MOTORSPORT: All-new engine for Ricciardo at Renault

Renault is developing an all-new V6 hybrid power unit for when Daniel Ricciardo joins its factory Formula 1 team next year.

The French company has admitted that the architecture of the C-spec version of this year’s power unit that carsales.com.au global ambassador Ricciardo has had at Red Bull Racing recently is limiting its improvement as it battles Mercedes, Ferrari and –
increasingly – Honda.

“Pretty much all of the engine will be new,” Renault F1 managing director Cyril Abiteboul has told Autosport.

“Not only on the ERS (energy recovery systems) side, but the rest of the ICE (internal combustion engine) will be new.

“We need to be a little bit careful and we need to be extremely drastic and have lots of discipline and milestones to make sure we are not putting ourselves in a difficult position at the start of the season (in Melbourne in mid-March).

“We are well advanced on the dyno.”

While it is driven to compete against its three manufacturer rivals, Renault remains concerned at the escalating costs of engine development, with Abiteboul warning that “at one point it will be untenable for one of the four”.

“F1 is rewarding how much you are spending rather than how you are spending it – and that is a concern,” he said.

Ricciardo said overnight in Texas, where the United States Grand Prix is to be held this weekend, that news of Renault’s new engine for next year “is encouraging, obviously”.

“When I signed I knew that there was work ahead,” Ricciardo said.

“I know that they’re putting a lot of effort into making things better and expanding a lot of departments and trying to make ’19 stronger and ’20 and whatever.

“I don’t look into it too much yet … (but) ’19 is a new car and it’s going to be a fresh start again.

“I’m not spending too much energy on that at the moment. Obviously, all I can do is, once my year’s done (at Red Bull), try to be fully immersed into it all and try to help as much as I can and see how things go from there.”

Lewis Hamilton could clinch a fifth world championship in Texas. Hamilton has won five of the six GPs at the Circuit of the Americas and he’ll seal another title if he’s victorious again early on Monday, Australian time, and Sebastian Vettel finishes third or lower. The Mercedes superstar could also do it if he simply outscores his Ferrari rival by eight points.

Hamilton will only need to finish sixth if Vettel doesn’t score a point.

Coca-Cola’s name and logo will appear on an F1 car for the first time at Austin. The drinks giant has done a deal with struggling McLaren for the remaining four races of the season.

There are thought to be options to extend and Coke’s vice-president of sports partnerships Ricardo Fort said: “We are both looking to further connect with youth.”

While that is the aim of Liberty Media too as it nears the end of its second year as majority owner of F1, a report on RaceFans.net this week by Dieter Rencken said that “the average age of [GP] viewers has shot up nine years to 58 in just 12 years”.

Stadium Super Trucks will be missing from the Gold Coast 600 this weekend after their suspension by the Confederation of Australian Motor Sport, but the Trucks will race next weekend at Sydney Motorsport Park.

They have been added to the program for the Australian Motor Racing Series round, which is sanctioned by the Australian Auto Sport Alliance.

AASA’s Chris Lewis-Williams said the organisation is confident the trucks are safe to race at a permanent circuit after the changes American Robby Gordon’s SST have made since the category was suspended by CAMS after the runaway wheel incident at Perth’s Barbagallo Raceway in May.

“Sydney Motorsport Park is a very different venue to a street circuit (like the Gold Coast) and AASA and our insurers are comfortable with the work SST have done on addressing safety concerns, such as improving the strength of the wheels and incorporating a new locking section for the bodywork,” Lewis-Williams said.

Gordon, who lost a recent bid in the Victorian Supreme Court for an injunction against CAMS over the suspension, said: “We are super-excited to able to give Australia what they want and that is for us to race.”

The SSTs will have one practice session, two shootout-style qualifiers and two 25-minute races in Sydney.

Peter Adderton, founder of SST sponsor Boost Mobile (also a backer of the Walkinshaw Andretti United Supercar team), and CAMS chief executive Eugene Arocca have had a public stoush this week over whether SST has been properly advised what it needs to do to meet CAMS’ approval.

Adderton said his “attempts at engagement and communication [with CAMS] were met with personal accusations and unpleasantness most unbecoming of a governing sporting body”.

Arocca said CAMS would not engage in a public debate with a sponsor over a safety issue but “if Mr Gordon or his lawyers want to hear again the reasons why we believe the SSTs are unsafe then I will be happy to repeat them to those people through the appropriate channels”.

A fourth Australian Rally Championship is a whole lot more likely for Eli Evans after he won an appeal this week against penalties that had been imposed on him at last month’s Adelaide Hills Rally.

A CAMS tribunal found that Evans and co-driver Ben Searcy “complied with the relevant requirements of the National Rally Code concerning the warning of oncoming cars”.

The pair and the Skoda Fabia R5 in which they compete had been excluded from the first heat of the Adelaide event, costing them eight points, and been penalised another 20 points.

The successful appeal means Evans now goes to next month’s final round as part of Rally Australia at Coffs Harbour with a 57-point lead rather than 29 points.

Harry Bates (Toyota Yaris), Steve Glenney (in a Skoda Fabia R5 for the first time) and 2016 champion Molly Taylor (Subaru Impreza WRX STi) remain chances of taking the title with a maximum 100 points to be scored at Rally Oz.