MOTORSPORT: Aussie goes for IndyCar glory

October 1, 2010

Power, 29, goes into the final round of the American open-wheeler series at Homestead-Miami Speedway in Florida leading two-time and reigning champion Dario Franchitti by 12 points but never having won a race on an oval track.

Power is driving for Team Penske and Franchitti for Chip Ganassi Racing – and the teams, in a clear shot at Formula One, have vowed their teammates won't do anything to manipulate the championship outcome.

Power has 587 points, Franchitti 575, Penske's Brazilian Helio Castroneves 501, Ganassi's New Zealander Dixon 497 and Penske's other Australian, Sydneysider Ryan Briscoe, 450.

Team Penske president Tim Cindric said that, with championship positions for Castroneves and Briscoe to compete for, "it's advantageous for our two other guys to do what's pure - that's to go out and be the best that they can".

Ganassi general manager Mike Hull said it would be difficult to influence the result of the night race on the 2.4km oval.

"It would be great to have a script to know exactly what is going to happen, but in all the years I've worked for Chip Ganassi and sat on a timing stand, I don't think there's been one opportunity for us to truly [use another of the team's cars to affect the outcome] because the races have unfolded and played themselves out.

"I think it's all about the integrity of motor racing for us. We want to race each other to see who can win the championship, not who can manipulate the championship.

"I think that's a true difference in what we do in this kind of racing versus some other types of motorsports," added Hull.

Power has headed the championship after all but one race and has had five victories, eight pole positions and 11 top-five finishes in 16 starts.

Though yet to notch his first oval victory, Power has had three straight solid performances on oval tracks and is coming off his career-best oval result – third at Japan's Twin-Ring Motegi a fortnight ago.

"I feel like I've really gained a lot of experience on ovals and I'm ready to take that next step," Power said.

"My performance on ovals doesn't look really good on paper, but Japan wasn't a bad day after a slow start.

"My guys in the pits got me back towards the front. After testing at Homestead-Miami Speedway on Monday I feel comfortable heading into the race.

"It's going to be intense. We know what we need to do to bring home the championship - now we just need to focus and do a good job on the weekend and win this thing.

"Roger provided me a fantastic opportunity. I'm on a fantastic team that has all the engineering and all the personnel to give you the best possible chance of winning - the best equipment. I'm very lucky.

"Roger is pretty calm. He just told me to keep doing what I've been doing."

But even if he becomes champion Power has no big celebrations planned.

"I'm not much of a drinker these days - I can't stand the morning after," he said. "I'll have a beer, for sure, but I never plan anything around winning. You just have to go out there and get it done. You'll have time later to party."

Penske lieutenant Cindric was asked in a press conference this week: When you signed Will Power last year to substitute for Helio Castroneves, then facing a big tax avoidance case, and then brought him back in after his back injury at the start of the season, did you think he would have this kind of season?

Cindric replied: "Will, from the minute we sat down and talked to him about filling in for Helio, back the beginning of 2009, he was adamant that he felt like he could win this championship.

"He continued to say, 'I know I can compete for this championship. I know I can get there, I just need the chance,' and that's continued to be really the thing that he's been very consistent in his belief.

"And it wasn't as much as, 'I can win races or I'm fast enough'. In his head it's always been about trying to be a champion. And to see it, I guess, so early in our relationship, I can't say that I would have expected him to be in this position.

"In his first full season with us, would I have said that? I guess I would have probably said I wouldn't have expected him to be leading the championship, but obviously I think we felt like he was a championship contender or we wouldn't have had much interest in fielding a third car."

Fellow Aussie Briscoe was still in the hunt for the Indy title at Homestead-Miami last year after a costly mistake at the Japanese round and led four times and for 103 laps before finishing second.

Of this weekend, before he flies home to race a Holden Commodore at Bathurst, Briscoe said: "Coming off a solid test Monday night, I am feeling good. I am certainly going into the race with the main goal getting a win, which will hopefully help bring home the championship for Will and Team Penske."

A Reuters feature on the former Professional Bull Riders chief who is trying to revive American open-wheeler racing – that is, IndyCar – after the great split of the mid-1990s, Randy Bernard, is here.

This event used to be held in Corsica but has been moved to the Alsace region where the Citroen superstar was born.

Chasing a 60th victory, Loeb can clinch the title with second place if countryman and teammate Sebastien Ogier does not finish in the top four.

Loeb has 201 championship points to Ogier's 158.

"Looking at the situation, it can be a dream. Clinching my 60th victory in Hagenau (where he was born) and a seventh world title would be magical", Loeb said.

Meanwhile, the Intercontinental Rally Challenge champion, Northern Irishman Kris Meeke, will drive for Mini in next year's WRC.

Meeke was a protege of late Scottish world champion Colin McRae. The Mini team run by Prodrive will compete in six WRC rounds next year before competing full-time in 2012.

Prodrive, which operates Ford Performance Vehicles and Ford Performance Racing in Australia, won multiple WRC titles with Subaru before it quit the sport at the end of 2008. Prodrive chief David Richards has said the target with Mini is to win the title within three years.

Traffic main obstacle for Brabham

Another expatriate Aussie, David Brabham, is set to clinch back-to-back American Le Mans Series titles at this week's Petit Le Mans at Road Atlanta in north-east Georgia.

Brabham's Honda Performance Development factory-backed Highcroft team's Acurua will need only complete 70 per cent of the LMP2 class winner's race distance for him and co-driver, Frenchman Simon Pagenaud, to be this season's champions.

Marino Franchitti, younger brother of Dario, will be a third driver in the Acura at this round.

Brabham and Pagenaud hold a 16-point advantage over Porsche RS Spyder driver Klaus Graf, 152 to 136.

They scored three consecutive victories early in the season at Long Beach and Laguna Seca in California and Salt Lake City in Utah. The Highcroft team is the only prototype squad with podium finishes at every race this season.

A field of 45 cars will be crammed on the picturesque 4.09km Road Atlanta circuit.

"There will be a lot of cars and lots of traffic, but the more you think about that the more of a problem it will be," Brabham said.

"It really is better that we don't think about it and keep in our minds a very clear vision of what we want to achieve. I know the track at Road Atlanta very well and we have finished the championship here in the past and always had a great crowd and atmosphere. I'd like to think we'd have that again.

"It is going to be exciting and I'm looking forward to doing the job with Simon and Marino."

Denny Hamlin, driving a Toyota for Joe Gibbs Racing, leads the points standings by 35 from the champion of the past four years Jimmie Johnson, who picked up four positions after last weekend's win in his Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet at Dover, Delaware.
The top five drivers are separated by only 65 points.

Australia's Marcos Ambrose finished 14th at Kansas last year and is upbeat about his chances this weekend as he nears the end of his days driving a Toyota with JTG Daughterty before switching to a Ford for Petty Motorsports next season.

Nigel Stepney also was fined about A$850 by the court in Sassuolo, near the city of Modena and Maranello, the headquarters of Ferrari. Stepney was accused of sabotage – by placing white powder in the fuel tanks of the cars of Kimi Raikkonen and Felipe Massa at the 2007 Monaco Grand Prix - and of leaking confidential data to McLaren engineer Mike Coughlan.

McLaren was fined a US$100million by the Federation Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA) and stripped of all its constructors' points that year after being found guilty of possessing a 780-page Ferrari dossier.

The FIA took no formal action against Stepney, saying he was not a holder of any licence from it, but recommended that teams should have no professional ties with him for two years.

Stepney has always insisted he was innocent of any sabotage but admitted guilt as part of a plea agreement with the Italian authorities.

"We are satisfied, even if my client always denied sabotage," his lawyer Sonia Bartolini said after the court's decisions.

"We have to thank the prosecutor for agreeing to a plea bargain. Initially the sentence was higher."

Stepney is now team manager of the Sumo Racing sportscar team, which runs Nissan GT-Rs in the FIA GT1 championship.

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