Motorsport News Issue 357 - March 21-April 3, 2007

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No. 357 21 March - 3 April 2007 Australia $6.50 NZ $8.00 inc GST

Skaife,HRT&Tom

THETRUTH

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Issue 357

21 March - 3 April '2007 www.mnews.c6m.au

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ME truth Photos

Cover: sutton-images.com Ford Racing Media

Contents: Dirk Klynsmith,

.

4

Tommark

HRT's new structure

7

Night Riders

\Ne reckon twilight is the go

9

Holliday in USA

Kiwi goes for a Champ Car Lights! Cam! Action!

72 ^50 on 10

16 Finger in the Dyk A1 gets a new driver

James Smith, Ford Racing Media, sutton-images.com.

CM Media

25 Motor Mouth

McConkey's on the telly

26 Box Seat

Melbourne heals the hurts

28 Opinions

It's like Night and Day

82 Talk Converter

The Halls of Justice

30 Five Minutes with Lewis Hamilton 32 Five Minutes with Lee Holdsworth f

'■

34 Putting the 'More'in 'Sophmore' James Courtney enters his second year in V8s and

gets ready to Bring the Hurt to the big guys 38 The Afterlife EXCLUSIVE: Chris Dyer talks about life after Michael

44 Coming Attraction Formula Ford's rising star, Tim Blanchard

46 What's black and white and red all over!

7*

Raikkonen came, sawandconqueredin Melbourne

but everyone was talking about Levvis Hamilton

(Except Kimi, who doesn't talk about anything)

MELBOURNE J

■

tradaf.

IF Michael Schumacher's retirement at the end of last season suggested the idea of a generational change in Formula 1,the notion was set in stone at Albert Park last weekend with the arrival of Lewis Hamilton.

It's difficult to remember the last rookie who arrived in the sport under the weight of such expectation - or one who delivered upon it to such a degree. A second row grid spot at the end of his first qualifying session was backed up with a near-perfect race and a podium on debut. And at the first corner of his first lap in Formula One, his drove around the outside to pass two cars - one which was driven by his team-mate.The reigning World Champion.

Yet despite a blaze of attention, particularly from his native British media, he never seemed anything other than completely relaxed or composed all weekend,even if he claimed otherwise.

"I think all the things out of the car have been the biggest surprise," he said.

"When you're in the paddock and people are looking at you ... it's something new, and something you have to get used to. But I think I'm getting a bit better at it!"

The fact that he had just become the fii;st driver of black ancestry in Formula 1 was the least remarkable thing about him, yet it is impossible to dismiss.Tokenism is: one thing, but talent is something else. At Albert Park at least, Hamilton looked every bit like a driver who is going to spray a lot of champagne in years to come.

Hamilton's marketing potential cannot be ignored. His value to FI is obvious, as he will almost certainly be the magnet for supporters from well outside the sport's traditional demographics, but you can also expect his corporate value to skyrocket, too.

Sponsorship experts are already predicting that Hamilton's earning potential from endorsements will eventually rival that of David Beckham.

In purely sporting terms though, Hamilton promises to be an exciting addition to the FI grid.

When coupled with other promising new arrivals, such as Robert Kubica and ' Heikki Kovalainen(who is a better driver than his wobbly debut in Melbourne might have suggested),the future of the sport is already in good hands - and Fernando Alonso and Kimi Raikkonen are not even close to handing over the mantle yet.

-MARKGLENDENNING

Backfrom the HRT to race-Skaife offthe Board -Walkinshaw's halfshare- Friday practice laps to be halved? MNews gets to the bottom ofthe whole messy thing...

HOLDEN Racing Team will line up in Perth this weekend, having finally convinced teams'group TEGA that Mark Skaife is, and will remain,in effective control of the team - but at a significant cost.

Apartfrom paying TEGA's legal expenses (of approximately $100,000)the team has also reached a "financial settlement of the issues"(the current TLA rules don't provide for a'fine'!)

As well, Skaife himself has been dumped from the TEGA and V8 Supercar boards and will be replaced by another Holden team representative - expected to be Larry Perkins.

Both the wording of TEGA's official release on the matter and a confidential memo to its teams obtained by MNews (see elsewhere) make it clear that the team was found to be in breach of TEGA's requirements with respect to team ownership.The team was formally stripped of its two V8 Supercar licences but,subject to signing of a deed of agreementunder which the team will be subject to "stringent regular and random checks and disclosure"- those licences were expected to be re-issued this week.

The documentation also confirms what has been rumoured for some time - that Tom Walkinshaw's company Walkinshaw Performance now has a stake in Skaife's company Skaife Sports, which owns the two Level 1 V8 Supercar licences.The stake

is 50 percent,although Skaife has been successful in convincing TEGA that he retains control of the company.

"We have only approved the arrangement that is encompassed by the deed,"said TEGA Chairman, Kelvin O'Reilly.

He declined to reveal what the deed documented.

Why would Skaife divest 50 percent of his company to Walkinshaw? A good question. Our industry sources suggest it is in lieu of payment for additional costs (reputedly in excess of $2m)incurred

by Walkinshaw,over and above those covered by HRT's incoming sponsorship,in supplying the services he does to the HRT team - ie the preparation and running of the race cars.

A final cost to the team (and its Toll/ HSV'sister') may well come in the form of a newly-proposed change to the rules covering'grouped'teams and practice sessions at race meetings.

MNews understands that a draft rule has been forwarded, with unanimous support,from the TEGA Board to V8SA under which - as in testing - laps during Friday practice would also be 'grouped'- ie while two cars in a normal team are allocated, say,40 laps on a Friday, cars in a four car'group' (ieToll and HRT)would

4 motorsportnews

ABU DHABI: 310109 January date looks likely for second Middle East race The Toll bells for

branagan

Baird and Reynolds

FORMULA 1 is heading for an

CRAIG Baird and David Reynolds

even-earlier start to its season in 2009.

will soon be confirmed as Toll HSV's

endurance drivers. The Carrera Cup front-runners have both sampled Toll's new VE Commodores and will be

paired together in either the #15 or #16 factory Holdens. Due to Toll HSV's grouping with the Holden Racing Team, testing miles will be limited, but

both will attend the majority of the team's test days.

■ Kelvin O'Reilly is to step aside as Chairman of the Touring Car Entrants' Group (TEGA). Subject to receiving

seasons in the late-1970s that the

opening race of the season was in January, usually starting in South American swing of races in Brazil

lack of resistance to ending winter eariy fits well with a Middle East race - which, unlike a test, will

provide the teams with enhanced

and Argentina a week apart. As testing began'to take up more

income.

According to the website of the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix,

and more of the teams'time and

opportunity to run the Abu Dhabi

It also gives E(fclestone the

which will become the second

resources, the start of the season

and Bahrain races back-to-back,

Middle Eastern race to join the FI calendar, the debut race at the

started to move back into March and the 2007 season started later than ever last weekend.

But this fits well with Bernie Ecclestone's desire to extend the

which is also the likely scenario for a combination of existing and new events - including South Korea and Singapore and a secdnd

new Yas Island track will be held

on SaturdayJanuary 31, meaning that the season will start seven

weeks earlier than it has this year.

While this seems a little odd, it is

not without precedent. There were

season to 20 races.This year, most of the teams tested extensively in Bahrain in early March and their

race in Japan, which looks likely following the imminent demise of the struggling Malaysian GP in the near future.

approval from 75 percent of the members of the Group, the position will be filled by John Hewson, while O'Reilly will retain his current role as General Manager of TEGA. The matter is expected to be voted on at

an Extraordinary General Meeting in early April.

■ Two of Hollywood's toppest

blokes (and FI fans) moved on right after the AGP. Noted Ford fan Eric Bana

jetted off to LA on Monday to discuss

his next movie project while Anthony Edwards continued his round-the-

world journey In his own jet. And he prefers to be called 'Tony', not'Goose' as in Top Gun.

■ Saturday night may be alright for fighting, but only if it is for pole position. Network 10 has confirmed that the three-session hour will be

televised this year for every Grand Prix, so make sure that there is a large TV in your house, adjust the Jason recliner and stock up on your favourite beverage.

■ Supercheap Auto Racing has begun to bolster its staff to complete the team's second VE Commodore inhouse in the wake of the race team's

Spyker protests Super Aguri: Toro Rosso in the clear: Williams sits and waits THE Spyker FI team took the odd step of protesting only the Super Aguri team after qualifying on Saturday.

It seems that the protest was designed to

By definition that is a ludicrous argument,

;

because two people cannot both own the totality of something but this seems to be the argument being put forward by Red Bull.

willing to make any decisions on the subject before

The Super Aguri case seems to be a great deal more complicated but Spyker seems to think

things move on to proper legal action.The stewards rejected Spyker on the grounds that the protest

that there are parts of the car that are identical to those used by Honda on its RA107, which would

ascertain whether the FIA Stewards would be

should have been made within two hours of the

contravene the rules.

The Formula 1 rules and regulations are, rather

split with chassis constructor Dencar.

end of scrutineering on Thursday afternoon. This

Following the late completion of the

was not possible because the Super Aguri was not launched until after scrutineering had taken place

oddly, a part of the Concorde Agreement, the

which, the Spyker people argued, meant that they

this agreement the FIA is charged with overseeing the policing of the sport, but if there is a dispute between the parties involved it should be settled by

team's first VE Commodore, debuted at Adelaide by Paul Dumbrell, and the subsequent late start on the second car

did not get access to photographs in time to make

for Cameron McConville, the team has

the necessary protests possible.

However, the stewards were not really in a

essentially restarted the build process on the second chassis, which was in its

formative stages.

A handful of new staff members

have started at the team's Dandenong workshop in the fabrication

department to build the second VE, which isn't expected to be complete for another fev; rounds.

6

position to rule on such a matter because while

there is a sporting regulation that says that the constructor is a person (dr entity) that owns the intellectual property rights to the chassis and

manufactures it, there is nothing that specifically says that two teams cannot own the same piece of intellectual property.

accord that regulates the way Formula 1 is run. In

arbitration. But the arbitrators will almost certainly

throw the question of a technical matter back to the FIA because they are not competent to judge such matters. on

The result, therefore, is an expensive exercise from which only lawyers will gain, and a compromise is probably a better idea.

-JOESAWARD

motorsportnews

i

Once a Night is Enough THE battle to host the first Formula 1 Grand Prix looks

set to be a contest between Australia and Singapore.

Formula One Management boss Bernie Ecclestone is keen to have a race under iights in this region of the world to improve European television viewing times (our race is currentiy at 4am European time),

One possible problem facing the AGP Corporation couid be the cost. Albert Park does not currently have any great electricity capacity and, even with the current daytime races, more than 100 stand-aione

"We will look at the costs and benefits of that and

diesel-powered generators are on-site at the GP to provide electricity for grandstands, corporate facilities and other buildings.

"You could double that for a night race," said one sports lighting expert consulted by MNews, on condition of anonymity.

"In fact, the long-term solution would be to bring in

the Australian Grand Prix Corporation will do some

the city [electricity] grid. It would cost a fortune and

extensive work to determine how viabie that wiii be.

you would only contemplate doing it on the basis that you would have a night race year after year.

and Australian Grand Prix Chairman Ron Walker and

Victorian Premier Steve Bracks both appear positive about the idea.

"We have an open mind about it," said Bracks.

To look at the potential revenue opportunities, of having a greater opportunity to get sponsorship by seiiing internationally a night time race - we need to look at the expense of that. That will be done on a

proper cost-benefit analysis. If it stacks up, that will be persuasive, but we will have to wait and see."

Walker says that a night race will be a great boost to Victoria.

"You have just seen the success of the Australian Open tennis [and] we saw the success of the soccer

the other night. Mr Ecclestone and all the officials in Europe saw this great thing on teievision. Mr Ecclestone is saying 'if you decide and you and the government do all your studies, you could punch this into another biiiion people world-wide in the correct time zone in Europe'. That is great revenue for Victoria, it's great for tourism and it's great for commerce.

"So, why wouldn't we look at it as a board and make a recommendation to the Premier and cabinet? They might turn it down - there is no obligation for us to do this."

"The other alternative would be to do what is done

at the MCG.The lights for the towers - not the towers,

just the lights - cost $1 million per tower, and that was 15 years ago. Each one needs a SOOkvA generator

underneath in case the electricity goes out, and there are six towers to light about 500 metres around the MCG. How long is the GP track, 5.3km? And how many times a year will it be in use?"

But Walker was also keen to underline the safety angle.

"We also have to look at the safety. But we always say that if a tennis player can hit a ball back at 200 kilometres an hour under lights, anything is possible.

We had discussions with the drivers today and there does not appear to be a pushback."

MNews did not conduct an exhaustive survey but four out of the five FI drivers we asked expressed reservations. One mentioned that there needed to

be a 'failsafe' backup to ensure that there were no interruptions to whichever lighting system was used.

Webber gives qualified support AUSTRALIAN FI star Mark

Webber has thrown his support behind the idea of a night race in Melbourne - but with one reservation.

"I was all for it," he told MNews on Sunday, “but then Fernando brought up a very good point.

,"&heilithat is, if it rains, at night.

we're screwed. Le Mans and all those other events are fine at

night because the cars have headlights. FI cars don't and with the lighting being external, when It rains, with light reflecting off the rain, we won't be able to see a

thing. Quite a valid point! And I'm pretty sure no-one's going to be

putting headlights on FI cars .... "if someone can work out a way around that, then it's back to being

a good idea!"

With international TV schedules

being locked in, there is no room

for the 'rain day' concept used for Champcar and night oval races in the US.

THE SOLUTION? COMMENT by PHIL BRANAGAN

MNews staff is split on the idea of hosting a night race in Melbourne fsee Opinion, page 28) - but there could be a compromise.

Here in Victoria, any initiative

to do something too brave is sure

to be pounded into submission by our Nanny-State health and safety laws and weak-as-water

politicians, so, with the likely added costs in installing lighting, such a thing looks like Mission:

Impossible.There will be too many objections, the noise from the chattering classes will be unbearable and our politicians, even Steve Bracks, will not be able

to get this one across the line.

But, how about this for a Plan B?

A night race looks like an 'ambit claim'but a twilight race is a goer and an obvious solution. Last

Sunday's race took just under 86 minutes so, if we were to flick the

lights to green at 7pm (Sam in England, 9am in Europe), we will get it done in daylight - providing the race is held no later than mid-

February - and the Poms can watch it over breakfast. With the

2009 season seemingly booting up on the last day of January in Abu Dhabi (see other story), we will lose our precious opening round after next year - but

keeping the Euros watching will make BE and Ron smile.

The lighting needed will be minimal (it might get dark in the Paddock after the race), costs will

be kept relatively low and the harm to the environment will be acceptable.

So, Melbourne could well have the tennis in mid-to-late January, the FI GP two weeks later, then Superbikes, then AFL, and onwards on the events roller-coaster.

A win-win situation from what.

at first glance, looks like a big, big problem.

buld Super Tourers rise agsm?

Big crowd at AGP

THERE could once again be a second domestic touring car racing series in Australia - based on a hybrid version of the new Super 2000 rules.

Subaru Australia boss Nick Senior has floated the idea that

Melbourne had a solid weekend with

a total of 301,000 spectators over the four days.

On race day there were 105,000

present with 47,500 on Thursday, 72,500 on Friday and 76,000 on Saturday. The number of fans knocked a hole in the arguments of those who have been talking down the race in recent weeks.

■ NickHeidfeldwillrunaBMW

FI .07 around the old Nurburgring next month.

The 14-mile track has not been used for Formula 1 since Niki Lauda's accident in 1976. A shortened version

of the track is used for the European Grand Prix but the Nordschieife

has long been considered way too dangerous for modern FI. The Formula 1 lap record stands to the late Clay Regazzoni, who lapped the track in 1975 in 7m05s. The track

layout has varied slightly since then,

but the outright record belongs to Stefan Beilof who set the fastest lap in the 1983 Nurburgring 1000km at 6m25.91s. His pole position for the event was a startling 6m11.13s in a Porsche 956 sports car.

■ Work at Spa is progressing at speed so as to be completed in time for the Belgian Grand Prix later this year.

The work includes a large amount of earth-moving to allow for the construction of a new pit building and paddock area which are more in keeping with the norms in modern Formula 1. This has meant that the

old Bus Stop chicane has had to be reprofiled, along with the La Source hairpin. The work began in the middle of November 2006 and with mild winter weather is now a week ahead of schedule.

■ The state government of South Australia has ruled out bidding against Melbourne to recapture the Australian Grand Prix.

The state treasurer Kevin Foley said that there was "no chance of the

government bidding for the Grand Prix" because it would "cost the state too much".

Melbourne has the race until 2010.

■ Champ Car driver Nelson Philippe was spotted in the FI paddock in

Melbourne and the whisper is that the 20-year-oid Frenchman is trying to talk his v/ay into a test drive in Formula 1.

8

the time is right for a series for Super 2000-styled cars, which form the basis of the World

Touring Car Championship, and that the manufacturers not

involved with V8 Supercars {which means everyone except Holden and Ford) might well embrace the series. And the cars may embrace alternative energy sources, like diesel and hybrid engines.

"There has certainly been no shortage of interest from just about every direction but not from other importers,"said Senior this week.

"We want to maximise the

television, audience and

participation potential. That could mean running it over summer, or

at night."

While Subaru is putting the idea out there, and would thus be first cab off the rank if anything came of it, other manufacturers already involved in the major Super 2000 series, the World Touring Car

there does not seem to be an easy

withdrew from the series at the

avenue to get people overseas

end of 2005, privateer teams still campaign its 156, which has been replaced by the 159.

Furthermore, Alfa has already announced a GT program based

and if there is a series we can

stipulation of the series could be that one or more of the drivers

could be under an age limit perhaps 25 - to encourage young drivers to move into the ranks of

professional racers.

To get off the ground, it is

car (ie, a two-litre Accord Euro)

agreed that the concept would

that it does not sell locally.

need solid commitment and

However, if Senior is successful

in selling the concept to other local manufacturers/importers, there is nothing to stop appropriate cars being created

has won the two WTCC titles held

from scratch.

the local motorsport landscape, while logical competitor Alfa

hook up with internationally, that would be great."

Senior suggests that one

on its C8, probably starting in 2008.

Honda supports a non-factory two-car team run by the Belgian JAS team but Honda Australia may have limited interest in selling a

Championship, may well take a wait and see position as any early debate takes place.

A spokesman for BMW, which to date, said that the company would monitor developments in

"I am mindful of the fact that

Romeo did not comment. Since

the Italian maker officially

support from a minimum of six

manufacturers/importers - both in terms of underwriting two-car

'factory'teams, perhaps assisting as third privateer car, and funding marketing activities, including television broadcasting.

"The good thing about this is that it is a 'clean sheet' and

That, in dollar terms, would be a

gives us the chance to make a difference," he said.

serious commitment.

Noske in. Booth testing MARK Noske will again suit up with Tasman Motorsport for this year's

Noske drove with Tasman in the

enduros last year, co-driving with

endurance races at Sandown and

Owen Kelly. The pair failed to finish

Bathurst.

Sandown due to clutch dramas, but

The Tasman team has taken up the second part of Noske's two-year contract, which see him suit up with

claimed 15th place at Bathurst.

Noske will get to sample the Tasman Commodores at each of the

a yet-to-be-confirmed partner in the

team's test days. His best result at

#3 Commodore VE.

Bathurst was sixth place with Todd

"It's the first time for a long time that I've had some continuity in the endurance races," Noske told MNews.

Kelly in 1999.

"Tasman has punched above its

weight with the cars they've had in the past, and now with (Greg) Murphy on board, I think we should

New Zealander Andy Booth will test drive a Tasman Motorsport

Commodore VE in the coming weeks.

GRANT ROWLEY I

-Jiffs'

●■-XT

go quite well.

"You always aim for a top TO up there, and if there's attrition* you can end up in the half dozen." motorsport news

ISIS

NEWS , m

Busy time for a Halliday A1GP, Champ Car and FPR - Matt's diary is full KIWI Matt Halliday looks set to join the Champ Car World Series after taking part in the two-day open test session

same team for whom he drove a partial season in Indy Lights in 2001.

"It's a small but solid team and together

at Laguna Seca - and, if successful in gaining the drive - will dovetail it with returning to Ford Performance Racing

{Bachelart, team owner) is a great guy and taught me a lot in my time over

for Sandown and Bathurst.

there."

Halliday drove for both days in Conquest Racing's Panoz DP01, however a gearbox malady limited his time

FPR in the V8 Supercar endurance races and is expected to be paired with Mark

behind the wheel.

While he doesn't have a deal fully

signed, he remains confident of being on the grid for the opening round at Las Vegas on April 7.

"Everyone is working hard for it to happen and I've known Conquest for a long time, so I'm Just sitting tight at the moment," said Halliday from New Zealand on Monday.

"I'm really positive that I'll be in Champ Car. Option A is to do the full season and Option B is to run a part season. I'm pretty sure we can make the first option happen.

"If Ican't do the full season, there's still

ways of getting in. I've got some good backing from New Zealand and my focus

we could surprise some people. Eric

Halliday will return to again drive for Winterbottom in the #5 Orrcon Falcon.

There are no date clashes for him

between his potential Champ Car commitments and his deal with FPR.

He also still maintains his ties with A1 Team New Zealand in the A1 Grand Prix

series and expects to be back behind the wheel of'black beauty'for the season finale at Brands Hatch at the end

of April.

"With A1 I'll do whatever I can when

things don't clash but hopefully Ican get one more race in at Brands.

"I've kept pushing for the single seater deal over the last few years of my career and we're getting there all the time."

Halliday could also step back into the NZ GTS Porsche series at the Pukekohe

is on this deal at the moment."

V8 Supercar round, provided he doesn't

Halliday clocked the ninth fastest time in the Laguna Seca test for Conquest, the

have a date clash with anything else!

- AARON NOONAN

Team Kiwi shoot-out for Perth race seat TEAM Kiwi racer Paul Radisich

his right foot.

will test a de-registered V8 Supercar at Queensland Raceway

Paul in the car,"team owner David

today (Wednesday) to determine

John said.

whether he will be fit enough to

"But if he can't lap consistently at

continue driving duties in the

competitive times, Adam will be

immediate future.

racing at Barbagallo."

Radisich, who was injured in an incident at Bathurst last year, will be pitched sgainst Adam Macrow in a 40-lap, race length stint around the Paperclip, to see how his times compare to Macrow. If Macrow convincingly outperforms Radisich, The Rat could be on the bench for this weekend's second round oftheV8

The team is certainly going

to much expense to see how fit Radisich really is, and this is a directive from TKR's sponsors.

The Ford Performance Racing-

prepared Falcon proved it is quick enough in the first round at the Clipsal 500, with Macrow setting the second fastest Falcon lap time in the second race. The team and

Supercar Championship Series at Barbagallo Raceway.

the sponsors realise they have a fast car this year, so they want to

The injuries Radisich sustained

ensure the best driver is in the car.

V8 Utes star Chris Pither will

last year to his sternum has restricted his use of his left leg.

Radisich has always been a left foot braker, and now he has to learn how to arrest the car with www.mnews.com.au

"We hope, to a degree, that it's

also get a chance in the de registered Howard Racing AU Falcon at QR today.

- GRANT ROWLEY 9

FI ■'-f'T.

Officer Doulman FORMER touring car privateer Peter Doulman is the new Driving Standards Observer for the Carrera Cup. Doulman replaces Tomas Mezera, who has been

in the role since the category began in 2003 but cited the need to spend more time with his family and Porsche driver training commitments as the reason for his decision to give up the role.

fliQniwitliiU/SiiiiiK

i'Kil| irnve^fmiiiit'iilaf afid^^

of Aston Martin,

and Kuwaiti

iftyestfrient,fftecbmpahy wi!!!continueto be run by Ulrich Bez, but Richards vvil|l be the non-executive

chairrhah.fha investment is a personal one rather than involving Rrodri^u Ihe deal follows the current trend for car companies

and racing teams to find investors in the Middle East

where the local governments, often family-run, are competing with one anotherto create new industries and' diversify away from the eurrent dependency on OJII

Richards says thatheis Cirifident that the firm can ■ Pirtek Rally Team has confirmed that it will run Michelins on the cars of Michael Guest and Darren Windus

during this year's Australian Rally Championship. The team's new Super 2000-spec Ford Fiestas will debut at the opening round of the ARC at next

weekend's Coates Rally Queensland.

■ Suzuki's plans to make its WRC debut at Rally Finland have been

iincrease its sales atiOi!ind!tlii& World and adds thatthisj^

wilf be achieved by exploiting vyhat he Callid "ine oi the most iconic brands".

The company has done wellithanks to its association with the Prince of Wales and itsinvolveraent ih -James Bond movies. Aston Martin has a network of T26

dealers in 27 countries, whichmeans that there is

plenty of potential to expand further.

However Richards says thatthere are no plans for

the company to be involved ihifll^that may be true at

the moment, but FI is a very powerful marketing tool

shelved, meaning that the Japanese

and there may come a day whenlRlchards would go

manufacturer's new SX4 WRC will

down that route.

now only be seen in Corsica and Great

-JOE SAWARD

Britain. It is understood that the

anticipated homologation date of the new car is too close to Rally Finland to

allow for proper preparation.

Testing of the SX4 WRC will commence in Europe next month

ahead of a full campaign in 2008.

■ Still without a Champ Car deal despite testing for Dale Coyne Racing during the off-season, Bruno Junqueira will return to the Brazilian A1 Grand Prix car for the next round in Mexico.

■ Although nothing has been officially confirmed, Sam Hornish Jr. will apparently enter the Brickyard 400 at Indianapolis Motor Speedway on July 29 in a Penske Dodge. Hornish finished 15th in the Atlanta Busch race

after qualifying fifth.

■ Alex Barron will return to

IndyCar racing in the IRL IndyCar Series opener at Homestead-Miami on March

24. The American will drive the #98

Beck Motorsports Dallara/Honda. The team has committed to run also at

Kansas and the Indianapolis 500 in a car driven by Scott Sharp last year for Fernandez Racing.

■ Super Bowl XLI MVP Peyton Man ning will wave the green flag for this

year's Indy 500 on May 27. Manning led the Indianapolis Colts in the 2006/07

season to their first championship.

10

^

t. -

Throw out your old rulebook -fH-"

IN the days leading up to Australian Grand Prix a number

life

.

of unannounced rule changes became known.

They were agreed by the FI team principals on March 5, but there was no announcement

beyond a statement from the FiA that "a number of amendments" had been made to the 2007

Sporting Regulations.

The key change was that FI

message'PIT LANE OPEN'is shown

CARS MAY NOW OVERTAKE', which

cars must now use at least one set

on the timing monitors.

will mean that all cars running between the leading cars will be allowed to pass the Safety Car and

of each of the tyre compounds

A ten second time penalty will

available, unless the driver had

be imposed on any driver who

used wet or extreme weather

enters the pit lane and whose car

tyres.

is refuelled before the second

In order to differentiate

between the two kinds of tyres, a small white marking was made to

the softer compounds. These did

not really help and Bridgestone is now waiting for the FIA to decide

how the tyres should be marked to make them visible to the commentators and spectators.

The rules about the Safety Car

message is shown.

In some cases it may be worth a team taking such a penalty because the advantage gained will be far greater, but we will have to see if that eventuality ever occurs. If the Safety Car uses the pitlane, the cars may not stop until the 'PIT LANE OPEN' message appears.

means that cars cannot refuel

There will also be a change to the way a Safety Car period

until all of them are lined up

unfolds as there is now a new

behind the Safety Car and the

message which will say'LAPPED

have also been changed which

gain back a lost lap.

They must "proceed around

the track at an appropriate speed, without overtaking"and then rejoin at the back of the field.

Policing this will be interesting, as

drivers will potentially gain a huge amount with the new rule and are

not likely to dawdle.

A new safety measure that has been adopted is the ban on bump starts when a car is being pushed off the grid. Drivers must now wait until the car is in the pitlane before being allowed to start.

- JOE SAWARD

moiorsport news

NEWS

Chasing the big 20 BERNIE Ecclestone is busy putting together packages for the future of Formuia 1 and

has been hinting at wanting to expand the caiendar to 20 races.

One of the big problems that Ecclestone is struggling with is TV ratings. The biggest FI audiences remain in Europe, so hosting races in the'wrong' time zones limits the potential

This is the thought process behind the idea of running Grands Prix under floodlights in Singapore and in Australia (see separate story).

One potential problem

earlier than is currently the case, spreading the load more evenly around the year.

But not everyone is smiling about the idea of racing 20 times a year.

"We have an agreement

Ecclestone may face is an almost embarrassing number of suitors. Apart from the already-

with the CDC, who are the

commercial rights holder,"

announced Abu Dhabi race and the imminent confirmation of a

McLaren boss Ron Dennis said

Brazilian Grand Prix to the end of the season was based

second Spanish race at Valencia, it now appears that there has been an about-face in Malaysia.

Presently, the FI teams have an agreement that restricts the

entirely on the fact that a race in Brazil provides prime time viewing in Europe.

teams a chance to rest their crews and build new cars. The end of the

for growth.

The decision to switch the

A race on the West Coast of

the USA, by comparison, is hard to sell in Europe because it will be broadcast at midnight. Races in Asia and Australia have the

same problem as the Australian GP takes place at 4am in Europe and as a result has small audiences.

last weekend, "and it does not provide for that number. It would require a renegotiation.

"It is a punishing season already. We try to rationalise testing to reduce costs, and there is some logic to having more events, and it's better for

the sport and better for the commercial aspect, you know, the CDC and the teams. Maybe it could happen. But there's no provision for it."

Translation: "Yes, we will do it, but we want more money"...

- SAWARD/GLENDENNING

length of the season, to give the current Concorde Agreement may change that, and one can imagine that the season will be extended

to give Ecclestone the 20 races that he desires.

The fact is that most of the

-

**●—1

teams now have their cars ready by the middle of January and could thus go racing much qt®s«E!EEBCaa'

Ferrari meets Titanic PLANNING continues on the movie of the life of Gilles Villeneuve -

and Leonardo DiCaprio is in line to play the Canadian iegend.

The movie, based on the well-known biography Gilles Villeneuve: The Life of the Legendary Racing Driver by Canadian journalist Gerald Donaldson, is still in the script development stage, with shooting expected to begin in early 2008.

The movie will cover the final months of the life of the Ferrari

4 ■

Going Busch JACQUES Villeneuve will make

2002 and 2006, and promoter

his much-anticipated move to NASCAR this year - but only for

promotes the circuit's Formula 1

one race.

The former World champion will race in the Busch Series round on Circuit Giiles-Villeneuve on

August 4, with hopes of moving to NASCAR's second-tier series on a full-time basis in 2008.

The Canadian is seen as a vital

part of the city's event, which replaces the Champ Car race run at the Grand Prix track between www.mnews.coni.au

racer, who was killed in an accident at Zolder during qualifying for the 1982 Belgian Grand Prix. A grid of FI cars from the era has been sourced from Nick Mason's Tentenths company, while there will also be a number of'replicas' made for the shoot to save expensive maintenance on the 25-year-old classics.

As a three-time Academy Award® nominee, DiCaprio's potential involvement in the project means that a hit is almost assured. Barring further delays, the biopic is expected to be released in early 2009.

Norman Legault (who also event) is keen to assist Villenueve's

appearance at the event.

As yet, there are no indications of what make of car Villeneuve would race in the event but he

and manager Craig Pollock have had lengthy discussions with Roush Racing in recent times and a Ford appears the marque likely to win the local hero's approval.

■

mages

77

andy with a mk. Cam? V8 SUPERCAR ace Cameron McConvilie

has signed with Network Ten and we can

good shape for the 2007 GP2 Series,

reveal he will not only become RPM's new V8 Supercar expert but also co-host the network's Formula 1 round coverage alongside Greg Rust.

The Supercheap Auto pilot has plenty of experience in the media over the years, being a' regularcommentator for V8 Supercar support events as well as Super Touring on Channel

which will start in Bahrain on April 15.

Seven.

Its drivers, Andreas Zuber and Timo Glock, were first and third fastest

The signing sees McConvilie become a semi regular on RPM, which moves to Saturdays for

iSport looks spot on in testing THE iSport International team looks in

respectively on both days of a pre season group test last week at Paul

Ricard, France. Each day, they were split by a Super Nova team driver, namely Luca Filippi and Mike Conway.

It looks like another very competitive GP2 season: in the final

(and fastest) of the four test sessions,

the 24 drivers were covered by 1.366s.

■ A 27-car entry for the 2007 British

Touring Car Championship has justified a switch to the same 'Super 2000' regulations as the FIA World series.

Provision was cautiously made for older-specification BTC cars to be raced

2007 in a pre-AFL timeslot on Ten. "I wanted to race FTcars when Iwas a kid, but being in the live chair for all of the races now means that the research in between races will

obviously be more time consuming than just turning on the TV at 10.30 of a Sunday night!" says McConvilie.

"Albert Park was a good starting point as I spent most of the weekend in the FI paddock just observing.

"I still have unfinished business in V8

Supercars as a driver first and foremost. But I've

always been a realist and I've always liked to have something bubbling along for when the driving duties may cease."

-AARON NOONAN

(without gaining championship points) but only six have been entered.

The BTCC remains a shadow of what once it was, but there are new S2000

For more on McConville's new deal with Ten,

turn to page 25

cars from Alfa Romeo, BMW, Honda, Lexus, SEAT andVauxhall.

About half the entry took part in a general test day at Rockingham last

Formosa FV8

week and Fabrizio Giovanardi was

narrowly fastest in VX Racing's new

ONE driver who won't be

works Vauxhall Vectra.

at Wakefield Park, but will compete in selected Fujitsu

Mike Jordan's Honda Integra, Colin Turkington's ex-Andy Priaulx BMW

V8 rounds this year is Darren

320si and the works SEAT Leons of Darren Turner and Jason Plato were all within 0.3s of Giovanardi's benchmark

Formosa.

The former HQ driver has secured the ex-lmrie

laptime.

Motorsport Jim Beam M Former Formula 1 drivers Johnny

Commodore VX and will sport

Herbert, Stefan Johansson and Gianni

Morbidelli have signed up to race in the new Speedcar Series, alongside Jean Alesi.

All four were shaking down the new track racing stock cars last week at Virginia International Raceway, along with Mike Bliss, who has been appointed as the test driver for the new series, and former Grand-Am and

sponsorship from Power Plus 98.

The Chris is back for WP A HOST of new entries will

bolster the Fujitsu V8 Supercar Series grid at Wakefield Park in two weeks.

Chris Alajajian will make his

consistent and we may get some good results. Not everyone scores points in the series now, so that will give me a chance to peg some of those guys back."

Formosa made his debut in

theV8 Supercar at Wakefield

Park recently during the first round of the Touring Car Challenge at Wakefield Park.

The reigning 3.3 litre Holden

Champion found the transfer

to a V8 Supercar eye opening.

"The car is very capable of

sometime NASCAR driver Tony Ave.

return to the series after missing

Seven Network star Grant

The Speedcar Series, featuring

the opening round of the championship at the Clipsal 500.

Alajajian recognises that

Denyer makes his return to the series, having missed the Clipsal

Car Challenge," he said.

500 due to TV commitments.

Other new drivers entered for

we'll run OK in the Fujitsu's as well. To be hopping into

24 identical NASCAR-style racecars,

will take place mainly at venues in the southern hemisphere between November 2007 and April 2008.

Series coordinator Benoit Lamonerie

reports that he is currently talking with race promoters in Australia,

Bahrain, China, Dubai, Malaysia and South Africa.

-QUENTIN SPURRING 72

the new point score system doesn't entirely rule him out of a reasonable championship result

this round include Robert Jones, Jonathan Beikoff and Drew Russell.

"We proved last year that we

Qualifying will be held on 'Saturday, with three races

could be quick," he said.

.slated for Sunday (April 1) at the

by the end of the season.

"Scott Anderson prepares a very fast car, so we just have to be

Goulburn circuit.

- GRANT ROWLEY

running strong in the Touring "With a bit of improvement,

something like this after HQs is a steep learning curve."

The car is owned by Power Plus 98, with associate

sponsorship from Futa. ^ GRANT ROVVLiY

motorsport news

NEWS

Girl Power at the Mountain LeanneTander to lead all-girl entry at 12-Hour HOLDEN has finalised its driver

Car Championship in the past.

line-up for the all-girl entry in

She has even raced an Holden

next month's Bathurst 12-Hour.

Astra at Bathurst, taking on the

Not surprisingly Leanne Tander will lead the squad, with

2-Hour Showroom Showdown

Lauren Gray, Samantha Reid and Christina Orr completing the line-up.

Gray, who currently races for Scud Racing in the Australian Formula 3 Championship, has production car experience thanks to a limited campaign in

a Toyota Echo last season.

Tander isn't a stranger to tintop racing either, having run in both Development Series and the Australian Production

with Rick Kelly in 2000.

Reid and Orr, meanwhile, are open-wheeler specialists, with Reid running in this year's Australian Formula Ford

Championship and Orr a regular front-runner in New Zealand's

Toyota Racing Series.

The girls even have a decidedly feminine sponsor,

with New Zealand lingerie company Bendon backing the diesel-powered Astra.

-ANDREWVAN LEEUWEN

VIP gets German upgrade Local team goes RSRfor upcoming Nurb 24-hr TEAM VIP Petfoods will expand its presence at the Nurburgring 24 Hour this year.

Car - get shipped to Germany.

While it's a tight turnaround, Klark Quinn is again looking

'The Queensland-based team will enter a brand-new Porsche

forward to the event.

GTS RSR, plus a second entry for

ever done," he said.

four Kiwi drivers in the team's 996 Cup Car. As reported in MNews

over there. We had such a

"It is the best race meeting I've

"I really can't wait to get back

previously,Tony and Klark Quinn

great time last year. The track is awesome. Ican't speak highly

will be joined by Craig Baird and

enough of it all."

Kevin Bell in the famous German race.

The all-Kiwi team will be

announced shortly, but all four

The GTS RSR is a brand-new car for the Quinns. It is due to arrive at

have current Porsche experience.

the VIP's workshop soon, but the

Nurburgring 24 Hour last year in their 996 Cup Car, finishing ninth outright.

crew will have less than a week to

throw some spanners and stickers

over it before it - and the 996 Cup

The Quinns debuted at the

- GRANT ROWLEY

Rally-spec confusion A HOMOLOGATION debate has developed in regard to Tarmac Rally vehicles competing in the Bathurst 12 Hour.

The brawl centres around the 12 Hour's Group 3E production car rules, which allowTarmai^Rally Cars to compete, subject to compliance with meeting eligibility criteria.

The confusion centres around the Subaru Spec C, which will be

allowed to compete in its base specification.

The Subaru Spec C has apparently been confused with the Spec C RA Rally version, in which Chris Atkinson competed in at the Nurburgring 24 Hour last year, pictured above, and other Spec Cs that were on display at the recent Sydney and Melbourne Motor Shows. While similar, those versions are more advanced that the standard Spec Cs that you'll see Atkinson and the factory team

compete with at Bathurst this Easter.

Two factory-backed Subaru Spec C entries have been lodged, as have four Mitsubishi Evo Vllls.

CAMS is currently drafting its final regulations to clarify the situation.

Expect to see around 40 entries in the Bathurst 12 Hour. www.mnews.com.au

13

n.

MARC Labour Day (WAj

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■ Somehow, Charlie 'Too Tall

f

Coates had trouble looking

through his viewfinder whenever there was a

OUR PHOTOGRAPHER:

McLaren driver in it.

Dirk Klynsmith had no trouble keeping

an eye on Fernando A.lonso,

even when

he was

in too much

of a hurry to stop

and say

'Hola

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to

Dirk (hard to

imagine, that ...)

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OUR PHOTOGRiiJHER: We asked for stunnin.^

Aussie Vi view and got a

Photo of Kylie's bottom.

No demerit points.

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OUR photographer: Not much, better,

Yes

he got two kangaroos

I

in the one photo but, as we discovered at the

>

THEIR photographer;

The pole position photo ended

barbecue later, neither of them was genuine.

1

up being of Flavio’s new friend, Miss Poland, Marzena Cieslik.

OUR

PHOTOGRAPHER:

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i

Call it

1

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cars and the Swimming -

and we got F3 and Athleti cs. You idiots. If you want me,

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May 2007 M

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NEWS

DykinforAITeamOz IAN Dyk is on his way to Mexico City to race for A1 Team Australia in this weekend's A1 GP round.

The Sydney driver, who has driven in four rookie sessions for the team

Clucas heads home to Brit F3

this season, will take advantage of his

rookie status to again participate in

Friday's rookie session at the Autodromo

Hermanos Rodriguez circuit as well as both the sprint and feature races.

REIGNING Australian Formula

Dyk replaces Karl Reindler, who has-

3 Champion Ben Clucas will

stepped aside after having led the team's driver line-up for the year. His best result was third in the feature race at Beijing

tackle the 2007 British F3

Championship with Ulitmate Motorsport.

last November.

Having totally dominated the Aussie F3 series last year, Clucas made a brief appearance in V8

Three races remain in the current season, however it remains to be seen

whether Dyk will remain in the car at

Supercars, failing to qualify for the final round of last year's Fujitsu V8 Supercar Series at Phillip Island in

each round.

A1 Team Australia seat holder Alan Jones said in a team statement that "we

December.

He has now returned to his

have decided to designate real track time to testing new drivers", which opens the possibility of another driver change before the end of the year.

native England, where he will pilot the brand-new Mygale F3 chassis with Mercedes power for pseudo factory squad Ultimate.

One name that has been floated is

John Martin, who is currently in the UK

Clucas will be one of 33 drivers

who will take part in the opening round of the Championship at

preparing to contest the British Formula

3 Championship with ADR - which

£

i

means he is conveniently placed if called

Outlon Park on Easter weekend,

including current Australian Formula Ford Champion John

upon for the final round at Brands Hatch in late April.

1

-MARKGLENDENNING

Martin.

CAMS AIMSS for race safety IT was an emotional Sir Jackie Stewart who launched the Austj:alian Institute for Motor^Sport Safety (AIMSS) in Melbourne last week.

The three-time World Champion

referred to his close friend Peter Brock during the launch of the

safety initiative. )

Master of his own destiny' KARL Reindler may well become Australia's first representative in the new-for-2007 International Formula Master series.

The open-wheeler category, which will support the : World Touring Car Championship, kicks off in May, i and Reindler is looking for a way to get on the grid.

! "It's a new category and that's probably the only

i

are powered by a Honda-based 2-litre engine that makes 250 horspower.

Having parted ways with Australia's A1GP team, Reindler is now fully focussed on his 2007 plans.

"My preference was World Series by Renault, but there's not really any seats left. So the Formula

negative,"said Reindler.

Master thing may well be the go, but we're still a way off yet. Iwanted to have my plans sorted last

"Other than that it looks really good. Running on

month, my new deadline is as soon as possible!"

I the WTCC bill is a massive plus, the budgets are similar to British Formula 3 and the cars are faster."

The IFM cars are built by Tatuus, the company that builds New Zealand's Toyota Racing Series ears, and 16

Reindler made his return to Australian

competition with a one-off drive in the Formula 3 support races at Albert Park on the weekend.

-ANDREWVAN LiiUWEN

We think that today, risk management in motor sport is as

good as it has ever been," he says, "but then something happens, Peter Brock gets killed.

"Here in Australia, it was like an

earthquake that such a hero could

lose his life. Why did he lose his

life? We are still very vulnerable."

Founded by the Confederation

of Australian Motor Sport (CAMS), the Institute aims to encourage excellence across all levels of

motor sport safety in Australia through research, education, and industry liaison. Sir Jackie urged government and the private sector to support the improvement of motor sport safety in Australia, motorsport news

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2005 TOYOTA IRL

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MTRC-THE FUTURE

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THOSE who thought Toyota would Gome intoli^xtel Gup aQd„

wipe the floor are thinking again as the j(apatrese imarque

continued to struggle, with just two of its six |htries making the field for the Las Vegas race

Although A J. Allmendinger, pictured left, was faster than: such notables as Jeff Gordon, Ryan Newman and Matt Kfenseth ipi qualifying, the top 35 owner point rule from last siason bitihiiirfi

KIWI ace Wade Cunningham will return to the Indy Pro Series this year - however he will team with

for the third time where the top 35 ears areSife^atiGally i|!|he

Andretti Green Racing. The 2005 series champion finished third last year and will drive for AFS Racing in partnersip

show until after race five when it falls to thir^asons^andings.

His Red Bull stablemate Brian Vickers also faitediit|iirnake;it for

the second time in three races while Michael *i(i)fa|tnip?iiiiN' it®

with AGR.

"I'm hopeful this program will lead

qualify for the second straight race. He crashed bnih|s|igind

to some testing in an IndyCar Series program," said Cunningham, the 2003

Mayfield in the Bill Davis Camry, where^parently aiipij'yg

timed lap at Fontana. David Reutimann failedi as di'diierefny

wire cost him a shot at making his firstraeepf^007.

CIK-FIA World Karting champion. "The five bonus test days, so there are no guarantees, but I'm hopeful that I'll have an opportunity."

Dave Blaney again looked the Toyota to beat. He qualified 11 th but was unfortunately sw.gpt'irito a wreck early. Dale Jarrett has used three ipast champions provisionals to make thefirst|bfee

■ Mewman/Haas Racing is no

the winter to limit the number of JBampions

a

testing rules only allow for AGR to earn

races - a ruling which came into effect 'ow#

more. The famous Champ Car team

provisionals to six for each season^o|jiiO#|ltnip

is now known as Newman/Haas/

team and Toyota in general has to step bptO tho

Lanigan Racing following a buy-in by Chicago businessman Mike Lanigan.

plate.

'You can't define the future by what we are

Lanigan is the president of Mi-Jack,

doing here today," said Waltrip.

"This isn't who we are, I know how to :^o this as a driver and owner, I'm not going tO;g.iMe|pi{ah'di

a long-time Champ Car and IndyCar team sponsor who until recently was co-owner of Conquest Racing

hopefully people will understand this Islystllfig

with Eric Bachelart. The team has

been in Champ Car racing since 2003, however remains under the control of Bachelart and tested Kiwi Matt

Haliiday at Laguna Seca.

■ Champ Car has decided to bench its planned move to standing starts, citing the requirement of further testing. The series will revert to the

regular rolling starts for the first three

races of 2007 at Las Vegas, Long Beach and Houston.

"Safety is our concern and we feel

we need to fine-tune our standingstart process before we implement it," said Champ Car Vice-President of Operations Tony Cotman.

"We will continue to work with the teams and the manufacturers to find

the safest and most reliable option for the standing-start process with an eye toward using them at Portland if possible."

■ Forsythe Racing could still run two cars in the Champ Car World Series this year. After only running

Paul Tracy in Spring Training at Laguna Seca, the team has ordered another Panoz chassis, which takes their total to three. Team boss

Gerry Forsythe had earlier stated

his preference to run a single car, however with some other teams

merging and car counts not as high as expected, the CCWS partner looks set to help boost the car count.

-PHIL MORRIS 20

Martin: I'm still out EVEN though Mark Martin remained the Nextel Cup point leader exiting Las Vegas, he continues to stick to, his game plan of running just 23 of the 36 races this year.

"I chased that Cup for almost 20

Carmichael in Late Model Stock

years," he commented after his third-straight top five result.

Cars. Carmichael recently signed with Ginn Motorsports as a

"I haven't had a change of heart and don't expect to. At this point

development driver. Regan Smith

it's behind me."

will drive the Army-sponsored Chev

The first race he'll miss will be

This weekend, Martin will be

at Bristol and the other events.

This is the first time Ginn

this Sunday's Bristol event - a track

coaching his son Matt and AMA Supercross champion Ricky

Motorsports (formerly MB2) has headed the points chart.

where he has won at twice before.

motorsporipews

STATESIDE %

iourdais Powers to Laguna lap record REIGNING Champ Car Champion Sebastien Bourdais took early series bragging rights at Laguna Seca two weeks ago.

In his brand-new, control-spec Panoz DP01, the Frenchman set the fastest time in the four-day test. And in

Fast Frenchmen beats FI time, but Power isn't far behind f*

000

'

1^

doing so, he broke the circuit’s outright lap record, which

iSk

was set by Ricardo Zonta in a Toyota Formula 1 car last year.

"It's great that we were able to get under the track time

t* ●

set by the FI car," he said.

"We used Push to Pass (on the lap) but it's only good for

a couple of tenths here so we would have broke it without using it. The track has a lot of grip, it's really fun to drive here. Unfortunately there is so much grip that Ireally doubt we can use any of the information we gained."

Australian hope Will Power clocked the second fastest time in his Team Australia machine.

Champ Car spring Training LagunaSeca

Power was prevented from going any faster late in the afternoon session on Day 4 when red flag periods and traffic halted his progress.

Sebastien Bourdais Newman Haas Lanigan Racing 1 m05.880s

"We had some really bad runs on new tyres in the afternoon and we just didn't get a fair go with the traffic," said Power.

"I think on our last run there we got the car about right, but there was a red flag so we didn't really have a shot at it (the Formula 1 lap record).

Former FI driver Neel Jani was third, ahead of Power's

new French team-mate Simon Pagenaud.

The first round of the Champ Car World Series is at Las Vegas on April 8.

F

Willpower NeelJani Graham Rahal

Team Australia

+0.544S

PKV Racing Newman Haas Lanigan Racing

+0.681S

Simon Pagenaud Paul Tracy

Team Australia

+0.819s

Forsythe Championship Racing

+0.827S

Justin Wilson

RuSPORT

+0.875s

0.636s

Spring in their step:

8

AlexTagliani

Rocketsports Racing

+0.880S

Bourdais, above, and Power, main, were the

9

Justin Wilson

RuSPORT

+0.990s

10

MattHalliday

Conquest Racing

+1.050s

quick men at Laguna.

iS^LE

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27

RALLY 't! i;

j

Heaphy Says:

^ /

Mitsubishi is out

/

¥:

■>

Michelin get legal French tyre manufacturer sues the FIA MICHELIN has instigated legal action against the FIA in

response to the decision to award rival company Pirelli with a three-year contract to be the sole tyre supplier in the WRC. The French company has requested that the decision by the FIA World Motor Sport Council to hand the deal, scheduled to begin from next year, to Pirelli be annulled due to "irregularities in the tender process."

Michelin currently supplies ail of the factory teams in the WRC via its BFGoodrich brand, although Pirelli is represented via a number of privateers.

IT was the news Mitsubishi

extremely competitive last

rally boss Alan Heaphy had hoped he wouldn't receive,

year and we knew we could carry that form over into 2007."

but last week Mitsubishi confirmed that its local

team could have dipped into its

on hold for the foreseeable

own pockets to fund a return to the ARC this season, he had

future.

decided to draw a line in the

motorsport program was

As the major car company continues to stem the tide of

financial losses on a global scale, Heaphy, who had remained quietly confident of continuing the program, confirmed that all plans to contest both the NEC

Australian Rally Championship as well as selected tarmac events were off.

"They rang and said quite simply that there were no funds available whatsoever, so everything is cancelled for

SUBARU TECNICA INTERNATIONAL TECHNICIAN - SUBARU MELBOURNE STI - DOCKLANDS

STi Melbourne Service Department are enjoying rapid growth and will be expanding the STi workshop by an extra 5 bays (including a motor sport service bay), this will mean we require additional experienced technicians to join the Docklands STi team.The successful candidate will ideally be experienced in automotive repairs in a fast paced service environment, with particular emphasis on turbo & performance engines. Subaru experience is preferred but not essential.

This role is an opportunity to gain motor sport and dynomometer experience.

this year, which is a real shame because things were looking very positive for the team," said Heaphy. "i've been in this game long enough and seen this happen way too many times before I to be upset, but of course i'm disappointed because I think everyone saw that we were

sand and forego that option.

"Motorsport is iike a charity, you're asking people to pay for you to go out and race

through their sponsorship, and

while I could have used our own money, you get to a point where the return isn't worth the cost," he stated.

The team is confident of a

return, with Heaphy adamant

that he'll use 2007 to scout for options, even if it means severing ties with Mitsubishi

and aligning with another manufacturer.

"The bottom line is 2007 will

be a very low key season for our team, although I'd still like to give Scott (Redder) a blast in the car on some tarmac events.

We'll regroup, formulate a new

plan and hopefully come out next year bigger and better."

- RVAN LAHIPF

Rally Canberra on the ropes FOLLOWING threats last year

the fact that the event lost its

by the ACT Government to pull funding on Canberra's round

2006 and has as yet been unable

major backer Subaru Australia in

ofthe NEC Australian Rally Championship, the local sports

to find a replacement.

minister has made fresh threats

ACT taxpayers would be the only ones contributing and throwing

to axe the event after its running later this year.

"The ACT Government currently

"I think It's unreasonable that

in $750,000 to an event that

doesn't bring many tourists to

invests about $750,000 for the

Canberra."

Working conditions include a 5-day week and provision of overalls, and naturally training on Subaru product is provided. The successful candidate will need to supply their

Rally of Canberra through the tourism and events budget," Andrew Barr was quoted in the

Despite this, the state government, which took control ofthe event in 1999 when it became a part ofthe Asia-Pacific

own tools.

"We are currently investigating options and are in discussions regarding the future ofthe rally

If you are inteFested in workingi in ourferviee Pepartment, please conatctVinMacaro on Ph(0i) 8698 ISfSprlliieHR Department on (03)} 8698 3f94.

22

Heaphy said that while the

Canberra Times last week.

in 2008.

Rally Championship, has an existing contract to stage the event in 2008 and would likely be held to this deal unless an

"The absence of a major sponsor

alternative arrangement could be

and declining visitor numbers has an impact on the future viability ofthe event," he said, highlighting

private hands.

struck to release the event into - RYAN LAHIFF

motorsport news

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CAM Mc€OmikkB

V8 Supercar Legend

Ten and co-driving FI with Rusty I

'VE just finalised a deal with

Network Ten that will see me involved with all of their Grand Prix telecasts for the

motor mouth

rest of the season and the odd

reporting roie on RPM.

Having been involved with Trackside and the V8 Supercar

it from there, but Ten have been

support categories for the last four or so years, it is a great chance to increase my experience with

very understanding and are comfortable to work it in around

my schedule.

live TV and to sink my teeth into

wanted to race FI cars when

something new. It was too good

was a kid, but being in the

to pass up.

With RPM I'll be doing some

stories over the year as the

racing schedule allows.There

Whitey, I don't know if I can cop this McConviile bloke! McConville teams up with Greg Rust for Ten's 2007 FI coverage.

live chair for all of the races now means that the research in

between races will obviously be more time consuming than just

will be some V8 Supercar stuff in there, but also some other

It's something I've been trying to develop since I started working

to hang up the helmet just yet, either! I still have unfinished

turning on the TV at 10.30 of a

forms of motorsport that I haven't

with Trackside and the support category show.

It will also be great to learn from Rusty, Steve Wood and Mike Heaton. Mike and I go way back to the Super Touring days when the coverage was on Seven and I co

business in V8 Supercars as a

Sunday night!

Albert Park was a good starting

bubbling along for when the driving duties may cease.

I'll do a couple of in-studio

hosted with Mark Beretta.

appearances on RPM in Sydney,

necessarily done before.

Obviously, V8 Supercars are the big thing in Australia and RPM won't ignore that at all, but it also

will be nice to chat about other forms of racing.

driver first and foremost. But I've

always been a realist and I've always liked to have something

point as I spent most of the weekend in the FI paddock just observing. It was a soft landing rather than having to do any oncamera work.

But it gave me an opportunity

IV yi y deal with Ten is a natural

So when Ilook back at that -

but most of it will be recording the

to meet a few of the team PR

being my first foray into the media side of the sport - I've been dabbling in it for a little while now

odd story here and there, which

year I was going to be involved

won't necessarily involve being in Sydney.

managers and other team personnel, so I'll be using those

and it will be nice to do more of

For all of the FI GPs I'll be in

IVI progression, really. This

with some more Carrera Cup

commentary on Seven, but the opportunity to do some more on-camera

work is a logical

progression from just doing

commentary.

it. It's just like driving - you get

the studio with Rusty. There's four

better and more comfortable with it as you do more and more of it.

clashes with the V8 calendar. One

Don't think that Iam ready

is Indy, where Rusty may come to the Brisbane studios and do

contacts as much as possible throughout the season.

Having a 12 month old son, I'm used to going to bed early lately, but there are going to be some late nights ahead!

\ i

ADELADE* AUSTRALIA

CUPSAL

A'

<

'V

● ●

I

DIDN'T pay much attention when my girlfriend called to say that there had been an incident at Dubai

International Airport (DXB, if you travel a lot). I was in a rush getting all the things that belong in the winter finished before

But the Emirates people were

really trying hard. They wanted to please. They could get me to Kuala Lumpur and then down to Melbourne. Only 14 hours behind schedule on a 26-hour trip.

Arriving feeling dirty, unshaven and thoroughly second-hand.

to be a queue for the lost bags and so I cut and run early. It is not

coming. No, says the lady. The computer says no problem. Back to the carousel again.

exchange rate is excellent. Off to the circuit. Let the fun begin.

Twenty four hours later. No bag.

This is beginning to wear thin., But it is Melbourne.

No DXB.

Back to the lost bags and, by now, a queue. Fill in the forms. Do I

A Park the new season Jumble is

nd, of course, down at Albert

setting off on a five-week jaunt

But it is Melbourne. One takes

have anything to declare, asks the

interesting and exciting.There are

to Australia and the idea that a

a little pain. Melbourne is a bit special.

The immigration queue is dull and a bit long but the friendly

customs man with an impressive

highs and lows.

Bangladeshi plane would disrupt my life seemed somewhat remote.

It did not occur to me then that with the Middle East's busiest

greeting and a nice chat with the immigration lady makes up for it. They should send her to

airport closed for eight hours, there would be repercussions.

Planes would be in the wrong

America to teach the Yanks how

place. You would think after all

feel awful but it's Melbourne. It is

these years of travelling I would

special.

know better.

So, anyway, the 9pm plane left Paris at 0340 and, of course, the connections at DXB were missed, so a seven-hour wait ensued.

to represent their country. Sure, I

lack of observation skill.

"Yes," Isay."I would like to declare that Ihave no bag and therefore nothing to say to you. Good evening."

You want to add "Twit"or"Twerp' or worse.

But it is Melbourne. Melbourne's

a bit special.

A taxi queue. No worries. A bed.

you've guessed it. Bag after bag

Thank God. Jet-lag. Groan. The morning phone call:"Where's my

after bag and none of them

bag?" No idea. Lost without trace

bearing any sign of DXB on the sticker. Not good.There is bound

and, no, its not our responsibility.

Buy some clothes. Hey, the

The baggage hall and, yes,

There is no Michael Schumacher.

Ferrari is actually letting the drivers race. There is Lewis

Hamilton. Wow! A star is being

born. There are other feel gogd

factors: Anthony Davidson and the Super Aguris. What a great story.

Williams looks good again.The proper racing team is on the up again.

Great stuff.

That's Melbourne.

The Grand Prix Ball is fast

approaching now. I've hired a

penguin suit but'strictly black

0

26

news

!!

OPINION

tie' isn't going to work with my battered brown shoes. Even in the dark.

enjoying it. Sure, some of them are drunks but that's Melbourne.

The bag arrives.The shoes

And the ball is spectacular.The

bagpipes get you going. They always do. After the dancing

And I doubt Iam going to get

are there! A 20-minute change

violinist Ifeel the need for oxygen.

away with people thinking it's a

and there Iam at the Grand Prix

A girl like that is bad for a chap's

box seat

fashion statement. That may work

Ball, looking (in my own mind at

heart.

/ith joe say

for Flavio but it does not work

least) like James Bond in search

for me.

of Pussy Galore. A drink in my

The table-plan is well-chosen and the company intelligent.

Delightful, in fact.

Even if it is Melbourne.

hand and the beautiful people of

But reading the Australian

Melbourne around me. And the women.The women. Ilive in Paris

newspapers there is a discordant note. Every story about FI seems

to be negative. I don't get it. This is Melbourne.

nd in the newspapers?

and they are skinny and chic over there but out in Melbourne they

A Nothing but negative articles.

are bronzed and taut. It is the

What is wrong with these people? 1 have to ask.

The format is tired, they say.

sporting thing. is thethey raceunderstand?This that all the other Don't

Hey, that's Melbourne!

That's Melbourne.

It's always the same. There are

Hmm. And the Swimming

Championships? How much did that cost? And how many people are going watch that on TV around the world?

Yes, maybe the air display is a bit tired. But the crowd is huge.

And the fans lively.

That's Melbourne.

Jeez. What a week. Hey, but whoiswhingeing?

Grands Prix want to emulate. The

no V8s (Yeah, but that's not the

one that pulls in the big crowds.

Sure, the date is a problem and S

same).There are now too many events and the Grand Prix has lost

Not this Pom.

the V8s aren't there but it is still a

its sparkle. It's a waste of public

Some people don't know how

great place. A great organisation.

money.

And there are thousands of

lucky they are.

Hey, that's Melbourne.

spectators. They don't seem negative. They seem to be

The newspapers have nothing hnt negative articles. What is wrong with these people?

y'

,

0 8

' X* : i f.

RACING under lights in

have been a better weekend had

Melbourne? No thanks.

the V8 Supercars shown up, and

There are a number of problems that I have with the concept. First, it is going to take a megaload of kilowatts to light up the 5.3km of Albert Park track, plus the

a

I would hazard a guess that their

absence will not recur next year.

opinion ith phil branagan motorsport news editor

surrounds (like paths and carparks).

That means either a massive

upgrade of the local power grid or extra generators - and this in a time of environmental concerns - and I would bet at least a dollar

of the reasons that the race was desirable was that all numbers

The real problem is that there is

of not only having your cake and eating it too, but having someoiie else buy the cake - and then pay you to eat it.

Why do we need to pay to 'fix'

too much stuff on in Melbourne.

The Commonwealth Games knocked down the 2006 crowd and the Swimming did no favours this

a European problem? Sorry, our distant cousins, this is the World

year. For goodness'sake, give the GP

do when we want to see a race

a stand alone date; we Melburnians are exhausted from event overload.

Surely Bernie Ecclestone's

Drivers'Championship, not the European FI Series. Do what we

that Formula One Management is

of punters pour out of the track around 5pm, looking for food, beverages and hotels.

Surely, business will suffer

not going to spend the readies for

somewhat if they appear five

the new equipment.

hours later that usual?

At least one praetiee session is going to have to be run under lights, to ensure that the drivers

But my main objection is this;

European TV in a better timeslot?

the race does not need an artificial

Formula One Management wants 20 races in the near future, preferably in new places with new money, but it also wants to maintain its heartland audience.

do /ess business, on a concept that

This is the motor racing equivalent

environment?

can see where they are goingi at speed, so at least two of the four

days-are going to end in the wee small hoursi i thought that one

●●●

'fix( Formula 1; is in good health; there is plenty of competition, a new team is comingiin for 2008 and the AGP is a great event.

Yes, the 200'7 edition would

support of the idea has nothing to do with the fact that a night event in Melbourne would play better on

from far, far away; lose some sleep or - d'uh - watch the replay.

If you Euros really want to see a night race, schedule it for Monaco, ask the Prince to leave the street lights on and let us know how it goes.

So, the highlights again; we are going to spend more money, to is unproven, to fix someone eke's

problem and at some cost to our

and why it needs to be A night race also helps the television audience. European

MELBOURNE'S Formula 1 race

needs a change - and fast.

I'm not sure what the media's

.

Australian states, but down here in Melbourne, the mainstream

.

opinion

comments were like in other with

grant rowley mnews news editor

would get to watch the opening round of the new FI season at a reasonable time.

A better time slot means a

jounos have been giving the Grand Prix a pounding over recent weeks. And to a degree that's fair enough.

The city's obsession with major events has contributed to dwindling crowd numbers, and

Grand Prix run under lights.

There are simply too many

the fact that V8 Supercars didn't make their traditional appearance this year didn't help the head

faster in the cool air. And have

count or atmosphere.

and Asian television viewers

positives to suggest that running a late race is a bad idea.

For the punter at the track, the cars would be fantastic. They'd be you seen Sprintcars at night (as

opposed to daytime)? Fabulous.

After the race is run, it's party

load more viewers, which equals

greater exposure. I'm failing to

see the downsides here.

And the icing on the cake has to

be the return oftheVS Sup ercars

In the past, V8s have contested a 'GP 100'. Can anyone tell me the

rest of the town in what would be

compete for championship points,

while you're slipping off your shoes,

backyard, the first-ever Formula 1

I'm taking a hike to Fitzroy Street...

race the next evening. Oh yeah!

If that doesn't get local media

on edge, then there'll be no need to illuminate Albert Park -

switched off for good.

Here's my idea. Have a

reinvigorate the event. And there is

a massive party. Sorry Branagan,

After the V8 race, the Formula

1 cars can get some night time practice, before their debut night

the lights on the event can be

confidence into the public, and

no better way then by changing the

into.

winner of those races? Nope. No meaningful V8 Supercar race on Saturday. Fair enough, Bernie won't allow the Supercars to

AGP's format. Imagine it, in our own

hit out for potential Bathurst

co-drivers, and something that teams can really sink their teeth

one cares.

time. I'd file my event reports as quickly as possible and join the

Now is the time to instill some

money and contest a two-hour

twilight endurance race, possibly with two drivers. It's the perfect

so let's make the race worthwhile.'

Find a sponsor, offer some prize

Melbourne's Grand Prix is the best Formula 1 event in the world.

But like everything, nothing stays

the same. Before its too late, it's

time to change, and in doing so, Australia can create Formula 1

history.

OPINION

Has HRT got off too lightly?

The outcome of the TEGA investigation stretches further than you might think

THERE will be people out there

Ibelieve must be addressed,

who will think that HRT has 'got away with it again'following

because suspension, of driver

now half the licences in Holden's

and/or team, must be part of the punishment armoury - or else the perception that even the biggest

'factory'race team.

the announcement that a "settlement" has been reached between TEGA and the team

mnews publisher

over team ownership (see pages 4/5)..

The tone ofTEGA's official

release on the matter makes it clear that HRT was not in

compliance with its team

■ownership regulations. That, they say. has now been fixed.

But, punters will argue, how

come the team has effectively got away with a slap on the wrist - a few dollars lighter - rather than

something meaningful, such as a one-race ban? Surely it's a

t

boards is a significant, and slightly personal, blow. It says much that the board has chosen not to say publicly.

In the long term - although he may not agree right now - it will benefit Skaife's determination to

continue as a top level race driver.

But it doesn't look good on the resume.

TEGA has yet, in its history, to invoke suspension from races as continued the tradition. There are

On the face-of it, they have a

the pandora's box for potential litigation you open if you turn up for a race without part of the

things to consider.

The dropping of Mark Skaife

reasons for this - not least being

Holden then'on-sold'the team to

will be under unprecedented scrutiny-and not just in this area

team; of how that was funded. I'll

a manufacturer couldn't own a

of operation. There is a perception

stop there.

out there that HRT and/or Walkinshaw are the ones who

place of late, Ireckon life at HRT

push the envelope, who stretch

will, for the foreseeable future,

In the face of all that has taken

the regulatory barriers to the limit.

They will need to be very, very careful, because the implication is

not helped by perceptions rightly or wrongly surrounding the seemingly amazing rise of

UK, which used to own HRT, to -

be very much like living in a

transparent bubble.The spotlight will constantly be on. A bit like Guantanamo Bay! It might be a bit uncomfortable.

But Isense a resolve at TEGA

to take greater control of its future; to get it right. The current Team's Licence Agreement (TLA) comes to its end later this year - I reckon there'll be a few significant changes in the new one ...

s

M DZ86R

'> DZOM

Wf

vuwuv.mnews.com.au

Holden in the face of double the

offer from another bidder; of how

Skaife to satisfy TEGA rules that

a controversial bankruptcy of the formerTWR Group in the

It is, however, something which

MOTORSPORT

However, as a result of this latest

It isn't aided by the saga of how theTWR receiver sold HRT back to

drama, HRT and Tom Walkinshaw

Walkinshaw from the ashes of

advertised act.

from both the TEGA and V8SA

indiscretions can be simply overcome by the wallet will grow.

that next time ... whammo.

The situation is clouded and

a form of punishment and has

black and white case? Is TEGA a .toothless tiger?

point. However, there are a few

again - owning the hardware and

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Five minutes with

●●●

LEWIS HAMILTON Fourth on the grid, third in the race. It could hardly have been a better Grand Prix debut for McLaren's new recruit, who looks to have the world at his feet. Here is what he said after the Australian Grand Prix

/

QUESTION: Lewis, what were your feelings, standing up there on the

enough space behind me.

rostrum?

home. At the end of the day, I knew Ihad done enough for my first race. Iwas pushing as hard as I could, but Iwasn't able to keep up, or close the gap between me and

The key was to bring the car

LEWIS HAMILTON; I was ecstatic.

Istill am. To be in my first Grand Prix, something I've been working on for so many years, all the

hard work has paid off. I'm just extremely happy for myself and also for the team. Ithink it's a great starting point, a great foundation

Fernando; and so that was that.

But, again, going into the next race, we are extremely strong and being

for the rest of the season.

here, third place is a great feeling.

Did you find it a tough race, a long

There are about a million kids in

the world who dream of driving in their first Grand Prix, and Iguess that until a few days ago, you were

race?

Yeah, of course it's a long race, but

it's what we've been preparing for,

and Ifelt that Iwas fully prepared,

one of them. How does the dream

coming into this race. We've done as much running as we could in pre-season testing and I've done plenty of race distances, so Iknew I

compare to the reality?

was fit enough. It was just another learning curve for me. Racing a

a srriooth start is something you

Ithink this is probably beyond my

dreams.To be in Formula 1 was, obviously, a dream, but to come

into your first race and have such

don t expect, but something ..

we

Formula 1 car is a lot different to

had been working towards. I'm

testing it but I'm really happy with the job that Idid.

Obviously a good start, how much practicing have you done?

We've been preparing and making sure we focus on every area and obviously starts is definitely one of them. When you go out of the

loving it. .,1,

●ObirioOslywew are goiQig to be

tBViiiigl|.^cJi|§i.' '● A

Hie IfcidS these

.Can you talk us through the first

corner? You must have gone ooh! ‘ Not really... It is only the first corner of the race so you can't get too excited about ft. Ilost a place to

Robert and kneeded to get it back,

and that is what Idid. But Igained

pits from testing, you're always

move over so Ilost a lot of time

the circuit. It looks quite good and

another place because Ithink

practicing the start so that was not a problem.The first corner was a bit of a surprise for me, that Imanaged to outbrake Robert

behind back-markers throughout

Ihave good things about it.

But obviously we are going to

Heidfeld. So that was a positive for

[Kubica] and Fernando [Alonzo].

But it paid off and Iwas able to get up to third.

You were just talking about losing second place at the second stop; you were behind one of the Super Aguris, Ithink, for how many corners?

the race and Fernando was able to

close the gap.

The only chance Iwould have had of beating Fernando was if

when Iwas basically on their tail.

And when they did, they didn't 30

us and Ferrari - we are going to develop the car more and we have got three days testing so we going to make sure we push and

me and Itook it with me.

Flow much confidence does it give

Igot past the backmarker and pulled out the gap, which Ikept doing. But the last one came into the pits with me so Iwas stuck

we are at the front again for the

behind him and Fernando was

next race.

every time you finish a race. You

We saw your joy at the finish. Can you talk us through the last few

You know you can finish and what

right on my tail. He must have gained a good five seconds on me there, so that was that.

Idon't know how many corners

it was. Obviously Fernando was extremely quick so Ihad to push as hard as icould, but Iwas coming up against back-markers and they were being blue-flagged, but extremely, extremely late, like

be trying to close the gap between

Fernando was held up behind

Malaysia is a bigger track, hotter

place. What do you think your chances are there?

I've not been to Malaysia before and Idon't know the circuit either.

But Ihave seen it on TV, obviously, watching it the last few years and Iam extremely excited to get on

maximise the test and make sure

you that you were running second with the double world champion behind you for so long?

Of course, it gives you confidence

gain a bit of confidence in the car. you can do with it. In terms of me

laps as you were heading towards

as a driver, as a whole, Idon't think

that podium?

it has made much of a difference.

Ithink for the last five laps Icould

Iam confident Iknow what I need to do and Iknow what to do

see - although Ihad a bit of a problem on my second set of tyres Iwas having some graining on the front left tyre - that I didn't have the pace to keep up

that first race under your belt, over

with Fernando. [But] Iknew that

to the next race.

so it is good to have that sort of.

and done with. Now Ican go and let my hair down and look forward

motorsportnews

Fiveminutes with

●●●

ij

Si} i

I M

i

After starting his sophomore year on a great note with a strong performance in Adelaide, GRM's young gun MARKGLENDENNING is justifiably optimistic about heading across to Barbagallo MOTORSPORT NEWS; You came

out of the box really strongly at the opening round in Adelaide.

Did you surprise yourself a bit?

LEE HOLDSWORTH: No, to tell you the truth. Ithink that the test

i.fr

Ml-

we did at Winton showed that it

was going to be a promising first round at Adelaide, just because of the speed of the cars. That test

f!!

gave us a lot of confidence going

iT

to Adelaide.

And James Small, the new engineer, has been brilliant for us.

'

So as soon as we dialled in his set

up, the car was quick.

Did you spend the test working on Adelaide specifically?

Well, we know that when we're

quick at Winton, usually that set up is right at Adelaide, too. There

—TO

■T'Sfe.j. ...

are only a few minor adjustments that you have to make from Winton to Adelaide. So we knew

that we were going to be quick. “h

I

|!

I’

IVe got a joke with the fabricators that if my car keeps going the way it is, I might have to pay them to slow down!

Were there any specific things that you targeted during the off-season that you wanted to

- A VE is on the way for Holdsworth, but there’s nothing wrong with his V2 ...

improve for this year?

Yeah. Iknew that qualifying was my biggest downfall last year.

Ihave just had to work on my

mental approach, my mental preparation leading up to a round

and before Igo out to qualify.

Ithink I've got that right now. That was probably partly the reason why Idid better in qualifying at Adelaide.

Just trying to put that one lap together was a bit of a struggle last year; that one quick lap. I knew that Ialways had the race pace to be running in the top 10,

but unfortunately last year Ijust couldn't qualify the car far enough up in the field to be able to finish up at the front.

Ihad to work my way through

the traffic in the race.

To be honest, qualifying has always been my biggest problem.

It has always been my lowest point, and Ithink that has just been because Ihaven't prepared myself mentally. Ihaven't had a strategy to work with during

Were you generally happy with

along quite strongly. For him to

qualifying. But now Ido.

your first year?

qualify 14th in it at the first round is promising for what we've got ahead this year.

Were you generally more confident coming into this year, knowing that you had a season under your belt? Did you prove whatever you may have needed to prove to yourself?

Has that been a problem right

qualifying?

I'm happy with thq.car I've got at the moment, ar>d Idon't think

you miss it and the harder you go when you come back; the harder

there's any need to speed up too

you try.

much on the new car.

But the VE that Dean [Canto,

team-mate] is driving is coming Iwas, actually. My aim was for the top 20 in the championship, and to have some top 10 results. And Iachieved them, so Iwas really

pleased with last year.

Looking ahead to Barbagallo you guys had a rough weekend there last year, didn't you?

Yes, last year we had a shocker of

How far off is your new VE? ■It's probably going to be ready

a weekend in Perth, for both cars.

around round six.

But we've improved the car from

a lot of time to think about what

There's probably a sense that

Idid wrong last year, and what I could improve, and learn from the

last year, and I'm feeling quite confident about it, to tell you the

there's no need to rush it, because

truth.

yopr VZ seems pretty well sorted.

Yeah, that's right. I've got a bit of a

set-up in the car, you don't need

Yes, definitely. Having that year under my belt, and then having a three-month off-season, Ihad

mistakes that 1made.

through your racing career, pulling that lap out of the car during

Ithink that the more time you

spend away from racing, the more

Icame back after the break just

Ithink once you've got a good

wanting it more than ever, and knowing that Ican race with those

joke with the fabricators in at GRM actually, that if my car keeps going the way it is then Imight have to

from circuit to circuit. So there's no

guys out there.

start paying them to slow down!

again in Perth.

to move away from it too much

reason why we shouldn't be quick

32

motorsport mews

a f

The 12 Mont

NEWS: How M OTORSPORT is your mindset now that

you've had, what essentially is, a break-through result where you were in a position where you

could have won in Adelaide had

things rolled your way?

Have you stamped yourself as

a genuine title contender from

the get go?

^ JAMES COURTNEY: Yeah, definitely.

With the pace we showed in the

first round and the last part of last year, Ithink ydu'd have to be silly

not to thinkW are at the right

end and making steps and going

forward.

We are definitely a title contender this year, for sure.

Last year a lot of people probably expected a bit more

from you. Now you've had 12 months of V8 Supercars, what's different between this time in

2006 to now? Anything different about J. Courtney?

Me? I'm pretty much the same guy, just now with a little bit

more knowledge under my belt.

It makes up for everything. The older you get, the wiser you get as well.

Ilearnt things along the way last year and Ilearnt a lot about

the circuits and the championship and it's helped me immensely.

Now we can out and get cracked on straight away.

34

molorsportnews

V8 SUPERCARS

h timeframe For James Courtney, winning is as natural as wringing the neck of a race car. He's won

everywhere he has raced except for V8 Supercars. But as Adelaide showed, and

AARON NOONAN reports, it's only a matter of time before the Stone's boy is victorious ...

You've had time in the off-season

to download and review your first year. In the grand scheme of things, did you underestimate how tough it would be in the

It was last year so I'm a little bit behind on that one!

category?

Not really - Iknew it was going

to be very tough. Ithink maybe other people underestimated it for me. Idefinitely knew it was going to be very hard. You can't think you can come into a championship and thinkyou are

going to dominate it.

- Courtney on his timeframe for achieving in V8 Supercars

same group of guys for the second year around. We know how each other work and we can get things sorted out a lot quicker now.

There's no language barrier that

Some guys have been in it for over 10 years and driving around

you go through when you join a

these tracks with the same group of guys for so long, that they know what they're doing. But we're getting on top of it now.

what Iwant from the car and I know how to get my point across.

new team, so they know exactly

How long did it take to get your point across?

What areas are left to improve on?

Probably not until right at the end (of the year). We were still working

We definitely still haven't got the car perfect. It's a lot closer

things out. But halfway through the year was a big turning point.

than what it was, but it's still not

We really went forward from there,

perfect. Over the next couple of

We know exactly what it was

[problem causing the slow get aways], but we just didn't have the means to fix it there. But the guys assure me they are on top of it now and it won't go wrong again.

You can accept mistakes being made once, but when they happen twice is when you start to get upset. But they're really good like that.

The game is all about testing

and improving things.The things you make don't always make you go faster, sometimes there's some

How have you adapted to the BF? To the unsuspecting fan it doesn't look much different but

now you've had a steer on a race weekend, what are your impres' sionsfrom inside?

We've lost downforce pretty much over the whole car, so the whole car's a little bit less stable at high speed.

The braking package is different, so it's a matter of getting used to it and to sort out a good balance with the aero kit, which was seemed to find in Adelaide.

side effects.

We're pretty happy with the development from the Christmas

but it does take a long time.

Are there any bogey tracks

and find a bit more pace in the

You've had a bit of time to

coming up?

We were actually pretty strong

break. We found quite a few things that needed improving on the car that we didn't realise we actually

thing.

analyse Adelaide. The fact that the things that cost you a shot at winning - the slow start and the delay in the pit stop - were two of'those things in racing', must

in Perth last year and really got

wrong.

up top of it in the last race, so I’m looking forward to that. Pukekohe, we were quite quick at as well.

Are you 'ours' now until you finish driving? Are you a 'V8 Supercar

rounds we'll shine it up a bit more

Your team's virtually identical

from 2006. You've been exposed to changing teams, categories and countries in your time overseas from year to year, it must flatten out the curve a little this time around.

It's definitely good to have the www.mnews.com.au

Ithink Iwas sixth for the round

driver' now rather than a 'racing

V8 Supercars for the moment'

fill the confidence bucket now for

or something like that, and it

the rest of the year.

could have been better had Inot

driver? Are the fires out on racing

Yeah, like Isaid, we are a team. We

got a drive-through for getting friendly with my mate Murph. So

overseas in anything?

have to work together and fix the areas where we are struggling.

we should have been top five.

continued on page 36 35

.fx V

■■■ u

: ’A Vf;

V

e- .'I

situations If you thought it was strange watching a Grand Prix without Michaei Schumacher, imagine how his former

race engineer must have felt. MARK GLENDENNING spoke to Chris Dyer about the Michael era of yesterday and the Kimi era of tomorrow

INSIGHT

MOTORSPORT NEWS: What were your

desire to give that to him as a farewell

thoughts on the way that Michael drove his final race?

present. And it didn't happen. But the way the race happened, in some ways,

CHRIS DYER: We had the problem in

could not have been better. I don't think

we could have written a script that really

qualifying, which meant that the race was always going to be difficult, which meant that the constructors'championship was going to be difficult.

So in one sense it was very, very

fantastic race.

disappointing that, after the year that

overtaking manoeuvre in Formula 1

we had, that we hadn't taken the

was to hammer Kimi for three, four laps. whatever it was, and then to pass Kimi,

would have been the constructors'

Schumacher story.

Once we understood that Michael

Iasi aid in Formula 1 was

to o\/ertake the guy? who , , . , , was taiKling^ nils JODI

continued from page 40

to the story.

Everybody went away from that race thinking,'God, why is he retiring?'. Here is a guy who is obviously still at the top. fail in Brazil... OK, Brazil was no more

We let him down a bit. We had an

important in terms of the championship

books, it was really about us and the team wanting to give something back to

than Monaco, but we didn't work to the standard that we were used to

He had done so much for Ferrari over the years, and he'd done so much for

that's disappointing. But we went down

^

,

working to, and we let him down. And swinging.

all of us, that it just became a burning

Ross Brawn has swapped his perch on pitwall for a beach towel and a colourful drink with

a miniature umbrella sticking out of it. Succession plans would have

him happy, and then perhaps in

been hammered out in the halls at

the future if there are particular

Maranello long ago, but even so, transition takes time. Dyer admits

introduce more of our philosophy

that he thinks that the changes have left the team vulnerable, at

and our way of working."

least in the short-term.

"There's no question, at the moment, we are not as strong as we were," he said.

very naive and stupid of me to sit here and say'Michael's gone, Ross is gone, but we've got good people in there and we're just as strong'.

"I think there is no question that

well. Idon't think that anybody is

we came to Melbourne less strong

Dyer means it. But if what we saw

than if we'd come to Melbourne

at Albert Park was a weakened Ferrari, then the rest of the field

Michael is gone, of course,

"We have new people, and I hope that through the year those people can grow, that Kimi can

with Ross sitting on the pitwall.

but so are a number of other

grow, and that the other people

And Ithink that the people that

people who shaped the team's recent history. Engine man Paolo

in the team can grow to fill the

have taken on Ross's roles and

vacant shoes. But Ithink it would

responsibilities would agree as

2006.

42

-MARKGLENDENNING

Martinelli left to take on a role within Fiat, with Giiles Simon

has been a continual process.

"We had to adapt the car to him, which Ithink is a very important first step. We have to make him

in Melbourne last week was very

a way. I don't think it would have added

about Ferrari winning, it wasn't about

stepping up to the plate in his

different to the one that flew home from Brazil at the end of

special. A pole position and a flag-to-flag victory... it would have been nothing, in

adding something else to the record

absence. And technical director

The Ferrari team that arrived

his job!

At the end of the day championships are great, but that race was something

engine fail in Japan, we had a fuel pump

needs the car, and what we have

problems that we need to deal with, maybe then we can start to

and then chequered flag, career over here was a guy whose last act in Formula 1 was to overtake the guy who is taking

was going to finish, we wanted to be able to give him another drivers' championship to say goodbye. It wasn't

to do to make him fast. So that

comfortable, and we have to make

I mean, to think that Michael's last

constructors'championship. But putting that aside, for Michael personally, it was in some ways the perfect race.

I'm very sure that if we hadn't had the problem in qualifying, that he would have been on pole, and that it would have been a flag-to-flag victory, which championship, in the end.

But at the end of the day, it would have added nothing to the Michael

Here was a guy whose

added more to Michael's story than what happened. And in that way, it was a really

under the illusion that we haven't

lost important people, and that we haven't got a lot of work ahead."

More work ahead? We're sure

must be dreading the day when the Prancing Horse gets its act together. motorsport news

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Tim Blanchard had a party on the streets of AdelaSlei.hreihiiii through for his debut win and taking an eariy lead m ttie Poiiiiila Fori Chiii^nshSD, II .about ilfe' ont front . v ■ 'll.

A

S Tim Blanchardl sat strappedln his Mygale SJ07A awaitirigithe Start of

"Since Phillip Island last year.l have been working flat-out for this, and now l ean focus

the opening Formula Ford practice session at the Clipsali SOOi there must

on the rest of the season."

have been a few nigglingi douhtsiih ihis mind.

After ail, the French Chassis had' arrived just

a fortnight prior to the openingi round. That left Blanchard and the Sonic Motor Racing Services team with just one test day in the new ear before the first round' further fuelling the uncertainty of leaving the tried: and tested Wani Diemen chassis.

And then there was the matter of ihawing two new team-mates in James Moffat and

Glen Wood, not to mention the five-car factory effort from Spectrum to worry about.

So when Blanchard was third fastest in that

opening practice session, he was naturally relieved. And 24 hours later when he stuck

his new Mygale on pole, he was thrilled. And when he left the Clipsal 500 having recorded

his first ever race win, backed it up with a second win, and built a handy little lead in the

The switch to Mygale chassis had the potential to be problematic for Blanchard and'

Sonic even if they'd had time to do proper testing. They didn't, leaving them somewhat under-iprepared for the start of the season.

So was Blanchardl surprised to be bang: on the pace on the streets of Adelaide?

man himself.

Flashback to the Grand' Finale meeting at Phillip Island last December. Hlayihg, struggled early in the vveekend, Blanchard'came Out firing in the final race, storming fforh the back of the grid to finish a very close secondltp Ash Walsh. It went reasonably unnoticed thanks to

John Martin and Tim Slade's mid-field battle for

says.

a genuine turning point lih his career.

"We knew how competitive the Mygale

Chassis is, because it's done so wdll ihving'land

the championship, but Blanchard agrees it was "Phillip Island was all about setting, a foundation for 2007, and! we struggled! early

and' Dale Wood: was fast in last year's Mygale.

"So the chassis were not goingi to be a problem. And 'luckily we got one test day ,in before Giipsal and'we improved'the car heaps

that weekend.

during that day.

the front. Earlier last yearilihad doubted that'I was up to the task of running up the front of National Formula Ford, and that last race really

"But Ethe Mygale] is a great car. It's strength is on Cpld tyres, early in the race. It's nowhere near as nervous, much better through the ihigher speed corners. That's where the Van

race driver was on top Of the world.

"I worked pretty hard over the off-season with training and my focus was winning: that first

Diemen was nervous, in the quicker stuff.

"Because that's such an advantage in the championship.

he was quick enough to win. And'iit wasn't just outsiders asking that question, ibut the young

"It wasn't a surprise to be at the front, but it was definitely a sufiprise to win the r0Uhd"':he

championship, this little second-generation

round," he reflects a week on.

there was still a question mark over whether

"So it's only early in the year but so far it looks as if we madi the right choice."

But the car is only half the battle. Blanchard has looked: quick ever since he jumped from a kart to a Formula lordi, but up until'inow

"And: then the last race it a'll: came together.

"I came away from there with heaps of

confidence, i| was confident that iFcouId run up

proved to myself that f was able to do it. That gave me more motivation for the off-season,

"Now i've got the eohfidf hee ihithat I know :|i can win races."

That's all well and goodiibut if the (Slipsal weekend is any indication, then Blanchard's

team-mate Moffat is also likely to win races.

Are we going to see a. good Oidi-fashioned

INSIGHT,

Wheels of fortune HAVING undergone a massive technical

change \«ith the Duratec engine in 2006, Formula Ford continued to evolve this

season w/ith a wider control rim.

While using the same Avon ACB-

^

10 tyres, the wider rim allows better

J

Blanchard, higher mid-corner speed.

-

f

contact with the road, and, according to "Somewhere like Winton you can feel

the difference a little bit, but then you go to Phillip Island which is so much faster,

D

and the difference in the mid-corner

speed over Lukey Heights is massive.

"And the car doesn't slide around like

they used to on the skinny rims, they're much more stable and Iprefer to drive

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them that way.

"The cars have got a bit of grip now, and you can feel the power from the Duratec in the low-speed stuff. Like, if

you jump on the throttle now, you will get wheelspin.

"So you've got to learn a lot more about throttle application now, which wasn't

UIGftWO

really an issue in Formula Ford before.

If you look at V8 Supercars, throttle

application is so important, so it's a big

\

help."

-ANDREWVAN LEEUWEN

aiPSAL

CTD

OMNI

trair

intra team fight the title?

"Moffat is right there, but so is Ash Walsh," says Blanchard.

"You've also got to look at about three others, I reckon; Josh Scott, Taz Douglas and Nick Percat.

They'll all be at the pointy end at most rounds.

“Last year I doubted I could run up the front of National Formula Ford. Now iVe got the confidence

"As for me and 'Moff,'we're both trying to make a namefor ourself and getto the top of the sport, so we both need success and a result in this

championship to move to the next level. So we'll both be pushing as hard as we can.

"You really need to work harder if the person you have to beat is your team-mate, because they've got exactly the same resources as you do.

You can't rely on having a better team than your opponent.

"But me and'Moff'get on pretty well so it'll be fine."

But before then he's got to get himself into a title-winning position, and in Formula Fordland that means a solid bank of results. Not that Blanchard is about to button off...

"No Way!

"It's way too early to be thinking about just being

consistent. We need to concentrate on winning rounds and winning races, and come Round 6 or 7 we'll have a look at where we are in the points and what we need to do to win the championship.

"For now it's about getting results, race by race, and if we do that the championship should take care of itself." www.mnews.com.au

i

Blanchard’s feeling good

<:c.

Formula 1 Australian Grand Prix }

'V

I'-

i

more things Mlichail Scliiiuiiinaihir iiif b@ piiii; I

G

RAND Prix racing's new

generation has arrived

and, after a Ferrari win in Melbourne, a brilliant debut from Lewis

Hamilton and a fighting second from World Champion Fernando Alonso, Formula 1 is in good hands.

Fllsiiasife

a performance that can only be described and Schumacheresque.

He was utterly dominant on the track and the only complaint we can make is that it would be

great for the sport's fans if he

could look like he is enjoying it from time to time, even if he is pretending.

Kimi Raikkonen made the first

Alonso was second in his first

repayment to the Scuderia's faith

race with McLaren-Mercedes, but with due respect to the two-time titleist, the story of the race was

- and its bank account - with a

brilliant win from pole position in 46

.

about Lewis Hamilton.

The rookie put the hype and

the best of a bad weekend when

Renault, clearly, struggled with its

the tabloid interest behind him

place in the new world order.

with a polished and mature debut, highlighted by a first corner manoeuvre straight from the Senna School of GP Racing that vaulted the rookie from a trapped fifth to a shining third.

Nick Heidfeld backed up a fine qualifying performance with fourth place for BMW, ahead of

One spot back was Felipe Massa, whose gearbox glitch in qualifying sentenced him to a 16th grid position and a day in

Giancarlo Fisichella, who made

traffic (which would later become

the back of grid), while Nico Rosberg and Half Schumacher completed an encouraging day for all things German with points for Toyota V8s, even if one of motorsporl news

l^^^rosTmiAN Grand Prix

^007 Formula 1 ING Australian Grand Prix &l nPRTPARK. MFLBOURNR

change them was bolted into a Williams.

As ever, Mark Webber shone

in qualifying, which was the only highpoint in a weekend of harsh realities for Red Bull, while

the Japan versus The Rest of the World Battle between Honda and

its customer upstart Super Aguri was one of the most entertaining features of the event.

Takuma Sato topped the

factory cars with a brilliant 10th in qualifying but Rubens www.mnews.com.au

Barrichello struck back for the

empire in the race.

After gloomy predictions, there was much to like about the 2007

edition of Lake Speed.

Yes, there were no V8 Supercars on the support program, and Michael Schumacher watched

the race on, probably, the world's most expensive plasma telly in Switzerland. But there was a lot to like and much to see and read about...

Formula l Australian Grand Pris

I

I

ki.

M.

Finally, the season got underway, and it gave us a taste of what was to come

A

S the cars headed out on the Albert Park circuit

happened to Kimi Raikkonen.

JOESAWARD Red Bull Racing was not looking

Was he really being outpaced by the Brazilian or was he just biding his time, waiting to strike

too special either but the car is

Would it be just another test

at the right moment. This sort of

session with little relevance to

his gearbox and was not really able to get through as much as

the weekend, or would it give

thing is very much a part of the psychological battling that goes

us a clear indication of what to

on between team mates in FI

expected in qualifying?

That question would only be answered on Saturday but the sessions provided some interesting insights nonetheless.

Ferrari was clearly at an

these days. Massa is confident

on Friday morning, we

wondered what it would mean.

advantage, as It has been in the last few weeks in tests in Bahrain,

but the McLarens were clearly going to be in the hunt as well and

it was mightily impressive that Lewis Flamilton was composed and competitive as he was. Let

us not forget that here is a young man making his Formula 1 debut with one of the top teams. There was not a trace of nerves. He was calm and relaxed. The real deal.

The early laps of the sessions on Friday were very difficult for the drivers with the damp conditions catching out a few but Hamilton looked like he had been doing FI all his life,

This was the start of a great career. How great we cannot know

- but Hamilton is a phenomenon.

Felipe Massa led the way but one had to wonder what had 48

certainly an interesting one to look at. Mark Webber had troubles with

he would have liked to have done.

The indications are that from time

to time when they get the car right this will be a serious challenger,

and comfortable but might Kimi knock a hole in that before the weekend was out? Raikkonen was

but finding that place is not easy.

The Toco Rosso looked a lot

clearly playing a little as some of

more reliable. Some doubted that

his sector times were faster than

this would be the case on Saturday

those achieved by Massa, but he did notbotherto put them all together in a fast lap.

afternoon, but Williams is not an

BMW was where we expected to see it but the team may have been grandstanding a little. They

organisation known for playing for fancy times. We shall see.

The other great story was Super

Aguri, which ended the day with both cars faster than the factory Hondas, a mighty showing given

like ths'Red Bulls and there were

murmurs in the paddock that the

folk from Spyker were not going to take that sitting down on Saturday.

The team is not happy with the situation, but would this turn into messy controversy?

The cool temperatures made life rather difficult with the softer tyres, but when these were

can turn it on for a lap of two but would they have the pace over the longer runs?That is hard to know.There are also questions of reliability because the BMWs

earlier in the week.This was a

team and the team needs to be

harder rubber. In recent times

have had a lot of troubles with the

very careful that it does not get into

gearbox over the recent months.

a panic and start doing thing it will

the consistency has been just as important as the outright pace

The other people who really

later regret. Honda is a company full of racers and the performance will get them working hard to close the gap and get ahead.

impressed were the two WilliamsToyotas. We have not seen them

with the others in testing in recent months because the team decided

to save money and not send the

that the cars were only unveiled disaster for the Honda Racing FI

One wonders If we will see the

clear that the cars were much

same kind of resolve at Toyota which has been completely humbled by the Williams team thus far.Toyota looks like a team

better than last year - and much

that is at sea.

team off to Bahrain. Thus they were a mystery but it was pretty

hooked up they were around four-tenths quicker than the

and it was clear from one of

Alonso's longer runs that he was struggling with graining which seem to worry the Ferrari a lot less.

As teams have to use both types of tyre in the race, this is going to be

a key issue. And things will change depending on the temperature.

But watch out for Flamilton.

Fernando Alonso already is... motorsportnews

■

□ liDAY-Practice 2007 Formula 1 ING Australian Grand Prix Albert Park, Melbourne

Fast from the Past IVAN Capelli drove in 98 Grands Prix,

14 of them for

^

GP analyst for the

If

Ferrari. He is now a |

RAI Uno television

channel. He spoke

to MNews after

Friday practice

|

"FERRARI has done very well, for its first day without Michael Schumacher and Ross Brawn.

"In the past, they were the key persons in the team but

already, during the winter testing, the team has shown that they have reacted to

that and find a good balance inside the team.

"I think that the advantage Felipe Massa has is that last

year, he had the opportunity to see Schumacher working inside the team. He realised how difficult it is to be at the

top all the time, especially during a long Formula 1 season. Massa seems to

understand what to do and how to act like the number on driver in the team.

"Massa topping the Friday times is just carrying on

from his winter testing. It was important to be in front of Kimi Raikkonen on

Friday, even if they were on different programs. Massa ran on the soft tyres but Kimi concentrated on the hard

compound for the race.

"In any case, Massa was

showing everyone inside the team - and on the outside -

The Weight of the World THE idea of'factory teams' and 'B-teams' implies a natural order in the world. But that didn't seem to fiiter through to Albert Park on Friday.

Toyota probably wasn't thrilled to see its cars outpaced by the Toyota-powered Williams, with Alex Wurz (sixth-fastest in

the second session) and Nico Rosberg (eighth-fastest) leaving JarnoTrulli and Ralf Schumacher in their wake (12th and 16thth

respectively). But ifToyota was unhappy, Honda must have been mortified to see Jenson Button and Rubens Barrichello

finish 14th and 15th-especially when

Super Aguri, running a 2006 Honda in 13th.

It was a nasty shock for the guys

Australian Grand Prix, Melbourne

how important it was to be

in red and white, but an altogether

on top.

"Raikkonen has another

more pleasant one for their cousins

1

down the far end of pitlane.

2

approach; even at McLaren,

"We're pretty surprised!" admitted

he was not super-quick on

Davidson.

balance and race set-up. The

Obviously we tried to pre-empt the

Fridays, he just worked on real Kimi Raikkonen was

waiting for Saturday, and qualifying."

"That was a really good day.

tricky conditions and just tried to get some serious car information,

because potentially, it could be wet on Saturday in practice.

expecting, but it might not be that good in qualifying and stuff. But

we're still happy, still very happy. It was a very good day."

Encouraging as it was, Davidson was in no hurry to read much into

6

3 4

"It was better than what we were

3

Felipe Massa.

Ferrari

1:27.353

Kimi Raikkonen

Ferrari

1:27.750

LewislaaiH:

McLaren-Mercedes

1:27,829

Giancarlo Fisichella

Renault

1:27.941

NickHeidfeli

BMW

1:27.970

17

Alex Wurz

Williams-Toyota

1:27.981

McLaren-Mercedes

1:28.040

16

Nico Rosberg

Williams-Toyota

1:28.055

RIprt Kubica ;; I

BMW

1:28.281

David Coulthard

Red Bull-Renault

1:28.495

Anthony Davidson

Super Aguri-Honda

1:28.727

5 6 7

10

i

14

11 12

12

JarnoTrulli

Toyota

1:28.921

13

22

Takuma Sato

Super Aguri-Honda

1:29,009

14

7

Jensen Button

Honda

1:29,066

Rubens Barrichello ^

Honda

1:29.542

IS 16

11

Ralf Schumacher

Toyota

1:29,574

17

IS

Mark Webber

Red Bull-Renault

1:29,801

"We came here expecting to be

18

4

Heikki Kovalainen

Renault

1:30.097

close to the Spykers. I'm taking things with a pinch of salt, at the

19

19

Scott. Speed .

Toro Rosso-Ferrari

1:30,383

20

20

Adrian Sutil

moment."

21

Chrlstija^

Spyker-Ferrari Spyker-Ferrari

1:31.175

TonioLiuzzi

Toro Rosso-Ferrari

1:31.693

the result.

-MARKGLENDENNING www.mnews.com.au

Eyes on (beating the factory team): Wurz, above, outshone the Toyotas. TheAguris, top, embarrassed the main Honda squad.

fancy dress, had ended the day with Anthony Davidson 11th andTakuma Sato

22

18

1:31.108

49

J

Formula 1 Australian Grand Prix

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The bullshit finally stopped - and there were some big surprises when it did. The world watched as JOESAWARD cards were finally laid on the table

I

T is always easy to say with

hindsight that it was obvious that Ferrari would take pole position in Melbourne by a

The team had no such worries about race pace.

^

(

■L ■■

"If everything works well we should be OK," he said in a burst

big margin and perhaps the uncertainty was there only

of verbal effort unusal for the

because a lot of folk wanted a different result.

The McLarens were good but obviously not quite there

Who knows? Anyway, it matters not a jot because Kimi Raikkonen took pole by a margin. Haifa second in the modern FI age is a big gap and, although Felipe Massa fell by the wayside with a

and, with whispers suggesting that the team was having more trouble with consistency on the longer runs, the strength of Ferrari

monosyllabic Finn.

“Kasai

m

jMse!

Good and great: Fernando Alonso, above, qualified second, while Sato, left, was an

outsanding iOth. But no one could touch Raikkonen, top main.

seemed to have been underlined.

But what of BMW? Fiad Nick Fieidfeld and Robert Kubica set the third and fifth best times

and to be fair, he should have been

because they had light fuel loads

a little closer to Mark.

or because the cars are really that good? And is the team's reliability

And yet that was not the major question in the midfield. Up

to start on the harder 'medium'

up to scratch?

Was Lewis Hamilton running

and down the pit-lane people shook their heads at the sight of

there.

race would be if he had a similar

more or less fuel than Alonso and

twoToyotas in the top 10 (see

problem - unless Ferrari had gone extraordinarily light on fuel for Q3. "The key parameters for the

would he be held up in the race?

breakout).

Were the Renaults really that

Even the Toyota people.

far from the pace, with Giancarlo

"We came here without the

race are now reduced to three,"

Fisichella sixth and Heikki Kovalainen in 13th. And was the team a victim of its drivers?

highest expectations," admitted Trulli, hinting after that the result

Works team. The cars of Jenson

on Sunday might not be quite as stellar over a series of laps.

were not very good and ended up 14th and 17th. Was there any light at the end of this particular dark

gearbox problem and thus would

have to start a lowly 16th, which became the rear of the grid when the team changed his engine

overnight. The feeling on Saturday night was that the only way to stop Kimi walking away with the

said Ferrari's Jean Todt,"strategy, reliability and performance.Today we had the performance but not the reliability."

The other great mystery was how Mark Webber had made it to

ohnMorris/Mpix

during his do-or-die final lap in Q1

seventh on the grid while the other

Everyone ran In qualifying with the softer compound tyres.

if he could get ahead at the start

Red Bull and the two Toro Rossos

This might help to explain why

and hold Raikkonen back, but

were 18th, 19th and 20th on the

otherwise it looked like being a

grid. The cars are all very similar (there has been some complaining about that!) but the performances

Williams, which looked so good on Friday, seemed suddenly nowhere with Nico Rosberg and Alexander Wurz 12th and 15th respectively.

The softer tyres were definitely quicker by several tenths per lap

Fernando Alonso had a chance

Game Over situation for the Reds

... especially given their'Iong run' performances in Bahrain.

Raikkonen himself made the

were not. We know Mark can

point after qualifying that Ferrari

sometimes pull out an impressive turn of speed but taking two

had come to Melbourne worried

seconds off his team mate(s) was

about performance in qualifying, which was still not perfect.

but the degradation was higher, with graining being a potentially

a huge gap. DC complained of

big problem. The harder tyre was

debris on the track in sector three

slower but would run all afternoon

50

with a^good performance which

remained consistent and allowed

drivers to improve lapjay lap.

As a result, most vyere expected rubber and evaluate strategy from

The performance of the Super Aguri Hondas was a wonderful

story and a good opportunity for Honda-bashers to bash the Honda Button and Rubens Barrichello

tunnel? It did not seem so.

When all was said and done

qualifying remained, as it has been

for sometime, like doing a jigsaw puzzle with half the pieces missing.

You can guess what the picture is but you are never quite sure until Sunday provides the missing pieces.The tyre strategy and

fuel load options meant that this Sunday in particular was looking like a fascinating one ...

motorsporinews

iAY-Qualifying 2007 Formula 1 iNG Australian Grand Prix Albert Park. Melbourne

Fast from the Past Hans-Joachim

I

Stuck drove in 81

A

I

i

Grands Prix and has won the Le Mans 24 Hour

I,

twice and the

9

.irioTiiriwo^

i

0

1990 DTM crown.

He is a factory BMW driver and

teievision commentator with

'■JJ

the German Premiere network.

r

He spoke to MNews post-

Saturday qualifying ,rV»:

"IT was a strong performance from the BMW.Sauber team

in qualifying and I am totally isW

surprised.

"I knew how hard the

{\

team was working in the

off-season and we expected some degree of improvement.

But when it comes to the

showdown, you never know what is going to happen. You can imagine that we were

u

not on a low fuel load in the

final session so we can expect something from the race.

"Among the drivers on the

i^i

front two rows of the grid, Nick Heidfeld has the most

experience. To do a fast lap is one story, and we saw some examples of cars going

fast over one lap in the off

season. But I am confident

THE sight: Ralf Schumacher, crawling around the back of the Albert Park track, during the

second qualifying session aboard the Panasonic Toyota TF107.

that the cars will not have any

The sound: a collective'aaaarrrrrrrrhhh'around the media centre,

"With Michael Schumachi er retiring, there is a new start

an amalgam of'l-told-you-sos'in about 10 different languages, that

problems in the race.

for Formula 1. Iri recent

years, everything in the paddock was concentrating on Michael. Now, it is spread out and that is better for

everyone. There is focus on the new car-engine combinations, the new tyre

rules and the new drivers, like Lewis Hamilton.The paddock is more even now, not all concentrated on one team.

"Robert Kubica has a great

future, he has to learn a lot but he has a fine teacher

in Nick. If he keeps his act

together and stays out of the silly stuff, he has a good

chance for points."

indicated that Team Cologne's winter of discontent had followed it down under.

that the 107 eats its rubber once

asked to do anything more than 10 laps in a row.

But, fora bunch of guys that arrived with a big hill in front of them, it was a much stronger effort than was expected.

- PHIL BRANAGAN

Australian Grand Prix, 1

6

KimlRSife^ril!

Ferrari

1:26.644

. 1:25.644

1:26.072

2

1

Fernando Alonso

McLaren-Mercedes

1:26.697

1:25.326

1:26.493

back to the pits and the engineers

3

9

NickHeidfii

JMWSauber

1:26.895

1:25.358

1:26.556

2

Lewis Hamilton

McLaren-Mercedes

1:26.674

1:25.577

1:26.755

there was time only for one flying

5

110'

Robert Kubica.

1:26.6%

1:25.882

1:27.347

6

3

Giancarlo Fisichella

1:27.270

1:25.944

1:27.634

best driver in the field (surely, he means third-best paid, right?) got

fixed the recalcitrant transmission, lap from The Ralfster - and he

one car was delivered. Okay, only

7

behind theToyotas when the noise

stopped but that one car was a

Honda (well, a Super Aguri-Honda), so that counted for something.

"It was as expected." Ralf reported, oddly.

His Italian team-mate was a little

www.mnews.com.au

us. But nevertheless, we've done a

good job."

Both men have prior convictions for making ordinary cars appear better over a single

knockers. It was some comeback.

By the time the self-confessed third-

have done."

Marshall Cass’l

"We have to consider that this

track has always been a favourite track for us; this one and Malaysia.

So that is probably a big help to

lap and, in the background, engineers were quietly hosing down any rash predictions of Sunday points with the notion

The revenge: eighth for Raify,

on the race as much as we might tC*

of work to do.

ninth for Jarno Trulli. Take that,

"Some teams, Ithink, don't work

L -

if the gap was quite big compared to the big teams.There is still a lot

IS

Mark Webber

12

JarnoTrulli

'

7-- BMWSauber Renault ' Red Buli-Renault

1:26.978

1:26.623

1:27.934

1:27.014

1:26.688

1:28.404

1:27.328

1:26.739

1:28.692

Super Aqurl-Honda 1:27.365 Super Aguri-Honda 1:26.986 1:27.596 Williams-Toyota

1:26.758

1:28.871

9

Toyota IW? Ralf Schumaeheriiy" Toyota

10

22

11

w Antpavidson.

12

16

13 14

7

TakumaSato

NicoRosberg

^

1:26.909

1:26.914

_ Hejkkl Kovabii^ll'.. Renault

1:27.5M

1:26.964

Honda

1:27.540

1:27.264

1:27.479

1:27.393 DNF

Jenson Button

15 DI3 AiexWurz

■ -“31

^Williams-Toyota

16

5

Ferrari

1:26.712

17

8^ Rubens Barrichejl^ ^ Honda

1:27.679

Toro Rosso-Ferrari

1:28.305 1:28.579

Felipe Massa

more forthcoming.

"Was today a true picture of the car? You'd have to say it was, because it was qualifying

18

19

19

14

David Couithard^^ Red Bull-Renault

20

18

Vitantonio Liuzzi

and everyone was in the same

21

Adrian Sutil

conditions. It wasn't too bad, even

22

20; 21

Scott Speed

Christijan Albers

Toro Rosso-Ferrari

(f

T29.267

y^Spyker-Ferrari

1:2”9339

Spyker-Ferrari

1:31.932

51

1

I

Formula 1 Australian Grand Prix

A walk in the park K

qualifying but they did not figure in the race.

As an entertainment the event

fell short. The start and the first

qualifying.

And on Sunday he proved it conclusively.The Finn won the Australian Grand Prix by seven

corner with Hamilton's lovely move on Robert Kubica and

Alonso was the high point.

"I got a pretty decent start,"

seconds, but that did not tell the

Hamilton said, "but the BMW was

story at all. Kimi wasn't exactly

extremely quick off the grid and

Robert Kubica went ahead of me,

.vadiaferre %

one point and had a small off) but it was very clear that there was a lot more pace in the car than he

sfGJ

needed.

for a moment. The fact that he lost

to get. There was no way that McLaren was going to beat

At one point his lead up 18s and he let it drift. His fastest lap of the

the placed seemed to be down

Ferrari in Albert Park.There

to the fact that he came across

was a message in that. This is

race was a full second faster than

Fernando Alonso's best lap.The key point however was that Felipe Massa, who started at the back of

the grid, had a very tough time moving through the field, despite the fact he was driving a Ferrari.

Overtaking, even in a car with a big advantage is not going to be easy this year.

The good news - the great news - is that Fernando Alonso was

i

) AUSTRALIAN

in the race rather than in

cruising (although he dozed off at

!

flMV

IMI Raikkonen told the

world on Saturday that Ferrari was at its strongest

second. Stop and think about that

Takuma Sato, at a key moment in the race, but actually when you looked at the numbers it was not

quite that simple. Lewis did lose time to Sato but it was only a couple of seconds. The race was actually lost because Fernando Alonso went further in the second stint.

And that is where one must

ask the question: If Lewis was the second McLaren driver to stop, why did the engineers not cover what Alonso had done by giving Lewis more fuel at his first stop?

really all about winning World Championships and so every point in the bag is an important one and while McLaren obviously has a fantastic asset in Lewis

Hamilton, the reality is that Fernando Alonso is the World

Championship challenger.

The fastest race laps also indicated that McLaren is solidly in second place and that there is a gap of about three-tenths back to

matched blow for blow by novice Lewis Hamilton, who produced the most impressive FI debut for at least 10 years.

That would have been the normal

ahead of the Renaults, the Red

After the race Lewis was happy but he did not seem as happy as

thing to do.

This handed the advantage

Bulls and the rest of them.

BMW. Interestingly Nico Rosberg's Williams was fifth fastest in the

race, between the two BMWs and

TheToyotas were a dull 12th

so Idived to the left and managed ‘ to outbrake them and gain a couple of places. It was a bit of a surprise!"

,'

After thatihe progress was fairly static. The tv coverage seemed rather like a Honda commercial

with endless footage of Button and Barrichello which was way too much given that the Hondas were not even close to the pace. It

did not help that for observers it Was next to impossible to know

who was using which tyres. The markings have to be improved.

But, when all is said and done, it was a terrific start for the 2007

season. A new star is going to surf a wave of interest across the world.

Hamilton will put FI back in places it has not been for years and that is good new for everyone.

What FI has to do is to make sure that when the new fans

one would have expected. He's

to Alonso at the second stops.

and 13th and the best Honda was

a very professional guy but you

And, of course, Fernando took

start arriving - as arrive they will

14th fastest, only just ahead of

go the impression that he was disappointed not to have been

advantage and duly took the maximum points he was going

- the show that they are given is

Aguris may have been heroes in

52

the faster Toro Rosso. The Super

enough to bring them back again and again. motorsnort news

Race-58 LAPS 2007 Formula'l ING Australian Grand Prix Albert park. Melbourne

Fast from the Past Jacques Laffite drove in 180 Grands Prix from

1974 to 1986, with six wins. He is now a television commentator ■

with the TF1

network. He spoke to MNews post-race It

RENAULT started and ended

the weekend a bit behind Ferrari but there is more to come from the team.

"I think that they went too conservative for the race. It is

easy to say that after the race,

but it is difficult to change to Bridgestone after a long

relationship with Michelin.

Also, Fernando Alonso was

there for a long time and it is not easy to move on from that.

They will do it, it is a big team, but it takes time.

"Giancarlo Fisichella will be

much better this year than he has ever been before. He is

capable of leading the team and he has less pressure this

year than he has ever had before. If you are a team mate to Alonso or Michael

Schumacher, you cannot work.

The team helps you but not as much as the other driver.

Parkes was second when he suited up for his first Grand Prix, in France, about the time that England

LEWIS Hamilton is going to have a big effect on the future of Grand Prix racing but there is one group of enthusiasts who are already trembling with the thriil over his impact aiready.

was winning the 1966 World Cup at Wembley.

By the way, Lewis is not even the only bloke to podium on debut in Melbourne, because Jacques Villeneuve managed it 10 years ago with Williams.

One stat he has created (well, helped with) is the fact that Melbourne 2007 had the youngest-ever Grand Prix podium. Winner Kimi Raikkonen was the oldest of the three drivers up there and he, Lewis and Fernando Alonso weigh in with an average age of 25 years and one month.

Iam talking about, of course, statisticians.

The 22-year-old McLaren is far from the first rookie

to stand on the podium on debut. If we ignore the 1950 season (which is recognised as the first year of the modern era, so almost everyone was a rookie) Hamilton is the 10th rookie to make it into the top three on debut. And third is not the best result on

a maiden appearance; Giancarlo Baghetti won on debut in 1961 and, looking strictly at the Poms, Mike

"To be quick in Formula 1, you need to be quick 110 percent of the time. With

-PHILBRANAGAN

Australian Grand Prix^ Melbourne!

a driver like Michael or

1

Fernando, you are at 80 percent. You cannot be fast all

2

the time.

4

9

5 6

1:25:28.770

1:25.235

41

Fernando Alonso

1:25:36.012

1:26.314

20

.. LevyLsiHa^EKiMa

1:25:47.365

1:26.351

20

Nick Heidfeld

1:26:07.533

1:26.722

37

i

Gjan_qr!i0FisichellaOi.

1:26:35.239

1:26.892

18

5 1i6

Felipe Massa Nigg RQsberg

1

3

"Heikki Kovalainen had a

tough weekend right from the start. It is hard to race after

7

not racing for more than a year and the competition was ready from the start. Testing is

8

11

Ralf Schumacher

9

12

JatnoTrulli

10

4

Heikki Kovalainen

12

22

TakumaSato

13

fS

Mark Webber

14

18

TonioLiuzzi

different; there is no pressure and nothing is as important as "As soon as you arrive at a race, you need to mark your space and stay there. It was difficult for him to do that but

he is young and quick, and if the car is good enough, he will

be good enough. You will see!"

Points men: Fisichella, above and Heidfeld, below, started the

season with points haul.

f<r

.. ^jy

Rubens Barrichello

11

it is in a race.

]

Kimi Raikkorien

15 i

Jensen Button

16

23

Anthony Davidson

17

20)

Andrian Sutil

DNF

17

AlexWurz

DNF

14\

David Coulthard )

DNF

10

Robert Kubica

DNF

1!9_ ScottSpeed

DNF 21

iW

..<r W

Christjian Albers

1:26:35.575

1:27.044

28

57 laps 57 iaps

1:26.721

40

]-27.796

42

57 laps 57 laps 57 laps

1:28.034

45

1:27.592

44

57 laps 57 laps 57 laps

57 laps 56 laps 56 laps 48 laps 48 laps 36 laps 28 iaps 10 laps

1:28.098

17

1:28.487

20

1:27.501

21

1:28.282

44

1:28.387

42

1:28.489

41

1:28.687

40

1:28.303

24

1:27.706

44

1:26.642

19

1:28.953

22

1:30.899

9

Fastest lap: Raikkonen on lap 41:1 m25.235s Drivers' Championship: Raikkonen 10, Alonso 8 Hamilton 6, Heidfeld 5, Fisichella 4, Massa 3, Rosberg 2, Schumacher 1.

Constructors' Championship: McLaren-Mercedes 14, Ferrari 13, BMW. Sauber 5, Renault 4, Williams-Toyota 2, Toyota 1.

53

St

i' i

i’v is."

i

Formula l Australian Grand Prix

MELBOURNE

,Gl

I

I

hijiR

■V:

,,*jr >f

m ««

Albert Park note pad THE best-laid plans can run late.

Red Bull Racing arrived down under without having done a driver exit

I

test for Mark Webber so the tall lad

from Queanbeyan had to perform the test mid-Thursday to satisfy the FIA requirements.

I

m Pencil in another ex-Formula 1

driver for the Speedcar series. Ivan

Capelli, who will race in selected European GT events this season when his television commitments

allow, looks like testing for the NASCAR-in-the-desert series in the near future. The former Ferrari

driver has just signed a new two-

year deal with the RAI lino channel in Italy so his cheerful face will continue to be seen on the tube for

some time yet.

■ Being the President and Chief Executive Officer of Honda gives

you some privileges in life but, apparently, not as many as being a Minogue. On Sunday, Taken Fukui was seen eating lunch outside the Honda pit chalet, which had security types blocking the door so that Kylie, Dannii and their entourage could dine in peace inside. Class act, Fukui-san.

■ While there were no V8

Supercar races at Albert Park, there were some V8 drivers wandering around. Apart from Cameron McConville's Network 10 duties and

Paul Morris's activity in the Aussie Racers, Max Wilson was seen at

Honda, where he was a guest of old mate, Rubens Barrichello.

Larry and Jack Perkins were part of the speed comparison, which was conducted with a BMW Formula 1

car (driven by Sebastien Vettel), a

V8 Super Race Car (driven by Jack) and Larry in a BMW 120i. The Super ' Race Car looked very, very similar

After a strong qualifying effort, a couple of bizarre problems made Mark CHRIS LAMBDEN Webber's race a frustrating one AS Mark Webber pulled in for his first scheduled stop, on lap 22, things had been going pretty well to plan.

A clean start, and a solid stint, albeit without the

outright pace to keep up with the cars ahead, looked likely to set the stage for an equally solid over-all race, until some hydraulics went a little haywire; "The fuel filler opened, as it shouid, when Ihit the pit lane rev limiter on the way in,"Webber told MNews, 'but as Ipulled up, and just as the fuel rig was about to be plugged in, it suddenly shut again, with some force!

"They had to manually prise it open, so it cost us quite a few seconds.

"That wasn't all. In putting the rears on, one of the

the RB3 had the outright speed to give the top ten a shake, but Webber produced a big lap in the dying moments of the crucial Q2 15 minutes to go into the top ten in seventh.

sensors got knocked, which shut down the traction-

But it was edgy stuff:

control and braking software for a lap and a half before we realised what had happened, and iwas able to'reset'the sensors, a bit like re-booting a

"Into Turn 1 on that Q2 lap, the front-right was

computer, from inside the car.

"The car feit very odd and, as became apparent, the fuel flap was jammed open. It's amazing the effect

slightly locked, and the rear was sliding too. It was a bit tricky," he confessed with eyebrows raised.

This followed a disrupted pair of practice sessions on Friday - the first by light showers, the second by a damaged gearbox;

that had on the airflow to the rear wing - when the

"Fifth gear broke. So that was that. We'd done a bit

guys worked it out afterwards, it was something like a seven percent reduction in rear downforce - and that

on intermediates during the early session, but missing most of the second session cost us valuable laps. In

recently...

Craig Lowndes and Jamie

has quite an effectl" (including an unplanned pirouette in the pit lane entry while coming in for the second

the end, David (Coulthard) did all the work, like the tyre comparison.

Whincup were guests of Vodafone.

Garth Tander was attending to Leanne's F3 car. Greg Murphy

time - ED)

"Anyway, it was really just a matter of getting to the finish from there. We ran our soft, set of tyres for the

"The softer tyre was clearly a little faster, but only for a short period. There were some graining issues which, depending on car balance, affected different teams to a differing degree - given we were all going to have

to one of those V8 things running around some Adelaide street track

. was also at the track, as was Will

Davison, who was spotted giving Lewis Hamilton a high-five after qualifying.

54

The smallest things

last stint and had a bit of graining, as we'd expected.

"So, first stint good - that was the best we had then the wheels sort of fell off."

Qualifying had produced a typical Webber set of laps. There had been little to suggest in testing that

to use it for one stint in the race."

After a short break, Webber heads to Kuala Lumpur

for the recently-scheduled three-day test the week prior to the Malayasian Grand Prix. motorsport news

RffCE-Breakouts 2007 Formula 1 ING Australian Grand prix Albert Park. Melbourne

The seaet is on the sidepods Ferrari's race-winning chassis had a number of tiny (but significant) tweaks PART of Ferrari's new aero package

PAOLO FILISETTI

exhaust pipes. In a similar way to the cooling vents, they are placed in an asymmetrical way,

introduced in Bahrain and adopted in

Australia is related to a series of tiny changes to the sidepods.

Multiple elements were developed to improve the aero efficiency of this section of

featuring the right one slightly more forward in comparison to the left one.

the car and at the same time, ensure a correct

camera position.

In fact the cameras, are now placed on the

Another small, but nevertheless effective

development, is related to the new nose cone

cooling to the engine. Starting from the winglets 1) placed behind and connected to'

edge between the vertical side of the nose

the chimneys.These elements no longer bear a

cone and its top side. In this way, they act as

proper winglets and divert the airflow around

double element. Instead, a single one, reduces the way the drag generated by the double element configuration.

An interesting and crucial change to ensure the minimum drag is the reduction of the

number of cooling vents on the top of the right sidepod 2). Essentially, on the top of

the right sidepod, it featured one vents less compared with to the left one, so providing an asymmetrical layout. The number of vents will vary from race to race.

3) Also interesting is the position of the

the front suspension upper wishbone.

Their old position was in the middle of the vertical side of the nose cone, and its position reduced the efficiency of the front end by

affecting the airflow exiting from the front wing.

Albert gives BMW fins AERODYNAMICALLY speaking, BMW's FI.07 is one of the most refined cars.

This fact is thanks to an

extensive use of CFD simulations,

carried by the means of the supercomputer Albert 2.

In Melbourne, it was possible to closely see many details of the

car, and a couple of these were particularly interesting.

In detail, two horizontal fins (red

arrow) placed at half the height of the chassis at its foremost point, shaped as a sort of Arabian sword.

Tyre confusion ALONGSIDE the requirement to run at least one set of each of the

two compounds available during any race, many international media were under the mistaken impression that, as in previous years, drivers

would also be required to start the race on the set of tyres they

qualified on.

It wasn't until Sunday morning, when MNews enquired of Bridgestone,

that the reality was revealed: There is NO requirement to do so - how could there be, with teams free to switch between compounds at will in practice and qualifying?

So, the result is that everyone will, and did, qualify on the softer of the two options available for Melbourne ('soft'), with the strategic

decision still available to start the race on whichever compound you choose.

Track conditions suggested that most would opt for the harder

{'medium') compound, delaying the soft until later in the race, when rubber down would be easier on the soft tyre, and make them less likely to grain.

Strategies will, however, be secret until the very start of the race.

A Bridgestone spokesman told MNews that "even we don't know what they're going to start on until the tyre Covers come off on the grid that's the strategic element of it!" www.mnews.com.au

play a relevant role in splitting the airflow coming out from the front

wing and diverting it partially to the sidepod's inlets, and partially to the barge boards.

Other fins are placed exactly inside the inner shields (green arrow) of the front wing, beneath the brake cooling ducts.These fins, partially spoon-shaped, help to divert the turbulence generated in this area by the wheel's rotation and are particularly efficient at top speed on the straight, providing more aero stability in this area.

T T7.

■<*

■i.

■ r

\ 1

Formula 1 Australian Grand Prix J

I j-o-

The rich and the famous: Bernie, Dannii and Kylie mingled in the paddock, top. In F3-land, Radisich broke bits, above, while the CMC girls broke hearts, below.

Sneak peek: Yep, Renault need some assistance, above. Melbourne's fans. below, were conscious of the sun. The swans were in full flight, bottom left, and the Speed Comparison involved an FI car, a V8 and a BMW, bottom right.

56

motorsport news

'AGP Snapshots 2007 FORMULA 1 ING Australian Grand Prix <vlbert Park. Melbourne

Turn 3, flat BEING tali often has its benefits. but sometimes it can aiso be a drawback - iike when a car is

sailing over your cockpit.

Alex Wurz found this out the

hard way when David Coulthard dive-bombed his Williams late in

the race, the impact sending the

Red Bull car sailing over the top of Wurz's Williams.

It looked close, but no-one.

Wurz included, realised just how close it was until they watched

of the chassis and the steering wheel. So that's not so good!

Ididn't know how close it was until I saw the onboard. When

I went down to the corner, I

checked my mirrors at about the 200m sign - you hit the brakes at about the 100m - and at that

point David was too far away.

'Anyway, he came up to apologise for it, and Ithink that shows that he has been in the

a replay from his incar camera

business long enough to have the character and strength to say

after the race.

that. That's good, because not

"At that point where the accident happened, I was lucky,' the Austrian said.

You see on the onboard that if I didn't have the

everybody would have done that,

When you race someone and you bang wheels then maybe you can blame yourself, but not

camera

when it comes from so far back

reflexes to take my hands off the wheel, then I think he would have stripped my hands away.

you are at the apex. Then you just go, 'Oh my god, what was that?

and suddenly impacts you when

There is paint across the top

-MARKGLENDENNING

Will he be Heikking outta here?

IF Lewis Hamilton stole the headlines at

Albert Park, the other rookie many were watching, Heikki Kovalainen, goes home after a butt-kicking from his boss.

Flavio Briatore used Italian television

network RAI to give his recruit a barking and he did not hold back

"Kovalainen had a horrible race," Briatore said. "You need to be realistic: he did aimost everything wrong.

Briatore, who is also Kovalainen's manager, did not totally blame his driver and aimed

some of his ire at Bridgestone, which came to Renault at the end of a long-term partnership with Michelin. But he also gave the Finn no rest at the suggestion that he was'only'a rookie.

"Of course he's a rookie but so is Hamilton so in these two weeks before the next race

he needs to change his attitude and try to do better, because he has the capability to do it.

"I think everybody was watching on TV. i

Nothing went right today."

don't need to protect anybody. It was rubbish.

What can isay? if itell you it was good, Iam a complete idiot."

viewing.

www.mnews.com.au

The next instalment in Malaysia will be worth -PHILBRANAGAN

iiil '(j

Tf

Formula l Australian Grand Prix

ieynilds. Damn,

tiTo

ell

b oier action aplenty at Albert Par 'liEtHiw

IT doesn't matter whether they are racing at Bathurst, on the Clipsal streets or around Albert Park - David Reynolds, Alex Davison and Craig Baird are the

cream of the crop in Australian Carrera Cup racing.

The trio raced with little

and Davison shared the spoils, taking two victories each. Davison

was the early pace setter, claiming

pole and winning Thursday and Friday's races. Reynolds fought back with a red-flag win in Race 3, before dominating Sunday's final after exectuting a smart pass on

challenge during the non championship round at Albert

Davison mid-race.

Park last weekend, and if not for an

Russell.The Boom Logistics driver was never far away from the

uncharacteristic spin by Baird in the last race, the trio would have

clean-swept the podium.

But while there were no points on offer, the racing between the leading three was the best we've

The best of the rest was David

leading three, and was the man who picked up the pieces when Baird spun out of Race 4.

"It's a great feeling for myself and the team," said Russell.

"We've been trying to get into the top three over the weekend so to get there is fantastic.

"We'll now work on carrying the ' same speed into the next round."

Marcus Marshall qualified third and was another to be right in the mix. He qualified third but could squeeze his way onto the podium, racking up .But after struggling at the Clipsal 500 two weeks ago, Marshall proved he'll run the leading pack when points are on

top seven in all four races. His best

result came in Race 4 where he took fifth.

Sonic racer Dean Fiore and Michael Trimble shadowed Carrati

for the majority of the meeting.

Former ^8 Supercar driver Steve

Ellery was hampered by a clutch problem in Race 1 and hovered

offer.

inside the back half of the top 10 for most of the meeting.

Carrera Cup took advantage of the non-championship round to experiment with a different

Paul Cruickshank Racing's Aaron Caratti put in his best Carrera Cup

grid allocation.The starting grid for Race 1 was determined by

performance, finishing inside the

qualifying, while the driver's starting slots for Race 2 and 3 were based on the driver's fastest lap

seen in recent times. The nature

of the fast Porsche series has

I

MS,

produced close, yet processional racing. Albert Park, however, was a different story ...

"We probably overtook each

times from the previous race. The

other more times than we have in

said one driver.

the past two years," Davison said.

Baird agreed; "I'm surprised the three of us

"If you have an incident, there's a reason to press on and try and set a time," said another. "The concept

format was greeted with mixed reactions from competitors.

"It's confusing and just bullshit,"

can race that close and have no

is defeated though when you get

troubles."

caught behind a slower driver."

In terms of race wins, Reynolds 58

Get used to this in 2007: Davo and Reynolds going at it in Carrera Cup.

-GRANT ROWLEY

motorsDortnews J

AGP Supports 2007 Formula 1 ING Australian Grand PRix ALBERT Park. Melbourne

'|i

Macrow proves no point WHY, oh why aren't we racing for points?

That thought can't have been

■

too far from Tim Macrow's mind as the ieader of the Austraiian

Formuia 3 Championship motored his way to three race wins at Albert Park.

The Scud Racing driver was on loan to Team BRM for Grand

Prix weekend, taking the seat

that there wasn't a penalty, with Stewards deeming Macrow was

ahead by the start of the danger zone, and that his 1,5s win wouid stand.

While Hollings didn't get the final race win, he didn't ieave the

Grand Prix empty-handed. He won Thursday's opening hit-out, albeit in rather iucky circumstances.

That race had looked to be well

usually occupied by Stuart Kostera.

and truly Karl Reindler's, the 2004

And he made good use of the

Australian F3 champ launching

equipment, taking a hat-trick of wins and a second place away

from pole position and into a commanding lead. The Stewards

from the four heats.

deemed Reindler's start to be a

"The team's been fantastic, they

little too good, handing him a

welcomed me with open arms

drive-through penaity and gifting

which was surprising, to be honest,'

the win to then second-placed

said Macrow.

Hollings.

"The biggest thing about this

Reindler's weekend didn't really

weekend is the laps. It s a great

get any better from there. The ex-

dpportunity to get miles.

A1GP driver put on a charge in

While Macrow's first two wins

straightforward enough, leading Chariie Hollings home

were

each time, the Race 4 victory was somewhat controversial.

Having fallen behind Hollings at the start, Macrow made the most of an eariy Safety Car period to

creep up on the Brit. He made his move at the start of Lap 3, diving outside of Hollings through Albert Park's first corner to take the lead.

But there was a question mark over

the overtaking move, with

Race 2, finishing fourth, but that would be a highlight. He had a spectacular last-lap spin while in

contention for a podium in Race 3, before failing to finish the final.

Chris Aiajajian had an action-

packed weekend, starting with a reasonably heavy shunt at Albert Park's final corner in practice.

Thanks to that he was forced to miss qualifying, which led to 'The

Chris'putting on a Race 1 charge

that took him from the back of

the grid to sixth in just six iaps.

Hollings claiming Macrow passed

Aiajajian was on for another top

and Tim got a run on me, but

with LeanneTander with a lap to go. He finished the weekend with

under waved yellow flags.

"I was leading onto the straight

five finish in Race 2, but ciashed

there was waved yellow flags," said

an eighth and a fifth from the last

Holiings.

two races.

but Iknew he'd get a penalty so I

the last race, hitting the wall after spinning on the third lap.

"He passed me on the outside,

didn't push too hard."

The problem for Hollings was www.mnews.coni.au

Marshall Cass ;

Tander, meanwhile, didn't finish

- ANDREW VAN LEEUWEN

'JohnMoms/Mpix

59

7 ^

Formula l Australian Grand Prix

i

No prizes for guessing who PAUL Kemal has grabbed the

Morris at the front of the field. But

lead of the 2007 Aussie Racing Car Series after dominating proceedings at Albert Park last

the race changed on Lap 3 when Kemal was caught out by the greasy track, slipping off the road and out

weekend.

of contention for the win.

There was plenty of interest surrounding the Aussie Racers at

the Australian Grand Prix, firstly because the series was making its

Or so it initially looked. Kemal used all of his experience to clamber back onto the leading

group, however fifth was as good

debut on the support card, and

as it got.

secondly because it was the only category outside Formula 1 racing for points.

Defending Champ Paul Kemal

That freed Manderson up to take his first-ever Aussie Racing Cars win, narrowly leading home Ben McCashney and Kyle Clews.

wasn't about to let an occasion as

But the round win was all Kemal's.

big as this go uncelebrated, and did so by taking pole position with

"I missed my braking marker as Ifollowed Morris really closely,"

a late run of 2m18.1551s during qualifying.

When the racing started, Kemal stayed on top of the game, staving off an exciting challenge from Paul

Kemal said.

the field, and to take the round

New event, same faces: Paul Kemal, above main, was again too good for the Aussie field. Above, Paul Morris and Brad Ward, above, Kemal

win Is a great thing especially at an

some curry. Below, there was action up and down the field.

Morris and James Manderson in the

event such as this."

"I was calculating the points as I started to make my way through

first race. It was the same story for

Second for the round was Morris,

Race 2, with Brad Ward weighing in

with Ben McCashney third in the points with his two podium finishes.

with third.

It was the same faces but in a

Clews finished the weekend

different order for Race 3, with Ward

with the officicial lap record, a 2m16.5463s lap from Race 3.

and Morris taking the challenge to Kemal, albeit unsuccessfully.

It looked as if Kemal was going to make it four from four at the

start of the final heat, with the VIP

Petfoods driver fighting it out with 60

-ANDREWVAN LEEUWEN,

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Parts Plif

Points: Kemal 101, James Ward 96, Manderson 96, Brad Ward 94, Clews 93,

Nick Lowe 91, McCashney 84, Phil Ward 81.

motorsport news

AGP Supports ^007 Formula 1 IfMG Australian Grand Prix Albert Park. Melbourne

V8 Utes produce three winners THREE different winners

the lead on lap three and from

highlighted the Cleanevent V8 Utes support races at last

there, was in cruise mode. He

weekend's Formula 1 iNG Australian Grand Prix.

stayed clear of the carnage behind him to defeat Elsegood

by a massive 5.3s.

Grant Johnson took pole

Elsegood was forced to flex

position and steamrolled the

his muscles, where his final act of brilliance was to nab second

field in the opening race, before Chris Pither and Jack Elsegood

off Ford driver Justin Van Twest

took a win a piece in the final

on the last lap. Gary Baxter also

pipped Van Twest on the final

two races.

Holden driver Johnson

engineered the perfect start from pole position in Race 1, and with only clean air in front of him, the Western Australian was untouchable.

Johnson took a cautious

approach in the second half of

the eight-lapper, but still won by nearly three seconds over fellow Holden driver Ryal Harris, who struggled with the loss of power steering fluid from lap three.

"I got a big lead and just monitored it from there," said Johnson.

Iwas then looking at myself on the big screens a few times

tour. Kim Jane was fifth from

Colin Corkery, Johnson and Darren Palmer.

Elsegood has waltzed through the final V8 Utes race, fending off Johnson in the first few laps before eventually drawing clear and coasting to the chequered flag.

"It's always the aim to win the last race, so Iam very happy," said Elsegood, who was the only driver to finish on the podium in each race.

'The tyres took a little while to get up to temperature, but I eventually got going and it all went very well.'

Utility players: Pither, above, led and won Race 2. Jane, below grabbed a podium in Race 3.

Pither was second, with Kim

and had a few moments!

Jane the last driver onto the

Pither won a bone-jarring Race 2, taking advantage of the reverse grid event. He hit

fellow Holden drivers Johnson,

dais after finishing ahead of Baxter and Yanis Derums.

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the'last iapi Kenny star ihane Jacobson was fifth despite ipullingi o,ver at 7^|leven toibuy some milk and bread".

Jacobson beat ihome singer Andy Lee, Olympic rower Mike McKay, Channel 7's tayra Csortan, tap dancer iein iPerry and former AfL goal kicking machine

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Jason DunstalL 67

WORLD RALLY CHAMPIONSHIP round 4 - mexico

Sebastien Loeb came up trumps in Mexico, but

things were a lot closer than they looked

A

T first glance, the result

from Rally Mexico two weeks ago appears to follow an all-too-familiar pattern.

Sebastien Loeb gave Citroen a reason to look back at the

30th WRC win together.That's

obviously nice, but Iam especially pleased with our run here and what it promises for the upcoming rallies."

Gronholm's drive to second

new C4's first gravel event with

place was one of the highlights of

fond memories after taking a comprehensive win, the three

the weekend after the Finn found

time World Champion beating

himself languishing back in fifth at the end of the first day. Being first

Ford's Marcus Gronholm home

on the road cost Gronholm some

by nearly a minute.

But in reality, the fight around the city of Leon and up into

time, as did the decision to run

the mountains was a lot closer than it looked. Loeb has won

many events in the past through

too narrow a tyre, but he was still mystified by has lack of early pace - until the team took the car apart during the evening and found a faulty temperature sensor.

sheer dominance, but on this

Rejuvinated, Gronholm went

occasion he owed as much to

on a charge on the second day,

good fortune as he did to outright pace. At various stages over the weekend both Better Solberg and

triggering a four-car battle for

second place. In just one stage, he

I think the whole season will be close - Hirvonen expects no-one to have an easy ride in the 2007 WRC

that third place could have gone three ways, with Mikko Hirvonen,

young Spaniard.

Dani Sordo and Chris Atkinson all

comfortable/With the C4, and

variously in contention.

Ialso feel reassured about my ability."

As Hirvonen and Sordo traded

"I feel more and more

blows the pace eventually became too much for Atkinson,

leaving a straight fight between

Subaru had plenty be encouraged after to using

Ford and Citroen for the final spot in the podium.

Three fastest stage times early on the final day swung

Mexico to debut its new Impreza WRC2007. Solberg was the early leader of the rally and had a 7.7s

momentum Hirvonen's way, and the young Finn managed to keep Sordo at arm's length until the

forced to stop just after the start of SS6. It later transpired that he had clipped a rock just hard enough to damage the oil cooler, creating an oil leak.

gap over Loeb when he was

they had enough speed to create

leapfrogged three cars to claim the runner-up spot, but with Loeb almost a minute down the road,

headaches for Loeb, but assorted

he elected to hold station and

be close like this, with some close

Solberg's exit left the team's

problems put both cars out of

salvage some points.

"It didn't look so good for us on Friday, but we recovered well," he

battles between the top drivers," Hirvonen remarked."That's good for the championship, and also

hopes resting on the shoulders of Atkinson, who immediately

said.

for us".

Gronholm demonstrated that

contention and allowed Loeb to secure the win.

"There is good reason to be

optimistic for the future, but as we said.

"I found a good feeling with the car on Saturday morning, and from then on, everything was

"For Daniel [Elena, Loeb's co-driver] and me, this is our

perfect."

For much of the rally it seemed

saw here, it won't be easy," Loeb

62

finish.

"I think the whole season will

Sordo, meanwhile, was happy

to get some points and extra experience on loose surfaces.

"I still need to progress, but Ifeel Ihave improved on dirt," said the

gave the team something to get excited about by moving into second pace.

But a gaggle of fast cars, led initially by Hirvonen, was lurking right behind him, and the superior pace of the Fords and Citroens, motorsport news

WORLD RALLY,

“1 ■r

'

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J i

sutton>images.cotn

Dust storms: Gronholm, left, mounted a huge charge to finish second after early problems, while Sordo, above, gained points and experience on gravel.

Font Med a

3!^ f

Spoils of victory: Winning in Mexico means you get to wear a iarge sombrero, below. There were no hats for Atkinson, right, orStohi,

above, but both at least scored some points.

coupled with a couple of minor !

set-up miscues, eventually saw

went home with a large piece of silverware after taking his first-

him come home fifth.

ever P-WRC win at the wheel of his

"We came here looking for a top-

Mitsubishi.

five finish, and although things

The Subarus ofToshi Arai and

could have been better, it's not a

Kristian Sohiberg completed the

bad result to take away," he said.

"We tried a different set-up for

WRCs attention now switches to

split times it was clear that it was a step in the wrong direction and

returns to the championship next

we had to back off a bit. On this

those that have been there will

Kronos Citroen Xsara to finish

find a very different rally to what they might remember.

Gone is the mix of gravel and

back to ninth.

British driver Mark Higgins

2

Citroen C4

Mon

3:48:13.3

MarcosSetjfmlT Fin

Ford Focus WRC

Timo Rautianen

Fin

3:49:09.1

3

MikkoHnSgiffl'M Jarmo Lehtinen

Fin

Ford Focus WRC

4

DaniSoi3ol

5

Fin

3:49:41.0

Citroen C4

Chris Afljifegii

.EsP Esp Aus

Glenn Macneall

Aus

3:50:37.4

Manft’eBSto^

Aut

Citroen Xsara

Ilka Minor

Aut

3:51:58.8

Marc Marti

No current WRC drivers have

uneventful rally in the OMV

Sebastien Lpeb J?Fifa Daniel Elena

week.

seen on the calendar in 2001, and

and Matthew Wilson. Henning Solberg came just short of scoring a point when he recovered from a roll on the opening day to drive

REsyyijg RALLY MEXICO 1

unfamiliar territory when Portugal

to finish."

Manfred Stohl drove an

sixth, ahead of Jari-Matti Latvala

www.mnew5.com.au

podium.

With Mexico run and won, the

Sunday, but when we saw the

occasion, it was more important Cl t iqoif

SWRT Media

won in Portugal, which was last 7

3:49:57.0

Subaru Impreza

Jari-MatSifeiiv; Fin StobartFord Focus MikkaAntilla

Fin

3:52:24.1

Matthew Wlsoi11^ GB Stobart Ford Focus Michael Orr 4:00:25.9 GB.,

tarmac that defined the event in

.Drivers' Points: Gronholm 32, Loeb 28,Hirvonen26,

the past, and the championship will find an all-gravel event waiting for it when it arrives in the Algarve region on the south coast.

iSnlo 13, H. Solberg 11, Atkinson 10, P. Solberg 8.

Manufacturers'Points:BP-Foiri58, Ctroen43, Stobart Ford 19, Subani 19, OMV Kronos Qtroen 17.

63

Stoner: Dead Set Gun! CASEY Stoner qualified only second for the opening A/lotoGP of the season in Qatar but that was the only blemish as the

and rode the fastest lap, which shows how well the Bridgestones worked."

Dani Pedrosa salvaged something from

taking a convincing victory in Qatar.

Alex de Angelis took second after an

Aussie powered to his first MotoGP win.

a bad weekend for Honda was third ahead

Barbera and Thomas Luthi (both Aprilias),

The 21-year-old used the superior

of a bang-up John Hopkins and Marco Melandri, while Michelin and Bridgestone split the top 10 placings 5-5.

Aussie Ant West was 13th.

straight-line speed of the Ducati GP7 to advantage to beat off Valentino Rossi in

a thrilling race. Time and time again the Italian would sneak by in the twists but the 15kmh top-end advantage Stoner had was

Andrew Pitt had his llmor go sour seven laps

too much.

"We couldn't ask for much more, it was my first time racing with Ducati and Bridgestone, a perfect start," beamed Stoner after the race.

"On the last lap Ididn't realise Ihad a gap

impressive performance, from Hector

Points; Lorenzo 25, De Angelis 20, Barbera 16, Luthi 13, Dovizioso (Honda) 11, Roberto Locatelli (Gilera) 10.

Chris Vermeulen was seventh, while

HECTOR Faubel took his second-straight

from the end of the race.

win at the first 125cc race of the seasonf

Points: Stoner 25, Rossi 20, Pedrosa 16, Hopkins 13, Melandri 11, Edwards 10, Vermeulen 9, Hayden 8, Barros 7, Nakario 6.

stealing the win from under the nose of Aprilia team-mate Gabor Talmacsi.

Derbi's Lukas Pesek held out the Aprilia of Raffaele de Rosa for third.

JORGE Lorenzo began the defence of his 250cc world title in the best possible way,

Points; Faubel 25,Talmacsi 20, Pesak 16, de Rosa 13,

Simone Corsi (Aprilia) 11, Tomoyoshi Koyama (KTM) 10.

BMW continues to

7

rule the world after

JD's American Dream

the World Touring Car Championship at Curitiba in Brazil.

Jorg Muller converted his Race 1 pole Into not just a win, but a BMW 1 2-3, leading home Andy Priaulx and Augusto Farfus Jr. In Race 2, Farfus sent the

locals into a frenzy after

taking his maiden win in a BMW. He has started sixth

but a Turn 1 imbroglio saw his emerge second

before he picked off early leader, Yvan Muller, but the Frenchman's Seat Leon

was eventually passed by Priaulx and J Muller.

Points: Priaulx, J Muller and

Farfus 16,Tarquini 9,YMuller6,

AUSSIE James Davison has finished

first on the road on his debut in

the Star Mazda open wheeler series at a soaked Sebring.

But post-race controversy has left his six-second win up in the air, with the Melbourne-born driver handed

a two-position penalty for passing

under yellow flags.

His Velocity Motorsports team,

of which former Le Mans 24 Hour winner Price Cobb is Director of

Race Operations, has lodged a protest on the decision as we went

to press on Monday.

Marco DILeo was awarded the

victory thanks to the penalty.

Zanardi 5.

motorsportffiews

INTERNATIONAL

Audi still got it PIT lane penalties, punctures and a two-lap deficit weren't enough to stop the diesel-powered Audi R10 TDi of Marco Werner, Emanuele Pirro and Frank Biela steaming to a seven-lap victory in the 55th Sebring 12 Hour - the opening round of the American Le Mans Series - on the weekend.

The win was Biela's fourth in the event, as the works Audi came

home clear of the debuting Andretti Green Racing Acura ARX LMP2

machine of Bryan Herta, Dario Franchitti and Tony Kanaan.

"I would have never put money on our car," Pirro said.

"When you are two laps behind, it's very tough. Ijust had to put my foot down and race. We had to believe we were still tough competitors."

The car started on the pole alongside the sister car of Allan McNish, Rinaldo Capello and Tom Kristensen, which led the race for the first

Jimmie does the double JIMMIE Johnson won his second

race in as many weeks with a victory at the Atlanta Motor

Speedway on Sunday, taking the lead under Tony Stewart with three laps to run in what had been a so-so race to that point.

The Chevrolet drivers

dominated the race with Johnson

heading 135 of the 325 laps and Stewart 121.

"The car was good day long," said

Pole-sitter Ryan Newman looked to have some of his old

flair back when he won pole with a 193.124mph lap, but he started at the rear of the field after an

engine change post-qualifying and never factored in the race to

end his day 23rd.

Mark Martin's lOth-place result in Atlanta means he continues to

lead the points over Jeff Gordon, who headed 30 laps and rallied to finish 12th after some inner front

Johnson<

"There were a few guys better than us on the short run, but we

made some great adjustments for

the sprint at the end.

"I was shocked Icould hang with

Tony Stewart, he's a rock star and a great racer. There was a lot of respect and hard racing today, I had to go where Tony wasn't at

the end, our cars were so equal I tried it low and paid off."

Stewart moved from 13th to

sixth in points after a jammed

fender panel repairs dropped him a lap late in the going.

Juan Pablo Montoya had his best Nextel Cup result to date, finishing fifth.

A week earlier at Las Vegas, Johnson took his third straight win on the 1.5-mile oval, the 150th

five hours as the other RIO encountered its problems.

But they ran into their own problems leaving a pit stop when

the car wouldn't re-fire. They replaced a battery, starter motor and electrical dashboard in 30 minutes and eventually recovered to finish fourth.

For Sportscar debutants Acura, the AGR result was made all the more encouraging by the fact that the car led the race overall on

three different occasions and finished two laps clear of the Acurapowered Lowe's Fernandez Racing Lola of Adrian Fernandez, Luis Diaz and David Martinez.

But it wasn't without drama as a late race problem flared.

"I really couldn't catalog all the problems from the last hour," Herta said.

"Right from the beginning we were having battery voltage

problems so we couldn't use a lot of the electronics. Then we had

problems with the gearbox and gave us troubles. Ithink in the last 10 laps the car shut off half a dozen times and re-fired."

The Aussie contingent ran into dramas in the race, with Rya n Briscoe's Porsche - which he shared with Sascha Maassen and

Emmanuel Collard - spending 13 laps in the pits with a broken brake line in the first hour.

It then suffered a malady of electrical problems that cost them 90 minutes and they eventually finished a distant 23rd and eighth in LMP2.

The other Porsche of Romain Dumas, Timo Bernhard and Helio

victory for Hendrick Motorsports

Castroneves was fifth overall.

and a one-two finish with Jeff

Things were better for David Brabham, whose Acura finished one place and five laps behind the Porsche, while Corvette again won the GT1 class with Oliver Gavin, Olivier Beretta and Max Papis clear by

Gordon.

- MARTIN D CLARK

wheel nut and he then brushed the wall as Johnson forced him

Points: Martin 629, J Gordon 621, Burton 618, Johnson601, Kenseth 567, Stewart 507, Harvick 482, Hamlin 480, Bowyer 479,

high for the win.

Edwards 471.

just 17 seconds of the sister C6-R of Jan Magnussen, Ron Fellows and

Johnny O'Connell.

The GT2 finish was even closer. Amazingly, Jaime Melo's Risi Ferrari scampered home for the class victory just 0.2s ahead of Jorg

Bergmeister's Flying Lizard Porsche GT3!

●●●

and SO does Jeff

JEFF Burton scored his

second win in as many weeks in the Busch Series at Atlanta

Somehow he came through to third, with point leader Carl

Edwards fourth and Casey

on the weekend, taking the

Meats fifth.

spoils clear of RCR team-mate

Marcos Ambrose finished where he started in 28th after

Kevin Harvick complete with a bad vibration during the closing laps.

Kyle Busch dominated the event, leading 143 of the 195

laps, but fell foul to a missed lug nut and subsequent penalty during his final pit stop that saw him starting 15th with 21 laps to run. www.mnews.com.au

fighting a handling issue early after a lack of practice thanks to rain. A tyre problem cost the Aussie two laps as well.

"We just missed the set up for the race," said Ambrose, who holds down seventh in

the Busch Series pointscore.

- MARTIN D CLARK

% 4 A

I

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atnell/Krikke take on Oz Local Champ set for full season on home soil geel IIrounds

Reed leading SRA MATTHEW Reed has dominated recent

rounds of the Eureka Garages and Sheds Super Sprintcar Series winning at Simpson and Avalon.

His impressive form saw him win in the $5000 Great Southern Showdown/

Round 10 at Avalon and back it up a night later at the tight Simpson venue.

He now has five wins in the series this season.

But reigning series Champ John Vogels still maintains a slender points lead from Reed with three rounds

remaining.

At the Geelong venue Reed beat home series leader John Vogels and Warrnambool's Quentin Tanner, who seemed to benefit from the misfortune ofothers to claim third.

Mike Van Bremen can consider

himself unlucky. He set the second quickest time in the top six time trial, and lead early in the feature until engine problems ended his night.

Reed said he felt bad for his good

REIGNING Australian Sprintcar

his first child, will race all of next

continue to drive for Krikke

season's World Series Sprintcars Championship and all the major

Motorsport in the 2007/08

Sprintcar shows on the national

season.

calendar.

with him and that'll be all World

continuation of the powerful driver-

Series and the big events,"said

team combination late last week, a

Krikke.

successful deal that dates back to November 2005.

"We're delighted to have Brooke

without any distractions next season."

of two new Cool Chassis in the #1

driver we would rather have at the

Toyota Genuine Parts sponsored

moment.

machine next season, with

"We pretty enthused about the next season already. If Brooke wants to stay with us then that will continue, why wouldn't it? He and our crew chief Pete Caporn have a terrific chemistry and they are always on the same page when racing comes along."

Maxwill engines also on board.

"When you look at it, we really didn't have a bad season just gone. We won four World Series

of the last Australian Sprintcar

3s.

But it was Reed who was high points after the heats, was the first driver to set a lap in the 11 s bracket at Simpson, and chose to start the 25-lap

Tatnell will again saddle up one

point of view, there's no better

tight racing contest with him.

"It's unfortunate for Mike, I was just as happy to see him rolling around and having a good night," said Reed.

"We are pretty good mates so I was really looking forward to having a good race with him. It was tough luck

Van Bremen set the pace early, breaking the eight-lap record by some

"Our boys are totally rapt to have

beyond," said Krikke. "As far as we're concerned from a team

rounds with Brooke and one

with Parry (Robert Farr), and the National title,"said Krikke.

"I thought considering what we

did run, our strike rate was pretty awesome."

Madsen King of the pack Kerry leads the locals home in Perth AFTER two fantastic nights of racing at the Perth Motorplex, Kerry Madsen completed a clean sweep of the Annual Sprintcar King of Wings.

Madsen was on the pace all weekend, driving for a team that was put together in only three weeks by former Sprintcar driver Jeff Leisk.

"This is a big race that is very special to win," said a delighted Madsen.

"The guys gave mean awesome car that worked so well all weekend. You know Shane (Stewart)

did great to run second and (Sean) Farrell is

final on the outside front row.

always good to race against. Iwould like to come

The four-time SRA Series champion started poorly in the final, banging the concrete wall and slipping to

back here to race some more."

fourth. The savior for Reed was when

the yellows came out with Darren

Russell spinning, allowing him to run to victory.

■ PeterThorley triumphed at Brisbane International Speedway a fortnight ago to win round 7 of the Comp Cams Sprintcar Series.

R0UNDS7K0REIS 66

i

Brooke on board.

"I'd love to see what we can do

with us for another season and

Tatnell, who missed much

"You don't race for the money, but the cars cost a bit to run so it's always nice to win something and it helps out in that department."

Just 24 hours later Reed got his wish to race hard against his mate Van Bremen, holding him off to win at Simpson.

"We'll run everything we can

Shane Krikke announced the

friend Van Bremen as he was keen for a

for him.

racing program due to issues with family health and the birth of

Champion Brooke Tatnell will

Krikke Motorsport principal

/

One of Madsen's real strengths was his ability through lapped traffic, a product of his racing program in America.

Shane Stewart, racing for the Bill Mann Performance Wholesale Team, was closing in on Madsen in the latter stages of Saturdays A-Main, but just wasn't able to get close enough to get a run.

"This track is like no other in Australia I have

raced on, or many back home for that matter," he said.

"It's a real credit to you guys. 1really wanted to

win the race for them but it just didn't happen".

Ryan Farrell came home in third place, which

was another good result for him. After setting the fast time on Friday night and running third in the preliminary night's A-Main he had high hopes of a win on Saturday night.

"We really wanted to win this it's a very special race to me, Ithought we had a good shot at it but wasn't able to finish it off," said Farrell.

- DARREN SUTTON

motorsport news

SPEEDWAY

SYDNEY'S Garry Brazier stormed through the 24-car Sprintcar A-Main field to win back-toback NSW 410 Sprintcar titles recently at the

with Peter Johnson saw the Bevelite Glass

Maxim crashing, giving the lead to Madsen.

The battle for the minor places was red hot with Madsen, Green, Brady, Mark Blyton,

Parramatta City Raceway.

Coming out of position 21, Brazier forged towards the leaders, taking control of the title

Mark Richard and Brazier entertaining the Parramatta race fans.

race around lap 20. From there, the ex-Jason

After Brazier had taken control, the battle

Meyers Outlaws Maxim continued to take out

was for the minor positions, with Green

a superb win, with Trevor Green second and an impressive Craig Brady home in third.

securing second position over Craig Brady, who had taken Madsen late in the race, moving Madsen to finish fourth. Next was Maity

Brazier, racing the Harry Delemont-owned machine, was in sensational form, but had to

Perovich, with Troy Little forging into the top

do it the hard way after problems saw the #14

Maxim missing qualifying. Coming through - the non-qualifierS race, it was vintage Brazier as the former multiple Aussie champ powered to win the C-Main from position 13, then

backing up with a second placing in the BMain, again starting way back in the field from position 17.

By now he had made up for the early disappointment, qualifying into the A-Main final field.

Hoosier Tire Australia

six late in the race.

With over 60 cars on hand, Mark Blyton

At the green. Brazier was on fire and quickly powered towards the leading pack. By lap

15 he was up in third position, and after the demise of then race leader Adrian Maher, he was in second. He then took the lead from Ian

completing the top six.

Heat winners were Maher, Wayne Skipper,

Madsen around lap 20 before forging away to a

Richards and Kelly Linigen, with Maher and

great victory.

Green sharing the two dash race victories.

- GREG BOSCATO

Maher, who shared the front row with Green,

took the early lead, but on lap 16 an incident

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67

Critchley's record AUSSIE driver Troy Critchley became the first driver in AMS Staff Leasing Pro Modified Challenge history to

Schumacher finds his form

record a sub-6s run.

Team-mate Josh Hernandez did

the same thing just moments later, but it was Hernandez who came away with the Gainesville Pro Mod victory, in the final qualifying session, Critchley, in his AMS Staff Leasing 70 Plymouth Barracuda clocked a 5.946s/245.27mph, at the time, the quickest and fastest AMS Pro Mod pass ever in AMS Staff Leasing history. Just moments later, Hernandez broke into the fives,

running 5.951s/243.68mph.

In the opening round, Critchley again dipped into the fives, this time clocking an even quicker and faster 5.924s at 245.81 mph pass. One pair earlier, Hernandez recorded the

worldwide quickest elapsed time pass ever for a Pro Mod car at 5.912s, bettering the 5.922s of Australian John Zappia, and laying claim to

having the quickest Pro Mod car on earth.

In the final round, Hernandez capped off the most dominating performance win in history, stopping

the timers in 5.95s, again at 243 mph when Critchley shook and slowed to a 9.77/106.

- DAVID OSTASZEWSKI

A RECORD-shattering performance highlighted

a 4.87s/316mph in Paul Smith's seldom raced Chevy Monte Carlo.

Capps was a picture of consistency in the early rounds, as

the 38th annual ACDelco Gatornationals at Gainesville

set a new national elapsed time mark of 6.536s in stopping Justin Fiumphreys. A pair of 6.56s at 211 mph and 21 Omph in the following rounds took out Jeg Coughlin Jr. and Matt Scranton.

final round win over Larry Dixon.

the Brut Dodge Charger clocked 4.78s/326mph, 4.88s/322mph and 4.85s/322mph wins over Tony Bartone,Tony Pedregon and

Schumacher's Alan Johnson-tuned

Kenny Bernstein.

LJ.S. Army dragster clocked a

Burkart put the Smith team flopper into the program at a fifth-best 4.78s/326mph and drove his way to the final with

round, but it came on a red-light start and his day was over.

Morgan, after completely re

a 5.63s/266mph win over Bob

between events, qualified second at 6.56s/21 Omph, and used runs of 6.58s, 6.61s, and 6.64s, all at

Raceway last weekend.

Reigning Top Fuel Champion Tony Schumacher took a close

4.54s/325mph in the final to stop the 4.58s/321 mph of Dixon and the Don Prudhomme team.

The number three qualifier at 4.54s/331 mph, Schumacher had earlier advanced through eliminations with 4.52s/311 mph, 4.56s/327mph, and 4.64s/313mph victories over Melanie Troxel, Doug

Gilbertson, a tyre-smoker against a guardwall hitting Ashley Force,

and a 4.91 s/318mph victory over Jim Flead's Toyota.

Jason Line, bettered Anderson's

mph mark with a record-setting 211.69mph speed in the first

wiring his Lucas Oil Dodge Stratus

209mph to trailerTom Hammonds, Dave Connolly and Mike Edwards.

Kalitta and Rod Fuller.

Pro Stock champion Anderson

Karen Stoffer used holeshots in three of her four round wins

Dixon, the low qualifier for the event at4.51s/330mph in his Sky Tel dragster, clocked 4.59s/309mph, 5.47s/168mph, and 5.16s/193mph passes in early wins over Doug Foley, Bruce Litton and

scored his second victory of the

on Sunday to take the Pro Stock

season, posting a final round

Motorcycle win. Her 7.07s/186mph in the final, aided by her quick

Whit Bazemore,

Three-time NFIRA POWERade

6.57s/211 mph to defeat Larry Morgan, who shook and slowed to a 8.07s/118mph.

The Summit team obliterated

the record book during the event.

Anderson and his Summit Racing Pontiac team took advantage of near-ideal cool temperatures and conditions to post a top qualifying effort of 6.566s at 211.20mph, becoming the first NFIRA Pro Stock driver to break the 21 Omph barrier.

In the opening round, Anderson

Ron Capps used a final round 4.77s/323mph to defeat Phil Burkart in Funny Car, who carded

starting line reaction, was enough

to hold off the quicker and faster 7.06S/187mph of Matt Smith.

Stoffer's Geico Suzuki had

defeated top qualifier Angelle Sampey, Shawn Gann and Steve Johnson in the earlier elimination rounds.

The tour resumes at Houston

Raceway Park for the 20th annual O'Reilly NHRA Spring Nationals,

March 30-April 1.'

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For JET-HOT DIRECT listings of car makes and models see the JET-HOT web site.

Web: www.jet-hot.com.auwwwibuildastreetmachlne.com www.buildahotrodiCOm 68

Brutal Capps: Ron was a picture of consistency at Gainsville. moiorsport news

DRAG RACING

rc^ i ,f

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Tucker secures States ride SHANE Tucker is jetting off to compete professionally in the United States.

The Queenslander has recently secured a

lucrative NHRA drag racing contract with the Cagnazzi Racing outfit based out of Charlotte, North Carolina.

"This is a dream come true for me. I couldn't

have ever imagined I'd be given such a great opportunity with a first-class team such as Cagnazzi Racing," said Tucker.

Having grown up racing at Queensland's

Dragster at Willowbank and I couldn't have hoped for any better drag racing education

than what has been provided here in Queensland.

"Hopefully other Queensland drivers will see what I've been able to achieve and go

down that same path."

Tucker will conclude his season

commitments at Willowbank Raceway in Pro Stock during the upcoming QTTin Top Titles on April 28 before the season ending

Tucker acknowledges the American deal

will provide a great challenge, but the young professional will be buoyed by recent comments by Cagnazzi Racing team owner, Victor Cagnazzi and Senior Vice President Dan Pikarsky.

"The kid is well-spoken, charismatic and a hard worker," said Cagnazzi.

"Shane is a good fit for our organisation."

Pikarsky added: "We are in the process of soliciting sponsors for Shane. He has moviestar good looks and will bring a young, hip factor to whoever he represents. I honestly

Willowbank Raceway, Tucker is over the

Winternationals on June 8-10.

moon to be taking his drag career overseas.

"I'm stoked that the opportunity has come up in the States," he said.

"I've come through the ranks of Junior

"With the deal sorted in the NHRA, my entire focus is on finishing the season on a high and I can't wait to get on track and give

team and the Pro Stock class and will be a

it a red hot go."

good ambassador for the sport."

believe he will be a good addition to the

Rain halts new car and licence tests [

ifil PERFORMANCE

al PARTS

www.acdeic6.cdm^u

INCLEMENT weather put a stop to a number of Top Fuel license tests at Western Sydney International Raceway last weekend.

eaaSe

Wesco's Mark Mariani was at the Sydney track, as was Jim Read Racing's Martin Stamatis, who was attempting to secure his license

Aua spms

www.eagleautospares.com.au ZlLYSl

■

na

www.scdcko.eonjB

again.

Amanda Shepherd was licensing again but smoked the tyres off the start line and blew a head gasket, and then popped the burst plate in the manifold.

Top Fuel regularTerry Sainty was present. He Is now driving for Rapisarda but suffered clutch problems in the burnout, with bits of clutch coming out of the car. The purpose of the test was mainly to get familiar with his new surroundings. " Jason Grima, left, had his new Mustang Pro Stocker out for the

first time and was just getting a handle on it.

Maurice Fabietti was also at WSID testing his new Chev Camaro Top Alcohol funny car.

-JOHN BOSHER www.mnews.com.au

69

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;

NATIONAL SCEN

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Edited by Andrew van Leeuwen

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■V i:

Trucks go green IN a world first, the 2007 Australian

Supertruck Nationals will be fuelled with biodiesel.

That's just one of the changes for the Trucks, with an all-new five-round

calendar and television coverage.

"Supertruck racing has always been popular, but with the stability of four out of five rounds with the CAMS

Nationals, a new television package on

Speedweek and Fox Inside Speed, and with sponsorship from the biodiesel industry, we have a lot to look

forward to," said category manager and reigning Australian Supertruck Champion Bob Middleton.

"I have actually raced on biodiesel before. It went really well and I can see a lot of benefits for Supertruck racing,

What's in a name?

Performance Cars forced to drop'GTP'label "In regards to the name and logo issue, it's

the environment, and our farmers who provide the raw material for biodiesel."

Australian Farmers Fuel Managing

AFTER reviving the GTP and GT Performance names for the Australian Performance Car Championship,

Director Andy Fischer agrees.

"We are happy to play our part in supporting Supertruck Racing, but it is really about the whole biodiesel industry and promoting the benefits of

the term in relation to the class.

through the season and do it. It just makes for a busy last few moments before the season starts!

biodiesel," he said.

A request from the administrators of the Australian GT Championship to CAMS has seen the category now revert to being known as'Performance Cars' competing in the'Australian Performance Car

Championship'.

But as the category moves closer to its opening round at Wakefield Park on the first weekend in April, there's still plenty going on.

The Lotus Exiges, formerly in the one-make series for the mid-engined cars, have been added to the

"I don't know of a better way to promote the use of biodiesel than

Supertruck racing... this is the ultimate test and these guys are going racing anyway, so let's do it on biodiesel."

■ Paul Stokell has been confirmed

as the driver training chief at Sherrin Motorsport.

The three-time Australian Drivers

Champion will move to Brisbane, where he'll spend the majority of his time as a defensive driving coach. His first role with Sherrin was during the

category organisers have been forced to stop using

Performance Car series and that will help boost grids to regular fields of over 20 cars.

"We're embarking onto the largest stage in Australian motorsport this year with the V8 Supercars and there's plenty of interest in the category," said administrator Craig Nayda.

something minor and re-branding it from day one

was the sensible thing to do rather than get halfway

"I'd expect a field of around 20 cars for Wakefield Park and we'll pick up a few more from Winton onwards who have indicated that they can't do round

one but are locked in for the rest of the year."

The category will feature a unique format this year, with two race weekends the norm. Race one will be a 20-minute sprint race, while the second will be a 40-

minute reverse grid affair, complete with compulsory tyre pit stop.

2005 Performance Car champion Peter Floyd is

putting together a VE flommodore to join the category mid-season and will campaign his current VY for the meantime, while Mark King, Gary Young and Peter

Boylan are all returning to the category for 2007.

-AARON NOONAN

No Sherrin Cup, Proddies to benefit

Celebrity Challenge at the Grand Prix last weekend.

■ Young West Australian talent Christopher Reindler will make his

Car Championship will be bolstered in 2007 by a handful

Sherrin's added presence in the APCC comes at the expense of the Sherrin Cup, which was to

interstate Formula Ford debut at Mallala this weekend.

of BMW 120is from the Sherrin

run a six round one-make series

Motorsport squad.

THE Australian Production

1600 Championship, where he finished

be used in the Production Car

with two podium finishes.

in Queensland. According to Sherrin CEO Alistair Bye, interest in the series was good, but with the companies extra activities this year, it turned out to be better to join an existing series.

Championship that is one of the core categories of the Shannons National Motor Racing Championships,

was okay, but with our driver ,training programs, Carrera Cup, Tarmac Rallies and the Celebrity

The younger brother of

A number of the BMWs, which

International Formula 3 driver Karl

competed in the Celebrity Challenge at the Australian

Reindler made his race debut last month in the WA State Formula Ford

Grand Prix last weekend, will

He will saddle up with Team BRM in South Australia, where he will contest

the opening round of the SA State Championships.

Upon returning to the WA series, Reindler is expected to move to a latermodel Van Diemen for Fastlane Racing.

70

°

Three of the Sherrin BMWs will contest the Bathurst 12 Hour,

way of competing in motor racing, and to have the 12 Hour

as the category's feature event is just fantastic. That's a big

reason why we have shifted to the Production Cars."

- GRANT ROWLEY

"The interest in the series

'■ Challenge, logistically, it was too difficult.

"The APCC is an economical

liviarshaiicassj

motorsport news

■nwvrv*

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^

', ;'?@ffliSll|y||untihadia;pretty g#^^^^^ , NQt only did the Aucklander wrap up the

r i

"The season was all about consolidating

tpretonga aferthight agq.

..

.

2006/2007 Toyota Racing Series, but he also won the prestigious New Zfalandi Grand: Prix.

Gaunt's win the '40-lap GP was reasonably'

ipoihts then' going for the win in the big one ihere today Interhationai Motorsport has iprowided' me with a good car and a great team who hawe been absolutely awesome all season " fOllOWfing; Gaunt early in the race was Ben

,lsl|iiordi who looked set to finish second ibefore his gear-lever snapped off on iap 30, 'It's pretty good!t0«ll We right 'now^'ihe said . ● foreingihim to pit. after thetage. j a ● - , ^ Tha^ handed! the second spot to one-off , ''It's a ease of onwards ani'Upvyatdt aS: . ■ IRl competitor Matthew Mamilton, who kept Out of tfOubie throughout the race, Daynom winning both ■our's'ecoh|!®hafi;piijij|jiii,p ahdi ■the'Grand'Prixis,unreal, > '; fempiemah also had a steady if rather lonely straightforward; takingithe lead at the start and staying there.

race, coming home third.

Star of the race was series debutant and

Formuia BMW driver Dominic Storey, who battied with the likes of Nie Jordan and David

Besnard to finish fourth. Besnard's race took a turn for the worse when he slid off the track,

damaging his car's suspension.

Leanne Tender finished 10th.

Earlier in the weekend Gaunt won the first

race, while Harford took victory in Race 2.

Points: (Saunt 1321, Shane van Gisbergen 1040, Harfprd 965, Andy Knight 912, Christina 0rf 660.

,-h.»

Round win puts Bezzy back in the game

pi

■§

DAVID Besnard is back in contention for the Enzed NZV8

Championship after winning the penultimate round atTeretonga

-

a fortnight ago.

The Australian seemed to work

Baird Bonanza

his way to the front of the field as the weekend wore on.

CRAIG Baird has rocketed back into contention for

Besnard was only fifth in

Saturday's opening race, with

the Battery Town GT3

Kayne Scott and Andy Booth

Cup Challenge with three

leading the way.

He was closer to the action

wins from three races at

Tereronga.

in the 16-lap Race 2, finishing

second behind John McIntyre.

But it was the final race that

Baird made the most of somewhere Iknow."

Matt Halliday's absence to bank maximum points, beating Fabian Coulthard to

Thanks to the reverse-grid format Besnard was forced to start from near the back of the grid, Besnard

"I love coming through the traffic like that and, provided you can stay out of trouble, it's an easy way to get championship points.

It's not easy to come through the

shy of series leader McIntyre,

put in a storming drive to win by

field like that, but it's also not

Championship at Pukekohe late

more than 1.5s.

next month.

final.

"It was an awesome race - that was more like it and I've missed it,'

impossible, is it?

"So now we've got the points to put us back in to contention for

Points; McIntyre 939, Scott 896, Besnard 859, Angus Fogg 834, Clark Proctor 639,

Hailiday 911, Coulthard 777, Jono

said Besnard.

the final round back at Pukekohe -

Booth 571.

Lester 743.

set up the round win for Besnard.

vtfww.mnews.com.au

Besnard is now just 80 points with the final round scheduled

for the round ofthe V8 Supercar

pole before leading home Greame Cameron on Race 1, Jody Vincent in Race 2, and Australian Klark Quinn in the Points: Baird 971, Vincent 958,

71

i ttJfe-TZ

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How good IS this!

Take more than 500 entries, some wildy exotic cars and whafs got to be Australia's best permanent race ANDREW VAN LEEUWEN drcoit and what do you get? The 2007 Shannons Phillip Island Classic

F

ACT: The Shannons Phillip Island Classic is fast becoming one of the world's great historic motor

racing events.

To prove my point, imagine this. Two genuine Formula 1 cars, an ex-Didier

grabbing the lead early and staying there.

Clements was on top in Race 2, leaving Robson and Dunn to fight it out for second. Dunn got the place, but fastest lap went to Robson. Race 3 was much the same, however this time Dunn was much

Pironi 1979Tyrrell and an ex-Michele

closer to the leading Clements.

Alboreto 1985 Ferrari, go head-to-head in a Group P, Q and R race. Lapping over a second faster than a V8 Supercar, the two cars run nose-to-tail for five laps.

unusually, Paul Stubber was the best of them, using every bit of horsepower his

On the run to the chequered flag, American Rick Knoop throws theTyrell

*1

>4

But there were tin-tops there too. Not

ex-John Harvey A9X could muster to hold

of the Gib^son Motorsport Nissans of Rod Markland and Terry Ashwood.

r

out of the Ferrari's slipstream, Cosworth engine screaming behind him, and wins the race by less than a tenth of a second.

who took victory on debut in his Elfin 600 F2 car, and Ray Stubber, who shared the

Cool!

Formula Ford wins with Greg Watson.

But just as cool as watching the two FI cars battling out front was watching

Bert Skidmore won all three Sports Cars races in his 3-litre Lola, holding off the Porsche 956C of Vern Schuppan.

Porsche was the feature marque of

Australian

in the form of a

The 2007 Classic was a visual feast for

the 2007 Classic, which gave some extra spice to the regularity trials. While usually reserved for road-going cars, this year's regularity featured a 911 GT1 Le Mans car,

open-wheeler fans. Along with the Grand

driven by Peter Fitzgerald, a 908/2 Spyder,

Jamie Lamer beat them both off the line

in the first race, and then proceed to lead them for two laps in his Chevron Formula

Atlantic car. It didn't last, but it was good while it did.

Prix and Formula Atlantic cars in the P/ Q/R races, there was also a 21 -car field of Formula 5000 cars.

While Lola drivers Ian Clements and

Andrew Robson looked set to reignite their Sandown battle, it was Peter Dunn who drew first blood in his March, 72

Other winners included Laurie Bennett,

driven by Alex Davison, and Porsche's first (and only) Grand Prix car, the 804, driven

by Porsche guru Klaus Bischof. , And that, of course, only scratches the surface of what goes on at Phillip island every March. But I'll let the photos do the rest of the talking ...

I

: I

Grand Prix: Formula 1 came

to Phillip Island 79 Tyrrell and a '85 Ferrari, top.

It was also a

Porsche-fest, with an 804

Grand Prix car,

above, and Alex Davison in a

Spyder, left. motorsport nows

NATIONAL SCENE

1^

Li

Big Bangers: 2 7 FSOOOs took to The Island, with Robson, Clements

and Dunn leading

the way, top.

And there was Sports Cars old and new as well, with the 911 GTl, left, and the Lola Mkl, above.

f

ELBOURNE MELBOURNE MELBOURNE

Neil Hammond,

Stubberled the ex-Gibson Nissans

in his A9X, above. Skidmore was in

front of an impressive Sports Car field in his ultra-quick Lola, above right, while Minis played a big part in the Historic Tourers, right.

I/l/e couldn't go without a photo of the '73 Tyrrell, left. www.mnews.com.au

73

Big fields for Nats A HUGE 430 entries have been received

for the AKA Sprint Kart Nationals at Eastern Creek.

Considering there are oniy 10 classes, thiat's is a lot of karters. Half

of the categories are over capacity and wili requHe qualifying heats.

The largest field is Senior National Light (63) followed by Clubman Light (59). Official practice commences on April 5.

■ Dunlop has won the contract to be the exclusive tyre supplier for most of the CIK Championship events across the KF1,KF2and KF3 classes.

The tyres will be supplied free of charge to ail competitors at these

events. This puts an end to the days of a team entering at least one driver on each of the major brands just to ensure they had a kart on the gun tyre of the day.

■ BRM Racing driver Justin Ruggier

Look busy, the boss is in town "(He wants to see) drivers that show a talent

ITALIAN BRM boss Gianpietro Mascialino was in Australia last month, overseeing local BRM team drivers testing at Oran Park.

"Gianpietro has shown great interest in Definitive Racing's driver program,"said importer Steve

overseas without breaking the bank. He has a vision to make BRM a leader in the karting world - not by (sales) volume, but in race achievements

Pettaras.

for their drivers."

have an opportunity to broaden their career

Leigh leaves Rising Stars

Walk in

won the RBS Williams FI Simulator

Challenge held in Sydney prior to the

LEIGH Nicolaou has been

AGP.

released from his obligations to the CAMS Rising Star program and will suit up in a new

Ruggier clocked a time good enough to get him to the finals ahead of thousands of other entrants and

go head to head with Nico Rosberg and two other competitors. He took a strong victory by almost 2.5 seconds.

Ruggier will fly to Europe later

in the year and complete a test in a Formula 1 car, with tutelage from Rosberg.

m West Australian brothers Deepal and Amrit Kandola have split with Kip Foster's KartForce operation.

The split was amicable, and, according to Foster, inevitable.

"With the boys using Arrow and Top Kart Chassis prepared by KartOne

(Sydney) it was not only logical but inevitable that eventually they would consolidate with KartOne and Hurst

Racing engines," he said.

The brothers'cousin Pavan, who has just moved to seniors, will continue under the KartForce banner, racing

Formula Ford team to contest the 2007 Victorian Formula Ford Series.

The 16-year old karter will drive a Van Diemen RFOl for

Bill Aidonis'new Typhoon Motorsports team.

"I was naturally pretty disappointed on missing out on a drive with the Rising Star Program,

like anyone would be," Nicolaou^ said.

"Everybody at CAMS, Borland Racing Developments and the Australian institute of Sport have just been sensational and a huge help to me.

"When Iwas given this

opportunity by Bill and Typhoon Motorsport, Ijust couldn't believe my luck in securing a drive."

CAMS'Quentin Crombie said

Senior National and Clubman Heavy.

they were disappointed to see

■ Intrepid has decided to withdraw from International CIK racing for 2007.

The Italian company took a swipe at the CIK and rival teams by suggesting all was not a level playing field with the KF-class engines.

Intrepid will continue a strong representation in the Rotax classes.

that he was released with their

-MARK WICKS 74

Nicolaou leave the program but blessing.

"No doors are being closed and we remain committed to being able to provide assistance where possible and look forward to receiving Leigh's nomination for the 2008 Program," he said.

-MARK WICKS

the park KARTING will continue at

Oran Park until at least late 2008.

That's the news to come

from a recent meeting between the executive of the

Sydney Kart Racing Club and the owners of the Oran Park

facility.

Circuit management is

/

keen to promote Oran Park's racing program next year as 'The Last Oran Park'and are

said to be providing major support for a final meeting at the current kart circuit in

September or October next year.

A new venue will be

constructed at a site yet to be named in the near future.

However it is proposed that the new facility will feature

a standalone karting circuit rather than a combined car/ kart circuit as is the case now.

The kart circuit will be

run and managed by the Sydney Kart Racing Club under direction of the circuit owners.

-MARK WICKS

motorsport mews

NATIONAL SCENE ,

Sweet 16 selected for Kartprix With the series almost ready for take-off, here's a look at the where the licenses are going

HERE it is: the much-anticipated

by more than one team and

list of 16 teams that have Been offered a Team License for the

this has had an affect on which teams were offered a licence.

inaugural Kartprix National Series.

It also ensures the senior pro class will have 16 manufacturers

Thirty-five expressions of

represented on the 32 kart grid.

interest were received from all corners of Australia for the 16 available franchise licences.

line-up of 16 fantastic racing teams. It will be a fabulous sight

"It was a very difficult decision to come up with the finall 6

given the quality of teams applying for a place in the series," said series director Ian Salvestrin.

Provisional entry list - Team/Chassis Tony Kart Australia/Tony Kart

Phoenix Kart Racing/Phoenix

Sparco Intrepid Racing/Intrepid

RV Motorsports/Birel

Redspeed Australia/Redspeed

Parramatta Kart Warehouse/Monaco

Team Azzurro Racing/Azzurro

TeamJT/Arrow

to see this elite 32 kart field take

CRG Australia/CRG

ProKartingATBA

the green light in Melbourne in a couple of months time."

Definitive Racing BRM/BRM

KartForce/TBA

Kart 1 Racing/Top Kart

ARC Australia/TBA

Zanardi Karts Australia/Zanardi

Kel's Karts & PartsATBA

"The end result is an awesome

Teams have until March 30 to

confirm their participation.

No chassis is to be represented

-MARK WICKS

Kartprix has plenty of support FIVE support classes are set to compete alongside the senior pro class

is strong. While there's plenty of ICCspec equipment garaged around the

in the 2007 Kartprix National Series.

country, there has also been interest

Three junior classes (Rookies, Junior

expressed from 125cc Superkarters who are keen to put their machines

A1 Evolution and Junior Clubman) will share the bill with KZ2 (125cc Gearbox)

and a 125cc non-gearbox class.

It appears likely this will be a 125cc

TaG class based on rules developed for the NSW series that see Rotax MAX,

lAME Leopard and PRD Fireball engines compete side-by-side utilising a parityby-weight formula.

The three engines are all 125cc

reed valve motors that, although less powerful, are similar in concept to the CIK's new KF formula engines.

Interest in the KZ2 Gearbox category www.mnews.com.au

onto sprint tracks.

Additionally, a proposal has been put forward to allow Moto-engined karts to join the European powerplants.

The field could be further boosted by a number of New Zealanders who are

keen to bring their machines across the pond.

Dates for the inaugural four-round series were awaiting rubber stamp approval from the AKA and were due to be confirmed as MNews went to press.

-MARK WICKS

75

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CLASSIFIEDS

RACE AND PERFORMANCE CLASSIFIEDS

«rnf5EEf^ J

Karts for sale

sot®

onitne classifieds Find hundreds more race vehicles and parts lor sale at www.my105.com

BRIVI125 icc

Birel Kart Package

BRM 125 icc six speed kart. Ex- team Justin Ruggier TM K9 factory tuned engine multi

Extensive Package, almost everything to go Race.Sx Q30X Chassis', 1X AR4.6 x KTl 00

Engines

Blueprinted

and

National and State winner. Brembo brakes

maintained

Sydney 0411 155 199.

by Peiper Motorsport, ARC watercooled

www.my 105.com/13684

engine. Sniper laser and heaps of guages ,trolleys,sprockets....too much to list. 3 Kart Trailer, 6x3 metre Marquee. $15k ONO.

358

Silverado and Daytona Trailer

Dennis 0418284658.

Drags

$78,000 ONO. Garry 0413 879 879. www.myl O5.com/11740

www.my105.com/13942 344

J

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358

1

Transporters/Trailers

Calais Supercharged Sedan

I

Brand new engine never raced (Dart, Brodix, Jessel, Hunt etc). $40,000 spent in past 2 years.

Previous best of 7.45. Comes with trailer.Turn

i www.myl05.com/58484 key. $45,000. 0266432547.

TRANSPORTER / HRT ENGINES TRANSPORTER: 3-car capacity; Snapon Roll Cabinets: Office (aircon, fridge, m'wave).

ENGINES: 2 x HRT 18” V8 Supercar. Contact Phil Curtis: 0416 261 972 / 0417 163 934.

www.myl05.com/92673

9 Kart Custom Trailer

F250 dual cab

352

Parts

F250 XLT Dual cab.exellent con.dual fuel, 5th

wheel setup, pioneer CD/DVD unit, genuine

J

FOR SALE

tow pack mirrors, tinted windows.tub iiner, 358

9 kart custom quality made trailer with front storage, easy load. Electric brakes with Rego.

tonneau cover, 12mths reg/rwc. $68,500.00

# SAENZ 5 Speed Racing Dog Box. 5th 1

ONO. Simon 03 9314 9779 / 0402120707.

to 1, 26 Spline Input Shaft, Chev Mount

www.myl05.com/93735

Pattern, Current Freshen Up, 2 x Gear Levers, Excellent Condition, $5,250 ONO #HEATED WINDSCREENS, suit falcon EB2, EF,

358

Light 'weight construction. Sydney $7,800 ONO. Steve 0411 155 199.

EL, $399.00 each. Rodney (03) 5792 2527.

www.myl 05.corn/80233

www.myl05.com/93559

Transporter/motorhome Hino2000

lOm tray, seats 7, hydrolic tail lifter with ramps, 5 star living, gas water, shower, microwave, cook top, range hood, tv, dvd

surround sound, full kitchen, professionally

Four kart trailer Four kart trailer with custom stainless work

bench. Front storage easy loading electric

brakes quality built. $6500 ono out of registration. Steve 0411 155 199.

www.myl05.com/67479 8

built, a/c reverse cycle, 2x370L water tanks, 12/24/240V, suit long dragster, sedan, etc.

fit out 6 mths old, forced sale can arrange finance! $115,000. Ian 0418 879 611.

F250 DUAL CAB 1977 F250 dual cab, 351 v8 dual fuel, 300L

gas tank, new motor done 5000km, 5 speed gearbox, good tyres, 12 mths rego, very good condition, ideal tow vehicle. $17 000.00 Ono. Robert 0415 660 378.

www.myl05.com/78789

Hillborn 2 3/16" Methanol injection suit chev, comes with filters/outerwears throttle

Wanted

linkage. Radiator hoses, 8x pills & Hillborn 88 pump, seal plate & pump drive. Barry Grant 650 double pumper carby $450. INJ $1750

F

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Methanol Inj / BG Carb

358

Luke 0418637431

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358

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Race Car Transporter

V8 Fujitsu Development Drive

Car or kart trailer

Nissan

Car or kart trailer Fits four karts , aussie

transporter approx 15m long. Recondition engine. Holds 2 complete sprintcars & a spare

ud

gooseneck

1985

race

car

legend or PRB clubman Electric brakes front storage easy to tow Sydney $6,500 ONO.

chassis & quad. Holds 4 top wings from roof.

Front half sleeps 3 & seats 7.Air conditioned in

Steve 0411 155 199.

sleeping area. $75,000. Wally 0428 725 288.

www.my105.com/53075 www.tnnews.coni.au

358

www.my105.com/51489

358

Very competitive car available for driver with suitable budget to run at front of Fujitsu field.

Team up with Jose Fernandez for a front running team. Budget varies on Test Days and

Genuine hsv club sport r8 premium bfake kit (ap racing) brand new in the box. 350mm front slotted rotors, 332mm rear, 4 piston

front & rear calipers, complete never fitted inc hoses, pads, fluid. $2700 Not Neg,

inclusions. Ross 49547920 / 0410 546665.

Brad 0418 928 953

www.myl05.com/79274

www.myl05.eom/50592

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358

79

RACE AND PERFORMANCE CLASSIFIEDS

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SELL motorsport vehicle or anything to do with motorsport via our

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the prompts (photo must be digital, if required) OR you can still advertise via mail/fax ($10 surcharge applies) and

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VL Turbo

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2004 Toyota Echo /Yaris 3E Pr For sale - 2004 toyota echo/yaris 3e prod

Standard ad (no pic) - my105.com & MNews $45

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358

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EVO 8 Race winning cai; ^ EVO 8 Race winning car. Get ready for Bathurst 12hr or GTP 2007 series. V8 Super car support and Channel 7 TV. Many extras.

Garry 0413 879 879.

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CHECK LiST-haveyousupplied: Typed/written advertisement; category, photo; credit card details (number, expiry, name); your details (name,

358

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address, phone, email)?

SEND TO: Mail: My105, Suite 8,11-21 Underwood Rd, Homebush, NSW, 2140

Email: mnews@my105.coni 0E

r.V';

Eraser Clubman EB Saloon Car

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81

TALK CONVERTER

Happy Holden?

with 72,60,51,45,39,33,30,27,24,

So TEGA and HRT have reached

18,15,12,9,6.

a'commercial settlement'over

Hope that helps.

■ Editorial

ownership issues.

How nice! HRT have obviously

Editor; Phil Branagan

been found guilty of breaching

Stop the racing!

2006 was a year of talking up

the rules of theTeams Licence

Network Seven.

Agreement, otherwise they

The Network Seven coverage will be bigger, better, more coverage and more offtrack

editor@mnews.com.au

Deputy Editor: Mark Glendenning mark@mnews.com.au

wouldn't have been fined.

News Editor: Grant Rowley

HRT break the rules, TEGA

grant@mnews.com.au

imposes a fine, Mr Holden pays.

Why wouldn't HRT and Holden be happy with that arrangement?

National Editor: Andrew van Leeuwen andrew@mnews.com.au ■ Production

unwilling to impose appropriate penalties, or are they overawed by the profile of the HRT organisation (whoever may actually own it)?

Perhaps any'commercial

■ Advertising FOB 95965030

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National Sales Manager: Calvin Wood cwood@mnews.com.au

■ Administration

357 Nepean Highway, Brighton East, VIC, 3187 (PO Box 7072, Brighton, VIC, 3186) P 03 9596 5555 F 03 9596 5030 admin@mnews.com.au

settlement'should be made to

fit under a team's Total Racing Expenditure Cap (TREC).

Maybe this would give teams something to think about when they break the rules.

Paul Winter

Managing Director/Publisher: Chris Lambden publisher@mnews.com.au ■

Contributors

Loxton, SA Go Joe!

f 7; Joe Saward, Adam Cooper, Paolo Filisetti Europe: Quentin Spurring, David Addison US: Martin D. Clark, Phil Morris

Speedway: Greg Boscato, Geoff Rounds, Darren Sutton, Tony Millard (UK) /?fl//y;RyanLahiff Drag Racing: Dave Ostaszewski (USA), Ken Ferguson, John Bosher

Good on you Joe Saward.

With venues in short supply and legislation aplenty, your piece in MNews #356 was very uplifting.

As organisers of (and competitors in) grass roots

motorsport, we rely on the

Daniel Jordan

Photographers: Sutton Motorsport Images, Dirk Klynsmith, Marshall Cass, John Morris/ Mpix, AFl Images, James Smith, Peter Bury, Neil Blackbourn, Chris Carter, Coopers Photography, CBR Photographies, Paris Charles, Bob Potts,

In the defence of the Network

Seven, the Saturday program of 'VSXtra' is indeed a great show.

well.

Pain in the points Firstly, congratulations to

There is definitely more

coverage, but not oftheVS Supercars. Personally, Idon't want

everyone involved in the V8 Supercar Championship Series this year.

to be told'more exciting coverage' and then sit through two hours of

The Seven Network and

Carrera Cup orV8 Utes or Formula

magazine coverage for the beginning of the season has been

Fords before the main event.

Ithink Network Seven has made

great.

a mistake in regards to the leader board and the running position strip which appears on the

Now comes my whinge. I have heard from all parties

(TV, magazines etc) about the new points system, but could somebody/anybody please tell us WHATTHE POINTS ARE!

I'm sorry to shout, but Ihave not seen the points structure anywhere.

Also, the way the winner is decided at the Clipsal 500 is

bottom of the screen.

First and foremost, make the

writing BIGGER! Not every viewer has eagle-like vision, and we DON'T want to sit 30cm away from the TV to read it.

Secondly, continue showing positions through the whole field, notjusttheTop 10. It's called a

just stupid. Todd Kelly must be ecstatic; he gets to be the speed

position board for a reason.

attitude of sponsors, competitors, officials and volunteers

bump for little brother again.

Seven are reading this, Isuggest you think seriously about these comments.^You have a lot of

commonsense and can-do

National: Mark Wicks, Mark Jones,

action.

Fans like to see their favourite drivers in action off the track as

offend? Is TEGA a toothless body

design@mnews.com.au

M 0439 566 265

mnews@mnews.com.au

Where is the disincentive to re-

Graphic Design & Web: Jayne Uthmeyer

P 03 95965555

PO Box 7072, Brighton, VIC, 3186

who enable us to enjoy the camaraderie and sportsmanship

Brian Gibson

Port Kembla, NSW

of our chosen leisure activity.

If any personnel from Network

ground to make up before you

ED: OK Brian, points work like so:

have better coverage than

For a 250km race such as a leg

Channel 10.

Neil Hammond, Joel Strickland, Mike Patrick (UK)

Here's wishing the Saward family a great time down under.

Motorsport News is published by

While you're here, we hope you sample some of the fine Aussie

of the Clipsal 500, the structure

Good on Rick Kelly for sticking it

from first to fifteenth is 36,30,25, 22,20,18,16,15,13,12,9,8,6,5,3.

up the critics from 2006/A taste of

Kanck's home state exports all

For a normal 120km sprint

Australasian Motorsport News

products which MR Sandra

ABN 55125120 702 Publisher: C Umbden

Printed by: Webstar Printing Distributed by: NDD Ltd Materiel published by MOTORSPORT NEWS is copyright and may not be reproduced in full or in part without the written permission of the pubiishet. freelance

over the world!

Dave Nichols

Seaforth, NSW

contributions are welcome, and while all care will be taken, Australasian Motorsport News does not accept

race, 24, 20,17,15,13,12,11,10,9, 8,6,5,4,3,2.

the year to come perhaps?

He will defend his title with a vengeance.

Ashley Lloyd alloyd.86@hotmail.com

The enduros are both the same.

responsibility for damage or loss of material submitted, 'Opinions expressed in Motorsport News are not necessarily those of Australasian Motorsport News or its staff.

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82

Heading to Perth ... but at what price, asks reader Paul Winter

I wasn't impressed: 7%

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