MOTORSPORT: Aussie trio wins overseas

Monday motorsport reportJuly 9, 2007

Power a street ahead in Toronto
It's been a great weekend for Australians competing overseas, with Will Power winning the Champ Car race in Toronto; Ryan Briscoe (pictured) a big sports car race in Connecticut, and Cody Crocker the Japanese round of the Asia-Pacific Rally Championship.

Power's victory in a chaotic and at times wet race on the streets of Toronto is his second of the season -- and he's now second in the Champ Car championship again; just two points behind Paul Stoddart's Team Minardi USA driver Robert Doornbos and one point ahead of triple champion Sebastien Bourdais.

Starting from seventh on the grid, the 26-year-old Power, from Toowoomba, got through a frantic opening lap unscathed and then went hard after the lead, excelling in the rain to take the chequered flag ahead of Swiss driver Neel Jani and Englishman Justin Wilson.

Frenchman Simon Pagenaud, who curiously drives for Team Australia with Power, finished fourth, ahead of Brazilian Bruno Junqueira (who Power was penalized for causing to crash in the first qualifying session) and Doornbos was sixth, after his historic victory for Minardi the previous weekend at Mont Tremblant, also in Canada.

Bourdais did not finish in Toronto after being rammed from behind by Doornbos late in the race.

"Robert made a small mistake with big consequences," Bourdais says.

"I'm sure he didn't do it on purpose, but it's a shame for the championship (which comes to Queensland's Gold Coast on October 18-21."

Paul Tracy, racing in his hometown, was one of five drivers to crash on the first lap.

Power's earlier win was in the season-opener at Las Vegas -- another street circuit.

He has also been third at two other rounds -- at Long Beach in California and at Mont Tremblant.

Of the triumph in Toronto this morning, Australian time, Power says: "This is exactly what we needed points-wise, and also for Sebastien not to finish -- that really helps us in the championship.

"I got blocked by Bruno Junqueira -- probably a bit of payback for first qualifying!

"But I also got a penalty for that, so it's a double whammy, yeah."

The Champ Car series reaches its halfway mark in Edmonton, also in Canada, on July 20-22.

Champ Car points after 7 of 16 rounds: Robert Doornbos 164, Will Power 162, Sebastien Bourdais 161, Justin Wilson 138, Alex Tagliani 127, Simon Pagenaud 120, Neel Jani 116, Oriol Servia 102, Graham Rahal 101, Bruno Junqueira 91

Briscoe took advantage of fresh tyres in the final stint of the race to pass the other Penske Porsche with 25 minutes of the 2-hour 45-minute race to go on the narrow, tight 2.4km circuit in the mountains of Connecticut.

That other Penske car, driven by Frenchman Romain Dumas and German Timo Bernhard, had led the first 145 laps.

Both Penske's LMP2 cars made their final stops at the same time, but Briscoe's team opted for new tyres while Bernhard only took on fuel.

"[Using] new tyres was a big advantage," Briscoe says.

"After the stop, we were much quicker.

"I got a great run down the hill and Timo was held up by a GT2 car and I sailed down the front straight.

"It was a very safe pass and we needed it for the championship."

Briscoe's latest success came at the circuit where iconic team owner Roger Penske scored his first win as a driver -- in 1959, also in a Porsche.

On Saturday he was calling the race strategy to Briscoe and Maasen from the pits, but jetted off to Daytona for the NASCAR race before they had pulled into the winner's circle.

Highcroft Racing's Honda-based Acura, which David Brabham shared with Swede Stefan Johansson and Highcroft owner, American Duncan Dayton, completed an LMP2 sweep of the Lime Rock podium by taking third place.

All the podium cars completed 174 laps.

Scotsman Allan McNish and Italian Dindo Capello took LMP1 class honours in a diesel Audi R10, which had been second in the early stages before both drivers had spins that left them fifth overall at the finish.

That pair lost three laps while their car's nose was replaced and they made up two of those laps.

The other Audi was classified only 23rd overall after Germany's recent Le Mans winner Marco Werner had a suspension failure and crashed heavily.

After winning the first two rounds of the series overall, the Audis have been outshone by the LMP2 cars since.

"The Audi is built for a track like Le Mans," says Briscoe's co-driver Maassen.

"Our car (the Porsche Spyder), if we went to Le Mans, we would really suck.

"On a straight line we would have no horsepower.

"On the tracks in the US, there are lots of corners and our car really handles well.

"I love Lime Rock. The more corners the better. That's the main reason we are doing so well. And it's why Acura is doing so great."

Briscoe and Maassen won the previous ALMS round in Utah in May and earlier took the LMP2 class win at St Petersburg in Florida.

They are nine points behind Dumas and Bernhard in the class championship race.

The next ALMS round on July 21 is at Mid-Ohio, where the Indy Racing League is also on that weekend.

Driving a Subaru Impreza WRX STI for Singapore's MotorImage with co-driver Ben Atkinson, Crocker earned 10 points for the win and an extra six bonus points for being fastest on each day.

Crocker took line honors by 1 minute 23.6 seconds from Japan's Katsu Taguchi, in a Mitsubishi EVO, with Finn Jussi Valimaki third, 1 minute 59.6 seconds behind Crocker, in another Mitsubishi EVO.

Melbourne-based Crocker heads the Asia-Pacific series with the maximum 48 points, with Taguchi on 34 and Valimaki on 32.

"Winning is always good, but to be able to deliver a victory for Subaru in its home rally was fantastic," Crocker says.

"The car didn't miss a beat all weekend -- we didn't have to change a part.

"In fact, the only thing we had to change all weekend were the tyres, which says a lot about the say the car is performing at the moment.

"This is a really tough event -- long, fast and very technical.

"We're developing a healthy buffer in the championship, but each round we have to produce a good result, as that can all disappear in one round with a DNF.

"We've still got three events left, so our goal is to win each of those as well."

Raikkonen's Ferrari won the race by 2.4 seconds from the McLaren of Spaniard Fernando Alonso, who narrowed the championship gap on his young teammate from 14 to 12 points -- with eight rounds remaining.

Hamilton had qualified on pole position and led until the first round of pitstops, but then came his first obvious mistake of the season as he nervously went to leave the "box" while the fuel pump was still attached.

Alonso took the lead until the second round of stops, when Raikkonen took charge.

Hamilton may not have kept his perfect record of podiums intact had Felipe Massa's Ferrari not stalled on the grid and been forced to start from the pitlane.

Massa drove aggressively to wind up fifth, but back-to-back victories by Raikkonen in successive weeks have seen the Finn overtake the Brazilian for third place in the championship.

Raikkonen is the first driver to win three races this season and this latest victory is the 12th of his career.

Polish youngster Robert Kubica continues to impress with BMW-Sauber, finishing fourth at Silverstone -- again ahead of the highly-regarded German Nick Heidfeld.

While there was some close racing, the results sheet shows the two Ferraris, two McLarens, two BMWs and the Renaults of Heikki Kovalainen and Italian Giancarlo Fisichella taking all the points, although the Renaults were a lap down.

Mark Webber had another horror race. He was the first retirement, after just eight laps.

He had made up two spots from his 11th grid position but says: "As I came past the start-finish line on lap eight my engineer told me to switch to a different gearbox map, but there was a problem with the hydraulics.

"As I came into Becketts (corner), I had no power steering.

"I tried to keep going, but no hydraulics meant no throttle, steering, gearbox ... the whole shooting match."

Red Bull Racing confirmed over the weekend that it is keeping Webber and David Coulthard next year.

Despite the continuation of the mechanical woes he had at Williams, Webber says: "I'm really happy with my form and how I've gone about my job."

He has outqualified Coulthard 8-1 this season.

F1 supremo Bernie Ecclestone is urging Red Bull tycoon Dietrich Mateschitz to sell one of his F1 teams.

Apart from Red Bull Racing, Mateschitz is half-owner of Scuderia Toro Rosso (formerly Minardi) with Gerhard Berger.

"Red Bull are super for F1 but I wish they would have more success," Ecclestone says.

"I can't understand why they have two teams. They should concentrate on one."

However, Mateschitz dismisses constant talk that Toro Rosso is for sale.

There was a lot of talk about F1's espionage scandal throughout the British GP, but not much new has emerged over the weekend.

Honda admits talking to Nigel Stepney, the Englishman sacked by Ferrari, and Mike Coughlan, the design chief suspended by McLaren after a heap of Ferrari files were found at his home.

However, while long-time friends Stepney and Coughlan were hawking themselves to Honda as potential employees some weeks ago it seems neither was offering intellectual properties from their recent teams.

Stepney vigorously denies passing any Ferrari files to Coughlan.

The Federation Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA) hopes to complete its investigations within three weeks.

>> A lavish -- and exclusive -- Formula 1 book due out in October will cost about A$8500. Called Opus, it will weigh 37kg and be presented in a clamshell box made of carbonfibre.
One hundred copies have been signed by every living F1 world champion and will sell for about A$50,000 each.
Publisher Kraken Sport & Media has already produced Manchester United soccer and Super Bowl Opuses. Nice collector items for those who can afford them.

Formula 1 world championship points after nine of 17 races: Drivers - Lewis Hamilton 78, Fernando Alonso 58, Kimi Raikkonen 52, Felipe Massa 51, Nick Heidfeld 33, Robert Kubica 22, Giancarlo Fisichella 17, Heikki Kovalainen 14, Alexander Wurz 8, Jarno Trulli 7, Nico Rosberg 5, David Coulthard 4, Takuma Sato 4, Ralf Schumacher 2, Mark Webber 2, Sebastien Vettel 1, Jenson Button 1. Constructors - McLaren-Mercedes 128, Ferrari 103, BMW-Sauber 56, Renault 31, Williams-Toyota 13, Toyota 9, Red Bull-Renault 6, Super Aguri-Honda 4, Honda 1

"We built the Skelta for these types of events and it has proven that it can beat the world's best," Vandersee says.

"It's very satisfying to come home ahead of marques like Porsche, BMW and Subaru."

Television personality Grant Denyer won the final stage and claimed second place in the event in a Subaru Impreza WRX STI C Spec.

Matt and Casey Close were the event's surprise packets, taking third place in a Porsche 911 Turbo, ahead of tarmac specialists Jim Richards and Barry Oliver in a Porsche GT3 RS.

Ambrose felt his race on the famed Daytona superspeedway was going to plan but sensed a tyre problem approaching the close stages and risked diving into the pits.

That dropped him from 14th to 35th and it turned out to be only a slow leak on which he probably could have made it to the finish.

"We stopped just to be safe and wrecked a great day," Ambrose says.

"I feel terrible for the team ... terrible to let them down like that.

"I just thought the tyre was down and it wasn't.

"Up to that point we were having a perfect day -- just exactly what we're looking for.

"We were coming to the front, ready to rock and roll.

"We will put this one behind us and look to get a good result in Chicago next weekend."

Kyle Busch won at Daytona -- and came within a whisker of victory in the Nextel Cup race too, losing out to Jamie McMurray in a rare Ford triumph in NASCAR.

Nine of the top 10 Busch finishers were full-time Nextel Cup drivers.

Ambrose retains eighth in the Busch Series and second in the rookie-of-the-year standings.

However, a mid-season NASCAR review in the Indianapolis Star newspaper says the Wood Brothers outfit with which Ambrose is associated is "a desperate team" and gives it a D grading.

Indonesia opts out of A1 round
Indonesia won't host a round in the third season of the A1 Grand Prix of Nations again after negotiations broke down over the franchise fee.

"The organizers have required us to pay US$6 million in fees and we deem such a large amount too costly for us," says Indonesia's State Minister for Youth and Sports Affairs Adhyaksa Dault.

"We prefer to host other races, like GP2."

Indonesia also wants to have a more independent team in A1 with Ananda Mikola as its main driver.

Malaysia and Indonesia have had the same technical team in the first two seasons, but Mikola claims he was treated as a second-class driver to Malaysian Alex Yoong.

Meanwhile, Indonesia's Ministry for Youth and Sports Affairs has established a taskforce to speed up the development of motorsport in the country.

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