MOTORSPORT: Ambrose gets through Daytona

Ambrose passes Daytona test but long way to go yet
Marcos Ambrose has survived his Daytona 500 debut.

It was the first start in 'The Great American Race' for any Australian, and ended up being the Daytona 375-and-a-bit -- because it was stopped 48 laps short of the scheduled 200 because of rain.

What looked like pretty light rain to us, but NASCAR doesn't like rain. Wet speedways and those big American V8 stock cars don't go together.

Anyway Ambrose kept his nose clean. He stayed out of trouble and was in the last quarter of the field a lot of the time, but wound up midfield -- in 17th... Enough to collect a nice big cheque.

The most important thing for Ambrose on debut was to get to the end unscathed in his Toyota Camry -- yes, he switched from Ford late last season -- and without having caused anyone else too much trouble.

So full marks to the former V8 Supercar champion.

Matt Kenseth, driving a Ford Fusion, was declared the winner. Quite anti-climatic, unfortunately. The race lacked the fanfare and action of last year.

The big incident of the day was Dale Earnhardt Junior bumping Brian Vickers and setting off a 10-car wreck. Yet Earnhardt escaped damaged and there seemed a great reluctance in the commentary to criticise him.

Earnhardt is a fairly handy driver and NASCAR's most popular, yet his results do not come anywhere near justifying that popularity.

He's living very much off the legend created by his father, Dale Earnhardt Senior, who was killed in the Daytona 500 eight years ago.

The other major crash of the day involved 18-year-old Joey Lagano, the youngest starter in the history of the event.

There was some great vision before the race of Lagano struggling to control his Toyota Camry, very jerky on the steering wheel, and then his more experienced -- yet still very young -- teammate Kyle Busch driving the same car. Much steadier, much more in control.

Busch was the hard luck story of the day, leading about 75 per cent of the laps before the big wreck around lap 120.

It was no certainty that Busch was going to win because NASCAR races, particularly the Daytona 500, are often decided in the last lap or two, but to us he again confirmed what a racer he is.

Busch was stiffed last season, largely by the nature of The Chase (the competition exclusively between the top 12 drivers over the final rounds), and in the end Jimmie Johnson won a third straight Sprint Cup title.

Both are superstars in our book. And there are plenty of others in those American stock car ranks.

But this wasn't the greatest advertisement for NASCAR racing today, although in comparison with some other forms of motorsport it still fared well.

Just a couple of final thoughts on Ambrose.

Unfortunately he was almost invisible in the telecast. We saw most of the day's activity but missed a few brief segments. It was hard to pick up, on the screen, Ambrose's car back in the pack. And we wonder if there be a little bias against foreign drivers in the telecast/commentary. The other foreigner in the race, ex-F1 driver Juan Pablo Montoya, did not feature a lot more even though he is much better known, has been in the sport longer -- at least at the Sprint Cup level -- and perhaps because he was not battling for the lead.

And that's the other thing. It occurred to us throughout the telecast just how difficult it is going to be for Ambrose to go from the rear or even middle of the field to the pointy end.

Some of the lesser teams made a surprisingly big impression during the prolonged qualifying process at Daytona, but in the race it pretty much always looked as though one of the powerhouse teams would come out on top. In the end it was Roush Fenway Racing.

For more details on Daytona we recommend nascar.com and daytonainternationalspeedway.com -- and we'll probably follow up on Ambrose's performance during the week.

Lots of news in the pipeline
A few announcements coming this week too.

The new name for the Gold Coast Indy, now that the open-wheeler category is to be A1 GP, is to be revealed in Brisbane Tuesday morning.

We'll also have our ears and eyes open for news on construction of the Townsville circuit for the new midyear V8 Supercar round.

We hear a sale of Honda's F1 team may finally be announced midweek too. Our guess is that it will be a management buyout, headed by Nick Fry and Ross Brawn.

We heard a suggestion last week that Honda may have decided to quietly keep bankrolling the team this year, but that is now being dismissed -- including by F1 tsar Bernie Ecclestone who, according to The Times, is getting more actively involved but is probably precluded by European Commission laws from either warehousing or propping up the outfit.

Brawn reportedly has emailed the 700 staff telling them that the team will continue, seemingly with Mercedes-Benz engines.

And the strong word now is that Bruno Senna, nephew of the late Ayrton, will be Jenson Button's teammate.

Amid all the talk of cost-cutting in F1 this year, McLaren's Ron Dennis -- who is handing over the team principal reins but will still be attending most GPs -- has said: "A big team, which does all the developmental work and research, will still spend from 100 million euros to 130 million euros for its engines and gearboxes while smaller teams, who will not do the same amount of developmental work, will be able to have exactly the same products for just 6.5 million euros. Major efforts have been made to make F1 viable, but we will not stop there and will do even more. We mustn't damage the DNA of the sport -- its showbiz side."

At least three F1 drivers have applied for super-licences for this season, contrary to the advice of the Grand Prix Drivers' Association that they hold off until the dispute with Federation Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA) president Max Mosley over greatly increased fees is settled.

Not all drivers are GPDA members. It is thought that Aussie Mark Webber's new Red Bull teammate, 21-year-old German Sebastian Vettel, is one of the trio to have already sought a super-licence.

World champion Lewis Hamilton faces paying about $400,000 for his licence this year, while Webber looks like getting a demand for about $100,000.

Incidentally, Webber did more than another grand prix distance in testing at the weekend and appears to be having no great difficulty with the right leg he broke three months ago.

We came across a detailed technical description of his new RB5 car here.

There also ought to be some announcements from the Australian Grand Prix Corporation this week on its season-opening GP in Melbourne, now only six weeks away.

As reported elsewhere on this site recently, the Oz GP advertising slogan has had to be changed, because of Victoria's horrific bushfires and death toll, from 'Melbourne Fires Up' to 'Melbourne Gears Up'.

In Norway at the weekend Loeb and his Citroen C4 finished less than 10 seconds ahead of Finn Mikko Hirvonen and his Ford Focus, with another Finn, Jari-Matti Latvala, in another Ford Focus in third. 

It was Loeb's 49th WRC win but only his second on snow after the 2004 Swedish Rally.

"I had to push on the limit from the first to the last stage," he said.

Shooting for a sixth straight world title, Loeb has a perfect 20 points to the 14 of Hirvonen, who won four of the final day's six stages.

Loeb's Spanish teammate, Daniel Sordo, is third overall in the championship with 12 points after finishing fifth in Norway.

The next WRC round is Cyprus Rally on March 13-15.

Nissan pips Richards; Toyota quinella as it bows out
The Rally Tasmania tarmac event has been run and won -- by Queenslander Tony Quinn in a Nissan GTR, narrowly ahead of Jim Richards in a Porsche 911 GT2.

Neal Bates won the Australian Rally Championship round in his Super 2000 Toyota Corolla in a time slightly slower than those of Quinn and Richards.

Simon Evans was second in the ARC section, giving Toyota a 1-2 in its last outing as an ARC manufacturer participant.

Evans will now revert to a Group N Subaru like that of his brother Eli in a family team for the rest of the ARC season.

The younger Evans was third in the Tasmanian event in the state's north-west, ahead of youngster Brendan Reeves, another 2 minutes behind in another Subaru, followed by Glen Raymond (Toyota) and Dean Herridge (Subaru).

The next ARC round is the Rally of Canberra on March 7-8.

The third podium placegetter in the modern section, along with Quinn and Richards, was Tasmanian Jamie Vandenberg in a Mitsubishi Lancer Evo IX, with Tony Longhurst fourth in a Subaru.

Kevin Weeks won the classic car division in a Porsche 911.

Images: BAM Media for