MOTORSPORT: Aussie gets Indianapolis 500 call-up

The horrific 365km/h, 100g crash involving two-time Gold Coast Indy winner Sebastien Bourdais at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway has opened the door for Australian James Davison to race in next weekend’s Indy 500.

Bourdais has multiple fractures in his pelvis and a broken right hip and will still be in hospital when ‘The Greatest Spectacle in Racing’ is run at The Brickyard for the 101st time.

While Toowoomba’s Will Power will start from the outside of the third row of the grid, Melbourne’s Davison – a cousin of Will and Alex, and a grandson of the late Lex – will start 33rd and last on the 11th row.

Brisbane-born New Zealander Scott Dixon will start from pole position for Chip Ganassi Racing for the third time. Dixon is already a two-time winner of the event and a four-time IndyCar series champion.

Spanish dual Formula 1 world champion Fernando Alonso will make his first start in the Indy 500 – at the expense of the Monaco Grand Prix – from fifth place, in the middle of the second row.

American Ed Carpenter is alongside Dixon’s Honda-powered car in a Chevrolet-engined entry, with last year’s winner on debut, Californian Alex Rossi, in an Andretti Autosports Honda entry on the outside of the front row.

Davison’s first outing on the famed 2.5-mile (4km) superspeedway for this year will be in a 3½-hour practice session tonight, Australian time, with a final one-hour run in Friday’s Carburation Day tune-up for the 500 mile (800km) classic on Sunday (early Monday, Australian time).

Dale Coyne Racing, one of the smallest teams at Indianapolis, has begun adapting Bourdais’ road race Dallara DW12 Honda for Davison after its speedway version was wrecked in Bourdais’ qualifying crash.

The Frenchman had been the fastest driver at The Brickyard on Saturday’s first day of qualifying, averaging more than 372.4km/h on the first two of the traditional four-lap Indianapolis qualifying runs.

His car twitched exiting turn one and began to slide in turn two, Bourdais tried to ‘save’ it, but crashed head-on into the safety wall in a scene reminiscent of American Gordon Smiley’s fatal crash there 35 years ago.

Bourdais flipped after the first impact but the wrecked car came to rest on its wheels with his cockpit protecting him from injury worse than broken bones. He never lost consciousness and was alert when rescue crews got to him.

Bourdais, 38, was a four-time Champ Car champion during the great divide in American open-wheeler racing, won the Gold Coast Indy in 2005 and ’07, was a Formula 1 driver late last decade, a F3000 champion in his 20s and a GT class winner for Ford at last year’s Le Mans 24-Hour.

He was the early leader in this year’s IndyCar series after winning the opening round at St Petersburg in Florida, where he lives, but is now expected to miss the rest of the season.

In the announcement that he would be replace Bourdais for at least the next week, Davison said: “This is never the circumstance that a driver wants to secure an opportunity to drive in the Indianapolis 500. With that said, I’m extremely excited and ready to take on this challenge.”

The 30-year-old, who usually races GT cars in the US, has driven in the classic twice before – finishing 16th in his 2014 debut for the now-defunct KV Racing Technology (with which Matt Brabham did the Indy 500 last year) and 27th in 2015 for Illinois-based Dale Coyne Racing.

Davison also drove two road-course IndyCar rounds for Coyne in 2013.

There is some resentment in IndyCar circles at Davison getting the Bourdais drive, with strong sentiment favouring Stefan Wilson, brother of the late Justin Wilson – killed in an IndyCar crash a couple of years ago – and who gave up a slot with Andretti Autosport to make way for Alonso.

Team boss Dale Coyne said “it’s never easy when you have to replace an injured driver”.

“We’ve worked with James in the past and he’s done a good job for us,” Coyne said.

“He’s familiar with the team and knows how we work, so it was an easy decision when it came time to find someone to fill the seat.

“Sebastien is going to fully recover from his injuries and we’ll be waiting for him when’s ready to come back.”

Bourdais said from hospital he was “feeling pretty good” after surgery.

“I’ll be back at some point. Just don’t know when yet.”

'Captain' Penske’s cars not on the money
Will Power, who came within metres of winning the Indy 500 two years ago, was easily the best of Team Penske’s five drivers in qualifying at The Brickyard.

However, even Power slipped from sixth on Saturday to ninth in the second day’s session for the ‘Fast Nine’ from day one.

Power’s average speed for the four laps (16km) of his final qualifying run was 230.200mph (370.47km/h) compared with pole man Dixon’s 232.164mph.

Juan Pablo Montoya, a two-time Indy 500 winner brought back for this race by Penske, qualified 18th, while the team’s Brazilian three-time winner, Helio Castroneves, will start 19th.
Josef Newgarden, an American in his first season with Penske, qualified 22nd and the team’s Frenchman, and reigning series champion, Simon Pagenaud, is in 23rd.

Fernando Alonso on the second row is sandwiched between Japan’s Takuma Sato in another Andretti Autosports Honda-engined Dallara and Californian JR Hildebrand in a sister Chevrolet-powered entry to front-row man Carpenter.

The IndyCar paddock is amazed that both Ed Carpenter Racing entries are ahead of all five similarly Chevrolet-powered Penske entries.

Team owner Roger ‘The Captain’ Penske has won the Indy 500 a record 16 times – and this is the one race that can be won from anywhere on the grid.

Dixon’s pole-position speed was the fastest single and four-lap qualifying effort at The Brickyard since Dutchman Arie Luyendyk in 1996.

Alonso reported that he had “an overboost problem” in turn four on his final run and that his car felt too loose.

“The car was better than yesterday [though] –a better balance – and I felt more confident,” Alonso said.

“The guys did an amazing job this morning – they changed the engine in an hour and a half – a record time.

“But we had an overboost problem in the last corner, so the engine was hitting the ‘brakes’ out of the corner.

“I think I lost a little bit of speed into the main straight.”

Alonso’s crew instructed him to hold the car in fifth gear through the fourth turn from his second lap after he used sixth on his first lap.

Asked if he had had any moments in turn two, where Bourdais crashed the previous day, Alonso said: “Every single lap – so I had four moments!”

Roaring 40th for WRC top gun Ogier
Sebastien Ogier has gone a little further ahead in his quest for a fifth straight World Rally Championship title with his second victory since joining Ford squad M-Sport.

Ogier beat Hyundai’s Belgian driver Thierry Neuville by 15.6 seconds in the season’s first European gravel rally in Portugal.

It was the 40th WRC event win of Ogier’s career, his second this year, and he equalled the record five wins in Portugal of Finn Markku Alen.

This win for the Frenchman came in a Ford Fiesta, while his previous successes were with Citroen (in 2010 and ’11) and Volkswagen (in 2013 and ’14) – the latter the manufacturer with which he won four world titles before its sudden withdrawal at the end of last season.

“I had a new car in Monte Carlo [in January] and we won, and I had a new car here and we won,” Ogier said.

“I’m not sure if the team can afford to give me a new car for every rally!”

Ogier and Ford’s latest success denied Neuville and Hyundai of a third straight victory this season.

However, the Korean manufacturer had a double podium with its i20 Coupes as Spaniard Dani Sordo finished third, 45 seconds behind Neuville and almost half a minute ahead of Estonian Ott Tanak, who had looked the man to beat until swiping a bank and damaging his Fiesta’s suspension and brakes.

Irishman Craig Breen was the best of the Citroen drivers in fifth, while it was a miserable event for Toyota the first time it had run three entries. They finished seventh, ninth and 10th – the latter being Finnish former International Rally of Queensland winner and reigning WRC2 champion, Esapekka Lappi, making his top-level debut.

Ford won of the 19 stages in Portugal, Hyundai the other nine – four of them by New Zealander Hayden Paddon.

The Kiwi had been vying for the lead of the rally on the first full day (Friday) before electrical problems and then trouble with his steering rack the next day.

Ogier heads the driver standings on 218 points, with Neuville now up to second on 106 and Toyota’s Jari-Matti Latvala, with 88, down to third.

Paddon is eighth on 33 points – behind Tanak (83), Sordo (66), Welshman Elfyn Evans (Ford, 53) and Breen (43), with Citroen’s Kris Meeke ninth on 27 points and Toyota’s Juho Hanninen 10th on 21.

M-Sport leads the teams championship with 199 points to Hyundai’s 173, while Toyota is on 113 and Citroen 85.
The next round is on the Italian island of Sardinia on June 8-11.

Buemi makes it five out of six in Formula E
Swiss driver Sebastien Buemi is now completely dominating the Formula E electric open-wheeler series.

At the weekend Buemi – like Sebastien Bourdais, a former Scuderia Toro Rosso F1 driver – gave the Renault e.dams team its most important win of the year in front of its home crowd in the Paris ePrix.

Buemi has won five of the category’s past six races.

Brazilian Lucas di Grassi, who has been Buemi’s main rival in an Abt Schaeffler Audi Sport car, crashed out after an earlier incident with Antonio Felix da Costa, leaving Buemi with a 43-point series lead.

Argentina’s triple world touring car champion Jose Maria Lopez finished second in Paris for the DS Virgin team, with German long-time F1 driver Nick Heidfeld third for Mahindra Racing.

It was the first Formula E podium for Lopez, who will race for Toyota at next month’s Le Mans 24-Hour.

The highest-placed French driver was Nico Prost, son of Alain and who pulled off a couple of daring overtakes to take fifth and complete an excellent day for Renault e.dams.

New Zealander Mitch Evans finished in the top 10 for the third race in a row for Jaguar Racing in ninth.

Formula E’s next event is the Berlin ePrix – a double-header on June 10-11.