MOTORSPORT: Big turns in wheels of fortune

'Junior' won today’s Sprint Cup race at Michigan International Speedway, four years and two days – or 1462 days and 143 races – after his last Cup victory.

Australia’s Marcos Ambrose made history at Michigan over the weekend with a pole position lap averaging 203.241mph – more than 327kmh. Ambrose was the first driver to top the magic 200mph in NASCAR in 25 years, and the first in the sport’s history to do it at a track other than Daytona or Talladega.

Only three other drivers had taken poles in NASCAR at more than 200mph – Benny Parsons, Cale Yarborough and Bill Elliott.

On the resurfaced Michigan oval 19 drivers topped 200. But Richard 'The King' Petty was blown away by the speeds, especially by his Tasmanian-born driver Ambrose. Petty’s average when he took the pole at Michigan 40 years ago was 157.607mph.

Ambrose admitted his qualifying feat gave him “good bragging rights” but in the race, delayed two hours by rain, he finished ninth, which still equaled his best result of the season.

Earnhardt gave Chevrolet its seventh win in 15 Cup rounds this year and he’s now just four points behind Ford’s series leader Matt Kenseth.

Reigning champion Tony Stewart notched his sixth top five finish of the season in finishing second, ahead of Kenseth, while Juan Pablo Montoya’s eighth place, just ahead of Ambrose, matched his best finish of the year.

Early season championship leader Greg Biffle was fourth in his Ford, ahead of five-time champion Jimmie Johnson, who had started from the back of the field after an engine change.

Ambrose remains 17th in the championship, five places ahead of teammate Aric Almirola. Among other drivers he heads are Montoya, four-time series champion Jeff Gordon, Jeff Burton, Mark Martin and last year’s Petty teammate AJ Allmendinger, now with Penske Racing.

Lowndes’ victory at Darwin’s Hidden Valley on Sunday afternoon was the 83rd of his career, came just days after his Order of Australia Medal, was an early present for his 38th birthday this week, and could be a fillip for the championship.

Whincup grabbed the series lead with his victory ahead of Ford Performance Racing’s Davison and Mark Winterbottom on Saturday and, while he could not hold off Lowndes in the closing laps on Sunday, the pair gave Team Vodafone its first race quinella of the year.

The two Holden victories in Darwin came after FPR’s seven consecutive wins over the previous three rounds. Davison, Winterbottom and Whincup had been the only winners this season before Lowndes.

Ahead of the Townsville round on July 7-8, Whincup leads the championship by 38 points, with Winterbottom another 11 points back and Lowndes still 247 points off the lead as he ponders his chances of his first series title since 1999.

A highlight of the Darwin round was Michael Caruso’s recovery to fourth in Sunday’s race after stalling on the grid and dropping to last in his Garry Rogers Motorsport Commodore.

Rumblings intensified in the Top End about the Car of the Future to be introduced next year.

However, as the celebrations and post-mortems roll on there are various comments in the wake of the race worthy of recording here.

Firstly, from Ben Bowlby, designer of the radical DeltaWing so unfortunately biffed out of the race at quarter distance.

“First of all, the concept is proven,” Bowlby declared.

“At the end of the day, the little Nissan DeltaWing, weighing only 500kg, powered by the 300-horsepower Nissan DIG-T engine and using Michelin tyres was able to run basically with half the fuel and tyre consumption and yet show all of the speed of a typical Le Mans prototype.

“It really has been a huge success… It has been an incredible opportunity to showcase a car that is truly an innovative experiment. In the future let’s hope we can bring it back as a racecar, and not just an experimental vehicle. We’d love to see a future for cars of this type which are all about high efficiency, low drag and low consumption.”

Audi rightfully is delighting in its latest chapter of Le Mans history, becoming the first manufacturer to win it with hybrid technology and four-wheel-drive – its two Audi R18 e-tron Quattros finishing first and second, ahead of one of its now traditional turbodiesels.

“We have always been pushing through the years to bring new technologies to run at Le Mans in racecars, then to push them to their limit - and then bring this technology into our road cars and make it available to our customers is why we go racing," said Audi’s motorsport chief Dr Wolfgang Ullrich.

“It was a very big challenge to develop a hybrid car in such a short time that is quick and able to hold up for 24 hours. The fact that, as in 2001 with the TFSI engine and in 2006 with the TDI, we managed to be successful right on the first run simply proves the level of technological expertise that is available at Audi.”

Nigel Stepney, chief engineer and team manager of JRM Racing that fielded the Honda HPD ARX-03a prototype and finished the great race sixth (and second of the privateers) at its first attempt, rated the experience “a feeling that goes beyond anything I’ve experienced before”.

That’s from a man who worked with Michael Schumacher on all seven Formula One world titles the German won! (Later Stepney was banned from the sport briefly for his part in the 2007 'Spygate' controversy).

Driver David Brabham, a Le Mans outright victor three years ago with Peugeot and twice a class winner, reckoned JRM’s debut finish had been “an amazing achievement”, while team principal James Rumsey said: “To finish, and finish well, in our third event as a team at our first Le Mans is almost indescribable”.

And Italian Giancarlo Fisichella rated driving a Ferrari 458 to victory in the GTE Pro class, finishing 17th outright, higher than his three-time grand prix wins in F1.

Australia’s Will Power finished 12th and was the last driver on the lead lap, while fellow Aussie and Penske teammate Ryan Briscoe ended two places further back and a lap down.

It was one of the rare Indy races in which an Aussie did not lead a lap but Power remains the series leader, while Hinchcliffe’s podium finish hoisted him into second, above New Zealander Scott Dixon, who finished one place ahead of Power at Milwaukee.

The third Penske driver, Brazilian Helio Castroneves, was sixth, while the previous week’s victory in Texas, Englishman Justin Wilson, had an engine blow-up before half distance.

Reports of the meeting indicate that there are moves to formalise cost controls in Formula One next year. However, the supposed “hot potato” of the change in engine formula scheduled for 2014, with the introduction of 1.6-litre turbocharged V6s in place of the existing normally-aspirated V8s, appears not to have been mentioned.

FIA president Jean Todt pointed out that, as part of the moves for cost containment, the number of engines per driver already had been reduced from eight now to five in 2014 and four in 2015.

The deadline for entries in next year’s F1 world championship has been extended from July 15 to September 30 – a reflection of the delays in getting all teams to sign up to the next Concorde Agreement. Mercedes in particular has been holding out, wanting a slice of the F1 ownership pie ahead of any flotation of the business.

The major owner of shares in F1, private equity company CVC, has announced the sale of another stake to Waddell & Reed Investment Management Company and Ivy Investment Management Company for $500 million – after earlier deals totaling $1.6 billion.

The latest deal continues to value F1 at the $9.1 billion that had been mentioned in reports when it seemed the enterprise would be floated on the Singapore stock market this month, before that was postponed because of the global financial uncertainty.

The World Motor Sport Council confirmed that there will be 13 rounds of the World Rally Championship next year – and that Australia will be one of them.

The dates, and formal confirmation that NSW’s Coffs Harbour will be the Australian venue, are expected in September.

An announcement on a new WRC promoter has also been put off until September – six months after it was originally promised and despite an assurance of news at Friday’s meeting.

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