Geoffrey Harris•2 Nov 2012

NEWS

MOTORSPORT: A unique double-header

The motor racing of most interest to Australians is coming to crunch point, which should make the V8 Supercar and F1 racing in Abu Dhabi this weekend enthralling viewing

A couple of bumper nights ahead on the box

Australian armchair motorsport fans are in for a delightful double-header – V8 Supercars and Formula One on the same weekend, at the same track, on different television networks.

Races 24, 25 and 26 of the V8 Supercar Championship will be on the same full-length (5.55km) Yas Marina circuit (pictured) at Abu Dhabi in the Middle East where the 18th round of the F1 world championship also is being run this weekend.

While V8 Supercars have traditionally been the main support act at Australia’s F1 Grand Prix in Adelaide and Melbourne, this is the first time rounds of the two championships have been held on the same weekend at the same track, again raising the query of whether that should be happening each March in Oz.

Both championships are coming to the crunch – between Red Bull’s Sebastian Vettel and Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso in F1 and with Triple Eight/Holden star Jamie Whincup 218 points clear in the V8 Supercars but Ford Performance Racing’s Mark Winterbottom and Whincup’s teammate Craig Lowndes within striking distance if anything goes wrong for the man who already has won the title three times in the past four years.

While it is a long haul for the Supercars to contest three sprints totaling less then 200km, there is a reasonable expectation that they will be cracker races without scheduled pitstops or much strategy.

The V8s will be screened on the Seven Network’s digital channel 7mate, with qualifying and the first two races – the second of them live - between 5pm and 8pm Saturday, Australian eastern summer time, and then the third race live between 8pm and 9.30pm (summer time) on Sunday. The Saturday races will be replayed on Seven on Sunday afternoon, while Sunday’s race will be replayed on 7mate on Monday afternoon.

F1 qualifying will be on the Ten Network’s digital One channel at 11.30pm on Saturday, and 1.15am Sunday on Ten, with the race – starting in the Middle East twilight and ending under lights - at 11.30pm Sunday in NSW and Victoria on Ten and replayed on One at 10.50pm Monday. (All are eastern summer times)

Western Australia’s young F1 driver Daniel Ricciardo this week has had his contract with Scuderia Toro Rosso extended for next season, as has his French teammate Jean-Eric Vergne, while Red Bull’s Aussie Mark Webber may now be called on to help teammate Vettel become the youngest triple world champion.

Vettel , winner of the past four GPs, heads previous championship leader Alonso by 13 points while Webber is 73 points behind Vettel – with a maximum 75 to be won in the remaining three GPs.

While acknowledging that the title contest is between the German and Spaniard, Webber – third in India last Sunday and second in Korea two weeks earlier - has said he still wants to add to his two victories in the first half of the season.

But Red Bull team principal Christian Horner has given a strong clue that team orders may be invoked – and they are entirely legal in F1 now.

"Mark is a strong competitor and he is a big team player," Horner said. "I am quite convinced that he will want to see the team achieve its best possible results.

"I am sure as a team player, if required, he will do everything to support the team. Mathematically now it is very difficult for him to win the championship and he is a smart guy.

“He has been an important part of the team and I have every confidence that he will be doing his best to help the team achieve its objectives for the championship.

"You can talk about so many scenarios and then a scenario you haven't talked about is the one that comes up.

"Mark is a bright guy, and he has been around a long time. He is a key member of the team and I think that he will be able to do his best.

"His primary objective is to make sure we achieve the constructors' championship and that we have got both drivers ahead of Fernando.

"He was desperately unlucky last week not to keep Fernando behind after having to run reduced power and KERS [kinetic energy recovery system] for most of the race.

“So he will be driving his best to ensure that we have got two Red Bulls right up the front end."

Lots of records could be broken in the V8 Supercars at Abu Dhabi and a milestone is being chalked up – Russell Ingall’s 500th race start in the category (including the days when it was the Australian Touring Car Championship).

Holden’s VE Commodore could register its 100th victory but the Lion badge will need to finish first in all three races.

Triple Eight’s chassis 023 could become the most winning car in Australian touring car championship-V8 Supercar history if Jamie Whincup wins two races this weekend – and he has a phenomenal record in Abu Dhabi (and at former Middle East venue Bahrain).

Chassis 023 – known as “Kate” in the Triple Eight camp – already has 24 wins from 47 starts. That’s just one win less than the record of the Stone Brothers BA Ford Falcon that Marcos Ambrose raced in 2003-05.

The next race victory by a Triple Eight-built V8 Supercar also be the outfit’s 100th in the championship. Nine of the 28 cars in the field were built by Triple Eight.

Each driver has 12 hard-compound and 12 soft Dunlop tyres to use in Abu Dhabi. The hard tyres are compulsory for race 24, while the soft rubber must be used in races 25 and 26.

After the carnage at the Gold Coast 600 a fortnight ago two drivers are in spare cars this weekend – both Commodores, for Karl Reindler and Frenchman Alex Premat, brought back by Garry Rogers Motorsport after being “benched” for the Surfers Paradise street races.

Third crew chief in a year for Ambrose

Marcos Ambrose has a new third crew chief in NASCAR’s Sprint Cup – his third of the season.

For two-thirds of the series Todd Parrott was Ambrose’s right-hand man within Richard Petty Motorsports, but two months ago his entire crew was swapped with that of teammate Aric Almirola and he inherited Mike Ford, who two years ago almost won the Cup with Toyota driver Denny Hamlin.

In the seven races he and Ambrose were together the dual V8 Supercar champion – who has had three top-five finishes this season, including another road course victory at Watkins Glen, and eight top 10s - finished no higher than 12th in his Ford Fusion.

This week Drew Blickensderfer, who had a lot of experience with top Ford team Roush Fenway Racing – including a Daytona 500 victory - but this year has been with Jeff Burton’s Richard Childress Racing Chevrolet, joined Ambrose.

“Drew’s knowledge can immediately improve the performance of the No.9 race team,” Richard ‘The King’ Petty said.

“Marcos has proved he can win races and compete in the top five. The addition of Drew will hopefully provide those results on a more consistent basis.”

Ambrose, keen to improve on his 18th in the Cup standings now and make The Chase for the title next year, said: “We have had success this season, and now we’re just looking for more consistency as we prepare for next season.”

The third last Cup round this weekend is in Texas, with Chevrolet-driving five-time champion Jimmie Johnson leading Penske Dodge’s Brad Keselowski and reigning champion Tony Stewart only 10th with just one top 10 finish in the past five races. After the Texas the remaining races are in Phoenix and Homestead-Miami.

New IndyCar turmoil as chief executive ousted

IndyCar is in turmoil just weeks after arguably its best season since the great split of the 1990s – although Aussie driver Will Power may not agree with that, pipped for the title for the third straight year, this time by Ryan Hunter-Reay, the first American champion since 2006.

Randy Bernard, who had been IndyCar’s chief executive less than three years after crossing from the Professional Bull Riders association and had become popular with race fans but got offside with some team owners, has been forced to resign.

Roger Penske, the most successful open-wheeler team owner in America and enormously respected, is upset about that, saying it reflects very badly on the sport.

“I’m very disappointed in this decision,” Penske said.

“The board continues to show poor judgment. There is no future plan. The series had momentum. New cars, new engines and new race formats, all brought about by Randy.

“No business can run with a senior management change every two years.”

An Associated Press article described Bernard’s ousting as having “played out like an episode of Keystone Cops, threatening to push IndyCar into a full-blown crisis”.

Since the end of a season which produced eight different race winners and American manufacturer Chevrolet taking the engine title in its first year after a six-year absence – although not the Indianapolis 500, in which Honda triumphed after what became known as “turbogate” when it was allowed to change its engines for that classic – former Indy Racing League boss Tony George was reported to have tried to buy the series.

However, it is now clear that George, rather than a takeover, had been seeking a wholesale management change that would have removed the series from the influence of his mother, Mari Hulman George, and three sisters who ousted him from the IRL leadership three years ago.

The daring and flamboyant Bernard was said in another Associated Press article to have been saddled with cleaning up after “14 years of disaster left behind after George had hemorrhaged family money” on it and “years of instability and dysfunction in American open-wheel racing”.

Bernard also was unfortunate to have been at the helm when two-time Indianapolis 500 winner Dan Wheldon was killed in the horrific pile-up at Las Vegas a year ago, and this year a Chinese round fell through – reportedly causing a $7 million hit to the IndyCar budget.

The interim chief executive, for the second time, will be Jeff Belskus, president of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway and chief executive of Hulman & Co, which owns the IRL and the Indy 500.

Another leading team owner, Chip Ganassi, downplayed the latest turmoil.

“The fact of the matter is IndyCar racing goes up and down with the rest of the economy,” Ganassi said.

“Everything is fine. We have the same old problems we had today that we did before Randy got there – a lousy TV package, the same old gravitational problems any sport has today. Everybody just take a deep breath.”

But Ramsey Poston, who handled NASCAR communications for almost a decade and is now labeled a crisis communications expert, said: “Without a leader, a vision or an apparent transition plan, IndyCar is in crisis.

“There is no off-season in sports and every day that goes by without a leader or a well-defined plan is damaging to the 2013 season and beyond. At this point every major stakeholder, including the fans, team owners, sponsors and broadcasters are watching closely and wondering what is happening.”

Read the latest news and reviews on your mobile, iPhone or PDA at carsales' mobile site...

MOTORSPORT: A unique double-header

Tags