MOTORSPORT: Aussie sparks Formula E success

A Chinese team headed by an Australian has taken the lead from an Indian outfit in the global Formula E electric open-wheeler championship after a historic one-two finish in the series.

However, the Techeetah team run by Australian engineer Mark Preston - who spent his early years at Holden Special Vehicles and Borland Racing Developments in Melbourne before a career in Formula 1 - has been fined almost $50,000 but allowed to keep its quinella.

Formula E officials found that Techeetah had modified new safety harnesses in the cockpits of its race winner, Jean-Eric Vergne, and his runner-up teammate, Andre Lotterer.

The team was fined 30,000 Euros - about A$47,200.

Preston - who has been running Chinese-owned Techeetah for 18 months after an F1 career with the late Tom Walkinshaw's Arrows team, then McLaren, before being technical chief of a short-lived team for Japan's Aguri Suzuki - said there was a "grey area" regarding the new Formula E harnesses.

They were introduced for this fourth race of the fourth season of FE in Santiago, the capital of Chile, because it was the first event without a minimum pitstop time for the mid-race car swaps necessary because the batteries in them don't yet last long enough to go the race distance.

Techeetah and the Dragon team of Roger Penske's son, Jay, reportedly fitted makeshift handles to the lower strap of the harnesses to enable mechanics to tighten them quicker.

"It's not a modification for safety. It's a matter to make sure you can do the belts up quickly - for its practicality, let's say," Preston was quoted by Autosport as saying.

Dragon was fined half of what Techeetah copped for its modification to Belgian Jerome d'Ambrosio's harness.

Techeetah leads India's Mahindra team by two points, 89-87, after its Santiago quinella, which came after Frenchman Vergne overtook German Lotterer with four laps to go. Vergne was once a Red Bull F1 junior driver alongside Daniel Ricciardo, and Lotterer's own Aussie connection was as a teammate of James Courtney in British F3.

In the drivers' championship, Vergne leads Mahindra's Swede Felix Rosenqvist 71-66, with the next round in Mexico on March 3.

While FE is planning a production-based series next season with Jaguar's I-PACE performance SUV, the Federation Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA), last week sanctioned a separate Electric Production Car Series in Europe for Tesla Model S P100Ds from the middle of this year.

Extra head protection almost reality in F1 and IndyCar
The 2018 Formula 1 cars with the new 'halo' safety hoop over the cockpits will start appearing in 10 days, while IndyCar is about to track test its alternative, a much higher windscreen.

F1's halo is compulsory for the season starting in Melbourne on the last weekend of March, but IndyCar has not yet set a date for the introduction of its windscreen, similar to a curved motorcycle screen. It has been designed and developed by Dallara and is made from Opticor - said to be more durable than polycarbonates.

Testing at the end of this week will be on the 1.6-kilometre oval track at Phoenix, Arizona.

"We're striving to create a safety piece that aesthetically looks good and works in all conditions," said IndyCar competition chief Jay Frye.

The first F1 car to be launched with a halo will be the Williams-Mercedes on February 15, while the Mercedes and Ferrari factory team launches are on February 22.

The new Red Bull-Renault for Daniel Ricciardo and Max Verstappen is only likely to be seen on the eve of the first F1 test in Barcelona on February 26. That test will run until March 1, with another at the same place on March 6-9.

'Straight sets' win for Coulthard in Race of Champions
David Coulthard never won a world title in a long F1 career, but he's now a two-time Race of Champions winner.

The Scotsman, a 13-time Grand Prix winner, has followed up his 2014 ROC title with another in Riyadh, the capital of Saudi Arabia.

Twenty drivers took part, but no Australians this time, and Coulthard defeated Petter Solberg, the Norwegian with a combined three rally and rallycross world titles to his credit, in "straight sets" of what could have been a three-race final.

Rene Rast, who otherwise might have been at Bathurst for the 12-Hour, and Timo Bernhard won the Nations Cup for Germany over Team Latin America's Juan Pablo Montoya and Helio Castroneves.

Coulthard said that when he was eliminated from the Nations Cup his young son at home had turned off the TV, saying "Daddy's too old", so he was "delighted to show him [the following day] that experience is a good thing".

Solberg conceded that Coulthard was "a better circuit racer than me".

"I like to be a bit more sideways," Solberg said.

The cars the drivers raced on the parallel track with crossover in Riyadh included the Vuhl 05 ROC Edition, Ariel Atom Cup, XTreme Pickup, Whelen NASCAR Euro, KTM X-Bow Comp R and the ROC Car.

A team part-owned by the French great and bearing his name will field two 350-horsepower VW Golf GTIs in the new 2.0-litre Touring Car Racer 'World Cup'.

They will be driven by Britain's 2012 world touring car champion Rob Huff and Malaysia's Mehdi Mennani.

Loeb's main competition will continue to be rallycross, a sport he picked up after failing to win a Dakar before Peugeot's withdrawal from marathon rallies.