MOTORSPORT: Aussies star on world stage
A massive weekend for Australia's best on two wheels and four! Apart from the high-profile events, we also have news today on Pikes Peak, a legendary new driver in Minardi's F1 two-seater, and even Paul NewmanMonday motorsport reportJuly 23, 2007
Aussies 1, 2 and 3 in GPs
What a weekend in motorsport for Australians!
We don't normally touch on motorcycle racing here, simply because there's too much four-wheel racing going on, but Casey Stoner and Chris Vermeulen finishing first and second in the United States MotoGP at Laguna Seca cannot go unmentioned.
Then there's Mark Webber on the podium at Nurburgring in the European Grand Prix, one of the craziest Formula 1 races in ages (won by Fernando Alonso with Lewis Hamilton missing the podium for the first time in 10 GP starts).
Will Power led the Champ Car race in Edmonton after qualifying on pole position, although he ended up failing to finish in that series for the first time this year with broken steering (as Sebastien Bourdias won and regained the series lead).
However, Ryan Briscoe was second in the American Le Mans Series round at Mid-Ohio with German teammate Sascha Maassen (behind the other Penske Porsche RS Spyder), while David Brabham finished sixth in the same (LMP2) class (with Swede Stefan Johansson in a Honda Acura).
However, Marcos Ambrose says his grandmother could have driven better than he did in qualifying 14th for NASCAR's Busch Series round at Madison, Illinois, before he finished 18th in the race.
At home, Garth Tander has taken the lead in the V8 Supercar Championship after a clean sweep of the three races at Queensland Raceway yesterday.
We'll come back to that -- and a $25,000 fine on a team for conduct seen as potentially bringing V8 Supercar racing into disrepute -- in just a moment, but firstly a few other things of lesser consequence but which we found of great interest.
- Japan's legendary Nobuhiro "Monster" Tajima has set a record in the Pikes Peak hillclimb, racing up the Colorado mountain's 19.87km, 156-turn course in 10 minutes and 1.408 seconds in his Suzuki Grand Vitara.
- Mario Andretti drove one of Aussie Paul Stoddart's Minardi F1 two-seaters in Edmonton during the weekend. The 67-year Italo-American icon says that when he was invited to take the wheel he responded: "Man, sign me up. I'm still a kid." What enthusiasm from someone who has virtually done it all in motorsport!
- Movie star Paul Newman, now 82, finished fourth in class a week ago in a race at Lime Rock in Connecticut. Don't know any more about it than that (suggest a Google search if you want more). Only know the little we do from Mario Andretti mentioning it. Mario, of course, drove for the Newman-Haas team jointly owned by the actor during the heyday of what was then called the CART series. We also have a recollection of Newman having once said that he would rather have been Mario Andretti than Paul Newman!
- German rookie Markus Winkelhock briefly led the European GP during the crazy opening stages, having elected to start from the pitlane on wet-weather tyres -- which proved the smart choice as rain descended on the Nurburgring as the race got underway, rather than five or six laps into it as predicted. Nonetheless, Winkelhock's Spyker didn't last long in the restarted race and he's unlikely to be seen in a GP again as his drive was a one-off in a seat that the team makes no secret has to be bought -- probably by Indian Narain Karthikeyan or Austrian Christian Klien from the next GP, in Hungary.
- Michael Schumacher was on the pit wall with Ferrari in a team shirt during the Nurburgring race, then up on the podium in casual dress -- presenting the winning constructor trophy to McLaren's Ron Dennis. Only one thing could have been worse for the Scuderia -- the leaking of more of its secrets to McLaren. Incidentally, the FIA's inquiry into the espionage case is this Thursday.
All the news from overseas throughout the weekend -- particularly Lewis Hamilton's big crash in qualifying at Nurburgring and Casey Stoner's continuing brilliance in MotoGP -- overshadowed the V8 Supercars.
Garth Tander repeated the trifecta he scored at Perth's Wanneroo earlier this season by winning every race at Willowbank, or Queensland Raceway, to take the series lead from Toll HSV Dealer Team colleague Rick Kelly.
Starting the weekend 35 points behind reigning champion Kelly, Tander has left Ipswich with a 10-point lead at the halfway point of the season.
It's the second year in a row Tander has won the Willowbank round, and he's now won 10 of the 20 races this season.
He is clearly the quickest driver in V8 Supercars and is in the box seat to become champion this year, although he -- and lots of others -- thought the same thing at the same point last year.
Kelly had a terrible round at Willowbank and, in a nutshell, wound up only ninth overall for the weekend -- the first time he had not been on the podium this season -- picking up only 23 points, while Tander got 72.
Ford/Triple 8/Team Vodafone pair Jamie Whincup and Craig Lowndes have moved up into third and fourth in the series after taking the other two podium positions at Willowbank, while Mark Skaife has dropped to sixth, behind Holden Racing Team colleague Todd Kelly.
Craig Gore's WPS Racing copped a $25,000 fine after V8 Supercar stewards found "people connected with the team had been engaged in contact that may reasonably be likely to bring the sport into disrepute" -- t-shirts saying "Keep John Hewson out of this sport".
Hewson is the chairman of the Touring Car Entrants Group board and there is a big push to install him as chairman of V8 Supercars Australia in place of Tony Cochrane at the end of the year.
The next round of the V8 series is at Sydney's Oran Park on August 17-19.
Now that F1 race at Nurburgring …
The upshot is that dual world champion Fernando Alonso is only two points behind McLaren teammate Lewis Hamilton with seven races remaining.
Alonso showed his consummate skill and professionalism in winning in Germany -- particularly in muscling past Ferrari's race leader Felipe Massa with just a handful of laps left.
Kimi Raikkonen, winner of the two previous GPs in France and Britain, had qualified on pole position but miscued on entering the pitlane as the rain bucketed down on the first lap, found himself forced to do another lap on tyres that couldn't cope with the conditions, then looked threatening in the restarted race before a rare mechanical failure that has left him, languishing somewhat, in fourth in the championship -- 18 points behind Hamilton -- despite three race wins; a feat only equalled by Alonso now.
After Hamilton's charmed run through the first nine GPs of the year, everything that could have gone wrong for the 22-year-old wonderboy did in Germany.
He was lucky to start after his massive shunt in qualifying after a wheel gun failed to fasten his right front tyre properly.
Starting 10th on the grid, Hamilton was one of several drivers promptly off the track at the same point in the deluge, but somehow he kept the Mercedes engine running in his McLaren.
In preparing for the resumption of racing, either Hamilton or McLaren, or them jointly, wrongly opted for dry tyres too soon, and again he found himself off the track.
He was already a lap down but drove a masterful race to get up to ninth at the finish, just behind Heikki Kovalainen's Renault.
Hamilton put a bright face on it all, though.
"I came here completely sick, had one of the biggest crashes I ever had, then got a puncture, went into the gravel, it started to rain -- it was really a great weekend in terms of learning," Hamilton says.
However, London bookmakers now have Alonso 7-4 equal favorite with Hamilton for the world title, with Ferrari's Massa and Raikkonen each at 4-1.
Mark Webber's second points finish of the season, and the second podium of his F1 career, was "a bloody huge relief".
Again Webber had qualified brilliantly, with sixth on the grid, but with little expectation of anything more than a point or two.
Certainly the Australian was helped by Hamilton and Raikkonen's problems, but he kept it together for the duration -- although there was a heart-stopping falter almost within sight of the chequered flag, with Alex Wurz's Williams-Toyota on the heels of Webber's Red Bull RB3.
What a relief that Red Bull's new gearboxes held together this time, with David Coulthard finishing fifth after a dreadful qualifying -- in which he was outgunned by Webber for the ninth time this season.
Don't let us spoil Channel 7's first Champ Car telecast very early tomorrow (Tuesday), but the podium in Edmonton was filled by Sebastien Bourdais, Justin Wilson and American youngster Graham Rahal.
Dutchman Robert Doornbos of Paul Stoddart's Team Minardi USA has surrendered the series lead to Frenchman Bourdais, whose move to F1 next year could be confirmed this week.
That will be with Toro Rosso, and the other driver in the team -- owned jointly by Red Bull and Gerhard Berger -- could be German youngster Sebastien Vettel, who filled in at the US GP for BMW Sauber's Robert Kubica after the Pole's big crash the previous week in Canada.
European Grand Prix point scorers - Fernando Alonso (McLaren-Mercedes) 10, Felipe Massa (Ferrari) 8, Mark Webber (Red Bull-Renault) 6, Alexander Wurz (Williams-Toyota) 5, David Coulthard (Red Bull-Renault) 4, Nick Heidfeld (BMW-Sauber) 3, Robert Kubica (BMW-Sauber) 2, Heikki Kovalainen (Renault) 1.
F1 world drivers' championship standings (after 10 of 17 races) - Lewis Hamilton 70 points, Fernando Alonso 68, Felipe Massa 59, Kimi Räikkönen 52, Nick Heidfeld 36, Robert Kubica 24, Giancarlo Fisichella 17, Heikki Kovalainen 15, Alexander Wurz 13, Mark Webber 8, David Coulthard 8, Jarno Trulli 7, Nico Rosberg 5, Takuma Sato 4, Ralf Schumacher 2, Sebastian Vettel 1, Jenson Button 1.
F1 constructors world championship - McLaren-Mercedes 138 points, Ferrari 111, BMW Sauber 61, Renault 32, Williams-Toyota 18, Red Bull-Renault 16, Toyota 9, Super Aguri-Honda 4, Honda 1.
V8 Supercar Rd 7 - Garth Tander 72 points, Jamie Whincup 52, Craig Lowndes 50, Will Davison 40, Mark Winterbottom 32, James Courtney 32, Russell Ingall 30, Mark Skaife 30, Rick Kelly 23, Greg Murphy 16, Lee Holdsworth 16, Paul Morris 16, Todd Kelly 16, Jason Richards 14, Dean Canto 6, Jack Perkins 6, Steven Johnson 6, John Bowe 5, Max Wilson 5, Steven Richards 4, Jason Bargwanna 3, John Bowe 2, Cameron McConville 2.
V8 Supercar Championship driver standings (after 7 of 14 rounds) - Garth Tander 369 points, Rick Kelly 359, Jamie Whincup 285, Craig Lowndes 263, Todd Kelly 261, Mark Skaife 249, Will Davison 172, Mark Winterbottom 172, James Courtney 157, Russell Ingall 155, Steve Richards 149, Steven Johnson 142, Greg Murphy 113, Lee Holdsworth 81, Jason Richards 68, Paul Morris 54, Jason Bright 50, Max Wilson 39, Paul Radisich 36, Steve Owen 35, Dean Canto 34, Jason Bargwanna 28, John Bowe 17, Shane Price 16, Cameron McConville 16, Andrew Jones 8, Jack Perkins 6, Fabian Coulthard 2, Alan Gurr 2.
V8 Supercar teams championship - Toll HSV Dealer Team 728 points, Team Vodafone 548, Holden Racing Team 510, Ford Performance Racing 321, Jim Beam Racing 314, Stone Brothers Racing 312, Tasman Motorsport 181, Garry Rogers Motorsport 115, WPS/WOW Racing 67, Team Sirromet Wines 56, Fujitsu Racing 52, Team Kiwi Racing 36, Autobarn Racing 35, Jack Daniel's Racing 22, Glenfords Racing 17, Supercheap Auto Racing 16, Team BOC 8.
Remaining V8 Supercar Championship rounds - Oran Park, August 17-19; Sandown 500, September 14-16; Bathurst 1000, October 4-7; Surfers Paradise, October 18-21; Bahrain, November 1-3; Symmons Plains, November 16-18; Phillip Island, November 30-December 2.
Champ Car world series standings (after 8 of 16 rounds) - Sebastien Bourdais 194 points, Robert Doornbos 174, Will Power 169, Justin Wilson 165, Simon Pagenaud 143, Alex Tagliani 134, Neel Jani 129, Graham Rahal 126, Oriol Servia 121, Bruno Junqueira 108.
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