MOTORSPORT: A1 GP versus Boeing 777

Motorsport reportTuesday, January 15, 2008

One-all as A1 GP car races jet plane
Just for something different, an A1 Grand Prix car raced a Boeing 777 jet at Auckland International Airport the other day.

It was a publicity stunt for New Zealand's A1 GP round this weekend at Taupo, with the car driven by NZ's regular A1 driver Jonny Reid and the Air New Zealand plane piloted by the airline's chief pilot, Captain Dave Morgan.

It was the first time in the airport's 42-year history that its take-off and landing schedule had been adjusted to squeeze in a race.

In fact, there were two races.

In the first the 141-tonne jet, without passengers or baggage, was given a headstart of about eight seconds and beat the "Black Beauty" car and headed skyward as both reached about 250kmh when they flashed across the finish point.

In a second race, the plane's headstart was halved, and the car -- running on A1's new 30 per cent ethanol fuel, charged to victory, reaching about 290kmh.

"We were running out of revs in the end, pretty much," Reid said. "We were just on the limit all the way down but we managed to blow the 777 away in the end."

It was the first time a racing car had sped along the 3.1km standby runway.

"I've never been on a such a wide track before and it was fantastic looking across and seeing the Boeing 777 alongside me -- it was something else altogether," said 24-year-old Reid, who claims he is close to a Formula 1 test-driving deal.

"I am very, very close. It would be like what last year's (A1) champion Nico Hülkenberg is doing with Williams.

"If it was a test with a decent team, I would go for it. That would still let me race A1GP because it is in the (F1) off-season."

While F1's top teams have an over-abundance of choice on test drivers, NZ's A1 team principal Colin Giltrap has very strong ties to McLaren.

Reid has won five races in A1's 2½ seasons, notched 12 podium finishes and had two pole positions.

NZ was fourth and second overall in the first two seasons is third this season, 20 points behind leader Switzerland but only one point behind France, while Australia is 17th -- although, as we reported last week, John Martin takes over as lead driver from this weekend.

Shining Knight finally gets his NZ GP trophy
Open-wheeler racing remains stronger in NZ than Australia, and Christchurch driver Andy Knight took a flag-to-flag victory in the country's grand prix last Sunday at Manfeild, extending his lead in the Toyota Racing Series.

It was Knight's second major trophy win of the series, after he won the NZ Motorcup at Pukekohe in November -- and having been stripped of a GP win two years ago at Teretonga on a technicality.

Matt Halliday, who had finished third and second in two previous starts in the GP, finishing second again in the 53rd running of the event.

A lapse of concentration on the second last of the 35 laps by the previous weekend's Lady Wigram Trophy winner Earl Bamber let Ben Harford through into third.

Bamber had won an earlier Toyota series race at Manfeild on Sunday, while the first of the three races was won by Daniel Gaunt, the defending Toyota series champion and last year's GP winner.

Knight won the weekend and now has 564 points in the series, while Harford is second on 458 and Bamber third on 423 points.

The Toyota series also has a round with the Denny Hulme Memorial Race at this weekend's A1 event at Taupo, where the corner at the end of the 840-metre straight has been tightened to create more passing opportunities.

Ambrose's identity crisis with ESPN
As we finish with activities across the Tasman, our eyes almost fell out of our head this week when reading a NASCAR story about Dale Earnhardt Junior and his off-season holiday in these parts.

The article was ESPN's David Newton and referred to Earnhardt joining "New Zealand's Marcos Ambrose" at one point during his holiday.

And we thought Ambrose was making a big impression in the States as an Australian -- and a Tasmanian!

Briscoe is in a Riley-Pontiac for Penske-Taylor Racing, but his main job this year is in the Indy Racing League -- including the Indianapolis 500 -- with Penske Racing.

Scott Pruett in a Chip Ganassi Lexus-Riley was the pacesetter at Daytona International Speedway for the 46th running of the enduro.

Briscoe will drive with IndyCar teammate Helio Castroneves and NASCAR's Kurt Busch and Pruett with Juan Pablo Montoya, Dario Franchitti and Memo Rojas.

After the 24-hour comes Speedweek, including the 50th running of NASCAR's Daytona 500.

Truth serum takes effect on TV figures
Some very interesting television figures have emerged in a report by Initiative Sports Futures in Europe.

They showed that the Brazilian F1 GP at the end of last season -- with the three-way contest for the world title between Lewis Hamilton, Fernando Alonso and ultimate champion Kimi Raikkonen -- was the second most watched sporting event in the world in 2007.

ISF says 78 million viewers worldwide watched the Brazilian race in its entirety, topped only by the NFL Super Bowl final in the US with 97 million people.

ISF also found that the total "reach" of the F1 race -- the amount of people who watched at least three minutes of the telecast -- was 152 million -- more than the Super Bowl's 142 million.

Distant third and fourth on the table were the Champions League soccer final, with 72 million for the full telecast, and the Rugby World Cup final, with 33 million for the whole game.

November's "Clash of the Titans" match in the English Premier League between Manchester United and Arsenal, reported in the lead-up to be a game that would draw one billion people viewers globally -- drew less than 1 per cent of that figure, with a total worldwide in-home audience of eight million and 27 million seeing at least three minutes.

ISF's numbers do not include "out-of-home" viewers watching events at pubs and other external venues, which in the case of the Brazilian GP could boost the core audience to around 100 million -- and perhaps a few million more.

That then brings the audience into line with research done three or four years ago for Bernie Ecclestone's Formula One Management, but way, way short of the many hundreds of millions of viewers claimed for years.

It is also more in line with a Renault document, mentioned in London's Financial Times last year, that apparently puts the average audience for average GPs -- rather than title-deciders -- at around 50 million viewers for the duration of the race.

Despite some of the hype that comes out of the V8 Supercar Mixmaster at times, there is no sign of any of Australia's domestic racing at the top of the ISF research.

Nor has domestic motor racing emerged well from the latest Sweeney report in Australia, which now lists motor sport as the country's eighth most watched sport rather than third previously.

That movement perhaps raises more questions about the method of that research than the size of the motor sport audience in Oz.

The sport that most noticeably did not fare well in the ISF report was cricket, with last year's World Cup final between Australia and Sri Lanka in 14th place, attracting only seven million people globally for the whole game and 25 million for at least three minutes.

That World Cup final was beaten by the Twenty20 final between India and Pakistan, with numbers of 20 million and 40 million -- and both those events were bettered by the handball world championship final between between Germany and Poland!

Mercedes eyeing control of McLaren?
Speculation is mounting that Mercedes-Benz is close to taking control of the McLaren F1 team in which it already owns 40 per cent.

It dovetails with talk about the future of long-time McLaren chief Ron Dennis, who has had to bear the brunt of the fallout from last year's Spygate -- over which McLaren was stripped of all its constructors' world championship points and fined US$100 million.

Dennis, now 60, has insisted that he has no intention of walking away -- and it would seem that Mercedes can't get control without his approval.

Mercedes bought 40 per cent of the McLaren group eight years ago for a sum estimated at US$300 million.

That deal is believed to have contained clauses about Mercedes ultimately having the option to buy a controlling interest, but that faded on the priority list as the German car maker wrestled with its disastrous partnership with Chrysler in the US.

A couple of years ago another 30 per cent of McLaren was sold to Bahrain interests, leaving Dennis and Mansour Ojjeh, of the TAG organisation, controlling 15 per cent each.

At last week's launch of the McLaren MP4-23 at the Mercedes museum in Stuttgart a senior executive of the German manufacturer was asked whether it was on course to buy a bigger shareholding in McLaren and he replied: "I think they'd like to."

Dennis's profile at the McLaren launch was described as "so low he was almost invisible".

However, we have noted since that he has said: "There is absolutely no decision on anything that relates to people's positions within the company.

"My enthusiasm is as strong as you would expect it to be having done this for the best part of 40 years. I'm just very focused on the future."

We would be surprised to see Dennis ousted against his will, and in any case have grave doubts about the ability of big car manufacturers to run F1 teams themselves, but the strangest things happen in the world of F1.

Audi a non-starter in GP racing
Meanwhile, Audi has denied it is looking at entering F1 in the near future.

The recent management appointment at Audi's parent Volkswagen of former GP Hans-Joachim Stuck sparked talk that either marque could be preparing to take up F1's 12th franchise.

That franchise is now held by David Richards' Prodrive, but its plans are virtually shelved because of the bunfight that has prevented it running "customer" cars.

Audi sport boss Wolfgang Ullrich said: "F1 is not a subject that we have discussed.

"We have a defined motor sports programme (essentially the DTM, or German touring car championship, and sports car racing) with the marketing and product aspects fully covered," Ullrich told Eurosport MotorMagazin.

Ferrari turns up heat on Hamilton
Although the start of the F1 season in Melbourne is still two months away the mind games are already well underway, with Ferrari taking shots at McLaren wonder boy Lewis Hamilton.

Ferrari driver Felipe Massa told the London Sun: "We have to have respect for Hamilton.

"He won races and was consistent. For a newcomer, he impressed everyone.

"I don't know what happened to Lewis in the last two races though. He should have scored maximum points and he wasn't able to do so.

"I think it was not good for him to do such an incredible season and to finish it as he finished it."

And Ferrari team manager Luca Baldisserri said he doubted Hamilton's driving style would be suited by the new F1 ban on the driver aids.

"I think that, with these new regulations, Lewis Hamilton may have a rough time," Baldisserri told Italy's Gazzetta dello Sport newspaper.

"For sure he won't be able to carry on driving the way he has, and even though he raced and won in GP2 without traction control he was on different tyres."

Webber's 'laps from nowhere' stun RBR
Red Bull Racing is very happy with Australian driver Mark Webber as they enter their second season together -- and Webber's seventh in F1.

"I was extremely impressed with Mark in 2007," Red Bull team boss Christian Horner said at the big Autosport International show in Britain.

"He joined the team (in 2006) and his performances in qualifying were exemplary.

"Quite often he would take us by surprise with laps that appeared to come from nowhere, although he didn't have his share of luck on a Sunday.

"It was good to see a podium at the Nurburgring in atrocious conditions, and also what could have so easily been his first win in Fuji, were it not for the coming together that he had behind the pace car."

Anti-V8 Supercar rumblings in Townsville
As we've reported several times, Townsville looks set to get a V8 Supercar race next year -- although we still haven't seen or heard confirmation of the supposed federal funding direct from new prime minister Kevin Rudd's office.

And, irrespective of the government funding, the race looks set to be a hot potato in the coming Townsville City Council election.

Independent candidate Adrienne Isnard has claimed the event will cost the community $6 million, glorify speeding, jeopardise Townsville Healthy Cities and Safe Communities International Accreditation from the World Health Organisation and detract from its Solar City status.

"Do not be fooled that a motorsport event showcases our city -- the evidence is out there and TV motorsports are notoriously bad for not showing any footage of the host city, just the track which could be anywhere in the world," Ms Isnard said.

"Why not move the event outside of the city, if we must have it. It needs to be in the right place, which ain't Reid Park."

Caruso started karting at 12 before progressing through Formula Ford and Formula 3, winning the national championship in the latter category before joining Jim Morton's V8 development series team.

"My father used to race sports sedans and was also a mechanic for the legendary Kevin Bartlett during his Formula 5000 days and later in the famous Chevrolet Camaro era," Caruso said.

Lots of fun and games in rallying
Plenty happening on the rally scene -- internationally and domestically.

Glenn MacNeall, the 35-year-old West Australian now based at Dunedin in New Zealand (where his rally-driving girlfriend Emma Gilmour lives), has reunited with Japan's Toshi Arai for this year's Production World Rally Championship.

MacNeall is best known as fellow Aussie Chris Atkinson's WRC co-driver until the middle of last year.

The slot alongside Arai has come about through the retirement of Kiwi co-driver Tony Sircombe, who partnered the Japanese ace to the 2007 PWRC title -- repeating their 2005 feat.

Macneall co-drove with Arai in the WRC back in 2001, the pair contested two Asia- Pacific rallies together last year, and will resume their association from Rally Sweden.

Meanwhile, a new line-up has been announced for ARCom -- the body with administrative responsibility for rallying in Australia.

It now includes George Shepheard from Queensland and Adrian Dudok from the ACT, joining deputy chairman Ben Rainsford (SA), Peter Macneall (WA and Glenn's father), Ross Runnalls (Victoria) and Geoff Becker (Tasmania).

Drivers Spencer Lowndes, Warwick Rooklyn and Molly Taylor have been appointed specialist advisers to ARCom.

ARCom chairman Mr Colin Trinder said: "ARCom has a significant workload to plan and execute early in 2008.

"There are a number of issues and reforms I want to pursue as quickly as possible including the development of a robust strategic plan, streamlining and simplifying the rally officials licensing process, considering technical regulations, and investigating the application of alternate standards that meet the spirit and intent of the FIA to name just a few.

"I am keen for ARCom to do everything in its power to ensure that the sport remains strong, viable and undivided."

Still no official word yet on the meeting between the Australian Auto Sport Alliance (AASA) and rally promoters in Sydney last Wednesday on the alternative ARC announced just before Christmas, although we hear the first round is slated for May.

It's official though that the SunCoast Classic scheduled for June has been postponed until next year.

The reason given was a restructuring in the Adelaide-based management company of David Edwards, now chaired by former GP boss Mal Hemmerling, but a bigger problem for the tarmac event was Rally Queensland being pushed back to its mid-year date.

Back on the world scene, we hear that TV giant Eurosport is keen to take the WRC from the David Richards-controlled ISC from 2009 and run the series, with the IRC as a second tier championship and feeder category running Super 2000 cars.

"That would mean 20-25 events on year-by-year rotation," our source said. "It also looks like they (Eurosport) will take over the World Cross-Country Championship -- even more likely since the cancellation of this year's Dakar."

Lots of speculation about a replacement event for the Dakar later this year -- either in Africa, Europe, South America or perhaps even Australia and Asia.

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