MOTORSPORT: 16 marques for Bathurst 12-Hour

The closing date for entries for the next Bathurst 12-Hour is still 12 weeks away on December 16, but already there are 50 cars representing 16 marques.

The GT event, which has become the ‘Other Great Race’ at Mt Panorama, is another seven weeks after the entry deadline – on February 3-5.

Among more than 30 GT3s, the Ferrari 488 will make its Bathurst debut – Melbourne’s Maranello Motorsport was the first to enter – while there are six Audi R8s from Audi Customer Racing Australia, also based in Melbourne, four Nissan GT-Rs (two factory and two privateer) and two BMW M6s.

Full details of cars and drivers haven’t been announced yet and there could be plenty of change by the deadline, with some of those entered now not proceeding but others bobbing up.

“The entry list is always reasonably fluid at this stage of the year and will undoubtedly change before the end of the year as people finalise their plans, but we are obviously very pleased with the reaction so far,” event director John Casey of the Supercars organisation said.

“The recent announcements from manufacturers and private teams entering the race shows how strong the appeal of this race has become.

“Manufacturers like Ferrari, Nissan and BMW see it as a great platform to showcase their brand,  while private teams like Hobson Motorsport [with a pair of Nissan GT-Rs coming  from the US] know they can compete for outright or a class victory in competitive machinery.

“We are also extremely pleased to see GT4 starting to gain momentum in Australia, with six cars already entered in the class. There have been several others talking to us about running, so that category should be very strong.

“The mix of machinery is already very exciting and should be even better by the time entries close.”

GT4 is an ‘entry level’ to GT racing with a wide range of cars eligible, including the McLaren 570, Porsche Cayman Clubsport and KTM X-Bow. Already GT4 models from Aston Martin, Lotus, Ginetta and Porsche have raced at The Mountain.

In the invitational category, Casey says MARC Cars has multiple entries again, after five this year, and there’s a mix of production-based machinery.

Rally Queensland winner set for Toyota WRC team
Toyota is close to officially launching its team for its return to the World Rally Championship, perhaps at the Paris motor show in the next few days.

French manufacturer Citroen already has teased with the livery of its C3 for its full-time return next year, after only occasional entries this season, but has not given its technical specifications.

The Toyota team, which will field the Japanese manufacturer’s Yaris model under the 2017 regulations allowing extra power and more aggressive aerodynamics, has been put together in Finland by multiple world champion driver Tommi Makinen rather than at Toyota’s traditional motorsport base in Cologne, Germany.

Makinen, who had talked of trying to bring world champions Sebastien Loeb and Petter Solberg back to the WRC, reportedly has settled on two Finns as the drivers.

One is Esapeeka Lappi, the 25-year-old who won the International Rally of Queensland in 2013 in a Super 2000 Skoda Fabia.

The other is Juho Hanninen, 10 years older, vastly more experienced in the WRC (he was a Hyundai factory driver) and who has done a lot of the testing of the Yaris.

While Makinen’s outfit is said to have done 6000 in gravel road testing, it apparently is yet to start on tarmac.

Toyota won four drivers’ and three manufacturers’ world titles in the 1990s with legendary drivers such as Finland’s Juha Kankkunen and Spain’s Carlos Sainz.

However, it was disqualified for a year over an illegal turbocharger and last competed in 1999 before turning its focus to Formula 1, in which it failed to win a grand prix in seven seasons before withdrawing.

Lappi was the 2012 Finnish rally champion in a Ford Fiesta S2000 but has been a Skoda driver in the four seasons since.

In 2013 he won three of the six Asia-Pacific Rally Championship rounds, including in Queensland, and finished runner-up to Indian teammate Gaurav Gill.

He was the 2014 European rally championship, while in the global series he has competed primarily in WRC2 – with a best of eighth place in last year’s Rally Finland.

Meanwhile, Canberra-based Neal Bates Motorsport is considering a Yaris built to the new AP4 regulations being adopted in Australia and New Zealand for his son Harry to drive in next year’s Australian Rally Championship.

This year Bates junior is driving his father’s nine-year-old Corolla S2000.

McLaren the apple of technology giant’s eye?
London’s Financial Times reported this week that iPhone maker Apple had approached the McLaren Technology Group about buying it.

California-based Apple has been working on a self-driving electric vehicle for more than two years ago, although the status of the project has been clouded recently by staff layoffs.

McLaren, based in Britain but founded half a century ago by late New Zealand race driver and constructor Bruce McLaren, denied it was in talks with Apple.

McLaren Technology Group comprises three arms – the second-most successful team in Formula 1, its road-going supercar business, and McLaren Applied Technology.

The FT article indicated that Apple was interested in McLaren’s technology, engineering and numerous patents.

The McLaren empire is half-owned by a Bahrain government investment fund, with the other half divided by the man synonymous with the F1 team, Ron Dennis, and Mansour Ojjeh of TAG (Techniques Avant Garde).

Formula E bound for the Big Apple
The Formula E electric open-wheeler race series doesn’t seem to have captured enormous public interest in its two seasons, but its organisers have shown an ability to secure landmark venues – the latest in New York.

The third Formula E season is to conclude on a street circuit with the Statue of Liberty and the Manhattan skyline as its backdrop.

The double-header round on a 13-turn, 1.9km track in Brooklyn will be the first open-wheel racing sanctioned by the world governing Federation Internationale de l’Automobile (FIA) in New York in modern history.

The third series starts in Hong Kong on October 9 with Buenos Aires, Mexico City, Monaco, Paris, Berlin and Montreal among its venues.

Kalkhoven’s IndyCar team on the move
Change is afoot at the IndyCar team of expatriate Australian business tycoon Kevin Kalkhoven that provided the car Matthew Brabham raced in this year’s Indianapolis 500.

KVSH Racing (the K stands for Kalkhoven, V for ex-racer Jimmy Vasser and SH for marketing and sponsorship man James Sullivan) is moving from Indianapolis to Florida in what may be a merger of sorts with Carlin, the long-established British junior open-wheeler team that has expanded to the US.

Kalkhoven is reported by veteran American motorsports scribe Marshall Pruett to have “grown tired of making annual financial contributions to cover the [KVSH] team’s budgetary shortfalls”.

KVSH has lost well-credentialed French driver Sebastien Bourdais, who delivered it four victories in three seasons against the might of the Penske, Ganassi and Andretti multi-car teams.

Carlin is majority-owned by Grahame Chilton, father of ex-F1 driver Max Chilton who this year raced in IndyCar with Ganassi.

World Rallycross becomes Ekstrom’s priority
Swede Mattias Ekstrom, arguably the most versatile race driver in the world (although Shane van Gisbergen would be a challenger), has been given the nod by his manufacturer Audi to pursue the World Rallycross Championship ahead of his DTM (German Touring Car Championship) campaign.

Ekstrom has seized the World RX lead from the champion of the previous two seasons, Citroen-mounted Norwegian Petter Solberg, but faced clashing commitments in mid-October.

The World RX round in Riga, the capital of Latvia, clashes with the DTM finale at Hockenheim.

Ekstrom competed in both series on the same weekend when they shared the bill at Hockenheim in May.

He is a two-time DTM champion, as well as a multiple winner of the International Race of Champions and was a star at the Bathurst 1000 a couple of years ago.

“I haven’t missed a single race in DTM for 15 years, so it’s a really big decision by Audi Sport and for sure a big one for me too [to give priority to rallycross],” Ekstrom said.

“I have never ever been close to winning an FIA world championship title before and I’m proud and honoured that my bosses are giving me this chance.

“Rest assured that I will go flat out to pay them back. I want to take a step towards the big trophy [in World RX], not only for me and my team EKS but also for Audi Sport.”

German Rene Rast, an Audi-contracted driver who has raced in the Bathurst 12-Hour, will take Ekstrom’s place at the DTM round.

It’s au revoir to touring cars for Muller
Yvan Muller, the well-performed Frenchman who has raced in Australia numerous times and won the 2005 Sandown 500 with Craig Lowndes in a Triple Eight Ford Falcon, is retiring – at least from the World Touring Car Championship.

Muller has been a star of the WTCC for more than a decade, winning it four times.

He is equal second in it this season to Citroen C-Elysee teammate Jose Maria Lopez, of Argentina, but says he has lost “desire and motivation”.

Among many achievements, including in ice racing, Muller won the 2003 British Touring Car Championship.

Murph in for GT long hauls in NZ
The final two rounds of the Australian GT Endurance Championship are in New Zealand, where there is no star bigger than Greg Murphy.

And Murphy will partner GT category owner Tony Quinn in an Aston Martin Vantage for the events at Hampton Downs on the North Island on the last weekend of October and Highlands Motorsport Park on the South Island two weeks later.

Quinn owns both the circuits and the V12 Vantage.
“The popularity of the GT class around the world … it’s amazing to see the growth, and certainly in Australia,” said former V8 Supercar star and four-time Bathurst 1000 winner Murphy.

“The cars are cool. With all the traction control, ABS and the aero, it’s just a very different tool to get behind the wheel of.

“I think Hampton Downs is going to suit these cars massively.

The style of corners and some of the fast stuff there, it’s going to be awesome to drive a top GT car.”

Young Aussies for the fore in Britain
Word reached us too late for our motorsport wrap earlier in the week about the successes of Australians overseas, but Zane Goddard from the Gold Coast won two of three races in the British Formula 4 Championship last weekend at Silverstone.

Luis Leeds, from Melbourne, was second to Goddard in the final race of the round and third in another, in which Goddard finished sixth after starting ninth.

Leeds, a Red Bull junior, is third in the championship while Goddard is seventh, with the final round at Brands Hatch on October 1-2.