MOTORSPORT: Atkinson runs hot in rallycross

The Gold Coast’s Chris Atkinson has suddenly found himself in one of the hottest teams in the Global Rallycross Championship.

But not quite hot enough to beat the Andretti Autosport Volkswagen Beetles in the two finals at the GRC’s double-header in Seattle. Atkinson had pole position in the first final on Saturday and finished on the podium. His Swedish teammate at Subaru Rally Team USA, Patrik Sandell, did the same on Sunday when Atkinson was fourth.

Subaru has been on the podium at the past two events in the series, while Atkinson and Sandell each now have two podiums.

“We’re there at the top – we’re fighting with the Volkswagens,” said Atkinson, who was a full-time World Rally Championship competitor a few years ago as part of the Hyundai factory squad and, before that with Subaru’s Prodrive-run WRC team.

Now 37, the Queenslander entered the America-based GRC late last season with the Vermont Sports Car-led Subaru team and immediately impressed.

The Andretti Autosport Volkswagens have dominated the series for three years, but the 600-horsepower (450kW) 2017 Subaru WRX STIs driven by Atkinson and Sandell are now their main challengers.

Tanner Foust, an American TV personality who made his competition name in drifting and stage rallying, took the wins both days last weekend in Seattle, ahead of Andretti teammate and reigning WRC Champion Scott Speed.

The Seattle wins brought Foust within three points (575-578) of Canadian Steve Arpin, who is second in the series driving an M-Sport Ford Fiesta for Loenbro Motorsports. Speed leads with 616 points, with just one round remaining in Los Angeles in mid-October.

Despite their latest form, Atkinson – who was also on the podium in Connecticut in June –
remains seventh in the championship on 424 points, while Sandell is tenth on 396.

Volkswagen leads the manufacturers championship with 44 points, while Subaru – with 29 – is closing on second-placed Honda, which has 35.

Atkinson had heat and semi-finals wins on Saturday before what Subaru Rally Team USA
described as “an expertly-executed final race with a solid third-place finish”.

But Atkinson said he should have been faster. He had the Volkswagens on the front row of the grid with him and they shot off the start line, while the Aussie had to fend off Oliver Ericsson’s Honda Civic through the first turn.

“We ran some pretty good laps, but I was a little bit disappointed in my lap times,” Atkinson said. “I definitely could have been faster than I was. I really just hung in there and they didn’t disappear into the distance, but if I could have put together some better laps I might have been able to make a move.

“Of course we’re happy with the podium – it’s a great result for team. Where we’ve been all weekend just shows we’re there at the top.”

Atkinson said he had been “stoked” with his pole position.

“We’ve just been chipping away, fine-tuning some details, but straight out of the box we knew we were there,” he said. “Now we’re just fighting for tenths [of a second] with the two Volkswagens. I managed to get them by a tenth that time, so that was really awesome.”

Sandell, a three-time race winner in the GRC before joining Subaru, had said before Seattle the team would be fighting for the championship next year.

Making an impressive debut in the top level of the GRC, ironically called ‘Supercars’, was Austin Cindric, son of Roger Penske’s senior racing lieutenant Tim Cindric. Having just turned 19, he finished eighth (directly behind Sandell) on Saturday and was fifth (behind Atkinson) on Sunday in an M-Sport Fiesta.

Tim Cindric is a frequent visitor to Australia to oversee DJR Team Penske’s competition in the Supercars Championship and his son has been linked to a possible switch to racing ‘Down Under’.

Mawson claims F3 podium ‘big step forward’
Joey Mawson, Australia’s leading young open-wheeler hope in Europe, has notched his first podium in the European Formula 3 Championship.

Mawson, 21, from Sydney, said the weekend’s round at the Nurburgring in Germany had been “very positive – a big step forward”. “I look forward to finishing the year off with a bit of spark and getting some good results over the remaining six races [over two rounds, at Spielberg in Austria and Hockenhim in Germany],” he told motoring.com.au

His podium came in the 22nd race of the F3 championship – the first of three races in the series for the weekend.In wet conditions he charged from eighth on the grid to soon be fourth, overtook British driver Callum Ilott, a former member of Red Bull’s junior squad, for third and then held off faster cars to finish third. Ahead of him were too other Brits – the Carlin team’s Lando Norris, a McLaren junior and last year’s winner of New Zealand’s Toyota open-wheeler summer series, and Jake Hughes of the Hitech team.

“At times the race was pretty hectic,” Mawson explained. “Slight contact early meant I had a hole in the front of the car for the rest of the race.

“After that I backed off a little bit, but my car was OK. At the end it got exciting again.

“We were probably running with slightly too much tyre pressure, so that I lost speed towards the end.

“Callum was right behind me, but I knew that he only could overtake me when I would make a mistake. I didn’t grant him that pleasure.”

Mawson finished seventh in the next race, won by Hughes, and was classified 20th, three laps down, in the third race, won by Norris.

He had been fourth early in that race but Japanese driver Tadasuke Makino hit his right rear wheel, giving him a puncture just as the safety car was deployed for two cars in the gravel.

Mawson pitted to have the wheel replaced, dropping him to the back of the field behind the safety car.

Fighting back through the field, he overtook Pedro Piquet and Mick Schumacher, the sons of multiple F1 world champions, but his front wing was damaged on the penultimate lap as he tried to overtake another rival, David Beckmann.

“We started off the weekend with an absolute high. Race two was satisfactory – the best I could do. Race three was really unfortunate,” he said.

Mawson is currently 12th in the championship on 71 points, one place behind Schumacher – who he beat to last year’s German F4 title. Norris, on 381 points, leads Maximilian Gunther by 73 points.

Mawson is fourth in the rookie championship, behind Norris, Indian Jehan Daruvula and Schumacher.

Mawson’s Van Amersfoort Racing team, with which he won the German F4 title, is fifth (and last) in the F3 teams’ championship. Prema is the top team.

BMW wants standardised global regulations
BMW has stepped up the push for standardised global regulations for elite sedan racing.
In the wake of the announcement that Mercedes will pull out of the DTM (German touring car championship) at the end of next season, BMW wants DTM organisers to match regulations with Japanese Super GT and similar categories.

BMW motorsport director Jens Marquardt said the company was involved in “intensive discussions” with new DTM chairman Gerhard Berger and with manufacturers “to develop a viable concept for the future, retain the DTM as an attractive and innovative platform and continue to provide fans with exciting motorsport in a top-level competitive environment.

"We support the introduction of the so-called Class One regulations and are prepared to equip DTM cars with extremely highly-efficient and more powerful four-cylinder turbo engines and reduced aerodynamics,” Marquardt said.

“This would open the door for standardised, global regulations and allow the DTM to drive on the same technical foundation as the cars in the Japanese Super GT Championship, for example.

"This concept would secure the future of the DTM, open it up internationally, and make the whole platform more attractive.

“We would welcome it if other manufacturers followed and would also commit to the DTM."

NASCAR’s playoff line-up settled
America’s NASCAR has reached the ‘playoffs’ stage of its long season. After 26 races the 16 drivers who will vie for the newly-named Monster Cup over the remaining 10 events from next weekend’s Chicagoland round have been decided.

Seven of the drivers are in Chevrolets, five in Fords and four in Toyotas.

One of Roger Penske’s drivers, Joey Logano, missed the cut, as did Dale Earnhardt Junior – who will retire at the end of the season without a Cup, although he has been the sport’s most popular driver for more than a decade.

Logano’s only victory this season was at Richmond International Raceway in April, but his Ford was later found to have an illegal rear suspension. While he was allowed to keep the win it no longer counted towards qualification for the playoffs – previously called The Chase.
Logano finished second to Kyle Larson in another race at the 1.2km Richmond oval at the weekend but he needed victory in order to make the playoffs.

Instead, Matt Kenseth, Chase Elliott and Jamie McMurray made the 16 ahead of Logano.

Penske’s other driver, Brad Keselowski, qualified courtesy of his two wins this year.

Larson’s latest victory in a Chip Ganassi Chevrolet was his fourth of the season, but he’s the Number Two seed to Toyota driver Martin Truex Junior for the playoffs.

All 16 drivers restart now with 2000 points plus some bonus points for success so far this season.
The playoffs feature three, three-race rounds, cutting the field of contenders from 16 to 12, then to eight and then four for the finale scheduled for the Homestead Miami Speedway in Florida on November 19.

Drivers in the playoffs, in seeding order and with points adjusted, are:
Martin Truex Junior (Toyota) – 2,053
Kyle Larson (Chevrolet) – 2,033
Kyle Busch (Toyota) – 2,029
Brad Keselowski (Ford) – 2,019
Jimmie Johnson (Chevrolet) – 2,017
Kevin Harvick (Ford) – 2,015
Denny Hamlin (Toyota) – 2,013
Ricky Stenhouse Junior (Ford) – 2,010
Ryan Blaney (Ford) – 2,008
Chase Elliott (Chevrolet) – 2,006
Ryan Newman (Chevrolet) – 2,005
Kurt Busch (Ford) – 2,005
Kasey Kahne (Chevrolet) – 2,005
Austin Dillon (Chevrolet) – 2,005
Matt Kenseth (Toyota) – 2,005
Jamie McMurray (Chevrolet) – 2,003