Motorsport News Issue 427 - January 2013

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No.427 January 2013 Australia $8.50 NZ $9.99 inc GST

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GERMAN TOURING CAR LEGEND BERND SCHNEIDER IN OZ

CALENDAR LIFTOUT www.mnews.com.au

YOUR GUIDE TO THE2013 MOTORSPORTSEASON

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I NEWS

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

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THIS MONTH’S FEATURES

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12 MOMENTS /As we look forward to the new era of V8 Supercars it's time to reflect on the key moments that shaped the first 20 years.

Art Director Chris Currie

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MN caught up German touring and sports car legend Bernd Schneider during the German's carrieo appearance in an Erebus Mercedes SLS at'Hdmebmh.

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THE QUIZ Time to give the old grey matter a bit ofa workout in the annual MN quiz.

Your quizmaster is David Greenhalgh.

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Touring car legends don't come much bigger than Bernd Schneider.

The German has won more DTMs than any other driver and boasts a pretty handy sportscar record to boot. These days he's an ambassador for Mercedes-Benz, and was one of the men responsible for the GT3 development of the Mercedes SLS.

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IN THEIR OWN IMAGES A series of the best motorsport images of2012 from the Motorsport News photography team.

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MORE THAN YOUR DALEY DRIVE Success has been 40 years in the making for Wayne Daley but he's adamant that he won't be waiting another 40years for the next title.

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VALE BILL WIGZELL We mourn the passing of a South Australian Speedway legend.

REGULARS

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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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Box Seat

14

United States of Origin

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Model Behaviour

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Raceshop

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Classifieds

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Parting Shot

We have our own Daniel with a Euro-sounding surname in Formula 1 but if things go to plan for Daniel Juncadella there might soon be another. He spoke with our correspondent from Perth with the Euro-sounding surname of van Leeuwen.

Warren Luff's been around the local scene for seemingly eons, and even though he has been unable to cement a long-term spot in the V8 Supercars main game he's never been better placed not only to win major V8 Supercar races but also GT3 enduros as partof the Audi factory squad. It has been a remarkable career path for the Sydney driver. motorsport news

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FTER literally minutes of thought, here is a Countdown of the 10 things I want to see or hear in the near future.

10. More crazy hats on podiums Pirelli's 10-gallon hats in Texas stole the show at the US Grand Prix. I think that there is a great opportunity to be had here, to see drivers in Bowler hats. Straw Boaters and possibly a Fez or three. I suggest Garry Rogers may be able to advise on this.

9. A Schumacher comeback No, I am not keen on seeing Michael Schumacher up to his old tricks, like driving other drivers towards walls at 300km/h-plus, or edging across in the braking zones (like he did in Austin, to Jenson Button).

But using the justification that Michael's comeback was a success because he enjoyed himself, I say, let's bring back Ralf. I will have T-shirts made.

8. A great Dunlop V8

Supercar Series Fora longtime,the 'Development'Series has featured a wide range of talent levels in a wide range of V8 Supercars - some of them up to a decade old.The sudden availability ofjust-superseded cars makes next year's contest potentially fascinating. Drivers who have been hamstrung by ancient cars, and have been blown away by semi-factory weapons in recent years, may take some measure of revenge next year. Bring it on.

7. A new men's fashion trend A bowtie in a V8 Supercars pitlane is as rare as hen's teeth.

In fact,the only time I have ever seen one was on the bonnet ofTodd Kelly's Commodore when it was rebranded as a'Chevrolet'in Bahrain five years ago. But incoming V8 Supercar Chairman James Strong is a noted aficionado of the iook - as well as pastimes as varied as motorcycles and mountaineering. We look

forward to seeing the impact he has on the sport.

6. No more Megawall It's not Pay-TV, and it is not like race viewers can choose between the different'channels' So seriously, Seven, really, what the hell is the point?

5. An Aussie accent on Formula 1 TV For as long as we have watched FI in Australia, we have been viewing the'British' coverage - first with Murray \A/alker and James Fiunt, then James Allen, Martin Brundle, Jonathan Legard and David Croft.

NBC's coverage in the USA next year will feature three Poms David Flobbs and Steve Matchett in the studio and former MN FI editor Will Buxton in the pitlane - and an Aussie, Leigh Diffey. I have nothing against Brundle and Croft, but Network 10,can we have the'Americans'please?

4. Another V8 Supercar team winning a race A new year and a new generation of cars bring new opportunities. As good as they were in 2012, having TeamVodafone and Ford Performance Racing winning all 30 races was a bad look for the

sport. So everyone else; get your ducks in a row, please, and give it your best.The first non-T8 or FPR winner of'13winsa box of Savoury Shapes. Really.

3. A Nissan-Mercedes BenzNissan podium See above.There is no particular reason to believe that a change of car brand will be the magic panacea to allow two teams that, between them, ended 2012 without a single round win to break through to a win. But if this two-new-makes regime is really going to be a good thing for the sport, let's see a Fiolden-and-Ford-less podium - and a few forced smiles in the pitlane.

2. Advance Australia Fair at Albert Park The National Anthem may have been on heavy rotation at Phillip Island, but we don't get to hear it in March. Flow many more chances are we Aussies going to get? Jenson, be a good fella, and slow down a bit, please.

1. A Flappy and Safe Christmas and New Year Needless to say - but let's all say it, and do it, anyway.

See you in 2013.

Using thejustification that Michael's comeback was a success because he enjoyed himself,I say,let's bring back Ralf. I will have T-shirts made

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ALL me a wowser,a killjoy, or even worse, but I reckon V8 Supercars Australia's moves to ban the burnout are 100 percent spot on.

Actually, it's not correct to say they've banned burnouts.They haven't - they tried to do that in early 2011 but a noisy backlash against the decision (which even included some V8 Supercar drivers) prompted an abrupt about-face.

Anyone who was at Flomebush last month, or watched on TV, will have seen newly crowned champ Jamie Whincup smokin'the bags no worries on theTeamVodafone Commodore. So reports of the death of the burnout in V8 Supercars are premature.

For the moment,all that's happened is that they've moved to discourage it - in the actual V8 Supercar racing itself as well as in the non-racing on-track activities.That is, such things as the drag racing and stunt bike and ute pre-race entertainment.

I can understand why the

absence of Victor Bray's burnout car from the Gold Coast 600 last October raised the ire of some fans. But the decision not to go with Bray and his '57 Chevy was part of a plan by the promoters to try to change the event's image - to make it less of a schoolies-for-grown-ups weekend and more of an Adelaide-style festival.

I think it's a bit over the top to call this'political correctness gone mad', which was what the Gold Coast Bulletin quoted anonymous'motorsport insiders' as saying.

In the same way, anyone who bemoans the potential loss of the'tradition'of a driver destroying his tyres in celebration of victory is just plain wrong.

There is no such 'tradition'in Australian motor racing.The burnout'tradition'is a widely held misconception and a mistake that even V8 Supercars itself made last year when it backflipped on the ban.This was under the reign of Martin Whitaker, who conceded at the time that the burnout

There is no'tradition'ofvictory burnouts in Australian motor racing.

was'customary across many disciplines'.

This simply isn't correct.

Across all disciplines of the sport in Australia, the victory burnout is a fairly recent phenomenon. I invite anyone to tell me I'm wrong, but the first time I can ever remember anyone doing it in this country was in 1996 at Oran Park when Craig Lowndes fried a set of Bridgestones in celebration of an amazing Australian Touring Car Championship victory at his first attempt.

And the'tradition'didn't even start there. More often than not since then,the new V8 Supercar champ has elected not to light up the bags post-race. Again, I could be wrong, but I can't recall Mark Skaife doing it with any of his five title wins,the last being as recently as 2002.

You do see it a bit in Formula 1, but likewise only in recent times. It's not any kind of FI tradition. Similarly I can't recall it as a feature of Indycar before Alex Zanardi started doing it in the late'90s.

I was surprised to hear the outcry from some V8 Supercars drivers last year when Whitaker tried to stop the burnout.

Steven Johnson was quoted on

a website as saying,"...but we're being told to drive around and put our hand out the window and wave. Not many people think that's exciting."

Maybe, but right throughout Steve's father's era (which wasn't all that long ago), that's exactly how it was, and people seemed to think that that - the actual racing event- was more v. than exciting enough.

Personally, I reckon that if a set of tyres needs to be torched in a fury of burning rubber and white smoke just for the whole thing to have been considered worth the price of admission, then there's something wrong either with the racing or with the way the fan is viewing the racing.

Motor racing is a contest of speed and tactics that involves a perfectly prepared and tuned machine being stretched to its limit of performance by a combination of skill and bravery from the driver whose abilities most us can only marvel at.

That's what it is: it's motor racing.

It's not the Summernats - that's a whole different thing.

Again, call me a wowser, but a burnout at a motor racing event is just a bad look. Burnouts on the road are neither legal nor socially acceptable - Lewis Flamilton is one driver who knows this - and they are exactly what the sport should not be encouraging if it wants to remain in the commercial entertainment mainstream.

Motorsport is misunderstood enough without the sport itself inviting its enemies to continue to ignorantly portray it as nothing more than a bunch of boons tearing around a track and burning up tyres.

And burning up fossil fuel and adding to the problem of global warming for no practical purpose.

There could - and probably will - come a time when motorsport will be asked by the rest of society to justify itself. If and when that day comes,the sport will need to have adapted itself so that it can be seen as part of the solution, not part of the problem. And if and when that day comes, I can't see such things as burnouts being anything other than a liability, motorsport news

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OU had to laugh.

One of the first things I saw as I wandered up pit lane on Saturday morning at the Sydney Telstra 500 was the bonnet of Shane van Gisbergen's Stone Brothers Racing Falcon.

The young kiwi had stunned the sport by confirming just a few days earlier that he was going to walk away from his ongoing deal with the Stones and, while people were still digesting that and speculating about the reasons, here was the PR slant to the weekend.The bonnet of car #9 was covered in signatures - team personnel, supporters, sponsors - and would thus form some form of memento of this final race.

But hey,the bonnet is perhaps the most vulnerable part on a V8 Supercar, particularly at a close-quarters street race like Sydney. How often do you see the mangled front end of a V8 Supercar looking something like the flattened nose of one of those ugly'pug'dogs ...

Shane is a press-on sort of guy,so I chuckled a bit at the astronomical odds of the souvenir being remotely intact at the end of two hectic days at Homebush ...

I needn't have worried.The swan-song turned out to be

a disaster, with a bizarre twist, and the bonnet remained in immaculate nick. Eased into a wall on the opening lap of Saturday's opening race, the steering broke.Trying to get the car back to the pits, it got worse and suddenly veered left, crowding the Medical Car, which had made the decision to pass the stricken blue Falcon, into the wall.The sight of the Medical Porsche struggling back to the pits with the front hanging off was, well ... pretty funny, though I'm sureV8 Supercar Doctor Carl Le's eyes would have been out on stalks!

Sunday's race was even shorter, a broken diff yoke stopping the car on the opening lap. As a farewell race meeting it was disastrous and a real shame.

But at least the bonnet survived.

Van Gisbergen's out-of-the blue decision to quit, at 23 years of age, had pit lane buzzing.

Shane was 16 when he won New Zealand's Formula Ford title, 18 when he debuted mid-season in V8 Supercars with the short-lived Team Kiwi, and still 18 when Ross and Jimmy Stone offered him a drive. Five years later, with race wins, and sixth,fourth and sixth in the last three championships, he seemed potentially poised to take that final step. Potentially, because there are big changes

happening, in V8 Supercars and at Stone Brothers Racing.

The arrival of Betty Klimenko's Erebus Racing and the AMG Mercedes project is the biggest.

The team will be well-resourced, well-prepared, and no doubt the focus of attention Just because of what it will be - Merc in V8 Supercars. But there's been no indication from Shane that this big change, and challenge, had anything to do with his departure.

On the face of it, it's seemingly not dissimilar to Casey Stoner who,at 27, and having achieved everything he set out to, seeks some normality in life after teen years that were anything but normal (and then, literally as this is written, steps into Jamie Whincup's TeamVodafone Commodore to test himself for a potential development series tilt!).

In Shane's case, the mountain still remains to be climbed.The peak is in sight, but hasn't been reached. Walking away now from the opportunity most young racers would kill for is a big call, and that's the puzzling thing.

There may be no way back in a year if there's a change of heart - certainly not at SBR/ Erebus. Betty Klimenko is less

than impressed at having to find a quality driver for the SP Tools car at such short notice ...

So what next for Shane van Gisbergen? Back in NZ, he'd already done an event in a 'drift' car, and tested in a rally car last week,so the urge to race something, like Casey, is still there - but in a more laid-back environment perhaps.

It may be that simple.Those near the team have suggested that it's simply a matter of stress; of pressure; that Shane is'down'.

If so, you can only wish him the best.

You could be less charitable.

In a world where the population at large talks stress in terms of GFC and lack ofjob security, I recall reading somewhere that 'stress, to a modern racing driver, is deciding which coffee shop to visit after the gym ..." Ouch.

Perhaps a bit cynical, but you get the drift!

And hey, there could well be deeper personal reasons for Shane van Gisbergen's departure that are no-one's business. But it is genuinely a shame to see any young sportsman with the ability to get it done, step away when so close to the top rung.

Thanks Shane - it's been fun watching on. Good luck.

Stress, to a modern racing driver,is deciding which coffee shop to visit after the gym...

motorsport news

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D

ANIEL Ricciardo will be currently enjoying a relaxing break.

Fie deserves to. On the eve of the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, Scuderia Toro Rosso announced that both he and Jean-Eric Vergne will be retained for the 2013 season. For a young driver like Ricciardo, having your program for the following season sorted in November is a rare luxury.

It will give the lad from Perth a chance to really enjoy his annual trip home for the summer. And when he sets himself up on a beach most likely somewhere along Western Australia's southwestern coast - I'm sure he'll sit back and reflect on what's been a pretty freakin' good year.

Again, he deserves to. Because it has been a pretty freakin' good year. Simply earning another season in Red Bull's cutthroat development program is proof enough.

There is little doubt that Ricciardo came out of his and Vergne’s debut season as STR team-mates looking slightly better. And that's not just Aussie bias... there are facts to support the theory.

For exampie,the final qualifying stats favour Ricciardo 16-4 over the Frenchman. And in those 18 sessions, Vergne has been left stranded in Q1 - worst of the non-Caterham/Marussia/FIRT bunch on eight separate occasions. Ricciardo, meanwhile, has only suffered that fate twice. I'd call that a flogging.

In Vergne's favour, things have been a lot closer on Sundays. But, while Vergne outscored Ricciardo on points, Ricciardo has actually finished inside the Top 10 on more separate occasions. And anyway, trying to measure race pace on points-paying results alone is a practice fraught with danger. Remember,the STR is simply not fast enough to earn points on merit. Getting that car into theTop 10 requires an element of luck. In that respect, qualifying is a much better barometer of pace between the two young drivers.

Upon re-signing Ricciardo, STR boss Franz Tost also revealed that the team is impressed with his worth ethic, both in and out of the car.

And that's always a good sign.

"Daniel is very strong in giving technical feedback,"Tost told the official FI website.

"Fie is able to give very precise information, what helped us several times this year to get a better car setting. A small shortcoming would be that he could be a little more aggressive in the race. Fie knows that and is working on it. At the last couple of races his efforts showed

results, as he has almost always been in the points."

But while Ricciardo will be able to feel relaxed and satisfied over the holidays, he also needs to know that the hard work is just starting.

A debut year full of promise is one thing, but now the challenge is to continue that upwards trend. It's that ability to continually improve that separates the good drivers from the great ones.

There's plenty to play for as well. Between Mark Webber's rolling one-year contracts, and the ever-smouldering rumours of Sebastian Vettel having done a secret Ferrari deal,there is every chance that a seat will be going at Red Bull Racing in 2014. Earlier this year we talked about there maybe being a seat at RBR in '13, but that was always going to be a long shot. For'14, however, it's a lot more likely and even Christian Florner is happy to admit that.

"The objective will be to keep a close eye on them,and at some point we would like to consider them as a driver," Florner recently told AUTOSPORT. "But they have to achieve that on merit.

"Were we to have a seat available [in 2014],they would have to demonstrate that they have the ability to step up like Sebastian [Vettel] did.

"They have the opportunity do that, but there is no prerequisite that they will be a Red Bull Racing driver.

"It is a great opportunity for them and we will be keeping a close eye on.them, but our objective will always be to have the best pairing possible in the cars."

There is also the lingering threat of Felix da Costa to consider.The Red Bull Junior won races in both GPS and Formula Renault 3.5 this season, before jumping in the RB8 and topping the second day of the Young Driver Test in Abu Dhabi. Fie then went to Macau and looked stunning on his way to winning the F3 Grand Prix.

Fle's got potential, and everyone at Red Bull knows it. in'14, they'll be looking to get him in an FI car. If neither Ricciardo orVergne are considered Red Bull Racing material by that point, it could spell bad news for their STR seats (just ask Sebastien Buemi and Jaime Alguesuari).

Of course, all of those movements are out of Ricciardo's hands. For now, all he can do is relax, enjoy the West Aussie summer,and start getting fired up for the most important season of his career so far.

Because as long as he drives fast enough,everything else will work out just fine.

Post-Abu Dhabi,the qualifying stats favour Ricciardo 15-3 < And in those 18sessions, Vergne has been leftstranded in Q1 non-Caterham/Marussia/HRT bunch - on eightseparate occ 12

motorsport news

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INI late November I had my first chance to see NASCAR up : close when I stopped by the second-last race of the season at I Phoenix. It was slightly unnerving to see just how many things the real Sprint Cup has in common with the film Talladega Nights(driver in underpants running around the track trying to put out an Invisible fire'notwithstanding), but nowhere did the reality fly closer to the cliche than in the minutes after Jeff Gordon and Clint Bowyer got together with a few laps left to run.

Those who follow NASCAR closely know that Gordon and Bowyer have a bit of a history, starting with Bowyer derailing a possible Hendrick Motorsports 1-2 at Martinsville in April when he inadvertently took out Gordon and team-mate Jimmie Johnson on a late restart. Further on-track encounters followed through the season.

But you don't need to follow the series very closely at all-to know what happened when Bowyer bumped Gordon into the wall in Phoenix.The four-time champion decided that he'd had enough, waited for Bowyer to come back around the track (a short wait, given that Phoenix is only a mile long), and served him into the wall, ending the MWR driver's title hopes in the process.

This is where it gets good. Both cars were too damaged to continue racing and clanked back to pitlane, where their respective pit crews erupted into an almighty brawl.The journalists who cover

NASCAR full-time sat up a little straighter in their seats and began to chuckle. In the sold-out grandstand outside, the crowd went crazy.

Somewhere,almost certainly, a commentator said something like, 'boogity boogity boogity,that's a fistfight'.

For me,the real highlight was not the fight itself but Bowyer's charge through the throng and into the garage area in search of Gordon, who had already retreated to his truck. Bowyer might have just gotten out of a sweltering cockpit after a few hours racing in the Arizona sun, warm even this late in the year, but that guy is fast on his feet.

The whole episode was all over the TV and papers for the next couple of days, giving the series some great exposure going into its finale at Homestead the following weekend, although from my vantage point it was hard to make sense of it. NASCAR has done well out of walking a fine line between sport and entertainment; between real motor racing and the contrived drama of WWE wrestling. Now it seemed to be throwing a bit of Jerry Springer in for good measure.

Over in IndyCarLand, everyone seemed equally confused.TV coverage has long been a problem for the series, so the fact that more people are willing to tune in to watch a bunch ofjack men and tyre changers rolling around on the ground pretending to fight than they are to see Will Power going wheel to,wheel with Scott Dixon

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obviously got their attention. But is that the sort of coverage the series really wants?

Opinions are mixed. Former CEO Randy Bernard clearly thought so. Graham Rahal was unhappy after Marco Andretti ran into him at Long Beach early in the season, prompting Bernard to attempt to drum up some interest in a Rahal vs Andretti showdown from WWE promoter Vince McMahon via Twitter.(As far as I can tell, McMahon never responded).

The purists are less convinced. A leading figure from one of the manufacturers spent several minutes at the recent IndyCar awards ceremony explaining to me why he felt that the series didn't need THAT sort of attention, which was an interesting position for someone who measures their success in the sport in part by the degree of exposure their programme can attract. Certainly none of the manufacturers aligned to the drivers in the Phoenix brawl made any public complaint about it.

Nevertheless, I tend to lean more toward the side of the purists, although a little spice can be a good thing if it is genuine. For a rivalry to really work, it has to be sincere, and there has to be something worthwhile at stake. Prost versus Senna was incredible because you had two drivers of rare quality who realised that the paddock wasn't big enough for two centres of the universe.The tension between them couldn't be faked. More recently, it was a similar deal when

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Lewis Hamilton and Fernando Alonso were team-mates at McLaren.

At the moment,IndyCar doesn't really have a tinderbox that volatile.True, Rahal and Andretti are not exactly planning holidays together, but it's hard to have a grudge match when both drivers are struggling to crack the top 10, as those two were this year. You'd think that Power would be the series' best hope as at least one half of ' an arch-rivalry, and he has certainly had a few clashes over the yea rs with the likes of AlexTagliani and Dario Franchitti. But when I spoke to Power about it recently, he claimed that he had mellowed.

"Once you get to a series like IndyCar and you're in it for a few years, you realise that the clashes are just part of the racing," he said.

There's no point getting upset about it. You know you're going to be racing against the other guy for years."

He probably has a point.(I've never raced in IndyCar, so who am I to argue?). But I'm willing to bet that if Tagliani had torpedoed him instead of Ryan Hunter-Reay at Sonoma,the NASCAR punch-up at Phoenix would have seemed small fry by comparison. Like Jeff Gordon demonstrated that weekend,all it takes is someone to push the wrong button at the wrqng time. >i»

NASCAR has done well out of walking a fine line between sport and entertainment; between real motor racing and the contrived drama of WWE wrisstling.

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77

7September 1906

The first hint that something was different was the flag flying in the Melbourne breeze outside a marguee. It carried the logo of global sports management giant, IMG. Motor racing in Australia was about to change. In the paddock of the Tickford 500,the media was assembled and there was the news; a new organisation was about to take overTouring Car racing. It was to be owned by the teams - represented by TEGA,the Touring Car Entrants'Association - CAMS and IMG.The person telling we,the media, all about it was a balding man in round spectacles named Tony Cochrane.

In short order, AVESCO was launched,then its constituency changed as IMG's share was passed on to the new SEL organisation.

Then CAMS divested itself of its stakeholding, leaving a TEGA/SEL combination to conduct the category's business.

There had been attempts to professionalise the sport in the past.

Most notably, a management group with experience in other sports approached some of the track promoters in a bid to form a group.

That proved to be unsuccessful, but the new effort had substance and, on the surface, confidence. In the relatively near future, there were to be TWO 1000km Touring Car races, Sandown was to be dropped from the calendar before being restored - as a part of the championship, not a stand-alone race. So too, a single Bathurst 1000 would become a part of the championship - which would drop its Australian Touring Car Championship moniker.

And if you have spent anytime in the last 20 years following motor racing in this country,the rest is history.

14 March 1997 Mike Audcent is a man given to the odd displays of emotion, when it is appropriate. So when he emerged from a darkened room to the walkway at the back of the Calder Park media centre, not knowing whether to scream with Joy,jump in the air or sing - or all three - you can be assured that something big had just happened.

It had.The three races, two of them under lights, had provided two different winners; Greg Murphy and Wayne Gardner.The last of those drivers took out the round honours, and there had been plenty of action among the 28 cars - coincidentally, the same number as today.

Just about all of it had been captured on TV. 18

"We didn't miss a thing!"'Audie'grinned to no one in particular and in this case, that no one was me."We got it all!"

They did. Underthe lights, the cars looked brilliant.The racing was close, so the in-car vision was first-rate. But there was one thing TV fans had not seen before on an ATCC broadcast; in the top right corner was a 'ten'logo. . After a generation on the Seven Network,the Championship had a new home. It was a seismic shift, which had come about because Seven had wanted to be paid to broadcast the series.Ten paid to play, and so took over as host broadcaster. When confirmed,the move was not universally popular; some in the pitlane were worried that Ten, with no specific experience in the sport, would make a meal of something of which Seven had been considered expert.

Audcent and his crew stepped up to the mark, winning four Logie Awards for its V8 Supercar broadcasts. So good was it coverage that, when Seven took back the series in 2006 (a decision made on commercial terms)Ten had become such an integral part of the sport that the news was met with some nervousness. Seven's return coincided with the launch ofV8 Supercars Television, and many of the names and faces, in front of the cameras and behind them, made the move as well. The high standards have remained.

But the biggest step in broadcasting happened at dusty old Calder, all those years ago.

10 April 1999

The Adelaide 500 When Craig Lowndes took the chequered flag in the first heat of the Sensational Adelaide 500 - only to be disqualified post-race for clashing with Danny Osborne while lapping him - little did anyone know what lay ahead of the event.

Adelaide had not hosted a major motorsport event since Formula 1 departed in 1995, when 207,000 fans filled the Parklands track. With a near ready-made racetrack, a high degree of local organisational expertise and an enthusiastic audience, with hindsight, it seemed like a no-brainer for an event to take its place. But until such time as AVESCO and the South Australian government got behind the 500, nothing else happened.

It was a big success that has become huge. A few more than 160,000 people attended the 1999 race, and that number had motorsport news

surpassed 290,000 now. Adelaide embraces'its'race,just as it did the 11 Grands Prix held there.The Adelaide 500 has proven thatVS Supercars can aspire to be Jon Bon Jovi and not just Jon Stevens.

But the impact of the event goes far beyond Adelaide's city limits.

The Clipsal 500 has become V8 Supercars'blueprint for success. Its two-race, Saturday-Sunday model has become the series' norm, rather than the exception. Its shortened layout may not completely satisfy those who pine for classic, permanent circuits, but there is no argument that it provokes excitement and action.Turn 8 has become a must-see corner for anyone who likes sedan racing of any kind.

The Clipsal 500 has become V8 Supercars second-biggest headline, As a race, Bathurst stands alone - and it should. But, as much traditionalists sigh with relief that Sandown has had its endurance race return, or that those in power might wish to see Homebush become the sport's indispensible event, it never will. Adelaide is the City of Churches,the home of some pseudo-Pommy accents and unusual festivals, and the best touring car EVENT in the country - and one of the best in the world. Mission Accomplished.

26 March 1999 Just like that, peace broke out in what had been a tyre war.

It seems difficult to remember now, but until the end of the 1998 season, V8 Supercars was as much a tyre battle as one between cars and drivers. Bridgestone, Dunlop and Yokohama all supplied their chosen teams, and conversations in the pitlane would often feature drivers or team principals stating off-the-record (and occasionally on it) that they had no chance of winning this weekend because their tyres did not suit this particular circuit. In the media,the challenge was to keep track of who was on what variation of the team's tyre, with new compound designations and all manner of variables.

And then, at the first race of the '99 season, all that stopped.The teams had, mostly, wanted a control tyre and now they had one. Many had assumed that Bridgestone, which had done of most of the recent winning, would get the nod. It did, drivers racing first on www.mnews.com.au

its 261 tyre and then a more purpose-built version called the YGD. When the tender came up again in 2001, many assumed that Bridgestone would just carry on. But Dunlop got more aggressive on the commercial front, and it got the deal. It has continued ever since, and will continue to supply rubber (in an 18-inch size) for the new 2013 cars.

When the Sprint tyres were introduced in April 2009, in a bid to shake up the racing, Dunlop responded with a tyre that was softer and faster but which had its performance deteriorate, encouraging overtaking. It took some teams a while to get a handle on the new rubber, but it worked.

Dunlop has managed all this with a single control tyre and a single sprint tyre. Witness that, in Formula 1, Pirelli chooses from two of six types of dry tyres for each event, and that in NASCAR, Goodyear can choose from a large inventory of tyres, depending on the track - and even then,sometimes change tyres mid-weekend. Like parity, tyre stories have become, usually, a thing of the past. Like them or loathe them,control tyres are here to stay.

I 3January 2001

There it was, outside the media conference; a Ford Falcon road car with Craig Lowndes'signature on its flanks. So much for any suspense,then.

In short order, it was confirmed that Lowndes was going to be a Ford driver. Fie had been signed to Ford for five years, and the company was funding his seat at a revamped Gibson Motorsport.The Melbourne team pushed its Commodores out the doors,to replace them with a single Stone Brothers-built Falcon.

It was practically unthinkable that Lowndes would leave the Flolden Racing Team. Fie almost seemed born to drive there; his father Frank was a long-time Flolden Dealer Team member,and Craig arrived at HRT as team-mate to, and to be mentored by, Peter Brock himself Lowndes won the Grand Slam (championship, Sandown and Bathurst) in his first full season in 1996, but there were tensions after his return to Australia in 1998 and it was soon obvious that he would not drive for the team for his whole career.

But he did not stay at Gibson's for long, leaving at the end of'02.

It would be unfair to categorise Lowndes'time at Gibson Motorsport as a disaster. That came later, at Ford Performance Racing, in 2003 and '04. In his second and last year with the team, he finished 20th in the championship, a result almost inconceivable when one considers he has not finished lower than fourth with Team Betta/ TeamVodafone since.

But what if Lowndes had simply gone, with Ford support,to its best-performed team,SBR? That team recruited two fresh drivers in 2001, David Besnard and Marcos Ambrose, who won the 2003 and '04 titles, before Russell Ingall won in '05. We will never know what might have happened, but you can wonder...

Ironically, Lowndes is now a Flolden driver again, not necessarily by personal choice but because TeamVodafone joined forces with Flolden (or possibly, the other way around) in 2010. He remains the sport's biggest headline and most popular driver.

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13 February 2MS3

Few people knew what lay ahead when theTWR Group announced it had been placed in receivership.

At the time, a statement from the company, which has overseen the racing programs of Arrows, Jaguar and the Holden Racing Team, said,"We are advised the appointment of Administrative Receivers in the UK based companies will not impact the operation of Holden Special Vehicles, Holden By Design or our Racing Operations."

Despite assurances from Tom Walkinshaw that HRT was not under threat, very soon, a representative of Holden was meeting with the receivers in the UK to ensure that the team remained in friendly hands. Initially, Holden sought an ownership role, only for that to be disallowed byTEGA rules. Ultimately, with Holden's help, Mark Skaife became the owner of HRT and the Kelly family took over the reins at the HSV Dealer Team.

But that did not mean that the teams were meant to be equals; HRT was Holden's marquee team. Starting with Craig Lowndes'first crown in 1996, HRT had won six titles in seven years. It was V8 Supercars' unstoppable force. Under its Kmart Racing guise, Kelly's team had won two Bathursts, but few doubted that HRT was the priority.

And,things WERE impacted. Even with the technical guidance of Walkinshaw Performance,then Walkinshaw Racing, HRT never won another title. HSVDT won two in 2006 and '07, a situation only slightly more satisfactory than a Ford victory to Tom Walkinshaw, who said "the wrong team is doing the winning". So the core of the HSVDT Garth Tander,team manager Rob Crawford and engineer Matt Nilsson -all moved to HRT. It did not bearfruit; only Tander remains and HRT has not won a title in a decade, in the meantime, Holden swooped and secured the services of TeamVodafone. Since its debut win as a Holden team at Abu Dhabi, that team has done nearly all of the brand's winning. Almost 10 years after TWR came tumbling down,HRT continues to struggle, and there is a lot of work to be done at Clayton.

motorsport news

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12 September 2003

Who was this guy? Or is it that guy? Which one was which?

They were some of the questions being asked when Roland Dane and Ludovic Lacroix faced the Aussie media at Sandown. Irish? English? A

Frenchman? A Dane? Who was who? Or, is it whom?

What was certain was that John Briggs had sold his V8 Supercar team.The two-car Ford squad was fairly modestly-performed, usually anchored in the middle of the grid and here were a couple of... well, Europeans,telling Australians that they had lofty ambitions for what was now their team.

Sure.This is not the British Touring Car Championship.They will learn.

They sure did learn.

It is history now that Team Betta Electrical recruited Craig Lowndes and then Jamie Whincup,and narrowly lost the 2006 title to Rick Kelly.

In 2007,that team begat TeamVodafone,and Whincup lost the title, also narrowly,to Garth Tander. And Triple Eight Race Engineering cars have not been beaten since; Whincup has won four titles and was beaten,also narrowly,to the 2010 crown by James Courtney in a T8 customer Falcon.

From a standing start. Triple Eight quickly developed the speed to beat Ford's own factory team. When they switched to Holdens In 2010,they beat Holden's own factory team. In between, after Ford dropped them and Dane labelled his unbranded cars'Pigs', they <i>kept<i> winning.

T8 has become the sport's engineering powerhouse; its cars are up and down the pitlane andT8 parts have become must-have items for most V8 Supercar teams.

Along the way,they have reset the bar on presentation and its leverage of sponsorship.They continue to show what is possible in merchandising and promotion.Their sponsors tend to stay on board for a long time - and the ones that do leave are replaced almost immediately. Witness the tiny gaps between the deals with Sony Ericsson, Nokia and Samsung,and the early news that Red Bull will step into the title role next year.

Dane and his troops have done what he said they would do. Someone will beat them one day soon,surely, won't they?

www.mnews.com.au

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5 March 2003

10 June 200S

If you work in the motor racing media,there is usually a fair bit to Mark Skaife topped the first practice session at Round 5 of the 2005 do at Albert Park in March. One day, there was even more to deal V8 Supercar Championship Series.There is not much unusual in thatwith. save for the fact that it happened in Shanghai.

There was a press conference called for late on Friday morning and The series ventured into the People's Republic of China as part into the National media room we trailed.There sat Marcos Ambrose of a multi-year deal to race on the Shanghai International Circuit, and Ross Stone, but sitting next to them was Ford boss Tom Gorman. . but one that lasted for only one visit. The project was fraught with Clearly, something was going on and it was not just big, it was BIG. hurdles from the get-go.The local experts seconded to Octagon to Ambrose was leaving at the end of the season, with a year still to help sort out the Chinese end of the arrangements,firstly Calder and run on his SBR contract, to move to the USA. Fie was going to be a Willowbank veteran Steve Bettes and then V8 Supercars'Operations NASCAR driver.

Manager Kurt Sakzewski, were somewhat alarmed when they arrived.

The mercurial Tasmanian was considered to be the fastest driver in The impressions were that the Greenland Group,the property V8 Supercars; heck,there are a number of long-time pitlane observers developer responsible for running the race, not only had no prior experience in motorsport but little detectable Interest in speeding up who hold that opinion still. After all, he had qualified on pole on his V8 Supercar debut - and at Mount Panorama on his Bathurst debut. preparations for it.

He had won 28 races and two titles. He was In his prime at 28(about But, it happened. Sure,few spectators attended, but the racing was a year younger than Jamie Whincup is now)and now he was going, fairly good,even if the cars looked a little lost on the wide-open SIC. half a world away to start all over again, and with no guarantees of a positive outcome.

Of course, it is history now that he has gone onto a successful NASCAR career. It Is not as if there have been no chances to come back to Australia. When Ford Performance Racing needed a co-driver for Sandown in 2006(because David Brabham was unavailable for that race) enquiries as to whether Ambrose was available were made.

He wasn't; it was Cameron McLean drove with Matt Halliday. Nor did talks for him to drive for the Holden Racing Team before he signed with Richard Petty result in anything positive.There was still a level of interest in bringing him back, but with a new one-year deal with Petty in place, he Is not going to be racing back In Australia any time in the short-term future.

Ambrose versus Whincup versus Lowndes versus Tander... Well, we can all dream, can't we?

22

motorsport news

Subsequent visits to other Tilke-designed FI tracks have not looked dissimilar.

But whether the event lasted the distance or not, Shanghai was valuable. V8 Supercars and its teams proved that they could take the show on the road, even if that'road'had to be traversed for hours in Boeing 747s.The cars could be racked and stacked for transit, and operated with a minimum of equipment, which amounted to'carry on'baggage compared to the B-Double mobile workshops the teams used at home.

There was not unanimous support for taking the series half-way around the world; there still isn't. But Shanghai remains a line in the sand in the history of the category, in a part of the world that quite a few people in V8 Land would like to see again.

3September 2006

I am usually quite good at listening to what people say but this one Friday, the words that were coming out of my mobile phone were

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failing, badly, to form any kind of meaning in my head.

There has been a crash on a stage of Targa West.

It is bad.

The co-driver is injured and is being treated in the car.

The driver has been covered w/ith a blanket.

He is dead.

It is Peter Brock.

The death of Australia's most recognisable driver is motor racing's JFK Moment. Everyone remembers where they were when they heard the news.The next few hours, then days, were a blur of shock, grief, sadness and hard work, as we threw out half an finished edition of this magazine and started again, in at least an attempt to produce a magazine that would pay tribute to the man who defined motor racing for so many years.

Brock was afforded many honours; a state funeral in Melbourne, attended by a who's who of sport, politics and society; a memorial at Sandown that hit almost exactly the right note of respect and celebration. A month later, Craig Lowndes pulled himself together.

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quite literally, to produce his own tribute with Jamie Whincup, a polished Bathurst 1000 win of which Brock himself would be proud.

It is slightly ironic that Brock's full-time career only just overlapped what Is considered the'V8 Supercar era', as he stepped down from full-time driving in 1997. He was competitive to the end of that time, much more so than he was in two subsequent comebacks.

But Brock's passing remains the biggest loss in the category's history and is also the motor racing story to make the biggest impression in the'real' media. Despite healthy amounts of hope and hype, nothing else before or since has come anywhere close.

20 October 2008 Suddenly,the voice cracked. One eye, then the other, misted up.

Neil Crompton had done such a good job holding his emotions in check,for such a long time, until he looked at Lisa Skaife. She was nearly sobbing;so was her sister-in-law, Toni. And then, Cromley teared up.

He was standing behind a lectern in Melbourne, breaking the news that many had anticipated but which, when it came,still arrived as something of a shock. Mark Skaife was retiring.The most storied driver in the history of V8 Supercars was hanging up his helmet after five championships and five Bathurst 1000 wins. Barely a year after telling this magazine that he intended to go on racing for a long time yet, he was stepping out of the cockpit. In recent events,there had still been flashes of speed, but the decline in the competitiveness of the Holden Racing Team and the strains associated with his ownership role in the team had clearly taken their toll on the driver and the man.The fire that had driven him to the front of touring car racing in Australia for more than a decade had dimmed.

Of course, since then, there have been new roles;TV commentator and presenter, guest drives, V8 Supercars Commission Chairman and a project as a circuit design consultant. As an endurance co-driver with TeamVodafone,there has even been another Bathurst win (and two victories at the Phillip Island 500,for that matter, all partnering Craig Lowndes). In October 2011, with an either/or choice between continuing as a driver or taking his full responsibilities on the Commission, he chose the latter. After two decades at the sharp end of the grid, if Skaife's was a reluctant choice, it would be understandable.

7 October 2012 Some racing drivers must be good jugglers.

Having pitted on lap 134, Jamie Whincup, David Reynolds and Michael Caruso all had 27 laps to run on their final tank of E85 to complete the Bathurst 1000. Whincup had track position, and the lead, and his engineer Mark Dutton encouraged him to maintain it and to look after his tyres. And,save fuel.

Whincup, as skilled a driver as has ever competed at Mount Panorama,suggested that Dutton would be well-served to pick which two of those three things were his favourites...

Of course, it is now part of motor racing folklore than Whincup DID manage to execute all three. He temporarily threw fuel conservation out the window when James Courtney, with a lap less to do on his fuel load, got Into second and closed on the lead. But when Courtney's tyres faded Whincup rebuilt his fuel range, and at no time did the #1 TeamVodafone Commodore maintain its lap times by overusing its tyres. Over the final laps, JDub held Reynolds at bay,to win his fourth Bathurst 1000 by under 1 s.

It was, surely, the finest of the quartet. His first three Bathurst wins came while he watched from the pit bunker as co-driver Craig Lowndes closed out the race, and In the week prior to the 2012 Great Race, no less than Dick Johnson had suggested that perhaps Whincup lacked that vital experience to finish off the race as well as others had done. Sure, things went his way during the race (Lowndes was the one who was delayed when he was'stacked'in the pitlane) but few could argue that Whincup embodied a practically peerless combination of aggression, conservatism and speed over the final stint.

When Whincup joined what was then Team Betta Electrical In 2006, Triple Eight co-owner Peter Butterly suggested to this writer that the team's two drivers were the best in the pitlane. Six years, and four Bathurst wins and four championships later, Whincup just may have proven the irishman right. At Bathurst in 2012, whatever outline of Whincup that may have remained in Lowndes's shadow stepped firmly into the sunlight.

Neither as outgoing as Lowndes nor as loquacious as Mark Skaife, Whincup showed that on the track he may be capable of surpassing their achievements, and may reset ALL the records.

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Ky Andrew Van Leeuwen 26

T took until the end of the 14th race of the season in Singapore for the fight for the 2012 Formula 1 World Championship to settle into any sort of rhythm.

Before Sebastian Vettel and Fernando Alonso emerged as the last two standing, the form was difficult to read. One minute the McLaren looked like the car to beat, the next it was the Red Bull.The Lotus was always a threat, and even Mercedes and Williams had their time in the sun. And there was always Alonso, ready to drag the Ferrari into places it shouldn't have been.

In 2012 we saw eight different winners, seven of which shared the first seven race wins of the season. We saw Williams win its motorsport news

first race since 2006, Mercedes win its first race since taking over BrawnGP at the end of 2009, and the Lotus/Renault/Enstone squad takes its first win since the controversial Singapore Grand Prix in 2008. Very few people would have put money on any of those things happening before testing got underway back in January.

It was a remarkable season, one that saw the title decided by just three points after a thrilling final race in Brazil. Now it's time to take a look back at how it all went down.

How did top two protagonists rise to the top in such an unpredictable season? How did so many different teams and drivers win races?

What were the key factors to season 2012?

And who really was the best driver of the season? www.mnews.com.au

S3

Faster Pastor:Maldonado vs Alonso in Spain,above,Maldonado was a shock winner at Catalunya- and then didn'tscore a point in any ofthe next nine races... Lewis Hamiiton's first win for the year came at Canada, where he wasflanked on the podium by unusualsuspects in Sergio Perez and Romain Grosjean.

Ultimately even Vettel’s, top left. championship win was something ofa surprise. Caterham,left, made furthersteps forward,and Vitaly Petrov went close to scoring the team's first championship points.

27

THE PROTAGONISTS

When Lewis Hamilton retired from the Singapore Grand Prix - while, it should be mentioned, right in contention for the win - the title came down to a straight fight between Sebastian Vettel and Fernando Alonso.

It wasn't a straight fight mathematically, because there were still technically enough points on offer for Hamilton to snatch the title. But,52 points behind Alonso, It suddenly seemed very unlikely.

So Vettel became the last man realistically capable of running down Alonso's massive mid-season gap to the rest of the field.

Funnily enough,Vettel had actually been fourth in the points as the lights went out to start the race in Singapore. By the end of it he was second. By the end of the next race, he was second by just four points and in the box seat to win the title. Things turned around very quickly.

But before we get into the last six races, let's look back on how both Vettel and Alonso faired earlier in the season.

Vettel's road to becoming World Champion was far less straightforward than It was in 2011,to the point where the smart

28

mid-season money was on his title-winning streak coming to an end.

He was second in Australia, but it looked like the Red Bull wasn't quite a match for the McLaren's on raw pace. In Malaysia, he was on for fourth when he clipped Narain Karthikeyan's HRT and failed to finish, in China, Vettel was shocked to be dumped out of Q2,salvaging fifth after starting 11th.

It took until the fourth round of the season for the reigning Champion to win his first race of 2012. It was also his first pole.

Suddenly, after a quiet start to the season, Vettel was back in winning form and leading the championship. Surely, SURELY, he was in a position to control things from here.

What followed was a four-race podium drought,the most damaging in terms of points being the European Grand Prix in Valencia, where the German's seemingly unassailable lead turned into a DNF when his Renault gave up after a Safety Car period.

While Vettel was able to break the drought with third at Silverstone, things didn't get much better over the next few races. His only other podium before Singapore was a second in Belgium, and then there was another DNF at Monza,an alternator problem leaving him stranded. It meant he had a lot to do, even

after winning in Singapore.

Alonso, meanwhile, enjoyed a fairly charmed run through the first 13 races of the season. After the three pre-season tests in Spain, it was clear that the Ferrari was nothing to write home about in terms of outright speed, in fact, by the last day of the final test in Barcelona, it seemed completely unreasonable that either Alonso or Felipe Massa wouid find themselves in contention to win races, let alone make a genuine play for the World Championship.

However, in the just the second race of the season Alonso won his first race. A rain-affected Malaysian GP played into the Spaniard's hands perfectly. When a slow stop for Hamilton and contact with Karthikeyan for Button took the speedy McLarens out of the picture, Alonso's unlikely challenger became Sauber's Sergio Perez. And when the youngster couldn't get a pass done late In the race, Alonso took the spoils.

It looked like your classic lucky win, the kind that only comes around once a season. Even then nobody was realistically considering that Alonso might be a title contender.

China seemed to prove that theory. Alonso started ninth, and finished ninth. It was

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No reign in Spain:Aionso,above ieft. was to be denied by Vettei, above. in the finai round,just as he had been three years eariier. Michaei Schumacher's 300th GP was not to be a time for ceiebration,centre. aithough there was plenty to cheer aboutat an unexpectedly hugely successful Texas FI race,left. Force India, below left, had a reasonable year despite continualreports of team owner VJ Malay's impending financial demise.

www.mnews.com.au

about where the Ferrari deserved to be. In Bahrain he was Just seventh, also quite a fair result.

It wasn't until the Spanish Grand Prix that Alonso looked fast again. While he couldn't match race winner Pastor Maldonado, he still led a lot of laps,finished second, and Joined Vettel on top of the leader board with 61 points.

It was a solid drive, but it still didn't seem like the beginning of anything special. After all, it was in Spain, and quality drivers like Alonso can always find a little extra pace at their home race. And a Williams won,so ... it was clearly Just one of those races.

But it was the beginning of something special. Next time out in Monaco, Alonso dragged the awful looking Ferrari to third place.Two races later in Valencia, he won his second race on Spanish soil for the year. making the most of Vettel's terrible luck to score 25 points.

Then came Germany,the moment where it became clear that there was more to Alonso's good form than had previously met the eye. He simply won the race at the Hockenheimring,from pole position.There was no good fortune with the weather or

unusual retirements;just a classy drive from a man who was suddenly the favourite to win the title.

Alonso went into the next race in Hungary with a 34-point lead in the championship, and come out of it with a 40-point lead, despite finishing Just fifth. He was having all the luck, and it didn't look like it would change. It Just looked like it was Fernando Alonso's year.

Butin Belgium, his luck did change. When Remain Grosjean went sailing into La Source way too fast as the race got underway.

Alonso's Ferrari took most of the force. He was out of the race straight away,and was lucky to still be alive after the flying Lotus narrowly missed his helmet on the way through.

While the crash gave Vettel a chance to snatch a few points, Alonso quickly got most of them back at Monza. While Vettel's car didn't make the finish, Alonso took a sensible third place, giving him a 37-point lead over Hamilton, and 39 points overVettel, heading into the flyaways.

And that brings us to the run from Singapore to Brazil. After another win on the streets of Singapore,and thanks to

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Hamilton's retirement, Vettel became the last man that seemed realistically capable of overhauling Alonso's lead. And at the next race in Japan, he moved into the position of firm favourite.

It all came down to the start. While Vettel bolted from pole, Alonso was caught up in a first corner shunt and was out on the spot. Suddenly,the gap was four points, and Vettel's Red Bull was looking much quicker than the Ferrari.

The inevitable happened at the next race in Korea. Alonso was powerless to stop the Red Bulls, and despite finishing a fighting third he lost the championship lead. He dropped a few more points in India,finishing second to Vettel. It was damage limitation at its best, but Vettel was still pulling away.

Things looked like they just mightturn around for Alonso in Abu Dhabi. Starting from sixth, the Spaniard could relax knowinv that Vettel would start from the back of the grid after failing to store enough fuel at the end of qualifying.

But despite damaging his front wing early in the race and then nearly taking Daniel Ricciardo out behind the Safety Car, Vettel somehow managed to nab a stunning third

Massa-HadciEel^eMassa got his act batforthemostpai^i^i^disoppomiing:- j '^aadwasi dp to team-mate AloWS^ ^heuitcametoarsecQ points offWieliices’dfVetteh Sergio Perez's J^easociM/Msso:.^odthat the SaiMSr^M^^ liheenigrrra^Rmto^MaidonadOiiright, IdnothawehadatesScSd^ie^ leason -^oremelv dominant in Spain ut also imurrinq driver,pen&IMi^iimsey^en mkieh mas more themdSi!^ 15 team-mate Bruno

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place, dropping just a couple of points to Alonso who was second.

At the inaugural Grand Prix in Austin, Texas a couple of weeks later, they were inseparable again, this time Vettel getting those points back with second to Alonso's third. The title was alive going into the final race.

The maths were stacked against Alonso going into the final in Brazil, but on Lap 1 he found himself in a position to win the title.

While Vettel spun after an altercation with Bruno Senna, Alonso bolted into third place, which would have been enough to give him in the title if Vettel failed to score.

But in the end a hard-fought sixth place was enough to hand Vettel his third title in the row, the final margin just three points.

When it was all done and dusted,the debate raged as to who was the best driver of the season. Was it Vettel,for his amazing turnaround and unparalleled late-season speed? Or was it Alonso,for going to close to winning the title in such an average car.The simple answer is that either would have been a worthy Champion,and that it was an epic end to an epic season.

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IHE RACE WINNERS

The start to season 2012 was the most unpredictable that Formula 1 has seen for a very long time.

Seven different drivers won the first seven races, with eight drivers recording a race win in total. It took until June for Alonso to become the first two-time winner of the season.

Jenson Button was the first winner of the season, the Briton triumphant in Melbourne after jumping pole-sitter Hamilton at the start. He won again, but had to wait until the Beglian Grand Prix to do so, before book ending his season with victory in Brazil. But troughs of terrible qualifying performances, particularly when the series first returned to Europe, cost him any chance of a title tilt.

NIco Rosberg was one of two drivers to win his first Formula 1 Grand Prix in 2012, victory coming at the Chinese Grand Prix. It was during the height of Mercedes'double DRS success,the Merc's straight-line speed promising a lot but delivering just one race win.

Pastor Maldonado was the other first time winner, a stunning drive in Barcelona capping off a fantastic turnaround by the Williams team, which was coming off the back of its worst season ever in 2011. But

inconsistency and plenty of crashes meant the Venezuelan was never in a winning position again.

After such a strong 2011 campaign, Mark Webber failed to hit the same heights in 2012.There were moments of brilliance, but nowhere near enough. At least he made them count, surviving some late weather to win the biggest race on the calendar, Monaco, before taking a win in his second home, England. In the end, however, he finished the season just sixth in the points.

Hamilton, meanwhile had to wait until Canada to take his first win of the season, but more followed. But wins in Hungary, Italy and Texas weren't enough to out-weigh some key mechanical failures(Abu Dhabi and Singapore prime examples), and some generally underwhelming performances, more than likely unhelped by what was going on behind the scenes in Team Hamilton (see next chapter).

The eighth and final winner of the year was Kimi Raikkonen. While many didn't rate his chances of making another fist of Formula 1 following a couple of years in the World Rally Championship,the Finn, helped by a pretty handy Lotus E20, had a good year. For most of the first half of the season, everyone waited for a win (the Lotuses started favourites for too many Grands Prix),

and then in Abu Dhabi,just when it looked like Raikkonen would never win, he took full advantage of Hamilton retiring and won.

And it was a win in typical Kimi fashion, one that will go down in history as much for his radio antics ("Just leave me alone. I know what I'm doing") as it will for his actual driving.

THE KEY FACTORS OF 2012

In terms of driver moments,the Hamilton/ Mercedes announcement was unrivalled in the'big stories'stakes.

Having been a McLaren driver since his early teenage years, Hamilton decided that 2012 would be his last and McLaren Silver, and announced he would swap it for Stuttgart Silver for 2013.The news, which broke just after the Singapore Grand Prix, didn't just affect Hamilton. Suddenly, McLaren had swooped through and stolen Sergio Perez from right under Ferrari's nose, and Michael Schumacher's second (and, one must assume final) retirement seemed imminent, and was soon confirmed.

Grappling between staying at McLaren and moving to Mercedes wasn't Hamilton's only problem in 2012. He also had a bad year in terms of social media,twice making embarrassing Twitter gaffs. The first came in Belgium, when Hamilton tweeted a picture of a data overlay between his best lap and Button's. Hamilton's intention was to explain why he was so slow compared to Button (turns out Button's new rear wing was worth 0.4s), but instead he only gave his rivals a good look at what set-up McLaren were planning to run for the race.

Not that much later, Hamilton went on a Twitter rant all about how Button had unfollowed him in the wake of the Mercedes news. It turns out Button had never followed motorsport news

In the Nico time:Nico Rosberg,far left, delivered Mercedes'(and bis own)firstsuccess. It's notevery year a Sauber driver finishes on the podium,as Kamui Kobayasbi did in Japan,above left, and doesn't keep his drive for the foilowing year, butsuch is the financialstate ofSauber.It would be wrong to say Schumacherjeft,was,putt^lassed in his FI comeback, but clearly it did notgo to plan. Kimi Raikkonen, centre, needed no one's advice when the opportunity to win in Abu Dhabipresented itself. Valencia's is Spain's Monaco,ieft, while Jenson Button did the business atSpa. Daniel Ricciardo, below left, met the challenge ofhis firstseason with Toro Rosso In fine style.

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But wiii another German, beiow,one day eclipse Schumacher's record?

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Despite financial concerns, Peter Brock still managed to have a car prepared for the 1976 Bathurst 1000, co-driving with his brother Phil 'Split Pin' Brock. Brock started 2nd on the grid with Moffat in Pole Position. By lap 34 Team Brock was in trouble. The L34 Torana had an issue with the fuel pickup system not delivering the last 35 l itres of fuel. Peter was forced to coast into the pits,

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losing two laps in the process. Team Brock was forced to the pits again, this time for a lengthy stay after breaking an axle. Al l hope of winning the race were gone, but Team Brock did not give up.

Back on the track the L34 Torana was flying and easily the fastest car on the circuit, closing in on the leaders lap after lap. The race ended with Team Brock in 3rd Place, Bond/Harvey 2nd and

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IN PART TWO OF OUR FEATURE ON WARREN LUFF,EDWARD KRAUSE REVEALS THE TRUE STORY BEHIND ‘BALACLAVA-GATE’,DRIVING FOR BRITEK, LUCAS DUMBRELL,AND AUDI AT NURBURGRING,STUNT DRIVING AND STANDING ON THE PODIUM AT BATHURST. After the disappointment of the Sandown 500, where a damaged radiator ended any chance he and Marcos Ambrose had for a win or podium, Warren Luff turned his attention to the Bathurst 1000 four weeks later.

But only a week after Sandown he woke up one morning with a throat so sore it felt like he was swallowing razor blades.

A doctor treated him with antibiotics, but a week later the pain had worsened to the point he was unable to eat or drink and was even struggling to swallow his medication.

He went back to his original doctor, who told him he would need to'fight it out'and that it would clear up eventually.

With only a fortnight to Bathurst, Luff wasn't taking any chances and he went to a different doctor, who admitted him straight to hospital!

"I had an abscess in the back of my throat and it grew to the point where I was having trouble breathing,"explains Luff.

"They put needles all down the back of my throat to numb it and then went in with a scalpel to slice the back of my throat open.

They then went in with a camera and sliced it (the abscess) open and sucked stupid amounts of pus and infection out."

But there was worse news to come.The infection was in Warren's system and the resulting illness meant he had to spend the next three days in hospital. During this time he lost seven kilos from his already slim frame and had no energy or strength. All this less than a fortnight before the biggest race of the year - and probably his career so far.

He rang Ross and Jim Stone and told them what had happened,downplaying it a bit. But www.mnews.com.au

there was another concern.

"I was a little bit worried about getting to Bathurst and, if there was a drugs test because I'd been on heaps of drugs and medication while I was in the hospital.

"The doctors at the hospital wrote me a letter explaining what had happened and what the treatment was and what the medication was.They also said to stop taking my medication a few days before and within 72 hours it would be completely out of my system.

"So I thought,sweet, no dramas. I'm happy with that."

So when he arrived at Bathurst on the Wednesday he and Ken Douglas from Stone Brothers went to the see the circuit doctor, taking his letter from the hospital doctors.

"Because Marcos was leading the championship at that point, as a team they (SBR) didn't want to take any risks and we wanted to be completely upfront with them.

"But he (the circuit doctor) has gone'Yep, that's fine, they're right, but you need to know, ifthere was any of this stuff still left in your system, you would return a positive sample on a drugs test. Because of this letter, because you've been so upfront, you'd most likely be fine, but you need to know."

They returned to the team garage and alarm bells were ringing.'Most likely' being fine simply wasn't acceptable.They could not take this risk at Bathurst and with a championship on the line.

A team meeting was called and Warren was told that they needed to know that he was in the clear. So Warren went back to the hotel, grabbed the yellow pages and started ringing

every doctor and hospital in the Bathurst area to try and get an immediate drugs test.

Several said they could do it, but the results would take a week.

In desperation he called a doctor friend in Sydney, explained the situation and asked for his help. He agreed to open the clinic that night, do the test and he would have the results back by Thursday afternoon.

So at 8.30pm Luff headed back to Sydney, peed in a bottle and came back, returning to Bathurst around 1.30am.

Late Thursday afternoon he got the call he was in the clear. It was a massive relief for both he and the team.

But the infection had taken its toll. Up until the Bathurst week he had been sleeping 14-15 hours a day trying to recover and regain some of the strength he would need to race both as co-driver to Marcos but also in the Development Series, where he was running a close second in the title race behind Dean Canto.

He also knew that he would be required to do a double stint as part of the team strategy and he needed to keep himself as cool as possible during the race.

To that end, he made the decision not to wear a balaclava during the race.

"I knew that Marcos never normally wore one and I sure as hell wasn't because another layer cooking my head wasn't ideal because I didn't have the strength in my body to fight that as well."

The story goes that one of the other teams, having seen in-car vision of Warren driving, noticed that he didn't appear to be wearing his balaclava and tipped off race 37

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control. An official was placed in the Stone Brothers garage and, when Luff handed over to Marcos and removed his helmet, he confirmed that no balaclava had been worn.

Ambrose, who had taken over the car in fourth position, would have to serve a drivethrough penalty.Then came the now-famous TV interchange between Ambrose and race engineer Paul Forgie, trying to confirm if he was indeed wearing one and Ambrose doing everything he could to put off the question.

Eventually he was told:"If you're not wearing one, you have to pit and put one on,"so another unscheduled pit stop was required, dropping him further down the field to ninth.

At this point Warren was devastated. What was looking like a podium finish, maybe even a win, had slipped away, in part through his own actions. After the stress of the past few weeks, with his illness and hospitalisation, the fear of potentially missing out on Bathurst due to the medication in his system,to have come through all that and get tripped up by a balaclava was gut-wrenching.

But with some strong driving by Ambrose and clever pit work by SBR, by lap 144 car 1 was back up into fifth position and Luff and the SBR team dared to hope again as the field queued up behind the Safety Car for a 17-lap run to the flag, only a few second behind race leader Mark Skaife in the HRT Commodore.

But then came the final twist.The Supercheap Auto Commodore, driven by Ambrose's bitterest rival, Greg Murphy,got a slow run out of Griffin's Bend towards The Cutting. Ambrose moved to the outside to go around for third. Murphy held his line as Ambrose moved to the apex.They touched and the result is forever part of the Bathurst 1000 highlights package. Ambrose's Falcon mounted the outside wall; both cars were badly damaged,the track was almost blocked and the pair of them had a yelling match on the circuit that was right on the edge offistcuffs.

Who was right and who was wrong was irrelevant to Warren - his dream of a Bathurst win,even a podium, was gone.

"I was devastated," he admits."It had been such a big opportunity to partner with Marcos, you're with the form team and then to have all that happen, it was a wordscouldn't-describe kind of feeling."

After such high hopes for 2005,two non-results in the endurance races and finishing second in the Development Series meant Luff finished the year unfulfilled.

Flowever, his strong performances earned him another shot at the main game in 2006 with the newly formed Britek team.

Running ex-FPR cars and developing their own engines,they were hamstrung by testing restrictions imposed upon them due to team owner Jason Bright still driving for FPR.The season would prove to be a struggle.

"Personally, I learned a lot about myself as a driver," he explains."Even though he was at motorsport news

FPR at the time, having Jason's involvement and talking to him, getting a much better understanding as to what it takes to make a V8 Supercar work properly, it was probably when I started to get a much better understanding of how to set a car up and get the best out of the car.

"To this day, I still rate Jason as one of the best guys I've ever worked with. His experience, his input, looking at his data and just listening to him how he relates things to the guys, he really is an incredibly smart guy when it comes to car set up."

Despite the backing of Fujitsu and Ford, the team had no option but to take on a driver with financial support for 2007 and both Luff and Jose Fernandez made way for Alan Gurr, who brought backing from Irwin Tools, and team owner Jason Bright.

Luff elected to stay on with the team for 2007 as endurance driver with the hope that he would get to partner with Bright in the endurance races and keep the door open to a potential fulltime return.

"Even though they were a struggling team, with Jason coming on and the development they were hoping for, and the things I'd been told, it looked quite promising," he explains.

"I thought that maybe doing the enduros, in hope that I'd get to partner with Jason, would actually be another good learning and if the team finances improved then maybe there'd be a drive the following year.

"Well, none of that worked out. I didn't get to drive with Jason. I was quicker than Macrow at the test days so I'm not sure how it worked out.The finances didn't get any better and even Gurry got punted at the end of the year.

But things were about to improve - with a new opportunity coming from an unlikely place. After his acrimonious departure from Dick Johnson Racing four years earlier, a conversation with Steve Chalker, DJR's General Manager, led to an opportunity to rejoin the team he followed as a child.

"Somewhere towards the end of'07 he said'if there's nothing else available for you full time next year and you're looking for an endure drive, come and talk to us'.

"So I did. I went back, we all sat down and, I suppose, kissed and made up and I got to come back to DJR, which was great.

It felt like going back home. 1 felt like going back, even if only as an enduro driver. I was a much better and more complete driver than previously."

Despite the way 2004 ended. Luff's friendship with Steven Johnson was never affected. The two were still close, but Luff doesn't know if Steven played any part in getting him back into the DJR fold, saying,"I never asked him the question."

In 2008 he got to return to the Nurburgring - this time competing in an outright car, a Porsche RSR with Shaun Juniper. It had been 12 years since he last competed at the Nurburgring in the Group N Peugeot, but in www.mnews.com.au

what was the equivalent of a GTS car even his previous experience was of limited benefit.

"It's a completely different track to drive in a car like that, you're literally learning to drive the track again.

He, Juniper, Boris Said (a former Nurburgring winner) and Aussie Porsche racer MaxTwigg,were running fifth when the engine failed at 2am.

A season in Carrera Cup kept him active in 2009, by which time the chances of a return to the V8 Supercars Championship seemed remote. But midway through 2010 he began discussions with the newly formed Lucas Dumbrell Motorsport.

A deal was thrashed out at Bathurst and Luff he took over the LDM Commodore, which had been through four drivers already that year,for the final three rounds of the series inTasmania,Sandown and Homebush.

Results were hard to come by -16th in qualifying for the Sunday race Tasmania his best result for the remainder of the year.

But, despite being such a young team. Luff could see potential and was hopeful that the improvement would come. Unfortunately for him, it didn't turn out like that.

By mid-year he knew he wasn't going to be staying on in 2012. While he expected the growing pains - he didn't expect the instability and turbulence within the team.

"A lot of changes happened in the team that year," he explains."A lot of staff came and went. Over the course of the year I had three different team managers,four different race engineers, three different number one mechanics... It was a tough year.

"We were a small team and ultimately we didn't have the car or equipment capable of running in the main game.There were guys 39

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in the Development series that had newer and better cars than we had. I don't think I realised prior to going there how tough it as actually going to be. It was very tough, very frustrating and a very disappointing year.

Knowing that Mark Skaife was unlikely to continue with TeamVodafone in 2012 due to his commitments with the V8 Supercars board, Warren began to enquire about pairing with Lowndes for 2012.

1 had numerous conversations with Adrian Burgess,(TeamVodafone's team chief) who I knew from my DJR days, and I just threw my hat into the ring with Adrian and said 'look, if Skaife doesn't return I'd be really interested in talking to you'.

After Bathurst Skaife made his decision to retire and Burgess got back in touch to see if he was still interested. He was.

'After the Gold Coast race I went up to the workshop, met with Roland and we sat down and discussed things. We only chatted for about half an hour and basically came to an agreement for 2012. We were all realistic about what we expected from each other and it was finalised very, very quickly. So for me it was nice to finish the year off knowing that there were better things coming.'

While the V8 racing in 2011 had been disappointing, his experience as part of the Audi squad at the Bathurst 12 hour was the complete opposite.

Craig Lowndes had already signed up alongside Mark Eddy, who ran an Audi R8 in the Australian GT Championship and was co-ordinating the 12 hour effort that would be run by the factory Joest outfit.

Eddy contacted Warren to see if he was keen. Warren jumped at the chance and. after sending his CV to Audi in Germany and getting the green light, he went to Bathurst as part of Audi's factory effort.

They started from pole and eventually finished second behind their Audi team motorsport news

mates. Luff set the second fastest qualifying time overall; Lowndes the fastest lap of the race, a new lap record.

After such an impressive run, Lowndes and Luff were invited to Germany in May that year to compete with the factory again - this time at the Nurburgring in a round of the VLN (Veranstaltergemeinschaft Langstreckenpokal Nurburgring) series, a championship of endurance races held exclusively at the Nordschleife.

Unfortunately it didn't go to plan Lowndes had a collision with another car in qualifying and they didn't get to start the race.

"It was incredibly disappointing to fly all that way and not actually race,"said Luff."But, just to have been given that opportunity to go over and race for Audi in their own backyard, and to drive that car around Nurburgring was just amazing."

But Luff was invited back to Germany to do another VLN race as well as the legendary 24 hour event,this time with Audi's customer race division, Audi Race Experience.

For Luff, running the 24 hour in a factory Audi was one of his career highlights, even if the result wasn't.

"The car had a gearbox failure after 21 hours. We had an issue early on in the race after one of my team-mates had a spin and got hit from behind and we lost about 45 minutes in the pits with repairs. We fell back to 58th and fought out way back to 14th.

When you consider there's 200 cars in the field, to get it back to 14th was awesome.

"I absolutely had a ball. Like in the night stint, when I was in the car 1 did a double stint and I was consistently running top five times. It was just such an amazing event, amazing atmosphere and to be there in such a competitive car was unbelievable.

"I haven't had any real conversations with Audi for next year, but I've made my www.mnews.com.au

intentions very clear to them that I would love the opportunity to come back and race for them again over there."

Then came the V8 Supercar endurance races where he was joining up with the benchmark team with the driver who had won four of the past six races.

Victory at Sandown was a fairytale start, but Luff and Lowndes would be thwarted at Bathurst by a combination of tyre issues and pit stacking.

"To finally win a V8 Supercar race, it's not something that many people get to do and I can now tick that one and say'l've done that'.

But like anything it makes you hungrier, it makes you want to win more."

Immediately after Bathurst, Roland Dane said he expected to retain Luff for the enduros the following year. Currently Luff is trying to put together a campaign to run Carrera Cup and is still hopeful more races with Audi.

"I desperately want to win Bathurst," he said."I still remember as a kid watching Bathurst and just being glued to the TV. I think it would just be the ultimate to win Bathurst and obviously partnering with Craig

at Triple Eight gives me that opportunity.

"A championship would be fantastic, but I'm a realist, I know that unless you're with the best team you're just making up the numbers.

I'm not one of those guys that just want to be out there filling up the grid to be a race driver - I want to win races."

In 2013 Luff turns 37 and will complete his 20th year of car racing. But those who have known him throughout those two decades will attest he's lost none of his infectious enthusiasm and optimism for car racing, one of the reasons he's such a well-liked figure in the V8 Supercar paddock. In his own words, he's just a kid'who never grew up, still out there playing with cars, it's just those cars have gotten bigger and faster'.

Those cars may well include a Carrera Cup program,the Bathurst 12 hour with Audi and, he hopes, more overseas racing."If I could have that as my yearly plan,that would be a great year's racing."

His first 20 years racing has taken him to some interesting places, some fascinating races and given him a career that would be the envy of many. Yet you feel that, in many ways, his journey is just beginning.

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With Bernd Schneider making a cameo appearance at Homebush for Erebus Racing in the final round of the GT Championship, MN took the opportunity to quiz the German touring car legend about his lengthy DTM career, his short spell in F1, his season as mentor to a young Mark Webber and those flying Mercedes sports cars at Le Mans in 1999. By Steve Normoyle

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N 2005 English magazine Motor Sport named Peter Brock as second on its list of the greatest touring car drivers of all time. Only British ace Steve Soper was rated higher.

The Brits were generous in accommodating the down-under tin top hero - it would, after all, have been easy to dismiss Brock's three local championships and nine Bathurst wins as simply the work of a big fish in a small and remote pond.

The English magazine was less charitable when it came to rating Germany's touring car all stars, however.The best of them was fifth-placed Bernd Schneider, whose five DTM titles (and a World Sports Car crown but that's not touring cars) wasn't considered enough to trump the four and two British titles for Andy Rouse (third on the MS list) and Alain Menu (fourth) respectively, not to mention Soper's grand total of a solitary Japanese touring car championship crown.

But if Schneider isn't the greatest touring car driver of all time, he surely must be close to being the greatest German touring car driver of all time. Which is fitting in a way, because 48 years ago Schneider's parents named their son in honour of a German who was one of the greatest drivers of all time, the legendary pre-war Auto Union grand prix star Bernd Rosemeyer.

Ironically, Schneider spent most of his career driving for the marque which Rosemeyer spent most his career trying to beat. But that doesn't diminish the deep sense of pride Schneider feels when reflecting on the history behind his Christian name.

"When my mother was pregnant,there were big discussions about the name they would choose,"Schneider told MN."My father liked to have a famous American name because they grew up with a lot Americans in Germany after the war, but my mother didn't want that.

"The motorway where Bernd Rosemeyer died, they were making the road wider, and because of this they had to move the memorial stone. My dad was there - he worked on the motorway - and he came home and told my mother,'if we get a son, it's Bernd - finished!"'

Schneider retired from professional racing four years ago, but he remains active as a driver, with a wide range of roles as a motorsport ambassador for Mercedes-Benz.

He still does the occasional race, and he was in Australia in December as Erebus

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Racing's guest SLS driver at the Homebush final round of the GT Championship.Taking pole with a luxurious 1.7 seconds to spare, the German was completely untroubled in both races.

It was the first time Schneider had raced in Australia, although it wasn't the first time he'd tried to race in this country, having failed to qualify for either the 1988 or '89 Australian Grands Prix with the struggling Zakspeed team.

Zakspeed was the equivalent of a HRT or Marussia today - a struggling backmarker team that could be a great opportunity for a driver or an FI career dead end. For Schneider, it proved the latter. His two seasons in FI are today just a footnote on a long and successful touring

IT WAS A SHAME AND THE SIGGEST SISAPPOINTMENT IN MY CAREER WAS KNOWING MY FORMULA 1 CAREER WAS OVER EVEN THOUGH IT HASN'T REALLY EVEN BEGUN motorsport news

and sports car career.

"Most people come up to me and say'you had the wrong car'," Schneider says of his failed FI career."But it's too easy to say it's just the wrong car. Probably the opportunity came too early for myself, and otherwise personally I would have got more out of it even if it was only a small chance to do better than I did. What can I say? It was a shame and the biggest disappointment in my career was knowing my Formula 1 career was over - even though It hadn't really even begun.

"Zakspeed was really small, but they tried to get the best out of it and I'm really disappointed for the team that they didn't work out.They lost the sponsors,they lost everything, and Mr Zakowsi at that time put a lot of money and effort into it and everything was lost."

What was also lost in the Zakspeed debacle was an opportunity for Schneider to Join the factory Sauber-Mercedes SportsPrototype team for 1990.

"I was close to signing a contract with Sauber-Mercedes, It was nearly done. I was contracted to Zakspeed and I said 1 don't want to drive any more for them. But I had a three-year contract. Jochen Neerpasch, Mercedes motorsport boss, contacted me and I said 'yes I'm going to do it'.There would be a German team,Jochen Mass and myself, and the other team was Jean-Louis Schlesser with Mauro Baldi.

"But Zakspeed wouldn't let me out of the contract. This was such a shame - this was November, and then in February Zakspeed quit Formula 1 and I got the offer from Porsche. Everything maybe would've turned out a bit different - 1 don't complain, I just say it would have been different."

Instead of the'unavailable'Schneider,

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The'Class 1'touring carthe category that formed the DTM and International Touring Car Championship (ITC) in the mid '90s was probably the ultimate - at least in a technical sense - touring car formula.

It burned out after just two years, the sheer financial and technological excesses of the formula persuading the manufacturers to dump it. With no manufacturers, there would be no DTM for the rest of the decade.

Schneider, who won the '95 title, beating team-mate Dario Franchitti and Juan Montoya, recalls some of the difficulties he encountered trying to cope with some of the frontier technology Mercedes brought to the series.

"The biggest problem was trusting the engineers to know what they were doing, because they had so many things to play with; everything on the car had its own computer programme. So if I had understeer, the engineer would change the programme to fix it - but sometimes it would be worse.

"They'd say,'no, you must be wrong,the computer has changed it'. But then you would find that they'd got the wrong wires plugged in - they'd accidentally swapped cables and everything was the wrong way around!This was happening a lot; there were so many different cables and a computer programme for everything. When things like this happen, you lose the trust.

"When everything was working well, you could adapt and change the car even from corner to corner. Because you can have a different set up for this corner, and then completely different one that one, and then different for the fast corner. From inside the car we could adjust shock absorbers, springs, brakes, weight balance,just about everything.

"When everything worked perfect, you could say that for one lap, my car's perfect which you cannot say in a normal car. But that also depended on the engineer having the computer cables in the right spot! "it was amazing. We could move 70kg in the car,from corner to corner. If we needed extra traction to compete against one of the all-wheel-drive Alfas coming out of a slow corner, we could move the weight, with hydraulics, to the back for better traction, and then move it forward before the next corner.

"I won the only DTM race with active suspension, in 1993. After that we invented a two-spring suspension, with a hard and a soft spring.There was a hydraulic cylinder that would come out and disconnect the soft one for fast corners, and then for the slow corners you could adjust the hydraulic cylinder to disconnect the hard spring.

"There were so many possibilities to work with on those cars - it was awesome. But sometimes when you were struggling with the setup, because there were so many parameters to choose, you could get lost. Ifthecar was good and everything was working well, you were OK, but if you were struggling, you could just get completely lost and have no Idea how to fix it."

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Sauber-Mercedes took on three other young Germans: Karl Wendlinger, Heinz-Harald Frentzen and Michael Schumacher.

It wasn't the last time the career paths of Schneider and Schumacher would cross.

While Michael began a Sports-Prototype career that would almost by accident lead him straight to FI, Bernd ended up racing a Joest Porsche 962 in America - which inadvertently led to him filling the Mercedes drive left vacant by Schumacher.

"Norbert Flaug, the motorsport chief for Mercedes-Benz, said to me,'you must stop racing the 962, it's too dangerous!'Flis best friend, Manfred Winkelhock, had been killed in a Porsche 962. Norbert is saying,'stop -1 don't want to lose another friend!'So I replaced Schumacher in Mercedes'DTM team when he went into Formula 1.

"Then at Flockenheim, Norbert announces: 'Schneider's with Mercedes now'- even though I had no contract!This was how it started with Mercedes."

The partnership between Schneider and Mercedes-Benz was officially inked for 1992 and would remain unbroken for the next 16 seasons.Through those years, Schneider alternated between sports cars and touring cars, depending on Mercedes'involvement.

When,for instance, the German touring car scene collapsed at the end of 1996, Mercedes switched to GT1 Sportscar racing.

Three tumultuous seasons followed: victory for Schneider in the '97 world championship, a fraught second place in '98, and the infamous flying Mercedes episodes at Le Mans in '99.

In '98 Schneider's co-driver was a young Mark Webber.The Australian has been credited with costing Schneider(and himself) the championship that year by spinning off in the final round, but Schneider says their defeat was more the result of factors such as mechanical failures and some slightly dishonourable conduct on the part of their main rival, Klaus Ludwig in the sister Mercedes CLK LM. "It's still a little bit disappointing that we didn't win the championship because we were so close - we were leading a couple of races and were unlucky. I remember at Dijon we were miles ahead of[Ricardo]

I

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1 ^4 The Bernd and Mark Show:Schneider and Mark Webber celebrate their win at Silverstone in 1998. The GTi sportscar programme,right, ended after the 1999 CLRs got airborne at Le Mans.

From there Mercedes switched to the new-look DTM, with Schneider claiming the title in 2000, below.

Zonta and [Klaus] Ludwig,and then Mark in his stint collected a nut which went between the wheel and the brakes and cut the wheel off. We had to change tyres and we lost first place.

"Then in the last race there was a little game that Klaus Ludwig tried. Fie made the tyre test and said,'yes,the soft compound we can't use because it's too soft'. Normally Zonta and myself were using the hard tyres then Mark and Klaus taking the soft ones, and Klaus says,'no, the soft one doesn't work', so then Mark had to run the hard ones and Klaus got the soft ones on - and then we lost the championship. Just unfair playing but we never complain very much, but to say it's Mark's fault is not true."

Then came the nightmare of Le Mans the following year. Mercedes'new,low-slung 5.7-litre V8-powered CLR was fast, but in early practice Webber got his badly airborne and crashed heavily. On Saturday the repaired car performed a frightening backflip from which Webber was lucky to escape.

Alarming enough as these incidents were, they were also uncomfortable echoes of Mercedes'1955 Le Mans tragedy.There were deep discussions within the team as to whether they should withdraw. Schneider was of the view that they should race.

But in the race, it happened again. Peter

Dumbreck's car backflipped at high speed, vaulting the barriers and crashing into a forest. Dumbreck's crash prompted Norbert Flaug to immediately withdraw the team from the race.

"I was really shocked when I saw the pictures of Peter Dumbreck,"Schneider says.

"I'd never had any problems and we found the reasons why this happened to Mark's car and then we thought,to be on the safe side, put more downforce on and we are safe - but we weren't safe. I'm so happy that nobody was killed, nobody injured. "[When Dumbreck crashed] I'd just finished my stint and came into the containers and changed and then I heard'safety car'and I thought, OK safety car. But then my team mate Franck Lagorce came in and said,'Oh, Peter flew, Peter flew into the forest'. 1 said, 'what are you talking about, how can he be in the forest?'and then I heard Peter's OK,and I was more relaxed. But then I saw the pictures and thought,'how can he survive this?'

"Fie missed the concrete post by one metre,then the advertising bridge, he missed by two metres, and then he flew in the forest.The French just one week before had cut the trees off and he landed on the stem of the tree, and the stem came in on the passenger's side through the floor.

"Fie had no scratch, and the best thing, he came into hospital, and you know the first thing he had to do? Alcoholic test - the French policeman came and he had to do an alcoholic testl" motorsport news

■»

TH[li IS/IW THE PICTURES /INS THOUGHT,' This marked the end of Mercedes' sportscar programme.The CLRs did not race again after Le Mans. Schneider today is philosophical about it.

"Every manufacturer who races there has the risk. .. but especially from Mercedes' side after the history of 1955, if someone was killed there, one hundred percent sure we wouldn't have any motor sports. It can happen - you go over 300, it can happen, but not in the way at Le Mans, and not with the history we have.

"With these kinds of cars, it can happen you can't avoid it, and it's one of the reasons we stopped the whole programme."

As a driver, Schneider wasn't thrilled at the prospect of swapping the CLR sports car for a mere Mercedes CLK touring car. But then the new-look DTM was a different beast from the old ITC. "You know, the GT car was suited to my driving style and I really enjoyed those cars, and I was a little bit unhappy when they said we have to go back to DTM - less horsepower, less downforce, smaller tyres and I said, 'Oh, OK I do it', but I was not crazy happy to be going back. Nobody knew what's coming up exactly but how DTM www.mnews.com.au

grew from 2000 to 2008 when I stopped was amazing and the cars were so much faster, so quick - you can imagine a DTM car is 1.5 seconds per kilometre quicker than a GTS car.‘ It was also an amazing run of success, with four more DTM titles in seven years before Schneider retired. Combined with his DTM/ ITC crown from 1995, Scheinder has won DTM titles than any other driver.

Irrespective of the verdict of Motor Sport magazine, that's some kind of achievement.

No championship win comes by accident, but clearly some are harder to win than others. And clearly, judging by the sheer level of manufacturer involvement, the competitiveness of the field, and the array of driving talent (look at any season's DTM lineup and you'll see a united nations of the world's best touring and sports car drivers, along with some ex-Fl aces), it's hard to argue that the DTM is not the world's toughest touring car competition.

But Schneider's personal highlight in the sport wasn't in the DTM - and wasn't even in a car.

"When I was world karting champion at 16 - that was something huge. There's

no German who's won that championship before or afterwards - not Vettel, not Schumacher - I'm the only one who's been world karting champion. When I was 16, I'm thinking 'I'm the greatest!'

"The year after I found out I wasn't. I'll never forget this: the kart engine tuner he came from the same part of Germany as myself - he said to me'congratulations, well done, but you know to win one such event once is one thing, but to keep being successful is another thing. It will be much more difficult; the pressure will be on your shoulders now because you are the world champion'. I was 16 and I didn't listen, but it was true.

"I was DTM champion in 1995, 1 was world champion in '97, DTM champion in 2000, 2001 - 2002 I was runner up, and people go 'hey, what went wrong?' And I say, 'but I was second!'and they'd say,'yes but something must be wrong, you can't be happy, because normally you are first'. And I'd go, 'what does third place say, or fifth?'That year [Laurent] Aiello was a little bit better and won, and I was second, simple as that - and I was happy with that - but people just expect you to win and aren't satisfied with second!"

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Spain Is already represented In Formula One, with Fernando Alonso at one ol the Held and Pedro de la Rosa at the other, hut perhaps soon mere might he a third should Jaime Alguersuarl find a way to swap his hnrgeoning role as Ft newspaper columnist for a retnm to the cochpit.

But there is yet one more Spaniard waiting to step onto motor racing’s big stage, the newly crowned king of European Formula 3 who has already sampled an Ft Ferrari. Andrew van Leenwen spoke with Paniei jnncadella aner a tumulluons F3 season.

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amounMovallMgfg^'ihpM^ Having led the Fowulai tiuiird) Series for the majority ofthe season> the young Spaniard arrived at the Hockenheimring in Germany for the series finale almost unbeatable. With a 35-point lead over his nearest rival, German driver Pascal Wehrlein, Juncadella and his Prema Powerteam needed just a trouble-free weekend and a handful of points to seal the deal. Realistically, it should have been done by that Saturday evening.

But it didn't quite work out like that. In the first of Saturday's two races, Juncadella

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"T^siasn't quite time to panic y&tSri1i?v -. iteWlfffiput Jdheadeiraohtheibaek'rO.wifiip' Saturday's second race,'he was stilTllPpojnts clear of Wehrlein.

But the eleGtrical problem, now traced to a software issue was more serious than first thought,and after starting from pit-lane and circulating for three very slow laps, Juncadella was forced to retire again.

On Saturday night, Juncadella was left wondering how things could get any worse.

On Sunday,the title that should have been wrapped up on Saturday morning was set to go down to the wire in the third and final race. Juncadella was still 14 points ahead

gualifying^'stem. But theWwe'rPSHlSfSifl^ 4

aiestions over reliability.

Qhithe out^lapffom pit-lane, JunGadellai suddenly realised that things could get worse. As we weaved from side-to-sid'e, the steering just didn't feel right. Given his car had undergone serious renovations,thanks to an overnighter from the lads at Prema, it was a serious concern.Why wasn't there any feeling? What the hell was going on?

While sitting on the grid waiting for the start he asked the team to look into it.They couldn't see anything wrong and told him just to drive the car. All he could do was trust them.

When the race got underway, it was

theif Ferrari Ft test] is to have we are used to realise where a

obvious that Juncadella wasn't happy.When Wehrlein made a challenge for his second place seven laps in, the Spaniard just let him go, not even bothering to defend his position.The same thing happened when Alex Lynn decided to charge past a few laps later.

But while it was a shaky display, it was ultimately successful.The car hung in there, and fourth place was enough to hand Juncadella both the Euro Series title, and the FIA European Formula 3 title.

"When I crossed the line, it was a bit like in Macau in 2011,"says the Spaniard when quizzed on how what should have been an easy weekend turned into such a close-run thing.

"I had so many thoughts in my head, telling me that maybe I wouldn't win. it wasn't the sweetest way to win the championship, having the worst weekend ever at one of my favourite tracks. But I couldn't be happier about it.

"I probably look a bit shocked, because for sure I wanted to win the championship by winning the race and showing my speed, but it was the worse race I could have. I didn't even look at the laps. On Saturday, I was thinking too much about how many laps to go.

When Juncadella refers to Macau, he's talking about his triumph at the 2011 Macau Grand Prix. Even before the'12 Euro Series season got underway,Juncadella was a big-time F3 winner. Now,he's added two titles(Euro Series and European F3) and a Masters of F3 win to his CV. In other words,Juncadella is the best Formula 3 driver in the world right now.

While he'll always be fond of that Macau win last year, it's 2012 that will be remembered as Juncadella's proper breakthrough year. From the very first round of the Euro Series season at Hockemheim (the season is book-ended by rounds at the Baden-Wurttemberg circuit), Juncadella showed that the pressure of being the

favourite was not going to get the better of him. He dominated the opening round on a weekend where it looked like Prema would be out-classed by Carlijii, setting up what would become a successful title tilt with fiwsi race wins along the way.

"I really enjoyed the first race of the year at Hockenheim,"Juncadella says as he reflects on his season.

"It was the first race with the new 2012 Dallara, and we hadn't really developed the car. Carlin looked really quick with [Carlos] Sainz Junior on pole, but we went on to win both races. It was such a great way to start the season.

"If you look back now,that was so important. At that moment,I didn't expect to have such a tough season according to the points. I actually scored fewer points this year than last year.There were exclusions,and

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drive-throughs, and a lot of races that were nearly won but then taken away. It was like 100 points thrown away - maybe 75 points threw away.The rest were unlucky."

It was,in some respects, and up-and down year for Juncadella. If he wasn't winning, he was usually crashing,or being penalised for crashing into someone else.

At Brands Hatch, he got a drive-through in Race 3 for not lining up in his grid box properly. At Spielberg in Austria, he got a drive-through for failing to slow for yellow flags. At the Norisring, he won the first race. only to later be disqualified for crashing into Wehrlein and Raffaelle Marciello.Then, at the Ntirburgring, he was penalised for running Felix Rosenqvist off the road at the start. For that one he even apologised immediately afterwards,taking full responsibility.

It's my fault. I didn't give him enough

room/'Juncadella said at the time.

'When I went to the right I thought I'd given him enough space, but then I was looking in the mirrors when he was in the pit exit, so I didn't see him. He's having a tough time,so he wanted to win and didn't lift. I'm very sorry for him and me.'

It all seems very erratic, but, on reflection.

Juncadella now admits it was about making a point before he looks to leave F3 and move up the motor racing ladder.

'A lot of the highlights were more on the downside,like the exclusions and the drivethroughs,"hesays.

But these are the things you learn from.

Maybe in my life I've had seven drivethroughs,and four were this year,so that says a lot.

It was a big experience. A few years ago. was named as a soft driver. You know,the

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EscmiT, cnniiM. upri repiuweiit ird pereirihrce piris Body panels, suspension, steering and drivetrain fur road and track

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sort of driver not risking enough,or not aggressive enough. People were saying'you should have overtaken here', or'you should have been here', or'you should be more of a bad guy on the track'.

"This year i tried to change that a bit. My aggression was a bit harder, and sometimes I made mistakes. I had crashes, and I had two exclusions for going over the line.

"This is good experience for the future. I really wanted to win the championship with a bigger gap, not in the last race, but it's good experience to be in situations like this.

If you use it well, and you're the winner in the end,then it's great."

After three years in F3, Juncadella has well and truly conquered the famous feeder series. His season ended back at the Macau Grand Prix in November, where he started fifth with an extra set of new tyres up his sleeve, only to touch the wall on the first lap.

It was his last start in a Formula 3 car.

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So, what happens next? Having already tested a GP2 car for Rapax,Juncadella has

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the option of making a big play for a future in Formula 1. But he's also conscious of how difficult that can be, and has an eye on the

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DTM as well,open to emulating the career path of Paul di Resta, which went from the F3 Euro Series,to DTM,to FI. "At the moment 1 have no news from my sponsors, but for sure my future will be between GP2 and the DTM,"he says.

"I'm quite sure about that,although we still need to see what's going on.You know,

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a lot of people think that it's just going the Touring Car way,going to the DTM, but for me it's not. I tried the car last year, and it really felt like a Formula 3 car to drive.The

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"That's the pinnacle in Touring Car racing for me. If you look at the quality of drivers, it's reaily great.

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"If you go to GP2,it means you are trying wheelsto are make covered, the Jump but it's to very Formula similar.

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nowadays Formula 1 is very interested in money.The teams are looking as much for the big sponsor a?they afe'thb talent or the results. If you look at the level ofthe DTM,all of the drivers are competitive, but if you look at Formula 1 there are drivers who are there because of what they brought with them.

"I have to look at what interests me, and see if there is any interest in me from Formula 1 as well.That's the thing that will decide which way I go."

Regardless of what happens in 2013, Juncadella has at least had the chance to drive one FI car. His prize for winning the n European Championship was a Ferrari test, which he recently completed at Vallelunga in Italy.The test involved six runs of eight laps in a 2009-spec car, an experience that Juncadella calls"more than a dream come true".

"It might be an older car, but I don't think that matters. People say'it's and old car and you won't drive many laps', but to me it's something i've been dreaming of since the start of the season when I saw that Ferrari had offered a test for the European Champion. I didn't sleep that night!

"1 felt very comfortable right from the start.

As i expected,the most impressive things are the brakes. One ofthe things I enjoyed the most was the experience of being able to try some things freely, like changing the differential settings for corner entry and exit.

I liked feeling the difference. Another great thing is to have 15 mechanics working with you, because in F3 we are used to working with two.That makes you realise where you are."

It was a year of highs and lows for Daniel Juncadella, but after the lowest ebb of all on that Saturday evening late in October, it all worked out for the best.

"It doesn't matter how many points you score. In the end,if you're the champion, that's all that matters."

AUSTRALIA’S D MOTORSPORTS CHA MOTORSPORTS 24/7 IN HD &.

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Christmas is upon us, and that can only mean one thing: its time for the great Motorsport News Quiz. Yes, its time to put yourself to the test against quizmeister extraordinaire David Greenhaigh and give those little grey cells a decent workout before millions of them are lost forever over the festered season. So, get to work - and please, no cheating with the googlemachine.

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Q1. Name the two Australians who have won the Macau Grand Prix.

Q2. It is one of the most poignant of all Daytona 500 stories. Wood Brothers driver Marvin Ranch was involved in a fiery testing accident in a sports car."Tiny" Lund rushed into the flames to save Ranch, who then suggested that Lund take his spot in the forthcoming Daytona 500.The Wood Brothers agreed - and Lund won the race for them.When did it happen - was it 1959,1963 or 1969?

Q3. In which Grand Prix did Ayrton Senna defeat Nigel Mansell by 0.014s was it the 1986 Spanish GP, 1987 Portuguese GP, or 1992 Italian GP? Q4. At the Warwick Farm round of the 1965 Tasman Cup, Frank Matich took pole position ahead of a field which included four world champions.

Who were the four?

Q5. Ofthe 11 races in the 1969 Can-Am series, how many did Bruce McLaren and Denny Hulme win between them?

Q6. It is well known that Nelson Piquet and Carlos Reutemann could each have won the 1981 World Championship in the final round at Las Vegas but who was the third driver who could have won the title that day?

Q7. Marco Andretti came within less than a tenth of a second of winning the Indy 500 on debut. Who held him out that day: was it Dario Franchitti, Scott Dixon or Sam Hornish?

Q8.Where and in what year did Mark Webber win his first World Championship GP? Q9. Flave the Albert Park V8 support races ever counted towards the Championship?

CARS Q11. Name the two marques which Jack Brabham drove to World Championship crowns.

Q12.The speed record cars and boats run by Malcolm and Donald Campbell were known as Bluebirds, but what was the model designation of the car which carried Donald to the LSR at Lake Eyre in 1964?

Q13. For which famous Ford team was David Pearson driving when he won the 1968 and 1969 NASCAR titles?

Q14. What unusual racing number was carried to victory by Stirling Moss and Denis Jenkinson in the famous 1955 Mille Miglia? And what was the significance of that number?

Q15. Sebastian Loeb has driven a Citroen to all his WRC titles.

True or false?

Q16. In what event did the Commodore VE make its V8SCS debut?

Q17.What car did Fernando Alonso use for his FI World Championship debut?

Q18. Mercedes is coming back to Australian touring car racing, though not in factory form. When and where did the marque win easily its most important touring car race in this country?

Q19. Flow often, if at all, did a Gulf Porsche 917 win the Le Mans 24 Hours?

Q20. Which marque has won the last four Bathurst 1000s?

QIO.The Great Race at Bathurst has been conducted more often over 1000km than it has over 500 miles.True or false?

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DRIVERS Q21. He won the Bathurst 1000,on a track which had nearly killed him many years earlier. He won the Australian Sports Car Championship and the Australian F2 Championship, and came close to winning the Gold Star as well. Who is he?

Q22. Which driver tops the all-time list of most laps led in the indy 500? He comes from one of the Brickyard's great dynasties.

Q23. Many of Australia's top drivers have expressed an interest in competing in the world's famous endurance races - but of the 28 regular drivers in the 2012 V8SC, who is the only Aussie to have driven in the Daytona 24 Hours?

Q24. Who was the Belgian driver with whom Graham Moore raced for several years both in Australia and Europe?

Q25.Which Australian finished second in the 1973 Spa 24 Hours Bryan Thomson, Brian Muir or Frank Gardner?

Q26.Very few Australians have started the Indianapolis 500, and only one has ever got on the podium.Who was he?

Q27. Current TV commentator Mark Larkham raced openwheelers before touring cars. What was the best place he achieved in the Australian Drivers'Championship?

Q28.These days, Mai Rose races in the world's enduros - but he won an Australian championship where each race lasted just 10 or 12 minutes. Name the year and the title.

VENUES Q31. Name the Sicilian track which was thoughtfully designed to run around a lake infested by snakes.

Q32.The track in Mexico City was named after two brothers from the country in which the track is located. Who were they?

Q33. Which very fast French track featured the corner names Thillois and Gueux?

Q34. Which very famous Australian circuit owes a great deal to a man called Martin Griffin?

Q35. On which American track is the Petit Le Mans race contested?

Q36. Which Australian track was the first to host a 24-hour race?

Q37. Where would you find Dandenong Road?

Q38. On what circuit did Tony Edmondson suffer a high-speed fiery accident that nearly killed him?

039. In these days where many Australian circuits have corners without names, it is rather appealing that one classic - and very fast - track had a corner called Hungry. Where was it?

Q40. And speaking of slightly intimidating names, probably the most famous and historic track in Germany has a section called Galgenkopf- so named because the gallows used to be there.

Which track is it?

Q29. Is Allan Moffat of Canadian, or American, background?

Q30.Which one ofthese drivers did notwin the World Drivers' Championship three times: Sebastian Vettel, Niki Lauda,Jim Clark, Jackie Stewart, Nelson Piquet 73

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KLVNSMITH 'Hike toshow racing carsin a differentiight,iiteraiiy. AtPhiiiip isiand iate in the day we had thisfantasticsky and a ionemarshai.iiay on the ground(a commoneventwithme)athisfeetandgotsomeverystrangeiooks.Aione sentinel afastshutterspeed wasneeded tostop thecarpreciseiy wherei needed it, the gap in the cioud. The beeon thefiower(again iying on the ground)atBathurst,i had to usea iotofdepth so we couid getsome definition in the carwhiiethebeewassharp,(wanted a differentpodium,and iate in the day atQR was perfectfor this- whati wanted wasthe momentofpoignancy as the driver hands the champagne bottie to a crew member.Finaiiy the Bathurstfinish;lots ofmovementfrom asiow shutterspeed andzooming at thesame time,iotsofcoiourandyou can stiii detine the combatants:

motorsport news

ANDREW HALL Capturing the atmosphere ofthe big events is whatienjoy most.Atthe Le Mans24hr this yearIchose toshootsomeimagesin biack and white.

The iconic Duniop bridge framing the winning Audiand the pursuing TV chopper couid oniy be Le Mans. The Porsche waiting atthe end ofpitlanefor qualifying to begin,shot with a wide angle lens to capture the moodysky, was allabout the'calm before thestorm',a momentofserenity before the explosion ofnoise. The Audishotfrom the WECround atMtFuji wasanother ofmyfavourites as I tried to invoke the roller-coasterfeeling ofthis series of corners. The plume ofsprayfrom the winning AudiR8atthe Bathurst 12hr displayed the challengesfaced by the drivers in the treacherous conditions:

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Unusual perspective from Peter Bury of Will Davison's FPR Falcon at Homebush, Craig Lowndes in the late afternoon setting sun atPhillip island,and Lowndes as he celebrates a victory at Hombush that helped secure second place in the championship.

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Looks like a world ofhurtfor Matt Hanson and Leigh Wells but the next day they won the Pines Enduro and the Australian Off-Road Championship with it. Pic of Will Davison tells the story ofhow he 'lost'first place after running outoffuel with a couple ofcorners to go in the Saturday leg and ultimately finished second.Of the Whincup Bathurstpic,Philsays:"it's one ofmyfaves because it's a low percentage shot to pull offand I either manage to getit or I don't, butit's worth the risk to geta differentshot to the standard head on Bathurstfinish pic.

It needs a lot ofluck and all the elements to be right, my timing,the positioning ofthe flag, where the carls in the It frame etc.- everything needs to work: 79

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PAUL The Geelong Sprints returned for 2012and Paul Cross was there to capture the action. Matich SR4 is shotoverhead in the marshalling area at Albert Park;Mercedes SLS in torrential rain at Bathurst;the momentthe lead changed in the opening lap ofthe Supercheap Auto Bathurst WOO.

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MICHAEL For the choppershot,thejourney was a good 7km on up and down steep hills and through either dense forest or over hills where all the tress had been forested. The shot wassimply by chance. This was taken in Western Australia; we knew the chopper would be used but were notsure how close it would come. When he started circling less than a hundred meters from us we knew thejourney had been worth It. Dustis the mostcommon use in rally photography.It gives the viewer an indication as to where the car has comefrom and can also show how the car moved around a corner.

Western Australia would have to be the bestround for dust use in images; the bulldustis like talcum powder and probably about 10-15cm thick:

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When Sprintcars go wrong,they go wrong... They also provide great opportunities for the shooters,as GeoffGrade's collection ofshots show. Car 96 is Andy Caruana at avalon speedway;also at Avalon Peter Milnes(51)is perched atop Michael Cunningham's car(74); while Milnes wrecks again at Avalon,this time with Wayne Rowett (41). Car 25is Taylor Millings trying tojump the catch fence during a heatrace at the Kings Challenge at Borderline Speedway.

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JOHN MORRIS "WillDavison careering into an unsuspectingJamie Whincup atPhillipIsland opened the doorfor Mark Winterbottom and Craig Lowndes to re-enter the championship race. The MacaulyJonesSam Powercrash from Queensland Raceway was quite remarkableforthe merefactthatMacaulygotaway with nothing more than ascratch to hisfavourite helmet-from Power's radiator.I understand thathe was quite annoyed thatitdamaged hisfavourite helmet.

The BradleySmith crash from Moto2atthe AGPis a favourite,notso much for the action itselfbutforthe Phillip Island Plovers that were totally oblivious to the crashjust metresfrom them.ThispicshowsSmith seeminglylooking at thePloverin disbeliefasitfinally decidestoescape:

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WHEN WAYNE DALEY WON THE AUSTRALIAN NATIONALS AT IT WAS THE REALISATION OF A DREAM 40 YEARS IN THE MAI THAT HE'S NOT ABOUT TO WAIT ANOTHER 40 YEARS FORTHI The driver of the DiamondT Mopar scored his first ever ANDRA gold Christmas tree after trying since he was just 16 years of ages.The Queenslander has never been one to brag and put his win against Jason Grima, who set the quickest time ever in Pro Stock during the event, down to just that little bit of luck.

"I went to the start line fairly calm - I'm that kind of person - knowing we couldn't win the race with the power we had versus what Jason had been doing all weekend,"he said.

"We were feeling like we were going to get a runner up trophy unless something came from left field.

84

"Then when Jason left the line, I baulked because I felt like I hadn't even seen the ambers come on. Unbeknownst to me he had a red light and then theTV cameras were running towards my car and I knew something must have gone wrong for him.

"It was one of the best moments I have ever had at the end of a race."

The winner's circle in Pro Stock at the Australian Nationals was a long way from where Daley started, as a 16 year-old kid with a hot car on the streets of Bundaberg. But he always had a winning feeling, with his first organised event at Surfers Paradise seeing

him win the day.

"That was the beginning of the end,from there my involvement just went a little more and a little more until we reached what we have today," he said.

Daley admits he's not good with the numbers and dates on when exactly he started Pro Stock racing. But he does remember his first time was simply coming in to'make up the numbers'when the class fell short of competitors.

"I was able to run an XE Ford Falcon in Pro Stock at a meeting because of lack of numbers and to make up a field," he said."I motorsport news

"We're always chasing our tails but always going faster.

I think out of ail the classes it is the most chalienging.

I think we would see 30 cars at the level they are at now. I love the class because of the cleanliness and the type of vehicle that you have to have,the limitations on what you can do, getting the most out of a naturally aspirated engine.

"We're always chasing our tails but always going faster. I think out of all the classes it is the most challenging. 1 don't want to go anywhere else or change."

Much in the way his racing progressed, so has Daley's desire for some more trophies for the mantelpiece. Following winning his first Australian Nationals, the next target is an Australian championship.

"I want to chase the dream of a title. The trophy that we won at the Nationals was the first gold Christmas tree I have ever won; it was a milestone in itself," he said.

"We've started on the right note (for the season), but there's still a long way to go. We have got to capitalise on where we are now."

The Pro Stock arms race does not falter as the season in progress and Daley announced he had a new engine on the way as an experiment in horsepower.

"You need to be more competitive each time you race," he said."The new engine is from a different engine builder, not that

SYDNEY DRAGWAY, [ING. HE^S ADAMANT :NEXT TITLE. dabbled with it for a little while and then sold up everything and bought a Ford Thunderbird from the US.That was my first true Pro Stock car."

It is poignant to reflect on his first event, where Daley raced against Australian Pro Stock legend Greg Flaherty, and his last, where Daley was awarded the Greg Flaherty Memorial in honour of the late champion.

The love hasn't wavered through the whole career, even though Daley has taken periods away from the sport.

"I like the challenge of Pro Stock and I still love it today. Never in my wildest dreams did www.mnews.com.au

(engine builder) Rick Watters hasn't done the right thing by us - we will be getting another one from him - it's just to see what somebody else can do.

"We have the rest of the product with the car and transmissions and componentry and can definitely make the field every time.The engine is the most crucial thing, we have to keep chasing."

An alliance with Mopar factory driver Lee Bektash has allowed the team to gather more data, albeit with cars that remain very much separate.

"We work alongside of Lee and we share information to swap ideas from car to car," he said."So far I think we are ahead of the game but Lee has two new engines coming ready for Christmas.

"It's all down to track time, you need to get data on the tracks."

Currently sitting fourth in the points, Daley is keen to take all the ANDRA Pro Stock championship can throw at him.

"We want to be at every event to give it our best shot, I think consistency is the best thing to have as we proved in Sydney - and that little bit of luck."

The next round of the championship will be at Calder Park on February 16 and 17.

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T is with great sadness that we report that one of Australia's former Speedway greats Bill VWigzell 0AM passed away recently at the age of82. Bill was fondly known as'The Wizard'by many and will be mostly remembered for his time driving the legendary SA88 Super Modified Sprintcar'Suddenly'for car owner Kevin Fisher,the combination quickly becoming the most successful partnership of its time.

Bill was not the first driver selected to drive the car, but had been recommended by former driver Zeke Agars, who'd decided to vacate the seat to concentrate on developing his own machine. Once Bill slotted in behind the wheel of the deep purple beast,the Wigzell/Suddenly combination quickiy became a force, winning first time out and claiming a well deserved seven of the 14 events entered in the combo's maiden season.

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Bill's name is etched at the very top of the Australian Super Modified (now known as Sprintcar) Champions list as the first ever Australian Super Modified Champion, in 1970 at the Morisset Speedway on the central coast of NSW. From that point on the success quickly snowballed, with victory in the Craven A Mild Filter Championship (the biggest race outside the Australian Championship)in 1972(Brisbane Exhibition Grounds), 1973(Claremont) and 1974 (Rowley Park). Also in 1974, he also added the famed Warrnambool Classic and multiple driver of the year awards to his ever growing list of achievements.

During a time of many Speedway greats and home engineered machines(as this was before production-line assembled Super Modifieds/Sprintcars)this machine had become famous around Australia. Many race fans would travel hundreds of miles Just

to see Bill and Suddenly take on the best their state had to offer against the South Australian team.

The combination was strongest on home turf at Rowley Park, where Bill had racked up a staggering 37 feature race victories.This was still in the days when the fastest drivers would start from the back,so a feature race win was always hard earned. In addition to the many wins,the Wigzell name was embedded into the race program as Bill had captured every race record there was to own.

The famed Rowley Park venue closed in 1979 and at the time of closing. Bill wasjust one oftwo drivers sharing the honour with Laurie Jamieson to have competed at the venue from opening in 1949tili closure.

Before driving for Fisher, Bill's career started in 1946 at the age of 16 on two wheels. Fie raced bikes on bitumen before swapping to the dirt speedways in 1949. Fie

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thrived on the sideways action, and before long represented South Australia nationwide.

His opportunity to switch to four wheels came in the 1954/55 season from then speedway promoter Kim Bonython who offered Bill a chance to steer a Speedcar built

by Sir Jack Brabham. As a rookie. Bill qualified for the South Australian Championship and in just his second year won the Chas E Scone trophy for Speedcars,amongst other feature race victories.

The following year. Bill had a workplace accident which sidelined his career for 12 months before he was able to return to the driver's seat. In 1965 Bill struck a partnership with Alec Rowe and drove the yellow SA2 Ford Consul-powered machine,a car that is well known today after Bill took it to win the Harry Neale Memorial,The Golden Fleece 50-lap Derby,and the South Australian round of the National Speedcar Drivers

Championship run over 40 laps.

Bill continued racing until 1986 in a Sprintcar before retiring and handing over the reins to his son Terry. During this time Bill was awarded the Order of Australia Medal for his services to motorsport. Still to this day the Wigzell name continues to dominate as Grandson Todd is the reigning Australian Wingless Sprint Champion and his brother Shane who is new to the class is quickly becoming a hard charger.

In retirement Bill had continued his love affair with Suddenly, having driven it on occasions when race fans again had the opportunity to see the golden days of Speedway rekindled. One of these was at the Royal Adelaide Showgrounds in 1999 where an almost capacity crowd had gathered.

Earlier this year promoter and long time friend Wendy Turner made Bill the Grand Marshall ofthe 2012 Australian Sprintcar

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Championship staged at Adelaide's Speedway City. Bill waved the drivers off for the start of the main event and awarded the Championship trophies to the winners.

Just three days prior to the event, Bill was reunited with Suddenly for the final time where the car was on display for the annual Sprintcar dinner event.

Bill's memorial service was held at the Murray Bridge Speedway complex where an estimated 2000 strong attendance came to pay their final respects to the man they called'The Wizard'. While Bill Wigzell may have passed on,the heroic marvels and stories told will live forever in the memories ofthe Speedway fans that were fortunate enough to see Bill work his inside left wheel lifting magic behind the steering wheel of the car called 'Suddenly.'

Words and photos by: Paris Charles

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TIRE AUSTRALIA

MODEL BEHAVIOUR

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O Itis a nice one,the EH modelHolden which Classic Carlectables hasjustputoutto tempt us during the festive season.Butit's not Classics'only new offering,and likewise there aresome tasty tiny treats to befound among allour model makers this Christmas

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'VE long thought that the EH Holden was a world-class product, compared to other cars available at the time.

The combination of power,economy, space and a keen price (just over two thousand pounds)and very stylish looks meant the car sold very well - over a quarter of a million EHs flew out of the showrooms, making it the fastest-selling Holden to that time.

Classic Carlectables' new EH Special Sedan, in Mica Green is another fantastic-looking model from this mould. Clearly, the car has been optioned-up. It's got the white roof (said to keep the car cooler in the summer sun - remember, car air-conditioning was the preserve of the mega-rich at this time) and a Venetian blind on the back window - maybe your grandparents had one just like it.

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Classics has done a great job on this model.

It has the usual features like a finely-detailed interior and boot.The dashboard looks right, as does the steering wheel and they've got the detail just right on even the hubcaps and the'Holden'badging. One thing I really like is, when you open the bonnet to check out the 179'Red'six-cylinder engine,the hinges look like the original ones and are even sprung.

Classics' next Holden model is a bit newer it's the Colin Bond/John Walker 1975 Bathurst 1000 car. I always liked this paint scheme the stripes and livery on the front of the car, in particular, worked well with the shape of the LH four-doorTorana.

However, as good as the car looked, history shows they had a trying day. After qualifying the car on pole, the Holden DealerTeam L34 under Harry Firth had a few niggles during motorsport news

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the day.They had a long pit stop to change tyres, the car didn't want to start after a stop and then a brake rotor cracked, causing a spin or two.

Post-race scrutineering at first showed an illegally-modified inlet manifold but they were reinstated to third place on appeal.

Of course, all these problems show that the cars were pretty close to standard in those days - a far cry from today's purpose-built V8 Supercars and even GT cars.

Of course, the model itself also shows the road car origins, as we've explored before they really were a hotted-up road car then - with a full interior, very basic roll cage and clear links to the showroom car.

Three years later. Ford needed to get rid of the last few two-door body shells, so came up with the Cobra.The stories of these cars are many(and varied) and it can sometimes be hard to sort the fact from the legend.

Classics have modelled Cobras before (hell, who hasn't?) but this model is of a car that's a bit special. It's the famous Option 97 - the Bathurst homologation version with all the usual goodies (351 4V Cleveland,fourspeed top-loader, etc).

But the Option 97 went that bit further - the bonnet scoop,the transmission oil-cooler and'proper'Scheel racing seats.

Remember that in these days, you had to race with the standard seats - hardly supportive so drivers spent a lot of energy just not sliding out the window or into the passenger's seat.

Of course, the model is attractive, highlydetailed and beautifully finished. All three of the Classics models are due in the shops very soon.

Something much more modern and far less roofed is the upcoming Minichamps 1/18 Sebastian Vettel 2010 World Championship edition model. Sure, this car has been modelled before, but FI cars change (ever so slightly)from race to race - aero updates, small changes to livery due to local sponsorships and so on result in

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anil su|ip0rf tilt 201 Tour Itinerary includes l Tours of the Triumph factory l Sammy Miller’s Race Museum l UK National Motorcycle Museum l plus plenty of self-explore choices - anything is possible!

For full details of this fantastic tour opportunity contact Dave at Get Routed Phone:(03)9351 0612 or email: dave@getrouted.com.au

Main photo:Bill Webster greets the chequred flag at the 250TT in 1953. /tboi'e; John Hartle on his Triumph Bonneville.

a r F rLjiAt Mid Life Cycles we’ve taken our minimalist SR 500 as the inspiration for a new-look logo based on timeless cafe racer style. We’re all about classic bikes and cafe racers - the look, the sound,the style of the sixties re-defined with a 21st Century edge.

Check out our Facebook page for progress reports on our latest builds. See who’s come to visit us and what goes on in the workshop through our website News pages and our Blog. Or call in and see us on Saturday mornings, when we set time aside to talk bikes and bull Weekdays, it’s all about the workshop. Mid Life Cycles can service your classic bike or cafe racer, finish off that winter build or fix the bits that fell off your bargain eBay buy somewhere in transit.

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S/m/m fms:mcmL on o4os mm smm/m mum:j/ms onommm □ Email: midlifecycles@gmail.com » Facebook: https://facebook.com/MidLifeCycles

□d 22 Cremorne Street, Cremorne (Richmond) VIC 3121

kU differences in the cars.

This model is of the car from the Abu Dhabi race, where Vettel secured the championship.The Red Bull RB6 doesn't have things like full interior detail.The engine cover and the front bodywork don't come off to show the interesting bits inside (which I frankly doubt many of us - even with some mechanical knowledge - would recognise.) So while it's a big model,the price is very keen - about $135.00 retail.

A couple of other interesting models caught my eye when perusing Apex's catalogue lately; first is the Bathurst 12-hour Audi - the Mies/O'Young/Jons car with its clever'Kangaroos'warning sign.This model is also in 1 /18 scale and would look pretty darn good in my cabinet.

The other is a 1/43 Morgan 3-wheeler. I (for some reason) like these - some sort of weird cross between a car and a motorbike - two wheels that steer and a chain drive to the single, centre-mounted rear wheel.They typically had a V-twIn motorbike engine. I don't reckon they'd be much fun on a wet day,though!This model is of a pre-war car and retails for $66.

I remember seeing them being raced at early Amaroo Park all-historic meetings - a passenger was required, so they could hang over the sides to keep the wheels on the ground - much like the'swinger'on a sidecar outfit. Pass. For your own miniature version (wouldn't mind one myself) check out www. apexreplicas.com.au Biante is moving factories right now,so that's where energies are being focussed for the moment. But in the process, they've found some interesting old stock; check their website for specials (www.biante.com.au).

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