Motorsport News Issue 423 - September 2012

No. 423 September 2012 Australia $8.50 NZ $9.99 inc GST

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THIS MONTH’S FEATURES

Editorial

Group Editor Steve Normoyle snormoyle@chevron.com.au At Large Phil Branagan

Editorial Enquiries

Chevron Publishing Level 6, 207 Pacific Highway, St Leonards, NSW 2065 Locked Bag 5555, St Leonards, NSW 1590 admin@mnews.com.au

Contributing Writers

Mark Glendenning, Andrew van Leeuwen, Mitchell Adam, Geoff Rounds, David Greenhalgh, Bruce Moxon

Photography

Sutton Motorsport Images, Dirk Klynsmith, John Morris, Andrew Hall, James Smith, Geoff Gracie, Phil Williams, Peter Bury, Michael Vettas, Ken Ferguson, Daniel Beard Paul Carruthers, Rob Lang

Art Director Chris Currie

Advertising

Advertising Director Chris West cwest@chevron.com.au P 02 9901 6376 M 0416 125 252 National Sales Manager Luke Finn lfinn@chevron.com.au P 02 9901 6368 M 0423 665 384

The Grid 18

NINE IS ENOUGH

The 2012 F1 season has been one to remember, with five drivers locked in a titanic battle. With nine Grands Prix to go, Phil Branagan looks at nine headline features of the season so far that could just determine this year’s World Champion

30 KLIEN START Christian Klien is finished with F1 and hopes to make a fresh start right here in V8 Supercars

Chairman, Chevron: Ray Berghouse Circulation Director: Carole Jones

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TAKING A BRAKE FROM F1

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Ever wondered how they make F1 brakes?

60 BARBOUR’S SALOON Elliot Barbour comes to the Dunlop V8 Supercar Series with a surprisingly varied background in the sport for someone so young

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Unusual Suspects

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THE GREAT SCOT Dario Franchitti is certainly that, even if there hasn’t been too much that’s been great about 2012 – apart from victory in the Indy 500, of course

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It is not usual practice for a Formula 1 driver to come to Australia to seek employment as a V8 Supercar driver but that’s exactly what Christian Klien has done. Find out why on page 30.

THE OTHER SEB

Seb seems to a popular name if you’re a driver at Toro Rosso, although not so much in the case of Seb Bourdais.

But then these days the fast Frenchman has no involvement and little interest in Formula One

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WORLD SERIES SPRINTCARS

The WSS is back for 2012/13, but whether bigger and better is something that remains to be seen

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A VICTOR AGAIN?

After a long winless run, Top Doorslammer legend Victor Bray certainly hopes so

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VALE BARRY LAKE

REGULARS

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The Front Row

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Motor Mouth with Phil Branagan

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The Scoop with Steve Normoyle

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On The Limiter with Chris Lambden

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United States of Origin

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Box Seat

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Model Behaviour

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Trade

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Classifieds

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My Favourite Race

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Parting Shot

Ever wondered why four times Champcar champ Sebastien Bourdais struggled so badly in F1? The Frenchman pulls no punches explaining what went wrong during his two seasons with Toro Rosso.

Former MN staffer Andrew van Leeuwen isn’t exactly living the high life in his new European abode, but being ‘over there’ does give him access to some cool places – like the Brembo F1 brakes facility in Italy.

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THE FRONT ROW since we last met

V8 SUPERCARS

Clay Cross

There hasn’t been a lot of different winners in this year’s V8 Supercars Championship, but that doesn’t mean it hasn’t been a cracker season or that the championship’s not been hotly contested.

It’s largely been a two-team race between TeamVodafone and Ford Performance Racing, but it’s been a hard-fought battle from which no clear title favourite is yet to emerge.

In fact, what had appeared to be forming as a contest between three drivers – TeamVodafone’s Jamie Whincup and FPR Falcon drivers Will Davison and Mark Winterbottom – now looks to have developed into a four-way fight after Craig Lowndes emerged from Queensland Raceway with a pair of wins.

At the Ipswich track, Winterbottom and Whincup filled second and third places on each day, with Davison keeping his points tally rolling with sixth place on Saturday and fourth on Sunday.

It was a bleak weekend for the Holden Racing Team, with neither Garth Tander nor James Courtney finishing in the top 10 in either race, although it was a different story for the sister Walkinshaw Supercheap Auto entry of Russell Ingall, who claimed two solid top 10 results and a new lap record.

Lowndes is currently fourth in the points, trailing Davison by 80, who is 175 adrift of leader Whincup – making the top four covered by little more than one race win.

Clay Cross

FORMULA 1

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It was Fernando Alonso that became the first driver to win more than one grand prix in 2012 – after eight races, no less – with his Valencia victory, and now the Spaniard has become the first driver to go three up in 1012.

Victory in Germany over a resurgent Jenson Button made it a near perfect score in three races for Alonso, who’d been second to Mark Webber in the preceding British Grand Prix a couple of weeks after his Valencia win.

But the Ferrari driver could do no better than fifth place in Hungary on a weekend that belonged to Lewis Hamilton. Button might have matched his McLaren team-mate had not the team erred on pit strategy, leaving Button to salvage fifth place.

Sebastian Vettel was fourth, but a late decision

by Red Bull to switch Mark Webber to a three-stop strategy sentenced the Australian to his second consecutive eighth place result.

The promising season for Lotus continued as Kimi Raikkonen pushed Alonso hard towards the end to claim second, with team-mate Romain Grosjean making it a Lotus two-three.

Webber’s poor yields from Hungary and Germany sees Alonso skip away to a 40-point lead as they went into the mid-season break. Webber was two points clear of Vettel, with Hamilton and Raikkonen close behind.

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INDYCAR

NASCAR

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NASCAR MEDIA

Marcos Ambrose returned to the scene of his first NASCAR Sprint Cup race win to make it back-to-back victories at Watkins Glen.

The victory was only secured in the final moments, the Australian exchanging the lead with Brad Keselowski several times over the course of the final lap on a treacherous oil-soaked road course. Jimmie Johnson followed them home in third place.

“Last year was a relief, this year is pure joy,” Ambrose said.

“You have to take your chances and you have to commit at that point of the race. It was great racing with Kyle (Busch) and Brad (Keselowski), and that’s the way racing should be.

“I’m so proud of Todd Parrott (Crew Chief ) and all of the Stanley team; they’ve done a perfect job here once again.”

It was Ambrose’s sixth win across the two top divisions of NASCAR, and one which cements his place in next year’s Sprint Cup All-Star Race.

IndyCar/LAT USA

IndyCar/LAT USA

He’s not won a race since April, but after a string of consistent performances in a season of changing fortunes, Will Power has assumed the lead in the IndyCar World Series after finishing second at Mid Ohio behind Scott Dixon.

Simon Pagenaud was third ahead of Sebastien Bourdais and James Hinchcliffe, while a lowly 24th for Ryan Hunter-Reay saw him relinquish his championship points lead.

Dixon’s first win since his Detroit street circuit triumph in June brings him into championship calculations, the Ganassi/Target driver rising to fourth place, 28 points adrift of Power.

Also coming into contention with three races left to run is Helio Castroneves. The Brazilian was a distant 16th at Mid Ohio but victory in the preceding Edmonton race, in which he headed home Takuma Sato and Power, the Penske driver is third in the points as they headed into the Sonoma round, 21 adrift of Hunter-Reay.

QUICK QUIZ 1.

Mark Webber earned an early reputation in F1 as an outstanding qualifier.

Who was the first of the Australian’s F1 team-mates to beat him in qualifying?

2.

The V8 Supercars Championship is considered to be an ‘international’ series these days. How many different nationalities were represented among the race winners last year?

3.

Name the team for which Sebastien Bourdais drives in this year’s IndyCar series.

4.

Dario Franchitti is a multiple winner of both the Indy 500 and the IndyCar series. In which has he won the most?

5. What is the ideal operating temperature for a Formula One brakes package?

QUIZ ANSWERS ON PAGE 98

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PHIL

BRANAGAN MOTOR MOUTH

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VERY four years, it comes around, as regular as clockwork; the notion of having motorsport at the Olympic Games.

Some even suggest that Formula 1 should feature at the Olympics – or, if not ‘at’ the Games, then an ‘Olympic’ Grand Prix could be timed to fit in with the Games.

I have three words for that idea; No, no, no.

The International Olympic Committee and Formula One Management have several things in common, but chief among them is the idea that they, and they alone, control the financial operation of their events. A succession of IOC Presidents have protected, and even expanded, the financial tentacles of their organisation; incumbent Jacques Rogge has continued that tradition. Likewise, Bernie Ecclestone has for decades overseen F1’s commercial matters with a determined grip that shows no sign of wilting.

Attempting to accommodate

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such economically-focused but opposite ideals could well tear a hole in the space-time continuum.

Then there is the problem of determining whether F1 is an individual or team sport.

There are 12 F1 teams, the same number as in, for instance, Olympic Basketball, Volleyball or Handball, so that fits. But would that mean that only Italians can drive for Ferrari, or Britons for Williams? If F1 is a team sport, who would Ferrari get to drive; there are currently no Italians driving in F1. And, how pissed is Fernando Alonso going to be?

Good News: you are off to Rio to represent España. Bad News; you are doing it in an Hispania.

If it’s an individual sport, one assumes that only one driver will be allowed per nation. Who wants to tell Lewis or Jenson that they have to sit this one out – not to mention any of the Germans not named ‘Sebastian’? And where are the Americans; currently, the top USA open-wheeler driver in

the world is Ryan Hunter-Reay, whose F1 testing experience is approximately equal to mine.

There are visual challenges too. You may well have noted the amount of advertising at the Olympic venues; zero. This is the opposite of the amount at Grands Prix, where even the bridges have signage and the teams are forced to pay a premium for the sponsor’s logos on their own trucks.

But here is the Big Problem; in terms of competition, the Games and F1 are absolute opposites. The Games is about a level playing field; yes, you can use mechanical items, like yachts, shotguns and bows, but the design and availability of those items are tightly regulated. Within reason, the 470s, kayaks and sculls used by the Australians in England were identical to those used by other teams. That is not what F1 is about; the Neweys, Brawns and Costas of the world, and their platoons of engineers, fight for every last hundredth on their computers and in their wind tunnels. The race-to-race technical race within F1 is one of its great attractions.

So, please Monsieur Rogge,

no F1 at the Games. There are vacancies for sports in Rio but there is a case that the last thing the city needs is a new F1 track.

If you must have motor racing, start at the other end of the food chain. I would love to see Karting as an Olympic sport. But not F1.

Speaking of Games …

The Paralympics are coming up and while, I confess, I have not been much of an avid viewer in the past, there is one event I do not want to miss this year. It’s the Handcycle race, and there are a few Aussies going in with good medal hopes.

I will be cheering, but not for an Australian. Alex Zanardi was one of motor racing’s good guys when he raced, and he remains so. He has medal hopes, and I will be turning Italian for the day to cheer him on. At 45, Zanardi will be one of the older competitors, but he may have an advantage; the races are at Brands Hatch! OK, he raced there in a Formula 3000, but …

Medal or not, I am ready to celebrate his achievements with champagne – no, Prosecco.

Forza Alessandro!

Here is the Big Problem; in terms of competition, the Games and F1 are absolute opposites. So, please Monsieur Rogge, no F1 at the Games

London 2012

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STEVE

NORMOYLE THE SCOOP

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is the fly-on-the-wall footage in drivers’ briefings. We’re privy to the candid behind-closeddoors discussions between the drivers and officials, and also the buffoonery of then FIA President Jean-Marie Balestre in full flight.

The great failing of the film, however, is that it does not present a balanced picture of the man. To me, this film is a lost opportunity to tell the full story of a great champion.

I remember what it was like to experience a Senna media conference. There was always a sense of tension; he was a polarising figure. You were either in awe of that swashbuckling charisma – which he more than backed up on the track with his pure, singular speed, his aggression and the uncompromising commitment he took to every race – or you took the opposing view: that maybe he was the fastest driver ever, but he was also a flawed genius, whose soaring self belief bordered on an arrogance that led to the self delusion that the rules of the game did not always apply to Ayrton Senna like they did to others.

The unsavoury aspects of Senna’s character don’t get a run in the film. He is instead depicted as a misunderstood and persecuted hero, fighting a noble, single-handed war against not just all the other drivers, but the entire FIA ‘establishment’. Alain Prost, Senna’s great rival in F1, is portrayed as a disloyal teammate, a ruthless, even unethical politician and, as a driver, a bit slow.

The film distorts the facts surrounding the pole position controversy at Japan in 1990.

Senna had won pole and asked for the front row positions to be swapped so that he, as the fastest qualifier, could start

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S embarrassing as it is to admit, the other night I watched the documentary Senna for the first time. For anyone who hasn’t seen it (although I may well be the last motorsport fan on earth to have viewed the film), do so.

It is captivating. Then again, a film about Ayrton Senna could hardly be otherwise. We are talking about surely the most controversial figure in world motorsport history, and possibly the greatest driver ever. That latter accolade will forever remain a matter of opinion, because how do you make definitive comparisons between a driver of the ‘80s and, say, a Fangio of the ‘50s, or a Clark of the ‘60s?

As for Jim Clark, there are plenty of parallels between the Scot and Senna. Each was widely rated as the fastest of their era, and each met their end in competition, each in inexplicable circumstances and each accompanied by a mass, incredulous outpouring from fans and drivers alike, that, of all drivers, how could it possibly have happened to him?

One significant distinction between the careers of Senna and Clark is that Senna’s coincided with the live television era.

While memories of Clark are preserved in the small amount of distant black-and-white 1960s grand prix footage, Senna’s racing life has been frozen in time in great detail by TV and film coverage.

Enough footage exists for the film makers to construct an impression of Senna’s entire career, right up to his last days and hours – the pictures from Imola in 1994 are so poignant, and even chilling on another level.

One great strength of the film

on the (cleaner) racing line on the outside. A fair-enough request, and indeed something which is automatic practice these days. But back then, pole position was always placed on the inside position for the first corner. What Senna was asking for was something new and unprecedented.

The reason Senna’s request was rejected quite likely was that it simply never had been done before. But the film leaves the viewer with the incorrect impression that this was part of a conspiracy by the F1 establishment against Senna.

This is important, because this was the race in which Senna deliberately crashed into Prost at the first corner, taking them both out of the race and thus clinching the world championship for Senna. His culpability in the accident is a known fact, because Senna admitted it himself 12 months later – although the film chooses to ignore this.

There are plenty more misrepresentations. Nigel Mansell is seen as a driver of little consequence, flattered by his active-suspension Williams FW14B. The film makes no mention that Mansell’s teammate, Riccardo Patrese, had been unable to summon the physicality and the sheer courage needed to exploit this new form of technology which had threatened Mansell’s life more than once when it failed during testing.

The film constantly reminds us how great Senna was, without ever really trying to explain the

essence of Senna’s greatness.

Expert analysis is limited to a handful of quick grabs, mainly from ESPN commentator John Bisignano, whose best description of Senna’s driving style is ‘fast’, with an ability to ‘take the car beyond its design capabilities’. Could be talking about any top driver there ...

Maybe Senna was the greatest, greater than Clark and Fangio.

Or perhaps the greatest is Michael Schumacher, who came directly after Senna, and who was part of a whole generation of younger drivers influenced by the Brazilian. Michael was straight out of the Senna mould: hard, uncompromising and more than willing to go beyond the bounds of fair play to achieve a result.

Schumacher has since been usurped by an entirely different style of driver. Fernando Alonso beat Schumacher to two world championships before Michael made his first retirement, and right now Alonso looks nicely on course to score a third title. That would bring him equal to Senna.

Look at Alonso and you see that supreme speed and commitment that was such a trademark of Senna. What you don’t see is a driver prepared to win a championship by crashing.

Alonso races hard but is sometimes beaten, and when he is beaten he does not assume that he has been the victim of some kind of conspiracy, or that the natural order of things has been upset by his defeat.

If Alonso keeps going in F1, soon they’ll be comparing him to Clark.

Senna is depicted as a misunderstood and persecuted hero, fighting a noble, singlehanded war against not just all the other drivers, but the entire FIA ‘establishment’ motorsport news

15/08/12 7:07 AM

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CHRIS

LAMBDEN ON THE LIMITER

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week after the V8 Supercar circus returns to Eastern Creek (sorry, Sydney Motorsport Park), the circuit plays host to what, in V8s’ absence, has become its biggest annual event and a major in the growing Historic scene – the Muscle Car Masters.

Co-promoted by our sister publication, Australian Muscle Car magazine, the Muscle Car Masters has grown in stature over the years and, on Fathers Day weekend, has regularly pulled the best crowds of the year to The Creek.

It’s a terrific event, with many familiar faces from the past turning up, along with an array of ‘muscle’ cars from bygone eras, many of them competing on-track.

This year is no exception and, if I can be a little selfindulgent, the programme is boosted by the first appearance of a grid of Formula 5000 cars – supplemented by a strong line-up from across the Tasman.

It’s going to be a cracker. All it needs is some sunshine …

Events like the Muscle Car Masters seem to create a little unease among some in the traditional historic fraternity – I guess, because it isn’t promoted under the wing of the long-

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standing, successful traditional historic clubs, such as the Historic Sports and Racing Car Association (NSW) or Victorian Historic Racing Register (Victoria), which have both very successfully nurtured historic racing in Australia.

Personally, I don’t think there’s any cause for concern – far from detracting from the traditional events, this sort of occasion, as with recent F5000 appearances at the AGP, takes the category, and historic racing, to a whole new audience who may not have experienced it and who thus may well subsequently be attracted to full-on historic racing events.

So if you want a really good day out (and hey, it’s Father’s Day – you get to choose, guys), it’s the place to be.

As it blossoms in numbers and audience, Historic racing is in an interesting space at the moment, and Formula 5000 is perhaps the category where there is most discussion over car presentation as it affects eligibility.

Historic cars are subject to a Certificate of Description (COD), which outlines a car’s history, as much as is known, and is a requirement to race in historic events. And it is considered desirable that cars (a) look like

cars from the era and (b) if a car has a definite lineage, that it can be prepared as close to that spec/look as possible.

Unlike open-wheeler cars from earlier eras – 1940s, ‘50s, early ‘60s – which were of ‘space-frame’ construction, and thus unlikely to fundamentally change over the car’s life, Formula 5000 belongs to the era of the aluminium monocoque ‘tub’. Cars got crashed regularly back then, tubs got destroyed or damaged, to the point where they were often replaced – almost a spare part! Following ‘lineage’ has thus in many cases become an increasingly difficult task as historic interest has grown and old tubs have been discovered, repaired, refurbished and built up into cars. At this point, the historic fraternity is wrestling with this issue a bit and the subject of CODs, especially here in Australia, is a tricky one.

Part of COD also includes car livery and, again, insistence on exact replication (particularly where a car’s lineage is clear) has led to some awkward situations.

A recent example concerns a Formula 5000 car which was apparently refused its COD because the car wasn’t the same colour as its original was deemed to be. Thus, literally unable to run the car, the owner relented and re-painted it – only to still face an issue because it was deemed to not have its

Part of COD also includes car livery and, again, insistence on exact replication has led to some awkward situations

period logos affixed.

Personally, I believe that’s taking it all a bit too far. F5000 is growing in Australia and it should primarily be about having genuine, technicallysound cars on-track. That should be the priority. Not the colour.

As it happens, NZ – world leaders in F5000 numbers, quality cars and events – has a more flexible and, in my view, realistic approach: ‘period look’ is the ultimate criteria and it seems to work well. After all, whether I’m wearing a red tee-shirt or a yellow one, it’s still me underneath!

Certainly, if you happen to own a definitive car, with clear history, it’s obviously a good thing that it be turned out close to original – it certainly adds to the value of the vehicle, like any ‘genuine’ item – but given the significant grey areas surrounding the era, total replication in many cases is a big ask, if not impossible.

Sponsorship is also a tricky issue. Increasingly, competitors are finding support – from their own businesses or outside companies. Should they be able to adorn ‘historic’ cars?

Starting in January 1968, when Colin Chapman rolled out the Gold Leaf Team Lotus for the first time (Lady Wigram Trophy, Christchurch), sponsorship has been an integral part of motorsport, a necessity to pay the bills and thus, in my view, relevant.

If done appropriately, in period manner, that should suffice – again, as is the case in NZ. As long as – as ‘out-there’ UK comedian, the late Kenny Everett, used to famously say – “it’s all done in the best paaassible taste!”

I hope there is some co-operative dialogue on the subject here in Australia soon – if only to continue the process of aligning Australia and NZ as closely as possible in a technical/category sense, for obvious reasons. The target should, in my view, be pragmatic as much as idealistic.

There’s room for sensible discussion – and an outcome which would be positive for all.

In the meantime, see you at the Masters … motorsport news

15/08/12 8:47 AM

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I

T’S difficult to imagine from our vantage point the post-Michael Jordan era, but there was a time in the 1970s when the NBA was straddling a line between the fringes and oblivion. Matches were played in half-empty stadiums. Finals were televised on tape delay. Mainstream appeal beyond its core fan base was about the same as that of javelin in a non-Olympic year.

In his book Welcome to the Terrordom, Dave Zirin proposes that a freakish mix of seemingly independent forces, coupled with some fortuitous timing, helped to turn American professional basketball into the juggernaut that it has been for the past three decades.

If you follow Zirin’s take on things, cuts in public spending had led to a decline in the local baseball leagues, school programmes and maintenance of urban ballparks, making it difficult for kids in the poorer areas of

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some cities to go participate in the Great American Pastime, as had been the tradition for years. Basketball hoops, by contrast, were far more accessible. For African American youth in particular, who were enduring crushing unemployment in some parts of the US, basketball offered a cheap and accessible means of creative expression – much like another urban phenomenon that was on the rise at the same time: hip hop.

NBA commissioner David Stern spotted the potential for the NBA to tap into hip hop’s snowballing momentum; hip hop reciprocated with some of its biggest artists of the time name-checking their favourite NBA stars in songs. It was the sporting equivalent of firing the booster rockets on the space shuttle. The emergence of easysell stars and a bankable rivalry in the Laker’s Magic Johnson and the Boston’s Larry Bird then helped propel it into orbit. The arrival of Jordan – arguably the most effective

athlete in history in terms of crossover appeal (and sneaker sales) - activated the hyperspace switch.

That’s a drastically simplified version of the story, and I’d thoroughly recommend checking out Zirin’s book for a proper account of how things went down. But if it’s accurate, then there are two lessons in it for IndyCar. Firstly, it is theoretically possible for a second-tier sport to break through and hit the big time. Secondly, doing so is really, really hard without pigging-backing yourself to one of the most significant cultural movements of the last century. You can try to force yourself upon the mainstream, but the danger there is that you end up with the film Driven.

In the case of the IndyCar, the question is how to make the millions of people who watch the Indy 500 every year tune in for all the other races. It’s a familiar story for other forms of racing, as well as pretty much every

In the case of the IndyCar, the question is how to make the millions of people who watch the Indy 500 every year tune in for all the other races

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MARK

GLENDENNING

UNITED STATES OF ORIGIN sport that doesn’t make the last four pages of the newspaper. Many Australians who spend two weeks in front of the TV following the tennis every January couldn’t tell you when the French Open is, while for all the fuss around sprinter Usain Bolt, you can’t find a telecast most of his races even if you want to. The fastest athlete on the planet exists primarily through his shoe sponsor ads.

It must drive the IAAF’s PR department nuts.

Motor racing probably has it even harder than most fringe sports because not only are you trying to sell non-believers on the value of an entire championship, you’re often trying to sell them on the idea that it’s a sport in the first place. Much of the drama that drags lay viewers into watching unfamiliar sports is the human element, whether it is visible struggle of marathon runners in the heat of the Athens Olympics eight years ago, or the mounting tension as a gymnast in the run for the gold medal has a bit of a wobble on the beam. You don’t need to understand the sport to tap into the drama. Besides, if you meet up with a friend to smash a tennis ball around every couple of weeks, it’s easier to relate to the difficulty of what Andy Murray’s doing on TV. How do

you attempt to replicate a Fernando Alonso overtaking move in your backyard?

Also, in motor racing the competitors are completely encased within cars and helmets.

To the untrained eye, therefore, the real effort is usually imperceptible unless you know what to look for. If you’re a non-fan who has accidently channel-surfed onto race and all you’re seeing is cars driving around in circles, what is there to tap into? What is going to make you want to look up the TV guide and find out when the next race is?

IndyCar boss Randy Bernard has a few ideas. For one thing, he’s fond of ‘storylines’, which is a big part of what is driving the continued push to introduce alternate aero kits at some point in 2013. The shortcoming there is that it’s a one-shot deal – say you push the button and bring different bodywork into the sport, you might get a bit of a splash in the papers the day afterwards.

But what happens after that? And what if the papers don’t pay attention in the first place?

Another part of Randy’s plan is to expand the calendar to 19 races to ‘improve momentum’. The most valuable sporting property in the US right now is not Major League Baseball (162 games per team each

year). Nor is it the NBA (82 games per year).

It’s not NASCAR, with its 36 points-paying races each season. It’s the NFL. And each NFL team plays 16 games, not including the finals.

Adding more races to the IndyCar schedule might help with momentum. But isn’t it more likely to simply add another few races that no-one other than die-hards will watch?

The killer move at this point would be to offer a solution, but if I had one, I’d be negotiating a high-paying job within IndyCar for myself rather than writing about it here.

But the answer has to lie somewhere in figuring out how to get the maximum return on the characters, locations and organic plotlines that you’ve already got. Sure, it would be cool to have Road America back on the schedule. But as it stands, the quality of the racing in IndyCar has been consistently higher this year than probably any other season that I’ve covered, in any category.

With three races to go (at time of writing), there are four guys fighting it out for the championship, and the guy who has won the last three in a row out of the reckoning. Work out how to sell that, and artificial storylines might not be necessary.

IndyCar/LAT USA

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ANDREW

VAN LEEUWEN BOX SEAT

I

’VE been thinking about what makes a Formula 1 car desirable in a historical sense.

As random as it sounds, I can justify this rather bizarre line of thinking; since we’ve last met I’ve been to the stunning Mercedes museum in Stuttgart, and the 40th anniversary of the Oldtimer’s Grand Prix at the Nürburgring. And if places like that don’t get you thinking about motor racing, then you shouldn’t be writing about this sport for a living.

Anyway, back to desirable Formula 1 cars. At the ‘Ring, the Grand Prix Masters were running. In case you haven’t heard of it, it’s all about pre-1984 F1 cars, with turbo-powered rigs specifically not allowed. In other words, welcome to Cosworth DFV heaven.

There were some stunning cars on track, right from a Surtees TS9 from 1971 to an ’81 Brabham BT49C, superbly driven to victory

by Spaniard Joaquin Folch. And every car in the field was powered by an ear-pleasing, free-revving DFV. It was a pleasure to watch, and hear, and generally be a part of.

It got me thinking about 2012-spec Formula 1 cars. When you sit back and watch a Brabham BT49C, an Arrows A4 and a Lotus 87B go hammer and tongs, it’s an exciting experience. But, in 30 years, will people be the saying the same about seeing a Lotus E20 or a Williams FW34 in 2042?

To be honest, I don’t know the answer to that question.

It’s very easy to say no. At the end of the day you would expect (and hope beyond hope) that the awful stepped noses used by every team except McLaren and HRT will be a one-year thing. Surely, those in charge will make the necessary regulation changes to ensure that the cars are a little more aesthetically pleasing next season. In what it being praised as one of F1’s best ever seasons, those stepped noses are a clear blotch in the copy book, and, potentially, the history book.

But … yes, here comes the but. In the Grand Prix Masters field there is an Amon AF101, a poorly-developed car built by Chris Amon, and raced by the Kiwi and his teammate Larry Perkins. The car took part in four Grand Prix weekends in 1974, qualifying only once in the hands of Amon in Spain, before making it nowhere near the finish. In the subsequent three races, neither Amon nor Perkins could qualify. It was a bad car a smidge under 40 years ago, and you wouldn’t expect much to have changed in that time.

However, in 2012 it is a desirable car. Not a good car, a desirable car. That it was so

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bad is what makes it interesting, and the fact it never actually started a Grand Prix only adds to that.

Maybe there is a parallel between that 1974 car, and the 2012 ones. Combine that the current F1 cars are so uniquely ugly with the fact that the latest season is an absolute epic, and maybe these will be the most famous cars of the current era.

To be honest, I can genuinely imagine two competitors/enthusiasts talking at the 70th anniversary of the Oldtimer GP at the Nürburgring (should it still exist).

“I heard you bought a ‘stepped nose’ Williams.” “Yeah, it’s the genuine Maldonado car from Barcelona.”

Notice how the number 2012 never pops up in that fictional conversation. Maybe, the 2012 F1 cars will become so recognisable by that ugly stepped nose that they’ll simply be remembered as the ‘stepped nose’ cars, much liked a ‘shark nose’ Ferrari, or a ‘six-wheeler’ Tyrell.

So in the case of the 2012-spec Formula 1 cars, the ugliness could be a blessing in disguise. But I fear the same won’t be the case for the 2008 McLaren.

In the heart of Stuttgart, in a museum so clean Ron Dennis would be proud of it, stands Lewis Hamilton’s title winning MP4-23. Remember when we all saw a 2009spec low downforce F1 car for the first time and it looked strange? Well I think we’re all so conditioned to the clean lines and big tall wings of the new cars that a pre-09 car just looks horrible.

And that particular McLaren was one of the worst offenders of aero travesties. Yes, the horns, winglets, lips and fins made it the fastest car of the season, but by gum was it an ugly machine.

It was ugly, but there was no real point of difference compared to the 2006 or 2007 cars, unlike the (hopefully) one-off steppednose cars. That could play a part in the car’s ultimate historical significance.

But … yes here comes another but.

Depending on where the aero and engine regulations go in the future, that car could end up being the outright fastest Formula 1 car of all time. With all of those ugly aero hang-ons, and its Bridgestone tyres, that car is capable of producing awesome grip.

Perhaps that will be it’s saving grace in a historical sense.

In my opinion, it’s going to be a genuine ’09 Brawn BGP 001 that will be the rig to have at the 70th Oldtimer Grand Prix. Pretty, fast, a championship winner, and a brilliant back story.

If only it was powered by one of those sweet sounding DFVs. 17

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Nine is

Enough

The 2012 Formula 1 World Championship has been one to remember, with five drivers locked in a titanic battle.

With nine Grands Prix to go, Phil Branagan looks at nine headline features of the season so far, that could just determine this year’s World Champion

1. Mark, Mark II

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All photos Sutton Images

N

O matter what, you can bet on one thing; win, lose or draw the Drivers’ World Championship, Mark Webber will be the same man next year as he has been this year.

Webber is a man who gets great joy from racing a Formula 1 car but who, at the same time, does not get too high with the highs of the sport, or too low with the lows.

His wins are celebrated, but a bad race is not the end of Webber World.

After going close in 2010, 2011 was a tough season for him. Sebastian Vettel stole a march, not just on Webber but on every other GP driver, and cruised to his second title. But things have changed; the technical feature that worked so well in Vettel’s hand in 2011, the hot blown diffuser, has been consigned to history, putting Webber back on a more level playing field with his team-mate.

With a Red Bull RB8 that behaves more like the RB6 of 2010, he is having a much better season.

Webber started the year with four consecutive fourth places and made the comment at the time that that was not going to win him the championship. He was right, and an 11th place at Barcelona did him no favours. But an all-the-way win in Monaco and a come-from-behind victory at Silverstone righted the ship. His most recent results have been two eighths but there were mitigating circumstances; a gearbox change dropping him five grid spots in Germany and a differential problem in Hungary forcing an extra pitstop.

But the speed that encouraged Ferrari to have discussions about 2013, and Red Bull to re-sign him, is still there. Of the nine tracks remaining, Webber has won in F1 on only one of them – but that is Sao Paulo, the final race of the season. In such a competitive year, that may be a handy ace to have up your sleeve …

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2. Esomething Especial

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T is difficult to come to any conclusion other than the fact that after 11 races, Fernando Alonso is the best driver in GP racing – by a fair margin.

That may sound obvious, given that he leads the World Drivers’ Championship. But the individual skills that the Spaniard has showcased this season add up to more than just a 40-point lead. Alonso has shown no weaknesses this season; his starts are consistently excellent, he stays out of trouble and he knows when to fight and when not to.

All this has been done with a handicap; Ferrari’s F2012. Yes, he has won three races and scored two poles, but so troubled is the car that in the nine races Alonso did not start from pole, his average starting spot has been 7.5. Twice he has started outside the top 10.

On average, he starts 2.5 grid spots behind Hamilton (even counting Lewis’s disastrous Spanish 24th grid spot) and three spot behind Vettel.

Yet, Alonso is a win and a podium clear of those two drivers in the points. In the races, he has been almost always brilliant.

By itself, finishing all 11 races in the points is impressive, until you consider it is in a sequence of 23 such finishes in a row. His last DNF was last year in Canada, where he collided with Jenson Button. In his 49 GP starts in a Ferrari, he has finished in the points 47 times, with nine wins and 17 podiums.

Compare those stats with teammate Massa’s for the same 49 races; 34 points finishes, five podiums (none this year) and, of course, no wins. Alonso has banked 164 points this year (an average of almost 15 per GP); Massa, 25 (1.66 per GP).

But perhaps the best insight into Fernando’s skills came at Silverstone. With Webber zeroing in, in a faster car and on a superior strategy, Alonso made him go around the outside – and then gave him exactly the room he needed, plus a few millimetres.

In the Senna-Schumacher era of bully-boy driving, it is likely that Webber would have been pushed off the road. Alonso wanted the win but his eyes are always on the title, and he settled for the 18 points for second.

Fernando Alonso is the Jackie Stewart of the 21st century. He is going to be hard to beat.

motorsport news

15/08/12 7:19 AM

3. Bulldogged T

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ECHNICALLY, Red Bull Racing has been in the wars this season.

There are always a lot of eyes on the blue cars, rivals looking for something on the very edge of the sport’s technical frontier. At Monaco, it was the floor of the Bulls that other teams were pointing at, then the cooling ducts. In Canada, wheel hubs. In Germany, the engine mapping controversy came to light. In Hungary, there was talk about whether the cars’ ride height was being adjusted illegally.

But here is the thing. In none of those cases was there any finding by the stewards of irregularities. Yes, wordings of rules were subsequently tightened up, and the cars were modified. There was even talk of protests from other teams. But none came.

Think about this; when was the last time a Red Bull, or any Adrian Newey car for that matter, was found to be illegal?

Newey is an enigma; simultaneously,

he is both conservative and avant garde.

At the start of the season, he was quick to draw the development line from this year’s RB8 to 2009’s car, calling the 2012 model ‘the fourth evolution of the RB5’. His cars are usually fundamentally conventional, but he pushes the very limit of the rule book. That provides performance, but it also can lead to unreliability, with the drivers experiencing a number of KERS problems, and individual failures like Vettel’s alternator at Valencia (though to be fair, Romain Grosjean suffered a similar problem with his Lotus-Renault) and Hungary (where Webber’s race was compromised by a faulty differential).

But the proof is in the points; P2 and P3 in the Drivers’ Championship and a handy lead in the Constructors’. And you can just bet that Newey and his technical team had their laptops at home with them during the two-week summer break, tapping away at the next new something.

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4. A little Italian, and a lot of British

M

cLaren has always been a team against which others have been measured. The problem is, it has been difficult to measure McLaren against itself this year.

There is a hint of schizophrenia about the silver team in 2012. When it is good – like in Melbourne or at the Hungaroring – it is very good.

There have been times this season during which Jenson Button and Lewis Hamilton have looked every inch the World Champions that make up the British Dream Team. But on other occasions they have looked diabolical. Between his second places in China and Germany, in six races, Button scored a total of FIVE points – and, frankly, looked lost.

But then he bounced back; even after qualifying seventh in Germany, he may have won if not for the flatspot that encouraged him to settle for second. And when Hamilton dominated in Hungary, Jenson was at least in the points, in sixth.

But on occasion, Hamilton has appeared ham-fisted. His defence is sometimes too ‘offensive’; he himself has said that he considers anything less than a win as a loss. That’s fine,

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but Alonso and Webber are filing away points when Lewis is not. His 2008 title was won by pushing to the maximum, on every lap of every race to, literally, the last corner of the season. With eight points separating second-placed Webber from fifthplaced Raikkonen right now, that strategy may not work for Hamilton in 2012.

There have also been team mistakes. Hamilton’s loss of pole position in Spain (when the team instructed him to stop on his ‘in’ lap, because he was short on fuel) was a SNAFU of the first order. Likewise, having pitstop after pitstop go wrong is unforgivable for a team at the highest level. To its credit, the team has turned it round; McLaren’s machine-gun pitstops are now a thing of wonder.

Also on the upside, McLaren usually looks more than a match for the MercedesGP ‘works’ team and definitely has Force India covered.

If a racing driver’s first job is to beat his team-mate, a team’s is to rule over the teams that use the same engines. McLaren has that covered, by some margin.

5. Silver Medallists

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F

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ERRARI eras can be split into two types; those when the team was ‘Italian’ and those when the team was ‘British’.

OK; that is an over-simplification.

But, if you look at the progress that the team made, technically, in the early 1990s when John Barnard was the Scuderia’s technical director, and then looked at the Ross Brawn/ Rory Byrne era from the late 1990s, it starts to fit – particularly so, if you compare those years with some of the nightmare seasons and cars that came in between.

Ferrari looks to be in the midst of a ‘British’ era now. Ex-Benetton and McLaren man Pat Fry took on the role of assistant technical director in mid-2010, and was made head of racetrack engineering at the start of 2011. It’s true that team principal Stefano Domenicali is Italian, but he is phlegmatic, almost British in the calm, methodical way he goes about things.

His background is business rather than engineering; he came into the team from Ferrari’s HR department.

With the F2012 not being the best car to come out of Maranello,

Ferrari has done something at which McLaren is usually very good; turning a merely good car into a winner.

Since early testing revealed that the car’s pullrod front suspension was not providing the advantage that designer Aldo Costa thought it might, mistakes have been few. Upgrades have, generally, been progressive.

Race strategies (well, Alonso’s anyway) have been almost always positive.

They got it wrong at Montreal, Alonso’s tyres falling off a cliff in the final laps, and at Silverstone, Fernando on Option tyres a sitting duck late in the race, but a second place was still a positive result.

In a way, even Felipe Massa’s lack of form has become a positive. On several occasions, he has been put on a risky strategy or tyre choice to ‘test’ situations for Alonso. It is sad to see Massa so out of form but he has, at least, made some contribution to Ferrari’s season.

Ferrari may be beaten by Red Bull in the Constructors’ title. But if Alonso can bring home the Scuderia’s first Drivers’ title in five years, one suspects, all will be forgiven.

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6. The Comeback, er, Kids A

t the start of this season, Kimi Raikkonen said … look, nobody much knows what Kimi Raikkonen said at the start of this season.

He is too difficult to understand and, even when you actually hear the words, they don’t always make sense.

Raikkonen’s driving has done the talking all his career, and this season it has been loud and clear. The answer to the pre-season question, ‘How many races will it take Raikkonen to get back to business?’ was ‘None’. At Albert Park, he started a lowly 18th but looked swift and forceful in the race. By Bahrain, he was on the podium. It was clear he was not back in Formula 1 to top up his superannuation. He was back to race.

His charge at the Hungaroring was evidence enough. In the middle stint of the race he was relentless, never putting a wheel wrong. After finishing second (for the second time this season, and his fifth podium) he showed about the same level of emotion as ever – none. Remember, this is the guy who had to be instructed, by McLaren, to wave to the grandstand at Sepang in 2003 WHEN HE WON HIS FIRST GP. The speed is all there; a 19th GP win cannot be far away.

On the other hand, a 92nd win appears no closer for Michael Schumacher. There have been glimpses of the Good Old Days this season (notably in Monaco, where he qualified fastest) but there have also been glimpses of the Bad (notably in Spain, where he punted Bruno Senna off and earned a five-grid spot penalty for the next race, which is what cost him the pole in Monaco). There have also been lapses that would have been near-unthinkable of the Schumacher of 10 years ago; in China, a likely MercedesGP 1-2 went out the window when he made a simple driving error. It’s all very well to say that, at 43, it is reasonable that he is past his prime. The problem is, the 20-and-30-something he is racing against ARE in their prime.

The question remains, will MercedesGP keep the old man for 2013? They might; it, given a good Sunday, it is not beyond the realms of possibility that Schumacher could win a GP this year. He clearly still loves being a Formula 1 driver but, 300 GPs (that milestone comes up at Monza), 91 wins and seven titles, is that enough?

7. Black and Gold and Fast all over

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Tyres for CirCuiT - supersprinT - TraCkdays - TarmaC rally - dirT rally To contact your nearest Kumho Motorsport Dealer call:

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This season, you did not need to have blown out 40 candles to be able to remember the era when Ferrari and McLaren were fighting Lotus for Grand Prix wins.

Lotus has come back, hard, this season. The signs were there a year ago; the 2011 Lotus was fast, but not fast enough – and when teams like Red Bull maximised the effects of their hot blown diffusers, the R31 was left even further behind. That car was designed around forward-facing exhausts, a feature that mitigated against a conventional hot blown diffuser, which are now outlawed.

The 2012 hardware, the Lotus E20, is far more competitive. Despite the team losing pre-season testing time fixing a problem with the mounting point on the rear edge of the upper front wishbone, almost everywhere, the car has proven very competitive. So is the 2012 liveware; the team replaced Bruno Senna and Vitaly Petrov (who bought reals and roubles to the team, in spades) with two drivers who do not. Much was expected from Kimi Raikkonen, once the former World Champion scraped the rust off, but Romain Grosjean has shown that he is more than capable of matching his speed. So fast have the pair been that Lotus is right in the thick of the Constructors’ battle, eyeball-toeyeball with Ferrari and McLaren – even if Red Bull has stolen a march, at this stage.

The challenge will be to maintain the development of the car. The opposition teams have more facilities and experience in this department, and while Lotus’s new and innovative Double DRS system has shown potential when used in Practice, and potentially offers a gain on fast tracks like Spa and Monza, be assured that CFD computers throughout the F1 world have been humming, for weeks, on similar systems.

The question could be whether Lotus gets to use the system, and gain an advantage from it, before the other teams’ versions appear. They have a narrow window; it has already been outlawed by the teams for next season.

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8. Eightred W

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HEN Lewis Hamilton took out the Canadian Grand Prix in June, he confirmed that the 2012 season will go down in the record books, with seven different winners in the first seven GPs of the year.

An eighth will not set a record. In 1982, 11 drivers won races; Alain Prost, Niki Lauda, Didier Pironi, John Watson, Riccardo Patrese, Nelson Piquet, Rene Arnoux, Patrick Tambay, Elio de Angelis, Keke Rosberg and Michele Alboreto. So, 2012 has some way to go before that number is challenged.

But, eight could happen, and soon.

MercedesGP has won but Michael Schumacher has not, even if he has shown speed at China, Monaco and Valencia.

The next race is in Belgium GP, a race Schumacher has won six times, and he has five wins at Monza. If MercedesGP can sort out its current hiccups, the next two races may be the ones in which Schumi eclipses team-mate Nico Rosberg.

Elsewhere in this feature, we have mentioned Kimi Raikkonen but it is worthwhile focusing on his form at Spa-Francorchamps. He has won there four times – twice for McLaren and twice for Ferrari, and those four wins came in FIVE starts, with no Belgian race in 2006 and no Kimi in F1 in 2010 and ’11. Four wins in five starts in a single event is a staggering record – and, if Raikkonen is considered a potential winner, can Romain Grosjean be ruled out? He’s got no F1 form to speak of at Spa but a win and two podiums in GP2 shows he knows the place well, and he has matched Kimi for speed in recent races.

And there should be two more names of potential winners. Sergio Perez went close in Malaysia, and the Sauber appears to be tyre-friendly enough to be fast at the end of races. Recent updates to the Williams appear to have helped Bruno Senna’s confidence, though a win could be a reach, and likewise for Felipe Massa. But, with what we have seen so far this season, can we really rule those drivers out?

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9. Pastornomics T

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AKING a maiden Grand Prix win is a special thing. Doing it from pole position is something even moreso.

Two drivers have done just that this year. Nico Rosberg scored from pole in China and Pastor Maldonado did likewise in Spain. Many expected the German to win a GP some time in his career, possibly even this season, but Maldonado’s win was something of a surprise.

Williams really has turned it around this season. In 2011, the team suffered its worst season ever, scoring only five points. A new technical team, headed

by Mike Coughlan, carried over the good bits of the FW33 (there were not many) to a new, neat and conventional car, and Renault engines have helped with the rest.

Maldonado is an enigma. On the one hand, you have the man who stalked Fernando Alonso at Barcelona before taking the lead during the final pit sequence, and while the home crowd were willing their man to win, the Venezeulen kept his cool and carried the day – and then played a rather heroic part in dealing with the team’s post-race fire.

But there is the other Maldonado.

At Monaco, he received a 10-grid spot penalty for an avoidable clash with Sergio Perez during practice; at Valencia, he was racing Lewis Hamilton for fourth when they clashed, earning him another penalty; at Silverstone, he was penalised and fined after clashing, again, with Perez, who branded him ‘dangerous’.

Maldonado scored 25 points for the win at Barca, and has not banked a single point since. Alonso, the man he beat, has scored 88 in those five GPs. If he drives like he did in Spain, he may become the man to lead Williams back to glory. But until he backs it up, that win could be a false dawn. Worse, should Maldonado keep hitting other drivers, it’s not inconceivable that his next punishment could include a suspension. Williams test driver Valtteri Bottas is, clearly, waiting in the wings and has been showing great Friday form. It can take only one GP appearance for driver to make an impression and secure his future; if that sounds far-fetched, one needs look no further than the career of Sebastian Vettel.

Go faster, Pastor. But, be careful. www.mnews.com.au

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A KLIEN

START

CHRISTIAN KLIEN HAS WASHED HIS HANDS OF FORMULA ONE AND IS HOPING TO MAKE A FRESH START ELSEWHERE IN THE MOTOR RACING WORLD. AND IT IS RIGHT HERE, IN V8 SUPERCARS, WHERE THE FORMER RED BULL RACING DRIVER SEES HIS FUTURE. BY Andrew van Leeuwen

C

HRISTIAN Klien holds a Formula 1 record so obscure that even he didn’t know about it until Motorsport News filled him in.

Back in 2004, during his stint with Jaguar’s Formula 1 team, the likeable lad from Austria outqualified Mark Webber for the Bahrain Grand Prix. To that point, Webber had never been outqualified by a team-mate in a Formula 1 car, having easily disposed of both Alex Yoong and Anthony Davidson in 2002, and Antonio Pizzonia and Justin Wilson in 2003.

But in 2004 the remarkable run came to an end when Klien nabbed 12th place in Sakhir, two to the better of Webber.

“Oh really? In Bahrain? I didn’t know that,” says Klien before bursting into laughter. “That’s good. He’s a very good qualifier. Bahrain that year, it was the very first time we had raced there, so we started with everything equal.

The race track suited me really well. I quite liked it.”

Times have changed. A little over eight years later, Klien has very little interest what Webber is doing. Now, he’s focused on names like Whincup, Winterbottom and Holdsworth, with plans to use his enduro deal with Walkinshaw Racing to launch a full-time V8 Supercar campaign in 2013.

When Clayton announced that Klien (pronounced ‘Kleean’) would partner Russell Ingall at Sandown and Bathurst this year, it seemed like an odd choice. Internationals have a less-than-impressive record at Mount Panorama, particularly recently, and with the co-driver rules placing so much importance on having the right name on the window, signing Klien seemed a little risky.

But there might just be method to the madness. In the

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build-up to the Season of Endurance, Klien’s preparation has been thorough and professional, and it started even before he had a deal for the two races. In fact, it started back at the beginning of this year, when Klien self-funded a trip to Australia to race in the Bathurst 12 Hour (sharing a Lotus Exige with Rob Thompson and Sarah Harley), before heading straight to the Clipsal 500 to start talking to teams. He only got as far as the Walkinshaw garage, where head honchos Mike Henry and Steve Hallam were so impressed with Klien’s proactive approach that they kicked negotiations straight into top gear.

“After the Gold Coast race last year, for me it was clear that I want to race in that category,” says Klien.

“That was my first chance to have a closer look at the category, and see behind the scenes just how the teams are working. It’s a lot of fun, and it’s all very professional.

And the drivers are at a very high level.

“Everyone told me that Bathurst is the biggest race, so I told myself that I had to go and do the 12 Hour race and get to know the circuit. The week after was the first V8 race in Adelaide, the Clipsal 500, so I went there and started talking to some teams.

“It happened quickly. Before the 12 Hour race I had some contact with other teams, but nothing serious. From there, it all came together. A couple of weeks later we finalised the deal with Walkinshaw.

“First I spoke to Mike, then to Steve, and they were interested because I’d done the 12 Hour race. That showed that I was serious about racing at Bathurst, which seems to be very important in the Australian mentality. Steve knew me from Formula 1, but I didn’t really know him. I’d bumped into him a few times, but we’d never had much motorsport news

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contact.

“So we finalised a test at Winton (“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” he says with a smile), just to see where I was at and if I was quick in that kind of car. The test went very well, so we did our deal for the two endurance races.”

Before we go too far into Klien’s V8 Supercar plans, let’s look back at his well-credentialed career to date. Born in Hohenems in 1983, Klien’s first love was skiing. Then, in his early teens, he decided to give karting a go. To the surprise of everyone (his father included), he quickly rose through the ranks of Formula BMW, Formula Renault, Formula 3, before lobbing in Formula 1 with Jaguar in 2004, apparently thanks to some gentle prodding from Red Bull owner (and fellow Austrian) Dietrich Mateschitz.

Having held on to his Jaguar seat for the

“

entirety of the 2004 season, Klien was told he would share a seat with Tonio Liuzzi in 2005 after Red Bull took over the team. It was a short-lived arrangement; Liuzzi only got four starts, the rest going to Klien before the Austrian was re-signed – on his own – for 2006.

But at the end of 2006, Webber was drafted into the Red Bull system, which was bad news for Klien. What followed was a long stint on the sidelines, taking reserve driver roles at Honda and BMW-Sauber, before finally returning to a race seat with Hispania at the end of 2010. The ’10 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix was his last race in a Formula 1 car.

OK, it’s not quite the fairytale Formula 1 story, but having survived that long at the top of the sport is proof that Klien is no muppet. Couple that experience with the

fact that he’s still on the right side of 30 and it’s no wonder that Klien is quickly adapting to strange driving style required to get the best out of a V8 Supercar.

“It is hard work, because the cars require a completely different driving style to all of the other categories I’ve raced in so far in my career,” he admits.

“It’s even different to most Touring Cars.

But the team has given me a lot of time in the car, and I’m getting more and more used to the car. So far I’m finding it OK. “You have to change your driving style to understand how these cars work. When you do that, they work really well. Basically, you have to drive the corners like a ‘V’ shape. You brake late, turn the car around, and then drive as straight as possible out of the corner.

“That’s the way you have to drive these cars, because they have a fixed rear axle. It’s like a kart. You can’t carry the speed deep into the corner, you have to release the brake and the car turns by itself. You spend your whole career doing it differently, but the skills are within you. You just have to adjust.”

Of course, adapting to a V8 Supercar is only half – or maybe a quarter – of the battle when it comes to racing in the Bathurst 1000.

Taming the track itself is a serious task, and one not underestimated by Klien. That’s why he worked so hard to make sure the 12 Hour

I want to race V8 Supercars full-time next year. Otherwise I wouldn’t have flown to Australia six times already!

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BORN AGAIN

CHRISTIAN

WE’RE IN THE WINNERS CORNER

I

F Christian Klien has his way, he’ll be a full-time V8 Supercar driver in 2013.

Having been involved in Formula 1 since 2004, Klien is ready for a rebirth as a touring car star.

It’s kind of been happening for a few years now; ever since Klien found himself without a full-time F1 ride in 2007, he’s been dabbling in other forms of motorsport. The highlights have so far included third outright at Le Mans in 2008 sharing a factory Peugeot with Ricardo Zonta and Franck Montagny, before winning the 1000 Kilometres of Spa in the Peugeot alongside Nicolas Minassian and Simon Pagenaud the following year.

Now, with his last F1 race start well over a year ago, Klien is preparing to give the one-off ‘here and there’ appearances the flick and settle back into a full-time ride.

And he wants to do it in V8 Supercars.

“That’s definitely my goal,” he admits.

“I want to race V8 Supercars full-time next year.

Otherwise I wouldn’t have flown to Australia six times already! I have a lot of air miles now.”

It’s for that very reason that Klien chose to forgo another Gold Coast appearance and jump straight into V8 Supercar’s deep at Sandown and Bathurst.

“That was an easy decision,” he says when quizzed on the rule preventing proper endurance drivers from racing in the GC600.

“For me it was clear that if I want to race V8 Supercars full-time, it’s much better to do the endurance races. You have a lot more time in the car, and it just shows that you’re much more serious about it.”

As it stands, Klien is actually still working in Formula 1.

He is currently on Williams’ books, testing new set-ups in the team’s state of the art simulator. But he admits that the time has come to call time on his F1 career.

“This is more cool,” he says.

“I can still be in motorsport. Formula 1 is obviously the top of motorsport, and everyone wants to be there at one stage, but after seven years I’ve seen it. It’s a lot of politics, so I find myself enjoying these other categories.

“That’s the joy of motorsport; after Formula 1, you still have a lot of categories to race in. It’s different to skiing.

When skiers stop competing at the top, they have to retire.

I still get to enjoy racing.”

– ANDREW VAN LEEUWEN

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NS O I T A ATUL

R

CONG

O M E N

IME RLD T

O

S AT W

ER WINN

G N I RAC K ATTAC

E 2012

ENG CHALL

Spectators at World Time Attack witnessed Nemo Racing’s Evo IX win with a lap time over two seconds faster than any other car in the field, and more than three seconds faster than the previous WTAC record.

The Nemo Racing Evo is fully equipped with MoTeC electronics to control and monitor performance.

Nemo Racing manager Chris Eaton had good reason to grin after driver Warren Luff pulled a record time of 1:25.02 to convincingly win this year’s Pro class competition.

“This car has been two years in the making and we chose only the best components. It’s all worthwhile when we get results like this!”

Chris Eaton

see footage of the teams winning lap at To confirm your ECU application with MoTeC visit:

www.motec.com/latestnews/nemo 33

15/08/12 7:26 AM

Dirk Klynsmith

“

You have to change your driving style to understand how these cars work. When you do that, they work really well

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some difficulties getting used to that car. In the first race on the Gold Coast, it was OK, but it was easier for me as soon as I drove the Commodore.”

Just to make sure he is banking as many V8 miles as possible, Klien even showed up at the Hungaroring in Budapest back in July to race a Maserati Quattroporte in the International Superstars Series, an Italianbased V8-powered Touring Car category.

“The racing is very similar to V8 Supercars, in the way that the racing is close, you overtake the same way, and there’s a lot of heat in the car,” he says.

“That’s what makes this such good preparation.

“With the Maserati, it’s stiffer and wider

than a V8 Supercar, so there’s more grip available. And the tyres are better as well.

It’s a little bit more like a GT car, while a V8 Supercar is a real Touring Car, soft and moving around quite a lot. The weight is very similar, and the driving style is similar because you need to use the ‘V’ shape in the corner as well. So it was a worthwhile experience.”

Klien will arrive at Sandown and Bathurst as prepared as any International first-timer has been in the modern era. But whether that’s enough to get him on the pace fast enough, particularly at Bathurst, is another question.

The answer? Well, that will have to wait until October.

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deal came off before going on the hunt for a proper V8 ride.

“I knew it was a very difficult track before I went there, and that’s why I wanted to do the 12 Hour race,” he says.

“I spent quite a lot of time in the car, I think I spent five hours in the car, so it was a good chance to get a look at the track. Of course, the car wasn’t as fast as a V8 Supercar – it was just a little Lotus Exige. But it was good to learn the circuit. There were dry conditions, wet conditions, which was perfect.”

Klien also has to get his head around the less demanding, but still tricky, Sandown circuit.

“I know nothing about Sandown yet. I haven’t even seen any on-board footage, just some YouTube clips. I’ll spend some time in Melbourne before the races, so I’ll try and get some laps in a road car.”

Unlike many of the other internationals who have tried, and failed to conquer the V8 Supercar enduros, Klien has one huge advantage – he’s already raced one of these cars. He spent last year’s Gold Coast 600 sharing the Bottle-O Falcon with Paul Dumbrell, although it wasn’t an overly impressive showing. The pair finished the first race 15th, before Klien found the wall on the first lap of the second.

But, having already completed plenty of testing miles in the Walkinshaw Commodore ahead of Sandown, Klien says he is already more comfortable in the Holden than he was in the Ford.

“For me it’s easier in the Walkinshaw car, because they run the car a little bit stiffer.

That gives me a bit more feedback from the car, which I like.

“The FPR cars are really soft, and I had

motorsport news

15/08/12 7:26 AM

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TAKING A

BRAKE FROM F1

AN F1 CAR CAN GO FROM 200KM/H TO A DEAD STOP IN LESS THAN THE LENGTH OF AN OLYMPIC SWIMMING POOL. NEEDLESS TO SAY, THAT SORT OF RETARDATION REQUIRES SOME PRETTY SPECIAL BRAKES. TO FIND OUT JUST HOW SPECIAL, ANDREW VAN LEEUWEN TOOK A TOUR OF BREMBO’S F1 BRAKES-MAKING FACILITY IN ITALY WITH THE COMPANY’S DEVELOPMENT ENGINEER, MAURO PICCOLI

T

HE modern Formula 1 car is a technical masterpiece.

From the sheer horsepower created by (relatively) low capacity engines to the jaw-dropping levels of downforce, there isn’t much about an F1 car that isn’t hugely impressive.

And a full-blown Formula 1 braking system is no exception.

In a nutshell, the carbon-carbon brake set-up in an F1 car is subjected to absolute torture. Measuring 28mm in thickness, and weighing in at a paltry 1.5kg, an F1-spec brake disc is responsible for shrugging off constant temperature changes of up to 1000 degrees, which occur within fractions of a second, over and over (and over) again. It’s a remarkable feat, from a remarkable piece of engineering.

To find out more, Motorsport News took a trip to Brembo’s factory in the Italian town of Bergamo. Here, in its impressive Kilometro Rosso facility (Red Kilometre in English), Brembo design and manufacture calipers, discs and pads to service Red Bull Racing, Ferrari, Toro Rosso, Sauber, Mercedes and HRT. It truly is a place where braking magic happens.

The man responsible for Brembo’s F1 program is Mauro Piccoli, an engineer who was put in charge of developing these high tech

systems ever since the brand entered Grand Prix racing back in 2003. In that time he has seen the business grow from supplying teams with two variations of an ‘off-the-shelf’ F1 caliper to a superspecialised operation that develops at least two different calipers per team. In other words, he’s a proper expert – and he took the time to talk MN through the key points of F1 brakes.

MANUFACTURING

Given that Formula 1 is all about speed, it takes an amazingly long time to make brake discs and calipers.

We’re not talking days. We’re not even talking weeks. As Piccoli explains, it literally takes months to properly forge these masterpieces. Why? Because with discs we’re talking about carboncarbon – otherwise known as putting carbon fibre in carbon matrix.

For calipers, it’s all about forging the aluminium.

“The production phase of the carbon disc is very long, because it takes seven or eight months to make the blanks,” he says.

“From raw material to the final blanks, then with machining, it takes

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around nine months to have a finished disc.

“With calipers, we start with an aluminium forging that takes six months to be produced, and then there is the machining time that is in the range of two and a half or three months.

“It’s a matter of being close to the customer, understanding what they need, and being prepared with the rules that change season-to-season.”

With these massive lead times, the days of on-the-fly brake upgrades are practically over.

“New designs can happen, but only once per year,” he adds.

“There is not enough time to build and work on new parts, and then test them.

“This is the real issue we have now – you can be at the track [for testing] in the first part of the season, and then when you’re at the track it is for the race weekend. Yes, you can test something on Friday, but only with a very short amount of time.

“If there is a specific need from a team to change something in the corner, specifically around the caliper, then we do the work. But I would say that this is not common. Most of the time you start with a clear idea and you go ahead with this idea.”

NINE YEARS OF EVOLUTION

Nine years is practically a lifetime when it comes to the technology in Formula 1, so since 2003 Piccoli has seen some big changes.

“The complexity of the braking system has increased a lot [since 2003],” he confirms.

“It has increased for the brake caliper, and increased for the brake

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disc, not just with the material itself, but also the cooling design.

There are now so many different cooling designs for the discs in terms of drilling and so on.

“The corner [of the car] itself has increased a lot in complexity. Nine years ago it was easy to fix a completely new caliper. You could arrive at the track and change it between qualifying and the race, because there were wasn’t a lot of things around the caliper.

“Now you have drums and doughnuts and brake ducts that keep getting more and more complex. These are specific pieces that all come together for the best performance, obviously from a brakes point of view, but for the aerodynamics as well. Brake ducts are designed to cool down the brakes, but also to offer an increase in downforce, front and rear.

“Now, there are no teams who have different shaped calipers for different conditions. There is just one body. Changing this caliper doesn’t take a long time, but if you had the shape of the caliper, you have to change everything, like the drum, and the doughnuts or shims on the outside of the disc, and this takes time.

“It also takes time to develop these parts accordingly with the new caliper. I mean, changing the caliper on a racing car takes half an hour, but the point is that if you try and fit a caliper from one customer’s car to another, it’s almost impossible.

“In the past it was just a matter for Brembo to work on the caliper, make it stiff and light. Now, we need integrate the uprights, the brake ducts, the CFD, into our simulation models. We work on all the complex parts in the corner.”

Brembo doesn’t only working with the teams to integrate their systems into the car’s aero, but also with Pirelli, to create the right balance between braking power and tyre grip.

“In Formula 1, you can still lock the brakes. This means that the power and the torque that the brakes can give is higher than the grip

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“

There are drivers who brake in different ways, but there isn’t one who’s more difficult than another. We know the characteristics of the drivers, and we work according to these characteristics

guaranteed by the tyres.

“We work and we try and collect tyre information from the teams and from the tyre supplier to understand what we need each year, so we know if we need to increase the power, or change the balance of the car.”

WEIGHT

“Here we report that it’s six kilos, but honestly it is less,” says Piccoli.

“It’s probably more like four kilos for the brake system.”

That’s four kilograms per corner, for an entire braking system. Not just the caliper, but the whole system. So how does it break down?

Okay, according to Piccoli, you’re looking at between 1.6 and 1.8kg for a caliper, just under 1.5kg for the disc, 800 grams for the carbon pads (times two), then 400 grams for the brake bell.

For the same components in a high-performance road car, you’re looking at at least 20kg.

TEMPERATURES

When brakes are too hot, they don’t work. When they’re too cold, they don’t work. When they are exactly the right temperature, they work seriously well.

So, one of Brembo’s jobs is to widen the ‘just right’ window, which results in a wider operating window.

While an F1 brake package works best at 1200 degrees, that’s not the temperature that Brembo uses as a reference. Instead, they focus on what’s called ‘initial temperature’, which is the temperature of the disc at the end of the longest straight, in the microsecond before the driver hits the pedal.

The range for the initial temperature is 600 degrees at the top, and 250 degrees at the bottom. Somewhere between 350 and 450 degrees is perfect.

One of the positive side effects is that, unlike the old days of openwheel racing cars, getting the brakes up to temperature on the warm-up lap is an easy task.

“With the material we are using now, it works from a reasonably cold temperature – about 250 degrees,” says Piccoli.

“A couple of brake applications is usually enough [to get the brakes up to temperature], but it depends on the track. In Silverstone it might take a lap and a half, while in Bahrain, it only takes a couple of hard brake applications. Most of the time, during the out-lap the brakes will reach their best performance.”

Another ‘old school’ brake problem that has been engineered out of the industry by the likes of Brembo is glazing.

“Glazing is not a problem anymore, with the material we are supplying,” Piccoli explains.

“The teams have enough experience to manage the carbon in the cold conditions.

“But there is always the problem of the opposite, when the brakes get too warm. More and more the brake ducts are used for

aerodynamic reasons, so the aerodynamic effect carries the same weight in the design process as the cooling performance. So it can happen that the first time you go on the track with the new car with new ducts, the temperature of the disc or the caliper is too high.”

WEAR RATES

Just like tyres, brake pads used to follow a pretty standard formula; the softer they are, the better they grip, and the quicker they wear out.

But that’s just not true with the brakes on a Formula 1 car. Using the data it collates every year at Le Mans, Brembo estimates that it could complete two 24 Hour epics with a single set of brakes. Yes, they use slightly thicker discs there (32mm is the standard), but the cars are heavier too. Based on that, Brembo’s guess is that an F1 car could easily do a season on a set of brakes.

Of course, the F1 teams would never do that.

“What happens is that a team usually changes the discs and pads so they have fresh material for the race, and then use the used parts for practice at the next event,” says Piccoli.

“Ten years ago the friction material was completely different to what we use now. Back then, the friction material was very high wear, so it was very common for teams to change a set after every day during a race weekend. With the material we have now, you can cover the entire weekend without changing pads and discs.

“You can imagine, we used to start with a full stack, and by the end of the race it was the minimum stack, with the fluid going into the caliper and the pistons out, and the stiffness completely gone away.

Now with such a low wear rate, the performances during the races are a lot more stable.

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“That’s important, because there are a lot of things changing on the cars now. The fuel consumption is now very important – 10 years ago you had refuelling. The performance of the car was changing in a narrow window, now it’s a wide window.

“The fact that you can change from tyres to tyres, so the fastest lap could come in the middle of the race on a heavy load of fuel, changes things too. The possibility to work with these materials makes it easy on the brake side.”

CIRCUIT TO CIRCUIT

Every circuit on the Formula 1 calendar is different, and therefore has different demands for the braking system.

Given the staggering durability and massive operating window of a Brembo braking system, the difference between a circuit that works the brakes hard and once that doesn’t is minimal. Still, Piccoli has some interesting insights into some of the different circuits that form the World Championship season.

“Montreal is a very heavy track [on brakes], because you have a lot of accelerating and then decelerating, and an in-field where the temperature doesn’t go down,” he says.

“We try to avoid being higher than 600 degrees on the in-field area, but you generate a lot of heat which is hard to dissipate.

“At Monza, you have a very hard stop, but you have a long straight and you can cool down the brakes. But in Monza, you have a lot of energy going through the brakes because of the low-downforce setup on the car. The aerodynamics are not really helping stop the car at all, you’re just using the brakes.

“Montreal is also very hard on the caliper. The temperature of the disc goes up and down, but the caliper will keep getting hotter and hotter and then stabilise. In Montreal, the caliper gets very, very hot.”

WORKING WITH THE TEAMS

Being a Formula 1 supplier would be a tough gig. Do a good job and it’s lucrative. Do a bad job and the teams will take their business elsewhere. It’s a cut-throat world.

“Formula 1 teams are demanding,” Piccoli admits.

“There are times during the year where teams will be stressing on a certain development, and others that are asking for different things.

“I can say that it’s getting harder to follow the Formula 1 timeline.

More and more teams arrive at the end of season fighting for the championship, so they’re still developing the old car. They are also starting to work on the new one, but … the definition of the parts required arrives later and later, so you have to be ready.

“Even small teams are very focussed on expenses and so on, so they are just as demanding as the big teams on brakes because they know it is an area where they can gain performance.”

Just like the teams and the circuits, different drivers want different things from the brakes. But Piccoli refuses to name names when it comes to who’s the toughest on brakes in the F1 field.

“There are drivers who brake in different ways, but there isn’t one who’s more difficult than another. We know the characteristics of the drivers, and we work according to these characteristics. It’s never a drama. The friction material helps a lot. It provides a high friction but it’s very controllable. This is another area where we’ve seen big steps in the performance.

“You still have drivers that are focussed on the bite, and others that are focussed on the controllability. But I think that now we know what direction to take to offer the driver these things.”

“

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2012 AMCM MASTERS

ww

Sunday September 2

SYDNEY MOTORSPORT PARK Things have changed at Eastern Creek, meaning an extended circuit and new viewing areas at the annual Father’s Day celebration of Australia’s unique muscle car heritage. Here’s the latest event news. For further info visit www.musclecarmasters.com.au

‘New’ cars for Master Blasts

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stellar field of historically-significant racecars will hit Sydney Motorsport Park for the Master Blasts.

Headlining these ‘best-of-the-best’ on-track sessions is an ex-factory HK GTS 327 Monaro from the 1968 Hardie Ferodo 500 that has recently resurfaced. The ex-Bill Brown/Paul Hawkins Holden Dealer Racing Team Monaro will be joined by one of the two surviving GT-HO Phase IVs racecars, the 1992 Bathurst 1000 winning Nissan GT-R, one of Brocky’s #05 Commodores and the 1986 Bathurst winning Chickadee Commodore. Add to that list a genuine racing example of a Bathurst XU-1, an E49 and a Phase III, and the high-speed blasts will be just that – a blast. Expect one or two other surprises.

TICKETS ON SALE

Buy your ticket pre-event to get access to special parking.

Skip the lines for an easy entrance on Father’s Day!

Book online at www.musclecarmasters.com.au or by phoning (02) 9672 1000.

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Jane Monaro added to Bob’s Masters ‘retyrement’ plan

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ast edition we reported that the 2012 Masters will be the last chance to see and meet Bob Jane at the event – or any other Sydney event for that matter. The Aussie motor racing legend has told event organisers he is scaling down his travel after the 2012 event. Those with something for Bob to sign should get out to SMP on September 2. For his farewell ‘performance’ Jane is bringing along a couple of tasty treats from his racing career, including his famed 7.0-litre Chev Camaro and ATCC-winning Jaguar. Look for his son Robert to have a starring role behind the wheel on Father’s Day. Another Jane car added to the Master Blasts field is the Des Wall-owned Monaro. Meantime, Pete Geoghegan’s son Michael will turns laps in his late father’s Mustang.

A stellar line-up of race action

TOURING CAR MASTERS

GROUP N HISTORIC TOURING CARS (Pre-1973)

Entries roll in for Formula 5000 races

T

he long-awaited racing debut of Formula 5000 open-wheelers at the Masters has seen over 20 cars entered for the SMP races.

This includes 14 from New Zealand – the focal-point of F5000’s worldwide revival as an Historic class. Races for the ground-shaking 5.0-litre V8 open-wheelers will form the inaugural Australian F5000 Cup’s second round. Andrew Robson (Lola T332) leads the four-event series after his success at the Phillip Island Classic in March. Entries include the following marques: Elfin, Matich, Lola, McRae and others.

NZ’s CENTRAL MUSCLE CARS

Latest news Head to the Muscle Car Masters’ website to download the event’s free smart phone app. The app provides easy access to handy info for the big day.

Famous V8 Supercars return

O

ld V8 Supercars are being returned to their famous liveries en masse, with several breaking cover at the Masters, including the Bathurst polesitting Falcons of Wayne Gardner (2000, far left) and Glenn Seton (1994). The latter car is now presented as the Alan Jones/Allan Grice EF that finished runner-up in ’95. They will be joined by the DJR Shell AU in which Paul Radisich very nearly won the ’99 affair. This is a developing trend.

The list of legends attending the MCM includes: Harry Firth, Alan Jones, Allan Moffat, Bob Jane, Colin Bond, Leo Geoghegan, John Goss, Kevin Bartlett, Spencer Martin, Allan Grice, John Harvey, Jim Richards, John Bowe, Fred Gibson, Bo Seton, Bob Skelton, Brian Foley, John French, Des West, Peter McLeod, Graene Bailey, Bob Holden, John Smith, Murray Carter, Charlie O’Brien, Graham Moore, Steve Masterton, Peter Williamson, Don Holland, John Leffler, Andrew Miedecke, Trevor Ashby and Steve Reed. What a stellar line-up!

The 2012 Australian Muscle Car Masters is proudly sponsored by

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ALL ENQUIRIES: Phil Harrison at Sydney Motorsport Park 02 9672 1000 or phil@ardc.com.au

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Dirk Klynsmith

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BARBOUR’S

SALOON

AFTER A VARIED BACKGROUND, ELLIOT BARBOUR HAS STEPPED INTO THE DUNLOP V8 SUPERCAR SERIES IN 2012, WITH FORMULA FORD STALWARTS MINDA MOTORSPORT AND AN EX-GARRY ROGERS MOTORSPORT COMMODORE. MITCHELL ADAM SPOKE TO HIM ABOUT THE MOVE MOTORSPORT NEWS: I’ll start with the obvious question, how have you found your move into the Dunlop Series this year?

ELLIOT BARBOUR: This year’s been a pretty big step for me. I only did one year of national Formula Ford and a bit of state racing, compared to the experience I’m up against and also being with a new team.

It’s been fairly challenging and with the testing restrictions in V8s, you don’t get many tyres, but we haven’t really tested at all. We’ve only really done one full day for the year. It’s been a big step, but I don’t think it’s been a step that’s been too big. In Townsville, I didn’t really get to show the full potential but we got to finish seventh from 18th in one of the races.

You mentioned Formula Ford there and going back through your career, you’ve raced in a greater number of different categories than probably any of the drivers you’re up against. It hasn’t really been an orthodox path to get to this point.

Yeah, my path’s definitely not the traditional path of doing a lot of go-karting, state and national Formula Ford and then moving on.

Mine’s been fairly different and I suppose budget’s always been a reason in that.

I did a lot of club day events in go-karts for a couple of years. I only raced pro karts for about three years and then at 16 I was lucky enough to get a fully paid for HQ drive – not too many V8 Supercar drivers have started www.mnews.com.au

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off there! Then I did state series in a Porsche 944 for a couple of years, the last person to come out of 944s was Sam Abay, and he’s not racing anymore, and the Rose brothers. That was a pretty different route but it was all we could sort of do at the time.

Then I did a few little things like MINI Challenge; Andy McElrea ran me for a round at Phillip Island in 2010 and we managed to get a win and two thirds to finish third for the round, which was good. Then last year there was a little bit of Touring Car Masters and Formula Ford, so I’ve definitely driven a lot of different things.

Also, with my job, as a driving instructor, I get to drive a lot of different things as well – I work with Pete Hackett at Mercedes and at Fastrack Racing – so I haven’t done the usual route to try to be a V8 Supercar driver, but you’ve just got to drive what you can at the time, I suppose, and see what happens.

Do you feel like you’ve taken something from each of those steps in your career so far?

To be honest, I wouldn’t change how I’ve done it. It’s taught me about hard work. If you go down the standard route and have the money to do it, you probably don’t appreciate it as much.

Driving a big heavy car like an HQ teaches you to be smooth because they’ve got no horsepower, only about 90 horsepower. And then driving things like the Porsches that you can throw around a bit and be quite

aggressive, and with the Formula Ford, which teaches you all of the data and changes to the car and how to set something up.

I think it hasn’t been a bad way to go about it, I think I’ve definitely learnt what I needed to learn.

In terms of 2012 and stepping into the V8 Supercar, what’s been the biggest thing you’ve had to learn so far?

The biggest thing is probably getting the most out of the green tyre, because we don’t get to drive on it at all. I think that’s probably the hardest thing and why we haven’t been that good in qualifying, especially having the confidence to push hard when we need to and not worry about the financial consequences if you stuff up – being on a budget this year which is fairly tight, I’m scratching as much as I can to make sure I can finish the year.

All of the guys in the factory cars, they don’t have the worries of any of that – out of the gate they can push hard and not have to worry about it, that’s probably the biggest thing I’m finding, getting up to speed quick enough. I know that when I’m getting my confidence up over a weekend, I can finish in the top seven or eight no worries, but it takes me two races or so to get up to the pace.

Conversely, what’s been the most enjoyable thing about driving these cars?

The best thing is the cars themselves, 49

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Dirk Klynsmith

“

I’ve driven cars in the past where you can get away with driving from the seat of your pants; everything you do in a Supercar needs to be precise, they’re not a car that you can just ‘wing it’

because they are the exact same cars that the big boys drive in the main races. It’s just getting the miles, that’s what every team’s looking for in a driver or a co-driver.

The cars are fantastic to drive, with the horsepower they’re such a challenge. It’s made me step up my training. I’m training every day with a trainer and I’ve trained with a couple of drivers, I train with Tony D’Alberto and Dale Wood quite a bit now. It’s a class where every second you need to think. I’ve driven cars in the past where you can get away with driving from the seat of your pants; everything you do in a Supercar needs to be precise, they’re not a car that you can just ‘wing it’.

You have to dot all of your ‘i’s and cross all of your ‘t’s, otherwise you’re going to be extremely slow or crash.

he asked me about it I was surprised. He knew I wanted to drive a Supercar, but I was surprised when he asked me going off my form in Formula Ford – we had a bit of a shocking year.

But he sat me down at the start of the year and said, ‘if we finish inside the top 15, I’ll be happy with this year’. Straight out of the gate at Clipsal, we were 12th in the first practice session, in Perth we finished eighth for the

round and Townsville we were 13th for the round, but we finished seventh in one of the races once we got everything working well.

We had a few problems with the engine, it was a brand-new engine from Walkinshaw and a few things weren’t done on it, but once everything was sorted we proved that we’re top eight worthy. I think he’s pretty happy with that, and he should be for the first year in such a tough season.

Coming into this year, were you really just looking at it as a learning year, and that the results would be what they were?

Yeah. This year I didn’t really have high expectations. This is one of the hardest years in a long time with the competition of the cars – with how many Level 1 cars are running – and how many third and fourth year drivers are in it. I always aimed to get a Top 10 finish, but I didn’t know how realistic it would be, because I didn’t know what our package would be like.

Minda Motorsport are a great team, but it’s very different to run a Supercar than it is to run a Formula Ford. With a first year team and a car ... the GRM cars have been a bit up and down from time to time, I didn’t really have too many expectations but I think the team’s done a pretty good job.

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Dirk Klynsmith

How’s [Minda boss] Bruin Beasley feeling about it all so far? This is something he’s wanted to do for a couple of years; now that he’s in there, is he happy with how it’s progressing?

Bruin’s wanted to do it for a while and when

motorsport news

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You mentioned eighth at Barbagallo and seventh in the second race at Townsville, are they the drives you’re happiest with so far?

Perth was more of a conservative weekend.

I’d never been there before but we were fast in the wet races. We got a little bit lucky with a couple of people DNFing in the final race, which bumped us up the order a little bit.

Realistically, we were running 10th to 12th, but the way it panned out we were eighth, which was nice.

Probably the drive I’ve enjoyed the most was Townsville, being a street circuit, it’s pretty demanding and that’s where we showed true

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Dirk Klynsmith

Is there much input from Garry Rogers Motorsport? I imagine the car would’ve come with a book of data, but is there much ongoing dialogue?

Yeah, GRM have been pretty good. They help us out with parts at the track if there’s something we need and don’t have, they help us out with springs and stuff and they do give us data. They have been giving me onboard footage for the tracks I haven’t been to, too, so they’ve been quite good.

It’s not at the level where we can go up there during a weekend and ask them stuff, because they don’t want to be taken away from what they’re doing, but if we’re organised and ask for stuff before an event, they’re more than happy to help us out.

pace. A few people crashed but we would’ve ended up in the 10 anyway. We started 18th, it was a reverse grid race, but we started 18th anyway because we had a shocker in qualifying. So that was the best one, to be passing a lot of experienced guys, and we showed a bit of true pace.

That was probably my most enjoyable drive and on a street circuit where the atmosphere’s pretty good. When you’re giving it 100 percent, it’s a pretty scary ride for 18 laps.

Overall, what’s the plan for the rest of the year? Keep chipping away and try to crack into the top 10 by the end of it?

Well, at the moment, I’m on a massive sponsorship hunt because I don’t have any sponsorship. It’s funded by myself and ANZ Bank!

I definitely want to get to Bathurst. The aim is that if I can’t get a fulltime drive I definitely want to try to get a co-driver seat next year and try to have another crack at the Dunlop Series. My aim is to try to get to Bathurst but obviously I want to try to finish the whole year off and finish in the 10.

I think that’s achievable, trying to finish off the year strongly and get my name out there among the Main Game teams as a legitimate option as a co-driver or someone in the future who can drive a Supercar fulltime.

17/08/12 10:11 AM

Great

Scot

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Dario Franchitti has ruled in Indycar for some time but 2012 has not been so great for the Scot. He spoke to Mark Glendenning about the difficulties Ganassi has been having in 2012, and what motivates him to keep going in a sport in which he’s already won everything there is to win.

W IndyCar/LAT USA

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RITING in a column for US magazine Racer at the start of the year, Ganassi’s Scott Dixon reflected on the wagonload of question marks that accompanied this season’s new technical package in IndyCar. “Whenever there are new rules, especially radically new ones like we’ll see this year, some people look at it as everyone’s starting from the same level so it will mix up the field – no one will have a major advantage,” he said.

“And then there’s the other side of the argument, which is that new rules actually emphasise the difference between the best teams and the also-rans. Well, that second point of view is how I see it: Typically, the big teams have the resources – human and financial – to get their heads around the new issues quicker. If I’m right on that, then it’s a good thing for us. I think we can get the [Ganassi] cars up front, but I’m hoping it will be the No. 9 [Dixon’s car] rather than the 10 [of four-time champion Dario Franchitti] that’s right at the front. I think Dario has been a bit greedy the last few years.”

Reading back over Dixon’s words as the season enters its final flicker shows why most sports journalists hate making pre-season predictions. Of the three ‘big teams’ – Penske, Ganssi and Andretti – it is Ganassi that has struggled to get a return on the new car.

At time of writing (between the races at Mid-Ohio and Sonoma), Dixon was fourth in the championship, albeit with just two wins.

But his wish for his team-mate, while tonguein-cheek, has largely been granted. Franchitti is eighth in the points, with a single victory with the new car to his credit. (The fact that that win happened to be the Indy 500 no doubt takes out some of the sting).

It seems like unchartered territory for a driver who came into 2012 having won three championships on the trot, but Franchitti himself begs to differ.

“Unfortunately, this is an all-too familiar position,” says the Scot. “I’ve had far more years where I’ve been in this position than I have in the position that we found ourselves in for the past four years. Luck plays its part.

We’ve had some mechanical failures, some mistakes – from myself, and from the guys as well. It’s just one of those years where if it 53

17/08/12 10:20 AM

“

I kind of get my motivation from … it’s just the competition. The motivation has come from beating the other guys that turn up, and trying to win more races.

could go wrong it did, it seems. Apart from Indianapolis … actually, even at Indy I spun and had to fight back up through.”

Franchitti’s struggles have not simply been a matter of the car not working, although in the first few races of the season, that was certainly a factor. So, as Franchitti himself suggests, has simple misfortune.

“The pace wasn’t really there for the first three or four races, I would say,” he admits.

“Then we got to Brazil and we figured something out, and the pace has been really good since then. But even when we’ve got it right we’ve had something mechanical go wrong, or we’ve been taken out. And there have been times where we’ve just got it wrong.

“OK, some of the misses with set-up have been the new car, for sure. Some of the mechanicals, whether it be the engine, or the suspension failing at Milwaukee, that was the new car. And some of the mistakes have had nothing to do with that. I’ve made a couple of mistakes, the boys on pit road have made a couple of mistakes, and we’ve had a couple of mistakes with the strategy.

“An example was the first race at St Pete, where we ran out of fuel at the last corner.

The last couple of years, we’ve had the situation where you could guarantee that we’d run out as we crossed the finish line.

So that’s what happens.”

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Despite being one of the few guys who actually lives up to the 1960s’ comic book version of a racing driver – follicle-perfect hair, purposeful sunglasses, movie star wife [actress Ashley Judd], garage full of fast cars, ludicrous collection of trophies – Franchitti in person is articulate, funny, and laid-back to the point of being horizontal.

He’s also unusual amongst modern drivers in having a deep passion for the sport’s history. That enthusiasm is backed up by a formidable storehouse of knowledge: if you’re going into a motorsport pub quiz against Dario Franchitti, you’ll want to have done your homework. This feeling for what has happened in the past, coupled with his dominant position in American openwheelers over the past few years, gives him a certain perspective on his current plight.

“When you get it right as consistently as we have done for the last three or four years … you don’t take it for granted, but I think some other people take it for granted,” he says.

“And when I’ve had a season like this, and the whole team has had a season like this, the more you appreciate what you did over the last three or four years to put in those consistent performances. But I don’t think the will to win is any less, for me or for the team. It’s just been tough, you know? But you just have to keep pushing.”

‘Keeping pushing’ can be easier said than done for a driver whose 40th birthday is closer than their 30th, and who has already won everything there is to win in their category several times over. Readers of a certain age might equate it to what happened once you’d ‘clocked’ the 1980s handheld game Donkey Kong – how many times did you play it again? Similarly, once you’ve won the championship four times and the Indy 500 three times, and made enough money to remain comfortable through several lifetimes, what keeps the fire stoked? Hasn’t Franchitti effectively ‘completed’ IndyCar racing? Apparently not.

“I kind of get my motivation from … it’s just the competition,” Franchitti says. “The motivation has come from beating the other guys that turn up, and trying to win more races. And that continues to drive me; that’s where my motivation comes from.

And you know, sometimes it’s easy to keep the motivation up, and other times it’s tougher. You’ve just got to keep pushing it.”

Franchitti is acutely aware of the complacency trap that awaits drivers of a certain vintage and degree of success, and considers it a point of pride that he has avoided becoming snared.

“The honest answer to that is that the motivation is … when you’re younger, it’s not a problem,” he says. “Then you have some success, you earn some money, you know … life becomes a bit more comfortable. And if you can keep motivation up at that point, that’s when I think you’ve done something kind of … not ‘special’, but you’ve broken through.

“Like, even when I won the first championship [in 2007], I went away motorsport news

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IndyCar/LAT USA IndyCar/LAT USA

because I felt the motivation wasn’t there. I went to NASCAR. And when I came back, the motivation to win the next championship was big because the team had come back from having a really tough time in NASCAR [when the Sprint Cup team was disbanded mid-season with Franchitti lying 41st in the points]. The motivation to win that third one was harder, and then to win the fourth one I had to keep the motivation going again. And that’s a hard thing to do, and I’m proud of the fact that I’ve managed to do that.”

The other remarkable aspect to Franchitti’s career is that he’s yet to show any sign of championship fatigue. Many drivers in the past have spoken of how it becomes progressively difficult to manage the intensity of being embroiled in a title battle year after year. Indeed, it’s this that many of Michael Schumacher’s peers, such as Mika Hakkinen, have pointed to as one of the German’s defining qualities.

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“It’s tough,” Franchitti admits. “I think it’s either in there or it isn’t, and it’s tough.

I think [now] I’ve almost been more motivated in the past four years than at any point. Yeah, you can go back to Formula Vauxhall Junior, where if I didn’t win the championship I wasn’t going to progress to the next level, or any of that stuff, and that’s a motivation as an actual survival instinct.

I think at this stage it becomes harder, but you just find ways. You just have to have it in you.”

IndyCar, still bruised from the split that devastated the US open-wheeler scene for a decade, continues to work to restore its credibility, so the quality of the current field might be lost on those who tuned out when the US racing scene was at its most diluted. Franchitti is a rare bird in that he has been able to sustain a high-level of performance over an extended period of time, and against a formidable roll-call of drivers. Few other drivers have had to deal with Alex Zanardi, Juan Pablo Montoya, and Gil de Ferran, and Tony Kanaan, Scott Dixon and Will Power. That’s ignoring upstarts like James Hinchcliffe and Graham Rahal, and overlooked talents like Dixon and Ryan Hunter-Reay, and seasoned campaigners like Helio

“

Castroneves, and reborn veterans like Rubens Barrichello. According to Franchitti, the current IndyCar field is as tough as any he has faced. Maybe tougher.

“I was very lucky, especially in the late 1990s, early 2000s, to race against a really deep field,” he says. “But I think the depth of driver talent now is maybe just a wee bit more. And the teams as well – between the small teams and the big teams, it’s a much tighter. The tolerance is much less between a Ganassi and a Penske and the smaller teams. That has made it difficult, and sometimes when I’ve said, ‘the competition level is as good as I’ve ever seen it’, some people scoff. But it is. I think the top 10, 12 cars and drivers back in the late 1990s were unbelievable, but then there was a bit of a gap. Whereas now, the top 20-plus … [shakes his head].

“There was a point where it was just absurd in both series [CART/Champ Car and IndyCar], because good guys in one series and good guys in another at the top end, and then there were fillers.

There was always this argument about which was better. We were all, like, ‘just get us all together’. And that’s what we’ve seen – we’ve got it together, and the depth of the field is incredibly strong. My

early years were a fun time to be involved.

This is a fun time, but completely different. The guys in the series now; they’re a good group.”

A ‘good group’ indeed, but one, this year at least, looks to have gotten the better of him. The last time Franchitti was this low in the standings was 2006, and on that occasion his season finished early when he was injured at Chicagoland, forcing him to miss the last four races. His mission going into each weekend remains unchanged, and so, he admits, does the intensity. The championship might be a remote dream this year, but Franchitti simply isn’t programmed to back off even if it sometimes takes a toll.

“For me, it’s a tough thing to enjoy …

OK, obviously I enjoy my racing, otherwise I don’t think I would do it anymore,” he says. “But I have to focus a lot when I’m doing it, and I take it very seriously, and I don’t think about much else. It wears you down, actually. That hasn’t really changed since last year, the year before, the year before that. In those years, I didn’t really think about the championship. I just thought about that particular weekend. I didn’t get caught up in all the drama. And seemed to have worked quite well!”

“The tolerance is much less between a Ganassi and a Penske and the smaller teams. That has made it difficult, and sometimes when I’ve said, ‘the competition level is as good as I’ve ever seen it’, some people scoff. But it is.

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ARLY Saturday evening in Toronto, and Sebastien Bourdais is in a good mood.

A driver who thrives on getting a car tuned to the point where he becomes his own limit, he’s still buzzing from qualifying the under-resourced Dragon Racing entry fourth on the IndyCar grid a few hours earlier. (About 21 hours later, he’ll be punted out of third place on the final restart with a handful of laps remaining).

“Let’s see if I can get this generator fired up

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first time,” he says as we arrive at his trailer.

“There you go! Did you see that?” With the air-conditioning now blasting in response to the 34.C heat outside, the Frenchman offers a drink from his fridge, grabs a Diet Coke for himself, reorganises where everyone is sitting to make sure that the microphone on MN’s digital recorder will pick his voice up properly, and readies himself for the first question.

Bourdais is a classic study in contrasts.

In the past, he has been preceded by a

reputation for being a whiner (see virtually any late Champ Car-era Paul Tracy interview), yet in the four or five times that this journalist has interviewed him over the past 10 years, he’s never been anything other than an intelligent, charming and reflective interviewee. Then there’s the question of today’s mission, which is to re-evaluate his frankly disappointing F1 career in the context of how good his 2008 Toro Rosso team-mate Sebastian Vettel has since proven to be. Bourdais is not one for sugar-coating motorsport news

17/08/12 10:21 AM

There were two Sebs at Toro Rosso in 2009. One of them set the F1 world on its head with an unlikely race win at Monza that announced the arrival of Sebastian Vettel. The other Seb would make his departure from the F1 stage after two miserable seasons. But Sebastien Bourdias harbours neither bitterness nor regrets – and in fact is more than happy to back in Indycar racing, where he is a four-times champion. By Mark Glendenning things but even so, finding a tactful way to introduce the theme of failure with someone who has won four consecutive Champ Car titles, two podiums at Le Mans, an F3000 championship and God-knows how much other stuff is a concern.

There’s two possible ways to tackle this.

One is the direct, courageous approach. (‘So Sebastien, why did you suck in F1?’). The other is to start by addressing his season to date, which has included a car arriving too late to test before the first race, a switch from www.mnews.com.au

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Lotus to Chevrolet engines after just four races, and the team downsizing from two cars to one, with Bourdais taking the wheel for the road and street courses, and teammate Katherine Legge driving on the ovals.

Get him started on that, and maybe there will an opening to steer the conversation around to F1. A more delicate approach, to be sure, but far more wimpy. So, which to choose?

“As far as performance is concerned, I think this season has gone about as well as we could have hoped for given the preparation

and where we were coming from,” he says in response to the opening missive.

“When we had the Lotus we knew we couldn’t fight for wins or anything. We haven’t had things going our way very much, but we did what we could with what we had.

Very clearly, it was one of those situations where if we were going to get parked like they [the other Lotus-powered teams] did in Indy, that programme was over.”

Drivers who have spent an extended period at the top of their game, as Bourdais 59

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did in Champ Car, sometimes struggle for motivation when they find themselves in a situation where their expectations must be set lower. The fact that he was still debriefing with his engineer immediately prior to this interview and long after most of the other drivers in the paddock had called it a day suggests that motivation is not an issue, but he admits that working in a fledgling set-up like Dragon requires a different approach to putting together a string of championship campaigns.

“It’s completely different,” he says. “You approach it with a completely different mindset. You know you’re not going to be going for the championship, because you don’t have the right stuff to do it, and because it takes time to get people to work well together. We had no testing, we had no time, we had nothing. There are no miracles in racing. Every now and then there is a little something that is kind of like, ‘oh, look at that, what happened?’. But over the length of a season, there is no way that you’re going to fake it.

“We knew that this was going to be a tough season, but I’m fine with that. I have no problem. I haven’t always been in the lucky rides, and winning race after race. I know what it is to struggle. And I’m fine with that. I take as much satisfaction from putting a car in the top five that really felt like it didn’t belong there as I do from winning a race in a car that was clearly the class of the field. So it’s all about expectations and what the car allows you to do.”

And there’s the opening. During Bourdais’ first season with Toro Rosso, a number of

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potentially good results were denied him by various strokes of fate. On his debut in Australia, he suffered a mechanical problem while running fourth. At Spa, he could have finished on the podium had the rain stayed away for just a couple more laps. In Japan, he was on track for sixth but was controversially penalised for a clash with Ferrari’s Felipe Massa. And most infamously, he qualified on the second row at Monza, right behind teammate Vettel, only to stall at the start.

Looking at it that way, perhaps Bourdais’ F1 career wasn’t actually as bad as popular opinion would have it. Perhaps also, while the outcomes were not what he’d hoped for, he’d gotten some satisfaction from being in those positions in the first place?

“No,” he says. “I never felt like I was making a proper impact in F1. In 2008 the car was really good and I could use it every now and then, but for the most part it was too loose for me. The back end wasn’t quite there, and I just don’t do well with cars that don’t feel comfortable. So it just made my life pretty miserable.”

One of the big mysteries about Bourdais’ failure to adapt to Formula 1 sprung from his reputation for being technically astute, which should have made him a perfect fit in a championship where technology and development rules.

“That’s the big problem,” Bourdais says.

“To this day I still do not understand why Toro Rosso signed me. I have no idea. The very first time I stepped into an F1 car with them, I tested for three days, and I had no contract or anything. But I got out of the car at the end of the third day and said, ‘If you

want me to drive a car like this, we shouldn’t work together because you’re going to waste your time, and I’m going to waste mine. I do not do well driving a car that has got no rear grip’. I couldn’t be any more straightforward than that.

“And they said, ‘Awesome! We have found a guy who has got experience, who is fast, who knows what he wants, who understands the technical background’ and all that. And then when I arrived in 2008, it was like, ‘Sorry, we don’t develop the car, and we don’t decide what goes on it’. I was thinking, ‘So why am I here?’. It was basically a case of, shut the hell up and drive. And I have never been good at that. Like, never.”

Not only was Red Bull Technology running the development programme that year – a programme that naturally focused around the lead Red Bull Racing squad rather than the Toro Rosso B-team – but the Renault engines used by Red Bull created different handling characteristics to the Ferrari powerplants used by Toro Rosso. For Bourdais, at least, the better the Red Bull got, the harder the Toro Rosso was to drive.

“The worst thing that happened is that with the Ferrari, our car was loose, and RBR’s car with the Renault was understeering,” he says. “So everything they were sticking on the car was to try to fix understeer, and we were already way loose. Honestly, I was miserable. I’d fought my entire career to make it to F1, but it wasn’t for that. Not at all.

If I had known it was going to be like that, I would never have done it. Ever. It was the worst time of my career.”

The team culture at Toro Rosso can’t

I don’t need to pretend I’m the best. That is not why I race.

I race because I’m pretty good at it, and on any given day in a good car, I’m alright. I’m fine with that.

motorsport news

17/08/12 10:22 AM

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Despite insisting that he is ‘not the most natural, best talent in the world’, Bourdais has a CV that many other drivers would happily trade their own for. His argument is that his gift is not so much one of pure driving ability as it is for finding speed in other ways.

“You can make up for a lot of things by maybe being smarter, working harder,” he says. “Racing is not an exact science by any stretch of the imagination. You need to be complete, you need a lot of things to go your way, you need your team around you … you need so many things to go well in racing.

“I know that if I am put in the right situation, with a car that I feel comfortable in, I can probably be as fast as anybody. But that window is not as big as some other guys have.

“In IndyCar, where you can do just about anything you want with the suspension and the damping and so many other things, then I can get a car that I can drive probably better than most and be really fast. That’s where I belong. That’s where I have fun. When I can get a car that doesn’t quite handle the way I like to where I really like it and I can push it, then I really have a great time.

“That’s what it used to be like in Champ Cars – the cars were so physical and hard to drive with the power and the downforce and the grip we had; it felt like sprinting behind the wheel. I physically could not put in more energy behind the wheel. The cars were just beasts. I remember getting out of the car and being [makes panting noise] completely out of breath, because it was like I was pedaling inside.

“I was giving everything I had, and the engagement that I was putting in behind the wheel was what created the lap time. And the car would take it, and maybe more. And it was awesome. When you feel like the more you go at it the more you get, it’s the most awesome feeling in the world.”

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IndyCar/LAT USA

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I take as much satisfaction from putting a car in the top five that really felt like it didn’t belong there as I do from winning a race in a car that was clearly the class of the field.

have helped. History shows that it has what could kindly be termed a ‘tough love’ approach to managing its drivers – just look at how shocked Sebastien Buemi and Jaime Alguersuari were to be dropped last year – and Bourdais was not the first to leave the team on poor terms. It’s a long-standing paddock rumour that the final straw for Scott Speed came when a disagreement between he and team principal Franz Tost actually ended with the pair trading blows in the garage.

“Franz is a very strange guy,” Bourdais says. “But the reason why I got fired – I think, because he never told me – was that after Silverstone I heard that he kept on saying, ‘Well, you need to wake up on Fridays’. He was convinced that [2009 team-mate] Buemi and I were just screwing around on Fridays, and we’d just wake up magically for Saturday in qualifying.

“And I got so mad that I said, ‘If you are really sure that we are just dicking around all day on Friday, then we should stop. I never doubt, ever, that you guys do your very best and give 100 percent to try and make that thing go fast. And if you are not convinced that I am doing the same, it’s not worth it’.

Two weeks later, I was fired.

“And that’s the best thing that they’ve done to this day. I was miserable. It was terrible. I wouldn’t have wanted to go back, because I knew exactly what was waiting for me. What was the point? There were no updates on the car, nothing was going to help them to magically fix it, and I couldn’t drive it.”

At this point, it’s natural to wonder whether things would have worked out differently had Bourdais been with a more conventional, independent team rather

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than one that was subservient to another.

Remarkably, though, Bourdais’ experience in F1 has left him convinced that the world championship is simply not a good fit for his skill-set.

“The way F1 functions now, they have to throw updates at the car every race or every two races,” he says. “This is going to change the balance of the car, and if you as a driver can’t drive it and get 100 percent out of it, you’re done. You don’t belong there.

“I think what we see with Jenson [Button] recently is very much that. McLaren has done something to the car that he is not happy about, and there is no easy fix. It’s probably a pretty major update like a new floor or something, which changes the aero map, or they’ve done something big enough to the car mechanically that there is a big potential gain, but not for him.

“In my entire career, I have been put in cars,

and asked to say what I thought of them, and we could always fix it. But in F1 these days, it feels like it’s, ‘This is the fastest car we can give you, and if you cannot get 100 percent out of that car, there is nothing we can do’.

And that’s fine. As long as you know the rules, then I know it’s just not for me. And I’m fine with that. This is my limitation.

“I drive to the very best of my abilities, but I have no problems admitting that I’m not the best driver in the world. I don’t care. I don’t need to pretend I’m the best. That is not why I race. I race because I’m pretty good at it, and on any given day in a good car, I’m alright.

I’m fine with that. That’s good enough. I take enough satisfaction with driving that I don’t need to show off, or prove things to people. If this is going to be the rules of the game then I don’t belong there [in F1], and I know that.

And fair enough. There was life before F1 and after, and I am much happier now.”

motorsport news

17/08/12 10:22 AM

AMC _7 S

s i h t r o f t u o e y e r u o y p Kee ies

r e s D V D w e n t a e r g

40 YEARS OF BROCK AND THE XU-1

THE ONE - TWO FINISH

Celebrating the 40th anniversary of the King’s first win in the mighty XU-1 Torana. Peter Brock is part of Bathurst folklore and his first win in The Great Race in 1972 remains one of the most popular stories in Australian touring car racing history. This DVD features a 30 minutes telecast of rarely seen highlights from Network Seven direct when Brock and the XU-1 Torana conquered Allan Moffat and his works Falcon.As a special bonus, witness another 30 minutes of rarely seen vision of the 1973 Hardie Ferodo 1000 as Brock came perilously close to back-to-back victories. Both are in black and white but fully capture rare and previously unreleased vision of two of the Mountain’s most famous races.

A massive eight hours of race day coverage from the famous Ford 1-2 at Bathurst. It remains the day that still shakes Holden fans to their core: the day that Allan Moffat and Colin Bond scored a 1-2 form finish in the 1977 Hardie-Ferodo 1000 at Bathurst.For the first time,eight hours of unseensince-aired coverage from this momentous day in Bathurst 1000 history - a must for Ford fans to have in their collection. You’ll see material that didn’t even go to air on race day.

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AVAILABLE AUGUST 2

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s e i r e S d l r o W ? e r u t u f s r a c t n i Spr ars c t n i r p S s d Serie l r o W e istory h h t r h o c f i r n e o h s st in t h sea t e t 6 t 2 s e e h h t g g u the to Enterin nds s u a o s R f m f o o o e l it yG circus and r national series. B ula p o p e h t f o

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ESPITE a cutback in races, a drop in some top line drivers and a controversial change of official tyre supplier, the 2012-13 edition of World Series Sprintcars is being touted as ‘exciting’ by organisers.

World Series Sprintcars Race Director Shane Collins remains confident the nine weeks of the busy 12-round (usually 15) tournament will again deliver when it finally kicks – off a month later, than previous years – on Boxing Day in Adelaide.

“Sure, we’ve shortened the time we run for and that’s to help the teams that are travelling,” Collins told Motorsport News.

“That has been met with a lot of positive response to have that time frame shortened.

“World Series management decided to shorten the WSS season to help the travelling teams with costs of being on the road. The obvious solution was to eliminate the pre-Christmas round which also may reduce risk for some venues with regard to inclement weather as well as some issues attracting spectators including families with the lead up to Christmas.”

The series opener at Speedway City will be also double as the commencement of the hectic Speedweek, with five nights of racing in seven days.

“It is the start of a World Series for the year and it’s still going to be $10,000 to win

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Geoff Gracie

Geoff Gracie

Geoff Gracie

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Geoff Gracie

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Geoff Gracie

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per night,” Collins said. Speedweek is very important to us and we rate it as the jewel in the crown of the championship.”

A welcome addition is having Sydney Speedway back on the WSS calendar, with two nights of action locked in for mid-January.

“It’s been two years since World Series Sprintcars have raced in Sydney. It will be a big, two-night show. We’ve worked hard with management at Sydney and we’re really looking forward to showcasing in a big heartland of Australia.

“The return of Sydney Speedway into WSS is a major positive for both parties, Collins added. WSS is a showcase of Australia’s best Sprintcar teams and overseas competitors, so it’s logical for the series to visit one of the nation’s premier venues at our most populous city.

Early indications point toward many of the seat-filling headline acts that have bolstered the status of World Series Sprintcars to not be regulars this season.

Legendary WSS drivers and two of Sprintcar racing biggest draw-cards, Max Dumesny and Brooke Tatnell, have not committed for the coming season of WSS. This isn’t likely to change as both teams cut back their racing commitments.

As we went to press, organisers were still tight-lipped about the lineup of teams and drivers doing the series. Collins, though, remains upbeat about having the necessary drivers to keep speedway turnstiles spinning.

“The interest from drivers is very good.

We’re certainly going to have a changing of the guard. Like any sport in this country, things change and people move on. We’re very excited about the direction we’re going in. It’s very important we get on the front foot and bring in a new generation of guys.”

The loss of Dumesny will be significant, and he is likely to have minimal interest in this generation of World Series Sprintcars as he steps away both on and off the track.

The Hoosier brand tyre he has supplied to the busy championship for 20 years will be

replaced by American Tire and Racing as it becomes the official supplier of controlled tyres for the next three years.

The World Series Sprintcars Board called for tender submissions from tyre companies during 2010 to be the official supplier of controlled tyres for World Series Sprintcars.

American Tires were awarded the deal during January this year on the grounds that drivers compete on a level playing field at all rounds, encouraging the best racing and rewarding the best teams and drivers and to the

ongoing competitive balance of the series.

It will be another changing of the guard and another major test for World Series Sprintcars but one that Collins sees as important for the future of the tournament.

“We certainly need to change direction and we’ve had to make some decisions as a management group so it’s financially on the right path for the future, we feel we’ve made those right decisions. We’re very excited as a group where World Series Sprintcars is going.”

Schedule for World Series Sprintcars 2012-13 season ROUND

VENUE

DATE

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12

Speedway City, Adelaide Murray Bridge Speedway Borderline Speedway, Mount Gambier Avalon Speedway Premier Speedway, Warrnambool Archerfield Speedway, Brisbane Sydney Speedway Speedway City, Adelaide Manjimup Speedway Attwell Park Speedway, Albany Bunbury City Speedway Perth Motorplex

December 26, 2012 December 27, 2012 December 29, 2012 December 30, 2012 January 1, 2013 January 4/5, 2013 January 18/19, 2013 February 2, 2013 February 8, 2013 February 9, 2013 February 15/16, 2013 February 22/23, 2013 motorsport news

17/08/12 10:23 AM

2012_Che

The Great Race: Bathurst 50 years SPECIAL LIMITED EDITION

Pre-Order your copy now Australia’s Greatest Motor Race 50 Years at Bathurst. This book is the fourth historical compilation being the 20,30 and 40 year books which all sold out very quickly to an enthusiastic and appreciative market. This new book of over 500 pages details the 50 year History of the running of The Great Race at Bathurst. This huge book is the definitive history and a collectors must.

Available late December 2012

Includes Australian Postage & Handling

Price: A$99

50 years of the Australian Touring Car Championship 50 years of the Australian Touring Car Championship is a detailed history of the Australian Touring Car Championship and the V8 Supercar Championship Series. This huge 500-plus page book is the definitive history of our touring car racing, tracking the development of the championship from its humble amateur beginnings to today’s multi-million dollar industry that is V8 Supercars. A must-have reference book for fans of Australian touring car racing.

Available Now

The Great Race: 2011 Supercheap Auto 1000

T

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his is the 31st annual edition of the ‘official’ book of the famous touring car endurance race at Mount Panorama, Bathurst. In fact, there have been 33 annual books on the race produced by Chevron Publishing, on account of the 1997 and ’98 Super Touring Bathurst 1000s along with separate V8 Supercar races also being held in those years. The Great Race editions 17 and 18 reflected that category change.

V8 Supercar enthusiasts, however, were still able to keep their valuable collections intact when Chevron produced V8 Bathurst editions 1 and 2 for the 1997 and 1998 ‘split’ years. Then for the 1999 race, the V8 Supercars came back into The Great Race collection as edition number 19 - where they remain today.

The annual books started in 1981. By then the race had accumulated a rich history over 21 years, and was already firmly established as an iconic Australian sporting event, the motor racing equivalent of the Melbourne Cup, Over 49 years at Bathurst (52 in total when taking into account the three Phillip Island races that took place before the event migrated north to Bathurst in 1963), the Great Race has captured the imagination of the Australian public as men and machine do battle against the famous Mount Panorama.

As the stature and legend of the Great Race grew, it made household names out of a host of drivers.

Stars from past decades like Harry Firth, Bob Jane, Peter Brock, Allan Moffat, Dick Johnson, Colin Bond, John Goss, Bob Morris, Allan Grice, Larry Perkins and many others. Then there are today’s V8 Supercar stars, like Mark Skaife, Greg Murphy, Craig Lowndes, Russell Ingall, Steven Richards, Jason Bright, Jamie Whincup, Mark Winterbottom, Will Davison, Rick and Todd Kelly, Garth Tander, James Courtney and so many more.

The quest to win the Holy Grail of Australian motorsport has also resulted in some legendary cars. The Ford Falcon GT-HO series and the Holden Torana XU-1s that was built to take on the big Ford, and later the V8-powered L34s and A9Xs are now considered all-time classic Australian performance vehicles. In the ’80s this tradition continued with the series of Brock Commodores, and later the early HSV Commodores.

The Bathurst 500/1000 was fundamental to the rationale behind the development of these legendary machines: without a doubt, had there been no Bathurst, none of these cars would have seen the light of day.

Chevron Publishing has captured the early Bathurst racing history with three anniversary books titled Australia’s Greatest Motor Race (the latest edition, the 40 years of The Great Race, a massive 496-page historical reference published in 2000). To have started annual books, and not recorded the first 20 years would have been unforgivable - let alone the 20 years that followed.

Chevron’s Australian-based motor racing books, magazines, video/DVDs and posters are available by direct mail, or you can order them through any specialist motoring or general bookshop, or on-line at our website. Chevron’s own mail order department despatches nationwide and internationally every week – we’re only a phone call, fax or e-mail away.

The Great Race 31 tells the full story of the 2011 Supercheap Auto Bathurst 1000. Last year’s race will go down as one of the classics, with a determined Garth Tander holding out a hard charging Craig Lowndes in possibly the most exciting finishes in the history of the race. This is the original Bathurst annual hard-cover book, the definitive publication on Australia’s Great Race.

This fabulous annual hard-cover book is a collector’s prized possession, and a great gift idea.

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hree tenths of a second. That’s all there was in it at the end of 1000km around Mount Panorama in 2011. In what was undoubtedly the most nail biting finish in the history of the race, Garth Tander and Nick Percat narrowly prevailed to record a memorable victory for Holden and the Toll Holden Racing Team.

In doing so, Percat became the first Great Race rookie driver to win the event since Jacky Ickx won with Allan Moffat in a Falcon XC Hardtop way back in 1977.

For every winner, there is a runner up. In this case, it was TeamVodafone’s Craig Lowndes and Mark Skaife. Bitterly disappointed at the end to miss out on what would have been his seventh victory, Mark Skaife announced soon after the race that this would be, finally, his last start in the Great Race.

Skaife was gutted, but he and Lowndes had done a great job in difficult circumstances, finding themselves having to constantly haul themselves back up the order after being delayed in the pits waiting while the other TeamVodafone Commodore was serviced. In the end it was just too tall an order to overhaul the steely-determined Garth Tander in the closing stages.

For Ford, it was not a Bathurst to remember. There were precious few Falcons with genuine front running pace, and instead for most of the race it was a contest between two Holden teams: the Toll Holden Racing Team and TeamVodafone. Ford Performance Racing was best of the Ford outfits, but ultimately FPR was unable to prevent what was the third year in a row an all-Holden podium.

It was a Bathurst that yet again was plagued by the elements, except that this time the race itself was largely free of bad weather. But the practice and qualifying sessions were dominated by rain. The wet weather turned the top 10 shootout into a lottery that was won by Greg Murphy, the last man out on the track before the rain hit. The constant wet weather also made it difficult for teams to develop their suspension setups for the dry – some went to the race better prepared than others, some simply never got it right and were punished accordingly.

But there was fire as well as rain at Bathurst in 2011.

David Besnard made international television headlines for all the wrong reasons when his Dick Johnson Racing Falcon burst into flames after crashing into a wall.

Thankfully Besnard escaped completely unharmed, but the spectacular images of the fireball would be shown on sports news broadcasts around the world.

Once again, a Great Race that had everything, an event that is unquestionably one of the world’s great annual motor races.

Price: A$98

GR31 - Cover.indd 1

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A Victor again It has been a while between ANDRA championship wins but Bray hopes to be a Victor again in Top Doorslammers very soon.

V

ICTOR Bray may be the most well known name in Australian drag racing. However, in recent years the name has held more weight than have his performances. But could the famous ‘57 Chev have turned a corner?

With the ANDRA championship currently in its off season, Bray has been competing at eighth mile (201m) Slamfest events across regional Australia and the performances of the Sidchrome-backed team are starting to come back.

In the most recent round at Benaraby in Queensland, Bray was able to reset the record for the Slamfest series to 3.981s, edging John Zappia’s 3.983s. It was an important symbolic victory for the six-times champion over the five-times champion.

“I can see possibilities again there now,” he says. “We’ve got a hold of some good technology like superchargers and cylinder heads that people have been using; we are trying to see what is there for us and see how we go. We have some stuff to test between now and November when the ANDRA season starts again.”

Bray acknowledges that he had to find something to overcome the gap in times between himself and the frontrunners.

“Most of the other guys have had a performance advantage over us. My runs have only been sparse. I have beat Zap at eighth mile racing by getting a handle on the track better but on the consistent ANDRA tracks he still has us.”

Some people reported Bray might have lost his touch, that the world of Top Doorslammers may have passed him by. But those reports may have been greatly exaggerated.

“Most people might have thought I’d forgotten to drag race. But I spent 20 years winning everything there was to win. One of the 68

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things in drag racing is that good runs come and go, in general it takes a lot of effort to stay at the top and the last few years it wasn’t where I needed to be.”

The technology arms race in Top Doorslammer competition is constant and each team tries to be the first to have its hands on the latest gear. Bray has no issue with that, as long as everything remains fair.

“When I was dominating and Ben (Bray) was dominating, there was checking every round, but there has been less checking lately.

If I am going to spend money and develop things to gain hundredths of a second, I want to know everything is fair.

“When people get the jump in technology, that is how they get the performance advantage. ANDRA needs to be up with that, and just keep talking with the racers about the equipment they are using.

“I love drag racing, so I just need to get out there and put up with it.”

One of those technology jumps has been supercharged produced

by American company PSI that are ‘blueprinted’, basically meaning the edges inside are smoothed out and everything is checked for tightness to ensure peak performance. Bray says it is worth a few more pounds of boost and he should have his version by the time the new ANDRA season starts in November.

“Zap, Peter Kapiris and Robin Judd all have them, Ben got his before the Winternationals and mine should be here shortly. It’s extra money but you don’t want to stop new technology.”

Bray’s Chev remains a little unique in its continued use of a swing arm suspension set up as opposed to the four links used in most of the top running cars. It is of benefit on inconsistent start lines but motorsport news

17/08/12 10:24 AM

when the tracks are at their grippiest he is at a disadvantage.

“When we go to the bigger tracks, the four links have the advantage. I don’t know what we are going to do there. I’m 55 years old and I want to keep racing as long as I can.

Whether or not I build a new car, I don’t know.”

Though the Slamfest series is enjoyable for racers and helps subsidise their operations, Bray says the ANDRA championship is still the goal for most.

“The tracks are more consistent and it is mostly quarter mile.

We get great racing conditions and at those race tracks you can let your hair down and get after the tune up.

“Some of the eighth mile tracks for Slamfest are a little scary but they come around; you have to build the traction on the day.”

The ANDRA Top Doorslammer championship will take in two new tracks this season – Adelaide International Raceway and Calder Park.

Bray said the surfaces are different which will provide a challenge but he can’t wait for the big crowds to turn up.

“ANDRA need to be on the ball at these events and look at how the tracks are prepared. We don’t want cars not being able to stay in the throttle. But we hope Calder and Adelaide to be prepared well.

“Racers don’t listen much to people saying it is the best traction in the world and how we’ll all break axles. If the car smokes the tyres in the top end it’s not good traction.

The crowds will be there and we all can’t wait to go there.” www.mnews.com.au

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P.O Box 149 Forster NSW 2428 Phone: 0407 869 680 Email: info@autopics.com.au

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motorsport news

17/08/12 10:25 AM

Vale

Barry Lake 1942 - 2012

MOTORING AND MOTORSPORT WRITER BARRY LAKE DIED ON JULY 20, 2012 AFTER A PROLONGED BATTLE WITH VIRAL ENCEPHALITIS. HE WAS ONE DAY SHY OF HIS 70TH BIRTHDAY. BY Steve normoyle

I

first met Barry at Amaroo Park in 1989. I had been a motorsport journalist for maybe less than a year, which made me more or less a complete novice. But I well knew who Barry was, because I had been reading his race reports, road tests and technical features in motoring magazines since I was a kid.

When Barry introduced himself to me that day I was completely taken aback. Even more surprising was that the reason Barry wanted to meet me was because I was the author of a particular driver interview he’d read and enjoyed.

On a personal level, to receive praise from someone of Barry Lake’s stature was incredibly flattering and was something that gave me enormous encouragement.

The point of this anecdote is not how clever I was to have written a story that grabbed Barry Lake’s attention. It is that someone of such standing in the sport would bother to seek out a nobody such as myself. More to the point, Barry had learned something from my story – and for him, that was the only thing that ever counted.

Barry Lake was a lot more than just a journalist.

Writing about cars and car racing was just one

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facet of his life as an enthusiast – and that was his main passion in life.

Barry began writing about motorsport in the late 1960s. Prior to that he’d dreamed of being a racing driver, and had raced a series of openwheelers, starting with a 10-year-old Cooper MkV Norton he bought in 1961 for 295 pounds.

The 19-year-old had to sell his road car to pay for it, so was back to catching trains or riding his bicycle – until his employer, Debiens Motor Auctions, offered him the use of cars they owned for auction.

The Cooper was followed a few years later by a 1.5-litre Jolus-Minx, and later a ’64 model Elfin Ford 1100. In this car he was fifth outright and third in class at Bathurst in the 1966 NSW 1.5-litre Championship.

A career as a driver might have blossomed had it not been for a chronic lack of funds; Barry was always struggling to mix it against drivers with more expensive equipment. In later years when writing about young aspiring drivers, it was the ones who were doing it the hard way, getting on in the sport without the help of a rich benefactor, that Barry rated the highest.

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Barry’s handshake Anyone who knew Barry would have been familiar with his unusual handshake – when shaking hands he would always present his left hand, and never his right. This was because Barry had lost the ring finger on his right hand, which meant that in a normal handshake his hand became painfully crushed.

Barry had had the finger removed on the advice of the doctor who conducted the medical examinations for CAMS National Competition Licences.

He’d seen the doctor to have his medical check done, and having passed the test, the doctor said, ‘See you again next year,’ and held out his right hand – to which Lake instinctively grasped with his own right hand.

“What is that in your hand?” quizzed the doctor. It was Barry’s ring finger, which was in the closed position, curled into the palm of the hand. It had been locked permanently in this way ever since it was damaged in an accident seven years earlier, when eight-year-old Barry was playing with flotsam in the surf somewhere between Wanda Beach and Boat Harbour.

The finger had been ripped open right to the bone by a flathead nail on the end of a piece of board Barry had thrown into the surf.

Barry had been afraid to let the doctor see it, in case it would mean he did not pass the medical and thus be denied his racing licence renewal. But the doctor insisted. He told Barry the finger was beyond repair and that it should be amputated.

The bone specialist recommended by the doctor by chance also happened to be a patron of the Australian Automobile Racing Club, and had waved the starting flag for a major motor race at Warwick Farm – so he must have been good, in Barry’s mind.

When Barry checked into Balmain Hospital for the amputation, it became known that he had not yet turned 21 – and therefore would need a parent or guardian to sign the consent form. Barry then telephoned his father, whom he had not seen for some time, and asked could he come down to sign the form right away because he was booked in for an operation.

Rex Lake became extremely agitated, ‘Have you been in an accident?’ etc, but rushed over and signed the form.

It would have been a matter of in and out in a couple of days, except that Barry asked the doctor if he could also attend to a long-term, painful and infected in-growing toenail. He did, but that meant being unable to walk for about four days – four days of being washed by nurses, pampered and fed. It was the most relaxing (and only real) holiday he ever had.

The finger was taken off at the knuckle in the hand, the knuckle itself being removed. The use of the hand was infinitely better after that, except that the missing knuckle meant that when anyone really gripped the hand during a handshake, it would crush the entire hand. The worst case was when Ian Vaughan gripped Barry’s hand like a vice, leaving Barry in great pain and unable to use the hand for several weeks afterwards.

After that incident, Barry would not shake hands with his right hand. People had to accept the left hand, or live without a handshake.

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Race and rally: In the ‘60s Barry raced a series openwheelers. This is the 1.5-litre Jolus-Minx, above. He was part of the HDT squad that finished one-two-three in the 1979 Repco Round Australia Trial, right.

He got involved in rallying in the late ‘60s, dividing his time between driving and his new career as rally reporter for Australian Motoring News magazine. In later years he would achieve distinction in long distance rallies, sharing a Holden Dealer Team Commodore with Shekhar Mehta and Rauno Aaltonen to third outright in the 1979 Repco Round Australia Trial and, 14 years later, finishing second with Ian Vaughan in the ‘historic’ London-Sydney Marathon.

The unfailing attention to detail that made Barry such a good navigator was also his great strength as a journalist.

Moving on from the post of rally editor at Motoring News in the early ‘70s, he became assistant editor at Racing Car News in 1973 and then founding editor at Chequered Flag the following year.

He worked at Off Road Australia from 1977 before joining Modern Motor magazine (now Motor) two years later. He became editor of Modern Motor in April 1982. He retained an association with Motor into the 1990s, years after departing the editor’s chair, often assuming responsibility for the magazine’s performance car and, in particular, tyre tests.

In many ways Barry was the ideal motoring/motorsport journalist.

He came to it with experience both as a racing and rally driver, and also as a mechanic, so he understood the sport on many levels. More than that, he had the ability to grasp complicated topics and explain them in the simplest of terms. I think there might not be a better journalist in the world when it comes to technical stories on the sport or motoring in general.

Part of what made him such a great writer, and also infuriating for those who worked with him, was that he was a perfectionist. He was motorsport news

17/08/12 10:25 AM

Barry Lake was a meticulous diarist. Here are few tales from Barry’s extensive records.

10/2/62 Sydney Showground Len Brock was the only driver injured in a multi-car pile-up in front of the pits during the Final of the NSW Speedcar Championship. Nine cars remained tangled together, although two others also were damaged in the crash. Don Hunt, Holden #32, who started from position four in the 17-car field, half-spun and stalled with his tail to the concrete wall. As the following cars all struggled to get into single-file to squeeze through on the lower half of the track, instead of grabbing his handbrake and keeping the car where it was, Hunt, frozen with fear, just sat there and let the car roll down the track into the path of the oncoming cars. The resultant pile-up was spectacular and frightening.

Miraculously, although Andy McGavin and Johnny Harvey received minor cuts and bruises, everyone else climbed out of their cars unhurt – or so they thought. Barry Lake was working the pit gate at the meeting (with Myles Stivano and Darrel Pomery) and was perched on the big timber gate looking down on all of this happening. When he and most people from the pit rushed out onto the track to help clean up the mess, the drivers were standing around congratulating themselves and each other on escaping unharmed, when a voice rang out from under the wreckage, “Hey, you bastards! get me out of here; I’m on fire!” It was Len Brock, pinned under his Holden #99, which was indeed beginning to burn its leaking fuel. The car was hurriedly lifted and Brock was extracted. He had been sliced at an angle right down through his face by his perspex windscreen and was taken to hospital with injuries that ultimately required skin grafts and plastic surgery. Brock was back racing the car, roughly repaired with many ‘dings’ and visible welds in the bodywork, in the Australian Speedcar Grand Prix 3rd March – just three weeks later.

His head and face were swathed in bandages, like ‘The Invisible Man’ of the comic books, and his eyes – seen only through two holes in the bandages – looked like pools of blood.

Barry Lake has not yet pinned down whether it was in the World’s Speedcar Championship the following week, or in the 50 Lap Speedcar Derby the week after that, but Brock, still with the car looking a bit ragged, and still with his face bandaged, was really flying through the field, and leading when he crashed inexplicably into the fence at the Bull Pens corner and rolled over yet again, fortunately without further injury. After the race, Lake asked Brock what had happened; he seemed to be going so well and then looked to go straight on into the fence. Brock said, “I still can’t see properly; I just follow the white fence around, but that late in the race the track was covered in mud and I couldn’t tell where the track finished and the fence started; I just drove straight into it.”

Barry Lake

8/10/70 Southern Cross Rally Barry Lake was entered for Southern Cross Rally in Colt 1100SS Fastback. But, unknown to him, the car had been loaned to Bob Riley for a rally the previous weekend. It was delivered to Lake only a few days before the Southern Cross in a shocking state, with crash damage, broken parts, lights etc. Tom Snooks had flown from Perth to co-drive Lake. With only a couple of days to go, Lake asked Snooks if he could help prepare the car. Snooks said he had no experience or talent – or desires – in that area.

Lake abandoned the project. Snooks offered his services to the organisers as a scorer. It began a new career for Snooks as a rally director.

Barry Lake www.mnews.com.au

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never happy until he had completely explored the topic at hand, often exhausting himself in the process trying to get those final little touches on a story just right at 2 or 3am.

This extended to magazine road tests. When it came to Motor magazine’s performance tyre tests, I’m fairly sure that Barry would have driven the other Motor guys to distraction with his insistence on thorough procedure, but in the end they were the ones who benefitted – because Barry would ensure no corners were cut and that the tests were done properly.

I remember one day at Albert Park, Barry’s enquiring mind spotted something different on the wheels of one of the F1 cars. He followed

it up, showing photos to engineer and fellow motorsport enthusiast and racing car designer John Ballantyne. Between them they deduced that this might be attempting to capture and perhaps regenerate kinetic energy in some fashion. It was denied by all and sundry at the time, but it was later revealed as an early exploration into what we know today as KERS. There is a great volume of Barry Lake’s work out there. The only pity is that most of it is spread across the decades amongst a range of different magazines. There were quite a few books in the pipeline, but these were always long-term affairs as Barry would never put anything out until it had been exhaustively researched and verified. It had

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motorsport news

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lap.

5/9/55 Sydney Central Railway Barry Lake around this time first saw Motor Sport magazine in the tiny Gordon & Gotch newsstand at the Central Railway exit leading to Elizabeth Street. Barry walked to and from Sydney High School at Moore Park every day that week, to save the three pence each way bus fare. On the Friday, with 2/6d, he bought the magazine and did so every month for the next 40-odd years. Each day he hid the magazine behind others on the racks, so it would not be sold. Each morning, it had been placed back at the front again. He was afraid it would be sold but was too shy to ask for it to be put aside for him. He was very relieved to have it at the end of the week.

Barry Lake

25/2/61 Sydney Showground to be right.

I know there exists an unauthorised biography of Tony Gaze written by Lake, as well as an uncompleted Sir Jack Brabham biography. Lake stopped work on the Brabham book once he learned that English F1 journo Doug Nye was instead doing Sir Jack’s biography. But before Barry shelved his own book, he had meticulously researched Sir Jack’s entire Speedway career, uncovering much previously unknown history in the process.

Hopefully one day this work will see the light of day.

Barry also planned to write his own story. He wanted to do this not to big note himself – that was never his style – but simply because he believed peoples stories should be told. He was a meticulous – maybe even obsessive – diarist, and some of the hundreds of Barry anecdotes can be read here. But that was Barry Lake – a man of motorsport who told stories.

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Barry Lake was pit crewing for Herb Elliott’s #77. There was a stoppage for a crash during the World’s Championship. Car #77 was overheating and pumped a lot of its water out while parked high on the track near the first pit gate. Herbie Elliott asked Barry to go and get some water in a watering can, to top it up, which was not allowed by the rules. With the help of Myles Stivano, Darryl Pomery and some others, surrounding him to hide the watering can, Barry obliged. With a combination of the water coming out of the radiator overflow and some spilled while Herb was filling it surreptitiously from the watering can, a large wet patch was left on the track. When the race restarted, Tattersall, running higher on the track than all other drivers, hit the patch of water, spun wildly onto the grass infield, and stalled his engine – out of the race. Barry Lake asked him after the race what had happened. Tattersall replied, ‘Someone spilled water right up where I was runnin’ and man, that was it!’ Lake tried to look surprised.

Barry Lake

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MODEL BEHAVIOUR

Enduro time ‘TIS THE SEASON OF ENDURANCE, AND THAT MEANS A WHOLE HOST OF NEW MODEL CARS IN HONOUR OF THE GREAT RACE AT BATHURST. By Bruce Moxon

L

ast month I talked about Le Mans cars – the weird and the wonderful of them.

And surely the weirdest of them all (at least in recent times) was the Delta-Wing. And yes, there’s a model of it coming. Spark will be bringing us the 2012 Le Mans car in 1/43 scale. Surely a must for our collections.

Frankly, it looks like a model car anyway – like one of Hot Wheels’ fantasy cars …

Hopefully there will be a 1/18 scale one as well, for those that need the bigger models.

It looks like it should never have worked, and I guess we’ll never know for sure how it would have gone over the 24 hours, after clashing with another car early on.

Garth Tander and new boy Nick Percat won last year’s Bathurst 1000 after a racelong battle with the Triple Eight cars of Jamie Whincup/Andrew Thompson and then Craig Lowndes/Mark Skaife. Their VE Commodore in 1/18 scale from Classic Carlectables will be popular with the ever-loyal Red Army – and so it deserves. As always, the model has been made as a faithful reproduction of the real thing – gazillions of measurements, photos and drawings going into making something that we just put on a shelf and look at occasionally!

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motorsport news

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As a touring car, the VE looks great and the lines and proportions of the car are captured well in the model. Those front guards look like they were made to have a fat pair of slicks under them, don’t they?

Classics next offering is of an older, but no less significant Commodore – the 1996 Bathurst 1000 winner. This was the first Bathurst win for two young blokes who are now considered old! Craig Lowndes and Greg

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Great racers: Classic Carlectables has Bathurst Commodores old and new, left, top, while Apex Replicas brings us the 2011 DJR Falcons, above.

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Murphy came through the early rain to win the 1996 race in their HRT VR Commodore.

If you get a chance, have a look at the detail inside these models. Fabric seat belts with metal buckles – drink bottles, roll bar and brake bias adjusters and a detailed dash.

Then there’s all the under-car stuff – springs, sway bars, prop shaft, brakes and fuel lines.

Astonishing levels of detail and accuracy are yours for about $220.

When Peter Brock and Holden had their rather acrimonious split, the nine-time Bathurst winner looked afield for a new marque. Happily for him, BMW Australia was looking for a new team, as Frank Gardner’s JPS team was folding. So Brock bought the cars, the team’s spares inventory and the services of Jim Richards and went for half the cylinders, half the capacity and shocked half his fans half to death. (Nothing like as much as his move to Ford later on – but that’s another story).

Brock’s 1988 Bathurst campaign was brought undone when Brock hit a wheel and tyre another car had left lying on Con-Rod Straight. Damage was extensive and the M3 spent ages in the pits getting very necessary repairs. Brock hopped into the team’s second car but that had trouble, too.

However, the BMW M3 is one of the most attractive of the Group A cars – in a brutal, Teutonic sort of way. There’s some dispute as to the whereabouts of this car; two M3 owners in Group A historic racing claim to own it, but one has been able to get a Channel 7 technician to identify the mounting points for the Racecam fitted at Bathurst.

The Mobil 1 and BMW corporate colours are very similar, and looked good on the little Beemer, and that has translated well to the model. It’s also an interesting model in that it’s one of the few cars that Brock raced without his famous 05, at least once he was established with that number.

Also coming soon is a Nissan Skyline GT-R. So what you ask? Lots of models of the GT-R are available in all its manifestations. Well, this is a bit special. It’s a plain-body version, in black of the current GT1 spec car, as raced in the World GT1 Championship. Now, the racing version of any GT-R is a weapon – in flat black it just looks bloody evil. Check out the pictures for yourself!

Are you a footy fan? AFL footy, that is?

Then head over to www.topgear.com.au and check out the Trax Footy Racers. Wheeled footballs, decked out in your team’s colours, to race against the team you like least (probably Collingwood, right?)

GT-R Supercar: GT1 Nissan GT-R model in flat back looks fantastic, above right.

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Minh To has been at it again. This time it’s a Mustang – and not just any Mustang, but Australia’s favourite – the 1969 Trans-Am car that Allan Moffat used to turn everything on its head. Minh started with a Hot Wheels Real Riders car. It already had the wide, Mini-Lite wheels and a roll cage, as it was a Trans-Am race car to start with. He’s drilled out the rivets holding the floor on, dismantled the car, stripped off the original paint, sprayed it, applied the stickers – a here it is – a 1/64 Allan Moffat Coca-Cola Mustang. It’s all very nice to have a good collection, but to have stuff you’ve made yourself must be all the more satisfying. We like to hear from collectors – can you match this effort? Send me an email at moxophoto@gmail.com motorsport news

17/08/12 10:39 AM

2012 Bathurst 12 Hour Highlights AUDI’S “INTERNATIONAL” ENTRY SPLASHED TO A SECOND STRAIGHT ARMOR ALL BATHURST 12 HOUR VICTORY. WITH 2011 WINNERS MIES AND DARRYL O’YOUNG JOINED BY CHRISTER JOENS, THE R8 LMS DRIVERS DOMINATED THE RACE, AFTER RAIN SET IN DURING THE EARLY STAGES. IN THE END, THE TEAM WON BY 13 SECONDS OVER THE MERCEDES-BENZ SLS AMG OF HACKETT, SLADE, BLEEKEMOLEN AND CURTIS, WITH THE FERRARI 458 OF BAIRD, GRIFFIN AND WENG SUN THIRD. THE HIGHLY-FANCIED 458 OF SIMONSEN, BOWE, FARNBACHER AND EDWARDS DIDN’T DISAPPOINT EARLY, AND SIMONSEN BROKE MOUNT PANORAMA’S RACE LAP RECORD,BUT THEIR RACE EVENTUALLY ENDED WITH ELECTRICAL DRAMAS. THE LOCAL AUDI OF LOWNDES, LUFF AND EDDY HAD AN EARLY SHOWER TOO, AFTER EDDY CRASHED MID RACE. SO SIT BACK AND ENJOY ALL THE HIGHLIGHTS OF 12 HOURS AROUND THE PUNISHING 6.2KM MOUNT PANORAMA- THAT’S ABOUT AS TOUGH AS IT GETS IN THE WORLD OF MOTOR RACING.

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akeside – the early years records motor racing at the iconic track during its first 10 years,” said Richard Croston, author of this quintessentially Australian motor racing book.

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The 12mm soft felt pads protect rims from Schumacher era in Melbourne..%7 !53 !5felt to sit within the Totes.

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The 12mm soft pads protect rims from The perfect match for the Tire Totes, Felts are also available The No.1 Car Racing Helmetto g Helmet sit within the Totes.

The 12mm soft pads protect rims from 3Wheel 42felt to sit within the Totes.

The 12mm soft felt pads protect rims from 42!

Racing Car !,pads the World to sit within the Totes.

The 12mm soft felt protect rims from ,)!. ) scratches and knicks that are associated with transporting tyres.

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One . .4 • 1000kg and 3000kg Cap 4 scratches and that are associated withtyres transporting tyres.

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One size ––knicks all Tote bags and covers from 22” through toto size ––508mm 508mm ––fits fits all Tote bags and covers tyres from 22” through size –––508mm fits all Tote bags and covers tyres from 22” through to month warranty • 12 size 508mm fits all Tote bags and covers tyres from 22” through to requirements size – 508mm – fits all Tote bags and covers tyres from 22” through to • Weights 29”.

A set of four is available for $49. requirements The Stonie Grand Prix book will be the first of three limited edition s 2ElLL

SERVICE ALL MODELS size – 508mm – fits all Tote bags and covers tyres from 22” through to s 2ElLL

SERVICE ALL MODELS 29”. set of four available for $49.

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AA set of four isis available for $49.

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• Custom ground roller, solid and 29”.

AAsset set of four is available for •due Custom ,ARGE INVENTORY Indoor or out, the Tyre Garage makes storing multiple tyres easy. publications from the South Australian. The second, outground later roll thi Stands 29”. set of four isthe available for $49. $49. s ,ARGE INVENTORY Indoor or out, the Tyre Garage makes storing multiple tyres easy.

Indoor or out, Tyre Garage makes storing multiple tyres easy.

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2OLLER ,IFTERS #AMSHAFTS 2 tonne and 6 tonne capacity Indoor or out, the Tyre Garage makes storing multiple tyres easy. hydraulic OF PARTS 2OLLER ,IFTERS hydraulic #AMSHAFTS Indoor or out, the Tyre Garage makes storing multiple tyres easy.

2OLLER ,IFTERS 2OLLER ,IFTERS #AMSHAFTS #AMSHAFTS Hyperco Race Spring All All Classes OF PARTS Tyres are protected from the elements and kept clean and dry in a will focus on motoring and rallies, while the third will cover 35 years Indoor or out, the Tyre Garage makes storing multiple tyres easy. $139* $99* Tyres are protected from the elements and kept clean and dry in a Tyres are protected from the elements and kept clean and dry in a p air Tyres are protected from the elements and kept clean and dry in a )GNITION 3YSTEMS profiles using unique computer 2OLLER 2OCKERS All the Classes Classes are protected from the elements andkept keptclean clean2OLLER dry2OCKERS inaa SYSTEMS using pairunique Tyres are protected from elements and and dry inracing. and SYSTEMS )GNITION 2OLLER 2OCKERS 13” 15” 16” 17 “ 18”3YSTEMSTyres )GNITION 3YSTEMS 2OLLER 2OCKERS single stack.

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Pep Pro 95833:Austral 14/9/09 9:39 AM Page 1www.carcoon.com.au racing@nttyres.com.au INDUSTRIES COM racing@nttyres.com.au 9357AM 0469 F For more more information, visit or 1800 888 009 Pep Pro Classified 14/9/09P 03 9:39 Pa Pep Pro 95833:Austral 14/9/09 9:39 AM Page 1 95833:Austral visit our website: www.crowcams.com.au more information, visit www.carcoon.com.au or call 888 009 WWW W RAASALES email: in All1800 enquiries to historymotors@bigpond.com m.au INDUSTRIES COM visit our website: ww W W W Cracing@nttyres.com.au R A N E C A M S C O M A U For W www.revolutionracegear.com.au W W C R and ASALES Norders E RACER CAM S COM AU W CCRracing@nttyres.com.au NNEECCAAMMSS CCOOMM AAUU W Lightweight Aluminium Alloy

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Log on to my105.com and place your ad by following the prompts . Payments can be made online by credit card only.

225" S&W Dragster 511 BB Chev Engine, Enderlie bird injection, Brodex heads, MSD ignition. Powerglide by Dimoff Trans, ATI Convertor, air shifter, 9" Rear with 4.11 ratio, super comp rear wing, runs straight & hard 7.80 @ 170MPH. Must sell, new project on the go, turn key $29,800 ono or $15,900 Roller.

0413 055 125

1969 Porsche Group SB Porsche 996 GT3 Cup Car 2003 year 996 GT3 cup car, with 2004 updates. CAMS logbook (2A). Fully maintained by Ktec Autohaus. 3 sets of rims, all standard cup car build ie air jacks etc, MoTEC, coolsuit, radio coms, fresh brake pads, gearbox rebuilt in 2011, no hits, race ready. No GST. Offers considered. 0418 955 785

Very competitive Group SB under 2l car. Built from a bare shell, as light weight race car 2.0S spec engine on Webers. Engine specs on request. Top of the line suspension pkg. Well known competitive car. Car is located in Sydney and can be viewed by appointment Email for specs timgt3@hotmail.com.

0409 090 932

Professionally maintained to the highest standards. Includes two spare sets of wheels, auto throttle blipper upgrade, Motec video logger, variant exhaust system. $215,000 plus GST. 0488 445 305

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o s o c t T.

CLASSIFIEDS Jaguar XJ13 Replica

Open Wheelers

Transporters/Trailers

Mercedes Motocross Sprinter

Unfinished project. Rolling with V12 engine and transaxle gearbox.

Comes with all blueprints and most parts to complete. Phone for details. 0408 804 411

www.my105.com/7068

Ex- John Lamb Collection This Classic long distance rally vehicle has competed in the London to Sydney Rally, Capetown to Capetown, Panama City, Anchorage and 4 times Classic Adelaide. Only 3 of these vehicles were constructed and meet strict FIA international standards. This vehicle was built at a cost of $150,000.

0418 494 878

www.my105.com/6793 Speedway Engines

Killer SBC 640HP - 534lbs/ft

Speedcar Stealth Brand New Esslinger. est. Motor.

4 meetings only ALL NEW GEAR. Race winning car, Track Record Speedway City 2012. Complete with all spares. For more info call Kym on 0405 149 862 wk: 08 8261 1444, 08 336 78 95

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This Mercedes has been set up for motocross and to sleep 4. The Sprinter has a 400L water tank to wash Motorcycles down and solar panels on the roof to power a external Radio and fridge as well as 1000w inverter to power the kids PS2 and Ipads. The cab has UHF, Hella HID lights bull bar, HID lights. 0427 520 128

Truck with Pan Tec Body fitted with 1.5tn Rear Lifter. Room with single bed & storage. Workshop section with all the Tie Down points ready for racing.

Enclosed Car Trailer also available and can be packaged with the Truck at total cost of $66000. More details available upon request. 0427 737 566

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48' Racecar Transporter

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89 Reynard Formula Ford FC Ready to race in Historics or State Formula Ford. FC historic log book and COD. Maintained and recently refreshed

by Anglo Motorsport. New KONI double adjustable shocks, two sets of rims and many spare parts. Lightweight, enclosed trailer also available.

02 4883 4364

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DART blk, RHS hand finished CNC hds, full micro polish, MAG XL crk, DYER rods, needle brg cam, JESEL rock, Manton psh rods, Victory titanium valves, Isky EZRoll lifters, bze bushs, Isky springs, Wesmar cam gear, Daley dry sump (14in Hg vac) MSD flying magnet trig, Baker Crb, Start mtr, Completely new engine, only 105km old

Racing Bike Transporter Truck

550 Crew Cab 112.00 kms, seats 7, dvd player built in, living quarters sleeps 4, full kitchen a/c tv/dvd, cd player, water tank, duel fuel tanks, generator, 41 foot trailer zenith built a/c fridge, built in cabinets, holds 3 top wings, 6 fronts can carry pit bike F500 sprintcar & spare frame diff & front end racks. 0418 477 727

Drop deck pan, ex Horrell Motorsport sprintcar transporter.

Kitchen and paint only 2 years old.

240v power and air, LED lights, flood lights side and rear, hydraulic rear door, air bag suspension.

www.my105.com/7824

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Formula Libre Hill Climb Car 2008 Hayward Engineering designed and built hillclimb / sprint car. Hyabusa powered late model 1340cc engine, rebuilt by leading engine builder with big bore 1440 cc kit, head ported and polished,special designed cams made and fitted. Quaiffe diff, avon tyres,winning car,cams log booked. awesom car. 0418 275 403

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GET IT SEEN GET IT SOLD Coloured ad spaces available now.

Ex-F1 Transporter & Awning Ex-Minardi F1. Available at end of season. Selling due to upgrade. 2-4 car transporter, large office with air conditioner/heating, tv monitors, hydraulic tail lift, benches, roller draw storage cabinets, large awning, flooring. Some small cosmetic wear & tear. First to see will buy at this price!!

0438 426 529

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MY FAVOURITE RACE

MARK WINTERBOTTOM RACE 22, GOLD COAST 2011 V8 SUPERCAR SEASON

Peter Bury

T

HERE are lots of races I look back on fondly, and the Gold Coast last year is definitely one of those for me.

It had a lot of meaning because we were written off and our soft tyre pace was quite poor. So we had no form at all on the soft tyre going into that weekend, but we had a really successful test day at Winton beforehand. That was a real turning point for me and the team, and it probably even set us up for this year as well.

I was meant to have Will Power as my

international co-driver and then with all of the tragedy that happened in the Las Vegas IndyCar race, we had no driver two days out. Then we had a guy, Richard Lyons, who got a call-up and 24 hours later he was in a different country and we’re out at Willowbank trying to do a test day. It was really an unknown heading into the event.

Our form was poor, but it was an event we’d always gone well at, and it’s a big event as well. So that was quite an important one to have all of the unknowns and then go in, come from behind, catch Jamie [Whincup],

pass him, pull away and get the win. It was a pretty special race that one. And the surfboard’s a trophy we all want to put in our poolroom and have pride of place. That was probably one of the most memorable races I’ve had.

The soft tyre had been our weakness during the middle of the year and we definitely felt confident of turning that around after the Winton test, but there’s nothing like putting the car out on the track, doing a race stint and being there at the end.

When you test, you think you find something,

John Morris/ MPix

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motorsport news

17/08/12 10:42 AM

Dirk Klynsmith

“

It was just a really big weekend, as a turnaround. The event before on the soft tyres, two of the three FPR cars got lapped and I was a lap short of being lapped. We went from really, really rock bottom to a massively strong weekend

but it doesn’t always relate to a race meeting, with a different track, the opposition – you don’t know what they’ve done with different set-ups – all of these things, but we thought we’d found something. But it was still an unknown, we definitely didn’t think we’d go in and dominate the way we did, it was a massive turnaround.

We rolled the car out of the truck and instantly felt like it did on the hards, and we were very competitive on the hards, so instantly it felt strong. From Lap 1, I thought we were definitely a chance, but the unknown was how hard to push in the race. You do 20-odd laps in the race on a set of tyres, but do you push hard? Do you conserve? You didn’t really know how to drive the car in the race stint. Every lap, you were learning more and more. I knew we had a quick car, but I didn’t know that we had a car that would do the distance until we actually got into a race stint. I didn’t hop in until after Richard had done his first stint. I watched him and he was running third or fourth behind the two Triple Eight cars, so it was an unknown as to how quick it was until you jumped in it. Once www.mnews.com.au

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you got in and started doing the stint, it all started to feel good.

For Saturday’s race, it rained in qualifying and we qualified 19th. Richard turned a guy around and we almost went a lap down with a pitlane penalty, and I jumped in and drove back through to third. That was a really big drive to get back to third, passing heaps of cars and getting back onto the podium, almost catching the leaders.

It was just a really big weekend, as a turnaround. The event before on the soft tyres, two of the three FPR cars got lapped and I was a lap short of being lapped. We went from really, really rock bottom to a massively strong weekend. Teams don’t really have that sort of turnaround in a month on the same tyre. We just had a really strong weekend and for the rest of the season we stayed top five, so it was a big turning point for FPR. On Sunday, I was always going to have a crack at Jamie, regardless, I had nothing to lose. It was ‘win it or bin it’ mentality there.

He had a championship to hold onto but even when he’s leading the championship, he doesn’t drive to the championship; he

always drives like he has to win every race. I knew it was going to be a tough battle, and it was nice to do to him what he does to most, week in, week out – come from behind, run him down, put him under pressure and pass him. That was a really good feeling, to do what they do really well.

It was a really satisfying result and weekend overall. And the relationship working with Richard, it was a really enjoyable weekend, just working with a guy you only really met on the Tuesday night.

He came in, sat in the car, and we went to Willowbank on the Wednesday then got stuck into the Gold Coast stuff from Thursday onwards. It was just a really good week, no hiccups, nothing went wrong, other than the stop-go on Saturday, but we could always recover. It was just a really fun weekend, I’ve built a really good working relationship with Richard just off one weekend. It was just a lot of fun and a memorable event, highlighted by the win on Sunday.

Mark Winterbottom spoke to Mitchell Adam

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17/08/12 10:43 AM

Marcos Ambrose celebrates his Sprint Cup win at Watkins Glen – making it backto-back victories for the Australian at the Glen.

QUICK QUIZ

Answers 1.

Christian Klien, Bahrain 2004.

2. Four – Australia, New Zealand, France, Ireland.

3. Dragon Racing.

4. The series. He is a four-times IndyCar champ and a threetimes winner of the Indy 500.

5. Around 1200 degrees.

NASCAR MEDIA

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