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TONY QUINN can never be accused of playing it safe — or keeping his thoughts to himself. At the close of Supercars’ second visit to Taupō, the circuit owner dropped a provocative idea that could reshape the category’s footprint in New Zealand.

After another successful Supercars weekend at his central North Island facility, Quinn believes it’s time for a more innovative, more strategic approach to Supercars’ presence across the ditch. Rather than anchoring events at one or two venues – with Ruapuna generally accepted in New Zealand as having the second round locked away for 2026 – Quinn wants to explore New Zealand’s four strongest tracks and take turns hosting the category on a rotating basis.

“I’ll tell you what the secret is for New Zealand,” Quinn said. “It’s got four potentially really good tracks. They’re all that wee bit different, and they’re all in different locations.”

“Instead of locking in the same venues year after year, we should be saying to Supercars: ‘We want you to come to a different track every year.’ You’d get more fan interest, better television, and stronger ticket sales because it wouldn’t feel like a repeat.”

With Highlands, Hampton Downs and Taupō under his umbrella and Ruapuna in Christchurch not far from full compliance, Quinn’s footprint

across the country gives the idea real weight. He believes that fans would benefit from the variety, and each region would be better off economically and more invested in making the most of their turn.

“The easy bit is doing the deal — the hard bit is getting it right and maintaining that system,” he added.

“But we’ve got three tracks ready now, and there’ll be four soon, all in good locations. That’s what I’d do if I were running the show.”

The idea gains further traction when you consider the financial realities.

Crowds were visibly smaller at Taupō this year compared to its inaugural event in 2024. While the racing was strong and the weather picture perfect, Quinn acknowledged that the initial sugar rush had worn off – a clear indicator that novelty plays a role in fan turnout.

“The racing was probably even better than last year, and the support categories were great,” he said. “But yes, the crowd was down. That’s why rotating makes sense – it keeps the product fresh.”

Quinn also didn’t hold back when it came to the challenges that come with event hosting, calling out some of the short-term thinking that could hurt long-term prospects — including price gouging.

“It’s not fair when hotels jack up their prices. If one does it, they all do it. That

kind of shortsighted behaviour could cost a venue its race,” he warned.

The businessman also stressed the need for central government to take a more active role in supporting major motorsport events, citing the financial strain on regional governments trying to fund tourism and community services simultaneously.

“Central government is best placed to look after something like this,” he said. “These are major events, and they bring real value to the country.”

Quinn, who took part in the weekend’s Central Muscle Car

races behind the wheel of a 900-horsepower Pontiac with no brakes, was buzzing despite being taken out twice.

“I still had a great weekend,” he laughed. “Everyone keeps coming up and saying, ‘Great job, Tony,’ and that’s nice. But the secret is to keep doing a good job – not just once.” And, as always, he isn’t afraid to stir the pot.

“I say what I think, and people can jump online and have their opinions –that’s just the world now. But I’m not any different than anyone else.”

F1 AUSSIES SHINE ABROAD

IT WAS A HEADLINE-MAKING WEEKEND FOR AUSTRALIA IN BAHRAIN, WITH OSCAR PIASTRI

ANNIHILATING THE OPPOSITION. JACK DOOHAN DIDN’T DO TOO BADLY EITHER …

By Reese Mautone

OSCAR PIASTRI delivered a dominant performance during the 2025 Bahrain Grand Prix weekend, securing his second career pole position and storming to a commanding victory in his 50th Grand Prix start.

After a tricky opening hour of practice, Piastri turned the narrative around and showcased an unmatched pace, topping FP2 and FP3 with ease to set the tone for the rest of the event.

Heading into qualifying, expectations were tremendously high.

In Q1, McLaren displayed its strength, with Piastri advancing smoothly through to Q2. After an awkward Red Flag in Q2, Oscar made the risky decision to complete just one run –and with an untouchable time to his name, he booked himself a ticket to Q3.

In the final shootout, Piastri faced strong competition, particularly from George Russell, who initially set a blistering time. However, the #81 rounded out the 10-minute shootout with a perfectly-executed lap of 1:29.841s, securing pole position and proving – again – his ability to perform under pressure.

The race saw Piastri’s dominance continue.

Starting on Soft tyres, as did most of the front runners, he made a perfect getaway and quickly established a comfortable lead. His pace was undeniable and, despite briefly relinquishing the lead during pitstops, he was soon back in front and stretching his advantage.

A timely Safety Car on lap 32 allowed McLaren to execute a flawless pitstop, giving Piastri fresh Medium tyres as he remained in the lead.

Once the race resumed, Piastri immediately pulled away from the pack, including Russell’s Merc, on Softs, and effortlessly managed the remaining laps before crossing the line 15 seconds clear of Russell, with Norris – unable to pass the Merc –completing the podium, in third.

Piastri’s victory not only marked McLaren’s first-ever win in Bahrain but also made him the first repeat winner of the 2025 season—a strong statement on a weekend in which his team-mate failed to maximise.

Reflecting on the Bahrain outing, Oscar was pleased with his performance, highlighting the team’s progress and the car’s strong pace.

“I think both [wins] have been good. I’ve been happy with how I’ve driven all season so far,” the #81 said.

“Maybe not all the results have been exactly what I wanted, but I think this weekend has definitely been the result I wanted.

“So yeah, been proud of the job that I’ve been doing and very proud of the job the team’s done. “Obviously the car is in a great place – still has its moments where it bites, but for a lot of the time it’s an incredible car to drive

and clearly very quick, so very proud of the work we’re doing.

“This has been a track that’s not been kind to us in the past, so to have a weekend like we have had this weekend is a really meaningful result –outside of the victory.”

The win also closed the gap to teammate Norris in the championship standings, leaving Piastri just three points behind.

With momentum on his side, Piastri heads to Saudi Arabia this week, where he has a chance to take the lead in the Drivers’ Championship.

The title battle between McLaren team-mates is heating up, and Piastri’s flawless weekend in Bahrain has set the stage for an exciting fight at the Jeddah Corniche Circuit.

BOUNCING BACK from the frustrations of Japan, Jack Doohan embraced the quick turnaround to the Bahrain Grand Prix, executing a weekend full of promise as he showcased impressive one-lap speed and fighting form over a full race distance.

The Australian made headlines on Saturday with a standout qualifying performance, steering his Alpine to

P11 on the grid – his best-ever starting position in Formula 1.

Turning heads in Q1 before confidently progressing into Q2, Doohan narrowly missed out on a Q3 appearance, by just 17 milliseconds, after he prematurely overworked his tyres on the preparation lap, but the speed and consistency he showed through the first two sessions proved that both he and the A525 had taken a meaningful step forward.

Lining up just outside the top 10, it was all to play for as the lights went out, with Doohan well and truly in the mix to score his maiden points in Sunday’s Grand Prix.

Holding his own in a tight midfield battle, he ran as high as ninth after executing a successful undercut strategy and capitalising on Red Bull’s pitstop troubles.

A mid-race Safety Car bunched the field and, while Doohan held onto P9 at the restart, tyre wear and strategy variance saw him slip down the order in the final stint.

He crossed the line in P15 after receiving a five-second time penalty for exceeding track limits before he was later promoted to P14 following Nico Hülkenberg’s post-race disqualification.

Despite the final result, Doohan’s Bahrain GP weekend was a step in the right direction.

Strong qualifying pace and moments of real racecraft suggest a top-10 finish may be right around the corner for the 21-year-old, with Alpine finally getting its name in the points thanks to Pierre Gasly’s P7 efforts.

The proximity of the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix poses the perfect opportunity for Doohan to do so, with the race over this (Easter) weekend.

BAHRAIN MEETING KILLS V10’s RETURN TALK

THERE WILL be no change in the 2026 Technical Regulations for the Power Units, after a brief meeting between all relevant stakeholders in Formula 1 decided against such a move.

Promoted by the FIA, the meeting was organised so that the sport’s regulator could gauge what was the general feeling among the manufacturers regarding the future of the sport. The first and most immediate conclusion was that no-one was in favor of a knee-jerk reaction that had been suggested by a few, so there will be no extension of the current Technical Regulations, and any discussion of cutting short the period the new rules will be in place won’t be done any time soon.

While a return to normally aspirated engines is still on the table, all stakeholders were adamant that some degree of electrification of the Power Units and use of completely sustainable fuels will be a must. Everyone seemed to agree that the earliest a new engine formula could hit the track will be for the 2029 season, but the most likely scenario will be that the new rules will be in place for five years, as originally planned, with a change happening for 2031.

The FIA issued a statement saying that “the meeting, chaired by FIA President Mohammed Ben Sulayem, the CEO of FOM Stefano Domenicali and FIA Single-Seater Director Nikolas Tombazis, was attended by representatives in person and via video conference from Audi, Ferrari,

It’s

FIA President Mohammed Ben Sulayem with FIA Single Seater Director Nikolas Tombazis. Ben Sulayem talked up a V10 return, but the manufacturers won’t cop any immediate thought of change.

Image: GETTY IMAGES

path has been chosen.”

After Mohammed Ben Sulayem summarised the brief for the meeting, it was stated in very clear terms that “the FIA has firmly committed to the 2026 Formula One regulations.”

Furthermore, the sport’s regulator explained that “the FIA Technical department, together with a number of stakeholders, has invested a lot of time in the framing of the 2026 regulations on hybrid Power Units with 100% sustainable fuel,” concluding that “the 2026 regulations, governing Power Unit and chassis, have attracted new Power Unit manufacturers to the sport – underlining that, for the 2026 cycle, the correct technical

Nevertheless, it was conceded that “minor refinements and adjustments are still being constructively discussed with all stakeholders.”

It was then that the Fédération revealed that “one of the topics under discussion was the adoption of normally-aspirated engines with sustainable fuel,” with the following goals: “reducing costs of research and development of F1 powertrains; building resilience against the fluctuations of the global economy; reducing the complexity of Formula 1 Power Units; and considerations on sustainability, weight reduction in relation to safety, performance

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The statement ended with: “The conclusion of today’s meeting was as follows: all parties are committed to the 2026 regulations and look forward to the prospect of exciting racing; all parties agreed to continue discussions on the future technical direction of the sport; a level of electrification will always be part of any future considerations; the use of sustainable fuel will be an imperative; consideration will be given to adjustments on financial regulations relating to Power Units as part of broader cost reductions; and policing of those regulations will be a priority.”

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Ford, General Motors, Honda Racing, Mercedes and Red Bull Powertrains.”

DJR REBUILD STARTING TO REWARD

DICK JOHNSON RACING HAD A MASSIVE OFF-SEASON, CONTINUING THE CHANGES TO ITS TEAM AND BEDDING IN NEW PEOPLE WITH NEW IDEAS. NOW, THREE ROUNDS INTO THE SEASON, THERE ARE SOME POSITIVE SIGNS ON BOTH SIDES OF THE GARAGE. ANDREW CLARKE SPOKE WITH DAVID NOBLE AND WILL DAVISON AFTER THE TAUPO 440 ...

A “HAPPY, but not satisfied” David Noble reflected on a weekend of promise at Taupo as Dick Johnson Racing took its next steps in the rebuild of the team that not too long ago dominated the sport.

The team’s CEO has his fingerprints all over the restructure. Over the past few months, the team has seen plenty of ins and outs on the workshop side of the business as it looks to fight its way back to the top.

Just as would have been the case in his AFL days, he understands some changes take time to bed down and that, for him and the team’s owners, the signs are positive – and the ITM Taupo 440 weekend was a big tick.

“Yes, I think we’ve moved forward,” Noble said. “There’s no doubt momentum’s building. We’ve left each round knowing where we’re at and being able to take that into the next round. Preparation’s been good. So yes, I feel like our momentum’s shifted into the positive.

“It was a really encouraging performance overall from the whole team.”

The weekend for DJR had two pole positions to Brodie Kostecki and

podiums too, but Noble found the speed of both cars satisfying.

“I think the amount of newness that we’ve brought in still takes a while to gel. There are still some things internally that we’ve talked about – we haven’t had our debrief tonight – but over the last 48 hours, we’ve identified areas where we need to do better.

“That’s just really positive – to know that we’ve still got areas of improvement internally that we can address to keep moving forward.”

Will Davison has been there and done that in motorsport, but he’s probably not seen a revolution of this magnitude before. Like the rest of the team, he knows the changes will take a few rounds to settle down, but he is seeing the signs already.

“This is a rejuvenated team,” Davison told Auto Action. “It’s a completely different place with a new energy. There’s a lot of pressure, which is good. Everyone’s accountable, and we’re all on the same page.

“Brodie and the guys bring an intense level – and I love having such a good teammate next to me. It’s motivating. Attitudes are everything in this sport, and we’re working together

with the same goal.

“These guys are very different for me – the lingo, the way they tune the cars,” he said of the new guys on his car. “I’m still playing catch-up compared to Brodie and his crew. But I like where we’re heading.

“All in all, it was a positive weekend – three top 10s, a podium, a couple of top five qualifying runs. We had a few gremlins on my side of the garage, but that’s part of gelling with the new crew. I’ve got two brandnew mechanics – really good guys, international, but new to Supercars. That was their first event, and there’s still a lot of gelling to do.

“We had some issues that were costly in practice and I was playing catch-up yesterday. But the car was awesome. I had a strong day, even though the double-stack caught us in Race 1 and I dropped to 20th and fought back to 10th. In the Sunday race, I got hit avoiding a spinning car, fell to 18th, and still clawed back to ninth despite the damage.

“It certainly wasn’t smooth sailing, but there were promising signs. Each weekend we’ve had some dramas, but also some great speed. We need to

tidy a few things up, and it’s looking pretty promising.

A veteran of the field, Davison says all the change is invigorating.

“I’ve never lacked motivation or self-analysis. I’m very self-critical, and that’s what drives me. I’ve been written off many times in my career and come back. I know I’m not getting younger, but I also know I can still deliver great performances.

“There’s nowhere to hide in this sport. It’s a dream job, but it’s also tough to stay employed. I know my contractual status – I know what’s ahead for me. But I still bring value, and I know I can be a big part of this next era for the team.

“Don’t underestimate me—I’m not here to cruise. I’m hungry, driven, and I know what I’m capable of when everything lines up. I’ve got perspective and balance, and there’s great chemistry between Brodie and me.

“I don’t want to be that guy highfiving for a top 10. I still expect more of myself. Every team can challenge now, and experience counts. I proved my speed in qualifying yesterday. I know what I bring.”

Kostecki leads the pack at Taupo – DJR is well along the path back to the front. Image: MARK HORSBURGH

CHEVROLET TEAMS ON THE EDGE

BJR AND PREMIAIR ARE SET TO LEAVE CHEVROLET IN 2026. ANDREW CLARKE REPORTS

AS REVEALED in Auto Action Premium last week, Brad Jones Racing and PremiAir Racing are believed to be on the verge of leaving Chevrolet in 2026. While official announcements may still be weeks away, it’s understood that Brad Jones Racing is headed to Toyota, and PremiAir Racing will align with Ford following Triple Eight’s shock defection in January.

If the double switch is confirmed, Chevrolet will have just six cars in the 2026 Supercars Championship: Erebus Motorsport, Matt Stone Racing, and newly appointed homologation team, Team 18.

Without a successful raid on a Ford team, Chevrolet would become the smallest manufacturer on the grid for the first time since Supercars was formed.

Both BJR and PremiAir confirmed to Auto Action at Taupō that talks are under way. One source close to the discussions said: “The direction is clear,” and that one of the deals may actually be done with their Chevrolet Camaros already up for sale.

The second Toyota team has been the subject of intense speculation since Walkinshaw Andretti United was secured late last year. Early favourites included Team 18, but Toyota Australia Vice President Sean Hanley made it clear there would be

a rigorous selection process. That process is now complete, and all signs point to BJR emerging as the successful applicant.

BJR offers Toyota not only its highly regarded engineering base and long-standing independence but also four Racing Entitlement Contracts. Despite those advantages, the Albury-based team was initially seen as an outside chance.

PremiAir’s switch is even more surprising. After Triple Eight’s departure, the team had bid to become GM’s new Homologation team, but with Chevrolet opting to partner with Team 18 instead, PremiAir began exploring alternatives – and moved quickly.

The team is now expected to follow Triple Eight into the Ford camp, formalising a growing

technical partnership that includes purchasing equipment and setup data from the Red Bull outfit. Without the added burden of developing the Chevrolet Camaro, and with no HT responsibilities, PremiAir reportedly believes a Ford alignment alongside Triple Eight makes better sense.

Team owner Peter Xiberras recently named a new CEO as part of the team’s ongoing restructure and, with its first Supercars podium secured at Sandown last year and James Golding finishing seventh in the 2023 championship, PremiAir is on the rise.

The final piece of the puzzle is the confirmation of Team 18 as Chevrolet’s new homologation team from mid-2025. The announcement was made at Taupō, but not all remaining GM teams

POSITION VACANT

were supportive. Neither Erebus nor MSR reportedly expressed serious interest in the role, leaving Chevrolet to appoint a team many still see as up-and-coming without looking at the engineering nous in-house.

Brad Jones Racing, meanwhile, would bring decades of Supercars experience to Toyota. Founded by Brad and Kim Jones, BJR started in AUSCAR and NASCAR before entering Supercars in 2000. Known for its underdog spirit and smart engineering, the team has built a strong reputation despite lacking factory backing.

Switching manufacturers is nothing new for BJR, which has previously run both Ford and Holden machinery. But a move to Toyota would mark a major new chapter – and offer the Japanese giant a strong four-car presence out of the gate.

PremiAir, on the other hand, is still relatively new to Supercars. The move to Ford would bring stability and shared resources through the alliance with Triple Eight.

What started with Walkinshaw’s move to Toyota and Triple Eight’s break from Chevrolet now looks set to cascade into the biggest realignment the category has seen in a decade.

Sources suggest all deals could be finalised in the coming days.

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BJR’s four-car equipe looks set to make up Toyota’s second team.

440 IS A WINNER — SUPERCARS FORMAT SHAKE-UP GETS DRIVER TICK

SUPERCARS ROLLED out the 440 format in Taupo, with two 120 km races on Saturday and one 200 km race on Sunday. With mixed tyre compounds, the new format looks like a winner. ANDREW CLARKE was there.

SUPERCARS PROMISED a shakeup in 2025 and, at Taupō, the 440 format with mixed tyre compounds debuted.

Designed to increase unpredictability and dial up the on-track action, the new-for-2025 format — featuring back-to-back qualifying sessions with different tyre compounds and no prior setup testing on the second tyre – did exactly what Supercars intended: it levelled the playing field and gave the fans a proper show.

Supercars’ Head of Motorsport, Tim Edwards, said the weekend vindicated the technical team’s decision to be bold:

“Look, I thought there was some good racing,” Edwards said. “We know we’ve got a fan base that enjoys longer-form races, but part of the idea here was to make things harder, less predictable – and it did that. The qualifying sessions put the teams under pressure, especially that second session. Most drivers

had never run the alternate tyre before – and their first timed lap was in qualifying. That’s a fair old challenge.”

The 440 format combines short, intense qualifying stints with split tyre strategies – a primary and alternate compound – across two Sprint races. Edwards admitted there were ideas he held back from implementing this year but said the overall goal remains clear: to keep shaking up the grid and providing spectacle.

“I had a few ideas we didn’t roll out but, even without them, I think it delivered what we wanted. You always look for ways to improve, but we’ve had some fantastic racing already this season – multiple winners, drama, and tight battles. That’s what the sport needs.”

Some questioned whether Supercars had taken a risk with the format, but Edwards dismissed the idea it was a gamble:

“I wouldn’t say it was brave,” he said. “We didn’t get everyone aligned straight away, but once we pitched it internally, the team owners supported it – and then we got the drivers on board too. Everyone embraced it.”

From the driver’s seat, the response was largely positive –

albeit with caveats.

DJR veteran Will Davison acknowledged the brutal intensity of the weekend but praised the actionfocused format.

“Exhausting, but cool,” Davison said. “All sports are moving toward short, sharp action, and that’s what fans pay for – action. From a driver’s point of view, it’s flat-out. You barely get out of your race suit all day.”

Davison said the new format brought with it an emotional toll.

“It’s stressful in a good way –intense. There was no time to sit or think. It’s an emotional roller coaster. I’m glad it’s over, in a way, because there’s a lot to reflect on. But we’ve achieved some good things, and we’re getting stronger each round.”

Broc Feeney, who also adapted well to the revised format, was more reserved in his verdict.

“I don’t know – I guess it’s up to the fans at home to decide what works best,” he said. “But from a driver’s point of view, more racing was fun. It was pretty cool doing two races again.”

Feeney felt the tyre compound variation achieved its goals but cautioned against assuming it would work at every venue.

“With the different tyre compound, I think they achieved what they

wanted – it definitely mixed up the field. But I don’t think the effect will be as dramatic at other tracks. The degradation here at Taupō was pretty extreme – the Supersofts just fell off a cliff.”

“I enjoyed the short, sharp format. I usually prefer longer races, but you get more action in these sprint-style events. It won’t work everywhere, though – definitely not at Bathurst. They just need to be selective about where they use it.”

Edwards confirmed that the format will remain for upcoming rounds but will evolve.

At Symmons Plains, for example, the tyre order will be reversed, with the Supersoft as the primary compound and the Soft used in the second race.

“Just to mess with them further,” Edwards joked. “It doesn’t have the same level of degradation as Taupō, but it’ll still be a challenge. And that’s the point – keeping them guessing.”

With 10 races in the books already and multiple winners on the board, the early signs are strong: the 440 format is doing exactly what Supercars hoped – mixing it up and keeping everyone on their toes. Let us know what you thought on our socials.

Brodie Kostecki and Anton de Pasqualre head the grid as Supercars debuts its new 440 format.

Image: MARK HORSBURGH

AFL GRAND FINAL SHAKE-UP COULD DISRUPT BATHURST

1000, WHILE SUPERCARS EYES GLOBAL GROWTH

WITH THE AFL EYEING A POSSIBLE DATE SHIFT AND SUPERCARS EXPLORING INTERNATIONAL RACES, THE 2026 SUPERCARS CALENDAR MAY LOOK VERY DIFFERENT. ANDREW CLARKE LOOKS AT THE POSSIBLE CHANGES ...

SUPERCARS’ CALENDAR planning for 2026 is facing fresh uncertainty, with reports the AFL is considering moving its Grand Final to the second weekend of October – clashing with the traditional date for the Bathurst 1000 – and Supercars eying international expansion as soon as next year.

The proposed AFL fixture revamp could become one of the biggest shake-ups in the league’s history. The effect on other sports is the other consideration of such a massive change for the biggest sport in the country.

If the AFL pushes ahead and secures Bathurst weekend for its showpiece game, Supercars will be forced to shift its crown jewel event. Seven Network, which holds rights to both the AFL and Bathurst 1000, would be caught in the middle – especially with the Bathurst 1000 protected under Australia’s antisiphoning laws, mandating free-to-air broadcast.

A Supercars insider said that if the AFL Grand Final does move, Bathurst would likely shift back to its original spot on the NSW Labour Day long weekend.

“If the AFL Grand Final takes that weekend, we’ll just move the Bathurst 1000 back,” the source said.

However, complicating matters is Supercars’ increasing push into international markets. At Taupō, Supercars CEO Shane Howard confirmed his new strategic role includes pursuing global expansion opportunities, including potential support races at the Formula 1 Grands Prix in Singapore and the proposed race in Thailand.

The Thailand GP support slot is more likely in 2027, but Singapore is firmly on the radar for 2026. With those events typically held in September, a return to early October for Bathurst may be impractical, pushing the endurance

classic even later or requiring further calendar innovation.

Former Collingwood president Eddie McGuire added fuel to the AFL speculation during a recent episode of his Eddie and Jimmy podcast:.

“I’m not reaching for a headline,” McGuire said. “I’m just telling you what makes sense and is being discussed. I’m pretty confident that plans, tentative plans, discussions are being held – and we could see some State of Origin next year.”

An October Grand Final would also allow for a twilight or night-time time slot, aligning with daylight savings – a

long-running debate in AFL circles.

Traditionally, the Bathurst 1000 was held over the NSW Labour Day weekend in early October. That changed in 2001, with Supercars opting for the second weekend to avoid AFL and NRL finals clashes and to better fit broadcast schedules. During the COVID-impacted years, Bathurst temporarily became the season finale, but with the Adelaide 500 now locked into that position, such a move is unlikely again.

Should all the speculative elements come together, a revamped Supercars calendar might look like this:

POSSIBLE 2026 SUPERCARS CALENDAR

> Albert Park (VIC)

> Taupō (NZ)

> Ruapuna (NZ)

> Symmons Plains (TAS)

> Perth Street Race (WA)

> Sydney Night Race (NSW)

> Hidden Valley (NT)

> Townsville (QLD)

> Queensland Raceway (QLD)

> The Bend Enduro (SA)

> Thai GP Support (Thailand)

> Singapore GP Support (Singapore)

> Bathurst 1000 (NSW)

> Gold Coast (QLD)

> Sandown (VIC)

> Adelaide 500 (SA)

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Any MCG AFL Final change of date will affect Australia’s Great Race ...

QUINN DOUBLES DOWN ON SUPPORTING KIWI TALENT THROUGH TQ FOUNDATION

TONY QUINN has reaffirmed his commitment to nurturing New Zealand’s next generation of motorsport talent.

The Tony Quinn Foundation (TQF) continues to evolve beyond lap times and focuses on the full package required to build a professional racing career.

Speaking at Taupō, Quinn outlined the structure and ambition of the TQF, which supports young Kiwi drivers from karting to the Toyota 86 Series.

Despite having his name on the foundation, Quinn admitted to feeling some hesitation early on.

“I didn’t want to call it the ‘Tony Quinn Foundation’ because people would say I’m a wanker. But I’ve had a fantastic life, and I want to give back – especially to Kiwi kids. Many people are looking after Australia; New Zealand means a lot to me.”

While driver development typically focuses on speed and results, Quinn stressed that this is only a small part of what makes a racing career successful.

“It’s not just about speed. We look at how they conduct themselves, how they contribute, their attitude.

Racing’s just 20% of it. The rest is how you build a career – and that includes knowing how to work a room and carry yourself professionally.”

Quinn pointed to rising IndyCar star Hunter McElrea as a benchmark example. “He’s fast, sure – but he also ‘gets it’. He knows how to market himself. You need that if you want a proper career.”

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Applicants must be committed to achieving customer service excellence and possess a desire to work within a team, work weekends at race events and to travel to race tracks including Lismore, Toowoomba, Maryborough and Gladstone.

how it supports Kiwi drivers racing abroad after early lessons showed the challenges of competing alone in foreign markets.

“We learned a lot sending drivers overseas – they can end up in someone’s garage in Minnesota with no food or support,” Quinn explained. “Now, we’re making sure they’ve got proper accommodation, maybe a job. Steve Horne’s a fantastic partner – he’s the godfather

of all this and helps make it happen.”

This year, the TQF is expanding its reach, with two Toyota 86 drivers being taken to Australia to race in the SRO GT series. Originally planned as a singledriver, three-race campaign, Quinn altered the format to provide broader exposure.

“I told them, their punishment is racing with me – so they’re not going to win! But that’s the challenge. They’ll get a very honest appraisal. We don’t want people wasting money if they don’t have what it takes.”

Quinn also underlined that performance behind the wheel is only one part of the equation.

“The TQF is about identifying strengths and developing them. If it’s a skill, we help nurture it. If it’s a problem, we’ll be honest and say ‘that won’t work’.”

With his trademark candour, Quinn summed it up simply: “I love drivers like Will Brown and Lando Norris. They’ve all got their own way of doing things – and that’s fine. It’s about figuring out how to make a career work, not just how to drive fast.”

Your role as a QSS Sales Representative and Van Salesperson will include:

• Maximise sales for the company from our current customer base and to seek and complete sales from prospective customers.

• Achieve maximum customer satisfaction.

• Utilise the inhouse computer system for sales and stock control.

• Work with the social media platforms to maximise sales.

• Pick and pack parts for shipping or for shop pickup.

• Perform warehouse duties including stock management and stocktakes.

• Unload shipments from air and sea of all product types for QSS and assist in uploading to warehouse shelves.

• Maintain a clean work environment (Office/ desk/ warehouse and sales van).

You must hold a Medium Rigid Truck Licence (MR) and have open wheel racing experience within the speedway industry.

To pursue this opportunity in strict confidence, forward your application and resume to: Karlene Morrison | Performance Wholesale Australia Box 2366 Logan City DC QLD 4114 | karlenem@pwa-au.com

Tony Quinn, with Hugo Allan and Chris White – headed to Australian Toyota racing ...

TRIPLE EIGHT “SCRATCHING OUR HEADS” AFTER TAUPO TROUBLES

FOR THE first time in 19 rounds, since The Bend in 2023, not a single Triple Eight driver appeared on the podium at Taupo and a “very long debrief” is in prospect.

After recording an emphatic onetwo in last year’s Taupo finale, it was notable that neither Will Brown or Broc Feeney were even close to a trophy across the three races, with the best result for either driver a fifth place. It came out of nowhere given the team still enjoys a commanding lead

in the Teams’ championship and they had ominously been trending in the right direction across the opening two rounds.

It falls well below Triple Eight’s high standards and Feeney admits there is a lot of thinking to do before they head to happy hunting ground Symmons Plains.

The team hopes this is not a sign of things to come given all-but-one of the remaining rounds in the Sprint Cup utilises the Super440 format seen at Taupo.

“I think it’s been a while since we’ve been scratching our heads this much. Probably, maybe Sydney last year? We struggled quite a bit,” Feeney told Auto Action

“We’ll obviously go back and look at it. We threw pretty much everything

PAYNE’S

MATT PAYNE waited for the perfect moment to produce his most complete weekend as, at Taupo, he became the third Kiwi to lift the Jason Richards Memorial Trophy.

Payne was close to perfect, dominating the first and third races of the Taupo Super440, characterised by a stunning move on Cameron Hill for the lead in Sunday’s finale.

It was also the first time Grove Racing has won multiple races in the same round which shows the significant steps Payne and Grove

at it throughout the weekend, which is pretty unusual for us. We’re normally into pretty small changes, but we were doing a lot.

“We’ll all go back and look at it. It will be a very long debrief as it should be.

“There’s no hiding, but we’re not there to call anyone out. But we’re there to learn.

“I always say to the team, ‘if you think I’m doing a bad job, tell me. Be the first person to tell me because I’ll work on it ...”

It is not all doom and gloom for Triple Eight, however, with Feeney making massive gains across the longer 200km finale.

Being forced to start all the way down in 20th due to the costly decision of staying in the garage at the end of Q1, Feeney put in an inspired

BEST YET

Racing are making together.

“Through the middle part of the year I think I was starting to get my head around things a bit more,” he said.

“It put a bit of a picture in my head in terms of how races should be run.

“This year all I have been doing is just trying to take the right opportunities at the right times and execute what we need to do.

“That has what has led us to this point and it is all quite simple really.”

Suddenly Payne now sits third in the Sprint Cup title race, but he is not

concerned, with Tasmania up next, where Grove Racing has not finished higher than 12th in the Gen3 era.

“It is good we have two wins in one round which has helped our championship progress,” he said.

“But I would not get too far ahead of myself.

“For us now it is really important we store this in the bank and build on it ahead.

“There are a couple of tough tracks ahead for us so we need to knuckle down and make sure we are not

drive to seventh despite a massive chunk of his left rear bumper missing.

“The final race was really positive,” Feeney said.

“To pass that many cars and be one of the fastest cars was lots of fun.

“I think we just made a really, I suppose, dumb decision to start the day to not run another set of tyres. If we did that, I think that day would’ve been a hell of a lot better.

“I did not actually know (some of the rear bar) was missing. I just saw it on TV halfway through the race, so thankfully I did not lose time in the pit stop. My car’s obviously very beaten up. But lot of people say I need to get my elbows out a bit more. I think I certainly showed that!”

Thomas Miles with Andrew Clarke

inconsistent like previous years.”

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Thomas Miles

Matt, with the Jason Richards Memorial trophy ...

TEAM 18 TO LEAD GM’S TECHNICAL FUTURE AS TRIPLE EIGHT STEPS ASIDE

IN A BOLD MOVE THAT COULD RESHAPE THE FUTURE OF SUPERCARS, GENERAL MOTORS HAS NAMED TEAM 18 AS ITS NEW HOMOLOGATION TEAM, REPLACING TRIPLE EIGHT RACE ENGINEERING IN MID-2025. THE DECISION ALSO SIGNALS A STRATEGIC SHIFT TOWARD GREATER TECHNICAL COLLABORATION. ANDREW CLARKE REPORTS FROM TAUPŌ ...

CHEVROLET RACING has formally appointed Team 18 as its new homologation team in Supercars, marking a significant recalibration of General Motors’ Australasian motorsport strategy and ending a long partnership with Triple Eight Race Engineering. The announcement was made at a GM Racing media round-table in Taupō, New Zealand, and signals a bold shift in direction that goes far beyond a simple team handover.

GM’s senior leadership – including Chevrolet Racing GM Chris Payne, GM Australia & New Zealand Managing Director Jess Bala, GM Vice President of Global Motorsports Jim Campbell, and Executive Director of Global Motorsports Competition Eric Warren – fronted the media alongside Team 18 boss Charlie Schwerkolt to outline a wide-ranging strategy that will reshape the Chevrolet footprint in Supercars from mid-2025.

“We’re here to make the announcement that Team 18 has been formally appointed as the homologation team for GM in the Supercars series, replacing Triple

Eight Race Engineering,” Payne began. “Team 18 is well-resourced to work with us and the other Chevy teams to build on the performance of the Camaro and the overall program.”

THE END OF ONE ERA AND THE START OF ANOTHER

THE MOVE signals the end of Triple Eight’s central technical role – one which brought Chevrolet multiple championships and wins at Bathurst.

Campbell quickly acknowledged their legacy: “We have one final year with them and want to celebrate that. All the wins, all the championships – they’ve been a critical part of our success. But today is about moving forward, about new chapters, with Team 18.”

Replacing Triple Eight wasn’t a decision taken lightly. Warren described the process as “one of the toughest” he’d undertaken, noting the calibre of all Chevrolet teams in contention.

“All of our teams are valuable to Chevrolet. From the very first meeting, everyone wanted to collaborate. But at the end of the day,

you have to pick someone,” he said. The deciding factors? Schwerkolt’s enthusiasm and Burgess’ experience, as well as a deep engineering team.

“Charlie embraced the process from the beginning, had no doubts,” Warren continued. “And Adrian Burgess brings experience that’s critical to the homologation process. We believe Team 18 can lead the group with strength.”

Schwerkolt, clearly proud, called it the most significant step in the team’s history.

“We’ve come from a single-car entry to now leading the technical development for Chevrolet. It’s a huge honour. We’re going to do some great things with GM.”

A NEW ALLIANCE: COLLABORATION OVER COMPETITION

THE CHANGE in the homologation team is just the start. Chevrolet is also launching the ‘Chevrolet Racing Alliance’, a formal structure that aims to unify its teams regarding technical development, data sharing, and brand alignment.

“This is a formulation of a new method going forward,” Bala said, “a post-Triple Eight era alliance that will strengthen and benefit all our Chevrolet teams.”

Campbell noted that motorsport is a “key pillar” of GM’s brand DNA and explained the shift is about ensuring that racing remains directly tied to the company’s broader engineering strategy.

“This isn’t just about race-day performance. This is about how we integrate motorsport within the core of our business, from aerodynamics to simulation, from design to data,” he said.

THE CHEVROLET RACING ALLIANCE

WILL INCLUDE:

• E xclusive use of KRE Race Engines for all GM teams; Shared simulation and aero tools from GM’s global motorsport operations;

• Appointment of Jeromy Moore as Chevrolet’s Supercars Technical Director;

• Access to GM’s simulation facilities and technical staff in North America;

Against the backdrop of the Taupo 440, GM has outlined its future Supecars plans. Image: MARK HORSBURGH

• A progressive rollout of data-sharing protocols.

Warren made it clear this isn’t just lip service:

“We have over 400 engineers globally in motorsport. NASCAR, IndyCar, F1 – these are the same tools that will now be available to our Supercars teams. It’s a game-changer.”

JEROMY MOORE AND THE TECHNICAL FRONT

JEROMY MOORE, poached from Triple Eight, is at the core of this plan, where he plays a key technical leadership role.

“He’s an enormous asset,” Schwerkolt said. “We’ll lean heavily on him to boost performance and make sure we’re competitive against Ford and Toyota.”

However, Moore’s contract with Triple Eight includes a six-month notice period and a six-month noncompete clause. GM would like him onboard sooner.

“We respect the relationship between Jeromy and Triple Eight,” Warren said. “Those discussions are ongoing. We want it to be handled respectfully and appropriately.”

Even without Moore’s immediate availability, Team 18 is gearing up. Schwerkolt confirmed they’ll add engineers, CAD designers and extra technical infrastructure to support their new role.

“Our rear bars are weaker than Ford’s at the moment – we’ll fix that. With the right people and the right tools, we’ll be stronger across the board.”

THE CRAIG LOWNDES FACTOR THE ROUNDTABLE also confirmed that Craig Lowndes will continue his ambassadorial role with GM and AC Delco, with Payne hinting at a potential wildcard entry next year as well as this.

“We would very much like to see that happen,” he said. “It would be logical that he’d partner with one of the Chevrolet teams.”

Whether that’s Team 18 remains to be seen.

WHAT ABOUT BJR AND PREMIAIR?

WHILE THE focus was on Team 18, the elephant in the room was the potential defection of Brad Jones Racing and PremiAir Racing to rival marques in 2026.

When pressed, Payne said: “Ultimately, that’s for the team owners to decide. We do not want to lose a team; we don’t want to lose a car.”

Warren was more forthright:

“We’re talking to them. We’ve got to prove that staying with Chevrolet gives them a better future.

“This alliance has to be built on trust and value.”

Bala added: “We want to field as many Camaros as possible in 2026. Those conversations are ongoing.”

ENGINEERING INTEGRATION— AND INDEPENDENCE

A KEY part of the new plan is establishing a shared engineering structure while maintaining team autonomy.

The alliance isn’t about turning Team 18 into a factory team – at least not officially.

“There’s marketing value in more Chevrolet Racing identity on cars,” Payne admitted. “Ford does it well, and we’d like to see more of it across our teams.”

As for operations, Warren noted that GM may establish a technical ‘hub’ in Australia to support local teams, but the structure is still being worked out.

“It might be at Team 18’s base; it might be independent.

What’s important is making the flow of information and tools more structured and more useful.”

DATA SHARING – BUT NOT JUST YET

DATA POOLING was a recurring topic. GM is pushing for teams to eventually share setup and performance data through a central portal managed by Chevrolet Racing.

“We’re not there yet,” Warren said. “It has to start with trust. We do it in IMSA and NASCAR, but you need the right environment.”

According to Warren, the goal is to make data sharing an advantage, not a burden.

“It can’t be one team selling data to another. It has to be neutral. That’s where GM comes in – to manage that process and ensure fairness.”

SIMULATOR ACCESS, GLOBAL KNOWLEDGE SHARING ANOTHER SIGNIFICANT upside for teams in the alliance is access to GM’s Charlotte-based technical centre, which includes:

• Four dynamic driver-in-the-loop simulators;

• A soon-to-be-installed Formula One-grade simulator;

• Engineering tools used in IMSA, NASCAR and now F1 via Cadillac.

“Some organisations talk about entering 130 races – we won 138 last year,” Warren noted. “We’ve got the tools; we’ve got the wins. Now we’re opening that up to Supercars teams.”

GM plans to bring Supercars teams and drivers to the US for cross-training, simulator access and collaboration.

“There’s already cross-pollination between Supercars and NASCAR –look at SVG and Marcos Ambrose. We want to strengthen that connection.”

WHAT’S

NEXT AFTER THE CAMARO?

THE CAMARO homologation remains valid until 2027, but GM is already planning.

“We are working on what’s next for Chevrolet in racing,” Campbell confirmed. “We don’t reveal future models or timelines, but development is underway.”

Campbell was diplomatic when asked if GM expects a new car in 2027 or 2028.

“When that time comes, we’ll make that announcement. But our commitment to Supercars is locked in through 2027.”

TEAM 18’S TESTING ROLE?

THERE HAD been speculation that Team 18 would run the Camaro through another wind tunnel validation ahead of Toyota’s Supercars debut. Schwerkolt was cautious.

“At this stage, we don’t think so. Toyota needs to be measured against our current baseline. But we’ll see how the process evolves.”

He confirmed that Adrian Burgess and Jeromy Moore will be involved in that parity evaluation process.

BUILDING A NEW SUPERCARS CULTURE

ULTIMATELY, GM’S move isn’t just about improving the Camaro or replacing Triple Eight—it’s about changing how the manufacturer participates in Supercars.

“We’re not underestimating it,” Schwerkolt said. “But we’re ready.”

The move reflects a broader motorsport philosophy favouring integration, collaboration and technical transparency for GM.

“This isn’t just a race program – it’s a cultural shift,” Warren said. “We’re bringing teams together, building trust, and making each one stronger.”

If GM can deliver on the promise of this alliance – and keep its teams together – it could set a new benchmark for how manufacturers operate in the sport.

And with Toyota entering the fray and Ford tightening its grip on Gen3, the battle lines for 2026 have well and truly been drawn.

Steve Byrne, Jess Bala, Charlie Schwerkolt, Chris Payne, on hand for the announcement at Taupo. Below left: Eric Warren (Exec Director, Global Motorsport) and (right) Jim Campbell (Performance and Motorsport Vice President, Chevrolet. Images: GETTY IMAGES

DARK HORSE DOWN MUSTANG CUP GALLOPS INTO AUSTRALIA FOR

Ford has announced it will bring the Mustang Cup to Australia in 2026, but just how it will do it is up in the air. Andrew Clarke and Bruce Williams look at the Dark Horse R series and the importance of Australia to Ford ...

FORD PERFORMANCE has confirmed it will introduce the Mustang Cup one-make racing series to Australia in 2026, further expanding the brand’s global motorsport program. The series will feature the Mustang Dark Horse R, a track-only version of the production Dark Horse, developed in partnership with Multimatic.   Powered by a naturally-aspirated 5.0-litre V8 producing more than 375kW, the car is delivered as a turnkey race machine with a six-speed manual transmission, race-spec suspension, FIA-compliant roll cage, and Michelin racing tyres.

The Mustang Challenge debuted in the United States in 2024 and will launch in Europe this year before coming to Australia in 2026 as the Mustang Cup. Australia is the next step in Ford’s plan to create a global driver-development ladder system. The new series is designed to provide a cost-effective, competitive platform for up-and-coming and amateur drivers, focusing on driver skills in a controlled one-make environment.

While the full calendar is yet to be confirmed, the Australian series is expected to feature on the support program for Supercars events or other major national race meetings. Discussions are ongoing with Motorsport Australia and other stakeholders to finalise race formats and venues.

“What does it look like? It’s all

TBC; we’re working on it,” Ford’s Ben Nightingale said at the 100 Years of Ford in Australia celebration.

“Obviously, we’ve got to get Motorsport Australia approval for the series, which is in process.

“Then we are working towards what a potential calendar could look like. We think a six-round calendar would work for the kind of people we expect to run. But again, where and what undercard, all those things are all to play for right now.

“Supercars is the big show, but having said that, the SRO Speed Series is now doing a really good job. They’re building a really good program, and they’ve got a good TV package. Realistically, you can go in many directions.

“We’d be disappointed if we didn’t have at least 20 cars on the grid,” he added. “That’s the minimum we’re targeting, and based on the interest we’ve seen, it’s absolutely achievable.”

The first example of the Mustang Dark Horse R has already arrived in the country and is currently touring key circuits and events to generate excitement ahead of the 2026 debut.

Priced at just under US$160,000 (A$265,000 in Trump-driven early April) the Dark Horse R is designed for what Nightingale says is serious performance at a relatively accessible price point. “It fits nicely in the Australian motorsport scene. It sits above the 86 Series but below Super2

and Carrera Cup in terms of cost.”

In terms of performance, the car is no slouch either. “We saw it run at Sebring recently—lap times were around two seconds slower than a GT4 car. But for the price, it offers really strong bang for buck,” he added.

The category will feature controlled tyres, and Ford intends for the cars to be prepared by teams or individuals, maintaining a true customer racing ethos. Sales and support for the Dark Horse R will be handled by Miedecke Motorsport, the official Multimatic agent in Australia.

A key part of making this happen is George Miedecke, who will lead the Miedecke Motorsport parts program.

At the recent Phillip Island SpeedSeries meeting, the GT4 winner was the first to put the foot down in the new Dark Horse R and he enjoyed every moment of it.

Miedecke expects the Mustang to resonate strongly with Australian fans and make a big splash in the racing scene.

“That was the first time I got a feel for it and I came away really impressed. I had a blast,” he said. “It has a has a really cool muscle car vibe and reminded me of my time in the V8 Utes, which I love, and I think it will resonate a lot with the Australian market.

“It has more grunt than the GT4 car because it does not have the restrictors and it has big horsepower and makes an awesome sound.

“This is something that has been missing from Australian motorsport. A development -type V8 category and it will do great things.”

Miedecke also believes it will be a series that caters to and attracts drivers of all abilities, ages and motivations, whilst the winner will receive a significant prize.

Reflecting Miedecke’s comments, Nightingale also confirmed that Ford will support the Mustang Cup not just in the product but also in branding and support, comparing the model to Toyota’s involvement with Gazoo Racing.

“This is a Ford series – our product, our branding. We’re fully behind it,” he said.

With an increasing number of young drivers priced out of highertier categories like Carrera Cup and Super2, Ford believes the Mustang Cup will provide a vital and affordable stepping stone.

“There’s a real gap in the market,” Nightingale said. “This gives drivers a rear-wheel-drive, 500-horsepower V8 on slick tyres with a manual gearbox— everything they need to build proper race craft. It’s a great platform to learn to race anything, anywhere.”

While full details are still being finalised—including the appointment of a category manager—Ford expects to make further announcements soon. “You’ll know the names,” Nightingale hinted. “They’re experienced, respected, and have been around a long time.”

The timing of the announcement was no coincidence being made at the 100 Years of Ford in Australia celebration and the presence of both Executive Chairman Bill Ford and Ford Performance General Manager Will Ford.

“Having Bill and Will Ford here this weekend was a great opportunity to signal our intent to bring this product to Australia,” said Nightingale.

“This is his baby,” said Bill Ford,

UNDER FOR 2026 DEBUT

The Dark Horse R, ready to race, is proving a winner in the US – now coming to Australia. “Above the 86 series but below Super2” is how Ford sees its positioning.

Below: Importer Andrew Miedecke, son/ racer George and Ford personnel with the Dark Horse R on show at the AGP

Below right: The car comes complete with race-spec suspension/brakes and, Ford Performance maintains, can easily be overseen by individuals or race teams.

nodding toward Will Ford, who’s leading the charge.

“We’re looking to give people the opportunity to race Mustangs all over the world,” Will Ford explained. “We launched our first one-make Mustang series in North America last year — the Mustang Challenge. The Mustang Cup will act as a feeder into that, an entry-level series. The goal is to create a ladder from grassroots all the way to GT3 and to expand Mustang racing beyond North America.”

A key part of the plan includes showcasing Mustangs during the Le Mans Invitational events this year, with hopes to bring Australian drivers overseas for early testing ahead of a 2026 local launch.

Ford was tight-lipped on logistics — including car preparation and team involvement — but promised more details soon. “We’ll have all those details soon for you guys,” he said.  Both Fords hinted at broader aspirations beyond tarmac circuits, too.

“We’re looking at every possible way to race off-road,” Will said when asked about potential involvement in the famed Finke Desert Race. “We’ll definitely not rule it out.”

Bill backed that sentiment with a simple but enthusiastic “Yeah.”

While expanding its footprint across motorsport disciplines, Ford isn’t losing sight of its existing commitments — particularly in the fiercely competitive Supercars Championship.

“Supercars is extremely important,” Will said. “Mustang is the lifeblood of our company’s passion. If we’re taking Mustang global, it has to be racing everywhere. We’re keeping our foot on the gas here just like we are everywhere else.”

The company expects a strong

showing with Triple Eight Race Engineering returning to the Ford fold in 2026.

“We’re expecting a lot of continued success,” Will said. “We have a great history with Triple Eight, and of course, an amazing legacy with Dick Johnson Racing and our other teams. We’re incredibly proud to welcome Triple Eight back into the Ford family — another seal of approval for Mustang’s performance on track.”

Ford also welcomed increased competition in Supercars, including Toyota’s pending entry.

“One hundred percent,” Will said. “We want to be competing in healthy series against other OEMs. Racing against yourself isn’t fun. We’d love to see more manufacturers in every series we’re in.”  As for the future look of Ford’s Supercars weapon, a re-homologation of the Mustang is not currently on the cards.

“We always look at opportunities,” said Bill. “If there’s a reason — competitive or marketing — we’ll consider it. But there’s nothing to share at this point. No changes in the short term.”

PURDIE MAKES HIS MARK

AFTER THE end of S5000, Blake Purdie’s career was at a crossroads – he chose the GT4 Australia path and has made an immediate impact.

Purdie and co-driver Daniel Price emerged victorious from an exciting final GT4 Australia race at Phillip Island that was effectively a 12-minute sprint.

It puts the Adelaide youngster back in the limelight thanks to a serious sign of intent on GT debut.

Since the end of his karting days in 2019, Purdie has almost exclusively raced open wheelers, in S5000 and Formula 4.

In his second full season in 2023 it appeared he had turned a corner by getting a career-high five podiums, but just as the momentum was building S5000 stopped suddenly.

To continue racing he participated in six Australian F4 races and also came home

with five podiums.

However, in 2025 he has made the big switch to GT4 and has made the transition seamlessly in the Audi R8.

Purdie was thrilled to get a first-up win in the car that was a big reason why he chose GT4 for a big year in his career.

“Obviously S5000 was over so we were on the hunt for what was next and GT4 was the most appealing in terms of cost and atmosphere with how the events are run, with GT3 racing at the same time,” he told Auto Action.

“A big selling point of the Audi was just the V10 ... and it is obviously fast.

“We were looking at other cars and just thought ‘the V10 is so good.’

“We will carry on the best we can and see what happens. We are not here to come second.”

How the combination of

Purdie’s youth and Price’s experience came together is quite touching.

Price has not raced since 2019, but chose to dust the helmet off to help Purdie progress his career.

They have a special partnership as Price was there when Purdie drove a kart for the first time and is now driving alongside him.

Due to the time since the 2019 Aussie Racing Cars finale, jumping back into the car was not the easiest thing for Price, but he felt more comfortable as the weekend went on.

“A big selling point for me to join Blake this year was to help him progress,” Price told Auto Action.

“He is quite young, but has done S5000 and has the results.

“It gave me a bit of drive to get back in the zone and really try to help him get to the top step.” Thomas Miles

From S5000, to F4, to GT4 ... Purdie is enjoying early success.

TARGA TASMANIA: OPEN FOR BUSINESS

THE WAIT is over for prospective drivers, co-drivers, and officials, with the application process now open for the returning TARGA Tasmania on November 16-21, as well as access to the new technical and sporting regulations.

Alongside the new technical regulations, organisers have also released the stipulations for the mandatory 9-hour TARGA Academy Course, held pre-event over two days between November 14-15.

“After nearly three years and numerous mountains to climb, the moment has come when applications to enter Targa Tasmania have arrived,” TARGA CEO Mark Perry said.

“We are beyond excited at the prospect of the event returning with a new vision and new innovations, to ensure that it has many exciting years ahead as the world’s ultimate tarmac rally.

“The years of work by a large number of people has been worth it, this event is worth saving – everyone knows this! Now the future of Targa Tasmania is in the hands of those who wish to take part.”

Whilst the full Technical Regulations and Academy Guidelines can be found on the TARGA website (www. targa.com.au) here’s a brief rundown to some of the changes made:

The first event back will be capped at 300 vehicles (100 Competition and 200 Tour Vehicles max), whilst annual

licences will no longer be issued, replaced with the ‘Blue Chips’ issued for the event based on meeting the required eligibility, medical fitness criteria, completion of course reconnaissance (all ‘competition’ crews must complete at least one run over every stage of the event) in line with requirements and attendance in full of the Targa Academy.

The nine competition options will also be capped at the following limits: 130km/h (Trophy), 160km/h (Cup) and 190km/h (Supercup) covering the three age periods, Classic (1946 to 1988), Early Modern (1989 to 2007) and Modern (2008 to 2025).

And whilst the maximum speed has been reduced to 190km/h for the Supercup, the Cup limit will be 160km/h, with the average speed on each Targa stage set at 125km/h.

TYRE SPECIFICATIONS.

R SPECIFICATION (racetrack style tyres) are no longer allowed, with the approved list shown in the Technical and Sporting Regulations, whilst entrants will be allowed four spare tyres without penalty, with a time penalty applied in each instance thereafter.

RIDE HEIGHT

A MINIMUM ride height of 100mm has also been introduced for all competition vehicles regardless of competition entered, whilst there are

also updated safety cage regulations for all 160km/h and 190km/h speed limited vehicles to current specifications, as shown in the regulation guide.

DATA COLLECTION

ALL COMPETITION vehicles must also be fitted with forward-facing cameras for the purposes of review by Targa officials as required, whilst each entry will carry a working RallySafe unit whilst on course.

WET STAGE TIMES

WHEN ‘DAMP’ or ‘wet’ stages arise, standard base time and Trophy times will be adjusted accordingly, with a ‘Wet’ stage speed set at a max of 140km/h across the 160-190 km/h competitions, 110km/h in the 130km/h, and a 100km/h for Targa Tour.

Low Speed Areas (LSA) have also been introduced to replace restricted time zones, designed to regulate speed in known high speed sections, as well as Speed Limited Sections (SLS) designed to limit speed on specific sections of road of high-risk objects such as large trees, running water or ponds, poles, unprotected drops and steep terrain in the event of a vehicle leaving the road. And there will also be Black Spot to indicate areas where multiple incidents have occurred over the years.

MINIMUM AGE FOR COMPETITORS AND FITNESS TO COMPETE

TO COMPETE in TARGA Tasmania all competitors must be a minimum age of 18, whilst all are required to submit a medical letter/clearance written and signed by their AHPRA registered doctor, showing all current medications and confirming that he or she is medically fit to compete in the event.

ACADEMY COURSE

ALL ENTRANTS will be briefed on all Targa elements including responsibilities, rule changes, In Vehicle Safety, driving, co-driving, medical procedures, signage training, and more.

And for Physical training, all competition crews will traverse a pre-set section of closed road that will contain a Stage Start, medical incident procedures, all on-course signage and safety zone types, potential hazards on a stage (gravel, loose road surface) and Stage Stop Points.

Until May 2, from tonight onward, there will also be an out-of-hours phone service, from 5pm to 10pm, to assist in getting interested parties up to speed with all of the changes. At that date, you can phone 03 6144 9504, or email aleshia@targa. com.au

TW Neal

Image: ANGRYMAN PHOTOGRAPHY

n News starts with the breaking revelations around the plans for both Brad Jones Racing and PremiAir Racing to leave Chevrolet as the General announces Team 18 as the replacement for Triple Eight as GM’s Supercars Homologation team.

n Heading our features is a hilarious story by Wayne Webster about how he shared an ambulance with Brad Jones, who struggled to convince a nurse that he was a professional racing car driver ...

n F1 Team Managers

F1 can be a hard place if you are the team principal of a team that is not seen to be delivering on its supposed potential – the axe can fall fast, but they are people as well. Who are they, and where did they come from? Luis Vasconcelos digs into the back story of the 10 men running F1 teams.

n Ford GT40

Born from Henry Ford II’s mission to defeat Ferrari at Le Mans, the Ford GT40 evolved from the Lola Mk6 into a racing legend. Overcoming early failures, the car ultimately dominated with a 1-2-3 finish in 1966 and victories through to 1969, cementing its status as a symbol of Ford’s performancedriven ambition and one of motorsport’s most iconic machines.

n Peter Brock at Le Mans (1976)

In 1976, Peter Brock took a bold leap to Le Mans with a self-funded, heavily modified BMW 3.5 CSL. Despite limited resources and mechanical setbacks, including racing with only three brakes, Brock’s team set the fastest BMW lap before retiring.

n WRC27 (World Rally Championship)

The FIA’s WRC27 overhaul aims to cut costs, open the top class to varied car types and powertrains, and bring back manufacturers.

n In Road & Track, Bruce Williams takes the stunning Toyota GR Yaris for a run.

n Motorsport from home and around the world. We have plenty of race coverage and analysis from nationals and classics to Supercars, F1, WRC, NASCAR and IMSA plus more ...

INGRAM TAKES SECOND NZ F5000 TITLE

THE FINAL stanza of the SAS Autoparts MSC NZ F5000 Tasman Cup Revival Series at Teretonga Park saw Kevin Ingram and his Lola T332 HU48R take out a well-earned title, whilst the round itself went to the dominant McRae GM1 of Steve Ross.

The round was a part of the George Begg Festival, with the aesthetically classic feel celebrating the life of the Southland engineer and race car constructor, who took on the world from his humble Drummond workshop. And, in fitting fashion, the big hearted 5L V8 F5000 machinery punctuated the great feel of the festival.

In a reverse of the penultimate Hampton Downs round – where the Lola machinery dominated – the finale was all George McRae built machinery, as the #5 GM1 swept up from the qualifying onwards.

Also, alongside the Open class, the A class series for pre-1972 McLaren models also went into the final round with it all on the line, with the #7 McLaren M10A of Tony Roberts winning the title in the absence of his main rival.

As for the ultimate champion, Ingram didn’t put a tyre wrong (aside from the odd off track excursion) throughout the four Teretonga races,

whilst much the same could be said of his entire season as he remarkably guided the 50+ year-old British machinery (built for the Can-Am series) to every single finish line across six rounds across both NZ islands.

“I’m quite rapt. My wife Helen was a bit nervous before the first race this morning, knowing I had to finish to secure the title,” Ingram said.

“I’m very grateful to have such a supportive wife – without her, I wouldn’t be doing this.

“I’ve got to thank the friends who’ve backed me through the season and especially Ross Dallas (Rossco) who’s been so helpful with the engine. And my daughter and son, who never saw me race when they were younger, now get to be part of it.”

(Ingram won the New Zealand Formula Ford championship in 1983).

Heading into the finale, Ingram held a 20 point lead over the Lola T332 HU38A of Tony Galbraith, with Glenn Richards also still an outside chance, but 57 back, whilst only 6 points separated the McLarens of Frank Karl and Tony Roberts.

After starting from pole over Ingram, Ross showed his speed early in the GM1 for Race 1, skipping away from Ingram who held second to

inch closer to the title after 10 laps, with the Michael Hey McRae GM1 004 third, charging from the rear of the pack, whilst Galbraith could only manage fifth.

In eighth, Roberts sealed the Pre-72 A title in his M10A.

It was more of the same in Race 2 in gusty conditions, but this time it was Michael Hey making a McRae one-two with Ingram in third.

In calmer warm conditions on Sunday, Race 3 got underway after some technical mishaps caused a slight delay, with Blake Knowles eventually taking third in the Begg FM5/2 after a good fight with Ingram, whilst the champion elect was 11.031 back from Ross.

Ross then went four-from-four after fending off Knowles by 0.891s, whilst Galbraith took a consolation podium to end his season and title push.

Capping the year off, Ingram was awarded the trophy by Jacqui Blake (nee Begg), daughter of the late George Begg, after taking it out by 23 points over Galbraith, with Glenn Richards making it a Lola T332 triple at the top over the McRae GM1s of Hey and Ross.

The competitors are now planning a trip to Australia before the start of the 2025-26 season.

TW Neal

Steve Ross (McRae GM1) dominated the final round, but the series went to Kevin Ingram (Lola T332) – the trophy was presented by Begg’s daughter Jacqui (below). Bottom: Tony Roberts (McLaren M10A) sealed Class A. Images: DAVE LOUDEN, DAVID ABBOTT

GILL ADDS VITAL PREP FOR JWRC PORTUGAL

AUSTRALIA’S RISING rally young gun Taylor Gill has added a national event in Portugal as part of his preparation for Round 2 of the Junior World Rally Championship.

After he and co-driver Daniel Brkic took a sensational JWRC and outright Rally3 victory at Rally Sweden, the pair are well placed for an assault on the junior title as part of the FIA Rally Star program – their second season.

Next up on the WCR calendar, Gill and Brkic will make their debut at Rally De Portugal starting on May 15, and will add to their careful preparations by running as privateers at the Ralli Terras D’Aboboriera on May 2-3.

In a tough world of securing rally finances, any extra event they can run is vital with their European

counterparts generally having better access outside of the FIA Rally Star program.

On top of that, the pair have also importantly secured extra testing dates.

“I am really proud that we have secured the budget to complete

some extra testing, as well as competing privately in the Ralli Terras D’Aboboriera,” Gill told his Taylor Gill Supporters Club members.

“This gives us a really good preparation schedule and will give us the best chance of pushing for

LOIACONO IMPRESSES IN US DEBUT

YOUNG AUSSIE Liam Loiacono has provided another name to watch out for in the US after he made a pole and podium-getting international debut in the USF Juniors at the bottom of the Road to Indy ladder.

The 16-year old from Brisbane headed to America with a bag full of national and state wins in Australian Formula Ford and made his debut in the MZR engined Tatuus JR-23 machinery, racing for Jay Howard Driver Development at NOLA Motorsports Park in Louisiana.

Whilst Loiacono would fall back from third to ninth in the opening lap of Race 1, he fought back into sixth by race end, but had a pole position for Race 2.

Impressively, Loiacono’s pole was also a qualifying lap record for the category, with a 1:37.976s earning him the kudos on debut.

Whilst the Queensland youngster held his nerve into Turn 1, he then lost the lead to Oliver Wheldon but, in an all-green 12-lap encounter, Loiacono showed his fighting class in a three-

car battle for second, dropping to third before taking back his spot in an impressive debut.

“It was a good race. Starting on pole, it would have been nice to win it but I didn’t quite get the jump I needed. We’ll take second and the good points,” he said after the race.

Leaving the weekend, the young Aussie will be heading into Round 2 on May 1–3 at Barber Motorsports Park fourth in the standings.

Loiacono is treading the path taken by Gold Coast’s Lochie Hughes, who

a good result in round two of the Junior WRC. I have to say a massive thanks to each and every one of you for getting behind us so far this season, without you, this would not be possible … we hope to make you proud over the coming weeks.”

Importantly, the Ralli Terras D’Aboboriera will be held across similar stages to the WRC event, with 114km of competitive kilometres, whilst they will compete in Ford Fiesta Rally3 owned by the workshop that Gill himself works for in Finland.

The five round JWRC calendar has visits to Portugal, Greece, Finland, and Central Europe still ahead.

To join the Taylor Gill Supporters Club (with a minimum $150 donation) visit www. taylorgillmotorsport.com

also raced for JHDD as he began his climb up to IndyNXT through the USF Road to Indy system, with the step-up scholarship for the title winner providing a US$239,675 (A$380,000) boost into USF2000.

TW Neal

WE’RE BACK: McLAREN TO RETURN TO LE MANS

McLAREN CEO Zak Brown has ended years of speculation and suggestive teasing, confirming that the Woking based Papaya team are committed to an LMDh Hypercar program for the FIA World Endurance Championship, from 2027.

The work is said to be already under way to return the marque to the pinnacle of the Le Mans 24 hour, and Brown has been hinting at it for some time; whilst his early commitment to be at the 2025 event at Circuit de la Sarthe instead of the Canadian GP in June left to doubt that it would finally be announced.

It means that McLaren’s LMDh ruleset Hypercar will become the 11th OEM by 2027, with Hyundai joining in 2026 with its Genesis brand, and Ford alongside McLaren in 2027. McLaren will also join Aston Martin as the second British outfit since the LMH/ LMDh ruleset began.

With this year also being the 30th celebration of McLaren’s incredible outright debut victory at the 1995 Le Mans (the wettest Le Mans on record with 17 hours of recorded rainfall) with its F1 GTR, a 6.1-litre V12 beast that lacked the pace but handled

beautifully in the given conditions, taking a one-three-four finish. Whilst they also scored a P2 and P3 in 1997, the BMW powered McLaren F1 GTR would only last until 1998.

The very brief press release to confirm the program read: 1995. Legendary Le Mans victory. Triple Crown glory.

Ready to make our mark on the world endurance stage once again. Hypercar. 2027 World Endurance Championship.

Zak Brown, CEO of McLaren Racing said: ‘We’re Back.’

In celebrating the 30th anniversary at this year’s Le Mans, Brown will be attending a special exhibition in Le Mans that celebrates the remarkable 1995 victory and, as Lamborghini did, it could potentially unveil a prototype (hopeful speculation).

The 2027 entry is expected to be a

French Dallarabased chassis (LMDh ruleset allows a choice of four chassis builders) whilst the McLaren Artura – a hybrid Supercar – is expected to be the architectural base for the engine: a 120-degree twinturbo V6 (right Cadillac and BMW are the other LMDh machines to employ the Dallara chassis (with the V-Series.R and BMW M Hybrid V8 respectively) whilst LMDh-committed manufacturers can also make choices from Multimatic, Ligier or Oreca, whilst keeping their brand identities with bespoke bodywork and powertrains.

And whilst McLaren is already at this year’s Le Mans 24 with its 720S GT3 Evo in the LMGT3 class, it will be its first time in the top flight with its own in-house engine.

As it currently stands, the 2027 WEC and Le Mans 24 grid will be

composed of Ferrari, Toyota, Porsche, Alpine, Peugeot, Cadillac, BMW, Aston Martin, McLaren, Hyundai, and Ford – whilst Acura (Honda) is expected to eventually make the leap from IMSA for Le Mans, with Lamborghini also a chance to return after committing to an IMSA only program in 2025 with the Italian makes hypercar future still up in the air.

The next 2025 WEC round is the 6 Hours of Imola on April 20, with May’s Spa race the prelude to the 2025 Le Mans 24 on June 14-15.

TW Neal

McLaren – 1995 Le Mans winners

WEC TO ROCK AROUND THE CLOCK IN … SA?

I’M RELIABLY informed the world’s most exciting and fastest growing motorsport category is likely coming to Australia in 2027 with a box office bonanza 12-hour enduro epic.

The World Endurance Championship is headed back Down Under, to South Australia, roughly 26 or 27 years after the last (disappointing) adventure but with a brand-new brand and the greatest racing cars on earth.

The plan to bring the fastest race cars on the planet – yes, faster than an F1 cars – down under to Australia is said to have moved on from a wish list aspiration to the “let’s get the deal done” stage.

It is underpinned by an Australian business consortium that may be (or maybe not, because I don’t believe everything I’m told), being led by the Shahin family.

Only a few years ago, the WEC was the poor, orphan child of international motorsport with Toyota being the only factory team even bothering to turn up. They won everything and that made them happy.

But then the regulations changed, Hypercar rules were tweaked and LMDh was introduced, allowing manufacturers to buy off-

with Wayne Webster

TRACK LIMITS ...

the-shelf chassis and add their own bodywork and powerplants and, as they say in the classics, the damn thing went wild.

Toyota stopped winning everything and that made them, less happy. There was even the veiled hint from Toyota re quitting the series entirely.

But in 2025 the premier category of the WEC features factory entries from Aston Martin, Alpine, BMW, Cadillac, Porsche, Ferrari, Peugeot, Lamborghini and, of course, Toyota. Next year they’ll be joined by Ford, Hyundai (with its Genysis brand) and probably Honda and Mercedes.

That’s some serious manufacturer firepower and that’s one of the reasons this may well be the biggest challenger to Formula One as the world’s premier motor racing category.

Leading contenders to host a WEC endurance race here were, we’re told, scrutinised one-by-one and discarded for a number of reasons.

Sydney was given the big red X because the reality of holding a street race within the city precincts is about as believable as houses that will really cost less than the GDP of a small African nation in the near future. Blocking off streets in Australia’s most congested city to host a motor race would be political suicide.

How about Sydney Motorsport Park (the artist formerly known as Eastern Creek)? Are you kidding me? For a modern WEC Hypercar it would be like racing on a go-kart track.

The final jug of cold water on the deal is the fact that Sydney people only flock to major sporting events at gun point. (I’ve lived in Sydney all my life and, to be honest, we don’t give a shit …).

Bathurst doesn’t have the FIA circuit rating required to host a WEC race, and there would be more catastrophic crashes than the US stock market under the Trump presidency … Gold Coast? Don’t be stupid. Too narrow, no run-off

and shitty pit facilities.

Phillip Island? Fabulous circuit, one the drivers would adore, but it sits in the middle of nowhere, the facilities are second rate, no grandstands, and accommodation on the island is sparse.

And so we come to Adelaide. But, yet again, this is where it comes down to politics.

Would the SA government be prepared to stump up a significant amount of taxpayer dollars to resurrect the old F1 GP circuit (extending the current Supercars design) on the edge of the CBD to stage a stonkingly expensive big WEC 12 hour race? One that would mean importing, probably from Melbourne, lots of reasonably important infrastructure stuff. Repaving the reclaimed roads, creating barriers, and all that other stuff would cost lots, on top of getting the grid here.

The current Labor government in South Australia obviously loves the smell of BP E75 in the morning, having resurrected the Adelaide 500 Supercars race after it was canned by the previous Liberal-led wowser rulers. It is now considered as the best race weekend of the year. It draws massive crowds and is spoken of with similar

reverence as the Bathurst 1000.

Even if the Libs got back into power they would be cutting their own wrists to can this event. But would either Labor or the Libs want to climb out onto the ledge and help fund a WEC race as well?

No, politics is usually all about getting power and keeping power. And a tilt at the WEC just may be a leap that neither of the aforementioned may want to risk.

But just one hour up the road is a world class motor racing facility. One with its own top shelf hotel, state of the art facilities and which just happens to be owned, with his brother, by a bloke who competes in the WEC and is a category winner.

Welcome to The Bend and say hi to Yasser Shahin, Sam’s brother.

Yasser, who this year is racing for the factory backed WRT BMW team in the WEC after switching from Porsche, is part of the family business that owns The Bend and is worth somewhere in the region of $1.5 billion.

Let’s face it, The Bend is a brilliant racing facility and is within 60 minutes or so of an ‘almost’ major capital city … As they say, watch this space.

BASHING RECORDS AT THE BEND

THE DRAGWAY at The Bend once again produced some record-breaking times to lay claim as the fastest course in drag racing.

The National Drag Racing Championship returned with the Riverbend Nationals on April 6-7 in front of an overall crowd of 25,410 and Damien Harris made headlines by setting the fastest Top Fuel time ever seen in Australia.

Harris produced a 3.683s pass at 534.23km/h over a 1000ft distance at the Bend in Saturday’s qualifying.

“It has been something we have been chasing for a while, so it is awesome,” Harris said.

“The car had me pinned all the way. I had a very good feeling it was going to run into the sixties and 330s. I climbed out of the car and asked an official, and he had no clue. I said, ‘Could you please ask someone on your two-way?’ And yeah, it was awesome!”

However, after his Rapisarda Autosport International stole the show on Saturday, Wayne Newby hit back on Sunday to claim the overall prize. It was a dramatic finale for the pair with Harris running into trouble off the start, losing a burst panel and his chutes while reporting a ‘death rattle’ (10.478/94.24kph) and Newby getting all crossed up after the launch –pedalling hard to ensure he turned on the win light to further bolster his title lead (4.738/447.27kph).

The win wrapped up a near complete weekend for the team and extended Newby’s championship lead.

“It was a killer effort by the team, even though we didn’t get to run in the 60s,” said a clearly emotional Newby after taking out the victory.

“To get the race win and take the points lead again into the next race, I can’t thank the team enough.

“I’m so happy for Santo and the team. Hopefully, from here, we can go on to win the championship.”

In the B Final, Phil Lamattina took a solo win after Kyle Putland had a shutdown, while Phil Read had to settle for C Final success.

In XPRO Nitro Funny Car, it was time for Morice McMillin to take two victories in a row, backing up his New Year Nitro win with the A-Final victory at Dragway at The Bend over his team-mate and Spring Nationals

winner, Josh Leahy.

While Leahy had been impressing all weekend long t with a number of PBs and top qualifying, it was a convincing victory for McMillin, who stormed to the win with a very stout 3.962/522.85kph while Leahy had the candles out early (5.546/206.72kph).

US driver Tommy Johnson Jr claimed the B Final which was a sweet birthday present.

Top Doorslammer produced one of the most special results.

Just a month ago Jeremy Callaghan’s Camaro was skating down the Perth Motorplex on its roof – but after a lot

of work, he hoisted a Gold Christmas Tree at The Bend, as a winner. He took the A Final with a 5.755/406.68kph run over the defending champ Russell Taylor, who red lit (7.797).

“I can’t believe the result here today,” Callaghan enthused.

“It is a complete turnaround from four weeks ago when we were upside down in Perth.

“We’ve gone from the outhouse to the penthouse!”

Damian Muscat was in strong form in winning Top Fuel Motorcycle convincingly by over 2s over Greg Durack as Danny Rickard claimed an exciting B Final over Corey Buttigieg.

The Sportsmans were also on show with Zayne Condello over Nixon Cannuli (Junior Dragster), Lillian Hagan over Riley Kilvington (Junior Drag Bike), Henry Spicak over Kevin Cooper (Super Street), Craig Geddes over Peter Firriolo (Super Comp), Dave Harrison over Donald Hagan (Modified Bike), Edge Mallis over Cheryl ‘MsVrod’ Beddoes (Competition Bike), Bob Sherry over Greg Angus (Supercharged Outlaws), Adam Ince over Sean Maher (Super Sedan), David Foster over Chris Theo (Top Sportsman) and Adriana Cartledge over Daniel ‘BatDan’ Carranza (Modified).

Next up on the NDRC calendar is the Gulf Western Oil Nitro Champs at Sydney Dragway on May 2-4.

Thomas Miles

Newby vs Harris – record-breaking speeds ... Top: The duo each had something special to show for the weekend.

Above: From upside-down to winner – Jeremy Callaghan’s Top Doorslammer Camaro.

Images: CACKLING PIPES PHOTOGRAPHY

ENJOY THE RIDE...

THOSE OF you who were awake at around 3am on Sunday morning would have witnessed live the definitive moment when the pendulum that is the 2025 World F1 Drivers Championship swung decisively ...

That’s when, in Q3 in Bahrain, Oscar Piastri nailed it, to take pole and a firstclass ticket to his latest F1 win, while team-mate and long-time McLaren focus, Lando Norris, dissolved into more public self-doubt and confusion, back in sixth and with a lot to do to rescue the weekend.

And while Oscar stroked around at the front, carefully and precisely easing away from George Russell’s Mercedes, Norris had a roller-coaster race. It should still, with McLaren’s racepace advantage, have easily been possible to get back and into a solid second, but Lando made a right royal mess of most of it.

He actually got a blinder of a start – emerging from Turn 1 in third. But he’d started his McLaren from outside the required grid box – he thought he hadn’t but he had ... (and Max Verstappen, on the other side of the road, helpfully noted it and commented on radio!) and so had to cop a five-second penalty at the pit stop.

The different tyre choices made by others, especially Leclerc and Russell, played its part and, while the Brit was able to eventually dispose of the Ferrari, George defended in his ailing Merc superbly. A front lock-up and track limits ‘redress’ later and Norris was still behind the Mercedes as the flag fell. A podium, sure, but not what the doctor ordered from an aspiring world champion. Post-race, there was more of the disconcerting public

with Chris Lambden

CL ON CALL

self-flagellation from Norris:

“Too many mistakes; out of position … I paid the price for mistakes I shouldn’t make in the first place … I’m surprised I’m achieving anything with how I feel in the car … I’m not feeling good – something’s not clicking … I’m just not able to drive in the way I want … It’s complicated; I don’t know the answers now – I’ve got a lot of work to do …”

You almost feel sorry for him. Lando is now into his eighth year with McLaren. And for six of those, the team was at best mid-field, ploughing around, chasing the odd point here or there. Now, from part way into last season, the team has benefited from the direct correlation of its new wind tunnel to track and produced a rocket-ship.

There were wins, three solid ones in the second half of 2024.

But now, Johnny-comelately, young Oscar – who occasionally fell a fraction short in qualifying last year, but still won two races in the same time frame – has pretty much fixed that and is coming on like a veritable papaya train …

Interestingly, Oscar himself described that qualifying short-fall as “not so much a driving thing – it’s technical,” which was revealing and seemingly honest. While F1 cars are pretty much unchangeable in most technical aspects from Qualifying to race trim thanks to the ‘Parc Ferme’ requirement, there are still little tweaks that can be made to best get a single lap out of them – and it would seem

that Oscar and his ex-Olympic rowing medallist engineer Tom Stallard have alighted on what works best for Oscar.

Think about it – but for that one little Q3 Turn 1 slip-up in Japan, Oscar would have had three poles in a row – and likely the three wins to go with them.

I reckon Lando’s figured that out. And if you’re Lando, it’s enough to do your head in. It’s not about the car – it’s the best car on the grid right now. What Lando needs is a session or two with acknowledged British-based kiwi ‘Race Driver Whisperer’ and mind coach Rob Wilson, but don’t tell him that …

Unlike F3 and F2, where the cars are equal and the best drivers generally get the result, F1 is hugely about the car (Max mostly floundering around in the pack tells the story – the 2025 Red Bull is not the F1 Car of the Year …) and in the final year of the current hybrid ruleset, this is the McLaren duo’s one seemingly guaranteed chance.

After seven years of Mercedes domination, and three and a bit by Red Bull

(Honda), this is McLaren’s year – the totally new moreelectric formula coming next year could see everything change (although Mercedes’ engine department’s record in coming out of the box with something good offers confidence).

So, this is McLaren’s and Oscar’s and Lando’s big opportunity … and only one of them can be World Champion.

And on the basis of the past couple of weeks, it really does seem like the continuous progress made by Oscar –under the guidance of Mark and Ann Webber – has put him well and truly in the frame. It’s not quite of Gout Gout proportions (check your athletics news), but the potential is very much there. And Lando is feeling the heat. There’s still 20 races to go, but without putting too much pressure on (which he seems well capable of handling anyway), the signs are that it really might just be a big year for Oscar Piastri … and Australia.

Enjoy the ride.

Now a formidable double-act – Piastri and engineer Tom Stallard – an ex-British Olympic rowing medallist. Image: GETTY IMAGES

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BYE ED, YOU WILL BE MISSED

VALE: ED MULLIGAN – 1950-2025

By Wayne Webster

CRAZY, UNREPENTANT

larrikin, hilariously funny raconteur, sometimes semiprofessional curmudgeon and motorsport legend Ed Mulligan has gone rallying in the big beyond.

At 75, but still with the vibrancy and l’amour de la vie of a hormonal teenager, Mulligan is reported to have passed away in a road accident after suffering a medical episode over the weekend.

And this, just over a week after the original ‘Hooligan’ (well before a certain US guy trademarked the term) contested the Otago Classic Rally in New Zealand in his BMW. Rear wheel drive of course!

Although never the goldrated rally driver he longed to be, Mulligan was a platinum rated human being who just loved life, driving sideways and doing a deal.

He was, basically, a hybrid of Ken Block and Eddie Jordan.

For many, Ed is best known as the man behind Opposite Lock

Back in 1974 he and wife Pam set up a store in the Sydney suburb of Thornleigh. Within two years, the business had grown to four outlets in Sydney, located also in Regent’s Park, Naremburn and Chatswood.

Only a few years later Opposite Lock would be franchised and the first store outside Sydney would open in Perth., WA.

But that’s all business bullshit. What Ed really loved was going rallying.

Amongst other things he contested the 1979 Repco Round Australia Rally in a Ford Escort RS1800, which is where I first met him.

Oh wait, no it wasn’t. I did cross paths with him at

his Opposite Lock store in Sydney in 1978 when I was buying a helmet, race suit, boots and gloves for my first tilt in karts.

Back then I was a motoring writer for The Australian and Daily Mirror newspapers and thought I might wrangle a discount.

Sir Lewis has earned reader Mark Sykes’ respect for his Ferrari return, early success and teamwork.

When I asked him if my media credentials might get a few dollars off he said no, but “I’ll only charge you retail!” Ed and I would have a friendly, but sometimes adversarial relationship (he often hated when I didn’t mention him in a rally story and then hated it when I did because he’d f..cked up).

But he was a mate, like he was to so many of us in the motorsport community. And, to be honest, we’re losing too many good ones now – and this is the latest.

Although he kept out of the limelight, Ed was a key member of Bruce Garland’s assault on the 1998 Playstation Round Australia effort, arriving early in towns along the event route to flog merchandise to help pump some funds into the team to keep the show on the road.

I know this because I was part of the two-car Garland effort, co-driving for a bloke called Peter Brock in a standard production model Holden Jackaroo while Bruce was in a far more powerful version with a tricked up

suspension system and other bells’n’whistles.

It had all started out as a bit of a grin but no-chance-ofa-win exercise as Brock had just retired from professional race driving (hmmm!) and was in the event just for a bit of a laugh and a chance to lap Australia and sign autographs for his 20 million fans.

But things started to get serious when Brock, inevitably, saw the chance of a big result and started going, to use a racing term, ‘apeshit’ and started methodically beating the poor ol’ standard Jackaroo to death to keep pace with the more highly modified opposition.

I also started to feel the pressure, real pressure, to not fuck up and let the Great One down as he chased another round Australia win to add to his 1979 triumph.

What started as a lark, a couple of mates having a bit of a blast, had started turning into something a bit more serious and, particularly, my cavalier and “who gives a shit” attitude maybe needed tweaking.

It was Ed who took me aside one night and helped me get my head in the game. Basically he told me it was time to get a bit more serious about the game but, more importantly, to make PB respect the frailty of his mount a little more and not

drive like a crazy “muthaf.. ker” all the time.

“You’re one of the few people I’ve ever met who Brock actually listens to, so make him listen,” Ed told me.

“Brucey (Garland) needs a big result and you’ve got to deliver now,” he stressed. It was the kind of insight that a first time co-driver really needed, and it worked. Brock finished second outright to team boss Garland and we won the Production class. But it could have ended in tears without Ed’s sage advice.

One of the last times I saw Ed, face-to-face rather than via chats on the phone, was on his macadamia farm in far north NSW.

With Ed and his wife Pam we spent the afternoon sitting round a table on his vast verandah, cracking open fresh macadamia nuts and drinking cold beers.

For me it was a slice of heaven. But Ed would have liked a rally car to be in the mix as the cherry on top.

But now he’s probably negotiating with St Peter for a discounted entry into heaven, which no doubt has lots of fabulous dirt roads and all the BDA Escorts one could ever wish for.

See ya mate. I, like most of the rest of the Australian motorsport community, will miss you.

And that also comes without a discount!

2013 saw the last of four consecutive years of dominance by Red Bull, Renault, and Sebastian Vettel in the ‘V8’ (post-V10) era. F1 switched to its current ‘hybrid’ formula in 2014 and Mercedes (coming into prominence in the V8 swansong – here pursuing Vettel) and its spectacular solution to the PU/electric formula won it seven in a row before Red Bull/Honda caught up. Will 2026 produce a single manufacturer with a similarly dominant solution?

Image: RED BULL CONTENT POOL

NO TURNING BACK THE CLOCKS

THE MUCH-AWAITED meeting called by the FIA on Friday morning at the Bahrain International Circuit was quite a waste of everyone’s time.

Let’s spare a thought for those who flew in the night before, from Europe, the US and Japan, and then flew back home less than 24 hours later … as I suspect that even flying First Class or in a private jet, so many hours in the air and so many time zones to cover, does take a toll on your body!

I say ‘suspect,’ because I’ve never experienced such luxuries, but I promise that if one day I will, you’ll be the first to read about how it feels …

From what I had heard in the paddock since the start of the year, there were two different groups pushing for culling or seriously reducing the life span of the proposed 2026 Power Units.

The first to mention the possibility of returning to V10 engines was none other than Bernard Charles Ecclestone

with Luis Vasconcelos

F1

INSIDER

(‘Bernie’ for the long-term Formula 1 fans), who was put on loudspeaker from Christian Horner’s mobile phone at the start of a Team Principal’s meeting and finished his short participation by saying “I would bring the V10 engines back.”

Obviously this stunt was staged – Horner, Red Bull Powertrains, and its partner Ford are painfully aware they will be on the back foot from the start of next year against the likes of Mercedes and Honda – rumored to be the ones further ahead with the development of next year’s Power Units.

But what was a bit surprising was that FIA president Mohammed Ben Sulayem jumped onto this bandwagon and started consulting the

sport’s stakeholders about the feasibility of this sudden reverse of course by Formula 1.

I must say there are good reasons to fear that the Power Units that will be seen from next year will be too expensive to develop and run. And with the car industry’s outlook being quite bleak at the moment, it’s not unwise to try to pre-empt an exodus from the sport, like the one seen in 2008 and 2009 when, in the space of 12 months, Honda, BMW and Toyota abandoned ship completely and Renault remained only as an engine supplier – just a couple of years after Ford also left Formula 1.

Rest assured, I would love to hear the glorious roar of 22 V8, V10 or V12 engines around

the tracks from next year or in the near future. That has always been music to my ears – but also part of the reason my hearing is not what it used to be – but there’s no denying that the reason manufacturers come to Grand Prix racing is to help them develop technology that will be road relevant, so they can advertise the products they are selling by using their participation and results in Formula 1.

Big atmospheric engines are a beautiful thing, but we won’t be seeing much of them on the roads anymore.

And while I seriously doubt the future of the road car industry lays in fully electrical vehicles, I also believe that some degree of electrification of small, turbocharged, engines, together with the rapid development of fully sustainable fuels, is the future.

Formula 1 must lead this process and, therefore, finding an engine formula that will go into this direction, but which is also much simpler, more cost effective and fully

in line with what the cars from the next decade will be using, should be the priority of the FIA, Formula 1, the teams and the engine manufacturers. Like almost everything in life, you cannot turn the clocks back in terms of technology and what Formula 1 needs to do is to look ahead rather than dream of bringing back old concepts.

Yes, some manufacturers will be in a world of pain next year, as new engine regulations always come with big performance differences from one Power Unit to the other, as we saw back in 2014. It’s up to the FIA and the manufacturers to find a formula that will accelerate equalisation of performances without penalising competence too harshly and too quickly.

That’s what regulators are for and, as we’ve seen with the current set of Power Unit rules, it can be done over a relatively short period of time without too much fuss or noise around it.

MARKO ADMITS VERSTAPPEN MAY LEAVE IN 2026

THE HARSH treatment Liam Lawson was subjected to by Red Bull, being fired after just two races, may hide an ulterior motive that has nothing to do with the New Zealander’s speed and ability to recover his form.

Team Advisor Helmut Marko has been on an interview spree explaining to everyone that the decision was taken to protect the young driver and make sure he can rebuild his confidence while driving for Racing Bulls … but there’s the general belief that Lawson was sacrificed in order to guarantee Max Verstappen won’t be able to walk away from his contract with the team during the same break.

In one of his many recent statements, Marko admitted that “every contract has exit clauses so, of course, there are certain conditions under which Max might become free to leave us at the end of the year,”

before insisting that “all of that is still quite down the line, in the future, so that’s not something we are, or Max is, thinking about.”

What the Austrian is alluding to is a performance clause that is known to be included in Verstappen’s contracts – and that allows him to trigger a cost-free exit from the team if results up to the mid-season ‘Summer break’ are below what is the accepted minimum threshold.

It’s widely believed that if Red Bull is outside the top three teams in the Constructors’ Championship at the start of that break – after the Hungarian Grand Prix – the Dutchman can trigger his exit clause and leave the team at the end of the season without being forced to pay any compensation.

Given the performances seen in the first two races of the year and with Red Bull already down in third place in the championship, a whopping 42

points behind the dominant McLaren but also 21 points behind Mercedes, the alarm bells quickly sounded in Milton Keynes. Even if Ferrari underperformed in Melbourne and in Shanghai’s main event, the truth is that before Hamilton and Leclerc were disqualified in China, the Scuderia was just three points behind the Austrian team in the standings.

As all other top teams have two drivers perfectly capable of scoring a lot of points every weekend, Red Bull realised that having the third or fourth quickest car won’t allow Verstappen to score, on his own, enough points to keep the team inside the top three places in the championship and that was one of the factors that led to the decision to demote Liam Lawson and replace him with the more experienced and mature Yuki Tsunoda.

The hope is that the Japanese will

get up to speed quickly and will be able to beat at least one Mercedes and one Ferrari driver on a regular basis, so that his results combined with Verstappen guarantee the team is still third by the time everyone gets their summer break at the start of August .

This was the only view the McLarens got of Max Verstappen’s Red Bull on race day in Japan ... the points may go a long way towards blocking a team ‘performance trigger’ that might let Max leave ... Replacing Lawson with Tsunoda (above) was part of the same target ... Images: GETTY IMAGES, RED BULL CONTENT POOL

After Max snatched pole and got the jump at the start he was never challenged. Could he have been? McLaren (below) effectively denied Piastri , in Norris’ wake – but who appeared to have more pace – the opportunity to have a go at the Red Bull ...

STELLA DEFENDS McLAREN’S SUZUKA STRATEGY

IT’S NEVER easy to accept that you lost a race when you had the fastest car, but McLaren Team Principal Andrea Stella refused to blame his team and his drivers for their defeat at the hands of a superlative Max Verstappen, at Suzuka.

The fact the team put both Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri on exactly the same strategy made life easier for Red Bull, who only had to cover one of the two and opted to defend from the Englishman, who was closest to their driver.

The Australian was 3.9s behind Verstappen at the end of lap 18, pitting one lap later without Red Bull reacting. After all, there was no way Piastri would be able to immediately undercut the Dutchman, even on new tyres, especially as he lost a lap stuck behind Oliver Berman, before being able to clear him.

Norris was only 1.5s behind the leader at the same time, so he was in a better position to make the undercut work, but Red Bull pitted Verstappen on lap 20, pre-emptying McLaren’s move.

Surprisingly, Norris followed the leader into the pit lane, knowing it

would be almost impossible to gain 1.5s in the tyre change, but opting against extending the Brit’s stint.

Unusually, Red Bull had a slow stop and Norris managed to get his car’s front wing alongside the RB21’s rear wheels, but was then chopped into the grass and spent the rest of the 53 laps stuck behind his rival.

Stella defended both cars, explaining that if Piastri had extended his stint “I think he would have had a problem with the cars behind, especially Russell, that pitted and that we needed to cover.”

As for the decision to pit Norris

when Verstappen came into the pits, the Italian insisted there was a bigger risk by keeping him out and extended the first stint, as Mercedes did with Kimi Antonelli, and also claimed that going for the undercut would have worked against his driver.

Stella insisted that “Lando would have lost positions should a Safety Car be deployed had he gone for the undercut. In hindsight, you don’t see any Safety Car, you don’t see anything, and you think, ‘oh yeah, I might have gone for the undercut,’ but an undercut attempt

comes with some risks.”

And even though Antonelli made the overcut work, the Italian was adamant that Norris would have lost out to a few other drivers had he extended his run on the Medium tyres further. He insisted that “on a 20 laps-used Medium, you cannot be faster than somebody that pitted for a Hard.

“The situation became very clear when Russell pitted and he was very fast on a new Hard. It was apparent that the Hard was working well and the overcut, staying out and gaining, would hurt you.”

That’s why the engineer concluded that “the overcut works well when you know, like in Barcelona or in Suzuka in the past, you gain four or five laps of tyre delta and then when you pit, even if you pit behind the car that stopped before, you will pass him because you have better tyres.

“But here the tyres don’t almost degrade at all from one lap to the other. We kept seeing purple sectors and purple laps until the final lap. So, it’s a low degradation race – it’s a tricky one.”

SIM RACER VAN BUREN HELPED RED BULL WIN IN SUZUKA

RED BULL’S remarkable performance turnaround during the Japanese Grand Prix weekend owed a lot to Max Verstappen’s perfect performances – but wouldn’t have been possible if the Milton Keynes-based team hadn’t work very hard, from the end of FP2 to the start of FP3, in finding a better set-up that could help the Dutchman take the fight to the mighty McLaren duo.

Verstappen was just over half a second slower than Norris in the first practice session, down in fifth place, and the gap remained the same in the Friday afternoon session, this time to Piastri, who had been the quickest in FP2. With other teams improving, the Dutchman was actually down to P7 and admitted there was a lot of work to do, as his RB21 was understeering too much and he couldn’t turn in sharply, as he prefers, into the corners.

The gap actually remained the same in FP3, with Verstappen back in fifth place, but overnight a lot of experimenting with set-ups had been done in the simulator and Verstappen managed to get to the full potential of the new settings, securing an unexpected pole position that left everyone stunned.

The Dutchman had already cut the gap to Piastri by half, to 0.256s, in Q1, as he started to explore the limits of the new handling of his car and moved up to third quickest in Q2, but still 0.356s away from Norris’ pace setting time. He then improved his best time by more than half a second in Q3 to beat the McLaren duo, setting the baseline for his win on Sunday.

Horner and Verstappen praised the work done back at the factory between sessions but what is now known was that the driver

who was on duty in the team’s simulator was experienced e-sim racer Rudy Van Buren – not one of Red Bull’s many youngsters.

For two years now, the Dutch gamer has been drafted into the team’s pool of simulator drivers, at the request of Max Verstappen.

An e-sim racer himself, the World Champion believes that hobby is actually quite useful for practice and that’s why he insisted that Red Bull would make use of his services.

This 33-year-old did well in karting but ran out of funds to make the move into single seaters, turning his hand to virtual racing back in 2007 and hasn’t looked back.

A few years ago, Van Buren joined the Redline team, Verstappen’s e-Sport team, on the weekends when Max competes in virtual endurance races organised by iRacing, where Rudy is one of

his team-mates. And Verstappen was one of those who pushed his candidacy for the role of simulator driver at Red Bull, both for software development and for the set-up work during the race weekends.

The Japanese Grand Prix winner has already publicly praised his compatriot, saying that “Rudy has great sensitivity, from the smallest adjustment to the craziest one; he tries practically everything.

“Even when I go to the simulator for some sessions, Rudy does the preparation work and I have to say that everything is already practically set – so I can dedicate myself to the details.”

This time around, Van Buren was the unsung hero of the weekend for Red Bull, proving yet again that races are won as much in the preparation period as on the

circuit, where the teams only have time to fine-tune the set-up of their cars.

Max dominated in Japan, and has credited the work of his sim colleague Rudy van Buren (below) for the massive turnaround in his car’s performance ...

“BORING” SUZUKA RACE WILL LEAD TO CHANGES

HAPPY WITH finishing 10th in the Japanese Grand Prix, Haas teenager Ollie Bearman sensation described his race as “boring,” saying that “I was on my own for basically the whole 53 laps and I didn’t see anyone overtake, in front or behind me.”

It’s true that, apart from the moves helped by the front-runners on fresh tyres against drivers who were extending their first stints, the only real pass inside the top 10 was done by Lewis Hamilton on Isacck Hadjar, on lap six – but that was more down to the Ferrari driver qualifying out of position than anything else.

Behind, there were a couple of first lap moves, including Tsunoda getting the better of Lawson and there was only some action again much later, in the last third of the race, when Sainz, on fresh Soft tyres, passed Lawson, Hulkenberg and Doohan, who were all on very worn Hard tyres.

Andrea Stella, who saw his two drivers trail Max Verstappen for 53 laps without ever threatening to make a move, admitted that “unless you were involved in it, I guess for the spectators it must have looked like a boring race,” adding that “for us, however, with everyone being so close together, it was a very exciting

race, as the smallest mistake could be very costly.”

The Italian conceded that “as a show it was not great,” adding that “there are two main causes for that: the new tarmac made Suzuka a low degradation circuit and it’s now a lot harder to get close to the car in front as dirty air has become an issue again.”

The McLaren man explained that “I think dirty air has become an issue because, ultimately, we keep adding aerodynamic downforce, which means that the losses are even bigger.

“The dirty air is a problem – we have seen this even in China with Hamilton. When he was in the lead of the Sprint he could do pretty much whatever he wanted, even if the tyre had damage.

“So, the lead is a significant factor. Normally the tyres add to the mix because there are some circuits in which you degrade almost 0.1s per lap and then, if you have a better degradation, ie if you degrade 50% less in 10 laps, you are half a second faster, just because you degrade less on the tyres.”

The Italian added that “this year, that variable was not working in Suzuka because there was no tyre degradation. But I think the dirty

air is a factor and possibly this is one of the reasons why the 2026 regulations may introduce some reset from this point of view.

“Because I think even if this generation of car was conceived to actually improve following – that was what we were talking about in 2022 – there’s been so much aerodynamic development now that again they have become so much of an aerodynamic machine that as soon as you follow you lose the performance.”

Adding a second DRS zone after the Spoon corners could be a solution to help drivers close on the car in front before the pit straight but, as Ferrari’s Fred Vasseur pointed out, “then you’d get drivers

trying to do 130R with the DRS open and that would be too dangerous.”

Sauber’s Beat Zehnder added that “you would have to create a system that would shut the DRS before 130R without the need for the driver to activate any button, and I don’t think that’s an easy thing to do.”

On the other hand, the Swiss suggested that “next year, Pirelli will probably go one step softer on the compounds for this track, as now we know the new tarmac has changed the fundamental characteristics of Suzuka and we have to adapt to that.

“For me,” the veteran explained, “that will be the easiest and most efficient way to improve the racing around this track.”

Haas’ new boy Ollie Bearman said he was “bored” by the race in Japan ... Certainly, the papaya McLarens spent the day this close, but not close enough, to Max Verstappen’s Red Bull ...

WEBBER REVEALS “EJ SAVED MY CAREER!

EDDIE JORDAN’S passing continues to be mourned by the Formula 1 fraternity, as the Irishman’s style didn’t leave anyone indifferent and there are thousands of EJ stories still to be told.

Replacing the former team owner in the very popular ‘Formula For Success’ podcast that Jordan cohosted with David Coulthard, former Grand Prix winner Mark Webber has revealed an unknown story of how Jordan helped him remain in motor racing and was instrumental in finding him his first Formula 1 seat, with Minardi.

The Australian was Coulthard’s first guest after Jordan’s passing and while the two went through their memories of the great man, Webber revealed that “EJ actually saved my career when I was at my lowest point ever.”

Webber had moved from Australia to the UK at the end of 1995 and arrived with Europe with sponsorship from Yellow Pages, to race in Formula Ford. That sponsorship was secured with the help of the experienced Ann Neal, who would later become Webber’s life partner but, in spite of their best combined efforts, they couldn’t find the budget to move up

from Formula 3 to Formula 3000 at the end of 1997.

Mercedes had saved the young Australian’s career by offering him a seat in its GT and Le Mans program but, after surviving two terrifying flips in practice for the 1999 Le Mans 24 Hours, Webber’s time with the German company came to an abrupt end and he was left with nothing, as he recalled.

“I had nothing at all – no drive, no contract, no sponsors, nothing, so I was desperately trying to get in touch with EJ. I lived close to the factory and I just wanted a meeting to ask for anything he could give me, even if it was just a couple of straight-line tests with his Formula 1 cars.

“Back in the day there was a lot of testing going on – every team had two or three test drivers; they’d be all around Europe testing and sometimes they were short of someone who could do a straight-line test in Santa Pod or any other airfield.”

Jordan’s PA, however, was not helping, “because I’m sure she was getting requests for EJ’s time from everybody, so I decided the only way to catch him was to wait outside the factory for him to get out and follow

him in my car, until he’d stop!”

The plan worked “because eventually EJ spotted me in his mirror and we stopped for a chat, so I could explain to him where I was and what I needed.

“He didn’t have a seat for me but it was through EJ I got in touch with Paul Stoddart, who paid for my F3000 season the year after and then gave me my first Formula 1 contract with Minardi.

“Without Eddie nothing would have happened, so I owe him the rest of my career,” the Australian concluded.

FIA RISKS SCHISM AFTER REID’S

THE FIA has been rocked by the announcement that Robert Reid, Deputy President for Sport at the FIA, has resigned over what he describes as “a fundamental breakdown in governance standards within motorsport’s global governing body”.

In a long letter to the club members, the former rally co-driver detailed the reasons behind his decision, looking to completely side with Motorsports UK Director David Richards, who has recently openly questioned the way President Mohammed Ben Sulayem has

changed the modus operandi of the Federation – and challenged them via the British judicial system.

Reid said in a statement that he was experiencing “growing alarm over critical decisions being made without due process or proper consultation,” adding that “when I took on this role, it was to serve the FIA’s members, not to serve power.”

Reid continued by saying that “over time, I have witnessed a steady erosion of the principles we promised to uphold,” detailing that, “decisions are being made behind closed doors, bypassing the very

structures and people the FIA exists to represent.”

He then stated clearly that “my resignation is not about personalities, it is about principles. Motorsport deserves leadership that is accountable, transparent, and member-driven. I can no longer, in good faith, remain part of a system that does not reflect those values.”

On Thursday the FIA issued a brief statement about the resignation, saying that “The FIA is grateful for Robert Reid’s contribution to the FIA and to motor sport more widely,” adding that “the FIA has

exceptionally robust corporate governance policies which guide our operations and ensure our rules, practices and processes are adhered to.”

Then, completely off topic, the Federation added that “the FIA

‘EJ” was a friend and advisor as Webber’s career went on (above) ... and below in the very early days of his career.

ASTON MARTIN SELLS STAKE IN FORMULA 1 TEAM

CAR MANUFACTURER Aston Martin

Lagonda has announced plans to sell its shares in the Formula 1 team carrying its name in a bid to cash in on the increasing value of the Grand Prix teams and secure some much-needed liquidity into its own account, as sales of its road car models are still way below the company’s expectations.

The auto-maker lost even more money last year – 289 million British Pounds (A$605m), up 24 percent from GBP240 (A$505m) at the end of 2023.

A decline in global sales meant that earnings fell 11 percent, from A$640m in 2023 to A$570m last year and, as a result, the company announced plans to cut 170 jobs, or five percent of its workforce, which is part of Aston’s plan to save A$52m per year.

In order to generate much-needed liquidity, Aston Martin Lagonda has put up for sale all its shares in the Formula 1 team, setting a price of A$1.47 per share, hoping to collect A$156m for the sale.

Lawrence Stroll, who controls both the Formula 1 team and the car company has announced his Yew Tree Consortium will buy A$52.5m, leaving the rest of the shares for private investors, the Canadian explaining that, “since 2020, my Yew Tree Consortium partners and I have invested around A$1.26billion into the company.”

World Rallycross Championship is a hugely popular sport. In recent years, World and European Rallycross events have been watched by a growing audience of over 30 million viewers spanning over 100 countries,” to conclude that “the FIA has directly invested into the Championship for the benefit of fans, teams, and FIA Member Clubs. This investment is in line with the FIA’s commitment to double participation in motor sport globally.”

Reid’s resignation couldn’t come at a worse time for Ben Sulayem,

Stroll went on to state that, “this proposed investment further underscores my conviction in this extraordinary brand, and commitment to ensuring Aston Martin has the strongest possible platform for creating long-term value while reducing equity dilution via this premium subscription, which should greatly reassure shareholders, as I again increase my long-term ownership in the company.”

With a few people in the paddock worried

as the Emirati is biding for his reelection at the end of this year and has clearly lost the support of a man who had the backing of the vast majority of European motor racing clubs.

And to add to his troubles, the FIA President has yet to secure a place for the Fédération in the new commercial deal that will regulate the sport from the start of next year.

In fact, while all 10 F1 competing teams and newcomer Cadillac have already signed the new Concorde Agreement, the FIA is yet to secure its share of the sport’s profits and

that Aston Martin Lagonda’s massive losses could have a negative effect on the Formula 1 team’s long-term future, the billionaire has moved to squash such fears, insisting that “with a long-term sponsorship agreement cementing the existing relationship between Aston Martin and the Aston Martin Formula 1 team, our brand will remain present and competing at the pinnacle of motorsport for many years to come.”

is at serious risk of seeing its quota dimished by the need to pay prize money to an 11th team in the future. Now needing to appoint a new

Deputy President for Sport, Ben Sulayem has another problem in his hands, as they seem to pile-up for the President of the FIA …

Lawrence Stroll – juggling his F1/Aston Martin investments ...

David Richards and Robert Reid, who has now resigned as FIA Deputy President ... Opposite: President Ben Sulayem (with F1 Group CEO Stefano Domenicali ) – lots of people departing the FIA ...

FINISHING WITH A BANG

ANOTHER HUGE summer of speedway will conclude with a bang this weekend with the traditional curtain closer, the three-night spectacular that is the Easter Sprintcar Trail.

Some of the sport’s biggest names will send off the season in style across three races at Geelong’s Avalon Raceway, Mount Gambier’s Borderline Speedway and Warrnambool’s Premier Speedway.

It all kicks off on Good Friday at Avalon before the roadshow moves across the border to Mount Gambier for a Saturday night spectacular. As always, the finale will be on the historic dirt in Warrnambool where the last bit of bragging rights are on offer. Across all three nights, Super Rods will be on show, with an exciting JD Race Parts Premier Speedway Track Championship to be decided, with Jamie May only leading Shaun Walsh by four points, having been the pace setters all year. At Premier Speedway, Sports Sedans and Street Stocks will also entertain the crowd.

The Easter Sprintcar Trail has been a fixture of the Sprintcar calendar since 1980 and has grown quite the legacy over the last four and a half decades.

Mount Gamber and Warrnambool have always been part of it, with races initially held at Bendigo, Portland and Melbourne Speedbowl also part of the show before Geelong/Avalon became a fixture in 1989.

All the big names have been successful in the Easter Sprintcar Trail, from Tim Moncreif winning the inaugural race in 1980 to Garry Rush dominating the decade, to Max

Dumesny winning regularly into the 2000s and James McFadden and Jock Goodyer taking triumphs in recent years.

Last year, Tate Frost prevailed after dominant wins at both Mount Gambier and Warrnambool. He will be back trying to secure the title again and prove himself as one of the leading rising talents.

Also up for grabs on Easter Sunday will be the Total Tools Premier Speedway Track Championship where Jamie Veal is the man to beat. Veal has been on fire whenever

racing has been held at Warrnambool, winning the last two races to enjoy a commanding 116-point advantage over Peter Doukas.

Entries are still rolling in, with around 30 cars anticipated, but Frost is definitely coming back to attempt the double, while Ian Madsen is coming from interstate and there will be plenty of South Australians determined to chase some home success, led by Daniel Pestka, who was last season’s runner-up.

In addition to fierce racing, fireworks will salute the winners at Premier Speedway, while fans can also win a 700cc junior motorbike.

Premier Speedway General Manager Michael Parry said it is always one of the biggest events of the summer of speedway.

“It is one of the more popular ones for the teams and the fans and its always an amazing way to finish the season,” he told Auto Action.

“Easter is always strong and outside of the Classic is one of our bigger ones.

Warrnambool’s new surface has provided some great racing – and easier track management. Images: CLUTCH LIFE MEDIA/RICHARD HATHAWAY PHOTOGRAPHY/TANYA’S SPEEDWAY PHOTOGRAPHY

“We always put on a great fireworks show – and the Easter Bunny will make an appearance ... so it should be a great night.”

The Easter Sprintcar Trail also wraps up the season for Premier Speedway, which has been one of the most notable in recent memory.

There was plenty of intrigue ahead of season back in October focused on the track surface.

Premier Speedway management had to go through an exhaustive process, over numerous years, to replace the troublesome darkcoloured clay.

Around 3000 cubic metres of orange clay rolled in over the offseason and the memories of the dramas previously experienced are long gone.

As a result, the season has been one of the smoothest in recent memory for the Victorian venue with the Sprintcar Trail the 13th and final event.

Parry describes the season as a success.

“Overall it has been a solid season,” he said.

“When you take into consideration the economic

Want

climate in Victoria at the moment we did not have the crowd numbers at some events we would have hoped for, which has also started to hit competitors.

“We are really happy with the racing surface.

“There were a couple of nights where we did not get it quite where we wanted but, considering the team is working with a new clay, they have done a fantastic job.

“At the Classic we got a lot of feedback saying it was one of the best Classics in recent times.

“It was again a great event for the club which consumes a lot of our energy and it was very rewarding.

“Very happy with year one and the longer time the track curators have with it can only make it better.

“Some of our recent events show that they have had to do very little track preparation during the night.

“We are aiming to have a surface where we run through the race program unaffected.

“Year one we are very happy and we are certainly well ahead with this surface in terms of what we achieved with the last one.”

With the state of the track surface at what is regarded as the most prestigious speedway in the country, one of the most talked-about issues in the sport in recent years, Parry admitted it has been a relief that is now all in the rear vision mirror.

As a result, he is excited for the future as they can invest time and resourses into important things that have been neglected around the surface.

“As soon as I walked through the door we had issues with the clay and, from my perspective, it consumed a lot of time and energy for many on the board,” Parry said.

“Now, instead of the energy being on the surface it enables us to get back to focusing on the venue, which has been sacrificed a bit since COVID.

“We have had to invest so much time and money into the racing surface – now we need to put that energy into upgrades and improvements around the venue.

“It does not stop but at least we can be proactive instead of reactive.”

Whilst Frost was the man to beat last year, the 2023/24 Sprintcar Trail may not be an indicative form guide as to what will happen in 2024/25.

Last season Easter was held much earlier than usual, on March 31, creating much dryer track conditions.

This time the races will be held almost a month later with the 2024/25 edition being the latest since 2019 and second latest in a decade.

Parry said this will have a big impact on the track conditions and how the race unfolds, while organisers are also adjusting the race times.

“Without daylight savings it make a big difference,” he said.

“The weather plays a huge part in track preparation and, as you get later in the year, you get damper nights which affects they way it is prepared.

“With Easter being so late in April we are going to start the meeting a lot earlier and get cars on track by around 16.30 and finish around 21.00.”

After a big summer of Sprintcar racing all over Australia, it will be a special way to finish – with a bang.

Thomas Miles

Last year’s Easter Trail winner Tate Frost will defend his title. Top: Jamie Veal – will be hard to beat. Above: Super Rods are one of the support acts.

BRAKE CLEANER

McHUGH HEADS McFADDEN

JAMES MCFADDEN made a celebrated return to Toowoomba after a decade away, but it was local favourite Lockie McHugh, who took the prize.

After weather called off the initial attempts, the two-day 2025 Red Hot Summer Shootout finally took place at Hi-Tec Oils Speedway on April 11-12.

With the event also doubling as the Grand Final of the Queensland Speedway Spares Ultimate Sprintcar Championship, there was a lot on the line for the drivers and the big stars showed what they are made of.

Despite names such as Goodyer, Dumesny, Hallet also on show, the opening night was all about one man – McFadden.

The locals were thrilled to see the three-time Australian Sprintcar champion for the first time in a decade and he made it worth the wait.

McFadden put in a commanding drive to dominate the Preliminary A Main on Friday night.

Driving the #1 Brady Motorsport machine McFadden bolted clear of the pack as Luke Oldfield had to fend off Jamie Veal, who flew from the third row.

Oldfield’s grip on a top three place was lost in dramatic style as he clipped the wall and spun up high.

Another big name to find trouble was Hallett, who went up and over after contact and brought out the reds.

Then it was Goodyer, with steering dramas reducing the Tasmanian to a crawl.

These stoppages did not disrupt the calm McFadden as he carried on driving into the distance.

However, the battle for the minors was anything but ordinary as Dumesny and Veal took turns sliding past each other into second after the lap 16 restart.

Dumesny won the battle which put Veal into the clutches of Stewart and contact between the pair allowed McHugh to sail into the top three.

In the final laps, McHugh set his sights on Dumesny and pushed him all the way until the final lap, but fell half a second short.

Ahead of them, McFadden had perfectly controlled the 25-lap affair, producing a fairytale drive and providing the starved Toowoomba fans with something to remember.

Veal and an in form Nick Whell rounded out the top five.

When all the numbers were tallied up, Lockie McHugh topped the points in the Ultimate Sprintcar Championship followed by Luke Oldfield and a consistent Nick Whell.

On Saturday night, the stage was set for the Red Hot Shootout decider.

Whilst McFadden was untouchable on the opening night, McHugh found an extra gear when it mattered.

Having shown strong pace to sear through the field on Friday, the popular Queenslander carried on that momentum in the decider.

McHugh started strongly from third on the grid and once he hit the lead he did not look back.

He was in complete control, dominating the 35-lap feature event and receiving a winner’s trophy almost double his height.

This forced McFadden to settle for second and still ensure he enjoyed a productive trip up north.

Rounding out the podium was Michael Stewart, who carried on his strong form on the northern side of the border, having dominated in Sydney.

Marcus Dumesny crossed the line fourth while current Queensland

Champion Nick Whell completed the top five.

The Sprint Shack Lucky Dog Dash, for the top eight drivers in the QSS USC Series who have not finished on the podium this summer, saw Kaydon Iverson victorious ahead of Callum Walker and Charlie Bowen.

There was also plenty of supports action to keep fans entertained across the weekend.

Max Clark and Nathan MacDonald put on a brilliant race in the final round of the Toowoomba Steering and Suspension Modified Sedan Smack Down Series.

The two raced side-by-side for a number of laps while swapping the lead with Josh Harm in hot pursuit.

At series end, and after five gruelling rounds from October to April, Clark was crowned series winner from Nathan and Shane MacDonald.

Robert Mazzer was first across the line in the Wingless Sprintcars from Nick Potts and Stuart Jefferies.

Racing returns to  to HI-Tec Oils Speedway for the Ian Boettcher Race Parts SSA National Production Sedan Title on April 24-26 where over 130 nominations are expected. Thomas Miles

‘Macs’ all round ... Lockie McHugh came out on top. Image: MAD MATT

STEWART SOARS IN SYDNEY

THE 2025-25 season has been a successful one for Bohud Racing and Michael Stewart (right) ensured that continued at Sydney International Speedway.

On Saturday, April 5, Stewart soared to a sixth feature race win at Sydney in this season alone in a 410 Sprintcar meeting.

But on this occasion some luck was needed to appear in victory lane.

Ian Madsen had dominated the race, but could not complete the job due to suffering a flat tyre in the closing stages.

As a result Stewart ensured he was in the right place to pick up the pieces and secure another win. He started the feature third and remained in contention throughout the race ensuring he could pounce on Madsen’s misfortune.

Stewart admitted there was some

luck involved, but was thrilled the good times could continue.

“It was great to get back into victory lane and a huge thanks must go to the whole Bohud Racing team for all of their tireless efforts and being able to do well out on the track is the best

possible way for me to thank them,” expressed Stewart.

“This latest win came with a bit of luck with Ian (Madsen) dropping out the lead late in the race, but that’s just the way it goes sometimes, and there have been numerous occasions

this season where I’ve been in the same position, so it was nice to have a bit of luck fall in our favour and be able to capitalise on it.”

Bohud Racing Team owner Scott Jones said it was not an easy route to victory.

“The car wasn’t perfect last night, as we are working with a brand new Triple X car, but we made some big gains with it (the car) during the dash and that helped set us up for a strong run in the feature race,” he admitted.

“To be able to enjoy the success that we have this season is something that we don’t take for granted, as the competition here in Sydney is very tough night-in, nightout, and the whole Bohud Racing team enjoys the wins when they come our way – then we turn our focus to the next meeting and how we can improve.” Thomas Miles

NOONAN FINDING HIS FEET KEEN’S IMPRESSIVE DEBUT 410 SEASON

THE MOVE into Sprintcar racing is a massive step, but third generation speedway racer Koby Noonan (right) is currently finding his feet during his first full 360 LS Sprintcar season.

After spending the past three seasons in the state-based VSC Sprintcar class, which included winning last season’s VSC Sprintcar Club Championship point standings, the 23-year-old from Bairnsdale in Victoria has this season moved into the 360 LS Sprintcar class and is improving with every outing.

“I’m really enjoying the 360 LS Sprintcar class and being able to travel to the country’s biggest tracks, such as Premier Speedway, and being able to improve as a racer up against regular strong competition,” expressed Noonan, who is a third-generation speedway racer with his dad Mark being a former Sprintcar racer and his pop Ray competing in A Grade Sedans in the 1970s.

“The 360 LS Sprintcar class is gaining more and more momentum around the country and, with our team running the budget friendly LS engine, it’s allowing us to be competitive but not breaking the bank in the process.”

Noonan made his first interstate trip

to Canberra’s ACT Speedway in a 410 Sprintcars meeting and claimed a heat race win and top 10 finish in the feature race.

“It was a lot of fun running with 410 guys for the first time, and it was helped along by the fact I was running at a small track like ACT Speedway, where it wasn’t all about horsepower,” he said.

“To be able to win my first heat race win in SCCA competition and also come away with a top 10 finish in the feature race gave me a massive confidence boost, and something I’d like to do a bit more in the future.”

The next event on Noonan’s season schedule is the Digger’s Cup at Geelong’s Avalon Raceway on April 24.

HEADING INTO his 410 Sprintcar debut season with the Cowara Motorsport team, Michael Keen (pictured) and the team had one main goal – and they have done it.

The WA # 41 Cowara Motorsport Triple X team wanted to finish in the top 10 of the 2024/25 Maddington Toyota Sprintcar Series and did it, being 10th.

“The Cowara Motorsport team took a gamble by giving me a chance at 410 Sprintcar racing and I’m very proud that I was able to repay their faith by coming away with the results that we did,” Keen said.

“After a bit of a mixed run during the first half of the season, as the team and I were trying to jell with one another, we had an encouraging second half of the season and it not only saw us pick up a number of solid performances and it elevated us into the top 10 of the Maddington Toyota Series.”

When it comes to season highlights for Keen and the Cowara Motorsport team, there were plenty of things to look back on with fondness.

“Although it was really tough running up against some of the world’s best

Sprintcar racers during the High Limit International over the Christmas-New Year period at the Perth Motorplex, it was a fantastic experience, where I narrowly missed out on qualifying into the feature races on all three nights,” commented Keen.

“After the High Limit International event, my confidence grew a lot more and we started to get rolling and bring home some pleasing performances during the second half of the season, which included qualifying on pole position for the January 1 event.”

Apart from his 410 Sprintcar commitments during the season, Keen contested a handful of the blue-ribband events in the Limited Sprintcar class, where he won his third Western Australian Title, collected his fifth King of Wings victory and ran a close second in the Krikke Boys Shootout.

Image: GARY REID

TWICE AS NICE FOR PITTARD

CHAD PITTARD (right) went into the 2024-25 season campaign as a marked man, as he was the defending Limited Sprintcar Association Club Champion, but he managed to withstand all of that pressure to do the double.

Pittard took his game to a new level by taking six feature race wins over the 11 round season.

As a result he came away as a comfortable 125 point winning margin over his nearest rival.

Pittard’s LSA Club Championship defence was made all the more impressive when he went through three rounds in a row (Albany Speedway, Bunbury Speedway and Perth Motorplex) undefeated across the heats and features.

Amongst his six round wins during the season, Pittard managed to clinch the three blue-ribband events in the Carby Nationals, Davis Family Derby and Martin Laughton Cup and it rewarded him with the LSA Club Championship point standings

lead that he never lost.

Heading into the recent season finale at the Perth Motorplex, Pittard played his double points ‘Joker Card’ and managed to seal his LSA Club Championship win by virtue of his second-place finish in the feature race.

Pittard was thrilled to successfully defend his LSA Club Championship for another season.

“It has been an awesome season, and it was very pleasing to be able to make it back-to-back LSA Club Championships,” the # 92 RAM Bunbury / Pittard Motors supported Triple X racer commented.

“I can’t thank the whole Pittard Racing team enough for all of their great efforts during the season and being able to come away from LSA Club Championship was the perfect way to thank them.”

After four seasons of success in Limited Sprintcars, Pittard and his team will now be stepping away from the class and focus on their

transition into 410 Sprintcars in 2025-26.

“I ended up running three race meetings in the 410 Sprintcars at the end of this season around the Perth Motorplex, and it was really good to be able to have a few runs on the board in readiness for next season’s big challenge,” he explained.

“I’ve enjoyed my time in Limited Sprintcars, and it’s been a great grounding for my step into 410 Sprintcars – the team and I are now going to be working during the winter break towards our first full 410 Sprintcar season.”

Daniel Powell

NSW GRAND PRIX MIDGETS HOST NSW TITLE AT GOULBURN

THE NEW South Wales Grand Prix Midget Racing Association staged the state title at Goulburn Speedway Club and Gavin Black was crowned for the first time.

Will Lucas and Adam Buckley bolted out of the blocks in the opening heat and the former held on in an intense race.

Allan Black started from pole position in the second heat race Wayne Harrison-Watt suffered more dramas. Jay Hall was fourth only to spin in turn three while contact in turn two between the two Black’s caused Lucas to take evasive action and give Buckley the chance to surge forward behind winner Adam Buckley.

In Heat 3 Hall jumped to an early lead as the race got underway as contact in turn two between Kermond and Bowyer saw Buckley leap into third. As the race went on Lucas leaped to second and he set up a grandstand finish.

On the last lap, the leading two caught up to lapped Lees and this was enough for Lucas to pull inside and make a pass into first place on

the final turn.

Meanwhile Buckley and Lees touched causing the latter to stop with nerf bar damage resulting in a nonfinish just meters from the finish line.

In the end Lucas held on ahead of Gavin Black.

Qualifying for the title race in pole position was William Lucas with Buckley on the front row alongside him.

Gavin Black, Bowyer, Hall, Allan Black and then Lees would make up the field with both Harrison-Watt and Kermond out of the race.

Lucas got off to a quick start with Gavin Black snatching second spot through turn two as the front four

RACING THROUGH THE RAIN

PROCEEDING A non-stop dumping of sleet rain at Redline Raceway on March 29 was terrific racing across a number of categories.

Wingless Sprint competitors each competed in two qualifying heat races in their latest Super Series round with Cameron O’ Brien (pictured above) being the only competitor to win twice.

Nicholas Ryan, Matt Tuckett, Travis Millar and Ballarat’s Will Green were other winners.

Along the way Millar set a new one lap track record for the class, just eclipsing the previous best with a 14.767, whilst the 10-lap record was almost beaten on a few occasions.

On points after the rain closed out the racing, O’Brien, from Hamilton, claimed the victory over Millar and Ryan.

Visiting competitors in the Unlimited Sedans were competing in their state Lucky 7’s series.

Wodonga racer Corey McDonald set about winning all three of his heat races and posted a new 10-lap record of 2:32.963 along the way.

New Victorian champion and Redline Raceway member Trent Susol won the other heat race with McDonald securing the round victory ahead of Susol, Nathan Lightburn, Jimmy Harris and Daryl Nicolson.

Standard Saloon competitors raced across nine qualifying races in the Gold Rush with each driver appearing in three of them.

then set a frenetic pace.

On the fourth lap Hall spun in turn three bringing out the yellow flag for a caution period resulting in a single file restart.

With laps winding down and the speed cranking up, disaster struck the race leader with the car of Lucas throwing a water hose.

This forced him to sacrifice a comfortable lead with the title win within his grasp.

As a result, Gavin Black assumed the race lead, with Bowyer and Buckley chasing and this was the order when the chequered flag was dropped.

Dean Thompson

DMT Speedway Media

Mitch Foster claimed a win in a close one first up with Darren Forrest right behind him. Scott Whittle and then Wayne Sheerman were next up with wins.

Whittle, Foster and Cody McCabe then won in the second round whilst Forrest ended up on his roof and against the Turn 4 concrete wall after a wild ride with when a wheel dug into the track and sent him flying over.

Jeff Oldfield, Sheerman and Whittle then closed out the final round with wins, Whittle the only driver to win all three of his races.

Winner for this seasons Gold Rush being Whittle with maximum points then Sheerman separated by fastest lap time between himself and Foster who were on equal points, with Jayden Blomeley from Ballarat fourth and McCabe in fifth.

Dean Thompson

Image: DEAN MILLER PHOTOGRAPHY

Image: COCHRANE PHOTOGRAPHY

The NSW GP podium ...

TURNING BACK THE HANDS OF TIME –STARRING GARRY RUSH’S ICONIC SPRINTCAR ....

WAIKERIE’S SUNLINE Speedway came to life on April 5 with the running of the highly anticipated 2025 Classic Speedway Spectacular.

A creditable turnout assembled into the Riverland venue to see the Classic Speedway as the South Australian Classic Speedway Association turned back the hands of time with the sights, sounds and smells of yesteryear.

The day started with a Show and Shine in the pits, followed by a spirited demonstration on the track where all competitors from as far as Victoria joined the locals for three runs each.

During this period the crowd were entertained as many iconic machines brought the memories flooding back.

Some of these machines included the 10x Australian Champion Garry Rush N2 Castrol Maxim (pictured) – without doubt one of the most recognised and admired Sprintcars in the nation, now owned and driven by Victorian enthusasist Peter Camiller.

Other machines of note included the recently restored Graham Cowland SA42 Holden Commodore Super Sedan and the Tony Friebel owned #33 SKOAL Bandit Chevrolet NASCAR raced in the 1994 Daytona 500 by Harry Gant and on this day was driven by Peter Dettloff.

The days activities friendly social BBQ in the pit area brough the fun day to a close, with funds raised donated to the Waikerie Men’s Shed . This was the first all classic day held at the Sunline venue for many years and the SACSA Club are already planning for a bigger and better event in 2026.

Words and photos: Paris Charles.

HALLETT HITS HOME RUN

THE

MURRAY Machining and Sheds

Murray Bridge Speedway hosted the final South Australian Sprintcar Association Club event of the 2024/25 summer season and Brock Hallett (above) emerged on top.

The heat racing produced four different heat winners with Matt Egel, Dylan Jenkin and the Mount Gambier-based duo of Parker Scott and Glen Sutherland each collecting a victory; however, Hallett showed more consistency to start the 30-lap

final from the front row alongside Egel.

Hallett got the hole-shot as the lights blazed green and from that point, he would not relent. He chased down the chequered flag and looked on track to lower the existing 30-lap record before the caution lights were thrown as he negotiated the final corner after Ryan Jones delaminated a rear tyre. This set up a two-lap sprint and Hallett was up for the challenge,

taking a well-deserved win from Dillon and Egel who traded positions over the final stanza of the race.

The Wingless Sprints were also out in force with 27 nominated competitors to do battle in Round 2 Triple Crown Series and Round 5 State Series.

Recently crowned Australian Champion Tyson Martin won over Rylan Furler and Jack McCarthy.

Mason Merritt started from pole position and led the first 12 of 25 laps before Martin took control.

Merritt would sadly retire on lap 18 while holding down second place.

Up until that point Merrett had been the form driver and earlier established a new six-lap record with a time of 1.26.961.

Lachlan Brown proved too strong in the Junior Sedans as he set about lowering his own 15 Lap Record in the final to a 4.24.680. Brodie Reichstein and Henry Brumfield joined the podium celebrations.

Paris Charles

KIDS IN THE KITCHEN

UNDER THE 40-plus-degree heat of the Wimmera sun, Horsham’s Blue Ribbon Raceway pressed on with the Victorian Production Sedan Championship.

It produced a thrilling dogfight for the lead in the final where positions swapped several times between the lead duo of Trevor Mills and Dehne Sparrow.

In the end Sparrow soared to a hardfought win as third to the line was the well-travelled Queenslander Neil Keldoulis.

Fast female Felicity Roycroft and Nathan Hutchin rounded out the top five.

The Junior Sedan Promotion Association of Victoria had Round 9 of their state series.

Will Fallon, Cruz Carlin and Jake Bradley stood on the podium for the Top Stars with Max Leersen nominated for the encouragement Award.

The lesser experienced New Stars also provided a strong showing with

Hudson Moorfoot taking a strong victory ahead of Darcy Dannett and Chase Davey.

Jock Baker proved too strong in the Limited Sportsman over the field consisting of Tom Baker, Craig Ansell and Ash Harrison.

The Classic Sedans and Hot Rods were also out to put on a show as they brought the sights, smells and sounds of yesteryear back to 2025 with a run of spirited demonstrations throughout the night.

The following day the Victorian Quarter Midget Association raced on the infield junior track.

With almost 50 competitors

spanning four categories of racing, the kids put on a great display of action. In the Novice class Brax Bonnici, Hunter Brown and Bridie Paull proved the best of the pack in the final.

Leo Parsons won the 120cc restricted grade from Laci Mitchell and Reed Muller.

Leo Tancredi was the best of the 1200 Open Section from Billy Parsons and Jack O’Brien.

The final competitive grade was the more powerful 160cc section with Ben Parsons, Roman Tancredi and Zac Parsons collecting the spoils in Victory Lane.

Paris Charles

Image: PARIS CHARLES

Sparrow battles with Mills.

ENDURANCE EXPERTS

IN A year where an Aussie conquered Dakar, many took on one of the country’s biggest endurance rallies, the Condo 750.

The Condo 750 has been a navigational rally, putting competitors through their paces in cars, motorbikes, buggies, quad bikes and side cars, since 1988.

The 2025 edition was no exception with some vigorous stages being held in rural Central West NSW.

After well over nine hours of action, on two wheels Todd Ridley took a convincing victory, while Andrew and David Travis (pictured) combined to take the Auto glory in their modified Holden VE ute.

The Condo 750 began with a busy Saturday where riders were pushing their bikes for well over half a day. Ridley shot out of the blocks and cemented himself en route to glory by reaching the first checkpoint four minutes faster than anyone else.

His nearest challenger initially was David Greeves, but he was an early DNF after completing two stages.

Nikolas Forsyth and Gregory Prisk showed speed by topping the East 4 and 8 stages respectively, while Chris Hood bounced back from some early battles to take the final leg of the opening day’s running.

But by far the most consistent was Ridley as he was the only rider to reach the finish in less than five hours, being 11m45s faster than Scott Huggins and Liam McConnell. Victories in the first two stages of Sunday ensured Ridley was going to enjoy an untroubled run to glory.

He was the only rider to go within 10 hours with a 9h28m17s total time, almost half an hour than the next best.

Corey Banks did enough to edge out McConnell in a close battle for second with less than 90s splitting them after more than 10 hours, while Nikolas Forsyth was second across Sunday, but only ended up sixth overall.

On four wheels things started interestingly with Dean George/

Lucas Beer in a tight tussle with the Travis pair across the opening day.

The duo shared three of the four Saturday stages as George did enough to emerge 4m clear, while Daniel Jones/Bernard Weber were also in the mix.

Things started brilliantly for George on Sunday as he won the opening stage by 2m, but his rally came to an abrupt end on East 4.

This handed the overall lead to Travis and he did not look back, winning the final two stages to power away from the field.

He won the Condo 750 after 9h16m48s of driving, 22m clear of Jones who had to settle for second best as the only other entry to finish within 10 hours.

Thomas Miles

TIGHE TAKES IT

Hillclimb Championship has continued at a hot pace with the third round of the 2025 season already taking place.

A 84-driver field entered for the round staged at Mt Leura and hosted by the Ballarat Light Car Club continued the season’s trend of producing different winners.

After Mike Barker and Greg Ackland shared the spoils in the opening two rounds, it was Dean Tighe (above) who stood on the top step of the podium.

Tighe emerged victorious in his Dallara F395 after two days and nine runs of action.

Tighe triumphed by posting a 28.39s time in his return to Victoria, which

WOMEN PUT THE FOOT DOWN

INTERNATIONAL

WOMEN’S Day was celebrated in style by the Toyosports Car Club recently as it staged its 2025 Ladies Day Autocross, held at Colo Motorsport Park.

The event saw 20 women and girls race against the clock on the slippery Colo clay and for most, it was their first taste of competitive motorsport, adding an extra layer of excitement to the event.

The event started with orientation and hands-on coaching from the club’s more seasoned racers, ensuring everyone felt confident behind the wheel.

Non-stop rain produced non-stop action as juniors, first-timers, and veteran racers slid around the muddy Giddy-Giddy circuit.

The diverse lineup of cars—ranging from Subarus and Holdens to Yamahas and Mazdas, with front-wheel-drive and all-wheel-drive machines—added to the spectacle.

The first driver taking on the dirt also claimed the fastest time of the day –Sarah Harris.

Despite making her dirt debut, the experienced Supersprint racer edged out 19-year-old club president Ruby Martin by a razor-thin margin of just one-hundredth of a second.

proved just enough for victory.

David Mahon was another to show speed as he soared to second to prove he has plenty of speed.

The Dallara Hayabusa F394 driver also came close to victory, being a narrow runner-up with only two tenths the difference.

Roudning out the podium was Foley, who enhanced his title credentials by securing third with a 28.70s time.

All in all it was a tight and competitive weekend of action and sets the scene for the remainder of the year.

Round 4 is a return to Bryant Park’s figure eight layout for an event run by the Phillip Island Auto Racing Club on April 27.

Thomas Miles

Martin, now in her seventh year with Toyosports and Harris the first timer, both piloted a Yamaha YXZ1000R Side by Side, which was quite an advantage given the conditions.

Rounding out the top three was Frances Tolhurst, piloting her family’s iconic Wonder Woman 2006 Subaru Impreza racecar (pictured).

Among the juniors, Tileah Smith driving her brother’s Commodore wagon claimed the fastest time, with Jess Tipping In a Barina and Mia McIlvenna hot on her heels in the club’s Hyundai Excel.

Meanwhile, some of the girls in their everyday cars opted for caution over speed, prioritising staying on track rather than chasing the leaderboard—a wise choice given the treacherous conditions.

Toyosports Car Club runs bi-monthly events with the support of Motorsport Australia.

THE VICTORIAN

Image: J&T PHOTOGRAPHY

Image: SEVEN70 PHOTOGRAPHY

MARTIN DEFENDS POONCARIE

VICTORIAN DRIVER Dale Martin has started Australia’s premier offroad season in style, defending his Wentworth Shire Pooncarie Desert Dash crown alongside navigator Adrian Rowe at the Motorsport Australia Off Road Championship.

The #5 Pro Buggy pairing headed for the tough southwest NSW course trying for-back-to-back Round 1 wins, and did so by 2 minutes and 52 seconds after 400 competitive kilometres over another Victorian Pro Buggy pairing in Danny Brown and George Apted, with the dominant class filling the first six positions by events end.

Taking out third was the 2023 AORC title holder in Travis Robinson, alongside Paul Currie, who overcame a constant thread of electrical issues to end the round with a solid banking of points, but 5 mins 24 secs of the leaders.

And in terms of that first six, Joshua Ferguson, Joshua Wilson and Jared Percival, filled those outright and Pro Buggy spots respectively.

After breaking a ten-year win drought in 2024 in his only AORC event, Martin was delighted to achieve the Pooncarie double after letting the

race come to them, with the overnight leaders going down with issues in the deep second day ruts.

“It’s a great result for us and something we’re very proud of,”

Martin said.

“Our plan all day was to keep the car on the track, because the tram tracks got deeper and as it developed the tree roots and rocks really began to emerge.

“You can’t relax, you’ve got guys coming for you. So we folded the mirrors out and off we went. We didn’t back off.”

With a time of 58mins28secs across Day 1, the eventual winners entered the final day in third place, but vitally they were only 67 seconds of the leading 2WD class pairing of New

Zealand driver Boston Morgan-Horan and navigator Will Haddock, whilst only a mere 1.7 seconds separated the leaders from fellow 2WD’s Beau Robinson and Shane Hutt. Martin wouldn’t have to wait long to inherit the lead over Day 2 of action, with the overnighters race abruptly ended after crashing into a gate, whilst the 2WD of Robinson was thwarted by electrical issues.

For the best-of-the-rest class wins, Alexandra Howells and Sarah Corrigan clinched the Prolite in a strong outright seventh showing, whilst Extreme 2WD winners were eighth outright, with Nicholas Commins and Ryan Galvin representing the home-state scoop.

Over the course of the weekend, the closest tick-for-tack action was fought out between SXS Pro rivals Glen Ackroyd and Lachlan Bailey, with only 15 seconds separating them after the four hours of racing, with Ackroyd and navigator Michael Price emerging on top in 11th outright, with Bailey’s new Maverick R machine sure to make that class a tight one throughout the season.

For the other class winners, it was Sam Bentley/Jay Mitchell taking the Sportslite (13th), Tyler Owen/Max Owen in the Super1650 (19th), and Norman Parker/Tyson Parker in the Production 4WD (28th) – driving a Toyota 76 series.

The second round of the season will be a semi-long wait for competitors, as they tune up for the 49th running of the most remote off road race in the world, the iconic Tatts Finke Desert Race on the King’s Birthday Weekend of June 6-9.

TW Neal

Dale Martin started the season with a win. Below: Alexandra Howells/ Sarah Corrigan took out Prolite, while Glen Ackroyd won SXS Pro. Images: HARRISON MIELKE

AUSTRALIAN KART CHAMPIONSHIP FIRES UP

THE 2025 Australian Kart Championship fired up at Port Melbourne with youngsters shining and even a Supercars pilot in attendance, getting race miles!.

The new season started in style with many drivers making names for themselves and starting their campaigns well.

Young Queenslander Cooper Folley stunned the field to take his first KA2 Junior triumph in style.

Folley made the step up from Cadet racing brilliantly by sweeping the round as his nearest challengers, Liam Carr and Hamish Campbell collided.

Carr was the worse off with Campbell still able to work his way back up to second ahead of Ayrton Dalmaso.

Supercars star James Golding was on show in KZ2 Gearbox and he was trumped by an Italian star.

Moritz Ebner came and conquered, overcoming the PremiAir Racing driver in a tight contest.

The pair went toe-to-toe throughout the 18-minute decider with Golding leading the way, only for Ebner to swoop in with a dive at Turn 1 late in the day and become the first Italian to win a round.

Best of the rest was Dylan Guest from Western Australia.

A rivalry has already formed in TaG 125 with Jackson Souslin-Harlow and Harrison Hoey going at it.

The pair shared the heat wins before they drove away from the field in the final.

In the end Souslin-Harlow led the whole way with Hoey on his tail, while a distant third was Amos Orr.

The contest for KA3 Junior honours was hard fought with a number of youngsters showing their worth in a competitive 77-driver field.

Jai George showed tremendous speed, winning both of his heat

races before controlling the majority of the final.

George led all the way until the second to last corner when a final lap manoeuvre worked wonders for Braxton Regan as he snuck ahead of Lucas Costanzo by just three-tenths. Despite missing out on the win, George was still thrilled with third place as Regan celebrated a stunning victory.

Meanwhile, Christian Estasy also left it late to secure his success.

He saved his best race of the weekend until the very end and emerged from a number of battles to take a 1.1s win over Will Thompson.

a

This left Jett Adamson to settle for third despite being the dominant driver for most of the weekend.

There was controversy in the X30 Final as the driver who took the chequered flag was stripped of the win due to a penalty.

Brodie Whitmore led a one-lap dash to the end, but was hit with a 5s penalty due to changing lanes ahead of a last-lap restart following a racing incident which sent Jace Matthews into the tyres.

The drama saw Jaiden Pope inherit the win with Pip Casebene and Max Walton joining him on the podium.

Cadet 12 was one of the best races of the day as no less than eight drivers fought for glory.

In the end, Jude Ammoun kept his cool to take the win by just a single tenth ahead of Jensen Damachino.

A similarly spectacular battle for the Cadet 9 Final took place with Milan Samo overcoming a wide range of opponents.

He held off Ari Djemil and Felix Sim, who led the majority of the race.

The next round of the Australian Karting Championship is at Monarto Complex in Murray Bridge on May 2-4.

Thomas Miles

When

rolling start gets congested ... look closely mid-pack in KA2 ... Jai Flynn takes flight ...Image: PACE IMAGES. Above: Two-wheeling Jai George, KA3 Juniors. Image: Tim Francis

ONE GOAL AT ONE RACEWAY

THE MRA State Championship took on One Raceway at the start of April where there was only one prize on the driver’s mind, winning, RICCARDO BENVENUTI reports …

LEGEND CARS

A HEALTHY field of 31 cars competed at the second round of the season and, at the tender age of 16, young gun Aidan Williams made his mark by dominating Legend Cars Australia.

Williams took pole by four-tenths before sweeping all four races, but he still had to fight for them, however.

In Race 1, Dylan Thomas took advantage of a great start and led most for the race from Williams.

But Williams outmanoeuvred Thomas to claim the lead and subsequent win late in the piece.

Just behind them, a three-way battle for third position took place between Robert Hogan, Askr Sendall and Riley Skinner with the latter emerging on top.

Race 2 was another great win for Williams holding out the hard charging Thomas with half a second again the difference and Skinner joining them on the podium.

In Race 3 Williams took an early lead as his rival Thomas was involved in an incident during the opening lap.

A Safety Car was introduced creating a sprint to the finish. Williams held off Ryan Pring and

Benjamin Goodridge to complete a poker of wins.

Zane Morse overcame Goodridge to snare third.

EXCELS

BILLY BRITTAIN claimed pole position in the Excel series, but could not capitalise on his grid spot in Race 1.

Ayce Buckley and Connor Cooper battled for the lead throughout the race, with Buckley claiming the win from Cooper. Adam Roberts came home in third place.

The second race result was a mirror repeat of Race 1. Robyn Kriel kept the front runners honest by finishing a strong fourth. The last race was remarkably close,

with only 0.3 seconds separating the podium finishers, Buckley was a standout with three wins from as many starts; Cooper came home second again, and Robert was third.

MX5 CUP

A VERY strong field of 34 cars entered in the MX5 Cup. It was a Herring family affair with Todd Herring claiming pole and winning Race 1 from Jett Herring and Tim Herring.

In Race 2, Todd dominated again, Zac Raddtz went past Jett Herring to claim second place.

Todd Herring was a non-starter in the final race, and with Richard Herring retiring early with mechanical problems it became an open affair.

Raddtz and Tim Herring diced for the lead during the whole race. The latter came up trumps, Raddtz was second and Jett Herring third.

HYPER RACERS X1 DAMON STERLING completely dominated the Hyper Racers category, a pole position and a clean sweep of wins in the four races. The same can be said of Dean Crooke, finishing second in all races as well.

Third position was hostly contested, being shared by Niko French, Hayden Crossland, Bradley Smith and Kyle Gurton.

ALFA EAST COAST CHALLENGE

A LARGE field of Alfa Romeo’s entered in this very successful event of six races, producing lots of racing for the fans.

David Capraro won the first two races and Mark Bagetto won the other three.

A special event for the under 2L cars was taken out by Doug Selwood.

SUPER TT

BENNY TRAN was dominant in the Super TT class taking out two race wins. Todd Herring backed up from his MX5 duties to take the other win. Other notable place getters were Mark Joseph Seguna and Harrison Cooper.

Thomas and Williams head a genuine ‘swarm’ of Legends cars ...

Images: RICCARDO BENVENUTI

Excels getting physical ...Ford and Scott dice. Below left: Hypercars in a queue ... Below right: Ayce Buckley leads the Excel pack.

BRIGHT START

THE 2025 GT World Challenge Australia season has started with a bang as the Phillip Island opener produced two nail-biting finishes.

The Island threw everything at the varied field and the Arise Racing Ferrari of Jaxon Evans and Elliott Schutte and the Audi of Brad Schumacher and Broc Feeney emerged victorious by the skin of their teeth.

A 15-car field featuring five manufacturers greeted the new era of the SRO-led SpeedSeries and the competitiveness was on full show in qualifying.

Less than a tenth was the difference for both poles on offer with Frenchman Dorian Boccolacci getting a first up success in the EMA Porsche and Liam Talbot also tasting success in his first qualifying in the #1 Volante Rosso Motorsport Aston Martin.

However, Talbot and co-driver Declan Fraser never got the chance to enjoy the front row and instead had to start from the back due to a fuel drama, but this did not stop them from maximising their ‘licence to thrill’ in the AMR.

Under sunny skies, Shane Smollen did not get the best launch in the Porsche as Sergio Pires led

the field into Doohan.

However, he had the Schutte Ferrari up his trumpet and lost the lead coming out of Siberia, while Talbot rapidly shot into the top 10.

After 16 minutes, the Safety Car arrived after Woodman spun at Miller Corner.

During the pit stop window there was drama when Rosser handed over to Alex Peroni, who was released into the path of George King and a 10s penalty was applied to the Audi.

The big winner was Feeney, who shot from fourth to second behind leader Evans.

However, the Melbourne Performance Centre Audi had no luck as a flat tyre saw the #888 lose a podium on the very last lap and fall to ninth.

This promoted consistent Kiwis Brendon Leitch and Tim Miles to the podium, but all eyes were on the leaders.

Having flown from as far back as sixth, Jayden Ojeda was flying in the #66 Mercedes he shares with Paul Lucchitti.

Ojeda was all over the back of Evans and even had a look at MG on the final lap, but ultimately fell twotenths short.

Ben Schoots and Shane Woodman comfortably won the race for Am honours as Renae Gracie suffered a pit penalty.

After an exciting opener, the stage was set for Sunday where the Island threw a few more curveballs at the field.

Alex Peroni and Mark Rosser controlled most of the race after the lights went out, but penalties ruined their hopes. Despite claims from Team BRM that Boccolacci slowed from pole, Peroni received a 5s penalty for a jump start.

However, Rosser re-emerged with a healthy lead and looked set for victory, only for a drive-through for a pit lane breach to destroy their day that ended in the gravel to rub salt into the wounds.

The Pros set a hot pace at the front of the field and the pit stops saw some big change.

The big winner was the #888 where Feeney handed over in seventh and Schumacher shot to second.

Talbot jumped into the #1 in 11th, but soon rocketed up the field and found himself in second in the space of just nine laps.

Then it was a mission to hunt down Schumacher and a sudden shower that caught many off guard did not

deter the reigning champion.

In the end he came within seven tenths, but did not have enough time to catch Schumacher, who claimed an unlikely win, but Talbot and Fraser were still happy to soar from last to second.

Evans and Schutte drove a consistent race to be third, while Gracie bounced back from her Saturday disappointment to take the Am class.

Ojeda and Lucchitti had a tough day being spun twice before retiring. After an entertaining opener, GT World Challenge returns to Sydney Motorsport Park on May 2-4.

Thomas Miles

GT WORLD CHALLENGE POINTS 1: J. Evans/E. Schutte 41 points 2: D. Fraser/L. Talbot 28

3: B. Feeney/B. Schumacher 27

4: B. Leitch/T. Miles 25

5: J. Ojeda/P. Lucchitti 18

The Evans/Schutte Ferrari takes the chequer. Above: The Schumacher/Feeney Audi took out the second race. Images: JACK MARTIN PHOTOGRAPHY

OLD AND NEW

GT4 AUSTRALIA returned with a significantly increased field and some old and new faces rose to the occasion.

After 18 cars fronted up for the corresponding round last year, that figure grew to a record 31 for the 2025 opener.

Despite new drivers and manufacturers on show, some old rivals who are used to fighting for Silver Cup honours initially led the way.

Reigning champion Tom Hayman in the Method Motorsport McLaren and George Miedecke in the Mustang shared the poles comfortably as rookies Blake Purdie and Daniel Price gave a glimpse of what was to come.

Purdie made a statement as soon as lights went out by swooping in front of the field and put the Audi R8 into the lead in its very first lap in GT4 Australia.

Rylan Gray also surged past Hayman in the #100 Ford and they tussled hard through the early laps.

Charging from the back was Jarrod Hughes in the Triple Eight Mercedes after radiator damage kept the car out of qualifying and he impressively rose to fifth in just 12 laps. Sadly he and Summer Rintoule were disqualified for a ride height infringement.

It was a clean first stint with Purdie leading the way, while Miedecke Motorsport tried to gain ground with the undercut.

However, Miedecke got caught in traffic and struggled to get past Nathan Morcom and it ended in disaster.

The Ford veteran got out of shape coming out of the final corner and speared through the gravel. Miedecke used his nouse and a bit of luck to ensure the Mustang just experienced the lightest of taps with the tyre wall and carried on.

The mistake was still costly however, as the Mustang fell to 19th and was forced into a recovery mission where they impressively salvaged third.

Up front Purdie built a 3s lead over Hayman, but the latter’s overcut proved decisive.

Price in the Audi and Max Geoghegan in the McLaren were nose to tail when the pit cycle was completed, setting up a 22-minute fight for victory.

Unfortunately, it was ruined by a 10s pit lane speeding penalty for Price, but they still battled for track position.

In the end it was convincingly won by Geoghegan after they ran sideby-side from Southern Loop to Miller Corner.

Settled safely in third was Jake Camilleri, but his BMW was denied a place on the podium due to a stop-go penalty for a pit stop infringement and this completed Miedecke’s remarkable rise back to third.

Silver Am entry Jason Gomersall and Aaron Seton, while James Lawrence comfortably claimed Am honours.

On Sunday morning Miedecke won the rolling start and led the entire first stint, ahead of Geoghegan and Price, but it was interrupted early with chaos unfolding at Doohan.

A spinning Dean Campbell scattered the field, leaving some in

the gravel, sparking the Safety Car. The compulsory pit stop time shook up the leaders with Hayman falling to fourth, but they were brought back into the game by another Safety Car for the stuck Chris Lillis at Lukey Heights.

This produced a 12-minute shootout and Purdie rose to the occasion, snatching the lead with a calculated move at MG that caught Gray off guard.

This left Hayman and Gray to wrestle for second and the McLaren again emerged on top with a nice move at the final turn on the penultimate lap.

Further back Hughes made some staggering moves, including a committed double overtake at Doohan to surge to sixth.

In seventh the leading Silver Am entry was Daniel Frougas and Tim Berryman in the new Toyota Supra GT4 as Jacob Lawrence put in a strong solo drive to take a solid 5s victory in Am.

GT4 is back in SMP on May 2-4.

Thomas Miles

GT4 AUSTRALIA CHAMPIONSHIP POINTS

1: T. Hayman/M. Geoghegan 44 2: B. Purdie/D. Price 43

3: G. Miedecke/R. Gray 31

4: C. BurcherT. Leahey 22

5: Z. Woods/N. Morris 22

Purdie/Price stepped up from Saturday’s runner-up result (courtesy of a 10sec penalty), to take the Sunday win. Above: Reverse trajectory for Hayman/Geoghan – Saturday’s winners. Images: IAN SMITH AUTOPIX AND JACK MARTIN PHOTOGRAPHY

RIVALRY RESUMED

IT IS a new year, but the same story in the Radical Cup Australia with Peter Paddon and Cooper Cutts (right) going at it again in the Phillip Island opener.

After fighting for the title last year, the pair resumed hostilities in the opening round and even came to blows before Paddon emerged on top.

The stage was set in qualifying where only a slender 0.0184s split them in the fight for pole.

That honour went to Cutts, but he could not convert it into victory as the rivals clashed in their very first battle.

After Paddon won a side-by-side opening lap battle, Cutts had a crack nine laps later at the fast Doohan Corner.

The rivals made contact, and Cutts was the loser, spearing into the gravel and he dropped to third.

Critically Cutts got back to salvage second from Bryce Moore.

Paddon was deemed responsible for the clash and received a 5s penalty, but he had enough of an advantage to still comfortably win.

The battle lines had been drawn and they went at it again in Race 2 where to the thrill of the crowd they kept it clean.

Paddon again won a drag race

GITTANY DOES IT

AFTER FIRST having a crack at Mount Panorama, the Ferrari Challenge Trofeo series rolled into Phillip Island.

A total of 14 cars arrived for the occasion being a mix of Ferrari 296s and 488s, but one driver was surperior.

Antoine Gittany (pictured) dominated the weekend, being unbeaten from qualifying to racing. He took both poles by half a second before leading every lap of the opening race.

The fight for second was much closer with Cameron Campbell showing strong speed to edge ahead of Enzo Cheng and David Trewern.

After a one-sided Race 1, Sunday’s sprint was anything but with Gittany having to produce a special drive. After finding himself all the way down in ninth on the opening lap, the #22 driver gave it everything to return to the front of the field by lap 16.

In doing so he denied Cheng, who was in control before slumping from first to third on the same tour as Jim Pollicina also charged to second. However, Cheng still did enough to hold onto second place in the fight for round honours as Pollicina, Trewern and Campbell all remarkably finished on 16 points each.

Thomas Miles

off the line and led the first three laps before Cutts went on the counterattack.

They duo then duelled and danced their way around the flowing circuit before Cutts made the decisive move at Siberia to take a redemption win.

Moore seized upon third on the opening lap and did not let it go, while Terry Knowles won a fierce

fight for fourth.

Even on points it was a winnertakes-it-all finale and rain arrived to spice things up further.

Yet again Paddon won the battle to Turn 1 and this time he ruled out any fightbacks by charging 3s up the road.

But this was wiped out by a Safety Car for the bogged Warwick Morris and the pit stops produced a twist with Cutts stealing the lead. It produced a 10 minute showdown and Paddon was a man on a mission, swooping past Cutts at Stoner Corner.

With only two minutes left on the clock, Cutts could not fight back as the race and round was decided in stunning style.

They will do battle again at Sydney Motorsport Park on May 2-4.

Thomas Miles

KIWI MAKES AN IMPACT

YOUNG KIWI Willie Exton (leading, above) has made his mark down under by winning the opening rund of the 2025 Porsche Sprint Challenge at Phillip Island.

The TekworkX Motorsport driver took two wins on his way to round honours.

Exton won the opener from pole position despite Jake Santalucia controlling the field early on.

The lead had changed three times in the space of half a lap and the loser in the battle was Santalucia, who speared off coming out of Hayshed, which forced him to settle for 13th.

The race soon settled down as Hunter Robb made it a New Zealand one-two.

Exton went bang in Race 2 where he produced a lights-to-flag performance, aided by Robb spinning from the lead at Turn 12.

But Santalucia still shot the lights out, soaring to second in a pivotal drive. This put him on course for victory in the Jim Richards Enduro Trophy race that was an enthralling affair in mixed conditions.

The field started on slicks as Santalucia shot to a lead he would never lose and become the youngest winner since 2018. Tom Brewley was next best, while Ryan Casha impressed to rise from 11th to third as Exton fell to seventh, but did enough to retain the round win. Thomas Miles

Image: IAN SMITH AUTOPIX

Image: JACK MARTIN PHOTOGRAPHY

SECRET SUCCESS

LAMBORGHINI SUPER Trofeo arrived in Sydney with very little fanfare. The race meeting, held over the April 4-6 weekend, was a well-kept secret, with no spectators allowed, nor any support races offered. BRUCE MOXON snuck in the back gate to bring us this report

TWO 50-MINUTE races for the 22-car field was the extent of the weekend’s racing.

That’s not to suggest the racing wasn’t good – it was at times great. But a major international event with empty car parks and spectator areas was a bit spooky, really.

When quizzed about the event’s nature, an ARCD official shrugged and said “that’s what Lamborghini wanted.”

A couple of recent spells of rain had even left the area green and the aroma from the landfill next door was absent. All in all, a perfect Sydney weekend, for once.

Never mind all that. It would be more than fair to say the SJM Theodore Racing pair of Hon Chio Leong and Alex Denning had a very good weekend.

Never lower than third-fastest in a practice or qualifying session and two race wins mean they enjoyed a good trip to Sydney.

Hampus Eriksson had put the Leipert Motorsport car on pole for Saturday’s race, held under sunny skies in warm (high 20s) weather.

Denning was alongside, but it was Jonathan Cecotto (BC Racing) who made the best start, erupting from the second row to lead into the first corner. Denning held third for the first lap, with Eriksson passing before the second time by.

Eriksson made a few lunges at Cecotto over the first few laps having half a go at the hairpin on the third lap, before dropping back slightly.

Eriksson set the fastest race lap at this point, the Hankooks clearly peaking early. By lap 10 Cecotto was among the tail-enders and Eriksson was back on his tail.

The three leaders all pitted right

at the end of the CPS window, with an 80-second pit lane transit and driver change being mandated, or 83 seconds if there was no driver change.

Cecotto handed over to Gavin Huang but their transit was 1m19s and change. Surely there would be a penalty?

Huang emerged ahead of Leong with Ethan Brown stepping into the Eriksson car. Leong moved past Huang at the end of lap 19 and proceeded to put a gap on his pursuers.

Huang and Brown then started a battle that would last the rest of the race, which no doubt helped Leong gain an advantage.

The question of a penalty for the Cecotto/Huang car was resolved later, with the pit stop time being adjusted to be just over 80 seconds.

Any other series and it would have been much worse, surely ...

Meanwhile, Brown continued to niggle at Huang, finally pulling alongside out of the last corner and getting down the inside into Turn 1, just minutes before the end of the 50-minute journey.

Leong ran out the winner by a touch over 12 seconds from Eriksson and Brown with Cecotto and Huang in close attendance. The only Australian entry was that of Ryan Sorenson and Tim Macrow, finishing 12th in their Zagame Autosport entry. Race 2 was thoroughly entertaining – at least the first part.

Leong won the start from pole and was untroubled, quickly building a solid lead, while behind him battle ensued.

Zhicong Li held second place early with the next several cars in line astern.

Huang, then Weiron Tan, Jiatong Liang and Macrow put on a fantastic scrap. Tan passed first Huang then Li on consecutive laps in the same spot, on the run up Corporate Hill from Turn 6.

Macrow moved past Huang at the hairpin, having disposed of Liang under brakes at Turn 2. Macrow then fired past Li on the same lap in the last complex – three places in a lap!

The leaders all pitted together again and this time there would be no over-stayers. By the time of the stops, Leong was 12s up the road from Tan, then Macrow who’d found a way past Nazim Azman.

Leong handed over to Denning, who applied the crush, streaking away to an eventual win by over 28 seconds from Azman and Emilien Carde with Huang and Cecotto next. Sorenson faded to be 10th at the end.

In front of only their crews, the field hits Turn 1. Below: The Leong/Denning entry won comfortably. Right: The podium.

HUGO ALLEN SEALS NZ GR86 CHAMPIONSHIP

THE 2024/2025 Toyota GR86 Championship came down to a decider at Taupo, with Hugo Allan taking out the ultimate inaugural honours with a double-win final day.

The #17 CareVets Racing pilot, in only his second full season of racing, held off all comers after Josh Bethune threw a spanner in the works after Race 1.

Leading by just 44 points heading into the two Sunday races, Allen was sensational in a tight Race 2 before icing the 86 cake with a dominant Race 3,

ensuring he took the $50,000 NZD scholarship into the New Zealand GT Championship where he’ll race a GR Supra GT4 EVO2 with RaceLab.

“I’m blown away to be honest – I can’t thank my boys enough,” Allen said.

“I think people forget that this is only the second full season of motor racing I have been able to complete and to go up against all of these boys – many of whom have a lot of experience and skill – and to be able to beat them and get some consistent results has

been an amazing experience.

“We always had pace here but I didn’t quite get qualifying right. The reverse grid worked in our favour today for once (Race 2) and I was able to move forward, go fast and grab pole position for this race (3).”

Bethune didn’t go home empty handed either, with a $15,000 TGR credit, whilst the third-placed Justin Allen took a $10,000 dollar credit for third overall. Rookie winner Chris White also gets to head to the GR CUP in Australia to compete in the Bathurst round of

the TGR Championship.

After pole went to Bethune, he overcame Zach Blincoe and Cooper Barnes in a tight one, whilst Allen then fought through the grid for his sensational Race 2 win, with Blincoe and Justin Allen in the other podium spots.

The final race of the 16-round season saw Hugo Allen take it from pole, whilst impressive 14-year old Ajay Giddy took out second for his best finish of the season, holding off Justin Allen, who locked down third in the title race. TW Neal

The championship came down to the final round, with Hugo Allan taking the chocolates – and the $50,000.

PYE STARS

SCOTT PYE is not racing a Supercar until September, but he got his first win at a Supercars round over the Taupo Super440 weekend (above).

Pye was a guest driver in the Super V8s category, driving a powerful Toyota Camry for Richards Team Motorsport against a field full of variety.

After two races of finding his feet in the top five, the Triple Eight co-driver flew to a dominant victory in the finale to end the weekend in style.

Initially it was Kerry Jones in his Chevrolet Corvette who set an outstanding pace.

Jones took pole with a 1:25.8023s, which would have been enough for pole in Race 8 Supercars qualifying.

Not only was it enough for Super V8s pole, but it achieved it by the huge 1.9s margin over Commodore runners Tim Edgell and Brady Wild. Pye, in his first drive of the Camry,

was eighth on the grid.

As a result, Jones was untouchable in the opening race, leading the field across all 10 laps.

He ended up 5s up the road of runner-up Tim Edgell, while Nicholas Chester kept a hot Pye at bay to secure a hard-earned podium with just four-tenths splitting them at the chequered flag.

It was a race of attrition with eight cars failing to finish, including Wild, who was hoping to contend from the front end of the grid.

The second race, on Saturday, was a much cleaner affair with only Ryan Jarmey failing to finish.

Once again Jones dominated, but this time he had fellow Corvette driver Grant Brennan for company.

The top two were covered by just 2s at the end of 10 laps, while a further 21s adrift was Edgell.

Once again Chester had Pye covered as the Supercars star rounded out the top five. Wild and Angus Fogg put in

impressive comeback drives to sixth and eighth respectively.

It was an achievement for Fogg just to be on track, given he was also competing in Central Muscle Cars, which saw him make tireless adjustments to his Mustang between sessions, led by a completely different rear wing structure.

Jones’ hopes of a hat-trick came to a sudden end on lap seven when he had mechanical dramas.

He appeared in complete control, dominating the race before the Corvette finally coughed.

Suddenly it was on and Pye used his class to pick up the pieces and mark his guest appearance with a victory.

Pye surged to second with a brilliantly committed send around the outside of Turn 1 off the line.

He enjoyed a 2s advantage over Chester with John De Veth rounding out the podium.

Thomas Miles

CLASSIC RACING

CENTRAL MUSCLE Cars lived up to its name, bringing some vintage V8s to the Taupo Supercars stage where the Camaro versus Mustang rivalry carried on.

In qualifying it was a two-car race with Andrew Knight and Angus Fogg streets ahead of the rest.

Knight’s Camaro emerged fourtenths clear of Fogg’s Mustang in qualifying and they were even closer when racing began.

The pair exchanged hard for supremacy with Fogg making the decisive move around the halfway mark.

However, Knight pushed Fogg to the very end with just four-tenths the difference at the drop of the chequered flag.

Next up was the handicap race where Ross Golding took a hardfought win.

Golding initially wrestled with Robbo Robinson before prevailing in the final laps in his Commodore to beat the Camaro of Tristan Teki, who made some big last lap moves to surge to second.

Race 3 was a reverse grid affair which saw the big names try and again charge their way from the back.

Race 1 winner Fogg rocketed up to 11th and just missed an incident before spinning himself and creating a flat spotted rear.

In the end, Grant Crosby had the most speed in his Camaro, being 2s clear of Andrew Porter, who won a close fight for the runner-up position.

The finale saw the big names at the front of the field once again.

Knight, Anderson and Fogg were locked in a close fight for the lead until the latter locked up and went off at Turn 9, which restricted him to eighth.

This allowed Knight to press home the advantage and he took a comfortable 7s win ahead of Anderson and Porter.

Thomas Miles

Image: RICHARDS TEAM MOTORSPORT

Image: CENTRAL MUSCLE CARS

DREAMS DO COME TRUE

A CHILDHOOD DREAM WAS REALISED FOR MATT PAYNE AS THE RISING STAR WAITED FOR THE PERFECT STAGE TO PRODUCE THE BEST WEEKEND OF HIS CAREER, SOARING TO THE JASON RICHARDS MEMORIAL TROPHY TO THE DELIGHT OF THE HOME CROWD AT TAUPO. THOMAS MILES REPORTS …

ZERO

TO HERO

DESPITE IT being the return trip to Taupo, 12 months after a memorable debut, there were still many unknowns.

For the first time the Super440 format that will define the Sprint Cup was rolled out, plus the addition of the Super Soft tyre and making it last on the ancient patchwork quilt surface that is Taupo Motorsport Park.

As always, all eyes were firmly drawn to the five Kiwis in the field and two

stole the show – Payne and Ryan Wood.

Whilst Payne was close to flawless all weekend, Wood experienced something of a roller coaster.

He started the weekend by bringing out the only red of practice day, finding the gravel at the final corner after “something collapsed” when negotiating the chicane.

However, Wood ended the day on top by setting a record pace in Practice 2 to show he was ready to

make a statement on home turf.

He carried the momentum into Saturday where he qualified fourth, providing the perfect platform to launch from.

Wood spent most of the race just off the podium and re-emerged from the round of stops in fifth.

But with the home crowd cheering him on, he was a man on a mission.

He picked off Jack Le Brocq with ease before setting his sights on Anton De Pasquale.

The Team 18 recruit was determined to give his squad a further boost in front of the Chevrolet representatives following the homologation team announcement.

But Wood was riding a wave and had other ideas, seizing his moment on the final lap at Turn 5 and sneaking past to steal the podium position.

Having shown a lot of promise and finished fourth on two previous occasions, he waited for the perfect stage to get the breakthrough podium.

“It is a cool way to get the monkey off my back,” Wood told Auto Action.

“As soon as I sat in fourth I was, like, ‘I am sick of finishing fourth’ so I went for the trophy today ... and it is pretty cool.

“I did not think too much about it because I was trying to chase and get Cam as well.

“But once the last lap came around I picked my right moves and was happy to get on the podium.

“To do it on home soil is a dream come true.”

In fact it was a surreal twist of fate, given that De Pasquale denied the then rookie a maiden podium in the corresponding race last year.

“Mixed emotions losing the podium with a couple of laps to go,” he said.

“I went after Cam (Waters) but had a lock up at (turn) one and Woody pulled off a good move.

“I did the exact same thing to him last year to get the podium ... karma comes around!

“He had something funny to say, so it is all good and he deserves it. Always cool to see someone get their first podium.”

LEADING FROM THE FRONT

As all the action happened behind him, Payne was a calming influence at the front of the field and never challenged on his way to victory.

For the second time in a row, Payne took pole position at Taupo, mastering the new two-format qualifying structure.

Two wins and the Jason Richards Trophy – a huge weekend for one of Supercars’ young chargers ...

Above: Turn 1 and it’s Kostecki vs Payne. Above right: A first podium for Ryan Wood. Right: De Pasquale pits.

Images: MARK HORSBURGH, DANIEL KALISZ

But after falling short of a home win last year, nothing was going to stop the Grove Racing talent when the opportunity presented itself again. It was a dead even start on the front row against Kostecki, but Payne smartly placed his car on the inside to force the DJR driver to concede.

Even the unexpected arrival of a Safety Car on lap 10 did not catch the #19 out as, despite staying out an extra lap, he critically got to stay at 80km/h and the 22-year-old from Auckland was never seriously challenged and won by a commanding 4s over Cameron Waters, who emerged from the stops as the runner-up.

The pit cycle ruined Kostecki’s race as he got trapped behind the stacked Feeney, a fate experienced by many in the tight lane and, to rub salt into the wounds, Hill kicked a DJR wheel and tyre down the lane.

Payne scored his third win of his career and follows in the footsteps of Andre Heimgartner, Scott McLaughlin, Shane van Gisbergen and Greg Murphy as Kiwis to win in Aotearoa.

“Seeing all the fans clapping and cheering was really special,” Payne recalled of the celebrations.

“It is something as a driver you can only really experience when situations like that happen and it is unbelievable. It lifts me up. Starting on pole, I knew Brodie (Kostecki) was going to be aggressive and I saw him brake pretty late, so I knew I had to run him up high.

“The rest of the race was good. I knew I had strong car speed from the start – I thought Cam was strong and thought he would put a move on, but we managed to pull away.”

To add to the celebrations for Grove Racing, rookie Kai Allen also enjoyed the finest drive of his Supercars career so far.

Starting down in 22nd did not deter the Mount Gambier teenager as he negotiated his way around the chaos and climbed all the way up to a careerbest seventh.

“It was pretty unreal – I didn’t really expect to do that after starting 22nd,” said Allen post-race.

“It was crazy, the first couple of laps ... the track is very tight here, so there was a lot of concertinas and I think I was in the right place at the right time.

“Turn 1 I was on the outside and cars were driving into each other and there was absolutely stuff going on everywhere.

“I capitalised on a lot of spots on the first lap and had a really good stop – I can’t thank the team enough ... they absolutely nailed it.”

ELBOWS OUT

ONE OF the first things the drivers did in Taupo was to pay a visit to driving standards advisor Craig Baird to get greater clarification on racing rules – but this did not stop them from banging doors.

The opening race produced numerous spot fires up and down the field and, after few penalties were seen at Albert Park, plenty were dished out in Taupo.

They kept it clean until Turn 7, where rookie Cooper Murray speared off after assistance from Cam Hill and took a tour of the gravel, falling from 10th to last, while the MSR driver received a 15s penalty.

This was not the last time Murray would tour the Taupo grass as he speared off towards the end of Race 9 and again in Race 10.

Randle tried to make a move on De Pasquale at the opening corner and it did not work.

Not only did the pair make wheel-towheel contact, the Tickford driver also could not stop himself from tapping Mostert.

It was not a heavy amount of noseto-tail contact, but enough to spin the #25 driver around – neither would finish in the top 10.

Randle and Kostecki were racing hard for sixth in the closing stages and this time it was the Tickford driver rotating after contact at Turn 4 – as a result, the #38 received another penalty.

KOSTECKI vs WAU PART ONE

Kostecki racing the WAU Mustangs became a theme of the weekend and the first battle was an all-time fight for the lead in Race 10, the first time witnessed on the Super Soft tyre.

Having jumped the DJR recruit off the line, Mostert controlled the opening part of the race, only for the #38 to regain ground towards the end of the stint.

Lap 18 created the first flashpoint, where Kostecki launched a successful divebomb at Turn 5. The leaders then followed each other into the lane at the end of the lap where the 2023 champion almost threw it all away.

Kostecki lost it at pit entry and was lucky to escape with just some witness marks and retain the lead following the tyre change.

Mostert got the jump in the second race on Saturday. Below: Allan and Courtney dispute territory.

Kostecki vs Mostert – a couple of ‘hard-heads’ going at it ... Top: Will Davison is also benefitting from DJR’s return to form. Above: it was busy in the midfield ...

This time the #25 had the lights on and Mostert went on the assault.

Again Turn 4 was the hot spot and he barged his way into the lead after making significant door-to-door contact.

But it was far from over as the fight reignited three laps later when Kostecki replied, at the same corner. The DJR driver appeared to perform a clean move, but carried too much

speed and found the grass on corner exit, presenting a golden opportunity for Mostert to respond.

He did so emphatically, but not without significant contact, forcing Kostecki out the way.

With significant spoke damage on his right rear, Kostecki could not respond and drifted to third, behind teammate Will Davison, who took an emotional first podium in a year.

Payne pushed Kostecki hard, but the DJR driver held on, leaving the Grove Racing youngster to lament the 5s penalty he received for a jumped start, while Feeney ended a tough day for Triple Eight with a top five.

WHAT COULD HAVE BEEN

The ‘what could have been’ story of the weekend was De Pasquale and Team 18.

Boosted by the news that Team 18 will become Chevrolet’s new homologation team, De Pasquale led from the front. Some strategy smarts and gritty racing pushed the #18 from eighth on the grid to the verge of a podium, only for Ryan Wood to muscle his way past on the final lap and demote the Camaro.

But fourth still ensured De Pasquale carried on his consistent start to the season, having been one of just three drivers to finish each of the first seven races in the top 10.

This streak appeared destined to continue, chasing a top five throughout the first stint of the Super Soft Race 9

However, those hopes disappeared due to a left front tyre that did not want to get changed.

“In the second race, we probably had the quickest car, great tyre life. That first stint, he was flying,” Adrian Burgess explained.

“Then we bungled the bloody pit stop — crossed the left front nut. That happens every now and again, unfortunately.

“It’s disappointing because we felt we were on for a crack at a podium again … But there are positives –we’ve got some car speed, good tyre life, and Anton’s doing a ripper job.”

More pain followed on Sunday.

Despite De Pasquale putting the #18 on the front row with a strong Shootout lap, he locked up and ran wide at the opening corner and struggled to 16th.

The driver is still focusing on the positives as he still sits a solid seventh in the Sprint Cup.

“An up and down weekend for us, but a lot of positives,” De Pasquale said. “We had one good race and then some others that had some mishaps and some pit stops and some things that we’ll we’ll look at and work on.

“We didn’t maximise our results as much as our car speed was but worked on a lot of our weaknesses and started to put everything together,

which is really cool. Some really good signs moving forward.”

STARS STRUGGLE

WITH WILL Brown and Cam Waters recording fluctuating results in both of Saturday’s races, the championship lead changed hands twice ,and more twists were to follow on Sunday.

Many would have thought two segments of qualifying would have given the top three in the championship ample opportunity to make the Shootout ... but no.

The decision to do just a single lap in Q1 and stay in the pits for the final minutes had devastating consequences.

Feeney could do nothing, but watch his name tumble down from second to 20th on the leaderboard.

Both Brown and Waters made the cut to Q2, but could not do much better. Brown’s best was only good enough for 12th as attention turned to Waters.

However, the Tickford driver locked up at Turn 11 and ran off, restricting him to 18th.

Meanwhile, Kostecki carried on his one-lap dominance, producing a superb Shootout lap to back up his maiden DJR pole with another one at the earliest opportunity.

KOSTECKI vs WAU PART TWO

AN INCREDIBLE opening lap set the scene for an intriguing 61-lap finale that captivated many on Sunday. Once again it was an even getaway between the front row with Kostecki alongside De Pasquale, but the Team 18 driver dropped to seventh after running wide at the opening corner.

Thanks to De Pasquale’s mistake, Kostecki retained the lead from pole, but Wood was right behind him and determined to give the home crowd some more entertainment.

For Mostert, Saturday’s Race 2 win was followed by another podium on Sunday . Above left: A non-podium weekend – things didn’t go well for Feeney – orhis T8 partner. Above right: Another strong podium – P2 in fact – for Cam Hill. MSR are coming ... Opposite: What more does a young Kiwi want – victory and the Jason Richards Memorial Trophy ...

The WAU youngster got a grand run coming out of Turn 7 and pulled alongside Kostecki. This positioned Wood on the inside of the fast, sweeping Turn 8 and he went for it.

However, the Kiwi was a bit too ambitious, forcing Kostecki into the dirt at speed.

The drama did not end there, with Kostecki also going off at the following right hander and drifting to seventh.

Wood also did the same and sacrificed the lead, ensuring the seas parted for Hill and Payne.

Wood received a 5s penalty for the aggressive opening lap manoeuvre, which left both parties perplexed:

“It was a bit unfortunate and I just saw Woody and he is pretty devo. I do not know what he really did wrong,” Kostecki, who finished fourth, said.

“I did not say anything on the radio and they still gave him a 5s penalty, which is interesting.”

“The last race didn’t go to plan; went for a move early on and copped a penalty which cost us a good result in the end, pretty gutted,” Wood said.

THE DECIDING PASS TO HISTORY

ALL THE drama put Payne in the box seat to win the Jason Richards Memorial Trophy, but he was determined to lift it in the best way possible.

Sitting second, the Grove Racing driver sensed an opportunity to complete a fairytale and did just that.

After eight laps shadowing Hill, Payne launched his assault on the lead and made it stick in thrilling style.

Having forced his MSR rival to cover at the first turn, the Kiwi dropped back behind the #4 Camaro before unleashing a bold dive at Turn 4.

Although Hill tried to block, nothing was going to stop Payne from barging his way past.

The #19 Grove Mustang not only climbed the kerb, but also did some rallying to push through and soar into the lead.

From there, Payne was never headed and cruised to a convincing 3s win, which sealed the JR Trophy in grand style and sent the crowd into raptures.

Payne was honoured to join a special club of Kiwis to lift the trophy named

TAUPŌ RESULTS RACE RESULTS

after one of their own gone too soon alongside Scott McLaughlin and Shane van Gisbergen:

“It is pretty special and incredible. I am lost for words,” Payne said having won from sixth on the grid.

“I thought I would surprise him at Turn 4. He did a good job making sure there was not much room, but nothing was going to stop me from going through.

“I woke up this morning thinking about it (JR Trophy) – this is the one we wanted. To be standing here as a Kiwi and finally getting my hands on it is really special because of what Jason achieved and his legacy.”

Hill admitted he was “a bit embarrassed” from Payne’s pass, but applauded his rival’s exploits.

However, the MSR driver had nothing to be embarrassed about in regards to his performance, proving Albert Park was no flash in the pan by returning to the podium with outright speed and smarts.

“He put a pretty good move on me which is a bit embarrassing really,” the MSR driver admitted.

“He snuck up there but was kind enough not to tip me off. I cannot wait to go back and rewatch it.

“We made some changes overnight, which turned us into a top three car so great to be back on the podium.”

In the fight for the title race, Triple Eight bounced back strongly in the race to retain their grip.

Brown made some small gains to eighth to ensure he returns from the Tasman with his Sprint Cup lead intact, enjoying a 34-point lead over Waters.

Feeney produced one of the drives of the day, climbing from 20th to seventh whilst carrying significant right rear damage.

But this was not enough to stop Payne stealing third in the championship, while Mostert’s gritty drive to third on Sunday means that less than 100 points covers the top five drivers ahead of the Tasmania Super440 on May 9-11

DUNNE TAKES BIG STEP IN BAHRAIN

FORMER BRITISH F4 champion

Irishman and McLaren junior Alex Dunne (right) took out his maiden win in FIA Formula 2 racing, with the Rodin Motorsports youngster winning the Sakhir Feature Race from fourth on the grid.

The second round of action saw Dunne overcome pole man and early championship leader Leonardo Fornaroli, who ended up third after 32 laps in Bahrain, with second going to Hitech’s Luke Browning, 8.244 seconds in arrears.

The championship order now sees Fornaroliin front by 1 point from Dunne, with Browning tied in third.

The 19-year old race winner, who went winless through Formula 3, liked the sound of being called an F2 race winner after being disappointed with his efforts in the Sprint opener:

“It’s got a nice ring to it for sure … I think the team has done a mega job,” Dunne said.

“I knew we had the pace to have a good result, but I think naturally even if you know the pace is there you probably would never expect a result like this.

“To bounce back like that in a dominant fashion is kind-of a nice

way to redeem myself and pay back the team.”

Opening up the weekend, AGP race winner, Italian Fornaroli, looked on the money with a maiden F2 pole, posting a 1:44.008s, racing for Aussie Jack Doohan’s former team – Invicta Racing.

The reverse grid Sprint race saw a stunning drive from Spanish driver Pepe Marti to take out his second

career Sprint win in F2 in his second year in the category.

The Campos Racing driver came from the clouds after starting in P11, with several Safety Cars allowing him to charge through the field to finish a 0.922s winner over Richard Verschoor and Dino Beganovic. With Dunne finishing in 19th after two post-race penalties, he then put it

all behind him in the feature.

After seizing second by Turn 1, the Irishman then took the lead on lap even with DRS, then responded to Fornaroli’s attempt at an undercut with his first mandatory pit on lap 11 to control the rest of the race.

F2 returns for a double-header weekend in Saudi Arabia at the Jeddah Circuit on April 18-20. TW Neal

BRAZILIAN YOUNG GUN IN CONTROL

BRAZILIAN TRIDENT driver

Rafael Camara (leading, right) continued his imposing start to the FIA Formula 3 season, making it a sweep of Feature wins in Bahrain.

The 19-year old has stepped up brilliantly from the Formula Regional machinery, with the Ferrari Driver Academy youngster making it two-from-two with a 6.211 second win, from Rodin Brit Callum Voisin and German Red Bull junior Tim Tramnitz.

The Brazilian’s overall performance was superior after starting on pole (his second of the year) despite losing the lead early on in the 22-lap affair.

“I think we started the weekend strong in FP1 giving us some confidence for Qualifying,” Camara said.

“The weekend went very smoothly

apart from the Sprint Race where we had an issue setting up the clutch properly.

“I’d say it’s almost perfect to start like this but there’s a long way to go. There are still eight rounds and anything can happe – I can be the fastest now, but we don’t know for the next race.”

Camera put out a 1:49.214s for pole over Voisin and teammate Charlie Wurz, with the opening Sprint race then going to Campos’ Bulgarian youngster Nikola Tsolov.

Early on it was F3 debutant Freddie Slater with the lead, with Tsolov getting the better after the race’s only yellow for a tight 0.580s second win with rookie Tuukka Taponen in third.

In the feature, after Voisin got the early jump, he was hunted by Camara and Wurz, holding off the

former until lap five, with those two clearing off down the road, leaving Wurz and Taponen to fight for third, with the Finn eventually putting on the distance as Wurz dropped away.

Aussie racer James Wharton didn’t fare so well in his second F3 outing,

finishing in 28th after qualifying in 24th.

Round 3 see’s the field head to Imola on May 16-18, with Camara holding a 26 point lead over Tramnitz.

TW Neal

Images: GETTY IMAGES

Another Marc Marquez win ... Below: Vinales looked to have secured a superb second place for KTM, but a ‘tyre-pressure’ penalty ruined it ... Images: GOLD AND GOOSE

MARQUEZ GRITS HIS TEETH

MARC MARQUEZ overcame significant challenges from his own bike and his rivals to secure another win, at the Qatar Motorcycle Grand Prix.

Marquez wrestled the championship lead back from his brother Alex with the third win of the year and his hardest-fought.

Earlier in the weekend, the #93 continued its perfect streak of pole positions and Sprint wins.

In the Sprint the brothers went toe to toe early on with Alex ‘having a look’ at the start of the second lap, but the Gresini rider could not make it stick.

Marc Marquez immediately reclaimed the lead and shot a second up the road and did not look back. It was once again a Marquez onetwo finish, extending their dominance of the season.

The battle to join the brothers on the podium was an interesting one. Fabio Quartararo was the closest challenger in the early stages before Franco Morbidelli surged past.

Things came to a head on the final lap with Quartararo, rookie Fermin Aldgeguer and Fabio Di Giannantonio all on his tail, but Morbidelli held on. Meanwhile, further back, Francesco Bagnaia was nowhere, only mustering eighth, angry with his fuel tank, while Australia’s Jack Miller gambled on the

Soft tyre and it did not pay off at all, languishing in 19th.

COME SUNDAY night things were much tougher for Marc Marquez.

He set himself up for a calm ride under the Lusail lights with a great start, but things bottled up at the opening turn where the #93 ran wide.

A heavy collision with his own brother left the eldest with significant damage to the seat unit winglets.

All the drama allowed Morbidelli to charge into the lead as Alex also dropped behind the faststarting Maverick Vinales and Di Giannantonio.

Alex Marquez tried to immediately fire back with a move on Di Giannantonio at Turn 12, but even more contact was made.

Both riders ran wide, with Marquez falling to 12th, while his VR46 rival’s race was ruined, going all the way to the back.

This clash parted the seas for Bagnaia, who was suddenly a factor in the top three.

But the rider with the most pace was Vinales and he attacked Morbidelli on lap 16.

The KTM rider did so successfully, snatching the lead and bringing the factory Ducatis along with him.

Vinales put himself in position to take a shock win, leading the mid part of the race until lap 16 of 22 when one mistake proved decisive.

The Spaniard ran wide at Turn 6 which presented the perfect gift for Marc Marquez to reclaim the lead.

The #93 rider was not going to let anything rob him of a second shot at victory as he blazed more than a second up the road.

Despite having Bagnaia breathing down his neck in the closing laps, Vinales held on for second.

But in devastating news for KTM Tech 3, Vinales received a post-race 16s penalty for low tyre pressures which dropped him to 14th.

It pushed Morbidelli onto the podium and, while Alex Marquez might have lost the championship lead, he still fought hard, making late ground to reclaim sixth.

There were a number of fallers including Australia’s Miller, plus Joan Mir and Augusto Fernandez.

But the biggest victim was Jorge

Martin, who could not finish the first race of his title defence with Aprilia after missing the first three meetings with injury.

Marc Marquez took the blame for the bash with his brother and labelled this success as his best of 2025 so far.

“I’m super happy, especially because to myself it’s the most important weekend of the season,” he added.

“Because Thailand, Argentina, Austin were good circuits for me but here was the first circuit where I said ‘ok, maybe I will struggle a little bit’.

“But just I worked a lot during the weekend. I did a step on the right fast corners, which was also super important.

“The contact with Alex was a little bit more my mistake than his mistake, because I just opened the gas and I felt like the rear was going. I closed the gas again and he didn’t expect it.”

The European season now kicks off for MotoGP, starting with the famous Spanish Grand Prix at Jerez on April 25-27.

Thomas Miles

MOTOGP STANDINGS AFTER ROUND 4

1: Marc Marquez 123 points

2: Alex Marquez 106

3: Francesco Bagnaia 97

4: Franco Morbidelli 78

5: Fabio Di Giannantonio 48

PENSKE PERFECT IS PORSCHE PERFECT

THE THIRD round of the IMSA Sportscar Championship (a two class outing) has continued the perfect Penske Porsche 963 record in the Hypercar GTP class at the Grand Prix of Long Beach.

Despite the BMW Hybrid V8s again proving superior in qualifying, there was no stopping another one-two for the Penske garage as the #7 963 piloted by Felipe Nasr and Nick Tandy added Long Beach to their Daytona 24Hr and Sebring 12Hr wins.

Following the dominant #7 machine was the sister #6 for its third straight podium, as Aussie Matthew Campbell and Frenchman Mathieu Jaminet stayed podium-perfect in 2025, 3.058 seconds behind after 100 minutes of track time.

It wasn’t the only triple-sweep on the streets of California, with Belgian Dries Vanthoor delivering a third straight pole for the #24 BMW M Hybrid V8, and alongside Phillip Eng finally converting it to a podium, 9.845 seconds back from the nearest Porsche.

The only trouble for the #7 was conserving energy to go the distance of 100 minutes after an early yellow at the 21 minute mark, with both Porsches running one-two from that

point onwards, whilst the winning Porsche also did it on one set of Michelins.

Nasr , the defending drivers champion, has now won 14 of his 64 starts in IMSA competition, whilst ‘Mr Endurance’ Tandy notched his 26th career win, with the win ensuring a 123-point lead over Campbell and Jaminet.

“Another big day for the team –the execution that Porsche Penske Motorsport has been able to show in these past three events has been outstanding,” Nasr said.

“For us drivers, it’s a unique feeling really to see everything coming together. They gave us a fast car and the execution was perfect all race long. That was the only way we could fight these BMWs.”

“We knew it was going to come

down to the strategy and the pit stop and whether we could do something different. We were more aggressive with the approach because we didn’t change tyres on the No. 7, and managing that was key as well.

“I haven’t had a season in my career that started with three wins like this. Amazing to win a race here with such a great crowd at the 50th anniversary of the Long Beach Grand Prix.”

It wasn’t the only win from Porsche on the day either, as the GTD win went to the AO Racing Porsche 911 GT3 R (992), with Jonny Edgar and Laurens Vanthoor (brother of Dries) guiding the fan favourite ‘Rexy’ 911 to the chequered, 2.378s ahead of a pair of Vasser Sullivan Racing Lexus RC F GT3s.

The Cadillac V.Series R led by Kiwi Earl Bamber came in fourth over the

second BMW and two other Cadillacs, whilst eighth place gave a promising positive for the GTP/Hypercar new comers.

It was the highest finish so far for the Aston Martin THOR team in only its fourth global outing with Le Mans 24-bound drivers Roman De Angelis and Ross Gunn behind the wheel, although the V12 engined machine’s best lap was still nearly two seconds off the benchmark.

And all up, it was a tough day for Acura (Honda), in ninth and 11th, with the brand missing out on a podium for the first time this season.

Porsche certainly won’t be easing up on chasing the GTP pack, with the next round staying out west with a May 11 visit to Laguna Seca for a 2-hour 40 minute outing, with the GTD Pro class also returning to the grid. Last time out on the newly-paved track, Porsche took the win in a onethree finish.

TW Neal

Image: PACE IMAGES

Penske Porsche – again ... Below: The winning class GTD Porsche. Right: Pole again for BMW, third in the race. Images: GETTY IMAGES

KIRKWOOD RUNS LONG AT THE BEACH

ON THE 50th occasion of the Grand Prix of Long Beach, there was some nice synchronicity about the IndyCar victor as Kyle Kirkwood took his third career win at the site of his first (also from pole).

Across a sunny Californian weekend where the third round of the IndyCar season followed the big GTP machines of the IMSA series onto the street track, Andretti’s poleman proved a popular winner and did what none had been able to do so far: hold off Alex Palou.

Having made his way through the Road to Indy tiers by weight of taking every scholarship available, Kirkwood also made his way up to second in the championship, cutting points out of the Palou lead with a three-second win.

Third place went to Arrows McLaren driver Christian Lundgaard who rallied from 12th, with the podium matching the championship’s top three.

The race would be decided entirely on trye strategy with the Primary Firestones the favoured long run rubber across a three-stopper, whilst the 2025 class remains remarkably well behaved – there hasn’t been a yellow flag since the opening laps of the season.

After taking pole with a 1:06.192s over Colton Herta and Palou, the Floridian native led for 46 of the 90 laps but remained the respective leader throughout the pit cycles.

In chasing three straight victories –which would have been the first such occasion since Scott Dixon in 2020 – Palou looked a chance through the last pit cycle on lap 65 when Kirkwood took his final stop with both drivers on the Primary tyre. Pulling out of the pits, Palou found the back of the #27 Honda and pestered him for several laps.

Kirkwood had to be perfect and he remained so and, with over 50 of his allotted 100 seconds of push-to-pass still in the bank, plus the use of lapped traffic, steadily built up the tenths over the championship-leading Spaniard. With track position at an absolute premium, Kirkwood thanked his lucky

stars that started with an advantage over Palou.

“What a great day – we controlled the race, and even from practice we felt we were in control,” the Andretti driver said.

“Really good qualifying. Amazing race. Amazing strategy. It was just execution all across the board. That’s what won us that race here today, because if Palou was in front, he would have beat us for sure.

“This was a track position race here today, without any cautions. He didn’t make it easy on us.”

For the Antipodean crew, Aussie Will Power continues to warm into the season after a poor start at St Petersburg, fighting from 13th on the grid up to a hard earned fifth place behind Felix Rosenqvist in fourth.

Scotty McLaughlin ran the perfect middling race, starting six to finish sixth

behind his Penske teammate, whilst Dixon laid down an excellent recovery mission to rise from 14th to eighth –behind Herta.

The ninth and tenth place finishers deserve mentions for career best efforts, with former LMP2 driver Kyffin Simpson finishing ahead of Sting Ray Robb.

In an interesting situation looking forward, the top four of the championship have never won an Indy 500 ... and with the Indianapolis Month of May creeping up – which leads the field into the oval season. Although there’s no double points for the 500 anymore, the likes of Dixon, Power, and Newgarden will be looking at the event as a means to fight back into the title race.

However, there’s still two road races to come before that bridge is crossed, with Alabama’s Barber Motorsports Park on May 4, and the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Road Course on May 10.

TW Neal

INDYCAR STANDINGS AFTER THREE ROUNDS

Palou 142

Kirkwood 108

Lundgaard 96

Rosenqvist 88

Dixon 86

Converting pole to the race win –Kyle Kirkwood (and below right) is making progress. Below left: Will Power, best of the Antipodeans this time. Images: GETTY IMAGES

DENNY’S THROWBACK DOUBLE

FROM MARTINSVILLE to Darlington – NASCAR veteran Denny Hamlin produced his second win of the season, with the Joe Gibbs Racing driver going back-to-back with an overtime win in the “throwback livery” outing at South Carolina.

The #11 Toyota racer pulled away to a 0.597 victory over Hendricks’ William Byron, who dominated the majority of the race by leading 243 of the 297 laps at the abrasive 2.1km oval.

Although it was Hamlin’s clean jump at the green after the final caution that ensured a 56th career win, it was his alert pit crew that got him the jump over Byron, with some added assistance from Kyle Larson’s day to forget.

Byron’s ‘laps led’ had more than meets the eye too, as those 243 were run unopposed (81.8% of the race) with no lead changes until a flurry of green pit stops, with his need to strap on some fresh rubber also causing him to re-enter behind Hamlin. He did, however, extend his regular season lead after fighting back into P2 after the weekend saw him take pole, and both the early stage wins.

As for Larson (who’s Kellogg’s livery got him the aesthetic vote for the Round 8 stoush) his day was

punctuated by two incidents, the first of which wrecked the front of his Chevrolet, putting him 160 laps down.

The second, with five laps remaining, saw him trying to avoid a loose Tyler Reddick before causing contact with Bubba Wallace, which also ended what looked to be a sure thing for Penske’s Ryan Blaney who looked to be ending his three-race DNF run in style.

For the 44-year old Hamlin, it was his first double for 15 years as he also broke the all-time wins tie with Rusty Wallace to be clear in 11th.

“There’s two people I really love right

now: my pit crew and Kyle Larson,” the Virginian native said in Victory lane.

“Had a little assist there, so thank you. The pit crew just did an amazing job. They won it last week at Martinsville, and they won it this week. It’s all about them.

“Today’s win shows up the same in the stats column,” he offered in reference to only leading 10 laps.

“No one will ever remember years from now. They’re just going to know we won Darlington, and they’ll forget why, which is unfortunate for Byron.

“Last week, I talked about how

this is one you pound the chest – we kicked everyone’s ass ... I kicked everyone’s ass! Do I feel that way today? I don’t … but it still feels good. It just doesn’t have the feel when you go out and you are dominant.”

And as for Kiwi Shane van Gisbergen, although his 20th of track doesn’t look like progress in a tough season, the former Supercars domineer started from 36th, taking advantage of Larson’s early wreck to make up spots, whilst he still ended the second stage in P30. The 10-position jump also ended what would have been a five-race streak outside the top 30.

For the Toyota machinery, it was another strong outing, with three-race winner Christopher Bell in third and Reddick in fourth, whilst Blaney ended up in fifth.

The result leaves Hamlin second by 49 points in the regular season standings, with team-mate Bell in third, 52 points in arrears of first place.

The following round at the high banked Bristol Motor Speedway would be the third attempt for Joe Gibbs Racing to achieve a triple on the year, with Bell having captured the same from Rounds 2-4.

TW Neal

NASCAR’s retro ‘Throwback Round’ at Charlotte brought out a grid of nostalgic liveries ... Above: Two in two weeks –Hamlin’s on a roll ... Images: GETTY IMAGES

LARSON’S BRISTOL BRILLIANCE

THE BRISTOL Motor Speedway

is a happy hunting ground for Kyle Larson, with the Hendricks driver proving to be an overwhelming force across the weekend in Tennessee.

The ninth round of the NASCAR Cup Series proved to still be a year of repeat winners, as Larson also denied Joe Gibbs Racing’s Denny Hamlin a third straight, which would have been the second such occasion of the year.

The #5 Chevrolet topped the #11 Toyota by 2.250 seconds in the end,

but the telling stat was the 411 of the 500 laps on the high banked 0.8 km short track that Larson led throughout the day.

He not only powered to his 31st career win and second of the season, but he also dominated the XFinity outing on the Saturday prior to his second straight NASCAR win on the Bristol track.

And for the second time this season, Larson also fell just short on the triple, after finishing second in the Truck Series race.

Taking third place was Hamlin’s teammate Ty Gibbs, with a full 6.679s of daylight between him the leader, with the race also running green for the final 235 laps. And contrary to what the tyre degradation looked like it was going to provide after qualifying, the track also rubbered in well with the long run becoming prominent, with Ryan Blaney for example pulling a race high of 175 laps on the one set.

For Larson, the win also carried double emotion after losing his close friend and PR rep Jon Gordon during the week.

“This one’s definitely for Jon, He’s just a great guy,” Larson said.

“Successful weekend here – I just wish he was going to be here with us to celebrate, but I know he’s celebrating with us in spirit.

“Just a flawless race once again here at Bristol for the #5 team. Really, really good car. That was a lot of fun.

“However many laps of green we ran there was a lot of fun, I was pretty comfortable with things, and then Denny came on really strong there before the pit cycle and kind-of kept the pressure on from there.”

Hamlin was never really a threat to challenge however, despite getting to one second in arrears after the final pit stop, with Larson also having a slight brush with the wall at one stage.

The Californian also marked another career high with his sweep of the stages, with his second and 66th stage win drawing him level on alltime stage wins with Martin Truex Jr (stage racing was introduced in 2017).

As for Hamlin, who was looking to emulate Christopher Bell as 2025 three-peater, he took his hat off to

Larson, as well as paying tribute to the other members of the NASCAR family that passed during the week.

“You have to give that team their due, just a dominant performance,” Hamlin said.

“It looked like a pretty flawless day for them. It looked pretty easy, I just had to try and keep up there. I’m glad we were able to give him a little bit of a run with our Progressive Toyota.

“But this weekend, we are all thinking about Jon Edwards’ family, (racing journalist) Al Pearce, and (team owner) Shige Hattori. We’ve lost a lot of great people in our sport over the last week, so our thoughts are with them.”

“Wish we could have got one more spot, but I just wanted to keep him honest there at the end. That was all I was trying to do, but he was a little too much to handle.”

Next up for NASCAR following a scheduled week off is a return to the Superspeedways, as Talladega gets its first run of the season, with Texas, Kansas, and North Wilkesboro to follow.

TW Neal

Bristol turned out to be another Larson lesson ...

THE MAX FACTOR

MAX VERSTAPPEN GAVE HONDA THE PERFECT FAREWELL GIFT FOR THE LAST TIME THE DUTCHMAN AND RED BULL WERE POWERED BY THE JAPANESE MANUFACTURER IN SUZUKA ...

AN AMAZING lap at the end of Q3 laid the foundation and put the World Champion on pole, ahead of the faster McLaren cars, Verstappen then finishing the job on Sunday, with a perfect race. The gap between the Dutchman and Lando Norris fluctuated between 1s and 2.3s for the entire 53 laps of the Grand Prix, so the McLaren driver could never use the DRS and, therefore, was never in a position to even try to attack his rival.

The only moment where they got close was when Norris followed Verstappen into the pits at the end of lap 21 and an unusually slow stop

from Red Bull allowed the McLaren driver to get his front wing alongside the rear wheels of the RB21 at the pit exit. Give no space, Norris put two wheels on the grass and had to lift, in what was Verstappen’s only tight moment of the race.

The MCL39 was the quickest car in the first, very fast, sector, allowing Norris to close the gap on his rival but the Red Bull was way faster in the last chicane, so the English driver was losing time entering the only straight that could lead to some overtaking possibilities – a difference in car characteristics that helped Verstappen seal an unlikely

but historic win.

An ecstatic Max admitted that, “it was tough, just pushing very hard – especially on the second stint. The two McLarens were pushing me very hard and it was a lot of fun out there. Not easy, of course, to manage the tyres, but I’m incredibly happy.

“It started off quite tough this weekend, but we didn’t give up. We kept improving the car and today it was in its best form. And of course, starting on pole, that really made it possible to win the race.”

Verstappen had no problem admitting his rivals had a faster

car, explaining that “I do think that probably the cooler track helped us out a bit, so there was less tyre overheating. I could see the two orange cars behind me the whole race – they had better pace but I think most of it of course was done yesterday being able to start from pole, because around here I think it’s just very hard to follow.

“The cars are improving every single year, have more downforce, and probably you’ll see it’s just a bit harder to follow. You only have one DRS zone

as well here, so it’s very tough. Plus the degradation seemed quite low, so you do a one-stop. I think that definitely helped us … but still, we’ll take it – we really maximised the weekend and I’m very proud of everyone.”

The Dutchman made a point of paying tribute to Honda, saying that “already yesterday was a very beautiful day for us. And then to follow it up with a win is just fantastic.

“Honestly, the relationship that we’ve had with Honda has been amazing. I’ve really enjoyed my time with them – how they work, how professional they are and how dedicated they are. They’ve given me so much. Together we’ve won four Drivers’ Championships and two Constructors’. It’s been unbelievable and something you’ll never forget.”

And on the many tributes he received from rival drivers and team principals after his qualifying pole, Verstappen admitted “it was very nice to hear that,” adding that “it also means, I guess, that I really care…”

And, in conclusion, the World Champion conceded that “sometimes you have those kind of moments where you get some really great laps out of it.”

“YOU NEED TO BE PERFECT TO BEAT MAX”

McLAREN HAD the quickest car in Suzuka but both Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri were beaten by an inspired Max Verstappen.

Both drivers made crucial mistakes in their final Q3 laps, Norris losing 0.2s in the final chicane, the Australian a bit more than that with a mistake in the first sector.

In the race, though, the feeling is that McLaren didn’t take the best decisions in terms of strategy, failing to put Red Bull under pressure as its drivers followed exactly the same plan and, therefore, by covering one of them, the race winner eventually covered both at the same time.

While he tried to defend his

strategists decision, team principal Andrea Stella admitted that “we know that to beat Max and Red Bull we need to operate at the highest standard,” adding that “to win races like this you need perfect execution,” before concluding that “Max, at the moment, is making the difference himself.”

A subdued Norris admitted that “in hindsight, the race was won yesterday – I guess we always know the better position you start from, the more chance you have of winning.”

The championship leader said that “our pace was probably slightly better, but not enough to get through the dirty air. To get into the DRS and then passing is a whole other story because it’s pretty much impossible to pass here.”

Japan was the Verstappen Show. Max led all the way (above) after making the most of pole position and leading into Turn 1/2 (right). Top right: The other star of the show was Racing Bull’s rookie Isack Hadjar ...

Images: Getty Images, Red Bull Content Pool

With questions being asked about the sense of pitting on the same lap as the race leader, Norris admitted that “maybe we could have tried a bit more with strategy – overcut or undercut – but we just boxed on the same lap for some reason.”

The Brit conceded that “I could have gone longer, could have tried going earlier, yes, but then you’re at risk of Safety Cars and other things. So it’s easy to say ‘you should have done that,’ but if I box three laps earlier or two laps earlier and the Safety Car comes out, we look stupid.

“We can’t win them all and we take it on the chin.”

Stella defended his team’s decision of pitting on schedule, saying that “on a 20 laps used Medium, you cannot be faster than somebody on a new Hard.

“The situation became very clear when Russell pitted and he was very fast on a new Hard. It was apparent that the Hard was working well.

“The overcut works well when you know that you gain, like in Barcelona or in Suzuka in the past, you gain four or five laps of tyre delta and then when you pit, even if you pit behind the car that stopped

before, you will pass him because you have better tyres.

“But Suzuka is now a low degradation circuit, so track position was the key for success and that’s why we didn’t extend Lando’s first stint.”

FASTER PIASTRI DENIED CHANCE TO ATTACK

LOOKING CONSIDERABLE faster than his team-mate in the final 15 laps, Piastri accepted McLaren’s decision to disregard a driver swap, saying that “at least I asked the question and I think that was a fair response. I think it was a good race, and that’s how we want to go racing.”

Even though he was within DRS range for a few laps and twice just half a second behind his team mate, Piastri could never even attempt to pass Norris, saying that “it was too difficult. I think I needed the straight to be about another 100 metres longer and then maybe I could’ve had a small chance. I got close a couple of times, but never close enough to do anything, realistically.”

The man from Melbourne admitted that “the result is not exactly what I wanted but, in terms of the pace and the way I achieved the result, it is what I wanted. Yesterday was the day that kind-of dictated your

weekend a lot and I didn’t get the most out of the car.

“That, unfortunately, dictated a lot of what I could do today and that’s led to the result I’ve got.”

As it was, there was no beating a perfect Max Verstappen, the Dutchman probably having his most complete Grand Prix weekend ever.

LECLERC DID A ‘MINI-MAX’ A FEW tenths of a second slower than McLaren and Verstappen’s Red Bull, Mercedes and Ferrari experienced a similar situation as the front trio. The W16 was the faster car but a mistake from Russell in qualifying put the Brit behind Leclerc on the grid and, apart from an optimistic lunge soon after the start, Russell could never find a way to threat his rival, who also did a perfect job on race day.

While Frédéric Vasseur made it clear that “his weekend was not perfect because he lost 0.2s in the chicane on the final lap of Q3,” the Monegasque was happy with his performance, saying that finishing fourth “is disappointing, because when you put everything together like we’ve done this weekend – I think the balance was in the right place – there’s just not enough performance in the car.”

Charles Leclerc overshadowed team-mate Hamilton, but the Ferrari wasn’t able to keeptthe top three in sight.

Above: This was the closest the McLarens got later in the race. Could McLaren have let Piastri, who was faster, through to have a crack at the red Bull?

Opposite: Kimi Antonelli continued his impressive rookie season, almost on his team leader’s tail at the finish. Jack Doohan’s Alpine was all but destroyed after his unfortunate P2 high-speed crash.

From his perspective, Hamilton lost the pace he’d shown before Q3 and dropped to eighth on the grid, so the obvious option was to go for an alternative strategy, starting on the Hard tyre. But as there was no tyre degradation, the Brit only managed to gain one position,

passing the impressive Isack Hadjar in the first stint, to finish in seventh place.

George Russell insisted that “I had more pace than Charles on the Mediums and if I was ahead of him I could have kept up with the McLarens,” but conceded that “on the Hard tyre he was faster early on and we didn’t have the pace of the front three.”

Rookie Kimi Antonelli did an exceptional job to qualify and finishing in sixth place, just 1.3s behind his team-mate. The Italian became the youngest driver ever to lead a Grand Prix, between laps 22 and 31, as he made his Medium tyres last more than anyone else’s!

On the Hard tyre the teenager pulled away from Hamilton with

ease and even had thoughts of attacking Russell on the final laps.

A smiling Antonelli admitted that “I was giving it all I had and was hoping to catch him a bit earlier, but I simply ran out of laps!”

Behind Hamilton, another impressive rookie beat the entire midfield, as Isack Hadjar got into Q3 to qualify in P7 and only lost out to Hamilton. Albon still tried to launch a late attack but was still 3.2s behind by the flag, in what still was another good result for the Thai driver and Willliams.

A third rookie scored the last point, Oliver Bearman adapting much better than the experienced Esteban Ocon to the new floor Haas rushed out for this weekend.

The Frenchman fell in Q1 and finished 18th while the young Brit qualified and finished in P10, at the end of what he called “a very boring race, as I was on my own for most of the time,” but admitting that “I’m very happy with what the team and I achieved this weekend.”

This new generation is certainly promising, so some of the old hands need to up their game or face the risk of being driven out of Grand Prix racing at the end of the year

DOOHAN EXCELS IN DAMAGE CONTROL

THE WEEKEND couldn’t have started worse for Jack Doohan, the Australian sitting out in FP1 to allow reserve driver Ryo Hirakawa one of the four mandatory sessions where teams have to field rookies during the season.

Trying to make up for the lost time, and trying something he’d tested on the simulator, Doohan decided to keep the DRS open going into Turn 1 on only his second quick lap of the weekend, resulting in a massive crash that forced the team to build a new car.

Lacking laps and confidence, Doohan qualified only 19th, but things went much better for him in the race.

Opting to start on the Soft tyres, the Australian managed to make them last a very impressive 15 laps. Then, pushing a lot on the Hard tyres, Doohan undercut team-mate Gasly, as well as Sainz, Hulkenberg, Lawson and Ocon (!) but left himself with 38 laps to go against drivers with much fresher tyres.

Told to allow Gasly through on lap 33, Doohan had no answer for Sainz, who had Soft tyres for the last stint, but put a very strong defence against the rest of the field, avoiding mistakes to keep Hulkenberg at bay right until the end.

The German, Lawson, Ocon and Bortoletto finished glued to the back of the Alpine driver – the five cars fitting in just 2.5s – which shows how much pressure the Australian had to withstand in those final, tense laps.

No wonder the youngster was happy at the end of the race, joking that “the experience I had defending against faster cars in Shanghai was put to good use here!”

Doohan admitted that, “we went more aggressive with tyre strategy with the Softs at the start, which allowed us to attack and gave us the best chance to move forward with the undercut.” The downside was that “it also meant we ran a longer second stint on the Hard tyres and had to defend towards the end. I think we did well to keep Nico at bay, but it was a pity we could not keep Carlos behind on the newer Softs.”

Still, the young driver concluded that “it was positive to move forward at a track that’s difficult to overtake and the race pace also felt strong despite no high fuel running in practice.”

PIASTRI’S PERFECT WEEKEND

By LUIS VASCONCELOS

OSCAR PIASTRI dominated the Bahrain Grand Prix weekend, giving McLaren its first ever win in front of its owners. On a track that had never historically favored the British team – incredible to think that until last Sunday no McLaren driver had stood on the podium at the end of this Grand Prix! – the young Australian driver took control of procedures at the start of FP2 and never looked back.

A dominant pole position put him in the perfect spot to grab 25 valuable points on Sunday and, after seeing off George Russell’s first corner move, the Melburnian steadily opened the gap to his rival and looked set to win by a comfortable margin until a Safety Car was sent out on lap 32, so that debris

could be cleared from the track.

The neutralisation of the race wiped out Piastri’s 7.1s advantage over Russell but, with virtually everyone pitting for tyres, the most unusual situation arose of the top three using different compounds for the re-start. Piastri was on a new set of Mediums, Russell was as surprised as anyone when Mercedes sent him out on Softs and

Leclerc, a steady fourth for most of the race, was on the more conservative Hard tyre.

Russell tried an optimistic lunge at the re-start only to have Piastri defend hard but fair and from then on there was, again, no contest. On those final 22 laps the McLaren driver opened a gap of 15.5s over the rest of the field, showing how much more pace than

anyone else he had this weekend in Sakhir.

Piastri admitted the only blip on his perfect race came when the Safety Car was sent out, making it clear that “I would have preferred to not have it,” before adding that, “I was still pretty confident because the pace was good. I was pretty confident I could get a good restart.”

With the four top teams all making different tyre choices for the race, the McLaren driver trusted his team had chosen the right one, as he explained: “I also knew that Lando and I were the only ones with another set of Mediums and that was the tyre to be on so, from that side of things, it was relatively straightforward.”

Still, the restart was crucial, but Piastri’s determination was obvious even in his own words: “You try and get a good restart but you never quite

Images: GETTY IMAGES, RED BULL CONTENT POOL

While Oscar was imperious (opposite) and, frankly, never threatened, it was all very different for team-mate Lando Norris who, after a series of mistakes, ran out of time and laps to potentially create a 1-2 by passing Russell – who was dealing with problems of his own ... Opposite lower: Leclerc (and Hamilton) went down a different tyre starategy path and it almost paid off, but fourth was the best Ferrari could realistically hope for. Right: What a difference a week makes ...

RED BULL

DROPS TO THE MIDFIELD

MAX VERSTAPPEN had warned there would be no repeat of his Suzuka giantkilling prowess in Bahrain, but even he wasn’t prepared to drop down the order so dramatically.

know how it’s going to go—but I was never going to let that one go!”

NORRIS ADMITS TO “FEELING LOST”

THE CONTRAST between the two McLaren drivers was extraordinary for most of the weekend. On one side of the garage, Piastri always looked comfortable with his MCL39, had the pace to control the field and never put a wheel wrong; on the other, a rather unsettled Lando Norris was struggling to put a good lap together – his final run in Q1 was the exception – and kept making small mistakes that were costing big.

Third quickest at the end of the first run in Q3, Norris made almost no progress on his final run and dropped to sixth on the grid. With his team mate on pole, the result was devastating for Norris, as was

the gap of over 0.4s to his teammate.

A great start could have started to save the British driver’s Sunday and he certainly passed Gasly, Antonelli and Leclerc with a cracking first lap but had spoiled it all by stopping outside his grid box, incurring in an inevitable time penalty.

Norris explained that “I think at the beginning I was too far back, so I tried to creep forward, I did creep forward and it was the opposite. First time I’ve ever done this in my life. Shouldn’t happen, but it did –and I paid the price for it.”

The 5s penalty, served at the first pit stop, put Norris under pressure from Leclerc on much fresher tyres and, after a great ding-dong between the two on laps 24 and 25, the Monegasque moved ahead of his rival, pushing the McLaren down to fourth. Only 27 laps later, on softer tyres, were positions reversed again but, even with Russell struggling with many issues in the final laps, the championship leader couldn’t manage better that P3.

A quite despondent Norris admitted that “I made too many mistakes with the overtakes, with being out of position on the grid and so on.

“It was a messy race for me and I’m disappointed not to bring home a 1-2 for McLaren because it would have been lovely at home.”

Unable to find positives in a result that still kept him in the championship lead – just – Norris explained that “I qualified sixth

yesterday which is pretty terrible, so how can I possibly be happy? That just doesn’t make sense.”

Nevertheless, the Englishman admitted that “I’m a little bit happier today that I managed to get back to P3. I had a good start … all those things. But I think P2 was the best we could have achieved today – so we should have achieved it. But we didn’t – and I didn’t, because of some mistakes.”

Norris reiterated that, thoughout the weekend, he “never felt comfortable, never felt confident. The car was just mega and that’s helping me get out of a lot of problems at the minute. But I’m just nowhere near the capability that I have – which hurts, hurts to say.

“I left late last night to look into everything to understand what I’m struggling with, what’s not clicking – trying to figure out what’s changed from last year to this year. Is it me? Is it some of the car? It’s complicated and I’m just lost at the moment.”

RUSSELL SHOWS HIS METAL GEORGE RUSSELL was the only real rival McLaren had all weekend, as even an upgraded floor on the Ferrari SF-25 didn’t make the red car the second quickest in the field.

The English driver was actually second-fastest in qualifying but dropped to third after both Mercedes were penalised by a team procedural mistake – but got Leclerc at the start and was never seriously challenged again.

Verstappen only made it to Q3 by 0.226s and then qualified in seventh place, almost 0.6s behind Piastri.

Things didn’t get better in the race, the RB21 feeling terrible on the Hard tyres – so bad that Verstappen brought forward his final stop to swap for Mediums and, with the SC helping, jumped Ocon and closed on Gasly, pipping the Alpine driver for sixth place on the final lap.

A surprisingly calm Verstappen confessed that “I didn’t expect the race that I had, because everything went wrong what could go wrong. That probably made it a little bit worse. But I think the position where I finished was, at the end of the day, the maximum that we could have done.”

The Dutchman complained of poor brakes throughout the weekend, explaining that, “the problem is not only the feeling in the brakes, which is still not where I want it to be, but also our tyres are just overheating. So when I’m braking, there’s no feeling, because it’s super easy to lock fronts or rears at the same time.”

The main problem for him, though, was “the lack of balance, which is highlighted even more on this track. When you have no balance and worse tyre management than the others, then, on this track, it’s worse.”

To compound his issues, the electronic release system for the pit stops didn’t work for the entire race, so both RB drivers lost precious seconds – and track positions – in the pits.

The Japanese, however, showed he can run much closer to Verstappen than Lawson could in the first two races, securing a place in Q3 and then scoring his first two points as a Red Bull driver with ninth place, finishing the race just 10s behind the Dutchman.

A brave attempt to pass Piastri at the restart was never going to work but Russell managed a great feat by making a set of Soft tyres last 24 laps on this rough tarmac.

What seemed a safe P2, though, nearly went away when systems started to fail on his W16. Russell said that “it felt all under control for a moment and then suddenly we had a brake-by-wire failure. Suddenly the pedal was going long, and then it was going short ... I didn’t know what was going on. The steering wheel wasn’t working properly, so it was really hardfought to keep Lando behind. I think one more lap … he would have got me pretty comfortably.”

Russell escaped a post-race penalty after inadvertently activating the DRS when he wasn’t close enough to the car in front, explaining that “we were having all sorts of failures and basically we authorised to override the DRS. On

one lap I clicked the radio button and the DRS opened, so I straightaway closed it again, backed off – nothing gained. I lost more than I gained – it was only open for a split second, so I’m happy there was no penalty.”

FERRARI’S LITTLE STEPS PAYING OFF

EVEN THOUGH there was no Ferrari driver on the podium, Leclerc was actually closer to the other Piastrichasers than in previous races. The Scuderia was the only team that stuck to the plan of running two sets of Mediums and one set of Hards in the race and it was making it work, until the Safety Car was sent out.

A longer first stint, on a harder tyre, offset Leclerc and Hamilton’s strategies and they both made important gains in the second stint, on much fresher Medium tyres than their rivals. But the Safety Car killed

any chances of Ferrari trying to go for a short final stint on Softs. What worked for Russell was, from Leclerc’s point of view, “not possible for us,” and on softer tyres Norris managed to grab the final podium place from the Monegasque with five laps to go.

The Ferrari driver admitted that “the pace was just missing and when the pace is missing, whatever strategy you do, you’re always on the wrong side of things. We are just not fast enough.”

Elaborating further, Leclerc explained that “we just need more overall downforce, more grip. I think with the balance we are extracting the maximum out of the car, but there’s just nothing more. In qualifying I still feel like we can hide that a little bit by doing a few tricks, but in the race, no grip is no grip and it’s more degradation. So, it’s a snowball effect once you’re in the race.”

Downbeat after being only ninth in qualifying, Hamilton’s strong second stint allowed him to gain quite a few positions. The veteran finished in fifth place, just 8.3s behind his team-mate, a much stronger performance than the week before in Suzuka.

Still unsure of how to extract the maximum out of his Ferrari, Hamilton was happy that, “in the second stint the car suddenly came alive, the balance was there and working with my driving style – but we’ve not yet hit out sweet spot.”

Nevertheless, a more confident Hamilton vowed that “I will now

apply the techniques that I felt were starting to work this weekend,” while admitting that “as a team, we still have got a lot to do because, at the moment, we’re simply not quick enough.”

GASLY BOOSTS

ALPINE’S

MORALE

PIERRE GASLY and Alpine were the surprise package of the Bahrain weekend, the Frenchman comfortably leading the midfield in qualifying and the race.

The pace of the A525 in the second sector was outstanding and, even lacking in engine power, the Frenchman held Max Verstappen until the last lap before being passed by the Dutchman.

Having missed out on important points in Melbourne, when the team didn’t make the best call when the weather changed, Gasly finally opened his account with a pretty solid weekend on the same track

where, 12 months earlier, Ocon and he had been dead last all weekend. A great turnaround by the team – Jack Doohan also did his bit, the young Australian qualifying 11th and running inside the points for most of the race. As for Gasly, the SC came at the worst possible time for Doohan and, lacking pace on the Hard tyres, he dropped outside the points.

That helped Haas get an unlikely double points finish, with Ocon recovering from a heavy impact in Q2 to finish eighth. And with Bearman in P10, the American team had quite a bit to celebrate on Sunday night.

Piastri led into Turn 1 and that was that ... Norris made a blinder of a start, but had lined up outside of his grid box ... Below: Papaya happiness is ... Opposite (top) Verstappen finds himself leading a mid-field scrum ... Below: Gasly –again – excelled in the Alpine.

1985: MOFFAT LEFT HIGH AND DRY BY MAZDA

“HAVING GONE through an extensive exercise to assess the likely success of a Group A Touring Car program, Mazda has announced that it will no longer be competing on Australian racing circuits.”

The withdrawal, coming as it did, well into the first year of Group A racing in Australia, left former team leader Allan Moffat without a 1985 racing program – and precious little time to organise any meaningful alternative.

The current Endurance Champion and former Touring Car title holder had expressed publicly as recently as four weeks earlier the hope that his long and successful association with Mazda would continue –but after nearly six months looking at the viability of a Mazda 929 racing program, the decision-makers at Mazda Australia (GWA Motors) decided that the car would not be competitive enough to justify the huge investment required to turn it into a racer.

While it was thought that Moffat Mazda were evaluating a turbo-rotary powered 929,

1975

It was six months late but Tony Farrell’s victory in the 3L Class of the 1974 Hardie Ferodo 1000 was finally confirmed.

Farrell won an appeal heard before the Australian Motor Sports Appeal Court that concerned the legality of his Mazda Racing Team RX3.

It took so long to organise owing to the difficulty of getting the necessary persons together on the same date.

Farrell won his class in every one of the five ATCC races in 1974. All the drama surrounding the Mazda,concerned the necessary cutting of the half shafts in order to make the limited slip differential operate properly.

it transpires that Moffat’s men were also looking into a normally-aspirated, single overhead camshaft engine.

In the words of Moffat Mazda’s Allan Horsley, “the power to weight equation was not good Moffat has now retired to the seclusion of his Toorak team headquarters to ponder the immediate future.”

Although Moffat wasn’t saying anything at the time, it seems as though one or two approaches had been received. As AA concluded, It would indeed seem a little strange if someone with Moffat’s extensive experience and talent had to sit out the James Hardie 1000

Meanwhile, the immediate future for Moffat’s 1984 team-mate, Gregg Hansford, looked a little rosier. Having withdrawn from circuit racing, Mazda spared little time in announcing that it would be putting its weight behind Hansford’s attempt on the Australian Rally Championship with a Group G Mazda RX-7.

1995

A parity standoff between Holden and Ford led the latter to say “back off” to its rival.

2005

After Ford swept the podium at Phillip Island, Holden Motorsport Manager John Stevenson wrote to TEGA requesting the issue of parity to be addressed.

But Ford’s Motorsport Manager Greg Harbutt believed there was no case to answer.

“At this stage the race score is four wins each for Ford and Holden,” he said.

“I would defy anyone to mount a conclusive argument that the Falcon has a performance advantage because you cannot get much more even than that.”

2015

Supercars made its annual trip to New Zealand where Pukekohe produced some carnage.

Brad Jones came off second best in a clash with nephew Andrew Jones that saw the BJR veteran barrel rolling. But that was not the most horrifying smash, with Paul Dumbrell charged for an infamously fast main straight crash.

As Baird lifted off to avoid contact ahead, Dumbrell tried to pass and contact sent both cars onto a high-speed collision course with Baird going in backwards and just missing a marshal post at 200km/h.

But the home fans were in delirium as favourite son Greg Murphy took his last Pukokohe win, in the dark.

With Gen2 incoming, Auto Action envisaged how to improve V8 Supercars for the future and these were some of the suggestios:.

The first suggestion was the calendar, where 15 events from February to December was tallied.

AA hoped to keep the races, but fix the gaps with five and more weeks between events in 2015, saving the Winton and Phillip Island rounds for the warmer months, and targetting a mooted trip to Asia in the winter. Later that year Supercars did do a demo run in Malaysia.

Tyres were the biggest item on the agenda with the then current Hard tyres not popular, while bringing numbers back on the doors was also hoped for ...