Motorsport News Issue 432 - June 2013 by V8 Sleuth

SUBTERFUGE AT THE SARTHE:JAGUAR'S STOLEN 1990 LE MANS ININ

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Far all your workshop, hand too! and power tool needs With E8 stares, there’s bound to be one near you.

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Editorial Group Editor Steve Normoyle 5normoyle@chevron.com.au At Large Phil Branagan

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THIS MONTH'S FEATURES

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Junior Designer Melissa Karatzas

VIVE LEVS Frenchman Alex Premat had a tough V8 Supercars debut last season but things are staring to pick up for the former Lewis Hamilton team-mate who aims to be the first full time V8 Supercars Euro to win down under.

Photography

Sutton Motorsport Images, Dirk Klynsmith, Dan Kalisz,John Morris, Andrew Hall, Geoff Grade, Sportspics Cover: Dirk Klynsmith and Sutton

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RATING ROSBERG His dad was world champion, so there's no question as to Keke Rosberg's ability, but the jury remains out on Nico, even thought this is his eighth season in Formula One.

Whm tbe eh ips are dew®, tuml0!aip.-,e;aniassj,Jhai is.. Ciaiiiaissi'ihas ©iietiedi 1ih;e eitherwisg ©ut-of-IndyeaiFs Ryan inisGde a seat at Ihdf this year = andi the Australian iplans to make the most of it.

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motorsport news

Unusual Suspects

THE LONG ROAD BACK

Talented young Kiwi Richie Stanaway has done it tough over the past year but is ready to make a comeback he hopes will put him back on the road to Formula One.

— a ● . -t.

The folk from Radio Le Maris made the trip down lunder earlier In'the year for the iBsihiiirst 1:2 iHOcir; We caught up with chief commentator John Hindaugh.

SEVENTIESSIDEWAYS It's rallying as it was before turbos and before all-wheel-drive, a kind of in-the-forests sideways seventies version of the Touring Car Masters series.

REED ALL ABOUT IT

Geoff Rounds chats with Victorian sprintcar ace Matthew Reed.

NEW BIKE IS ALLEN KEY

Dirk Klynsmith If you have been to a major motor racing event any time in the last two decades or so, chances are you will have seen Dirk Klynsmith, And it's not just that the long-time MN photographer gets around - he is among the very best shooters of motorsport across the world.

^ supir II

Andrew van Leeuwen It's a long way from Barbagallo Raceway to the Nordschleife, but former Perth boy and MN staffer van Leeuwen these days does indeed reside in Germany - and that gives us the opportunity to get close and personal with some of the biggest names in European motor racing.

Maurice Allen is currently on a roll in the ANDRA Pro Stock Motorcycle championship with two wins straight and a new machine that is performing exactly how he wants.

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6 8 10 12 14 86 90 92 94 96 98

Motor Mouth with Phil Branagan The Scoop with Steve Normoyle On The Limiter with Chris Lambden United States of Origin Box Seat Model Behaviour My Favourite Race Trade Classifieds From the couch Parting Shot

Professor Victor Haight Professor Victor Haight has been lecturing his students (and anyone else prepared to tolerate his eccentricities) about motorsport related issues for many decades. Now it's your turn to receive the Professor's wisdom so, from his laboratory at a government research facility in an undisclosed location, we give you Professor Victor Haight. 5

Phil

Branagan

Motor Mouth ^

IIIISTER ... I

Braaaaanagan". "Michael J". So started I don't

know how many conversations between Winton Motor Raceway's Mick Ronke and myself over more than 20 years, whether in person or on the phone. Actually, most of them were of the latter variety, often while Mick was on one of his many trips between Benalla and Melbourne. I can't imagine how many hands-free kits he must have battered into retirement over the years. Mick passed away late last month after a brief illness. He leaves behind two sons, Matthew and Adam, broken hearted colleagues and I don't know how many friends. And, a racetrack. It is rather an over-simplification to suggest that Winton was a one-man track. The members of the Benalla Auto Club have worked hard, over more than 50 years, to establish the circuit in northern Victoria as an integral asset to the border community and part of the fabric of the sport in this country. But it is hard to pinpoint any discernable line between the track and the Ronke family. Mick's dad Jim was one of the founding members of the BAG; Mick worked there so long, his last 'other' job was with Telecom, which became Telstra in 1995. That is not to say that Mick lost touch or lost influence with his mates at the telco; Telstra users may have noticed over the years that for a relatively remote track, Winton usually has great mobile phone coverage ... Matthew runs the BAC's other track at Wakefield Park; Adam has been working at 6

In all these decades of being in the sport, I have not known anyone who loved motor racing more than Mick Ronke did. Winton since even before he left school. Both practically grew up at the track. You have to be something of a Jack of all trades to run a racetrack and Mick was certainly that, i remember one conversation we had that included bits about insurance coverage, Victoria's liquor licensing and tourism regulations and civil engineeringmore specifically, how it was possible to stuff up the resurfacing of a track if you did not know the intimate details of what racing cars and bikes needed, as opposed to what they put on the roads outside the venue. He was across all of those details, leaping between subjects without apparent effort. And of course, Mick was one of the founders and the President of the Australian Auto-sport Alliance. The AASA was set up to provide an alternative service to competitors to allow them to race at a lower cost than might be the case under the CAMS structure. I remember the conversation that we had after the AASA broke cover; "I feel like an elephant has been lifted off my back!" Mick said gleefully. In spite of that, he and CAMS maintained a relationship; strained it may have been at times, but there was a high

level of respect. Of course, he and the BAC could have carried on under the CAMS system for years, leaving the competitors to bear what they saw as an unreasonable cost burden. Setting up the AASA created more work for Mick but he jumped into it, boots and all, not to make money for himself but to help those in the sport. He was selfless; it only became public knowledge at his memorial service that in one particularly difficult time financially for the BAC, to ease the burden, Mick simply 'forgot' to pay himself a salary for two years. That was Mick Ronke. He put his family and the sport ahead of himself. His health suffered but he made sure that never impacted on the sport. In all these decades of being in the sport,, i have not known anyone who loved motor racing more than Mick Ronke did. If he was around to give advice to those who mourn his passing, I am sure that he would tell us to pull ourselves together and carry on. That is what we will do, then. But speaking for myself, I will really miss him. Mick Ronke was an Australia original. We were bloody lucky to have him. motorsport news

We're busy preparing for this years FUCHS Winternationals. The biggest drag racing event in the Southern Hemisphere. 600 teams, 4 days. the best racers in the country and in each category, there is only one winner.

t's going to be brutal. Prepare yourself and make syfe you have

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The Scoop

y the time you read this, the Texas 400 will have been run and won. Leading up to the event, there had been plenty of speculation (in Australia, if maybe not in the actual USA) as to how well our unique brand of circuit racing sedans will be received by American fans. They'll get the V8 part of V8 Supercars, because the 5.0-litre V8 engines are from the same family as the NASCAR Chev and Ford V8s. They are, after all, American engines. They might notice also that the Holden Commodore looks suspiciously similar to the Chevrolet SS that the General's been racing in the Sprint Cup this year. The rest of it, though, will be, well, rather foreign. Which might be a problem, because. Americans tend to prefer their sport to be American sport, such as gridiron football, baseball, and oval track stock car racing. So it will be fascinating to see how we go over there. What I'm particularly interested in is seeing what kind of spectacle the V8 Supercars turn on at the Circuit of the Americas. As 'modern' Formula One venues go, the COTA is among the best. It even has some decent elevation changes - it may well be the best of the 'Tilkedrome' FI venues. But will it be a good track for V8 Supercars? Thinking back to last year's Texas F1 race (which to my surprise was a big hit with the locals - maybe there is a market for international road racing in the States), i've got the feeling that the circuit's collection of corners and straights aren't of a configuration to portray the V8s in their best light. I reckon there's a chance our cars will look a bit slow 8

I think I'd rather watch V8 Supercars at Barbagallo Raceway than a modern FI track - and notjust because Barbagallo is in Australia. and cumbersome on the Texas track - but again, we will see. As silly as it sounds, given the choice I think I'd rather watch them at, say, Barbagallo Raceway, than a modern FI track - and not just because Barbagallo is in Australia. The Perth circuit is only 2.4km, but outside of super high speeds, it's got just about everything. It's just a fantastic little roller coaster bullring of a place - and the V8s always look spectacular round there. Symmons Plains I put in the same category. With its rural Tasmanian location in a paddock with sheep grazing nearby, it's even less glamorous than Barbagallo - and it's almost completely flat (which would be why they call it Symmons Plains). The layout isn't much more than a couple of long straights linked by corners, and a V8 Supercar lap takes barely more than 50 seconds, but it's such an exciting ride. And that high speed sweep before the heavy braking area for the final corner -just fantastic. Across the ditch, this year we got to again enjoy the V8s on the scary-fast bumps and sweeps of Pukekohe. Watching them two wide on that long, right-hand sweep onto the start/finish straight makes for spine-tingling viewing - you get a clear sense that they're

right on the edge, and that were it to go wrong at that point, it would go very wrong. It was a reminder of just what a wild old place Pukekohe is - and how much more exciting it is than the Hamilton street circuit. The two New Zealand V8 Supercar venues could hardly be more different. But that's the thing about this sport: in motor racing, unlike most other sports, the venues are not homogenous, they are in a sense a player in their own right. A race at Bathurst will never be the same kind of experience as one at, for example, Wakefield Park. Where they race makes a big difference to the contest, as well as the spectacle. Some tracks might not have the best pit or corporate facilities, but some tracks offer a touch of excitement that others simply don't give you. It's great to race at some of the world's best circuits, like Texas. But if the championship wants to put its best foot forward, I reckon some thought should be put towards how the thing looks on TV, and perhaps giving consideration to also running at so-called lesser venues that might provide a better spectacle. If you're not convinced, get on youtube and type in 'Lakeside' and 'ATCC'. motorsport news

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On the Limiter

ormula 1 is in the midst of a very animated discussion about its tyre supplier and tyre philosophy, following a Spanish Grand Prix in which most cars in the race stopped four times for tyres. It totalled an incredible 82 pit stops across the field. It's the good idea which went just a bit too far. In this case, Pirelli, which has done a pretty smart job of providing what was asked for - ie: tyres that drop off in performance sufficiently that a couple of race tyre stops will be required - but in this instance overdid it. The Barcelona track surface/tyre combination on offer meant that it was possible to destroy a set in under 10 laps if you weren't judicious. Which is surprising, as Barcelona is a prime pre-season test venue for F1 and should have been somewhere where their expertise was at its best. Long-time F1 fans are, at best, undecided about F1 in this guise. Clearly, it's not enough to have the fastest car - and Barcelona illustrated it unambiguously. Mercedes locked out the front row, then went backwards at rapid pace, while n McLaren, embarrassingly bad in qualifying, ambled forwards in race trim to split the Mercs at the end. Both were at the bottom of the top 10. Up front, the best compromisers again turned out to be Ferrari and Lotus, with Red Bull tagging along behind. Ultimately, then, it is Ferrari and especially Lotus, which have made the best job of the situation and are delivering results. It Is the others who are making the most noise about 'the tyre situation'. That's natural. It's a fine line for Pirelli which has, generally, done a good job of getting it right. Just having a company which is able to turn the process of 'degrading' tyres into a plus is new. It's something which predecessors Bridgestone couldn't - the concept of providing a product which, effectively, crumbled under pressure, wasn't something the company's PR and management people could go for. There were some tedious Barcelona races in 10

McLaren is said to be considering reprising its traditional burnt orange livery. There are a lot of traditional FI folk who would love to see that... those days. Pole man leading all the way, with a line-astern queue in the places. Yes, the fastest car/driver combo generally won, but it really wasn't that entertaining, except for the train-spotter enthusiasts who got excited about gaps going up or down by a tenth or two ... Go back even further, into the 80s and 90s and tyre management was still an issue breeding drivers like Alain Prost, prepared to look after his single set of Goodyears early in a race and charge forwards late. Tyre management has always been important in FI. In 2012/13 guise it has produced some of the best FI races for years. It's just that in its 2013 tyre range, Pirelli went that little bit too far. Martin Brundle's spray on the unilateral broadcast was that of a frustrated ex-driver, but he was right. Barcelona wasn't what FI is about. Unsurprisingly, perhaps, Pirelli has already reacted. As we go to press, just a few days after the race, the company's FI manager Paul Hembery has announced that revised construction tyres will be produced in time for the Canadian Grand Prix. Now that, is an FI company. There's only Monaco in between and a set of sponges would probably go the distance there. Again, hats off to Pirelli, its contribution to the over all action package of FI has been significant. I'm predicting a cracker in Montreal. No amount of tyre change, however, is going to help McLaren in the short term. The once dominant team is in a dire hole. One way or the other, its significantly-changedfor-2013 car is a dud, and while it might allow Lewis Hamilton to chuckle quietly about the wisdom of his move to Mercedes,

it must be galling for a team steeped in success to deal with. Down the pit lane, another historically successful team, Williams, has been dealing with that for years now. In Barcelona, neither Williams made it out of Q1. That's embarrassing. Things change; nothing is for ever. But it must be galling for Sir Frank. In McLaren's case, the word 'correlation' appears to be cropping up again. That's interesting. It's when what the wind tunnel (and simulator these days) is telling you isn't being repeated on-track. I remember that being the issue when our own Mark Webber was with jaguar(now Red Bull) a decade ago. Ultimately, it wasn't solved until a move was made to a completely different and new aero facility. In McLaren's case, it's even weirder, because 'correlation' clearly hasn't been an issue over recent years. The team has been a winner. So what's changed? The arrival of Martin Whitmarsh as team principal is one of many senior management changes over he past two or three years. Indeed, if you surf the team's website, the list of senior management is, well, long ... The team has, however, survived troughs before. Don't forget, there's an all-new engine formula for 2014 (1.6-litre turbos) and suggestions, well ... unconfirmed rumours, that Honda may be coming back to partner McLaren. Things may well be progressing in the background. One other great rumour - as it celebrates its 50th year, McLaren is said to be considering reprising its traditional burnt orange livery. There are a lot of traditional FI folk who would love to see that... motorsport news

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F ;

or a lot of Australian fans, Derrick Walker first came onto the radar through his role in Champ Car's Team Australia; the Scot providing a measured, reasoned counterpoint to Craig Gore's hand-grenades-strapped-to-abulldozer approach. In a sense, that tiny glimpse of the Scot at work encapsulated the way he has gone about his motorsport career over the past 40-plus years, and sheds some light on why he will be such a valuable addition to IndyCar's organisational hierarchy when he moves across from his present gig as Ed Carpenter Racing team manager after the Indy 500. Walker's appointment as IndyCar's new head of competition (his official title is president of competition and operations) was announced just as the opening practice days at Indy were getting underway, and it was greeted by universal excitement across the entire category, from the drivers to tHe teams, and from the manufacturers to the suppliers. Short of actually driving the car, there isn't much that he hasn't done. He was a

.mechanic on the Brabham FI team during the Bernie Ecclestone era, and then joined Penske's F1 effort. That campaign was short lived, but Walker remained a part of Penske for 13 years, first overseeing its workshop in England, and later as team president in Champ Car, during which time the team won four titles and four Indy 500s. He later took over the Porsche team, eventually remaking I it into Walker Racing - the entity that Gore and his associates would one day buy into to create Team Australia. But asImportant as the 68-year-old's experience is, it is his ability to slice through all the layers of crap and see things for what they are that is his greatest asset. Journalists who wanted to know what was really going on during all the bickering about costs last year knew that Walker was one of the guys to seek out. Yes, he'd talk about what outcome was best for his team - but . be was virtually unique in that he'd also recognise that what might work for him might not necessarily be in the broader interests of the sport in the long-term. Through his years with Penske, he has learned how the sport works from the perspective of a conqueror. Some of the leaner years during his time as an owner taught him how things work for the minnows. More recently, he has occupied a sort of middle-ground with ECR; a team that lacks the resources of some of its rivals, but still managed to win last year's finale at Fontana. Now, he joins what he jokingly calls "the dark side" in donning the shirt of a series official rather than a competitor. He is the first significant appointment by Mark Miles, CEO of Hulman & Co, which is the parent company to both IndyCar and the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. 12

His role reveals a bit about both Miles' approach to IndyCar's leadership structure and to what gaps he felt needed filling. Since the departure of former series CEO Randy Bernard at the end of last year, IMS CEO Jeff Belskus has overseen the series in an interim capacity. Publicly, Belskus has been largely invisible, and when someone from the series leadership has spoken on the organisation's behalf at races this year, it has been Miles Belskus' boss - that has done the talking. It was widely thought that the vacancy left by Bernard would be filled by another CEO once a suitable candidate was found, but a close look at what Walker's role will entail suggests that this will not be the case. For starters. Walker reports to Miles - not Belskus. And second, all of the senior guys who used to answer to Bernard - people like race director Beaux Barfield, technical boss Will Phillips, Indy Lights chief Tony George Jr, former head of race operations(now senior vice-president of race operations) Brian Barnhart- will now report to Walker. Take a small leap and assume that Miles will perform a similar reshuffle of the commercial and marketing side of IndyCar, and we might have our answer to the 'who's the new Randy' question, if Bernard was trying to do the jobs of two or three people and did not succeed, then replace him with two or three people and really play to their strengths. Even the team owners that supported Bernard will tell you that he sometimes struggled to understand the intricacies of the paddock, and in fairness, Bernard himself was aware of this. He actually tried to hire Walker at the start of 2012, but the Scot was already committed to ECR. Many feel that Walker's input was exactly what Bernard needed as he tried to navigate the costs battle that dragged on through last year. Randy's struggles to maintain effective communication lines between the series and the teams and suppliers contributed to his downfall, and it is telling that IndyCar's announcement of Walker's arrival stipulated that one of his tasks will be to "foster improved communication with team owners and suppliers" in areas including cost control, safety, driver and supplier development, and developing future technical platforms. Put more simply, it now means that when IndyCar tackles all of the questions that lie ahead - how to encourage technical innovation without pricing teams out; what to do about aero kits; how to attract more manufacturers; how to find all the fans that vanished after the split - it now has someone capable of filtering the useful input from the noise. IndyCar has proven that it knows how to build a good ship, but the problem has been finding a person who really knows how to sail it. Walker can't do it on his own, but the series as a whole will be a lot stronger with him that it has been without him.

tndyCar proven it knows how to buM a good sh%>. butthe probtefn beenfinding a person recrtiy knpws

ORMULA 1 is in the middle of a tyre war. It's entirely different from the tyre wars we've had in the past. Those were tyre wars fought out between manufacturers, a strive for perfection from the likes of Bridgestone and Michelin, for example. The product was often close to perfect tyres, the only imperfections coming when the pursuit of perfection resulted in the technical boundaries being pushed too far (such as Indy 2005). But this is something completely different. Even when Bridgestone became the sole tyre supplier in the late-2000s, it was a circumstance, not a conscious choice, and the boring, solid rubber was a hangover from when it was in battle with Michelin. n Now, Formula 1 has a proper control tyre. Pirelli doesn't have to worry about other ■manufacturers getting involved, at leas,t until the end of the season wh,en its current contract runs out.

' ^

That's not say Pirelli doesn't have to deal ^ ● with pressure. However, instead of that ■ pressure coming from other manufacturers, it comes from the teams, the upper management, and the fans. . Pirelli came into Formula with the intent (and the instruction) to spice things up, following the boring Bridgestone era. Now, there are some in the paddock (publicly) '.

vv.ondei^g if Pirelli has gone too far. fjjt' Barcelona, we saw a four-stop race. . 1 The word?, "look after your tyres" clogged the ra%io airwaves, and it was abundantly clear that the drivers weren't able to do what they have a natural tendency to do - drive as fast as possible. Even Sebastian Vettel, the m'an who has, for the last two years, been the king of the Pirelli, said after Spain that "we are not going to the pace of the car, we are going to the pace of the tyre." When drivers start talking about "the pace of the tyre", it's a red flag for concern. It . even inspired R,ed Bull boss Dietrich Mateschitz to'speak up."Everyone knows what happens here", the Austrian told AUTOSPORT. "This has nothing to do with racing anymore. This is a competition in tyre management. Real car racing looks different. Under the given circumstances, we can neither get the best out of our car nor our drivers. "There is no more real qualifying and fighting for the pole, as everyone is just saving tyres for the race. If we would make the best of our car we would have to stop eight or 10 times during a race, depending on the track." It makes sense that Red Bull isn't a big fan of the Pirellis. The RB9 is more than quick enough over a lap, but it's not always as friendly on the fickle tyres as others in the field. Lotus is on the other side of the debate. That makes equal sense, because the E21 is, at least 14

i at the moment, the benchmark when it comes to tyre management. Time after time Kimi Raikkonen is able to make one less stop than the rest of the front-runners, and in Spain his three-stop strategy was the key to his finishing second. "Everyone has the same tyres," said Lotus' Eric Boullier. "It is the same for everybody. There was some slight change for here [to the hard compound], which was to please the most complaining team. But I don't think Pirelli is going to change anything. They were asked to build tyres lasting 20 laps and they did it. So that is it."

Felipe Massa's race engineer Rob Smedley

was another to talk about Pirelli's high level of

degradation in a more positive light.

In Barcelona, we saw what was effectively a fourstop race. The words n look after your tyres clogged the radio airwaves, and it was II

abundantly Clear that .

the drIVerS Weren t

"[Qualifying] is less important when you U.I * J U 4< have massive degradation on the tyres, but that aOle tO OO WHat makes it more of a spectacle," he said. .i . i ^ ^

"The race, three or four years ago, used to

finish on a Saturday afternoon, it was almost done and dusted. Now it's much better. It's better for us as well, because we have to think

about it more. A lot more."

In the end, it was obviously Red Bull's words that carried more weight. Two days after the Spanish GP Pirelli announced that, despite Boullier's prediction, changes are coming. From the British GP onwards, construction changes will be made to try and ensure races are two or three-stoppers. While Pirelli has promised that the processional races won't return, it's always a risk to make mid-season changes, especially to a part of sport that can so dramatically affect results. In fact, it's too big a risk. While the tyre situation isn't great, a mid-season compound change isn't the answer. I don't know what the answer is exactly, but until somebody does, nothing should change, at least until the end of ● the season. I'm no fan of four-stop races, but even without these upcoming changes, that wouldn't necessarily have been the case for the rest of the year. Like last year, the whole tyre thing would have probably settled down, and a sense of normality would have resumed. Even if it didn't, I much prefer modern FI over the 'good old days',, where the starting grid determined the race result. And as for the fact that the drivers can't push for a whole race? Well, I still like that better than watching the whole field drive around noseto-tail at 100 percent. By modern standards, the 2013 Spanish GP wasn't a classic. But not so long ago a race with that much intrigue would have been considered a belter. Let's put it this way; the tyres even managed to turn Bahrain into an interesting race. And that's no mean feat. Let's hope Pirelli Mk2 doesn't go too far the other way.

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e's held his own in some of Europe's toughest championships and enjoyed success on the global stage, but Alexandre Premat now firmly believes he can be the first European to taste glory and dominate the uncharted waters of V8 Supercars. He may yet to have stood on a V8 Supercar podium but on paper the versatile Frenchman is arguably one of the best credentialled drivers on the V8 grid. He is a winner of the Macau Grand Prix, and was third in the GP2 Series (in 2006, the year Lewis Hamilton won before making his McLaren Formula One debut the next season). Premat has done the DTM, Le Mans and A1GP - so he's not only an openwheeler driver who went close to making it to FI, he's had topline experience in touring cars and sportscars as well. He's about as well rounded as they come. But taking on a new car and championship in a foreign country thousands of kilometres from home was never going to be easy. So it proved, with the rookie describing his debut 2012 season as a "steep learning curve". Abest result of 13th place, at Symmons Plains, was on paper a dismal performance, but n then nor did his team-mate ever trouble the

leaders in what was not one of Garry Rogers Motorsport's most competitive seasons. But as 2012 drew to a close it looked like Premat's days in the championship were numbered after Garry Rogers dropped him for the Gold Coast 600, in favour of Greg Ritter. However, fast forward eight months, and now behind the wheel of the new GRM 2013 'Car of the Future', a rejuvenated Premat has started to show Australian audiences why he is regarded as one of Europe's elite by racking up several top 10 finishes. Matching the championship's top order for pace has prompted the 31-year-old to believe he is close to rewriting V8 Supercars history. "I would really like to be the first European driver to win a race in V8 Supercars," Premat says, It would be so cool for me and maybe it will open the door to more European drivers to come over and join the championship. I'm very pleased and very happy with how we have started the season with CRM. The mechanics, engineers and Carry have done some great work during the winter to give us a really good car. "We have had some bad luck, which has cost me some points, like the first race in Pukekohe where I was in P2 before I retired.

it's a good start, but we need to just keep pushing and if we can get the two cars in the top eight at every round then that would be perfect. I just have to keep moving and the target is to win races this year. "Last year was very hard as I had to start from zero on everything. It was a huge move from Europe to Australia. I had to learn the car, the tracks and the championship and I didn't know the drivers. It was really tough. "I had heard of Jamie Whincup and Craig Lowndes but I didn't know the others at all. The V8 Supercar is very different from what I had driven in Europe, the chassis; the tyres are completely the opposite of what I was used to. Then you have the situation of 20 of the 28 cars being covered by five or six-tenths of a second. It is extremely competitive. "This year I have made more progress because I am confident with the team and understand the car, the tracks and how the championship works. I’m really happy and enjoying being in Australia and I think the decision and cost to bring me here was worth it." While European drivers have triumphed in the majority of motorsport's elite championships, V8 Supercars remains one of

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He is a winner of the Macau Grand Prix AND WAS THIRD IN THE GP2 SERIES (IN 2006, THE YEAR LEWIS HAMILTON WON BEFORE MAKING HIS McLaren Formula one debut THE NEXT SEASON). the few yet to crown a champion hailing from that continent. Many illustrious names including three-time world touring car champion Andy Priaulx and touring car superstar Alain Menu have taken up the challenge by competing in the odd enduro race, but neither shone in the powerful V8 monsters. In fact in V8 Supercars' 16 year history, the only fleeting success for Europeans has come when they have partnered experienced campaigners in the famous Gold Coast 600 and Sandown 500 endurance races. Multiple touring car champion Yvan Muller secured the first victory at Sandown in 2005 partnering Craig Lowndes and since then fellow

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compatriot Sebastien Bourdais has earned two victories alongside Jamie Whincup at Surfers Paradise. Northern Irishman Richard Lyons and ex-FI star Mika Salo have followed in the footsteps with Ford Performance Racing duo Mark Winterbottom and Will Davison in 2011 and 2012 respectively. But that's about it. This year Premat certainly has the tools required to win and create history - as his young team-mate Scott McLaughlin proved by recording a sensational victory at Pukekohe in April. The talent in opposite corner of the CRM garage has not gone unnoticed, Premat is convinced the Kiwi - now the youngest ever V8 Supercar race winner - is set to become household name.

“I think Scott is one of the future champions in V8 Supercars," Premat says. "He is really mature for his age, enthusiastic, but he still has a lotto learn. He is very talented and is very friendly and not interested in the politics of the sport. We have French connection: Premat is yet to set the V8 Supercar world on fire, above, but his record in Europe suggests that it mightn't be long. (From far left) On the GP2 podium in 2005 with Nico Rosberg and Heikki Kovalainen; Monaco CP2 race, 2006: celebrating third place in the 2006 GP2 Series with winner Lewis Hamilton and runner up Nelson Piquet Jr; leading (and beating) Lewis Hamilton at Barcelona.

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FI star: Not quite, but Premat did Friday practice for Spyker in China in 2006-and was sixth fastest in PI, above, ahead of Sebastian Vettei. With experience also in M CP, sportscar racing and the DTM, right. Premat must be the most versatile driver on the V8 Supercar grid.

a good relationship and he makes me laugh. At the moment I am trying to teach him French so we have some really good times. I'm talking a lot to him so I'm giving him some advice from time to time as he is very young. I think he has taken on some of what I have been saying from the experiences I've had as a driver." While Alex's focus remains resolute on

sixth just behind Michael Schumacher in Friday practice with Spyker so the potential was there. There are a lot of drivers close

becoming Europe's first success story in V8 Supercars, it could so easily have been a different tale currently playing out on our screens. If you turn the clock back to 2007, had things gone a little differently Premat could well have become a global superstar in F1. Team-mate to Lewis Hamilton in 2006, he finished third in the FI feeder series, GP2, having beaten Hamilton, a young Robert Kubica and Nico Rosberg on several occasions during the year. At that point he was on the verge of an F1 breakthrough. However, like so many promising drivers, Alex was unable to find the funds necessary to snare a seat. But he will always have the memory of making an impressive official F1 appearance with the unfancied Spyker team at the 2006 Chinese Grand Prix. For what it was worth, in Friday's first practice session Premat was sixth fastest, one spot ahead of Sebastian Vettei, driving a BMW-Sauber. I was really close to breaking into Formula One," Premat says. "In China I finished

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to reaching Formula One but they cannot go there because of a lack of money or the politics at the time. I'm really happy with my career but sometimes I do get upset that I was unable to make it into Formula One and show what I could do. Flowever, that is motor racing. F1's loss has been V8 Supercars' gain however, with Premat opening up a onceunconsidered route for Europe's best exports. And this year he has since been joined on the grid by fellow German DTM refugee Maro Engel, in the Erebus Motorsport squad. The full time presence of Euro aces such as Premat and Engel in V8 Supercars is unprecedented. The arrival downunder in V8 Supercars of European drivers is something Ross Stone predicted some time ago, and with the comparative strength of our series and the Australian economy, and the economic basket case that is Europe right now, V8 Supercars is now more than ever before being seriously considered as a

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worthwhile career path by European drivers. I believe there is a lot of interest from international drivers but Australia is very far away from Europe," Premat says, "I think the championship wants to become more global so having European drivers competing helps that. With myself and Maro Engel this year, it should open up the market and maybe within one or two years we will see more European drivers. If that happens, he plans on beating them, because if Premat has his way he will be racing V8 Supercars for some time yet. I would like to stay in Australia and V8 Supercars for the next five or six years, and I think I have the talent to stay here. I need to have a really good year and win races and secure podiums so I can achieve my target of finishing in the top 12 in the championship. Scott McLaughlin might have made the early headlines but keep an eye on Alexandre as the season unfolds. If nothing else, with a full season now under his belt. Premat goes into each event not with the handicap of having to learn a new circuit every time. More than that, the Car of the Future package is dynamically a much more 'Euro' style of racecar, making it more Prematfriendly, and, more importantly, the GRM version of it clearly appears to be a much better package than what the team served up in 2012. The Australian Touring Car Championship has never been won by a Frenchman before... 22

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Jaguar’s US squad went to Le Mans in 199D with a secret plan to beat every other team - including TWR’s two UKbased works’ cars. It was Tony Dowe who masterminded one of motorsport’s smartest plans and the 24 Hour’s greatest stories. Phil Branagan spoke to him. 24

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I worked for TWR from 1987 until 1998 las managing director of TWR USA," says Dowe. "During this period one of my 'duties' was to supply a couple of cars as part of the massive TWR/Jaguar effort at Le Mans. Unfortunately it was always made clearnever by Tom Walkinshaw of course - that the 'American' cars were only there to support the 'real' effort that was run from Kidlington [Ed: TWR's UK headquarters]. Obviously this became a bit second-hand and so after being the supporting act in 1988 and 1989, I gave some serious thought as to how to, A, Win the race and B, Circumvent the restrictions placed on my US team because of the supporting role we were expected to play." Of course, that 'supporting role' of a threecar effort, Dowe and his 'American' troops were expected to take a supportive, rather than leading role - and he knows the pitfalls involved in trying to reverse the tide. "Let me say here that you should only undertake such an action if you're sure that you can carry it off!" he says, "because to WWW mnews.com.au

achieve anything less than the win is to open one's self up for a very long period looking for a new jobi Of course, if you win, then most of your sins are forgiven I "I always felt that TWR USA were a better race team than the UK team, if for no other reason than by the time Le Mans came around, we had done a 24-hour race [Ed: at Daytona], a 12-hour race [at Sebring] and a couple of sprint races. The Group C team had probably only done a single race and some testing. We were very sharp by 1990. We had finished first and second at the Daytona 24 Hours that year and had had such a better team. We had each car race each other for the whole 24 hours. It was a fantastic race." With already more than a decade's experience in the sport under his belt, Dowe had formed some strong relationships with clever people who were only too happy to co operate with his plans. "TWR USA also had a couple of very good engineers; Ian Reed, recently head of development at Penske, and Dave Benbow, who went on to work with Prodrive and is

now with Abt Team Sportsline in the DTM [Ed: he is currently Adrien Tambay's race engineer]. Ian and Dave were very good in their respective areas; both were and are lateral thinkers and complemented each other very well. Ian was, as now, very good with the suspension and we were running dampers, for example, that were much ahead of the ones used by the UK team. We had briefly used a pair on the rear of the car in 1989 when Davy Jones led the race in the early stages. "The biggest problem that had to be overcome was that, along with most of the other team cars, we were only allowed a single engine for both practice and the race. The only team car that had a qualifying engine was the one that was led by Martin Brundle. As we were now running the V6 turbo cars on a regular basis in the IMSA series, we were able to take one of our VI2 cars out of the mix and prepare it with a lot of love and care. We used chassis #288, which had won our first-ever IMSA race in the USA back at the 1988 Daytona 24 Hours. The lead mechanic was Winston Bush, still 25 ■4

in Indianapolis, and he did a super job of building a car to the exact same specification as the UK cars. "Now we get to the interesting bit! "The week before we had to leave for Le Mans, we were racing at Lime Rock Park - a super place and made better when John Nielson and Price Cobb won with a turbo car for the first time, exactly a year after we had the debut of the first TWR Jaguar turbo. There to see the car win was the head of TWR engines, Allen Scott. Allen is now back in New Zealand enjoying his retirement, and rallying a Mazda. After the race we had a super night at a very nice local restaurant run by an English guy named Terry. There was lots of drink, and after the meal I took Allen to one side and asked him why 'my' car could not have a qualifying engine for Le Mans? Allen, by now very mellow told me to use common sense; 'It's just not going to happen'. "I then asked, what would happen if we had a misfire at the end of qualifying that could not be found? Allen said, 'obviously there would be spare engines for such an eventuality'. Allen was booked on a flight from Kennedy [Airport in New York City] the next morning back to the UK. I then played the trump card. I produced an envelope from inside my jacket and told Allen that inside was a ticket for the next morning's Concorde flight to London. It was his, if he found a problem with our engine after Le Mans qualifying. After a moment of hesitation, Allen looked around and then took the envelope and put it in his jacket pocket. The game was on! "Only Ian Reed was aware of what I was planning, and he was [ike a kid when I told him the bait had been taken. The nowfinished 'vanilla' 288 chassis was sent to the UK for painting and, I suppose, inspection, to 26

see that we had built the car to the decreed spec. So, Dowe and his band of mutineers had their most vital component - a fresh VI2 motor for the race - and were on their way. Now they had to sort out the rest of the car. "We then set about putting together a 'care package' of our IMSA goodies for fitting when we got to Le Mans. We had different roll bars, front and rear, different shock absorbers, front and rear. But the biggest item were some very special one-piece billet brake callipers that Ian had designed, and we had built here in Atlanta. They were made to accept a much thicker brake pad than standard, Performance Friction made the pads for us. So now we could also go further than the UK cousins without a pad change. "We had also had 'Rabbit', a legendary fabricator who still lives in the Georgia mountains, who built us some really trick pad changing tools. The gearbox was built with a limited slip differential. This was quite different from the UK cars; the thinking was that with a 'spool' fitted, if a driveshaft failed, you could get back to the pits! Well, unbeknown to the guys in England, we had Kenny Hill of Metalore (they now make most of the FI world's hubs/drive shafts and axles) make us some super strong FI-type driveshafts." Dowe was not leaving anything to chance not even the car's radio. "One further item that would prove very useful was the use of the American radios. Every year we had gone to Le Mans, the circuit length meant that the European radios which were supplied by a guy called 'Crackly Ken', usually gave up when the cars left the pits! The last thing that we had changed

at TWR USA was the rear wing. With the additions of the chicanes along the Mulsanne straight [Ed: 1990 was the first race after they were installed], Le Mans was now the aero level of Daytona. Things were just going our way. So Dowe and the team arrived in France and there was their not-so-secret weapon, TWR chassis #288, and a box of secret tricks. "We started practice with 'just a few bits' changed - radios etc - so there was not much notice taken of what we were doing. There was a bit more interest when the brakes went on and the roll bars were changed, but at the early morning meetings, the comments were mainly directed towards us in the manner of, 'So what silly things have the you Americans changed now!' "Roger Silman, the UK team manager, was more concerned with why Jan Lammers would not match Brundle's practice times. He did not like drivers, or anyone else for that matter, to think for themselves about how the race should be run. I'm sure that Tom had some idea of what we were doing, as he was a regular visitor to IMSA races and was aware of our development items, but he never said anything to me about what we were doing. "Our driver lineup was pretty good; 'Big John' Nielsen, Price Cobb and Eliseo Salazar. Obviously John and Price knew what we had fitted and were very happy, because it brought the car to the same specification as they had been used to racing. "Unfortunately after the end of practice, guess what? Allan Scott found the 'misfire' and we had to change engines! Another hurdle crossed, because if Allan had gone back on the deal, then the whole plan would have probably sunk out of sight!" Oualifying had already revealed one of motorspoPt news

We started practice with just a few bits changed - radios etc - so there was not much notice taken of what we were doing....at the early morning meetings,the comments were mainly directed towards us in the manner of, So what silly things have the you Americans changed now! bilk Luts Jaguars was tns uavy Jones//v\icnei Ferte/Luis Perez-Sala entry in seventh, one spot up on Brundle, who qualified the lead entry he shared with Alain Ferte and David Leslie. Nielsen qualified the pirates' car ninth while the Jan Lammers/Andy Wallace/Franz Konrad car was 17th on the grid. But, there was another problem to overcome, one brought to light during Friday's pre-race preparation. The gearbox's dog rings were being used by one of the drivers in a way that was too heavy on the gearchanges," Dowe explains. As we had lots of experience of John and Price, it was obvious that Eliseo was the problem. I went and found Julian Randles, then of Spice Engineering, who Eliseo drove for sometimes in IMSA, and had a discussion about his experiences with Eliseo and his use of the gearbox. Julian confirmed that Eliseo's style of gear changing was quite heavy on the dog rings. I had a long day of thinking about how to deal with this problem - and it

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was a problem, because with a dog box, we were going to probably lose third and maybe fourth gear, if history was any guide, i went to dinner with Tom, his lady Martine and a guy from Jaguar; I honestly canT remember who he was, During dinner, I told Tom of my concerns and suggested that it might be a good strategy if I kept Eliseo out of the car for as long as possible, in order to keep a seat free should one of the other 'favourite' drivers had a problem. Tom agreed and so, at our race morning briefing, I told the drivers that we were going to use 'Big John' and Price through the evening and night until Sunday morning, when Eliseo would be 'fresh' for the remainder of the race."

Raceday dawned, there were problems that thebut Americans hadstill to overcome before they could launch their assault on the race. "Just as we parked the car on the dummy grid, JJ (John Jackson, our regular chief mechanic, ex-Williams FI) found a small fuel leak from one of the fuel pump unions. Now, as it is today, there can be no work done on the car on the dummy grid. So what were we to do? Well, one of our XJR-12 design features was that the whole fuel system, pumps, filters etc, were mounted in the lefthand side pod on quick release clips. So it would only take moments to change them. The problem was, how to make the change with the whole AGO 'police' walking up and down the grid. "Fortunately, we had made some very nice mock leather pouches to protect the spare pump assemblies in. While the whole team posed in front of the car with - what else? - the Hawaiian Tropic girls, JJ slid inside

and changed the leaking pump assembly with a new onel Honestly! I think that in another life JJ would have made a great David Copperfield." So, the race started. Dowe said later that, after all his subterfuge and preparation, the race itself was quite easy. "One of the big race advantages we had was that having run at Daytona, we knew that the standard 480 compound rear Goodyear tyres would not double stint on the Jaguars at Le Mans," he says. "So back in February at Daytona, we had run a much harder 600 compound tyre during the heat of the day. When we arrived at Le Mans, I found that Goodyear Europe had no 600 compound tyres available! Our tyre guy for this event was the great American Airlines guy, Kenny Szymanski. I called back to the states and had 10 sets of 600 compound tyres shipped in without anyone knowing, thanks to Ken Moore of Rapid Movements. Kenny S. did his bit by removing the tyre coding from each tyre and hiding the tyres inside the old pit tunnels. "When we started double stinting the tyres and beating the UK team hands down in the pits, I had a very uptight meeting with Tom as to what was going onl I had to come clean, and we were forced into giving some of our rear tyres to Brundle's car. All of this while trying to run the race! "One of the other fun bits happened around 10pm. A car had caught fire at the Porsche curves and the AGO had put out a Safety Car, John Nielson had just been in for fuel a couple of laps earlier and he called in and told me it would take a bit of time to clean up - just like we would in IMSA. Good US radios at worki I called him

Secret war: Tony Dowe brought a series of secret upgrades to his American Jaguars as part of a careful plan to beat their British team-mates, above. The TWR Jaguar team got the intended result, right, even if the wrong car won. straight into the pits to top off the fuel, as you would! "Boy, did that move unleash a load of trouble. I had TW right in my face about giving up track position. Obviously the UK team cars continued running around under a caution flag while we topped off the car, so they then had to pit under a green when we went back to racing! About an hour later we went into the lead, after everyone else had had to pit for fuel under a green. This was a lead we never gave up," ust when things were looking up, something over which no amount of preparation could deal with came up - and it affected Price Cobb. "The next bit of drama was that Price was slowly dehydrating. Remember, these cars had no power steering, little ventilation and no drink bottles, and had over 2500kg of downforce In those days. So during the middle of the night, we had to ask Big John to triple stint while Price recovered! A star then, still a star now. "Then the Brundle car, which had been fighting a slow water leak, finally called it a day. Tom came and asked me if I thought the car would be able to last until the finish. You can imagine my replyl TW took Eliseo off our team and told him he was not going to get in the car, and he was putting Brundle in instead. You can imagine how heartbroken Eliseo was with this decision."

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Winners are grinners: Tom Walkinshaw and team (including Neii Crompton, top right, at the Sarthe that year filiing a commentary role) celebrate a win not exactly as planned, above, but a Le Mans win nonetheless. Tony Dowe today, left, part of the Holden Racing Team brains trust won both the 24 hours of Daytona and Le Mans, as far as I'm aware of. "Now it was lots of celebrating, i remember taking TW back to the airport and he told me I had 'done good' I then had to find my way back to the chateau where we were staying. Now that was a trip. I was so tired, and a bit the worse for champagne. I can't remember how many times i went off the road. And all the while, driving Tom's personal Jaguar. "The next morning we went back to the circuit to see the car, and it was very emotional for us when we untapped the engine cover and lifted the rear deck off.

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Never lifted it in the whole race. A couple of weeks later the whole team who had

Around Bam, Brundle got in the car and, fresh as a daisy, drove off to victory. Salazar was transferred to the #4 Jaguar, which ended the race with an engine failure. It would have been hard not to feel sorry for the Chilean. But still, there were problems, and just as Dowe predicted, they affected the gearbox. "The only thing we now had to deal with was the third gear had decided it'd had enough of the chicanes and given up. This meant that the drivers had to change from second to fourth; not a great problem, but enough to get some very dirty looks from TW! "The final drama was a couple of stops from the end we had a scheduled brake pad change and JJ found a couple of calliper pistons leaking. So we had to change one of our mega expensive callipers. Now they were

a bit tight on the studs, so Pete Hodge (Peter Hodgkinson, a New Zealander and now the new car build manager at MercedesCP) took a very big hammer to our beautiful machined calliper to quickly remove iti Job done and not too much time lost." The car was going to win. Better still, it was looking like a 1-2 finish, with the #2 entry moving to second, four laps behind the leader. But it was not all good news, says Dowe. "Politics started to take over. The 'Management' wanted to have the UK team suddenly involved so they would look part of the effort. No way." He stood firm, and the Americans ruled the day. "Mike Dale, then MD of Jaguar North America and a true racer, had supported us all the way and was terrific as the laps wound down. Our car was the only chassis that had

been at Le Mans went to New Jersey and had dinner with Mike Dale and Bob Burden, another super Jaguar person, in a small restaurant a few miles from the Jaguar headquarters. Very nice." Engineering a 1 -2 finish in the world's biggest endurance race is something special. Getting the 'right' end of the result, without the management realising what you were doing until it was all too late, must have made it doubly so. "There are very few people that knew of the lengths that we had all gone to get this result," says Dowe. "Thanks to all of the villains who took part, it is something to tell the kids when you grow up. I hope that we will be forgiven, but oniy ever do this if you are sure your going to win." Dowe knows that winning trumps everything and a lot of funny things can happen in motor racing - even when you think that you have heard everything...

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Are we aboutto see the emergence,finally,ofthe driver everyone thought would be a guaranteed snperstar when he made his grand prix debutsix years ago,but who has achieved little sioce? Or is Nice Rosberg about to be proveu once and for all to be an Ft lourneyman,up against a new team-mate whom few doubtis one ofthe greatest everP Foiget the Uettel/Webber rivalry-the most fascinating team-mate battle this year in FI could prove to be the one at Mercedes-Benz.By Andrew van leeuwen T'S easy to forget that once upon a time, Nico Rosberg was the most exciting upand-comer in Formula 1. Back in 2006, Rosberg made a big splash on his F1 debut in Bahrain. Driving a Cosworth-powered Williams deemed nowhere near a match for the mighty Renaults and Ferraris, the German made sure the F1 paddock was paying attention by setting the fastest lap of the season opening race in the desert. He backed up that performance a week later by qualifying third for the Malaysian Grand Prix. At just 20 years of age, Rosberg had the FI

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world at his feet - and some highprofile admirers. "For me there's only one who is really going under the spotlight: Nico Rosberg," Mika Hakkinen told Gazzetta dello Sport at the time. "He's half Finnish, half German, an international guy, I'd say. But as a driver he's already asserted himself. Nico can even win the world title. It'll take time, but he can do it." "I'm a huge fan of Nico," added Jenson Button. "He has a huge amount of experience for somebody of his age. He's 20, and

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although I was 20 when I first raced a Formula 1 car, he has a lot more racing experience than I had at that stage." By the time the 2006 Australian Grand Prix rolled around - just the third race of the season - Rosberg had already been linked to a seat at McLaren (staunchly denied by both team and driver, but flattering all the same). There was also clearly some tension between he and more experienced team-mate Mark Webber, a good indication that Rosberg was bringing more to the table than Webber had expected. At this early stage, there seemed to be just one question when it came to Nico Rosberg: how good is this kid going to be? Seven years later and we still don't have an answer. Despite such a promising start, and despite having obvious natural ability, too much of Rosberg's subsequent F1 career has had a sense of mediocrity about it. If you had said back in early 2006 that Rosberg would only win one race in the next seven years, few would have believed you. But that's how it's played out. But why is it so? Is he simply not good enough to be a regular race winner like Lewis, Fernando or Sebastian? Flas it come down to bad timing? Being in the wrong places at all the wrong times? The last theory certainly has some weight. The 2006-09 era was hardly a classic one for Williams, which played a large part in the fact that Rosberg had to wait until 2008 to bag his first podium finish. That he was able to finish in the top 10 in 13 of the 17 races in '09 was actually very impressive. Then came the move to Mercedes. It seemed like a very smart thing to do. In BrawnCP colours, the team had comfortably won the '09 World Championship. And now, with the might of Mercedes behind it, surely the good times would roll on. We now know that wasn't the case, and that '10 and '11-spec Mercs were simply not capable of winning races, while the '12 car had such a narrow operating window that the team only really hit it once. In other words, the lack of ticks in the Wins tally can very much be attributed to machinery. While the first three seasons with the Ross Brawn-led Mercedes squad yielded just the single win (China 2012), they have, in a way, been the most telling of Rosberg's career so far. Pitted against a seven-time World Champion in Michael Schumacher, the pre-2010 buzz was that this was Rosberg's big chance to prove to the world that he is better than ordinary. On the eve of the 2010 season.

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Rubens Barrichello urged Rosberg to leave the team, fearing he would be crushed by the once mighty Schumacher. "Get out of there! That is the only thing I can tell him. [Nico] is a great talent and I wish him all the best," he said. "Knowing what I know, and seeing how fast Michael went [in testing], it is going to be a tough job. I wish him all the best because I think he is a talented boy who can be World Champion. If he has the chances of being World Champion in the same team as Michael, then he can be World Champion anywhere. Let's put it this way." As it turned out, Barrichello's predictions were wide of the mark. In 2010, Rosberg finished on the podium three times (compared to zero podiums for Schumacher), and almost doubled his team-mate's points tally. It was a personal victory, in what was a fairly disappointing season for the team. "It's a two-faced season," Rosberg told Autosprint after the final race. "On one side there is the comparison with my team-mate, and under this aspect I am very happy. However, if we look at the absolute results, I must say that I had hoped for something more. "When I signed I had thought my team mate would be Button, and that was fine by me. When I learned that Jenson was leaving the team I had hoped that a strong, experienced driver would join the team. "So, after learning of Schumacher’s arrival, I was happy under this point of view. However, I didn't know what to expect from other points of view. First of all I didn't know Michael in person, and then I knew about his

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long friendship with Ross Brawn, and I didn't know whether this would have had an impact on my situation. Instead, everything has gone for the best." The following year it was a closer, but Rosberg still came out on top. In 2012, he completed the clean-sweep, finishing ninth in the points while Schumacher languished back in 13th. Put simply, Rosberg did all that he could during his three-year head-to-head battle with Schumacher. It was a comprehensive victory in favour of the younger German. But it didn't quite provide that proof that Rosberg is the real deal. Instead of people

talking about how well Rosberg did to beat Schumacher, the focus was more on how poorly Schumacher was after his three-year break from the sport. In fact, by the third season, there was a sense that the FI paddock was slightly disappointed that Rosberg was 'only' able to out-qualify Schumacher 12 times from the 20 grands prix. Rosberg was suddenly being measured against a 43-yearold veteran on the decline, not a seven-time World Champion. So the question was never answered. The Schumacher battle never delivered the ultimate verdict on just how good Rosberg is. Instead, the whole 'make or break' thing

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has been transferred to 2013. With Lewis Hamilton joining Rosberg in Stuttgart Silver, there are finally no question marks. Hamilton, arriving at the peak of his power, is the perfect benchmark. Not dissimilar to the start of 2010, Rosberg was given no hope pre-season. Button - a man who once sung Rosberg's praises - predicted that Hamilton's pace would come as a 'surprise'. "I think he'll probably get a bit of a surprise," said Button just before

last Christmas. "I know he's been [Lewis'] team-mate in the past, but I think he'll be surprised at how Lewis can get performance out of a bad car. I didn't say that [Mercedes will be bad]Hamilton can also get speed out of a good car, and I think that will be the biggest thing." On the eve of the new season. Brawn came into bat for Rosberg, suggesting that Mercedes has the best line-up in FI. "If we are honest, Nico proved himself against Michael," said Brawn.

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"I had no question marks about Michael, but I think some people may have done given his retirement and coming back. "I think Nico is going to have a fresh benchmark in terms of Lewis and I expect them to be very close, I don't expect a big difference between either of them, but that is to be proven. "It is a big challenge for him to have someone as quick and capable as Lewis in the other car. Nico has met some massive challenges - ones that he had with Michael and I expect him to hold his end up very well. "I actually think we have got the best driver pairing in F1. They will push each other very hard." Five rounds into the 2013 season, and it seems that Brawn's predictions are proving fairly accurate. While Hamilton leads the way in the points (somewhat comfortably thanks to two DNFs that were both out of Rosberg's control), the German has hardly been blown out of the water. In fact, he's even had a couple of standout moments. The first was Malaysia, where Rosberg was better of the two Mercedes drivers in terms of managing tyres. He was quicker at the end, only team orders stopping him from beating Hamilton to third place behind the dominant Red Bulls. It was a day where Rosberg was better, and Hamilton knew it. "Nico deserved to be where I am," Hamilton said straight after the race. "With the position in the championship

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the team thought it was logical to stay in position, but Nico drove a smarter and more controlled race than me today. Would I let him past in the future? I probably would. Rosberg had another important moment in Bahrain. Having watched Hamilton take pole in China, Rosberg responded brilliantly at the next race by storming to stunning pole position of his own. Better still, he was more than four-tenths down the road from Hamilton. [Nico] put a very strong lap in," said Sebastian Vettel when asked if he could have beaten Rosberg after qualifying. 'I think it was all his today. Initially when I crossed the line I saw that I didn't go first so I saw second placed on one of the screens but I didn't know how much was missing. because the lap was fine. You are always a little bit here or there but, yeah, when I got told the gap to PI, to Nico, it was clear that even with the perfect lap he was unbeatable today." A few weeks later he proved it was no fluke, taking a second consecutive pole, leading an all-Mercedes front row on a day where the Silver Arrows were a cut above the rest of the field in terms of onelap pace. Being behind on the grid for the second race in a row even evoked a sharp response from Hamilton. "Sometimes you get beat, sometimes you get ahead," said the Brit in the post-session media conference, "It's the name of the game and at the end of the day he was quicker

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today and it just means for me that I have to work harder. Simple." The importance of the little 'win' wasn't lost on Rosberg, either. With the Merc unable to nurse the fickle Pirelli tyres on Sunday afternoons, it may well be the qualifying stats that provide the best barometer between Rosberg and Hamilton at the end of the season. "Of course I'm pleased to be ahead of Lewis," said Rosberg, "because I know that he's very, very high level in terms of his driving. He's one of the best out there. When I can be in front of him I'm extremely happy." There is still a lot of the 2013 season left,

and a clear pattern between Rosberg and Hamilton is yet to appear. Of course there is a chance that, as Hamilton becomes more comfortable in his new team, he'll pull away, leave Rosberg behind and prove once and for all that there is a sizable gulf in talent between the two drivers. But Rosberg also has the opportunity to prove the opposite, and the early signs are that it's an opportunity he wants to make the most of. After seven years of waiting the chance to prove himself is finally here. Will Rosberg take it? Is he good enough? The next 14 races may well finally answer the question.

lei^ips were down for Rpn BPisaioe when theIn^ ine with Penske was over at the end of last veait the chips now m,we|sudden the end of May.

VEN eight years on, when you know that he was OK, the footage of Ryan Briscoe's crash at Chicagoland in 2005 is scary. The Sydney native, then an IndyCar rookie, was battling Alex Barron when the pair touched, launching Briscoe's car skyward and into the barriers. The ruptured fuel cell created a comet tail of flames as the car broke apart, with recovery teams later retrieving the wreckage in three separate pieces. Briscoe escaped with broken collarbones, a bruised lung and contusions, but did not race again that year. And it soon transpired that his time with Ganassi, the team that had tempted him across from Europe, was also over, with newly-crowned champion Dan Wheldon moving across from Andretti for 2006. Motivational speakers are fond of claiming that the Chinese character for 'crisis' is comprised of the symbols for 'danger' and 38

'opportunity', and when you look at Briscoe's career, they might have a point. The period immediately after his split from Ganassi was one of uncertainty, but it ultimately opened the door for a sportscar drive with Penske in 2007, which turned into a multi-year IndyCar seat with the team from 2008. The Penske chapter of Briscoe's career ended at the end of 2012, and in IndyCar terms, his full-time prospects remain an open question. But while he figures that part of things out, he's making good use of his time. He's back in sportscars, racing a P2 HPD for Level 5 Motorsports in the ALMS, and will make his first trip to Le Mans next month. And in IndyCar, he gets a shot at rewriting the ending to his Ganassi stint by rejoining the team for the Indy 500. In a crisis, an opportunity. "I guess I'm a pretty laid-back and positive thinking kind of person, so I didn't let things

get to me too much Briscoe says. "I'd sort of been through it before. The good thing during the off season is that I was getting plenty of positive feedback from everybody that we spoke to, and it was just circumstantial, I felt, that deals weren't coming together. I never felt that I'd end up with nothing. Certainly, whether it was going to be IndyCar or not was getting pretty doubtful, and as it turned out, I didn't get the full-time ride. But I never felt like this was going to be it [for my career]. Never at any point did I feel that way." The aftershocks of the economic slump still reverberate strongly in the US, as is evidenced by the fact that both Briscoe - who, don't forget, won a race last year and took pole at the Indy 500 - and Rubens Barrichello were both unable to find seats for 2013. Just a few weeks ago, Dreyer & Reinbold announced that it did not have the budget to continue motorsport news

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racing beyond Indy, leaving Oriol Servia stranded while the team works to regroup for next year. IndyCar as a competition is rebounding from the damaging years of the open-wheel split, but the roots of the commercial challenges run deeper. While Briscoe is a casualty of all that, his one-off return to Ganassi is about as good a distraction as he could have hoped for, and it's a deal that works well for both sides. Speaking to this writer just before Briscoe's return was confirmed, Ganassi general manager Mike Hull sounded genuinely excited at the prospect of the two camps reuniting. "I was frankly surprised [that he was available] because he has certainly proven how capable he is," Hull said. In the short-term, there appears to be little prospect of the deal extending beyond the Month of May due to Briscoe's sportscar WWW,mnews.com.au

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team. I want to go aut and win the thing,oi' atlemt^ beia position to win and be a fpontninnei'and db a good JobL And then we'll see where that takes me. I

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commitments and Ganassi's doubts about being able to properly fund the fourth entry for additional races. But for now, Briscoe is relishing a rare chance to tend to some unfinished business with the team. "The way 2005 went... it was a tough year," he says. "I really enjoyed my time at the team, and I think they enjoyed having me on board as well. But we had a really tough year and then finished it off with the massive accident at Chicagoland, and that just kind of ended it all. "But we've been really good friends over the years ever since, and even when I was at Penske, I think there was a mutual respect. I'm just really excited about returning to these guys who basically brought me here to the States from Europe to do indyCar racing, and the ones that gave me the excitement of wanting to do this from the very beginning. "The fact that they wanted me to go out 40

and give them an extra shot at winning the Indy 500, and that's the most important thing. It feels.good." If Briscoe has unfinished business with Ganassi, you could also argue that his work both at the Brickyard and in IndyCar as a whole remains incomplete. Despite his pole feat last year, his best result at Indy remains his fifth places in 2007 and 2012. He delivered seven wins for Penske during his stint with the team, although his best championship result was third in 2009, albeit just 14 points behind winner Dario Franchitti. On paper, it's a decent haul. But when you consider that Penske and Ganassi were the two dominant squads during Briscoe's tenure there, it's worth asking whether he and Penske got the most out of each other. "Well, we didn't win the championship and we didn't win the 500, so I'd say not," he admits.

"I feel like we should have, and we just didn't. So as far as that went, it was a little disappointing. In 2009 we had a shot at the Indy 500, for sure. We had a really fast car, drove to the front, overtook Dario for the lead early in the race, and then had a bad restart, got up in the marbles, almost hit the wall, and we had to pit under greens to change tyres. [ED: He was eventually classified 15th]. That was really disappointing. It was great for the team with Helio [Castroneves] winning, but our strategy had got us back to the front, and I was following Helio with 10 laps to go with us in first and second place, but I still had to pit for fuel. "I certainly felt like that was the 500 that we missed. And then in turn you lose points, which could have ended up winning me the championship that year." There was also, Briscoe says, an increasing disconnect between himself and the team, motorsport news

He attributes some of this to the problems of trying to make sense of three different sources of data and set-up ideas, as well as a slight shift in team priorities as Will Power began to hit his stride. "It was tough for the last couple of years," Briscoe says. "I didn't feel like there was the same kind of chemistry going on. Although last year I felt like I was coming back - we had a lot of bad luck early on, some bad pitstops, but I felt like last year we were competitive everywhere we went. "But I just felt we had sort of taken slightly different directions in the thought processes of the car. And it there were also compromises with three cars. It was a lot to handle, and sometimes it can throw you off a little bit with set-ups because you might end up compromising your own direction, and just throwing on different set-up and not really building the car around yourself. www.mnews.com.au

"We went through a period in 2010 when I started driving a car that wasn't really ideally adapted to me because Will was doing a good job with a set-up that he'd brought over from where he came from with his engineer, and we all just started trying to make that work. And I just don't think it was working quite as well for me. Last year, with the new car, I felt like that was a fresh start for me, and we were starting to see the results again." When the rumours began to filter through the paddock late last year that Briscoe's future at Penske was less than watertight, it was accompanied to some degree by a sense of deja-vu - after all, he'd been in a similar situation 12 months earlier. But this time, it seemed different. The chatter about his future began earlier, for one thing, with the first solid talk that Penske would be scaling back starting at Mid-Ohio in early August. Indeed, Briscoe says that it was at that race

Back home again in Indiana: Briscoe has unfinished business both in Indycar racing and the Indianapoiis 500, above. Back with Canassi Racing for a cameo appearance, Briscoe has a realistic chance of becoming the first Austraiian to win Indy. that he first got the sense that whatever he'd be doing in 2013, it wouldn't be in Penske colours. "We had a meeting with [Penske team president Tim] Cindric at Mid-Ohio, and it was at that point that Tim said that sponsorship wasn't looking good for this year," Briscoe says. "He said that the other two drivers [ED: Power and Castroneves] already had contract extensions, and that left me as the odd man out, and that he was OK with us looking around at different options. It wasn't a clear cut, 'we're done'- but it was pretty much. 41

'we're done'. I don't think it was a big surprise because we'd gone through the same process at the end of the previous year, and then [primary sponsor] IZOD had stayed on, and Hitachi had beefed up its sponsorship, so that was all good. But we sort of had the feeling that that's where it was going. At this point, those who follow IndyCar closely might notice the AJ Allmendingersized elephant in the corner of the room. If Penske cut Briscoe on the basis that it didn't have the backing for a third car, how did it manage to sign Allmendinger for an Indy 500 programme that, at time of writing, has expanded to include Barber, Long Beach, and Detroit? The same question has occurred to Briscoe. "Well, I was surprised, only because that deal was basically never presented to me, and 42

I felt like Penske and I had finished on good terms with each other," he says. So when Allmendinger came into the fold it was a bit... 'wow, where did that come from?'. It was maybe just that they knew that they couldn't offer me a full-time ride. and Allmendinger was pitching for any kind of ride, fuli-time or not. it might have just seemed logical to them to just make a deal with him. But it was a bit surprising because all of the discussions just came to a halt between myself and Penske Racing, and then all of a sudden Allmendinger was on board. It was a bit strange to me, because of the lack of dialogue." As contradictory as the Penske/ Allmendinger deal might seem, Briscoe has been around the traps long enough to know that nothing in motorsport is ever clear-cut. And he's not complaining. A full-time IndyCar

Sports Car World: Without an Indycar drive, Briscoe has turned to sportscars with an LMP2 above. After the indy 500 with Canassi, it's off to Le Mans with the Levei 5 Motorsports P2 HPD. seat remains the priority for 2014, but in the meantime, an indy ride with Ganassi and a swing at Le Mans with Level 5 represents a pretty good use of a gap year. "I do feel like there is a place for me in IndyCar next year, and really I've just got to take it one step at a time," he says. "The first task is the Indy 500 and doing it with a quality team. I want to go out and win the thing, or at least, be in a position to win and be a frontrunner and do a good job. And then we'll see where that takes me. But I do feel like there's a place for me, and that's where I want to be, and hopefully next year we'll have something really good together." motorsport news

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Free Wheeling is not just a new nnotorcycle magazine but a completely new way of living the motorcycle experience.

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Join us for Free Wheeling's first issue as we escape with three Aussies on the ride of their lives through South America; visit the Bright Film Festival in Victoria and look back at some classic motorcycle films; travel around the world with intrepid adventurers Simon and Lisa Thomas; cruise the best roads in South East

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Queensland and explore some dirt and tar goodness around the ACT. We take look at the start of the classic Honda Gold Wing in the 1970s and

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Published six times per year via nextmedia with regular articles covering expert . riding tips, future collectables, a comprehensive events calendar, insights from our expert columnists and some incredible photography...

Free Wheeling magazine is the motorcycle experience, follow us on Facebook or online at www.freewheelingmag.com.au

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0kugust 31 & September 1, 2013 Sydney Motorsport Park First ever Historic Touring Car Challenge'

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Get set for the largest gathering of Group N machines that Australia has ever seen. Historic Touring Car teams from across the country are already gearing up for a ‘Nationals-style’ event.

We’ve freshened up the program for 2013, with more announcements to come. Already confirmed are the ultra-popular TCM and newly-renamed Heritage Touring Cars. Plus, the booming Group S sports car class (which includes Mustangs, Panteras, Corvettes Alfas, Porsches, MGs, et al) makes its event debut. -Touring Car Masters -Heritage Touring Cars(Group C/A) -Historic Touring Cars(Group N, pre-1973) -Group S(production sports cars) -Heritage Hot Laps (including race replicas)

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Young Kiwi Richie Stonaway is already drawing comparisons with F1 greats like countrymen Chris Amon and Denny Huime. An open-wheeler prodigy on thefast track to F1, a devastating crash left him seriously injured and his career in the balance. Edward Krause sat down with Richie and discussed his career, that crash, and how he's made it back onto the track with his eyes stillfirmlyfixed on Ft

0 many times we see racing drivers walk away from spectacular accidents. Wreckage strewn, car torn apart and yet the driver emerges with nothing more than a few bumps and bruises. Or, like Martin Brundle, runs back to the pits to jump in the spare car. But sometimes it's the more innocuous, less dramatic accident that the driver doesn't just walk away from. For Richie Stanaway, one of New Zealand's up-and-coming open wheeler superstars, such an accident in the middle of last year came perilously close to ending his career. Stanaway was racing in the World Series by Renault championship as part of the Lotus F1 Development Academy. At the third round at Spa Francorchamps, the weather was horrendous with heavy rain and the resultant spray making visibility poor. "We were just driving into the spray,"

stanaway explains. "Very low visibility, you needed to look out to your side to see the braking markers. There was this guy who, I think he was a lap down going half the speed of everyone else, and he just appeared out of nowhere. My approaching speed was massive; there was not enough time to see him through the spray. My nose cone went straight into his rear tyre and that flipped the front of the car up, a bit of air got underneath and lifted it up and then the monocoque slapped down on the concrete.'I If you Google 'Richie Stanaway Formula Renault Spa crash', you'll see the last part of the accident. Stanaway's Formula Renault 3.5 flew into the air but landed on its wheels. Amazingly, the car looked almost undamaged, the wheels were attached and the team probably had a sigh of relief. But Stanaway didn't get out of the car. He wasn't moving.

Flis back was broken. After two days in a Belgian hospital, he was taken to another hospital in Paris that specialises in spinal injuries. Fie had MRI scans and was assessed by four specialist doctors. After a week of uncertainty about whether he would have full use of his legs again there was positive news. They expected that Stanaway should make a full recovery, eventually. Even more positive, he would not need surgery, but would need to remain sedentary in a brace for around three months. While it was the least of his concerns at that point, Stanaway's racing season was over. First he would have to rehabilitate his body, and then attempt to restart his career. Up until 2012 the young Kiwi's career rise had been meteoric. From racing motocross and oval speedway as a junior, he moved into karts in his early teens. After less than a year of racing he entered and won the New motorsport news

Zealand Speedsport Scholarship, earning him a season of racing Formula First (similar to Formula Vee) in 2007/08. He finished third in that championship, with four wins and five fastest laps, before progressing to Formula Ford. He won the New Zealand Formula Ford title in 2008/09- only the second driver to win it as a rookie. In 2009 he raced in the Australian Formula Ford championship against Nick Percat, Chaz Mostert, Scott Pye and Mitch Evans, winning one race and scoring four podiums in the first part of the season. He also had a one-off drive in the New Zealand Toyota Racing Series at the Hamilton 400. He took pole and won both races, despite never having driven the car before. By now it was clear that Stanaway was a genuine talent and several in the New Zealand motorsport industry were keen to help him have a crack overseas. Sabre Motorsport, which runs the Speedsport Scholarship team that launched Stanaway, introduced him to New Zealand businessman Maurice O'Reilly. O'Reilly is one of the original investors who helped get Scott Dixon into Indy Lights and realised Stanaway had similar potential. O'Reilly organised a test with ADAC Formula Masters team Ma-Conn Motorsport. www.mnews.com.au

The German ADAC series is an entry level category that runs a wings and slicks formula car powered by a 1600cc Volkswagen Polo engine. It's considered one of the main feeder championships to German Formula 3. The test was held at the Lausitzring. After going under the lap record in the first part, Stanaway then did a full race simulation.

He completed it significantly quicker than the race winner had done two weekends previously and was offered the opportunity to race the second half of the season. O'Reilly and a consortium of New Zealand businessmen raised the money for Richie to compete in the final six races. Stanaway scored one pole position and two podiums.

How an undamaged car broke my back

"Basically, if you think about it, if you have a lateral impact you've at least some of the car to crush, break away and absorb the impact, whether it be the front wing, the nose or the side pods. But when you have a vertical G from the floor, it's a solid carbon fibre monocoque, so there's literally not one ounce of absorption. It (the impact) went straight up through my seat into my back. It's probably one of the biggest weaknesses in the formula car in terms of safety. You can take a pretty sizeable impact from the front or side, but it doesn't take much 'G' vertically to give you a spinal injury. It's something the FIA are looking into quite a lot in terms of safety improvements, whether they can find some kind of insert into the seat which can absorb some impact on your spine."

WE LIVED DOWN THE ROAD AND YOU COULD JUST SPEND A MORNING ORAN AFTERNOON IN THE AERO DEPARTMENT OR THE DESIGN DEPARTMENT, JUST LOOKING OVER everyone's SHOULDER AND GET A BETTER UNDERSTANDING AS TO WHAT GOES INTO ALAKING A FORMULA 1 TEAM OPERATE. Ma-Conn offered him the drive for the 2010 championship and he dominated it. Of the 18 races he won 12 and had five second piacings. Once again resounding success brought him to the notice of the right people. Maurice O'Reilly contacted Eric Boullier, team boss of Lotus FI and who also runs the Gravity Sports Management driver program. "Fie had gone to him at the start of 2010 and said 'Would you be interested in taking Richie on?'" explains Stanaway "Fie said no, because I hadn't really done enough in Europe at that point, but they would keep an eye on me throughout the 2010 season." Instead RRT Floldings, headed up by businessman Martin Reiss who works at Lotus and is close with Boullier, took over the management of the young Kiwi for 2010 and, after his dominant championship win, Boullier was now interested in having a closer look. Fie was invited to one of the Gravity Sports Management shootouts in a Formula Renault 2.0 car with the Tech 1 team, held across two different circuits in France. Flis performance impressed and he was then invited to do the ' two round winter series in the UK. Fie won a race and scored podiums to earn himself the GSM contract.

While changing management from O'Reilly to RRT to GSM in a little over 12 months may seem messy, Stanaway says it's worked out well. "I've been extremely fortunate over the last three or four years. All three management groups have been very helpful along the way. Even though it's under the Gravity Sports Management, it's sort of a combined effort between all three management groups. Everyone gets on very well and all three still have the end goal In mind and have done everything they could for me." Richie was placed in the German Formula 3 championship with Van Amersfoort Racing and he once more dominated. Out of 18 races he was off the podium only twice, claiming 13 wins, 10 poles and eight fastest laps. In addition, he did the final two rounds of the GP3 championship in the Lotus ART team alongside current Williams FI driver Vaitteri Bottas - and won the reverse grid race on debut at Spa. At the end of the season Stanaway tested both a BMW DTM car and then the Formula Renault 3.5 test with Gravity at Aragon in Spain, where he set the fastest time across all three days. At the same time Lotus decided to create an official driver development programme

- the Lotus F1 Junior team - and given his outstanding form and connection to Boullier there was little surprise when Stanaway was invited to be a part of it. The most obvious benefit was the drive with the Lotus outfit in the Formula Renault 3.5, but there was much more to the programme. "They provide all kinds of things: training, driver coaching, help with your PR. It was just a full-on training programme for us when we weren't at the track (as well as) support during the weekends. "Probably the coolest thing was just being able to spend a lot of time at Enstone at the factory. There are a lot of different sectors at the factory, all the different aspects that go into building the car. We lived down the road and you could just spend a morning or an afternoon in the aero department or the design department, just looking over everyone's shoulder and get a better understanding as to what goes into making a Formula 1 team operate. You get a really good insight into the world of Formula 1 when you're hanging around the workshop." Stanaway would be lining up for Lotus in the Formula Renault 3.5 series, the same series that Vettel, Vergne, Ricciardo and Bianchi had all graduated from into F1. So the end goal was tantalisingly close. Indeed, Bianchi was one of Stanaway's competitors in 2012. The opening round was at Aragon in Spain and started brightly enough, qualifying fourth for the opening race. But in a sign of things to come, the car shut down on the grid as the red lights came on, so he didn't get to start. Fie qualified 11th for the second race and, despite an engine problem, progressed to sixth. A jammed throttle at the second round at Monaco led to a big accident and then at the first race at Spa the car again didn't

start, with mechanical problems. Then came race two and the life and career-changing accident. The diagnosis from his crash was two broken vertebrae. Thankfully it was stable enough that it would not require surgery, but Stanaway would need to wear a brace for 12 weeks. With a positive prognosis, and his immediate fears allayed, he optimistically hoped that he would be able to return for the final three rounds of the championship. However, he also knew that he wasn't completely out of the woods just yet. "The most uncomfortable thing was that the injury was very marginal in terms of the vertebrae interfering with my spinal cord," he explains. "It was unstable for the first six weeks, which meant that if I moved or bumped it in a bad way I could have done some nerve damage, so it was quite scary. "At least after the initial six weeks had passed, I was a little bit safer and it wasn't so much of a problem. "It's a strange feeling, just having to lie there in one position and not being allowed to move. That was probably the worst feeling. I'm usually a very physical person and it drives you insane to lie in bed all day and just watch movies and read books. Three months is a pretty long time when you've got nothing to do and can't move out of your bed." But Stanaway did find a way to amuse himself. He signed up for the iRacing online motorsport simulation game and, with nothing else to do, began competing, quickly progressing through the levels. He eventually qualified for the Pro Series, which is an invitation-only series, essentially, a one-make category using 2009 Williams F1 cars. That became another championship added to his collection. "It's a very tough championship, with some of the best simulation racers in the world," says Stanaway. "It's a very intense competition, probably Comeback kid: Richie Stanaway made his return to racing this year in Porsche Supercup, left. In 2011 Stanaway was winning races in CPS, top right. Here the Kiwi celebrates victory at Spa.

a higher level of competition than I've ever experienced in any real life championship, because anyone has access to it. We had an eight or nine round championship and I won four or five of those and a few pole positions. It was quite cool because it's a full Grand Prix distance and there's a lot of set up work involved and race strategy. It was a very good thing for me to do while I was injured." After 12 weeks the brace was removed, in early September, but it was obvious that there was no chance of an immediate return to the cockpit. "It was a lot worse than we all initially expected. After I got out of the brace there was still a lot of rehabilitation involved to get back to 100 percent. You just have to ease your way back into it because you're quite

stiff, having been locked in one position. It does feel a bit strange, and also you feel really insecure when you come out of the brace because you're used to having something locking you in place. "It took a while just to have proper flexion of my upper body and proper rotation of my spine. I was on a bit of a time frame with what I could do each month from the doctors. Month one was very easy - I couldn't even lift my shopping bags or anything like that. I had to be very careful. Month two I could do start doing some walking around. It was like slowly easing your way back into being a normal human being again. It took a good six or seven months to actually feel normal again." He missed the remainder of the FR3.5 series, but even more disappointingly, the

Iraclng - serious gameplay

It promotes itself as the best online racing simulation in the world and it definitely has a fan in Richie Stanaway. The 2009 Williams FW31 that are used in the Grand Prix series is created using software supplied by Williams FI, so are the most accurate outside of Williams' own simulator. The tracks are laser scanned for accuracy, capturing every crack, curb, undulation and camber of the circuit.

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IT'S A STRANGE FEELING, JUST HAVING TO LIE THERE IN ONE POSITION AND NOT BEING ALLOWED TO MOVE. That WAS PROBABLY THE WORST FEELING.

opportunity to be part of the Young Driver test with Lotus F1 at Abu Dhabi. "There was a strong chance I would have done the young driver test in Abu Dhabi last year. It would have involved simulator work and everything. It was one of the most disappointing things about getting the injury. It was pretty heartbreaking to be honest. (But) hopefully my time will come. "At the end of the day, I think having experiences like that do make you a stronger person. I'd never really had a traumatising experience like that in my life, so it was the first time I really had a bit of a shake up. Now that I've actually come through it and I'm back to 100 percent, I think it's made me a much stronger person. By January he was back in his full training regime. When we sat down for this interview at the Australian Grand Prix in March he was looking fit and healthy. Despite the expectation that Richie would return to Formula Renault, Gravity looked at the cost of doing more seasons in the junior open wheelers and the current state of Formula 1, where pay-drivers are more common, and planned out a different route to get him there. It's a unique financial climate at the

moment. If you look at Robin Frijns, who's won everything on the way up and then won Formula Renault last year (beating Jules Bianchi), he still didn't get a seat in FI because he didn't have the sponsorship." While he had the DIM test with BMW and then in December he tested with Aston Martin's sports car team, eventually Gravity placed him in the Porsche SuperCup series, which is a support category for many of the Formula 1 rounds and where he'll be racing WRC champion turned road racer Sebastien Loeb and former touring car champion Alain Menu. In addition he will have selected World Endurance Championship events with the factory Aston Martin team, including Le Mans. His return to racing was the second round of the WEC in May - at Spa! The following weekend was the opening round of the SuperCup at Catalunya. Gravity, aren't stressed about my age. I'm 21 now and'kind of feel like I need to do everything as quick as possible, but I need to be really patient. There's a pretty unique plan in place, so that's the idea behind doing the (Porsche) SuperCup this year and there are a couple of avenues to pursue in 2014 that will hopefully lead to some pretty exciting things. I haven't .

given up on reaching FI, it's just going to take longer and through a different path." "But at the end of the day, it's going to come down to performance. I've been given my job to do this year and I'm just focusing 100% on making sure I get the most out of myself. I need to have a really strong year this year in the SuperCup and then hopefully that leads on to something bigger and better. The long term goal is still there and all is not lost." Consistent: Out of 18 races in German F3 in 2010, oniy twice was Stanaway not on the podium, below.

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Bruce Moxon spoke to the man who heads up the English-language's favourite sports car racing commentary, John Hindaugh, who was down under to call the action at the Bathurst 12 Hour, and discovers a kindred spirit, and an Aussie connection.

e've all heard of Radio Le Mans. Even if (like me) you suffer from third-world Internet connection (hurry up, NBN), you'll have heard of them, if not heard them. I had heard John Hindaugh's distinctive voice on the TV broadcast of the Race of Champions, of course, but it was still a thrill to drive into Mount Panorama for the 12 Hour and hear his Northern English accent on the commentary (you'll also hear him and the rest of the RLM team on the just68

released DVD highlights of the Liqui-Moly Bathurst 12 Hour). That distinctive accent (from the north eastern Engiish city of Sunderland, both geographically and in sound not a million miles from Newcastle) has a strong bearing on what was to become John's career. "I wanted to work on radio," he explains, "but it was made very clear to me that, because I had a regional accent, there was no place for me. Ironically, these days to work in regional radio, you almost need to have the accent.

"I wanted to be a music radio DJ. I played a lot of soccer and injured myself when I was 17. I became interested in radio while I was in hospital, listening to the hospital radio station. That led me to producing and presenting hospital radio." Doing the technical side of the radio work gave John practical skills that were to prove important. "I had a friend who had a kart racing track and he wanted a PA system put in. I did that for him and then he said, 'Who's going to be the commentator?' I volunteered, if you can make sense out of a kart race..." motorsport news

() Le Mans to Bathurst

In 1987 and '88 John was indeed working in radio, but in sales. "I met a bloke who was wearing a Radio Le Mans Silk Cut jacket this was the time when the Silk Cut Jaguars were racing there." John asked if he could be involved and waited and waited and waited for a phone call, which came only a short time before the Le Mans race. "I went there as a music producer. We played records during the race broadcast when the commentators were having a break or there wasn't much going on." John's been to the race every year since, except 1991 when a dose of chicken pox kept him in bed. "I had spots in places I don't want to think about, so I missed Johnny Herbert winning in the Mazda. I now tell him it can't really have happened because I didn't see it!" At that stage it was all still a hobby, until the American Le Mans Series (ALMS) came along and changed everything. "I got a phone call in mid-1998 - would I like to www.mnews.com.au

A lot of our listeners are American servicemen in Afghanistan and the Gulf. We also have a lot of blind listeners who tell us they see their racing through our broadcast

come and do the commentary for the Petite Le Mans at Road Atlanta? Up to then I hadn't been the commentator, but was doing the links and the music. It was my regional accent that got me the job." Doing the commentary for Petite Le Mans wasn't just a 'turn up and talk' job. John assembled a team of 12 people, and set up a website for the event that had them using digital cameras to supplement their voice broadcast. "We were quite literally broadcasting using a telephone line and it sounded like it." The next year they did internet broadcasts of the whole ALMS as well as Le Mans. Since then the whole thing has grown and grown. From being the guy that did the links and played some records, John ended up owning the whole thing. "At the end of 2005, Haymarket [a major publishing company that produces, among other titles, Autosport and Motor Sport] didn't want to keep going and paying the fee to the AGO. I'd just sold my house and used that money to buy it." It wasn't quite that simple. John had to pay a pretty substantial licensing fee to the AGO, the Le Mans organisers. And the money from the house was only the start. "All our workers and presenters are paid. Maybe not much, but nobody works for nothing." So sponsorships and partnerships are what pay the way. "We

had to find our own sponsors and we are able to market very directly." interestingly, he is able to market very directly indeed - rather than a normal radio station hoping that the person listening is interested in renovating their house or buying cat food, everyone listening to Radio Le Mans will be interested in cars, racing, motoring products... But he's found that some advertising types just don't get that. And boy do they get some listeners? How about 250,000 tuned in to the Nurburgring 24 Hour or 6.2 million visits to their website over the 10 days of the Le Mans 24 Hour this year. And their website is pretty darned sophisticated. "You don't need to download any apps to listen to our broadcasts. The website streams to all sorts of devices without any more needed. IPad, PG, Mac, Android - you just have to log in and listen. "The other thing we have is instant feedback; listeners can communicate with us via Twitter while we're broadcasting." Very true, and they were answering listener questions during their Bathurst broadcast Jeroen Bleekemolen tweeted while waiting for a flight somewhere in Europe that he wished he could have been there. We missed you too Jeroen... "We see ourselves as a community radio station for motbrsport. We are all enthusiasts

and all of us have been on the far side of the fences as spectators. While we don't take ourselves seriously, we take what we do seriously." John's a pretty technically-savvy bloke, but his wife. Eve, is the business brain. John and Eve actually got married the first year they owned RLM, at Arnage, at the famous Sarthe circuit. While RLM is a business, operating on a strictly-commercial basis, John and Eve have not taken any profit from it; all revenues go back into the business. Surely its worth is growing, but at this time, John makes his living commentating on ESPN Speed TV and the like. He covers the World Endurance Ghampionship, ALMS, ELMS and the various stand-alone endurance races around the world. "A lot of our listeners are American servicemen in Afghanistan and the Gulf. We also have a lot of blind listeners who tell us they see their racing through our broadcast." While John travels the globe, oddly, this was his first visit to Australia. "I did some research before I came here and found out that Bruce Hindaugh, [half of GownHindaugh, Peter Brock's sponsor in 1975 and a class winner at the 500 mile race in the '60s] was a distant cousin. "When we go to a track we try to give listeners a chance to absorb the character of the place. There's no point of reference

.motorsport news

for here. You have to forget so many preconceptions. Here, you race the track as much as the other cars. At Spa, for instance,there are no longer consequences for making mistakes - here, there are. And I love it that the Council [Bathurst Regional Council] gets it - puts money and time into the track and supports it." Clearly, John and the team (only four, by the way, for Bathurst) loved the event. They'd travelled incredible distances to get here - pitlane reporter Shea Davis came from Florida spending over 30 hours in transit and had to do the same in reverse, starting the Monday after race. John is a true enthusiast, though. "Once I'm at a race track. I’m has happy as a pig in poo. This isn't a job, it's a life. I feel incredibly privileged. Peter Kox said 'You know an event has status when Radio Le Mans are there.' We like to think we’re doing our bit for the sport. Historians will be pleased to know that Radio Le Mans have archived every single one of their broadcasts, too. So if you missed this year's Bathurst 12 Hour, you can catch up by logging on. Will we see RLM grace our shores again? "I'd LOVE to come back for the 1,000 kilometre race - we'll have to see what we

can do about that." Listeners (referred to as 'the collective') drove the RLM visit to the 12Hour. Certainly they got here with help from partners like Simraceway and Audi, but the passion of their audience got them here. And you can join the collective at www.radiolemans.com

We see ourselves as a community radio station for motorsport. We are all enthusiasts and all of us have been on the far side of the fences as spectators.

www.mnews.com.au

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he guttural roar of a Cosworth BDG bounces off the hills of Otago as a driver throws the little Ford Escort down a challenging gravel track with wild abandon, way down near the bottom of NZ's South Island. Behind this RS1800 Escort are a brace of similar Fords, some full-house Porsche 911s, a replica TTE Celica, a slew of Datsun Stanzas, a Fiat 131 Abarth, Mazda..RX7s, Toyota Corollas and the odd Alfa, BMW and even' a V8 Capri Perana. In all, 42 classics in a fleet with which many European events would be happy. This is not Europe, however. This is Dunedin, New Zealand. It is the diagonal opposite corner of the planet from the epicentre of world rallying, and yet this tiny Kiwi backwater is hosting one of the truly great celebrations of classic rallying anywhere on the globe. Across our side of the ditch, rally folk are scratching their heads, wondering how the Kiwis have once again stolen a march on us. It has parallels with the way they secured a round of the World Rally Championship back in the 1970s, ahead of our more fancied and bigger Southern Cross International, which most thought was a shoe-in to be a round of the WRC. It seems the Kiwis know what it takes to conjure a rallying success from a fpw simple ingredients, like a Jamie Oliver of rallying! As Aldous Huxley once observed, everything old is new again, and with rallying, like many forms of motor sport at' the moment, historic or classic competition is increasingly capturing the interest of fans and drivers alike. The Kiwis, it seems, realised a long time ago that this trend was on the rise and moved early to secure a piece of the action. Then again, in a country that has a reputation for being the 'motor museum. of the South Pacific' it is probably not that surprising that classic rallying has taken off... And it is not just a matter of salvaging some old bangers and getting some sideways action on a gravel road.'Classic competitors are super serious about their sector of the sport with drivers willing to spend upwards of a quarter of a million dollars for a competitive RSI800 Escort or similar amounts for Porsches and Datsun Stanzas. The boys from Dunedin have been a bit ahead of the trend for about a decade, realising there was potentially more interest in the great cars of the past than the four-wheel drive turbos that have ruled the sport for the past three decades. The Otago has become the southern

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hemisphere's classic rallying mecca, attracting not only the best new "old" rally cars but also some of the greats of the past to challenge the locals - along with the growing army of Aussie competitors who venture over to sample the great roads, great hospitality and this celebration of the rally machines of the past.

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Bates: ..the best part is the fun police seem to be absent on this side of the Tasman. / mean, this is pure rallying, real sport that Js about people having fun in a responsible way without too many restrictions. If

This year was no different, with 42 Classics lining up to do battle, most notably for Australia the Celica RA40 of four times Aussie champ Neal Bates was shipped across to take on the locals. Bates was not the headline act at Otago this year. Fie had to play second fiddle to twice World Champion Miki Biasion, who was flown in by the organisers to drive a locally prepared Porsche. Each year a famous star of the past is brought to Otago by the organisers to give the locals a target to aim at and the spectators someone special to worship on the super fast and challenging roads that from the stages of this nostalgia fest. In the past these have included World Rally Champions Ari Vatanen, Juha Kankkunen and Hannu Mikkola from Finland, and Bjorn Waldegard from Sweden, as well as international stars Pasi Flagstrom, Piero Liatti, Jimmy and Alister McRae, Gwyndaf Evans, and Alex Fiorio. Biasion, world rally champion in 1988 and 89, and the only Italian to have ever claimed the title, was paired with co-driving great and compatriot Fabrizia Pons, who made her name calling the corners for ’80s great Michelle Mouton. Whilq the two top Italians are revered for their rallying prowess, it was to be the first time they had sat beside each other in a rally. These days Biasion keeps himself busy in European truck racing, having claimed the World Truck Championship in 1998 and 1999. Fie also has the occasional foray in the Dakar Rally. Despite all that he hasn’t had too many special stage miles in the past few years, so with an all-new co-driver, a Porsche 911 that he had not driven before, and a bit of general rustiness, the Italian great took some time to find the groove against the hot local competition. And the hottest competition proved to be Neal Bates who came across the Tasman on a mission to be the only non-local to win 76

the rally on his first attempt. The speed and technically challenging nature of the Otago roads cannot be underestimated, nor the speed of local drivers like Brent Buist, Derek Ayson and Jeff Judd in their Escorts. The Kiwi Escort pilots drive the wheels off the little Fords and all have been past winners of the event. Bates’ conversion to a Classic rally driver came when Toyota pulled the pin on its Australian rallying operation during the GFC in 2008. Neal looked at his options and having been a works driver for the best part of 20 years he wanted to continue in the sport. So the four times Aussie champion studied the Toyota back catalogue and came up with the 1980 RA40 Celica as the best option in terms of a classic package. "It was the first Celica homologated with power steering, had the best suspension layout and was the best package size," said Bates. A couple of Celica donor cars were purchased for less than three grand and Bates' team swung into action, creating the Celica

using a V8 Sqpercar Hollinger gearbox, a Toyota HiLLUxiiear diff, a3S-GE twin-cam 16 valve two-liitneToyota power plant and the not inconsidiaiaible fabrication capabilities at Bates’ Canbeiria workshop. The Celica las had a couple of seasons of classic ralllyiing in Austraiiia, with Neal and Coral takinig just about every trophy they have coiiested. But it was the Otago challenge tfnaltlit up Bates’ eyes and gave him an added itnipetus to win. "Murray Croote told me no one had ever won Otago fiiist time out and that was all the challenge I meded/’ said Bates, referring to the one-tirniE/tostralian lalliy champion and now susperrsiiwii guru. It is safe tsosay that despite his four Aussie titles. Bates” ^peed out of the box on the fast and challengiug Otago roads caught the top Kiwis by surpiiie. Tihe locals were asking this Seventies and sidewaLys; The classic rally scene brings back g^raaJ old rally machines like the Datsun Stanza,:ibov&., ford Escort, below, and some classic collidrivers, like TS88 and '89 World Rally Champ Ml Biasion, top right

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Don’t miss out on these great titles A beach dash along the Indian Ocean from Kalbarri to Geraldton in Western Australia was the finaie of the seven-day off-road motorsport marathon. Every competitor who crossed the finish line was a winner for completing a gruelling seven days of competition covering approximately 2,500 competitive kilometers off road on beaches,through sand dunes,over creeks. rocky riverbeds, claypans. and cattle and sheep stations.

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journalist about Bates and how he would go. 'Is he fast enough to win here, do ya reckon?'. Bates answered the.question for me. Right from the word go he was the dominant force winning five of the eight special stages on day one, coming in second fastest on the other three, missing fastest by just 0.1 seconds on two of those and 1.8 seconds on the remaining test. He would lead at the end of day one by 38.2 seconds. With a victory in mind. Bates eased off, taking just one stage win and doing enough to maintain his overall advantage to ensure he would prove the naysayers wrong on day two. . “Everybody told me it couldn't be done and we've done it," Bates says. "There's a lot of non believers in Australia but I knew that with the package we had Coral and I could come over hefe and make it happen. "The roads here ace superb, pure drivers' roads and I reckon the Waipori Gorge and Kuri Bush stages are just the best I've ever driven and the best part is the fun police seem to be absent on this side of the Tasman. I mean, this is pure rallying, real sport that is about people having fun in a responsible way without too many restrictions." The roads and stages of the Otago are indeed superb, with the traditional Kiwi cambered gravel flowing with ease from one corner to the next in a sinuous line across the never ending hills that fill the Shaky Isles. Coral Taylor, who has sat alongside Bates ●for the past two decades, gave a similar view, expressing her delight at the event and all it represents "We had a most fabulous Otago Rally," she says. "We've competed on the fastest stage

we've ever done, the trickiest stage we've ever done and probably the most fun stage ever at Kuri Bush." "It was a great feeling to win this rally because the NZ competitors are a great bunch of guys and actually New Zealanders in general are a great bunch; they can't do enough to welcome you and help out wherever possible. This has been a really enjoyable trip." Derek Ayson, the winner of the Otago in 2009,'10 and '11, was third at the start of the-second day, but put in an inspired drive to claim six of the day's eight stages and move ahead of Brent Buist into second place for the rally. With Buist in third it was Jeff Judd who made up the trifecta of Escort drivers behind Bates, claiming fourth place, nearly two minutes clear of Biasion. The Italian was perhaps never likely to have the outright speed for victory, given the combination of his first rally in a Porsche, the first time with new co-driver Fabrizia Pons and his first time at Otago. Flowever, consistency was his strong suit and with Pons, who is a regular Otago Rally competitor, he was in the mix for a top five finish. "So many nice stages in the same area. I hope to be back in the future," says Miki. "I really enjoyed this rally and people must come here to enjoy real rally stages, these are the best roads in the world." Amongst the other Aussie drivers at Otago Porsche pilot captured sixth in his 911 just ahead of Queensland's Stewie Reid in his RSI 800 Escort in seventh, while Bega's Max Roberts was 18th in his RSI 800 and Queenslander Mike Francis was 24th in an Alfa GTV6. Ed Mulligan was out on the first

stage with a blown engine in the RSI800 he had leased locally, while Richard Anderson's Alfa was off the road on the third stage and out of contention and Darryn Snooks' Datsun Stanza was sidelined with a broken axle just two stages from the finish. It is clear that Classic rallying isn't going away, with growing fields and, on the mechanical side, a new sophistication thanks to the merging of new braking, suspension, engine and driveline technologies with the classic machines. For instance, the notoriously unreliable but clearly powerful Cosworth BDG engines which have a price somewhere north of $80,000 per engine, are now often substituted with Ford YB Cosworth engines, the non-turbo version of the engine used in the Sierra Cosworth of the late 1980s, for somewhere around a quarter of the price of a proper BDG. Some purists may shake their heads at this lack of classis purity but the reality is that without some pragmatic cost savings combined with an overall ethos of maintaining an external appearance that mirrors the original cars, then Classic rally cars would not be enjoying the renaissance that they are. If you get a chance, do yourself a favour, head across to the land of the Long White Cloud and catch the Otago, it is an amazing rally played out over one of the most fantastic backdrops in the world with a field of amazing cars and drivers that makes it one of the best classic rallies in the world. Rear-drive revival: Neal Bates and Coral Taylor went retro with a 1980 rear-drive Toyota Celica, below. The multiple Australian championship winning pairing dominated the Otago event.

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ABOUT(T Matthew Reed is very much a veteran these days and while some of the peripheral aspects of the sport these days leave him cold,the Victorian sprintcar ace still very much enjoys the fundamentals of racing: working on the car and, of course,the racing. Reed spoke with Geoff Rounds. Motorsport News: You have a habit of winning the SRA; this is your seventh title what’s the secret? MR: I don't know, really. We had a two-year break and I used an old 2006 Maxim and it was for sale, so I put it back together and with a spare engine we just thought we'd go racing and see what happens. If the car and all the bits had have sold I wouldn't have even raced, but I thought, 'oh well, let's put it all together and race'. MS: Your season was very consistent, though? MR: We clawed our way to challenge Darren Mollenoyux for the lead in the series and once you get there we decided to ride it out to the end and ended up winning it. MS: Just the one victory of all the rounds. MR: Darren and I were both very even throughout the year and it's possible to win it outright with just a first place so that I think shows it's structured well on points. MS: How do you rate the SRA series after so many years of competing in it? MR: I think Ian "y/ale and the people involved have done an excellent job. It's a strong car count at the venues as they are higher than they've ever been. The cost to compete is very small and the prizemoney and associated

sponsors they've got on offer makes it a strong package to do. The package that they've got now/ makes it all very hard to pass up. MS: How will you spend the prizemoney you've won? MR: No idea. I'm now trying to work out a few different things as to what to do. MS: You raced 360 cubic inch sprintcars this year? MR: We did a bit of the 360 stuff this season and I don't mind the class at all. We won here and there and then finished with a third in the national title in Western Australia, which was good. I enjoy doing the class, it is fun to do and the costs aren't as high. I may do more of it in the future; I'm not exactly sure, we'll just have to see. MS: Are the costs associated with sprintcars getting out of hand now? MR: I think the 410ci class has, yes. There's so many guys spending massive amounts of money and it's just hard with the competitiveness of it all - it is tough. There's so many guys that have good stuff and are constantly buying fresh engines and it means trying to get on the same level means you have to too.

SYD:(02) 9679 1990 MELB:(03) 9338 7477

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IWIEHAVELOMTHEMI OF WHYTHEY ARE THERE. A LOT OF PEOPLE ARE fO WRAPPED UP IN HOW BIG WH MS: Do you still enjoy racing? MR; I do. It's different now, though. I really enjoy working on the cars. Some of the personalities and the people in the sport I don’t care much for, the egos and the politics and the Internet. It is new compared to when I started 20 years ago. [So] I like the racing and working on the cars a lot, but I don't care much for the other side of it. MS: Is there too much politics in the sport now? MR: Everyone's in the sport for different reasons and some have lost the focus of why they are there. A lot of people are so wrapped up in how big your trailer Is and if 82

you have merchandise or shirts or if you get on Facebook. I like the mechanical part of it but quite often when stuff blows up on a Saturday night it carries on throughout the week on Facebook, which I don't go for. MS: You have immaculate cars and it's obvious you still take a lot of pride in your cars and the way they are presented. MR: The style of what's deemed good or cool varies from year to year. This year we went for a simpler or plainer look. In the past we've had sponsors and crew shirts and we've probably rolled that back a little bit this year. I wasn't really sure where I was going to fit in to it all this year and I Really didn't want to go

all out and heavy with that kind of thing. MS; What's ahead now for you? MR: It would be wrong for me to say I'm bored. In saying that, though, I'd like to go and do something else. But it comes back to what you can afford to do. I've got some stuff in the United States to have a look at as far as racing and my graphics and signwriting business goes, i enjoy it over there and I need to get over there and check out the business stuff. I might be lucky enough to pick up a drive while I'm there, too, which would be good. The future's a little up in the air at the minute. motorsport news

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A massive eight and-a half hours of race day c6verag#qrf:i,a;famous' Bathurst classic i. . With nine winS; in the Bathurst endurance' classic, thgie's no doubting.^ ■ . why Peter Brock was - and stilHs known as tine 'King of the Mbuntain To celebrate the 35th anniversaty of the first win by Holden's, mighty r r!?●\. Torana'A9X in Australia's ‘Great Race'; Chevron has dug into the..' archives'of the'Seven Netvyork to release the 1978 race for the very first time: ] There's a total of eight and a half hours of unseeh-siricg-a.ired coverage ' . frS-. i . as Peter Brock'and Jim Richards claimed'the first of a hat trick of wins Hon the Mounfain.. -f The cameras kept filming, during thel commercial breaks, meaning this release includes a range of never-before-seen material fromThe '78 , classic. ■ It's a classic fight between Holden’s horde of Toranas and Ford’s .Falcpns ‘ led by tl e^Cobras of Allan Moffat and Cblin Bond In a goiden.era of racing oh the Mountain. .

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Maurice Allen is currently on a roll in the ANDRA Pro Stock Motorcycle championship with two wins straight and a new machine that is performing exactly how he wants. It's exactly what he needs at this mid-point in the series as the category hits a growth path.

he Milwaukee Tools Suzuki team took the risk on moving from a ■proven championship-winning chassis to a newer generation bike, and so far for Maurice Allen it seems to be paying off. "The new bike is awesome and we feel it is coming into its own with the way it responds to small changes," he said. "For us, we have always worked on the principle of consistency and being able to replicate the same thing every run. The new bike has helped and the Racepak data logger gives us accurate numbers to work with. 84

"We have been doing it with no breakage and consistency in our engine program. We will do some fine tuning for the Fuchs Winternationals in June, where it is a chance to throw everything you have horsepowerwise at it. "We still have four rounds to go in the championship with plenty of points on offer and we have moved up the ladder where we need to be. We are going for the hat trick of wins." Allen needs to overhaul points leader Luke Crowley who got off to a good start in the season and has been setting the performance

benchmarks but who has struggled for the consistency Allen has found. "Luke is running fast and that's awesome as it drags everyone along, but our deal has always been about consistency," he said. "The philosophy is about getting down the track all weekend with a reliable package and being good at the tree (starting lights) and then you at least have a chance of going rounds." Pro Stock Motorcycles are highly finessed, purpose built drag bikes based on production motorcycles. They are naturally aspirated with motors ranging from 1600cc to 1700cc and motorsport news

I I I would love> to &te»p up to Top Bike* but I love* the* ● spirit or Pro Stock Motorcycle* eand ^ the* close* rcaclnp. It hc3s be*e*n c3 c20 ye*c3r obse*sslon!' II

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capable of accelerating to over 300km/h ir just seven seconds from a standing start. Allen was always destined for some two wheel drag racing action with his father Peter (seen here with Maurice, right) a successful Top Bike racer - and even steering a Top Fuel dragster for a time - through the 1970s, '80s and '90s. When the pair put together their first Pro Stock Motorcycle, Maurice actually went on to win the 1991 Nationals just months after its first outing. Making the moment more significant was that Peter also won in Top Bike, making it the first time a father and son had won two professional categories at the same event anywhere in the world "It was quite well noted at the time including in the USA," Maurice said. "Anyone who won the Nationals then was extended a free visit to the USA and I commentated at the 91 NHRA Columbus Springnationals. It was a whirlwind year to go from street bike riding to winning the Nationals in Pro Stock Motorcycle." From that baptism of fire, Allen continued to race in the category in alliances and teams but it was only in recent years that he returned to owning his own motorcycle. 'My love for the class started there in 1991 and it is still going he said. "I would love to step up to Top Bike but I love the spirit of Pro Stock Motorcycle and the close racing. It has been a 20 year obsession. Pro Stock Motorcycle has at times been afflicted by small entry numbers but Allen www.mnews.com.au

predicts that is in the process of changing. "We've heard of one or two bikes that are on their way here from the USA and there are a couple of bikes that were sitting dormant here coming back very shortly," he said. "We have ten bikes entered for the Fuchs Winternationals and there are another three or four potentially who will step up in coming events. "The class is looking great and it's the best we've been presented; we've got some real heavy hitters now." From his side of things, Allen would like to see some rule changes to open up the category to more manufacturers. "I think there is room for a lot of development, such as the implementation of billet motors with a capacity cap and a minimum weight," he said. "I would like a 1600CC billet engine with a minimum 600 pound bike and rider, you could then bring any bodywork to the class and bring some factory backing. It would be great to have some kind of involvement from manufacturers. We do need to move forward, we need to look at the class to d because

the side-by-side, heads-up nature of the class can be very appealing to people." Allen's own racing plans do involve that aforementioned love of the nitro-fuelled Top bikes, but alongside his current operation. "We've had some irons in the fire to purchase a nitro bike out of America, but things have changed slightly and we are not really sure where we lie with that but hopefully there is an opportunity to get the deal done and bring the bike back," he said. "I'd like to ride both bikes,‘whether ' or not we do every round would depend on the workload." Allen also recently signed on a new sponsor in Fuchs, which is assisting with some development on the bike's liquid internals. "We have just joined the Fuchs team and they have been terrific with allowing us to develop an oil specific to our needs and there is no doubt we are looking forward to the relationship and doing well for them on the track where it counts," he said. "Their level of professionalism and approach to racing is second to none and if we can harness the potential of what Fuchs has to offer then it can on us

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CLASSIC SEVENTIES This month ourmodel makers bring us a coupie of ?970s Aussie dassics that maybe never received the credit they truiy deserved,and a more recent touring car/driver combo which certainiy has earned its share ofkudos. a s it weird that the Leyland P76, often y regarded as Australia's Greatest Lemon (it wasn't, but it was close) made one of Australia's most significant rally cars? To explain: in 1974, the World Cup Rally ran from London to Munich, via France, Spain, North Africa, the Sahara, right down to Nigeria, back across the Sahara to Tunis. Then back to Europe, Sicily, Italy, then to Asia, in Turkey. After a ferry trip, up the Turkish coast, then into Greece, Yugoslavia (as it was then), Austria and finally Munich. The Australian crew of Evan Green and John Bryson built a then-new Leyland P76 V8 for the event and, despite planning a very conservative approach, found themselves leading. Alas, a series of front suspension issues in Africa meant massive penalties due to missed controls and they would finish 14th. Although they were fastest on the Targa Florio stage in Sicily, prompting Leyland to make a P76 with ‘Targa Florio' signage. A real collectible today, that one. If you can't find or afford a real P76, then Trax's 1/43 version of the World Cup Rally car might take the edge off. The real car still exists, by the way - it's in John Bryson's hands to this day and word is it might be undergoing a restoration. Trax have done a few road-going P76s in the past and will have had to make some changes to make the rally car. The lights fitted to the roof are there, as is all the signage and the big bar out the front. It wasn't a roo bar, as. there are no kangaroos in the Sahara, so they called it a 'Camel Filter'. The rally car had a very different interior, with 86

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motorsport news

no back seat, a roll cage and a different dash board. Even if Trax have had to miss some of these details, the model will be most likely worth getting. I recommend you read Evan Green's book about the event if you want to know more - it's out there in second-hand shops and on line. It's called A Boot Full of Right Arms in reference to what so many people told Evan they'd give to be going along on the trip. Two more rally cars I'd love to see modelled - Peter Brock's 1979 Repco Round-Australia winner and 'Gelignite' Jack Murray's 1947 Ford - the 'Grey Ghost', also a RoundAustralia winner. Just putting it out there... If legendary rally cars are your thing, you'd do a lot worse than to check out the 1/43 Minichamps Audi Quattro as driven to second in the Monte Carlo Rally by Walter Rohrl and Christian Geistdorfer in 1985. This is the 52,

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short-wheelbase version of the Quattro. Apex Replicas are expecting stock soon so you might need a little patience. Apex Replicas has quite the range of rally cars, by the way, old and new. Sadly they've sold out of the rather nice plain white Ford Focus RS World Rally Car, but maybe your local shop has stock. Biante Model Cars has an even more extensive range of rally cars. What caught my eye were some Sun Star models, including some 1/18 Lancias - Delta Group A cars and Stratos models - for under $100! That's some serious value. And those cars look great, too. They were popular with private and semi works teams, so there are lots of different liveries available. Meanwhile on the tarmac... Classic Carlectables has announced its model of Jamie Whincup's 2012

Championship'winner. Presented as it raced at Sydney's Telstra 500 last year, the Commodore features the sophisticated race car interior featuring roll cage, netting, race seat, harness, hosing, ducting, wiring, steering wheel, instrumentation, cooling boxes, fire bomb, air jacks and sponsor decals. There's a fully-detailed engine bay showing fluid bottles, wiring, hosing and the well decorated engine cover. Sponsor logos under the bonnet. Open the boot and see the detailed interior with fuel inlet pipes, clamps, fuel pumps, filter, hosing and the firewall. The chassis is well replicated with working steering, detailed under engine components, gearbox, exhaust system and suspension. There is also a detailed brake setup with gold callipers and slotted discs. The model comes in a special full colour box and certificate of authenticity included.

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The Weber corbies hove etched air-filters, the accuratelyreproduced wheels have the red stripe on the tyres'sidewalls and the rear wheels turn the tail-shaft. And from the 'something old' column this month from Classics is another of their gorgeous Valiant Chargers. This one is an E49 with the small fuel tank, in white. Again, the level of detail is fantastic. The Weber carbies have etched air-filters, the accuratelyreproduced wheels have the red stripe on the tyres' sidewalls and the rear wheels turn the tail-shaft. The Charger was a handsome car from a time of handsome cars, and while 'white' might sound a bit ordinary, with the black striping, the car looks great. I'm not sure that Allan Moffat's legendary Trans-Am Mustang has ever been modelled in 1/43 before. Well, that lack is now fixed, thanks to Automodelli Studio. You can either buy a kit and do it yourself or buy a built model. They're not cheap, but they are exclusive - the resin moulds don't last all that long, wearing out after 30 cars or so. Finally, a correction. Last month I said the Ford GT40 Le Mans winner was a Minichamps model. It's not, it's from Spark. My mistake, and apologies for all those people who've been hassling shops for Minichamps-cars that don't exist.

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The Great Race: Bathurst 50 Years

The official history

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Australias Greatest Motor Race 50 Years at Bathurst. This book is the fourth historical compilation being the 20, 30 and 40 year books which all sold out very quickly to an enthusiastic and appreciative market. This new book of over 500 pages details the 50 year History of the running of The Great Race at Bathurst. This huge book is the definitive history and a collectors must. 1 lamlling

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Wind the clock back to 1997. Michael Caruso had succeeded 1995 World Karting Champion James Courtney as the Junior Intercontinental A driver for Jim Morton's TonyKart Australia team. He had won the 1996 Australian title and was offered the opportunity to race in the prestigious Monaco kart race in '97. A date clash with the final round of the Australian Championships, where Caruso would make it back-to-back titles, scuppered that idea, instead, as one of his final junior races, Caruso competed in the North American Championships at Charlotte Raceway. This meeting attracted all the major European factory teams and championship drivers.

y winning the Australian championship I was invited to head over to the North American Championships in 1997. I'm not sure how it works today, but at the time if you were outside the factory teams or not racing in Europe, that was the only way you could go over and do things. I was 14 years old, first time overseas, driving in Junior Intercontinental A and went over with (TonyKart importer) Jim Morton, (Queensland karting guru) Ralph Van Doom 90

and my Dad. We carried our motors - these little 14-kilo Vortex engines - over on the plane as hand luggage, which was interesting. They had to go through X-Ray machines and everyone was like ‘What are these things?' We were lucky they didn't make us strip them down at the airport. I don't think you'd be allowed to do that now. When we turned up at Charlotte, the pit facilities were the NASCAR garages. All the factory teams were there, they had all the

flash gear and the entourage of people. We were these four Aussies and obviously under the radar and no one knew who I was or where we were from. We just went our way relatively easy the whole weekend undercover. After the heats I think we qualified fifth for the pre-final. Then in the final race, to be honest, everything just went perfect and I quickly got to the front and drove away with it. The kart was amazing and I guess the best thing about winning over there was knowing motorsport news

that you beat some of the best drivers in the entire world, along with the factory teams, which in karting is such a big feat. (Amongst the TonyKart pits) I think initially through the weekend we were, I guess, the lepers, you know - 'Don't worry about those guys, they aren't an issue'. But then once we came through with the goods at the end and won, they had a lot of respect for what we can do Down Under. Obviously they had www.mnews.coni.au

a in my iracing, so it wss to repay all the blokes for helping takaeus over there - I guess it was like a true underdog story. It was my first time racing o.verseas a and it would give me a taste of wanting to, I 3 guess at that time, become a Formula 1 driveser, or race in Europe. There is no better fedia ng than racing against what the world 'has toobffer and winning. I guess that's whry I'vegeotsuch great respect for James Courtney - to '.-win not one World Championsihip but ‘two in two of

a my gave my career a name out there a bit more. I guess I felt like, after that point,.. I pushed myself to go to Seniors earlier than I needed to, but I guess my whole career I've tried to make steps when I felt like I've achieved a goal, that I don't need to try and duplicate again, just move onto something else and obviously the end result was to try to become a professional driver. Michael Caruso was speaking with Edward Krause 91

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Professor

fFrom Victor Haight the couch

Mercedes waves the white flag oticed this week that Toto Wolff, one of the dozen or so bosses at Mercedes, announced that over 50 percent of the workforce would now be focusing on the 2014 car. it makes me think, 'why did they bother showing up this year?' With every dollar in FI stretched, diverting half of them to that which doesn't involve winning next week's race seems more than defeatist. We've calculated that there is only one conclusion; there has been something deeply flawed about that team since the beginning, something not right, and they will never win a championship. Now, i know they already did as Brawn, which will go down as one of the least satisfying in the 64 years of FI. Arriving at Albert Park in 2009 with the infamous double diffuser, they went on to dominate the first third of the year, spearheaded by Jenson Button,, surely the least convincing world champion ever. They snuck home in the end, but before and since they've never been in the race; as BAR, as Honda, and now as Merc, Last year showed a flicker of hope with Britney's win in China, before normal transmission was resumed. Getting Niki Lauda on board is the surest sign that they're out of answers. What does he advise them on anyhow? For a huge talent like Hamilton, this will no doubt be his wilderness years... 96

Controversy Corner 1: getting in the papers. I used to think there were only two ways that motor racing could get in the mainstream papers. One, an enormous crash. Two, someone pushing their car over the finish line, a la Dwayne Bewley at Bathurst in 1997. Now it seems there is another, and that is to have controversy between team-mates. The Webber/Vettel 'Multi 21' affair got a lot of non-specialist coverage. No doubt, the fact that an Aussie battler was involved helped, but to then see that the Perez/Button handbags at dawn in Bahrain situation had made the Sydney Morning Herald was an eye opener. Controversy sells. We know that sordid details of the life of a B-list movie star can go a long way; honestly, had you heard of Hugh Grant before his shopping exploits were news? Likewise, Tomas Scheckter won't be forever linked, even in the eyes of motorsport fans, with his impressive record in the junior formulae and his wins in indycar. No, the first thing that pops into your mind is him getting busted picking up a hooker. On a slow news day, team-mates the general public has never heard of bitching at each other beats hearing about how easy they are on their tyres, especially a few weeks after the former Canberra Raiders ballboy was getting the flat end of the Red Bull. As for Perez, he must be wondering what to do next; in the lead up to Bahrain, Martin

Whitmarsh said Perez had been 'too polite' this year, and he needed to get his elbows out. So he did. We've been crunching the numbers in the lab all week, and one thing is certain - he'll score more points than Button this year. Controversy Corner 2: the Piquet legaqr Hilarious to see Nelson Piquet Jr's reaction to being confronted with an angry Brian Scott yelling, gesticulating and up-fronting; (ie: kicking him in the nuts). Whatever the history between the two, Nelsinho served him up in a pretty brutal fashion on track and deserved a good talking to, if not up-fronting. They were arguing over 15th place in a second tier NASCAR race. At least Nelson senior was in the lead at Hockenheim in 1982, and was the reigning world champ, looking good in BMW's home race and lapping Eliseo Salazar, when he was put out of the race. Now, I always cut some slack to the innocent party when appraising the brain snap that is throwing slaps and kicks in front of a worldwide television audience. Which is why I forgive Nelson for getting out of his car, jumping up and down like a crazy person and punching Eliseo in the helmet. Of course. Piquet Sr was the real deal on track: three championships against an awesome field, first turbo powered WDC, still winning Grands Prix in 1991 for Bennetton. His last races were as Schumacher's teammotorsport news

Unlike Vettel, Fernando never cops flak about anything, but... are we really expected to think he knew nothing about the plan at Renault to crash Piquet Jr in Singapore? mate too, Michael's first in FI (other than de Cesaris in his one race on debut for Jordan). Maybe the offspring punching on in front of the whole pitlane, crowd and home viewers will stop people asking him how it feels to be the guy who said 'OK' in Singapore one night, when the boss said 'we need you to crash on lap 13 to help your team-mate win the race'. Quite a legacy, that... We must have missed that... I have noticed that Vettel, like Schumacher before him, is starting to get a hard time from the English racing media and fans. Alonso, on the other hand is feted, considered by most as the 'most complete driver in FI'. He's brilliant, but in reality it's hard to split the Spaniard, Hamilton and Vettel. I don't understand the landslide of opinion in Fernando's favour. Vettel's just won three championships in a row, his and the team's first three, at the age of 16 or something. Hamilton's moods or personal life and Vettel's petulance seem to be laboured over, but Fernando never cops flak about anything, but... are we really expected to think he knew nothing about the plan at Renault to crash Piquet Jr in Singapore? Similarly, he blew the lid on the Spygate saga because Ron Dennis wasn't prepared to put a muzzle on the precocious debutant in the same car (who beat him in the championship). Fernando is no angel. Now, most English specialist Formula One writers, some of whom I've been reading for 35 years, would also have you believe that Michael Schumacher's seven world titles were a fluke, or merely the result of bulk dollars, or slave team-mates or bespoke tyres, or any of the other things that every great utilised in some combination, not because of his talent or work rate. So why does Alonso never get painted as the villian? I imagine that after a few ports, you just want to reminisce about the glory days at Tyrrell, rather than the time they got chucked out of a championship for blatant cheating, and likewise not dwell on Fangio and Moss winning races after taking over a team-mate's car. We want to remember Giiles Villeneuve at Dijon fighting with Arnoux, not getting beaten to the world title by one of the least famous FI champions we've had. Well, I also like to reminisce - and I loved every minute of Schumacher boring most of the fans and the English media early this century. I don't care how many times (and www.mnews.com.au

it's EVERY interview) Jackie Stewart tells the world that the talent level wasn't as high in Schumacher's era as, of course, his own. I'll remember Schumi making the contemporaries look second rate more than I'll remember him punting Jacques Villeneuve. Speaking of Stirling Moss... Good to see Stirling has a firm idea of who he'd like to see portray him in a film. 'Not a poofter or something like that', he mused... My favourite part of that quote is 'something like that'. Who else is part of this subgroup? I guess it's to make sure we know he doesn't want a lesbian to play him in a movie. He'll have the last laugh if Jodie Foster gets an Oscar for her gritty turn as Stirling during his recovery from the Goodwood shunt. It's like Ricky Bobby complaining that he and Will Ferrell aren't the same starsign... The success of the Senna movie looks to me like it's opened the floodgates for racing-themed films-the Lauda/Hunt flick hits screens soon; even a Brock film is permanently being written locally... But, I digress. With NBA journeyman Jason Gollins coming out this week, hot on the heels of Martina Navratilova's early ‘80s admission, the question can be asked: are there any gay racing drivers? There probably are. And if one gets to the top, I bet he'll have no problem getting portrayed in the movie by a straight man. I assume Jean Girard had nothing but praise for Sascha Baron Cohen's reading of the complex French FI star in Talledaga Nights... Still speaking of Stirling Moss... He followed that up with the assertion that women don't have ‘the aptitude to win a Formula One race'. He's wrong, of course; Danica Patrick has the talent, fitness and mental strength to compete in FI, and we all know that Michele Mouton won a WRC round and Bryner won the Spa 24 Hours and Marie-Claude Beaumont and Janet Guthrie, Chris Gibson Sarah Fisher, Leanne Tander, Pat Moss, Desire Wilson... and Leila Lombardi

his mid eighties who just genuinely doesn't know when he's going to offend people en masse. He still calls women 'crumpet', so what were you expecting? He's also one of the all time greats, and I think questions that are going to be answered on the record should stick to topics like the Mille Miglia, or Monaco 1960, or... the BTCC in the Audi with Brundle as his team-mate. I wish there were more women racing at the top level. Motor racing, like equestrian competition, is one of the few sports where men and women can compete directly against each other. But, I don't know why there isn't, and I don't care, I just love motorsport. Our analysis, however, it's nothing to do with 'aptitude' or 'mental strength'. If half the drivers in FI were women, they'd probably be winning half the races. Entry level motorsport Like Alan Jones, Casey Stoner is one of our all-time elite motorsport exports. It takes guts to walk away from bikes so young (and the $15 million he was offered to reverse his decision), and it is amazing to see him mid-pack in a second tier touring car series. The paddock at Wanneroo is easily discernible from Monza. He keeps smiling after hearing the same questions again, and good luck to him, hopefully he'll get a good enduro co drive this year, too. it reminds me of a wet day at Amaroo in '82 when Alan Jones drove one of Ron Dickson's Camaros at the opening AMSCAR round. The world champ barely a year before, slithering around, dicing with the locals and getting lapped by Colin Bond in a similar car. A few months later he won the CRC enduro at the same track sharing Barry Jones' RX-7, and went undefeated in the Sports Sedan/GT championship in that beautiful Porsche 935. At Winton, AJ noted it was a rare moment in motorsport when a race car was worth more than the actual circuit. But, like Casey in WA, seeing him in action locally made the world seem a smaller placel Real racers.

fighting hard over the AGP in a Formula 5000 in 1974... with big Max Stewart... at Oran Park... I have something in my eye... where was I? I don't think the spotlight should be on how wrong Stirling is, but rather on how it becomes a story in the first place. This isn't someone in the sport's administration or shock jock seeking controversy. It's a guy in

Professor V Haight 97

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Next issue of Motorsport News on sale 26th June 98

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