Issue 2

velocity

issue 2 - novemBer 2014

motorsport magazine

!

T S R BATHU

REVEALED!

N WO S I R R O M D N A T R E T S O M w o H

EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW

david brabham Rebirth of a dynasty

formula one: silly season steps up a gear

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The entire Formula One paddock continues to support Jules Bianchi.

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winning moves

marcus ericsson

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Chatting with editor Mat Coch, Super Swede Marcus Ericsson talks about his difficult debut Formula One season, and the positives he’s managed to take out of his rookie season.

project brabham

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Resurrecting the family name in motorsport, David Brabham announced plans to relaunch Brabham as a fully fledged racing team, beginning with endurance racing. We look at what Project Brabham is, and what it might be.

dylan thomas

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There are few drivers with as diverse careers as Dylan Thomas. From tarmac rallying to the 12 hours of Sepang, Thomas this year added the NSW Formula Vee Championship to his honour roll. We sat down with him and found out what makes him tick.

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The regulars

Editorial Editor Mat Coch

mat coch

We all know motorsport is expensive, but does that mean it has to be so secretive?

Mat Coch wonders if the accepted status quo in is doing more harm than good.

Mike Lawrence

Production Publisher Grand Prix Media

Honda is on the verge of returning to Formula One. Mike Lawrence takes a look at their early forays into motorsport, and how they learned to win.

nuts & bolts

V8 Supercars Gold Coast 600 Bathurst 1000

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FORMULA ONE United States Grand Prix Russian Grand Prix Japanese Grand Prix

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NASCAR Monthly Wrap

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moto gp Malaysia Australia Japan

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Shannons Nationals Wakefield Park Sydney Motorsport Park

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state racing Victoria Queensland New South Wales KARTING

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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 Tim Baker, David Brabham, Richard Craill, Marcus Ericsson, Dewi Jones, Iwan Jones, Dr Mike Lawrence, Greg Lysien, Lachlan Mansell, Daniel Pauperis, Dean Perkins, Caroline Reid, Greg Ross, Emma Spearing, Samantha Stevens, Christian Sylt, Dylan Thomas, Pete Trapnell, Tabatha Valls.

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

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

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status quo M

otorsport is a tough gig. It’s incredibly expensive and competitive, with none of its participants willing to do anything which might give an advantage to a rival, and certainly nothing which might erode their own advantage.

And so it is, and has always been, that teams come and go as the fortunes of the sport ebb and flow. We’ve seen it in almost every category of racing around the world, it’s even evident at grass roots level as amateur racers skip events or sell cars when the realities of life get in the way. Racing, at any level, is tough.

In Formula One things are obviously intensified. Operating budgets are in the hundreds of millions of dollars, even for the smaller teams, which makes both the founding and running of a privateer team next to impossible. The old adage goes, to make a small fortune in motorsport, you must first start with a large one.

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Words by Mat Coch

Tony Fernandes, the former owner of Caterham, realised that and opted to get out. He sold the team (apparently) to a mysterious bunch of investors, but there is more to that story that we have been told.

That is what makes David Brabham’s plan to reinvent Brabham as a team in its own right all the more interesting.

When I spoke with him for our feature on Project Brabham (se page 32) what he had to say made a lot of sense. His is a new way of thinking which plays to the strength of the family name.

It’s a challenging new approach that tends to go against the accepted norm in that the team will have no secrets.

Such an approach has never been tried, and it remains to be seen how it is received.

It is a positive story, because it shows there is fresh thinking in a sport which, for a long time has been stagnant, and without such thinking the status quo will continue.

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HONDA Words by Dr Mike Lawrence

How the Japanese giant learned In the Honda Museum at Hiroshima is a 1961 Cooper-Climax F1 car which was bought before Honda made its first car, let alone a racing car.

Honda was then just a promising newcomer to the international motorcycle market, but Mr Sochiro Honda had ambitious plans.

These went beyond what he intended to make, they extended to the culture of the company. Traditional Japanese practice would have had Mr Honda’s son taking over the company, but he was set up in his own outfit, Mugen.

This gave the message that Honda was different.

Honda bought the Cooper to understand it,

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not to race it. Nobody, however, could work out how to tune the Weber carburettors. Word got back to England and Jack Brabham agreed to break his annual return to Australia to show them.

This simple act of kindness galvanised the people at Honda. There was not much contact between Japan and the rest of the world, yet Jack was a double World Champion. Nobody who was there at the time ever forgot the visit which is why the Cooper is in the museum.

Honda made its transverse V12 F1 engine and sent a mock-up to Lotus whom it wanted as a partner. All that Colin

Chapman did was to use it to wind up Coventry Climax who made a flat16 1.5-litre engine which was never to race.

Motor Racing Developments, the company founded by Brabham and Ron Tauranac, which built Brabham cars, was offered the engine, but they said a new car was impossible in the time.

Honda decided to make their own F1 car and ask Brabham to run their F2 programme in 1965.

The Honda engine was not a success, though it had performed well in tests. At the end of the season, Brabham and Tauranac called in at the factory and explained why. Honda had been used to making

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d to win transverse motorcycle engines and the block on the in-line four F2 unit was difficult to accommodate in a spaceframe without losing rigidity.

Then again, it was too tall an engine, which upset the balance of the car.

Mr Tadashi Kume and Mr Nobuhiko Kawamoto, who would be the two presidents of the company following Mr Honda, were tasked with a new design. They were packed off to a seaside resort ‘on holiday’ since trade union rules would not permit them to work the hours they needed to work. The new engine was designed and made in three months.

Mr Kume had been the

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chief Honda mechanic in 1965, Mr Kawamoto took over in 1966. The future presidents were race mechanics. In Formula Two, Jack Brabham and Denny Hulme swept all before them (while finishing first and fourth in the F1 Championship with their Brabham-Repcos).

The trouble was that Honda was learning nothing because the engines were bullet-proof.

Mr Kawamoto was ordered not to change the main bearings on Jack’s engine between two races. Jack led easily at Rouen until, four laps from the end, his engine seized. Knowing how much the Japanese value ‘face’, he unscrewed the gearknob

and walked back to the pits with it in his hand.

He did not tell a lie, but all reports had his retirement as gearbox failure.

Jack Brabham and Ron Tauranac both became long-term consultants to Honda and when, in 1980, Honda built a V6 F2 engine, as a prelude to its foray into F1, it was to Tauranac’s company, Ralt, that they turned, Ron soon had them redesigning the engine so the exhaust pipes came between the V of the engine and not from the sides, so they were an aid to ground effect.

Mr Kawamoto once told me, ‘Jack-san and Ronsan taught Honda how to win.’

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It was going so well... The moment Stephen Johnson exited the Bathurst 1000.

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Bumpy ro D

espite winning Bathurst for the second consecutive year, it’s a tough time to be a Ford fan.

Uncertainty clouds the blue oval’s future in Australian motorsport as the series faces its biggest ever challenge.

For a generation Australian motorsport fans have grown accustomed to the Ford versus Holden rivalry, though with the introduction of Nissan, Mercedes-Benz and now Volvo that landscape is changing. Add that to the fact Ford has announced plans to cease local manufacturing from 2016, not to mention question marks over the future of the Holden Commodore, there are serious bumps in the road ahead.

The first of those appears to be Ford’s commitment to the sport, with it currently unwilling to make any sort of public statement one way or the other. In the lead up to last year’s

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Bathurst 1000 a one year extension with Ford Performance Racing was announced, but that only confirms factory support until the end of the current season. At the time of writing, there will be no factory backed Ford team on the V8 Supercar grid in 2015.

Ford Australia boss Bob Graziano has said that no decision will be made until the end of the season, while FPR co-owner Rod Nash remains confident a new deal can be struck, at least in public.

The problem facing Ford is the death of the Falcon. A stalwart of Australian motorsport for the last three decades, there is no simple replacement from within the Ford range.

The logical replacement would be the Mustang, however as it’s only two doors it would be unable to enter the sport until the current regulations are expanded, which at this stage isn’t expected u

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oad ahead

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v8 supercars until 2017. The alternative is the Mondeo but even that has its issues; squeezing a V8 engine into it for a start.

However that may not prove a long term problem as there are some suggestions engine regulations could be relaxed to allow other configurations into the sport from 2016. By that logic a four- or sixcylinder Mondeo could therefore compete in the V8 Supercar series, which would presumably renamed to suit.

Such a prospect opens up a number of possibilities which would make FPR more appealing to the number crunchers in Detroit. With relaxed regulations there would in theory be nothing to stop the squad running both Mondeos and Mustangs to broaden the market appeal of the Ford range.

Such a concept is unlikely to have gone unnoticed at FPR, and it would therefore be no surprise if it’s mentioned during negotiations.

For 2015 FPR and the DJRacing Team Penske entries will feature the Falcon FGX, the final Falcon to roll off the assembly line. With that speed bump negotiated the sport can begin looking at the next.

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Formula One

Vettel: I’m Words by Mat Coch

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ed Bull’s announcement that Sebastian Vettel will leave the team at the end of the year sent shockwaves through the Formula One paddock. After four world championships, the most successful driver on the grid is fleeing the nest.

Vettel broke the news to team boss Christian Horner and Red Bull advisor Dr Helmut Marko on the Thursday night ahead of the Japanese Grand Prix. The announcement was then relayed to the world the following morning, with Toro Rosso Daniil Kvyat immediately named as Vettel’s replacement. It was as much a shock to Kvyat, who was eating his Corn Flakes at the

time, as anyone else.

Vettel caught Red Bull with its pants down and the subsequent media release smacked of retaliation. Though not officially announced, in separate television interviews both Horner and Marko identified Ferrari as the team which had stolen their star driver.

But Ferrari stealing Vettel away from Red Bull, and his own desire to leave, was not without warning.

There have been signs in recent months that the all-conquering Red Bull team has begun to wobble with the loss of key personnel; Adrian Newey is stepping back from his Formula One commitments while fellow aero ace Peter Prodromou recently started with

McLaren after a lengthy legal squabble between the two teams.

Of course for a driver Ferrari is always an allure. It has bags of history and charisma.

Any driver worth his salt wants to be in a winning car or, failing that, a red one. Preferably both.

Vettel’s decision to move to Maranello is a realisation of that ambition, but it also goes some way to protecting his own reputation.

There is also no hiding away from the fact that Vettel is no longer the darling of the Red Bull programme. Daniel Ricciardo has proven the system works while the instant promotion of Kvyat shows the team has faith in it. Vettel has achieved all he needs u

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to with Red Bull, and they’ve had more success than they could have possibly imagined from Vettel. No doubt the brutality of the system would, in time, have also cast him aside like Christian Klien, Vitantonio Liuzzi, Scott Speed, Jaime Alguersuari and Sebastien Buemi. Vettel simply jumped before he was pushed.

All this seems to displace Fernando Alonso.

Sources assure us Kimi Raikkonen will be staying put for 2015 while Alonso has been unhappy for some time. It’s understood he was released from his Ferrari contract on the Thursday night of the Japanese Grand Prix,

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about the same time as Vettel sat down with Horner and Marko, while rumours further suggest he’s inked a deal with Honda. Exactly what a contract with Honda gives the Spaniard is unclear since it doesn’t have a team, it will simply supply engines.

It’s no secret McLaren has been chasing Alonso for some time, a move which would reunite him with Ron Dennis – the pair having famously fallen out in 2007. A deal with Honda is viewed by many as a way of sidestepping the McLaren boss, though it seems unlikely McLaren’s lawyers would sit idle while such a move was on the

Formula One

cards. Honda has also always acted honourably, even when it withdrew from the sport at the end of 2008, making A Honda deal even harder to fathom.

Should Alonso go to McLaren it will impact both Jenson Button and Kevin Magnussen, McLaren’s current driving pairing. Logic seems to suggest Button would be the driver to make way for Alonso as the Woking squad has invested heavily in Magnussen, who has shown promise even if he is in need of refinement. He is fast, combative and a likely race winner if given the right machinery, and more than a decade

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column / News / Feature / Report Button’s junior. McLaren management has also recently made noises that perhaps Button isn’t as fast as they’d like.

For Alonso, McLaren is the only realistic option. Red Bull’s door is firmly bolted from the inside courtesy of its driver development programme while Mercedes is satisfied with its driver pairing. A cynic would suggest rumours linking Alonso to a move there are nothing but a carefully planted ploy by the team to help with negotiating Lewis Hamilton’s contract extension (he’s signed until the end of 2015, but is looking for a two year deal beyond that). Williams too has confirmed an unchanged line-up for next year, though if truth be told it doesn’t yet have the runs on the board to attract the likes of Alonso. Give it another year or two.

Wherever he does, Alonso’s next move will likely his final roll of the dice in Formula One. At 33 his use-by date is fast approaching.

Of course there are no certainties that success will come at McLaren, even if Honda will be doing its part. Hopes the engine will be immediately competitive are optimistic while McLaren is currently rebuilding

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following the departure of Martin Whitmarsh at the head of the team.

Following two seasons of average results turning its fortunes around is unlikely to happen overnight.

At Ferrari, Vettel is also rolling the dice. The squad is in the doldrums with no sign of emerging anytime soon; a fair assumption since if there was anything encouraging on the horizon Alonso would have no interest in leaving. To

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reverse the team’s fortunes Vettel must quickly establish himself as the sort of leader Michael Schumacher was, though up to this stage of his career there has been no evidence of that.

A change of driver alone will not change the teams fortunes and the Italian squad, like McLaren, needs to recruit the right people to complement any new driver signing.

That process could take years. Just ask Red Bull.

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winning moves column / News / Feature / Report

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How strategy won Bathurst

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etween them, Chaz Mostert and Paul Morris pitted eleven times on their way to the top step of the podium; twelve if you count the red flag intermission.

The secret to their success was the use of the safety car, Ford Performance Racing bringing the #6 car down the lane almost every time it emerged, including on lap 150 when they topped Mostert up u

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for the mad dash to the line.

Unlike Whincup, who carved through the field in the opening stint to lead at his first stop, Morris’ progress in the opening laps was rather steadier. Though for a time he ran second, courtesy of stopping later than most, the car remained outside the top 20 for much of the first part of the race.

Mostert’s own first stint lasted just three laps, the team taking advantage of the safety car for Luke Youlden’s stuck Commodore. He was joined by half the field, with slick work from the FPR crew gaining four spots in the process.

The #6 car again toured the pits when the safety car was despatched for

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a kangaroo on Mountain Straight with Morris getting back behind the wheel, and promptly burying the car in the tyres at Griffins Bend, a casualty of the deteriorating track surface.

Morris limped the car back to the pits with the team fixing it with race tape, before sending him back out. He remained on the lead lap, albeit at the back end of the field, where it had been for much of the day.

Much of the field pitted on lap 116 when Robert Dahlgren found the wall at the Cutting, but Mostert, who was by then back in the car, was stationary for less time than those around him courtesy of his team having kept the car topped up throughout the race.

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He had last been in the pits on lap 103 with only a handful of others when Tim Slade crashed at the top of the Mountain, a decision which played a crucial role in the final result.

Mostert emerged from the pits fourth on lap 116, quickly converting that to third courtesy of David Russell and Dean Canto’s retirement. A brief duel with Fabian Coulthard then followed, the pair trading places a number of times until lap 150 when Mostert headed to the pits under the final safety car.

At that point the race split in two; those who were conserving fuel in an attempt to reach the finish versus those who had it in abundance, allowing them to u

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charge to the flag. Shane Van Gisbergen, Craig Lowndes and James Courtney were the only other cars to stop, placing them at odds with Whincup, Mark Winterbottom and co.

Fourth at the restart, Mostert moved into second on lap 154 when Lowndes got into the back of Winterbottom, the lead FPR driver having

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been releaved of the lead by Whincup on the previous lap.

Whincup however was in fuel conservation mode, or should have been.

Instead, he pushed hard to open a three second lead while Mostert maintained a watching brief, hopeful that the Red Bull car would cough.

With earlier radio calls having gone unheeded,

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Whincup finally responded and slowed on the final lap to preserve the few droplets of fuel that remained in the car.

And then it coughed.

Whincup could offer no resistance to Mostert who charged by as they exited Forrest’s Elbow, the Ford driver going on to win the race from last on the grid, having not led a lap all day.

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formula one

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baptism of fire

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formula one

marcus ericsson’s debut season has been about as difficult as it gets. velocity caught up with the super swede to discuss his rookie year

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ew have it easy in their first season in Formula One, but Marcus Ericsson has perhaps had it tougher than most. The first Swede in F1 since Stefan Johansson retired midway through the 1991 season, Ericsson’s hopes were high heading in to the season.

But rather than being left to coming to terms with the increased pressure of Formula One, with its intense media interest and demanding race schedule, 24-yearold Ericsson has also

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been forced to deal with a an apparently disintegrating Caterham.

Hired by previous owner Tony Fernandes, Ericsson’s junior career was sound if unspectacular, his promotion to Formula One regarded as a commercial decision as much as one based on performance.

Caterham, in its fifth year in the sport, has not scored a point, with Fernandes tired of pouring his own money into the team without any apparent sign of improvement. u Signing Ericsson then

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column / News / Feature / Report was a case of finding a driver who could not only perform the role well enough but help offset the cost of running the team.

For Caterham, it’s hopes rested on rule changes which it hoped would bring it closer to the midfield, even if pre-season testing hadn’t gone to plan. Those hopes took a knock in Australia, a realisation which appeared to mark the beginning of the end for Fernandes’ interest in Formula One. “Quite quickly after Melbourne we realised the car was not as strong

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as we thought and hoped,” Ericsson admitted to Velocity. “We had to accept that we were going to have to work in the back of the field.”

A season spent at the back of the grid meant both Ericsson and the team had to realign their expectations; points would have to wait another year, it seemed.

“You always want to win, you always want to perform and when you don’t have the materials to do that it’s very easy to get frustrated,” Ericsson explained.

“That’s been the biggest

formula one challenge for me, to keep my calm and just focus on maximising what I have.”

But while Ericsson worked hard to maintain his focus, Fernandes had run out of patience.

Ahead of the British Grand Prix he offloaded the team, though the writing had been on the wall for a while.

“In the last couple of races before the new owners stepped in [Fernandes] lost a bit of motivation and we stopped development of the car,” said Ericsson.

“It’s not optimum to

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column / News / Feature / Report have it like we’ve had this year, it’s been a bit turbulent, but for me as a driver it’s not been a big problem,” he continued. “In the actual team which I am working closely with, my race engineers, my performance engineers, my mechanics, that team has been the same all year.

That hasn’t changed. It’s more in the factory it’s changed; in the senior management it’s changed but it hasn’t affected me that much to be honest.”

Although the year has not played out anything like he’d planned

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Ericsson maintains there are positives to take out.

“Technically I’ve learned a lot,” he claimed. “I’ve learned how to work with many, many different people who have very specific areas, so that’s been a big challenge to give specific feedback to everyone.

“Also something I’ve worked on a lot is to try and be consistent because F1 race weekends are quite long,” he added. “You need to be consistent not only for yourself, but also for the team to be able to set up the car in a particular

formula one way. That’s something I think I’ve developed a lot during the year and become better at.

“There are still areas where I need to improve.

I need to not have as many dips as I’ve had this year because some race weekends have not been on the level that I wanted it to be. But then I’ve also had ups like Monaco where I finished 11th, so I need to keep working on that to make sure I’m always at my best.”

With Caterham seemingly down and out, Ericsson’s career had u

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column / News / Feature / Report been cast in doubt. While his performances have improved throughout his debut year he’s hardly been a standout performer, even if he has shown teammate Kamui Kobayashi a clear pair of heels at times.

But Ericsson himself readily confesses that a career in Formula One is not simply a matter of talent, his rumoured $20million worth of backing making up for any perceived shortcoming in the talent department.

When he signed at Sauber late last month team

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boss Monisha Kalternborn claimed Ericsson’s improved performances were the deciding factor, though the additional budget he brings will not have gone unnoticed.

Whatever the reason, signing with Sauber is good news for Ericsson, whose Formula One career looked to have petered out when Caterham

formula one withdrew from the United States and Brazilian Grands Prix while administrators took control of the team. Whether or not his performances improve next season remain to be seen, though with such a tough debut in the sport it seems anything from here should be a walk in the park.

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dynasty Rebirth of a motorsport

David Brabham sat down with Mat Coch to discuss the resurrection of brabham.

David Brabham has grand

plans for the future. Mat Coch sat down with the Le A Mans winner to discuss Project Brabham fter more than two decades out of the sport, and with the better part of the last one spent battling through the legal system, from next season the Brabham team will be back on track.

David Brabham, the youngest son of three-time Formula One World Champion Sir Jack Brabham, has confirmed his plans to rekindle a racing dynasty which stretches back to the early 1960s when his father formed Motor Racing Developments with Ron Tauranac.

The all-new Brabham team will share more than a passing resemblance to its predecessor in the way it questions the establishment; where Sir Jack took on the world with his own car, his son is looking to redefine the commercial side of the sport.

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“I just thought how do I bring Brabham back,” David Brabham begins.

“Do I want to do the same thing as everyone else? It’s a difficult market; everyone is doing the same thing.

“To do a normal race team you go out there, you try and find the money, you bring all the people together, you get your factory, you go racing,” he explains. “Then it takes ages for you to get to a level where you start to develop a fan base and you’re successful.

“I’ve driven for a lot of teams and there’s a good reason for that. It’s because most teams at the end of the year are struggling, from year to year, to find the budget.”

Looking for an alternative, Brabham came to the realisation that he held a distinct advantage courtesy of the u

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column / News / Feature / Report heritage and goodwill fostered by the Brabham name. But while it provided him an enormous advantage over most, it also threw up some unexpected snags too.

“We discovered someone had registered Brabham and Brabham Racing in Germany and was starting up a business there,” he tells.

“Obviously if we were going to do anything with the name we had to have ownership of it, and they were passing off on our good name and reputation.”

Clearly unhappy with the situation, Brabham took the German company to court where a lengthy battle eventually settled in favour of the Brabham family. With ownership of its own brand once more the real work begun.

“It was a case of doing some brand research, understanding what Brabham meant. What came out is that Brabham is inspiring wins through pioneering thinking. This is where the model started to develop and it went through a few different roads before it came to this one.”

With the brand understood, the next step was to use that information to re-establish Brabham in motorsport. Jack sold his shares in the Brabham

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company to Ron Tauranac following his retirement in 1970 before Bernie Ecclestone purchased the squad a few years later. It had been sold again by the time it skulked off the Formula One grid in the early 1990s.

Simply recreating the team was never an option for Brabham. The commercial realities of motorsport have changed, with costs escalating to almost prohibitive levels for any new team.

That’s where Brabham was forced to think differently, adopting an approach that turns a traditional race team business model on its head. By leveraging the Brabham name, Project Brabham was born in an attempt to engage with fans and establish a baseline of support ahead of approaching investors. The centrepiece of the model’s first phase is Brabham Digital, where fans can pledge their support for the team and gain unprecedented access to the inner workings of a racing team.

“Through the crowd funding model we can engage an audience straightaway, so people feel that they’re on-board, they can contribute, they can feel part of the journey,” Brabham agrees. u

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Image: Jakob Ebrey Photography

“During the crowd funding exercise we’re gathering a lot of data in terms of is this model of openness and transparency - is Brabham Digital - something that people would like in terms of whether you’re a fan, a driver or an engineer?

“That gives us a very good base to then move to the next level in terms of finding an investor because the person investing is not just investing in a race team, it’s investing in a model that people will subscribe to in the future because they do want

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that access.”

Motor racing teams are typically shrouded in mystery, with secrets closely guarded in an attempt not to give rivals a competitive advantage. Brabham’s vision is challenging to the establishment. The simple financial questions aside, Project Brabham casts off traditional notions of how a successful team is run. Instead, Brabham intends to throw open the factory doors by giving supporters access to the teams data and input into its decision making – and design – process.

But while many may see that transparency as a weakness, Brabham sees it as one of the greatest strengths for the project.

“I actually think the model will work,” he says confidently. “My own example, when I went into Peugeot in 2009, the politics there…! They had all the fastest cars but they still couldn’t win and it was all about the way the people worked within that group.

“I could see how a different approach was going to maximise the situation,” he adds. “And it did (work), we ended

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up winning (Le Mans)!

We didn’t have the fastest car but we did everything else right and the result came. That’s where I think we can do that with our model as well.

“I’ve been in the industry a long time and I’ve always found it fascinating how much I’ve learned as a human being, as well as a driver, but also the people around me who grow so much, so quickly in a competitive environment.

I thought ‘why are we not sharing this knowledge and access for

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other people’?

“It’s always been on my mind so when we started developing this model it was a fairly easy thing to do, and this platform gives us the perfect opportunity to show and demonstrate what you can learn through the sport. Of course we’re tailoring it to fans, drivers and engineers but there are so many things that go on in a race team that you can open it up to other avenues as we develop.”

The crowd funding concept is just the first step.

Brabham assures us that

the team will be on the LMP2 grid next season regardless of the outcome, though won’t be held down to exactly when. With time fast running out the priority is not making the first race of next season’s World Endurance Championship, but having solid foundations for when it does make its debut.

“This is not all about just doing one year, this is a long term programme,” he reasons.

“I don’t want to get into a situation where it’s a mad rush to get to the first race because I’ve seen that so many times and once you get into the season it’s very hard to recover if you’re not ready.

“I’d much rather put the foundation down first, and it might mean entering the second or the third or the fourth race, but this is about putting the foundation down first and then moving forward. We’d like to get out there as quick as we can but there’s a balance between rushing it and doing a bad job and doing it where we can still get out there at a reasonably early time but we’re ready.”

Much like the foundations of the original Brabham team, which saw Sir Jack first u

37

column / News / Feature / Report compete in a customer Lotus 24, the new Brabham team will begin life as a customer enterprise before growing into a constructor in its own right.

“As the team builds and we get an understanding of our operations, as well as we’ve got the Brabham Digital side that needs to develop as we go along, and when we get three or four years down the road we’d be looking at building our own LMP1 car.

“This is where we get the collaborative design concept; where we can get groups of people around the world to help design particular development parts as we move along.

“I kind of want people to think about this in terms of, we’re not just a race team,” he expands. “This is about Brabham being a brand that’s going to go back into racing to give people the opportunity to engage in the sport in a different way whether you’re a fan, driver or an engineer.

“So, going into LMP1 with the technology that they have there with all the hybrid systems and everything, hopefully by that time we may engage with a manufacturer who quite likes our concept and the fact

38

Image: Jakob Ebrey Photography

that we have got such a broad reach of people around the world engaging in what we’re doing. It becomes attractive to people like a manufacturer to market themselves through our platform as well as helping to develop a future car.”

While the team will start life in endurance prototype racing, Formula One remains a stretch goal.

“Brabham has Formula One in its DNA. It would be great to see Brabham back in Formula One, and that is a goal.

It is sort of ten years

down the road, but in ten years things can change quite quickly.

“At the moment I think in Formula One they spend an awful lot of money trying to survive, let alone to even win.

There are more and more Formula One teams suffering, and it just seems they’re always on this knife-edge of teams almost collapsing.

“Formula One is huge as well now, but there are cracks starting to appear, and they are going to have to adapt and change over the coming years because

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if they don’t I think Formula One is in danger of losing teams because people just won’t be able to generate those sorts of funds to maintain a Formula One team.”

The new Formula E championship will be a likely stepping-stone before a fully-fledged Formula One effort, with Brabham revealing he was close to a deal that would have seen the squad on the grid this year. Though that deal fell through at the last minute, it’s a category that he is keeping an eye on, even if the

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focus for the moment is on generating the capital required to launch the team proper.

In the immediate future that means rekindling passions for the Brabham name via crowd funding and from there finding the right commercial partners.

“That is what we’re working on at the moment. Once we’ve done that and we’ve got the funds, then we go racing. We don’t just go racing, but we do it properly. I don’t want to try and do this on a whim; we’ve got to do this

where we’ve got proper backing.

“I’m trying to put the foundations down that are quite big and strong to build something big for the future,” Brabham continues. “For me, I needed to build a sustainable model and I think talking to people, people get what I’m trying to do from a corporate point of view because a lot of corporates are starting to head this way anyway.

“We haven’t had anyone say no yet. We haven’t had anyone say yes, but the indications are positive.”

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column / News / Feature / Report

learning experienc Dylan Thomas has been busy in 2014. velocity caught up with him to reflect on the season

Images: Race Shots

I

t’s been a busy year for Dylan Thomas.

He’s raced at the Bathurst 12 Hour in a MARC Cars Focus, won the Formula Vee NSW State Championship and finished runner up in the national series, competed in a host of production car endurance races and even had time to head over to Malaysia for the

40

Sepang 12 Hour where he drove a Porsche GT3.

All up, Thomas spent almost every other weekend at a race track in a year that could be considered his break-out in circuit racing.

From a tarmac rally background, Thomas began circuit racing as a way to compete at Bathurst, quickly getting

bitten by the circuit racing bug.

Since then, things have progressed. For the past two years Thomas has run the CXC Global Racing team, headquartered in Sydney’s northern beaches where it sits alongside his kit car building and dyno tuning businesses.

It’s given him access to the equipment and

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ce

facilities needed to build a top-flight racing team, and that’s what’s made the difference in 2014.

After years spent racing as a hobbyist, Thomas can now justifiably call himself a motorsport professional, the head of a team of mechanics and engineers which he believes are among the best in the country.

“We feel that we’re a

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top line team and we’ve got very good procedures, and we’ve proven that time and again through our Evo programme,” Thomas says.

“In the last three years, with [the Australian Manufacturers Championship], we’ve never been beaten in a pitstop for time. We time everyone’s stops and our boys have always been the

quickest.”

Never one to pass on an opportunity to improve however, Thomas used the Bathurst 12 Hour as a chance to learn from the MARCS Cars team, an experience which proved useful not just for Thomas but his crew who worked alongside team owner Ryan McLeod’s mechanics and u engineers.

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column / News / Feature / Report

“They stripped the gearboxes overnight to see how the gears were all coping, as the cars we all still new and no part had life cycles in place yet,” explains Thomas.

“It was good to be part of that process and have my crew involved with it.

“I take everything as a learning experience. It makes it more justifiable in a business sense to

42

use it as an educational tool.”

“It was the same as when I went to Malaysia,” he adds. “I took my lead mechanic over with me, Adam Coppock, and he was second in charge of my car which was good.

It was a good experience for him to see how [Motorsport Services] ran an operation and again to see what we could learn,

what we could implement back into our own team as well as enjoy the experience of a great event.”

Coupled with the ongoing development of his own team, Thomas’ 2014 season was as successful season as he’s had in circuit racing. After moving into the new premises, and out of his garage, both performance

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column / News / Feature / Report

and reliability have improved. That has translated to an increased level of competitiveness, with stronger results following. That included the NSW Formula Vee State Championship, arguably the country’s most competitive open-wheel racing category.

But as the business side of motorsport requires more of Thomas’ time,

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his focus next season will move to production car racing in NSW, a key market as he looks to grow his business further. He will also look to defend his Formula Vee state championship too, and is aiming on going one better at national level. There are also plans to enter the Spa-Francorchamps 25Hr Fun Cup, an endurance

event for jumped-up VW Beetles with a sequential gearbox and one set of tyres and brakes. He’s also keeping his options open when it comes to another attack on the Bathurst 12 Hour.

It’s a full schedule that will also squeeze in his ongoing business commitments back at the teams factory. And Thomas thought 2014 was busy...

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column / News / Feature / Report

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wave of A

fter the last lap disappointment of Bathurst, the streets of Surfers Paradise handed Jamie Whincup and Paul Dumbrell some recompense with victory in the Endurance Cup. Competitive in both races across the weekend, Whincup and Dumbrell opened their account with a combative second before going one better on Sunday afternoon to takeout the round.

The weekend started aggressively for Dumbrell as he attempted to elbow his way into the lead of

44

the opening race before a premature jump at the safety car restart saw him hand spots back to Jonathan Webb and Scott McLaughlin. A start line incident between David Russell and Greg Murphy left the HRT car an early casualty and the safety car an equally early visitor to the race, with Dumbrell’s eagerness getting the better of him at the restart when he accelerated over Webb.

McLaughlin was the only lead contender to start the race, the Volvo squad attempting to gain track position ahead of u

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column / News / Feature / Report

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success

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column / News / Feature / Report

handing the car to Alex Premat when he stopped on lap 24. With co-drivers required to complete at least 34 of the 102 laps, it put the Volvo off

race 1 result P

46

Driver

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kilter with those around them, opening a myriad of alternative strategy windows.

Another safety car on lap 51 played against

team

time

1

van Gisbergen/Webb

TEKNO V.I.P Petfoods

2:13:24.099

2

Whincup/Dumbrell

Red Bull Racing

+ 2.255

3

Slade/D’Alberto

Supercheap Auto

+ 23.169

4

Winterbottom/Owen

Ford Pepsi Max Crew

+ 23.147

5

Caruso/Fiore

Norton Hornets

+ 23.299

6

Mostert/Morris

Ford Pepsi Max Crew

+ 31.840

7

McLaughlin/Premat

Valvoline Racing GRM

+ 38.651

8

Pye/Walsh

Wilson Security Racing

+ 38.899

9

Ingall/Blanchard

Repair Management

+ 1:03.799

10

Tander/Luff

Holden Racing Team

+ 1 Lap

those however. Falling three laps shy of Premat’s minimum distance the Frenchman was forced to remain in the car for another ten laps before handing it back to McLaughlin on lap 62.

By that stage he’d conceded the lead to a charging Whincup, who took control of the Red Bull Commodore on lap 35. It was the same strategy for most of the leaders; Shane Van Gisbergen taking over from Webb while Garth Tander replaced Luff.

The strategy didn’t work out so well for Chaz

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column / News / Feature / Report

Mostert, the Bathurst winner finding himself a lap down barely a third of the way into the race.

He would claw his way back onto the lead lap by mid-distance, only to clout the tyres at the chicane at the back of

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the circuit, the latest in a list of drivers caught out by the bundles. Lowndes and David Reynolds also found them, the contact ending the latters day.

Van Gisbergen had no such problems, taking the lead when Whincup

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stopped for the final time on lap 77, easing his way to the finish ahead of Whincup and Mark Winterbottom.

There was drama for Winterbottom however who was stripped of u third place after his

47

column / News / Feature / Report

final corner bump on Tim Slade was deemed unfair, relegating the FPR man and promoting Tim Slade to make an allHolden podium.

Again starting in the Red Bull car in Sunday’s race, Dumbrell took an early lead which the squad would hardly relinquish for the remainder of the day as it sauntered around the Gold Coast streets ahead of Scott McLaughlin and Michael Caruso.

Dumbrell led until he stopped and handed the car to Whincup on lap 35, his compulsory

48

minimum distance complete. The leaders all followed, McLaughlin the winner at the front end of the field by jumping Van Gisbergen to claim second spot.

Premat, who had started the race, had been second heading into the pit sequence until a determined Webb forced the issue in a drag race to the back chicane. Unwilling to give the place up without a fight, a feisty Van Gisbergen immediately attacked, retaking the spot from the Volvo four corners later.

It set the tone at the

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front end of the race as McLaughlin battled his way on to the podium.

A drive-through penalty for Van Gisbergen forced him to work hard to climb back through the field after he was caught overlapping at the restart on lap 46.

From there the race then took on a familiar pattern as those with fuel charged and those without conserved. Hopes of another Bathurst style grandstand finish were dashed on lap 60 though when the safety car was sent out as debris littered the circuit, before another

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almost immediately pushed any thoughts of fuel conservation out of mind.

Struggling for tyre grip in the closing stages,

race 2 result P

Driver

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McLaughlin fell into the clutches of a charging Caruso, the Nissan driver running out of laps as the chequered flag was shown early because of

team

time

1

Whincup/Dumbrell

Red Bull Racing

2:13:00.311

2

McLaughlin/Premat

Valvoline Racing GRM

3

Caruso/Fiore

4

time.

It hardly seemed to matter for Whincup and Dumbrell, the duo cruising uninhibited to the race win.

Championship P

Driver

Pts

1

Jamie Whincup

+ 2.851

2

Mark Winterbottom

2433

Norton Hornets

+ 3.447

3

S van Gisbergen

2357

Slade/D’Alberto

Supercheap Auto

+ 11.212

4

Craig Lowndes

2331

5

van Gisbergen/Webb

TEKNO V.I.P Petfoods

+ 18.029

5

Fabian Coulthard

2192

6

Reynolds/Canto

Bottle-O Racing

+ 18.696

6

Chaz Mostert

2147

7

Coulthard/Youlden

Red Lockwood Racing

+ 18.790

7

James Courtney

2135

8

Ingall/Blanchard

Repair Management

+ 21.180

8

Scott McLaughlin

2019

9

R.Kelly/Russell

Jack Daniel’s Racing

+ 21.374

9

Garth Tander

1806

10

Percat/Gavin

HHA Racing

+ 21.590

10

Michael Caruso

1688

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2835

49

column / News / Feature / Report

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Richards wins...

...as luff spins

N

ick Foster may have claimed his first Carrera Cup round win, but the real talking point was Stephen Richards’ championship win following a dramatic start to race two.

A slow getaway from championship contender Warren Luff allowed Sam Power a look as the field poured into turn one. Contact between the two spun Luff around, effectively ending his championship while Power was handed a drive-through penalty for his part in proceedings.

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It came the day after Richards had stolen the lead in the championship by a single point in the opening race. Won by David Russell, Richards finished less than a tenth of a second behind after Russell had a five-second penalty added to his time for a jump start.

Foster then won both of Sunday’s races, pulling off a late move on Richards to seize the lead on in the mornings race to relegate the championship leader to second. The talking point however was the incident between Luff and

Power at the first corner, which saw Luff finish the 15 lap event just eighth, effectively ending his championship hopes as Richards finishing second. Mathematically at least the title was alive as they headed into the final race, but it was a long shot for Luff.

Foster controlled the race to claim his second win and first round victory with Shae Davies second and Russell in third. Craig Baird led home Richards and Luff in fourth, the three title protagonists separated by barely half a second.

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harris holds on

L

ocal lad Ryal Harris won round seven of the V8 Utes series on the streets of the Gold Coast after taking races one and three across the weekend.

Pole sitter Jesse Dixon trailed Harris home in the opening race followed by David Sieders while back in the pack a crash saw Philip Woodbury come together with Benn Wilson, who found the wall while battling with Jeremy Gray. With nowhere to go, contact from Woodbury was unavoidable; Cam Wilson also getting into the barrier in the process.

Winning race two,

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Andrew Fisher actually crossed the line second to Ryan McNally before a five second penalty for jumping the chicane demoted him to second with Gray in third. Harris then won the final race ahead of Dixon and McNally in third.

Trent Young dominated a carnage filled Aussie Race Cars weekend.

Young claimed three of

the four non-championship races with James Abela taking out the final.

Hayden Stephenson was second in races one and two with Simon Smith third. Tyler Greenbury finished second ahead of Abela in race three before Abela dropped Young to second with Smith once again third in the final race.

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Cough you bastard! column / News / Feature / Report

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FPR goes back-to-back at Bathurst

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A

fter 998 kilometres of racing Jamie Whincup had pulled off the impossible. Just two kilometres later he wasn’t even on the podium.

The record books will show Chaz Mostert and Paul Morris claiming line honours in Australia’s biggest race, but that hardly does justice to one of the most tumultuous races in the history of the event. If it had been a movie the 2014 Bathurst 1000 would have been laughed out of cinemas. Drama, intrigue and comedy, it had it all. And then some.

Mostert had started the race plum last, his punishment for overtaking Russell Ingall under red flags earlier in the weekend.

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V8 supercars It was a schoolboy error which, statistically, should have ended any chance he and Morris had in winning the Great Race.

Peter Brock’s charge from 19th to the top step of the podium in 1987 was the best anyone had managed previously.

Nobody could win it from the back row of the grid, could they?

Alongside Mostert’s FPR Falcon was Jamie Whincup’s Red Bull Commodore, the pair painting a forlorn image underneath the bridge which, some eight hours later, would mark the finishing post.

Whincup’s poor grid slot was also his own doing after a driving error cost him badly in qualifying.

Aggressive in the pursuit of lap time, the reigning champ lost the rear heading into the Cutting, u

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column / News / Feature / Report

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smearing the wall with Red Bull. But for Mostert’s exclusion from the session Whincup, the red hot favourite heading into the weekend, was last.

They both fared better than Garth Tander whose weekend ended on Saturday morning. With co-driver Warren Luff at the wheel the HRT car lost brakes heading into Griffins bend, tagging a hapless Craig Lowndes in the process. Upturned, Lowndes assisted an uninjured Luff from the car, though it would take no further part in proceedings and was withdrawn from the weekend. For a time that looked like it might promote James Courtney into the Top 10 Shootout, though complaints from the pit lane saw that notion scuppered.

A steady Top 10 lap for Craig Lowndes was bettered by Shane Van Gisbergen, the Kiwi seemingly on edge as his yellow Commodore danced across the Mountain. His lap deposed Mark Winterbottom, the FPR man having gone fastest despite running wide at the Dipper earlier in the Shootout.

Though they locked out the front row, neither could keep pace with Scott McLaughlin come Sunday morning, u

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the Volvo streaking from the second row to take the lead by the first turn. Stephen Richards too, behind the wheel of Lowndes’ #888 car, jumped well to sit fourth though ran wide at McPhillamy Park, kicking dust and dirt into the face of the pursuing pack.

At the back Whincup was on a charge. His start was near perfect, almost too perfect, and by the end of the opening lap he’d climbed six places and was in the top ten after just eight laps. His opening stint was arguably the drive

56

of the day; so prodigious was his pace that when he eventually stopped on lap 22 he did so from the lead, handing the car over to Paul Dumbrell.

Dumbrell kept the car inside the top 10 until he handed the car back to Whincup, who was unable to repeat his opening stint performance. Indeed his second stint behind the wheel was scrappy, highlighted by an off at the Chase, for which he was penalised after it was deemed he rejoined the circuit dangerously – tagging Todd Kelly in the process. The championship leader immediately

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headed for the pit lane with suspected damaged suspension, and lost a lap as the team carried out repairs. The favourite, it seemed, was out of the race.

A spirited drive from Cameron Waters saw Taz Douglas squeezed for room as they headed up the mountain for the 34th time. With nowhere to go, Douglas made a b-line for the barrier. It wouldn’t be the only time the Nissan driver found that part of the circuit, crashing at the same spot on lap 58 after being caught out by the circuit breaking up.

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column / News / Feature / Report Paul Morris and Scott Pye also came unstuck before officials finally elected to red flag the race on lap 61 to affect repairs on the deteriorating surface. A 60-minute interlude followed as the circuit was patched, all the while teams worked freely on their cars with regulations allowing anything other than a driver or tyre change and refuelling.

Red Bull took the opportunity to investigate the tailshaft on Whincup’s car, who had complained of a vibration during his blistering opening stint.

At HRT, the team busied itself trying to solve an electrical problem on the #22 car after it had

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struggled through without a working dash. There were furrowed brows for Garry Rogers too as his car headed the stationary field, with concern it may not be able to get underway once the race restarted.

Brad Jones Racing was also busy as it looked to repair the back of Jason Bright’s car. Teammate Dale Wood had collided with it heavily in an earlier safety car when the local wildlife forcing officials’ into subduing the race.

Wood had been racing to catch the back of the safety car train on lap 46, only to come across the queue unexpectedly at Reid Park. Sliding

V8 supercars into the back of Andrew Jones, he heavily damaged the back of the BOC car and put himself out on the spot.

The electrical issues at HRT then worsened after the race restarted, the #22 car limping back to the pits with a throttle sensor problem. Wheeled into the garage, mechanics scrambled to repair the Commodore, dropping four laps in the process.

At the head of the race, Stephen Johnson took control when David Russell ran wide at turn two, though his time out front was short lived when a transmission failure pitched his Falcon into the barriers at Sulman Park. It forced another u

57

column / News / Feature / Report safety car, the field taking the opportunity to pit with the notable exceptions of both Russell and McLaughlin who opted to maintain track position.

Soon after, Scott Pye’s day came to an end when a puncture threw his Falcon at the wall on Conrod Straight, his car coming to a halt on the entry to the Chase. Inevitably, the safety car was called upon again.

With Pye’s car cleared there were fears the race might settle down as it ran for more than 25 laps without interruption, though Alex Premat, at the wheel of McLaughlin’s Volvo, and Jonathan Webb, in Van Gisbergen’s Commodore, kept the crowd entertained by briefly squabbling for top spot following another round of stops on lap 91.

Another safety car on lap 103, this time for Tim Slade who hit the wall at the top of the Mountain, triggered another round of stops while Dumbrell took the opportunity to get back onto the lead lap. The Red Bull Commodore, though not yet back in contention, suddenly became a factor once again.

The safety car was ill timed for FPR, with Steve Owen four laps short of the minimum distance he needed to

58

cover as a co-driver.

Tim Blanchard too was caught a lap short when he picked up a puncture shortly after the race resumed.

No sooner was the safety car trundling into pit lane than it was heading back out as Robert Dahlgren, who failed to impress in his Bathurst debut, clouted

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the barrier at the Cutting. Also out was David Reynolds, whose car ground to a halt just beyond the pit exit, out of electricity.

Caught one lap short of the minimum distance, Dumbrell looked set to complete another stint in the Whincup Commodore before McLaughlin found the same barrier as

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teammate Dahlgren. With his rear suspension damaged, McLaughlin limped the Volvo back to the pits, another contender out of the hunt.

Through it all, Lowndes quietly moved into the lead, Red Bull having short-filled in an attempt to gain track position.

Strategy was becoming ever more important,

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with teams eying lap 138 – the first at which they could safely stop without needing service again. In an effort to eke his fuel to that point, Lowndes began saving, allowing Van Gisbergen through to the lead while the two FPR cars ran dangerously close to one another on track; another safety car and

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Winterbottom would be forced to stack behind Mostert.

And so it proved. A mammoth accident for Lee Holdsworth and Russell Ingall, who went into the tyres at Griffins Bend much like Luff and Lowndes had the previous morning. The incident was triggered by Ingall, who missed his u

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braking point and slid into the hapless Holdsworth, who endured his second heavy hit in as many races.

The resulting safety car eased concerns over fuel economy. With many heading to pit lane Winterbottom ws forced to queue behind

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his younger teammate in what proved a decisive moment which moved Mostert into contention over his more experienced teammate.

Winterbottom fell like a stone through the field, so much so FPR brought Frosty back to pit lane soon after for a top

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up, giving him a lap or two advantage over the remainder of the field.

Winterbottom’s splash and dash was designed to buy him track position at his next stop, with a shorter stationary time helping him jump up the order. For that strategy to work however

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Winterbottom would have to make progress on track to be within striking distance come the final stop.

Helping his cause was the fact some teams had elected not to stop again, their drivers cruising to save fuel in an effort to reach the finish.

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Conversely there were those who threw caution to the wind, running qualifying laps to stretch an advantage and cover their final stop. Red Bull hedged its bets; Lowndes was flat out while Whincup was looking to save.

So too was Winterbottom.

But when Blanchard

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crashed at the Cutting with 11 laps to run it looked almost certain that everyone would head to pit lane. Most had last stopped around lap 134, four laps shy of the point at which they could make it home safely. Van Gisbergen, Lowndes and u Mostert all elected to

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stop while Winterbottom and Whincup stayed on track to take the top two spots.

Favourite for the race, Van Gisbergen stalled as he was leaving his pit box and, unable to refire the car, was effectively eliminated from the race.

Though he rejoined in the dying stages, he was out of contention with less than 70km to run in the 1,000km epic.

Whincup’s scrappy afternoon continued when he ran off at turn one, losing a place to Winterbottom on lap 151 as the pair raced to catch up with the safety car.

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Two laps later Winterbottom had a bobble at the same corner, catching out Lowndes who ran into the Falcon, pitching him around in front of the field. It dropped WInterbottom well down the order while Lowndes was subsequently slapped with a drive-through penalty for his part in proceedings. Two more contenders were out of the hunt.

It left Whincup and Mostert at the front; one brimming with fuel and the other desperately low.

Despite the prospect of running dry in the closing stages, Whincup pushed

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to open a three second lead, all the while his team pleading with him to slow down. For lap after lap they messaged him, without response, Whincup lapping at a pace well beyond that needed to win.

With two laps remaining he finally slowed, with Mostert cruising up to the back of the Commodore as they started the final lap. Knowing his rival was low on fuel, Mostert remained patient and shadowed Whincup up the Mountain and across the top. At Forret’s Elbow Whincup spluttered, and Mostert was through.

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As the FPR youngster powered down Conrod Straight, Whincup was left to roll home, his tank dry. An almost certain victory become second, then third, fourth, and finally fifth as the field

race result P

Driver

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streamed by.

Whincup’s misfotrune promoted James Moffat’s heavily bandaged Nissan through to second for the Japanese manufacturers first Bathurst podium in the better part of a

team

time

1

Mostert/Morris

Pepsi Max Crew

7:58:53.205

2

Moffat/Douglas

Norton Hornets

3

Percat/Gavin

4

generation.

Completing the podium was Nick Percat, who had driven inside the top 10 for much of the race with co-driver Oliver Gavin.

Championship P

Driver

Pts

1

Jamie Whincup

+ 4.094

2

Craig Lowndes

2258

HHA Racing

+ 8.526

3

Mark Winterbottom

2250

W.Davison/A.Davison

Erebus Team Beko

+ 10.384

4

S van Gisbergen

2146

5

Whincup/Dumbrell

Red Bull Racing

+ 11.871

5

James Courtney

2146

6

Winterbottom/Owen

Pepsi Max Crew

+ 16.744

6

Chaz Mostert

2044

7

T.Kelly/Buncombe

Jack Daniel’s Racing

+ 16.838

7

Fabian Coulthard

2024

8

R.Kelly/Russell

Jack Daniel’s Racing

+ 28.105

8

Scott McLaughlin

1785

9

Coulthard/Youlden

Lockwood Racing

+ 30.773

9

Garth Tander

1712

10

Lowndes/Richards

Red Bull Racing

+ 42.529

10

Will Davison

1952

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2597

63

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To Finish First

M

...first you ne

ore than a decade after he first won the series, victory in the inaugural Bathurst 250 handed Paul Dumbrell his second V8 Supercars development series title. Converting pole into the win, Dumbrell proved the class of the field throughout the time-shortened encounter which featured three safety car periods.

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The first incursion was on lap three courtesy result of Marcus Zukanovic tagging the wall on the approach to Reid Park, the impact tearing the fuel cell from his car. It prompted Ant Pedersen to take to the pit lane, rolling the dice early in a race that included pit stops for the first time. Paired with main game teams, each driver had to pit for both

fuel and tyres but, unlike the premier class, teams could not fit the tyres while filling the car with fuel.

With no lap restrictions on when teams had to pit for service, Pedersen opted for an early stop while a number of others followed when Ash Walsh crashed out after 11 laps. Walsh’s mistake proved doubly costly as it not only eliminated

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t...

eed to finish him from the race, but handed the championship initiative to Dumbrell, who only needed victory in the double-points paying race to move out of reach in the points standings.

Another of those to stop early was Cameron Waters, who took service under the second safety car, dropping to the rear of the field in the hope he would rise

VELOCITY

back through the pack. It had worked for Pedersen, who cycled to the lead when Dumbrell stopped on lap 23, though when the safety car returned five laps later for Geoff Emery’s crash a Forrest’s Elbow he relinquished top spot to Waters. A shorter stop, courtesy of having taken on fuel earlier, Pedersen ultimately gained through the pitstop cycle despite

V8 supercars stopping twice.

Out front, Waters came under intense pressure from Dumbrell once the safety car released the field. Having emerged from the pits second, Dumbrell immediately pressured Waters into a mistake at Hell Corner, the only invitation Dumbrell needed.

Though he immediately opened a comfortable lead Dumbrell continued to push, making a mistake at the Chase saw him concede almost a second of his advantage to Waters. But it would be as close as the Falcon driver got, Dumbrell regaining his composure to head the race until the flag – shown early courtesy of the safety car periods.

Chris Pither rounded out the podium before pandemonium broke out at the final corner. Battling for the minor places, Steve Owen got into the back of Aaren Russell under brakes, who in turn slid into Garry Jacobson, pushing the Eggleston Motorsport Commodore into the gravel just metres from the flag.

Beached, Jacobson would be classed a non-finisher while Russell crossed the line sixth and Owen, who had shared the car with Andre Heimgartner, seventh.

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V8 supercars

Shae-ke ‘n Bake

A

n action packed final Carrera Cup race saw Shae Davies claim the round victory after Nick Foster triggered a multi-car crash on the final lap, involving Warren Luff, Steven Richards and David Russell.

Luff had dominated the final race, though his lead was slashed by a late race safety car when Michael Patrizi crashed at the Dipper. It turned the race into a one lap dash to the finish; Foster’s mistake at Griffins Bend causing chaos.

Through it emerged Shae Davies, who won the race ahead of Michael Almond and Craig Baird.

David Russell recovered to finish, albeit in last place, with Foster docked 25 championship points with a further 100-point

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deduction suspended until the end of the season.

It followed another final lap incident in the second race when, baulked by traffic heading on to Conrod Straight, Richards went toe-to-toe with Russell into the Chase.

Inevitably, the pair touched, Richards spinning into the weeds while Russell took over at the front before officials slapped him with a 13 second penalty, dropping him to fifth place. That promoted Luff to the race win with Patrizi second and Foster in third spot.

Richards recovered to fourth place at the flag, small conciliation for the man who won the opening race and looked set to back it up with just three corners remaining.

Incidents punctuated the weekend, with the

safety car also called into action in the opening race thanks to a four-way crash between Tony Bates, Marc Cini, Ash Samadi and James Bergmuller. The delay saw the race called three laps shy of its scheduled 10 lap distance, with half points awarded as a result – Richards the winner.

A brace of wins for Rhys McNally rounded out a strong V8 Ute weekend for the Western Australian. He won the opening race ahead of Kris Walton and Ryan Hansford before finishing ahead of George Miedecke and Jesse Dixon in the final race of the weekend. Squeezed in between was a win for Nathan Pretty who also fended off Miedecke with David Sieders in third.

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column / News / Feature / Report

V8 supercars

Lighting Crick

J

ust nine months after being told he would never race again, Greg Crick claimed victory at the circuit which almost ended his career.

Having suffered carbonmonoxide poisoning during the Bathurst 12Hr in February, Crick evened the score with the Mountain by taking out the final Touring Car Masters race of the weekend.

Crick had finished second in the reverse top-10 second race, hanging on behind Jim Richards after early leader Brad Tilley suffered electrical problems that dropped his XY Falcon out of the running on lap two.

Former two-time Bathurst 1000 winner John Bowe claimed the opening race, leading home Andrew Miedecke

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and Keith Kassulke with Crick in fourth spot.

That race however had been marred by a crash between Brett Youlden and Bill Pye as the pair ran side by side around McPhillamy Park. With nowhere to go, Andrew Fisher was also involved.

The final race belonged solely to Crick however, the Charger driver opening a small lead over the pursuing Kim Jane with Richards hot on his heels.

A last corner move by

Sam Milton handed him victory in the Aussie Racing Cars over Grant Denyer. Rhett Noonan rounded out the podium in the first of three races across the weekend.

Kyle Clews then emerged victorious in the reverse-grid second race over Maurice Masini and Adam Gowans, with Gowans claiming the top spot on the podium in the final race ahead of Trent Young and series founder Phil Ward.

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Formula One

five in a row A

third win at the Circuit of the Americas, and his fifth in succession, has seen Lewis Hamilton extend his championship lead over teammate Nico Rosberg with just two rounds remaining.

Hamilton moved into the lead after the first round of pit stops, commanding the race from that point on. Though Rosberg was never far behind, and at times showed pace suggesting he may be able to mount an attack on Hamilton, the lead battle never materialised.

While both Mercedes drivers got away well at the start, Valtteri Bottas bogged down, handing third place to Felipe Massa at the first time. Daniel Ricciardo was also slow away and trailed Adrian Sutil’s Sauber before outbraking the German to exit the corner behind Kevin Magnussen.

Alsono and Bottas went wheel to wheel through the first two corners, Alonso looking for the overlap only to be forced out by Bottas as the Williams driver defending his position.

The race was soon over for Sutil and Sergio Perez who came together towards the end of the opening lap u

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Formula One

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when Perez went to move inside at turn 15.

Leaving his breaking late, Perez’s Force India slid underneath Sutil, who’d left the door open, and into the back of Kimi Raikkonen’s Ferrari.

Bouncing wide, Perez then clouted the Sauber, damaging the front suspension of both cars and triggering an opening lap safety car.

A number of teams opted to pit, McLaren stacking its two drivers as they switched

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from the soft to medium compound tyres. At the tail of the field, courtesy of starting from the pit lane, Sebastian Vettel stopped twice under the safety car, ultimately exiting at the rear of the field on medium compound rubber. Red Bull had switched the German to an effective one-stop strategy with two long stints for the remainder of the race.

The leaders stopped on lap 15 with Ricciardo and Massa among the

Formula One

first in. They’d been running with Bottas, the trio battling for third place, though Ricciardo’s stop allowed him to clear the Finn, who stopped on the following lap. For a time Bottas harried the rear of Ricciardo before falling back, unable to use the power advantage afforded by his Mercedes engine.

Ricciardo would repeat the move on Massa at the second round of stops, under-cutting the Brazilian to move in to third place on lap 30.

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column / News / Feature / Report

Hamilton passed Robserg on lap 24, diving underneath at the end of the back straight to take the lead in an aggressive move. Ten laps later he stopped for the final time, Mercedes bringing him in to cover Ricciardo and Massa, who had stopped on lap 30.

Recovering from his early stop, and the fact he’d had to stack in the pits, Button had worked his way to eighth in the closing stages, though old tyres saw him at the

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head of a queue of cars looking to get by.

Among them was Jean-Eric Vergne, the Frenchman putting an aggressive move on Romain Grosjean at the first turn as he looked to find a way by Button.

Banging wheels, Vergne on the inside claimed the spot while Grosjean began to fall backwards, complaining of steering issues.

With a handful of laps remaining Red Bull pitted Vettel, who had struggled

Formula One

to make progress and complained of poor grip on the medium compound tyres. Alonso too headed for the lane, the pair swapping onto soft rubber for a final charge to the finish.

It dropped Vettel to fourteenth, with on Esteban Gutierrez behind him, and some distance behind the back of the Button train. But with far fresher tyres the German was soon making progress, carving his way

by Daniil Kvyat, Grosjean u

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and Button, who’d finally conceded eighth to JeanEric Vergne.

Vergne’s aggressive driving, particularly when attacking, was a highlight of the race. Often setting drivers up two or three corners ahead of the pass, he used his experience to wrong-foot his rivals and steal their position.

Vettel’s progress was rather less tactical, his

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tyre advantage seeing him wipe out a 2.5 second gap to Kevin Magnussen on the penultimate lap to take the place before closing to within half a second of Alonso, who’d climbed to sixth.

Once he’d been passed for eighth, Button’s race fell apart.

With his tyres shot the 2009 world champion became a sitting duck for

Formula One

those behind, dropping to twelfth at the finish behind the struggling Grosjean.

Scoring his first point of the season, Pastor Maldonado fought hard with Vergne in the closing stages, though it proved a futile exercise as the Venezuelan had been handed a five-second penalty for speeding in the pit lane at his final stop. It meant that while

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Formula One Maldonado was ninth, his own 5-second penalty cancelled out by one handed to Vergne postrace for the Grosjean incident.

In the end Hamilton won the race by four seconds, a gap helped by catching the remnants of the Button train in the closing laps which hurt Rosberg more. Ricciardo was third, 25 seconds further back with the Williams duo of Massa and Bottas next.

The result ends Ricciardo’s hopes of becoming world champion this year.

Mathematically now out of the equation, either Lewis Hamilton or Nico Rosberg will now win this year’s championship. With a 24-point advantage over Rosberg, two races left and the momentum, the odds are swinging in favour of the Brit to take a second crown.

race result P

Driver

team

time

1

Lewis Hamilton

Mercedes

1:40:04.785

2

Nico Rosberg

Mercedes

3

Daniel Ricciardo

4

Championship P

Driver

Pts

1

Lewis Hamilton

+ 4.314

2

Nico Rosberg

292

Red Bull

+ 25.560

3

Daniel Ricciardo

214

Felipe Massa

Williams

+ 26.924

4

Valtteri Bottas

155

5

Vatteri Bottas

Williams

+ 30.992

5

Sebastian Vettel

149

6

Fernando Alonso

Ferrari

+ 1:35.231

6

Fernando Alonso

149

7

Sebastian Vettel

Red Bull

+ 1:35.734

7

Jenson Button

94

8

Kevin Magnussen

McLaren

+ 1:40.682

8

Felipe Massa

83

9

Pastor Maldonado

Lotus

+ 1:47.870

9

Nico Hulkenberg

76

10

Jean-Eric Vergne

Toro Rosso

+ 1:48.863

10

Kevin Magnussen

53

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316

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Formula One

breakin

H

istory books will show that Lewis Hamilton led every lap of the Russian Grand Prix as he claimed his ninth win of the season. The inaugural race at Sochi was an uninspiring event which promised much but ultimately delivered little after the opening corner skirmishes had

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settled down.

Hamilton dominated the weekend, finding a way around the 5.8km circuit which saw him enjoy a sizeable advantage even over teammate Nico Rosberg. Perhaps sensing his only chance was to gain an early advantage to counter Hamilton’s extreme car pace, Rosberg attacked immediately

from the start.

Tucking into the slipstream in the 800 metre run to the first braking zone, Rosberg moved to the inside before sailing past the apex, his front brakes locked solid. The tarmac run off meant there was no harm done in terms of time lost, Robserg returning to the track well ahead of

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column / News / Feature / Report

Formula One

ing clear

Hamilton though his tyres had suffered irrecoverable damage. An opening lap stop was needed, Rosberg diving for the lane at the end of the lap, handing Hamilton a lead in which he would never be challenged.

Valtteri Bottas for a time looked as though he might be able to run with the supremely fast

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Mercedes, though Hamilton was simply managing the gap and protecting his car and tyres, not to mention his championship lead. He had pace to spare, as was evidenced later in the race.

Rosberg’s early stop dropped him to last but one, Felipe Massa the only man behind him as the Brazilian also opted

to exchange his tyres on the opening lap. The challenge for both was to reach the end of the race, 52 laps away, without stopping again while Robserg faced the additional task of the points loss to his championship rival and teammate.

With a significant car advantage, arguably the largest advantage u

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Mercedes has enjoyed since Bahrain, Robserg remained in the hunt for a podium despite his early stop and the fact he’d carry the harder, slower tyres to the finish.

Behind Hamilton and Bottas, Jenson Button headed a resurgent McLaren team, which had shown pace throughout the weekend. It was a position the Brit would hold until Rosberg raced by, the German making his way back up the order with ease. By lap 31 the German had climbed his way to second, demoting Bottas to

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third.

Then, despite having 30 laps on his tyres and with more than 20 still to run, Rosberg upped his pace. He was pursued

by Bottas, the Williams driver hoping to push the Mercedes into a second pit stop which would drop him down the order in the closing stages.

But there would be no second stop, Rosberg managing his tyres for 52 laps to claim a strong second place at the finish.

His recovery was the main story of an otherwise uneventful race,

Formula One

though didn’t hide the fact he compromised his own race – and championship ambitions – with a mistake at the first corner.

Out front, Hamilton enjoyed a lonely drive to victory. Never truly challenged by Bottas in the opening stages, he extended a healthy lead which allowed him to pit on lap 27 without conceding the lead.

Though Button fell off the podium when Rosberg found a way by, he held on to fourth spot with teammate Kevin Magnussen in fifth to

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record McLaren’s best finish since the season opening Australian Grand Prix, while Alonso once again showed his wares by finishing sixth, well ahead of teammate Kimi Raikkonen.

Daniel Ricciardo once again got the better of Sebastian Vettel in the internal battle at Red Bull while Jean-Eric Vergne

again demonstrated his value by out-shining Daniil Kvyat, who disappointed in front of his home crowd.

Hamilton’s win was enough to hand Mercedes its first constructors championship, the German marque needing just 25 points to secure the title over Red Bull, ending the Milton

race result P

Driver

Formula One

team

time

1

Lewis Hamilton

Mercedes

1:31:50.744

2

Nico Rosberg

Mercedes

3

Valtteri Bottas

4

Keynes squad’s four year domination of the sport.

The result also saw Hamilton extend his points advantage to 17 over Rosberg with just three races remaining, including the controversial double-points round at the season ending Abu Dhabi Grand Prix.

Championship P

Driver

Pts

1

Lewis Hamilton

+ 13.657

2

Nico Rosberg

274

Williams

+ 17.425

3

Daniel Ricciardo

199

Jenson Button

McLaren

+ 30.234

4

Valtteri Bottas

145

5

Kevin Magnussen

McLaren

+ 53.616

5

Sebastian Vettel

143

6

Fernando Alonso

Ferrari

+ 1:00.016

6

Fernando Alonso

141

7

Daniel Ricciardo

Red Bull

+ 1:01.812

7

Jenson Button

94

8

Sebastian Vettel

Red Bull

+ 1:16.185

8

Nico Hulkenberg

76

9

Kimi Raikkonen

Ferrari

+ 1:18.877

9

Felipe Massa

71

10

Sergio Perez

Force India

+ 1:20.067

10

Kevin Magnussen

49

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291

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Darkest Day column / News / Feature / Report

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Formula One

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L

ewis Hamilton won the Japanese Grand Prix, though in the end it seemed to matter little following the crash which left Jules Bianchi fighting for his life.

As wet conditions worsened late in the race, Bianchi’s Marussia left the circuit before colliding with a recovery vehicle, on track to retrieve Adrian Sutil’s Sauber.

The safety car was immediately sent out on track before race control elected to red flag the race as efforts were made to rescue Bianchi.

The Frenchman was initially taken to the infield medical centre before being transported by ambulance to nearby hospital, where he underwent emergency brain surgery. At time of publication he remains in a critical but stable condition.

The crash overshadowed what was otherwise an

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entertaining race, the difficult wet conditions providing drivers the opportunity to rise above their machinery.

Mercedes remained the class of the field. After locking out the front row on Saturday, the two silver arrows raced into an early lead once the safety car released the pack. The race had started behind the safety car before the field sat in pit lane at the end of lap two, officials deeming conditions too wet for racing.

Once racing did resume, Jenson Button made an inspired choice to switch from extreme wet tyres to intermediates, following the safety car into the pit lane. Though he conceded track position he immediately began lapping at the same pace of the leading Mercedes, and shortly thereafter much of the field followed McLaren’s example. By that stage

Formula One however Button had made strong progress, and cycled through to third.

Button’s early decision to switch to the shallower grooved tyres raised questions over whether the safety car had been on track too long following the red flag, with radio traffic from a number of drivers suggesting conditions were good enough some time before Charlie Whiting released the pack.

Fernando Alonso was one who never got going, his Ferrari grinding to a halt shortly after the field left the pit lane following the resumption of the race.

On the first lap of racing the Mercedes pair of Nico Rosberg and Lewis Hamilton opened a 6.7 second lead over third placed Felipe Massa, the slippery Williams lacking the downforce required in the wet and therefore the u pace.

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By contrast Sebastian Vettel and Daniel Ricciardo enjoyed one of the stronger races of the year for Red Bull, both capable of lapping at a similar pace to the Mercedes on intermediate rubber.

The damage however was done early, courtesy of their strong opening lap. It gave Mercedes options when it came to deciding when to pit its drivers, and the luxury of being able to react to the

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times of others. Rosberg stopped on lap 14, two laps after Ricciardo, with Hamilton was in the following time by.

Proving he’s one of the best passers in the field, Ricciardo quickly made ground over the two Williams, passing them both around the outside of the esses on consecutive laps. Both Red Bull’s had opted for a wet setup ahead of qualifying, sacrificing pace on Saturday afternoon safe

Formula One

in the knowledge that the approaching Typhoon Phanfone would mean a wet race. For a long period the pair ran close to one another, though Vettel gained the upper hand during the first pit stop cycle to leap ahead of Ricciardo and Button.

An excursion mid-race saw Vettel fall back towards Button, who was gradually falling down the order following his early pitstop, but no harm was done as he held on to

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third place. There was a moment too for Ricciardo, who was passed by the lapped Kevin Magnussen as the Australian was caught on the wrong tyres. Ricciardo finally got by Button on lap 42, the McLaren driver immediately heading to the pits as the safety car emerged for Adrian Sutil’s car.

race result P

Driver

Formula One

Sutil had aquaplaned off at the Dunlop curve, burying his Sauber in the tyre barrier while rescue crews used a tractor to recover the stricken car under double waved yellow flags. Just two minutes later Bianchi, who had been immediately ahead of Sutil on track, left the circuit at the same spot.

team

time

1

Lewis Hamilton

Mercedes

1:51:43.021

2

Nico Rosberg

Mercedes

3

Sebastian Vettel

4

With the race red flagged Hamilton won the race. He’d worked his way by teammate Rosberg around the outside of turn one, but postrace nobody seemed to care. The celebrations were muted as drivers and teams as one rallied behind their colleague.

Championship P

Driver

Pts

1

Lewis Hamilton

+ 9.180

2

Nico Rosberg

256

Red Bull

+ 29.122

3

Daniel Ricciardo

193

Daniel Ricciardo

Red Bull

+ 38.818

4

Sebastian Vettel

139

5

Jenson Button

McLaren

+ 1:07.550

5

Fernando Alonso

133

6

Valtteri Bottas

Williams

+ 1:53.773

6

Valtteri Bottas

130

7

Felipe Massa

Williams

+ 1:55.126

7

Jenson Button

82

8

Nico Hulkenberg

Force India

+ 1:55.948

8

Nico Hulkenberg

76

9

Jean-Eric Vergne

Toro Rosso

+ 2:07.638

9

Felipe Massa

71

10

Sergio Perez

Force India

+ 1 Lap

10

Sergio Perez

46

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266

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motoGP

doohan the job V

ictory in Malaysia not only ended a four-race winless streak but also saw Marc Marquez tie Mick Doohan’s 17 year old record for most wins in a season.

Marquez’s 12th win of the 2014 campaign came in a familiarly commanding performance, riding away from the pursuing Valentino Rossi to cross the line to win by some three seconds. With one round remaining in Valencia it’s possible Marquez could add the most number of wins record to his ever growing list of achievements.

Slow away from the start, Marquez had to

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work hard to get onto the back of Rossi and his Yamaha teammate Jorge Lorenzo who led the early stages. Marquez’s own teammate, Dani Pedrosa, did not fare so well, crashing in the opening lap before falling again on lap eight, forcing him out of the race.

Out front, Lorenzo led the early stages before an impatient Rossi found a way by under braking at turn nine with Marquez also getting through when Lorenzo went too deep under brakes at the final corner.

Two laps later Marquez repeated the move on Rossi when the Italian

veteran ran wide, Rossi immediately trying to counter but had no answer once the Spaniard was ahead.

For a time Rossi shadowed Marquez, though with four laps remaining the Honda rider finally broke free to move into a clear lead. The race was then a formality, Marquez extending his advantage over Rossi with Lorenzo trailing home a distant third.

The result ensured Honda clinched the manufacturers’ championship, to go with the riders’ world championship Marquez won at Motegi two weeks earlier.

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motoGP

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island magic S

ince wrapping up his second MotoGP world championship, Marc Marquez had become rather crash prone, his crash while leading the Australian Grand Prix only serving to reinforce the view.

Marquez had opened a four second lead, and looked comfortable out front before losing the front end at MG corner, sliding out of the race with ten laps remaining.

It handed the advantage to the Yamaha pair of Rossi and Jorge Lorenzo.

Gaining the upper hand over his teammate, Rossi moved clear as Lorenzo was forced to deal with the hard charging Cal Crutchlow. A poor start had seen the Ducati driver drop to eighth,

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motoGP

though he’d worked his way back to overtake Lorenzo for second with five laps remaining. But, on the final lap, Cruthlow’s hopes of the first podium in a year came crashing down when he lost the bike at the hairpin.

It proved an eventful corner all race, accounting for Dani Pedrosa when Andrea Iannone caught the Honda, while Stefan Bradl and Aleix Espargaro also came together there.

The drama allowed Bradley Smith to ride his way into third spot at the finish behind Lorenzo and victor Rossi. It was the Italian’s first win at Phillip Island since 2005, and his 250th in the premier class.

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motoGP

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jack be quick A

fter switching from dirt to tarmac in 2009, Jack Miller’s rise through the motorcycling ranks has been nothing short of meteoric.

Currently second in the Moto3 standings, a championship he led for much of the year, Miller announced in September plans to step up to MotoGP for 2015. It’s a mammoth step for the 19-year-old who will climb off his 250cc KTM at seasons end and onto a 1000cc Honda.

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motoGP

The switch has raised eyebrows in the paddock, even Valtentino Rossi branding it a brave move. Miller though is convinced he’s ready for the challenge.

Strong pace at the head of the Moto3 field for much of the season has shown he has the ability and pace to succeed at the highest level of the sport, while his graduation will make him Australia’s next big hope on two wheels following the retirement of Casey Stoner.

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motoGP

son of a gun

R

emy Gardner, the 16-year-old son of former Motorcycle World Champion Wayne, made a wildcard Moto 3 entry for the Australian Grand Prix at Phillip Island.

It was Gardner’s second start following his debut at Misano in September, where he finished 27th, eight seconds clear of his Kiefer Racing teammate Gabriel Ramos.

On home soil, Gardner switched to the Laglisse Calvo team, where he rode his KTM to 26th place at the finish. The performance was enough to convince the team to give him another opportunity, replacing injured Eric Granado at the Malaysian Grand Prix where he scored his first world championship point.

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motoGP

the second coming 88

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S

econd place was enough for Marc Marquez who wrapped up his second MotoGP title in Motegi, becoming the youngest double world champion in the process.

Yamaha’s Jorge Lorenzo rode clear at the front of the race to win by 1.6 seconds, but the battle for second was the story of the race as Valentino Rossi pushed Marquez all the way.

Andrea Dovizioso has started on pole, the Italian rider showing the improved pace of the Ducati though conceding post-race it’s still not yet ready to win. Falling through the order, he finished fifth after Marquez found a way by at mid-distance with fellow Honda rider Dani Pedrosa shortly after.

The Ducati rider would fall 11 seconds off the back of Pedrosa, who himself closed to just half

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motoGP a second of Rossi by the flag, though the seven points he lost to Marquez ended his championship campaign.

Marquez needed only to finish ahead of Pedrosa, so long as Lorenzo gained no more than 15 points and Rossi three.

With Rossi in third place, and Lorenzo gaining just five points, it was enough to crown Marquez for a second time.

Neither Yamaha rider gave up without a fight, Lorenzo clearing out at the front while Rossi pushed Marquez hard after losing second spot with nine laps remaining.

It was Lorenzo’s second win of the second, and his second in a row after winning Aragon at the end of September.

The battle is now for second spot in the championship, with Rossi and Pedrosa tied on 230 points with Lorenzo just three points further back.

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world endurance championship

title beckons

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F

ormer Formula One drivers Anthony Davidson and Sebastien Buemi are poised to clinch the World Endurance Championship after dominated the 6 Hours of Shanghai. The Toyota pair led most of the race to extend their points advantage to 42.

With just 52 points available in the remaining two races it’s almost certain the pair will be crowned champions.

Buemi, who’d started the race, stopped early for fuel when the safety car emerged, dropping the lead Toyota to the rear of the field. It took just an hour for the Swiss driver to race his way back to the front before handing it over to Davidson at the first scheduled stop.

Mark Webber’s Porsche led during the opening hour, though

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world endurance championship hopes of a strong finish were dashed when a puncture in hour two dropped them down to sixth at the finish behind both Audi’s.

Audi, which had failed to fire at the previous round in Japan, also struggled in Shanghai with its car clearly not suited to the circuit. A strategic final stop allowed the Marcel Fassler/ Andre Lotterer/Benoit Treluyer car to fourth, with the sister car fifth.

Neither could catch the second Porsche, which had worked its way into third place, though remained some distance off the back of the two Toyota’s out front. Indeed, such was their pace the Japanese squad lapped the entire field, with the #8 car leading home by well over a minute.

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world endurance championship

toyota wins at home T

oyota has claimed an easy 1-2 finish on home soil after taking out the 6Hrs of Fuji, the fifth round of the World Endurance Championship.

The lead car of Anthony Davidson and Sebastian Buemi crossed the line ahead of the sister car, driven by Stephane Sarrazin, Alex Wurz and Kazuki Nakajima while Mark Webber, Timo Bernhard and Brendan Hartley rounded out the podium in their Porsche.

After leading early, Audi struggled beyond the first hour with tyre problems, the German marque unable to extend its tyres to a double stint, costing

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them precious seconds at each subsequent pitstop.

It meant they could fare no better than fifth and sixth, behind the second Porsche.

The Webber car had also led briefly, though a puncture early in the race cost them both time and track position, and while they raced back on to the podium they finished the day a lap down on the leading Toyota.

The win moves Davidson and Buemi into a clear points lead in the championship with three rounds remaining with Toyota holding on to a narrow eight point lead over Audi.

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nascar

everything to play for T

he battle for the NASCAR Sprint Cup is well and truly on with just one more race for the remaining eight contenders to confirm their place at the winner-takes-all finale at

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Homestead in Miami.

October started well for Joey Logano, the Penske driver continuing the teams fine recent form to win at Kansas, leading 122 of 267 laps. It guaranteed Logano automatic progression through

to the last eight of the Chase, ahead of the final cut next weekend.

Kevin Harvick too won his way through, claiming his first win since April when he beat Jeff Gordon to the flag in Charlotte. Having led

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twice as many laps as anyone else, the man nicknamed ‘The Closer’ got the job done while second for Gordon gave him valuable points.

It was a crucial result for Gordon who escaped the Chase cut at

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Talladega the following week on points alone.

Those still in the Chase are guaranteed progression to the next stage should they win, but without one they are forced to rely on points. Gordon, helped by his result at

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Charlotte, avoided the cut on points alone as Brad Keselowski won.

Keselowski made it two Penske drivers through to the final eight in the Chase while Hendrick Motorsports drivers Dale Earnhardt u

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Jnr, Kasey Kahne and reigning series winner Jimme Johnson were all eliminated at the super speedway. Kyle Busch too was a casualty of the event, which drivers had feared heading in.

Regarded as a lottery, with ‘the big one’ threatening to wipe cars out in a heartbeat, several favourites chose to run at the rear of the field in an attempt to avoid any incidents in the middle of the pack.

A multiple car crash on lap 102 involved Kyle Busch, his car badly damaged though able to be recovered to pit road where his team set to work. He would return to the race with 30 laps remaining, climbing from 43rd to 40th, but his

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Chase hopes had long since evaporated.

Earnhardt Jnr’s hopes suffered a similar fate when he was involved in a late race crash, while Jimmie Johnson faded from the race lead to finish outside the top 20, well below where he needed to be to keep his Chase hopes alive.

He made amends of sorts next time out in Martinsville, winning a stop-start affair that featured 15 caution periods and two red flags. In second spot was his Hendrick teammate Gordon who, still in the Chase hunt, would have automatically progressed to the final race in Miami had he won. It could prove a crucial result for the team, which only

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has Gordon remaining in championship contention as a poor result at Texas threw open the battle for the final four places.

Johnson won the race, giving Hendrick back to back wins after two green-white-chequer finishes. Gordon was turned around late in the race following contact with Keselowski, an incident which triggered a brawl between pit crews.

Gordon however remains in one of the four transfer spots, while just two points covers the top three, while six points covers fourth to eighth.

It sets up two do-or-die events; one to reach the final at Phoneix before the final at Homestead on the 16th.

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world rally championship

back-to-back S

ebastian Ogier retained his World Rally Championship following victory at the Rally of Spain, finishing the event ahead of teammate Jari-Matti Latvala to seal his second consecutive title.

Ogier won the event by 11.3 seconds from Latvala, who won all four of the final stages and cut Ogier’s advantage by almost 20 seconds.

It was too little too late however, the Finn forced to settle for second place with Mikko Hirvonen in third place.

The mixed tarmac and

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dirt event proved unpopular with drivers, who complained bitterly about the dust which hung in the air during the gravel stages. Due to the mixed surfaces, gaps between cars were reduced, compounding the dust problems and leading a number of drivers to criticise the rally organisers.

“For me it is too dangerous,” complained Hyundai’s Thierry Neuville. “Why should we risk our lives just because somebody doesn’t want to give us another minute or more gap?

“It’s always like this until

something happens and somebody dies with a big accident in the dust.”

The FIA confirmed it had discussed the situation with the rally director Aman Barfull in an attempt to understand drivers concerns.

“We are aware of the problem,” the FIAs Michele Mouton said.

“We need to know what is causing this: is it the location of the stage? Is it the time of the day?

“I asked Aman Barfull to see for the future to find places more in open areas.”

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sacré bleu!

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t was a seventh 1-2 finish for the season for Volkswagon in France, but it was not the result many predicted heading into the event.

Jari-Matti Latvala won the rally, his first on tarmac after dominating the event almost from the opening stage. He was pressured for a time by teammate Andreas Mikkelsen before his challenge waned.

With a chance to seal the drivers’ championship on home soil, there were high hopes for Sebastian Ogier heading into the rally, but they were quickly shattered as a spin in the opening stages proved a prelude to far bigger problems.

An engine problem saw the reigning world

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champion drop four minutes on the opening morning, both Latvala and Mikkelsen passing him on the road as he struggled to the end of the stage. Adding insult to injury he was also penalised a further four minutes when he checked in to stage three early, dropping him to 64th in the standings.

A strong charge from Robert Kubica on the second day saw the Pole in fourth heading into the

final stage, having wrestled the spot from Dani Sordo. It would have been a WRC career best for Kubica, though the Ford driver crashed out on the final stage, handing fourth spot back to Sordo.

Latvala’s woes allowed Ogier an unrivalled run at the rally win, with Mikkelsen second ahead of Citroen’s Chris Meeke, who recorded his fourth podium of the season.

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world superbike championshiP

sykes pipped at the post

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prillia’s Sylvain Guintoli has won the World Superbike championship at the final round in Losail.

Guintoli trailed Kawasaki’s Tom Sykes heading into the round, though two wins proved enough to overhaul the championship leader and claim the title for himself.

Sykes started well in both races, though Jonathan Rea elbowed his way into the lead of the first race before Sykes’ teammate Loris Baz moved to the point soon after. Now in third, Sykes began to fall back into the clutches of Guintoli, who found a way by on lap five before pulling

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clear with Baz and Rea. Sykes fell to fifth courtesy of Marco Melandri though as Rea’s pace began to disappear the reigning champ was able to climb back to third by the final lap. With Guintoli having passed Baz for the lead Kawasaki ordered him to move aside to allow Sykes through, an order he ignored.

It meant Sykes lost five more points than he needed to against Guintoli, while Baz claimed he would only help those who were nice – suggesting having moved aside last time out in MagnyCours was enough.

It meant just three

points separated Guintoli and Sykes heading into the final race of the year, with Sykes again streaking into an early lead.

Rea would again find a way through, demoting Sykes to second on lap two before Guintoli found a way through on lap four. The Aprilia rider moved into the lead on the following lap, the top three remaining unchanged for the remainder of the race.

With Sykes third at the flag he conceded nine points to Guintoli, and with the difference between the two just three it meant the Frenchman also won the championship.

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guintoli keeps title alive

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double World Superbike victory for Aprillia at Magny-Cours in France has moved Sylvain Guintoli closer to championship leader Tom Sykes with just one round remaining.

Heavy rain saw the first race shortened after a number of riders fell during warmup, conditions which were in stark contrast to those of qualifying when Sykes shattered the lap record to take pole.

But when racing got going it was Honda rider Jonathan Rea who made the best start, leading the opening stages of race one. Sykes had dropped to second off the start, and lost a further place to Guintoli at the end of the first lap as the Aprillia rider found a way by before setting after Rea.

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Unable to maintain the pace at the front, Rea slipped back as the race wore on. First conceding the lead to Guintoli, he also fell victim to Marco Melandri, Loris Baz and Sykes, though would remain in contact with the battle for third.

In the closing stages Melandri had caught Guintoli for the lead, though unlike in Jerez, the Italian opted not to attack his teammate and settled for second.

With Sykes fourth behind Rea at the flag it moved Guintoli ever closer in the championship fight.

Similarly wet conditions for the second race again saw Rea take an early lead, holding it for more than half the race before crashing out on lap 11, whereupon Guintoli took over at the front.

Though Rea was able to

remount his Honda, the damage ultimately proved too much as the Brit retired from the race on the following lap.

Guintoli and Melandri controlled the head of the race, Melandri this time not satisfied with playing second fiddle as he went on to win the race. Sykes was again off the podium, trailing Leon Haslam home as the Honda rider claimed his first podium for two years.

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world time attack

walden on the attack

Image: Race Shots

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ormer V8 Supercar driver Garth Walden set the fastest time at Sydney Motorsport Park, narrowly holding off the challenge from Japanese entry Suzuki to successfully defend his World Time Attack title.

Behind the wheel of a

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heavily modified Mitsubishi Evo X, Walden set a time of 1:24.841 to head the Pro Class, a time just four hundredths faster than the Nissan Silvia S15 of Suzuki. In third place was Shane Van Gisbergen, who was almost a second back in third place in an S13

Silvia.

Winning the Pro Am class, Mick Sigsworth set a time good enough for third in the Pro class with a 1:25.276 in his Mitsubishi Evo, more than five seconds faster than his nearest rival Wayne Sutton. Miyata Sumishiko was third in

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his Nissan Skyline R34 GTR, more than a second further back.

Dean Lillie achieved the unique honour of finishing both first and second in the Open Class, setting a 1:30.431 in his R34 GTR and a 1:30.986 in his R32 GTR. John Boston was less than

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half a second slower in third in his Evo X. A competitive Clubsprint Class was taken out by Dan Farquar in an Evo 9, his 1:39.971 proving six tenths faster than David Lord’s WRX – the only non-Japanese car on any of the podiums across the weekend.

world time attack

Jason Naidoo was third in another Evo 9.

Nob Taniguchi was fastest in the R35 GTR Pro Class ahead of Tarzan Yamada and Nick Streckeisen, while Brian Bugh bettered Phil Sutcliffe and Paul Diaz in the R35 GTR Tuner Class.

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shannons nationals

carnage, controv C

Aaron Steer in the opening race, allowing I’Anson to open a strong early lead. Steer defended his position with vigour from Proctor but slowing them both in the process.

Frustrated, Proctor made an opportunistic move at turn three, the pair coming together. Initially Proctor was slapped with a 40 second post-race penalty, though that was soon reversed when officials investigated more closely.

The drama didn’t stop there however, as Proctor spun out of second place early in race two, beaching his car at the top of the hill. He dropped two

laps before he got going again, his championship hopes having seemingly evaporated. At least that was the case until I’Anson struck problems with three laps to go, grinding to a halt on the pit straight with a gearbox problem. By the time the race finished, Proctor had leapt ahead of I’Anson, who was classified as a DNF. It left Proctor with a 28 point advantage heading into the final race of the season, though he would start on the back row of the grid. Alongside him was I’Anson, his team having completed a rapid engine change to get the

Image: Race Shots

ontroversy and intrigue threatened to overshadow Adam Proctor’s fourth Australian Sports Racer championship win after a punishing final weekend of racing at Wakefield Park.

Proctor and Roger I’Anson had been locked in battle for much of the season, pole position on Saturday morning seeing Proctor steal the advantage by two points as the final round of the year got underway. From that moment on it would be a contentious weekend.

A slow start saw Proctor fall to third behind

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versy and crowns West back on track.

I’Anson was never on the pace while Proctor, who needed only to finish the race to win the championship, was tentative in the early stages.

The red mist however soon descended, making a move out of the final turn on Jason Makris, who looked back underneath Proctor the second corner. It was an opportunistic move, the West sliding into Proctor, spinning the championship leader into the kitty litter in a move which raised the eyebrows of some observers.

Proctor though was able to continue, eventually

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working his way to third place as attrition accounted for half of the field – I’Anson’s ailing West joined by Steer (who had led much of the race), Makris and Adam Cranston.

Where Sports Racer provided the controversy of the weekend, Super 6 Touring provided the most entertaining racing. Though all three races were won by Gavin Ross, the second race in particular proved a nail-biter with groups of cars battling for position – cleanly, for the most part.

More importantly, the final race also marked the end of an era as it

signed off the AU Falcon, with the series allowing use of the BA Falcon for 2015. After a year dominated by Holden Commodore’s, the change is poised to even the playing field as the blue oval competitors move on to a car with independent rear suspension. Therefore, while Gavin Ross dominated the weekend to take all three victories it is expected he will face rather more competition in 2015.

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rugged determin

Images: Race Shots

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he Kuhmo V8 Touring Car championship came alive following the penultimate round of the season at Wakefield Park when Justin Ruggier claimed his first round win In the series.

Ruggier’s weekend

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started well, stealing pole away from championship nemesis Ryan Simpson, ending the Falcon drivers eight-round domination of qualifying. It was a sign of things to come for Ruggier, who absorbed pressure from Simpson throughout the opening

race to claim victory by just under a second.

Drew Russell, making his second appearance in the category, completed the podium.

Simpson got away best in race two to lead the pack, though his time out front was short lived

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nation

when he provided a rather flaccid defence of his position as Ruggier dived down the inside at the final turn. Once clear, Ruggier established a three second lead over Simpson, with Russell once again third.

Russell improved to the

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top spot in the final race, claiming his first win in a V8 with Matt Chahda second and Ruggier third. Ruggier had led the opening lap before a coming together with Simpson at turn two saw both championship contenders fall through the field. The mistake cost Simpson a further 10 championship points after being penalised by officials, a results which means he now trails Ruggier by 44 points with one round remaining.

Also extending his championship advantage was James Golding after winning the final race on his way to claiming Round 4 of the Australian Formula Ford Series.

Thomas Randle won an action packed opening race ahead of Hamish Hardeman and Golding before Hardeman moved into the lead of race two.

Randle found his way back to the front on the second lap before the safety car was called when Holloway left the circuit at turn two. A collision between Randle and Hardeman in the final race cost them both the chance of winning, allowing Golding through to take a narrow victory over Lloyd with Nick Rowe in third.

The Australian Manufacturers Championship

shannons nationals was sealed in style by Beric Lynton after two dominant wins at the final round of the season. Wins in both 200km races proved enough to hand the BMW driver the championship ahead of the Garry Holt/Stuart Kostera pairing in second and Luke Searle/Barry Graham third.

Holt had led the opening race before falling off circuit, handing the top two places to Searle and Lynton. The day went from bad to worse once Kostera jumped in, a loose wheel forcing the car back into the lane to hand Lynton a 53-second lead. Kostera recovered to pass Graham in the closing stages to take second.

The second race looked much the same, Holt heading the pack until Lynton found a way by, moving into a comfortable lead from which he was never challenged. Opening Class C race winner Jake Camilleri suffered a blown hose in Sunday’s race before finally retiring with brake problems, handing the win to the Colin Osborne/Nick Lange combination. Class D went to Grant Phillips/ Andrew Turpie who got the better over race one winner Jake Williams.

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shannons nationals

ricci’s eighth

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vercoming the challenge presented by Darren Hossack, Tony Ricciardello wrapped up his eighth Sports Sedan championship at Sydney Motorsport Park.

Hossack had won the opening race of the weekend with ease, pulling clear of the pack to win by nearly 16 seconds after ten laps. He had been engaged in a fierce battle with second placed Ricciardello, who slowed in the final laps to make the win look easier than it was.

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The pair were a cut above the rest of the field, duelling throughout the weekend in a two horse race for victory.

Phil Crompton came closest in the opening race, just three seconds off the back of Ricciardello before Steven Tamasi finished a distant third in the final two races.

Ricciardello won both after falling behind Hossack early in the race.

On lap seven of the second race Ricciardello went the long way around at turn two to gain the lead, holding on

until the finish. But the battle didn’t end there, the pair once again locked together in the final race with Ricciardello’s Alfa only staking its claim for victory on lap six.

The transformation from gamer to racer reached its zenith for Justin Ruggier, who won the V8 Touring Car championship over rival Ryan Simpson.

After breaking the lap record in qualifying, Ruggier went on to win the opening race ahead of Simpson to extend his

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column / News / Feature / Report championship advantage.

Simpson though ensured the championship duel would go to the final race of the season in race two by sealing victory with an aggressive move at turn two. Late on the brakes, Simpson looked to have overshot before getting the car turned, all the while crowding Ruggier from the apex.

Ruggier however would not be denied and in the final race held on to win ahead of Simpson to be crowned champion.

A strong second half of

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the season, particularly since Phillip Island, had seen the Holden driver leapfrog Simpson, who’d dominated the opening rounds of the season.

But the momentum had swung in favour of Ruggier, who led Simpson home both in the race and the championship.

Despite a high-seed crash on Friday, Tim Berryman wrapped up the Radical Australia Cup after winning the final 50-minute endurance race of the season.

Berryman had been caught out in the opening

shannons nationals race of the weekend when the safety car emerged before he’d completed his compulsory pitstop. It allowed Michael Shaw to take control of the race before going on to victory, setting up a final race showdown.

The final though belonged to Berryman, who led until his stop on lap 11 before passing teammate Chris Medland in the latter stages to retake the lead. Peter Paddon was third, the first of the SR3 cars home.

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hodges’ gold s S

imon Hodge won the 2014 Gold Star after sealing victory in the Australian Formula 3 Championship at Sydney Motorsport Park.

Hodge won the opening race by the time the field reached turn one. Converting pole into the lead courtesy of a strong start, Hodge led championship rival Ben Gersekowski by more than a second after the opening lap, as he simply drove away from

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the rest of the field for the remainder of the nine lap race. Gersekowski was half a second a lap slower in second with Garnet Patterson third.

Races two and three were more difficult, with poor starts dropping Hodge into traffic and forcing him to race through the field. He rebounded from fourth in race two to win by three seconds, a feat repeated in the final race.

Hodge dropped him to

third by the first corner before engaging in a tense battle with Patterson for second. He finally found a way through at turn one and immediately set off in pursuit of Chris Gersekowski, who had opened a second lead at the head of the race.

A leading trio then developed at the front, Gersekowski leading Hodge and Chris Anthony until an impatient Hodge moved around the outside of Gersekowski at

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star turn two, holding the advantage to take the lead halfway through the 14 lap encounter.

Gersekowski held on ahead of Anthony for second place while, after a promising start, Patterson rolled to a halt on the final lap.

Claiming his first Formula Ford round won of the season, Thomas Randle won the final two races to move within 21 points of championship leader James

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Golding with one round remaining.

Jordan Lloyd won the opening race from Randle and Nick Rowe, the leading trio running in close proximity throughout the nine lap race.

Randle then stepped up a gear in race two, leading Rowe to the line by 2.3 seconds with championship leader Golding in third spot.

Randle’s strong form continued in the final race, edging clear of

Lloyd in second spot who himself had pulled clear of Rowe in third. Hamish Hardeman drove a strong race to fifth after fighting back from twelfth following a drive-through penalty for contact with Nick Rowe in race two.

Winning the one-of PRB round, Stuart Shirvington took the honours over Stefan Versluis and Chris Barry. It was Barry however who clinched the PRB Motorsport series title over Shirvington.

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formula vee

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veectory for brook

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ith a race to spare, Tim Brook clinched the Formula Vee Australia Series in the final round at Phillip Island.

After starting the year solid at Mallala, a strong performance at the second round at Sydney Motorsport Park edged him within touching distance of his first national series title, which he duly delivered with second in the opening race and fifth in race two.

Michael Kinsella ensured it was a weekend to celebrate for Jacer, winning the first race ahead of a train of cars at the end of the ten lap encounter. Kinsella won by two tenths with Brook second and Victorian James Dean third – the top seven cars covered by

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less than half a second.

The second race was more of the same, Kinsella again holding on to win ahead of Mitch Quiddington and Andrew McLaughlin while the top ten crossed the line separated by just 1.7 seconds. Among them was Brook in fifth, enough to give him an unassailable championship lead.

In the final, local racer Heath Collinson edged his way to the front in

the nine lap race, holding off Dean by almost three tenths at the line. Matt Stubbs was third, less than a tenth behind Dean with Kinsella scarcely a car length back in fourth.

After dominating in Mallala earlier in the year, and pushing Mat Pearce hard at the Sydney Motorsport Park in the middle of the year, Ken Filbey took 1200 class honours at Phillip Island and with it the class championship.

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hq racing

Images: Trapnell Creations

Heinrich Manouvre

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ruce Heinrich was crowned the HQ Racing National Champion for 2014 after dominating at Morgan Park.

The South Australian progressed through the heats with three victories before starting the winner-takes-all finale from pole. In the final he was never headed, leading

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every one of the 20 laps to win by 9.5 seconds over second placed Jamie Furness.

Behind Furness was a tight battle between Neil Corey and Perry Bekkers, the pair running in close proximity throughout the race before Bekkers found a way into third on the final lap. However, post-race scrutineering

revealed problems with his carburettor, promoting Corey back onto the bottom step of the podium.

For a time Gary Beggs looked in contention, despite losing two places at the start to run fifth for much of the race. He ultimately retired on lap 15 to become one of the nine retirements from the race.

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record b

Images: Race Shots

hattering the lap record en route to three wins across the weekend, James Winslow was in a class of his own at Round 4 of the Victorian State Circuit Racing Championship at Phillip Island.

At the wheel of a Dodge Viper, Winslow won with ease, breaking Allan Simonsen’s four year old lap record by a second in race two. Jamie Augustine was the best of the series regulars, finishing second across all three races while Brian Finn claimed the final podium spot in race one.

Matthew Turnbull was third in both Sunday’s races.

At the head of a 44-car Improved Production field, Graeme Watts won two races across the weekend. Daniel Vereker was second ahead of Robert Braune in the opening race before taking the victory in race two. Neil Crow and Paul White completed the podium before Watts took charge once again in the final race with Vereker second and White holding on to third.

National Formula Ford racer Tom Randle took a clean sweep in a guest appearance at state level, James Crozier second in the opening race with Jake Parsons third. Jake

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Fouracre claimed the runners-up spot in race two with Adrian Lazzaro third before Parsons demoted Fouracre to third in the final race.

Kane Rose was similarly dominant in the Porsche 944 series, picking up all three races over the weekend with Chris Lewis-Williams second throughout. Richard Howe was third in the opening race while Cameron Beller took the spot for races two and three.

Saloon Cars too were dominated by a single

driver with Tim Rowse sweeping to victory.

Andrew Newland and David Wright provided the greatest resistance in the opening two races before Newland dropped out of the top three, prompting Wright and Brett Pope.

It was a similar story in the MG class. Untouchable at the top was Robin Bailey with Richard Milligan a consistent second in all three races.

Andrew Howell was third in races one and three, with Glen Wood taking

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breaker

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the spot in the second race.

Other winners included David Tressari, Rod Earsman and Rod Raatjes in the HQs and Angelo Taranto and John Harrison in the Historic Touring Cars class.

Shane Woodman won the first Sports Sedan race but dropped to third for the second which was won by Dean Cann.

Michael Robinson then rounded out the weekend with victory in the final race.

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queensland

harris’ twelve Words by Iwan Jones

Image: Dewi Jones

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fter 12 years in retirement, Craig Harris claimed his maiden Australian Trans championship as TransAm Series drew to a close at Queensland Raceway.

Harris started his weekend by qualifying on pole ahead of Brett Curran

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and Ian Woodward, however this proved to be his only highlight as mechanical issues spoilt his weekend.

Woodward went onto take the round win, courtesy of victory in four out of five races with Curran coming through the field for his breakthrough win.

John Samios’ consistency saw him second for the round with Curran taking the final step.

“What a fantastic year it has been for the Australian Trans-Am series,” said a delighted Harris, who’d entered the weekend with a 202 point advantage. “[I’m] Very

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queensland

e year itch

happy to have taken the 2014 championship.�

Harry Charalambous was the best of the 5-Litre series entries, taking the round ahead of Mike Collins and Gareth Jones.

Charalambous and Collins had been fighting it out for the championship since the opening round,

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the competition so close the final standings were still to be confirmed at the time of press.

Other winners for the weekend were Callum Whatmore and Stuart Paterson in the Sports Sedans, Quitin Stabbert, Daniel Lewis, Robert Larance and Peter Nuske

in Super Karts, Cameron Bartholomew, Wayne Cook and Jason Lansdell in the Hyundai Excel Cup and Nick Rangeley, Corey Willis and Christopher Sharples in the Gemini’s.

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new south wales

Devjak dominates

Image: Race Shots

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hree wins from Steve Devjak saw him take the Improved Production Over 2-Litre championship in style at the final round of the NSW State Motor Racing Championship at Sydney Motorsport Park.

Extending the legs of his Holden Commodore, Devjak cruised to victory in all three races ahead of Joseph Lenthall’s Mazda RX7. The pair locked out the top two steps of the podium throughout the weekend, while Bruce Worgan and Chris Thomas shared third place between them.

Racing in the smaller

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capacity class was rather more nerve racking, though Bob Jowett emerged to win each of the Improved Production Under 2-Litre races. Graeme Cox, who recorded second place finishes in the first and third races, presented early fight though was forced out of race two while battling David Crighton for second.

Crighton then stuck problems soon after, his car silently rolling across the line to finish third, Justin McClintock powering by into second spot.

John Baxter and Brett Osborn duked it out for the lead at the head of

the HQ races, the pair running nose to tail for much of the weekend.

Baxter gained the upper hand in the first race before Osborn emerged victorious in a tense second race in which he took the lead on the penultimate lap. Baxter reclaimed top spot for the final race with Steve Williams taking third. Williams had been second in the opening race with Chris Buckley on the bottom step before Osborn charged back to the front to challenge Baxter for the remainder of the weekend.

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new south wales

seton’s hour of power

Image: Race Shots

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ominating the Production Touring class, Aaron Seton won the 60 minute endurance race ahead of a hard charging Dylan Thomas and Leigh Burges.

Seton had been pushed hard by teammate Bob Pearson in the early stages, though a poor strategy call cost Pearson a lap early before overheating took him out of contention entirely.

Thomas meanwhile charged through the field from 33rd to take the second step on the

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podium, just over five second ahead of Burges.

A clean sweep from Greg Smith handed him the round win ahead of Darren Barlow, while Peter Paddon snared third spot in the opening two races before Kim Burke seized the spot in the final race.

It was a similar story in the Superkarts, with Anton Stevens winning all four races as Warren McIlveen struck problems early. Aaron Cogger was second in races one and four, with Paul Campbell also on the podium. John

Pellicano was second best in race two over Jeff Reed while McIlveen had his best race of the weekend with second in race three, Pellicano dropping to third.

Grant Doulman won the first two Sports Sedan races, the first over Birol Cetin and Steve Lacey before Geoff Whittaker edged into second for race two ahead of Lacey.

Birol Cetin then returned to the podium to claim the final race, Whittaker and Lacey again rounding out the top three.

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Image: Judi McDonald

hewat still truckin’

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hree race wins at Winton were enough for Beau Hewat to claim his second Australian Super Trick Championship round win of the 2014 season.

Hewat headed the field throughout the opening race after qualifying on pole, leading home reigning champ Steve Zammit and John Bomberle in third. Zammit however gained the upper hand in the second race, snatching the lead with an opportunistic move at turn two.

After struggling in the opening two races following fuel pressure problems in qualifying, points leader Frank Amoroso worked his way to the lead of the third race, helped by a reverse top-ten grid.

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He put up a staunch defence as Hewat, Shane Gray, Bomberle and Paul Reyntjes all applied pressure though Hewat would finally find a way by. Amoroso held on to second over Gray in third. Another reverse-grid finale again saw Amoroso lead before both Hewat and Zammit found a way by.

Wins across the Vic V8s round were shared, with Graeme Meer winning the first two races for Holden before Greg Jones and Allan Argento took the honours for the blue oval. Engine problems for Meer ruled him out of contention for the round, which was claimed

by Jones while a quiet weekend for Mark Kakouri assured him of the championship.

None could match

Keven Stoopman in the Pulsar Challenge as he clinched all four wins ahead of Max Healy and Matt Thewlis for the round.

The Coulter family dominated the V8 Stock Car races with Steve and Michael controlling the weekend, though Rusty French rained on their all-conquering parade by winning race two.

Greg Jones and Corey Gooch shared the Super TT wins while Jarrod Tonks won the Victorian Excel Series following a tight battled with Nathan Blight and Adam Bywater. Chad Cotton won all four Miniature Race Car races, Bruce Duckworth and Jase Collins completing the podium for the round.

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drag racing

dobson blows it

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n early exit for Allan Dobson handed Phil Lamattina his second Top Fuel championship at Sydney Dragway.

Dobson lasted just one round as his engine blew while Lamattina smoked his tyres at half-track as he went down to Peter Xiberras, though it was still enough to earn him a second championship.

Gary Phillips failed to qualify in Top Alcohol for the first time in over two years, watching from the stands as Steven Ham made the Australian Nationals final, enough to claim his first Top Alcohol championship.

Ham defeated Wayne Price in round one and Russell Mills in the semi-final to claim the title, breaking Phillips

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dominance in the process. Ham met Steven Reed in the final but both got out of the groove, Reed tagging the wall allowing Ham would claim the Australian Nationals title as well as the Top Alcohol crown.

Lee Bektash defeated Nino Cavallo in Pro Stock the final, breaking the coveted 200mph for the first time in the class.

Aaron Tremayne wrapped up the title though, needing simply to progress

beyond the first round.

Geoff Gradden, in his first Top Doorslammer final, won the Gold Christmas.

Gavin Spann wound back the clock in Top Fuel Motorcycle by winning his first Australian Nationals title win since 1985.

In Pro Stock Motorcycle, Maurice Allen met Scott White in the final, Allen sealing his first round win for the year.

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karting

Starring role

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talian Davide Fore proved the class of the field at the KZ2 Race of Stars on the Gold Coast, progressing undefeated through to the final before overcoming countryman Lorenzo Camplese to take victory.

Camplese, a former fivetime World Champion, provided early resistance

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in the final, even taking the lead before falling back into the clutches of Daniel Bray and Jonathan Thonon as Fore moved clear at the head of the race.

Recoverring from a DNF in the opening race, New Zealander Bray caught Camplese late in the race before moving by into second spot.

Camplese held on to third, narrowly beating four-time World Champion Thonon while the first Australian home was last year’s winner Chris Hays in sixth.

Cian Fothergill won against a competitive 54-strong TAG 125 field, the Queenslander dominating the race to skip clear of the chasing

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pack. Jarryd Ebsery claimed second following a race-long battle for the spot with Aaron Bord completing the podium.

Canberra native Zane Morse won the KF3 final over American racer, and Lotus F1 Team junior driver, Juan Manuel Correra with Zane Goddard third after a five-way battle for second place.

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Winning the Junior National final was Cody Brewczynski who got the better of Benito Montalbano and Kyle Bonser.

Jack Winter had been in contention until the final turn when a late spin cost him any chance of a podium spot.

An intense battle for the lead saw Cooper Webster win the Cadets final,

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beating Bayley Douglas to the line with Declan Matthews in third place.

Webster and Douglas had touched heading into the final turn with Douglas crossing the line first before officials handed the position back to Webster.

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Ryan Simpson lost out to Justin Ruggier in the V8 Touring Car championship.

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coming attractions NOVEMBER 9 FORMULA ONE Brazilian Grand Prix NASCAR Phoenix Motor Speedway MOTOGP Valencia Grand Prix NOVEMBER 13 - 16 WRC Rally of Great Britain NOVEMBER 15 & 16 V8 SUPERCARS Phillip Island NOVEMBER 16 NASCAR Homestead TASMANIAN SUPER SERIES Baskerville WA STATE CHAMPIONSHIP Barbagallo NOVEMBER 22 FORMULA E Malaysian ePrix NOVEMBER 23 FORMULA ONE Abu Dhabi Grand Prix NOVEMBER 29 ISLAND MAGIC Phillip Island NOVEMBER 30 TAS STATE CHAMPIONSHIP Symmons Plains WEC 6Hrs of Sao Paulo

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