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FORMULA 1 • SPORTSCARS • TOURING CARS • NASCAR • INDYCAR • RALLYING • NATIONAL RACING & MORE

MARCH 15 2012 • AUTOSPORT.COM

F1 2012 IS

GO! GO! GO!

McLAREN TARGETS

N O S JWEhatN went so right? how Mark Hughes revealsn’s #1 re La Mc e m ca he be

RED BULL Vettel to face fresh attack in Melbourne qualifying duel

DC: “I think Kimi could spring the surprise of the year”

PLUS Rally Mexico report Sebring 12 Hours preview Monza WTCC opener

Exclusive Interview

Danica’s dark days in England

WIN! VIP TRIP TO THE SINGAPORE GP

CONTENTS March 15 2012 – vol 207 no 11 “At least I can beat him at badminton. It’s easy – every time”

Up-to-the-minute news and reports from F1, WRC and more. Subscribe for must-read opinion, stats and images

COVER IMAGE: HOCH ZWEI/ McLAREN INSETS: DUNBAR, STALEY/LAT, SQUIRE/GETTY

FEATURES & REPORTS

COVER STORY

FORMER WORLD CHAMPION KIMI RAIKKONEN DECLARES HIS SUPERIORITY OVER SEBASTIAN VETTEL IN ONE SPORT AT LEAST – NOW HOW ABOUT ON THE TRACK THIS WEEKEND?

36

Minutes taken to complete ‘marathon’ Guanajuatito stage on Rally Mexico. Teams and drivers felt the event was too long, and the expense could force runners out. News on p30; report p52

SUBSCRIBE... to AUTOSPORT and get a free McLaren cap P82

Button growing ever stronger, p32

32 Jenson Button We all thought the 2009 champ was going into the lion’s den at McLaren… We were all wrong 38 Melbourne madness Australia’s season opener has a habit of springing surprises.

Here’s what to look out for

42 Danica Patrick America’s racing postergirl earned her spurs the hard way 46 World of Sport NASCAR; Auto GP; TC2000 52 Rally Mexico Multiple champion (Loeb) from Alsace dominates

56 WTCC Monza Multiple champion (Muller) from Alsace dominates 58 World Endurance Championship preview Top-level FIA prototype racing is back, and kicks off with the Sebring 12 Hours this weekend

REGULARS

NEWS

5 From the editor 6 Snapshot 23 Mark Hughes column 82 Subscribe for a free gift 88 Final drive Letters and latest gear

90 On track/on screen The best action in the next week 93 From the archive Alain Prost wins European F3 title 94 Race of my life Steve Nichols, ’84 Portuguese GP

SPORTS EXTRA

PICS: HOCH ZWEI/McLAREN, MICK WALKER

DeltaWing with Nissan, p27

8 McLaren’s qualifying quest Team must take attack to Red Bull on Saturdays to win title 10 F1’s state of play The risers and fallers on F1 eve 12 The final questions What we will learn in Melbourne 15 This week in Formula 1 From Kubica to… Maria de Villota 16 Australian GP preview 21 David Coulthard column

24 IndyCar Texas rumpus Drivers speak out about lack of downforce; circuit boss gets angry 26 Path plotted in GT1 salvation Ratel reveals future of world series as Ford, Aston and Porsche join in 29 Jordan up for BTCC challenge Tin-top youngster raves at Honda 30 More means less in WRC Longer Rally Mexico is unpopular with drivers and teams

79 Monte historics to thrill Merzario joins Monaco drivers, as F3 enjoys huge entry 80 Nissan squad for Brit GT GT-R racer joins the fray with

Porsche Carrera Cup refugee Benji Hetherington 84 Track test: 50s Sportscars Sampling FISCAR’s historic delights at Donington Elite, Healey, Aston gorgeousness, p84

March 15 2012 autosport.com 3

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POLE POSITION

It’s time to banish those Formula 1 winter blues

THE WAITING IS FINALLY OVER – WELL, almost. Tomorrow morning (Friday) in Melbourne we get to see F1 2012 in anger, the stars running against the clock to fine-tune their cars ahead of qualifying on Saturday and the race on Sunday.

And we’ll get some answers to the big question: who’s got what it takes to topple Red Bull?

Obviously McLaren is the first in that queue.

If testing told us anything, it’s that the MP4-27 looks a very solid proposition in race trim. The unknown is its out-and-out pace compared with the RB8, and we’ll only get that answer in Q3. And what of Ferrari? Will its unloved F2012 be jumped by Mercedes? Lotus? Force India even?

Unless you’re a Sky subscriber (or know of a pub that opens very early) you won’t be able to watch any of this live on TV in the UK. The BBC1 highlights run from 1400-1600, so if you’ve elected not to (or simply don’t wish to) pay for the privilege, I can only recommend a very long, and CHARLES BRADLEY EDITOR charles.bradley@haymarket.com very quiet, Sunday lie-in.

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RALLY MEXICO

90-left into 90-right – past skeleton, obviously Portugal’s Armindo Araujo negotiates the spookily-painted cobbled mining tunnels of Guanajuato – that formed the opening special stage – on his way to seventh place on Rally Mexico in his Mini John Cooper WRC. Full report, p52.

Pic: McKlein.de

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SNAPSHOT PIT & PADDOCK

COVER STORY

New car must take the fight to Sebastian Vettel on Saturday. By EDD STRAW

T

his Saturday’s Australian Grand Prix qualifying session will be the litmus test as to whether McLaren’s new MP4-27 will allow Jenson Button or Lewis Hamilton to topple Red Bull’s Sebastian Vettel in this year’s Formula 1 World Championship.

The team is confident that it is a match for Red Bull over a race distance. Although testing hints that the McLaren lags behind on qualifying pace, neither squad has attempted a full-blown qualifying simulation, meaning that Saturday afternoon will be the first time that the top teams have gone toe to toe in true minimum-fuel trim.

Last year’s McLaren MP4-26 often had Red Bull-beating pace in races but, with McLaren pipping 8 autosport.com March 15 2012

Red Bull to just one pole position all season, Vettel usually had the advantage of controlling grands prix from the front.

Much will depend on the progress McLaren can make in the Melbourne free practice sessions.

Although upgrades introduced on the penultimate day of the final Barcelona test worked well, the team was unable to fine-tune the new package because of hydraulic problems.

The Albert Park track is likely to suit the characteristics of the Red Bull RB8, which is particularly strong in the slower corners relative to McLaren. That means that if Hamilton and Button can at least run Vettel close in qualifying, it bodes well for the

team’s competitiveness over the season, especially with long runs in testing looking promising.

McLaren team principal Martin Whitmarsh said: “Race simulations and longer runs give a better indication of where teams are than headline lap times at the end of each day. Based upon that, we feel that we are competitive. It may be that people are sandbagging, but ourselves and Red Bull didn’t do any proper qualifying simulations.”

LOW NOSE DEFENDED

There has been a great deal of attention on McLaren persevering with its low-nose concept, reducing the potential for accelerating the airflow under the front of the chassis.

But during the second half of the Barcelona test, McLaren tried out underbody aerodynamic modifications similar to those used by teams with high chassis.

This surprised AUTOSPORT technical correspondent Gary Anderson, who said: “Last year, people started putting the onboard cameras down low behind the centre section of the front wing to make this area into a slight downforce-producing device, combined with vertical turning vanes at the nose-to-chassis interface to accelerate that air.

“McLaren has now gone down this route, which is designed to drag the air through the front-wing central section to the leading edge of the sidepods as fast as possible.

This system works far better when you have the maximum chassis height, because it allows you to make these turning vanes taller, giving bigger gains in this area.”

Whitmarsh insists that the modifications to McLaren’s nose and splitter section are not an admission that the concept is wrong, and cites the requirement to maximise rear downforce even with an orthodox nose height.

“We removed the under-nose

PICS: DUNBAR, COATES, FERRARO, HONE, ETHERINGTON/LAT

McLaren hopes hinge on Aussie qualifying

Flanking Vettel is not enough for McLaren

NEWS PIT & PADDOCK

Hamilton likes ‘wicked’ mirrors

→ BUTTON’S BRILLIANCE P32 “Race simulations give a better indication. Based on that, we feel competitive” McLaren principal Martin Whitmarsh

splitter, which probably enhances the efficiency of the rear end,” he said. “If we get a lot of downforce at the rear end then we may go back the other way, but where we are in the development cycle suggests that this route is beneficial.”

McLaren is set to run this design in Melbourne this weekend.

New McLaren has ‘Lewis’ mirrors

MERCEDES WILD CARD

Mercedes appears to be the wild card for this weekend after focusing on higher-fuel running during the Barcelona tests.

Although this means that its lap times did not grab any headlines, sources inside the team indicate that confidence is very high that the F1 W03 could be close to, or even on a par with, McLaren.

McLaren has been on the pace in tests

McLaren’s Lewis Hamilton is confident there will be no repeat of the collisions that marred his 2011 campaign thanks to modified mirror positions.

In an interview that ran on the BBC F1 website, Hamilton revealed that the positioning of his mirrors is vastly improved.

“I’ve done a lot of work with my team to make sure that my mirrors are better this year and they are; they’re wicked,” said Hamilton. “We came back here [to McLaren’s Woking base] at the end of last year, they put Jenson’s car behind and I sat in my car and had to position my mirrors where I would like them.

“They said these were going to be less efficient aerodynamically and said they’d try it. It was actually neutral [in terms of aerodynamic effect].

“The mirrors are in a different position. They’re a bit higher so they look down on top of peoples’ cockpits, which is much better.”

The 2008 world champion has moved to Monaco over the winter and is confident that he is “more relaxed and ready for the new season than ever”.

Team principal Ross Brawn is publicly upbeat about progress, although warns that he expects a raft of upgrades from other teams to appear in Melbourne.

“Some of the race runs look good and some don’t look so good,” he said. “I suspect the cars will change before we get to Melbourne.”

AUTOSPORT SAYS… EDD STRAW F1 EDITOR

edd.straw @haymarket.com

P

laying catch-up in Formula 1 is more difficult than it sounds. Even if you can successfully adopt an ‘aggressive’ upgrade programme, ground lost in the early stages of a championship is tough to make up.

In part, that’s because it’s rare for a team that starts strongly to fade, which makes it tricky to take big chunks out of a points advantage. But more importantly, if you take an early lead, you can afford to take fewer risks as the year progresses.

If you’re not convinced, take a look at Jenson Button in 2009. After banking six wins in the first seven races and establishing a lead of 26 points, he embarked on a run of just two podiums in the remaining 10 races.

Yet come the end of the season, that advantage had been cut by just 15 points, an average loss of 1.5 per race.

With reliability better than ever, it’s rare to be able to cut vast swathes out of the leader Button couldn’t be in a single race. caught in 2009 A few points here and there aren’t a major problem, but as soon as the gap stretches beyond a win in the drivers’ race, or a double-podium in constructors’, the chasing pack is on the back foot.

That’s why what happens over the next few weekends matters. Forget the rhetoric of it being a marathon, not a sprint. It’s a sprint throughout all 20 races and if you can stretch your legs early on, it makes it far easier to pace yourself through the rest of the campaign.

“

QUOTE OF THE WEEK The bad news is we don’t look dominant.

The good news is that no-one else does either” McLaren team principal Martin Whitmarsh goes about as far as anyone is prepared to with his prediction for the season opener this weekend

March 15 2012 autosport.com 9

F1 2012 TESTING REPORT CARD On the eve of the Australian GP in Melbourne, we review and rate each team’s pre-season testing – based on progress relative to expectations, not on outright pace compared to rivals

RED BULL

9/10

Total mileage: Best Barcelona time:

2674 miles (8th) 1m22.662s (9th)

Vettel: strong, but no ‘headline’ lap times

Straight out of the box, the Red Bull RB8 has looked like the car to beat. That said, a few reliability problems and the fact that the field is so tightly bunched means that the Milton Keynes team can’t be regarded as a dead cert to win this weekend in Melbourne. A major upgrade package, featuring a modified rear end, appeared to give the team a significant downforce boost during the final test and seems to have kept Red Bull out front.

The only black cloud on the horizon is the fact that many of its live pitstops were slower than hoped.

McLAREN

8/10

Total mileage: Best Barcelona time:

2978 miles (4th) 1m22.103s (3rd)

After last year’s disastrous winter testing, McLaren has been a far happier ship in 2012. Its car worked well out of the box and from the second test appeared to have the better of Red Bull in the fastest corners, suggesting that its peak downforce was comparable to that of the reigning world champion team. The question is, does the MP4-27 have the qualifying pace to get it to the front, enabling it to unleash its race pace to the best effect?

FERRARI Total mileage: Best Barcelona time:

4/10 3105 miles (2nd) 1m22.250s (5th) Struggle for Alonso and Ferrari?

MERCEDES Total mileage: Best Barcelona time:

Button cocks a wheel in the McLaren

It was clear from the first day of the Jerez test that all was not well with the new ‘aggressive’ Ferrari.

The team couldn’t find a set-up that worked and the F2012 was uncertain on turn-in, lacked grip and handled inconsistently. While these problems were ameliorated as testing progressed, the fundamental handling concerns remained and were thrown into sharp relief by the toll that such an imbalance took on tyres over a stint. A new, less aggressive exhaust package was introduced after the initial design caused rear-tyre overheating problems. But the team remains confident that the original design has potential and will run it again in May’s Mugello test with a view to then racing it.

Raikkonen has shaken the rust away

LOTUS Total mileage: Best Barcelona time:

5/10 2176 miles (10th) 1m22.030s (1st)

8/10 2414 miles (9th) 1m22.932s (10th)

The combination of unobtrusive lap times and quiet confidence from the Brackley team tells its own story, especially after successfully gambling on a late start.

On the subject of the Mercedes F1 W03 being a racewinning car, team principal Ross Brawn said: “I have not seen anything that tells me that it shouldn’t be.”

The only question marks are over tyre wear, but there are those in the team who reckon that the car may be strong enough to be Red Bull’s biggest challenger.

Rosberg and Merc: dark horses for 2012

In many ways, the team made great progress with the Lotus E20 and, while Kimi Raikkonen’s and Romain Grosjean’s regular appearances in the environs of the top of the timesheets are illusory, the ex-Renault team has certainly recovered. But you can’t overlook the fact that the carbonfibre mounting points for the upper-front-wishbone rear arm weren’t strong enough, forcing it to miss the second test. Lotus caught up on its work in the final test after replacing the mounts with aluminium ones, gaining an extra 1kg of weight, but has admitted that this was a serious setback.

NEWS PIT & PADDOCK

FORCE INDIA Total mileage: Best Barcelona time:

SAUBER

8/10 2976 miles (5th) 1m22.312s (7th)

The VJM05 is something of a dark horse after winter testing, with its strong start in the Jerez test showing the car’s fundamental place and allowing the team to focus on detail work from there on. It’s hard to see the Force India breaking into the top four, but being best of the rest and snapping at the heels of the leading pack is very much on the cards.

Total mileage: Best Barcelona time:

Di Resta encouraging with Force India

Total mileage: Best Barcelona time:

Senna in a Williams: progress is improving

3058 miles (3rd) 1m22.094s (2nd)

Sauber has flattered to deceive on lap times, but it seems that the Swiss squad has produced a very tidy, potentially regular points-scoring machine.

Reliability has also been strong, making for a very solid, typically Sauber winter programme.

TORO ROSSO

Vergne gets set for his F1 debut

7/10

Perez: you don’t a race on one stop like that

7/10

2815 miles (6th) 1m22.155s (4th)

Pre-season testing has been quietly effective for the Faenza team, both drivers reporting an improvement in grip as running went on. The car still appears a little oversteery in the fast stuff, which could make tyre wear a problem, but all the signs are that Toro Rosso will be in the thick of the pack.

Karthikeyan: likely back-of-grid fodder…

HRT

0/10

Total mileage: Best Barcelona time:

0 miles N/A

The HRT F112 finally ran for the first time on a filming day on March 5, meaning that what appears to be a tidy, if pretty basic, car has had almost no meaningful track time.

WILLIAMS

PICS: DUNBAR, FERRARO, HONE/LAT, HRT, THOMPSON/GILHAM/GETTY

Total mileage: Best Barcelona time:

7/10 3311 miles (1st) 1m22.296s (6th)

Things didn’t look great in the first test, but the calm, methodical approach instilled by chief operations engineer Mark Gillan appears to have paid dividends.

It’s vastly improved in slow corners, albeit a little behind in quicker ones. One-lap speed isn’t spectacular, but FW34 looks a competitive midfielder on race pace.

CATERHAM Total mileage: Best Barcelona time:

6/10

…as is Glock in third year with Marussia

2812 miles (7th) 1m22.614s (8th)

Confidence was high that the team would be able to join the midfield, and certainly Caterham appears to have latched onto that group. Despite that optimism, the car continues to look tricky to drive and is likely still at the back of that fight. Progress, but perhaps not as much as would have been hoped.

MARUSSIA Total mileage: Best Barcelona time:

Can Caterham (and Petrov) graduate to midfield?

0/10 0 miles N/A

It was a winter of setbacks for the former Virgin team, which has now relocated to Banbury in ‘motorsport valley’. Plans to run in the Barcelona tests were ditched and last week’s filming day at Silverstone is the only running that the MR01, which has now passed all its crash tests, has managed.

March 15 2012 autosport.com 11

AUSSIE GP

BIG QUESTIONS The ‘winter F1 championship’ of pre-season testing posed as many questions as it answered. In Melbourne this weekend we’ll finally get something solid to go on.

Here are the big questions, and our best predictions…

IS RED BULL REALLY ON TOP? All the signs in pre-season testing point to the Milton Keynes squad still having the best car.

Certainly, McLaren, Mercedes and Ferrari haven’t been backward in coming forward to hail Red Bull as the team to beat, but that’s not to say that the RB8 is a shoo-in to dominate. The team had a few difficulties with its new package in the final Barcelona test, but team principal Christian Horner has confirmed that rumours it would revert to its pre-final-upgrade spec are wide of the mark.

PREDICTION: The evidence so far suggests that Vettel is favourite for pole position.

Whether he can match last year’s pole margin of 0.778s is another question.

McLaren and Merc plan to be closer to Red Bull

RETURN OF SOME PRODIGAL SONS

HOW MANY STOPS?

Some teams were flapping about the need for as many as five tyre stops had a race been held in conditions experienced at the Barcelona tests. It was a similar story last year, but inevitably there’s still great uncertainty over the number of pitstops we will see this weekend. More than three is unlikely, but the curveball is that drivers must be very cautious with their rubber on out-laps, as pushing those Pirellis too much can have a big impact on longevity.

There are only two true rookies on the grid this year – Charles Pic and Jean-Eric Vergne – but far more interesting are the clutch of F1 comeback kids.

While Kimi Raikkonen has stolen the headlines, His Lotus team-mate Romain Grosjean and Force India’s Nico Hulkenberg come back onto the grand prix grid after time on the sidelines. What’s more, all three are in cars that will be in contention for strong points finishes, making the scrap between the trio all the more compelling. The same cannot be said for Pedro de la Rosa, who is back in the field for backmarker HRT after making a single stand-in appearance for Sauber last year.

PREDICTION: Lotus appears to have the superior car to Force India, but only just. And Raikkonen will have to be bang on his game to hold off Grosjean, who is set to show those who wrote him off in 2009 a thing or two.

12 autosport.com March 15 2012

PREDICTION: Last year we saw mostly two and three-stop strategies, so expect a similar story this year for most.

These guys shouldn’t be overworked

Raikkonen and Grosjean are intriguing combo

NEWS PIT & PADDOCK HRT will want to be allowed out of the garage on Sunday

CAN THE BACKMARKERS CUT IT? Marussia and HRT packed up to head to Australia having only sampled their new cars briefly during filming days. The de facto ban on exhaust-blown diffusers should have pulled the pacesetters back, meaning that making the 107 per cent cut-off will be that bit easier. But even if they do that, it’s a big ask for either team to be expected to make the finish in cars that have barely turned a wheel.

PREDICTION: As long as the cars run cleanly, both have drivers capable of turning a reasonable lap time so qualifying should be do-able. Getting a car to the finish would be a bonus.

WILL DRIVING STANDARDS BE A PROBLEM? Article 20.3 of the sporting regulations dictates that “any driver moving back towards the racing line, having earlier defended his position off-line, should leave at least one car width between his own car and the edge of the track on the approach to the corner.”

This is to stop the kind of robust defending that Michael Schumacher mounted against Lewis Hamilton at Monza last year, but it’s only a matter of time before the first serious test case.

Tight midfield could hunt down Ferrari

PICS: DUNBAR, FERRARO, COATES/LAT

HOW CLOSE IS THE MIDFIELD? During the final pre-season test, less than one second covered the fastest lap times of the teams.

While it’s fanciful to expect this spread not to be stretched come qualifying, it’s clearly extremely close in the mid-pack. And that group itself is closer to the pacesetters this year, thanks in part to the change in exhaust regulations.

PREDICTION: Impossible to call until qualifying, but expect there to be a very fine margin between falling in Q1 and making Q3, which will put even more pressure on the drivers to deliver.

WILL THERE BE AN EXHAUST ROW? For months the talk has been of potential protests and arguments over the regulations designed to outlaw exhaust-blown diffusers. There has been an enormous amount of to-ing and fro-ing between the teams and the FIA since the new cars hit the track. The situation isn’t helped by the fact that the technical regulations are supplemented by a series of technical directives, leaving plenty of room for teams to push the intended rules to their limits.

PREDICTION: It seems that most of the arguing has run its course, but don’t count out a new design or a fresh argument in Melbourne.

PREDICTION: It might not come in Melbourne, but there’s going to be some serious controversy surrounding this one and everybody’s interpretation of just what represents a car width.

Drivers will have to take care in defence

March 15 2012 autosport.com 13

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NEWS PIT & PADDOCK

THIS WEEK IN F1

WOMEN IN THE FORMULA 1 WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP MARIA TERESA DE FILIPPIS

(1958-1959) Nationality: Entries: Starts: Best finish: Best qualifying: Points:

Italian 5 3 10th 15th 0

LELLA LOMBARDI (1974-1976)

De Villota lands F1 test chance

Former Superleague Formula racer Maria de Villota will drive for Marussia in the rookie-driver test in Abu Dhabi in November after joining the team as a tester. The 32-year-old is hoping one day to become the sixth woman to attempt to qualify for a world championship Formula 1 race.

PURE HEADS TO COLOGNE The PURE engine company, headed by Craig Pollock, is on the verge of moving into the Toyota Motorsport facility in Cologne. Pollock (left) told AUTOSPORT: “They’ve got the absolute best test benches in the world for an F1 engine. They are the most up-to-date – it was logical to go down that road; we should be ready to be on the bench at the end of July.”

Rossi joins Caterham American Alex Rossi has been appointed as Caterham’s second test driver, alongside Giedo van der Garde. He will participate in several Friday practice sessions in 2012 as part of his role, although his main focus will be on his Formula Renault 3.5 campaign with Arden.

Nationality: Entries: Starts: Best finish: Best qualifying: Points:

Italian 17 12 6th 21st 0.5

DIVINA GALICA (1976-1978)

Nationality: Entries: Starts:

British 3 0

DESIRE WILSON (1980)

Nationality: Entries: Starts:

South African 1 0

GIOVANNA AMATI (1992)

Nationality: Entries: Starts:

Italian 3 0

KUBICA BACK BEHIND THE WHEEL Williams in profit

Barcelona and Valencia will share the Spanish Grand Prix from next season onwards for cost-saving reasons.

Bernie Ecclestone told Spanish radio station Cadena Ser: “Both Valencia and Barcelona have agreed that the best way is to alternate and now we are trying to choose the dates.”

It is understood that Barcelona is likely to hold the race next year, although this has yet to be finalised.

6/4 Odds of Sebastian Vettel getting his 2012 off to a winning start in Melbourne, according to Ladbrokes

Williams has announced that its group profits climbed from £6 million in 2010 to £7.8m last year. The Williams Group turnover has climbed to £102.3m, an increase from £90.8m the year before.

“

Let’s hope we can do like Italy at the 1982 football world cup: colourless friendly games, three draws in the first three proper games, and then the title

An optimistic Stefano Domenicali fails to realise the subtle differences between football and Formula 1

March 15 2012 autosport.com 15

PICS: LAT/GETTY

SPANISH RACES SET FOR SHARING DEAL

“

Robert Kubica has driven a rally car for the first since the horrific accident in which he almost lost his right hand. Kubica tested his own ex-works Skoda Fabia WRC on Thursday March 8 on an asphalt stage close to Rovegno in northern Italy.

A source in Italy said: “This is the first time Robert has driven a competition car since the accident, which actually happened not far from where he tested his Skoda last week. He ran in the car for a while and looked to be enjoying himself. It was good to see him back in a car again.”

AUSTRALIAN GP PREVIEW

FACTS, STATS, TRACK GUIDE, TV LISTINGS AND MORE

Albert Park: a street track with a difference

Melbourne: more than just a grand prix The Australian city’s Albert Park venue kick-starts the Formula 1 season with its unique layout and support act

T

he Australian Grand Prix in Melbourne is one of the true ‘event’ races on the Formula 1 calendar. While some tracks struggle to attract even a smattering of spectators, Albert Park is the focal point of a four-day festival of motorsport with a packed support programme, including the mighty V8 Supercars, that sets it apart.

While still seen as a relatively new F1 venue – the track held its first world championship race at the start of the 1996 season – Albert Park can trace its Australian GP lineage all the way back to 1956, when Stirling Moss won the race 16 autosport.com March 15 2011

on a track that shares some of the same lakeside roads with the current configuration, despite running anti-clockwise.

The track is made up of public roads, with plenty of unforgiving walls and, although the layout itself isn’t the most challenging on the calendar, many a top driver has been known to have a big shunt here. The margin between success and failure can be tiny; just check out the onboard feed of Sebastian Vettel’s massively committed pole lap of 2011 to get an idea of just how on edge you have to be to get the best out of the car here.

→ P18

TRACK GUIDE AND GARY ANDERSON’S AUTOSPORT SUPERGRID

Vettel is bidding for backto-back Melbourne wins

Big-banger Aussie V8s are a popular supporting act

F1 PREVIEW AUSTRALIAN GP

Winning teams in Oz

Winning drivers

Ferrari 6

4 2 2 David Coulthard

Michael Schumacher

McLaren 5

Jenson Button

Damon Hill 1, Mika Hakkinen 1, Eddie Irvine 1, Giancarlo Fisichella 1, Fernando Alonso 1, Kimi Raikkonen 1, Lewis Hamilton 1, Sebastian Vettel 1

Races at Albert Park (Melbourne): 16

Renault 2

12.125 AVERAGE NUMBER OF FINISHERS

Williams 1 WET RACES: 1

Average winning margin: 10.567s Biggest: 38.020s (1996); smallest: 0.702s (1998)

Brawn 1

12

Red Bull 1

safety cars

PICS: TEE. FERRARO/LAT

AUSTRALIAN GP TV AND RADIO LISTINGS ■ FRIDAY MARCH 16 0100-0315 Free practice 1 LIVE (Sky Sports F1) 0125-0300 Free practice 1 LIVE (BBC Radio 5 Live SX)

■ SATURDAY MARCH 17 0300-0410 Free practice 3 LIVE (Sky Sports F1) 0255-0400 Free practice 3 LIVE (BBC Radio 5 Live SX)

0515-0700 Free practice 2 LIVE (Sky Sports F1) 0525-0700 Free practice 2 LIVE (BBC Radio 5 Live SX)

0500-0730 Qualifying LIVE (Sky Sports F1) 0555-0710 Qualifying LIVE (BBC Radio 5 Live)

1300-1415 Qualifying replay (BBC2) ■ SUNDAY MARCH 18 0430-0900 Grand Prix LIVE (Sky Sports F1) 0530-0715 Grand Prix LIVE (BBC Radio 5 Live) 1400-1600, 2300-0100 Grand Prix replay (BBC1)

■ MONDAY MARCH 19 1700-1830 Grand Prix highlights (Sky Sports F1)

ONLINE COVERAGE AUTOSPORT.com will bring you up-to-the-minute coverage of every race weekend from our team of reporters in the paddock. Look out for improved PLUS features and live commentary, too.

March 15 2011 autosport.com 17

GARY ANDERSON’S

SUPERGRID

Vergne 101.617

Ricciardo 101.000

AUTOSPORT technical correspondent Gary Anderson has compiled a testing index, created by taking each driver’s percentage deficit (on the days he ran) to the outright pace and creating an average for all 12 days. This graphic shows each driver’s average compared to the theoretical absolute pace, which is expressed as 100.

Schumacher 101.744

Vettel 101.044

Button 101.383 Rosberg 101.044

Grosjean 100.530 Alonso 101.096

di Resta 101.488

100% Hulkenberg 100.699 Don’t expect Romain Grosjean to be on pole in Australia, as most of the top teams have only worked on race simulations in testing.

Kobayashi 101.114

Perez 101.232 Raikkonen 101.534 Hamilton 101.249 The relative positions of team-mates offer a hint of how each team went about its pre-season preparation.

Some gave both drivers similar programmes, others split the work.

Webber 101.313

FLASHBACK

PICS: FERRARO, COATES/LAT

VETTEL STARTS WITH A BANG Sebastian Vettel controlled the 2011 Australian Grand Prix from start to finish to kick off his title defence with a comfortable victory ahead of Lewis Hamilton. The McLaren man settled for second as he nursed a damaged undertray in the closing stages, while Vitaly Petrov beat Fernando Alonso and Mark Webber to the final podium slot.

TYRE ALLOCATION

SUPER SOFT SOFT MEDIUM

PODIUM FINISHERS POS DRIVER

1 2 3

18 autosport.com March 15 2012

Sebastian Vettel (Red Bull) Lewis Hamilton (McLaren) Vitaly Petrov (Renault)

HARD

TYRES USED THIS WEEKEND

F1 PREVIEW AUSTRALIAN GP

As the top teams have not shown their true pace yet, the spread of the ямБeld is much closer (103%) than it will be this weekend in qualifying.

104%

Petrov 103.161 Massa 102.072

Senna 102.144

Kovalainen 103.212

Maldonado 102.367

TRACK GUIDE

NUMBER OF LAPS 58 CIRCUIT LENGTH 3.295 MILES LAP RECORD 1:24.125 - M SCHUMACHER (2004) UK START TIME 6AM

SECTOR 1 FASTEST CORNER TURN 11 160MPH 6TH GEAR 4.0G

DRS ZONE

SECTOR 2

BIG BRAKE TURN 3, 183MPH-62MPH 116 METRES, 1.9S 4.8G

DRS DETECTION

TOP SPEED - 191MPH DRS ZONE

March 15 2012 autosport.com 19

F1 PREVIEW AUSTRALIAN GP

STRAIGHT TALK DAVID COULTHARD

13-time GP winner and 2001 world title runner-up Our resident pundit is back on board with the BBC this year and looking forward to Melbourne as much as ever.

What does he think of the chances of ‘Lewis Button’ and ‘Jenson Hamilton’?

I

t’s been 16 years since I first came to Melbourne for the Australian Grand Prix, and there’s always that tingle of nervous excitement ahead of the first race of the season.

The indications are that Red Bull will lead McLaren in Melbourne – but that’s by no means guaranteed when the flag falls. It would be a surprise if those two weren’t out front, with Mercedes, Ferrari and Lotus leading a close mid-grid of Sauber, Force India and Toro Rosso – not necessarily in that order!

PIC: FERRARO/LAT

Vettel: nine months until the next party?

THE MAN THEY ALL HAVE TO BEAT Sebastian Vettel is the youngestever double world champion. Going into this year’s championship, with relatively few rule changes, he’s got to be the favourite to win it again. I don’t wish to belittle the other great drivers out there trying to beat him, especially in light of the unique situation of having six world

champions on the grid, but – to put it mildly – he’s undoubtedly been very strong and made the most of the excellent car at his disposal.

He’s made very few mistakes, and apart from that consistency his biggest strength has been his qualifying speed. On several occasions we’ve seen him pull out that lap, exactly what was required to get pole. He’s in a very strong position mentally, the team has proven it can produce the best car, and – from a historical standpoint – if he pulled it off again this year that would be immense.

THE CHAMPIONS OUT TO STOP HIM I predict that Vettel’s greatest threat this year will come from Jenson Hamilton. Or Lewis Button!

It’s very difficult to separate the McLaren team-mates, because it’s not 2011 anymore, when Jenson Button had the upper hand. You’ve got to expect them to be evenly matched, despite their different approaches and driving styles.

The winter has given Lewis Hamilton the chance to reset. He’s coming to the end of his current McLaren contract, but I don’t think he’ll even be thinking about it.

He’ll have thought: ‘Draw a line under 2011; now let’s go!’ We all know how spectacular an on-form Hamilton is to watch.

At Ferrari, Fernando Alonso is unquestionably one of the peak performers in F1. It looks like he’ll start the season hampered by the lack of performance from the new Ferrari, but if they can unleash the potential they think they possess, you can never rule him out.

We’ve been led to believe Ferrari has a big deficit to the top teams,

and qualifying on Saturday will give us the absolute reference point.

At Mercedes, Michael Schumacher has simply been too far away in qualifying to regain those former glories. In year three of his comeback, he’s evolved into a driver who’s a lot more open and approachable – and that’s a reality of his situation. For the first time, he’s being outperformed by his team-mate, Nico Rosberg. As I know to my peril, if you’re not delivering that outright qualifying performance, you’ve got a very good chance of being beaten by your team-mate. If he wants to extend his comeback, that’s the area he needs to improve.

And don’t rule out Mark Webber.

He’s overdue a big result on home turf, and with the points reset to zero, this could be the year he gets off to a flier. He seems on it!

THE RETURN OF THE KIMI FACTOR At Lotus, Kimi Raikkonen’s comeback to F1 will be a great story to follow. I was initially cynical about him returning, then I did an event with him, driving all sorts of rally cars and motorbikes with Sebastien Loeb and Carlos Sainz, and he was in great form. He was drinking water and tucked up in bed early each night – a different Kimi to the one I remember at the end of his Ferrari career.

He could spring the surprise of the season – if a 32-year-old ex-world champion being quick in a racing car can be a surprise!

He won’t give you a big monologue, but what he will do is jump in the car, wring its neck, and tell you ‘that was great’ or ‘that was shit’.

What more do you want?

i im K t n e r e iff d a s m e e ‘‘He s ’’ s y a d i r a r r e F r e tt la is h from March 15 2012 autosport.com 21

COMMENT PIT & PADDOCK

MARK HUGHES GRAND PRIX EDITOR The root of Ferrari’s preseason testing woes lies in the position of its car’s exhaust exit, so will a switch to rival Red Bull’s thinking help the Scuderia?

I

n the past few days Stefano Domenicali has been explaining in a little more detail the exact nature of Ferrari’s struggle with its F2012 in testing. Unsurprisingly, it all centres around where the exhausts are routed and what effect they are having.

The original layout, as seen in Jerez testing, had the exhaust outlets pointing outboard, almost directly at the rear tyres, much like those seen on the McLaren, and in contrast to

ILLUSTRATION: GIORGIO PIOLA

Ferrari switched to Red Bull-style exhaust system

those on the initial Red Bull RB8, which pointed inboard direct to the suspension and beam wing.

The two different philosophies – McLaren/Ferrari on one side, Red Bull on the other – are trying, in different ways, to claw back exhaust-created downforce lost to the new regulations. As outlined

here last week, the former method appears to be attempting to blow the diffuser, albeit less directly than was permissible last year. The latter is less ambitiously just blowing the beam wing and/or rear aero-profiled brake ducts.

It would appear that McLaren’s method is more powerful, as Ferrari’s tech director Pat Fry admitted: “I think it’s the way to get the most downforce out of the current rules.” But as conceived on the Ferrari, this layout at Jerez worked very well briefly, but would then overheat the tyres. So for Barcelona the team had changed to an original Red Bull RB8-like system, in the full knowledge that its potential was lower, but as the only feasible stop-gap to keep the rear tyres alive.

“We had to change,” said Domenicali, “even if I certainly was not happy about it. We are still working on the original set-up, but we will be unable to test it until the Mugello test at the beginning of May. We believe it could give us a good performance advantage.”

Just as Ferrari was switching to a more conservative inboard-pointing exhaust, so Red Bull was going in the opposite direction, turning up on the Saturday with a McLaren-like outboard-pointing system (in a neat juxtaposition of last year when it was McLaren that copied Red Bull’s system on the eve of the season).

Which brings us to the question of why McLaren’s version of the outboard-pointing exhausts appears to work and Ferrari’s doesn’t. When looking at the two side-by-side, it’s apparent that the Ferrari’s exhaust is significantly further back in the car, i.e. closer to the tyre. The McLaren’s is sited as far forward as the rules

allow. This system relies upon the Coanda effect (the tendency of a flow to follow a nearby surface) to guide the exhaust flow downwards – even if the exhaust is pointing slightly upwards, as demanded by the regs. But that flow must be guided gently, and if the downward profile change is too sudden, the flow will detach. Therefore the exhaust outlet needs to be as far forwards as possible, to keep the direction change as gentle as possible. If it detaches, it blows its hot gas straight onto the tyre.

To move that exhaust outlet further forwards, Ferrari needs a total re-arrangement of the radiators and sidepod area, something that will require a new side-impact crash test. “It’s a long process,” says Domenicali, “because we have to modify the bodywork, the engineers have to understand how to remodel using CFD, then work out the temperatures.”

Yet Red Bull managed to adopt the new philosophy and have it on the car by the final test. Perhaps its original layout lent itself easier to the conversion than Ferrari’s, but why was the positioning flawed in the first place. Again Domenicali is frank about this. “In 2010, we began a new technical cycle: important steps were taken in terms of the organisation and methodology and here I’m thinking mainly about the areas of simulation and strategy.

Aerodynamics is not yet at an adequate level – it’s not easy finding the right people, but this has to be a stimulus for those who work for us.

I experienced the Schumacher era first hand and we suffered before getting there. Ferrari will be back with another winning cycle as the basics are in place to achieve it.”

t s u a h x e s ’ n re a L c M s e o d ‘‘Why ’’ ? ’t n s e o d s i’ r a r r e F d n a work March 15 2012 autosport.com 23

INDYCAR

BARRICHELLO UP TO SPEED

Formula 1 veteran Rubens Barrichello drove his KV Racing Dallara in full livery for the first time in last week’s Sebring IndyCar test, and was third quickest on each of the two days on which he drove. Chip Ganassi Racing’s Scott Dixon was fastest overall.

INDYCAR

Texas boycott played down I

ndyCar Series drivers insist that speculation over a boycott of this year’s race at Texas Motor Speedway has been overblown, although they have urged the series and track operators to ensure further steps will be taken to avoid a repeat of the accident that killed Dan Wheldon at Las Vegas last October.

Former champion Tony Kanaan and Briton Justin Wilson unwittingly sparked the controversy after testing the latest-spec oval aero kit at Texas last month, and said they were concerned that cars would continue to race in packs if the aero configuration remained unchanged.

Kanaan told Speed TV: “After Dan’s tragedy, IndyCar told us there would be no more pack racing.

“I can tell you after the test that there’s going to be pack racing with this aero package unless the downforce is reduced. But we’re 24 autosport.com March 15 2012

Gossage laid into IndyCar drivers

hoping that IndyCar can make some changes before we go back as a group and test again at Texas. Having said that, we don’t think boycotting is the right thing to do at this time.”

Many were amazed at the response from Texas track president and promoter Eddie Gossage.

“It’s absolutely irresponsible of

those drivers,” he said. “And because of the way they conduct themselves sometimes, they deserve where they stand now in the food chain of motorsports.”

IndyCar CEO Randy Bernard quashed talk of the Texas race being dropped, and top drivers – including Penske’s Helio Castroneves – have

insisted that they intend to race.

“I want to stop all this nonsense about boycotting,” the Brazilian said.

“It’s ridiculous. We are professionals, and we will race there [at Texas].”

While drivers continue to question whether the design of the fencing at Texas could be improved, they are adamant that the issue of pack racing needs to be addressed.

Andretti Autosport’s Ryan Hunter-Reay said: “We shouldn’t be stuck together pack racing. One person makes an error and the domino effect starts. We had the perfect storm at Vegas.”

An investigation into Wheldon’s accident revealed that pack racing and the Vegas fencing contributed.

Texas is owned by SMI, which also owns Las Vegas Motor Speedway and uses the same style of catchfencing, with supporting poles on the inside (track side) of the mesh.

PICS: WILLIAMS, LEVITT, EBREY/ LAT, GETTY IMAGES

Leading drivers insist they do want to race at oval, despite fears over pack racing with new Dallara chassis

NEWS PIT & PADDOCK EUROPEAN F3

Cool reaction to European F3 series REACTION HAS BEEN MIXED TO THE FIA’s revival of the European Formula 3 Championship for this year, replacing the category’s International Trophy.

The move, exclusively predicted in AUTOSPORT (March 1) and spearheaded by new FIA Single-Seater Commission president Gerhard Berger, has angered category prime movers in the UK but drawn support from the F3 Euro Series.

This is mainly because the schedule includes eight Euro Series rounds (including a new one at Brands Hatch) and just the Spa and Pau events from the British F3 International Series.

Peter Briggs, head of BF3 teams’ body FOTA, said: “It’s the Euro Series with a new title and I can’t see it making any difference.”

The new series means that the Masters of F3 and Macau Grand Prix races revert to stand-alone status.

Barry Bland, coordinator of these two F3 blue riband events and Berger’s

Date clashes set to rule BF3 teams out of full Euro contest

predecessor as Commission president, said: “This shows a distinct lack of understanding, and clever manipulation from outside sources. What surprises me most is that the FIA World Council approved such an important matter that had not even been fully discussed by the Commission.”

British F3 series manager Lisa Crampton added: “All it’s done is helped the Euro Series, but let’s see by how much. At least it’s a basis to work towards next year, which we needed.”

The Spa and Pau races remain provisional on the European calendar, as these will run to BF3 tyre and fuel rules. Any breach would likely be filled

by Oschersleben and Lausitz – both set to be dropped as Euro Series races.

Euro Series manager Christoph Hewer said: “Gerhard Berger said he wanted to sort out single-seater racing, starting with F3, and it’s a good first step. We’re giving all our input to the FIA to make the championship as strong as possible.”

GP2 test at Barcelona. Caterham’s Giedo van der Garde and Carlin’s Max Chilton were both within 0.010s of the Mexican.

SPORTSCARS FOR CLARKE

Ex-Formula 2 racer Jack Clarke is to mount a dual sportscar programme with the Boutsen squad, driving an ORECA-Nissan 03 in the European Le Mans Series and a McLaren MP4-12C GT3 in the Blancpain Endurance Series.

BUEMI OUT IN ORECA

F1 refugee-turned-Toyota sportscar racer Sebastien Buemi drove Clarke’s ORECA at the Paul Ricard ELMS test last weekend, joined by former Red Bull junior Brendon Hartley. OAK Morgan driver Guillaume Moreau was fastest overall.

GRIFFIN,COCKER FOR ELMS

Irishman Matt Griffin, a British GT regular, has moved up to the ELMS with AF Corse, sharing a GTE Am Ferrari 458 Italia with Piergiuseppe Perazzini and Marco Cioci. Briton Jonny Cocker will share JMW’s GTE Pro Ferrari with James Walker.

GUTIERREZ TOPS TEST

Lotus-run Esteban Gutierrez topped last week’s three-day pre-season

MARK GLENDENNING US EDITOR

mark.glendenning @haymarket.com

R

IN BRIEF

Category switch for Clarke

AUTOSPORT SAYS...

LANCASTER TO OCEAN

Formula Renault 3.5 and Auto GP race winner Jon Lancaster has joined Ocean Racing Technology for the GP2 season, while the squad has taken over Tech 1’s GP3 entry and signed Robert Cregan and Carmen Jorda.

FONTANA MAKES F2 SWITCH European F3 Open champion Alex Fontana will switch to F2 this year.

Formula Renault BARC racer Hector Hurst and Chinese driver David Zhu have also signed up, while Plamen Kralev will remain in the series.

JAAFAR FAST IN TESTING

Malaysian Jazeman Jaafar topped last week’s Snetterton British F3 test in his Carlin Dallara-VW. Team-mate Carlos Sainz Jr topped a wet second day. Fortec’s Alex Lynn was best Mercedes-engined driver.

Jaafar topped Snett test

Sears (l) and Quaife-Hobbs at Monza

AUTO GP

Quaife-Hobbs Auto GP hope GP3 RACE WINNER ADRIAN QUAIFEHobbs believes he has a fighting chance of completing the Auto GP season after scoring a victory on his series debut.

The Briton, who joined Super Nova for Monza, is not yet sure of further races, but hopes his status as joint points leader will safeguard his spot with the David Sears-owned squad.

“If I do the full seven rounds it would be with Super Nova,” said the 21-yearold. “Two weeks ago was the first time I even saw an Auto GP car. Monza [was going to be] the hardest event: I knew if I could do well here it would look good for the whole season.”

Quaife-Hobbs failed to raise the budget to race in Formula Renault 3.5: “There were seats kept for me until two weeks ago. I don’t want to say that Auto GP is next best , because that sounds like it’s second best. It’s a good car.”

are is the day that is long enough to fit in the various subjects vying for IndyCar Series boss Randy Bernard’s attention, but one item with a permanentlyreserved place near the top of his list is what we’ll call the ‘oval paradox’.

Ovals are key to IndyCar. Some purists would argue that ovals are IndyCar. And on that basis, it baffles the hell out of Bernard that whenever the series turns up to an oval other than Indianapolis, nobody watches.

There’s a lot of buzz about the prospect of Milwaukee being restored to its former glory, but until then IndyCar needs Texas. Eddie Gossage is an aggressive, combative promoter, and it doesn’t take a huge leap to imagine him working in boxing. But for all the soundbites, he has been one IndyCar needs a of Bernard’s most strong Texas race reliable allies over the past few years.

And by oval racing standards, Texas is reasonably successful. Last year’s race wasn’t packed out, but nor was it a ghost town.

Bernard cannot afford to play hardball with Texas over its fences. Faced with a choice between an expensive fence remodelling and simply dropping IndyCar, it’s not hard to guess what Gossage would pick.

And as several drivers have pointed out, the fencing doesn’t matter if they’re not flying into it so much. The key is to break the packs up, and that’s the one thing above all else that IndyCar and Dallara have to get right.

REMEMBER WHEN…

OCTOBER 31 1993

…slow cars were knocked out of a race?

V8 Supercars’ Melbourne format (p27) is not new. The BTCC’s TOCA shootout – pictured in 1993 – operated a similar system. The Donington event was held from 1992-1994.

March 15 2012 autosport.com 25

WORLD ENDURANCE CHAMPIONSHIP

AUDI DRAWS FIRST BLOOD → P58 SEBRING PREVIEW

Audi led the way in testing ahead of this weekend’s FIA World Endurance Championship opener at Sebring. Allan McNish topped the Monday times in his Audi R18 TDI in 1m47.187s.

WORLD GT1

‘Monsters’ for World GT1

Ratel saves series at eleventh hour – then plots a path to beef up his supercars. By GARY WATKINS

T

he cars racing in the FIA GT1 World Championship will become faster and more aggressive as they evolve away from pure GT3 specification over the next three years, according to series boss Stephane Ratel.

Ratel outlined his plans to increase the performance of the cars as the 2012 version of the series – which is switching from GT1 to GT3 rules – was confirmed on Monday.

He said the category could have its own rulebook again as early as 2015.

“The evolution of the cars will be very quick,” he said. “Next year we will have carbon brakes and bigger wings. The year after we will have more power. Within two or three years, the cars will be the monsters that they are meant to be.

“Next year, we can call the cars GT3+ and maybe GT3++ the year after. Maybe they can be true GT1 26 autosport.com March 15 2012

Ratel: cavalry arrives

cars again in 2015. The cars racing in a world championship need to look special and that is going to happen.”

Ratel has secured the future of the championship after his eponymous Stephane Ratel Organisation took a frontline role in putting together the three final two-car teams required to reach the 18-machine minimum. These deals have put Aston Martin, Porsche and Ford on the grid for 2012.

“They are all SRO-engineered teams,” he said. “We have found the cars, we have found someone to run them and we have found the drivers.”

The French LMP Motorsport squad will field Aston Martin DBRS9s under the Valmon Racing Team Russia banner. It is planned that it will swap to the new-for2012 Vantage V12 GT3 mid-season.

A pair of Porsche 911 GT3-Rs will be run under the Chinese flag by Mulhner Motorsport, while the SUNRED squad will enter Ford GTs. Ratel insisted that the new teams were not grid-fillers. He explained that he expected to have topline drivers in each team.

Russian Mikhail Aleshin will drive one of the Aston Martins. It is expected that the second will be raced by Andy Soucek and Andi Zuber. Former F1 driver Antonio Pizzonia is linked to a Porsche seat.

ENTRY LIST Vita4One-Racing BMW Z4 GT3 All.Inkl.com/Munnich Mercedes-Benz AMG SLS Team WRT Audi R8 LMS ultra AF Corse Ferrari 458 Italia Hexis Racing McLaren MP4-12C GT3 Reiter Engineering Lamborghini Gallardo LP600 Exim Team China (Muhlner) Porsche 911 GT3-R Valmon Team Russia (LMP) Aston Martin DBRS9/Vantage V12 SUNRED Engineering Ford GT

NEWS PIT & PADDOCK LE MANS

DeltaWing hails Nissan as ‘perfect’ THE POWERPLANT SUPPLIED BY Nissan for DeltaWing’s revolutionary Le Mans 24 Hours contender has been described as the “perfect engine” by car designer Ben Bowlby.

The Japanese manufacturer has signed up as a partner in the DeltaWing project, which has been given the so-called ‘Garage 56’ at Le Mans reserved for experimental cars.

Nissan is providing a 1.6-litre directinjection turbocharged powerplant, plus backing for the programme.

Bowlby, who devised the DeltaWing concept, said: “Nissan has

provided us with our first-choice engine. It’s a spectacular piece. We’ve got the engine of our dreams: it’s the right weight, has the right power and it’s phenomenally efficient.”

Highcroft Racing boss Duncan Dayton, whose team will run the car at Le Mans, welcomed Nissan to the project.

“Every manufacturer says it thinks outside the box,” he said. “We went up the garden path with a number of them, but only Nissan had the courage of its convictions to get involved.”

The Nissan DeltaWing has already

tested for the first time in the hands of Marino Franchitti. The Briton drove the car at Buttonwillow in California at the start of the month.

Franchitti said: “It feels just like a racing car. The stability is the most impressive thing. There are a sequence of esses at Buttonwillow and the way it went through there was very impressive.”

Nissan factory driver Michael Krumm, who won last year’s FIA GT1 World Championship with the marque, has been brought into the driver line-up alongside Franchitti.

Franchitti drove at Buttonwillow

60 SECONDS WITH MARTIN BRUNDLE Le Mans returnee The former F1 driver tells AUTOSPORT about his first taste of the Greaves Motorsport Zytek-Nissan Z11SN in which he will make his Le Mans return with son Alex in June.

After trying the Zytek in last week’s European Le Mans Series test at Paul Ricard, what did you think of the first Le Mans-style prototype you’ve driven since the Bentley EXP Speed 8 back in 2001?

It felt a lot like the Jaguar XJR-14. It’s very pointy and lithe; you’re not waiting for the understeer to finish.

Was it a major step up from the Daytona Prototype you raced last year?

It’s significantly more physically demanding, though that wasn’t a problem because I’m a lot fitter now. Everything happens a little faster. The fast right-hander at Signes caught my attention, but I was able to take it flat on lap three.

Will you test again ahead of the Le Mans Test Day at the start of June?

I certainly hope so, but I’m not sure at the moment. If I can’t I’ll have to make so with some testing in a Radical SR3 and a bit of karting. But the car was so well sorted that if I’d been asked to race it straight away, I’d have said, ‘fine’.

NASCAR

Dodge determined over NASCAR future New Cup Dodge in demo

DODGE REMAINS COMMITTED TO A future in NASCAR, despite having no major teams signed for 2013 following Penske’s decision to switch to Ford.

Penske announced its move last week. Ralph Gilles, motorsport CEO of Dodge owner Chrysler, admitted that the timing of Penske’s announcement – days before Dodge unveiled its 2013-spec Sprint Cup car – was not ideal, but says the marque intends to continue in the series.

“It’s been overwhelming, the amount of interest and discussions of people that want to be in our cars,” he said. “[The Penske announcement] was unexpected, but we’re ready for it.

We’ve been knocked down a few times in our history and we’ve come back.”

Penske’s move means Dodge has only one Cup team on its books for 2013: Robby Gordon Motorsports. Gilles said he plans to have at least one more team signed for 2013 by the summer.

How did your pace compare to Alex and your other team-mate, Lucas Ordonez?

I got 25 laps and was probably about three quarters of a second off. I’m sure I’d have been right there if I’d had another run.

Can your experience help the Greaves team?

I can help them play the long game. That might be to say that we don’t need a car with such a flighty rear end or something like that. I hope I can fast-track their learning process.

Martin Brundle was talking to AUTOSPORT’s International editor-at-large Gary Watkins Brundle tried Zytek at Ricard

PICS: STALEY, GIBSON, BOYD/LAT, LAT SOUTH

V8 SUPERCARS

Knock-out system for Melbourne V8 support V8 SUPERCARS HAS UNVEILED a novel format for this weekend’s Australian Grand Prix support races.

The non-championship event will feature three qualifying races, with a ‘final’ then taking place on Sunday in which a AUS$500,000 prize fund has been put up.

The qualifiers will feature a knock-out system that involves the last three cars in

the order being black-flagged on each lap, with the final 10 being left with five laps to go and being awarded points for their finishing positions. These points will then determine the grid for the Sunday race.

V8 Supercars CEO David Malone said: “The new format will add more pressure and encourage fierce competition. This should really put on a show for fans.”

New format for V8 Supercars

March 15 2012 autosport.com 27

NEWS PIT & PADDOCK IN BRIEF New colours for Civic

HONDA LIVERY UNVEILED

Reigning British Touring Car champion Matt Neal and team-mate Gordon Shedden were due to test at Brands Hatch today (Thursday) with their new Honda Civics.

VICKERS BACK IN CUP ACTION

Red Bull NASCAR refugee Brian Vickers makes his Sprint Cup return at Bristol this weekend in the Michael Waltrip Racing Toyota being driven in a 25-race schedule

by Mark Martin. Elliott Sadler, who was due to contest the remaining 11 races, has relinquished the drive to focus on his Nationwide Series commitments.

CHRYSLER COOLS V8 INTEREST

Eurotech Honda broke cover this week

BTCC

Jordan set for BTCC title attack Eurotech takes delivery of NGTC Honda Civic and hits track. By KEVIN TURNER

B

Jordan: title ambitions

and with the bigger tyres our [low] degradation should be a strength.

“We can absolutely be a championship contender. It will be hard against Dynamics and MG [the two works teams], but we’ve got the equipment and the team to do it.”

Jordan, 22, believes he is also better prepared and has made a push with his fitness.

“I’m more focused than ever,” he said. “I’ve learned so much in my time in touring cars and my aim is to be the youngest BTCC champion.

“It’ll take a little while to get into our stride – you’ll probably drive the car more like a GT because of the extra weight and bigger tyres – but I think we’ll be really strong.”

Jordan also confirmed Dynamics had already passed on information from testing carried out by works drivers Matt Neal and Gordon Shedden. “It’s a real open book from Honda, and vice versa,” he added.

WOLFF STICKS WITH DTM

Scot Susie Wolff will remain in the DTM for a seventh year with Mercedes. Her 2011 Persson Motorsport team-mate Renger van der Zande has confirmed that he will not be part of the manufacturer’s line-up.

TTA SAAB REVEALED

Swedish Touring Car veterans Mattias Andersson and Jan Nilsson will drive Saab 9-3s run by Nilsson’s Flash Engineering in the breakaway TTA series this year. Team Tido steps up from the Carrera Cup to run Linus Ohlsson in another Saab. Korean firm Hankook will supply tyres for the series.

Hottest-looking Saab ever?

PICS; EBREY/LAT

ritish Touring Car race winner Andrew Jordan believes he can fight for the 2012 title after driving his new NGTC Honda Civic for the first time this week.

Jordan finished sixth in the 2011 points in a Vauxhall Vectra fitted with a TOCA turbo engine. His Eurotech squad has now taken delivery of its first NGTC Civic, built by works Honda squad Team Dynamics and with a powerplant prepared by top tuner Neil Brown.

Jordan had his first run in the car at MIRA on Tuesday.

“It’s hard to tell so early, but it feels good,” he said. “The engine feels smoother than mine from last year,

Chrysler’s interest in following Nissan into V8 Supercars next year appears to have cooled. The manufacturer’s Australian chief executive Clyde Campbell told The Age newspaper the company is yet to find a way to make a V8 entry financially viable.

March 15 2012 autosport.com 29

WRC

Longer-rally fear in WRC Teams and drivers voice concerns over cost implications for privateers in endurance-style events. By DAVID EVANS

Extra Mexico mileage caused concerns

W

orld Rally Championship drivers and teams have called on the FIA to reconsider the use of longer-distance rallies in the series following last week’s extended Rally Mexico.

The FIA called on the Mexican organisers to make their round more challenging for this year, which they

Loeb: longer rally not needed

did with the longest-ever route.

After the event, which comprised an extra 30 competitive miles compared with 2011, the teams and drivers questioned the value of the revision and called for a return to last year’s shorter itinerary.

World champion Sebastien Loeb said: “This event has not been more of a challenge for me, it’s just longer and because it’s longer, for sure it’s more expensive, especially for the private drivers. It doesn’t bring anything more for me.”

The WRC’s top private driver Mads Ostberg said including longer rallies in this year’s schedule has cost him his chance of tackling all the rounds.

“Every extra kilometre costs more

money for spares and rebuilds,” said Ostberg. “It cost me an extra €20,000 to do this event this year compared with last year. That’s a salary for somebody, it’s a hell of a lot of money and for what: a few more pictures of the same cars on dusty roads? This is the wrong road to go down and people like Michele Mouton need to know they are damaging our sport.”

M-Sport chief Malcolm Wilson believes that Ostberg’s frustrations are proof that the championship could lose its privateer contingent if the FIA persists with longer events.

“You’ve got it from the horse’s mouth with what Mads has just said,” added Wilson. “These longer rallies will definitely cost the

sport privateer drivers.”

WRC manager Mouton said the wishes of FIA president Jean Todt to bring the endurance element back to the sport remained the best solution for the future.

Mouton said: “The drivers have been used to this rhythm, so if we ask them to start at six in the morning and finish at 10 at night they think it’s crazy, but it’s not. If we do nothing there is no story, but if we start to have the 60-kilometre stage, then we have the story. I am with Jean because I know his vision and I agree completely with him.”

Next month’s Rally Argentina will be the longest event of the season, with close to 100 competitive miles more than the average WRC round.

WRC

Police hunting Rally Mexico saboteur RALLY MEXICO ORGANISERS HAVE joined the local police force in an investigation to find the person responsible for throwing a rock at Thierry Neuville’s Citroen on the opening day of last week’s WRC event.

The organisers say they have a good idea who’s responsible and they are now examining on-board footage and talking to 30 autosport.com March 15 2012

residents on the Ortega stage, which was cancelled in the afternoon for fears of a repeat performance.

Rally director Patrick Suberville said: “We pretty much know who the man is.

When the incidents started a few years ago, his neighbours – who take a lot of advantages from the rally – were upset and they started guarding him and not letting

him out of his house during the rally. We had no incidents for three years but it started again this weekend. This guy is a grumpy old man who doesn’t like a lot of things. We’re working with the police on this, but it’s very hard to prove.”

Suberville confirmed the stage would not be used next year unless the resident in question could be controlled.

Neuville inspects the damage

NEWS SPECIAL STAGE WRC

AUTOSPORT SAYS…

Citroen duo warns: Ford is strong SEBASTIEN LOEB AND MIKKO Hirvonen have warned their Citroen team against complacency in the face of a much-improved Ford Fiesta RS WRC on last week’s Rally Mexico.

Loeb and Hirvonen finished onetwo on the Leon event, but the pair both admitted they were shocked at the increase in speed found by Ford on what has traditionally been the British team’s weakest gravel rally. Both Ford drivers Jari-Matti Latvala and Petter Solberg led the high-altitude event and a Fiesta was fastest on 13 of the 22 stages run in Guanajuato.

Loeb said: “The Fords improved a lot in Mexico. We did not work a lot with the altitude – maybe we were

DAVID EVANS RALLIES EDITOR david.evans @haymarket.com

P Citroen: impressed by Ford in Mexico

too much confident in Mexico. We saw their improvement and we had to fight very hard [for the victory].

Loeb’s team-mate Hirvonen added: “I have been really surprised at the speed. I know where the Fiesta was last year and it has come on very quickly this year. Maybe we have to do some more work with the car now.”

The DS3 WRC received an engine upgrade ahead of this season.

Citroen technical director Xavier Mestelan-Pinon revealed that there would be further work throughout the season, and he added that he wasn’t unduly concerned about the speed of the Ford.

“I don’t think they found new power in the car, just the way to work at altitude,” he said. “Maybe they worked in the wrong direction in the past [for Mexico] and now they are doing the right job.”

IN BRIEF BORED OGIER BAGS POINTS Sebastien Ogier collected his first WRC points as a Volkswagen driver with eighth place on last week’s Rally Mexico. The Frenchman didn’t enjoy the experience, however. The high-altitude stages left his Skoda Fabia S2000 short on power, with Ogier admitting he’d never been “more bored” in a rally car.

Qatar World Rally Team driver Nasser Al-Attiyah scored his maiden WRC stage win in last week’s Rally Mexico. The Citroen DS3 WRC finished sixth – his best finish in the series – on his gravel debut in a World Rally Car.

HIGGINS’S IoM HONOUR

Henning Solberg is expected to start the Rally of Portugal, despite the on-going uncertainty surrounding sponsorship for the Norwegian and his team-mate, Britain’s Matthew Wilson. The Cumbrian will not be in Faro, due to the broken ankle he suffered just before Rally Sweden still being in plaster.

Mark Higgins has been named patron of Rally Isle of Man, an event he has won four times. The Island’s most famous rally driver said: “This is a great honour and I hope we can all work hard to get the event back to where it deserves to be, as one of the most unique and best Tarmac rallies in the world.” The event is not a round of the BRC this year, but it is hoped it will return next season.

GUERRA: I CAN WIN TITLE

SAINZ WINS ON 911 DEBUT

SOLBERG OK FOR PORTUGAL

PICS: WWW.McKLEIN.DE

NASSER’S BEST RESULT

Rally Mexico PWRC winner Benito Double world rally champion Carlos Guerra is convinced his maximumSainz made a victorious return to points score on his home round the driving seat last weekend, of the series is the start of a winning the Rally de Espana title-winning season. “I am Historico in a Porsche 911. Sainz’s convinced I can fight for the title brother Antonio finished fourth in this year,” said the Mitsubishi another Porsche. driver. “I have Sainz won in historic Porsche done some of the rallies before, but not all of them, but I am not worried about this.

Winning my first PWRC round here at home means everything to me.”

Atkinson made a Monster return

WRC

More WRC outings for Atkinson CHRIS ATKINSON IS LIKELY TO contest Rally New Zealand and Rally Finland with the Monster World Rally Team after returning to the WRC with the American outfit in Mexico last week.

Atkinson failed to finish the Leon event after suffering a broken damper on the final day, but he set a fastest stage time in the sister Ford Fiesta RS WRC to Ken Block.

“It was great to be back in the WRC again,” said . “Driving the new cars and the new tyres for the first time was a bit tougher than I thought. There were times early in the event when I couldn’t figure out what was happening to my driving, but then the team found the ride height on the car was all wrong. Once we got that changed, it was like flicking a switch, everything came back and the times came right down.

Everybody’s working towards making New Zealand and Finland happen now.”

etter Solberg’s co-driver Chris Patterson read a book on last week’s Rally Mexico.

A pacenote book, that is. He went almost cover-to-cover as he leafed through 96 pages of notes to guide the Ford Fiesta RS WRC through the 34-mile Guanajuatito stage.

But 36m34s passed between Patterson saying: “Three, two, one, go,” and, “… over flying finish”. And in that time, he didn’t stop talking as Solberg hurled the Ford through one of the rally’s most entertaining stages.

Patterson enjoyed the longest stage of the year to date (which was good preparation for the 41-miler coming in Argentina), but there were plenty who questioned the relevance of such a long stage on a modern WRC round.

And I agree that in this new-media-driven age, in which people want up-to-the-second information, the concept of cars driving for 36 minutes with no explanation of what’s happening may appear a touch postmodern.

And, come the media revolution, how many people are going to watch a potentially unexplained 36-miler live on their iPhone?

Me, and a few of my mates. And that’ll be it.

Yes, I see all of that and I get it. But talking to Michele Mouton just before the stage kicked off made me realise the importance of these longer stages.

“Would you want to watch three 15km stages Are longer WRC stages the future? as much as one 54km stage?” she asked. “No. Something will happen and make the story.”

And it did.

Unfortunately, it was a Latvala-led story we’d heard before.

IRC PREVIEW Event: Round: Based: Date: Mileage: Stages: Surface: Last year’s winner: Championship leader:

Rally Islas Canarias 2/13 Las Palmas March 16-17 149.70 15 Asphalt Juho Hanninen Andreas Mikkelsen

More than McLaren bargained for McLaren didn’t think Jenson Button was serious about joining the team – let alone realise the asset he’d become. By MARK HUGHES

S

o, where’s the Jenson Button who everyone expected to be annihilated by Lewis Hamilton upon joining McLaren two years ago? Given his current standing, it seems strange to recall the generally low level of expectation for Button’s prospects when he made that move – even as reigning world champion – and how he’s gone about confounding those who thought he’d sink.

Even team boss Martin Whitmarsh hadn’t bargained on getting so much from Button – and he admits that now. At first he didn’t even believe Jenson was serious about leaving Brawn and joining McLaren at the end of 2009.

He took the call from Richard Goddard, Button’s manager, shortly after the last race, a couple of weeks after JB had sealed the title. Whitmarsh, looking to replace Heikki Kovalainen, was slightly surprised to hear that Jenson could be on the market. But then, actually it sort of made sense.

Button had yet to agree his new deal with Brawn, and surely Goddard was just using the theoretical availability of a McLaren seat as a bargaining tool with the existing team…

This seemed even more likely when photographers were there to greet Button’s arrival at Heathrow from Nice as he made his way to the McLaren Technical Centre in Woking.

But no matter, Whitmarsh thought. He’d play along; it didn’t hurt and there might be something in it.

“It would have been remiss of me not to even have talked with him if he was possibly available,” he relates. “I would have been neglecting my duty to the team. So I did a pitch to him, but even as I was doing it I was thinking, ‘He’s not going to go for this.’ He’d just won the title with that team, was very comfortable there. Why would he surrender that

At home with McLaren team

32 autosport.com March 15 2012

JENSON BUTTON AT HOME AT McLAREN

“When I was doing the pitch I was

thinking we could get a quick, smooth driver who would be a team player”

McLaren chief Martin Whitmarsh

to come to McLaren where, with them having the same nationality, the compare-and-contrast element meant he would be compared in a very unforgiving manner with as fantastically fast a team-mate as Lewis, someone who had been with us for a long time?”

But go for it Button did. In fact, having listened to Whitmarsh’s pitch and been taken for a guided tour around the fantastic MTC facility, he instructed Goddard later that night to get him the deal – no matter what. Jenson did not, he said, want to hear about, ‘Mercedes [which had taken over Brawn] has come back with this counter-offer’, did not want to hear from Goddard again with any message other than, ‘The McLaren deal’s ready for you to sign.’

‘Do whatever McLaren deal you can’, he instructed his manager, ‘even if it means me driving for nothing!’ Quite what Goddard made of the prospect of being on a percentage of nothing isn’t recorded but, as it turned out, it wasn’t something he needed to worry about.

“I was amazed he went for it,” says Whitmarsh. “In fact that was the first inkling I had that actually this could be a far more significant investment than we’d realised. He walked into the situation with his eyes wide open, knowing very well the full scale of the challenge and wanting to stretch himself further. When I was doing the pitch I was thinking we could be getting a quick, smooth driver who would do a good job and be a good team player. But when he made that decision in full knowledge of the challenge, I began to think we were getting something more than that.”

Button’s talent has been underrated throughout his F1 career, his need for a specific car balance giving him a peaky CV that made it easy to overlook the depth of the ability – and the potential within him. Even winning the world title did not totally erase that perception. But possessed of total self-belief, where would he find his next challenge? He couldn’t possibly have chosen a bigger one than joining Hamilton at McLaren. It would be fair to say the watching world thought Button was out of his mind.

“He’s exceeded everyone’s expectations, except probably his own,” says Whitmarsh.

Although Whitmarsh sent Button and Hamilton on a weekend away together in Wales pre-season 2010, with the firm instruction to work out between them how they were going to operate together for the benefit of the team (he was not going to tolerate a repeat of the Hamilton/Fernando Alonso poison of ’07), hindsight says it was probably unnecessary. Button’s operating bandwidth, confidence and self-possession are what has made the partnership with Hamilton so successful. In the process he has enhanced his own reputation.

Quite aside from his performances on track, the way Button walked into this team – Hamilton’s home since he was a kid – and immediately made it his own was truly remarkable. And it wasn’t just down to Jenson’s ‘Camp Button’ entourage in the McLaren motorhome at a time when Lewis was a lone figure, having relieved father Anthony of his managerial duties. It was also how Button’s easy, affable manner with everyone in the team had made him the natural focal point of the whole dynamic.

Engineers, mechanics and management alike all find themselves at ease in his company, his cheeky humour, the gentle ribbing, and it contrasts with the occasional challenging side of Hamilton’s personality. Button’s persona sneaks up on you; with Hamilton, you’re never quite sure where he’ll be coming from next – and that’s exactly how they are in the cars too. Jenson is under the radar, undramatic, but… What do you know – he’s right there, tyres in great shape just as the crucial laps are about to be played.

Hamilton, by contrast, can ambush you out of nowhere, a phenomenal talent sometimes struggling to be directed.

It was unfortunate for Lewis that circumstances played so outrageously to Button’s strengths in two of the first four races in which they were team-mates – Australia and China 2010 made the initial winning score Button 2, Hamilton 0. In each of those events we saw Jenson’s smart, confident calls from the cockpit on tyre choice in changeable conditions making the crucial difference, contrasting with Hamilton waiting to be told – the very trait that had lost him the 2007 Chinese Grand Prix, and with it the world title.

But it was about more than just Button’s timing of his tyre changes. It was also how that wonderful finesse massaged the car through the trickiest phases and, in March 15 2012 autosport.com 33

PICS: DUNBAR/LAT

Sussing out new MP4-27 at Jerez

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JENSON BUTTON AT HOME AT McLAREN

“There have been some tense times on the pitwall, times I’ve had advice saying, ‘We’ve got to stop this’” Whitmarsh on his drivers’ fighting spirit China, his fantastic speed in the wet, always a core part of his game. In that race we saw a straight wet-track match race between probably F1’s two greatest wet-weather drivers, with equal cars and tyres – and Button won it, supremely cool under all the pressure that Hamilton could apply, and then unleashing a devastating sequence of laps to pull out the vital gap and put the issue beyond doubt.

But those two early victories were the cornerstone of Button’s 2010 season and, as the season progressed, so Hamilton’s virtuosity prevailed to put him ahead on both points and race wins by the end of the year. Yet with an average qualifying deficit of only a tenth and a half of a second, several races where he flat outperformed Hamilton and his generally assuming the initiative when any calls – technical or on-track – were to be made, Button had taken the fight to Hamilton at his first attempt in a way that surpassed almost all expectations. Yet he’d hardly even begun…

Last year he got a car that fitted him – he’d always sat too high in the MP4-25, conceived as it was before he joined the team – and which had a set-up window that could more easily accommodate the requirements of his specific driving style. He almost certainly benefited too in how that style dovetailed beautifully with the demands of the new Pirelli tyres. All that, and Hamilton was blowing hot and cold, apparently distracted by developments in his personal life.

The upshot of that mix was Button becoming the cutting edge of McLaren’s title challenge, the man who was always there or thereabouts at the end. Hamilton was defeated by a team-mate over a season for the first time in his career.

The contrast between how Alonso and Button dealt with the phenomenon that is Lewis Hamilton as a team-mate is

illuminating. Fernando tried to bulldoze him aside by sheer competitive will. Feeling he was fighting both Lewis and the team, he exhausted himself, culminating in his crash at Fuji, which even he cites as the moment he lost that 2007 title – but he’d already effectively lost the team.

Button on the other hand, fully realising the extent of Hamilton’s talent, simply worked around it, brought the team on board with him – and even maintained a good relationship with Lewis himself, something that Whitmarsh still marvels at. “They’ve traded competitive punches but so far it’s been remarkably good natured off the track, despite some ferocious competition on it,” he says. “There have been some tense times on the pitwall, lots of times I’ve had advice from colleagues saying, ‘We’ve got to stop this’, but we haven’t. They’ve had contact, they’ve even been close to a cataclysmic result in Montreal last year, but it still hasn’t spilt over into their relationship.

“It’s very, very unusual for two absolute top sportsmen competing in that manner pulling together as they do out of the car,” he says. “They have each realised there are things they can learn from the other.”

In that Montreal race, Button scored one of the unlikeliest victories of all time, from absolute last with over 60 per cent of the race completed, to pressuring Sebastian Vettel into an error on the last lap – having collided with both Hamilton and Alonso along the way. It was Jenson in extremis, his fantastic feel for grip in changeable conditions, the way he kept the tyres warm and the emotions cool – and quite possibly the often-overlooked steel within him. Did he see Hamilton in his mirrors as Lewis tried to squeeze between him and the pitwall? We may never know the answer to that, but recall that in China a few races earlier Hamilton had put a ruthless ‘move-aside-or-we-crash’ pass on Button. Acutely aware of the bigger picture, Button had given him room and thereby position – just as he’d reluctantly agreed to being called off from continuing to fight Hamilton for the lead at Istanbul 2010. In the Montreal situation, he simply could not allow Hamilton to prevail again – even if it meant a collision. He may not have seen him…

March 15 2012 autosport.com 35

PIC: FERRARO/LAT

Flashpoint: Montreal 2011

Great win in Hungary 2011

Magnificent under pressure at Suzuka

Button is totally relaxed in his own skin, and Hamilton’s sometimes freakish speed generates no insecurity in him.

This and his high intelligence allows him, even in moments of extreme pressure, to understand the whole picture – and while this has occasionally compromised him in the battle (Turkey 2010, China ’11), it’s played a part in his winning of the war.

That all-encompassing awareness might have been what lost him the fight to Hamilton’s red-zone on-the-limit adrenaline on those days, but it’s also what won him those tricky races at the beginning of 2010 – and played a huge part in his Hungary victory in ’11. Not only was he always going to be able to do that race on one stop fewer than Hamilton despite a comparable pace, but he was also absolutely adamant when the team called him in for intermediate tyres that he was not going to comply – because he knew better and had the inner strength to act on that. Lewis was called in, made the stop and a few laps later was making a corrective one to switch back to dries.

But magnificent though Button’s Montreal and Budapest drives were, he possibly topped even those with his win at Suzuka. Whitmarsh thinks so: “Montreal was a very special race, but very unusual circumstances. Suzuka was a straight contest in the dry around the most fantastically challenging track, what you guys might call a Red Bull track, and Jenson 36 autosport.com March 15 2012

took the challenge to Vettel, pounded in those fantastic laps late in the second stint on a used set of option tyres – and emerged ahead. He was then perfect in defence. On that day, Jenson was the guy who made the difference.”

A detail Whitmarsh leaves unsaid about Button’s race there came towards the end, with Alonso coming at him hard, with the Ferrari easier on its tyres than the McLaren – and with Jenson running very marginal on fuel. He could not let Alonso get within one second of him – otherwise he’d be nailed in the DRS zone – but neither could he let rip with the fast laps too soon as that would have used up his fuel. So he had to wait until Alonso was just 1.5s behind before then delivering the big lap that gave him the essential margin of victory. It demanded incredible coolness of nerve. It really was a drive that had everything.

He’s just as calmly devastating in how he operates within the team. But it’s done with such smooth grace that’s it’s barely noticed. Just like his driving, it’s done with subtlety, multiple layers and great intelligence. That, and those specific handling traits he needs to access all of his speed, has fooled much of F1’s fanbase and the paddock alike, just as surely as half the pitlane was fooled into switching to dries too early by his speed on those tyres in the damp of Indianapolis in his rookie season. Perhaps, 12 years on, it’s finally beginning to dawn: Jenson Button is one of the giants.

JENSON BUTTON AT HOME AT McLAREN

Can JB take silver to gold?

PICS: KALISZ, DUNBAR, FERRARO/LAT

CASE STUDY: CONTRAST IN APPROACHES, TURKEY 2010 It was Jenson Button’s brain and Lewis Hamilton’s charging brought to a point of near-conflict – and was highly illuminating of their respective approaches.

Having pressured the Red Bulls into colliding with each other, Hamilton was now having to pay for that speed. In order to have enough fuel to get to the end he was given a target lap time of 1m31s. “If I back off will Jenson pass me?” he asked over the radio, tone urgent, speech fast, like you could almost hear the adrenaline coursing through his veins. Chief engineer Phil Prew came back with a reassuring: “No.” Prew said this because just a few seconds earlier, Button had been issued with the same instruction to maintain a 1m31s lap time – around 1s slower than they’d both been lapping. If they were going to be each lapping at the same target time, it was logical that Button would not be overtaking.

But Hamilton, convinced he was now assured of the win, lifted off massively through the fast sixth-gear Turn 8 – to the extent that the lap would be a 1m33s.

When Button saw this he sensed his chance. His fuel situation was not as critical thanks to his earlier saving, so why should he not take advantage of that? He had no idea that Prew had issued his reassurance to Hamilton and would surely not have cared anyway.

Approaching the same corner where the Red Bulls had come to blows, Button went around the outside of Hamilton, putting him on the inside for the next one, where he went ahead.

Through the final turn onto the pit straight, the cars partly side by side, but with Button ahead, the rear of Jenson’s car slid wildly because of the dust on his

tyres as he’d got off the racing line in executing his manoeuvre. So he entered the straight at less than the optimum speed, giving Hamilton – who had the presence in the midst of all this to press his radio button and say, “What the fuck?” – the chance to position himself to the inside of Button as they flashed past the pits at 180mph heading for Turn 1, where Lewis braked super-late, slid up the inside and cut across the bows of his rival.

It was a brief but electrifying duel and notable in how, in the moment of extreme, the moves of each driver reflected their personalities. Button’s was subtle, thought-out and cunning. Hamilton’s was pure reactive, on-the-edge, lairily brilliant.

The perspective of both drivers was easy to understand: from where Button sat, why should he, after conscientiously saving fuel earlier when requested, slow down because his team-mate was running short? Why shouldn’t he be rewarded for that now? Why was it his problem that Lewis hadn’t saved as much? Why was it his problem Lewis had now chosen to lift off massively in Turn 8?

From Hamilton’s perspective, he had taken the fight to the Red Bulls all afternoon while Button was saving fuel and done it so successfully he’d

pressured them into an incident. The reward for that should surely not be for Button to benefit. The emotion of the moment of realisation – when he’d sworn over the radio – is easy to imagine. Here was Jenson, supposedly his elder-brother-like guide, the guy who’d apparently been all about non-conflict, full of reassurances they’d work together, coming up his blind side and trying to steal his victory. Like it had all been a con all along, like he’d just been waiting to ambush him, like all that other stuff during the off-season and since. All that friendly advice had just been so much buttering up to make him vulnerable.

It wasn’t like that, of course, and even Hamilton could see that in the aftermath. But in that moment, and the moment he stood on the brakes later than late, with no contingency plan, intent only on retaliation, he was driven by pure blind rage. Had Button been in a similar emotional state, they would have collided. But Button’s emotions don’t have that same flashpoint, are rather slower-burning. Which is what bought him those victories in Australia and China. The lack of such emotional control at the decisive moment is what won Hamilton this one.

As ever in this sport, there was no black and white, no right or wrong. Jackie Stewart used to drain himself of emotion ‘like a deflating balloon’ before getting into the car, so every choice was cold and clinical.

It won him many races and probably prevented him being killed in what was a lethally dangerous time of F1. But someone like Ayrton Senna used emotion to fuel his performances, to supercharge them.

On the pitwall Whitmarsh was now animated, conversing with the respective engineers of each driver. Both were told to ease off, and though a direct and overt ‘hold-station’ team order was technically illegal, this was as close as they dared go in issuing such an instruction. “Jenson, you really need to save a lot of fuel, right now,” was how it was put. Button got the implied message and duly lifted fully off the throttle next time past the pits.

“Whoops,” he said sarcastically over the radio.

“That should have helped!” Translation: message received and understood, but I’m not happy about it.

Afterwards, Button went to the team and demanded: “Now tell me how that was not team orders.”

March 15 2012 autosport.com 37

FIRST RACE GUIDE

AUSSIE HAPPENINGS

PICS: TOWNSEND,DUNBAR/LAT

FORM GUIDE

left Fernando Alonso down the grid and allowed Renault team-mate Giancarlo Fisichella a clear run at victory. In 2003, Michael Schumacher dropped out of victory contention after a clash with Kimi Raikkonen, while in 1999 Mika Hakkinen was leading when he suffered a throttle problem that put him out. The only other instance of the Melbourne winner not going on to take the championship came in 1997, when Jacques Villeneuve was taken out of the race at the first corner by an Eddie Irvine-triggered shunt.

In fact, since the Australian Grand Prix switched to Melbourne, there is not one instance of the driver who went on to be world champion being beaten in a straight fight.

2

Throughout testing, the refrain from drivers and teams has been “We’ll see in Melbourne”. But will we? Despite the Australian GP, and season openers in general, being good guides as to the title favourite, Albert Park paints at best a muddy picture of the true competitive order of the cars and the relative competitiveness of teams.

Then again, it will at least be clearer than the signs we picked up in testing.

As it’s a temporary track – best described as a parkland circuit rather than a street course, despite using public roads – the surface is bumpy and starts the weekend very green. This makes it difficult to zero-in on the perfect set-up, while the prevalence of short, sharp corners means the driver can better mask the inadequacies of a poor car. While Barcelona, where two

Vettel started ’11 season in appropriate style

thirds of pre-season testing takes place, is the ultimate test of the poise and downforce levels of a car, Albert Park is a far more rough-andready track on machinery. A committed driver capable of hanging onto an iffy car at the limit can make a big difference here.

This means that the competitive order we see there may not be representative, and it could be the Malaysian Grand Prix a week later where we finally see the true picture. So if Kimi Raikkonen is a contender in the Lotus (as was Vitaly Petrov, below left, for Renault last year), it doesn’t necessarily mean that it will stay that way for the year.

OVERTAKING

3

Last year’s Australian Grand Prix was characterised by widespread disappointment at the difficulty of overtaking, even with DRS assistance. But while it wasn’t a festival of passing, there was enough to make a race of it. The problem was the relative brevity of the start/ finish straight, with the DRS best used to get

March 15 2012 autosport.com 39

close to the car ahead at Turn 1/2 and using a strong exit to mount an assault into Turn 3.

Aside from the entry to Turn 1 and Turn 3, passing is going to be tough. But given that there was criticism at times last season of overtaking being too easy, that’s not necessarily a bad thing.

The lesser-spotted Melbourne passing move

FIRST CORNER DESTRUCTION

5

STRATEGIC THINKING

4

The fact that overtaking won’t be easy, combined with the new Pirelli tyres that teams have so far only sampled at relatively low track temperatures in Europe on their new cars, means that race strategy will be key in Melbourne. Last year, with unfamiliar rubber, the number of stops varied from one (in the case of Sergio Perez) to three. While the characteristics of the 2012 Pirellis are more familiar, the teams still have a lot to learn.

The track surface at Melbourne isn’t particularly abrasive, so if the track temperature is cool it can be tough on the rubber as it slides across the asphalt.

That means that there is the potential for tyre wear to be accelerated. Given that the track will be so green on Friday,

The start at Albert Park has traditionally been the scene of plenty of contact, with many a fragment of carbonfibre left in the vicinity of the Turn 1/2 right-left flick. The reasons for this are obvious, and it stretches beyond first-race exuberance, for the third-gear Turn 1 narrows at the turn-in point. Over the years there have been many collisions there, stretching back to Eddie Irvine barging Johnny Herbert and Jacques Villeneuve off the track at the start in 1997.

In recent years, Mark Webber, Michael Schumacher and Fernando Alonso have all hit trouble in the first-corner gaggle. The flipside of the coin is that those who take it easy at Turn 1, as Alonso had to last year when he was on the outside of the corner at entry, can lose a lot of positions.

They’ll have to time this right

when teams will do the majority of their long runs in practice to get a feel for wear, this is a tricky curveball to face.

With the potential for varied strategies, the reward for getting it spot-on could be bigger than it normally is – possibly even making the difference between victory and a place off the podium.

Champs go rallycrossing at Turn 1

HOME HOPES

Webber was fifth 10 years ago in Minardi

40 autosport.com March 15 2012

6

A home driver hasn’t won the Australian Grand Prix since 1980, when Alan Jones won for Williams at Calder in a non-championship race that featured only one other F1 car (Bruno Giacomelli’s Alfa Romeo). Realistically, it has only been since the rise of Red Bull and Mark Webber that an Aussie has had the machinery needed to win, and it’s fair to say that Melbourne hasn’t exactly treated him well.

Since that sensational fifth place on his grand prix debut for Minardi in 2002 (when he was invited onto the podium), it hasn’t got any better for Webber. He has matched that result twice, most recently last year, but there have been plenty of mishaps, including damage sustained at the first corner, a pitlane spin and a collision with Lewis Hamilton in 2010.

For once, Webber isn’t carrying the crowd’s hopes single-handedly. Daniel Ricciardo has potentially points-scoring Toro Rosso machinery under him and is determined to make a big impact on home ground this weekend.

FIRST RACE GUIDE

AUSSIE HAPPENINGS 2005: Alonso was never going to get pole in rain

SIX OF THE BEST: CLASSIC SEASON OPENERS

The first race of the world championship has produced more than its fair share of drama during the past six decades.

Here are half a dozen of them...

1990 UNITED STATES

WEATHER

7

Melbourne in autumn doesn’t produce the most reliable of weather, and rain has been known to throw an unexpected variable into the mix at Albert Park. Of late it has been pretty dry in Melbourne, but don’t rule out a shower either during the race or qualifying that could have a huge impact on the result.

Fernando Alonso knows all about the problems rain can cause, having started down in 13th in 2005 after rain hit during singleshot qualifying, costing him a likely victory. A badly-timed downpour is more likely than a fullon wet race, which means that teams must be razor-sharp when it comes to monitoring the weather and modifying their strategies.

ARGUMENTS

8

PICS: ETHERINGTON, COATES, FERRARO, BELLANCA, COOPER, TEE/LAT

The Australian Grand Prix never fails to produce some kind of controversy. Last year Jenson Button was furious at being penalised for short-cutting the track while attempting to pass Felipe Massa (although, frankly, he was banged to rights), and both Saubers were disqualified for illegal rear wings, while two years earlier the double-diffuser controversy led to some very late nights for teams, the stewards and media alike!

This year there’s a sense of inevitability about some kind of griping related to the regulations designed to outlaw exhaust-blown diffusers, something that has been an ongoing theme throughout testing. The question is, will it just be the usual behind-the-scenes moaning, or will someone feel the need to take it as far as an official protest?

Tyrrell driver Jean Alesi dived up the inside of Gerhard Berger to lead at the start in only his ninth grand prix. He stayed there until lap 34, when Ayrton Senna passed him, only for Alesi to retake the lead.

Senna made the move stick a lap later, but Alesi held on for a stunning second.

1982 SOUTH AFRICA Forget the drivers’ strike; the 1982 South African GP at Kyalami should be remembered for Alain Prost’s brilliant charge from a lap down – after suffering a left-rear puncture while leading – to pass Renault team-mate Rene Arnoux for victory.

1961 MONACO Stirling Moss’s famous victory came after a dramatic race. Richie Ginther led early on for Ferrari, but Moss passed him at Massenet on lap 14. Ginther later came back, exchanging fastest laps with Moss late on, but the Briton held on to win.

1977 ARGENTINA Jody Scheckter started the race 11th and admitted that he would have branded anyone tipping him for victory as insane.

But, driving for the new Wolf team, he overtook the ailing Brabham of Carlos Pace with five laps to go to seal victory.

1989 BRAZIL Nigel Mansell wasn’t expected to finish the Brazilian GP at Rio, yet alone win it, thanks to a fragile Ferrari semi-automatic gearbox.

But it held together and Mansell passed Alain Prost with 14 laps to go to take an inspired victory on his Ferrari debut.

2003 AUSTRALIA

Double-diffuser Brawn got thumbs up in ’09

Michael Schumacher or Kimi Raikkonen might have won but for a Turn 1 collision.

Juan Pablo Montoya, too, would have had he not spun at the same corner. In the end, it was veteran David Coulthard who came through to take his last grand prix win.

March 15 2012 autosport.com 41

42 autosport.com March 15 2012

INTERVIEW DANICA PATRICK

‘‘I didn’t like

my time in

England…but it made me who I am today’’ As US starlet Danica Patrick starts the next phase of her life as a NASCAR driver, she tells ANDREW VAN DE BURGT how a miserable spell racing in England shaped her career

D

PICS: SQUIRE/GETTY , LAT SOUTH

id you know that Danica Patrick speaks Swedish?

Straight after securing pole for the NASCAR Nationwide Series race at Daytona she talks to AUTOSPORT (in English, naturally).

Then, randomly, the producer of a TV show asks the most famous woman in motorsport if she can say ‘hello’ in Swedish. Without hesitation she replies: “Hej, hur är du?” (we think!).

Sensing the general shock and awe of those around, she explains: “I learned it from my team-mate Robin Rudholm when I was racing in Europe and I’ve never forgotten it for some reason.”

And it wasn’t the only thing she learned there… Patrick’s time racing in Europe, specifically England, is not

In 2012 Daytona Nationwide race

something she looks back on with a great deal of fondness. Having been chosen by Ford as a woman to take to the top of the motorsport ladder, she was sent as a teenager to go and live in a foreign land, where she was expected to race wheel-to-wheel with a group of hairy-chested F1 wannabes.

After competing in Formula Vauxhall Junior in 1999, she moved to Formula Ford for 2000, initially with Andy Welch Racing. Despite always getting the better of usual team-mate Fairuz Fauzy, results weren’t at the level she, or her sponsors, were expecting. And if anything, life away from the cockpit was even worse.

“It was a dark time for me,” she recalls. “I was all on my own and I was growing up – we were kids in our late teens – and when you’re the only girl you don’t really fit in with what the boys are trying to do. Girls are not invited when boys are ‘going out to pull’ (which she says in a Mockney accent), so I was kind of odd woman out. The racing wasn’t what I wanted it to be and I didn’t feel like I was getting what I needed. I didn’t even feel at times that people wanted to see me do well.”

Welch reckons that a lot of the young guns never got their heads, or egos, around being beaten by a woman.

“I don’t know if you’ve seen what happens when a woman beats a man in a racing car, but it’s very disturbing for some men,” says Welch. “I remember a test day we did at Mallory Park with all the official Mygale drivers. I think during the day she did 150-200 laps and her car must have been hit at least 10 times, and that was just in testing!”

Patrick adds: “I just felt that culturally the people weren’t ready for it. Not only was I American, I was a girl and I didn’t have a manager standing by my side always fighting for me, standing up to teams for me and pushing for the best equipment and the best everything, and a lot of other people had that.” Feeling low, missing home and having to deal with underlying sexism on a grand scale, it was hardly surprising that she failed to score a single podium finish in the British championship that year.

There was, however, a silver lining.

A switch to Haywood Racing ahead of the Festival, coupled with the arrival of her mother from the States, gave

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INTERVIEW DANICA PATRICK

PICS: LAT ARCHIVE

Festival joy with Davidson, Rudholm

Patrick the boost she’d been missing.

She ran well in the heats, then enjoyed a great run to second in the final behind team-mate Anthony Davidson.

“If you’re going to do well in one, you want to do well at the Festival,” she reasons. “In effect it did help me learn about what I needed to do well as a driver, because that week I was so happy. My mom was there, we were having fun, we’d go to breakfast every morning together and I’d get my poached eggs on toast and we were just having a good time.

“We’d go out and it seemed like some of my friends and their parents were there too. Oddly enough I did really well that weekend. So I was happy and I learned that’s really important for me in the car.”

But rather than use Festival success as a springboard to further her racing career in Europe, a return to the States beckoned. Impressed by her ambition

DANICA AND THE F1 TEST THAT NEVER WAS F1 loves publicity – and Formula 1 is desperate to crack the States.

So quite why Danica Patrick has never driven an F1 car is a bit of a mystery. But that’s not because

in testing herself in a foreign environment, US racing legend Bobby Rahal became her patron and she contested the centrallyrun Barber Dodge Pro Series.

“I learned a lot about life when I was there [in England],” she concludes. “I learned a lot about myself and about other people and I’m grateful for that – that is what helped me to get on Bobby Rahal’s team because he saw the dedication I had, going to England and taking that risk and leaving high school and living on my own. So I’m grateful for the experience as it helped mould me into who I am today.”

Patrick’s progress from Barber Dodge through Rahal’s Toyota Atlantic team to narrowly missing out on Indy 500 glory at her first attempt has been well documented. What’s often overlooked in that story is her ability behind the wheel. It was a very convenient excuse for any men

she’s never had the chance…

“Over the years the F1 rumours usually weren’t backed up by a lot of conversation with me; most of the time it was just somebody starting something,” she says.

“I do remember in the past being offered a test [for Honda], but I just wasn’t serious about racing them. I

didn’t want to put myself in a position to drive the car and waste time if I didn’t want to race it.

“Also, what if I didn’t look good?

Then it’s a real shame that I did it, as there’s a lot to lose and not a lot to gain if I didn’t want to race those cars. So that’s why I didn’t want to do it.”

defeated by her to highlight the weight advantage she held over them. What’s missing is the fact that she tends to excel at places where being supersmooth is critical to success.

While she was keen to point out the role the JR Motorsports team played in preparing a great car for her to take that Daytona pole, when pressed on what role she played in the success she explains: “There are little things the driver can try and do behind the wheel.

Obviously you want to get up to speed really smoothly, get as much out of all those revs and powerband as you can through the gears. You want to run as little distance around the track as you can. I learned that from my IndyCar days, and yet you don’t want the car to be slowed down by keeping the wheel in it. You’ve got to feel when the car wants to run off the corner and when it needs that to start speeding up.”

Since her headline-grabbing Indy 500 debut in 2005, when she became the first woman to ever lead a race at the Brickyard, Patrick’s career has been played out under the glare of the media spotlight. During this year’s Daytona 500 weekend you could have been forgiven for thinking she was the only driver in the race, such was the ubiquity of the mentions of her in coverage.

But after six years of such intense media attention, it’s something she now just takes in her stride.

“I don’t mind being followed, and I don’t mind having a lot of attention,” says the woman with over 560,000 Twitter fans (@DanicaPatrick). “I’m grateful for it and the things that it allows for me to do and the partners that it allows for me to have. But the only time when I’m at the racetrack and I feel liberated is when I’m there early enough in the weekend and no-one’s bothering me – I can stand in the garage area, or stand outside.

I feel liberated, but I don’t feel like I need it. I can retreat to my bus – that’s my safe zone.”

Given the strength of following, and the fantastic story that will be created by her winning a NASCAR race – be it Nationwide or Cup – Patrick is going to have a few more years of bathing in the spotlight. It’s all a long way from testing at Mallory Park – and that’s just the way she likes it.

March 15 2012 autosport.com 45

REPORTS WORLD OF SPORT

INTERNATIONAL RACES & RESULTS NASCAR SPRINT CUP Las Vegas (USA), Rd 3/36

QUICK RESULTS → Winner Tony Stewart → Pole Kasey Kahne → Most laps led Tony Stewart → Points leader Greg Biffle

Thrilling end made ★★★✩✩ up for dull opening stages at Vegas RACE RATING

Johnson restarts eighth as Stewart pulls away

NASCAR SPRINT CUP LAS VEGAS (USA), MARCH 11, RD 3/36

Stewart holds off Johnson for Vegas win

PICS: LAT SOUTH

THERE ARE NOW ONLY TWO venues on NASCAR’s Sprint Cup calendar at which Tony Stewart hasn’t won, following a brilliant battling victory at Las Vegas last Sunday.

Stewart was simply sensational on restarts, at one stage vaulting from fourth to first after timing his getaway to perfection.

But when the race went green for the final time with three laps left to run, Jimmie Johnson stuck right onto the tail of the Stewart Haas Chevrolet.

The two Impalas left the rest of the pack in their wake, helped by the three Roush Fenway Fords of Greg Biffle, Carl Edwards and Matt Kenseth squeezing

each other as they ran three-wide. That ultimately caused Kenseth to scrape the wall, ruining what had been a strong race for the 2003 title winner.

Johnson had his Hendrick car tucked right up behind the similar machine in the lead, but simply lacked the pace to outdrag the champion, and Stewart crossed the line for his first win of the season.

“Man, I’m just finally glad to win one here,” said Stewart, who now needs to win at Darlington and Kentucky to complete the set. “We were really strong on the restarts. I’m proud of the Hendrick engine department [which provides power to the Stewart Haas

CURRENT STANDINGS 46 autosport.com March 15 2012

1 2 3 4 5

cars]. The key to our restarts was the power we had. We could go without spinning the tyres, and we could get a really good lead into Turn 1 and just haul butt down the backstretch.”

With a 25-point penalty hanging over him for a technical infringement at Daytona, Johnson needed a strong result. His cause was hurt by a practice crash that wrecked his race car and forced him to start from the back of the 43-car field. He drove a superb race, scything through the pack to lead.

Biffle took third for the third time in as many races and leads the points, while Stewart’s team-mate Ryan Newman claimed fourth.

Dale Earnhardt Jr led from the start for Hendrick Motorsports. In fact he led more laps at Vegas than he did in the whole of 2011.

But a call to change four tyres when all his rivals took two mired him in

Sebastian Vettel Mark Webber Jenson Button Lewis Hamilton Fernando Alonso

<> <> <> <> <>

31,442 21,777 19,745 19,305 18,663

the pack, and he couldn’t escape. He finished 10th.

Team-mate and polesitter Kasey Kahne was involved in the Roush dust-up at the end and dropped to 19th. l Connell Sanders Jr RESULTS

1 Tony Stewart (Chevrolet Impala), 267 laps in 2h54m44s;

2 Jimmie Johnson (Chevy), +0.461s;

3 Greg Biffle (Ford Fusion); 4 Ryan Newman (Chevy); 5 Carl Edwards (Ford); 6 Clint Bowyer (Toyota Camry); 7 Paul Menard (Chevy); 8 Jamie McMurray (Chevy); 9 Trevor Bayne (Ford); 10 Dale Earnhardt Jr (Chevy). Points 1 Biffle, 125; 2 Kevin Harvick, 115; 3 Denny Hamlin, 113; 4 Earnhardt, 107; 5 Matt Kenseth, 102; 6 Edwards, 102; 7 Stewart, 100; 8 Martin Truex Jr, 98; 9 Joey Logano, 98; 10 Mark Martin, 97.

YOUTH TRIUMPHS OVER EXPERIENCE IN NATIONWIDE SERIES Nationwide champion Ricky Stenhouse Jr took his first win of 2012 at Las Vegas. The Roush Fenway Ford driver pulled away from veteran Mark Martin’s Gibbs Toyota at the final restart.

Points leader Elliott Sadler (Childress Chevy) was third.

Ranking the world’s best drivers WHAT HAPPENED THIS WEEK

Tony Stewart moves up two spots to 15th following his Las Vegas win, while runner-up Jimmie Johnson (13) gains one place, jumping Matt Kenseth (14) – who drops two – in the process. Paul Menard is the big gainer, vaulting eight spots to an all-time high of 45th.

To see the full list, visit castroldriverrankings.com

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Castelceriolo, (AL), Italia Tel: 39(0) 131 216505 Fax: 39(0) 131 216506

ISA RACING

Kottenheim, Germany Tel: 49(0) 2651 96250 Fax: 49(0) 2651 962510

NIMEX

Monheim, Germany Tel: 49(0) 2173 54253 Fax: 49(0) 2173 51089

INTERNATIONAL RACES & RESULTS AUTO GP Monza (I), Rd 1/7

QUICK RESULTS → Race 1 Adrian Quaife-Hobbs → Race 2 Pal Varhaug → Pole Adrian Quaife-Hobbs → Points leader Pal Varhaug

AUTO GP WORLD SERIES MONZA (I), MARCH 10-11, RD 1/7

Quaife-Hobbs takes debut win at Monza ADRIAN QUAIFE-HOBBS hadn’t even seen an Auto GP car until two weeks prior to last weekend’s Monza’s season opener. But the Briton adapted swiftly to his new environment at Super Nova and scored a hard-fought debut victory, despite gearbox gremlins estimated to have cost him 0.3 seconds per lap.

A cerebral drive to third place in race two handed Quaife-Hobbs the joint lead of the championship with Pal Varhaug, the other winner. Neither is confirmed to finish the season, but both now have an added incentive to do so.

Sergey Sirotkin lined up behind polesitting GP3 graduate Quaife-Hobbs for race one, but the 16-yearold Russian’s threat failed to materialise when he stalled his Euronova car at the lights. From fourth, GP2 refugee Varhaug deftly negotiated the stationary car to run second into the Rettifilo chicane. But the Virtuosi UK driver left his inside unguarded, allowing

late-braking Sergio Campana to overtake.

An early break by Quaife-Hobbs was negated when his gearbox momentarily failed to upshift, allowing Campana to close in. The Italian chased Quaife-Hobbs to the flag, but lost second after being penalised a minute for the MLR71 team mistakenly changing his front tyres at his mandatory pitstop rather than the rears stipulated by the rules.

Varhaug was promoted to second and then charged to victory the following day, to give Virtuosi its maiden victory just a few months after former Super Nova staffer Andy Roche established the team.

Chris van der Drift was 3.5s adrift in second to mark a great return after a year out of racing. QuaifeHobbs lost time during his pitstop, Super Nova delaying his release to let a four-car train pass safely.

After his misfortune, Quaife-Hobbs lucked in when the four-car fight for

Entertaining racing ★★★✩✩ made up for lack of strength in depth RACE RATING

REPORTS WORLD OF SPORT

Quaife-Hobbs won for Super Nova on his Auto GP debut

second got together at the Rettifilo on lap 10, clearing his path to the podium.

Formula Abarth champ Sirotkin completed a strong recovery over the weekend to claim fourth. Zele Racing’s Giacomo Ricci had earlier appeared destined for at least a top-three finish, only to be punted out of third by Campana. l Peter Mills

RESULTS Race 1 1 Adrian Quaife-Hobbs, 14 laps in 23m36.782s; 2 Pal Varhaug, +4.880s; 3 Daniel de Jong; 4 Facu Regalia; 5 Chris van der Drift; 6 Giacomo Ricci. Race 2 1 Varhaug, 14 laps in 23m48.744s; 2 van der Drift, +3.519s; 3 Quaife-Hobbs; 4 Sergey Sirotkin; 5 Antonio Spavone; 6 Max Snegirev. Points 1 Varhaug, 38; 2 Quaife-Hobbs, 38; 3 van der Drift, 25; 4 de Jong, 15; 5 Regalia, 14; 6 Sirotkin, 12.

SUPER TC2000 ALTA GRACIA (RA), MARCH 11, RD 1/12

Rossi on top as a new era kicks off in Argentina MATIAS ROSSI MADE HISTORY by winning the first race of Argentina’s biggest tin-top series since its reinvention as Super TC2000 at Alta Gracia last weekend. But the Toyota driver had to overcome a spirited challenge from Brazilian V8 legend Caca Bueno to do so.

Bueno, who won last year’s Buenos Aires 200Km in a guest drive, was enticed to race with the independent PSG 16 Ford squad by changes to the engine rules over the winter, which centered on a switch from 2000cc, four-cylinder Berta powerplants to 2.7-litre Radical V8s.

He made an instant impression to go fastest in qualifying, before Rossi knocked him back to second in Sunday morning’s new ‘Super 8’ knockout session and began his title defence in perfect fashion.

Bueno, who this season will also bid for a fifth Brazilian title in seven years, couldn’t live with Rossi.

Instead he had his hands full with the reigning champion’s team-mate Mariano Werner early on, before the Toyota barged past with two wheels on the grass. The move came back to bite Werner, rising water temperature forcing him into

IN BRIEF Monje triumphed

EUROPEAN TOURING CARS Fernando Monje kicked off the season with a double win at Monza in his SUNRED SEAT Leon TDI. The ex-F3 racer finished ahead of the Copa-spec models of Stian Paulsen and Andreas Pfister in both races.

NEW ZEALAND V8 TOURERS

Rossi leads Bueno early on

the pits just a lap later.

With Werner gone, Bueno couldn’t close the 1.8s gap to Rossi and instead dropped back by the finish. Christian Ledesma completed the podium for Chevrolet ahead of Nestor Girolami’s Cobra Peugeot. l Tony Watson

UAE GT CHAMPIONSHIP

RESULTS

1 Matias Rossi (Toyota Corolla),

Angus Fogg (Ford) wrapped up the title at Taupo’s season finale, despite a collision with Jason Bargwanna that netted him a 50s penalty in race two. Martin Short and Simon Evans took maiden wins, while Tim Edgell won the final. All were in Fords.

28 laps in 45m52.533s; 2 Caca Bueno (Ford Focus), +3.623s; 3 Christian Ledesma (Chevrolet Cruze); 4 Nestor Girolami (Peugeot 408); 5 Emiliano Spataro (Renault Fluence); 6 Mariano Altuna (Renault). Points 1 Rossi, 32; 2 Bueno, 26; 3 Ledesma, 18; 4 Girolami, 16; 5 Spataro, 14; 6 Altuna, 12.

Rob Barff and Leon Price took a double win at Dubai Autodrome in their Ferrari to all but wrap up the title. The races also featured models from the touring car class, Nader Zuhor and Costas Papantonis winning an event each in their SEAT Leons.

March 15 2012 autosport.com 51

Six of the best for Seb after Mexican mastery

MEXICAN RALLY

Guanajuato, March 8-11

The world champion’s first gravel win of 2012 means he hasn’t been beaten in these parts since 2005

ROUND 3/13 WINNER

Sebastien Loeb 4h15m32.7s

RALLY RATING

★★★★★

Great start, frittered away into reasonably predictable result

DRIVERS’ STANDINGS Loeb Hirvonen P Solberg

66pts 50pts 47pts

POWERSTAGE WINNER Solberg

MILESTONES

l Longest-ever Rally Mexico l Benito Guerra’s maiden PWRC win DAVID EVANS reports

HISTORY WILL REFLECT another hugely competent and apparently undramatic Rally Mexico win for Sebastien Loeb in Leon last week. Look closer. Yes, Loeb had the answer first thing Saturday morning with a brilliant run through Otates, but Ford turned around a shocking high-altitude performance with some blistering pace from the Fiesta RS WRC. And Loeb’s own team-mate Mikko Hirvonen gave a great account of himself first time out on gravel in the DS3 WRC. Time will tell whether this was consummate control from the eight-time world champion or the start of a new and possibly more significant challenge than ever to fortress Loeb.

LEG ONE (92.12 miles) SUNNY THEN RAIN LATER – AMBIENT TEMPERATURE RANGE ON STAGES 15-29C

Fastest in the qualifying stage and around and under the streets of Guanajuato last Thursday, Petter Solberg looked to have his Ford Fiesta RS WRC licked.

The Norwegian’s first outing in the car on gravel couldn’t have started better.

And the 2005 Mexico winner’s early pace was the perfect tonic for a pre-event bout of ’flu. It didn’t last (the ’flu or the lead).

Solberg was just a tenth of a second down on Mikko Hirvonen’s benchmark Citroen in the first split on the road up El Cubilete, but when that gap mushroomed to 12.5s just a couple of miles further

52 autosport.com March 15 2012

something was badly wrong.

“Puncture,” grimaced the man who had dropped 14 places on the leaderboard in as many minutes.

Solberg’s explanation was also somewhat superfluous, given that the left-rear of the Fiesta bore the scars of a fast-flailing Michelin.

“I was wide in a narrow section and hit the bank.

I knew straight away it was going down.”

Frustrated and fired-up, Solberg redoubled his efforts in the next stage and promptly dropped his Ford in a ditch, knocking the right-rear tyre off the rim.

A great night had turned into a very tough day.

But not for Hirvonen, who was heading in the opposite direction courtesy of that fastest time on the first

gravel stage. The Finn was kept honest by his countryman and former team-mate Jari-Matti Latvala, who was just a second slower through SS2. Latvala moved ahead in SS3 and stayed there through Los Mexicanos.

Solberg’s double puncture aside, there was plenty to cheer for Ford. This time last year, the Fiesta was being obliterated by the Hirvonen took P2 on first gravel rally in Citroen DS3

DS3 WRC with the gap closing on a minute half-way through day one.

That certainly wasn’t the case this time around. And it was all thanks to altitude training… in Essex.

Essex isn’t known for its mountains; Pole Hill ranks among the county’s high spots at 91 metres above sea level. Despite this lack of elevation, the Fiesta RS WRC adjusted itself

REPORT WRC MEXICO Roll-cage damage led to Latvala’s retirement

PICS: McKLEIN.DE

Loeb: untroubled for Mexico win #6

perfectly to life in the thin air of 2000 metres-plus in Ford’s climatic chamber at the Dunton technical centre.

Ford and M-Sport had worked wonders, turning an asthmatic 1.6-litre motor into a Citroen beater in 12 months. Despite Solberg’s woe, there were smiles on the faces of the Fordies for the first time since Markko Martin won this event eight years ago.

And then, with his Fiesta flat in fifth, Latvala met a rock on his line in Ortega and those smiles waned slightly. At that speed and with that size of rock, there was only going to be one winner – and it wasn’t the front-left suspension arm on the Ford. The leader dropped a minute and a half.

“I couldn’t avoid the

rock,” said Latvala. “At that speed, if I had tried to go around it, I would have gone off the road.”

Latvala had little interest in the investigation as to the provenance of the rock, with suggestions that it had been placed there by spectators. With spectators throwing rocks at some of the cars, the organisers elected to can the second run through Ortega.

So, with both Fords out of the picture, Citroen men Hirvonen and Loeb hit the front. Unbeaten on this event for the past five years, the Frenchman had found his Citroen’s sweet spot to go fastest in stages four and five. Hirvonen was ahead, but only by six tenths.

“It’s a good start,” he conceded, “but there’s

more to come. I’m not finding the rhythm in these stages very quickly.”

And he would need more if he was going to stay with Loeb. Through the afternoon, the defending champion was quicker on every one of the gravel stages. It was never more than a second or two, but it was enough for Loeb to build a useful advantage at the end of what he admitted he’d expected to be a tough day.

“On the recce I thought today would be really difficult,” said Loeb, “but in the race it wasn’t so bad – which is good, because Mikko is close.”

If Loeb’s start to this event had been quiet, Thierry Neuville ensured there was a Citroen worth

talking about. The Belgian made a spectacular World Rally Car debut on gravel, running as high as fourth and promising there was more to come.

Unfortunately, when he tried to deliver the next level he was caught out and forcibly removed a wheel from his DS3 WRC on SS6.

Neuville’s departure removed some of the pressure from Mads Ostberg, who had just eased his way past the Citroen Junior driver on SS5.

Ostberg happily moved into a provisional podium position but, as the afternoon wore on and Latvala homed in on third place, he acknowledged it would be tough to stay there on day two.

Asked if he could keep Latvala at bay, Ostberg replied instantly: “No. That’s the honest answer!”

Latvala’s pace – fastest on the afternoon’s three gravel stages – had seriously impressed the two Citroen drivers at the front.

“If he keeps going like that, then we are going to have to worry about him on Sunday,” said Hirvonen.

Latvala ended the day 16s behind Ostberg and 1m27s off the lead.

Solberg’s factory Ford was also bearing down on Ostberg. Ott Tanak had checked into the Leon street stage early to allow Solberg past him, meaning the early leader would be one place better off on the road on day two. Tanak’s had been a quiet day, similar to that of fellow Fiesta driver Evgeny Novikov.

The final two stages of Friday were run around the

rallycross circuit on the outskirts of Leon and, when the gathering clouds delivered heavy rain it provided preferable conditions for the drivers first on the road. Nasser Al-Attiyah (Citroen) and Chris Atkinson (Ford) made hay when the rain came, collecting a scratch time apiece. Atkinson ended his first day of competition in a Fiesta eighth, with Al-Attiyah one place back on his DS3 gravel debut.

Atkinson’s Monster team-mate Ken Block suffered a miserable Friday, collecting a puncture on SS5 and then electing to pull over and wait, not wanting to hinder Atkinson running directly behind him. A broken radio meant no communication with the team and Block waited longer than expected after Atkinson had been slowed by a puncture of his own in the stage. The American was an overnight 15th.

POSITIONS AFTER DAY ONE 1 LOEB/ELENA

1h24m46.4.2s

2 HIRVONEN/LEHTINEN

+11.2s

3 OSTBERG/ANDERSSON

+1m11.9s

4 LATVALA/ANTTILA

+1m27.9s

5 SOLBERG/PATTERSON

+1m35.4s

6 TANAK/SIKK

+1m36.7s

LEG TWO (114.21 miles) SUNNY – AMBIENT TEMPERATURE RANGE ON STAGES 12-30C

A determined Hirvonen took 2.5s back from the leader on Saturday morning’s opener. Loeb admitted he’d relaxed a little bit too much towards the end of the stage, allowing his team-mate to steal a couple of seconds.

“I was in a good rhythm,” said Loeb, “the splits were

March 15 2012 autosport.com 53

Atkinson was back – in a Monster Fiesta

SS1 GUANAJUATO STREET STAGE (0.65 MILES)

Fastest: Solberg 53.7s Leader: Solberg

SS14 OTATES 1 (26.02 MILES)

Fastest: Loeb 30m19.9s Leader: Loeb

SS15 IBARILLA 2 (18.57 MILES)

SS2 EL CUBILETE 1 (13.74 MILES)

Fastest: Loeb 17m55.3s Leader: Loeb

SS3 LAS MINAS 1 (9.45 MILES)

Fastest: Latvala 29m54.7s Leader: Loeb

Fastest: Hirvonen 13m23.6s Leader: Hirvonen Fastest: Latvala 11m22.9s Leader: Latvala

SS4 LOS MEXICANOS 1 (9.13M)

SS16 OTATES 2 (26.02 MILES)

SS17 COMANJILLA 1 (11.12 MILES)

Fastest: Loeb 7m53.3s Leader: Latvala

Fastest: Latvala 10m21.1s Leader: Loeb

SS5 ORTEGA 1 (14.72 MILES)

SS18 SUPERSPECIAL 3 (2.74 MILES)

Fastest: Loeb 14m08.7s Leader: Hirvonen

SS6 EL CUBILETE 2 (13.74 MILES)

Fastest: Latvala 13m11.8s Leader: Loeb

SS7 LAS MINAS 2 (9.45 MILES)

Fastest: Latvala 11m03.1s Leader: Loeb

SS8 LOS MEXICANOS 2 (9.13M)

Fastest: Latvala 7m43.6s Leader: Loeb

SS9 ORTEGA 2 (14.72 MILES)

Cancelled

SS10 LEON STREET STAGE (0.76M)

Fastest: Loeb 1m16.4s Leader: Loeb

SS11 SUPERSPECIAL 1 (1.37M)

Fastest: Al-Attiyah 1m39.5s Leader: Loeb

SS12 SUPERSPECIAL 2 (1.37M)

Fastest: Atkinson 1m38.3s Leader: Loeb

SS13 IBARILLA 1 (18.57 MILES)

Fastest: Solberg 3m14.3s Leader: Loeb SS19 SUPERSPECIAL 4 (1.37 MILES)

Cancelled – merged into SS18 SS20 COMANJILLA 2 (11.12 MILES)

Fastest: Latvala 10m13.7s Leader: Loeb SS21 SUPERSPECIAL 5 (2.74 MILES)

Fastest: Neuville 3m12.5s Leader: Loeb SS22 GUANAJUATITO (34.02 MILES)

Fastest: Hirvonen 36m30.7s Leader: Loeb SS23 DERRAMADERO (7.15 MILES)

Fastest: Loeb 7m14.9s Leader: Loeb

24 POWERSTAGE (3.57 MILES) SS24 POWERSTAGE (3.57 MILES)

Fastest: Solberg 3m11.4s Leader: Loeb

Fastest: Latvala 18m01.4s Leader: Loeb

54 autosport.com March 15 2012

coming well and I was thinking: ‘This is okay…’, and then I took it a bit easy.”

Loeb smiled before adding: “I can’t do this.

Hirvonen is close again.”

The Otates stage, on the eastern perimeter of Leon, was a mixture of new roads blended with sections of the old Alfaro and Duarte tests – both of which have been Loeb strongholds.

And he ruled again.

The first half of the 26-miler was faster and wider – and the champion just revelled in it. Nobody came close to the #1 DS3, which was fastest to every split point.

“I like that one,” said Loeb at the end, wiping the sweat away with his balaclava after half an hour of flat-out driving in a World Rally Car. “It’s quite technical in places, but it’s good for me.”

Hirvonen’s low point came 9.6 miles into SS14, when he was 9.6s down on Loeb. The Finn fixed himself and actually managed to nick a tenth back from the leader over the remaining 15 miles.

“I didn’t drive well at the start,” said Hirvonen. “I was pushing the car again, too aggressive sliding into the corners and trying to drive it like the Fiesta. When I tidied the driving up and started to relax and drive the car straighter then the time was good again. It was a stupid thing to do.”

As the conversation quickly moved onto the potential for keeping Latvala behind rather than getting back in front of Loeb, it was clear that in Mikko’s mind,

this one had gone to Loeb.

But, first time out on gravel, Hirvonen was giving an excellent account of himself.

Outwardly Latvala laughed off talk of him catching a Citroen. Inwardly, he pushed harder and harder. He took four more seconds from Hirvonen in SS14, but admitted it could have been more had he been less sideways in the stage’s mid-section.

Latvala’s secret pushing policy was blown open on the next stage. Going into SS15 was just over a minute down on Hirvonen, having reduced that deficit by half a minute after his suspension-bashing rock moment in SS5. But that was as close as he would get. A broken wheel on SS15 ruined Latvala’s charge.

“Forget the two at the front now,” said the dejected Latvala as he stepped from his Ford to inspect the remains of the left-front wheel and tyre. I tried, but there’s nothing more to do now. I drove over some bedrock and it broke – we had to drive 25km like this.”

Solberg leapfrogged his way from fifth to third in stage 15, having overcome a bout of brake fade on the two longer stages of the morning. A change to softer pads rectified the problem for the remainder of the day.

His tenure of the lowest provisional podium step was short-lived. Latvala passed him in the next stage when Solberg suffered another puncture.

“I’m the champion for punctures,” he smiled thinly.

“That’s four now. But this

one was definitely not my fault: there was a nail through the tyre this time!”

That typified Solberg’s lack of luck on this rally. He ended the day fourth with Ostberg fifth and more than 1m30s up on Tanak.

Tanak had also suffered a puncture earlier in the day, but the Estonian came across another wheelrelated problem on the final Saturday stage. He explained: “We were not far into the stage and I saw a wheel in the middle of the road. Then a bit further in we saw the upright in the middle of the road, then there was a Fiesta at the side of the road.”

That Fiesta was the Novikov three-wheeler that wouldn’t be playing any further part in day two.

Another Fiesta driver not seeing final service would be Chris Atkinson, who went off the road after the flying finish on SS16.

POSITIONS AFTER DAY TWO 1 LOEB/ELENA

3h25m17.5s

2 HIRVONEN/LEHTINEN

+36.2s

3 LATVALA/ANTTILA

+1m53.0s

4 SOLBERG/PATTERSON

+2m10.9s

5 OSTBERG/ANDERSSON

+2m44.2s

6 TANAK/SIKK

+4m22.1s

LEG THREE (46.45 miles) SUNNY AND CLOUDY – AMBIENT TEMPERATURE RANGE ON STAGES 12-27 C

All eyes were on the 34-mile Guanajuatito stage that took up much of Sunday morning in Leon. As a loosener for the longest test of the season so far, crews would tackle a fifth and final dash around the Superspecial.

But, as big as the rally’s

PICS: McKLEIN.DE

STAGE TIMES

REPORT WRC MEXICO PWRC

Bene Benito! Guerra breaks duck on home soil

↗ Ostberg drove well for fourth

Third was a strong finish for puncture king Solberg

22nd stage was, Nasser Al-Attiyah was still able to provide some perspective on the whole thing. Asked whether he was concerned about the challenge ahead, the Qatar World Rally Team star smiled and replied: “My friend, the longest single stage I completed on Dakar was more than 800km, I think this will be okay.”

And so it began. With 11 timed sectors, following the stage was a straightforward process and the tactics the teams were employing were equally transparent as Hirvonen, Loeb and Solberg all kept in reasonably close touch. And then there was Jari-Matti Latvala.

J-ML was on a mission and around a second per mile faster than Loeb for the first half of the stage.

His advantage over the master of Mexico for the past five years peaked at 18.3 seconds at split eight, 22 miles in.

RESULTS

Not far after that, Ford’s world turned upside down.

Distracted by seeing Novikov’s car off the road, Latvala braked, hit the bank and rolled.

“I think it went over twice and landed back on the track,” said Latvala.

“The front-left tyre was punctured in the impact, so we had to change that too” There was worse to come for Ford; the FIA’s technical delegate was at the start of the next stage and, on seeing damage to the Fiesta’s rollcage, brought a premature halt to Latvala’s event – despite extended and impassioned protestations from the distraught Finn.

Hirvonen’s fastest time through the stage was almost overlooked in the drama surrounding Latvala’s departure. Astonishingly, after more than 36 minutes of driving, just seven tenths of a second separated the #2

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

1 2 4 10 5 7 12 15 43 52

OTHERS

R R R

NO

When he left service later that day, he heard a rattling noise from beneath the car and was forced to stop and tighten suspension bolts, which dropped him 3m50s in penalties for arriving late at the next stage. And then, just when things couldn’t get any worse, he took a wheel off and retired in SS17.

He returned for the final day, via Rally 2 regulations, and collected points for third.

Ahead of him, Nicolas Fuchs turned in a drive every bit as merit-worthy as that of the winner. The Peruvian was the only driver other than Guerra to lead the event – Fuchs was fastest on the Guanajuato street-stage blast.

But after that, he struggled with the wear rate of his DMACK tyres. Having finished third here three times, Fuchs was very happy with second.

But not, of course, as happy as the winner.

“To win my first PWRC round at home is just incredible, I can’t tell you the feeling now,” said Guerra. “I have led this rally from the second stage without any real problems, but to come and see the happy people all cheering with me is just amazing.”

Just off the podium, Gianluca Linari was fourth in his Subaru, while Rodrigo Salgado’s Lancer was fifth, just ahead of Ramona Karlsson’s similar car.

Guerra was jumping for joy after home win

Rally Mexico, March 8-11, round 3 of 13

24 SPECIAL STAGES, 253.450 MILES POS

DS3 WRC with the sister car of Loeb.

Hirvonen was secure in second and Solberg moved up to third after Latvala went out. Solberg ended the event as he’d started it: fastest; a Powerstage win cheering him further.

Ostberg collected a richly deserved fourth despite dropping two minutes with a puncture in SS22.

At the front of the field, Loeb chalked up win number six and took home another pair of cowboy boots – as is the tradition for the Rally Mexico victor.

Loeb talked openly at the finish of the threat that he’d faced on this event, but pointed out that all the points came at the finish – and most of them had been taken by Citroen in its first one-two of the season.

Mexico might not have been an nail-biter, but you get the feeling nails won’t grow too long this year...

Benito Guerra jumped out of his Mitsubishi almost before it had come to a stop at the final control. With his Mexican flag trailing behind him, he jumped on to the roof and let out a long and loud cheer that was ultimately drowned out by the countrymen who surrounded him and joined him in song.

Such is the delight of a Mexican driver winning the Production Car World Rally Championship round on Rally Mexico.

In all honesty, the result was never really in doubt.

Guerra led virtually from the start of the event and controlled the rally perfectly.

He overcame an initial challenge from series leader Michal Kosciuszko and then from the brakes on his Ralliart Italia-run Lancer.

“For the first three stages on Friday, we were losing the brakes,” he said, “it was not so nice to drive, but then we changed pads and discs and everything was fine again.”

Guerra ended the day with a half-minute advantage over Kosciuszko’s Mitsubishi, but he would move further ahead when the Polish driver hit trouble on Saturday.

Trying to take as wide a line as possible going into a hairpin right on Saturday’s opener, he rattled the left side of the Lancer down a tree.

DRIVER/NAVIGATOR

Sebastien Loeb/Daniel Elena Mikko Hirvonen/Jarmo Lehtinen Petter Solberg/Chris Patterson Mads Ostberg/Jonas Andersson Ott Tanak/Kuldar Sikk Nasser Al-Attiyah/Giovanni Bernacchini Armindo Araujo/Miguel Ramalho Sebastien Ogier/Julien Ingrassia Ken Block/Alex Gelsomino Ricardo Trivino/Alex Haro

3 Jari-Matti Latvala/Miikka Anttila 6 Evgeny Novikov/Denis Giraudet 18 Chris Atkinson/Stephane Prevot

Starters /finishers: 27/18. Leaders: SS1 Solberg; SS2 Hirvonen; SS3-4 Latvala; SS5-24 Loeb.

CAR

TIME

Citroen DS3 WRC Citroen DS3 WRC Ford Fiesta RS WRC Ford Fiesta RS WRC Ford Fiesta RS WRC Citroen DS3 WRC Mini John Cooper WRC Skoda Fabia S2000 Ford Fiesta RS WRC Ford Fiesta RS WRC

4h15m32.7s +42.4s +2m11.4s +4m51.5s +5m02.6s +6m41.4s +12m46.9s +14m57.8s +22m26.8s +23m30.7s

Ford Fiesta RS WRC Ford Fiesta RS WRC Ford Fiesta RS WRC

SS23-acc SS22-acc SS22-susp

CHAMPIONSHIP TABLE POS DRIVER

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

Sebastien Loeb Mikko Hirvonen Petter Solberg Mads Ostberg Jari-Matti Latvala Evgeny Novikov Dani Sordo Ott Tanak Nasser Al-Attiyah Francois Delecour

1 2 3

Citroen Total WRT Ford WRT M-Sport Ford WRT

MANUFACTURERS’ POINTS

PTS

66 50 47 28 26 21 18 14 8 8

108 70 38

RALLY SUMMARY SS1 returned the WRC underground for the crowd-pleasing test around the streets and tunnels of Guanajuato. After that there were a few new stages, but mainly the old favourites lengthened to make this rally longer than ever.

PWRC – Round 2 of 8 POS DRIVER/NAVIGATOR

CAR

1 Benito Guerra/Borja Rozada 2 Nicolas Fuchs/Fernando Mussano 3 Michal Kosciuszko/M Szczepaniak

TIME

Mitsubishi Lancer EX 4h39m26.1s Mitsubishi Lancer EX +4m09.9s Mitsubishi Lancer EX +16m57.4s

March 15 2012 autosport.com 55

MONZA

AT A GLANCE → Race 1 Yvan Muller → Race 2 Yvan Muller → Pole Gabriele Tarquini → Fastest laps Rydell/Huff

ITALY March 10-11 WTCC Round 1 of 12

Chevy team boss Ray Mallock

and podium men

Muller continues his revolution The three-time WTCC champion keeps winning, but this time he does it after spinning

Muller and Tarquini go waltzing at Monza

CHEVROLET’S DOMINATION of the World Touring Car Championship continued unabated at Monza’s 2012 season opener. But if the RML-prepared cars did finish one-two-three in Sunday’s final race, they at least had the decency to put on an outlandish show.

The marque that has claimed the past two WTCC

titles, and revels in its status as the sole fullyfledged factory squad in the series, arrived with immaculate machinery, blitzed Thursday’s test and went on to lock out five of the six podium places available over the weekend.

But the manner of victory was somewhat unusual to say the least. Reigning

D’Aste recovered to take Indie prize

56 autosport.com March 15 2012

champion Yvan Muller was forced to stage a recovery drive to win race one, having earlier bounced over the grass at the Rettifilo when under pressure from pole winner Gabriele Tarquini’s SEAT. The incident, along with an opening-lap clash between Muller’s teammates Rob Huff and Alain Menu, was a warm-up to more spectacular antics in the later reversed-grid race.

Muller surpassed himself at the Rettifilo en route to his second victory. This time a sensational full 360 was completed – assisted by a nudge from Huff.

Were it not for the trace of awkward body language when the three jousting Chevy drivers disembarked in parc ferme, one could be mistaken for thinking they

had assumed drivingpersona equivalents of the Harlem Globetrotters: ‘We’ll perform tricks and still win.’

Predictably, the spills were downplayed in the press conference. The drivers’ familiarity with each other was evident, and allowed the second-lap blue pile-up to be shrugged off.

That outlook was perhaps made easier by the happy ending. The trio had not only continued, but swiftly reeled in and passed a gaggle of cars held up by poleman Norbert Michelisz’s Zengo BMW. Only when the laconic Muller expanded his views on the incident was there any admission that there had been concern.

“When I arrived at the Roggia [after the spin] my

thoughts were my tyre is probably going to be flat.

Then when I arrived at the next chicane I almost missed the apex as there was a lot of grass on my wheels. The car had a vibration, but the grip was still there. After an incident like this you need half a lap to be careful. I thought, ‘I want to check, because I am too old to die now!’”

Circumstances were unkind to Huff for him to be involved in two intrateam incidents in one afternoon. Menu had made an inferior exit out of the Roggia in race one, allowing Huff to draw alongside into the first Lesmo. The Cruzes found themselves unable to run two-abreast into one of Monza’s more challenging corners: exit

Huff taps Muller to trigger spin

Muller and Menu debate goings-on

Menu into the gravel. In the second incident (in race two), the three Cruzes were bunched tightly in a battle for fifth, and some form of contact appeared almost inevitable.

Remarkably, the only retirement in the fracas was the man offering Chevrolet its stiffest opposition at Monza. The big shake-up of the weekend wasn’t provided by one of several promising debutants, but by 50-year-old Tarquini. The SEAT driver set the fastest

RESULTS GRID RACE 1 2 MULLER 1:57.974

1 TARQUINI 1:57.915

4 MENU 1:58.200

3 HUFF 1:58.106

6 CORONEL 1:58.389

5 RYDELL 1:58.319

8 MACDOWALL 7 ORIOLA 1:58.507 1:58.412 10 MICHELISZ 9 DUDUKALO 1:58.652 1:58.649 12 ENGSTLER 11 D’ASTE 1:59.435 1:58.931 14 CHILTON 1:59.723

13 NASH 1:59.563

16 CERQUI 1:59.841

15 MONTEIRO 1:59.743

18 NG 1:59.949

17 SABATINO 1:59.891

20 BARLESI 19 BENNANI 2:00.394 2:00.300 22 WEBER* 1:59.348

21 TUTUMLU 2:01.333 23 O’YOUNG 13:20.070

qualifying time in both Q1 and Q2, a shock from a car that had only been assembled in the paddock on Tuesday. But the elation of Tarquini’s first pole since Valencia 2010 was in some ways a precursor to a weekend of varying fortunes for many of the SEAT runners.

Prior to race one, 2009 world champion Tarquini hadn’t managed to complete more than six consecutive laps without encountering gremlins. This despite a

PETER MILLS reports

relatively reliable test programme for the new, ORECA-originated, SEAT Sport-developed engine.

From pole, Tarquini would lose his race one lead through skating off on oil at the second Lesmo. A subsequent onset of engine and braking maladies forced the Italian to settle for third behind a charging Huff.

Tarquini’s team-mate Aleksei Dudukalo also had a day of unfulfilled potential.

The Russian was circulating in a fine seventh in race one when he was hit by late-race throttle or engine-related electrical problems. The issue prevented Dudukalo from taking his front-row position for race two’s partially-reversed grid.

“It’s important we improve the reliability sooner rather than later, as this season has a strange calendar,” said SEAT engineer Giancarlo Bruno, “The cars will get shipped off in the middle of the year and then we’re not going to have an opportunity of working on them.”

While SEAT develops its new power unit, on the evidence of Monza the continued Chevrolet bout appears sufficient in maintaining interest in the sharp end of the WTCC.

Evergreen Tarquini takes up the chase GABRIELE TARQUINI GAVE Monza’s circuit commentator an opportunity to show off some extenuated exclamations by taking pole position for his home race.

The Italian’s lead in race one proved short-lived, however, when Muller passed the SEAT into Parabolica at the completion of the first lap.

Approaching the Rettifilo chicane on lap two, Muller outbraked himself and cut across the grass while under pressure from the recovering Tarquini.

Muller recovered the lead when Tarquini ran wide on oil at the exit of the second Lesmo two laps later.

The Italian confessed to being caught out by the absence of an oil flag.

Tarquini later suffered engine and braking problems, which made life easier for Rob Huff to charge into second place.

The 2011 series runner-up closed to within 0.4s of Muller at the chequered flag, but ran out of laps to make a passing attempt.

Scandinavian champion Rickard Rydell finished fourth, with ROAL BMW man Tom Coronel just a second behind the Chevrolet Motorsport Sweden Cruze.

Independent honours went to SEAT teenager Pepe Oriola, who completed the top six overall.

The Chevrolet trio regrouped after their early stumble in race two to finish just 0.6s apart. Coronel maintained the slipstream to finish within a second of winner Muller in fourth.

Stefano d’Aste picked up Independent honours in his Wiechers BMW, while poleman Norbert Michelisz led until lap seven, but slipped to eighth.

Tarquini leads the Chevy train to the start

World Touring Car Championship, Monza (I), March 10-11, round 1 of 12

RACE 1 – 12 LAPS, 43.195 MILES POS DRIVER (NATIONALITY)

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 R R R R NS

REPORT WTCC MONZA

MILESTONE Tarquini’s pole is first for a non-Chevy since Aida in October 2010

RACE RATING ★★★✩✩ Resurgent Tarquini and Chevy battle provided the interest

Yvan Muller (F) Rob Huff (GB) Gabriele Tarquini (I) Rickard Rydell (S) Tom Coronel (NL) Pepe Oriola (E) Alain Menu (CH) Alex MacDowall (GB) Norbert Michelisz (H) Alberto Cerqui (I) Stefano d’Aste (I) Franz Engstler (D) Tom Chilton (GB) Pasquale di Sabatino (I) Charles Ng (PRC) James Nash (GB) Gabor Weber (H) Aleksei Dudukalo (RUS) Isaac Tutumlu (E) Andrea Barlesi (B) Mehdi Bennani (MA) Tiago Monteiro (P) Darryl O’Young (PRC)

TEAM

Chevrolet (RML) Chevrolet (RML) Lukoil Racing Chevrolet Sweden (Nika) ROAL Motorsport Tuenti Racing (SUNRED) Chevrolet (RML) Bamboo-Engineering Zengo Motorsport ROAL Motorsport Wiechers-Sport Team Engstler Team Aon (Arena) Bamboo-Engineering Team Engstler Team Aon (Arena) Zengo Motorsport Lukoil Racing Proteam Racing SUNRED Engineering Proteam Racing Tuenti Racing (SUNRED) Special Tuning Racing

CAR

Chevrolet Cruze 1.6T Chevrolet Cruze 1.6T SEAT Leon WTCC Chevrolet Cruze 1.6T BMW 320 TC SEAT Leon WTCC Chevrolet Cruze 1.6T Chevrolet Cruze 1.6T BMW 320 TC BMW 320 TC BMW 320 TC BMW 320 TC Ford Focus S2000 TC Chevrolet Cruze 1.6T BMW 320 TC Ford Focus S2000 TC BMW 320 TC SEAT Leon WTCC BMW 320 TC SEAT Leon TDI BMW 320 TC SEAT Leon TDI SEAT Leon WTCC

TIME

26m01.705s +0.446s +2.305s +2.705s +3.796s +6.111s +6.326s +8.287s +8.431s +9.257s +9.465s +12.082s +12.668s +15.886s +48.135s +56.503s

11 laps-acc dam 10 laps-engine 2 laps-engine 1 lap-accident 1 lap-accident 0 laps-accident fire

GRID

2 3 1 5 6 7 4 8 10 16 11 12 14 17 18 13 22 9 21 20 19 15 23

RACE 2 – 10 LAPS, 35.996 MILES POS DRIVER

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 R R NS NS

Muller Menu Huff Coronel d’Aste Engstler MacDowall Michelisz Cerqui Rydell Weber Oriola Nash Bennani Barlesi Chilton Tutumlu Monteiro di Sabatino Tarquini Ng Dudukalo O’Young

TIME

20m07.643s +0.307s +0.613s +0.993s +6.125s +6.705s +7.247s +10.238s +12.663s +14.066s +14.202s +14.575s +18.279s +18.775s +24.880s +25.586s +35.129s

9 laps-turbo pressure 8 laps-acc damage 1 lap-accident 1 lap-acc damage electrical fire

GRID

9 7 8 5 11 12 3 1 16 6 20 4** 13 21 19 14 22 15 17 10 18 2 23

CHAMPIONSHIP TABLE POS DRIVER

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9= 9=

Muller Huff Menu Coronel Tarquini Rydell d’Aste MacDowall Oriola Engstler

INDEPENDENTS POS DRIVER

1 2 3

d’Aste Oriola MacDowall

MANUFACTURERS

POS MANUFACTURER

1 2 3

Chevrolet BMW SEAT

PTS

54 36 26 22 20 14 10 10 8 8

PTS

14 14 14

PTS

93 49 45

Race 1 Winner’s average: 99.13mph. Fastest lap: Rydell, 1m59.116s, 108.79mph. Race 2 Winner’s average: 106.73mph. Fastest lap: Huff, 1m59.000s, 108.89mph. *Grid penalty due to engine change; **started from pitlane.

March 15 2012 autosport.com 57

WEC

preview 2012

Glory days: Jaguar v Porsche v Toyota

Dyson Lola ALMS racer is WEC one-off at Sebring

he wait is over. Sportscar racing – that’s proper long-distance sportscar racing – once again has its own world championship after 20 years. Hiatus is the correct term to describe that break, because the new FIA World Endurance Championship, which kicks off with the Sebring 12 Hours this weekend, truly is the spiritual successor to the old world series that ran continuously, though under various titles, from 1953 until 1992. And it looks like it has been worth that long wait, for every sportscar fan out there and for the discipline’s top drivers who finally get the chance to become world champion.

That’s despite Peugeot’s late withdrawal from the sportscar arena less than two months ago. The French manufacturer’s bombshell might have pulled the rug from under the WEC, which has grown out of the short-lived and largely unheralded Intercontinental Le Mans Cup. After much back room manoeuvring, the WEC has emerged from the crisis looking like a championship with a big future and not just a collection of races either side of the Le Mans 24 Hours.

T

Toyota has stepped up to the plate to mount a much more concerted attack on the inaugural WEC rather than contesting a handful of events around the Le Mans 24 Hours on race-by-race entries. It now plans to take on Audi in a minimum of six of the eight races with its TS030 HYBRID, starting at round two at Spa in May, more than just the three or four originally planned.

Then there’s a strong field of six cars from five petrol-powered LMP1 privateers aiming to benefit from the latest round of rules tweaks aimed at pegging back the advantage enjoyed by the turbodiesels. Nine cars are entered in the secondary prototype division, LMP2, compared with the paltry three registered entrants in the ILMC last year. The GTE entry, split across Pro and Am divisions, has held more or less firm from last year, despite the disappearance of DTM-bound BMW. WEC general manager Gerard Neveu is happy with the 30-car full-season entry, even though it seemed at one point the list might top 40 cars.

“All our projections over the winter were based on 28 cars,” he says, “so more than that after Peugeot’s decision was a good surprise.”

Audi: surely favourite for WEC honours?

PICS: GIBSON, GRIFFITHS/LAT; LAT ARCHIVE

Sportscars back on the world stage

After a 20-year break, sportscar racing has a world championship once again.

GARY WATKINS takes a look at how things are shaping up

WEC PREVIEW WORLD CHALLENGE Neveu is expecting a minimum of 35 cars at each event away from the double-points round at Le Mans.

What are called ‘additional’ entries for registered teams and ‘wildcard’ entries from those that are not will boost the entry each time.

More than 60 cars are on the list for Saturday’s series opener at Sebring when the WEC combines with the American Le Mans Series and there will be 40-plus at Spa, a race that is increasingly being used as a dry-run for Le Mans.

Neveu does admit disappointment at the small GTE Pro entry: just five full-season cars from three teams.

“We are disappointed with the quantity, because we wanted between two and four more cars,” he explains, “but we are not disappointed by the quality. They are all top cars.”

Neveu expresses similar opinions about the P1 privateers.

“They are not little teams,” he says.

“They are proper organisations with long-term plans; they are not here just for one year.”

What is true, however, is that all the privateers, with the exception of Henri Pescarolo’s outfit, are reliant on the patronage of a wealthy individual rather than commercial sponsorship. The same goes for the majority of the P2 teams. Neveu explains that it is his job to change that balance, to make the WEC more commercially viable.

“A world championship cannot be just about manufacturers and rich team owners,” he says. “We have to grow the TV side and we have to have real events, not just races. That way the series

Toyota is a welcome addition to the series

“We know Porsche is coming to LMP1 in 2014 and expect more. We are already discussing with more manufacturers” WEC general manager Gerard Neveu

will evolve into something big.”

That’s something that will also attract new manufacturers to the WEC, both in LMP1 and GTE, according to Neveu.

“We know Porsche is coming to LMP1 in 2014 and we expect more,” he says. “We are already discussing with other manufacturers for P1.”

Who will join Porsche in 2014 or beyond by building LMP1 machinery to the forthcoming rulebook, which is designed to encourage alternative technologies, isn’t clear. Jaguar, Nissan and Honda are known to be interested, though none has yet declared its hand.

Surely a genuine, FIA world series racing on multiple continents, with Le Mans at its heart, will be a major attraction to manufacturers and privateers alike? The evidence so far looks good.

Night-time driving a stern test

THE TITLES ON OFFER FIA World Endurance Champion driver FIA World Endurance Champion manufacturer FIA World Cup for GTE manufacturers FIA Endurance Trophies will be awarded on the basis of the teams’ classification in LMP1 (privateers only), LMP2, GTE Pro and GTE Am

WEC 2012 CALENDAR March 17 Sebring 12 Hours (USA) May 5 Spa 6 Hours (B) June 16-17 Le Mans 24 Hours (F)* August 16 Silverstone 6 Hours (GB) September 15 Sao Paulo 6 Hours (Interlagos, BR) September 29 Bahrain 6 Hours (BN) October 14 Fuji 6 Hours (J) October 27 Shanghai 6 Hours (PRC)

Silverstone 6 Hours

Spa 6 Hours

Le Mans 24 Hours Fuji 6 Hours Shanghai 6 Hours

Sebring 12 Hours Bahrain 6 Hours

* double points round WEC hits Silverstone in August

Sao Paulo 6 Hours (Interlagos)

WHERE TO WATCH SEBRING ON TV Motors TV: live, 1415-1900/2130-0250; Eurosport: 0000-0230 (Feb 18); ESPN 3: live (from 1315) Web: fiawec.com, lemans.org, alms.com March 15 2012 autosport.com 59

WEC

1998-99 United States Road Racing Championship launched by SCCA with backing of group of dissatisfied entrants

2012

preview

1999 SportsCar relaunched as American Le Mans Series

1998 New group involving Don Panoz takes control of SportsCar and runs first Petit Le Mans at Road Atlanta at end of season

1996 Controversial team owner Andy Evans takes over the organisation, rechristening it Professional SportsCar Racing

1994 IMSA moves to new breed of open-top prototypes called World Sports Cars

1993 Long-running IMSA GTP category is in decline

1995 New prototype class based on US WSC rules. Rules designed to give GT1 cars parity

1994 Revised Group C cars form basis of prototype grid

1993 Last year of Group C at Le Mans; GT cars readmitted

LE MANS

1999 Panoz’s plans for series running to Le Mans rules in Asia, with an Endurance Cup Challenge linking them and the ALMS, delayed

1998 Automobile Club de l’Ouest licences Le Mans name to Panoz

UNITED STATES

1999 Series rechristened SportsRacing World Cup

1998 First full season for ISRS

1997 Prototype division relaunched in Europe with short pilot series for the International Sports Racing Series

PROTOTYPES

1992 Sportscar World Championship, which dates back to 1953, withers and dies with an eight-car field at Magny-Cours

GT

1999 GT1 cars disappear from FIA GTs

1997 Series becomes the FIA GT Championship but still promoted

by Stephane Ratel, the ‘R’ of the BPR

1995 Becomes Global Endurance GT Series

1994 Sportscar racing in Europe relaunched by BPR Organisation under International GT Endurance banner

1998 Ratel plans FIA Sports-Prototype Championship, combining GT1 and prototype machinery

WORLD SPORTSCARS

1998 Breakaway GTR Euroseries launched by Patrick Peter, the ‘P’ of the BPR

1995

1990

After 20 years, we finally have an FIA championship for sports-prototypes again. GARY WATKINS traces the tortuous route back

WARS BETWEEN THE WORLDS

WEC PREVIEW HOW WE GOT TO HERE

Idea stillborn

Series ends

KEY

2003 Grand-Am goes off the page with the launch of its Daytona Prototype category

2000 Grand-Am is launched by NASCARowning France family, effectively replacing USRRC

2009 Two 500km races over one weekend at Okayama run under Asian LMS banner

2004 Lower-cost LMP2 category replaces LMP675; turbodiesels admitted in P1

2008 Peugeot and Audi go head to head in LMS

2012 FIA World Endurance Championship

2011 First full ILMC, which includes Le Mans 24 as a double-points round, takes place

2010 Intercontinental Le Mans Cup launched: Silverstone LMS round, Petit Le Mans from the ALMS and a Chinese fixture at Zhuhai

2012 LMP1 cars disappear and series rebranded European Le Mans Series

2004 Ratel and ACO join forces to run four-race Le Mans Endurance Series

2003 Ratel takes stake in series and proposes short series of 1000km races for ‘04

2001 Another rebranding creates FIA Sportscar Championship

2006 Series renamed Le Mans Series

2009 ACO announces Intercontinental Cup, incorporating the best race from series running to its rules around the world

2006-2007 Short-lived Japanese Le Mans Challenge

2001 Five-race ELMS, including two joint events with ALMS, takes place

2000 Two ALMS-points counters take place at Silverstone and Nurburgring under the European Le Mans Series banner

2010 FIA GT1 World Championship launched with one-hour sprint races without refuelling

2006 FIA GT splits from resurrected WTCC and cuts race length from three to two hours

2002 GT/tin-top package rebranded SuperRacing Weekend

2000 Series relaunched with addition of B-GT cars and support races for European Super Touring Challenge

2010 FIA GT2 European Cup falls through due to lack of interest

2010

2005

2000

PICS: LAT ARCHIVE, BROOKS/LAT

WEC

preview 2012

World champion wannabes GARY WATKINS takes you through the entry for the inaugural World Endurance Championship

LMP1 AUDI SPORT TEAM JOEST

Audi R18 TDI, e-tron quattro & ultra #1 Andre Lotterer*/Benoit Treluyer/Marcel Fassler #2 Allan McNish*/Tom Kristensen/Rinaldo Capello #3** Romain Dumas/Timo Bernhard/Loic Duval *only drivers confirmed for full WEC. **extra car for Sebring, Spa and Le Mans, but not eligible for manufacturers’ points (except at Le Mans).

Audi must start as a clear favourite for the inaugural FIA World Endurance Championship in the absence of Peugeot, with what will become a split strategy after Sebring. The team runs three uprated 2011 TDIs in round one, before switching to one e-tron quattro hybrid and one normal ultra turbodiesel.

Audi’s R18 has been upgraded to ‘ultra’

TOYOTA RACING

Toyota TS030 HYBRID #7 Alex Wurz/Nicolas Lapierre/ Kazuki Nakajima Toyota has stepped up to the plate in the wake of Peugeot’s withdrawal and increased its programme to a minimum of six of the eight WEC rounds. The late go-ahead of the programme means the petrol-electric LMP1 hybrid developed at Toyota Motorsport GmbH in Cologne misses series opener at Sebring.

Expect to see the TS030 at six rounds

REBELLION RACING

Lola-Toyota B12/60 #12 Neel Jani/Nicolas Prost/ Nick Heidfeld* #13 Andrea Belicchi/Harold Primat/ Jeroen Bleekemolen* *driving at Sebring, Spa and Le Mans only

The top P1 privateer in last year’s ILMC and runner-up in the Le Mans Series mounts a full WEC campaign with a pair of Toyota-engined Lola coupes. The opposition has moved up a notch, which means Rebellion will have to improve its act if it is to maintain its place at the front of the petrol pack.

PESCAROLO TEAM

Pescarolo-Judd 01 & 03 #16 Emmanuel Collard/JeanChristophe Boullion/Julien Jousse Henri Pescarolo revived his team to good effect last year, scooping the LMS drivers’ crown with his long-serving 01.

He is now working on a new car, the 03, built around the Aston Martin AMR-One tub and a Judd V8. This car should debut at Spa, so the V10engined 01 is dusted off for Sebring.

STRAKKA RACING

Honda Performance Development ARX-03a #21 Danny Watts/Jonny Kane/Nick Leventis The British Strakka squad moves back to the LMP1 ranks after two successful seasons in P2 with HPD machinery. The team is expecting big things from the new ARX-03a, an upgraded version of the car that finished second at Sebring last year and will be disappointed if it is not among the petrol frontrunners.

Strakka is pinning hopes on new HPD

V10-engined Pesca has one more outing

OAK RACING

OAK-Pescarolo-Judd 01 #15 Guillaume Moreau/Bertrand Baguette/Dominik Kraihamer OAK’s late-season form in last year’s ILMC, and a bolstering of its line-up with ex-Formula Renault 3.5 champion Baguette, proves the Le Mans-based team’s intent to mix it with the top petrol runners. The big question is whether the latest update of the ageing Pescarolo design can keep it on the pace.

62 autosport.com March 15 2012

JRM-RACING

Honda Performance Development ARX-03a #22 David Brabham/Karun Chandhok/Peter Dumbreck The best team over the first two years of the ‘other’ global sportscar series, FIA GT1, moves into the prototype arena. Expect the squad led by ex-F1 man Nigel Stepney to get the most out of the car, though the programme’s late start meant the car didn’t test until this week.

WEC PREVIEW CLASS OF 2012 LMP2 Ones to watch SIGNATECH NISSAN

ORECA-Nissan 03 #23 Franck Mailleux/Olivier Lombard/Jordan Tresson Could be the best class line-up if Nissan PlayStation GT Academy winner Tresson lives up to the promise that he’s as good as predecessor Lucas Ordonez.

LM GTE PRO ADR-DELTA

ORECA-Nissan 03 #25 Robbie Kerr/John Martin/Tor Graves Alan Docking Racing, which once ran Mazda’s Le Mans campaigns, has teamed up with engineering specialist Delta Motorsport for what looks like a strong attack.

STARWORKS MOTORSPORTS

OAK RACING

Morgan-Judd LMP2 #24 Olivier Pla/ Matthieu Lahaye/Jacques Nicolet OAK’s solo LMP2 entry, now with Morgan badges, has a top driver line-up in Pla, Lahaye and mandatory amateur Nicolet, who belies his years.

HPD ARX-03b #44 Ryan Dalziel/Stephane Sarrazin/Enzo Potolicchio The US Starworks squad, a frontrunner in Grand-Am, expands into Le Mans-style prototype racing with a line-up that should challenge in class.

OAK carries Morgan badging in LMP2 effort

AF CORSE

#51 Ferrari 458 Italia Gianmaria Bruni/Giancarlo Fisichella/Toni Vilander* #71 Andrea Bertolini/Olivier Beretta/Marco Cioci** *Sebring and Le Mans only **Sebring only

AF Corse returns with a roster of factory drivers aiming to build on ultra-successful 2011.

LUXURY RACING

#59 Ferrari 458 Frederic Makowiecki/Jaime Melo/ Jean-Karl Vernay This second-year team has underlined its ambitions by bringing in Melo and Vernay to join Makowiecki in its Pro entry.

TEAM FELBERMAYR PROTON

#77 Porsche 911 GT3-RSR Marc Lieb/Richard Lietz/Patrick Pilet* * Sebring only

The big question mark is whether yet another reworking of the ageing 997-shape GT3-RSR can put the car on a par with Ferrari.

Factory Aston squad is back in the GT ranks

PECOM RACING (AF CORSE)

ORECA-Nissan 03 #49 Pierre Kaffer/ Soheil Ayari/Luis Perez Campanc A switch to the ORECA-Nissan package and the addition of Ayari to the squad must make the AF Corse-run Pecom outfit pre-season favourite.

ASTON MARTIN RACING

AF Corse-run Pecom squad must be LMP2-class favourite

#97 Aston Martin Vantage GTE Darren Turner/ Stefan Mucke/Adrian Fernandez AMR returns to the GT ranks with a heavily-revised Vantage, promising to be in the mix rather than bidding for victories.

LM GTE AM Ones to watch KROHN RACING

Ferrari 458 Italia #57 Niclas Jonsson/Michele Rugolo/Tracy Krohn The runner up in the class in the ILMC last year has graduated from a Ferrari 430 to a 2011-spec 458 in its bid to go one better.

TEAM FELBERMAYR PROTON

Porsche 911 GT3-RSR #88 Paolo Ruberti/ Gianluca Roda/Christian Ried The addition of Ruberti and Roda, race winners in last year’s Blancpain series, make this one of the strongest GTE Am cars on paper.

Krohn has swapped 430 for newer 458

PICS: GIBSON, BOYD/LAT

Larbre will run two ’Vettes. Watch for #50

LARBRE COMPETITION

Chevrolet Corvette C6.R #50 Pedro Lamy/Julien Canal/Patrick Bornhauser Larbre, GTE champion in the 2011 ILMC, returns with a pair of Corvettes and a strong line-up, bolstered by Lamy, in its lead car.

March 15 2012 autosport.com 63

WIN a trip to the Singapore Grand Prix and go behind the scenes with Red Bull Racing

COMPETITION

THE PRIZE INCLUDES: ■ A trip for two people to the 2012 Singapore Grand Prix ■ Flight out on Tuesday September 18 from London Heathrow, returning to the UK on Tuesday 25 September ■ A double/twin room at Hotel Miramar Singapore, which is within walking distance of the circuit, for five nights ■ Two three-day passes to the Singapore Grand Prix – including grandstand seats ■ A tour of the Red Bull Racing garage, the time and day to be confirmed by the team

Motor Racing International has been offering dedicated fans the chance to attend their favourite motorsport events for 20 years.

To find out more about this tour and others, visit www.motorracinginternational.uk.com

TO ENTER Answer this question and scan in the QR code or enter the competition online at www.autosport.com/competition

HOW MANY LAPS DID THE WINNING DRIVER

2 61 3 63

Competition closes at midnight on Thursday March 22 2012

RED BULL RACING To find out more about Red Bull Racing,

VISIT WWW.REDBULLRACING.COM

Terms and conditions: 1. To enter visit www.autosport.com/competition, www.f1racing.co.uk or scan in the QR code. 2. Competition closes at 11.59pm on March 22 2012. 3. The prize is for two people and includes return flights from London Heathrow to Singapore, a double/twin room for five nights at Hotel Miramar Singapore, three-day entry/grandstand tickets to the Singapore Grand Prix, insurance and a tour of the Red Bull Racing pit garage at a time/day convenient to the team. 4. Open to UK residents aged 18 or over. 5. No cash alternative. Prizes are non-transferable. 6. Only one entry per person. 7. For full terms and conditions visit www.autosport.com or www.f1racing.co.uk. The Promoter is Haymarket Media Group, Teddington, Middlesex TW11 9BE.

PICS: FERRARO, ETHERINGTON/LAT

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Previous touring car experience an advantage. email cv to: iharrison@tripleeight.co.uk

Systems Engineer – FullTime This role will include pre-event vehicle commissioning, workshop preparation, data analysis and track-side support for the team at tests and races.

Practical knowledge of data system hardware installation is vital and hands-on experience in the design and manufacture of wiring looms would be advantageous although training will be offered. Candidates will need to be able to use their initiative to work quickly, accurately and efficiently and must be resourceful problem-solvers.

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Triple Eight Race Engineering has a vacancy for a No.1 Mechanic for factory BTCC Programme.

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The successful candidate will have extensive experience of the very latest F1 CFD hardware, software, techniques and processes, and the vision to be able to take our CFD department into a different league.

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78

SportsExtra ALL THE NATIONAL & CLUB RACE, RALLY AND HISTORIC NEWS. PLUS FULL REPORTS AND RESULTS ROUND-UP

NATIONAL RACING • HISTORICS • CLUB • RALLY • RALLYCROSS • HILLCLIMB

Bumper entry for Monaco Merzario and Gabbiani among field for eighth historic extravaganza

AUTOSPORT SAYS…

BEN ANDERSON NATIONAL EDITOR ben.anderson @haymarket.com

Merzario in the 1973 Monaco GP; he’ll return this year

EX-FORMULA 1 RACERS Arturo Merzario and Beppe Gabbiani head a host of star names among 224 selected by the Automobile Club de Monaco to take part in its eighth Grand Prix Historique event on May 11-13.

Merzario, who started 57 world championship rounds between 1972 and the demise of his own team in ’79, retired both times he started a contemporary GP in Monaco, but achieved huge parallel success in Alfa Romeo sportscars.

The 69-year-old Italian will race an Alfa 8C-35 in the Pre-’52 GP and Voiturette plateau, where rivals include Frank Stippler (in the Maserati 8CM in which Earl Howe was 10th in Monaco in ’34) and former winner Julian Bronson (ERA R4D).

Gabbiani, 55, started three GPs in 1981 but failed to qualify his Osella in Monaco.

Subsequently one of Lancia’s prototype stars, he is entered in Gigi Brandoli’s

PICS: LAT, MICK WALKER

Smith tested March 701 at Donington Park last week

unique 1954 Marino Lancia for the Pre-’61 GP and F2 race.

That era’s front and rear-engined cars will race together this year, leaving Roger Wills favourite in his Cooper T51.

The biggest field will be for two-litre Formula 3 cars raced between 1974 and ’84, although the later ‘wing cars’ are obliged to run flat bottoms as per French and UK classic regulations. Period racers Eje Elgh, Alessandro Santin and Paolo Barilla all return, but face historic specialists.

Elgh, 58, now an F1 commentator in Sweden, has bought the ‘Plastic Padding’ Chevron-Toyota B38 he raced in 1977. Like Gabbiani in a sister car, he failed to finish the blue-riband Monaco F3 race that year. Santin, 53, will race his ’84 Italian title-winning Ralt-Alfa Romeo RT3, while ’85 Le Mans 24 Hours victor Barilla, 50, will drive a Martini-Alfa MK34.

Britons who have made the cut (from 73 applications) include Monaco residents

Frank Sytner (March 783/793) and Grant Tromans (Martini MK37), Nathan Kinch (Martini MK34), Peter Meyrick (ex-Elio de Angelis ’78-winning Chevron B38), Iain Rowley (in the unique French Oliroy C1), Richard Trott (Chevron B43), David Shaw (ex-Nelson Piquet Ralt RT1), Richard Eyre (ex-Quique Mansilla/Ayrton Senna Ralt RT3), and Porsche Carrera Cup racer Ben Barker (Lola T670).

Three rear-engined Formula 1 races are also on the programme. The return to Monte Carlo of Stirling Moss’s 1961-winning Lotus 18, currently in restoration for Stephen Bond, is a feature of the Pre-’66 grid. Also entered are American multiple FIA Historic F1/FJ champion John Delane (Scirocco-BRM) and Ross Zampatti (De Tomaso 151).

French all-rounder Fabien Giroix will saddle a Brabham BT26A in the Pre-’72 field, which also features Manfredo Rossi (Tecno PA123), Simon Hadfield (in Sytner’s March, now being rebuilt into its 721G specification), and Andrew Smith, who will give his ex-Jackie Stewart March 701 its first race since 1970.

The Pre-’78 split will include Joaquin Folch (Ferrari 312T3), BTCC racer Rob Austin (Surtees TS19) and ’70s F2 and Group 6 man Cosimo Turizio (Hesketh 308E), but all must depose 2010 winner Bobby Verdon-Roe (McLaren M26).

Tin-top aces Dieter Quester (BMW 328) and Patrick Watts (Allard J2) are in the Pre-’53 sportscar field in which Alex Buncombe (Jaguar C-type) starts favourite.

FRANK SYTNER’S APPETITE FOR motorsport is quite incredible. At the ripe old age of 67, and well past the peak of his professional career, he is gearing up to return to racing having literally come back from the dead.

When the 1988 British Touring Car champion suffered a cardiac arrest at the wheel of his Lola T70 during last year’s inaugural Historic Festival at Donington Park, his heart stopped, he blacked out, and his car careered frighteningly into the wall at the kink under Starkey’s Bridge.

Thanks to the incredible efforts of the circuit’s medical crew, and the nearby Derby City Hospital, Sytner was revived, and he recovered after being placed in an induced coma.

Having lived through such trauma, most people would probably decide to take it easy for a while. Not ‘Fearless Frank’. The story goes that he was angling to get back in a racing car as soon as he’d woken up!

But the FIA tore up Frank’s licence, so he had to wait. After a six-month interlude, Sytner began a series of stringent medical tests to ensure he was ready to return to action. That process is all but complete, so now Sytner will return to the wheel of his Mk3B (see page 83) for a medically observed test run, before embarking on a full racing return. And what better place to make that comeback than in the very race in which he so nearly lost his life a year ago?

The plan resembles Alex Zanardi’s heroic return to the Lausitzring in 2003 to complete the final 13 laps of the Champ Car race in which the Italian lost his legs two years earlier.

Sytner’s own comeback is a real resurrection story and he already has eyes on racing in Monaco a week later. His competitive flame clearly still burns brightly.

Extra contact details Kevin Turner, features editor kevin.turner@haymarket.com

CONTENTS p84

GROUP TRACK TEST 1950s SPORTSCARS

March 15 2012 autosport.com 79

British GT

Hetherington in British GT Nissan Former Porsche Carrera Cup scholar links up with GT Cup squad JMH to race latest GT-R

Nissan appeared in British GT last year

FORMER PORSCHE Carrera Cup scholar Benji Hetherington will switch to the British GT championship this season in a Nissan GT-R. Ginetta G50 Cup race winner Hetherington, 20, scored one podium and finished eighth in last year’s Carrera Cup as a rookie. This year he will drive for JMH Automotive, which is returning to British GT

after spending the past few seasons in the GT Cup. Team boss Jason Hughes, who ran Benji’s father Ian in British GT in a Ferrari F40 in the early part of the last decade, will run the Nissan with support from factory squad JRM. Hetherington said: “It was fantastic to get the Porsche scholarship [for the Carrera Cup], but in terms of the opportunities

at the end of it, it was difficult to justify finding the money to do the championship again.

“I wanted something that would be more beneficial long-term for a career. We looked at things in Europe but thought it better to do a year in Britain and acclimatise to the car.”

World GT1 squad JRM ran a GT3-spec GT-R in the final two rounds of British GT last season.

Hetherington is confident the package will be strong, although no co-driver is yet on board and the new car is unlikely to be ready before the end of this month.

“I’ve got all the confidence in the team and I know the car has got so much potential,” he added. “We’ve got strong associations with JRM, so that’s very attractive. I want to get myself known as a Nissan specialist.”

GT Cup

British Formula Ford

Geddie McLaren to GT Cup in 2012

Ford backs scholar in EcoBoost

Geddie Sr will race his MP4-12C in the GT Cup

GT Cup in the past and I’m really looking forward to racing the McLaren – it’s a stunning piece of machinery.”

Series founder Marc Haynes added: “I consider it a great honour, and a reflection of the GT Cup’s growing status, that McLaren have given their blessing for the MP4-12C GT3 to race with us this season. It’s very exciting to see such stunning cars joining the grid.”

Series promoter Sam Roach added: “We’ve witnessed a pattern of Scholarship winners going on to great things in our championship class. You only have to look at the remarkable names whose careers were nurtured in Formula Ford to see the value of helping in this way.”

Corcoran dominated thin Scholarship field

PICS: LAT, EBREY, BLOXHAM

REIGNING BRITISH GT CHAMPION Jim Geddie will switch to the GT Cup this season with his new McLaren MP4-12C. Geddie and son Glynn won the British GT title with a CRS Racing Ferrari 458 last year, and they had planned to defend their title in 2012, but Geddie Sr will now take the 3.8-litre V8 twin-turbo McLaren elsewhere.

“I really enjoyed racing with Glynn last year but this season I really wanted to have a shot at a championship by myself,” said Geddie Sr, who won the inaugural GT Cup race at Snetterton in November 2007.

“I have always enjoyed racing in the

REIGNING FORMULA FORD Scholarship champion Cavan Corcoran will return to the category this season with Ford’s support.

Ford will loan Corcoran, 18, one of its new EcoBoost development cars to allow him to graduate from the junior division of the championship.

Corcoran is free to decide which team will run the Mygale and is in talks with several squads.

“This means the difference between me racing and sitting in the grandstand watching; I am so grateful to Ford for this opportunity,” he said. “Hopefully I can get a decent amount of testing in and be a frontrunner this season.”

80 autosport.com March 15 2012

NEWS SPORTS EXTRA International GT Open

Tandy and Holzer in international GT attack with Manthey Porsche PORSCHE ACE NICK TANDY WILL race with factory driver Marco Holzer in Manthey Racing’s assault on the International GT Open this season.

Supercup race winner Tandy, who took the 2011 German Carrera Cup crown, will race a new GTEspecification 911 GT3-RSR. The JTR Formula Ford team boss, who drove a similar Porsche in last year’s Le Mans 24 Hours, believes teaming up with Holzer will give him a good chance of fighting for the title.

Tandy raced GT3RSR at Le Mans

“Sharing with a Porsche factory driver is a great opportunity,” said Tandy, who has a long-standing relationship with the German manufacturer. “No-one knows how the different cars will stack up, but this is a factory-supported car and the idea is to score some wins and do well in the championship.

“It’s a very good series, with TV coverage all over Europe [including Motors TV in the UK], and it would be great to win it.

“The plan is to win Le Mans many times in the future and I hope this is a step towards that.”

Tandy could also appear in VLN races, the Nurburgring 24 Hours and other “showcase enduro events” during 2012.

The International GT Open kicks off at the Algarve at the end of April and visits Brands Hatch on July 14-15.

VW Racing Cup

BTCC man Gilham back in VW Cup FORMER VOLKSWAGEN RACING Cup champion Tony Gilham will return to the series this season with his own team.

The 32-year-old, who will also race an ex-Team Dynamics Honda Civic in the British Touring Car Championship, took the VW crown in 2007 before graduating to the Porsche Carrera Cup. He now plans to race a Golf MkV GTI under the Tony Gilham Racing banner, along with championship returnee Richard Kingsnorth, ex-Ford Fiesta racer Andy Wilmot and a possible fourth car.

“We built a demo car for track days and it was amazing,” said Gilham. “The VW Cup is where we

Gilham was VW Cup champion in 2007

came from and we got quite a few enquiries so we decided to do it.

We want to build the team up.”

Gilham finished 19th in his rookie BTCC season in 2011.

He plans to contest all the VW Cup rounds this year, except Rockingham, which clashes with the BTCC’s Oulton Park meeting.

European Rallycross

New Citroen for Doran in Europe EUROPEAN RALLYCROSS RACE winner Liam Doran will return to the series this year with a new Citroen DS3 Supercar.

The 24-year-old will dovetail an ERC campaign with his programme in the new US-based Global Rallycross Doran will get new Citroen DS3 for Rallycross

Championship with a Citroen C4.

Doran said: “Some of the drivers who are going to America are being quite negative about the European championship but I don’t agree with them. It’s still massively important and will be very competitive.”

Doran’s DS3 is being built in France

by Mtechnologies and will be powered by an engine built by reigning British champion Julian Godfrey. Doran also plans to race the new car, which will be run by Graham Rodemark’s Autopoint team, in the British championship opener at Lydden on March 24.

MARCUS PYE

HUMBLE PYE

The voice of club motor racing

Pye got run in Nissan Group C monster

T

wenty-two years ago (Humble Pye, February 15, 1990) I experienced the racecar ride of my life in a Group C Nissan R89CK at Donington Park.

Wedged alongside Julian Bailey – without shoulder belts, right arm crooked over his seatback, left hand on the monocoque sill – we clocked a 61.47-second flying lap. My personal best, cut in a short Formula 3000 stint on a grotty grey day, remains a low 66…

While it undoubtedly felt e-x-t-r-e-m-e-l-y fast to one used to Classic F3 times, Bailey’s ability allied to the Lola-built Nissan’s poise and its unworldly downforce made it feel relatively undramatic. In contrast to my brother Bill’s ride, which ended spectacularly when a tyre blew in the Craner Curves.

They pirouetted wildly over the grass, tricycling back onto the asphalt at Starkey’s Bridge!

Roll the clock forward to 2012, and well-heeled weekend warriors have got their hands on the magnificent C-cars, which populate a thriving race series. This season’s kicks off at the second Donington Historic Festival on May 5-6, which is why I was back at the reborn venue last Thursday for the media preview.

I was delighted to see my old Swedish pal Kent Abrahamsson in the pits (I had raced his Chevron

B16 at Donington and his unique three-litre BMW-engined B19, most memorably in Supersports events at Spa and Most) with his latest acquisition, a fire-belching Toyota 87C turbocar, and his stunning Nissan R90CK. “The Nissan’s out in the second session, and you are in it,” grinned Kent unexpectedly.

Thankfully, I’d brought my kit.

If the 3.5-litre V8 engine sounded menacingly gruff when preparer Phil Stott’s boys jolted it into life, it came alive when the twin-turbo bellows started to huff. Just 680bhp on one bar of boost was more than adequate for me on a cold track.

Apart from not having driven the current chicane layout, I couldn’t see anything but wing in the puny mirrors, so I can only imagine 1100bhp with the pressure cooker cranked up!

Getting the big Dunlop tyres or the massive carbon brakes really hot obviously wasn’t possible, so the real high-downforce stuff would remain fantasy, but Kent’s face as he recalled charging through Portimao’s final downhill righthander, flat in fifth, told of its potential. The light steering, a revelation, helps make this possible for mere mortals; it’s certainly a machine I would love to get better acquainted with.

The Nissan came alive when the twin-turbo bellows started to huff – 680bhp on one bar was enough”

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NEWS SPORTS EXTRA IN BRIEF

Pearson drove 908/2

HISTORIC ACE GARY PEARSON tested Carlos Monteverde’s Porsche 908/2 at Donington Park last week.

The car, which is now part of Monteverde’s extensive Porsche stable, is the long-tailed, three-litre machine that finished third at Le Mans in 1970, driven

by Austrians Rudi Lins and Helmut Marko.

GINETTA RACERS JAKE GIDDINGS and Aaron Williamson will both move into the Renault Clio Cup this season with Giddings’ family-run Finesse Motorsport team. Leading Clio squad TCR has re-signed Nicolas Hamilton and added FF1600 graduate Rob Smith to a field that is expected to top 20 cars.

REIGNING IRISH GINETTA JUNIOR champion Andy O’Brien will contest the Ginetta Challenge this season, using a G40 leased to him as a prize for his title win. The series has been renamed the Ginetta GT5 Challenge for this season.

TEN DRIVERS TURNED OUT FOR the first InterSteps test of the season at Rockingham last week. Formula Renault BARC race winner Matt Mason (MGR) set the pace, lapping 0.463 seconds quicker than ex-Formula Ford racer Matt Parry (Fortec). Reigning InterSteps champion Jake Dennis and Josh Webster were quickest on each day of the second FR UK test of the year at Snetterton.

PORSCHE GT3 CHALLENGE RACE winner Oly Mortimer will graduate to the Carrera Cup GB this season with GT Marques. The multiple Mini Cooper champion will race in Pro-Am 1.

PICS: STYLES, WALKER, FAST COMPANY/MITCHELL

FORMER MG TROPHY CHAMPION Zak Mercer will race in the Lamborghini Super Trofeo this season. Mercer, who won the MG Trophy 160 Championship in 2009 with a record 10 wins, will share with entrepreneur Justin Marciano.

STEVE ROSS CLINCHED THE MSC New Zealand Formula 5000 Cup Revival Series title by winning three of the four races at the Phillip Island finale last weekend.

Ross ended Ken Smith’s reign in NZ F5000

Chapman took the first Radical UK Cup win of 2012

MSVR Snetterton

Radical racers kick off 2012 Zac Chapman, Manhal Allos and Matt Bell are among winners at Snetterton RADICAL UK CUP DRIVERS ZAC Chapman and Manhal Allos were victorious as MotorSport Vision Racing kick-started its season with a ‘Radical Raceday’ at Snetterton last Saturday.

Former 750 Motor Club Toyota MR2 champion Chapman was only headed for a couple laps during race one, when he made his pitstop.

Tony Wells, James Abbott and Peter Bamford joined an early break after Terrence Woodward tapped Mark Smithson into a spin at Montreal Hairpin. James Littlejohn took over from Wells to secure a solid second, while Shaun Balfe (in for Abbott) just held onto third from the closing Historics

Sytner plots comeback at Donington FORMER BRITISH TOURING CAR champion Frank Sytner plans to contest this season’s Donington Historic Festival, a year after suffering a heart attack at the wheel during the inaugural event.

Sytner, 67, plans to drive in the

Stuart Moseley (in Smithson’s car).

Moseley and Bradley Ellis set the pace in race two, with soloist Allos shadowed throughout the first stint by Littlejohn and Ross Kaiser. A shorter pitstop and safety car period gave Allos a clear lead, as Moseley and Ellis handed to Smithson and Andy Cummings respectively. Both were later given stop-go penalties for pitting too early, which left solo driver Chapman closing on Allos as they took the flag.

In the SR3 class, ex-Formula Palmer Audi racer Matt Bell won the first race with ease, from Alex Kapadia/Tom Jordan, but it was closer in race two, as Gary Kane/Nick Padmore held off Chris

Sytner plans to race Lola again

final leg of the 1000Km race at the May 5-6 Festival, sharing his rebuilt Lola T70 Mk3B with Simon Hadfield.

Sytner was revived and hospitalised after the crash last April. Stents were

Headlam/Jamie Stanley to score a win for new team RAW Motorsport.

Radical debutant Bell was also a double victor in the Clubmans Cup. Bell shadowed Martin Brooks’ PR6 for five laps until a Brooks mistake at Hamilton proved costly and allowed Bell to make the decisive move into Oggies in race one.

Brooks had to surrender his racetwo lead with a broken halfshaft, so Bell was left in the clear, with Kane managing to hold onto second.

Paul Smith’s AHS Dominator took pole by over four seconds before thrashing the 12-car field in two non-championship Formula Vee races.

inserted in the blocked artery that caused the blackout before Sytner returned home to Monaco to recuperate.

The 1988 BTCC title winner has regained his racing licence and plans to test his Lola at Mallory Park beforehand, with an FIA doctor monitoring his cardiac function.

Sytner said: “I’m testing the Lola at Mallory and then going from there. As long as I’m happy and comfortable in the car, and still competitive, I will race.”

Mini Festival

Extra enduro added to Brands Mini festival A 40-MINUTE HISTORIC ENDURO has been added to the schedule for the inaugural Brands Hatch Mini Festival this summer, after all 32 grid slots were filled for the Pre-66 Mini race.

The event, called the Sanwa trophy, will take the total number of races at the Festival, to be held on the Brands Hatch Indy circuit on June 16-17, to 11.

Race organiser Nick Swift said

demand from drivers based in the UK and Europe had created the need for an extra race.

He said: “The support for the AngloFrench race has produced so much interest and the 32 grid slots are filled, so now we need to run another race alongside to cater for everyone.

The pitstop in the middle will suit both single and double drivers.”

High support for Mini event

March 15 2012 autosport.com 83

Recreating a

golden age Motorsport boomed during the 1950s, and a new club is devoted to celebrating that golden era for racing. BY BEN ANDERSON he 1950s was a time of rapid technological change in motorsport, as the world emerged from war and patriotic manufacturers entered a new battle in the field of domestic motoring.

The Aston Martin Owners Club’s 1950s Team Challenge was an evocative celebration of this era, bringing together like-minded enthusiasts and owners for relaxed weekends of friendly marque-based team competition.

Unfortunately, instability and uncertainty have wrought havoc within the AMOC recently, so longtime Aston racer and Team Challenge organiser Mark Campbell decided to

T

84 autosport.com March 15 2012

branch out on his own.

With help from fellow AMOC members John Turner, Richard Bell and Jim Campbell (no relation), plus Alfa Romeo racer James Wiseman, Mark has founded the Fifties Sports Car Racing Club (FISCAR) to run a series of races for period sports-racers and GT cars.

The new club hopes to become “the focal point for drivers and enthusiasts who are passionate about competing in legendary sportscars, from the era that gave birth to the world sportscar championship,” according to its website.

FISCAR has secured six race dates for its first season, beginning at Donington

Park in April, with further MG Car Club events planned at Brands Hatch, Silverstone and Thruxton, plus trips to the Bentley Drivers Club’s Silverstone Club meeting and Castle Combe for the circuit’s in-house historic festival.

“We’re trying to cater for 1950s sports and GT cars run as they were in period,” says Campbell, who will captain the Aston Martin team. “We’ve come up with a list of the cars that raced in the ’50s and most have done Le Mans.”

Six of those cars, each representing a different marque eligible for the series, have come to a chilly – but sunny – Donington for an exclusive track test ahead of the start of the season.

The idea is to give AUTOSPORT a flavour of what fans can expect to see from FISCAR in its first year. Ace historic racer and preparation expert Simon Hadfield is also on hand to give feedback and advice to the owners.

GROUP TRACK TEST

1950s SPORTSCARS Fairthorpe Electron Air Vice Marshall Donald Bennett’s decision to marry a 1098cc Coventry Climax engine to a chassis fitted with newfangled fibreglass bodywork in 1956 spawned the rarelyseen Fairthorpe Electron.

Our version (later, and with bigger engine) was bought for £5000 by VSCC racer Rob Cobden, who wants a fresh challenge after six or seven years developing his pre-war Riley.

“I found the car completely derelict in a garden in the Isle of Wight,” explains Cobden, who used to race touring cars in Australia. “It had been sat out in the open for 30 years – the engine was seized up and the chassis was completely rotten with a tree growing through it!”

Our test is the first time this Electron has run properly since the completion of Cobden’s 18-month restoration project, and it’s a surprisingly capable little car considering.

Its relatively short wheelbase makes it quite nimble and the car has a neutral balance that makes it very accessible to the uninitiated driver.

As you may expect with a car that hasn’t done much running, there are a few small WEIGHT 580kg ENGINE 110bhp Coventry Climax CUBIC CAPACITY 1220cc YEAR OF MANUFACTURE 1959 (first made in ’56)

Elva Courier Hadfield’s own Elva Courier mirrors the late-’50s open-top sports-racer philosophy of the Electron. He bought the car from America four years ago for his wife Mandy to race.

“We’ve done a lot with Elva sports-racers

technical issues: the ratio of third gear to fourth is not quite right and the gearshift itself is mounted in a place that requires an awkward reverse flex of the wrist to work.

But, other than a touch of high-speed understeer at the fastest point of the Craner Curves, and a tendency to wander a bit under heavy braking, the Fairthorpe is quite an impressive package.

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Electron proved a capable package

SIMON HADFIELD SAYS: “Because there was an engine issue, I couldn’t really make a proper comment on it.

I needed more laps. I also didn’t fit it very well, but to me it felt a bit too stiff.”

– Mk7s, Mk8s and the like – and thought it would be a nice thing to have in the family,” explains Simon. “But Mandy’s so taken with Formula Ford that we’ve got to wean her off it and get her to do something more difficult!”

The Elva’s 1.6-litre engine produces more bottom-end power than the Climax, making it more driveable in third and fourth gears.

ALL PICS: MICK WALKER

Elva has nervous oversteer traits

WEIGHT 680kg ENGINE 120bhp MG CUBIC CAPACITY 1622cc YEAR OF MANUFACTURE 1959 (first made in ’58)

Fairthorpe (minus tree) is ready to go

Not having to worry much about gear changing is just as well, because the Elva is a real handful.

“It oversteers,” warns Hadfield bluntly as AUTOSPORT is strapped in for a run in the left-hand-drive car. He’s not wrong! But the interesting thing about the Elva is that it wants to oversteer, so once you get over an instinct to instantaneously correct every slide, and just run with it, the car comes alive.

As confidence builds, you can drive this car at ludicrous angles through the corners and end up feeling like a total hero on-track – something Lotus Cortina fan Hadfield clearly identifies with.

SIMON SAYS: “We’re a preparation firm but we have the worst-handling car! We’ve struggled with it.

It’s much better now than it was and we hope that we can make it nicer still.”

March 15 2012 autosport.com 85

Austin Healey 100/4 Our example of the 100 ‘Big Healey’ (so named because of its ability to reach 100mph when it was first produced in 1953) belongs to Jonathan Abecassis, whose grandfather George finished 11th in the

famous 1955 Mille Miglia in a Healey.

Abecassis Jr started racing last season and will continue to cut his motorsport teeth in the new FISCAR series this year. The car’s preparer – Healey nut Paul Woolmer – says it’s a great machine to learn in.

“It’s an easy car to drive, like all the Healeys,” he says. “The four-cylinder engine is

‘Big Healey’ felt solid as a rock on-track

WEIGHT 987kg ENGINE 200bhp BMC CUBIC CAPACITY 2660cc YEAR OF MANUFACTURE 1955 (first made in ’53)

Aston Martin DB2/4 FISCAR vice chairman Mark Campbell has owned and raced his silver Aston DB2/4 (once owned by newspaper tycoon Lord Beaverbrook) for a decade. It’s a proper, old-school Grand Tourer – the sort of car British grand prix racers of the day would drive to and from the circuit.

“Everyone says the Golf GTI was the world’s first hot hatch, but it had all been done before!” exclaims Campbell. “There was nothing else much like it in its day. It’s the only car I’ve ever raced. My father had the ex-Le Mans DB2 (from 1952, which Campbell now owns) and I used to hate them, but I’ve grown to love them.”

AUTOSPORT experiences a similar emotional journey when driving the Aston.

It feels very ungainly to begin with – like trying to manoeuvre a massive boat in a tiny harbour – but once you find the correct rhythm it’s hugely rewarding. The trick is to plan well ahead for every turn, get the car to take a set path and then run with it, threading carefully through every bend.

Only when you upset the car by, say, trying to alter course slightly when the Aston is fully WEIGHT 1225kg ENGINE 190bhp Vantage V6 CUBIC CAPACITY 2922cc YEAR OF MANUFACTURE 1954 (first made in ’53)

86 autosport.com March 15 2012

mounted behind the front wheels, so for a ’50s car it’s reasonably well balanced.

“A lot of people run alloy panels on their cars, which you’re not supposed to do, but this has a completely original body so it’s a proper thing.”

The 100/4 is a fantastically solid car and completely lacking in vices, which would inspire great confidence in beginners.

It has a very forward driving position that makes you feel right on top of it – like you’re in a massive retro go-kart. It’s not particularly powerful, but has great poise and a very driveable engine. The transmission also contains a useful overdrive function to help keep the motor pulling when it feels like it might run out of puff.

SIMON SAYS: “The Healey was fantastic – it just felt really solid. Apart from the chicane and Redgate, you could just drive it using the overdrive switch. I felt like Fernando Alonso!”

loaded, do things start to go wrong. In this situation the car goes crazy: yawing wildly as the steering goes light. Nowhere at Donington is this more likely to occur than in the ultra-fast Craner Curves and, when it does, the driver is immediately demoted from captain of the ship to total passenger.

AUTOSPORT even manages a wild spin at the Old Hairpin while lapping another car…

Hadfield got a shock when he braked in DB2

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Aston goes crazy if you upset it

SIMON SAYS: “This is the car with the most pre-war technology – a girder of a chassis and a big engine.

It’s lovely, but heavy, very soft, and can’t accept you changing your mind in the corners.”

GROUP TRACK TEST

1950s SPORTSCARS

TATE’S NOT-SOMODERN ERA Donington is back on-track

Lotus Elite Like almost everything ever produced by Colin Chapman’s team, the Lotus Elite was way ahead of its time. Simon Hadfield’s father George said it ‘looked like a spaceship had landed’ when the lightweight, low-line coupe first appeared next to its gargantuan peers of the period.

Brian Arculus’s example is one that’s regularly embarrassed newer 1960s cars in the MGCC’s Equipe GTS category and latterly Julius Thurgood’s Grand Touring Greats series.

The ex-Jaguar XK champion says he originally bought the car for his wife Pat. “The lovely thing about Elites is you can be pretty confident they’re straight because there’s nothing you can really do to them –

Rapid Elite behaves like a modern racing car

Chapman homologated everything under the sun!” says Arculus. “When they were first produced, everyone said they were a racing car for the road. They were very advanced for the ’50s and it’s delightful because it does exactly what you want it to.”

As expected, the Elite is by far the best of our cars technically. It’s light, fleet-footed, it stops, it turns and its Tony Mantle-prepared engine is strong. You can easily work up a sweat driving this car because it encourages you to go faster.

Despite a slightly unsettling tendency to float through the fastest point of the Craners, it is eminently capable, and the only car of our six that feels like a modern racer.

WEIGHT 576kg ENGINE 115-120bhp Coventry Climax CUBIC CAPACITY 1216cc MANUFACTURED 1961 (first made, ’58)

SIMON SAYS: “The Lotus Elite is a real racing car – it’s a Formula Junior with two seats!

The brakes were fantastic, it handled well, but was a bit too nervous at high speed.”

ALL PICS: MICK WALKER

According to Donington Park’s new managing director Christopher Tate, the Lancia Aurelia was the Grand Tourer that all continental grand prix drivers of the period drove to and from the races. Husband and wife Jason and Louise Kennedy acquired their example in 2007 and have – true to form – taken it all over Europe to compete in races, hillclimbs and tours. Jason even uses it for the shopping!

“Everyone should drive the Aurelia at least once,” says Louise, who has also driven a TVR Griffith and Ford Falcon. “It drifts so perfectly that it makes you feel like Fangio!”

The Lancia is a bit recalcitrant at first, but a change of ignition coil eventually gets it going.

When you first climb in, it looks and feels very similar to the Aston and thus you expect it to behave much like the DB2/4 on-track.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

Like the Aston, the Aurelia’s weight makes it feel short of power, but you simply can’t fault its handling. The car has all the poise and grace of a ballerina, and is so capable I’m convinced it could drive itself.

They say top Formula 1 drivers use a tiny percentage of brain capacity to actually operate a car; the Lancia is so good that it could help any driver imitate Michael Schumacher at his peak.

Early ’50s Lancia was a revelation

AFTER A WORRYING COUPLE OF YEARS, Donington Park is back to full health and new managing director Christopher Tate sees historic racing as a key part of the circuit’s future.

To that end there are 12 bespoke racedays for historics in 2012 (out of Donington’s newly increased total of 60) and some of those will be unsilenced.

“We’ve got four prongs with what we are building here,” Tate says. “Bikes, prototypes and GTs, touring cars and club racing, and historics.

“This is a track they look forward to driving on and historics are important to us. Plus we want more people to know about, and go to, our [on-site] museum.

“Kevin Wheatcroft [circuit owner] feels this very strongly, and I feel to bring modern single-seaters here isn’t making the most of our facilities.”

The only disappointment is that the Vintage Sports-Car Club won’t be holding it’s traditional SeeRed meeting this year, but Tate hopes it will return: “The VSCC has always been a part of Donington and, looking to 2013, we have to find a way of making it work.” l Kevin Turner

DONINGTON’S 2012 HISTORIC CALENDAR March 17-18 HSCC April 8 MGCC May 5-6 Donington Historic Festival June 4 MSCC July 28 HRDC July 29 AMOC September 15-16 CSCC October 13-14 Masters Finals

Lancia Aurelia B20 WEIGHT 1150kg ENGINE 135bhp Lancia V6 CUBIC CAPACITY 2451cc MANUFACTURED 1953 (first made, ’50)

SIMON SAYS: “I was blown away by the Lancia. It was so incredibly capable. A good gauge of a car is that you feel you could lap consistently in it for hours. My dad always said they were special!”

Tate sees historics as key to Donington future

March 15 2012 autosport.com 87

FINAL DRIVE

■ LETTERS ■ GEAR ■ ON-TRACK ■ ON-SCREEN ■ PICS ■ TECH ■ ARCHIVE

YOUR SAY

What you think of the motorsport news of the past week

Maldonado and Senna: worth a punt by Williams

TOP FIVE ON OUR WEBSITE 1. RED BULL: EXHAUST SET-UP NOT ON THE EDGE 2. MARUSSIA UNVEILS ITS 2012 CHALLENGER 3. NEW HRT MAKES BARCELONA TRACK DEBUT Is the F112 laying the foundations for success?

Is HRT out to conquer the world?

I read with interest Duncan Sabiston’s letter (March 8) regarding HRT’s capabilities against the unknown prospect of Prodrive having been granted an entry into F1. Even an HRT would still beat the fastest IndyCar, and could probably lap the field. Assuming it finished…

But reliability isn’t all. HRT is only in season three, just as Stewart was in 1999 when its two cars caught fire on the Australian GP grid.

And look at what the SF15, sorry, Red Bull RB7, achieved. Who knows where the HRT F124 chassis will be in a dozen years?

Paul Irwin, Bexleyheath

4. PURE MOVES TO TOYOTA’S COLOGNE FACTORY 5. ALONSO: FERRARI’S PLIGHT NOT THAT BAD

TOP STORY ONLINE

F92A: FERRARI’S FAMOUS FAILURE

To read this exclusive feature and many others like it, log on to autosport.com/plus and choose which package you’d like. A month will cost £5.50, a year £46. Includes access to Forix – the ultimate stats website.

WIN!

EDITORIAL CONTACT mail@autosport.com Mark Hughes’s article on how the six world champions competing in F1 this year stack up against Schumacher at his peak was fascinating and informative. However, he could have gone a stage further, and worked out overall averages. I’ve done it. Alonso 100.75 per cent; Button 100; Vettel 99.5; Raikkonen 92; Schumacher 90; Hamilton 89.

It will be fascinating to see whether these scores will reflect this season’s relative performances. Can’t wait!

Keith Cordell Llangollen, Denbighshire

I was sad to read about the death of rally driver Anders Kullang last week.

I recall him competing on the Mintex Rally in an Opel many years ago and setting a blinding pace in the fog.

On being interviewed at service and being asked how he could go so fast in the fog when he couldn’t see the road, his reply was along the lines of; “it’s not a problem – my co-driver reads the notes and I drive to what he tells me!” Faith in one’s co-driver and courage abound.

Andy Maclean Churchill, Oxfordshire

Regarding Ben Anderson’s feature on the Racecar Euroseries and it’s ambition to become a NASCAR feeder, I’d like to point out that, two years ago, he wrote about the European Late Model Series, leading me to race in it.

The cars are similar, but an LM weekend costs just ¤1500 with in-house training and oval races, while Racecar costs ¤7000 and an FIA International C licence.

Which do you think is more accessible to NASCAR wannabes?

Michael Walsh By email

I can’t understand how the Racecar Euroseries,run on road courses, is supposed to prepare a driver for an oval championship.

Having done both circuit and oval racing, I can assure you that they are very different disciplines. Just look at what happens at Sprint Cup road-course events…

I’m sure it will be great, but I’ll stick with the European Late Model Series. Stock car racing is about turning left quickly. Always has been; always will be.

Kelvin ‘Rowdy’ Hassell By email

ROAD ANGEL VANTAGE

This week’s star letter will receive a Road Angel Vantage – a dedicated safety camera and blackspot locator that displays the legal speed limit of every road you drive, automatically and wirelessly updating its database every few minutes as you drive.

For more details on Road Angel visit www.roadangelgroup.com Please ensure that your full address is included on all correspondence.

CORRECTIONS AND CLARIFICATIONS l Due to an incorrectly cropped picture, the leading Martini of Ivan Capelli was not visible in the European F3 ‘Did you know?’ (p23, March 1), meaning the car in front in the shot was actually driven by Johnny Dumfries. Thanks to John Miller for spotting that.

It is the policy of AUTOSPORT to correct significant errors as soon as possible. Please note the issue date and page number when contacting us on autosport.editorial@haynet.com

XX autosport.com January 88 March 15152012 2009

FINAL DRIVE

LETTERS & REVIEWS

THE LATEST GEAR

Desirable new releases for motor racing fans: books, DVDs, models, art and gifts

FERRARI 2012 OFFICIAL GEAR

From £27.99 (autosport.com/shop)

Scuderia Ferrari has launched its official range of 2012 merchandise just in time for the start of the season. The kit is super-high-quality stuff, made by Puma, and is identical to the clobber worn by the team. Choose from, clockwise from above, two designs of baseball cap (£27.99 each), T-Shirt (£44.99), Team Shirt (£79.99) or Polo Shirt (£64.99). The whole range features all the correct team/sponsor logos and branding.

All the usual sizes (S-XXL) are available.

HOT ON THE WEB THIS WEEK

YOUTUBE: PEUGEOT WINS LE MANS IN 1992

CIAO SIC! MOTOGP BOOK £24.99 autosport.com/shop

A 127-page photographic record of the Honda Gresini MotoGP team’s 2011 season that focuses, naturally, on Marco Simoncelli, who died in the Malaysian GP in October.

It’s a fitting tribute to the young Italian, who lifted Fausto Gresini’s squad into the big league and then left a huge void that sad day.

GP KILLER YEARS DVD £19.99 (62 mins) dukevideo.com

The shocking television documentary that explored the dangers of life as a grand prix driver in the 60s and 70s has made it onto DVD. If you missed it on TV, settle back and watch in horror – through gaps in your fingers – as lethal circuits and cars claim many victims. Then rejoice at the improvements…

SENNA RALT RT3 MODEL £99.99 (1:18-scale) autosport.com/shop

Minichamps has released this large-scale replica of the Ralt RT3 in which British F3 champion Ayrton Senna dominated the inaugural Macau F3 GP for Teddy Yip’s Theodore squad at the end of 1983.

The model has all the detail you’d expect from a 1:18scale diecast, including working steering.

SEARCH FOR: Le Mans 24 Hours 1992 part-1 (9:11) As Gary Watkins’ sportscar racing timeline reminds us on page 60, it’s 20 years since the demise of the world championship. Back then, at Le Mans, it was Peugeot versus Toyota for honours at La Sarthe. This is part one of 10...

March 15 2012 autosport.com 89

WHAT’S ON…

Your guide to the best events taking place in the UK and around the world this week – plus TV and online DONINGTON PARK

OULTON PARK

HSCC March 17-18 Admission £15 on the gate Tel: 01332 810048

Masters March 17 Admission £16 Tel: 01829 760301

There is an extra helping of historic racing on offer this weekend, with a compact five-race timetable scheduled for Oulton Park on Saturday. The Masters Historic Racing season starter features races for Pre-66 Touring Cars, Gentlemen Drivers, 70s Celebration, World Sportscar Masters and single-seater allcomers. Drivers who travel to compete at Donington on Sunday as well will be eligible to win a magnum of champagne.

The giant of a racing organisation that is the Historic Sports Car Club has received an entry of more than 300 cars for its 2012 season opener at Donington Park this weekend. A 13-race programme over two days features grids for Roadsports (70s and Historic), Formula Ford, Formula Junior (front and rear-engined), Classic Racing Cars, 500cc F3, Touring Cars, Guards Trophy, Classic F3 and Historic FF2000.

Classic Racing Cars en masse at Donington

Gentlemen Drivers fun in leafy Cheshire

Be up early to catch it all Down Under

SEBRING 12 HOURS

FIA World Endurance Championship Rd 1/8 American Le Mans Series Rd 1/10 Sebring, Florida, USA March 17 fiawec.com and imsaracing.net

NASCAR SPRINT CUP

Rd 4/36 Bristol, Tennessee, USA March 18 nascar.com

AUSTRALIAN GRAND PRIX

Formula 1 World Championship Rd 1/20 Albert Park, Melbourne March 18 formula1.com

After the phony war of testing the season kicks off for real at the Melbourne parkland circuit – and that means early alarms to catch it all live. Sebastian Vettel starts his bid to become only the third man in F1 history to seal three consecutive titles.

XX autosport.com January 90 March 15152012 2009

Rd 2/13 Rally Islas Canarias Las Palmas, Gran Canaria March 15-17 ircseries.com

NASCAR NATIONWIDE SERIES

Rd 4/33 Bristol, Tennessee, USA March 17 nascar.com

PICS: BELLANCA, FERRARO, TEE/LAT, MICK WALKER

INTERCONTINENTAL RALLY CHALLENGE

FINAL DRIVE

WHAT’S ON

Television THURSDAY MARCH 15

1300-1415 BBC2

F1: Australian GP Qualifying

0500-0600 Premier Sports

NASCAR Sprint Cup: Las Vegas

1230-1530, 1600-1830 Sky Sports F1

F1: Australian GP Qualifying replay

0930-1030 ESPN

Formula 1 Retro: 1971

1415-1900, 2130-0250 Motors TV LIVE

Formula 1 Retro: 1973

2330-0000 Eurosport

IRC: Rally Spain highlights

1130-1230 ESPN

Formula 1 Retro: 1976

SUNDAY MARCH 18

2000-2100 Eurosport 2

WTCC: Monza highlights

0000-0230 Eurosport LIVE

Legends: Jackie Stewart

0430-0900 Sky Sports F1 LIVE

FIA WEC/ALMS: Sebring

2300-2330 Sky Sports F1

F1: Australian GP

FRIDAY MARCH 16

0500-0730, 1900-1930 Sky Sports F1

Legends: Nigel Mansell

0100-0315 Sky Sports F1 LIVE

F1: Australian GP Free Practice 1

1400-1600 BBC1

F1: Australian GP

0515-0700 Sky Sports F1 LIVE

F1: Australian GP Free Practice 2

0725-0930, 1250-1415, 1825-2030 Sky Sports F1

F1: Australian GP Free Practice 2 replay

1030-1230, 1600-1810, 2130-2345 Sky Sports F1

F1: Australian GP Free Practice 1 replay WRC: Rally Mexico highlights

SATURDAY MARCH 17

1430-1900, 1930-2100, 2130-2300 Sky Sports F1

F1: Australian GP replay 2000-2235 Motors TV

NASCAR Nationwide: Bristol 2300-0100 BBC2

MONDAY MARCH 19

1700-1830 Sky Sports F1

Motorsport Mundial

0500-0730 Sky Sports F1 LIVE

Formula 1: Australian GP Qualifying 0800-0830 Sky Sports F1

Legends: Emerson Fittipaldi

Get AUTOSPORT magazine on your iPad every week

F1: Australian GP replay

0300-0410 Sky Sports F1 LIVE 0355-0420 Channel 5

Unless you’ve been under a rock for the past month, you’ll know that F1 2012 is go this weekend in Australia, and AUTOSPORT.com is the place to be for all the latest news, images, session reports and analysis from Melbourne as McLaren takes the fight to Red Bull.

Don’t miss Mark Hughes’s exclusive Friday form guide, and have your questions answered by our F1 editor Edd Straw.

NASCAR Sprint Cup: Bristol

1650-1855 Motors TV

F1: Australian GP Free Practice 3

AUSTRALIAN GP

1700-2100 Premier Sports LIVE

0000-0030 Eurosport

IRC: Rally Spain day one

Coming up in our premium web content this week

FIA WEC/ALMS: 12 Hours of Sebring

1030-1130 ESPN

2235-2340 Motors TV

Online

AUTOSPORT MAGAZINE NOW ON iPAD

NASCAR Nationwide: Bristol

You can now experience AUTOSPORT in digital form on your iPad. It’s available all over the world on Thursday morning (UK time) via the Apple Newsstand, and costs just £2.99 for each issue, with further discount available for a subscription.

For more info, visit apple.com/uk/newsstand

F1: Australian GP highlights 1830-1900 Sky Sports F1

Legends: Nigel Mansell 2100-0010 Motors TV

FIA WEC/ALMS highlights 2130-2230 Sky Sports 4

NASCAR Sprint Cup: Bristol highlights

REVVED UP OVER WHAT’S ON THE BOX

We cast a critical eye over the best and worst of this week’s TV coverage

The Iceman became a Stigman for the day

THE ENDURING popularity of televised karaoke (aka X Factor); the longevity of Two Pints of Lager and a Packet of Crisps; Noel Edmonds.

There are some things that just defy logic. To that list add the feverish support Kimi Raikkonen enjoys from a huge section of the F1 fanbase.

Quite what they see in the monosyllabic underachiever has always been beyond me, but then again I’ve never understood what all the fuss with U2 is about. As far as I’m concerned, millions can clearly be wrong. As we learnt last weekend, Top Gear’s The Stig (the latest version)

is a Kimi fan, as is Jezza Clarkson. But faced with the prospect of having to interview one of sport’s most famously reticent interviewees, Clarkson chose/was forced to make a virtue of the Iceman’s minimalist candour.

“Very normal,” the Kimster replied when asked what it felt to be back in F1. “The car’s the same, the people are the same; it’s the same story.” And so on.

So what did we learn over the rest of the interrogation? We found out that he enjoys a pre-race sleep, that he’s not given up the sauce, that’s he’s got a very nasty scar on his left

wrist courtesy of a winter snowmobile shunt, and most importantly, that he’s a second a lap faster than Mark Webber in the wet in a Suzuka Liana.

Personally, I’d have rather seen him in their rallycross segment later in the show. Convinced that they could go racing for less than the cost of a decent bag of golf bats, they headed off to Lydden Hill armed with cars costing under £1000, which they prepped up for some asphalt/gravel

mixed-surface action.

They clearly had a blast, even if some of the driving on display was ropey at best, and it was hard not to think of The Impressions Show’s take off of Richard Hammond as he was bouncing his Citroen Saxo to a runner-up finish in the B final.

Still, if it gets people off the golf course and onto the racetrack it’ll be a job well done. “Come on Hammond!”

Revved Up

“We learned Kimi enjoys a pre-race kip, that he's not given up the sauce, and he's 1s per lap quicker than Webber” March 15 2012 autosport.com 91

THE WEEK IN PICTURES Our lensmen pounding the beat from Mexico to Monza

PUSHING THE ENEVELOPE IN THE BLACK AND GOLD The Lotus colours seem ubiquitous at the moment, and here’s Oriol Servia in IndyCar testing at Sebring. He’s got a long way to go yet to emulate Ronnie Peterson

WE’VE SEEN THIS STYLE SOMEWHERE ELSE Tom Chilton brings his BTCC antics to stage at Monza on Sunday. Despite his the world his Ford proved off the pace of the efforts, Chevys

PICS: McKLEIN.DE; WILLIAMS/LAT

OH NO! LOEB’S BEATEN US AGAIN...

The realisation sets in for Mikko Hirvonen’s co-driver Jarmo Lehtinen that this year’s WRC is developing into a very familiar theme

NEXT WEEK

AUSTRALIAN GP REPORT

ALL THE BEST ACTION AND PHOTOS FROM MELBOURNE DON’T MISS IT! 92 autosport.com March 15 2012

FINAL DRIVE

PHOTO FINISH

FROM THE ARCHIVE Alain Prost wins European F3 Championship, 1979

THIS WEEK IN…

MARCH 19 1954

“Along the way Prost took plaudits for the methodical,

PIC: LAT

measured approach that would earn him the ‘Professor’ name” FOLLOWING THE FIA’S DECISION TO REVIVE THE European Formula 3 Championship in 2012, we take a trawl through the AUTOSPORT archives to 1979, when Alain Prost won the European title in dominant fashion.

In a mirror of the current situation, the creation of the European championship in 1975 led to rivalry for international prestige between the various F3 championships, with the British and European attracting the strongest fields.

Over the next few years the British scene would launch drivers such as Gunnar Nilsson, Bruno Giacomelli, Derek Daly and Derek Warwick towards the top, while the European would allow Riccardo Patrese, Elio de Angelis and Teo Fabi to earn their spurs. Meanwhile, Nelson Piquet contested the Euro title in 1977 before winning one of the British crowns on offer in ’78.

But in 1979 the European championship had ‘The Man’, as Alain Prost dominated in his works Martini, with backing from Renault and Elf. While he was admittedly one of the best-funded drivers on the grid as a consequence, Prost was in a class of his own from the outset.

Victory in four (and a second to non-scoring Piercarlo Ghinzani in the opener) of the opening six races moved him into a dominant championship lead he would never

Prost chases Riley, with Johansson behind him

relinquish. He finished the year with nearly triple the points of runner-up Michael Bleekemolen. Along the way he took plaudits for his methodical and measured approach, traits that would later earn him the nickname ‘The Professor’.

The championship only made one trip to British soil in 1979, and it was the scene of a rare Prost defeat – although he still challenged the British series regulars in tricky conditions at Donington Park.

With 47 cars on the entry list (it counted for British points as well, and the entry included Nigel Mansell and Eddie Jordan), the weekend was split into two heats and a final. Prost’s Martini lined up third for the decider, behind Andrea de Cesaris’s March and Placido Iglesias’s Ralt.

De Cesaris’s March failed to make the start of the final, but Prost was unable to capitalise as Mansell’s team-mate Brett Riley surged into a lead he would never surrender.

Prost looked set for second until he came upon the lapped John Bright. Unable to pick his way past, he was caught and passed by British series leader Chico Serra.

Prost won the following round at Zandvoort to all but guarantee himself the European F3 crown at the season’s halfway point. Further victories came at Knutstorp and Jarama, and his dominance was rewarded with a move into the McLaren F1 squad for the 1980 season.

AUTOSPORT DEVOTED ITS FRONT cover to the third running of the Sebring 12 Hours this week in 1954.

It was a race Stirling Moss and Bill Lloyd won by more than five laps.

In Briggs Cunningham’s OSCA, the pair’s margin of victory was impressive and deceptive in equal measure, coming as it did after an eleventh-hour retirement for the race-leading Lancia of Piero Taruffi and Robert Manzon.

The Italo-French pair had led from the third hour and established an advantage of more than 15 laps over the smaller-engined OSCA, only for their car to stop dead 2.5 miles from the pits. Taruffi pushed the crippled machine back, and Manzon later rolled it across the line to claim a finish – which was promptly taken away under protest as the car had not used a starter motor to exit the pits.

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FINAL DRIVE

RACE OF MY LIFE

STEVE NICHOLS

■ Portuguese Grand Prix, Estoril ■ October 21, 1984 ■ McLaren MP4-2 ■ Title charge from Niki Lauda

PICS: LAT ARCHIVE

Lauda wrapped up third title in 1984

WELL, OVER THE YEARS there have been so many great races. I enjoyed so much success at McLaren and it was always exciting at Ferrari. The emotion when Ferrari wins a race is something else!

The race I thought was the most important – and had the most significance for me – was the Portuguese Grand Prix at Estoril at the end of ’84. It was the final race and one of our drivers – Niki Lauda or Alain Prost – was going to win the championship.

We’d had a great season up to that point, the first with the TAG turbo engine. Prost had won six races, Lauda five, and it had been a fraught and titanic scrap between two phenomenal drivers – one on the way out, the other on the way up. A combination of good management and some fortuity meant we were always on the edge of disaster but always survived!

The situation was such that if Alain won the race, Niki had to finish second. I was race engineer on Niki’s car and he had a tough time in qualifying. Niki was so good at sorting out the car and development work, though. All that experience at managing the fuel and the tyres was pivotal 94 autosport.com March 15 2012

“Niki went on a charge. Watching it reminded me of him telling me back in May at Dijon that he was so desperate to beat Prost. ‘I will win the title,’ he insisted…”

– and would prove to be again.

At various points during the qualifying sessions there were issues for Niki. We miscalculated the fuel allocation for one of his quick runs, so he had to abort it and come in. Prost then took his tyres by mistake after a pitstop blunder. And later on Niki said he had an engine problem, which Porsche [builders of the TAG

engines] disputed. The final straw was his engine developing a water leak that meant that we had to change it overnight.

All this meant Niki qualified 11th, with Prost way ahead on the front row alongside poleman Piquet’s Brabham. The tension among the drivers, the engineers and mechanics was high.

I was hoping Niki would get

IN PROFILE AMERICAN STEVE NICHOLS WAS hired by McLaren design ace John Barnard in 1980 and he went on to conceive cars driven to F1 title success by Niki Lauda, Alain Prost and Ayrton Senna. He joined Ferrari in 1989, before leaving to help Peter Sauber set up his team for ’93. A spell at Jordan pre-dated a 1995 return to McLaren, before he finished his time in F1 as Jaguar technical director in the early noughties.

Since ‘retiring’, Nichols, now 65, has raced for fun in FFord 2000.

a great start and make up those places, but he didn’t. He spent a long time stuck behind Stefan Johansson’s Toleman. He got past eventually and then went on a charge, getting up to third.

Watching it reminded me of him telling me back in May at Dijon that he was so desperate to beat Prost. “I will win the championship,” he insisted.

Niki had been half a minute behind second-placed Mansell when the Lotus retired with 18 laps to go, so he was lucky. Still, it was the longest 18 laps I can remember.

In the end we got a one-two in the race and a one-two in the championship. I was so happy for Niki – and the whole McLaren team – but felt slightly sorry for Prost and his crew!

Steve Nichols was talking to Henry Hope-Frost

NEXT WEEK

Volker WEIDLER