MOTORSPORT: Assurance on NZ V8 Supercar round

Cochrane pledges all will be OK for Hamilton 400
Following Tuesday's bombshell of the problems with New Zealand's V8 Supercar Championship round series chairman Tony Cochrane has moved to assure fans that the Hamilton 400 will go ahead on April 16-18.

"V8 Supercars Australia guarantees that the ITM 400 in Hamilton will be another fantastic success in 2010, and a long way into the future," Cochrane said. "The recent reports that the personal affairs of event promoter Dean Calvert are in any way linked to the event are extremely disappointing.

"Let me assure every person that there is absolutely no question that this year's event will proceed and once again be a terrific weekend in Hamilton.

"V8SA has a long-term and unwavering commitment to this event and NZ, which I can absolutely guarantee.

"The Hamilton City Council is also resolute in its support of the event both now and well into the future.

"Our supporter base in NZ and is huge and for more than a decade our championship has enjoyed the overwhelming support of the public, providing some of the largest annual sporting events in the country. The ties between our sport and NZ could not be greater.

"We have hundreds of New Zealanders employed directly in the championship or in some way working throughout the championship, not to mention one of our longest-competing teams, Stone Brothers Racing, and one of the true greats of V8 Supercar racing Greg Murphy.

"Young Shane van Gisbergen is the next future NZ star of our sport and has already shown his great talent in the first three events of the season.

"Jason and Steven Richards are also household names both in Australia and NZ.

"Flights, air freight and hotels are already booked for more than 550 people to work at the event, including mine.

"The ITM400 is one of the most cherished events on our calendar and one of my personal favourites.

"I very much look forward to this April and building on the huge success of the first two years of the Hamilton event."

The assurance is welcome news for Kiwi V8 Supercar fans, although there has not been any serious likelihood of next month's event not going ahead.

The bombshell was the severity of the problems in Hamilton -- that ticket sales are obviously so poor and that promoter Calvert faces losing his NZ$1.7 million house before the event.

The task now for V8SA and NZ officials will be to get the Hamilton 400 on a sounder footing -- something that would have been a whole lot easier if it were held at a permanent circuit.

Car of the Future soon, but Mercedes confirms it's a non-starter
V8SA has scheduled its Car of the Future announcement for Melbourne on Monday, March 29 -- the day after the Australian Grand Prix. It's going to be interesting to see what Mark Skaife has come up with and how it is accepted.

Must say this author has been wondering for some time just what this Car of the Future project is really all about. V8SA boasts of the sport having $200 million in sponsorship, spending $11 million on marketing this year and drivers being able to earn up to $2 million.

Why then, if the category is so awash with money and the field is limited to 29, is there any need to try to halve the cost of building V8 Supercars -- to about $250,000 for a rolling chassis?

We wonder what difference it makes to the fans how much the cars cost? And, if any other manufacturers are seriously considering entering V8 Supercars, are the existing costs likely to be any deterrent to them?

Further to commentary a week ago doubting that there will be a rush of new brands in V8 Supercar racing, and certainly of four newcomers by the start of 2012, we note the strong comments from Mercedes-Benz in Europe in a story in Auto Action magazine this week by editor-at-large Mark Fogarty and international contributor Dan Knutson.

It began: "Mercedes-Benz has emphatically denied any interest in entering V8 Supercars when the category is thrown open to more manufacturers in 2012.

"Following a frenzy of speculation last week, the German giant's global motorsport boss ruled out a factory-backed V8 team under the Car of the Future rules.

" 'That is not true,' Mercedes-Benz vice-president Norbert Haug told AA. Mercedes-Benz Motorsport spokesman Wolfgang Schattling added: 'We definitely will not be doing that.' "

Mercedes-Benz Australia spokesman David McCarthy restated the local M-B operation's position: "We're not allowed to (go racing). We've had customers and other people interested, but we can't do it. ... I support the Car of the Future -- it's what the sport needs -- but we just can't do it."

Those who want to believe the entry of brands like Mercedes will happen may find solace in the continuing mention of customers and "other people", but surely Mercedes-Benz would be very careful about who it would entrust to represent it.

While there have been suggestions that Roland Dane's Triple Eight Race Engineering/Team Vodafone could link up with Mercedes, Dane told AA: "It's nothing to do with me whatsoever. I've never spoken to them about racing in my life. I haven't spoken to another manufacturer about racing for a couple of years.

"I hope we might see some manufacturer/importer involvement at some stage. But I think the days of the massive spend by Ford and Holden five or six years ago are gone. So any involvement is going to be measured and it's probably going to be in conjunction with teams with decent sponsorship.

"I don't think any manufacturer/importer's going to come along and fund a team or the majority of it."

The AA article stated that "the new regulations won't require manufacturer backing of new entries, enabling teams to 'dress' the control chassis in the bodywork of other makes."

Then came what may be the most telling paragraph of the article: "According to well-placed V8 sources, no manufacturers other than Holden and Ford have a genuine interest in joining."

More telling even than M-B's Schattling saying: "We definitely will not be doing that." And we wonder what the two existing manufacturer participants are going to make of this Car of the Future.

A BigPond Sport story on the V8Supercars.com.au website this week reported: "Holden Motorsport manager Simon McNamara is not that keen to have another marque enter V8 Supercars because he does not want to see any other company 'riding on the coattails' of Holden's involvement.

" 'But, having said that, it's not our sport, and if someone was to come in we'd want them to be an equitable entry into the sport and we'd want it to be a mainstream player, not a niche car company,' he said.

"McNamara commented on recent speculation that Mercedes-Benz, or its subsidiary AMG, and BMW could enter the sport once Car of the Future regulations are introduced.

" 'Can you honestly see somebody spending $350,000 on a C63 (Mercedes) driving to Winton to watch his cars racing against a Commodore and Falcon, with no disrespect to our cars, and then most likely get beaten and cop it from a guy in the car park with his SS (Commodore)?

" 'I don't think it's going to happen somehow. Both of those manufacturers said they weren't interested, so I don't know why we're even talking about it.' "

Indeed. Might the whole Car of the Future be a non-event. We'll have to wait and see.

Whincup to drive F1 car, Button in V8 Supercar
V8 Supercar champion Jamie Whincup is to get to drive a Formula One car next Tuesday, while F1 world champion Jenson Button will drive something approaching a V8 Supercar.

It's a Vodafone publicity stunt at Melbourne's Albert Park -- a venue for which legislation was enacted to allow a grand prix there from Thursday to Sunday.

Not sure that Tuesday's activity is in keeping with the thrust of that legislation. Nor, for that matter, whether the Mercedes-Benz ride day, being held for the second year on the Wednesday and including a C63, is either.

That aside, it's pleasing to see Whincup get this F1 outing as reward for his extraordinary success in V8 Supercars in recent seasons.

"I'm a little bit nervous, but I'll try to enjoy it as much as I can," Whincup said. "It's the opportunity of a lifetime. I want to have a good experience and go as hard as I can, but the last thing I want to do is crash the thing."

The McLaren-Mercedes he drives will not be this year's model being raced by Button and Lewis Hamilton, while Button will be in Triple Eight Race Engineering/Team Vodafone's V8 Supercar ride car -- likely on a set of Dunlop's sprint tyres for grip on a track that will be "green" ahead of the GP.
Whincup and Button will each get four laps from 11am. The public is not normally admitted to Albert Park during the early days of GP week, but they might have difficulty keeping the keenest fans away from this one.

>> The Ipswich 300 V8 Supercar round at the start of May will be run exclusively on the Dunlop Sprint soft tyres.

>> Richard Buttrose, nephew of women's magazine icon Ita and who has raced in various forms of Australian motor racing for numerous years, has been sentenced to 12½ years' jail for being in possession of almost 6kg of cocaine.
 
>> NASCAR will introduce a new spoiler on the back of Sprint Cup cars instead of a wing from the Martinsville round after this weekend's race at Bristol, Tennessee, giving competitors two races with it before the April 18 round at the Texas superspeedway where aerodynamics and downforce will be a much bigger factor.

>> A Williams FW07 Formula One car raced to be auctioned in Melbourne on April 18 is being billed as "the car which propelled Alan Jones to the world drivers' championship in 1980".

However, the press release announcing the auction admits "a crash took it out of service in mid-1980 and it was rebuilt shortly afterwards as a show car".

Jones won the title later in the year in Canada and the car he drove that day is believed to be in the fabulous museum at the Williams factory in Britain.

The car for sale, FW07/04, is from the Peter Briggs collection at the York Museum in Perth.

>> Really enjoyed BBC pit lane reporter Ted Kravitz's 'Behind the scenes at the Bahrain GP' column this week with lots of info we didn't get in the race telecast.

>> The US is the main focus of racing this weekend. Apart from NASCAR's Sprint Cup at Bristol there is the Sebring 12-hour in Florida, where Australia's David Brabham will start the defence of his American Le Mans Series title. Brabham's preview is here.

Ignore the odd date -- sure it wasn't written 111 years ago!

Brabham remains a largely unsung hero of Australian motorsport, so we're also pleased to draw attention to a couple of good interviews with him, here and here.

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