MOTORSPORT: Big races secure, all else is turmoil

Clipsal 500 certain until 2021, GP extension close

The V8 Supercar Championship began with carnage and controversy in Adelaide, which is locked in now as the season opener until 2021.

Melbourne’s Grand Prix is about to be locked in again too in the Formula One World Championship, it seems, perhaps for as few as two years beyond 2015 or as many as five.

F1 supremo Bernie Ecclestone has told Melbourne’s Herald Sun newspaper a contract extension “will happen” – although it may not be before the race in 13 days. And it won’t be Ecclestone but others signing the F1 end of the contract with the Victorian government, since he stepped aside as a director of the key company in that business.

A London High Court judge also recently described Ecclestone as untruthful and unreliable, said he had made a corrupt deal and that US$44 million he paid a jailed German banker was a bribe. A German court may decide in a trial due to start next month whether he should be jailed for up to 10 years over that payment.

F1 pre-season testing has finished with top team Red Bull Racing not having completed a race distance in 12 days on track – and four-time world champion Sebastian Vettel not doing a full lap on the second last day in Bahrain.

The Australian Rally Championship is underway too, with a Mazda2 winning the opening Power Stage, the first heat easily and the second narrowly to take maximum points from Canberra’s National Capital Rally.

Five makes but Holden still dominant force

It was a mega start to the V8 Supercar Championship at Adelaide’s Clipsal 500, especially with Volvo’s stunning second place in one of the three races and the spectacular rollover of Jason Bright’s Holden.

There was huge controversy over the new restart system and reigning champion Jamie Whincup was pinged 25 points after the third race, which dropped him three places in the standings.

But, now that the dust and noise have settled, a few perspectives.

Aside from the brilliance of 20-year-old New Zealander Scott McLaughlin’s drive in one of the new Volvo S60s in Saturday’s twilight race, winning a last-lap squabble with Whincup, eight of the nine podium positions for the weekend went to Holden drivers. All the races were won by Holdens, the top three drivers in the standings – Craig Lowndes, Fabian Coulthard and Shane Van Gisbergen - all race Commodores, as does the fifth, Sunday winner James Courtney.

Nissan’s Rick Kelly is fourth, promoted a place by Whincup’s penalty, Ford’s Mark Winterbottom is sixth and James Moffat, another Nissan driver, 10th.

The other seven in the top 10 are all Holden men.

Coulthard is second without a podium (he had two fifths and a fourth), McLaughlin had another top 10 finish (seventh in the first race), while Erebus Mercedes only finished in the top 10 once throughout the weekend (Will Davison in race two).

So, despite all the thrills and spills, Holden is still the car to be in to win in V8 Supercar racing. For now anyway.

V8 Supercars Championship driver standings after three races
1. Craig Lowndes (Triple Eight Race Engineering) 282 points; 2. Fabian Coulthard (Brad Jones Racing) 230; 3. Shane Van Gisbergen (Tekno Autosports) 221; 4. Rick Kelly (Nissan Motorsport) 198; 5. James Courtney (Holden Racing Team) 192; 6. Mark Winterbottom (Ford Performance Racing) 189; 7. Jamie Whincup (Triple Eight Race Engineering) 174; 8. Tim Slade (Walkinshaw Performance) 163; 9. Garth Tander (Holden Racing Team) 150; 10. James Moffat (Nissan Motorsport) 140.

V8 Supercar team standings
1. Triple Eight Race Engineering 481 points; 2. Holden Racing Team 367; 3. Brad Jones Racing 296; 4. Nissan Motorsport (Moffat-Caruso cars) 273; 5. Nissan Motorsport (Kelly brothers cars) 268; 6. Ford Performance Racing 240; 7. Tekno Autosports 221; 8. Erebus Motorsport 183.

Twilight comes up short in ‘litmus test’ 
V8 Supercar chief executive James Warburton said in a “State of the (V8) Nation” address on Saturday morning that that evening’s twilight race would be a “litmus test” for that timeslot.

The verdict was not great, with OzTAM figures showing an average of 460,000 viewers in key state capitals for the telecast of that 125km race compared with 557,000 for Adelaide’s 250km Saturday afternoon race last year.

The twilight result is perhaps not quite that bad, as the 460,000 did not include a Perth figure – only Sydney (120,000), Melbourne (127,000), Brisbane (120,000) and Adelaide (93,000) – and may have been dragged down by the screening of half a second-tier development series race immediately after Seven’s news in Sydney and Melbourne.

The first race on Saturday afternoon this year averaged 381,000 in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Adelaide. Yesterday’s 250km race averaged 647,000 in the five capitals, down 47,000 on last year’s 694,000.

The breakdown of yesterday’s audience was 157,000 in Sydney, 150,000 in Melbourne, 146,000 in Brisbane, 151,000 in Adelaide and 43,000 in Perth.

Warburton confirmed on Saturday that, with the championship’s switch to Fox pay television next year as part of the new $241 million six-year deal, the only six rounds to be simulcast on the Ten free-to-air network will be Adelaide, Townsville, Sandown (Melbourne), Bathurst, Gold Coast and Sydney (Homebush).

Ten and its secondary channel One will show delayed highlights packages of other races in the championship and revive its RPM program.

Warburton said it would be for Fox to announce in time the price for fans to watch V8 Supercars from next year on its pay service.

International expansion of the championship also is back on the agenda, with hopes of returning to Texas and “twinning” it with another American round as well an event in at least one other country besides the annual New Zealand trip.

F1 Red Bulls could be two or three laps down in Oz
Less than two weeks out from the Australian Grand Prix the driver who has dominated the sport in recent times, Sebastian Vettel, says Red Bull Racing has “lots of different problems” with the RB10 model he and new Australian teammate Daniel Ricciardo are to race in Melbourne.

Vettel did not complete a lap of Bahrain’s Sakhir circuit on Saturday but did 77 on the final day of pre-season testing last night. He was 4.190 seconds slower than the day’s pacesetter, Mercedes factory driver Lewis Hamilton.

On the form from three four-day tests – the first at Jerez in Spain and two in Bahrain – the Red Bulls could be two or three laps down at the chequered flag in Melbourne, if they make it to the finish.

Vettel said everyone within RBR was “extremely motivated” to fix the problems with its first car of the new 1.6-litre turbocharged engine era, “but it doesn’t happen overnight”.

“We hope to have a decent start to the season in Melbourne [on March 14-16], but at this stage obviously reliability is still a big question mark,” Vettel said.

“We know how serious it is ... on [engine supplier] Renault’s side and our side.”

Williams, using Mercedes power for the first year after its worst season on record, set the fastest time in Bahrain with veteran Brazilian recruit Felipe Massa in the cockpit. Its Finnish youngster Valtteri Bottas also was quick in the car.

The Mercedes-powered Force India car was on the pace too, but the factory team is thought to be the best prepared for Melbourne, while McLaren – in its last year with Mercedes engines before changing to Honda in 2015 – was a little disappointed with its form.

Ferrari was generally about a second a lap slower than whichever Mercedes team set the pace each day.

RBR team principal Christian Horner claimed the RB10 was “a good car performance-wise” but that simply making the finish in Melbourne was the main aim for now.

“I have every confidence we have a good chassis. We just have to make sure we get the most out of what we have going into Melbourne and develop that in subsequent races,” Horner said.

It was the first ARC round win for the pair, who also compete regularly overseas and last year won the two-wheel-drive section in the American championship in a Ford Fiesta R2.

They won Friday’s Power Stage, Saturday’s first heat – by more than three minutes – in treacherously wet conditions and Sunday’s second heat by 5.4 seconds from Scott Pedder’s Walkinshaw Performance-prepared Renault Clio after a see-sawing tussle. The Mazda had the edge on the more open, flowing roads during Sunday’s heat in the Kowen Forest while the Renault was better suited to the tighter, more technical stages.

Evans, who drove a borrowed Volkswagen Polo in Canberra after Honda’s withdrawal at the end of last season, broke a driveshaft on Saturday and had a host of other woes and did not contest the second heat.

Pedder’s Renault broke a rear beam on Saturday, when a Ford Fiesta driven by Steven Mackenzie took second place ahead of a Citroen DS3 driven for the first time by Adrian Coppin. Coppin was second again on Sunday to wind up second overall for the round, with Pedder third for the weekend.

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