just two laps remaining, Nicola made his move and grabbed the lead off Witnish, then pulled clear to claim the victory from Witnish and Jamie Collins. Nicola pocketed $2500 for his efforts and is now looking forward to the new season, when he moves to the popular Late Models. “It definitely felt like a last-chance race ahead of my transition into Late Models, but we just decided to focus on our set-up and strategy and that’s ultimately what won it for us.” MEANWHILE, at Whyalla Speedway, the 2019 Super Sedan Championship was run and won by Ryan Alexander from Dave Gartner and Mick Nicola Snr, and there was drama aplenty in the Tasmanian Super Sedan title at Latrobe Speedway, but in the end Adam Beechey powered away from pole position to beat Wayne Dillon and Laura Davidson.
ULTIMATE SPEEDWAY CHALLENGE REWARDS THE ULTIMATE Speedway Challenge came to a thrilling conclusion with three of Australia’s best winning the final rounds at Murray Bridge Speedway. Matt Egel, Kaidon Brown and Clayton Pyne were jubilant winners of the Sprintcar, Speedcar and Late Model main events. Egel had some redemption after a big wreck at the same venue a week earlier in the #97 Downing Brothers entry to defeat Farr and Brad Keller in the Sprintcars A-Main. “It’s so good to get a win for (car owners) Darryl and Mike; they worked their butts off to get this car back after the damage of last weekend. I can’t thank them enough for the opportunity to drive their car and proud to get this win,” Egel said.
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Former Australian Speedcar champion Kaidon Brown broke through for another win at the South Australian venue, leading home Farr and Victorian Travis Mills. “I felt good in the car and, after I was able to get a break on Travis and go after Robbie, I knew I had to just settle down and hit my marks,” Brown said. “I love racing here and of course winning makes it even better.” Clayton Pyne was able to blast the top of the racing line and eventually moved away to defeat Tasmanian Callum Harper in the Late Models feature. “To be honest, that was one of the best races and the best wins of my career,” Pyne said after his big win. “This is honestly such a great result for our team, and so satisfying personally.”
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KAIDEN MANDERS has gone backto-back by winning the Australian 360 Sprintcar Australian Championship at Kalgoorlie International Speedway. The Perth driver becomes just the second driver to win multiple national championships in the 360 class and joins four-time champion Ryan Jones of South Australia. Manders led all 40 laps from the pole in the 15th running of the title, defeating fellow front row starter Tim Van Ginneken from Warrnambool, who trailed Manders in a see-sawing race. Third was Ben Butcher. “We worked really hard all weekend. We had the car speed and we did enough to get across the line. Luckily we had the car underneath us to get there. We might put a little number one sticker on it – we’ll see on that,” Manders said. The 2020 Championship will return to the Australian east coast in 2020, when Simpson Speedway in Western Victoria hosts the title. It will be the first time Victoria has held the event since the inaugural championship was won by Stephen Bell at Timmis Speedway, Mildura in 2004.
Image: Ray Ritter
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MANN’S BRILLIANT BRISBANE WIN BRYAN MANN withstood a late race challenge to win the 13th round of the East Coast Logistics Sprintcar Series over 35 laps at Brisbane’s Archerfield Speedway. Mann drove brilliantly from his 10th starting position to lead home fastfinishing Lachlan McHugh, who came from a deep 13th start. Third was Randy Morgan, who led early in the race. Across in South Australia, Ryan Jones used his front row start to advantage to win the 2019 Ross Wright Memorial at Murray Bridge Speedway from Mark Caruso and Daniel Evans. Fresh from a stint with the World Series Sprintcars tour, Rusty Hickman made the most of the valuable experience to claim his first Victorian 360 Sprintcar Title at Simpson Speedway. Hickman,19, who has had a remarkable season, started the 25lap A-Main from the front row with veteran Matthew Reed. Hickman had to overcame a small mistake, which almost let Reed take control of the race, but kept a level head and before long was back in clean air to beat home Reed and Michael Tancredi.
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p ra w S L A N NATIO ONE WINNER BACKS UP THE TASMANIAN Circuit Racing Championships have been thrown wide open in most categories following the second round at Baskerville on March 24. Only one driver was able to back up a first round win with a second round victory.
IMPROVED PRODUCTION, HISTORIC TOURING CARS
REIGNING STATE champion Scott Cordwell (Holden Torana) again dominated after clean sweeping the season opener. He has won every race in Historic Touring Cars this year while Improved Production’s Leigh Forrest (Toyota Celica Turbo), Matthew Grace (Nissan 200SX) and Jared House (Holden Torana L34) dominated the races for outright. House suffered tyre and brake issues later in the day and dropped off the pace, while Grace was able to outlast Forrest for the round win. Forrest was second on the day and maintained the championship lead.
Ashlin was innocently tangled, but pulled up short of the fence and was able to continue to finish sixth behind Toth, who won the round with three third placings in both heats and the handicap race.
HYUNDAI EXCELS
HQ HOLDENS
AFTER A disappointing opening round, Andrew Toth bounced back to take the honours on a day when all eyes were on defending champion Phil Ashlin. His brother Shane, who also raced HQs, passed away in December, with this round Phil Ashlin’s return. The first race was preceded by a tribute parade lap, with him driving his late brother’s car.
Still wearing his brother’s helmet, Ashlin jumped into his own car and won the first heat after an intense battle with Andrew Bird in what was an emotional victory. Ashlin also won the second heat
and looked set for a fairytale finish, with a great battle with Toth and Bird in the double points final. With two laps to go, a mistake from Bird saw him leave the track, with heavy contact with the fence.
EXCITING 16 year-old Josh Webster turned the tables on two-time champion Peter Kemp in his first clean sweep in the category, after shadowing Kemp for the best part of the past two seasons. The round victory for Webster also gave him the championship lead. Grant Seamer continued on from his solid opening round form to claim third overall for the day again.
SPORTS GTs
THERE WAS plenty of exciting racing between
CYLCONE BRINGS WET START TO SEASON CYCLONE VERONICA had its impact at the start of the Shannons North Australian Motor Sport Club (NAMSC) Pointscore Championship opening round at Hidden Valley on March 24. Later in the day conditions did dry out.
IMPROVED PRODUCTION
IN HIS new Holden Commodore VE, Rodney Jessup mastered the conditions best, taking pole in the wet and going on to win all three races. In race one and two, he finished ahead of
John Newman (Toyota Corolla KE35) while Jake Burgess was third. Barry Smith (Commodore) retired after four laps of race one with fuel pump dramas which plagued him in the second outing where Graham Craig (BMW E30) and Evan Bartlett (Ford Falcon AU) were fourth and fifth.
Jessup rounded out the day with a three peat also taking the over 2.0-litre honours as Burgess filled second ahead of Newman who was the U2L winner.
HQ HOLDENS
THE EXPERIENCE of Steven Ling won out over Stavros Mostris as the pair battled over the three races in what was a small field. Making his debut, Rossi Johnson stayed out of trouble in the tricky conditions to fill third spot.
COMMODORE CUP
Image: Tim Nicol Photography
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IT WAS not the season start that Geoff Cowie wanted. In heavy rain he speared off at the end of the main straight and smacked a concrete heavily. These conditions continued through the opening race where Brad Fullwood won ahead of David Ling while the rest treaded warily. The track was drying by the time race two was underway with Ling and Fullwood joined by Ian Roots and Alan Langworthy. As something of a forerunner to an enduro later in the year, race three saw Fullwood and Langworthy battle intensely after Ling dropped back with diff issue and Roots fired off at the sweeper. After several lead changes, Fullwood crossed the finish line 0.42s ahead of Langworthy. Ling held on for third and Roots recovered to head Shane Smith in his new purchase’s first outing.
Image: John Lemm
THE FINAL MILE Image: Angryman Photography
Stephen Noble (Nissan 350Z) and Peter O’Keefe (Mazda RX-7 SP), with Noble only lowering his colours in the second heat, but winning all other races, including the doublepoints final, to move into the championship lead. Reigning Sports GTB champion Tim Mann (Ford Falcon TE50) returned to racing after missing the first round, to win every race, propelling himself right back into the championship battle. GTC honours went to reigning GTA champion Scott Smith, who swapped his Porsche GT3 for a Porsche 964,
scoring a perfect four from four.
FORMULA VEES
THREE-TIME AUSTRALIAN champion Wade McLean (Elliott) missed the first round but return with his best form, winning all four races. But he was made work hard for every win following some great dices with Richard Gray (Jabiru) who finished second in three races, including the double-points final, while Justin Murphy (Polar) trailed the leaders for most of the day. MARTIN AGATYN
THIS YEAR’S leventh running of the Mount Alma Mile hillclimb on March 30-31 will be the last. The course used for the hillclimb is a closed public road running through sheep country in Inman Valley near Victor Harbor on the South Australian south coast. It is a fast and steep 1.6km long track that is the state’s largest hillclimb and usually caters for around 160 competitors. The Ashby family, who own the land through which the road travels, has informed the organisers, Ultimate Motorsport Events that this year will be the last time that their property will be able to
be used. They have expanded their land holding across the lower South East and into Eyre Peninsula, giving them no time to manage the impact the event has on their home property. Ultimate Motorsport Events thanks the Ashby family for their generous support over the eleven years that they have allowed their property to be used. Victoria’s Kevin Mackrell has won five of the last 10 hillclimbs at Mount Alma in his Chevrolet-powered four-wheel drive Datsun 260Z. John Lemm
DEAN WINS SPRINT LAKE MOUNTAIN Sprint on March 2324 was the final round of the 2018-19 Australian Tarmac Rally Championship, and it was taken out by Craig Dean and Mary Hughes piloting their Showroom 2WD Shelby Mustang. They won the two-day event by 2mins 9s ahead of Dean Lillie and Steve Glenney (Modern 2WD Holden HSV GTO), with Tim Hendy and Julie Winton-Monet (Contemporary Porsche GT3 RS) next another 1min 16.7s away. That third place gave Hendy his third drivers’ title and Winton-Monet her first outright as a navigator. Finishing in fourth position were Anthony Moss and Julie Hunter (Modern 4WD Mitsubishi EVO X) ahead of Keith and Alex Morling, who took out Classic in their Ford Escort RS1800. Next were Craig Haysman and Julie Boorman (Early Modern 4WD Nissan Nismo 400R) ahead of Peter Gluskie and Samantha Winter (Classic BMW 325e). Eighth outright were Richard and Chris Perini (Showroom 2WD Dodge Viper) in front of Michael Minshall and Paul van der May (Showroom 4WD Audi TT RS) and Allan and Kerry Hines (EVO X), who were fifth until a puncture on final stage. The Lake Mountain Sprint climbed from the base of Marysville to the Lake Mountain summit on day one, then onto the Cumberland Junction on day two.
Setting the pace on Saturday were Danny Traverso and Jason Page (EVO IX) leading until the day’s final stage where they slipped to third with a blown gearbox but still ahead of Moss and Hendy. Traverso would take no further part nor would Barry Smith and Dale Moscatt (Audi TT RS) after blowing the turbo. Dean continued to lead from the start of day two, taking the first stage by 13s and the second by 5s. The Mustang driver faltered on the next, only placing fourth before storming through the last three stages with wins. Jeffrey Morton and Daymon Nicoli (Lotus Exige) put in some fast stage times but were never in the hunt after missing the first stage due to a blown fuse. Only completing the first stage were Steve Marek and Cindy Pearce in their Nissan Skyline GTR.
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NATIONALS wrap n compiled by garry o’brie
Image: Ian Colley
WINNER ON HOME RETURN AFTER HE missed the opening round due to being interstate for the opening rounds of the NSW Championship, Dean Tighe came home to take out Round 2 of the Tighe CAMS Queensland Hillclimb Series at Mt Cotton on March 23-24. Driving his F1 Judd-engined Dallara, Tighe failed to finish the first run when the front brakes failed and missed the second before putting in a series of sub-39s passes, including the FTD of 38.04s. That time was set in oppressive heat, with track temperatures at 51°C. It was a fraction under two seconds quicker than Formula Libre Over 1301cc class rival and secondplaced Michael Von Rappard (Dallara F392/ Hayabusa), who was plagued with a misfire that ruled him out of the second day.
Ed McCane (DJ Racecars Firehawk) finished third, 0.01s quicker than Round 1 winner Warwick Hutchinson (OMS 28 RPV03). James Milliner finished fifth overall in his Formula Libre Under 1300cc OMS 2000M, ahead of class rival David Quelch (Honda DPQ Special). Completing the top ten were Steven Woodbridge (Dallara F396), Brett Bull (Van Diemen RF03K), Greg Tebble (Group R Van Diemen FF2000) and Matt Read (Readster MTR1). Michael Larymore (Toyota MR2) and Mark
MARTIN BEATS THE HEAT
Image: David Jowett A NEW class record proved Garry Martin was back on form as he was the outright fastest in the third round of the Trydel Up & Go Victorian Hillclimb Championship at Mt Leura on March 23-24. With the recent hot and dry weather, the round came close to being postponed again this year, but negotiations for fire safety measures secured the use of the public road on the volcanic hill just in time. Martin set a new Formula Libre Under 1300cc benchmark of 27.83s to get back into title contention. “My problems at the last two rounds were due to using components that should have been in the bin,” he said after moving to second in the championship. Michael Bishop (Hayward 19) was just over a second off the pace to place second, his best result to date, but he drops to third.
Mike Barker (Hayward 06) hangs on to the championship lead after placing third and setting a new course record for Formula Libre 1301-2000cc. Fourth went to David Mahon (Ninja GA7) while Andrew Mizzi (GAK-Martin) had his best result with fifth, ahead of Wim Janssen (OMS), Fred Galli (SYGA SYGA) and David Harris (Subaru Impreza WRX), who was the fastest tin-top. In his Spectrum Formula Ford, Wesley Inkster finished ahead of Glen Latter, who rounded out the top ten in his Mazda RX7. There were no fewer than eight Minis competing, with three of them taking class wins. Steven Weymouth-Wilson leads a strong field in Historic Group N and continues to beat his father, Peter, in their shared car, while Ian Grinter made it three class wins in a row, finishing half a second ahead of nearest rival Maurice Harper in a Toyota Corolla. GARY HILL
Crespan (Cobra RMC) were next best in their Production Sports Cars, although the latter was tied fir 12th with Ross McKay (Ford Escort Mk1 Sports Sedan). In the end-of-day Top Six, Tighe was the quickest. Again he was into the 38s, well ahead of McCane and Milliner.
After two rounds, the class-based points system sees Tebble (Van Diemen FF2000) and Phillip Dalton (Honda Integra) as equal leaders, one point ahead of Geoffrey Cohen (Bulant Clubman Mk 7L) and a host of competitors one further point away. GARRY O’BRIEN
Image: CMR Photographic-RallyWA
TIGHTEST RALLYSPRINT SERIES FINISH IN THE closest finish in its nine-year history, the fifth and final round of the Shannons Targa Rallysprint Series at the Perth Motorplex on March 14 was decided by just 0.02s. The winner was Troy Wilson (Mitsubishi EVO X) with Toni Cameron in the navigator’s seat. Daniel Chong (EVO X) placed second with co-driver Luis Bennet, denying third-placed Mark Greenham (EVO 9), with Steph Esterbauer co-driving, the series victory. Had Greenham been just 0.03s quicker, the title would have been his. Paul Brockbank (EVO 6) was the overall series winner by one point. Brockbank, with Supercars driver Alex Rullo as his new co-driver, finished sixth in the round. Usual co-driver Matt JamesWallace drove his own Nissan Skyline GTR R32 to fourth ahead of Blaise Paris and Jane Pomersbach (Porsche 964 RSR). In Class 1 (Targa Cup 2WD up to 2.0-litre),
Andrew Carrick (Ford Escort) beat Russell Burney (Honda CRX), while Paris won Class 2 (Targa Cup 2WD over 2.0-litre) in his first full Targa Rallysprint season. Paris had four round wins and a second to beat Chris Caruso (Chevrolet Corvette Z06). Class 3 (Targa Cup 4WD up to 3.5-litre) went to Cody Harris (EVO 8) by one point from Brett Wilkinson (EVO X). Steve James, in his first full season, took the over 3.5-litre class in his Subaru Impreza WRX. After finishing bridesmaid last year, Bryan Smith (WRX) topped Targa Cup Gravel Class 5, and in Class 6 (Open Rallysprint 2WD U2L), Foky Fok (Honda Integra) took his fourth title in as many years. Rod Willis (Mazda MX5) was a convincing winner of the 02L Class 7. With James-Wallace opting to drive rather than navigate at the fifth round, therefore scoring no points, the co-drivers’ title went to Esterbauer.
SHEARS TAKES SOGGY SPRINT IN A one-off appearance, Neville and Michelle Shears won the fifth and final round of the Whiteline Twilight Tarmac Rallysprint Series at Sydney Dragway on March 14. Several incidents and some deep pools of water on the course led to the event being shortened, called after two of the planned five runs with the Shears in their Nissan Skyline GTR taking the win in pouring rain. Shears showed he’d lost no speed after a year away, being fastest on the opening run by nearly 5s from David Isaacs and Aaron Napper (Mitsubishi EVO 9). Phil Heaphy, with Michael Sargiss calling the corners in his Evo 6, was third, half a second further back. Heaphy won the drivers’ championship,
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having taken out the first four rounds. Mike Caine and Mark Newman were next in their Mazda Mazda RX7 Turbo, which was a real handful with 2WD and a hairtrigger throttle response. The second run was even wetter; there had been a heavy shower before the first run, then no rain until just as run two started. Running early, Shears was a bit cautious and therefore only second-fastest, 0.7s slower than Troy Nicholson in an HSV Coupe 4. Isaacs was next, while Heaphy dropped to fifth behind Caine. The rain’s persistence meant the event was called. The dragstrip and surrounding roads being very flat meant the rain didn’t run off
Image: Bruce Moxon very well and there were many deep puddles. Overall, the Shears won by 5.5s from Isaacs/ Napper, with Heaphy/Sargiss a further 2.3s back. The Nicholsons were probably regretting a cautious first run where they were 20th,
as they finished sixth overall. First 2WD was Caine/Newman, with Drew Hamilton and Llewellyn Cameron best of the under 2.0-litre cars in their Nissan Pulsar. BRUCE MOXON
NEW EVENT BRINGS CRACKER RESULT THE INAUGURAL Sydney 500 was the feature event of the Motor Racing Australian Series second round on March 9-10. With a near 40car entry, it concluded in dramatic fashion, and there was considerable action in the big-fields support program.
Owen Boak (MX5), while Div E was taken out by David Bailey and Matt Thewlis (BMW E36 318Is) ahead of the similar car of Adam Hughes and Matt Shylan.
SYDNEY 300
PULSARS
IT CONCLUDED with a tight finish and a successful appeal against a post-race penalty before Todd Herring and Andy Harris (Division A Mazda MX5) were awarded the 77-lap race win by 0.6s from Dave Loftus and Phil Armour (Div B LS1-powered Mazda RX8). Two late safety cars put Ed Kreamer and Stephen Thompson (Mitsubishi EVO 9) into the lead and seemingly set for victory until the gearbox failed at the final corner of the race. Fighting back from a lap down, Justin Ruggier and Mark Mackay (Div B BMW Z3M) were third, while an added pit penalty cost fourth-placed Daniel Kapetanovic and David Krusza (Div C BMW 328) a podium place. Divisions were determined by lap times, with the faster ones having to pit twice. Benny Tran and Matt Longhurst (Honda Integra) were the pacesetters, but an additional stop for a puncture put them out of contention. Division D was won by Charlie Viola and Ben Hanrahan (Integra) ahead of Steven Head and
Pellicano took advantage of misfortune in Superkarts. Images: Riccardo Benvenuti
A BIG accident in Race 1 ensured a non-event for the 30-plus Nissans. Contact at the start saw Matt Boylan turned around and he was hit hard by Mark Crutcher, who was tagged by Shane Fowler and Martin Welsh. Many others either had light contact or found their way around the melee, including Harri Inwood, who overcame Michael Osmond to win Race 2. The latter finished third behind Josh Craig, while first-round winner Daniel Smith held off Dimitri Agathos for fourth. Craig led Osmond and Inwood in Race 3 until the safety car was deployed. At the race resumption, Inwood worked past Osmond and battled Craig, ultimately getting the upper hand. Across the line it was Inwood from Osmond, Craig and the closing Smith, but Inwood was relegated to 22nd after receiving a restart penalty. Clemente didn’t have it his own SERIES X3 way. TWO WINS and a second gave 2018 Nationals winner and current South Australian title-holder Michael Clemente a grand welcome to the western Sydney circuit. Clemente wasn’t a match for
Gatto had a weekend to forget.
Victorian Ash Kerwood in the opener, yet held off Will Longmore, Shane Petersen and Jackson Noakes. Behind the locals were Queenslanders Scott Green and Brock Giblin. In the second race Clemente won the start and led throughout. Kerwood was second until hitting oil at Turn 1 and crashing out. Oil was all around the track and another four cars went off at Turn 7. Not so Longmore, who wrestled second off Green. Paul Quinn was next ahead of Shane Petersen. Nick McLeod started at the rear of the 37-car field and made his way to 14th, but the engine let go through the final corner. He coasted to the line and only lost one spot. Clemente ran away for a comfortable win in the last race. Longmore passed Quinn on the second lap to secure second, while Quinn held off Green, Noakes and Giblin.
SUPERKARTS
DOGGEDLY THEY fought out the preliminary before Aaron Cogger won ahead of Lee Vella. Both 125cc gearbox Avoig Elise drivers finished clear of John Pellicano (125cc Avoig Elise). In the 50-minute race (reduced from an hour), the two 125s were at it again. This time there was contact at Turn 2, which resulted in Cogger dropping out, and Vella trailing Pellicano. Vella pitted early for fuel, but regained a sizeable advantage when Pellicano made his stop. Comfortably ahead, Vella planned a second stop, but the 10-minute reduction also curtailed the CPS and left him high and dry – literally – at the final corner on the last lap.
ALFA CHALLENGE
CLEARLY THE one to beat, it just didn’t work out for Daniel Gatto. After qualifying fastest, his GTV6 didn’t get through the first lap of Race 1, where Bill Mogoffin (Giulietta) scored over a close scrap between Andrew Wilson and Darren Harris, both in GTVs. In Race 2, Gatto diced with Harris, eventually getting to the line first. But a post-race fivesecond penalty dropped Gatto to fourth behind Frank Garigliano (GTV6) and Robert Seritti (GTV6). Gatto was seemingly going to take the third race, leading comfortably until a spin dropped him to fourth. Garigliano beat Seritti and Harris. GARRY O’BRIEN
SUTCLIFFE AND CLIFT TAKE THE HONOURS ALL THREE of the Warwick District Sporting Car Club Super Sprint Series have now each completed Round 1 after C Series completed its opener on March 23-24. There was plenty of action and a variety of cars ranging from V8 muscle cars to modern sports cars. Some of the competitors even drove their cars to the circuit, demonstrating the accessibility of the WDSCC Super Sprints. As usual, seven runs were completed over the weekend, each consisting of three laps on the large 3km Circuit K. Each round of the Super Sprints is conducted on a different track configuration, which lets competitors try their hands at different track variations and sometimes letting the smaller cars have a chance to outmanoeuvre the larger highhorsepower cars that usually stretch their legs down the straight. Once again, it was great to see the juniors doing battle with each other, headed by winner Tom Clift,
The tiddlers were out in force at Morgan Park, above. Hayley King finished second in the Junior Class, below right. Images: Trapnell Creations
as Hayley King and Jack Donaldson rounded out the podium places. This was the first event for both King
and Donaldson, with both driving very well. Fastest of the round was Phil Sutcliffe in his Nissan GTR, followed by Matthew O’Brien and Brad Stehr. The A Series will be back again on April 13-14 for Round 2. Spectator entry for all the super sprints is free of charge and you get a fantastic action-packed weekend with a large variety of different cars competing. For more information and for what events are coming up, visit www.morganparkraceway.com.
CHAMPIONSHIP TABLE Phil Sutcliffe 44 Nicholas Andrews 40 Camron Bateman 39 Brad Stehr 38 Gerry White 38 Peter Endacott 37 Dale Johnson 36 Matthew O’Brien 35 Gavin Taylor 33 Gary Nuet 33
Proudly presented by Warwick District Sporting Car Club Inc for more information visit www.morganparkraceway.com.au
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NATIONALS wrap n compiled by garry o’brie
SCHLIFELNER’S POT OF GOLD ERIC SCHLIFELNER won the Rainbow Rises 240 on March 10, the opening round of both the Victorian Off Road Championship and the Victorian Off Road Club Shield. At the wheel of his single-seater Sportslite Saber/Hayabusa, Schlifelner completed the three sections and 244km duration in 2h29m28.557s. He finished 41s ahead of class rival son/father combination Steven and Daryl Graham (Tatum/Honda). In third position, and the winners of Super 1650, were Peter and Brock Stevenson (Hunter Rivmaster/Toyota). Just a minute behind them in fourth were
Luke Densley and Warren Collins, who finished first in the SXS Turbo class on their debut. Fighting back from a mid-race stop to change an alternator, Hayden and Hannah Bentley (Racer Truck Trophy Truck/Toyota) took fifth outright and first in Extreme 2WD. Second in the SXS Turbo Class and sixth outright were Regi and Oriola Lumani, just ahead of Sportsman Buggy class winners Dean Williams and John Huber (Southern Cross/Daihatsu), with David Davis (EMS Saber/Suzuki) in eighth place. Davis was third in Sportslite and the last to complete the full
race distance, 23 laps of the 8.7km course. In his new Sportslite Tatum/Honda after previously racing in Super 1650, Daniel Wells was fastest in the early running, but hit a tree in the second race and broke the rear hub assembly. Kieran Kelly and David Sumak then took over the lead until a fuel issue sidelined their Pro Buggy Chenoweth Millennium 2/Chev. Matt Coleman and Leigh Slorach succumbed to overheating in their mid-engine Colman Jimco (with Toyota Tundra panels), while Keith Owers (Rivmaster) went out with broken rear spring plate bolts.
Engine dramas brought about the undoing of Joseph and Jourdain Patterson (Ford Ranger/ Chev) and Jake Freckleton and Toby Hederics (Pro Buggy), while Justin and Melissa Watt (AlumiCraft Trophy Truck) and Dale Martin and Adrian Rowe (Tatum/Nissan V6 Turbo) both had alternator failures. Others with troubles claimed Dean Petschel and Jake Stevenson (Super 1650 Buggy, gearbox), Craig and Adam Button (CBR/ Holden, overheating), Mark Hardman and Mark DeGruchy (Racer Engineering Pro Buggy, shifter cable), and Nigel and Brock Pendlebury (Can-Am, CV).
SUNRAYSIA CANCELLED THIS YEAR’S Sunraysia 400 has been cancelled. Set down for April 26-28, it was to be the opening round of the ARB Australian Off Road Racing Championship, as well as Round 3 of the Victorian Off Road Club Shield. The Sunraysia Motorsports Club made the difficult decision due to concerns for competitor safety and the preservation of Keera Station, the venue for the event. However, the members are determined to see the event return next year, in late April. Since the last year’s event, where it was the second round of the ARB series, Keera Station near Lake Cullulleraine has had just 15mm of rainfall whereas the usual annual precipitation is generally over 200mm. Long-range forecasts suggest there is no substantial rain coming and that the event would cause more damage to the already
desolate and barren landscape resulting from the drought. To ensure the longevity of the Sunraysia off road event at Keera Station, the organisers needed to look at the big picture and give the area time to recover. In 2018, the field was split into two groups, the first of which covered the six-lap, 65km course on the Saturday and the second group racing on the following day. Tanner James (Alumi Craft/ GM) and Jack Rhodes and David Pullino (Jimco Aussie Special/ Nissan V6 Turbo) were the respective winners, with the latter the overall victors when times were amalgamated. The opening round of the ARB Australian Off Road Racing Championship will now be the Sea Lake Mallee Rally, also in Victoria, which will be held over the Queen’s Birthday long weekend (June 7-9).
“Coming up at the nation’s action and spectator tracks” Wakefield Park
www.wakefieldpark.com.au
April 5 Champions Ride Day April 6 Speed Off The Streets/Test & Tune Track Day April 9 Track Day Club April 12 Over 65 Track Day – Goulburn Mulwaree Council April 16 Revolution Motorsport April 18 WPM Trackschool Track Day
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Winton
www.wintonraceway.com.au
April 5 Test & Tune – Cars & Open Wheelers April 8-10 AMRS – Winton April 15 Test & Tune – Cars & Open Wheelers April 16 Track for Days April 21 Performance Test Day April 22 Test & Tune – Cars & Open Wheelers
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BIG WIN AT ROSEWOOD OBLITERATING THE competition, Jayke Skeffington and Mark Patroni won the Wagga Trucks Rosewood Rally, the opening round of the Pipe King AMSAG Southern Cross Rally Series on March 23 by almost five minutes. With grey clouds above and the threat of rain, 37 crews set out from Rosewood Golf Club to battle it out over 170km and 10 stages of the fast and flowing roads in the nearby Carabost State Forest. Skeffington (Subaru Impreza WRX) was quick out of the blocks, going 31s quicker on SS1 than Tom Dermody and Eoin Moynihan (Ford Escort), while Jody Mill and Michael Bannon were third-fastest in the Mitsubishi EVO VII Mill drove to victory in the Live the Dream competition earlier this year. A string of quick times followed for Mill before having to retire with a mechanical problem.
Skeffington went fastest on all the stages by the mid-way point in the event to hold a 2m30s advantage over Dermody, with Bryan van Eck and Lizzy Ferme (Toyota Altezza) a further 28s behind. Dermody pulled four seconds back on SS6, but Skeffington was in a class of his own, winning the final four stages, making it nine stage wins in all for the day. Dermody and Moynihan were a comfortable second and first in 2WD, more than three and a half minutes clear of third outright van Eck. Peter Neal and Craig Whyburn (Subaru) came home fourth, ahead of Darkie Barr-Smith and Jono Forrest (Datsun 200B). Anthony Campbell and Gary Wilson (Holden), Tony Jordan and Richard Davidson (Triumph), Riley Walters and Jeffrey Williamson (Subaru), Rob and James Hunt (Mitsubishi) and Kevin Ashby and Aaron Topliff (Nissan) completed the top 10.
HEINZEL IN NT TITLES WIN TAKING OUT three of the four sections, Alex Heinzel and Liam Glynn won the Jaws Contracting 250, the first round of the Northern Territory title at the Mt Ooraminna off-road track on March 16-17. Driving their ProLite class Southern Cross/Nissan, they completed the course 1m9.027s quicker than Jesse Schembri (Hyabusa-powered ProLite), who did the event on his own. Third place went to Greg and Julie Hicks (Southern Cross/Toyota ProLite) ahead of Harry Weckert and Caitlin Stephens (Yamaha YXZ 1000R UTV) and Craig and Penny Pankhurst (Southern Cross/Toyota ProLite).
Heinzel had a strong start, winning the prologue by 5s from Hicks, before again battling in the first section. Hicks had the better start and won the first 55km section, but a flat tyre on the second section dropped him to 10th, while Heinzel was first. Heinzel took out the third and fourth sections comfortably. Meanwhile the race for second developed into a three-way contest between Jason and Sam Adami (Porter/Chev Pro Buggy), Weckhert and Schembri. Adami was the first to fall, leaving Weckhert ahead of Schembri. On the fourth section, Weckhert extended
Tyrepower Tasmania Supersprint, Supercars Championship Races 7&8, Porsche GT3 Cup Rd1, Aussie Racing Cars Rd2, Formula Vee National Series Rd1, Sports GTs, Symmons Plains TAS, Apr 05-07 Forest Rally, State Rally Championship Rd1, Nannup WA, Apr 05-07 St George 399, CAMS Off Road Championship Rd1, State Off Road Championship Rd1, St George QLD, Apr 05-07 Condo 750, Condobolin and Cobar Shires, Apr 05-07 Vic Time Attack, Phillip Island VIC, Apr 05 Caves Classic, State Rally Championship Rd2, Oberon NSW, Apr 06 State KCF Short Course Rally Rd1, Glastonbury, QLD, Apr 06 State Rallysprint Championship Rd3, Awaba NSW, Apr 06 State Off Road Club Shield Rd2, Mellool VIC, Apr 06 Shannons Busselton Rallysprint, Busselton WA, Apr 06 Ross Giddins Rallysprint, Awabawac Park Awaba NSW, Apr 06 Multi Club Motorkhana, Queanbeyan Showgrounds NSW, Apr 06 Australian Motor Racing Series Rd2, Mazda RX8 Cup Rd2, Formula 3 Premier Series Rd2, TA2 Muscle Cars Rd2, Morgan Park QLD, Apr 06-07 National Sports Sedan Series Rd1, National Formula Ford Series Rd1, State Motor Race Championship Rd2, Sydney Motorsport Park NSW, Apr 06-07 Colo Park Club Challenge, State Off Road Championship Rd1, Colo Park NSW, Apr 06-07 State Hillclimb Championship Rd3, Fairbairn Park (ACT), Apr 06-07 Northam Motorsport Festival, Northam Township WA, Apr 06-07 State Motorkhana Championship Rd3, New England Traffic Education Centre NSW, Apr 06-07 Club Motorkhana, Tonker Park Proserpine QLD, Apr 06-07 Multi Club Supersprint, Phillip Island VIC, Apr 06-07 State Multi Club Hillclimb Rd1, Collingrove SA, Apr 07 Multi Club Motorkhana, VMA Transport Industries Skills Centre Canberra ACT, Apr 07 Multi Club Autocross/Motorkhana, Bagshot Motorsports Complex VIC, Apr 07 Rally Retro Day Club Khanacross, Avalon Motorsport Complex VIC, Apr 07 Multi Club Hillclimb, Bryant Park VIC, Apr 07 Multi Club Motorkhana, Geelong Motor Sports Complex Avalon VIC, Apr 07 Multi Club Hillclimb, Boisdale VIC, Apr 07 Club One-Car Sprint, Wodonga Tafe Logid Centre VIC, Apr 07 Multi Club Hillclimb, Ringwood Park NSW, Apr 07 Club Khanacross, Avondale Station Broken Hill NSW, Apr 07 WD-40 Phillip Island Supersprint, Supercars Championship Races 9&10, Porsche Carrera Cup Rd3, Super 3 Series Rd1, Touring Car Masters Rd2, Toyota 86 Racing Series Rd1, Phillip Island VIC, Apr 12-14 Fiat Nationals, The Bend Motorsport Park SA, Apr 12-14 Caves Classic, State Rally Championship Rd2, State Clubman Rally Rd3, Oberon NSW, Apr 13 Motor Racing Australia Rd3, Sydney Motorsport Park NSW, Apr 13 State Off Road Series Rd1, Symmons Plains TAS, Apr 13 State Circuit Racing Championship Rd3, Barbagallo WA, Apr 13 Multi Club Hillclimb, Lake Barrington TAS, Apr 13 Young Driver Development Motorkhana, Ringwood Park NSW, Apr 13 Multi Club Tarmac Khanacross, Symmons Plains TAS, Apr 13 NT Titles Off Road Rd2, Mt Ooraminna NT, Apr 13-14 Ipswich Festival of Speed, Queensland Raceway QLD, Apr 13-14 Victorian Cross Rally, Mt Disappointment State Forest VIC, Apr 13-14
the gap over Schembri to well over a minute before losing the right-rear wheel just 3km from the finish. He managed to continue on three wheels, but it wasn’t enough to hold off Schembri. Hicks also slipped past the limping Weckhert, bouncing back from his disastrous second section. Weckhert still won the SXS Sport class, while Extreme 2WD went to Shannon Lander, with Shae and Keoini Lander navigating his Ford Ranger/Chev. Jack Weir and Jackson Agnew (Holeshot/ Toyota) took Super 1650, and Zac Gunston and Lincoln Sheedy topped SXS Turbo in their first outing.
AutoAction
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HEY! THAT’S not tarmac, nor is it a McLaren-Renault MCL34 or a Toyota TS050 Hybrid. But, no real surprise, it’s racing’s Eddie Everywhere, Fernando Alonso. Seriously, the swarthy Spaniard would drive an Uber… So now ex-F1 star Alonso is eyeing the Dakar Rally in South America. Of course. F1 world championship, Monaco Grand Prix and Le Mans 24 Hours, won and done. Indianapolis 500 and Bathurst 1000 in his sights. Naturally, you’d add the bone-breaking Dakar. It’s clearly on his mind. But Alonso found himself lost – literally – when he took the wheel of Toyota’s Dakar-winning g HiLux. As trophy hunting legends do. Organised by the South African arm of the Toyota Gazoo Racing family, Alonso desertbashed his way around the Kalahari along with previous Dakar victor and circuit racing convert Giniel de Villiers. Looking for a new challenge, Alonso is weighing up the opportunity to contest next year’s Dakar Rally and spent two days testing. The five-litre V8-powered HiLux is a world away from the TS050 Hybrid, but his extracurricular experience was deemed a success. “I followed the Dakar and thanks to Toyota Gazoo Racing, I had the opportunity to come here to South Africa to test the Dakar-winning HiLux,” Alonso said post-test. “I have tested different series and different cars these past couple of years, and this was a great chance. “It has been fun. Certainly, different to what I am used to driving, but very interesting.” Alonso explained that he had difficulty reading the terrain, but enjoyed the HiLux, which won this year’s ar’s Dakar in the hands of Nasser Al-Attiyah and Mathieu Baumel. “We built up speed slowly, learning lap after lap,” he said. “It’s not easy to read the bumps and to know how much speed to carry, but I became more confident each time. “The HiLux feels great. It has good grip and balance, lots of power and impressive braking. It felt incredible to drive this car.” If Alonso does compete in next year’s Dakar, it won’t be the first time that an F1
STONIE RETIRES!
SADLY, THIS is the last Stonie cartoon in Auto Action. Long-time AA cartoonist John Stoneham has put away his motor racing pen after four decades of satirical illustrations. Stonie has been a constant in these pages and we’ll all miss his humourous take on racing. But he has decided it’s time to park his ‘poison pen’ and we thank him for his diligence over the years. There will be a full tribute to Stonie next issue, featuring some of his all-time best cartoons.
58 AutoAction
DESERT RAT FERNANDO
driver has ha contested the gruelling test of man and d machine, which began as the Paris-Dakar in Saharan Africa in 1979. Ex-F1 Le Mans legends Jacky Ickx aand Henri Pescarolo were both early ccompetitors, with Ickx even winning in 11983 for Mercedes. Alonso will have to wash his race suit ahead of the next World Endurance ah Championship event, the penultimate Ch round at Spa-Francorchamps on May 4. ro HM
MORE MUTANT MUSTANG
THE ‘HITS’ just keep on coming… Amid the raging parity row, the Supercars Mustang’s awkward appearance is still under fire on social media. The latest stylistic sledge – and, we have to admit, one of the funniest – appeared on Facebook as a drag racing parody. An unidentified wit photoshopped an NHRA Mustang Funny Car in DJR Team Penske livery. LOL. Harsh, but fair, don’t you think? MF
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