MOTORSPORT: Alan Jones' great Ferrari lament

Aussie world champ passed up Enzo Ferrari's offer
Australia's last Formula One world champion, Alan Jones, has revealed one big regret -- that he turned down the chance of racing for Ferrari.

The February edition of Top Gear magazine has a big feature on the four men it has dubbed Australia's Grand Prix Icons -- F1 champions Sir Jack Brabham, Jones and motorcycle legends Mick Doohan and Wayne Gardner -- in which Jones tells of taking the wrong turn 28 years ago. He had won the world title with the Williams team in 1980, came close in 1979 and 1981 too, and had retired to a farm in Victoria.

Late in the 1982 season Frenchman Didier Pironi had been badly injured at Hockenheim in Germany and Ferrari needed a replacement for its home race, the Italian GP at Monza.

Years before Jones' father Stan, a contemporary of Sir Jack Brabham but who preferred to race in Australia and New Zealand, had declined an invitation to test for Ferrari, and now A.J. was to reject Old Man Ferrari's overtures, opting to stay on his farm.

Ferrari then turned to Italo-American Mario Andretti, who promptly qualified on pole position at Monza.

"Nothing against Mario, but you think, 'Christ, I could have been on pole in a Ferrari at Monza and probably never paid for another meal in Italy'," Jones told Top Gear writer Colin Young.

And Jones continued: "I retired too early, but hindsight is wonderful. I drove better in 1981 than I did to win the title the year before. But fuel vapour problems in the Williams cost me some wins and points. I didn't go off the boil. It was a real shame I didn't get back-to-back titles, so some regrets there."

And later he said: "I got very well paid when I was in F1. It was a lot of money back then, and for various reasons I haven't got as much money as I would have liked... But I'm happy with life."

Jones recalled that he was never much interested in being mates with fellow drivers, and holds only two from his days in F1 in great regard, yet both were to die without world titles -- Swede Ronnie Petersen and Canadian Gilles Villeneuve.

"Ronnie and Gilles were two guys who I knew I had to earn my pass with, whereas most of the others I could dispose of without problems," Jones said. "I admired and liked Ronnie; his car control was fantastic and I think he should have been a world champion.

"I still remember saying that Gilles wasn't going to die in bed, (but) I really enjoyed racing him; he was extremely tough. I still remember a great wheel-banging battle with him at Montreal, beating him by one second. Gilles never gave up."

And of the perception by Australians of his career, most gloriously overseas but which concluded with a decade of touring car racing at home, Jones said: "At the risk of sounding big-headed, I am probably better known and recognised in England and Europe than I am in Australia... In Australia, I am a racing driver who hasn't won Bathurst."

A pity that the Top Gear editors couldn't get a line about their special feature on the four champions they deemed to be Australia's GP icons on the front cover of the magazine adapted from the British edition, but it's a good read all the same -- especially on Australia Day.

Incidentally, Jones spurning Ferrari has left Tim Schenken as the only Australian to have been a factory driver for the team of the famed Prancing Horse -- but that was in sports cars rather than F1. Schenken was a GP driver though, and is the only Aussie other than Brabham, Jones and Mark Webber to have finished on an F1 GP podium.

A third change to V8 Supercar calendar
Three weeks into the year and already three changes to the V8 Supercar Championship calendar.

Firstly the Queensland Raceway round was off, now it's back on (although still not officially), and now the Tasmanian round at Symmons Plains near Launceston has been shifted back a week -- to November 12-14.

The reason: "a potential conflict" -- Saturday, November, November 6, is the final day at Flemington in Melbourne's spring racing carnival, also televised by the Seven Network.

How come that did not occur to V8 Supercars Australia and Seven before the calendar was announced?

The change puts the Symmons Plains and Sandown round in Melbourne on successive weekends, before the Sydney finale.

Here's how the calendar now looks:

Meanwhile, an article in the Gold Coast Bulletin has suggested the Williams report on the future of the Indy/SuperGP which the Queensland government has had for almost two months now may be released by the end of this month -- meaning in the next week.

That's a change from just a few days ago when the plan appeared to be to make it public at the same time as the state's auditor-general Glenn Poole reports on last year's A1 GP no-show fiasco at the event.

In particular, Poole is examining what due diligence of A1GP was done by the Gold Coast Motors Events Company and IMG, the sports marketing outfit that is the joint venture partner of the Queensland government in GCMEC.

Former Indy race boss Geoff Jones, who is joining the Sport and Entertainment Limited company in which V8SA chairman Tony Cochrane is also a partner, has described (in the Gold Coast Bulletin), last October's SuperGP as "an absolute rogue (event) because of the global financial crisis and the A1GP".

And, in the wash-up from event, which had a much smaller attendance than previous Indys, Cochrane has said: "If the V8s are given an entire year to market the race as a V8 event, you'll get the people."

Smoke signals from across the Tasman Sea suggest that the V8 Supercar telecasts will be condensed there this year to just Sundays.

TV3's idea apparently is to show Saturday races delayed, before screening the Sunday races.

While NZ's timezone creates difficulties for TV3 with V8 Supercar telecasts, such a move would go against the October 9, 2007, declaration of V8SA chairman Cochrane -- in announcing the switch of broadcaster from TVNZ to TV3 -- that Kiwis would get "more live coverage than ever".

While we await TV3's explanation, and in particular clarification of what any change will mean for its telecast of the NZ round at Hamilton, a simple Google search quickly uncovered some interesting background (see here and here) that discloses unhappiness about the NZ arrangements before any word of the contraction now in the wind.

It may not yet be as grim as it sounds. Surely the Adelaide, Bathurst and Gold Coast events would warrant two-day telecasts. Perhaps the Phillip Island 500 too. We'll see.

Mercedes first with new F1 car
The launches of new Formula One cars are underway, with Mercedes -- the team that last year won both world championships as BrawnGP -- revealing overnight the machine that returning seven-time world champion Michael Schumacher and Nico Rosberg will race this season.

The unveiling was somewhat overshadowed by a journalist querying Schumacher on whether his track manners would be any better in his comeback from a three-year retirement.

We'll take a look at the new F1 cars once a few more are rolled out, with particular interest in the new Red Bull RB6 for Mark Webber that probably won't be seen until next month.

Red Bull's sister team, Scuderia Toro Rosso (formerly Minardi), has confirmed 20-year-old Spaniard Jaime Alguersuari will continue as teammate to Swiss driver Sebastien Buemi.

New team USF1 is reportedly close to confirming Argentinian Jose Maria Lopez as one of its drivers, in the absence of any appropriate American candidates. Lopez won a GP race five years ago but most recently has been racing touring cars in Argentina.

Not an overly exciting prospect, sadly.

Power back on track in IndyCar
Aussie IndyCar racer Will Power has come through well after a test in the US with Penske Racing following his serious back injuries from a crash last August.

Power will be in the Indy series full-time this year in a third Penske car in a team that already had multiple Indianapolis 500 winner Helio Castroneves and Aussie Ryan Briscoe, a multiple race winner in the series and third in the championship last year.

Hirvonen's Monte Carlo, Pedders back in ARC
On the rally scene, Finn Mikko Hirvonen won the Monte Carlo Rally -- the opening round of the International Rally Challenge, the alternative series to the World Rally Championship in which he competes the rest of the year -- in a Ford Fiesta.

Locally, the Pedder family team is being revived, with brothers Scott and Mark Pedder back in the Australian Rally Championship this year in a pair of Mitsubishi Evolution IX Lancers.

Images: Formula One World Championship 1979 GP F1 Zeltweg: Gilles Villeuve Ferrari 312T4 leads Alan Jones Williams FW07 Ford and Niki Lauda Brabham BT 48 Alfa Romeo - photo4.com AND Alan Jones - photo4.com

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