Issue 6

velocity motorsport magazine

issue 6 - march 2015

formula one

2015 season preview

every team . every driver.

david wall: why volvo is my best chance yet

Phillip Island hosted the season opening World Superbike round.

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david wall: great expectations

formula one: season preview

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With the season almost upon us we take a look at every team, car and driver and give our appraisal. From the hopefuls to the hopeless, those destined for glory and those who have a year to endure ahead, we rank them all.

felix baumgartner

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The man who jumped from space has turned his hand to motorsport. Felix Baumgartner has acheived many firsts in his lifetime, we sat down with him to find out what drives him to keep pushing at a time of life when everyone else begins to slow down.

formula vee turns 50

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It’s the oldest open wheel category in Australia, and the Velocity team was there when Formula Vee celebrated its 50th birthday. Take a look back on how the series began, how it made it to the ripe old age of 50, and why it’s looking good for another 50 too!

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column / News / Feature / Report Editorial Editor Mat Coch

travel guide: monaco

There are few events globally with the glitz and glamour of Monaco. We’ve all you need to know to take in the Monaco Grand Prix.

The regulars

Photographer John Morris

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mat coch

While television does an admirable job of bringing you the action, and our Editor admits you do see more on the box, there’s nothing quite like being there.

Mike Lawrence

Production Publisher Grand Prix Media

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From the first Ferrari to enter Australia, to Alan Jones running a B&B to fund his racing, Mike Lawrence looks back at how racing was in a by-gone era.

nuts & bolts

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V8 SUPERCARS Clipsal 500

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WORLD RALLY CHAMPIONSHIP Rally Sweden

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NASCAR Monthly Wrap

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ENDURANCE RACING Bathurst 12 Hour

WORLD SUPERBIKES Phillip Island

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Editorial Contacts Telephone 0414 197 588 Website www.velocityemag.com Email editor@velocityemag.com

Social Media

@VelocityEmag

facebook.com/ velocitymagazine Acknowledgements Felix Baumgartner, Richard Craill, David Cutts, Lachlan Mansell, John Morris, John McDonald, Ray Filetti, Samantha McLaughlin, Jasmine Mulherin, Sally Parkinson, Dean Perkins, David Wall.

Copyright All rights are reserved to Grand Prix Media and associated entities.

Reproduction in whole or in part of any photograph, text or illustration without written permission from the publisher is prohibited.

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the full experience

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here is nothing like live motorsport. Growing up it was the fully body experience which first hooked me on the sport.

My earliest motorsport memories are from the Australian Grand Prix in the 1980s around the streets of my home town, Adelaide.

Street circuits are a favourite. Not necessarily for the racing they

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produce, though in the tin-top world some of the racing is fantastic, but because of the experience and impression it gives the spectator. To be stood at the edge of the track, far closer than one can otherwise get, and feel the force of the cars go by is unbeatable.

The wind, the noise, the way the ground shakes and your chest compresses, it’s addictive.

For all the advancements in television coverage, and let’s be perfectly honest it has come a long way, there is still nothing quite like being at the track.

The drawback in many ways is televisions increasing move to subscription services when it comes to motorsport coverage in Australia.

Internationally this has often been the norm,

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we’ve been spoilt in Australia with having our beloved sport on freeto-air, and the idea of it moving behind a pay wall is confronting. That’s not an argument I’m going to wade into here because I can see both sides of the debate.

What I do hope however is that those who cannot afford pay television, or choose not to subscribe, will instead invest

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You might be able to see more on television, but there’s nothing quite like being there and experiencing motorsport first hand.

in tickets and get out to the track. That might be for the Clipsal 500 or Australian Grand Prix, or it might be a club level race.

There are so many teirs to this sport and only the tip of the iceberg receives television coverage, but there are some fantastic categories and even better racing happening most weekends at tracks around the

country.

The best part is attending state level or even a Shannons Nationals round is relatively inexpensive and you can get far closer to the cars and teams than you ever would at a V8 Supercar or Formula One event.

What’s more, it’s amazing just who you bump into on those quiet weekends!

Mat Coch

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old money

Recalling his childhood, Mike Lawrence remembers the first Ferrari in Australia, and the fastest MG in Britain.

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n the late 1950s I could sometimes buy Australian and American car mags in England. They were months out of date but dirt cheap, and since I was on pocket money I grabbed them.

Out-of-date magazines could be baled and be used as ballast on cargo ships. At the end of a voyage, they had some small value. I forget the name of the mag, but I

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know that it was in 1958 that I bought an Australian publication which trumpeted the fact that it featured the first Ferrari in Oz. Back then there were all kinds of trade and currency restrictions. The first Ferrari sold in Britain arrived on the back of a truck and the paperwork said that the truck driver owned the car.

Four thousand pounds, in notes, in a shoebox,

were passed over in the bar of a London hotel.

Incidentally, a Bugatti could fit into the bomb bay of a Lancaster. One guy drove an MG to Italy and lost it, but the badges and licence plate were transferred to a Maserati and he got it through customs.

After the Cooper team had a good weekend in Europe, John Cooper, Jack Brabham and Bruce McLaren used to tour

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banks in South London exchanging their francs, marks or lira into the permitted amount of Sterling. Note that they had been paid in cash, nobody would accept a cheque from a race organiser and you couldn’t just send money using a keyboard.

Part of the salary of Jack and Bruce was their Cooper F1 cars.

They would ship them home, race them during

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the Antipodean summer, then sell them. By such means Australian motor racing was enriched.

The guys returned home, the local crowds saw star drivers and cars in action, and the stock of race cars improved.

Other top drivers joined in and the trip was notable not only for it being lucrative, but for the parties. More than one prawn was put on the barbie.

My pal, the late Bill Stone, was a Kiwi who worked during the winter in Australia driving heavy construction machinery all the hours he could. This gave him the cash to join what was to become the Tasman series. Bill was no ace, but he was part of the scene along with Jack and Bruce, Jim Clark, Graham Hill and Chris Amon. He had a high old time.

Bill decided to race in Europe and that meant using England as a base.

His skill with a welding torch meant he had plenty of work during the ‘build season’. Race car constructors worked through the European winter to make cars for European and American customers so they, and their subcontractors. took on extra help. That gave Bill the cash to race in the summer and

it was a common route especially when Brabham and McLaren got under way.

The Tasman series grew and the engine of choice was the 2.5litre Coventry Climax FPF which was powerful, reliable and relatively inexpensive. After production ceased in England, Repco in Australia took over the manufacture of spares. It was a tiny part of their operation, but was good for business. A lot of racing drivers were engaged in the mainstream motor trade.

That’s how Repco first got involved in motor racing, a path that led to two World Championships and financial angst. It is a story for another day.

Jet airliners shrunk the globe and the Earls Court district of London became known as Kangaroo Valley. Alan Jones and his wife converted a Victorian house into a hostel/B&B to finance his racing. There was a roadside market in VW Kombis. Youngsters would buy one, do the Grand Tour, then sell them to the next wave.

I’m not saying that motor racing was more fun back then, but it was different.

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The more things change, the more they stay the same for Triple 8.

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formula one

formula one

2015 form guide

We take a look at the year ahead and reveal who will be a hero, and just who will be a zero.

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he announcement that Manor would indeed be on the grid in Melbourne was subtle. It confirmed its lead driver, Will Stevens, in a media release ahead of the third and final pre-season test. It was welcome news, and what was best about it was not that it made a song and dance about its resurrection but that it simply got on with the job as if nothing had changed.

That’s a positive. It is a sign that the team is not bothered about the public perception and is focussed on getting

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the job done. For a team with its back very much against the wall it is absolutely the right mentality.

There is little doubt that 2015 will be an ordeal.

The team all but collapsed at the end of last season and work on its new car was delayed as a result. There are personnel changes and all the other complications back at the factory which have to be overcome before the team can turn a wheel.

As the year goes on one would imagine things will get somewhat easier.

It is entitled to prize

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manor money courtesy of finishing tenth in last years constructors championship, and that’s a figure that should ensure the squad has a budget for the coming year. What’s more, with the demise of Caterham it is assured of that same purse for next season.

Manor, which started life as Virgin and then became Marussia, has been through the wringer and come out the otherside. It won’t be easy this season, nothing ever is in Formula One, but it should certainly be easier than 2014.

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ometimes Sauber has good years, sometimes Sauber has bad years. 2014 was about as bad as they come.

A perennial middleweight, the Swiss team has made a habit of popping up every few seasons with a belter of a car only to fade as the season wears on. It has never been brilliantly funded, if one discounts the BMW era, but it has always managed to spring surprises. Sergio Perez came of age in a Sauber that was far faster than it had any

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right to be.

In charge these days is not Peter Sauber so much as Monisha Kaltenborn, a former lawyer who has taken an increasingly prominent role among team principals in recent years.

Sauber is still invovled with the team that bears his name, though in a diminishing role.

What Peter Sauber was good at was picking hotshot young drivers. Kimi Raikkonen and Felipe Massa both started their Formula One careers in a Sauber, among a host of others. This year it’s

taken on two pay drivers in Marcus Ericsson and Felipe Nasr. They’re both handy steerers, Nasr has some form in the junior formulae in particular, but they’ve shown nothing to suggest they’re in the same league as some of the squads former graduates. What the driver lineup does indicate is that the team is accepting of its current postion and is simply doing what needs to be done to survive. For now that means pay drivers, but who knows; next year might be a Sauber year again.

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he Enstone Team has had its woes in recent years.

Kimi Raikkonen winning in Australia seems a long time ago now, and it’s had a rough time of it over the last 18 months.

There was the very embarassing parting of ways with Kimi, who admitted he hadn’t been paid, while constant rumours in the paddock claim staff are also scraping things together

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between infrequent paychecks. It’s led to a mass exodus in key positions and that, in part, led to its 2014 car looking a lot like a forklift and almost as fast.

The arrival of Pastor Maldonado’s cash was meant to sure up the team but it seemed to make little difference. The Venezuelan managed an underwhelming season on his way to scoring just two points all year while using a large chunk

formula one of his sponsorship purse repairing crash damage.

Romain Grosjean’s frustrations became obvious too; he’d gone from challenging for podiums and fighting for race wins to fighting simply to make it out of the first phase of qualifying. In 2013 he scored 132 points, incuding six podiums. In 2014 the closest he got was eighth, and there is little suggestion the fortunes of the team are going to improve this year.

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issing the first test is never a promising start.

Running the second test in last years car isn’t any better. The new car only emerged on the Friday of the final test, and even then the final prep was completed at the track. The thing had only been fired up back at the factory the week before. That’s the start to the 2015 campaign Force India has had, none of which is positive.

What is postive are its drivers. How Force India has Nico Hulkenberg is anyone’s guess. The extremely talented German is widely regarded as one of the best

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force india

drivers in the paddock, and was linked with moves to Ferrari and McLaren, but has never had anything more than a car capable of running in the upper midfield.

Within the team senior figures have privately confessed their amazement at having him drive for them.

Those same people sing the praises of Sergio Perez. The Mexican shone at Sauber prior to signing for a year at McLaren, but after doing so seemed to switch off.

He disappointed in his year at Woking but those at Force India suggest it was more to do with the team not being able to get the best out of him

rather than a reflection of his true potential.

Without the budget of the top teams, the squad has tended to show well in the first part of the season before gradually losing touch as rivals use their budgets to develop.

The cars are also typically good on their tyres, so can run contrary strategies to many which creates opportunities, particularly with Perez who is perhaps the best driver on the grid when it comes to tyre management.

All that relies on the car being good, but the simple fact is that its development has been anything but smooth.

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iving up to its place in the Red Bull pecking order, Toro Rosso is very much the junior team this time around. With Max Verstappen and Carlos Sainz Jnr it will field two rookies, both of which come with a swag full of potential.

They’ll be trying to put increased pressure on the lead Red Bull drivers,

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Daniil Kvyat in particular, as Vertappen and Sainz have only a short time to show their abiilty before being cast onto the Red Bull scraphead, presumably at which point they’d join the rest of them in Formula E. Both have probably two seasons to show their wares, the first undoubtedly being the most important. Should one

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or the other shine and Kvyat fail we could well see a fresh face in the senior team this time in twelve months.

Conversely, should Kvyat and Daniel Ricciardo perform well there is a looming glass ceiling rather early in their Formula One careers. Toro Rosso remains as much a knackery as it is a golden ticket.

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t’s difficult to write Ferrari’s chances off because the memories of Schumacher and Raikkonen winning titles for the Maranelllo squad are still quite fresh. But by the same token it’s been almost a decade without a championship and the team has shown itself more likely to return to the wilderness than the top step of the podium.

Fernando Alonso elected to jump ship. He spent five years there and still clearly thought getting in bed with Honda was the way to succeed. That’s

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a damning indictment on the Prancing Horse.

But Fernando is a different beast to Sebastian Vettel. He’s older for a start, and unlike Vettel doesn’t have the swag of championships his talent deserves. For Vettel then the move is an opportunity to build a team, to emulate what his mentor Michael Schumacher did.

Vettel is spreading the wings Red Bull gave him, the unanswered question is whether he’s learned to fly.

Across the garage Kimi Raikkonen was a shadow of his former self. He

burst back into Formula One with the Enstone Team with some spirited drives in a car perhaps not at the level of those he was racing. In those instances Raikkonen’s skill and value were clear. In 2014 that simply wasn’t the case. There were moments, but they were fleeting.

The same could be said of Ferrari as a whole. It disappointed in 2014 and it’s constant personnel changes has destabalised it internally. Ferrari is not the force it was, and it would be wishful thinking to expect much in 2015.

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eunited with Honda after the better part of a generation apart, hopes are high that the partnership harbours the sorts of results it did in the late 1980s. Immediate success is unlikely though. Even in the 80s Honda spent a few years in the sport before setting the world alight with both Williams and McLaren, and since then things have become far more complicated.

There is little doubt McLaren has signed the best driver in the business with Fernando Alonso, and together with the amicable Jenson

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Button they form perhaps the strongest lineup on the current grid, though two fellas in red overall may have something to say about that.

Importantly there have been a number of behind the scenes changes, with Ron Dennis now very much back in charge.

He’s been at the helm for a year now, and the wheels he set in motion last season should begin to show during the coming year. They’ve also recruited, most notably Peter Prodromou, Adrian Newey’s right hand man at Red Bull. He’s so highly thought of Red Bull pursued the matter

to court, which duly ruled in McLaren’s favour.

Alonso will be keen to make this seaosn count.

Both he and Button are no spring chickens and by rights Alonso should be far more than a double world champion by now. McLaren, realistically, marks his final roll of the dice to add another one or more to that tally before his time is up. On the other side of the garage one feels Button is probably in the final year of his Formula One career, likely to be ousted by Kevin Magnussen or Stoffel Vandoorne for 2016.

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at Symonds has worked wonders at Grove. Under Symonds’ technical leadership the team, which many feared may go the way of Brabham, Lotus and others, came back with a bang.

The former Renault man claimed the team already had very bright people, he’s just making better use of them but it’s a modest statement. In Formula One terms, certainy in recent history, what he has achieved is nothing short of a miracle.

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Nobody will be more pleased than Martini, which came onboard when Williams stock was low. Valtteri Bottas too has been given an opportunity to show his ability, and why Frank Williams considers him a future world champion. If the Williams is anything like the car it was last year there is no reason to think Bottas won’t become Finland’s latest grand prix winner.

Felipe Massa remains as the anchor around which the team has built

itself. He’s a wealth of experience and while he may not have the outright pace he once did his input into the team cannot be underestimated. He was at Ferrari during its zennith and knows how to win.

That, one feels, is the missing part of the puzzle. Give Williams the taste of success and it will grow in confidence and become a force to be reckoned with.

There is glory ahead for Williams.

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ake no mistake, 2015 is the greatest risk Red Bull has taken in its Formula One career.

Gone is the golden child, while tech guru Adrian Newey is also easing his way out of the

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day to day running of the design office. Those two factors in themselves are cause for concern. The key to Red Bull’s success over the last five or six years has been its consistency but even further down the tree

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the squad has lost key personnel.

What makes this season Red Bull’s greatest risk however is its driver combination. Daniel Ricciardo is good, very good, but we’ve never seen him work as a

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team leader. That’s a position he’ll be expected to take this year, even if neither he or the team openly says as much.

That’s because alongside him is Daniil Kvyat, a youngster rated more highly by the Red Bull

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development programme than Ricciardo. He was fast-tracked into Formula One and he’s been promoted sooner than expected into its senior team. It’s true that was mostly due to Vettel’s decision to up sticks for

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Right now though all that’s an unknown, just like the quality of the Renault power plant. Red Bull is rolling the dice in 2015.

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hey had the gun car, the gun engine and the two gun driers in 2014.

Rather predictably they won everything at a canter. But there were signs that at times they flew a little closer to the wind than they’d have us believe. At Canada

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both cars failed and that gave rise to our Danny Ric breaking through for a first win. Even at the end of the season there were reliability concerns in a car that was by some margin the fastest on track.

Most of those concerns were around the

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ancillary systems, so the unfreezing of the engine regulations shouldn’t give too much concern. The grapevine says its engine jump is nothing to be sneezed at, so if rivals thought dialling up the power alone was going to be enough they had better think again.

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Lewis Hamilton, in 2014, was mentally stronger than he’s been throughout his career. That’s an ominous sign as it had typically been his biggest weakness. With the added confidence of being a double world champion he should go from strength to strength.

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So too should Nico Rosberg who proved what he lacked against Hamilton over a single lap was made up for by his ability to think his way though a race. In Canada, knowing he had a problem and therefore his teammate must too, he asked about Hamilton’s

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brake settings, trying to steal any advantage he could. Rosberg is in Fernando Alonso’s league when it comes to his wiliness.

Mercedes hid its pace for the most part during testing, but there’s no doubt it is the team to beat in 2015.

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v8 supercars

NewWBalleginnin David

Image: Race Shots

I’m not here to run around.

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t’s make or break time for David Wall.

Entering his fourth season of V8 Supercar racing, the time for excuses has passed.

Recruited by Garry Rogers Motorsport as replacement for Robert Dahlgren, Wall’s task should not be under estimated. He joins a team on the ascendancy, one which didn’t so much shake the establishments tree last season as take to it with an axe, and will be paired against one of the hottest talents on the grid.

So, no pressure then.

“Yes it’s probably ramped up a bit,” Wall smiles when asked if he feels the heightened intensity. “The teams got a fair old following and Scott proved last year especially that the car’s more than capable of being fast and winning races.”

Although he’s run with race winning teams in the past, GRM represents Wall’s best chance to compete in a consistently front running car.

He’s taken an around about path to get there, Volvo is his third team in four seasons, Wall citing that lack of continuity as one of the reasons he’s yet to claim his maiden podium. This year, and this car, is the perfect u

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opportunity to not only show his true potential but build a lasting relationship with the team.

“I see it as a step forward,” he says of the move.

“It’s all about timing, and hopefully it’s the right timing. BJR gave me my first opportunity in V8 Supercars and I did two

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great years with them, and then we had DJR last year which was also good.

“I suppose I haven’t found my niche yet,” he hypotheses. “I’m hoping this is the niche, and so far it’s proving that way.”

A comparative lack of results in V8 Supercars belies Wall’s talent. He’s

won the Australian GT Championship twice; in 2009 and 2010 behind the wheel of a Porsche 997 GT3 Cup car, a far cry from the backhoe he’d been driving while working with his father’s earth moving business after leaving school early.

More important than the championships though

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was meeting those behind Wilson’s Security, a relationship which has allowed Wall to pursue a career in V8 Supercars.

But to label him a pay driver would be unfair.

There’s no hiding the fact he has backing but his success in the Australian GT Championship proves he has the ability

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to race at an elite level.

For whatever reason the results have not flowed since stepping up to Australia’s premier class, though if all goes to plan that should change this season. More than that, they will have to follow as he will be expected to produce better results than the man he

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replaces at GRM. There will be the inevitable comparisons to McLaughlin, too.

“We’ll just see how that progresses,” he says coyly.

“He proved last year that he’s very quick; ten pole positions, equal to Whincup,” he adds.

“If I’m close to him I’m u

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going to be having a reasonable weekend!

“So far we’re working really well together and I don’t see that changing.

He’s really easy to get along with.”

Reasonable weekends are hardly going to cut it though. It was noticed in 2014 that the field was bookended by pale blue cars. Wall may have brought sponsorship with him but the team needs more than the odd top ten from its second driver

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if it’s to be taken seriously. It’s a point not lost on the 32-year-old.

“You always set yourself a pretty high target, or I do anyway,” he says with a steely gaze. “I’m not here to run around nowhere.

“I’ve been a couple of steps away from the podium, I want to get my first podium… If the first podium happens then you want the next step.

“I’m here to do well, and hopefully that happens!”

What happens next is entirely in his own hands. The team as a whole struggled in Adelaide, though expecting Wall to be on pace with McLaughlin at this early stage is unrealistic.

He was annonymous over the Clipsal weekend, but around a demanding street circuit that is a positive. The key now will be how he develops and adapts to both the car but the team.

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risking it all Felix Baumgartner, the man who jumped from space, talks to Mat Coch about fear, risk and motor racing.

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tanding on a narrow platform, almost 40 kilometres above the surface of the earth, Felix Baumgartner took a step into the unknown. As he plummeted toward the ground he became the first man to break the speed of sound without a vehicle. For more than three minutes he was in freefall, not knowing if they would be the last minutes of his life. It was a jump that made headlines for a week, but for Baumgartner it was the culmination of 25 years of build-up.

Baumgartner’s upbringing was unremarkable.

Competitive as a child but without a sporting pedigree, his father was a carpenter and his mother a homemaker; he developed a passion for planes and helicopters.

It’s what pushed him towards skydiving, reasoning it was the easiest and cheapest way to fly.

“From the first second I was jumping out of an airplane I could feel this is my sport, it felt like second nature,” he reveals. “It felt natural from the first second.”

His career took him into the Austrian army, where he became a military sky diver until progressing to base jumping upon his return to civilian life. u

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Soon he was backed

by Red Bull, and found himself jumping from the Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur, among others, culminating in the Red Bull Stratos project which saw his leap into the unknown.

Despite that, Baumgartner rejects the notion he’s a thrill seeker or

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adrenalin junkie. He is a perfectionist, a man focussed on self-improvement and development.

The risks are a secondary factor.

“I like to give myself a challenge, to do something that’s never been done before,” he agrees.

“I try to minimise the amount of risk that’s

involved form the very beginning and try to minimise this amount of risk to an acceptable level.

“Driving on a street or flying on an airplane for vacation is also risk, but it’s calculated risk,” he adds. “We think the pilot is good, the plane has done all the maintenance and then it all comes

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down to the little risk that we are all willing to accept.”

It’s the same approach he’s taken into his latest challenge; motor racing.

At 45 years old Baumgartner is a late starter, and he accepts that he will never reach the level he perhaps could have if he’d started racing as a

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junior. His career began courtesy of Audi, which approached the Austrian with a proposal to race in the Nurburgring 24 Hours. Baumgartner agreed, though true to form insisted that he be given the opportunity to develop his skills before being thrown in the deep end.

“I was never scared about trying something new, even if I’ve never done it before. Everything is based on the same principles; you talk to the right people, you surround yourself with a good team, you repeat the task all the time precision comes with repeating the task - and u

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column / News / Feature / Report at a certain time you reach decent level and that makes you happy.

“The limit is the limit, but your limit might not necessarily be my limit.

We all have our own limit,” he continues. “But you can extend your limit.

“You start running. 3km is the limit for you, for me. You practice a lot, you eat the right food.

You do whatever it takes so now a year later 5km is the limit.

“The first build up race that I did, it’s almost overwhelming because I’m a complete rookie and there’s a lot of bad arse race car drivers out there. A lot of people have been criticising this, this idea that we put a skydiver in a very difficult race car on one of the most dangerous and difficult race tracks in the world. Even people from Audi; not everyone was happy with this idea.

“Of course you’re scared because you’ve never done this before,” he admits. “Then you go into the race and there’s a lot of cars coming from behind, there’s cars from the front, so everything is completely new.

“The next race we did was already 130 cars but you have already done this before with 60 cars, now it’s just repeating

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the test just on a higher level but you already have confidence. Like talking on stage, the first time is difficult. If you’ve done it five times it becomes second nature.”

Taking a series of small steps, and doing his homework, is Baumgartner’s secret to success. He is a stickler for detail, and works hard with his engineers and teammates to improve both the car and himself.

“You can only learn from the best,” he believes. “I don’t have any racing history at all.

I just started last year.

I’m missing 20/25 years of build up because all those people there, they start racing at the age of 4 or 5, karts you know, and everything you do when you’re a kid really goes into your system.

Lucky I’m still fit at the age of 45 and still have the speed and the focus and the eye for something but I have to learn from these guys.

“You take your lap, and their lap and you overlay this and you can see where you brake, where you accelerate, what your line is. They can see a lot of difference. Then when you talk about this you try and remember this on the race track again and you try to gain more and more speed u

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column / News / Feature / Report and do hopefully accelerate a little bit earlier and brake a little bit later.

“It’s like dancing; if you do the first lap right everything else becomes the rhythm and goes smoothly. If you screw up on the first step every corner it will hurt and affect every corner. It’s a big challenge because you can never be perfect.

“It’s the aim for perfection and at the end of the day when you went better you’re happy because you made progress. That’s what racing is all about, that’s why my life is all about. I want to learn something, I surround myself with the right people. If I’m getting better at it, I’m happy.”

A large part of that puzzle, for Baumgartner, is confidence. To perform at a high level and adapt to new situations requires not only a degree of skill but confidence; in himself, in his team, in his ability and in his equipment, though openly admits that even after jumping from space he still gets scared.

“I do have fear, but I don’t have panic,” he explains. “I think this is the secret.

“Fear is something natural in our system.

It makes you focussed.

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It makes you aware.

It shoots in adrenalin so you’re even more focussed. This is what fear is for. The secret is you cannot let fear turn into panic, because panic is an overload mode. If you panic you do not perform well. You slow down, you make the wrong judgement.

“In everything you do in life, the secret is you have to control fear and you cannot allow fear to

turn into panic.

“In order to control fear I think you need to have self-confidence.”

Baumgarther is a nononsense individual.

He is open, yet clearly driven and focussed. But there is an honesty to him rare in sportsman, he is approachable and engaging. But, more than anything else, he’s absolutely confident in himself, and that’s his secret.

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column / News / Feature / Report

formula vee

50

years young

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F

rom utilitatrian roots, Formula Vee has grown into one of the strongest motor sport categories on the planet. Celebrating its 50th birthday in Australia this year, the tightly controlled formula has not only provided a low cost entry point into motor sport but has launched the careers of a host of drivers.

The category eminated from the United States, with the first car built in Italy. Designed as a replacement for Formula Junior, which had u

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column / News / Feature / Report out-grown its original intent, Formula Vee drew on ideas from yacht racing with the first set of regulations tightly controlled so driver skill mattered more than car design.

First imported by Volkswagen Australia, Formula Vee immediately found a niche Down Under. It appealed to those who could not otherwise afford to go motor racing while the comparatively simple mechanicals also made the series accessible. Frank Kleinig was among those who first took interest and began building himself a car after catching wind of the new series.

Kleinig, who still competes well into his 70s, soon after began building Mako Formula Vees, pioneering the way for a raft of others such as Elfin, Sabre and, more recently, Jacer and Stinger.

For 30 years the series prospered, gaining television coverage courtesy of backroom deals cut between the Australian Racing Drivers Club and Channel 7 for the coverage rights to Bathurst. It made stars of the likes of Bernie Haehnlie and Doug Angus, and likely played a role in inspiring a new generation of racers in the mid 1990s likeu

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Image: Race Shots

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Jason Cutts and Jason Bargwana.

But by 1995 the series was beginning to run out of steam. Dwindling grids signalled a changing of the guard, which soon challenged the establishment, but by far the biggest challenge came from CAMS which had concerns about the longevity of a series based on a car which hadn’t been in production since 1965. It’s remit was simple; evlove or face extinction.

“That was the first year that I started doing Jacer full time,” recalls David Cutts wryly. “Then CAMS said you guys are extinct

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if you do’t do something.

It’s like ah, great career move!”

A competitor since the early 1980s, Cutts is a former NSW state champion. Together with brother Jason they devised Jacer in the mid 90s, a brand which has since produced more than 60 Formula Vees.

The CAMS recommendation shook Formula Vee to its core, with Cutts believing it was perhaps an attempt at a gentle nudge in a new direction.

“I think CAMS really hoped we’d come up with Formula Hyundai or Formula Daihatsu or

something,” he suggests.

“The big problem with Formula Diahatsu and all that sort of stuff is what do you do for a gearbox, what do you do for a front end? You start with a new car. That starts to get really hard.”

A number of alternatives were suggested, but ultimately the solution proved rather more Darwinian with the 1200cc Beetle engine replaced with a 1600cc variant, restricted in an attempt at parity. It was the biggest change in the sports 40 year history, and spurned a renewed vigor in the category. Grid numbers slowly began to

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grow, while new manufacturers also began producing cars.

For more than a decade Formula Vee has run to the 1600 formula, safe guarding it for the forseeable future at least.

There are challenges ahead, as even in Mexico the Beetle ceased production in the early 2000s, but that’s a hurdle which can easily be cleared Cutts claims.

“I think you can still build a Volswagen based engine without a Volkswagen stamp on it.,” he reasons. “The aftermarket in American especialy is so big that short term I can’t see a problem.

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“if they continue to evolve with Volkswagen based parts without a Volkswagen stamp on them then I don’t see any problem with availability of stuff with them indefinitely.

“The only big arguement you really get is how fast the guys want to go,” Cutts adds. “We still do 200kph through the Chase at Bathurst, close to 200 in the straight at Phillip Island. That’s quick enough.”

For now, half a century after the category made its debut in Australia, Formula Vee is going strong. Indeed the new lease of life it was given

a decade or so ago has gone a long way towards something of a reinvention.

Where once it was a rung of the motorsport ladder skipped by most it’s increasingly becoming the first step out of karting where youngsters learn the importance of race craft. The trains of cars engaged in a sliptstream battle remain a constant, where driver skill more than the car makes the difference. After fifty years of change, it proves how honest Formula Vee has remained to its roots.

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V8 supercars

Advantage holden

Holden drivers fill the top eight places in the championship after the opening round, but just what did we learn from the years Clipsal 500?

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I

V8 supercars

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f the opening round of the 2015 V8 Supercar season taught us anything it was that, despite some of the changes made over the off-season in pursuit of parity, not much has really changed.

Following testing at Sydney Motorsport Park there were questions over Red Bull Racing Australia, and whether the benchmark team had finally dropped the ball.

Those questions were answered on Friday when Jamie Whincup set a new qualifying lap record.

He was pursued by the usual suspects, Shane Van Gisbergen, the HRT duo of James Courtney and Garth Tander and Scott McLaughlin was there or thereabouts too.

The biggest change was the improvement from the Nissan camp.

At the SuperTest it had shown strong pace, and when Rick Kelly and Michael Caruso appeared towards the top of the time sheets after practice the team looked set for a strong weekend. Then, with the temperature souring, they missed the window in qualifying and could do no better than mid pack.

Still, as the weekend progressed James Moffat, Caruso and Rick Kelly all showed pace u

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u

race 1 result P

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Driver

team

time

1

Jamie Whincup

Red Bull Racing

48:28.7493

2

Chaz Mostert

Pepsi Max Crew

+ 0.8571

3

Fabian Coulthard

Freightliner Racing

+ 1.2519

4

Craig Lowndes

Red Bull Racing

+ 1.4641

5

Mark Winterbottom

Pepsi Max Crew

+ 1.9777

6

Shane Van Gisbergen

TEKNO Darrell Lea

+ 2.7712

7

Garth Tander

Holden Racing Team

+ 3.0177

8

Tim Slade

Supercheap Auto

+ 3.2934

9

Lee Holdsworth

Walkinshaw Racing

+ 3.8713

10

James Courtney

Holden Racing Team

+ 4.1201

53

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race 2 result P

54

Driver

team

V8 supercars

time

1

Fabian Coulthard

Freightliner Racing

59:05.6810

2

James Courtney

Holden Racing Team

+ 1.9572

3

Craig Lowndes

Red Bull Racing

+ 8.8546

4

Garth Tander

Holden Racing Team

+ 10.0053

5

Jason Bright

Team BOC

+ 15.0016

6

Rick Kelly

Nissan Motorsport

+ 15.6810

7

James Moffat

Nissan Motorsport

+ 16.4196

8

Ash Walsh

Erebus Motorsport V8

+ 17.7006

9

Scott McLaughlin

Wilson Security Racing

+ 18.2067

10

Lee Holdsworth

Walkinshaw Racing

+ 18.2882

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column / News / Feature / Report and were prominent at the front of the race on Sunday afternoon (even if it was because they were out of the pitstop cycle) there is cause for optimism in the Nissan camp. Had Caruso been more patient he’d have had likely finished in the top 10 in both Saturday’s races while Moffat was unlucky to be caught up with Chaz Mostert on the final lap on Sunday.

But while things are looking up at Nissan there are one or two concerns at Prodrive.

The rebranded FPR squad, which has now lost factory support, seemed to struggle over the first part of the weekend. Mark Winterbottom looked decidedly average on Saturday and only Mostert gave the squad any real hope.

Things were better on Sunday but by the end of the race both cars were hanging on rather than moving forward.

They couldn’t run with the two HRTs out front, even when they were busy squabbling with Van Gisbergen, and found themselves playing a rear guard action against a recovering Whincup.

That is the difference between the team at the top of its game and one that still has that final something to find. Even

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V8 supercars in a race where he was compromised by strategy Whincup was still towards the front end of the field and in a position to collect strong points. He was fast at the end too, but that was due more to the fact his strategy saw him on newer tyres in the closing stages. He’d had to work his way up from the bottom end of the top twenty to get there though, and that’s worth something.

This all meant that the door was left open for HRT. A team which has under performed in recent seasons, and one which struggled in the heat of the first two days. On Sunday it showed that it has the potential to be a genuine front running team. Both cars were on the podium and ran in close proximity for much of the race, suggesting they were getting the best from their machinery. That was enough to see them first and third, which by any measure is a fine result.

What will be important though is using the momentum and understanding why the car didn’t work on Saturday.

There are bigger concerns at GRM with reliability continuing to plague the squad.

McLaughlin had another u alternator failure on

55

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Sunday while an engine problem in Saturday’s first race pitched him into the wall on the warm-up lap. It is such trivialities which separate the good from the great. The Volvo is a car capable of great things but GRM needs to lift its game to allow its drivers to deliver them, not to mention eliminate silly mistakes such as the one which saw McLaughlin held for ten seconds in the

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pits during a safety car period.

Wall had a quiet weekend on debut in blue, finishing both races ahead of where he started and chalking up the kilometres. It’s all that could be expected from him; that he was running at the end of all three races should be seen as a positive beginning to his time with GRM. Debutant Ash Walsh

V8 supercars

handled himself well.

A top ten in his first race, the Erebus driver stayed out of trouble for the most part and only ended Sunday’s race in retirement courtesy of a mechanical failure. It’s a strong way to start a career in the top flight, and bodes well for the season ahead.

By contrast Lucas Dumbrell’s squad struggled. Nick Percat led on Sunday afternoon through

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column / News / Feature / Report pit strategy, though neither he nor Tim Blanchard shone. The team has a tough job ahead of itself, and having recently expanded to a two car operation needs to find its stride sooner rather than later.

As for the racing itself it was as one would expect around the streets of Adelaide. Processional at times, the mixture of strategies on Sunday afternoon in the longer

race 2 result P

Driver

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race mixed up the field and generated some close racing. The two shorter races had their moments but lacked any real spark to turn a solid race into a cracker.

What we did get was a reasonable picture of the year ahead, and the running order we can come to expect. It showed us that the Nissan’s have potential if they can understand how to harness it, that GRM

team

time

1

James Courtney

Holden Racing Team

1:26:00.5103

2

Shane Van Gisbergen

TEKNO Darrell Lea

3

Garth Tander

4

remains on the fringes and that Shane Van Gisbergen will be the one most likely to challenge Red Bull Racing. We shouldn’t discount Penske just yet either.

HRT won on Sunday afternoon but it maximised its opportunity. It will be how it handles races where it doesn’t maximise things, and others do, that will be the true measure of their performance.

Championship P

Driver

Pts

1

James Courtney

+ 0.7602

2

Fabian Coulthard

241

Holden Racing Team

+ 1.8959

3

Garth Tander

237

Jamie Whincup

Red Bull Racing

+ 13.2977

4

S Van Gisbergen

222

5

Mark Winterbottom

Pepsi Max Crew

+ 13.8967

5

Jamie Whincup

216

6

Fabian Coulthard

Freightliner Racing

+ 14.6240

6

Craig Lowndes

208

7

Rick Kelly

Nissan Motorsport

+ 16.4237

7

Mark Winterbottom

202

8

Tim Slade

Supercheap Auto

+ 20.7524

8

Rick Kelly

177

9

Craig Lowndes

Red Bull Racing

+ 24.4633

9

Jason Bright

161

10

Todd Kelly

Nissan Motorsport

+ 28.6177

10

Todd Kelly

143

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258

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column / News / Feature / Report

new versus old

V8 supercars

Reigning champ Paul Dumbrell didn’t have it all his own way in a round that gave us a glimpse of the Development Series season to come.

T

he V8 Supercars Development Series this season looks set to be a battle between the young and old.

At one end of the spectrum is veteran Paul Dumbrell, twice a champion using the series to stay race fit, while at the other are young chargers like Cam Waters and Aaren Russell. This

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season stands to be a case of the new measuring themselves against the old.

Dumbrell was the yardstick twelve months ago, a season in which Waters identified himself as one for the future and Russell stepped out of the shadows. The difference between the trio is miniscule, and one can throw in others such as

Chris Pither, Todd Hazelwood, Ant Pedersen and more.

In Adelaide, Waters showed his pace in the opening race. Controlling it from the front he was untroubled up to the point the safety car was deployed following Brett Hobson’s crash at the first chicane. It gave Dumbrell a sniff in the one lap dash to the

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flag that would decide the race, and while he momentarily hit the front he’d also out-braked himself and allowed Waters back through for the win as he skidded wide.

The battled continued in the second race, with Waters demonstrating he will almost certainly prove Dumbrell’s biggest championship threat as they bickered over the lead

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for much of the race.

Try as he might though, there was no way through, Dumbrell hanging on to win. It meant honours in Adelaide were shared.

Russell in third should not be underestimated.

He scored a breakthrough podium at Queensland Raceway last season and since then has only grown in

V8 supercars

confidence. He’s from a small team, without the resources of some of his rivals and yet in Adelaide he was there, mixing it with a Bathurst champion and one of Prodrive Australia’s protégé’s. Third place in race two was a stout result, his form suggesting there may well be plenty more to come from the Novocastrian.

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column / News / Feature / Report

million dollar mayhem There was action aplenty in the Australian GT Championship, and our man John Morris was onhand to capture the moment exotic race cars felt the brunt of the Adelaide street circuit.

N

athan Antunes and Tony Quinn may have proved the victors across the weekend, but Australian GT will be remembered more for two spectacular crashes at the 2015 edition of the Clipsal 500.

Antunes won the first race after moving into the lead with scarcely a minute remaining,

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passing the Porsche of Marcus Marshall to take the win. Pole-sitter Johno Lester lost out during the compulsory pit stops, as did Dean Canto, the two handed longer stationary times courtesy of being ranked as professional drivers.

It was chaos in the pit lane, brought about by a high speed crash at turn

eight for Morgan Haber on lap four. The Mercedes swiped the wall heavily, badly damaging the SLS and bringing out the safety car.

With the field compressed the fates of Lester and Canto were sealed, Marshall moving into the lead soon after the restart. But, try as he might, Marshall

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was unable to resist the advances of Antunes who claimed the lead just before the fall of the chequered flag.

It was a feat he repeated in the second race, showing himself and his Audi R8 as a strong contender for the championship in 2015.

More impressive was the fact he did so even

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with a pit lane penalty, and a trip down the escape road. Antunes’ penalty came when he was deemed responsible for ending Kevin Week’s Antunes race, re-joining the race second to Steve McLaughlan.

In the closing stages the McLaren of Tony and Klark Quinn also found a way into second, helped

by McLaughlan spinning at turn four, the McLaren du given a five-second penalty for overuse of the kerbs which ultimately did nothing to theirfinishing position.

A chaotic final race was marred by a multi-car pile up that blocked the track.

Losing control of his Ferrari at the first u

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column / News / Feature / Report chicane on the opening lap, Lester collided with the tyre barrier on the right hand side of the circuit before bouncing back into the path of the oncoming field.

Out on the spot were Lester, the McLaren 650S of Tony Walls, the Audi R8 LMS Ultra of Steven Johnson and Peter Fitzgerald, the Ginetta of Michael Hobey and the Porsches of James Winslow and Simon Ellingham.

With the safety car out the field as a whole elected to take their compulsory pit stop behind, mixing up the field as the professional were shuffled down the order courtesy of their longer stationary times. It pushed the favourites to the rear of the field, and triggered inspired drives from Tony Quinn and Antunes.

Restarted at the 18 minute mark, and called after just 5 minutes of racing, Antunes rose from 13th to third at the flag behind Theo Koundouris, who looked for a time as though he might win the race outright. But the Trophy Class Porsche driver succumbed to a swift move from Quinn at the turn nine hairpin on what would be the final lap robbed him of victory.

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Lights to flag for richards S teven Richards opened his defense of the Porsche Carrera Cup championship in style by winning around the streets of Adelaide.

The former Bathurst winner claimed a cleansweep across the Clipsal 500 weekend, the only blemish on an otherwise perfect record the fact he was beaten to pole position. He won all three

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races, having led every lap.

Richards won the opening race by almost two seconds over David Russell with Nick McBride third. Pole position winner was Nick Foster a non-starter following drive train issues.

The second race was scarecely any closer at the front, though Foster’s weekend came to an end following a crash at the

infamous turn eight at a time when he’d been the fastest man on the track.

In the end it was Craig Baird who joined Richards on the podium in second with Nick McBride third and Russell fourth.

That was the order at the end of the final race too, only with Russell replacing McBride on the bottom step of the podium.

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miedecke masters adelaide

A

ndrew Miedecke began his Touring Car Masters season in style by winning the opening race in Adelaide. Miedecke was comfortable out front, leading home Gavin Bullas and Jim Richards.

An incident at the start of race two saw John Bowe park his Mustang at turn five, the front right heavily damaged.

So too were a number of other cars, including Andrew Gomersall who collected the wall at the exit of turn three, triggering a chain reaction

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that saw Glen Seaton tag the car in front, damaging the front end of his Mustang while Bowe had nowhere to go as he made it a Seton Sandwich. Andrew Fisher was also nursing a damaged car with a number struggling with tyre rub courtesy of bent bodywork.

Seton was a retirement while Fisher beat a hasty retreat to the pit lane where his crew set about repairing his Falcon with the finest hammer they could find.

Mason ultimately won

the 8 lap encounter, with the Tilley pair of Brad and Cameron second and third respectively.

Miedecke won again in the final race, Bullas second with Eddie Abelnica third.

Ryal Harris won the opened V8 Ute race of the year over Kris Walton and Adam Majoram, the order remaining the same for race two. Walton finally got the better of Harris in the final race to win, with George Miedecke third.

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godzilla attacks bathurst

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t’s matters little what class is racing at Bathurst, the challenging Mount Panorama circuit has a knack of producing nail-biting finishes at the end of long and eventful races.

Chaz Mostert snared a dramatic win after passing Jamie Whincup on the final lap in October, while twelve months ago Maranello Motorsport hugged the inside line as Craig Lowndes tried desperately to fend off the chasing Mercedes SLS AMG. Maranello Motorsport would not be a contender this year. Its hopes were dashed courtesy of a crash during practice which destroyed its Ferrari F458 Italia, but that would prove little more than a curtain raiser to the drama that was to follow as the 12 Hour tusstle began on Sunday morning.

It was the Nissan GTR of Katsumasa Chiyo, Wolfgagng Reip and Florian Strauss which emerged victorious, by a comparatively comfortable 2.4 seconds by the flag.

They had run a conservative race, remaining close to the front without ever excerting themselves unduly, all the while staying out of trouble.

That was the key to victory, as the race threw

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teams more than enough opportunities to fail. Of the 50 cars that started, 16 did not see the flag.

Among their number was the Bentley Continental of David Brabham, which had contact with the #97 Aston Martin Vantage at the Cutting. Brabham was pushed heavily into the wall, after which he was taken to hospital for observation.

At the top of the mountain Keith Kassulke came unstuck when Felix Baumgartner attempted to lap his MARC Mazda 3, the Audi driver sliding his nose underneath on the approach to Skyline with disastorous results.

Kassulke left the circuit and collided with the tyre barrier heavily, tearing the right side skin from the car while Kassulke himself was able to clambour free unharmed.

For Baumgartner it was a rookie mistake as the Austrian grew impatient in his attempts to find a way past.

It was a frustrating race for teams and drivers for the most part with constant interruptions from the safety car. By half distance the safety car had wracked up almost three hours of track time, while the final total of appearances came to a record 20. u The race was

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comparatively short as a result. Though still running to the 12 hour format just 269 laps were covered, or 1,671km - an average speed scarecely above the national speed limit. Those figures are affected badly by the presence of the safety car as, when left to their own devices, drivers set a cracking pace.

Audi’s Laurens Vanthoor set a new fastest official

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lap around the Mount Panorama circuit in qualifying, stopping the clock at 2m02.5521 to take pole position. Vanthoor then set a new GT lap record on lap 29 of the race with a 2m03.2091.

For a time Vanthoor looked on course for a hat-trick - pole position, fastest lap and race win - when he harried the rear of Matt Bell’s Bentley Continental in

the closing stages. Bell had the legs in a straight line while the Audi was better across the top of the mountain and under brakes, but could find no way through to the lead. The battle allowed Chiyo-san to close in the Nissan GTR. Working his way through traffic, helped by two late race safety cars, he made it a three-way battle for the lead, if only briefly.

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When released by the safety car for the final time Chiyo-san made his move, first by Vanthoor into the first turn and then out-dragging the big Bentley up the hill. Nissan, having played the tortoise for much of the race, ran away as the hare at the front of the race.

As the Nissan cleared out joining the battle for second was joined

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by Stefan Mucke in an Aston Martin Vantage, who instantly became the aggressor in the squabble with Bell and Vanthoor. Things came to a head at the final turn when, within sight of the line, the trio tangled. Bell was the biggest loser, dropping to fourth while Lanthoor and Mucke both moved up one spot to make a Nissan, Audi and Aston Martin podium.

A Bentley was fourth, a Mercedes fifth and a Ferrari and Lamborghini rounding out a top seven which included seven different manufacturers.

Koundouris Racing scored victory in Class B, for Porsche GT3 Cup Cars, James and Theo Koundouris, Marcus Marshall and Sam Power holding out over Grove Racing. The result was only settled in the final u

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column / News / Feature / Report 10 minutes of the race when the Grove Racing car spun, ensuring second for Stephen Grove, Ben Barker and Luke Youlden.

The Lotus Exige GT4 of Tony Alford, Peter Leemhuis and Mark O’Connor won the GT4 class while finishing 24th overall, 20 laps adrift of the overall winners, while Beric Lynton, John Modystach and Robert Thomson won Class D in their BMW 1M. Ultimately however the results were comparatively unimportant when considered against the greater victor of the weekend; Australian motorsport. Threatened by the V8 Supercar test at Sydney Motorsport Park the same weekend the Bathurst 12-Hour captured the imagination of Australian motorsport fans with more than 30,000 making an early pilgramage to Australia’s altar of motor racing. It united otherwise divided party lines and it strengthened the resolve of the sport itself.

Audi may have won the Bathurst 12-Hour but it was the event itself which was the ultimate winner.

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world rally championship

ice-cool ogier

V

olkswagon’s Sebastian Ogier has claimed his second rally victory of the season in a dramatic ending to Rally Sweden.

Track position proved costly for Ogier, who wasn’t helped by his own mistakes, while Hyundai’s Thierry Nueville narrowly missed out on his

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maiden WRC victory.

Ogier had held an early lead following strong performances on the opening stages, but a spin on the return leg saw the reigning world champion drop 30 seconds and fall to fourth.

On the Saturday he regained much of the ground lost the previous day, aided by Andreas

Mikkelsen spinning, which saw the pair seperated by just 1.7 seconds at the head of the rally. A poor place on the road then proved costly, allowing Neuville to move into the lead, 1.5s ahead of Mikkelsen and 9.6s up on Ogier in third.

Another spin from Mikkelsen effectively ended his chance of victory

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when he lost more than half a minute to the rally leaders. Ogier had refound the form which saw him at the top of the standings on Friday, finally edging by Neuville fo win by just 6.4s with Mikkelsen 33.4s back in third.

“I was at the maximum, I took some big risks,” Neuville said after the

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final stage. “Everything went well this weekend though and I am very happy. It is a bit of a wake-up call for the team and hopefully I can be in this position more often now.”

“I’m really, really proud of this one. I was faster than everybody this weekend but my starting position was so bad. It

world rally championship

is an incredible finish to an incredible rally,” commented Ogier.

Ogier now holds a comfortable 23 point lead in the championship over Nueville and Mikkelsen, who are tied for points in second. In the manufacturers standings Volkswagon holds the same 23 pint advantage over nearest rivals.

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world superbike championshiP

kawasak-rae

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world superbike championshiP

K

awasaki’s newest recuit has immediately paid dividends by recording his first World Superbike victory at the first round of the season.

Jonathan Rea held off a determined charge from Aprilia’s Leon Haslam in the season opening race, though Haslam stole the second race on the line following another dramatic battle for the lead.

In the opening race Rea had moved into the lead, pursued by Haslam until the Aprilia rider made a mistake at Stoner curve and was forced to take to the grass. It dropped him to fourth but sparked a spirited ride which saw him claw his way back to the rear of Rea, the two swapping places during the final lap before Rea emerged victorious.

The second race saw a repeat of the opener as Rea and Haslam battled ferociously. A strong move from Rea at Lukey Heights looked to have sealed the win for the Kawasaki rider only for Haslam to get a good exit from the final corner, tuck into Rea’s slipstream and time his move to perfection, the winning margin just 0.010s.

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nascar

logano sprints to daytona win

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enske’s Joey Logano has won his first Daytona 500 in a race that came down to a two-lap sprint to the flag.

Logano jumped to the lead at the final restart, holding top spot until the caution came out midway through the final lap, triggered by a multicar crash. It meant the race ended under yellow,

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giving Logano his first Daytona 500 victory.

From a restart on Lap 182 of the scheduled 200 the field ran three-wide with the lead changing from one lap to the next, as one line or another would inch ahead.

Indeed, NASCAR’s statistics said the race set a new Daytona record for green flag passes, 12,677 in all.

By contrast the final two-lap sprint was no contest. Logano picked the outside lane and surged ahead of secondplace Jimmie Johnson when the bottom lane didn’t move as quickly as expected.

Kevin Harvick was second when NASCAR threw the final caution and froze the field while defending race

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winner Dale Earnhardt Jr. charged from eighth to third before the yellow.

Denny Hamlin was fourth, followed by Jimmie Johnson and Casey Mears.

“I keep looking at this trophy, and it’s amazing,” Logano said after climbing from his car. “What a beauty. ... Now I lost my train of thought. I’m sorry. I’m so distracted right now.

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“We got the push that got us out front and that was just Clint [Bowyer] pushing hard. He wasn’t lifting before he got to my bumper, he was slamming into the back bumper and that is what we needed.”

Logano’s win in all likelihood will mean a return trip to the Chase. It’s also marked the second Daytona 500 victory for

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Roger Penske, whose last success came in 2008 with Ryan Newman.

Johnson bounced back to win a week later in Atlanta after a red flag saw the race called early. Rain and a multicar crash caused delays, seeing the race finish some six hours after it began. Harvick was second ahead of Dale Earnhardt Jnr in third.

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race travel

Monaco Destination Guide

The playground of the rich and famous, the Monaco Grand Prix is a must for all motorsport devotees.

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o other motorsport event in the world can rival it for glitz and glamour.

Snaking through the narrow streets, which have long since been out grown by grand prix machinery, there is nothing else like the Monaco Grand Prix.

Steeped in history and tradition it’s the only event one could consider safe on the calendar.

It’s too important commercially to lose, and not because it rakes in the money but because it’s the one race a year everyone who is anyone wants to attend. From business moguls cutting deals to celebrities making the jaunt across from the Cannes Film Festival,

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it is an event important as much from a marketing perspective as it is for the race itself.

Over the years the race has produced some corkers, though has had it’s share of duds too with the tight confines lending itself to processional races. Every so often though something a little bit magic happens, as it did in 1984 when Ayrton Senna chased down Alain Prost, with Stefan Bellof catching them both. Senna and Nigel Mansell had a ding-dong battle there towards the end of the 1992 race too, while Sebastian Vettel drove one of his best races to fend off much of the chasing pack on tyres that were well past u

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their used by date in 2011.

There are a number of ways to take in the Monaco event. Nice or Cannes, just across the border in France, are both within easy commuting distance and have good rail links to Monaco. The station is a short walk from the track, and staying on the French side of the border means that, while prices are still somewhere north of cheap they’re somewhere south of your arm and leg. Nice and Cannes are walking distance apart, and with the Cannes Film

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Festival often on around the same time it can be a good way to spend a week in the Cote D’Azur.

There are plenty of bars and restaurants though choose where you eat and drink wisely as prices can be surprisingly high.

One option is to stay in a self contained unit, of which there are several in Nice in particular.

While it means doing your own cooking it can save you a small fortune if you’re planning on staying for a few days either side of the race.

At the track your choice of ticket is limited. With

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the circuit hemmed in by buildings there is little in the way of general admission areas, though the hill overlooking pit entry is one such spot.

The view from here is good, if obstructed in places, and affords glimpses from Tabac through the Swimming Pool, Rasscasse and back onto the pit straight where the cars are lost behing the pit building.

The advantage here is you can see straight up pit lane, and if you choose your spot wisely you’ll have a big screen to help keep track of the race. The risk however is

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that food and facilities in this area are limited, as are good vantage points.

Getting there early to stake out your place is the best bet but relinquish your spot at your peril - no sooner will you have moved that someone will have taken it.

There is also no cover should it rain, and there’s a good chance you’ll be sitting in a garden bed.

But, it’s cheap and the view is as good if not better than many of the grandstands.

Otherwise there are plenty of grandstand seats available. The chicane out of the tunnel is

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a favourite as it’s traditionally where the action happens, but there is a large stand overlooking the pits, though it does tend to offer nothing more than sitting on the side of the hill in the general admission area.

Wherever you sit do not set your sights high on an extended view of the cars or seeing lots of overtaking. The Monaco Grand Prix is not a race so much as a spectacle and event. With those expectations and knowing you’re there to watch a race and soak up the atmosphere, Monaco is absolutely one of the

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best races of the world to see.

Monaco is an event for the bucket list, no matter what happens on track.

The Principality on the coast of the Mediterranian buzzes all weekend with street vendors hocking their wares among the crush of race fans.

Monaco has an atmosphere all to itself and must be experienced first hand by any serious motorsport fan.

Plus, roughing it just a little, a contrast to the wealth and glamour with which you’re surrouneded, simply adds to the experience.

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Thierry Nueville was so close to victory in Rally Sweden, but it wans’t to be.

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coming attractions MARCH 6 - 9 WORLD RALLY CHAMPIONSHIP Rallt Mexico MARCH 7 & 8 VICTORIAN STATE CHAMPIONSHIP Winton Motor Raceway

MARCH 22 NASCAR Auto Club Speedway WORLD SUPERBIKES Thailand

MARCH 8 INDYCAR Brasilia

MARCH 27 - 29 V8 SUPERCARS Symmons Plains

NASCAR Las Vegas

AUSTRALIAN RALLY C’SHIP Forest Rally

MARCH 12 - 15 FORMULA ONE Australian Grand Prix MARCH 14 FORMULA E Miami NASCAR Phoenix MARCH 21 - 22 QUEENSLAND STATE C’SHIP Morgan Park MARCH 20 - 22 BARRY SHEENE FESTIVAL Sydney Motorsport Park

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MARCH 28 & 29 SHANNONS NATIONALS Sandown Raceway MARCH 29 FORMULA ONE Malaysian Grand Prix INDYCAR Grand Prix of St Petersburg NASCAR Martinsville MOTO GP Qatar

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