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V8 REVOLUTION! HI-TECH, LOW-COST GEN3 MOTORS

MARK FOGARTY reveals the top-secret plan to make Gen3 Supercars engines more affordable to build and cost-effective to run NEW LOW-COST V8 engines have been decreed for Gen3, saving Supercars teams tens of thousands of dollars.

The plan is to scrap the existing expensive 5.0-litre V8s and replace them with cheaper Ford and General Motors powertrains based on affordable US ‘crate’ engines.

After a quarter century of pushrod V8s, quad-cam multi-valve V8s will not only be allowed, but encouraged.

Dick Johnson Racing (DJR) is already developing a derivative of Ford’s Coyote V8 while Triple Eight is understood to be evaluating GM alternatives.

Auto Action has learned that the capacity limit under Gen3 will be raised to range between 5.2 to 5.6 litres, allowing for the latest version of the Ford Aluminator and GM Performance LS and LT V8s.

Supercars sources confirm that there is no intention to allow detuned versions of the current pushrod engines to continue beyond 2021.

The issue is that while the Ford Coyote V8 – with its aluminium block and cylinder heads, four valves per cylinder and quad cams – can be easily adapted, GM alternatives are more problematic.

Holden teams planning to switch to the Camaro in 2022 are facing an engine crisis. Supplies of the current ‘Aurora’ V8 racing engine block, especially commissioned by Holden, have run dry.

Triple Eight and engine supplier KRE are believed to be looking at a version of the Cadillac DPi 5.5-litre LT1 V8 used in American sports car racing.

Supercars engine consultant, Craig Haystead, is also investigating GM LS and LT engine alternatives.

The Gen3 working group, headed

by Supercars chief strategy officer John Casey, is framing rules to limit new-generation V8s to 600hp (447kW) and 7500rpm revs.

The aim is to make them more than half the price of current engines – up to $100,000 – and to last a season of

competition without a major rebuild.

Ford’s Supercars homologation team is DJR, whose boss Ryan Story confirmed it has been developing a Coyote Ford V8.

It is likely to be a derivative of Ford Performance’s latest 5.2-litre Aluminator 52XS, which retails at only US$22,599.

The 5.2 XS is the most powerful naturally-aspirated Ford crate engine ever, producing 580bhp (433kW) at 7800rpm. It can be easily coaxed to produce 600bhp at 7500rpm.

A 5.0-litre version of the Aluminator, tuned by former DJR engine builder Roger Higgins’ Innov8, powers the S5000 open-wheelers.

DJR has been working with Steve Amos’s Mostech, its engine supplier, on a Gen3 Coyote V8. “It’s a very good engine and one backed by a huge amount of experience,� Story said. “It’s a work in progress�.

Holden teams thinking of switching to the Camaro in ’22 are campaigning for a moratorium on a

detuned version of the ‘Aurora’ for a several of years.

Although stocks have run out, some teams think they have enough blocks and bits to last through 2023. “It’s not a massive concern at the moment,� a Holden team owner told Auto Action.

Supercars is also developing a ‘white label’ generic V8 for Gen3, available to new manufacturers that don’t have a suitable engine.

It is being built by long-time engine consultant Craig Halstead.

Although rumoured to be Coyotebased, insiders have confirmed it is a ‘semi-bespoke’ configuration not using the Ford engine as its base.

However, the description is vague and open to interpretation. It could also be based on a GM LS or LT V8 crate engine of up to 6.2 litres.

Independently, Triple Eight and engine builder KRE’s work on adapting Cadillac’s 5.5-litre LT1 V8 will seemingly carry on regardless of the decisions yet to be made across GM Supercars teams.

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HOW DJR PLANS TO STAY ON TOP No Penske, no Scotty – no problem, declares saviour DJR boss Ryan Story explains to MARK FOGARTY what ownership, driver changes mean for Ford flagship team THE REBIRTH of Dick Johnson Racing without Roger Penske and Scott McLaughlin won’t require a rebuild next year, with the team expecting to stay at the front of the field.

New senior co-owner Ryan Story is confident the Ford squad has the resources and personnel to ensure new drivers Anton De Pasquale and Will Davison will be leading title contenders.

“It’s not a rebuild,” Story declared.

“There’s no easy way to replace Scott McLaughlin or Roger Penske in terms of what they brought to the team, but at the same time, you can’t unlearn what you’ve learned and we have a very strong foundation to continue building on.”

The wealthy business whiz has stepped in to save the Queensland-based Ford team for a second time in seven years following Penske’s Supercars withdrawal.

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The American mogul has also taken McLaughlin to IndyCar, adding the triple V8 champion as a fourth entry next year.

Story has bought Penske’s controlling share in what he says is a fifty-fifty partnership with Dick Johnson.

He outlined his plans for the return of Dick Johnson Racing – the longest established team in Supercars, dating back to 1980 – in a wide-ranging interview, which will be published in full next issue.

Story bailed out cash-strapped DJR in 2013 when it was on the brink of collapse and brokered Penske’s takeover in 2015.

He maintained and Johnson retained minority stakes in DJR Team Penske.

He has kept key personnel, including team manager Ben Croke and engineering guru Ludo Lacroix, as well as main team sponsors Shell and Repco.

Penske Corporation’s Australasian division is staying on as a major commercial partner.

Once De Pasquale and Davison are up to speed, Story expects DJR to maintain the momentum it has built since 2017, winning three drivers’ crowns and three teams’ titles.

“That’s our aim,” he said. “We have very good cars, a very good team, and strong commercial support and backing.

“The biggest change outside of Penske is the two drivers. We have to have moderate and modest expectations as we begin because we need our drivers to get up to speed with our cars and how to make them go fast.

“But longer-term, our ambitions are quite lofty.”

According to Story, the Penske pullout – influenced by the “ignominy” of the

2019 Bathurst 1000 controversies – has left DJR with a lasting legacy.

“They’ve left us with an unbelievable infrastructure that’s at the peak of any team in the championship,” he said.

“There’ll still be an involvement by Penske, just not with any ownership of the team itself.”

He also noted that the processes and procedures instigated by Team Penske are “far superior to when we last raced as DJR in 2014”.

Despite months of speculation, Story was adamant that Penske’s decision to withdraw from Supercars was not finalised until after this year’s Bathurst 1000 season finale.

The deal was done on the Tuesday evening (October 20), followed by agreements with De Pasquale and Davison the next day (Wednesday,

DOG AND PONY SHOW DJR CONTINUES as the Ford homologation team, tasked with developing the Gen3 Mustang for 2022.

Ryan Story dismisses questions about the Blue Oval’s commitment, confirming Ford Performance in Detroit is involved with development of a Coyote-based engine and the road car look of the body shape.

Doubts persist that Ford has granted Supercars IP permission to use the Mustang shape for Gen3, replacing the current misshapen Supercars version.

Informed – or maybe optimistic – sources

October 21). Team staff were told of the changes on the following Saturday (October 24) before a media release.

“Nothing was set in stone, really, until that period after Bathurst,” Story said.

While De Pasquale was the natural choice to replace McLaughlin, he is adamant the deal wasn’t done until after the break-up with Penske. How it happened will be explained in the interview next issue.

In the interview, Story also reveals that Chaz Mostert had been targeted to replace Fabian Coulthard this year, positioning him to take over from McLaughlin, who even in 2019 was set to join Team Penske in the USA in 2021.

“Chaz was absolutely a target for us,” he admitted. “I had quite extensive discussions with Chaz about joining us, but he elected to go in a different direction [joining Walkinshaw Andretti United].”

According to Story, the decision to recall twice Bathurst winner Davison, who drove for DJR from 2006-08, was a pragmatic call.

“We made a business and commercial decision, and for me it was a very clear decision,” he said. “Not taking anything away from Fabian, but the best step for us was to proceed with Anton and Will.”

His answer begs questions that aren’t fully answered.

While 75-year-old Johnson will be an equal shareholder in DJR’s standalone revival, Story will run team and make the major decisions in consultation with his boyhood racing idol.

“It’s a duumvirate,” the wealthy brainiac said.

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Coyote joins Mustang in Gen3 shake-up. DJR boss confirms development for ’22 despite Ford doubt

insist the impasse is a “legal technicality”, with Ford ironically concerned to ensure IP ownership of the road car shape.

Otherwise, Ford Performance and Ford Australia will be “all in” on Gen3.

Story confirmed the 2022 Mustang racer’s look will be based on the current S550 model and be powered by a derivative of the multivalve, quad cam, all-aluminium Coyote motor.

The Mustang is due for a major update – with internal model code of S650 – for the 2023 model year, meaning it will be unveiled as early as mid-2022 in North America.

“It’ll be the current Mustang shape,” Story said. “We’ve done a lot of work already in conjunction with Ford Performance and Supercars. A lot of work has already been done on the body side as well as the engine.”

DJR hasn’t started construction of a Gen3 Mustang just yet, with Story forecasting “midnext year at the latest” for prototypes to be ready for testing.

Supercars has commissioned first-build Gen3 test cars from DJR and Chev Camaro homologator Triple Eight.

Mark Fogarty

MCLAUGHLIN BATHURST CAMEO

The question is, who will the champ partner?

SCOTT MCLAUGHLIN will be back for next year’s Bathurst 1000, but with whom he’ll co-drive is undecided.

Well, maybe.

According to Ryan Story, DJR’s Bathurst co-drivers are locked in already, which means the fourth member is yet to be named.

Tim Slade is expected to return to full-time racing in the new standalone CoolDrive Racing Mustang and the status of recent regular DJRTP codriver Tony D’Alberto is unknown, but probably in doubt.

If Will Davison gets the Number 17, you’d expect McLaughlin to partner him. A natural, highly experienced hot combo. Two Bathurst winners, redolent of the days when regular series guns were allowed to team up in the enduros.

Anton De Pasquale’s potential partner is the question; he deserves someone pretty special, you’d think.

It won’t be the discarded Fabian Coulthard, who Story confirms declined retention as a co-driver with Shell V-Power Racing at Bathurst.

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“We offered Fabian an opportunity to co-drive next year, but he’s elected to pursue a full-time gig elsewhere and we wish him all the best,” he said. “He’s been a big part of winning three teams’ championships, but it’s time for him to move to the next chapter as well.”

Story told AA he is keeping his Bathurst pairings to himself for now to announce in the long off-season.

McLaughlin’s return will be a one-off next year because the Bathurst 1000 will be the only two-driver race. It’s also after the scheduled September finish of the IndyCar Series.

Story has revealed that until the Penske pull-out was decided, McLaughlin was set to continue

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in Supercars mixed with several IndyCar outings.

Yet Scotty made such a big impression with his early year tests, ahead of St Petersburg, that Team Penske committed to running him in a fourth IndyCar entry next year.

Technically, McLaughlin was tied to DJR in 2021, but Story was never going to hold him to that contract, which was underwritten by Penske.

“He impressed a lot of people over there and he has a big future ahead of him,” Story said. “He was always going to the States, it was just what that was going to look like.

“We’re looking forward to having him back next October. It’s going to be fantastic.” Mark Fogarty

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NEWS

HAILING THE HALO

Image: LAT

THE HALO and other huge strides in improving safety saved Romain Grosjean’s life.

It was the Halo and not his head and helmet that absorbed the vicious force of the steel barriers as his Haas sliced through them.

“Barriers splitting was a classic problem many years ago,” said Ross Brawn, Formula One’s managing director of motorsport. “Normally it resulted in a fatality. There is absolutely no doubt that the Halo was a factor that saved the day. As you will recall there was quite a lot of controversy about introducing it. I don’t think anyone now, especially after today, can doubt the validity of that and the value of it. So hats off to everyone involved because it was a lifesaver.”

The Halo was indeed controversial when mandated in 2018. Yet critics including Grosjean himself sung its praises when the Frenchman walked away from his horrific accident.

“When I saw the flames, that was pretty scary to watch,” Max Verstappen said after finishing

second. “But luckily of course he jumped out of the car himself and that was the most important.

You can really see the safety, how much it has improved. I think also that the Halo today saved his life.

“In the beginning, when it came onto the cars, I was quite critical about it, that it looked ugly, but you can’t say anything about the safety because today it definitely saved Romain, so very happy about that.”

François Cevert died when his Tyrrell split through the barriers when he crashed during practice for the 1973 United States Grand Prix at Watkins Glen. Guardrail technology has come a long way since then, as have safety improvements overall in F1. The Halo is just one of those improvements.

“I’m really grateful that he is safe and was able to get out,” Bahrain Grand Prix winner Lewis Hamilton said of Grosjean. “But it is a real stark reminder just how dangerous this sport can be –

the speeds that we are travelling, the energy that we are carrying when we are travelling at those speeds,” he said.

“The FIA have done an amazing job, but we can’t stop where we are, we’ve got to keep on trying to improve. That’s what also makes this sport great. We are constantly evolving.

“It is still a dangerous sport. I’m sure there are people who tuned in who have never seen something like that and it just shows that those things can happen. I think we are aware of that as racing drivers, the risks we take. Now everyone else is.”

The ferociousness of the accident stunned many of the drivers.

“It was one of the biggest and scariest crashes I’ve seen.” Lando Norris said. “I saw it afterwards on TV, not live. But it shows the safety that we have in the cars nowadays.

Everyone saw the car afterwards. It is one of the worst cars I’ve ever seen, so for him to jump

out as quickly as he did shows the capability of what F1 safety can do now. So it is good to see how far that has come.”

Haas team principal Guenther Steiner said that an angel saved Grosjean’s life – an angel and lots of work on the safety aspects.

“The angel alone cannot do it,” he said. “The angel needs to be there, but there has been a lot of research and hard work to make the cars as safe as they are. You still need to be lucky, but for sure there was a great amount of work put into everything. Look at the Halo. A lot of us were against it when it was proposed a few years ago. Now I think it has already saved a few lives.

“We should be thankful for the people who push these things along. I actually spoke with [FIA president] Jean Todt after the accident and thanked him for keeping on pushing for safety.

Without all that hard work this accident would have had a different ending.” DK

Dane welcomed the appointment of SRO to run the Australian championship based on previous experience in GT World Challenge Asia and the Bathurst 12-hour, which SRO also promotes as part of its blue ribbon Intercontinental series.

“I think that they are a professional organisation and they are a commercial organisation so it’s not a plaything.

“It’s not something they get involved in for a year or two and then want to go and do something else.

“They have made a business around the

world of running GT championship and their single biggest asset is recognising who their customer is.”

SRO GT World Challenge programs are built around a combination of amateur and pro racers. It is expected a similar two-times onehour format to Asia will be adopted for each of the five sprint rounds that comprise the Australian GT championship.

The endurance championship will be a single three- or four-hour race.

For more on the fundamental restructure of Australian GT racing turn to pages 14-17.

TRIPLE EIGHT CONSIDERS LOCAL GT PROGRAM Arrival of SRO, Asian border lockdown prompts Aussie campaign

By BRUCE NEWTON TRIPLE EIGHT Race Engineering could join the 2021 Australian GT and Endurance Championships.

The team, which is best known for its Supercars championship exploits, raced in the SRO’s GT World Challenge Asia in 2019 and is now considering an Australian program.

The arrival of SRO to manage the Australian championship in combination with the Australian Racing Group (ARG) is one reason Triple Eight has refocussed on local shores.

Another reason is the 2021 GT World Challenge Asia is at best going to relaunch in late May or early June 2021. The 2020 season, which Triple Eight was also committed to, was cancelled because of COVID. The 2021 World Challenge Asia is subject to the course of the pandemic as well and the opening of currently closed borders. If T8 does decide to get involved in the Australian championship, that will not preclude it from

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eventually rejoining the Asian series as well.

“We might do a double program,” said T8 boss Roland Dane.

T8 would certainly continue to campaign at least one Mercedes-AMG GT3, although Dane did not rule out expansion to a two-car squad.

He also expressed his belief that the Johor Royal Family could continue to back the effort and Prince Jefri Ibrahim may continue to drive.

“We’ll have to wait and see,” said Dane.

The 2020 Bathurst 1000 winner Shane van Gisbergen has been the prince’s co-pilot in the past, as has Malaysian driver Jazeman Jaafar.

“Hopefully it can work for us,” Dane said of a potential Australian GT campaign.

“Circumstances we find ourselves in make it something we might not have considered in normal times.

“The championship has still got to be robust, as and when people can travel again.

“Hopefully, whether we are there or not, there are enough positives about this announcement to get people and cars out of the shed.”

SHIPPY SETS SAIL

By DAMION SMY

Image: Ross Gibb

BETTY BOMBSHELL: REYNOLDS FREE TO GO join Kelly Racing, replacing retired team co-owner Rick Kelly.

Reynolds’ management is locked ECCENTRIC EREBUS owner Betty Klimenko won’t stop disaffected star in negotiations to secure his release from Erebus.

David Reynolds from leaving her Talking to Auto Action exclusively, team, which has lost several key Klimenko expressed dismay that staff.

Reynolds hasn’t communicated Klimenko will let Reynolds walk, even though he has completed just with her since the Bathurst 1000 in a single season of a famous 10-year October, when rumours were rife that he wanted to leave. contract.

“As far as I’m concerned, I have a “I won’t make it difficult for him,” driver contracted for 10 years and she told Auto Action. he has done one year,” the nearShe is also relaxed about the billionairess said. “He hasn’t rung prospect of main sponsor Penrite me. He has shut himself away. I find following Reynolds out the door.

“I don’t care,” she declared. it very strange.

Reynolds has fallen out with “I have asked him for answers.”

Erebus team boss Barry Ryan, who Klimenko confirmed that mediation Klimenko backs unreservedly. talks haven’t happened. She also The 2017 Bathurst winner is set to maintains neither Reynolds nor his

By MARK FOGARTY

manager have replied to her emails asking what he intends to do.

Despite her declared tolerance, she demands an answer.

“He better let me know what he wants to do,” she said.

Kilmenko committed to continuing next year.

“We’ll have two cars on the grid, two drivers and two race engineers,” she vowed.

Will Brown will replace Anton De Pasquale, who is taking over from Scott McLaughlin at DJR, and Brodie Kostecki is on standby to fill Reynolds’ seat.

In contrast to her impasse with Reynolds, Klimenko has given her blessing and support to De Pasquale’s departure.

“We have a good relationship,”

she said. “His move was done properly. I will be the first to congratulate him when he wins with DJR, which I’m sure he will.”

Klimenko revealed that she has sided with Ryan, who has a small ownership in the Melbourne-based team, because he has relieved her of the burden of financing the underdog squad.

“Barry has done such a great job bringing down the cost of the team,” she said. “I’m not paying for it. I’m involved as a sponsor, not an owner.”

She estimated that her financial exposure was now no more than 10 per cent of the annual running costs.

“I’m a very happy girl,” she laughed.

REYNOLDS’ ENGINEER DEPARTS EREBUS THE EXPECTATION David Reynolds is on the move from Erebus Motorsport to Kelly Racing has been heightened by confirmation that his engineer, Alistair McVean, is already headed in that direction.

McVean was both head of engineering at Erebus and Reynolds’ race engineer, but is now on gardening leave ahead of taking up a a-yet-to-beannounced position at the Ford Mustang team.

Reynolds is one year into a 10-year deal with Erebus, but is negotiating an exit from the squad Before McVean’s move Reynolds had already been strongly linked to a move to Kelly Racing to replace retiring Rick Kelly.

Reynolds and McVean worked together at Erebus from late 2016, striking up a strong friendship and highly-successful working partnership that included the 2017 Bathurst 1000 victory with Luke Youlden in the co-driver seat.

Reynolds and McVean are not alone in exiting

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Erebus at the end of a turbulent season. Rising star Anton De Pasquale has also left to drive for the reformed Dick Johnson Racing, while his engineer Mirko De Rosa is also believed to have moved on.

Former Erebus crew chief Dennis Huijser, who quit the travelling team during the season, is also expected to join Kelly Racing.

McVean began his Supercars career at Walkinshaw Racing and worked for both the HSV Dealer Team and the Holden Racing Team. He scored three Bathurst wins there before being

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controversially benched during HRT’s 2016 slump.

He is regarded as one of the best brains in pitlane, adept at design, race engineering and strategy. He declined to comment when approached by Auto Action.

Erebus also offered no comment when approached, but shortly afterwards issued a press release confirming the promotion of lead mechanic, Bradley Tremain, to be the new crew chief.

Intriguingly, the release said nothing about McVean, De Rosa and Huijser. BN

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BATHURST WINNER Shane van Gisbergen’s race engineer, Grant ‘Shippy’ McPherson, has left Triple Eight Race Engineering to join Walkinshaw Andretti United for 2021.

The move strengthens the Victorian team’s already considerable engineering arsenal ahead of the new Gen3 regulations for 2022, as McPherson joins technical director Carl Faux, Rob Starr and Terry Kerr at Walkinshaw in a formidable brain trust of engineering experience and know-how.

McPherson, who engineered van Gisbergen and Garth Tander’s 2020 Bathurst victory, is currently on gardening leave.

McPherson started at Red Bull Racing in 2015 when he engineered Craig Lowndes’ 888 Commodore, a season that included the star’s sixth Bathurst victory.

He then took over as Car 97’s engineer in 2016 to help van Gisbergen take his first Supercars title.

Previously, McPherson also spent seven years at Ford Performance Racing, where he worked with drivers including Will Davison and Mark Winterbottom.

McPherson will add to the already considerable engineering talent at the Clayton-based WAU team, which was boosted in 2020 when the pairing of Chaz Mostert and race engineer Adam De Borre defected from Tickford Racing.

In a compacted 2020 Supercars championship, Mostert finished fifth in his first year with the Holden team, with highlights including second place at the season-opener in Adelaide, a pole position at The Bend and a Bathurst podium with perennial codriver Warren Luff.

In a show of further solidarity, the team has re-signed Bryce Fullwood for 2021 following a strong rookie year.

While WAU hasn’t officially confirmed McPherson’s arrival, Triple Eight has confirmed his departure.

“Grant has handed in his notice to join Walkinshaw Andretti United, and we respect his decision,” an official statement read.

“He’s been an integral part of the Triple Eight team for six years, including success at this year’s Bathurst 1000, and we wish him well in his future role.”

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LATEST NEWS

BRAD JONES Racing has confirmed Macauley Jones will race alongside Nick Percat and Todd Hazelwood in next year’s Supercars Championship. As previously reported, BJR has purchased a new Racing Entitlement Contract after the Blanchard family ended its five-year partnership with the team at the end of last season. BJR’s new REC was purchased from former 23Red Racing team owner Phil Munday after the Tickford Racing customer squad pulled out after the Australian Grand Prix. HM

ONE PIECE of the 2021 Supercars calendar is confirmed with the Darwin Triple Crown set to take place on June 18-20.

After hosting a double-header during the fragmented 2020 Supercars Championship season, the announcement Hidden Valley will return comes as the 2021 schedule is still yet to be revealed. The Australian Superbikes, Stadium Super Trucks and the Nitro Up North drag racing event will form the support package for the event. HM

THE BEND Motorsport Park has announced the dates of its 2021 Supercars Championship round which will take place earlier than in previous years. The South Australian venue will host its round of the Supercars Championship from May 7-9 next year. It will be the fifth time the Supercars Championship will hold a round at the at Tailem Bend since the series made its debut there in 2018. DM

WATERS TO DEBUT BRAND NEW MUSTANG

Tickford star warms up for 2021 title at Supercars championship

By BRUCE NEWTON TICKFORD RACING’S 2021 championship hopeful Cam Waters will get his campaign underway on Monday when he conducts a 60km shakedown of a brand new Ford Mustang at Winton.

It is the first of two new Mustangs the team will roll out for 2021.

A second example due to appear in time for the championship opener is required because the Boost-sponsored Ford driven by James Courtney has been sold to the new stand-alone CoolDrive team owned by the Blanchard family.

Tickford isn’t alone in building new cars as Triple Eight’s seven-time champion, Jamie Whincup, will be nestling into a brand new Holden Commodore ZB for the 2021 season.

Originally scheduled to be completed in April 2020, Waters’ new Monster-backed Mustang was delayed by the COVID-19 lockdown and subsequent 100-plus days Tickford spent away from its Victoria home base.

Having to stick with his old car certainly didn’t hamper Waters as he surged to second place in the championship, with a late spurt of results that included his first solo Supercars win at The Bend before pole and second place at Bathurst.

Once the shakedown is complete, the new car won’t see action again until the pre-season

Image: LAT

FEENEY DEPARTS TICKFORD FOR T8

By DAN MCCARTHY

REIGNING BATHURST 1000 Champion Shane van Gisbergen claimed his first-ever victory in the Repco Pro Eseries overnight, in one of the most entertaining nights of racing in the series short history. The 31year old kiwi claimed victory in the opening race of the night on the virtual Charlotte Speedway oval circuit, the same circuit he claimed a win in the BP All Stars Eseries earlier this year.

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test, which is expected to take place at Sydney Motorsport Park in the fortnight ahead of the Bathurst 500 season opener that’s expected on February 26-28.

Tickford Racing team boss Tim Edwards said that the build made sense despite 2021 being the last year of the Gen2 technical regulations.

“Cam’s car has been pretty much built since April,” said Edwards.

“It has been sitting there without an engine, gearbox and bodywork on it for nine months. So it’s been sitting there ready to go and now it’s just been finished off.

“The other one is a fabricated shell and the reality is when you are building a new car, 90 per cent of the car just comes from your communal spares anyway.

“The plumbed and wired shell are the only bits that ever stay with the car. Everything else just goes into the pool of stuff that is swapped around.

“Literally, it will be another plumbed and wired shell and the rest of that car else will come from other cars etcetera. In the sense of cost-wise there’s no incremental spend because that money’s all been spent.

“That shell was actually built a year ago.”

One reason Edwards is shy about naming a pilot for the second new Mustang is the team hasn’t entirely resolved its 2021 driver line-up as yet.

BROC FEENEY will make the switch the Triple Eight Race Engineering for his second season in Dunlop Super2 Series.

The move sees the 18-year-old Queenslander, who made his Bathurst debut with Tickford Racing earlier this year where he finished 10th, contest the Super2 category in a Triple Eight ZB Commodore and positions Feeney for another Bathurst campaign in 2021.

“Joining Triple Eight is an opportunity that I couldn’t knock back,” said Feeney. “It’s Triple Eight; they are arguably the best team up and down pit lane over the last 10 years. When you get an offer to drive for these guys, it’s not something

you can knock back.”

Feeney admitted Tickford team principal Tim Edwards was caught off guard, but insists that there are no sour grapes.

“Tickford has been really good to me. They have been awesome to me. It is tough leaving those guys because I had a really good year with them, even though it was short. They looked after me really well and I learnt a lot off them.”

“I’ve been talking to my engineers, mechanics and Matty Roberts the team manager and they understand the situation I’m in, they’re happy for me and it’s all good blood.”

In his new role, a co-drive at Triple Eight Racing seems highly unlikely, with pairings of Craig Lowndes/Jamie Whincup and Garth Tander/

As reported last issue, the team is one Racing Entitlement Contract (REC) shy of being able to run all four drivers from last year, with Lee Holdsworth likely to be the last man standing when the music stops.

He’s in a weaker position than fellow Tickford drivers Jack Le Brocq and customer James Courtney because – to put it brutally – he doesn’t bring in any money.

Tickford hasn’t given up trying to release one of two RECs Supercars currently has parked on the shelf as it reputedly has a naming rights sponsor lined up to underpin a fourth entry.

That wouldn’t necessarily guarantee Holdsworth a full-time gig, however, as former Tickford development series driver Thomas Randle, who co-drove with Holdsworth to third place at the 2019 Sandown 500, has been linked with the seat with partial backing from his patron Rusty French.

Asked about 2021 team composition, Edwards only offered: “No comment.”

The Blanchards will be hoping Tickford doesn’t secure an additional REC as the new squad has reserved alongside the Boost Mustang in the second team garage.

If Tickford does successfully add another entry, the CoolDrive Mustang will tumble down the pit lane garage order, hampering its qualifying and race strategy and tactics. BN Shane van Gisbergen - both Bathurst-winning combinations - set to remain unchanged.

However, a wildcard with Super2 teammate Angelo Mouzouris may be a viable option.

Feeney said that at this point there’s no news on a Bathurst co-drive or wildcard.

“That’s the next discussion. I’m the [Triple Eight] Super2 driver at the moment. I want to make sure that I’m on the Bathurst 1000 grid next year one way or another,” Feeney said.

Feeney targets winning the Super2 Series as his primary goal for 2021, but is not prepared to look too far ahead at a potential Supercars seat at Red Bull Racing.

“I’m trying my hardest to win the Super2 Series and we’ll see what happens after that,” said the level-headed 18-year-old.

“As I said, I try and focus one year at a time.

I know that if I do my best job then hopefully something will come up after it. I think if you can win the Super2 Series you’re ready to step up into the main game.

“That’s my goal next year: to win the championship. If I’m ready to go into a team then I’m ready to get into a team.”

Feeney celebrated his 18th birthday on the Sunday of his Bathurst debut in 2020, where he drove a solid race in the Number 44 Tickfordsupported Boost Mobile Mustang.

He and co-driver James Courtney finished in 10th place after the 161-lap enduro, ahead of the final Tickford Mustang of Jack Le Brock and James Moffat. DM

Image: LAT

SECRET SUPERCARS SURVEY

By MARK FOGARTY

Image: LAT

2021 SUPERCARS CALENDAR IS ALL SET

By MARK FOGARTY THE OFFICIAL draft calendar of next year’s Repco Supercars Championship was due to finally be released this week.

It should be out by now, but just in case, here are the details as circulated to teams and sponsors.

The provisional 2021 schedule confirms what Auto Action revealed early last week: 12 rounds beginning with a new Bathurst sprint race event and ending on the streets of Surfers Paradise.

The full list below has already been sent to teams, sponsors, broadcasters and other major stakeholders.

The government-backed Victorian rural round at Winton returns – at the cost of Sandown in Melbourne for the time being.

As predicted, a couple of key events have been moved from their traditional or planned slots to give them the chance to avoid lingering coronavirus restrictions.

Along with The Bend’s already announced shift from September to early May, the New Zealand round – listed as Auckland – goes from April back to early November, while the Perth SuperNight at Wanneroo Raceway is delayed from May to the second week of September.

The Darwin Triple Crown’s return to its normal spot in June was also confirmed last week.

The draft calendar bulletin emphasises that all dates are provisional.

Race formats for each round except the Bathurst 1000 will be confirmed at a later date.

The Repco Bathurst 1000 will return to the second week in October as the only two-

driver endurance race in 2021.

Other events will be variations of this year’s three sprint races without refuelling – one on Saturday and two on Sunday – and twin 250 kilometre sprints with refuelling.

The latter, to be christened Super500s, are set for the season-opening visit to Mount Panorama and likely the Townsville semistreet race event.

The new finale on the Surfers street circuit should remain as the Gold Coast 600 with two 300 kilometre races.

Supercars has cheekily labelled the end of February twin-race opener the Bathurst 500, stealing the historic title from rival ARG, which had planned to use the name for a TCR mini-enduro at the Bathurst International in November.

Postponed until next year, the Bathurst International’s headline TCR race for a multinational entry will need a new name/distance.

Racing under lights returns with back-toback SuperNights at Sydney Motorsport Park in August and Perth’s Wanneroo Raceway in September.

The proposed 2021 series stretches over nine months from the end of February to the start of December.

The F1 Australian Grand Prix support races will still count towards the Supercars championship, even though the event will be shown on the Ten Network rather than returning free-to-air TV partner Seven because of conflicting broadcasting rights.

Whether the listed ‘Auckland’ event will be held at Pukekohe or Hampton Downs won’t be confirmed immediately.

Conspicuous by its absence from the provisional 2021 Supercars calendar is Sandown in Melbourne.

As previously revealed by Auto Action, Sandown is the first reserve in case the AGP, scheduled for March 18-21, doesn’t happen because of on-going quarantine requirements for overseas visitors to Melbourne.

However, there is still hope F1’s proven fly in, fly out ‘bubble’ system will be allowed by the Victoria government, which has effectively eradicated COVID-19.

As well as allowing F1 in under strict conditions for less than a week rather than a two-week hotel quarantine lockdown before the event’s start, the state’s control of the coronavirus means daily crowds of 50,000 or more are likely to be allowed.

AGP organisers have a workable strategy to spread spectators in zones around the expanse of the Albert Park street circuit, which is located in a lakeside park.

Sandown, which had a multi-year agreement with Supercars, is due to return in 2022, along with the Newcastle 500.

Supercars is also hoping the Adelaide 500 will be revived in ’23 if Labor regains power in SA. MF

PROVISIONAL 2021 SUPERCARS CHAMPIONSHIP Feb 26-28 Mar 18-21 Apr 10-11 May 8-9 May 29-30 Jun 19-20 Jul 9-11 Aug 20-22 Sep 11-12 Oct 7-10 Nov 6-7 Dec 3-5

Bathurst 500 AGP Symmons Plains Tailem Bend Winton Darwin Townsville Sydney Motorsport Park Wanneroo Bathurst 1000 Auckland Gold Coast

NEXT year’s Supercars calendar is as much a result of research as coronavirus caution.

While the teams have pushed for 12 events to save money, Auto Action has learned that independent analysis deemed 13 rounds as the optimum.

Of course, that was before COVID-19 intervened.

Still, the 2021 provisional calendar fits in the window described two years ago by an independent research group commissioned by Supercars.

The secret study determined that in the foreseeable future of an increasingly crowded Australian sports market, for Supercars 14 or more events was too many and 12 events was on the border.

The research’s sweet spot was 13 rounds, taking into account season length, media interest and fan engagement.

Supercars wanted 13 events next year to maximise the return to a ‘normal’ season, but team pressure and social conditions dictated 12.

As well as some lingering border uncertainties, allowable crowd numbers – directly applicable to event profitability – remain up in the air.

The likelihood is that the further into the proposed 2021 season, the better the prospects will be for significant or even unrestricted attendances.

Supercars promotes most events and therefore assumes the financial risk.

Winton, Wanneroo, Tailem Bend and Hidden Valley run their rounds with state or territory government support.

The rest are underwritten by Supercars, also with significant state backing. Destination NSW funds all events in our most populace state, while Tourism and Events Queensland props up the Townsville and the Gold Coast races.

The Tasmania, WA, SA and VIC events are also government supported.

The outlier is Sandown, a dual-purpose car and horse racing complex owned by equestrian institution, the Melbourne Racing Club.

Sandown doesn’t receive direct financial support from Spring Street.

It turns out that last year’s $1.5 million safety upgrade of the suburban circuit was funded by Supercars, to be paid back over the life of a multi-year agreement with MRC. Otherwise, Supercars events are dependent on state subsidies, directly or indirectly. MF

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GOLDING HUNTING FULL-TIME SUPERCARS RETURN

LATEST NEWS

TWO-TIME BATHURST 1000 winner John Bowe has got back behind the wheel of his popular Touring Car Masters Holden Torana for the first time since the COVID-19 pandemic broke out nationwide in March.

A test day at Winton Raceway was the first time that the 1995 Australian Touring Car Champion had driven the machine since he participated in the Adelaide 500 nearly nine months ago. DM

LAST WEEKEND the ever-growing MARC Cars Australia company exported its first machine across to New Zealand. The MARC II V8 chassis nicknamed “Farnham” was previously the MARC Cars Australia factory run machine owned by Geoff Taunton and is the first to make the trip across the Tasman.

Well-known New Zealand squad Collins Motorsport will run the Mustang which will be raced in the South Island Endurance Series and the BNT V8 Series. DM

GARRY ROGERS Motorsport driver Jordan Cox is hoping to build on an impressive season in 2019 by revealing his new livery ahead of the 2021 TCR Australia season opener at Symmons Plains in January. Sporting a white and fluro orange livery, Cox’s Alfa Romeo Giulietta Veloce is expected to grab the attention of fans trackside and on TV. HM

MOTORSPORT AUSTRALIA has confirmed that the BFGoodrich Motorsport Australia Off Road Championship (AORC) will run five events in 2021. Returning to the originally schedule from this years canceled season, the championship will begin with the Cobb & Co Hotel St George 399 in April, before crews finally get another chance to fight it out for the prestigious King of the Desert title with the Tatts Finke Desert Race to be run over its traditional Queens’ Birthday long weekend time slot. DM

10 AutoAction

JAMES GOLDING has signed to race for Garry Rogers Motorsport in the S5000 Championship again in 2021, however the 24-year-old is determined to return to the Supercars grid full-time.

The Victorian who raced full-time for GRM in the Supercars Championship in 2018 and 2019 was left without a drive when the team announced its departure from the sport at the end of that year.

In 2020 Golding found himself contesting the Bathurst 1000 as a co-driver to 2015 Supercars champion Mark Winterbottom at Team 18, but Golding told Auto Action he has spoken to a number of teams about a full-time return.

“Ideally, I’d like to get back in full-time but nothing’s locked in at this stage, I’m still working it out and in discussions with a few people, so we’ll see how that ends up,” he said to Auto Action.

Both Winterbottom and his Team 18 teammate Scott Pye have already signed on for 2021.

“I’m not suggesting that I won’t co-drive at Team 18 if a full-time drive doesn’t come about, they are a great team so I would be very happy to drive with them again if i cant get a full time drive.” he said.

“But I’m weighing up all my opportunities at this point and I still haven’t come to a conclusion yet.”

AA understands that Kelly Racing is after the services of David Reynolds, with Dick Johnson Racing refugee Fabian Coulthard as the favourite back up option.

While Erebus Motorsport is expected to sign its aggressive young co-driver driver Brodie Kostecki to partner Will Brown.

This would leave Matt Stone Racing and Team Sydney as the only likely full-time options, AA

asked him if this was the case.

“I’m not really sure about that, I don’t have much further to say on that,” he said.

‘Jimmy’ Golding is very excited to re-sign with GRM to contest the S5000 Championship in 2021 as he feels it is a good platform to show that he is a capable steerer.

“It’s good to be racing something other than Supercars,” Golding told AA “Whilst I’m not running full-time, I’m showing that I can do a good job.

“Those cars are unbelievable, it’s a very open playing field they built very well and it’s very controlled, what you see is what you get, it’s driver and engineer and there’s no differences throughout the field.

“That’s the reason I love racing them and it’s good to be able to jump in them and stay sharp, for all the other racing that I do.”

Dan McCarthy

DUNLOP PARTNERS WITH SUPER3 BOTH SUPERCARS development categories will share the same tyre in an expanded commitment by Dunlop.

Supercars has confirmed both Super2 and Super3 will share the same races as what occurred in 2020 at six-rounds next year.

After a long association with Kumho, Dunlop takes over for 2021 ensuring each entry will run an 18-inch tyre.

The Australian V8 Touring Car Series will continue to use the Super3 banner, which it has competed under since 2019.

Continued live coverage is provided through Fox Sports and Kayo, while new Supercars broadcast partner Network Seven will show selected races.

Super2 category manager Mark Galbraith said interest from teams was high heading into the 2021 season.

“Fans love it. The drivers put everything on the line every time they put on the helmet and they get to race at some of the biggest events on the Supercars calendar,” Galbraith said.

“The competition has always been exceptional. This is due in large to teams investing heavily in young talent, not only behind the wheel but in the workshop, developing the careers of engineers and mechanics.

“Over 20 years we’ve seen the categories level of talent rise year on year and we’re already receiving interest from teams who want to be on the grid in 2021.”

Liam Curkpatrick, category manager of Super3 is pleased to confirm the renewed agreement.

“It’s great that the two series have been able to merge again to showcase a large,

strong field of Supercars,” said Curkpatrick.

“The grid share arrangement worked well in the two rounds we managed to combine for this year. The teams liked it and the racing was great in both Series.

“During these uncertain times, this arrangement offers the entire field more certainty and fantastic opportunities.”

“The V8 Touring Car/Super3 Series enters Image: LAT its 14th year of competition in 2021. The Series has come a long way and seen many drivers pass through, often on to Super2, and go on to do fantastic things. Many drivers have also stayed with us over the years enjoying what the Series offers.

“We have always worked closely with Supercars and for Super2 and Super3 to now be sharing a grid provides an even stronger driver pathway.” HM

th Luke West iith wit

AA’s outspoken columnist wants a change to Supercars TV commentary Image: Ross Gibb

ROGERS INVESTS, ARG RESTRUCTURES S5000 build program started road to ownership

By BRUCE NEWTON BARRY Rogers has emerged as the biggest investor in motorsport promoter the Australian Racing Group following its mid-year restructure.

The confirmation the son of the founder of Garry Rogers Motorsport (GRM) and now a lynchpin in its conduct, is ARG’s biggest shareholder has emerged because of the establishment of its own corporate structure.

Previously, it had been under the Payce business umbrella of Brian Boyd, the motorsport philanthropist who backed ARG’s establishment in 2018 and rapid expansion to become Australia’s largest operator of motorsport categories.

Auto Action understands the motivation for corporate changes reflects the growing size of the ARG business.

Barry Rogers told Auto Action, Boyd had elected to “take a step back”.

“He’s pretty big in the building business up there in Sydney and he’s handed off a bit of his responsibility.”

With Boyd in the background, ARG had forged deep ties with Motorsport Australia . It promotes TCR racing in Australia, it has acquired the rights to Trans-Am, Touring Car Masters and Kumho V8 Touring Cars and played a pivotal role in the establishment and development of the S5000 openwheeler category.

It has most recently been named as co-manager of GT racing in Australia with SRO, a deal Motorsport Australia played a key role in brokering.

It also controls two of the five dates allocated to Mount Panorama annually – the Easter Bathurst 6-Hour and new event set down for November.

It has also secured Channel 7 freeto-air television coverage of its events.

ARG has also made several unsuccessful bids to buy the Supercars category from Archer Capital.

Under ARG’s stand-alone corporate restructure Rogers’ company has been revealed as having a 47.5 per cent stake. Brian Boyd’s nephew James – boss of Payce sister company Paynter Dixon - holds 28.5 per cent, Melbourne businessman, Payce and Paynter Dixon executive and ARG Executive Chairman John McMellan 19 per cent and Seven West media chief and former Supercars CEO James Warburton five per cent.

The day-to-day management team led by CEO Matt Braid remains unchanged.

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Different AA sources describe the way the deal came about in slightly different ways, but the common thread is Rogers’ company Motorsport Events Pty Ltd share is the result of investment in ARG business ventures.

GRM, which ended its involvement with full-time Supercars racing in 2019, committed millions of dollars to building 15 Onroak-Ligier S5000 openwheel racers last year and will also race three of them in 2021.

It has also invested heavily in the TCR hot hatch category, with plans to run two Renaults, two Alfa Romeos and three Peugeots in the 2021 series.

Barry Rogers also revealed an investment by himself and his father in the acquisition of the TCM rights and Bathurst Easter 6-Hour contributed to the shareholding.

“John (McMellan) came to us and said ‘we can get the six-hour and we can get TCM what do you think?’ and we said ‘yeah that’s a good idea’ and that’s pretty much how it happened.”

Rogers stressed his arrival and Boyd’s exit was not planned to coincide.

“It happened organically,” he said.

“At that point it was just helping to buy an event and buy a category and the

company thing just sort of evolved from that.”

He also made the point the significant investment GRM had made had given him and his father input into ARG’s plans before the creation of the company and the formalisation of his position.

“Nothing really changes really,” he said. “The last 18 months we’ve pretty much known what’s going on, giving our advice.

“We do’t have more grunt now.

Maybe we have a larger shareholding numbers-wise than John, but he’d be the one that most of it pivots off I would have thought.”

So that’s the how, but there’s also the question of why Rogers wanted to do this.

“We get frustrated at race events because we can see what should and shouldn’t be done a lot of the time,” said Rogers. “This is all about creating a platform where competitors get some live TV and some good running.

“If they want to come racing good numbers will turn up. If good numbers turn up then fans turn up. If fans turn up then sponsors will want to get onboard. I know I’ve simplified it a bit but that’s what it really is all about for us. “We want to provide a really good platform of racing.”

MCMELLAN ON ROGERS INVESTMENT JOHN MCMELLAN is ARG’s Executive Chairman and as Barry Rogers notes – pivotal to its performance.

A long-time sponsor of motorsport when running Wilson Security, he is also a long-time friend of confidante of Brian Boyd, whose Payce backing often and not coincidentally appeared on the same cars at the same time.

McMellan, who nowadays works for Payce and Paynter Dixon, has been involved from day one at ARG. Here are his thoughts on a couple of the issues raised by the Rogers investment in the business.

On the perceived concern that ARG’s largest single shareholder is also a huge racing presence.

“Whilst the structure has been in-place since the inception of S5000, the business has already demonstrated it has a very robust operational structure and management oversight to segregate any issues of competitor and investor crossover. “Garry Rogers is treated the same as any other competitor and

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managed the same as any as any other competitor. Investors don’t run businesses, the operational management team runs the business.

“Investors invest in the business to get a return.”

On what Barry and Garry Rogers bring to ARG. “They have a legacy of motorsport knowledge and perspective on racing that is a critical component.

“If you look at the composition of the board, James Boyd and myself bring a very strong commercial and operational understanding. James Warburton brings a very strong event and broadcasting understanding and Garry and Barry bring a very strong motorsport and racing and technical capability.

“So it becomes a very well balanced and capable board as a result of that.”

Clarification: Despite what McMellan says here, Garry Rogers is not eligible to sit on the ARG board.

Bruce Newton

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NO MOTORSPORT category on the local scene has experienced a cycle of boom and bust like the Australian GT Championship. Peaks and troughs have been the story of its last 15 years.

Sitting outside this cycle is the ultra-successful Bathurst 12 Hour, an international event with the bulk of the field made up of overseas, factorybacked entries. I’m sure the B12 will continue to go from strength-tostrength when it returns in 2022, but for now there’s much work to do on the other GT3 events held in this country.

As recently as the AGTC’s appearance on the 2016 AGP support card, no fewer than 32 locally-based FIA GT3 cars rocked up to Albert Park. Thirty two!

Two seasons ago, 31 cars raced at the 2018 AGP meeting. This figure included a trio of GT4 machines and seven former Carrera Cup cars. In 2019 the total grid was 25 and similarly proportioned.

The glamour Melbourne event is always the AGTC season’s high-water mark in terms of local entries. Gentleman racers like to perform in front of the bursting corporate suites and big crowd. Sadly, there’s not the same turnout of GT3 cars at the rank and file rounds, especially in recent seasons.

For instance, at Sandown in late 2019, just 12 cars contested the round, including nine GT3s. A few months earlier The Bend hosted just 10 cars for a three-hour enduro.

Grids have been shrinking for some time. Thus, we’re at the bottom of the cycle right now in ‘bust’ territory. Yet, COVID permitting, things should start to improve given a major recent development. A change of category management has taken place, with the geniuses behind GT3’s global growth now playing a leading role in the AGTC’s future.

Australia GT will be jointly managed by the Australian Racing Group and the Stefan Ratel Organisation. ARG already have TCR, S5000, Touring Car Masters and TransAm on their books, so GT will sit nicely in that mix. With that line-up I can’t wait to attend some ARG race meetings!

SRO’s involvement is equally exciting. SRO effectively controls the GT3 category worldwide via their GT World Challenge and Intercontinental GT Championship brands. The latter already includes the Bathurst 12 Hour, while local GT will become the GT World Challenge Australia. Cool name.

SRO already licensed its Balance of Performance system to Australian GT, but will now bring the entire championship into the fold, the last significant championship in global GT3 racing.

SRO has the runs on the board in catering to competitor’s needs and hopefully it can draw disenchanted Aussie teams back the track, whether they have the latest GT3 cars or superseded machines. There must be over 100 GT3 cars in the country of various vintages, most of which are gathering dust.

Consistency of driver and technical regulations and race formats will hopefully lure back competitors who have parked their cars in recent times.

SRO’s established global regulations will see dicky, unpopular Aussie rules – compulsory timed pitstop lengths according to driver status – consigned to history.

There’s also the potential for cross pollination – Aussie teams heading overseas to contest other SRO series and vice versa.

Sprint races will be the dominant format for 2021’s championship.

Joint ARG/SRO management is the best hope for returning GT3 to a position of strength. Then the new category managers can work on preventing Albert Park’s big-entry GT3 races from becoming the crashfests they’ve been in the past!

Crashed GT3 cars are at the heart of why I don’t think Supercars will follow in DTM’s footsteps and adopt GT3 regulations. As much as I despise the Car of the Future for severing links between the road and racecars, CotF’s biggest plus is crash damage repairability.

When Supercar drivers hit concrete walls, invariably they are repairable, mostly overnight. If we rank crashes on a scale of 1 to 10, it’s really only a 10/10 hit like Chaz Mostert’s approaching the Forrest’s Elbow in 2015 that sees a Supercar written-off. Crashes you’d rate at 9 or less are all repairable. Credit where credit’s due.

In contrast, each February sees multiple rookie Europeans seemingly desperate to fling their shiny GT3 cars at the Aussie scenery during practice. When they do, it only takes an 8 out of 10 crash for the car to be a throwaway. By my calculations, four cars practiced ahead of the 2020 B12 but did not race after massive ‘Lara Bingles’ in the preliminaries. That’s four written-off racecars and $3 million flushed down the toilet. Supercars teams cannot absorb such losses.

Nor are GT3 machines built to rub panels like a Supercar can. Supercars panels are made from composite materials that have some give, whereas GT3 cars, with bodywork made from ‘unobtainium’ are not as forgiving or affordable.

It’s 20 years since Luke West wrote his first column for Auto Action #896 in July 2000. ‘Reverential Ramblings’ evolved into ‘Revved Up’ and ran until 2010.

Now, after a 10-year break, he’s back to survey motorsport’s changing landscape.

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11

LATEST NEWS

SIX-TIME WORLD Rally Champion Sebastien Ogier has deferred his plans to retire at the end of the current WRC season. The Frenchman has extended his tenure with Toyota for a second season in order to complete a proper farewell tour as he looks at the possibility of adding a seventh title to his record at next month’s ACI Rally Monza that will act as this year’s WRC finale. RV

FACTORY MOTOGP squad Aprilia has announced that its current test riders Bradley Smith and Lorenzo Savadori have been retained for the 2021 season with one set to race full-time in 2021. The vacant Aprilia seat alongside Aleix Espargaro was set to be filled by the returning Andrea Iannone, however the Italian lost an appeal against a doping suspension and has been dealt a further three-year ban. DM

AUSTRALIAN JAKE Parsons competed in the final round of the Super GT 300 class in Japan alongside his teammate Ryo Michigami at the Fuji Speedway. Driving a Honda NSX GT3 Evo machine the pair found the going tough, concluding the season with a 17th place finish. After qualifying 15th, within the top half of the field the pair found the going a little tougher in the race eventually finishing two laps off the lead. DM

TCR ENTRIES TAKING SHAPE NEXT YEAR’S TCR Australia Series field is starting to take shape ahead of the opening round at Symmons Plains on January 24-26.

Two teams took the opportunity to test at Mount Panorama during the Challenge Bathurst event.

Series winning team HMO Customer Racing took one of its Hyundai i30N TCRs to The Mountain where it was driven by team manager and driver Nathan Morcom.

Morcom completed five sessions during the twoday event, setting a fastest time of 2m 16.288s as the team hopes to field up to four i30N TCRs in the 2021 TCR Australia Series.

The second team participating at Challenge Bathurst was Ash Seward Motorsport, fielding an

Alfa Romeo Giulietta Veloce TCR for series rookie Jay Hanson, who set a best time of 2m 16.805s.

Hanson is confirmed to drive one of the team’s two Alfa Romeos, while discussions are currently taking place to fill the second.

Garry Rogers Motorsport has already confirmed its entry for the season led by the two-car factory supported Renault Sport GRM Megane R.S. TCRs to be driven by Dylan O’Keeffe and James Moffat.

Michael Caruso returns to drive on of the team’s two Alfa Romeos featuring support from Valvoline.

Jordan Cox also re-joins the team after keeping race fit competing in Improved Production events driving a turbocharged Suzuki Swift.

Completing the GRM stable are three Peugeot

308 TCRs to be driven by Aaron Cameron and father-son team Jason and Ben Bargwanna.

Fellow Melbourne-based team Melbourne Performance Centre is expected to field six-entries split between Audi and Volkswagen. Garth Tander is in line to resume his place within the squad.

Honda-supported Wall Racing will take an unchanged line-up into its second season piloting two Civic Type R TCRs with Tony D’Alberto and John Martin continuing. A third-entry is being discussed, but focus is on the team’s two main entries.

Privateer entrant Michael Clemente completed a recent test at Winton ahead of his debut in the series. HM

NEW YARIS FOR 2021 ARC TOYOTA HAS confirmed two new-generation Gazoo Racing AP4 Yaris rally cars will join next year’s Australian Rally Championship (ARC) for Neal Bates Motorsport.

Toyota’s ‘rally car for the road’ is now a genuine rally car for the ARC. The Toyota Gazoo Racing Australia (TGRA) team will field the latest Yaris rally cars for Bates’ sons, Harry and Lewis, who finished first and second in the 2019 championship respectively driving the previous model Yaris, before a cancelled 2020 championship in the wake of COVID. “It gives us an amazing platform to start with,” said team principle and four-time Australian Rally Champion, Neal Bates. “We have got a carbon fibre roof, we’ve got aluminium doors, we’ve got the lightest and most powerful threecylinder turbo mass-production engine in the world. We’ve got an incredibly wide stance and all-wheel drive – it’s literally made to be rallied.

“We have built a lot of rally cars starting with the Celica GT-Four, which was an all-wheel drive turbo but from then on, there was a lot of work involved modifying Celicas and Corollas into all-wheel drive rally cars, so this is an amazing

car to start with.

“If you have a look at the current Yaris AP4s we built, we had to put a different engine in, we had to change it to all-wheel drive, we had to develop the body kit, so for us this car will be easier and simpler to build,” Bates said.

Toyota Australia also says that the 2021 GR Yaris rally cars have been the first to benefit from a high level of ‘active’ local involvement from its Port Melbourne-based Product Planning and Development (PP&D) studio, which features a milling machine and fabrication shop.

Toyota Australia’s Head of Design, Nick Hogios, whose design credits include work on the Toyota Aurion, the BA Falcon XR exterior treatment and the ‘Green-eyed Monster’ AU Falcon Supercar, explained that the process was ‘disciplined’ “There are no compromises, it’s a race car. It’s not here for styling, although we wanted to make it look as good as possible,” Hogios explained, with the conceptual work beginning back in April.

“It’s all about functional beauty.”

Bates says that the support from Toyota has had a positive impact on the capability of the new Yaris, with its road-going version lifting the

brand’s image as it pushes its Gazoo Racing enthusiast sub-brand strongly.

“I’ve had an exciting career with Toyota and motor sport for over 30 years, and the new GR Yaris is remarkable in its performance and race capability,” he added.

AP4 is a formula that was developed and has flourished in New Zealand as an alternative to the international R5 specifications. Models which have been adapted into AP4 include the Holden Barina, Audi S3, Ford Fiesta, Mini Cooper and Mazda 2 just to name a few.

All are fitted with a 1.6-litre turbocharged engine and most choose a Sadev four-wheel-drive system, similar to what’s found in R5 machinery.

The new AP4 GR Yaris rally cars are expected to make their first appearance on February 16 at the Ballarat test day, ahead of the 2021 championship opener on March 26-28 in Canberra. DS

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12 AutoAction

S5000 FIELD BUILDING

S5000 WILL kick off its first fullseason next month in Tasmania with the field starting to be revealed.

Former Australian Formula 3 driver Ricky Capo has confirmed his entry as he will partner with former Erebus Motorsport engineer Mirko De Rosa.

“We will be entering S5000 independently, as a family-run team under my father’s business, which is Modena Engineering,” Capo said.

“Our engineer is Mirko, he’s got a lot of experience with Supercars. He was Anton (de Pasquale’s) engineer at Erebus, I’m really looking forward to working closely with him.

“He’s on board and he’s obviously a very smart man, we get along really well which is one of the most important things with a driver engineer relationship.

“It’s just going to be the three of us and maybe one mechanic. We’ll be keeping it quite small.”

Capo was part of two inaugural S5000 events last year and qualified third at this year’s Australian Grand Prix support race before its cancellation Also confirmed are Garry Rogers Motorsport duo James Golding and Luis Leeds.

Leeds enters after completing numerous S5000 tests “I am very impressed with the work

with Oscar Piastri

that Barry and Garry do down at GRM, they are passionate and committed, all the qualities that you look for in teams,” Leeds said.

“I want to help this championship grow, I want to be in this championship for a while. I’m 20-years-old right now and I hope that I can use this as a platform to build a long-lasting career.

“I feel as though that it’s a perfect opportunity for me to get in faster cars, I’ve competed in Formula 4 most of my career, so to take a step up is really exciting.”

Leeds, Golding and Capo will test at Phillip Island as this issue hits newsstands (December 3). A number of young drivers will also complete the test, one of these is expected to Nathan Herne.

Adelaide-based squad Team BRM is aiming to run three or four entries.

Two of these entries are expected to be filled by reigning Super2 winner Thomas Randle and Supercars driver Zane Goddard.

“Realistically both those two guys have got Supercar main game seats

that they’ve trying to get hold of,” team manager Mark Rundle explained.

“Tom’s made it pretty clear that no matter what happens with the Supercar stuff he wants to do S5000 as well, so that’s our plan to have him onboard.

“Zane we’ll just have to wait and see, we’d love to have him back but it all hinges on what happens with his Supercar stuff.”

S5000 development driver Tim Macrow confirmed he’ll return and potentially with a second entry.

Cooper Webster was announced earlier this year as the sole driver of Albert Callegher’s 88 Racing entry and retains that spot.

Second-generation racer Braydan Willmington will also return in a familyrun S5000.

Former A1 GP driver and S5000 race winner John Martin expressed his desire to get make a return, but has nothing confirmed after contesting the first two events with AGI Sport.

Milldun Motorsport’s Bartin Mawer is unlikely to make a return.

Dan McCarthy

JOHN FRENCH CELEBRATED AT 90 Image: Glenis Lindley-AMC Magazine

MANY OF Australia’s best-known motor racing identities gathered at the new Gold Coast Motor Museum in Queensland on November 25 to celebrate John French’s 90th birthday.

The morning tea catch-up was organised by Ian and Val Maudsley in lieu of their invite-only Motorsport Legends Lunch not taking place in August this year due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

More than 100 guests were in attendance and included Dick and Jill Johnson, Bruce Allison, Charlie O’Brien, Allan Grice, Craig Lowndes, Roland Dane, Kerry Bailey, Chas Kelly, and Kevin Bartlett.

Also there were Ralph and Anne Bellamy, Mike Collins, Gloria Gardner, David Harding, Dave “Dyno” Johnson, Frank Lowndes, Roy McDonald, Leonie and Mark Stibbard, Dennis Brown, Scott Taylor, Digby Cook, Garry Cook and Graham Sellers.

Among those to send their apologies due to border restrictions were Allan Moffat, Fred and Christine Gibson, Colin and Robyn Bond, Bob Holden, and Spencer Martin “We made a call early to cancel our traditional August reunion, but Frenchy’s 90th birthday gave us an excuse to pull something together,” said Maudsley.

“We would like to thank Carl and Grant Amor from the museum, Ryan Storey, Brett Murray, and David and Chris Bowden.”

On loan from the Bowdens and prominent on display was the 1981 Bathurst 1000 Tru-Blu Ford Falcon XD along with some of the crew that worked on it. Johnson and French drove it to victory that year and its major sponsor Ross Palmer was also a guest.

Johnson and French met when the latter was involved in the big first lap accident in 1969. “My Alfa was upside down and Dick who was spectating, dragged me out of the car and he and Jill drove me back to the pits,” French said.

“We have been mates for my entire racing career,” said Johnson. “He is probably one of the most underrated drivers that has been produced in this country.”

French first came to prominence with a class second in the 1960 Armstrong 500 in a Standard Vanguard before wheeling a Centaur Waggott to win the 1962 Australian GT Championship. For several years he raced Mini Coopers and Alfa Romeos, and co-drove with Moffat to win 1969 Sandown 500, sharing a Ford Falcon GT. He drove the works Falcons alongside Moffat, and also the Improved Production Fords in the Australian Touring Car Championship rounds when Moffat and Ian Geoghegan chose to drive their Ford Mustangs.

“It is just so great to see so many people here, I just hope you are all here in 10 years’ time to celebrate my 100th,” French added. He actually hit 90 last Saturday. Garry O’Brien

A NEW ADDITION ON THE OLD STUFF AUTO ACTION is not only the leading Australian publication for motor racing coverage and where the sport, particularly Supercars, is headed, but we also excel at reflecting on the past.

Now AA is taking its historic coverage to a new level.

This edition we introduce historic racing expert Mark Bisset to our pages.

Bisset has written about yesteryear’s race cars, drivers and other identities on

www.autoaction.com.au

AutoActionMagazine

his website primotipo.com for six years and now we look forward to regular contributions from him in AA. His first feature for us, on pages P22-27, is a timely piece on a wonderful race car of the late ’50s.

In our bumper end-of-year edition he’ll take us back to the world-beating Repco F1 engine of the mid-60s.

And AA readers can look forward to much more from Bisset in 2021.

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instagram.com/autoactionmag/

WELCOME TO my last Auto Action column for 2020 – and what a strange year it’s been!

The pandemic threw the world into a spin, but I’m fortunate my year wasn’t compromised so much and, perhaps, even luckier that it turned out relatively successful.

The clear highlight was winning the FIA Formula 3 Championship with PREMA Racing in my debut season, while I also got to drive the Renault RS 18 Formula 1 car, which ticked off a lifelong dream.

Early in the year, I was lucky to spend three months at home with my family – the most time I’ve spent in Melbourne in five years – before getting back to Europe and racing.

I spent time at Renault when I got back to the UK, then a few weeks with my PREMA teammates Logan [Sargeant] and Fred [Frederik Vesti] at the team workshop in Italy before the season began, so I had a good bond with everyone before racing got underway.

Things weren’t ideal for so many around the world. Still, I’m so grateful to PREMA, the FIA, and everyone else behind the scenes that organised our events to get the show up and running as once the season got going it all went very smoothly.

Sure, I had to have a swab stuck up my nose twice a week, but if that’s the cost of the racing year continuing in some usual way, then I can’t help but feel pretty lucky.

You’ll have read elsewhere in this issue or on the AA website that I’ve signed with PREMA to contest the FIA Formula 2 Championship next year. I’m pleased about staying part

of the PREMA family for another year.

The workshop is the same, as is the sim, I know most of the F2 mechanics, and I’ve had experience working with my new race engineer.

We don’t have to discover anything new with PREMA. It’s a great team, and I’m pretty confident of another successful year.

We’ll kick off our F2 association at the official end-of-season test in Bahrain next week.

The plan is to learn as much as I can about the car – the F2 car is a bit of a handful and quite physical – while there’s also the pit stop practice which will be essential to nail down quickly.

It’ll be nice to be fast, but I’d rather run into a bit of difficulty and make sure I can work things out, so I know exactly how to go fast than just be quick out of the box but not learn much else so when the shit hits the fan I’m stuck.

After the test, it’s home for summer ... it’s beginning to get too bloody cold in England!

I’ll spend two weeks locked down in quarantine, including Christmas Day, but I’d rather do that and then spend time in the sunshine up on the Murray River with my parents and sisters than not get home at all.

I’m looking forward to celebrating with my family what’s been a great year for me, but I can understand most people are looking forward to seeing the back end of 2020!

So, I’d like to thank Auto Action’s readers for your incredible support this year, and wish you all a very Merry Christmas and a safe and happy 2021.

Cheers, Oscar

Oscar’s next column will appear in AA issue #0000

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S W E N A R T X E

RATEL OUTLINES AUSSIE GT PLAN

Close co-operation planned with Asian series

By BRUCE NEWTON A ROUND of the Australian GT championship at Sepang in Malaysia and a round of the Asian GT series at Bathurst’s Mount Panorama circuit are part of Stephane Ratel’s vision for the category’s future Down Under.

The GT mastermind’s SRO Motor Sports Group was confirmed in November as the co-manager of Australian GT racing alongside ARG (Australian Racing Group).

Appointed by Motorsport Australia in a multi-year deal, they take over from Trofeo Motorsport, which has been unable to conduct any racing in 2020 due to COVID-19 and has overseen a steady dwindling in grid size before that.

SRO and ARG are forming a jointventure company to promote Australian GT racing and has announced highly experienced Ken Collier will be category manager, a role he also fulfilled between 2012 and 2019.

The key item being finalised as Auto Action closed for press is the 2021 calendar, which is expected to see most races at Motorsport Australia/ARG race meetings and one or two at Supercars marquee events. They will be telecast live and free-to-air by Channel 7.

One event that has been ruled out for 2021 is a return to the Formula 1 Australian Grand prix next March.

The managers have confirmed the Australian GT Championship will be conducted over five rounds in 2021 and there will also be a single multihour race for the Australian Endurance Championship.

The Australian manufacturers championship is likely to be awarded on the basis of these races, as is the Tourist Trophy, which has most recently been handed out at the Bathurst 12 Hour.

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The #63 Eggelstone Motorsport AMG-GT, driven by Peter Hackett, feuding with Fraser Ross’s McLaren Customer Racing 720S GT3 at Sandown in the 2019 GT championship decider, where Ross posted a 1:07.9639 lap time to break the four-year-old GT3 record at the historic Melbourne race circut

The GT Trophy Series for older specification GT3 cars and GT4 Series for SRO specification GT4 cars will also continue.

Critically, SRO has also firmly brought the Australian championship within its GT racing family by declaring it the fourth GT World Challenge series, alongside America, Europe and – most importantly – Asia.

The GT World Challenge structure encourages teams to race in more than one series and awards a global manufacturers’ title.

Ratel, in an exclusive interview with Auto Action enthused about how Australian and Asian GT teams could benefit from their close geographic proximity, albeit once COVID-19 border restrictions start to loosen.

Yet it goes further than an Aussie team venturing to a World Challenge Asia round or vice-versa.

“One of our intentions going forward is it would be great to have at least one and maybe two events mixing the Asian grid and the Australian grid,” Ratel said.

“Maybe one day we could imagine the Australian championship coming to Sepang and the Asian grid coming to a Bathurst event organised by ARG, which would also be a training ground for teams to stay a couple of months longer for the 12 Hour.

“So I think there is a lot we can do.

“Our intention is to have a strong link between the two (Asian and Australian World Challenge). We would welcome these two events, but not immediately.

We need to have these borders reopen in Asia, we haven’t been able to organise any races this year.

“In 2021 we hope to restart in late May or June. So before we think about doing something with Australia we need a bit more time.”

Ratel says that his mantra is ‘walk before you can run’, and for him that means a grid of around 20 GT3 and GT4 competitors at each round would be a satisfying result for the 2021 season.

ARG sources suggest that Ratel’s goal could be somewhat conservative, with up to 30 cars expected.

There have been initial reports of at least two new cars already being ordered for 2021 and enquiries from several leading Asian teams about racing in the Australian series.

ARG estimates there are more than 50 GT3 vehicles in the country with about 17 in the current spec. In addition, there’s also a smattering of the less popular GT4 racers.

Melbourne Performance Centre alone could put as many as eight Audi R8s on the grid, while Supercars outfit Triple Eight Race Engineering has signaled its interest in joining the grid after previously focussing on GT World Challenge Asia (see separate story).

Long-term entrant Eggleston Motorsport plans to enter both Ryan Simpson and Peter Hackett in 2021.

The format for the five sprint rounds that form the Australian GT championship will be based closely on the GT World Challenge Asia.

In that series most rounds comprises two one-hour races with two drivers sharing duties in most cars.

WHAT DO THE GT COMPETITORS THINK? The initial response from potential participants in Australian GT racing in 2021 to the arrival of SRO and ARG has been positive.

IN THE wake of the first briefing conducted by the new managers last week, Auto Action contacted several GT interested parties to gauge their reaction. So far so good.

TROY RUSSELL

In Australia the pairings are likely to ape Asia, with a strong emphasis on supporting the gentlemen drivers that underpin the category.

Pairings could include Pro-Am as per FIA driver gradings – which means one bronze driver and one graded above that (silver, gold or platinum) – silversilver pairings, am-am pairings and amateurs also be allowed to drive solo.

While only current-gen GT3 cars are allowed to enter in Asia, Ratel says the Australians series will allow older vehicles. As per Asia, SRO will also reserve the right to adjust driver gradings to better reflect local conditions.

And being an SRO series, Australian GTO will now adopt full Balance of Performance (BoP) vehicle performance criteria applied to each circuit on which they race.

Previously the Australian GT championship has utilised an average BoP applied to the entire season.

Ratel said the arrival of SRO in Australian domestic GT racing – the Bathurst 12 Hour is part of its blue ribbon Intercontinental GT Challenge

– would provide a boost in confidence for potential competitors.

“Because if you go and buy a McLaren or Ferrari or Lamborghini and you don’t really know if there is going to be a championship at the end of the year or next year, that doesn’t really work,” Ratel explained.

“What you need is confidence and together both SRO and ARG with Motorsport Australia will bring this confidence. That’s number one.

“Then we have the experience in the format, in the BOP, in the organisation, in the driver categorisation, in the management that should allow the championship to run without [issues].

“None of us are also racing in the championship. Don’t forget the last two promoters were also participating in the championship with all the controversy that creates.

“Now, this is not the case. I think we have the stable ground to start growing,” he said.

“In addition, we hope that we will bring more sponsorship, more resources to the championship to be promoted better.”

Troy Russell (second from the left) from Melbourne Performance Centre has seen driver Geoff Emery take out the last three Australian GT titles, seen below with the 2019 winning Audi R8 LMS.

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Melbourne Performance Centre “I think it is a positive thing SRO is a worldwide organisation and if we can bring our rules in line with what the rest of the world that will be a good thing.

“I think what we have lacked in the past is a little bit of direction and security and SRO will bring that. Once they have been finalised that will be the rules and they won’t be changing everything. If you look back to 2019 there was a lot of stuff getting changed on the fly by the category managers.

“We just need to avoid that.

“Obviously SRO do a few different series around the world and there are differences between their rules and I think they are looking toward SRO Asia and that’s very gentleman-racer oriented. I think we need to do the same in Australia.

“They have already said there won’t be a pro-pro category and that’s a good thing.

“I think we just need to get some rules and we need a calendar as soon as we can.”

“They have also told us in SRO Asia they don’t necessarily stick to the FIA driver gradings, they have an ability to change people. I think that’s important in Australia because I think we are a little bit forgotten.

Looking in my own camp, someone like Geoff Emery is a silver and so are some Supercars drivers like Lee Holdsworth, and that’s just not right.

“But they’ve got on the front foot and addressed that.”

ROLAND DANE

Triple Eight Race Engineering “I am very pleased to see SRO involved.

My experience with them has been good and if the basic template is run to with them in Asia is used here, then I think there is potential for the championship to thrive.

“The ultimate recognition must be the most important element is to keep the car owners and gentlemen drivers happy and yet still combine that with some good racing and professional racing.

“At the moment the only major thing outstanding for us is the calendar.

“The most important things is the race lengths are not compromised. People like to see these events on television, but television at a high-level is not the be-all and end-all of this racing.

“The only time a GT race gets shown on free-to-air television around the world is the Bathurst 12 Hour. Yes, television is good, but it should be very much filming a motor race rather than making a motor race for televisions, that is the more the job of Supercars and TCR where the television component is the lifeblood of the sport.

“The competitors are paying for this – and that is essentially how GT racing works in much of the world – then their needs are the paramount ones.

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“If you can combine the elements so you’ve got good television as well than that’s fantastic.

“I just hope whatever happens, the formats and track time are not compromised by being on race events that are primarily made for different reasons.

“They are both right, it’s just what fits the bill best for the car owners.”

RACHAEL EGGLESTON

Eggleston Motorsport “We’ve been doing GT racing for a while and I’ve been involved with it for a long time. It’s something we have a connection to.

“I think it’s needed an overhaul in this regard for a while. It’s category that I was a co-owner of it and managing it and I understand the type of competitor it is and what they need and what they want and how that works.

“It needed a professional management company that was separate to anyone with any interest in the category in terms of being a competitor for anything else. That was important for GT and Motorsport Australia to also recognise that in their tender process.

“Having the SRO connection is wise.

Not everything they do applies to Australia … but loosely it makes sense seeing as we use their base regulation in terms of homologation and drivers seeding and so on, so it can only be a good thing.

“The people at ARG are all experienced motor sport people, they understand the business and commercial side as well as the racing side so I think it’s a great combo.

“We expect to have a minimum of one car but most likely we will have two cars on the grid in 2021.”

FRASER ROSS

Fraser Ross Racing “I think it is a very good thing for GT racing in Australia. It had been on decline for some time but given the pedigree and credibility SRO has with GT racing around the world and their credentials in all the categories they have run around the world, I think it is a big boost to Australian motor sport.

“Hopefully the boost for GT racing is to 12-hour level and GT World Challenge Australia is seen as one of the pedigree GT championships around the world.

“It’s also exciting the commercial value someone like Stephane Ratel can bring to a championship and having his name and the Amazon name attached to it is huge for attracting potential sponsors and partners to the championship.

“It needs a fair bit of resource pumped into it to get it to where it needs to be. It’s not just a quick fix. They are doing and saying the right things at the moment.

“It’s going to be tough to invite brands and partners to sponsor race cars in 2021 especially if they were hurt during the lockdown this year. They are going to have to show ways to leverage any spend and with GT World Challenge and SRO/ARG coming onboard it gives us a real foundation to do so.”

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15

GRAND

S W E N A R T X E

AMBITIONS

Stephane Ratel, the guru of global GT racing, explains why he’s invested in Australia

THE RECENT announcement the Stephane Ratel Organisation (SRO) and the Australian Racing Group (ARG) had been awarded the promotional rights for Australian GT racing from 2021 was a huge boost for the category locally.

The partners have committed to a six-race calendar, split between five sprint rounds that make up the Australian GT Championship and a single longer race to decide the Australian Endurance Championship.

But that’s only the beginning as SRO has also declared Australia the home of its fourth GT World Challenge customer racing program, alongside Europe, America and Asia.

To explain the significance and implications of all that there was only one person to go to – the global GT racing mastermind Stephane Ratel. He zoomed in from Rome to outline his vision for the GT’s local future to BRUCE NEWTON. This is an edited text of their conversation.

On what SRO is and what SRO does.

“In a nutshell I have been in GT racing for 29 years. We launched the category by the mid 1990s, first with GT at Le Mans and then the BPR series. I have been running the FIA GT championship for 13 years, I introduced the GT3 category to the FIA in 2005, then we created the GT4 category in 2007 and for the last two years we have been working on and now we are finally launching the GT2 category.

“Next year … we will be organising or jointly organising 14 championships or series around the globe with about 120 races over something like 60 meetings on five continents in 25 or 26 countries.

“Without our partners in Australia we are about 65 people, so relatively small. But we have very dedicated and efficient teams in London, which is our original and home office. We have Paris, we have an office in Brussels, we have an office in Liege in Belgium, we have an office in Hong Kong organising the Asian series and we have a team in America.”

On SRO’s role in managing the performance of the vehicles that race in the championships and series it promotes.

“While I introduced the GT3 category it always remains an FIA category. The FIA is responsible for the homologation but we solely handle the Balance of Performance (BoP). Not only we have someone very talented at doing with our technical director Claude Surmont, who has been involved so long he has developed a particular sense in doing it and also he benefits from getting data

16 AutoAction

contacted us from Australia to say they would be happy to promote it locally for us and then finally, Motorsport Australia put us in contact with ARG saying that would be the right cocktail.”

Pirelli you have much more weight and you can geta better deal out of it.

That is basically the idea, so we are bringing some contribution out of the sponsorship we already have and of the sponsorship we will get in the years to come.

“We perfectly trust ARG to secure the (TV) coverage in Australia and I think they are one with Channel 7, while we will take care of the global coverage.”

On what SRO delivers to the partnership and what ARG delivers.

On the lessons learned from the Australian GT Championship’s previous struggles .

“It’s very simple, we do the global they do the local. The idea was to bring GT Australia under the GT World Challenge platform, which is global customer racing competition. We organise all these series; we say SRO is like a pyramid. At the bottom is all these track days, then we have national championships GT4 and GT3, we have our three continental series previously known as Blancpain GT and as World Challenge in America. When we ended a 10-year relationship with Blancpain we used the American name … and we created the GT World Challenge. Out of that we have built quite a powerful social media and internet broadcasting. We also have a number of TV networks that broadcast us globally. Adding Australia was simply making sense.

“It also helps us, which is essential, in approaching sponsors that we would not have if we were limited one of the market. The sponsors such as Amazon Web Services and others we are talking to today are global companies interested in global markets. With so many events around the world it adds up in terms of visibility and the package becomes much more appealing.

“So when you negotiate with suppliers such as

“That’s why we need a local partner, because we don’t have deep knowledge of the details of the Australian market. When you go and race GT racing you are going to put hundreds of thousands of Australian dollars to go and live your passion or to promote your company. The first thing you need is confidence.

“You need confidence the platform itself is in the right hands. Because if you go and buy a McLaren or Ferrari or Lamborghini and you don’t really know if there is going to be a championship at the end of the year or next year, that doesn’t really work.

“What you need is confidence and together both SRO and ARG with Motorsport Australia will bring this confidence. That’s number one. Then we have the experience in the format, in the BOP, in the organisation, in the driver categorisation, in the management that should allow the championship to run without (issues).

“None of us is also racing in the championship. Don’t forget the last two promoters were also participating in the championship with all the controversy that creates. This is not the case. I think we have

The SRO are aiming to give competitors confidence to return to the championship after a turbulent recent history under Trofeo Motorsport, which took over the series in 2018. not from not just one championship.

“It is extremely difficult to balance cars on a single grid simply because you have the influence of the team ability and the drivers. But if you add that up from so many races around the world with so many different teams and so many different drivers you are able to attract the real performance of the car independently from the drivers and of the teams.”

On how SRO came into this partnership with ARG and Motorsport Australia.

“Initially we had a contact with Motorsport Australia. They contacted us and said they were a bit concerned with the evolution of GT racing in Australia, that the category had been struggling in recent years. We already have a contact with Australia with the Liqui-Moly Bathurst 12-hour – I have been coming to the event a number of times.

“Our manager of the Asian championship Benjamin Franassovici was based in Hong Kong and been more in contact with Australian teams because we had a couple of them racing in our series in Asia because they were not happy with what was going on in Australia; they loved our format, they loved the way we organised it and its true that Benjamin was ‘ah we should do something in Australia’. So when the contact came with Motorsport Australia I thought ‘yeah that is maybe something we could do and maybe Benjamin could be contributing to it’.

“That’s how it started and then the rumour came that we had been contacted by Motorsport Australia then I think a number of people

Stephane Ratel has been the powerbroker of GT racing for 29 years and is ready to take up the challenge of reinvigorating GT Racing in Australia.

On the growth of the calendar in the future beyond six races.

“I always say you need to walk before you can run. Let’s walk first with six events. One of our intentions going forward is it would be great to have at least one maybe two events mixing the Asian grid and the Australian grid.

Maybe one day we could imagine the Australian championship coming to Sepang and the Asian grid coming to a Bathurst event organised by ARG, which would also be a training ground for teams to stay a couple of months longer for the 12-hours. So I think there is a lot we can do.

“Our intention is to have a strong link between the two (Asian and Australian World Challenge).

We would welcome these two events, but not immediately. We need to have these borders reopen in Asia, we haven’t been able to organise any races this year. In 2021 we hope to restart in late May or June. So before we think about doing something with Australia we need a bit more time.”

On how SRO’s new deal with ARG impacts on its existing deal with Supercars to promote the 12-hour, which is one of four events in the blue ribbon Intercontinental championship “When speaking to Motorsport Australia I didn’t see that a problem. I don’t think Supercars had applied for GT, but it’s two different elements and I have discussed it with (Supercars executive) John Casey before and its clear the 12-hour needs a strong national element, especially teams are not going to start travelling so easily next year. Maybe it will take two or three years so I think to have a strong Australian platform will be essential for the 12-hours.

“Lately a big part of the grid has been made by foreign teams and I think that might be more difficult for the next year or two so I think to have a good Australian championship will be essential.”

On the complexities of adding a fourth GT World Challenge in 2021.

SRO run multiple GT series across the world in both sprint and endurance formats. Series in America, Asia and Europe are all conducted by the SRO, with the Intercontinental GT Challenge providing a platform for GT manufacturers to contest events globally, including Bathurst. the stable ground to start growing.

“In addition we hope we will bring more sponsorship, more resources to the championship to be promoted better.”

On expectations for a rebound of Australian GT racing in 2021.

“I am not really the right person to ask that.

Ken Collier is in charge locally in Australia.

First of all, we have never been handed a championship that was very successful. That is something that doesn’t happen. All the property we acquired in SRO’s category was in trouble. That is the way we were entrusted with British GT at a time when it was on the floor. That is how we were trusted with the Total 24-hours of Spa at a time where firstly it was in deep trouble with touring car and then the event itself was losing large amounts of money and the Royal Auto Club of Belgium had to trust someone to run it on their behalf.

www.autoaction.com.au

The same goes for many series we are involved with, so the fact we take something that is not currently a success is normal, but we’ve proved if we look at what happened for example in Asia, where we can with a white piece of paper, GT racing was there for years with GT Asia. It was struggling and never had a strong grid.

“We brought first of all our reputation which is important; I think most people trust SRO when it comes to GT racing. We brought our BoP, we brought our format, our driver categorisation and everything we have been duplicating so much in so many different parts of the world.

“Now that the partnership is finalised and announced we are going to work really closely with ARG. We really want ARG to benefit and work with the various people heading each (SRO) department … It’s not that we are going to just there and take care of media and BoP. No, we are going to help ARG with our experience in every corner of the games and of

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course trust them to pass on the message and to organise it locally. They are fully in charge of the calendar and head of team management locally, together with Motorsport Australia, because Motorsport Australia is doing the sporting and the technical control.”

“In 2019 we managed an incredible calendar and we worked on it very, very hard and we had 26 non-clashing events. We had 22 nonclashing World Challenge and four non-clashing Intercontinental. Adding Australia? Impossible.

It is mathematically impossible. You can’t fit another six races in the calendar, so we will need to have clashes but with time difference I think it will be ok. We won’t have to broadcast at the same time.”

On 2021 race format for both the five GT championship (sprint) rounds and single endurance championship event.

On the challenges of adding Australia as a fourth GT World Challenge continent when it does not have the population and resources to draw on comparable to Asia, Europe and America.

“We believe the format we have both in Europe with endurance and in Asia is absolutely what is need for Australia, but that is something we will discuss in detail. Some small amendments.

For example, in Asia we have only the latest generation cars. We know this will need to be adapted in Australia because you have quite a lot of cars from the previous generation and we want them back on the track.

“But as I say you need to think globally and adapt to your local needs.”

“It’s not the population that matters, it’s the interest of the population in motorsport. And the population in Australia may be smaller but its interest in motorsport is larger, so we are certain Australia and New Zealand will become a great contributor to the global world challenge platform. I have no doubt about that, both in the gaming world, in the viewership, in everything.

“It’s not something we say ‘oh Australia is smaller than American and Europe’. No, it’s important.”

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LATEST NEWS

FITTIPALDI TO MAKE F1 DEBUT PIETRO FITTIPALDI will make his F1 debut with Haas this weekend in Bahrain’s Sakhir Grand Prix, subbing for Romain Grosjean who sustained burns to his hands in his violent accident on the opening lap of the Bahrain Grand Prix.

Grosjean spent Sunday night in the hospital. Haas team principal Guenther Steiner talked with him by telephone on Sunday night, and then went to visit him the next day.

“He was feeling good; he was in good spirits,” Steiner said. “We cracked a few jokes, and just talked through a bit. He asked me a few things, I asked him a few things. When I called him he was on the phone with his son, so he’s speaking with the family.”

Grosjean, who is in his final season of F1, will miss at least one of the two final races of 2020.

“The choice to put Pietro in the car was pretty easy,” Steiner said. “He’s familiar with us having been around the team for the past two seasons as a test and reserve driver.

It’s the right thing to do and it’s obviously a good opportunity for him.

“He’s been patient and was always prepared for this opportunity – and now it has come. That’s why we want him in the car and I’m sure he’ll do a good job. It’s very demanding being called in at the last

minute, but as I said, I think it’s the right thing to do for Haas.”

Fittipaldi, 24, attended a majority of the F1 races this season in his test and reserve driver role with the team. His CV includes a Formula V8 3.5 Championship title and several IndyCar races. He tested for Haas in 2018 and 2019.

He is the grandson of two-time F1 world champion and double Indy 500 winner Emerson Fittipaldi.

“Most importantly I’m happy Romain is safe and healthy,” said Pietro Fittipaldi.

“We’re all very happy his injuries are relatively minor after such a huge incident. Obviously, it’s not an ideal set of circumstances to get my first opportunity to compete in Formula 1, but I’m extremely grateful to Gene Haas and Guenther Steiner for their faith in putting me behind the wheel this weekend.

“I’ve been with the team a lot this season, both trackside and working on simulator sessions, so I’m familiar with the team’s operating procedures on a grand prix weekend. It’s going to be exciting to make my first career start in F1. I’ll be giving it my all and I look forward to starting in free practice on Friday in Bahrain.”

Given that the Haas has usually been towards the back of the field, Fittipaldi will be able to make a lowkey F1 debut. DK

RICCIARDO LEFT LIVID FOLLOWING GROSJEAN CRASH DANIEL RICCIARDO was left furious after Romain Grosjean’s frightening opening lap accident in Bahrain.

Ricciardo’s anger was squared at Formula 1 management after he believed the accident was replayed excessively in pit lane during the resultant stoppage.

“I want to express my disgust and disappointment with Formula 1,” a livid Ricciardo said post-race.

“The way the incident of Grosjean was broadcast over and over, it was completely disrespectful and inconsiderate for his family [and] for all of our families watching.

“We’re going to go race again in an hour and every time we look at the TV it’s a ball of fire, and his car is cut in half.”

The Renault driver expressed his disappointment at the timing of the replay, as the field prepared itself to restart the race.

“We can see that (the crash) tomorrow,”

Ricciardo said. “We don’t need to see it today, for me, it was entertainment, and they’re playing with all of our emotions. I thought it was pretty disgusting.”

“Hopefully some other drivers have spoken up.

“If that’s not how we all really feel I’d be very surprised!”

Ricciardo found an ally in the form of

Mercedes driver Valtteri Bottas, who shared the same sentiments.

“When there is a crash, when it ends up being OK for the drivers, they like to repeat those,” Bottas told Autosport.com.

“I feel like people, spectators want to see it. But there’s a limit as well.

“It (the crash) could have been a fraction different and there would have been no

way for him to get out of the car. So yeah, there’s a limit on it.

“I was watching the screen because I wanted to see what happened. Once I saw it, I was trying to avoid it, but it was playing on replay everywhere.

“I don’t know, maybe it’s a question for people watching, the fans, if they want to see 20 repeats of that or not.” DM

THE INAUGURAL ‘Australian All Wheels Race Fest’ kicks off both the Shannons Motorsport Australia Championships and the Australian Superbike Championship on February 19-21 at Phillip Island.

Shannons Motorsport Australia Championships categories TCR Australia, S5000 Australian Drivers’ Championship and Porsche Michelin Sprint Challenge will share the track with the Australian Superbike Championships, plus its support program in a motor sport extravaganza.

“The Australian All Wheels Race Fest is a great opportunity for both Motorsport Australia and Motorcycling Australia to further build upon our already strong relationship and deliver an event that will be something that hasn’t really been done in Australia in recent times,” said Motorsport Australia CEO Eugene Arocca.

“This will be an exceptional opportunity for motorsport fans to get up close and experience both disciplines across their respective categories. It promises to deliver a magnificent start to the 2021 Shannons Motorsport Australia Championships calendar.

“We are thrilled to be able to get such an event up and running that will provide a terrific day out for a very wide range of motorsport fans.

“There will of course be subtle changes required to the track and officials to meet the differing safety requirements, but all this

SHANNONS AND ASBK COMBINE SUHLE PERFECTING THE CRAFT

will be factored into the schedule which will provide some really exciting on track action across the weekend at a terrific Victorian venue.”

Supporting the Australian

Superbike Championship are the Kawasaki Superbikes, Supersport, Supersport 300 and Oceania Junior Cup. This marks the first-time the Shannons Motorsport Australia

Championships and Australian Superbike Championship have combined for a meeting, with both sanctioning bodies eager to continue the event in the future.

“This is a fantastic opportunity to be working with Motorsport Australia to deliver a spectacular event at a venue that has so much history for both two-wheel and four-wheel motorsport,” Motorcycling Australia CEO Peter Doyle said.

“The Australian All Wheels Race Fest idea has been spoken about for some time and both Motorcycling Australia and Motorsport Australia look forward to working together closely.”

More details about the Australian All Wheels Race Fest will be confirmed in the lead up to the event including the schedule, TV Broadcast details and ticket sales.

Dan McCarthy

V8 SUPERUTE WILL INTEREST FANS LAST YEAR’S Superute Series runner-up Cameron Crick is confident fans will be attracted to the series, which will feature LS V8 engines in 2021.

Crick has recently completed track testing of a Superute featuring the 6.0-litre LS V8, which replaces the unpopular and much maligned turbo-diesel powerplants used by the category since its inception in 2018.

Category management is aiming

for 15-Superutes for next year’s series, a spectacle Crick believes will improve the show and win over fans.

“It was cool, it is different,” Crick stressed to Auto Action. “I think 15 to 20 dual cabs with V8s hooning through a street circuit, that is more like what the fans want to see, but it was cool to drive for sure.

“The feedback I’m getting personally from sponsors and what people are saying to me, it’s

definitely better than what was said last year.

“If the category is done properly, and hopefully they do it right, it’ll be a good thing, I think the fans will like it, I really do.”

Handling characteristics largely remain unchanged in the newgeneration Superute, but the increased poke in a straight line is the key notable difference.

“It still felt like the ute last year, like they still feel a lot higher off the

ground,” he said.

“The downlow power with an LS V8, it just comes off the corner so much faster, you can really feel the power!

“Last year they (the utes) had a few issues with the diff because you’d have to wait for the turbo lag. Now there’s enough power now to avoid no man’s land, so the diff doesn’t feel as weird because there is so much power there.” Dan McCarthy

FEATURED AUTO Action Young Gun Ryan Suhle is aiming to perfect the craft of driving a Porsche before making the step up into Carrera Cup. Suhle finished his maiden season contesting the secondtier Porsche series in fourth, recording podium finishes in half of the 18-races.

Porsche Michelin Sprint Challenge in recent seasons has been highlighted by an increase of competition highlighted by the graduation of Harri Jones, Max Vidau and Cooper Murray into Carrera Cup. Suhle’s aim is simple, the Porsche Michelin Sprint Challenge title next year.

“From my end I want to get the craft nailed and be the best I can be in Sprint Challenge, hopefully win the Sprint Challenge Series and then make the jump up,” Suhle told Auto Action.

“I’m confident, and everyone that supports me was confident that stepping up was something that we could have done, and would have done very well in.

“But we looked at who’s made an impact in Porsche Carrera Cup in the past, the people that have made an impact in the Porsche series have come in and they’ve dominated it.

“They’ve come out of nowhere, they haven’t built up to it, they’ve been a bullet out of the gate and they’ve won the first round and everyone’s like, holy shit, who’s this guy beating a lot of more established drivers.”

At 18-years-old, Suhle is no rush to make the progression “I’m not in a position where I can fully fund it and that’s why I need support from supporters,” Suhle said.

“I’m young enough, I’m only 18, so I don’t need to rush to get to Carrera Cup. “I can sit back and I can spend half the amount of money on Sprint Challenge, perfect the craft and then make the transition up into Carrera Cup when I feel that I can just jump into the category and be really competitive at the pointy end.” Dan McCarthy

LATEST NEWS

GARDNER’S EYES ON 2021 IT WAS a perfect way to end his partnership with Onexox TKKR SAG as Remy Gardner broke through to take his maiden Moto2 victory in Portugal.

The Aussie was elated with his first win and hopes this is the sign of things to come in 2021 where he will ride for the front-running team AJO KTM. “It’s a great way to end the season, hopefully this is a glimpse of what’s to come next year,” Gardner said shortly after the race.

“We’ve got some hard work to do now, in pre-season testing and over the winter to see if I can lose a little bit of weight.”

Despite challenging seasons in Moto2 and Moto3, Gardner is confident he can have more success as he aims to emulate his father Wayne in racing bikes at the top level.

“Now it’s really starting, I can’t wait to go racing again to be honest, just still on cloud nine, extremely happy, I want to say thank you to everyone that has supported me over the last five years,” he expressed.

“My first ever win, I’ve had a few tough years in Moto3 and Moto2 and

I’ve had a few podiums this year and even last year but the win has always eluded us.

“I worked on myself really hard throughout last winter and this year as well and i think the team has done an amazing job this year to give me a very competitive package.”

Confidence was key approaching the weekend for Gardner.

“We came to a track that I absolutely love, and we managed to win,” Gardner said.

“We’ve been strong here all weekend, you know I thought I could win, I came in thinking it’s the last race, I’ve got nothing to lose and we did it.

“We worked so hard as a team, all the weak points (in setup) we straightened out over the weekend and even in the race I was still adapting to my style from Luca (Marini).”

It was Marini that Gardner overtook on the penultimate lap of the race to take the victory (see full race report on p44).

By taking the win Gardner became the first Aussie intermediate class winner since Ant West in 2014.

Dan McCarthy

LOVE’S ACHIEVEMENT REIGNING PORSCHE Carrera Cup Australia winner Jordan Love has reflected on a tough maiden season in Supercup where he was forced to adapt to new circuits, a new team and new tyres rapidly.

Love outscored his experienced Fach Auto Tech teammate Jaap van Laagen on his way to a top 10 finish in Porsche’s top-tier series.

Before the season even started, Love’s Supercup campaign was in doubt due to the travel restrictions put in place in response to COVID-19, something not lost on the West Australian.

“To be over there in the first place was an achievement,” Love said.

“It was an incredible experience and definitely something that helped me build as a driver on and off the track, and the people you meet while you’re over there.”

Love lead the statistics when it came to overtaking, but this was due to his struggle in qualifying due to his limited experience on the Pirelli tyres and the lack of track time to adapt.

“We definitely lacked a little bit (in qualifying),” Love told Auto Action. “But I was never extremely comfortable in the car, in terms of how it felt.

“Driving on the Pirelli rubber on an F1 weekend was extremely different, it’s not a very nice feeling at all. It’s the same for everybody.

“Then getting used to the lack of track time.

You’ve got one practice session to basically learn places like Spa-Francorchamps and Silverstone which is extremely challenging. Those are a lot longer and more technical than what we have here in Australia, so obviously track time wasn’t really our friend.

“But it was also a little bit of a struggle in terms of being happy with the package that was underneath me.”

Improvement occurred for Love towards the end of the season, which was highlighted by his best finishing position of seventh at Monza.

“We definitely made a few leaps with the car towards the end of the season,” Love said.

“I think just finally getting to that point where you are starting to feel a little bit more comfortable with what’s underneath you, and having that confidence from the car to actually attack and push as hard as you think you can push.”

Love aims to return to Supercup next year, but is open to opportunities in other categories within Europe.

“I’m looking at at all options that’s for sure, nothing’s locked in as of yet,” he told.

“I’ve definitely got my sights set on Europe without question, but I’m definitely looking at all options, Supercup and some GT stuff as well.”

Dan McCarthy

ANDREWS ON IMPRESSIVE IMSA DEBUT IT WAS a matter of learning on the go for Australian Scott Andrews when he made his DPi debut at one of the biggest races of the season, the Sebring 12 Hour.

With no experience of the JDC-Miller Motorsports Cadillac DPi-V.R he drove alongside IndyCar driver Matheus Leist and South African Stephen Simpson prior to practice, Andrews was learning on the run.

“It was a massive flood of information, I got my seat fit finalised just before FP1, I hadn’t even sat in an DPi car let alone driven one before practice,” Andrews

recalled to AA. “Matheus Leist the Brazilian IndyCar driver started the first session, and I was in next, I just had to do what I normally do.

“Car controller told me to go, I just dropped the clutch and then I just had to figure it out, there was no time to take breaths or anything.”

After 12-hours at Sebring the trio finished an impressive fourth, marking an impressive debut for Andrews, who complemented the drivability and grunt of the DPi-V.R.

“The power was definitely very noticeable, a lot of power,” he said. “It didn’t necessarily take long to get used to the power as the traction control provided

by Cadillac was amazing.

“The power delivery is very smooth and although it had a lot of power wasn’t really difficult, as long as you’re able to navigate your entries properly without either going too slow and taking all the downforce off the car or going too fast and going sideways.

“For us to be able to compete and actually be the first Cadillac home was

huge for that team.

“We obviously had some luck, but we did everything right and we didn’t put a foot wrong on the track.”

Racing alongside such luminaries the likes of Juan Pablo Montoya, Scott Dixon and Ryan Briscoe, Andrews was delighted to pull away from the trio after a safety car restart.

“To keep up with guys who are at the top of their game and even drive away from some guys who are also at the top of the game, that was when I knew I figured this out,” Andrews explained. DM

CAR EXPLAINS MID-SEASON SLUMP A NAME to keep an eye on in the future is Australian young gun Josh Car. After winning last year’s US Formula 4 Championship, Car progressed to the Formula Regional Americas Championship, an FIA Formula 3 regional series across North America.

Although he missed out on points in the season-opener at Mid-Ohio, Car quickly gained momentum to score seven top six finishes from eight races, highlighted by a trio of second places at Virginia International Raceway.

Despite this, a turbo problem curtailed his season at Sebring and the flow on effects hurt

the rest of his season.

“I guess what happened was the bearing let go and all metal went inside the engine, we struggled then to get speed back,” Car told Auto Action.

Delays due to COVID-19 impacted his season as the spare engine arrived just prior to the fifth round at Homestead-Miami Speedway and was with barely moments to spare in time for practice.

“We couldn’t get the engine and put it straight in, we had to wait until the next round so the engine came on Thursday,” Car said.

“I think COVID did (effect efficiency) because every factory was so slow in terms of us

getting parts.

“All factories were slow at doing that because they were down on staff, they didn’t even have spare engines at the at the previous round.

“The car was slapped together as quick as we could, but it’s never going to be perfect.”

Homestead was a struggle and the final round at Circuit of The Americas was a slight improvement, however Car was unable to get back to his Virginia form.

“We tried so hard to get speed, but we were struggling, I was, driving around 1.5s off the pace. It was the most I’d been off all year by a lot, and we just couldn’t get the speed back,” he said.

“We got it a bit better for COTA but still was not quite the same. Then we started trying to find where the speed was, but it just didn’t go away.

“It’s never always going to be easy, so, you’ve just got to take it on the chin and refocus for your next opportunity.”

Car aims to return stateside next year and is targeting victory in Formula 3.

“We’re 100% going for the win,” Car said.

“Like the second year in F4 that’s what it has to be for us to move forward, we’re going to really try for that (title), give it our all and are definitely not going to leave a single stone unturned.” Dan McCarthy

with Dan Knutson

WILLIAMS HAS announced that two of its drivers will represent the famous Formula 1 manufacturer in this year’s young driver test which takes place after the on December 15. The test takes place just days after the concluding round of the F1 championship at the Yas Marina Circuit in Abu Dhabi. Jack Aitken, the Williams reserve driver who got behind the wheel of an S5000 at the Australian Grand Prix this year as well as Roy Nissany the test driver. DM

THE MAN that currently sits second in the FIA Formula 2 Championship Callum Ilott will get his chance to drive an up to date 2020 Alfa Romeo F1 machine in the post season F1 test at Abu Dhabi. Ilott was set to make his FP1 debut earlier this year at the Hurburgring, however due to thick fog the session never got underway.

It will not be the first time he has driven an F1 machine, having driven an Alfa Romeo in 2019 during the in-season Barcelona test. DM

IN THE last three weeks Fernando Alonso has driven a Renault F1 car on three separate occasions, excited about making a return. Renault’s Executive Director Marcin Budkowski has said the two-time champion’s enthusiasm for his F1 return extends beyond simply driving, with the two-time champion calling on his team to begin wind tunnel testing its 2022 car as soon as legally possible on January 1 next year. DM

FORMER F1 driver and Paralympian Alex Zanardi has been moved to a hospital closer to his family home as he continues his recovery from a serious road accident several months ago. Zanardi was riding his handbike in Siena in northern Italy in July, when he crashed and suffered serious injuries that saw him taken from the scene by a helicopter to hospital where he underwent several surgical procedures. DM

GEORGE RUSSELL is now joint third on the all-time list of drivers who have consecutively out qualified their teammates. By qualifying in 15th for the Bahrain Grand Prix, George Russell has out qualified a teammate for the 36th consecutive time, tying Nelson Piquet as third on the alltime list. Ayrton Senna has 44, while Michael Schumacher has the record with 56. Incredibly since making his debut in Australia last year, the British driver has never been out qualified. DM

18 AutoAction

DRIVERS SLAM 2021 TYRES THE F1 drivers were appalled after getting a chance to test prototypes of Pirelli’s 2021 tyres during Friday’s practice sessions for the Bahrain Grand Prix. Most of them said the 2021 version is a backwards step to the current tyres that have been used in 2019 and 2020.

“It was not great,” Aussie Daniel Ricciardo said. “I’m trying to be kind!”

The tyres Pirelli currently provides are actually the same concept as those issued in 2019. The updated 2021 version was designed to prevent failures like the tyre delaminations Mercedes suffered in this year’s British Grand Prix.

The drivers’ assessments of next year’s tyres ranged from indifference to extremely critical.

“They were not a step forward, the opposite pretty much,” Sebastian Vettel lamented.

“Probably worth a shot, but I hope we don’t see these tyres again. They’re probably quite a lot worse compared to the tyres we currently run.”

Mario Isola, Pirelli’s Head of F1 and Car Racing, said that the current cars have been optimized for the current tyres, so the cars will have to be reoptimized for the 2021 tyres.

The drivers would prefer to stick with the 2019 tyres in 2021.

“If they (Pirelli) can give us what we have this year again for next year,” Ricciardo said, “I think we drivers can push back (for that), but I would imagine you would get the teams’ support as well. There is still some hope that we can have no change, probably just have what we have now.”

Lewis Hamilton was appalled when he tested Pirelli’s 2021 tyres.

“We’ve had the same tyre for the last two years,” said the seven-time world champion. “At the end of 2019 they brought a new tyre (for 2020), which they normally do, and it was quite a bit worse.

Then they said ‘OK we’ll just keep the tyres we had last year.’ so they’ve had two years

now to develop a better tyre.”

But Hamilton said that the 2021 tyre is not better than the 2019 version.

“We’ve arrived with a tyre that’s three kilos heavier and it’s like a second worse per lap,” he said. “I know for the fans it doesn’t really make a difference, but from a driving point of view, we’re working with brands and partners who are at the forefront of technology and elevating and moving forwards.

The drivers and teams will get another chance to test the 2021 tyres during practice for the 2020 Abu Dhabi season finale.

“We could give it another go,” Ricciardo said, “but I’m not sure if we will get a different result.

But for the sake of being polite, and giving them another chance, I do not see why not.

It definitely needs quite a lot of work. If they want to bring something else to try, I’m sure the least we can do is that. But if it is a similar result, then you are going to get a lot of drivers pushing back on that one.”

worrying, the split in the barrier was worrying. I think the positives are the safety of the car. That is what got us through today.”

Masi explained what will happen next with the investigation.

“With every incident, more so with every larger incident, the FIA’s Safety Department, the FIA as a whole really, leads the investigation,” he said.

“The single seater department, of which F1 is a part of, from a technical perspective has an involvement, the F1 teams, technical directors, the circuits commission will be involved.

“All of the various parts of the FIA group as a whole, the respective subject matter experts, will review their particular area and see what can be earned, what can be improved, be it small, large, in between.

“There’s always something to be learned. It’s a credit to the safety systems we have as a whole and our entire safety package the way the FIA has been working through it, over many, many years, that Romain came out relatively – all things considered – unscathed.”

Red Bull boss Christian Horner says the investigations will lead to safer cars.

“There will be lessons that were learned from today for sure, from a circuit point of view, from a car point of view, from an equipment point of view, from response point of view,” he said.

“You’re always learning in this business, not just about going faster but about the safety and protection of the cars. For a driver to walk away from a shunt like that…Romain Grosjean is a very fortunate young man.”

DEEP ANALYSIS

EVEN BEFORE the Bahrain Grand Prix ended, the FIA had already begun investigating the violent and fiery accident that happened on the first lap when Romain Grosjean’s Haas slammed through the steel barriers.

“As part of every incident that occurs, the FIA undertakes a full investigation,” said the FIA’s race director, Aussie Michael Masi. “So during the race, a lot of our teams started collating all of the data that was available – video cameras any angle that was possibly available.

Our technical teams have already started taking a whole lot of photographs and understanding the car as it was returned back to the team.

“Then there will be a complete overall analysis done of everything, in very fine detail, to see what we can learn from it. Safety is ever evolving, ever improving. You can learn from everything.”

“It certainly was a tough situation,” Masi added. “It’s never something we like to see, a big incident, particularly one involving fire. But glad more than anything that Romain is okay. He’s in hospital under observation, but our thoughts are with him for a very speedy recovery.”

Grosjean suffered no fractures and his worst injuries were burns to his hands.

“We have to do a very deep analysis of all the events that occurred, because there were a number of things that should not have happened,” said Ross Brawn, Formula One’s managing director of motorsports. “The fire was

HAMILTON DESERVES A KNIGHTHOOD SEVEN-TIME world champion Lewis Hamilton deserves a knighthood in Britain, says Damon Hill.

“Lewis has always been breaking down barriers, the moment he arrived in F1 or even in karting he was breaking barriers and challenging the status quo,” Hill, the 1996 world champion, told The Guardian.

“He has destroyed the preconception that it can’t be done, that there is an area where you cannot achieve something because of the colour of your skin,” Hill added. “He has totally destroyed that notion.”

Aussie Jack Brabham, Stirling Moss and Jackie Stewart are the only F1 drivers who have been knighted. Frank Williams and his team’s cofounder Patrick Head are also knights.

“It is a very rare thing in our sport to get a knighthood,” said Hill. “It is then also a recognition of his stance on equality, anti-racism and environmental issues. He is outspoken, he is playing his part and using his fame for positive purposes. He is a fantastic ambassador and having a knighthood will only increase his opportunities to do that work.”

It is extremely likely that Hamilton will receive a knighthood in January, as Britain’s Prime Minister Boris Johnson has recommended that he should.

“I would never ever turn down the royal family,” Hamilton said when asked if he would accept the award. “I’ve grown up in the UK and I am an avid fan of theirs. It’s very surreal to hear, when you have grown up watching the news like everyone else, and your name is mentioned in parliament.

“It’s very surreal to hear that with all the things going on in the world they have a moment to mention and acknowledge the work that I have done. It’s definitely a surreal experience seeing that, but as far as I am aware there is a lot of talk, and I have not really thought about it. But it would be an incredible honour. There is no greater honour than your country recognising you with such an award.”

Queen Elizabeth awarded Hamilton an OBE – the third highest ranking Order of the British Empire awards – after he won his first world championship in 2008.

DRIVERS IN WAITING THE FORMULA 1 season is winding down, and a number of drivers still do not have racing rides sorted for next season. The list includes Haas rejects Romain Grosjean and Kevin Magnussen.

“No news at the minute on my side,” Grosjean said prior to the Bahrain Grand Prix weekend. “Hopefully, it comes sooner than later. The F1 door – never say never – but really the main target for me is to be somewhere I can fight for podiums and wins because that’s something I am missing too much nowadays.”

Magnussen has contacted a number of IndyCar teams.

“IndyCar is something that I’ve always found really cool,” he said. “I don’t know if I have an aggressive driving style, maybe in terms of racing other people, but my driving technique as such, I don’t know if it’s aggressive. I tried to be balanced. IndyCar is certainly something very cool and something I have a lot of passion for, but I don’t think it’s likely I will be IndyCar next year.”

There are reports that Magnussen will do a full season in the U.S. driving for Chip Ganassi’s new IMSA team.

“I still haven’t committed to anything,” Magnussen said, “so there’s not too much to say on that point. So hopefully soon I can announce what I am doing.”

This was on the Thursday prior to the Bahrain race. Perhaps Magnussen still had to

actually sign a contract with Ganassi.

Meanwhile, Sergio Pérez, who loses his Racing Point/Aston Martin seat to Sebastian Vettel next year, says his only option to remain in F1 is with Red Bull.

“There’s only one, one option,” he said.

“I’ve been here so many years. I want to keep going. I think I’m at the peak of my career, but also want to keep going with a reason, with a plan, with a good project. I think if there’s not

a good project that keeps my motivation, to give my 100 per cent, I rather not take it.”

Plan B for Pérez is a sabbatical.

Alex Albon hopes his performances in the final races will persuade Red Bull to retain him.

“Most people have a Plan B but my plan is Plan A and that’s staying in this team,” he said. “I’m focused on that, that’s my goal.”

AlphaTauri’s Daniil Kvyat is not as confident.

“We’re just waiting on the decision, what they decide to do, so that’s out of my hands,” he said. “I know the chances of me being here next year are very slim. It will depend on a very particular scenario. There were a lot of ups and downs, but lately it’s been going better and better. And I’m just hoping to continue this trend and close this year in the best way possible. And then we will see what the future holds.”

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Publisher Bruce Williams bruce@autoaction.com.au 0418 349 555 Editorial Director

with Dan Knutson

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Bruce Williams

Editor-At-Large Deputy Editor

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Mark Fogarty Heath McAlpine

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National Editor

Garry O’Brien

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Contributing Writers Australia Garry O’Brien, Mark Fogarty, Bruce Newton, David Hassall, Bob Watson, Bruce Moxon, Garry Hill, Craig O’Brien, Mick Oliver, Martin Agatyn.

Formula 1 US Correspondent

Dan Knutson Mike Brudenell

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WHEN HAAS team principal Guenther Steiner talked with accredited Formula 1 media on a conference call on the Thursday prior to the Bahrain Grand Prix he laid down a ground rule.

“You all want to know about drivers,” he said, “but before we go into that spiral, we will make the announcement soon.

Please do not ask me any questions today because I have no answers.”

There has been plenty of speculation about who will race for Haas next year ever since the team stated that Romain Grosjean and Kevin Magnussen will not be back in 2021.

Haas wants to try a different approach by going with rookies rather than experienced drivers, and I hear that the team will bring in Germany’s Mick Schumacher, son of seventime world champion Michael Schumacher, and Russia’s Nikita Mazepin. Both are competing in Formula 2 this year, and both are members of Ferrari’s Driver Academy. Given the close ties between Ferrari and Haas, the latter listens to the former’s suggestions.

There are also millions of reasons to sign Mazepin

DON’T ASK

because his father, Dmitry Mazepin, owns the Uralchem Integrated Chemicals Company.

The senior Mazepin will pay Haas millions of dollars for his son to get the drive.

While Steiner didn’t want to talk about next year’s drivers, he did reveal that team owner Gene Haas seriously considered quitting F1 at the end of this year.

“What have we done right?”

Steiner said. “We survived!

That’s what we have done right. I’ll leave it at that one. I think there was a big chance that we are not here anymore.

Everybody pulled together and we are here to stay. We haven’t been good at the track this year, but we have been good for the future of Haas F1 and for F1, because I think as much as we think they don’t need us, F1 needs people or teams like Haas F1.”

Steiner was asked if he was happy that this season is winding down.

“Absolutely, yeah, I’m happy,” he replied, “I actually was on

the plane yesterday with some of the drivers from Frankfurt to here, and they said we are enjoying it. [I said] If I were in a position like you guys are, getting points, I would enjoy it as well. But we are having a tough season as a team, a tough season for F1 in general; I’m not unhappy that it is ending soon.”

Grosjean has been with the team since it began racing in F1 in 2016. Magnussen joined a year later.

“As I always say, with every challenge comes an opportunity,” Steiner said. “Romain can be very challenging at moments, but when you get him on the right day and the right time he was a very big asset to the team. We have to thank him as well for what he did for us.

“He believed us at the beginning; he was with us for five years. We showed that we believed in him as we could have let him go after three years, after four years, but we kept him because sometimes

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he can be Romain. I call it being Romain, there is no word for it. Tough to manage, but otherwise he was a great asset for the team, and he will go into the history of Haas F1. He is a big part of it forever.”

Grosjean believes he contributed a lot to the development of the team.

“I’ve had moments,” he said.

“I’ve made mistakes, but who doesn’t? I think also when you have a poor car you need to try to drive to 105 per cent to get anything good. And when you drive to the level there are high chances you’re going to make mistakes. When you have a top car, you can drive at 99.8 per cent, and that means you’re more consistent. I’ve known both situations and that’s why I can say that. Am I difficult to manage? I don’t know. Some people did that very well with me in the past, so I guess it’s possible.”

Given that the technical rules will remain pretty stable next year, the new drivers at Haas (don’t ask who they are!) will inherit an uncompetitive car. I would have thought it would be wiser to have a veteran driver and a rookie, but then, I don’t run the team.

AUTO ACTION YEARBOOK - FULL SEASON REVIEWS OF ALL THE MAJOR CATEGORIES. THE STORY BEHIND THE REPCO TYPE RB620 3-LITRE V8 THAT POWERED BRABHAM TO A WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP - MORE OF THE STORY FROM STORY POSSIBLY THE 2021 SUPERCAR DATES

with Mark Fogarty

THE FOGES FILE AA’s polite pundit gets the rare, if sad, opportunity to praise a legend before his impending demise THE NEWS that racing great John Harvey is dying is distressing. Mostly for his family, of course, but also for fans going back nearly 60 years.

His family alerted us to his plight on social media, which can’t have been easy. They revealed that, at 82, he has terminal lung cancer.

We’d heard ‘Harves’ was ailing, but to learn his days were numbered was a shock.

Yes, back in the day when tobacco sponsorship was rife and smoking was socially acceptable, he ran the risk of lung cancer.

But to last this long before succumbing to the dreaded disease seems grossly unfair, particularly as I imagine he quit smoking long ago.

The only possible upside of this terrible news is that we can celebrate his career while he is still alive. Much better an acclamation than an obituary.

Hopefully, John Francis Harvey will read the tributes and bask in the respect and popularity he earned.

I have had the privilege of knowing and reporting on Harves since the mid-1970s.

From his days as the Bob Jane team’s allrounder – open-wheelers, sports cars, touring cars and sports sedans – to Peter Brock’s right hand man and ultimately a founding senior executive of Holden Special Vehicles.

Harvey was one of good guys.

An under-valued achiever whose talent and potential were subsumed by team loyalty. He was one of the very best who played second fiddle in his prime.

I’m much happier paying tribute to Harves now than after he’s passed because he deserves to know how highly regarded he is.

He was one of our most versatile drivers ever. From Sydney Showground to Mount Panorama, he was fast and fearless.

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He was also fated as the great runner-up.

Harvey emerged from the dirt track speedway bullrings in the early 1960s to become one of the country’s best road racers in open wheelers, sports cars, sports sedans and touring cars.

Yet, despite his virtuosity, he lived in the shadows of titans like Bob Jane and Peter Brock.

Harvey was a team player, a professional who played by the rules of his employers.

A gentle, laconic person, Harves took life’s ups and downs as they came.

Never more so than when he worked with Brock, who christened him ‘Slug’.

Most would take offence to the apparently pejorative nickname. It was a warped term of endearment that Harvey wore without rancour or resentment.

He was a good bloke who accepted his lot as a paid driver.

Harvey could have been an open-wheel star worthy of F1 consideration. A huge crash at Bathurst in 1968, which left him partially deaf, ended that promise.

He was Bob Jane’s all-rounder for many years in the 1970s before joining HDT, staying

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through the turbulent Brock era.

He shared victory at Bathurst in 1983, when Brock took over his car. He worked dutifully with and for Brock until Peter was no longer perfect in early 1987, reluctantly leaving the HDT madhouse.

Harvey famously teamed with Allan Moffat to win the opening round of the 1987 world touring car championship in a Holden Commodore surreptitiously secured from Brock.

It was by default after the top six BMW M3s were thrown out, but the sheer gumption of the rogue effort deserves ever-lasting praise.

Harves is a Holden legend who deserves more recognition than the record book portrays. He was a smooth stylist, as fast as anyone on his day, who played by team rules, often to his cost.

John, I hope you’re able to read this and appreciate your huge following.

We wish you the best and pray that you will outlive your diagnosis.

I enjoyed our interactions over many years – you were always open and honest. A journo can’t ask for anything more.

You’re in the good care of your devoted wife

Beverley, which I am sure is a great comfort.

As sad and as difficult this is, I’d rather pay tribute to you now than when you’re gone.

MIGHTY TOUGH MOLLY

I AVOID reality TV. But I am socially aware enough to know that former Australian rally champion Molly Taylor was among the celebrities in Seven’s SAS Australia.

She survived until the second last challenge, proving to be tough and determined. By all accounts, a great effort.

No one should have been surprised. Molly has proven to be committed and resolute throughout her rally career. First woman to win the ARC is notable, but she transcends gender as a genuine outright competitor in her Subaru.

To survive so far into a relentless competition like SAS Australia was impressive. Almost made up for the fact that the fact that the special forces Pom who fronted the show couldn’t pronounce Australia.

Mate, it’s not ‘Osh-tray-ya’. It’s Os-traylee-ah. Hope his warfare was better than his dodgy dictation.

Anyway, Molly, great effort. Hope it was worth it.

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YOU ONLY LIVE ON In the conclusion of our recollections with race and rally star Colin Bond, he tells MARK FOGARTY about his turbulent transition to retirement

IMAGES: AN1 Images-Ian Smith-Dale Rogers/Ray Berghouse-Chevron/AA Archives

HE RACED and rallied with a wide grin and cackling laughter. Colin Bond was undoubtedly the happiest driver in Australian motor sport, shrugging off defeat with a big smile and a chuckle as easily as celebrating victory.

Bond, now 78, was one of the big stars of the 1970s. He won the ’69 Bathurst 500, ’71/72/74 Australian rally championships and ’75 ATCC with the Holden Dealer Team.

Of course, he featured in the historic ‘Formation Finish’ Bathurst 1000 Ford 1-2, holding back to allow team leader Allan Moffat to win. Even then, Bond was smiling and upbeat.

The ’80s weren’t so kind as he stumbled from class Ford Capris and Alfa Romeos to a Group A Italian nightmare and then as one of the Ford Sierra horde.

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A momentary peak in 1990 reminded us that happy-go-lucky Bondy wasn’t all grins and giggles. He retired from racing after the ’94 Bathurst 1000, finishing a strong sixth in his farewell to The Mountain.

He was at his best in rallying, dominating the forests in the ’70s in Torana XU-1s and then barking BDA Escorts. He masterminded a last-minute Ford assault on the 1979 Repco Round Australia Trial with six-cylinder Cortinas that were fast but fragile, prepared too late to threaten the meticulous Brockled armada of MHDT Commodores.

If nothing else, Bond had fun in his long and distinguished career, which garnered an OAM and induction into the Supercars and Australian motor sport halls of fame.

He was also a passionate member of Motorsport Australia’s track safety committee, campaigning for improvements.

Bond now lives quietly with his eversupportive wife Robyn on Sydney’s lower North Shore, where he grew up as a sporting prodigy who could have been a soccer or golf star.

Retired from business for more than 20 years, he remains an interested observer and contributes as a member of MA’s annual awards committee.

In this second instalment, Bond looks back on his career after he left the Moffat Ford Dealer Team – which collapsed after dominating in ’77. He remained a force in rallying until the end of ’80, but his racing fortunes until retirement were all over the place.

Bond was part of an ambitious ‘Team Australia’ assault on the Le Mans 24 Hours in 1981. A supposedly factory prepared Porsche 924 Turbo was entered by Australian importer Alan Hamilton for Peter Brock, Jim Richards and Bond – arguably the three best drivers in the country at the time. But the effort didn’t go well and they failed to qualify.

I think what happened in hindsight is that there were three of these cars entered and they’d all been prepared at the factory. At the last minute, Porsche decided to run an outright entry, so all the mechanics working on our cars went over to the main team. So we were left with the guys who did normal servicing of Porsches to prepare our car.

It was the factory, but they weren’t really the right people. All the 924 Turbos had a

NCE N

PART TWO

Bond ran Alfa Romeo’s class assault on Group A on ’85/86 with re Alan Jones. The howling V6 GTVs (below and right) were up there with the BMW 635CSi for auditory entertainment. Bond’s Alfa 83. connection started with winning the inaugural Alfasud series in ’83.

problem with the gearbox. You couldn’t get third gear on the way up, but you could get third on the way down. There was something wrong in the gearbox because they were all the same. But that’s not all.

In the first practice session, when Peter was driving, it put a conrod through the block. They all did it. So Porsche changed the engines in all the cars. So next day, Peter goes out and comes back in saying he couldn’t change gear. I had a go and I realised that if you went first, second, fourth, third, it kind of worked. We nearly qualified the thing, so we were allowed to turn up the boost. I couldn’t tell any difference. After the engine blow up, the Porsche mechanics washed out the intercooler with petrol, which caused the gaskets to fail. So they fixed that and we’re all set for qualifying. Now, at this stage, Jim hadn’t even driven the car. With a

quarter of an hour our left, he got in and nd I said to him just go one, two, four, three with the gears. He came back after three laps and said it was jammed in third gear.

So that was it. It was a disaster The upside was that Alan brought the car back to Australia and I think the factory was so embarrassed with what happened at Le Mans that they gave him 944 engines.

That’s the car I ended up driving here for a couple of years in the sports sedan/GT championship. Le Mans was disappointing, but I did eventually get a drive in a 956 at Sandown for the round of the world sports car championship in 1984. That was a phenomenal car. Andrew Miedecke and I finished sixth outright. That was a ground effects car and even though the track was a

bit crappy, crappy with the slow infield section, it was an amazing machine in the fast corners.

So much grip! I must admit, Alan Hamilton (his Bathurst co-driver in ’77 and Porsche’s Australian agent back then) was the best person you could ever drive for. So professional, everything first class.

Lovely guy.

Bond drove for Hamilton in the ’82/83 Australian GT Championship in the upgraded 944 Turbo, finishing third and seventh respectively. That was amid his touring car ‘wilderness’ years, adrift after splitting with Allan Moffat at the end of ’78. Then followed class stints with Steve Masterton’s Capri team and Alfa Romeo, followed by the abortive Alfa 75 Turbo in ’87. Running his own team with Caltex backing, Bond was part of the Ford Sierra Cosworth RS500 pack from ’87-92, with limited success except for one notable peak in 1990.

Back to touring cars. After you left Moffat at the end of ’78, there seemed to be a lot of ‘wilderness’ years. What happened?

Well, the following year, Frenchie (John French) and I drove a Thomson Ford Falcon XC at Bathurst, but it was never a good car.

Then we drove a Capri for the Mastertons for a couple of years. They were very reliable and you always finished up in the top 10. Then Alfa Romeo came along with a drive in the Alfasud series, which I won the first year (1983).

The prize was a trip to Monza to compete in the Alfasud Sprint support race at the

Italian Grand Prix. That was something else because about 80 of these cars turned up to qualify for a 36-car grid or something. We did pretty well – I think we qualified 15th, the middle of the field.

We were going along quite nicely in the race and then there was a big crash at the front of the field. It was like demolition derby and I think we came out of the chaos in about fifth place. The bloke in front of me was driving very erratically. I’m convinced to this day that he was drunk because he was just straight-lining the chicanes and bouncing off other cars. I eventually got past him and it was all looking good until a half-shaft broke.

It was an interesting exercise because we got to test a Sprint at Alfa Romeo’s Balocco test track. We had the track to ourselves, so I was able to do a fair bit of testing beforehand. It was a good little car – like a mini-sports sedan version of the Alfasud Sprint. That led to me driving an Alfa GTV6 in Group E racing and then two cars in the ATCC when it went to Group A in ’85 – one for me,one for Alan Jones. One of them was a Luigi car out of Belgium and the other one we built here. It was a good car for what it was, but it wasn’t an outright contender.

Then we got the Alfa 75 Turbo in ’87, but the turbo was too small, that was the trouble.

Alfa 75 Turbo seemed like a good idea at the time… According to Bondy, Italian stallion’s turbocharger was too small to match big blower Sierra Cosworth’s race-winning grunt.

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It would have been as good as the Sierras if it had a Sierra-sized turbocharger. Lucio (Cesario) stuffed that in out of Skyline at Bathurst, bringing out the first safety car at Mount Panorama. Poor Lucio. He got the drive with Moffat in the Mazda RX-7 (in ’82) and he sticks it in at the top of the mountain first time out or something. Lucio was fantastic in testing – did everything right – but then at the race meetings, the red mist would descend. He just tried too hard. Anyway, the 75 was a disaster, so we switched to a Sierra in ’88. We ran Sierras through ’92, but the problem was that Dick Johnson was the only one getting the Eggenberger engine blocks. We suffered because we’d split bores and things every time we got any sort of decent boost in the things. At one stage, I actually got onto one of those Eggenberger blocks in England and then all of a sudden they couldn’t supply it because I think they suddenly realised it wasn’t going to Dick. They were good cars, but they were hand grenades for everybody other than Dick’s team.

In his ‘wilderness’ years after splitting with Allan Moffat, Bondy excelled in 3.0-litre class Capris (above and left) as teammate and mentor to Masterton Homes scion, Steve Masterton. He enjoyed driving for ‘first class’ Porsche distributor Alan Hamilton in a 944 Turbo in ’82/83 GT championship (right). He joined Ford in ’88 with staunch supporter Caltex in Sierra Cosworth RS500 (below).

1990, out of the blue, you won two rounds in a row at Lakeside and Mallala. Where did that come from?

We just put the back tyres on the front. We used to run smaller tyres on the front because that’s the way they did it in Europe. Same size wheels – just smaller tyres on the front. We decided to try the bigger rear tyres on the front and all of a sudden the car kept on turning in during the race. You weren’t losing the turn-in grip like normal and away we went. Then the others cottoned on to what we were doing and we lost that advantage.

Post-Group A, in 1993 Bondy ran a pair of semi-factory Toyotas Corolla Seca AE93s in the two-litre class of the transitional years to all-V8s. It was to be his final year as an owner/driver in the ATCC. That was just something we built ourselves. They were good cars, but there was one thing we did wrong. We had trouble with the clutches and without getting too technical, the arrangement we had caused a slight misalignment with the crankshaft and kept chewing out the clutch bearings.

We didn’t realise that until after we finished the program. Also, we had Holinger build a sequential gearbox for us and, again, that particular design put a lot of stress on the actual gears, which could also be a problem. That was something silly that happened. Had we gone to a Getrag gearbox or something like that that everyone else was running overseas, it might have been better. Holinger built good gearboxes, but it didn’t quite work in our configuration.

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Bond peaked in Sierra era in 1990 with surprise back-to-back wins at Lakeside and Mallala. He stole a fleeting advantage by fitting wide rear tyres on the front, boosting turn-in grip longevity.

It’s a shame because we had some good support from Toyota – not fantastic, but certainly very useful – and Caltex was still with us. We should have won the 2.0-litre class of the ATCC in ’93 with John Smith. At the final round at Oran Park, Smithy’s come around to lap some BMWs and they’ve stuck him in the wall. He was a lap in the lead. The Corolla had a lot of potential that we weren’t able to realise.

Bond was a Bathurst 1000 perennial until 1994, when he made his last professional appearance in a Gibson Motorsport Winfield Commodore, co-driving with Swedish ace Anders Olofsson. They finished a close and competitive sixth in Bond’s farewell to the race that made his name 25 years earlier.

It was good, it was different. I say different because it was the first time we’d driven that sort of car (Group 3A V8) with a bit of aero.

You could actually brake into the apex and then flatten it out of the corner. That took a little bit of getting used to. I wasn’t used to that, but it was no drama. We still did lead the race for a minute. It was one of those races where it was raining and not raining, and we had intermediates on at about the right time, and you could just pass people left, right and centre. The car was good and the Yokohama tyres were okay. I didn’t think they were fantastic. They started off really good, but they deteriorated quite quickly. At the end of the race, it was six cars in a line and we finished sixth.

Why did you retire after that?

I was 50. I’d had a good run and it was time to give it away, at least as far as professional racing was concerned. I still kept racing John Dawson-Damer’s cars in historic events, in the F1 Lotus 49 and things like that, but otherwise, I just thought we’d done it for 30-odd years and I’d had a great career as a professional sportsman, which I’d always wanted to be from when I was a teenager. I did play semi-professional soccer when I was 18. I’d played it since I was six years old and won a lot of comps

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on the way through, and then I played in the state league (as a striker and midfielder) before trying out with a couple of national comp teams. I was being paid £5 ($10) a week as an apprentice motor mechanic and three guineas (three pounds three shillings or $6.30) for a Saturday football game.

But once you got into the big leagues, the play was very dirty and I just didn’t like it that much. I was getting more interested in cars and that’s the direction I decided to pursue. Looking back, car racing wasn’t a bad choice because if I had’ve played soccer professionally, I probably would’ve ended up with bad knees or some other injuries.

I was also pretty good at golf in those days and that might have been the other option. It used to be that you could be competitive in golf in your 50s, but not anymore.

So motor sport was the right choice because I was still fairly competitive at the end and now, physically, everything still works. Even though we didn’t have power steering back in the ’70s and ’80s, it wasn’t as physically demanding as it today because we weren’t changing gear so often and weren’t braking as hard.

It also became safer and safer as my career went on. Racing has changed so much since my day. The kids coming through now basically all have the same equipment and the engineers are telling them what to do. For most of my career, the drivers were making the decisions on what needed to be changed on the car to make it go better.

They don’t do that anymore. Their engineers make the decisions on set up and what changes to make. The driver doesn’t really have that much input anymore, I don’t think.

Bondy was always in the thick of the Sierra action at tight, twisty Amaroo Park, his beloved Sydney home track. Two-litre Corolla Seca (below) failed to achieve its potential.

Following his retirement, Bond spent several years as the Driving Standards Advisor in the Australian Super Touring Championship, paired with ‘hanging judge’ senior official Peter Wollerman. They took their groundbreaking investigative approach to racing incidents to V8 Supercars in 2003, but Bond’s staunchly independent stance made a powerful enemy that saw him replaced by fellow ex-driver Tomas Mezera in 2007.

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Rallying was Bond’s favourite as the harder you drove, drove the faster you went in rear drive rear-drive forest racers like Escort RS1800 (above).

Legend meets legend – F1 commentator Murray Walker joined Bond in a medalwinning Toyota celebrity stunt (right).

We did it originally for Super Touring with Peter Wollerman as Investigating Officer.

When (2.0-litre racing boss) Kelvin O’Reilly went to TEGA (V8 entrants group) in 2003, he brought in the system where race incidents were looked at independently and should only go to the stewards if there was a case to be answered. It was a better way of doing it because it made the rulings more consistent. We’d been doing that in Super Touring and we took it to the V8s. It was a bit like being a referee at a football match. You don’t make the rules, but you try to apply them. And we had a fair amount of information that we could rely on. There was the TV broadcast you could see straight away, but then there was also on-board vision and data from every car that you could download afterwards and review. That enabled us to decide who did what to whom because it wasn’t always immediately clear from what was shown on the broadcast.

The trouble with the racing today is that it’s too squeaky clean. The cars are so equal on performance that it’s near impossible to overtake. That’s my main criticism. No one has an advantage anymore and it can be very processional.

There isn’t the variation of different strengths and weaknesses eaknesses of the cars at different tracks that you had back in the ‘70s and early ’80s.

The role of DSA (now DSO) is a thankless task. Did you enjoy it?

[Big sigh] I didn’t mind it, but it could be very political. There were only two manufacturers involved, so it was like a football match. The ref makes a decision against one team and immediately you’ve alienated supporters of the other side. You could never make a universally popular decision. But I thought towards the end that Roland [Dane] really didn’t want me there. It all came to a head in the final round in 2006 at Phillip Island when it was between Rick Kelly and Craig Lowndes.

There was a big incident involving both and we looked at all the information in-race and

gave ga Rick a drive-through penalty, which I still don’t think was right. w In the meantime, we determined that th Lowndes spun by himself and then th got T-boned by Will Davison, putting him out. So despite the p drive-through penalty, Rick won the d championship.

Long story short, it c went w to a stewards hearing the next day d in Melbourne and they upheld the t result despite Triple Eight’s best b efforts. Roland’s argument was w that because the race was the With fellow local racing legend John Bowe, who is still racing, during his stint as V8 Supercars Driving Standards Advisor. Bond claims he fell foul of Roland Dane over his decisions, dumped after controversial finish to 2006 title.

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championship decider, he wanted a stronger penalty for Kelly. Well, as far as the rules were concerned, that was irrelevant. We’d looked at all the data and it was clear that Rick didn’t cause Craig to spin. Case closed.

But you think that was the end for you?

I think Roland runs the show. He did then and he still does now. Whatever Roland wants, Roland gets. He had it in for me after that. I had it out with him, telling him “Look, you’ve been trying to get rid of me for three years”. Anyway, that was it. I was out, replaced by Tomas Mezera in 2007.

Years later, Larry Perkins admitted to me that Roland got rid of me. Roland and I get on all right these days, but I’ve never lost sight of the fact that Roland is in it for Roland. He wanted me gone and I was dumped. I still

A last minute, Bond mounted Ford Cortina assault on 1979 Repco Trial. The six-cylinder Cortinas were fast, but weren’t as strong as MHDT Commodores, which swept the last great around-Australia rally 1-2-3, led by Peter Brock. Bond lived in Brock’s shadow at HDT following his Melbourne-based teammate’s ’72 Bathurst victory

Bondy’s versatility was again shown in 1984 Sandown world sports car championship race, when he and Andrew Miedecke finished sixth in a John Fitzpatrick-run Porsche 956 (left). His Bathurst farewell was in Gibson Commodore in ’94, scoring a close sixth with Super Swede Anders Olofsson 25 years after his naming-making triumph at Mount Panorama.

think Roland has too much influence. He is driven by self-interest. I fell out with him because I wouldn’t just agree with him.

Looking back, how satisfied are you with your racing and rallying career?

Very satisfied. A lot of good results and we made a living out of it. We were never paid heaps, like the current crop are, but in saying that, we invested wisely and can still live comfortably today. I bought my house back in the ’70s for less than what I was earning from racing a year. The affordability of property today, particularly in Sydney, means drivers are paying more for a family home than what they earn a year.

We’ve made most of our money by being

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smart real estate-wise and never extending ourselves. I’m not sure that’s the case with drivers over the past 20 years. My feeling is that they get a reasonable dollar at an early age and blow most of it. There are not that many of us in motor sport that have actually finished up well financially. Even Brock ended up with no money. The only thing I miss now is not having a fully equipped workshop. Some of the guys who used to work for me have workshops that I can use, but I still love making things and it’d be nice to have my own place to tinker with stuff.

Overall, I had an interesting career. Maybe I should’ve gone and done the world rally championship in the late ’70s or early ’80s.

I probably could’ve been in the top six at the time. But you never know. The same

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thing with Frank Matich. If he hadn’t sold the McLaren and we’d done the Tasman series (in ’72) and did all right, we might’ve gone to the USA in F5000 and made a career there. Those opportunities didn’t happen and I have no regrets. I had a great career here and made many great friends. I’m happy and healthy. What more could you ask for?

Corrections: In Part One, CB’s middle name was wrong. The error was due to an inexplicable lapse by the author. Bond’s correct second name is John. Also, lost in translation in the original interview was Bond’s role in visits by rally star Ari Vatanen. He didn’t bring Vatanen out for the 1980 Castrol International Rally, only the Southern Cross Rally

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later in that year. Vatanen drove a Ford Escort RS1800 for the NZ-based Masport team at the Canberra event, finishing second to Bond’s Ford Rally Team Escort of local hero Greg Carr. In ’79, Bond imported Ford’s newly crowned world rally champion Bjorn Waldegard for the Southern Cross. As well, a photo caption suggested that the HDT Torana XU-1s that swept the Australian rally championship from 1971-74 were prepared by Bond in Sydney. In fact, they were run out of HDT’s headquarters in Melbourne under the direction of team boss Harry Firth.

However, it is fair to say that Bond and navigator George Shepheard – later HDT’s rally chief – were the architects of the XU-1’s success in the forests.

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Images: Autopics.com.au/HRCCTas/Ken Wheeler/Kevin Drage/ Reg Hunt via David Zeunert Archive

Showing his roots. Ted Gray (Above) in the Alta Ford V8, struggling for grip, at Rob Roy circa 1952. Note the width of that Ardun headed-converted flathead Ford V8 engine.

(Pic Ken Wheeler).

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Lou Abrahams is synonymous with the Sydney-to-Hobart yacht race, but there was a time when a grand prix racer powered by his engine was a match for the European exotics of Stan Jones and Lex Davison. Mark Bisset explains.

AS THE SYDNEY TO HOBART yacht race time rolls around again, with salt in the Christmas-New Year air, it’s timely to remember the contribution to landlubber racing of Lou Abrahams and his Tornados.

Abrahams’ big, bellowing, blue, home-grown Tornado 2 Chev V8 was Australia’s fastest racing car in 1957-58.

The plastic packaging businessman from Melbourne’s well-heeled eastern Bayside suburbs had graduated from dinghies as a teenager to his Tornado speedboats post-war. Eventually he was to compete in 44 consecutive

Sydney-Hobart races, twice winning the blue-water classic in 1983 and ’89.

Yet Abrahams, who died in 2014, has a special place in motor racing history too and, incidentally, was the father of long-time single-seater competitor and multiple Australian Formula 2 champion, Arthur Abrahams.

The seeds of Lou’s wheeled success were sown when he decided d his speedboat wasn’t man enough for a 250bhp engine.

His OHV converted, fuel-injected Ford V8 had too much mumbo for the craft within Albert Park Lake’s

confines, so he turned to Ted Gray for a car in which to insert it.

Gray had started racing on Victorian speedways pre-war. Later he made an old Alta sing by replacing its unreliable four with a Ford V8.

Post-war, ex-racer Mrs J.A.S. Jones’ Alfa Romeo 6C 1750 became a rorty rod and Gray became a folk hero in his hometown, Wangaratta, by setting a Wang-Melbourne record of one hour and 59 minutes for the 120mile (193km) road trip.

Right: Crew push Tornado 2 Chev onto the Melbourne Grand Prix grid at Albert Park on 30 November 1958, the last meeting before the modern Albert Park era. Moss won from Brabham in 2.0-litre Coopers, with Ted Gray posting a DNF. (Lower right) Longford paddock 1958. Bill Mayberry gets a well-earned rest after finding and fitting a replacement Ford gearbox overnight (Pic HRCCTas).

The Victorian Trophy at Fishermans Bend, February 1959, one of Gray’s few meetings that year. While Alec Mildren’s Cooper won, Jones’ Maybach was second, proving there was still a bit of life left in the front-engined machinery.

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Above: Tornado 1 Ford debut at Gnoo Blas, Orange, in January 1955. Ted Gray behind the machine and short, fit Lou Abrahams at right in T-shirt and long pants. Yes, that is a train behind! (Pic: Reg Hunt via David Zeunert Archive). Below: Victorian Road Racing Championship winners, Fishermans Bend, 1958. Bill Mayberry, happy Lou Abrahams and Ted wearing the laurel wreath. (Pic: Kevin Drage).

The feat made the daily newspapers in April 1946, with fortunes won and lost on side bets.

Abrahams’ engine found a home in Gray’s Alta before Tornado. This meant that Tornado teamed a Ford engine and gearbox with a clever concoction of a box-section chassis using a mix of Lancia, Peugeot and Holden suspension components and Halibrand rear-

30 AAutoAction A i

end, although P51 Mustang aircraft brakes proved not such a great idea.

The new slinky, brilliant white-withred-highlights ‘bullet’ was belle of the ball at the January 1955 ‘South Pacific Trophy’, Australia’s first FIA sanctioned international meeting at Gnoo Blas, Orange, New South Wales. Peter Whitehead’s Ferrari 500/625 won while Tornado had dramas that weekend.

By Bathurst in October the B car was largely sorted after ca meetings at Melbourne’s m Fishermans Bend and Albert F Park and Sydney’s Mt P Druitt, but it died suddenly D and spectacularly coming a down Mount Panorama. d Gray locked a brake when G baulked, and tapped Jack Robinson’s Jaguar Special at more than 160km/h.

Expensive shrapnel was spread over 150 metres

Above: VRRC Fishermans Bend 1958. The old and the new. Ern Seeliger, Maybach 4 Chev, Ted in Tornado 2 Chev and Austin Cooper’s yellow Cooper T41 Climax (Pic: Kevin Drage). Below: Longford Trophy Gold Star round, 1958. Tornado 2 Chev and Len Lukey’s Cooper T23 Bristol with Austin Millers Cooper at rear. Gray won from Stan Jones Maserati and Arnold Glass’ Ferrari. (Pic: HRCCTas).

Left: 1958 was one of the AGP thriller-dillers! Murrays Corner, Mount Panorama, in the early laps with Stan Jones’s Maserati 250F from Ted in Tornado 2 Chev, then winner Lex Davison’s Ferrari 500/625.

Any of the three could have won that day had Lady Luck smiled in a different direction. Right: Gray at 157.53mph (253.5km/h) on a narrow Coonabarabran road in September 1957, National Speed Trials, a national record despite not being able to use full revs. Note nose cowl to reduce drag. First run in the Chev V8 on the road to Coonabarabran! before Tornado impacted a bank and tree on the left. Tornado was over.

Gray received multiple fractures but his six-month hospital and home convalescence allowed Abrahams, Gray and the brothers Mayberry – Bill and Jack – to build ‘Tornado 2’.

Tornado 2 used the surviving components, sans the Mustang P51 brakes, fitted to a ladder-frame chassis and clad in a Maserati 250F-esque but still quite distinctive body. Construction was split between Ted’s Gray’s garage in Glenlyon Road, Coburg, and the Mayberry panel shop in East Boundary Road, Bentleigh.

Melbourne’s multiple Australian hill climb champion, Bruce Walton, ran the new car at Albert Park in March 1956 and the Geelong Sprints.

Gray cast aside his plaster and

bandages to take the wheel for the Australian Grand Prix weekend at Albert Park in December, posting a DNF. However, two wins at Phillip Island were a tonic for driver, crew and car.

Gray was right on the pace at Fishermans Bend and Albert Park in early 1957. The Australian Land Speed Record week at Coonabarabran in NSW loomed in September. An injected 300bhp Chev Corvette 283ci V8 was built and mated to the Ford gearbox – Tornado 2 Chev was born.

On the narrow country roads Gray set a new record of 157.53mph (253.5km/h). Straight after, Tornado raced at Bathurst, two years since Gray’s ‘big one’, but the car blew a head gasket.

A win at ‘Fishos’ the next week was a nice end to the year.

‘Top Gun’ contenders for the 1958 Gold Star were the pricey European exotics – Stan Jones’ Maserati 250F, Lex Davison’s Ferrari 500/625 and Arnold Glass’s Ferrari 555 Super Squalo. The home-grown Australian V8 Specials were led by Ern Seeliger’s Maybach 4 Chev and the Tornado.

Gray was quick everywhere, usually starting from the front row. He was the first to post a 100mph (160km/h) lap at Gnoo Blas while chasing Brabham’s leading Cooper in the South Pacific Championship, but engine dramas ended his run.

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Above: Fishermans Bend 1958, ex-airfield nature of the track apparent. Past, present and the future: Otto Stones, MG K3 at right, Tornado 2 Chev at left and Bill Patterson’s Cooper T43 Climax in the middle.

LOU’S BENT EIGHTS

Right: Tornado 2 Chev engine bay at Longford in 1958. Chev Corvette 283ci V8, Hilborn fuel injection, magneto ignition, fabricated extractors and custom made rocker covers show attention to detail. ‘Butch’ steering column and UJ. (Pic Bob Young via HRCCTas).

He won at Tasmania’s Longford, where the brutal beast did 147mph (236km/h) on The Flying Mile; retired with a broken throttle linkage at Fishermans Bend, and led the Queensland Road Racing Championship at Lowood but eased off two laps from home with worn tyres, gifting a win to Alec Mildren’s Cooper. Gray led again at Lowood’s Trophy Race in August but this time differential failure intervened.

Bathurst then held the AGP in 1958. The team’s race strategy to start with a light tank, build a lead, then a big splash and dash to win didn’t come off.

Gray led from Jones and Davison, stopping the Conrod clocks at 155.17mph (249.72km/h). The bellowing bullet was the fastest across Mount Panorama to that time, but Gray’s lead was not enough because of difficulty passing slower cars. Then, pressing hard after a botched fuel stop during which petrol was spilt everywhere, Gray did ‘the fastest ever standing lap at Bathurst’ but ran wide at Skyline and boofed the fence,

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damaging his i and d suspension. i steering Davison took another lucky AGP win, the third of his four, after Jones’ engine dropped a valve on Conrod following seven laps of clutchless gear changes.

Sydney enthusiast Ron Rex saw the race. “When I went to Bathurst in 1958 I was all starry-eyed about the Ferraris and Maseratis,” he sad. “It was quite a surprise to see that the Tornado was faster down Conrod [Straight] and over a lap it certainly impressed before it retired.”

Gray started Albert Park’s Melbourne GP ffrom row two b but the h speed d of the Moss and Brabham Cooper-Climaxes showed just how quick the mid-engined 2.0-litre bolides had become.

Jones deservedly won the Gold Star, although the Abrahams-Gray Australian Special had the pace to win that year but for unreliability.

Time ran out. The midengined hordes showed the way and have ever since.

The Tornado team hardly raced in 1959, during which Jones bagged a couple of front-engined wins with his

25 250F and Maybach 4 Chev, no not least the AGP at Longford.

T The team’s last hurrah was a rracing holiday to contest the 1960 New Zealand GP at Ardmore. Captain Abrahams Ar took the boys across the ditch too aboard his World War II patrol ab torpedo boat! Tornado was tor an also-ran among all the Coopers. It dropped out on C lap five with magneto failure.

In South Australian Mel McEwin’s hands, Tornado ran M in the 1960-61 AGP before passing through various owners. It was restored by David Rapley for Frank Moore in the 1990s.

At historic events, the sound of this beastie fools you.

Torando 2’s fuel-injected Chevy roar is pure F5000, not the ’50s front-engined singleseater that it emanates from.

In the pantheon of Australian Specials, it’s Top Five, despite its origins in Lou Abrahams’ Albert Park Lake Tornado speedboat!

HENRY FORD’S V8s provided a cheap source of power for racers everywhere and a great platform for tuning.

Overheating and the inherent limitations of side-valve heads were shortcomings in performance applications which were overcome.

Various aftermarket OHV heads were made. Abrahams’ heads were British, Allard Motor Co-manufactured Ardun units or locally-cast copies. His motors were fitted with the best rods, 11:1 pistons, crank and Winfield camshaft and ‘topped’ by ‘Louab’-branded fuel injection, which used HilbornTravers (‘Hilborn’ by 1957) components. The continuousflow fuel injection was adapted by the team locally.

The methanol fuel used completed a clever package.

The Chev Corvette 283 V8, not easy to get at the time, was sourced via Jack Mayberry’s contacts at General Motors Holden, (he had once worked at Fishermans Bend). It too was fitted with the best American performance bits with the fuel injection/methanol carried across. The Ford truck gearbox, fitted with closeratio gearset, was retained but with a modified bellhousing. By the end of ’58 all of the driveline shortcomings – clutch, gearbox, axles and universal joint – were overcome. In a perfect world the team should have had a final Gold Star shot in 1959, but Lou’s priorities changed.

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Images: Porsche Cars Australia

The Porsche Michelin Sprint Cup is a proving ground for tomorrow’s talent while providing amateur competitors an oopportunity to compete. HEATH McALPINE discovers what it costs to get involved THE RECENT spate of success of Australian and New Zealand drivers in Porsche racing worldwide has included one common component: the factory development program that takes place Down Under.

Australia is the only Porsche market in the world where Carrera Cup and Sprint Challenge run concurrently providing a unique opportunity for young drivers to develop in a secondtier category. Carrera Cup graduates of the category include factory Porsche driver and 2019 Bathurst 12 Hour winner, Matt Campbell, as well as Jaxon Evans and Jordan Love.

Competing within the Shannons Motorsport Australia Championships, the Sprint Challenge’s appeal extends to amateur racers not looking to a future in Europe, while others progress to the top-tier Carrera Cup supporting the Supercars circus.

Since 2008, the Sprint Challenge was run as the Porsche GT3 Cup Challenge, which was initially formed out of the previous Porsche Driver’s Challenge, a class run within the Australian GT Championship.

Businessmen Sven Burchartz and Jon Trende broke away to originate GT3 Cup Challenge in 2008 before Porsche took control to initiate the twotier system that is currently in place.

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Hoping to follow in their footsteps are reigning Sprint Challenge series winner Harri Jones, as well as Cooper Murray and Max Vidau, who have all recently progressed to Carrera Cup after promising performances.

“We find that both works really well for us because Sprint Challenge is actually our breeding ground or platform to develop drivers to go to Carrera Cup, which is at a high standard now that it is very difficult for someone to come in and go straight into it,” Porsche head of motor sport Troy Bundy told Auto Action.

“Sprint Challenge is the platform where people can compete in a less high-profile environment, learn how to drive the Cup Cars, learn the tracks, but still have the full support from Porsche. It is still a Porsche managed and supported program, but it’s just a more friendly development program.

“It’s a great platform for junior drivers to learn how to drive Cup Cars and move up into Carrera Cup, but it’s also a great environment for amateur drivers to learn how to drive as well.

“Some of the guys stay in Sprint Challenge because that’s where they want to be,” Bundy explains. “That’s the level that they see themselves at and others use it as a stepping stone to try and get to Carrera Cup.

“A lot of the young juniors use it as a stepping stone, Pro Ams use it as a learning tool,” he said.

Another unique aspect to the Sprint Challenge is the mixture between endurance and sprint events during the course of the year.

The Jim Richards Endurance Trophy usually takes place across two rounds during the six-event schedule.

Sprint Challenge caters to three classes: Pro, Pro-Am and Class B. Pro is for the developing drivers hoping to emulate the likes of Campbell and Evans on the world stage; Pro-Am is designed for the amateur drivers, while Class B is only eligible to the previous model used outside of Pro and Pro-Am, which is currently the last 997 model.

This changes in 2022 when the new (992) Cup Car will come on stream for Carrera Cup, pushing the current model used into Pro and Pro-Am of Sprint Challenge, while the 991 Series I Cup Car moves into Class B. Interested? Well, an eligible Porsche Cup Car is readily available from between $200,000-$230,000. That will get you a 991 Series I Cup Car, or for around $20,000 less you can get into a Class B entry.

The advantage of purchasing a Porsche is that the product is proven.

Development and construction costs are virtually nil, given the four seasons of racing under the 991 model’s belt.

“It’s such a consistent product,” Bundy explained. “You can’t change the car. It’s controlled. The biggest challenge in motor sport with a lot of categories is that the car is a factor; how much money you’re prepared to spend becomes a factor whether you’re successful or not.

“That’s quite mitigated with us, because you can’t out-spend someone else unless you do it with staff and even then, there’s only so much you can do because you can’t really change the car.

“The development and growth of how to be successful in our cars is actually the driver and getting the set-up right, and that’s the key.

“So, when you enter the category, there’s no worry about having the right car, engine etc. There’s no worry about the car as a competition piece.

The driver just has to worry about themselves and achieving the right set-up.”

During the category’s infancy many competitors ran their own entries, however as the professionalism has grown, Porsche specialist teams including McElrea Racing, Sonic Motor Racing Services, Ash Seward Racing,

Young guns and amateurs alike compete within the Porsche Michelin Sprint Challenge (above). Ross McGregor moved from Commodore Cup into a Porsche seven seasons ago and can’t be more complimentary of the class.

Wall Racing, Garth Walden Racing and Buik Motorworks who field multiple entries across all classes. Privateers are almost non-existent.

A privateer entry is still possible and Porsche Cars Australia provide significant assistance at each round.

“We’ve got a complete program we provide when it comes down to support,” described Bundy.

“On-track, we bring a B-double transporter to each race meeting, which holds every single part that you could think of. The best thing is for competitors that want to come along to our series is that they don’t have to buy $1000 worth of parts that sit in the truck just in case they might happen to need it. It’s all sitting in our truck instead.

“Competitors can turn up with very minimal parts and when they need parts, we’re there to support and help them. In addition to the truck being there with parts, attached to that is a parts expert and a technical and sporting manager as well, so we’re there to not only provide them with parts, but to help competitors fix the cars, give advice on how to repair and what they need to be careful.

“There’s a complete level of support we provide from technical support, on-track to parts support, we have full media and communications, video content, an operations person that helps competitors with Motorsport Australia, entry fees and admin.

We’ve got sponsorship and there’s even a coffee cart. It’s a full turnkey support program.

“It’s a large investment by Porsche to bring the truck to the track every race meeting, coupled with a whole range of expertise in staff, who will support them for every event.

“The amount of content we produce for our customers is amazing and if they did it on their own it would cost a fortune,” Bundy adds.

This extends to technical information away from the track. A Porsche portal provides all the technical information to service and repair items properly, while staff are available to chat if need be.

“Competitors get a range of technical information online so, depending on what they are looking for and what they need, it’s on the Porsche portal.”

“On top of that, if competitors are unsure, we have dedicated motor sport staff, who can be contacted to answer any questions or provide advice.”

All this is included in the $11,000 full season early bird entry, while entering solely round-by-round is approximately $2000 mark. However, Porsche is flexible in terms of the number of rounds competitors run and implementing a payment plan.

For junior drivers, Porsche’s supports these through its Michelin Junior Driver

program, which through Carrera Cup and Sprint Challenge offers $300,000 worth of prizes altogether.

These include free entry for each Sprint Challenge round winner and a free set of Michelin tyres, while both second and third receive the latter.

Other initiatives for young drivers include workshops focusing on nutrition, training, public speaking, sponsorship presentation, social media and conversations with leading sportspersons discussing performance culture and mindsets.

As an amateur driver, Ross McGregor joined Sprint Challenge in 2013 after several seasons in Commodore Cup.

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Michelin control tyres are used at each round and cost $3000 a set. However, the winner of a Porsche Michelin Sprint Challenge round takes home a set of new tyres and free entry for the next round (above left). Although the initial outlay of a car is $200,000 the customer knows what they are getting with the current Carrera Cup cars finding a home in porsche Michelin Sprint Challenge (above right).

Currently, he drives a 991 Series I Cup Car in Pro-Am with preparation handled by Ash Seward Motorsport, and is impressed by the package.

“It’s a great car, really well manufactured,” McGregor explained.

“The people at Porsche are great to deal with and personally I think it’s the best category in Australia because it is a one-make formula in exactly the same car.

“They are very meticulous in making sure everything is the way it should be.

They check the cars all the time, data is checked and in the seven years I’ve been in there, no competitor has been caught flouting the rules.”

McGregor bought his first Porsche from GT driver Ross Lilley and has progressively upgraded through Seward, who has handled the purchase and sales transactions.

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“We’d been looking for a new one and Ash got it organised,” explained McGregor. “He sold my car to somebody, then we had a new car in the wings.

“The good thing is, the cars are still reasonably valuable when they are eight years old because the people who want to get into the category are willing to buy them and have a run, which I did.

“You’ve got to outlay more money to get into the next car, but you’re just stepping up from the next person who is stepping down, so providing you can afford the expense of motor sport, it’s really an easy transition into the new model each time.

“You basically buy [the next car] with all the gear that is needed for that car.

When you pass yours on, you include the bits and pieces for it.”

McGregor didn’t start his Sprint Challenge campaign with Seward, but it wasn’t long before he joined the Melbourne-based team, and he suggests that top team McElrea Racing could make him any faster than he currently is at ASM. “Ash is more economical than going with McElrea, but he’s just as invested in what you’re doing, maybe more, because he runs less people,” McGregor said.

Porsche’s reliability is evident in that McGregor has suffered no mechanical failures in the category, however he admitted servicing can be expensive. His advice is that if the car is maintained properly, less pain will be experienced.

“When the gearbox needs rebuilding, it gets rebuilt; an expensive process. If the engine needs rebuilding, it’s rebuilt

and also an expensive process, but it’s all done by the Porsche book, in which case when I get the car, I know that it’s all been lifed as it should be and you continue to do it,” McGregor said.

“When the next person gets it, they’ll have the value of that.”

To run a round with a team, it costs between $15,000-$20,000 depending on the team. McElrea Racing is at the top-end, but as team owner Andy McElrea explained, there are a number of additions to better to prepare the team’s driving roster.

“Arrive and drive is $20,000 per round,” McElrea told Auto Action.

“This includes preparation, transport, data, driver coaching, accommodation with the team, meals with the team and full immersion as a developing driver.”

Items not covered are the entry list, Michelin tyres and crash damage.

CO$T$ GUIDE PORSCHE CUP CAR

$200,000-$230,000 Pro or Pro-Am $160,000-$190,000 Class B

ARRIVE AND DRIVE

$20,000 per round $200,000-$300,000 a season including testing Add $50,000-$75,000 if leasing Day of testing $5000

ENTRY FEES

$11,000 for the season (early bird) $2000+ for an individual round

TYRES

Michelin $3000 a set

BRAKES

Rotors $2000 (including hat) Pads $650

GEARBOX

Holinger rebuild $5000-$35,000 (depending on wear)

Porsche’s young driver program here in Australia is the envy of many other development pathways both locally and internationally.

McElrea credited Porsche for the way it runs the series and its support.

“The way Porsche Cars Australia run the series is an exceptional business model for teams like us because we don’t have to tie up capital with huge parts supplies,” explained McElrea.

“Teams like us will carry a certain selection of our own parts but we don’t have to carry a whole lot like Super2 or Super3 operations.

“Porsche’s support of the series is outstanding.”

Servicing is simple, McElrea stating that engines last for three or four seasons, though oil changes take place after each meeting and spark plugs are changed once a season.

“The Porsche is exceptionally reliable,” stated McElrea. “Changing

the oil and filter is important. We change the spark plugs once a season and that’s about it.

“They’ll do three to four seasons of hard racing and testing. It’s unbelievable.”

Pads cost $650 a set from Porsche, while a change in the rotor set-up allows competitors to fit the disc rather than the hat as well, which was previously a $2000 exercise. This cuts costs considerably, but changing these items is dependent on what the customer wants to get out of the program, meaning a driver fighting for the title will go through these components more regularly than an amateur, who replaces these items every three meetings.

“We get a racer’s discount from

Porsche and we pass that onto the customer,” McElrea said. “Apart from that, it costs what it costs from Porsche and we receive some assistance from that, but it’s not a huge amount.”

The gearbox is also important as failing to maintain this item can prove to be an expensive oversight. The unit is sent to Holinger to be crack tested every 20-25,000km. This could be a $5000 or $35,000 bill depending on what damage is found.

Testing is also an added expensive to the tune of $5000, which includes track hire with McElrea Racing.

This does not include tyres. Two new sets per meeting at $3000 a set are required, while McElrea advises 14 sets are enough to see a competitor through the season.

McElrea Racing has a simulator at its disposal for drivers to prepare ahead of each meeting.

Leasing is also available through most teams, but most competitors own their Porsches. An end of season refresh costs $15,000-$20,000.

Compared to the previous categories covered in Auto Action’s ‘The Cost of Racing’ feature series, Porsche Michelin Sprint Cup is a major step up in a number of ways. This category has become an important stepping stone towards achieving a factory drive overseas through Porsche’s Pyramid. and the budgets demonstrate that.

For the quality of racing and the support that the customer receives through Porsche Cars Australia, it is a worthy investment.

AAutoAction utoAction

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WISE HEAD ON YOUNG SHOULDERS

Ryan Suhle has shown his talent behind the wheel of a variety of race cars, having success in both open-wheel and tin tops. DAN McCARTHY spoke to the youngster about his career to date.

AFTER A successful period in the Formula 4 Championship, Ryan Suhle elected to also take on the Porsche GT3 Cup Challenge, his first venture into Tin Top racing and took to the series like a duck to water.

Despite the success, Suhle felt that contesting two high profile categories compromised each other as he would contest both series on the same weekend.

“I felt we still had a good year in both categories in terms of pace,” Suhle told Auto Action. “But I just felt that I was giving away a little bit each way.

“Not being able to look at the data, sit down and think about things was really tricky.

“As a driver I’ve always found I need to be a lot more homework when it comes to racing, be prepared, look at look at the squiggly lines and build up to things, not necessarily just go out and rag it.”

Nevertheless, Suhle was on the pace in the GT3 machine from the word go, taking a round full of third place finishes in the opening round at Symmons Plains Raceway, but where did it all begin?

Suhle’s passion for motor sport is hereditary, he explains, making it a natural step to go racing.

“I didn’t really see a future where I wasn’t racing. Even before I was able to start go karting, my life was building up to being able to finally drive a go kart when I turned seven,” Suhle said.

In karting, Suhle had some success particularly in the junior categories, taking several club titles and well as finishing in Top 10 positions in both state and national championships.

Suhle was forced to move up the kart classes at a younger than normal.

“Because I was bigger weight wise and height wise, I actually got exemptions to step up through all the categories a

38 AutoAction

year early,” he recalled.

“Moving up the category a year earlier is what taught me race craft.

“For me, when I stepped up to Junior National Light I was racing the likes of Will Brown [a] couple of years ahead and that was the best thing that ever happened. I learnt so much against drivers that were more experienced, better and older.”

Being a tall lanky lad in karting, Suhle suffered persistent cracked ribs and this is what eventually forced him to make the step into car racing at, again, an earlier stage.

“I broke my ribs about four times. I was apparently fully ready to go each time according to all the physicians, but I’d just get back in a kart again after six months off and break a rib.”

For Suhle, the first step towards car racing was Formula Ford, but after one year he made the move over to the Australian Formula 4 Championship.

“We felt that in terms of a category F4 had more exposure with Supercars and was probably the way of the future,” he said.

“We felt like F4 had really good backing and support from CAMS [now Motorsport Australia]. We got some assistance with scholarship funds from CAMS, which really helped us out on the financial end of things.

“When F4 broke out it just seemed like that was the way everything was going, it made sense.

“What drew us mainly was that everyone would be in the same equipment and it would be a really good opportunity to make a mark.”

Despite the backlash from many people in the national motorsport community, Suhle felt that F4 was still a good category, especially if you wanted to make the move into Porsche racing.

“People say that F4 didn’t move around as much; they didn’t wiggle and float as much, but when they snapped, they went,” he said. “That is probably more realistic to what driving a [Carrera] Cup Car is. It doesn’t really dance too much and if it dances it then snaps.

“They are a really easy car to drive until you get to the ten tenths. When you’re on the limit, they’re not easy to drive, that’s for sure!”

Suhle’s first season in the championship was 2017. He finished fourth in the title with one win and a total of nine podiums with Zagame Motorsport.

Ryan Suhle has a lot of success in Formula 4 (left), while this year the Queenslander raced his Porsche GT3 Cup Car in selected Aussie Tin Top rounds.

“The transition to F4 was something pretty cool for me, and my first year was my best year in F4, I would say, in terms of the experience and things like that, and the team was a really good operation,” he felt.

For the 2018 championship, Schule moved to GI Sport and finished second in the championship to teammate Jayden Ojeda. Over the course of the season Suhle collected three wins, 15 podiums and finished every race in the top four.

Last year Suhle finished third in the

title race with the added commitment of competing in the GT3 Cup Challenge competition.

“We thought GT3 is similar to F4 in that the machinery is all identical,” he recalled to AA. “There’s not much the teams can do with the cars.

“It’s a really well-run championship that’s really established. We looked at the Super2 and Super3 options, but there were some opportunities for budgets to blow out of proportion.

“We knew if we ran Porsche sprint challenge with McElrea Racing, I’d

have the best opportunity to perform ha as a s a driver. That’s all you can ask for.”

Last year was undoubtably the most L competitive season of the secondc o ttier ie Porsche series to date, with a significant talent pool that included sig Max Vidau, Aaron Love and series Ma winner Harri Jones. win “Racing in that Porsche season was “R so competitive, so much fun to race really hard against these guys that are rea really good drivers,” Suhle said. rea “You have to be consistent, you can’t have DNFs. It was far better racing than in F4, [and] it was a testament to the everyone that was in Cup Challenge last year.”

While his rivals moved up to Carrera Cup in 2020, Suhle explained after finishing the series in fourth that he decided to remain in GT3 Cup Challenge [now known as Sprint Challenge] to perfect the art.

“It was definitely an option for us and something that we looked at,” he said.

“Without those two DNFs, we were really competitive and probably on par with those guys in terms of pace.

Yet from my end, I want to get the craft nailed and be the best I can in Sprint Challenge, hopefully win the series and then make the jump up.”

Beyond Carrera Cup, the levelheaded 20-year-old won’t limit himself to any specific categories that he’s targeting for the future. Despite this, there is one clear, distinct goal: to race cars for living to the highest level.

“For me, I just love racing cars and it doesn’t matter where I end up.

Whether I can follow the [Porsche factory driver] Matt Campbell route or go down the Supercar route, for me I just love racing,” he said.

“I’m not someone that’s 100 per cent committed to a particular category, championship or type of car.”

“If I can drive a race car and make a living from it, then I’m doing it, whatever opportunities present themselves I’ll grab anything.”

In 2019, Suhle drove a plain white machine in the GT3 Cup Challenge taking one win at Sydney Motorsport Park (bottom left) to finish fourth overall in the standingd.

Formula Ford was the first step for Suhle following his develpment in karts (bottom right), which saw him climb faster than typical karters due to his tall frame.

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Formula One Round 15 Bahrain GP Race Report: DAN KNUTSON Images: LAT

INFERNO

Lewis Hamilton wins again while Romain Grosjean limps away from a terrifying accident LEWIS HAMILTON led all 57 laps of the Bahrain Grand Prix in his Mercedes, but it was Romain Grosjean’s first lap fiery crash that is seared into the memories of all who saw it happen.

“Today is a reminder for all of us that this is a dangerous sport,” Hamilton said after his 98th F1 victory. “It was shocking to see Romain’s accident, and I’m just so grateful that the Halo did its job, and credit to the FIA medical team who were straight on the scene.

“For Romain to be able to walk away from an accident like that just shows what an incredible job F1 and the FIA have done in their quest for safety.”

The accident happened on the straight between Turn Three and Turn Four. Kimi Räikkönen had gone off the track on the left side in his Alfa Romeo. Grosjean steered his Haas to his right and got clipped by AlphaTauri driver Daniil Kvyat.

The Haas shot off the track on the righthand side and speared through the triplelayer steel barriers. That ripped the car in half, with the back of the car remaining trackside, and the rest of it, now engulfed in flames, entangled in the twisted barriers.

“On the opening lap, I was a bit angry at first with Romain for his move, but then I was just worried about him because I saw the flames and how bad the crash was, I was just hoping he was okay and fortunately it wasn’t as bad as it looked,” Kvyat said.

Miraculously, Grosjean climbed out of the burning wreckage. He was flown to the Bahrain Defense Force hospital where he was treated for burns to the back of both hands. He stayed there overnight.

42 AutoAction

Hass driver Romain Grosjean (above) miraculously survived a dramatic opening lap explosion, raising questions over the integrity of the fencing. The Frenchman credits the Halo device as saving his life. The re-start saw business as usual for Hamilton (below), who led every lap from pole position to record his 95th career win, extending his lead to a staggering 131 points

“Hello everyone, just wanted to say I’m okay, well, sort of okay, thank you very much for all the messages,” Grosjean said on Instagram a few hours after the race.

“I wasn’t for the halo some years ago but I think it’s the greatest thing we brought to Formula 1 and without it I wouldn’t be able to speak to you today. Thanks to all the medical staff at the circuit, at the hospital, and hopefully I can soon write you some messages and tell you how it’s going.”

The race was restarted after a delay of about 90 minutes to remove the wrecked car and barriers, replace the barriers with concrete versions and clean up the mess.

Hamilton once again took the lead, and Kvyat once again got involved in an accident when he tangled with Lance Stroll and flipped the Racing Point over. That brought out the Safety Car for six laps.

After that things settled down, with Hamilton leading ahead of Max Verstappen (Red Bull) and Sergio Pérez (Racing Point).

But there was more drama to come when the engine in the Racing Point began smoking and then caught fire. That brought out the Safety Car for the last three laps of the race, and elevated Red Bull’s Alex Albon to third – his second ever F1 podium finish.

“We had a good start – something which we’ve been working on recently – and it’s nice to see it getting better,” Albon said.

“And then from that point on it was moreor-less being there to capitalise, because I didn’t quite have the pace to overtake Sergio – but we were just there behind, waiting for something to happen, and it did, so P3 was a good result and especially a double podium for the team.”

Verstappen wound up second.

McLaren’s strong race result, led by Norris, saw them move ahead in the close battle with Racing Point and Renault in the Constructors points

RACE RESULTS BAHRAIN GRAND PRIX 57 LAPS 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 -

Lewis Hamilton Max Verstappen Alexander Albon Lando Norris Carlos Sainz Jr. Pierre Gasly Daniel Ricciardo Valtteri Bottas Esteban Ocon Charles Leclerc Daniil Kvyat George Russell Sebastian Vettel Nicholas Latifi Kimi Raikkonen Antonio Giovinazzi Kevin Magnussen Sergio Perez Lance Stroll Romain Grosjean

Mercedes Red Bull/Honda Red Bull/Honda McLaren/Renault McLaren/Renault AlphaTauri/Honda Renault Mercedes Renault Ferrari AlphaTauri/Honda Williams/Mercedes Ferrari Williams/Mercedes Alfa Romeo/Ferrari Alfa Romeo/Ferrari Haas/Ferrari Racing Point/Mercedes Racing Point/Mercedes Haas/Ferrari

2h59m47.515s 1.254s 8.005s 11.337s 11.787s 11.942s 19.368s 19.680s 22.803s 1 Lap 1 Lap 1 Lap 1 Lap 1 Lap 1 Lap 1 Lap 1 Lap Power Unit Accident Accident

Points: Hamilton 332, Bottas 201, Verstappen 189, Ricciardo 102, Perez 100, Leclerc 98, Norris 86, Sainz 85, Albon 85, Gasly 71, Stroll 59, Ocon 42, Vettel 33, Kvyat 26, Hulkenberg 10, Raikkonen 4, Giovinazzi 4, Grosjean 2, Magnussen 1 Constructors: Mercedes 533, Red Bull-Honda 274, McLaren-Renault 171, Racing PointMercedes 154, Renault 144, Ferrari 131, AlphaTauri-Honda 97, Haas-Ferrari 3

Max Verstappen (above, left) congratulates team-mate Alex Albon after the pair finished second and third, the Dutchman only 1.2sec behind winner Hamilton and Albon’s coming after intense pressure to keep his drive in 2021; Bottas (middle right) finished ninth after a puncture under the Safety Car dropped him to 16th; the damage to the Halo of Stroll’s car after it was flipped in an incident with Kvyat (bottom right).

“We were just lacking a bit,” he said. “I tried to keep it close, but they always had an answer and besides that also, we weren’t aggressive enough with the strategy and then we had a slow pit stop.

It is what it is and second is not bad.”

There was a significant swing in the closely contested fight for third place in the constructors’ championship. McLaren drivers Lando Norris and Carlos Sainz finished a strong fourth and fifth respectively, so that team now has 171 points.

With both cars out, earning no points, Racing Point stays with its pre-Bahrain 154 points.

Renault drivers Daniel Ricciardo and Esteban Ocon crossed the line in seventh and ninth places, so the team’s tally is now 144 points.

“Firstly, I’m glad Romain is okay after the incident,” Ricciardo said. “The result today does not matter so much after that and it’s a bit of an afterthought. To see him escape and walk away was a relief and I wish him the best in his recovery. That’s the main thing from today.

“In terms of our race, it certainly wasn’t what we wanted but we gave it our best and we still managed to score points. We’ll focus on next week when it comes, it’s still to play for in the championship and we’ll come back stronger.”

After the dramatic race in Bahrain, only two more races remain in the 17-round 2020 F1 season – a second round in Bahrain on December 4-6 before the finale in Abu Dhabi.

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MOTOGP

HOME DOMINANCE Reports: DAN MCCARTHY Images: LAT MIGUEL OLIVEIRA has dominated the 2020 MotoGP season finale. The 14 round COVID-19 shortened season concluded at the undulating Portimao circuit in Portugal, the first time that MotoGP had competed at the venue.

The remaining podium steps were settled between Australian Jack Miller and Petronas Yamaha rider Franco Morbidelli in an enthralling last lap duel, which saw the Pramac Ducati rider coming out on top to relegate Miller to third.

Although Joan Mir wrapped up the championship one week earlier, second in the title chase was all to play for with five riders in contention; Morbidelli, Alex Rins, Maverick Vinales, Fabio Quartararo and Andrea Dovizioso.

From the opening practice session, it was clear that Oliveira was a contender for victory, as Mir and his factory Suzuki teammate Rins appeared to lack pace for the first time this season.

At the end of the first three practice sessions, several high-profile names found themselves out of the top 10 and therefore would have to navigate their way through Q1, they included Mir, Valentino Rossi, Cal Crutchlow and Morbidelli.

Crutchlow and Morbidelli were able to squeeze into the final Q2 segment, however Rossi would start in 17th and Mir would start from 20th, his joint lowest ever MotoGP grid position.

Q2 saw Oliveira pull a lap time out of nowhere to pip Morbidelli to pole position by 0.044 seconds, but nevertheless the Italian was pleased considering he had to navigate his way through Q1.

Miller rounded out the front row in third ahead of Crutchlow, Quartararo and Stefan Bradl. The other contenders Vinales, Rins and Dovizioso would start eighth, 10th and 12th respectively.

As the lights went out at the start of the race Oliveira made a blinding start and was never headed. The 25-year-old set some scintillating lap times early on to break away from the rest of the field.

Portuguese rider Oliveira made the most of his home MotoGP to dominate the weekend (right and bottom right); Morbidelli and Miller battled for second and third places, with the Italian prevailing

Once Oliveira pulled out a four-second lead he strategically held that margin to take a comfortable win, his and the satellite KTM Tech3 squad’s second of the season.

Behind him Miller and Morbidelli engaged in yet another epic battle, this time it was the Aussie that finished ahead, Miller overtaking Morbidelli with an aggressive move at Turn 13 on the final lap for which Morbidelli had no response, crossing the line 0.105 seconds behind the Queenslander.

In finishing second Miller also secured Ducati the manufacturers title as both Suzukis faltered. Seven days after the high of winning the MotoGP title, the Spaniard

was forced to retire with an electrical issue, while Rins lacked pace and finished down in 15th position.

Further up the order Pol Espargaro ended his relationship with the KTM factory team by finishing fourth.

Several seconds behind him was the battle of the race with a train of bikes jostling for position, led by Takaaki Nakagami in fifth ahead of Dovizioso, Bradl, Aleix Espargaro, Alex Marquez and Johann Zarco.

The line of bikes continued with several big names failing to make the top 10, including all three of the 2020 Yamahas with Vinales 11th, Rossi in 12th and Quartararo coming home in 14th.

GARDNER TAKES MAIDEN WIN Reports: DAN MCCARTHY Images: LAT AUSTRALIAN MOTO2 rider Remy Gardner took his maiden victory at the final round of the 2020 season in Portugal.

Riding Number 87 as his father Wayne’s 500cc world championship winning-year, the Sydneysider converted his third career pole into his first win, pulling clear of the pack to build an early 1.5-second race lead.

Gardner was overtaken by Luca Marini and Sam Lowes on lap eight, with Gardner biding his time before reclaiming Lowes at Turn Three on lap 13 after the Brit made an error.

Gardner then caught and passed Marini, using Turn Three again to execute the move for the race lead on the penultimate lap, storming to claim victory by a handy 1.609 seconds.

44 AutoAction

“Honestly, I’ve got no words,” said the 22-yearold Gardner. “My first win! [I was] a bit emotional on the cooldown lap!”

“In those last couple of laps I saw that I had the pace. I sat behind Luca for a few laps and in the last two laps I passed him, pulled the pin and pulled out the gap.”

The measured display was the Australian’s final ride and fitting parting gift to the Malaysian ONEXOX TKKR SAG Team, with Gardner moving to the Red Bull KTM Ajo squad in 2021.

Gardner, Marini and Lowes locked out the top three positions ahead of Marco Bezzecchi.

Marini’s second place wasn’t enough to deny fifth-placed Enea Bastianini his first Moto2 title, Bastianini nine points clear, with Marini runner up and equal on 196 points with Lowes. Gardner finished sixth for the season on 135 points.

Dan McCarthy

In his final full-time ride, an emotional Crutchlow circulated in the top six for much of the 25 laps. Rear tyre degradation and multiple off-track excursions at Turn One saw the LCR Honda rider fade to 13th.

The final round saw Morbidelli hold onto second in the standings, while his teammate Quartararo who led much of the championship plummeted to eighth.

Final 2020 Championhsip Standings

Mir 171, Morbidelli 158, Rins 139, Dovizioso 135, Pol Espargaro 135, Vinales 132, Miller 132, Quartararo 127, Oliveira 125, Nakagami 116

MACAU GP CONTROVERSY Reports: DAN McCARTHY THE MACAU Grand Prix has consistently delivered excitement, drama and controversy, and the 2020 edition was no different.

Rather than the traditional Formula 3 Championship competing for the honour of becoming the Macau Grand Prix winner, the 2020 event saw Formula 4 machines take to the streets, with mainly local drivers behind the wheel as was the case with GT Cup. Missing from the 2020 event was World Touring Car Racing (WTCR), which did not make the trip to Macau, with the 2020 Touring Car category completed by TCR China, which was contesting its final round.

The 67th Macau Grand Prix In a bid to become the 67th Macau Grand Prix winner F4 competitors turned out in droves, but it was a two-horse race all weekend long that ended with a nail biting finale.

Charles Leong Hon Chio took a clear pole position for the qualification race, beating Li Si Cheng by more than 0.8 seconds.

Early in the quali race Leong established a sold lead, however the margin was erased by multiple late race Safety Cars.

A one lap shootout would decide who would take pole position for the 67th Macau GP, Leong was forced to defend from Andy Chang Wing Chung but did not crack under pressure and took the win.

The Macau natives were a step above the rest once again on Sunday with the pair immediately taking off into the distance.

As the race went on Leong was able to slowly edge away and create a comfortable lead over Chang, however in the closing stages lapped traffic changed the game.

Several backmarkers hindered Leong and allowed Chang to close onto the gearbox of his rival as the final lap began.

It was an intense last lap, but Chang could not quite get close enough to make a move, allowing home hero Leong to take his first Macau GP win.

TCR: The Macau Guia Race MG drive and 2012 World Touring Car champion Rob Huff competed in the TCR round in a bid to take a recordbreaking 10th win at the Guia circuit.

Huff took pole from former WTCC rival Ma Qing Hua in his Shell sponsored Lynk & Co, with Filipe de Souza third and Jason Zhang Zhi Qiang rounding out the top four.

Despite losing the lead to Ma off the line at the start of the qualification race, Huff reclaimed the position and went on to take the win.

The Macau Guia Race on Sunday however was shrouded in controversy as Huff was penalised for a dramatic incident post-race.

Winning the qualifying race gave

Huff pole for the main event, however off the start it was the Chinese driver Ma that again made the better start to take the lead.

With superior speed, Huff was searching for a way to get past almost immediately.

Exiting the fast Mandarin Bend on lap two, Ma darted right went to defend the inside, however prepared to make a run on the outside Huff misjudged the distance and clipped the left-rear of Ma and spun him hard into the barrier.

The race was red flagged to repair the damaged wall and recover the wrecked Lynk & Co car of Ma. The race resumed before it was again red flagged for another incident at Mandarin, only this time the race was not restarted.

Huff was initially declared the winner, however soon after the race, the Shell Teamwork Lynk & Co Motorsport squad protested the Turn Two incident between Huff and Ma. The stewards investigated the collision and dealt Huff a 30 second penalty (the equivalent of a drivethrough), dropping him to 23rd position and stripping him of that elusive 10th Macau victory. Lynk & Co racer Zhang therefore inherited the controversial race victory.

Jason Zhang Zhi Qiang inherited the TCR Macau Guia race victory after a post-race penalty (top).

Charles Leong Hon Chio took victory in the 67th Macau GP just after the large TCR field roared into the first turn. Ye Hongli (bottom) took victory in the GT Cup.

GT Cup In the GT Cup, weekend-long pacesetter Darryl O’Young had to start the main race from 11th after he was given a post-qualifying race penalty for a start infringement.

This allowed Ye Hongli to dominate the main race on Sunday in his Mercedes-AMG GT. O’Young impressively carved his way through the pack to third place in his BambooCraft AMG GT, yet the podium wasn’t to be as a red flag saw results declared a lap earlier and meant that he was classified in fourth position.

AutoAction

45

AMRS

WRAP

NATIONAL RACING MAKES VIC RETURN Images: AMRS/Pace Images/TA2 Muscle Cars THE AUSTRALIAN Motor Racing Series (AMRS) made its first appearance at Sandown, returning national-level events to Victoria including TA2 Muscle Cars, Circuit Excels, Group S, Historic Formula Ford 1600, AMRS Invited Cars as well as MG and Invited British Sports Cars.

TA2 MUSCLE CARS

LOCAL DRIVER Graham Smith won the final round of the TA2 Muscle Car Series ahead of Tasmanian Tim Shaw.

Shaw took pole in his Chevrolet Camaro ahead of the opening encounter and greeted the flag in the opening race before being penalised five second, elevating Smith’s Ford Mustang into first.

Only dropping to second, Shaw still finished ahead of the Dodge Challenger of Peter Robinson, Warren Trewin in a Camaro and Cameron Sendall’s Ford Mustang.

A tangle at the opening corner between Shaw and Robinson, who both spun, allowed Smith an easy Race Two win.

Sendall held second for the majority of the race, before spinning while exiting the final corner on his last lap, which allowed Trewin and Shaw to complete the podium.

Sendall recovered to finish fourth ahead of the first invited entry, the Chev Oztruck of Brett Mitchell.

Shaw struck back on Sunday to win the concluding pair of races, however Smith put up a strong challenge in both encounters.

A damp third contest fell in Shaw’s favour after a Safety Car left a one-lap dash to the end. Wheelspin at the restart cost Smith victory as Shaw was able to draw

alongside approaching Turn One before completing the move at the following sequence of corners. Both Robinson and Sendall gambled on dry tyres, but this failed to pay off.

The 15-lap finale was a closely fought out by Shaw and Smith, but the Tasmanian secured a 2.3-second victory. Smith had the last laugh as he took his maiden round win by two-points ahead of Shaw.

Robinson recovered to finish third in the final ahead of Sendall, Trewin and Coulter.

CIRCUIT EXCELS

FRESH FROM a stint at Challenge Bathurst, Jay Hanson looked set to dominate the Circuit Excels, however fell foul of officialdom during the one-hour enduro, allowing Marcus Fraser to take a 24-second victory.

Hanson continued his form from the Access meeting at Phillip Island two weeks prior to take pole ahead of Ethan GriggGault by 0.344 seconds.

Traffic was a problem during qualifying, with Ben Grice and Fraser both delayed while chasing space for a hot lap.

Two sprint races concluded Saturday’s action ahead of the 60-minute enduro on Sunday with Hanson lowering the Excel lap record to a 1:33.413s on his way to a comfortable victory.

The fight for second was intense between Grice, Fraser, Grigg-Gault and Rowse as they finished in that order.

Hanson made it two-from-two in the second race, but his lap record he set in the opener was further lowered by Fraser to a 1m 33.372 seconds as he finished fourth behind Grice and Grigg-Gault.

Hanson led early in the one-hour enduro, but all eyes were on the battle for second between Grice and Fraser.

This all changed when both Hanson and Grice were handed drive through penalties for overlapping on a safety car restart, handing Fraser a large lead and victory after 35-laps.

Marcus Fraser took advantage of penalties to take a breakthrough win in the hour-long Circuit Excel endurance event (above). OzTrucks contested the AMRS Invited Sedans category, with Brett Mitchell and Danny Burgess enjoying tough battles throughout the four-races (below left). Historic Formula Fords put on a great show as ex-Supercar driver Tim Blanchard took multiple race wins (below right).

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Jay Hanson led the way in both preliminary events in Excels (above). Graham Smith took two wins and a pair of seconds to win the final round of TA2 Muscle Cars (left).

Crocitti failed to finish the second race, leaving Cowley to take the win from the two Oztruck Chevs of Mitchell and Danny Burgess.

Sunday’s action was dominated by Cowley, who took three further victories.

In Race 3, Burgess and Mitchell followed the local driver home, while the latter reversed the decision in Race 4. Burgess failed to finish the final race with Gary Finemore in his Ford Falcon XB finishing behind Mitchell to take the final podium slot.

Both Hanson and Grice recovered to complete the podium ahead of Brad James and Adam Bywater, completing the top five.

GROUP S

THE HORSEPOWER advantage of the Chevrolet Corvettes in Group S was evident as Ray Narkiewicz and David Baker took a 1-2 for the model in Race 1 ahead of the Porsche 911 Carrera of Alex Webster.

Narkiewicz took a narrow victory ahead of Joe Calleja in the Ford Mustang in Race 2, while Ross Jackson in De Tomaso Pantera rounded out the podium in a distant third.

Damp conditions threw the previous form guide out of the window as James CalvertJones in his Porsche 911 Carrera took a 10s win ahead of Jackson and fellow Stuttgart representative Andrew Whiteside.

Narkiewicz came back to take the win in the fourth Group S event on the schedule

ahead of Calleja and Whiteside.

A smaller grid contested the final race of the weekend as Jackson broke through to take a close victory ahead of Calvert-Jones and Whiteside.

HISTORIC FORMULA FORD 1600

A STRONG entry of Formula Ford 1600s contested five races as Tim Blanchard took the chocolates ahead Jonathan Miles and Andrew McInnes.

Davison racing his Van Diemen RF89 finished 14s clear of the similar machine of McInnes at the end of the race, while Dean Koutsoumidis took third in his Spectrum 10.

Even though Davison failed to start the second event, McInnes was unable to take advantage as Jon Miles in his Van Diemen RF89 took the win ahead of ex-Supercars driver Blanchard in a RF88.

McInnes took full advantage of Davison’s failure to start the second event to head ex-Supercars driver Tim Blanchard.

A thrilling duel between Miles and Blanchard during Race 3 fell in the latter’s favour by a mere 0.3s before Miles turned the tables in the fourth event. Davison recovered from his DNS in Race 2 to be third.

Miles failed to feature in the final event of the program, leaving Blanchard to take a 5s victory ahead of Davison and McInnes.

AMRS INVITED SEDANS

DRIVING HIS unique Stahl AC Cobra, Paul Crocitti converted pole into Race 1 victory defeating former Victorian Sports Sedan champion Ian Cowley in his ex-V8 Supercar Holden Commodore, while the Oztruck Chev of Brett Mitchell completed the podium.

MG AND INVITED BRITISH SPORTS CARS

WINS WERE split between Keith Ondarchie and Ben Muller contesting the MG & Invited British Sports Car events Ondarchie in his Triumph Stag took the first race, 10s clear of MG B GT V8 driven

by Muller and Michael Wood in his MGB GTV8.

Repeating his performance in Race 1, Ondarchie took his second win of the weekend ahead of the MG ZS of Jason Holmes and Wood.

Muller reversed the result in the third, finishing marginally ahead of Ondarchie while Holmes took third.

Taking a more convincing 7s victory was Muller in Race 4 ahead of Ondarchie and Wood.

Just three entries contested the final event as Muller won from Ondarchie and Alana Ondarchie. Heath McAlpine

Former Victorian Sports Sedan champion Ian Cowley dominated the AMRS Invited Sedans driving his Holden VE Commodore ex-Supercar (below left). Horsepower was on show at Sandown with Ray Narkiewicz winning races in Group S driving a Chevrolet Corvette, as did the rapid De Tomaso Pantera driven by Ross Jackson despite Melbourne delivering its usual changeable weather.

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PHILIP ISLAND

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A PEARLER OF A WEEKEND

Images: Bec Hind/Revved Photography

The 30th running of Island Magic proved to be an event worth celebrating as it signalled the Phillip Island Auto Racing Club’s final weekend for the season. Not even a power outage on Sunday morning could stop the iconic event from being completed VICTORIAN TOURIST TROPHY SPORTS CARS

A SMALL but competitive Sports Car field fronted for two preliminary races and the prestigious Victorian Tourist Trophy run under the guise of the CUE One-Hour.

New South Wales competitors Andrew MacPherson and Ben Porter were victorious in the first event, however two of the leading contenders failed to make it through the opening lap. Wayne Mack in his Ferrari 458 GT3 lost his brake marker at Honda and collided with Stephen Grove driving the Porsche GT3 Cup Car he was to share with son Brenton.

Driving his older-spec Porsche GT3R, MacPherson finished ahead of Ross Lilley and Danny Stutterd’s Audi R8 LMS, Ben Schoots in the powerful SIN R1 and leading Porsche Sprint Challenge driver Christian Pancione driving a 991 Cup Car. The next day’s event was closely fought early on between Schoots, Lilley, MacPherson and Pancione, before Porter took over the GT3R at the halfway mark. He dominated the second half of the race as Stutterd and Schoots tussled for second, but the Audi outclassed the SIN. Pancione was again fourth as he swapped lap times with multiple Bathurst winner Steve Richards, who shared a similar Cup Car with Andrew Hall to fifth.

THE 50K PLATE - SPORTS SEDANS

THERE WAS drama before a wheel had even turned when a COVID scare forced John Gourlay’s Audi, which was to be driven by Jordan Caruso and Michael Robinson’s Holden Monaro to withdraw from the weekend.

This played into the hands of national regular Steven Tamasi, who took three dominating wins

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racing the refreshed Holden Calibra.

Setting a fastest lap 7s quicker than the next best entry, multiple state champion Dean Camm’s Trans Am Chevrolet Corvette. Tamasi took a comfortable win as Andrew Parker completed the rostrum.

Tamasi and Camm took the opening two spots in Race 2, while a welcome return to the field was Brett Dickie in his rapid Honda Prelude.

After encountering problems in Race 1, Dickie recovered well to edge the ex-Kelly Racing Holden Commodore of Allen Nash for third.

The prestigious 50K Plate event was Tamasi’s to lose with the job made easier when Camm’s Corvette failed to start the warm up lap properly before pulling out halfway through the 10-lap finale.

Tamasi was a clear winner from Dickie and Nash.

Steven Tamasi dominated the Sports Sedans and secured a hat-trick of Phillip Island 50k Plates (above). The usual close battles in Formula Vees continued as Reef McCarthy took a last gasp win evenin the trophy event ahead of Beacham Racing teammate Blaine Grills (below).

MATTHEW FLINDERS PLATE - IMPROVED PRODUCTION

HEARTBREAK FOR Rob Braune on the penultimate lap of the 10-lap finale allowed Paul Cruse to take a clean-sweep of results in the Matthew Flinders Plate.

The Nissan S13 Silvia of Cruse had to contend with the return of multiple state champion Damien Milano, but his HSV VY Clubsport completed six of the allocated eight-laps during the opener as it threw a belt.

Cruse and the BMW E30 of Braune were barely separated during the opening race, while winner of the corresponding event last year, Andrew Butcher rounded out the podium in his BMW E36 M3.

Race 2 was highlighted by a spirited comeback

by Milano, who charged to third from the back of the grid. However, Cruse and Braune were untouchable in front as Butcher held off the Holden VE Commodore of Matthew Logan for fourth.

The final event of the weekend was set-up for an

It was all smiles for Andrew MacPherson and Ben Porter, who guided their Porsche 911 GT3R to two wins in Sports Cars (left main). This was as close as Adam Lowndes got to Travis Lindorff, who completed a clean-sweep. Lowndes was involved in a spirited battle for second in the finale, which ended in tears (above).

FORMULA VEE CHALLENGE TROPHY

REEF McCARTHY enjoyed a successful weekend at the Island, but the usual close contests in Formula Vee were very much on display.

Contact between McCarthy and teammate Blaine Grills at Honda decided the result Race 1 in favour of the former with newcomer Winston Smith splitting the two Beacham Racing entries.

Junior Racing Developments driver Heath Collinson was 4s behind in fourth, but bridged this gap during Sunday’s races.

Grills turned the tables in Race 2 with Smith remaining second, while McCarthy just barely held onto third ahead of Collinson.

A thrilling 10-lap finale was initially a sixcar fight for the lead, however Davin Field and

VICTORIAN HISTORIC TOURING CAR TROPHY

ALTHOUGH HE retired from the opening two races, the Ford Mustang Boss 302 of Michael Miceli was in front when it counted to take his fourth Historic Touring Car Trophy.

Another Mustang driver, Alan McKelvie took the opening two races, but had to fend off the Mazda RX2s of Wayne Rogerson and Peter McNiven.

Just 0.6s separated McKelvie from McNiven, while Rogerson was barely a second behind in a major surprise due to Phillip Island’s status as a power circuit.

Miceli was joined on the sidelines by fellow contenders Andrew Clempson and Harry Bargwanna, each in Mustangs, and the Holden Torana GTR XU-1 of Alf Bargwanna.

The two Mazdas continued to pester McKelvie’s Mustang, but horsepower played a factor as Rogerson and McNiven filled the podium ahead of R Alf Bargwanna, who recovered from his Race 1 A rretirement to finish fourth.

Miceli had progressed to third, but retired only ttwo laps in.

All disappointments for Miceli were forgotten in i the finale as he charged from the back of the grid g to first in a matter of laps. He dominated the race, r taking a 15s win ahead of a five-way scrap for f second.

This was won by Rogerson with Brent Trengove rracing his father’s Mustang to third pipping M McNiven and McKelvie.

PORSCHE 944 CHALLENGE P

exciting conclusion as Braune held an early lead. lead Cruse was gradually catching the BMW but Braune was forced to conserve fuel on the penultimate lap, which put the Nissan into a comfortable lead ahead of Milano.

Braune held off Butcher to take third place.

Nicholas Kerr quartet, dropped away from the leading quartet which had dominated the weekend.

After much jostling of positions, McCarthy took a last gasp victory ahead of Grills, Collinson and a stiff Smith, who just missed the podium by a nose.

A APART FROM a safety car shortened Race 2, iit was Cam Beller that was a class above in PPorsche 944.

Combined with Saloon Cars for the opening two rraces, Porsche 944s started 40s ahead of the FFord vs Holden battle as Beller took a comfortable win in the first event from James Westaway and w JJohn Kennedy.

A poor start from Beller in Race 2 dropped him to third, but a safety car was needed when Mark Taubitz and Keith Marriner collided exiting Southern Loop. This gave Kennedy victory from Westaway, Beller and Dick Howe.

Beller didn’t repeat his previous mistake and made a flyer to dominate the final race to finish ahead of Kennedy. Westaway was in the fight for second until the closing stages when it appeared he was nursing a problem.

SALOON CAR CHALLENGE

TRAVIS LINDORFF was another driver to complete a hat-trick of victories at Island Magic.

Driving his VY Commodore, Lindorff’s major opposition was expected to be four-time national Saloon Car champion Simon Tabinor, but reliability problems curtailed his weekend.

There were no such worries for Lindorff, who won the opening event ahead of Tabinor and Ford driver Kerran Pridmore.

Sharing the track with the 944s for the opening two events meant Race 2 lasted all but three corners, but a fast-starting Adam Lowndes snatched second off Tabinor as Lindorff took victory.

Lindorff ran away with the third event as Lowndes and Pridmore battled for second after Tabinor had a mechanical malady with his VT Commodore.

Lowndes and Pridmore spun at Turn 4 in their battle for second with the former maintaining the position. Pridmore, meanwhile was carrying damage and dropped to fourth, elevating Mark Sutherland into the final podium place.

SUPERKARTS

A COMPLETE performance from Anton Stevens gave him four-out-of-four race wins in 250 International.

Nick Schembri was equally as dominant in Gearbox, which featured the largest grid of entries.

Just one win away from a clean-sweep was Jeremy Crust, who was beaten by Warren Thompson in the finale in Max Heavy class, Lucas Quattrocchi, Ayrton Filippi and James Strah shared the wins in Max Junior.

It was near perfection for Hayden Veld in Max Light, ruined only by Jai Azzopardi’s win in Race 4.

In Stock Honda, Rod Clark and Jeff Duckworth split the wins evenly. Heath McAlpine

Mustangs were supreme in Historic Touring Cars, here Alan McKelvie leads the two Mazda RX-2s driven by Wayne Rogerson and Peter McNiven (above left). Making its debut at Island Magic, Superkarts featured a large entry and the racing between the classes was intense (below left). Cam Beller made amends for last year by securing the Porsche 944 Challenge trophy race (below right).

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CHALLENGE BATHURST

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YOULDEN FASTEST AT CHALLENGE AFTER TWO days of the 2020 Challenge Bathurst at Mount Panorama on November 26-27 it was Luke Youlden in Vince Muriti’s ex-Scotty Taylor Mercedes-AMG GT who circulated quickest.

“I am helping out Vince and mostly he went out first and I took over for the remainder of the sessions,” Youlden said after he put in the quickest lap of 2:04.388s in the opening session of Friday morning.

“There is more in the car. I was on old tyres. The biggest problem was getting a clear lap with the amount of traffic out there.”

Second fastest was Yasser Shahin on 2:05.028s in his Porsche GT3-R and he echoed Youlden’s sentiments and added, “There were many out there with quick cars but no experience.”

In his first Bathurst outing in the Porsche Shahin was thrilled with the performance.

“It is confidence inspiring – Porsche have a well-deserved reputation. The stability, brakes and handling are absolutely amazing,” he said.

Next best were Nick Kelly and Neale Muston in their Radical SR8s with the former scoring a 2:05.988 lap and the latter only 0.3 seconds slower.

“The power-to-weight and the engine torque are the difference over the (smaller engined) SR3,” Kelly explained.

Images: Insyde Media

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2017 Bathurst 1000-winner Luke Youlden’s Mercedes-AMG (top image) was the fastest around Mount Panorama with a 2:04.388, while the Radical SR3 of Nick Kelly (above) posted a 2:05.988 to be third-fastest overall. Nathan Morcom (below) drove the TCR Hyundai i30N in the Invitational Class to a 2:16.28, setting a benchmark for TCR cars as the first time that one of the series’ competitors had lapped the 6.213km Bathurst circuit.

The pair jumped ahead of David Wall in Paul Tresidder’s Porsche GT3-R that ran in the exact trim that it did when winning the 2019 Bathurst 12 Hour.

“We had an electronic issue with the car and didn’t go out in Friday’s first session,” Wall said.

From outside the GT group, Harri Jones jumped up to sixth in the McElera Racing Porsche 991 Carrera Cup Car. Next was Tony Bates, ahead of Dimitri and Theo Koundouris, both inAudi R8 LMS Evos.

The three edged ahead of the Sonic Racing Porsches of Aaron Love and Max Vidau, while just out of the top ten were Porsche drivers Ryan Suhle, Michael Almond, Sam Shahin and Tim Miles.

Best of the SR3s – in 19th and 22nd – were team mates and rivals Chris Perini and Peter Paddon.

Jeff Morton, who was also racing under the GWR umbrella, laid down a 2:14.238s his Porsche GT2 RS. It was the fastest time ever in a Production Car, which beat the previous best of 2:16.5 by Bernd Schneider in 2017. “He will also be driving the car home on the same tyres,” said

GWR’s Garth Walden.

There were 150 entries, some of which were shared. Classes covered a broad spectrum, split by engine capacity, tyres etc and included Neville Shears (Time Attack Nissan Nismo R35 GT-R) just in front of Nathan Morcom (TCR Hyundai i30N) in the Invitation Class.

Some that did not fare so well were Gary Higgon, who ran off at Hell Corner and put his Melbourne Performance Centre Audi into the tyres. Marcel Zalloua went off similarly but only did minimal damage to his Jose Fernandez-run Porsche.

Brad Neil crashed his ex-Stone Brothers Racing Ford Falcon FG at McPhillamy Park. “I just got the rear right wheel over the ripple strip and it fired me across into the wall,” he said.

Eric Constantinidis crashed his Porsche GT2 RS as did Simon Hodges, although his BMW M4 was repaired overnight.

Garry O’Brien

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BATES UNBEATABLE

Image: Imag Im age: e: M Motorsport Mot otor orsp spor ortt Australia/Sportsfotos Aust Au stra rali lia/ a/Sp Spor orts tsfo foto toss

TOYOTA GAZOO Racing Australia’s Harry Bates and John McCarthy have continued an 11-event winning streak by taking victory in the 2020 National Capital Rally.

Bates and McCarthy dominated the event, winning all but one stage on their way to an almost three-minute victory ahead of usual Australian Rally Championship rivals Molly Taylor and Dale Moscatt driving a new Orange Motorsport Subaru Impreza WRX STI. “It was an incredible weekend for us, it was not quite perfect, we didn’t get everything our own way,” Bates said.

“All in all, everything was pretty good and we were stoked with our performance.”

It was the perfect send off for the Toyota Yaris AP4, which will be replaced by the upgraded GR model for 2021.

“It has been an incredible car for me, we won our first Championship together and haven’t lost a rally together,” Bates said.

“It’s a testament to the team at Neal Bates Motorsport and a testament to the strength of the Toyota Yaris AP4.”

Taylor and Moscatt were the only other team to win a stage on the two-day event.

Third place and more than four-

minutes in arrears of second was the Mitsubishi Lancer Evo VI of Clayton Hoy and Erin Kelly. An outright podium was a bonus after securing the Hoosier Challenge and the NSW State Championship round victory (look for a complete state report next issue).

It was a close battle for the final spot on the rostrum, Luke Anear driving his R5-spec Ford Fiesta with co-driver Andy Sarandis alongside took a wrong turn to lose the position by 1.5s.

Fifth place went to the High Country Motorsports pairing of Chris Higgs and Steve Fisher in their Mitsubishi Lancer Evo IX. Trevor Stilling and Nigel Walters took out the ARC 2WD Cup took their Nissan S13 Silvia to victory after coming back from more than five-minutes behind to win on the final stage of the rally. HM

NATIONAL CAPITAL RALLY

1. Harry Bates/John McCarthy 2:04:54.9 2. Molly Taylor/Dale Moscatt +02:54.4 3. Clayton Hoy/Erin Kelly +07:25.4 4. Luke Anear/Andy Sarandis +07:26.7 5. Chris Higgs/Steve Fisher +08:32.9

Harry Bates and John McCarthy continued to decimate the competition on national rallying’s return in the ACT (main). Molly Taylor and Dale Moscatt finished in second (top) ahead of Mitsubishi Lancer Evo VI NSW Rally Championship round winners Clayton Hoy and Erin Kelly (below).

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p ra w S L A N NATIO

TAYLOR MADE RALLY TAS

Image: Angryman Photography

FORMER AUSTRALIAN rally champion Molly Taylor returned with a vengeance after a 14-month spell, with a stunning win in Rally Tasmania at Lebrinna on November 7. It was also the third and final of the COVID-shortened Motul-Dunlop Tasmanian Rally Championship.

Debuting the new Subaru WRX Fabio, Taylor produced the perfect result with Andrew Sarandis who called the corners and dominated with a clean sweep of all six stages of the 96.88km event.

They were clear winners by 1min and 6 seconds over Eddie Maguire and Zak Brakey (Mitsubishi

Evo IX) whose second place won them the state championship after they took round one in September.

They were far from disgraced and came very close to spoiling Taylor and Sarandis’ perfect sweep. They lost the fifth stage by half a second and finished within 4s on the fourth stage.

Maguire’s brother Steve Maguire, together with Stuart Benson (Evo IX) backed up their TRC second round win in October with a close third.

They were only nine seconds behind second in an extremely tight battle. Bodie Reading and Mark

Young (Subaru Impreza WRX STi) were a further 18 seconds behind in fourth and secured second overall in the championship.

Taylor was only able to compete after the Tasmanian Government lifted COVID-imposed border restrictions literally days beforehand. “It certainly was an adventure to get here, but worth every second,” Taylor said.

Nathan Newton and Tyler Page (Nissan Skyline GTS) led the 2WD Championship going into the final round, but the differential failed during the third stage, forcing them to endure a nervous

wait. Previous round winners Ben and Reubecca Sheldrick (Holden Commodore) claimed the honours in a solid drive to finish eighth outright.

They held off Newton’s main danger Mitch Roberts and Dick Renisha (Mazda RX-7) to also pinch a championship second behind a relieved Newton and Page.

Meanwhile, the final round of the one-make Bucky Motors Subaru RS Challenge saw Chrichton Lewis and Anthony Carr with another impressive drive, to finish ninth outright and easily take out the series. Martin Agatyn Image: Bruce Moxon

EVOS LEAD RALLYSPRINT ASSAULT Image: AMSAG-Gravel Pics

TIGHT FINISH ON NORTH COAST SEVEN SECONDS was the margin Jamie and Brad Luff had over their near rivals at the conclusion of the North Coast Rally, which took place in the forest around Eungai Creek and Macksville on Saturday November 7.

The event winners in their Subaru Impreza WRX were involved a close fought battle throughout with the runners up Simon and Luke Jamieson (Mitsubishi Evo VII) while third place went to Andrew Maurer and Brett Kerr (Evo VI).

It was a day/night event that was a round of the Pipe King AMSAG Southern Cross Rally Series and consisted of eight stages over 133km. A state rally championship was cancelled on the preceding weekend and that added a few more competitors for a field of 47 to start the rally. It was based out of the Unkya Reserve service centre in Eungai Creek.

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Bryan van Eck and Jim Gleeson were fourth in their Toyota Altezza and were the first 2WD. They came home ahead of fifth outright and class second, James Taylor and Steve Jordan (Mitsubishi Galant VR-4).

Luff won the opening stage and Jamieson the second before Luff was unbeaten over the next four. Wins on final two stages by Jamieson were not quite enough to snatch victory.

Generally, it was mechanical failure that accounted for the 13 non-finishers while thirtyfour cars were classified as official finishers.

Sixth spot went to Chris Jaques and Hugh Taylor (Evo IX) ahead of Eoin Moynihan and John Brophy (Ford Escort MkII). Next were Mark Wills and Kam Baker (WRX) in front of Jack Wightman and Steve Beaufoy (Datsun 280Z), and Darkie Barr-Smith Darkie and Arron Topliff (Datsun 200B). Garry O’Brien

ON A revised Sydney Dragway layout, Jamal Al Assad and Yasin Khan headed a Mitsubishi whitewash for a close win in the first round of this Summer’s Whiteline Suspension Twilight Tarmac Rallysprint Series on November 17.

Al Assad (Evo V) ended up 1.7 seconds up on Phil Heafey and Craig Jeffries (Evo VI) – after their three best runs were tallied – with David Isaacs and Aeron Napper (Evo IX) next, 10.7 seconds further back.

With construction of the new Sydney Speedway due to start at the Eastern Creek venue, the series looked like it was not going ahead. The North Shore Sporting Car Club lobbied hard for access up until the start of works and was able to negotiate the revised route.

Heafey jumped to an immediate lead, fastest on the first run from Al Assad by 2.5 seconds. Third was Isaacs whose time was equaled by Lance Arundel and Luke Job (Subaru Impreza WRX).

On run two Al Assad was again second, behind Heafey, but only by 0.1 seconds.

Run three saw Al Assad get his head down and record a stunning time, 4.7 seconds faster

than Heafey who had made a small mistake. This put Al Assad in front as it started to rain which was sufficient not to make further improvement possible.

Fourth went to Stephen Marlin and Ben Perry (Evo IX) from Stephen and Kris Muller (VW Golf R), Ben Atkins and Michelle Roccon (Evo IX) and Arundel.

Best of the 2WD entries were Jordan Cox and Scott Wiggins (Suzuki Swift GTi) in eighth, one spot ahead of Robert and Sasha Kolimackovski (Honda Integra).

Despite the initial uncertainty, entries were at capacity with 90 cars. There were the usual eclectic and fascinating variety – from tarmac and dirt rally cars, circuit cars, drift and sports cars, classics, and plenty of enthusiastic club competitors.

Of interest were Matt and John Bryson, father, and son in the former’s Leyland P76, winner of the Beijing-Paris Rally twice. There was also an exceedingly rare Mitsubishi 3000GT, a V8 Landcruiser off-road racer and a shortwheelbase Holden Ute. Bruce Moxon

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MAIDEN TRIUMPHANT AT THORNTON IN AN event decimated by mechanical failures, Kye Crosswell and Ally Hodge took out the Thornton Short Course off road event in Queensland’s Lockyer Valley on November 14-15.

Aboard their SXS Trubo Can-Am Maverick X3 it was their first win and they finished 46s ahead of Brett Comiskey and Dan McKenzie (Pro Buggy Jimco/Nissan V6 twin turbo). Third place a further 5mins 46.5s behind were Myles Newbon and Ashley Nicholls in their Extreme 2WD Chev-powered Ford F150.

The event was organised by the Brisbane Sporting Car Club and of the 27 entries, just seven managed to complete the five heats – this year back on the original 7m course.

A severe weather cell the previous night delayed the start for over an hour, and hail damaged some service vehicles.

Floyd won the first heat ahead of Michael Zacka and Brad Cannon (Can-Am) with Comiskey third and 24.2s off the pace of Floyd.

Comiskey came back in heat two to beat Floyd by a slightly bigger margin while David Loughnan (CanAm) was third.

It was the third heat that was the telling factor. Besides it heaviest casualties, Comiskey finished tenth – delayed by a puncture – as Floyd was the quickest over Jeff and Mattese McNiven (Can-Am) and Newbon and retook the lead.

Despite wins for Comiskey over

the final two heats, over McNiven and Floyd, and Floyd and Newbon respectively, it would not be enough to overhaul the margin to Floyd.

After two well-place heat results, McNiven did not get through the last.

Fourth outright went to Michael Schneider (Can-Am) ahead of Mitchell Cross (Polaris RZR100) who took out SXS Sports over class rival and sixth-placed Ross Newman (Yamaha YXZ 1000R). Can-Am pilot Richard Tassin was seventh.

Pre event favourites Tait Svenson and Neville Pitman (Stealth Predator/GM Ecotec) were first heat casualties when an external oil fitting failed and drained the oil and caused major engine damage.

Garry O’Brien

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HABY TAKES SANDY OFF ROAD

Authorised Distributor: Performance Wholesale Australia Image: Show ‘N’ Go Photography

FOR THE second year in a row Aaron Haby took out the Robe Earthmovers David Larter Memorial DayNight, the final round of the World Series Off Road at Buggy Park on November 14.

With Wayne Tabe navigating his Unlimited class Prodigy/Toyota V6 Twin Turbo, Haby won both sections and overall was almost four minutes ahead of his rivals in the end. Class rivals Andrew and Fletcher Murdock were second in their Element Off Road Prodigy/Chev while Toby Whateley and Simon Hermann were third in their Class 4 Rush Truck/Chev.

The Millicent Sand Buggy Club event featured day and night sections, each over four laps of the 20km course that took in sand hills, clay pans and winding tracks with 22 teams participating.

The starting order was by random ballot with two at a time, with plenty of overtaking until the field sorted themselves. Haby and Murdock started as the second pairing and soon were one-two. The order was Wateley in third and ahead of Adam Briel and Nyree

Burmingham (Class 1 Chenowth/Nissan).

From well down the starting order Jake Douglass and Damian Wombwell (Class 10 Razorback/Honda) come through in fifth. There were two retirements in Matt Salt/Matt Pritchard (ProLite Cougar/Scat Chev) and Dean Carter/Brad Jacobs (Unlimited Chenowth Millennium/Chev).

After dark Wateley was the early leader before Haby worked to the front. Murdock secured second over Wateley with a misfire in the latter stages. Briel took fourth outright although headed by Class 1 rivals Darryl Nissen and Andrew Harness (Sore/Nissan) in the heat.

Roydn Bailey and Tyson Warner (Can-Am Maverick) was fifth outright and first in Class 66. Debuting a brand new Class 1 buggy, Dean Russ and Debbie Brinkley were sixth outright while Class 2 honours went to Justin and Mark Battersby (Cowie Engineering Rimco/Toyota).

Garry O’Brien

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NATIONALS wrap n compiled by garry o’brie

WET NIGHT AT WANNEROO THE FINAL championship meeting of the year at Wanneroo, Western Australia, on November 7 was also the second Nightmasters which brought the added element of intermittent rain.

FORMULA FORD

THE ROUND honours went to Mark Pickett (Van Diemen RF01) over Andrew Malkin (Stealth) and Craig Jorgensen (RF93). Pickett led the first race only to be pipped in the end

by Malkin while Jorgenson followed closely along with Josh Matthews and Ben Leslie in Stealths.

Pickett made the break early in the second race and won easily. In the battle for second it was Malkin over Jorgenson and Matthews. Jez Hammond interrupted race three with a spin at Turn Four which left his Stealth stranded and forced a Safety Car. On resumption Pickett made a break and win again as Jorgenson turned the tables on Matthews for second.

F1000/SR3/FORMULA RACING

RACE WINS were shared around with three different winners. Jordan Love (Stohr F1000) won the first. He pulled away as second went Aaron Love (Radical SR3RS) once he passed THE PHILLIP Island Auto Racing Club hosted the first Victorian motor sport event since March this year through its traditional Access meeting featuring the Circuit Excels, Superkarts and Porsche 944s.

Elliott Schuttle (Stohr) who ultimately lost third to Jordan Love (SR3RSX). In Formula Racing Stuart Kostera (Ralt RT4) led but upon retirement David Turner (Tiga SC80) won, his first of three wins.

A wet race two suited the Radicals with the Loves one-two, Aaron from Jordan, and Michael Epple third ahead of Schuttle and Lisle. Five became four in the fight for race three honours after Schuttle retired. Jordan Love won from Lisle, Aaron Love and Jordan Oon (Stohr).

HQ HOLDENS

NOT EVEN a reverse grid race could stop Mick Woodbridge from a stunning threepeat. He led all the way in the first with Stuart Kenny second until Michael Howlett and consolidated second while Rory Sharpe finished third.

Todd Forknall was the early leader of race two until Phillip Breen spun and brought out the safety car which compressed the field.

After the resumption Bo Pangler when ahead with Ryan Davis in tow. Woodbridge then charged through and won from Davis and Pangler. The latter caused a Safety Car in race three where Woodbridge held off Howlett, and Davis won out over Sharpe for third.

RACING RETURNS TO PI

CIRCUIT EXCELS

A COMPETITIVE field of 23 Excels contested the three-race program as TCR Australia rookie Jay Hanson took a clean-sweep of victories.

Hanson was 1.1 seconds ahead of national frontrunner Ben Grice in taking pole position as only Marcus Fraser was within two seconds of the session’s pacesetter.

And that’s how the opening six-lap encounter finished. Hanson took a 1.3 seconds victory ahead of Grice with Fraser a distant four seconds behind in third. He was two seconds clear of Arron Hindle in fourth while Peter van Waart completed the top five.

Race Two was eight-laps and it was Hanson again that took a seven seconds victory and was the only driver to drop into the 1m 59s bracket with Grice just holding off Fraser for second. Hindle was two seconds further behind in fourth well clear of van Waart.

The final race was a reverse grid encounter, which Hanson again won, but was challenged

by Grice throughout, while Dale Carpenter completed the podium.

A safety car was brought out after an incident between Hindle and Hamish Leighton, but this also brought the retirement of Fraser after an alternator problem left him with no power on the restart.

SUPERKARTS

THE FASTEST class of the weekend, 250 International was closely contended, but it was Matt Bass, who was victorious in Race One

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Images: Bec Hind/Revved Photography

the four races, while James Strah completed the podium in the opening three races but beat Filippi to second in the final race.

The 125 Max Light victories were split between three drivers, the first being Kobi Williams, who also took the final race of the weekend. Darren Ridd took Race Two and Hayden Veld the third race.

Veld and Anderson took the remaining podium spots in Race One, then behind Ridd in the second race were Veld and Williams.

Williams finished second in the third race behind Veld and ahead of Ridd, before the completing the weekend with a victory ahead of Ridd and Liam Cowin.

Rod Clark was able to take advantage of his rival’s retirements to take the win in the opening race in Stock Honda. From then on, it was Jeff Duckworth, who won the next three races, while Clark was runner up in each ahead of Tom Roe.

PORSCHE 944 CHALLENGE

ahead of Gary Pegoraro and Tim Clark.

Clark took the victory in Race Two after setting the fastest lap in the opener with Anton Stevens and Pegoraro.

A failure to finish for Clark allowed Stevens to take the win in Race Three ahead of Matthew Denysenko and Bass. Stevens continued his winning in the final event to head home Bass and Denysenko.

Nick Schembri dominated the 125 Gearbox

category taking four wins from four, while Shane Varley and Jack Wynack completed the podium on each occasion.

In 125 Max Heavy, Colin McIntyre cleanswept the class by taking all four victories ahead of Jeremy Crust while Brendan Kloot took three thirds as Brendan Luneman ruined his perfect run of thirds in the second race.

Lucas Quattrocchi was undefeated in the 125 Max Junior ahead of Ayrton Filippi in three of

A 17-STRONG Porsche 944 Challenge field contested three races on the Sunday.

It was a closely fought weekend as demonstrated in qualifying when the top five were within a second.

Polesitter John Kennedy converted into a race victory in the opening encounter, 2s clear of James Westaway, who just held out Richard Howe and Cam Beller.

Kennedy won Race Two by four seconds ahead of a second place battle led by Beller, Adam Brewer and Anthony Westaway.

Emanuel Mezzasalma won the reverse grid race ahead Marius Catrina as Kennedy worked his way up to third.

Brewer was fourth ahead of Andrew Jones, while Beller was unable to move through the field and was eighth. HM

Images: Mick Oliver

EXCEL CUP

CHALKING UP two wins helped Robert Landsmeer to overall victory over Jack Clohessy and Connor Wroth. As Landsmeer diced with Clohessy the lead changed several times before a narrow win. Tayla took third ahead of Jake Passaris. Brock Kelly was in the battle until his spin brought about the race’s early conclusion.

An incident by Darren Seaton nullified the reverse grid race two advantage that Harrison Douglas had. After a safety car Landsmeer and Clohessy were soon able to duke it out in front with the former taking a narrow victory while Douglas held third.

Clohessy had the initial advantage in race three and after more lead changes, edged away from Landsmeer. Dicker headed Passaris for third but after a few positional changes, Dicker spun, and the race finished two laps early.

SPORTS SEDANS/SPORTS CARS/ STREET CARS IN THE three categories, victories for the round went to Ron Moller (Chev Camaro), John Zelesco (Ferrari 458) and Paul Kluck (Nissan Skyline R32) respectively.

In race one Richard Bloomfield (Porsche 997 GT3 R Sports Cars) had the lead until Moller passed him. A spin by Dean

Kovacevich (Mazda RX-7 Sports Sedan) brought out the Safety Car and while it circulated, Glen Brocklehurst (Falcon XC Coupe) had a throttle/brake issue. Moller went onto win while Hill passed Bloomfield as Paul Kluck was the best of the Street Cars.

Arthur Abrahams (Lamborghini Huracan Sports Car) won race two from Hill (Falcon/ Chev) with Zelesco third. Among the Street Cars Wayne Hastie (Nissan Pulsar) won from Kluck and Jason Hallum (Skyline).

Bloomfield headed race three until he went off twice. After the Safety Car, new leader Hill was challenged by Abrahams with both off at Turn One. Under local yellows the win went to John Roderick (Lamborghini Gallardo) from Kluck and Zelesco.

SALOON CARS

UNLIKE THE other categories there were just two races with Brock Boley the best of the Pros and Marc Watkins topping Pro-Am. Grant Johnson (Holden Commodore VT) led

the wet first race as several had grip problems which resulted in a safety car. Johnson pitted and Boley (VT) assumed the lead until Rick Gill took over. The Ford Falcon AU driver had a moment at Turn 1 and Vince Ciallella (VT) led before Boley reclaimed it while Matt Martin (VT) claimed third.

In the second race Ciallella led for the first five laps before Johnson took over. Ciallella was left to battle Brock and Brad Boley but relented to both.

In Pro-Am Marc Watkins (Falcon EA) led both races from start to finish. Chris Kneafsey (Commodore VN) was second in race one until passed by Gary Conway (VN). Michael Koberstein (VN) ultimately crossed the line second but 15s put him down to seventh.

Several vied for second in race two. Mark Jones (Commodore VP) held second early, then Kneafsey and Brock Ralph (VP) had turns. As Ralph faded later, Michael Holdcroft (EA) took over and held on, with Jones third.

Mick Oliver

Image: Gippsland Car Club

LONG BREAK WIN FOR DEBUTANT Image: Ian Colley

COVID CUP HILL CLIMB THE CORONA virus pandemic has caused worldwide cancellations and frustration, so when the shackles came off, what better way to go hillclimb racing than call your event the Covid Cup. It took place at Mt Cotton on November 7-8, drew big numbers and Dean Amos posted the fastest time.

Run by the MG Car Club of Queensland, 14 runs were available although Amos only completed in four.

His last attempt on the fifth was a 37.63 seconds, easily the quickest to secure the win. Any chance of Amos going faster and resetting his own track record did not happen.

The Formula Libra O1.5-litre class, Nicholson McLaren V8-powered Gould GR55B was struck with an ECU issue that stopped Amos shifting gears.

Second place went to Greg Tebble in his Group R Racing Van Diemen FF2000, and third to Mitchell

Allwood aboard his Energy Firecat. Just 0.44s away was Improved Production U1.3-lt class rival David Quelch (DPQ03 Honda) in fourth.

Next with fifth fastest overall time was Ross Mackay in his Sports Sedan Ford Escort MkI which was the best of the tin tops. He placed ahead of Brian Pettit (Clubman Sports Cars Westfield SE), and Luke Weiks (Honda Arrow Superkart).

Eight overall was Phil Dalton (Modified Production Honda Civic Turbo) who was the only one to set a new class record. He knocked half a second of the Modified Production Sedans O2.0-lt previous benchmark.

Completing the top ten of the 61 entries were the Sports Sedans piloted by Gavin Taylor (Volkswagen Golf) and Tyson Cowie (Escort). Best of the MGs was Peter Andrews in his Production Sports TF. GOB

THE FIRST hillclimb in eight months took place at Bryant Park on November 8 and Keven Stoopman was the fastest overall. The event was put on by the Gippsland Car Club with 42 competitors to take on the Figure 8 layout.

With eight runs available, Stoopman posted a 58.98 seconds FTD on the fifth of the six he undertook, in his Mitsubishi Evo VII and was only 0.4 seconds off a new Sports Sedan 4WD class record. He was 1.03 seconds quicker than Mark Sampson in his Spectrum 011b Formula Ford while third spot – a further 3.84 seconds behind – was Daniel Rikken, driving his 02.0-litre Nissan Gazelle.

Despite a long history in HQ Holdens, Group N, Production Touring, Improved Production and Saloon Cars, it was Stoopman’s debut at the hillclimb venue.

“It was good fun. First time at the track as I only recently moved into the area,” Stoopman said. “The day was a bit of a test run as it’s been a while and I only ended up doing six because I found that the plugs had fouled up and the fuel pump had died.”

Fourth went to Les Dole (Clubman Watson) ahead of Improved Production 02.0-lt class competitors Terry Selwyn (Datsun 1600) and Robert Duncan (Holden Commodore).

Then came James Dyer (Suzuki Ignis Sport) in the best of the Improved Production U2.0-lt class in seventh outright. Next was Tyson Cull (Improved Production Ford Falcon EA) and Michael Green in his Sports Sedan Hyundai Excel. Garry O’Brien

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NATIONALS wrap n compiled by garry o’brie

HOT FINALE AT MORGAN PARK ALL THE regular categories grabbed the chance to compete at the fourth and final round of the Queensland Circuit Racing Championships at Morgan Park in the heat of November 21-22.

HISTORIC TOURING CARS

OVERALL IT was Rod Cannon over Matt Clift while third place went to Grant Wilson.

The latter was unlucky in not claiming overall victory after he qualified fastest and won two races. Unfortunately, his Chev Camaro was a non-starter in the last.

Wilson led all the way in race one ahead of Cannon (Ford Falcon XY) and Clift (Mazda RX-2). Cannon led the second initially but fell to fourth, while Clift managed to pass Wilson for the win.

Graeme Wakefield (Ford Mustang) took third after stalling at the start of race one.

In race three it was Wilson first but with a mechanical issue as he finished.

Cannon came up to second ahead of Clift and Wakefield. In the fourth outing it was Cannon all the way ahead of Clift, Wakefield, Sean Karger (Holden Torana XU-1) and Guy Gibbons (Porsche 911).

CIRCUIT EXCELS

GOOD WINS by Zak Hudson set him up overall victory over Cameron Bartholomew and Jackson Faulkner. In race one, Hudson diced with Bartholomew who briefly dropped to fourth before finishing third behind Jackson Faulkner. Faulkner led the second before Hudson took over and won convincingly. Bartholomew was next ahead Tyrone Gautier.

Race three Faulkner lead from the start. Shortly after Hudson was through but could not hold off Bartholomew. Subsequently he diced with Faulkner before he took second.

Just behind them, Mitchell Wooller headed Jarrod Hughes and Nash Morris. Bartholomew secured a tight race four win over Hudson and just in front of Faulkner, Morris and Wooller.

IMPROVED PRODUCTION

THROUGH THE four races the wins were shared between Bruce Cook and Brock Paine, but three race fastest laps gave Paine the round ahead of Cook. Ashley Isarasena was fourth in front of Jason Grimmond.

Cook (Ford Escort) won the first ahead of Paine (Mazda RX-7) while Drew Lawrence (Nissan 200SX) was third early before he slipped down the order and Grimmond picked up the spot ahead of Isarasena (RX-7).

The first three repeated the second race result. Lawrence shot up to fourth before he went out, that spot taken by Ewen Johnston (Honda Civic) over Matt Dwyer (Toyota Celica) who started last.

It was Paine easily in the third from Cook and Isarasena as Grimmond (Holden Commodore) held off Dwyer and David Waldon (Mazda RX-3). Paine was untroubled in the fourth ahead of Cook.

Isarasena lost out to Grimmond. Waldon, Lawrence and Dwyer were all retirements.

Rod Cannon in his booming GT-HO won Historic Touring Cars (above) and Brandon Madden scored a class clean-sweep in the HQs (right).

Images: Trapnell Creations.

PRODUCTION TOURING CARS

AT THE wheels of a BMW M3, Dalton Ellery was far and away too good over the four races. The results earned him the round win over Scott Dean (Mercedes-AMG A45) who came away with three second places.

In race two he was second until the last lap when he fell to sixth, and surrendered places to Jake Camilleri (Mazda 3 MPS), Andrew Wilton (Toyota 86), Murray Dowsett (Subaru BRZ) and David Homer (Ford Fiesta ST). Camilleri finished the weekend third ahead of Wilton and Daniel Clift (HSV ClubSport) who had two fourths and a third, but failed to finish race two.

FORMULA VEE

RACE WINS were shared around in four hard-fought outings. Alex Hedemann and Scott Andrew scored in two, but it was Tim Alder’s pair of wins that proved the difference as he took the round. After several lead changes Hedemann (Rapier) took out race one just in front of Alder (Rapier) with Andrew (Rapier) third. In the second it was a three-way tussle before Andrew eclipsed Alder and Hedemann.

It was a similar take in race three, with Alder the victor over Hedemann and Andrew while David Hedemann (Bee Cee) shadowed them. A close result came in Cameron McLeod placed second in Formula Ford in a closely fought contest.

56 AutoAction

race four with 0.07 seconds between Alder and Alex Hedemann. Gerrit Van de Pol (Sabre) was third and that gave him fourth overall ahead of Luke Turner (Stinger).

FORMULA FORDS/ RACING CARS

IN TWO of the four races Roman Krumins (Dallara F308/11 Formula 3) managed to lap the whole field and went close to doing it in the other two. Kyle Evans was second in each while it was a closer contest behind the Spectrum Formula Ford driver.

Nick McLeod (Spectrum) scored three thirds and a fifth to place third overall ahead of Cameron McLeod (Van Diemen), Dylan Fahey (Van Diemen) and Tim Hamilton (Spectrum).

PRODUCTION SPORTS CARS

WITH HIS Ginetta G50, Darren Berry upset the Porsches with four wins over the German marque. Wayne Hennig (Porsche 997 Cup Car) scored three seconds and a third to be the round runner up, while Steve McFadden (997) was third after two thirds, a second and another third. With three fourths Lachy Harburg (997) looked set for fourth overall until a DNF put him

ENDUROS END SERIES SEASON THE SEASON came to its conclusion for Pulsars and Excels with their endurance races on November 21-22, part of second and final round of the Wakefield Park Motor Race Series.

MRF TYRES NISSAN PULSARS

AFTER A dominant campaign, Josh Craig secured back-to-back titles with a win and a third in the enduro round title decider. Contender Matt Boylan was second in race one ahead of Josh Haynes before the latter headed Dimitri Agathos home in the second.

With a huge 50-car entry, the field had to be split into two for a pair of one-hour races. Sprint races with promotion and relegation preceded before the focus turned to the faster group where the championship would be decided.

Boylan was the early race leader before Haynes took over until the compulsory pitstops. Agathos had affected the best stop but lost out to Boylan, Haynes, and Craig almost immediately. Boylan was again in front before Haynes regathered the front running.

Boylan appeared to be on the comeback late in the race but was hit by a backmarker in the dying stages and that forced his retirement. That elevated Chis Manning to fourth ahead of Michael Osmond and Brianna Wilson who was later penalised five laps for a stop infringement.

In the other one-hour Matt Leenman put in a strong second half hour to win ahead of Jamie Canellis. Harry Inwood was an early leader and strong contender until his decision to change front tyres impeded his pace. He was third ahead of Greg Dufficy and the pairing of Rod Albronda and Marty Miller.

In the lead-up half hour sprint races, Tom Khouri won the first narrowly over Leenman. Haynes overcame being turned around on the opening lap to take out the second ahead of Craig. Wilson fought through from seventh to take the third before Craig headed Boylan home in race four.

SERIES X3 NSW

out of the final and enabled Chris Hatfield (RCR T70 Spyder) to pip him by two points.

SPORTS SEDANS

POLE POSITION went to Daniel Crompton at the wheel of his father’s Ford Mustang, but a broken trailing arm meant an early pack up. That paved the way for Michael Kulig (Chev Monte Carlo) to take the round with four comfortable wins. In each Colin Smith (Monaro/Chev) was second while Trent Spencer (Mini Cooper S) was third. The heat put Chris Donnelly (Ford Falcon/Chev) out of race one before he came back for three solid thirds to finish the event in fourth place overall.

SALOON CARS/HQ HOLDENS/GEMINIS

THE COMBINED categories ran together with Saloon Cars out in front and headed

by Jamie Manteufel (Holden Commodore VT) in each. Anthony Shanks (Ford Falcon AU) was second in three, only in race two was Gerard Miscamble (VT) able to get ahead to drop Shanks to fourth.

The competition was closer between the HQs and Geminis. Brandon Madden scored a clean sweep over Joe Andriske.

Dion Cidoni was next best in race one before Brad Schomberg was third in the next three. Mark Gray was the best of the Geminis over Rebecca Gray.

Garry O’Brien

TWO ONE-HOUR races made up the final round of the Enduro Cup where a second and a win gave Sam Christison and Justin Ruggier the weekend honours. Cody Burcher and Preston Bruest in lone hand drives were second and third where the latter was the title victor.

Wil Longmore was the points leader before the round and won the Saturday race. Sixteen year old Christison had established a handy lead but the team miscalculated the compulsory pitstop

time and Ruggier had to settle for second. Tim Colombrita and Jessica Martin shared the fastest car in qualifying and ultimately finished third ahead of Burcher, Breust, Ben Crossland, Drew Gould/Alec Morse, and Harrison Field.

Breust was second behind Christison in the top ten shootout for race two, won the start before he was shuffled back to sixth in just a couple of laps.

Christison took over the lead and with Ruggier went onto a dominant win.

Bailey Sweeney was a retirement from race one but was in a long battle with Longmore before he secured second place. Longmore would ultimately fail to finish when electrical gremlins kicked in and he lost all engine power.

That elevated Burch to third ahead of Bruest, Crossland, Field, and Matt Woodward. After a spin at Turn Two that relegated them to last, Gould/ Morse recovered for eighth.

LEGEND CARS

NOT EVEN a reverse grid, back of the field start could prevent Lachlan Ward from taking a clean sweep with five victories over the two days.

Shane Tate was his nearest opposition and placed second in both Saturday races before a DNF after bunkering at Turn Two in race three. He came back for a third and a second to finish off.

Josh Hourigan started race one from the back and finished race one third. Electrical dramas put him out of race two and three before a third and second finish. Stuart Bond and Cody McKay also managed to score thirds.

STOCK CARS/INVITED

OVER THE four races Stephen Chilby was unbeaten in his OzTruck Silverado and won each comfortably. Despite a couple of off road excursions Brett Mitchell (OzTruck HSV Maloo) was the best of the challengers. He finished second in three races before a broken tailshaft sidelined him in the last.

Third places were shared around between Derek Hocking (Commodore VE), Robert Marchese (OzTruck) with two, and Danny Burgess (OzTruck) who finished the weekend off with a second.

Garry O’Brien

Image: Riccardo Benvenuti

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57

We take a look back at who or what was making news in the pages of Auto Action 10, 20, 30 and 40 years ago

Testing your motor sport knowledge

1980: A WORLD Championship event in Adelaide? Bob Jane in his attempt to host Australia’s first Formula 1 Grand Prix purchased Adelaide International Raceway from constructor Keith Williams. Jane’s plans were believed to included adding AIR as a venue to his $50,000 Sports Sedan series. Work was also underway to hold a Super-Challenge by inviting European and American drivers to compete on Australian shores.

1990: PRODUCTION CAR racing was to return to Bathurst event after confirmation the 12 Hour was to kick off for Easter 1991. Backed by longtime former Bathurst 1000 sponsor James Hardie, the race featured a wider eligibility list compared to the tight Group E regulations overseen by CAMS. Organiser Vince Tesereiro was adamant the race would be an exciting clash between the top models of the 1990s.

2000: LARRY PERKINS was making a stand and backed up teammate Russell Ingall’s summation that more needed to be done on the driving standards of backmarkers. Perkins appealed against a $10,000 fine placed on his team after Ingall criticised the driving standards during the Bathurst 1000.

The V8 Supercars silly season was well underway as Jason Bright denied he had signed a deal with the Holden Racing Team for 2001.

2010: JAMES COURTNEY’S defection to Holden had hit a hurdle due to Dick Johnson’s determination to keep his championship winning team intact.

The decision to join the Holden Racing Team was a last minute after rejecting an offer from arch-rival Ford Performance Racing. However, there was doubt that the HRT agreement was legally binding. Meanwhile, a young Australian named Daniel Ricciardo was announced as F1 team Toro Rosso’s third driver.

ACROSS 2. For what team did Josh Fife contest the 2020 Super2 Series? (abbreviation) 3. In 2020 Tyler Everingham made his debut in the Bathurst 1000 for what team? (abbreviation) 4. Jordan Boys made his Bathurst 1000 debut this year, who was his co-driver? (surname) 5. Who am I? A former Toyota 86 Racing Series racer, I stepped up to the Super3 Series in 2020 and won all four races. (surname) 10. Who made his Bathurst 1000 debut on his birthday this year? (surname) 11. In what national series did Cameron Crick finish as the runner-up in 2019?

13. Michael Clemente was set to contest the 2020 TCR Australia Series in a Honda. What model of car would he have competed in?

14. Which TA2 driver featured as our very first Young Gun? (full name) 15. Who was called in to replace Nathan Herne in the GRM Wildcard entry for the Bathurst 1000? (surname) 18. What brand of car does Nathan Herne drive in the TA2 Series?

19. Jordan Caruso was set to compete in which national category this season?

22. Who drove for Triple Eight Race Engineering in the

58 AutoAction

2020 Super2 Series? (surname) 24. At what age did Zak Best famously make his debut in the Aussie Racing Cars Series?

25. Harri Jones drove a Can-Am machine earlier this year (pictured above). What brand was it?

26. What vehicle did Adam Garwood drive at the 2020 Adelaide 500 Touring Car Masters round? (model) 27. In what category did Nathan Herne race during the 2020 Bathurst 1000 weekend?

DOWN 1. Nick Percat, Broc Feeney and who took victory in the Bathurst 12 Hour Invitational class this year? (surname) 2. Which of our Young Guns won the 2019 Super3 Series? (full name)

6. Who did Ryan Suhle compete for in the 2019 GT3 Cup Challenge Australia Series?

7. What position did Aaron Love finish the 2019 Porsche GT3 Cup Challenge Australia Series?

8. Jordan Caruso is currently racing in the Supercars Pro Eseries. Who is his sponsor?

9. Angelo Mouzouris competed in the Super2 Series in 2020 after winning which national title last year?

12. Which driver claimed the 2017 Australian Formula Ford title? (surname) 16. Max Vidau finished third in the 2019 GT3 Cup Challenge, how many victories did he take?

17. What national series did 2017 Toyota 86 Racing Series driver Jimmy Vernon enter this year?

19. In 2020 Liam McAdam competed in multiple rounds of the TCR Australia Series. How many rounds did he contest?

20. Aaron Cameron finished third in the 2019 TCR Australia Series. What brand of car was he set to drive in 2020?

21. Which current Porsche Carrera Cup Series driver won the GT3 Cup Challenge in 2019? (surname) 22. Who achieved a clean sweep in the Carrera Cup Australia round at the 2020 Adelaide 500? (surname) 23. Nic Carroll claimed five podiums in the 2019 Super3 Series for which team? (abbreviation)

# 1799 Crossword Answers 1 down – Monaco 2 across – fourth 3 down – twentyfive 4 across – two 5 down – Ford 6 down – Ford Sierra 7 across – Loeb 8 down – Sweden 9 down – Rydell 10 across – Grist 11 down – twenty-seven 12 across – third 13 across – second 14 down – Coulthard 15 across – Citroen 16 down – BMW 17 down – New Zealand

18 across – Alister McRae 19 across – Nova 20 down – one 21 down – Alister 22 down – Legacy 23 down – Makinen 24 across – Turkey 25 across – Ringer 26 across – Scotland 26 down – Sainz 27 down – three 28 across – thirty-nine 29 across Wales

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SETO: THE OFFICIAL RACING HISTORY OF GLENN SETON New release, 320 pages, the Ford legend’s long-awaited autobiography

BATHURST: GOING GLOBAL 10 years of GT cars in the Bathurst 12 Hour, includes photo of every car!

THE WELLINGTON STREET RACES MARK SKAIFE: THE COMPLETE ILLUSTRATED AUTOBIOGRAPHY Bathurst legend’s new book, packed with rare photos

Limited stock, New Zealand’s iconic touring car classic in detail

SPEED KINGS Aussies and Kiwis at the Indy 500 – new release!

ORDER NOW AT

v8sleuth.com.au/AA