MOTORSPORT: Aussie misses cut for next W Series

Australia’s sole representative in the first season of the W Series, Caitlin Wood, has narrowly missed automatic qualification for the second season.

Wood was nudged down to 13th in the open-wheeler series for women that concluded at Britain’s Brands Hatch circuit at the weekend, leaving her just one place and one point away from a guaranteed spot in next year’s races.

Britain’s Jamie Chadwick won the inaugural series and collects $US500,000 – almost $A740,000 – of the total prize pool of $US1.5 million.

The W Series is intended to provide a pathway for women in motor racing with the ultimate aim of producing a Formula 1 driver.

F1 has not had a woman driver since 1976 – the late Italian Lella Lombardi, who also raced in Formula 5000 in Australia.

Chadwick, 21, already is part of the Williams F1 team’s junior academy but deputy team principal Claire Williams says that, while Chadwick “has some great talent”, an F1 drive is still “a long way off” for her.

Wood finished 11th at Brands Hatch, only 13 seconds behind the winner, another British driver Alice Powell.

But the performances of Jessica Hawkins, another of the five British drivers in the series and who finished seventh, and American Sabre Cook’s ninth gave them both 12 points for the season to Wood’s 11.

Only the top 12 drivers from the initial six-race season were assured of a place on the grid next year, although others are not necessarily excluded.

Wood, 22, from Maitland in NSW’s Hunter Valley – who began racing at the Manning Valley Kart Club in 2005 and had been a full-time GT racer in Europe – scored 10 of her W Series points with fifth place at Assen in the Netherlands in the penultimate round.

The women race identical Formula 3 cars.

Chadwick had been the first female to win a race in the British F3 Championship, after having been the first female British GT Champion.

She also is the reigning champion in an F2000 series in India in which Australian Joey Mawson was runner-up in 2016-17 ahead of Mick Schumacher but behind Red Bull design genius Adrian Newey’s son, Harrison.

Liberty Media has not generated the new revenue it anticipated from its takeover of Formula 1 three years ago.

Bank of America Merrill Lynch has forecast no revenue from new media for Liberty this year, next year or the year after, according to a report by F1 business analyst Christian Sylt on Forbes.com.

While the heavily-moustachioed Chase Carey is Liberty’s F1 chief executive, his boss in tycoon John Malone’s empire Greg Maffei has long potential in gambling on the sport.

“There is a huge gambling opportunity in the sport, none of which we capitalise on,” Maffei said in September 2016.

SportBusiness reported last week that F1 is set to offer live in-race betting next season, starting in Melbourne in mid-March, through its association with Interregional Sports Group (ISG).

It said sports data intelligence provider Sportradar will offer “around 30 unique markets during qualifying and on race day”, in addition to existing options.

“The potential for pre-race and in-race betting is huge and F1 itself is developing in a way that will continue to fuel opportunities for additional markets,” ISG joint chief executive Tony Ragan said.

Sportrader managing director of sports partnerships David Lampitt said F1 “remains an untapped market for bookmakers, despite it being one of the richest data-driven sports in the world”.

Despite the embarrassment of Fernando Alonso not qualifying for this year’s Indianapolis 500, McLaren is to go full-time in IndyCar racing next season – in partnership with Schmidt Peterson Motorsports.

McLaren’s return to IndyCar – 50 years after its first entry in the Indy 500 – will be headed by Gil de Ferran, the Brazilian who won the IndyCar series title in 2000 and 2001 and the Indy 500 in 2003 for Team Penske.

Schmidt Peterson will switch from Honda power to Chevrolet engines – the make with which McLaren dominated the CanAm sports car series in the late 1960s and early ’70s.

McLaren says the partnership – which could spark the emergence of a new mega-team to rival the Penske, Ganassi and Andretti outfits – is “a commercial platform to continue to grow our brand in North America”.

McLaren’s Renault-powered F1 team has made major progress this year, scoring more than twice the world championship points of Renault’s factory team, and with the head of Porsche’s all-conquering former endurance sports car team German Andreas Seidl its new managing director.

Mark Burrows is the Australian Off-Road Champion for the eighth time, taking his latest title 16 years after his seventh.

Greg Gartner and Jamie Jennings won the third and final round of this year’s championship, a wet and muddy Rainbow Desert Enduro in Victoria at the weekend, but Burrows’ third place, with his son Matt navigating, ensured another crown.

Dale Martin and Lee Wells had crossed the line first but were relegated to second after having compulsory pit stop times added to their total time.

Nine-time AORC champions Shannon and Ian Rentsch left their buggy in the trailer while another leading competitor, Stephen Graham, was a late withdrawal.

While conditions were atrocious, causing cancellation of the first day of the event and reducing the field, race victor Gartner said “the farmers need rain and they got rain, which is more important than anything else”.

Peter Carr and Allen Henson wound up second and third in the championship.