MOTORSPORT: 30pc crowd drop far from Super

Gold Coast needs something more than V8s
They didn't sell enough tickets to the weekend's Gold Coast's SuperGP but someone must have done a nice line in rose-colored sunglasses.

There are plenty of people, including Queensland premier Anna Bligh, now trying to paint a bright picture of it all.

Sure the V8 Supercars held the fort after the no-show by the A1 GP open-wheeler gang.

Fords won three of the four races after the crushing the Blue Oval copped at Bathurst two weeks earlier.

Mark Winterbottom, despite glandular fever, had two wins and was second in the other two races in a welcome turnaround for him and Ford Performance Racing.

The V8 Legends were well received, and so was young Matthew Brabham re-enacting his legendary grandfather Sir Jack's heroics with a Cooper car to win his first Formula One world title 50 years ago.

There was the other support activity too and the carnival atmosphere.

But, on the official attendance numbers for last year's final Indy and this year's SuperGP, there were 92,028 fewer fans over the four days -- down from 297,288 to 205,260.

We have our doubts about those numbers, especially last year's, but taken at face value the drop is 30.95 per cent.

"It's a bit down on last year but, given the global financial crisis and the problems with the A1s, this is a terrific result," premier Bligh said.

A bit down? That's almost one-third less. See what we mean by rose-colored sunglasses?

Gold Coast mayor and athletics great Ron Clarke played a much straighter and more accurate bat. He said the global financial crisis would not have been a major contributor to the large drop in crowd numbers.

"It doesn't seem to have stopped people going to other events, like the AFL and the NRL," he said. "Those events are still getting plenty of custom, so I don't know that I'd count too much on the financial crisis.

"I think it's mainly the doubt of the event proceeding with(out) international flavour -- and perhaps the fact that there weren't international cars there."

While there are those in the V8 Supercar community who have wanted to believe that the fans were coming just to see them, the overwhelming view is that the double act of an international open-wheeler category and Australia's touring car series is what has made the Gold Coast event what it's been.

As the "post-mortem"/analysis/debriefing starts on the SuperGP, even V8 Supercars Australia executive chairman Tony Cochrane appears to have concluded that some form of international racing is going to be necessary for the future -- certainly to keep the Queensland government, which has been contributing $11.6 million a year, happy.

The government is expected to name today an events expert to "comprehensively review" the SuperGP.

While sports minister Phil Reeves has been glowing in his praise of Cochrane's efforts -- and those of the V8 Supercar fraternity -- in the wake of the A1 fiasco, there is a very strong sense that the government still wants an international flavour to the event.

Unless it could entice the Indy show back from the US -- unlikely in view of its US$20 million asking price and demand that the event be much earlier in the year -- the best it may be able to find now is Formula 3, which already has big races in Macau and South Korea at the end of the year.

While F3 is fiercely competitive and has lots of talented young drivers from around the world, some of whom most likely will advance to F1 in time, and the international field can be supplemented with Australia's F3 field, it is hardly worthy of being a headline act at the Gold Coast.

And it wouldn't bring major TV coverage overseas.

Others are urging that the touring car Legends concept be expanded to make the Gold Coast event some kind of equivalent to Britain's renowned Goodwood Festival of Speed.

A bit farfetched we reckon, especially as other events in other states are arguably already further down the track in that direction.

Whatever, the review of the SuperGP needs to be done promptly so that a direction for the future is decided on.

Cochrane claimed to be "delighted" with the weekend's attendance but privately he must have been disappointed that the V8 Supercars alone could not pull a crowd at the Gold Coast as big as those of the past.

And while he will be pushing the V8SA barrow hard over the coming weeks, demanding more say along with International Management Group and the Gold Coast Motor Events Company in the event's future, he at least is likely to have a more coherent plan to put forward while others are on the defensive, trying to save their skins after their part in the A1 fiasco.

"For our part we are now going to spend the next fortnight developing an exciting future plan for the Gold Coast event for many years to come," Cochrane said.

"Key objectives of this plan will include reducing the footprint to the Gold Coast event (shortening the track by cutting out the two blocks at the southern end) and ensuring that a quality program, including an international component, is developed.

"We will have this plan ready to roll out for the review set down by the Queensland government.

"We will be demanding to be fully included in any plans going forward."

All of this is on the premise that the event remain on the streets of Surfers' Paradise.

But Gold Coast mayor Clarke -- who let it be known a few years back that he was no great fan of the then Indy, although he has been more tactful since and clearly wants the council to be an upgraded stakeholder from here on -- has perhaps hit the nail on the head, saying that Surfers' Paradise is not the best site for it.

He said the event was costing the state government and the council too much to ensure the local rapid transit system serviced the venue and that Coomera or Nerang would be better sites.

"To me, it's probably better to stage an event out in that area than it is to try to hold up all the traffic, and put diversions through the tremendous disadvantage that they have to go through to put it in Surfers Paradise," he said.

It's ironic that, in the year the event lost its international aspect and most of the little overseas TV coverage it had, the futility of the street circuit starts to dawn.

V8 Supercar Championship after 20 of 26 races -- Jamie Whincup (Ford) 2605 points, Will Davison (Holden) 2573, Garth Tander (H) 2316, Craig Lowndes (H) 2175, Mark Winterbottom (F) 1862, Steven Johnson (F) 1838, Rick Kelly (H) 1658, Lee Holdsworth (H) 1655, Russell Ingall (H) 1586, James Courtney (F) 1586.

Viva la France - Loeb and Todt rule
It was a big weekend for the French -- Sebastien Loeb won his sixth straight world rally title by a point from Finn Mikko Hirvonen in the season-ending Rally of Great Britain, while Jean Todt became the new president of the Federation Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA), defeating Finn Ari Vatanen 135 votes to 49 in the ballot to replace Max Mosley.

The rally tussle went almost to the wire, but the bonnet of Hirvonen's Ford Focus flew up on the penultimate stage and he lost a minute fixing it.

It was Loeb's seventh victory in 12 rounds this year -- and the 54th WRC round win of his career.

However, thoughts of him making his F1 debut at this week's new Abu Dhabi Grand Prix with Scuderia Toro Rosso have been scotched by the FIA denying him an F1 superlicence.

"I have no regrets (about F1) because I had no ambition -- my only regret is that it would have been fun to do it," Loeb said.

And of his latest amazing rally season Loeb said: "We made a good start then we lost everything and we came here one point behind Mikko.

"Finally we've done it, but Mikko has been extremely strong. This has been one of my best title wins -- the battle was so intense, going almost until the end of the last rally. It was incredible."

Hirvonen said: "Now I need to go back to work and find more speed for next year. It was definitely the best year I've ever had though. We're really close now to his speed and that feels good. It's been a great year, but of course a big disappointment at the end."

World Rally Championship final standings -- Sebastien Loeb (France, Citroen) 93 points, Mikko Hirvonen (Finland, Ford) 92, Daniel Sordo (Spain, Citroen) 64, Jari-Matti Latvala (Finland, Ford) 41, Petter Solberg (Norway, Citroen) 35, Henning Solberg (Norway, Ford) 33, Matthew Wilson (Britain, Ford) 28.
 
WRC manufacturers' final standings -- Citroen Total WRT 167 points, BP-Ford Abu-Dhabi WRT 140, Stobart VK M-Sport Ford WRT 80, Citroen Junior Team 47, Munchi's Ford WRT 23.

Spotlight back on AGP start time
F1 supremo Bernie Ecclestone reportedly has turned up the heat again on Australian Grand Prix organisers to stage a night race.

Ecclestone told the Sunday Herald Sun that, to improve the European TV audience, he was discussing with AGP chairman Ron Walker a later start than the twilight introduced this year and scheduled for next March.

But Walker has reiterated that the Victorian government would never allow a night GP.

Why should there be a need for a later start when Walker said in this year's AGP Corporation annual report the twilight start had tripled some European audiences.

Perhaps Ecclestone knows different!

Meanwhile, Honda president Takanobu Ito says he has "no regrets" about the company's pullout despite its successor BrawnGP winning the world constructors' title.

Meanwhile, Brawn is confident of retaining new world champion driver Jenson Button despite speculation of him joining McLaren.

Button took a big pay cut at Brawn this year, and the McLaren talk arose because of the price apparently on Kimi Raikkonen's head to return there after his dumping by Ferrari.

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