MOTORSPORT: Aussie open-wheeler racing's great divide

While Daniel Ricciardo’s prospects in Formula 1 this year look brighter than they might have been, Will Power is back in IndyCar after missing the opening round, divisions in open-wheeler racing within Australia are worsening.

As the second Australian Formula 4 Championship begins at the V8 Supercar round at Tasmania’s Symmons Plains this weekend, Formula Ford and Formula 3 teams are screaming: “We are motorsport too”.

These teams, which are racing as well this weekend at Melbourne’s Sandown, have launched a website, wearemotorsporttoo.com, demanding greater transparency from the Confederation of Australian Motor Sport (CAMS) on its financial support of F4.

The long-simmering friction reached boiling this week when CAMS chief executive Eugene Arocca referred – in a comment on autoaction.com.au – to “chumps in the peanut gallery [on social media] throw(ing) around comments without any factual basis”.

In a calmer tone, and a formal statement to Auto Action, the long-established publication in the Australian motorsport industry, Arocca said it was “our (CAMS’) responsibility as the peak body to invest in junior development”, but he also took aim at those behind the wearemotorsporttoo site retaining anonymity.

The sad realities are that F4 and F3 both have only nine-car fields this weekend. Formula Ford, the long-established junior category without wings and slick tyres, has almost 20.

The heightening of what has become almost a ‘war’ between the two sides in the developmental open-wheeler categories coincides with the unveiling of plans for a modern Formula 5000 series that could lead to a revival of a Tasman Series next summer.

Behind the idea for a series with more experienced racers in cars designed by American company Swift but to be built in Melbourne by Borland with Ford Coyote ‘Aluminator’ engines is Chris Lambden, who published the Motorsport News magazine for two decades and later was a member of the V8 Supercars Commission.

Lambden’s calling it Formula Thunder 5000, but it won’t have – he said it hasn’t sought initially – national championship status, but has been okayed by CAMS under the old generic ‘Formula Libre’ classification.

It was the stripping of national championship status from F3 and Formula Ford and the introduction of F4 – the new international junior wings-and-slicks category – that is at the heart of the rift in Australian open-wheeler circles.

CAMS bought 20 French-made Mygale F4s, which it leases to competitors – but the field was never more than 13 in the first season last year.

Five drivers from that series have gone on to compete in Europe and North America this year, while CAMS reduced the lease costs and introduced $50,000 ‘scholarships’ for drivers under 23 to try to boost the field this year.

The wearemotorsporttoo alliance opposes the use of CAMS membership fees towards F4 “without an understanding of the costs and potential benefits”.

“CAMS has spent more money on F4 than almost any other significant initiative ever, but members have no say, reporting, or accountability,” the group says.

“Competitors in other categories or disciplines receive significantly less career support,” it says, calling for CAMS to “be completely transparent” by reporting separately on F4’s financial accounts in its imminent annual report.

Arocca has countered that CAMS has long invested in junior development “through various programs, including Formula Ford, and we are continuing to do so through F4”.

“In the near future we will release our final accounts for 2015 and I am pleased to confirm that we will record a surplus of approximately $250,000,” he said.

CAMS this year has taken over from previous director Rob Curkpatrick the running of the Shannons Nationals, as part of which F3 and Formula Ford are at Sandown this weekend.

Although curiously clashing with the Symmons Plains event, it’s a bumper program with six other categories – Touring Car Masters with Jim Richards, John Bowe, Glenn Seton and Steve Johnson among the drivers, the Porsche GT3 Cup Challenge, Kumho V8 Touring Cars, Australian GT Trophy Series, Sports Sedans and Sports Racers.

Ricciardo sees opportunities in Bahrain  
Daniel Ricciardo knows it will be a couple of months yet before he gets a major upgrade to the TAG Heuer-badged Renault power unit in his Red Bull RB12, but he’s optimistic about Sunday’s Bahrain GP after his fourth place in Melbourne a fortnight ago.

“The Sakhir circuit is good for overtaking, the last corner flows quite well and if you can get close enough to open the DRS (drag reduction system) you can get a good run into turn one,” Ricciardo said.

“If you don’t get it into turn one then there’s turn four or the middle sectors where it’s easy [for other drivers] to make mistakes.

“There’s probably four places on the track where you can pass, which is pretty good.

“The track does suit us, the last couple of years we’ve had a pretty good result, so hopefully we can continue that this year as well.”

Those “good results” in his previous two seasons with Red Bull Racing were sixth last year, more than a minute behind Lewis Hamilton’s Mercedes, and fourth in 2014, 24.5 seconds behind Hamilton again.

While Renault’s major upgrade to its power unit is expected for the Canadian GP in mid-June, Ricciardo said that already “it seems to run more top-end, at the end of the straight”.

While there were concerns before the Australian GP that Red Bull may have dropped back into the midfield, or worse, this season, Ricciardo has taken confidence from his RB12 looking after its tyres better than the similarly Red Bull-owned, but Ferrari-powered Toro Rossos and some other teams.

He seems confident that Red Bull, rather than Mercedes-powered Williams or Force India, can be the main competitor to Mercedes and Ferrari this year.

Power without pressure in IndyCar
Will Power faces an uphill battle to regain the IndyCar crown he won in 2014, but he says he can attempt it with less pressure after missing the first race.

Power was ruled out of the St Petersburg opener in Florida, after qualifying on pole position, with what was thought to be concussion from a crash in practice but was later diagnosed as an inner-ear infection.

As IndyCar returns to the one-mile (1.6km) oval at Phoenix, Arizona, for the first time since 2005 with a night race, Power – who has just one point from his pole position – already trails Penske teammate Juan Pablo Montoya by 51 points.

He said that was “a big hit off the bat, but as we’ve seen in IndyCar there is a lot of racing to unfold and the two double-points races (the Indianapolis 500 and the season finale at Sonoma, California) mixes things up”.

“Anything can happen from here. I just have to put my head down and go from here.

“It’s somewhat of a low-pressure situation.

“It will be a season-long process, really, clawing back points little by little.

“We’ve got some digging out to do.

“It will go up and down. You will have some real good days and real bad days.

“I hope to have a chance going into the last race with a chance and able to win it.

“If so, that will be a very good year. An interesting story.”

Six-Hour a lock for three more years
After its inaugural running on Easter Sunday, the Bathurst Six-Hour is locked in for the next three years.

Next year it will be on April 16, with an earlier start – 11.30am rather than noon.

Event director James O’Brien said continued sponsorship from NSW-based Hi-Tec Oils gave the race a platform to build on until at least 2019.

He said the live stream last Sunday attracted 45,000 views from 70 countries.

Highlights will be screened on SBS Speedweek on Sunday, April 10.

ARC goes new route on exposure
The Australian Rally Championship won’t be telecast on the Ten Network this year, instead focusing on digital content via the web and social media and short video packages for television news to be produced by Neil Crompton’s AirTime Media.

The ARC starts at WA’s Forest Rally on April 22-24, with other rounds in Canberra at the end of May, in Queensland in mid-June, South Australia in September and the finale as part of Rally Australia at Coffs Harbour in mid-November.

Apart from Subaru’s return, after a decade away, with Molly Taylor in a WRX STi NR4, four-time champion Simon Evans has announced his return full-time in a 1998 WRX STi after a disappointing 2015 campaign in a Honda Jazz.

Evans, who will be co-driven by West Australian Ben Searcy, said his WRX “will be a bit like Possum Bourne’s old Group A Subaru” and “a big step up from the Subaru” he ran in the early 2000s.

Five-time Australian champion Ross Dunkerton, now 70, is another starter for the Forest Rally, in an WRX STi prepared by Rob Herridge’s Maximum Motorsport and co-driven by wife Lisa.

Meanwhile, Volkswagen, Citroen and Toyota are to start testing cars for the new 2017 World Rally Championship regulations this month, with Hyundai and M-Sport Ford expected to begin their testing in June and July.