Geoffrey Harris•24 Jan 2014

NEWS

MOTORSPORT: Aussie main man at McLaren?

As the roll-out of the new turbocharged Formula One cars is about to begin, one of the sport's mightiest teams may be turning to Australian Sam Michael to lead its resurrection

All eyes on iconic team’s (re)launch

Two glimpses have been seen already of the new-era Formula One cars, but the first will be officially launched tonight (Friday), Australian time, by McLaren – with speculation swirling that Australian Sam Michael could be announced as team principal of the outfit that has been the most successful in the sport other than Ferrari.

McLaren, which failed to make the podium, let alone win a race last season, will unveil its MP4-29 car – its last with Mercedes power before next year’s switch back to Honda power – on its website.

Last night it made what otherwise would have been an innocuous announcement that 21-year-old Belgian Stoffel Vandoorne will be its reserve driver this year, but the significance was that it was Sam Michael – McLaren’s sporting director the past two years – rather than Martin Whitmarsh, team principal for four years – quoted in the press release.

Ron Dennis, who famously controlled the team for 30 years before Whitmarsh, took charge of it again a week ago and Whitmarsh’s days there are thought to be numbered – although Dennis seemingly does not want to return to the team principal, pit-wall role.

Dennis is a 25 per cent owner of the business founded by New Zealand driver-engineer Bruce McLaren 50 years ago, and has broader interests than racing (including exclusive sports cars). Mansoor Ojeh of TAG owns another quarter and the remaining half is owned by Bahrain’s royal family.

Ross Brawn, who took his own team – and driver Jenson Button, now with McLaren – to world championship glory in 2009 after guiding Michael Schumacher to all seven of its titles, has been favoured to become McLaren team principal since walking away from the Mercedes factory team at the end of last season.

However, indications have been that 59-year-old Brawn wants to take a year off – perhaps returning when Honda re-enters the sport it dominated with McLaren, Ayrton Senna and Alain Prost in the late 1980s and early ‘90s.

In the meantime F1 websites and the twittersphere lit up last night with the rumour that Michael – 43, WA-born, Canberra-educated and with an engineering degree from the University of NSW before his 20-year F1 career that included early stints with Lotus, Jordan and Williams – would be named McLaren team principal as part of tonight’s unveiling.

However, attention was drawn to what was called Michael’s “lacklustre” record at Williams – and Dennis indicated in an address to McLaren staff last week that announcements on the senior management of the team would be made in February.

After the recent “coup” by Dennis in taking charge of the racing operation again, the Guardian’s F1 correspondent Paul Weaver noted that “many have tipped Sam Michael to become the future team principal”.

But Weaver said that, in the short term, Dennis “is more likely to go for somebody with more experience of a winning team” – a pointer to Brawn.

After the similarly Mercedes-powered Force India team released a side-on image of its new car for the turbocharged era midweek, Williams last night revealed the shape of its FW36 with an anteater-shaped nose just 18.5cm off the ground and expected to be the norm this season.

The minimum weight limit for this year’s cars has been increased now by 1kg to 691kg (including driver) to allow for heavier Pirelli tyres. Next year the limit will rise another 10kg.

Most of this year’s cars will be revealed over the next three days ahead of the first four-day pre-season test at Jerez in Spain, starting on Tuesday.

Aero testing for Volvo V8 Supercar – and Nissan

Volvo’s S60 V8 Supercar is to undergo aerodynamic assessment at the RAAF base at Sale in Victoria’s Gippsland this weekend, as is the revised bodywork for Nissan’s Altima L33.

The benchmark for the testing will be V8 Supercars’ own Ford Falcon.

Nissan was unhappy that the Altima produced more drag than its rival Falcons, Holden Commodores and AMG Mercedes E63s last season and sought re-homologation.

The first Volvo with its Swedish-built engine had a shakedown recently at Avalon Airport near Geelong.

Two of the S60s will be raced this season by young New Zealand star Scott McLaughlin and Swedish import Robert Dahlgren for Garry Rogers Motorsport, which is being recast as Volvo Polestar Racing.

Meanwhile, Holden Racing Team has continued its technical recruiting, luring Nissan Motorsport chief designer Alex Somerset, who also was race engineer on James Moffat’s Altima that won – controversially on E70 fuel – at Winton last season.

Somerset will have a design role at HRT as well as working on the team’s new entry for young driver Nick Percat.

HRT already had a new team principal this year, Adrian Burgess, who was at top team Triple Eight Race Engineering until the middle of last season, and technical director, Matt Nilsson, who has returned after three years at Ford Performance Racing.

All this year’s V8 Supercars and drivers will be in action at the official V8 Supercar test day at Sydney Motorsport Park on Saturday, February 15.

Big day ahead for Aussies in America

The big rallies, Dakar and the Monte Carlo, already are in the history books for this year and now it’s time for the big American racing.

It starts with the Daytona 24-Hour this weekend and culminates with the Daytona 500 NASCAR race on February 23.

The twice-round-the clock event this weekend on a 3.56-mile (5.696km) track that combines a road course and the famed speedway could have as many as 67 cars, with 249 drivers from 27 countries – including 156 from outside the US, four of them from Australia and several others from New Zealand.

The Aussies are David Brabham in a Honda Performance Development ARX-03b, John Martin in a Chevrolet Corvette Daytona Prototype, Ryan Briscoe in a Corvette C7.R, and James Davison in an Aston Martin V12 Vantage. (Another Aussie, James Kovacic, had been on the entry list earlier in an Oreca).

The Kiwis include Shane Van Gisbergen in a Porsche 911, Earl Bamber in a similar car and Brendon Hartley in a Riley Daytona Prototype. (Hartley was named overnight as one of Mark Webber’s co-drivers in the new Porsche 919 hybrid for this year’s World Endurance Championship, along with German Timo Bernhard).

The Daytona 24 is the opener in a new 12-round Tudor United Sports Car Championship that has merged America’s Le Mans and GrandAm series and eliminated the Le Mans Prototype One category in the US.

The new series has two categories of exotic prototypes and two of GT cars – and a wide disparity in speeds and driver skills.

Among the prototypes is the controversial, bullet-shaped, Nissan-powered DeltaWing while Autoweek has reported that Ford “has never taken such an interest” as it has with previous winning owners Chip Ganassi and Michael Shank each fielding two prototypes with new Ford Ecoboost V6 engines built by NASCAR powerhouse Roush-Yates.

NASCAR has announced a new group qualifying format for this season, although single qualifying runs will be retained for the Daytona 500 – the biggest race in American motorsport.

Changes also are anticipated to The Chase over the final 10 of 36 races to decide the season’s champion.

NASCAR chief Brian France is believed to favour expanding the eligible drivers from 12 to 16 with a knock-out system until four remain in the title hunt at the final round, with the highest finisher in that race the champion.

Daytona the world capital of racing?

The focus on Daytona now has raised the question of where the centre of world motorsport is.

Australians generally would think it was somewhere connected to Formula One – perhaps Bernie Ecclestone’s London base, maybe the Federation Internationale de l’Automobile (FIA) headquarters in Paris, or even Monaco, home to the most famous grand prix.

But American commentator Rick Dole has expressed a contrary, very American view on Autoweek.com – and here’s an extract from it:

“Between NASCAR and the Tudor United SportsCar Championship, the France family organisation (headquartered at Daytona) now has a product for virtually every demographic desired by the global (motor)sporting audience.

“More car manufacturers – including Nissan, Audi, Porsche, Ford, General Motors, SRT, Honda, BMW, Aston Martin, Ferrari, Toyota and Mazda – compete in their headline series (plural) than any other series in the world.

“The list grows even larger when you include the support series. And other major car companies are looking to join United Sports Car in 2015. Include the tyre companies and other suppliers, sponsor investment and race teams able to maintain employees year round, and the ‘France Economy’ is a pretty nice chunk of a lot of countries’ GDP.

“Also noteworthy, the France family has invested heavily in data research and technology – providing vital information to car companies, sponsors and corporate partners – to use racing to target and maximize its marketing efforts, over the course of an entire season, better than any other sports organisation in the world.

“This organisation is a case study for any MBA program.

“The corporate structure, the ability to develop and implement long-term goals and working environment is the best in racing.

“It hires very good people and gives them the resources and freedom to perform at their highest potential.

“The biggest difference between the new sports car series and the (now-defunct) American Le Mans Series is not the quality of employees, but the greater number of quality employees the France organisations employ.

“The biggest challenge facing the sports car organisation based in Daytona Beach is how to find a spot on the grid for the ever-growing number of European teams that want to race in North America.

“Jim France has unified sports car racing in this country. And now the organisation, founded by his father [the late Bill], has the most influence and power in the world of motorsports.

“That ‘International Motorsports Centre’ sign at 1 Daytona Blvd. is more than just the name of the building. It is a fact.”

While the new F1 cars will grab a lot of attention in the weeks leading into the Australian Grand Prix in mid-March, it might be hard to argue with Dole’s assessment in the next month.

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MOTORSPORT: Aussie main man at McLaren?

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