MOTORSPORT: A classic Le Mans

Audi thwarts Peugeot's 24-hour dream
A great Le Mans 24-hour race in France, by all accounts. Pity we didn't get to see more of it (even some?) here in Oz.

Hopefully there will be an hour or two of highlights around before too long. Let us know if you see a highlights package advertised before we spot it.

It was a great victory for German manufacturer Audi. French rival Peugeot's three factory entries set the pace in the lead-up, but on the day -- the whole 24 hours -- when it mattered Audi came through again for its eighth victory in the sports car classic.

It was also the eighth Le Mans win for Danish endurance specialist Tom Kristensen, who shared the victorious Audi R10 TDi with Scotsman Allan McNish and Italian Dindo Capello.

It was McNish's second victory at Le Mans, a decade after his first, and Capello's third.

The Audi completed 381 laps of the 13.629-kilometre La Sarthe circuit to finish 4 minutes 31.094 seconds ahead of the Peugeot of Frenchman Nicolas Minassian, Spaniard Marc Gene and Canadian Jacques Villeneuve.

Two laps behind was another Peugeot, driven by France's Franck Montagny, Brazil's Riccardo Zonta and Austria's Christian Klien.

The first six cars -- all Audis and Peugeots -- ran on diesel.

The decisive period came during a downpour mid-race when the Peugeots ran into overheating problems and Audi promptly snatched the initiative, never to surrender it.

Australian international David Brabham shared the Aston Martin that won the LM GT1 class, finishing 13th outright -- and 37 laps behind the outright victor.

The Porsche 911 GT3 in which Aussie Alex Davison drove finished 27th outright -- 72 laps behind the winning car.

A Ferrari F430 GT won LM GT2 -- the Pracing Horse's first victory at Le Mans for five years.

Here's the Autosport race report if you want more on Europe's great race and the full results. autosport.com

A prime supporter of motor racing
John Howard used to join cricket commentators each summer when he was Australia's prime minister, but France's PM Francois Fillon spent the weekend doing TV commentary on Le Mans. And next month Fillon will race in the biennial Le Mans Classic.

He is also friendly with Formula 1 boss Bernie Ecclestone, who insists that this Sunday's French Grand Prix will be the last at Magny-Cours.

Ecclestone claims Fillon supports the idea of a street race in Paris, but London's Daily Mail newspaper claims that leaks from the PM's office suggest a purpose-built track near Disneyland Paris is more realistic.

Fillon has also been touted as a possible replacement for Federation Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA) president Max Mosley when he finally goes.

Although the event has looked to have a death rattle in recent times, regular readers might recall that we have said here it would not be surprising to see the deal renewed.

If we are to believe what we read in the press, it seems a new deal is verbally agreed between Victoria and F1 tsar Bernie Ecclestone but that it is perhaps a few days, maybe a couple of weeks or even a couple of months away from being signed.

While F1's diehard fans in Australia will be pleased if the country keeps its race, a renewal of the contract will come against an interesting background.

Consider these matters:
>> An event that was supposedly going to break even or perhaps make a small profit when it shifted from Adelaide to Melbourne in the mid-1990s has lost at least $160 million in Victoria, and with the red ink now running at $40 million a year the total could be well beyond $400 million by 2015.

>> There is a lot of speculation in F1 circles of a breakaway series, even as early as next year, if FIA president Max Mosley does not resign -- with one report, in the Irish Independent newspaper, suggesting tomorrow (Tuesday) has been set as a deadline for him to quit. The breakaway supposedly would be the existing teams and manufacturers, with the same ringleader, Ecclestone, but a different governing authority than the FIA.
The series would probably be called GP1, because the FIA would retain the name F1. We have big doubts that there will be a breakaway, and certainly that it would come as soon as next year.
But in any case we wonder just how well the Victorian government keeps itself informed on such matters/prospects as part of its dealings with Ecclestone. We also find it somewhat amusing that the man who went into bat for the GP in the media on Sunday was the state's acting premier, Rob Hulls, who in Victorian Labor's days in opposition was the strongest opponent of the event.

Anyway, here are a couple of relevant articles from London papers The Times and The Telegraph. timesonline.co.uk telegraph.co.uk

>> There is fresh speculation too that Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation might end up owning F1. This is a prospect we have raised here before but, while we see a logic in a global media conglomerate owning the show, we have doubts that Ecclestone and Murdoch could agree a deal, or that Murdoch could "live" with Ecclestone if he took out private equity group CVC's majority stake in the business. (more here and here)

>> We have come across, belatedly we must admit, a staggering article -- in Britain's SportsPro magazine almost six months ago -- which says it is believed that Mosley "received a gratis payment from Bernie Ecclestone (in 2004) of US$300 million as a token of his appreciation". Yes, US$300 million, it says. Now 2004 was four years before Mosley's infamous sex orgy and four years after he did a deal that gave Ecclestone's empire the commercial rights to F1 for a century -- yes, a century -- for, coincidentally, US$300 million -- a deal that some say should have been worth US$9 billion.
The author of this article was Tom Rubython, a business journalist who was the editor of Ecclestone's Formula 1 Magazine earlier this decade, who has been sued numerous times and usually been on the losing end, and who for the past five years was denied an FIA media pass to GPs.
We cannot find any sign of any legal action over the SportsPro article, and indeed we understand that Rubython was given an FIA media pass for the recent Monaco Grand Prix.
The article also makes an amusing reference to the FIA World Motorsport Council as "a squad of nodding donkeys" and some interesting reference to Australia's previous, and now late, FIA delegate John Large. (more here)

After the WRC's six-week mid-season break Hirvonen will go into his home round on July 31-August 3 leading France's Sebastien Loeb by three points.

Hirvonen, whose first WRC win was at the last Rally Australia in 2006, notched his sixth victory -- and second this year -- in beating his countryman and Ford teammate Jari-Matti Latvala by 7.9 seconds.

Citroen's multiple world champion Loeb was third, 25.7 seconds behind Hirvonen.

It was the 100th straight WRC event in which Ford has scored championship points and it stretched its lead on Citroen in the constructors' standings to nine points.

Australian Chris Atkinson's hopes were wrecked on the opening leg by damaged front suspension in his factory Subaru Impreza. Under SuperRally rules, Atkinson rejoined the event for the remaining days but had electrical and hydraulic problems.

Not having scored points in the two rounds since the 2008 Impreza was introduced, Atkinson has now lost his third place in the championship to Latvala.

Atkinson's Norwegian teammate Petter Solberg finished sixth in Turkey after his second place on the new Impreza's debut in Greece two weeks earlier.

Loeb, who started the latest rally with a one-point lead over Hirvonen and who has won five of the eight rounds this season, paid the price for having to start the first two legs in the lead and therefore "sweep" the road for his Ford rivals.

At the end of the first leg Ford had its drivers back off so that Loeb kept the overnight lead and remained first on the road.

But the great Frenchman said: "Everybody knows how difficult it is to run first on the road, but there is no point in moaning about it, or criticising the regulations or the tactics of our rivals. The only answer was to drive as fast as possible.

"Except maybe for New Zealand, we should no longer have to worry about the problem of 'road-sweeping' for any of the seven rallies that remain, and that can only be a good thing.

"We know that we're ready for what's coming, the points differences in the two championships are minimal and there will doubtless be more fights to close these gaps."

Citroen team principal Olivier Quesnel was more outspoken, threatening a withdrawal from the sport before expressing a more considered position was still quite strong.

"I am angry with the regulation which has allowed this happen," Quesnel said. "I am not angry at Ford. Ford has used this regulation, like the regulation is there to be used.

"I do not have the power to say: 'Okay, now Citroen will stop'.

"We will be here for the end of this season and next year. After that, we cannot say what we will be doing."

Sounds as though it might depend on the rules about things like this.

World Rally Drivers' Championship standings after 8 of 15 rounds -- Mikko Hirvonen (Finland) 59 points, Sebastien Loeb (France) 56, Jari-Matti Latvala (Finland) 34, Chris Atkinson (Australia) 31, Daniel Sordo (Spain) 30, Petter Solberg (Norway) 20, Gianluigi Galli (Italy) 17, Henning Solberg (Norway) 16, Matthew Wilson (Britain) 12, Federico Villagra (Argentina) 8.

World Rally Manufacturers' Championship standings -- Ford 99, Citroen 90, Subaru 53, Stobart-Ford 41, Munchi's-Ford 19, Suzuki 10.

Zanardi first and second in world tourers
Alex Zanardi, the man who races with prosthetic legs following his horrific 2001 Champ Car crash in Germany, won a race in the World Touring Car Championship at the weekend.

Driving a BMW, it was the popular and cheerful Zanardi's third victory since his return to racing and came at Brno in the Czech Republic. His previous win was at Istanbul in Turkey in 2006.

In the later race at Brno fellow Italian Gabriele Tarquini, driving a SEAT, held off Zanardi, who had charged from eighth on the grid, to claim his second win of the season and strengthen his championship lead.

Cup of joy for Junior as Ambrose gets ready
Dale Earnhardt Junior has been a fine NASCAR driver without winning a lot -- his massive popularity stems from the success of his late father -- but at Michigan International Speedway he has notched his first Sprint Cup win in the past 76 races.

Even though there are signs of NASCAR crowds dwindling, partly because of high fuel prices for spectators travelling to races and the generally depressed US economy, and this race ended under caution, the strength of the show was highlighted by four makes in the top four finishing positions -- Chevrolet, Dodge, Ford and Toyota.

Australia's dual V8 Supercar champion Marcos Ambrose is hoping to make his Sprint Cup debut this Sunday at the Infineon Raceway road course in Sonoma, California, on the back of his sixth place in the second tier Nationwide Series round at Kentucky Speedway.

Ambrose qualified third there, his best starting position of the season, and wound up with his third top 10 finish for the season -- the best of which was second on the Mexico City road course.

Ambrose was the highest-placed Ford finisher in the Kentucky race, won by 18-year-old Joey Logano from Connecticut in just his third Nationwide Series start.

Logano passed Joe Gibbs Racing/Toyota teammate Kyle Busch for the lead on lap 147 and stayed there for the remaining 53 laps to become the youngest winner in Nationwide history at 18 years and 21 days -- and giving Gibbs its 10th NASCAR victory of the season.

Busch hit the wall, was classified 30th and dropped from third to fifth in the series -- although he still leads the Cup by 32 points from Jeff Burton, with Earnhardt third.

Ambrose, 13th in the Nationwide series after 16 rounds, will need to qualify a Ford Fusion at Sonoma because his Wood Brothers entry is not in the top 35 in the Cup to be guaranteed a start. The Aussie will be on what the Americans call double duty, as he is also down to compete in the Nationwide round at Milwaukee on Saturday.

Qualifying for the Cup race is on Friday and if Ambrose qualifies he will take part in two practice sessions in California on Saturday, meaning Robert Pressley will serve as back-up driver for him in practice and qualifying at Milwaukee.

All going well, Ambrose will fly to Milwaukee to race, then return to Sonoma for his Cup race debut. He had a few false starts last year in his quest to make it into the big league of American stock car racing so let's hope all goes to plan for him this time.

Meanwhile, Logano has led laps in each of his first three starts in the Nationwide series and, apart from his win in Kentucky, was in the top 10 in the other two starts and has twice started from pole position.

Gibbs intends to introduce him to Cup racing before the end of the season and there is talk of him as a full-time replacement for Tony Stewart in the team next year.

Earlier Juan Pablo Montoya, who drives for Chip Ganassi, was mentioned as a possible replacement for Stewart.

NASCAR's top 10 earners, according to Forbes
Last week we mentioned a Forbes magazine article on NASCAR and the earnings of its drivers.

Here's its complete top 10 of NASCAR's highest-earnings drivers (including endorsements):
Jeff Gordon $32 million
Dale Earnhardt, Jr. -- $31 million
Jimmie Johnson -- $23 million
Tony Stewart -- $19 million
Kasey Kahne -- $14 million
Juan Pablo Montoya -- $11 million
Matt Kenseth -- $11 million
Kevin Harvick -- $11 million
Kyle Busch -- $10 million
Denny Hamlin -- $10 million

Woman claims US$225 million from NASCAR
NASCAR has been rocked by racial and sexual discrimination claims made by former official Mauricia Grant, who has sued the series organisers for US$225 million.

Grant, who is black, worked as a Nationwide Series official between 2005 and 2007 inspecting cars during race weekends, but she was sacked last October and is claiming wrongful dismissal as well.

Two Nationwide officials linked to the claims made by Grant have been placed on "administrative leave".

Andretti III's finishing tale of woe
Even though Danica Patrick is assured of a publicity-driven F1 test outing with Honda later in the year, Marco Andretti -- grandson of Mario and son of Michael -- must have pole position to be America's next F1 racer, if there is to be one.

But not only has Andretti III crashed out late in his last two IndyCar races, he has some statistics that compare with Aussie Mark Webber's worst times in F1.

Andretti has failed to finish 14 of his last 24 races!

Of the 10 he has finished, all but one have been in the top five, but most of them were in the Indy Racing League before the reunification with Champ Car -- and consequent strengthening of American open-wheeler racing.

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