Lowndes faces big hit - in pocket
Craig Lowndes could be fined heavily - with suggestions of $20,000 circulating - over comments he made about the two penalties he was given in the V8 Supercar races at the Gold Coast Indy.V8 Supercars Australia's investigating and prosecution officer Peter Wollerman is looking into the matter and a hearing is likely to be held in Melbourne next Tuesday.
Lowndes saw the 101-point lead he had over Holden rival Rick Kelly after giving Ford its first Bathurst victory for eight years cut to 30 points at Indy.
His comments last weekend were seen as accusing officials of destroying a race and trying to manipulate the championship to ensure it goes down to the wire over the remaining three rounds - at Symmons Plains in Tasmania, Bahrain in the Middle East, and at Phillip Island in Victoria.
Lowndes has sought to smooth the waters, claiming his remark about trying to minimise the points gap was directed at Kelly and his team rather than officials.
After the first Gold Coast race Lowndes was given a 31-second penalty, for improperly warming his tyres as he approached the start line, that dropped him to 11th on the grid for the second race. He was later given a drive-through penalty in the third race when he was deemed to have waited too long to let Russell Ingall back past him after he cut through a chicane.
Lowndes now says: "I do not believe V8 Supercars Australia is attempting to manipulate the championship series or the race event. I respect that the officials and administration of V8 Supercars remain impartial to all competitors. At no point was I referring to race officials when I said, 'They are obviously doing their best to minimise the gap'. Rather, my comment was directed towards Rick Kelly and the HSV team. I recognise modern motor sport requires considerable human resources and decisions need to be made without hesitation. As a professional driver, I fully respect the roles of all administrators and officials even though there may be instances where I may not always agree with the decisions made."
Last year Marcos Ambrose was fined $15,000 and docked 25 championship points for comments he made after an incident with Mark Skaife in Western Australia.
Lowndes' team, Triple Eight Race Engineering, already has a suspended sentence hanging over it after indiscrete remarks made after the Phillip Island round last year.
While a heavy fine is in prospect in the latest case, it is thought unlikely Lowndes will be docked points for his comments.
Auto Action reports today that data from before the start of the first race last Saturday revealed that Lowndes' front wheels were moving at 42kmh while the rears were doing more than 100kmh for more than a second, "figures judged to be consistent with a practice start 'burn-out'," and that other teams reported that information to officials.
It has been confirmed this week that Triple Eight will have Vodafone as its major sponsor for the next three years.
Wraps off VE Supercar - officially
Holden has officially launched its VE Commodore V8 Supercar - almost a month after it was revealed in Auto Action magazine and here. The VE is now set for several days of back-to-back testing against Ford's BA Falcon at Woomera in South Australia to ensure parity between the makes. Holden hopes to have all its sponsored teams in VEs from the start of next season.I'll go when I'm ready - Richards
Jim Richards dismisses reports that he will retire from the Porsche Carrera Cup. "I've thought of retirement, but I haven't decided as yet," Richards told Auto Action. "If I feel like I want to do it, then I will." The veteran says he already has a heavy schedule for next year. "I've got about nine events that I want to do. That's why I may scale back some of my other things."Team Kiwi is trying to entice Richards to drive for it at next month's V8 Supercar round in Bahrain, although he was lukewarm to the initial approach. Craig Baird will drive for the team, for free, at the Symmons Plains and Phillip Island rounds in the Commodore leased to replace the one destroyed in Paul Radisich's Bathurst crash. A public appeal to help Team Kiwi raise the $400,000 it had been counting on from the sale of that car to buy a Falcon from Prodrive has so far raised $100,000, with December 1 the deadline. www.teamkiwiracing.co.nz
Reed keen on V8 Supercars
Motocross/supercross superstar Chad Reed is keen to pursue a co-drive in future V8 Supercar endurance races after trying a Paul Morris Commodore Supercar last week. Reed says his focus is on winning the 2007 and '08 AMA Supercross Championships in the US, "but you never know what I might have time for in the off-season".Champ Car champ rates Power
Despite the harsh words Team Australia boss Craig Gore and his driver Will Power directed at Champ Car champion Sebastien Bourdais after last Sunday's indiscretion by the Frenchman that put local hero Power out of the lead in the Gold Coast Indy, Bourdais rates Power a title chance next year when the series switches to a new-specification Panoz chassis. "Will is a very good driver," Bourdais says. "He's definitely got a lot of talent. And he's been outperforming Alex Tagliani (Team Australia teammate, who finished third in Sunday's race) and that's not something easy to do."AJ opts for stock cars
One of Champ Car's problems is a lack of good American drivers in the series. That problem is going to worsen with the confirmation that A.J. Allmendinger, the 25-year-old Californian who has won five races this season and been the main rival to series champion Bourdais, is off to NASCAR next year.Champ Car team owner Gerald Forsythe had offered Allmendinger a five-year contract, agreed to amend it to three years, but was still a long way from the US$3 million-a-year-plus-prizemoney demand of Allmendinger, who preferred the prospects in NASCAR with Red Bull and new entrant Toyota.
Next year he is set to drive the full pick-up truck series that Australian Marcos Ambrose has contested this year, with the plan to move up to the premier Nextel Cup in 2008. Allmendinger has already driven two truck races this year, finishing fifth in one, and may make his Nextel Cup debut this weekend at Atlanta if he can get a superspeedway licence in time.
Indy Racing League champion Sam Hornish is also keen on NASCAR and may do some stock car races with Roger Penske next year.
Stoddy's Mexican stand-off
There's a lot of speculation that Australian Paul Stoddart, who owned the Minardi team in Formula One for five years, will resurface next year with a two-car Champ Car team. Don't expect any announcement before the final round of this year's series in Mexico on November 10-12. If F1 was a way to burn money, Stoddart may find Champ Car similar if he is to field a competitive team. Fellow Aussie Craig Gore has reportedly spent $22 million over the past two seasons on his Team Australia.
Schumi's reward - The World!
Michael Schumacher departed F1 without an eighth world title but Dubai's crown prince, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, has given him "The World" - a piece of a man-made island paradise off the coast of the United Arab Emirates."The World" is described as 300 islands clustered together in a nine kilometre zone to resemble earth from an aerial photo. Schumi's island, apparently part of Antarctica on the artificial globe, is worth about US $7 million. Schumacher's manager, Willi Weber, says that when it's finished Schumi and his family will have their own holiday island - and may build a kart track on it!
New life … as a couch potato
Where will Schumi be when the new F1 season kicks off in Melbourne in the middle of March? "I'll probably be with my kids watching the race on television," he says. His ongoing role with Ferrari, probably as an ambassador, has not been formally announced. But there's one thing he's sure of, despite people like Niki Lauda telling him he'll be bored within two months. "I'm not going to change my decision on retiring," Schumi says. However, Mika Hakkinen - who was perhaps his greatest rival in F1 - predicts he will return to racing, "but which category and when I don't know".Kimi cracks the sh…!
The driver hired by Ferrari to replace Schumacher, Finn Kimi Raikkonen, is in disgrace. Raikkonen has made headlines several times during his time with McLaren over his drinking and nightclubbing exploits, but this time he offended viewers of F1 telecaster ITV's lead-in to the championship-deciding Brazilian Grand Prix. Raikkonen, who had qualified on the front row, missed the presentation by soccer legend Pele of a special trophy to Schumacher. Queried on camera about that by ITV presenter - and former Schumacher teammate - Martin Brundle, Raikkonen replied, "Hey, I was having a sh*t." ITV was flooded with calls of complaint.Fernando the Real deal
Fernando Alonso is a fan of the Real Madrid soccer club, which is trying to leverage that link by sponsoring what will be his McLaren car at the Spanish GP in Barcelona next May. There's the potential for some fireworks in this, if Real can firstly find a way with McLaren boss Ron Dennis to get its logo on the car. Real's main rival in Spain's premier league is Barcelona, and the Catalunyans there are not well disposed to Madrid. Before beating Barcelona 2-0 last Sunday, Real opened the doors to its Bernabeu stadium early to allow fans in to see Alonso clinch his second world title live on giant screens. Now the club is trying to get him to do the honorary kick-off at one of its matches.Rally focus is Ford title
Marcus Gronholm says his focus ahead of this week's Rally Australia is not the possibility he can still catch injured Sebastien Loeb in the drivers' world rally championship but on securing the manufacturers' title for Ford. With Citroen star Loeb sidelined with a broken arm from a mountain bike accident, Ford is eight points ahead after Ford's 1-2 finish at the previous round, the Rally of Turkey, with a maximum 54 manufacturer points to be scored in the three remaining rounds. Finn Gronholm still trails Frenchman Loeb by 25 points on the drivers' table, with 30 points still up for grabs there- but the likelihood that Loeb will be back for the New Zealand and British events. Gronholm won Rally Oz in 2000, 2001 and 2002 but has retired for the past three years. He likens the West Australian roads to his home rally in Finland because of the high speeds. This is the last time the event will be run in WA, with the next Rally Oz set to be in Brisbane in 2008.Back in the red corner
Kronos Racing, the Belgian team running as Citroen's main entrant, will revert from the blue color scheme it has run in all season to the French manufacturer's traditional red this week, following the expiry of its Gauloises tobacco sponsorship - which would have been illegal in Australia now anyway. Kronos has not ruled out new sponsorship for the final two rounds but says it would be happy to remain in red given the technical support it has received from Citroen.Meanwhile, Ford Australia is getting close to announcing its 2007 rally plans, with Auto Action predicting today it will be with a pair of Super 2000-specification Fiestas driven by Michael Guest and a young rising star. V8 Supercar star Jason Bright's Britek Motorsport is tipped to be a technical partner in the campaign.
NASCAR goes unleaded early
NASCAR will now be switching to unleaded fuel in 2007 - a year earlier than expected. The season-opening Daytona 500 will be an exception, but otherwise the change will apply throughout the Nextel Cup, Busch series and Craftsman Truck series. Meanwhile, NASCAR's television ratings are falling, with one American cable network, TNT, reporting an 8.3 per cent drop this season and apparently considering commercial-free telecasts next year.
