MOTORSPORT: A feast on big and little stages

It's a packed program of motorsport this weekend – at home and abroad.

On the home front there's GT racing at Victoria's Phillip Island, firstly with a sprint round of the CAMS-sanctioned national championship, then the first round of the endurance championship on Sunday. French-Canadian champion Bruno Spengler, winner of the German touring car championship (the DTM) in 2012, is a star guest at the Island in the new BMW M6 GT3 of Ryan McLeod's MARC.

In and around Canberra (including a super special stage on the shores of Lake Burley Griffin) is a round of another CAMS series, the Australian Rally Championship, with new-generation stars Harry Bates in a Toyota Corolla S2000 and Molly Taylor in the production-class Subaru WRX STI NR4 taking part. They are facing up to veterans including round one winner and multiple champion Simon Evans in a Subaru Impreza WRX STI. It was only the bonus point for most stage wins in last month's Forest Rally in WA that has Evans ahead of Bates in the ARC, while Taylor is fourth after her first event in a four-wheel-drive car.

And there's round two of the Australian Tarmac Rally Championship, sanctioned by the Australian Auto-Sport Alliance rather than CAMS, and – despite the name – with all its events in Victoria. This weekend's is based at Marysville, 100km north-east of Melbourne, with a sprint up and down Lake Mountain in the Yarra Ranges National Park on Saturday and then 220km of competition in 16 stages between Marsyville and Cumberland Junction on Sunday. Alan Roe, who won the opening round, the Mt Baw Baw Sprint, in February in a 2000 Mitsubishi Lancer Evo 6.5 at just his second tarmac start, is absent this time, perhaps leaving the battle between the other podium drivers from round one – Sydney car dealer Adam Kaplan in a 1985 Mazda RX7 and Adelaide's Ben Calder in another Evo 6.5.

Ricciardo sets cracking pace in Monaco
On the world stage it's Monaco Grand Prix time, as well as the 100th Indianapolis 500 in the US on Monday morning, Australian time, followed immediately by NASCAR's longest race, the Coca-Cola 600 at  Charlotte.

Australia's Daniel Ricciardo was the pacesetter in Monaco last night – first practice there is always on the Thursday because of today's Ascension Day public holiday.

Ricciardo has an upgraded Renault power unit that teenage teammate Max Verstappen, shock victor at the Spanish GP two weeks ago, won't get until the next round of the Formula 1 World Championship in Canada.

There was a serious safety scare in Monaco last night.  More on that later.

In Germany it's the Nurburgring 24-Hour this weekend on the Nordschleife circuit – with almost 200 corners in a lap of more than 20km – with four Australians competing, while young Australian open-wheeler racers overseas will be in action on both sides of the Atlantic.

Most prominent of the Aussies at the Nurburgring is Mal Rose, making his 13th straight start. These days he's in an Aston Martin, a modified GT4, after racing a Holden V8 Supercar several times at the 'Ring. The 53-year-old Sydneysider has an 85 per cent finishing record there, last year winning the SP8 class. Rose can boast that he has introduced 35 other Aussie race drivers to the circuit renowned as the world's most challenging.

One of them is one of his co-drivers this weekend, Peter Leemhuis.

The other Aussies in the 24-Hour are Ric Shaw in a BMW 135d and Queenslander Rob Thomson in a Porsche Cayman GT4.

VW still whining about Citroen success
Volkswagen is still bleating about Citroen driver Kris Meeke winning last weekend's Rally Portugal, with VW team principal Jost Capito saying part-timers having such success devalues the World Rally Championship.

Capito, soon to depart to run the McLaren Formula 1 team, claims the WRC will confuse the public if drivers not contesting the whole series win regularly.

Citroen and Meeke are only doing selected events this year while concentrating on developing the French manufacturer's car for next year's regulations.

VW's complaint – heard loud and now long, originally from its triple world champion driver Sebastien Ogier and last Sunday from a senior VW executive  – is that wildcard drivers get the advantage of favourable road conditions over the first couple of days of a rally because of the championship leaders, who start first, sweeping the roads for them.

"If somebody of the calibre of Kris Meeke or Sebastien Loeb [retired nine-time world rally champion] comes for three rallies, it's clear they win and this devalues the whole championship," Capito said.

"The public don't know why the guy who leads the championship [Ogier] has no chance to win.

"They think, 'Ah, he's not the real world champion because the other guy wins; this guy who come three times, he should be the world champion."

Capito said "everybody knew" Meeke would win in Portugal.

"If he [Meeke] doesn't do a mistake there is no chance for anybody else," Capito said.

"This is the third rally in a row where Seb knows he cannot win. And now he goes to Sardinia knowing he can't win no matter how well he drives. This is not the right thing.

"If the guys come in for one-by-one rallies they have to open the road [running first].

"This is a better and fairer solution: let the guys who fight for the championship have the chance to win over those who come here and there."

However, Citroen team principal Yves Matton said: "Where is the problem? If Sebastien is second [to Meeke in a rally] he is still taking more points than anybody else in the championship. Look to the points in the championship – they don't have to complain."

Perhaps Capito is just trying to prove his credentials for the politics of F1!!!

Alarm bells ringing over Formula E
The Formula E electric international open-wheeler series has been the "baby" of the Federation Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA), and its Spanish organiser, Alejandro Agag, is a man with clout.

While growing pains were to be expected, concerns must be increasing for the category's future.

The second season will end with a double-header round (races both days of the weekend) at Battersea Park in south London on July 2-3, but it won't return there.

Agag wants an event closer to the heart of London, comparable to what the series has in Paris and Berlin.

Don't like his chances.

While Formula E talks of new races in New York and Montreal in its third season, with Hong Kong already announced, and there is mention of Singapore, Brussels and Marrakech too, there have already been calendar casualty cities.

The Moscow event scheduled for this season fell over recently due to problems for the organisers, and Autosport has reported that Beijing, Putrajaya near Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia and Punta del Este in Uruguay are unlikely to remain in the series.

And there's no sign of any Formula E round in Australia.

One positive for the category is that there's only one point between the two top drivers, heading to the final weekend of this season in London in five weeks. Brazilian Lucas di Grassi, driving for ABT Schaeffler Audi Sport, is on 141 points. Switzerland's Sebastien Buemi, of Renault e.DAMS is close behind on 140 points.

However, the Renault squad leads ABT in the team standings by 11 points (202-191) and di Grassi is warning that Audi or its parent Volkswagen needs to step up support for it to remain competitive, with Renault. Jaguar is due to enter next season, in league with Williams Advanced Engineering. There are hints of other manufacturer affiliations also.

But will electric racing ever capture the public's imagination and attention?

Red Bull's engine upgrade 'has helped a little bit'
Daniel Ricciardo has put the disappointment of Spain, where his Red Bull team's strategy cost him victory, behind him and made plain with his blistering pace in last night's practice his aim in Monaco – pole position and victory.

Ricciardo was 0.606 seconds faster than Mercedes' reigning world champion Lewis Hamilton on the tight streets of the Mediterranean principality, with Nico Rosberg third fastest in the other Merc and Max Verstappen next – a second slower than Ricciardo – in the other Red Bull RB12.

Ferrari is clearly worried now about Red Bull's rejuvenation.

"My guess is that they will also be strong in qualifying [and] here a good qualifying is almost half the race win," Ferrari's Sebastian Vettel said.

Ricciardo said Renault's upgrade "has helped a little bit", but "we have a good car around here as well".

"It [his pace] is down to a little bit of both," he said.

"If the weather stays the same for qualifying and the race we won't change too many things.

"The goal here is pole and win."

Ricciardo said he was convinced there was "no agenda" behind Red Bull switching him on a three-stop strategy in Barcelona, which certainly cost him a podium and perhaps victory, while Verstappen won on debut with the team after making only two stops.

"They obviously thought Seb [Vettel] was our biggest challenger for the victory, so with me they tried to cover him. It didn't fall in my favour and that obviously sucked, but there was no other agenda behind it," Ricciardo said.

Stark safety reminders in Monaco
F1 had a safety scare in Monaco last night when a trackside drain cover came loose, fell on to the track, punctured the left-rear tyre of Nico Rosberg's Mercedes and then hit the right front of Jenson Button's McLaren-Honda.

The incident brought out the red flag three minutes early on the first practice session and was fixed for the later session, with the cover welded back into place on the exit of the Ste Devote corner.

But Button said "we can't have that happen again" and his teammate, Fernando Alonso, said it emphasised the need for greater cockpit protection – even though the cover did not get anywhere near head height in its contact with Button or Rosberg's cars.

However, the incident came on the day that Jules Bianchi's family announced it is pursuing the FIA, the F1 Group and the Marussia team over his death – nine months after he crashed into a tractor crane at the 2014 Japanese GP.

The family's lawyers said those parties were being "invited to accept that errors were made" in that horror crash at Suzuka and that it was "distressing" that the FIA panel of inquiry blamed Bianchi, who never recovered from the massive head injuries he suffered.

Meanwhile, Alonso said last night's Monaco incident was "another reason to come back to the canopy idea" of cockpit protection for F1 drivers.

The FIA is to decide in July whether to mandate the Mercedes and Ferrari 'halo' concept or Red Bull's 'aeroscreen' design for F1 cars next year.

Button said it had been lucky that the drain cover "stayed low on the ground and just damaged the car" – the front wing, suspension, brake intake and the floor of the MP4-31 chassis.

"We have enough dangers ... a drain cover lifting in the air for an open-top car is extremely dangerous," Button said.

"If it was another foot or two in the air it could have been a lot worse."

While Alonso admitted that a "canopy" may have made it harder for him to climb out of his cockpit after his spectacular wreck in Melbourne two months ago, he would have preferred to have the greater protection while flying through the air upside down.

Power's chance for a special place in Penske/Indy history
The previous instance of an F1 driver's family taking legal action over a fatality resulted in a US$9.6 million settlement by tyre company Goodyear and Roger Penske's organisation for the family of Mark Donohue, the American who died in a Penske car at the 1975 Austrian GP.

Donohue remains the favourite of all the drivers to have won the Indianapolis 500 for Penske.

That was in 1972 and Penske has had 15 more victories in the American classic since.

In 42 years as an entrant at The Brickyard (Indianapolis Motor Speedway) the man known as 'The Captain', now 79 and celebrating half a century in motorsport, has an amazing 38 per cent win rate.

Aussie Will Power is one of his four drivers in the 100th running of "The Greatest Spectacle in Racing" on Monday morning, Australian time, and will hold a special place in Team Penske history too if he can land the Borg-Warner Trophy for the first time and drink the traditional glass of milk.

Penske's other drivers are Brazilian three-time Indy 500 victor Helio Castroneves, Colombian Juan Pablo Montoya, who beat Power by a car length a year ago, and Frenchman Simon Pagenaud, winner of the past three road races in the IndyCar series.

Power will start sixth in the field of 33, with the other Australian in the field – 22-year-old rookie Matt Brabham – in 27th and on the ninth row of the grid in a similarly Chevrolet-powered car prepared by KV Racing.

Brabham is following in the footsteps of his grandfather, the late Sir Jack Brabham, and father Geoff.

Sir Jack began the rear-engine revolution at the Indy 500 when he showed up from Europe in 1961 with a Cooper-Climax against the big American Offenhauser-powered roadsters, finishing ninth – his best result in four starts.

Geoff Brabham, now 64, raced in 11 Indy 500s with a best finish of fourth in 1983.

Severe storms have hit Indianapolis in recent hours, with the traditional pit stop competition and 'Carburetion Day' final tune-up for cars and drivers on the famed 2.5-mile (4km) oval.

Forecasters say there is a 30 per cent chance of rain on race day.

The 235,000 grandstand seats were sold out weeks ago, extra temporary corporate facilities have been built in addition to the permanent suites, and another 75,000-100,000 people expected in the venue.

Autoweek magazine has predicted a crowd of 325,000-350,000 – certainly the biggest since the great split in American open-wheeler racing in the mid-1990s.

And they're no Ron Walker or Tony Cochrane figures.

The Indy 500 pulls the biggest one-day sporting attendance on the planet.