Geoffrey Harris•15 Apr 2013

NEWS

MOTORSPORT: BJR success perfect tribute to Richards

Brad Jones Racing and its veteran driver Jason Bright continued the giant-killing ways in the homeland of the team's departed favourite son Jason Richards, but ups and downs for the F1 Aussies in Shanghai

Young Aussie notches best finish in F1

Who would have thought? A Ford driver leading the V8 Supercar Championship when Holdens are winning so many races, and successive round wins for Brad Jones Racing.

BJR’s Jason Bright claimed the Jason Richards Memorial Trophy at New Zealand’s Pukekohe, a success that meant as much if not more to him than his Bathurst 1000 victory in 1998.

Seven drivers have won at the three rounds of this year’s championship – including 19-year-old Kiwi Scott McLaughlin becoming the category’s youngest victor, and Davison giving Ford its first triumph – and eight drivers were on the podium from the four races at Pukekohe.

In Formula One 23-year-old Australian Daniel Ricciardo has had his best finish in 34 races – seventh at the Chinese Grand Prix – but it was woe for Mark Webber.

Webber was left only 14th after failing to make it back to his pit in qualifying, was relegated to the back of the grid, the team opted to start him from the pitlane, he collided with Ricciardo’s Red Bull junior teammate Jean-Eric Vergne, had his right rear wheel come off after the resultant pitstop and was out after just 15 laps.

Webber has been given a three-place grid penalty for Bahrain next Sunday for the collision with Vergne.

The Red Bull team orders controversy from Malaysia was overtaken by the Chinese race but speculation has mounted that Webber will quit F1 at the end of the year to head Porsche’s re-entry to sports car racing.

Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso won the Chinese GP by more than 10 seconds from Kimi Raikkonen’s Lotus-Renault that had a damaged front wing and nose while Lewis Hamilton was third in a Mercedes – a second straight podium for the improving combination, and after qualifying fastest.

Sebastian Vettel, on a different tyre strategy to those on the podium, came from ninth on the grid to finish hard on Hamilton’s tail and retain his world championship lead.

Alonso’s victory was his 31st – equaling 1992 world champion Nigel Mansell in fourth on the list of GP winners behind Michael Schumacher (91), Alain Prost (51) and Ayrton Senna (41).

Australia’s NASCAR driver Marcos Ambrose was turned around by David Gilliland in the Sprint Cup race in Texas and was classified 19th as Kyle Busch won in a Toyota for the second time in seven races this season.

NASCAR impounded the rear-end housings of the two Penske Fords, forcing the team to make late changes before the race but Joey Logano and defending series champion Brad Keselowski still finished fifth and ninth. Keselowski is second to Chevrolet’s Jimmie Johnson in the series with Kyle Busch now third and Ambrose 18th.

Frenchman Sebastien Ogier completed a hat-trick of wins for the World Rally Championship’s new manufacturer participant Volkswagen, his Polo R finishing almost a minute ahead of Finn Mikko Hirvonen’s Citroen DS3 in the Rally of Portugal. Another Finn, Jari-Matti Latvala, lost four minutes after a broken driveshaft on the final day but still finished third in another VW. Ogier has shot to a 48 points lead in the championship.

Consistency keeps four ahead of multiple V8 Supercar race winners

The V8 Supercars were back where they belonged in NZ, on the upgraded permanent circuit at Pukekohe south of Auckland, and Jason Bright and BJR collecting the trophy in memory of the team’s late driver Jason Richards was a fitting outcome.

Bright scored a comfortable 5-second win in the weekend’s fourth race in his Holden Commodore after starting from pole position and second, fourth and sixth in the early 100km sprints.

“This is the one I really wanted to win. I put a lot of thought into it. The whole team wanted to take that trophy back to Albury (BJR’s base),” Bright said.

“Sitting on pole I had tears in my eyes watching Charlotte (Richards’ widow) and his two girls (Sienna, 5, and Olivia, 3) in front of the car.”

The tears were more visible post-race as Bright accepted the trophy from Sienna Richards.

“We thought about nothing but that trophy all weekend and it’s very special to take it home – one of the most memorable moments of my career (which includes 18 race wins),” Bright said.

“Jason (Richards, who died of a rare cancer in late 2011) was a very important part of BJR and I feel like I’m occupying his space at the moment.”

Consistency has become the key to this championship, with multiple race winners Bright and BJR teammate Fabian Coulthard sixth and fifth in the points behind three single-race winners – Ford Performance Racing’s Will Davison and Triple Eight Holden pair Jamie Whincup and Craig Lowndes – and winless Holden Racing Team driver Garth Tander.

HRT is on the improve, with Tander on the podium twice at Pukekohe – although teammate James Courtney slipped from third to eighth at this round.

Teenage Kiwi Scott McLaughlin, fifth heading into his home event was up to fourth on Saturday night after his historic win in the weekend’s first race but down in 10th by Sunday afternoon after putting his Garry Rogers Motorsport Commodore into a wall in the third race and not making the start of the fourth.

Holden has won eight of the championship races so far this year and nine of the top 10 drivers in the points are in Commodores, yet Davison has taken the lead in a Falcon.

FPR teammate Mark Winterbottom led three of the Pukekohe races and felt he had the quickest car but had his “worst ever weekend”.

Four-time series champion and the previous week’s leader Whincup was given a 15-point penalty for crippling Winterbottom’s steering in the second of two altercations between the pair in NZ.

Whincup’s Triple Eight team and Russell Ingall’s Walkinshaw Racing also were fined and given points penalties during the weekend for not having fully operational digital cameras for the use of race stewards.

New participant Nissan notched four top 10 finishes for the weekend – the best of them a seventh place by Rick Kelly, who wound up 10th overall for the weekend, who rated that “a strong improvement” from the previous week’s Tasmanian round and a bright sign for the Perth round on May 4-5.

“We’re really hitting our straps,” he said.

Erebus Motorsport can’t say that yet with its three AMG Mercedes E63s.

V8 Supercar Championship driver points after three rounds – 1. Will Davison (Ford) 697; 2. Jamie Whincup (Holden) 681; 3. Craig Lowndes (Holden) 591; 4. Garth Tander (Holden) 553; 5. Fabian Coulthard (Holden) 552; 6. Jason Bright (Holden) 539; 7. Shane Van Gisbergen (Holden) 532; 8. James Courtney (Holden) 510; 9. Jonathon Webb (Holden) 477; 10. Scott McLaughlin (Holden) 457.

Ricciardo says it could have been even better

Daniel Ricciardo reckoned he might have finished better than seventh in the Chinese GP had he not had to stop early for a change of nose on his Toro Rosso-Ferrari after a collision with the Mercedes of last year’s Shanghai victor Nico Rosberg.

“That early stop to change the nose affected our plans and towards the end of the race Felipe Massa’s (sixth-placed Ferrari) was looking bigger and bigger ahead of me,” Ricciardo said.

“Maybe I could have done ever better, but for now I’ll settle for seventh place.”

Ricciardo’s best finishes in his 33 previous GPs had been ninth place.

“I am really pleased to have scored my first points of the season and to confirm the qualifying performance (seventh),” he said.

“After Saturday afternoon (qualifying) I kept calm, knowing the real work was to be done in the race.

“The last time I had qualified this well was sixth in Bahrain last year and then I failed to score, so today I really wanted to show people what I could do.

“It’s great to have had a great race – especially or the team.

“Since the start of the season we (Toro Rosso) have had many changes in terms of personnel and it takes a while for that to gel, but it felt like it clocked into place.

“After the first two GPs (in Melbourne and Kuala Lumpur) we're a bit up and down I expect us to continue getting stronger from here on.

Toro Rosso team principal Franz Tost said Ricciardo had “produced a very good race with plenty of overtaking manoeuvres” after the premature pit stop.

How Shanghai went so sour for Webber

Fellow Aussie Mark Webber felt Shanghai “just wasn’t meant to be for some reason”.

“Every time I got in the car on Saturday and Sunday there was a problem, so I wasn’t able to show my true pace,” Webber said.

It all started to go wrong in the second segment of qualifying, when his RB9 ground to a halt with a fuel pressure problem. Red Bull Racing said there had been an error with the refuelling bowser, which meant there wasn’t enough fuel for the team to supply the mandatory one-litre fuel sample back in the pits, so Webber was sent to the back of the grid.

“It was a disappointing thing to happen, but I’m not getting too carried away by what happened,” Webber said. “It was just one of those things. It happened to Vettel in Abu Dhabi last year and it happened to me here.

“We need to understand what caused the problem and ensure it doesn’t happen again.”

The team opted to start Webber from the pitlane, allowing it to change his car’s set-up and improve its race pace.

“It was clear that I had a big workload ahead of me, so I needed a car that would give me the best chance of making progress,” Webber said.

“Straight-line speed was going to be important, so we made a few tweaks and decided on a pretty aggressive strategy about when to use both tyre compounds.”

Webber started the race on the fast-wearing option tyre and pitted after one lap to get on to the more durable medium compound, with the intention of making just two more stops during the race. However, that plan soon ended.

“I was coming back through the field quite nicely and then I came upon Jean-Eric at turn six. I came from a reasonable distance back, but he was really wide and it looked like he was giving me the corner.

“When we got to the apex he decided he wanted to place his car there as well – which he was entitled to do – and there wasn’t much I could do about it at that point because I was already committed.”

Webber pitted to replace his car’s broken nose and changed tyres, but his right-rear wheel came off on his out-lap and he was forced to retire. Stewards deemed the collision with Vergne to be Webber’s fault and have given him a three-place grid penalty for Bahrain.

“The boys said the wheel was secure when I left the pits, but it came off at Turn 14 and that was that – let’s hope that’s my bad luck for the year done in one weekend,” Webber said.

Formula One World Championship driver points after three of 19 rounds - 1. Sebastian Vettel (Germany, Red Bull-Renault) 52; 2. Kimi Raikkonen (Finland, Lotus-Renault) 49; 3. Fernando Alonso (Spain, Ferrari) 43; 4. Lewis Hamilton (Great Britain, Mercedes) 40; 5. Felipe Massa (Brazil, Ferrari 30); 6. Mark Webber (Australia, Red Bull-Renault) 26; 7. Nico Rosberg (Germany, Mercedes) 12; 8. Jenson Button (GB, McLaren-Mercedes) 12; 9. Romain Grosjean (France, Lotus-Renault) 11; 10. Paul Di Resta (GB, Force India-Mercedes) 8; 11. Daniel Ricciardo (Australia, Toro Rosso-Ferrari) 6; 12. Adrian Sutil (Germany, Force India-Mercedes) 6; 13. Nico Huelkenberg (Germany, Sauber-Ferrari) 5; 14. Sergio Perez (Mexico, McLaren-Mercedes) 2; 15. Jean-Eric Vergne (France, Toro Rosso-Ferrari) 1.

F1 constructor points - 1. Red Bull-Renault 78; 2. Ferrari 73; 3. Lotus-Renault 60; 4. Mercedes 52; 5. McLaren-Mercedes 14; 5. Force India-Mercedes 14; 7. Toro Rosso-Ferrari 7; 8. Sauber-Ferrari 5.

NASCAR Sprint Cup points after seven rounds – 1. Jimmie Johnson (Chevrolet) 269; 2. Brad Keselowski (Ford) 260; 3. Kyle Busch (Toyota) 251; 4. Greg Biffle (Ford) 239; 5. Carl Edwards (Ford) 234; 6. Dale Earnhardt Junior (Chevrolet) 234; 7. Kasey Kahne (Chevrolet) 232; 8. Clint Bowyer (Toyota) 208; 9. Joey Logano (Ford) 207; 10. Paul Menard (Chevrolet) 206. Australia’s Marcos Ambrose (Ford) is 18th in the series on 169 points.

World Rally Championship driver points after four rounds - 1. Sebastien Ogier (France, Volkswagen Polo R) 102; 2. Mikko Hirvonen (Finland, Citroen DS3) 48; 3. Sebastien Loeb (France, Citroen DS3) 43; 4. Mads Ostberg (Norway, Ford Fiesta RS) 32; 5. Jari-Matti Latvala (Finland, Volkswagen Polo R) 31; 6. Daniel Sordo (Spain, Citroen DS#) 27; 7. Thierry Neuville (Belgium, Ford Fiesta RS) 25. Australia’s Chris Atkinson (Citroen DS3) did not compete in Portugal but is 13th on 8 points.

WRC team points - 1. Volkswagen Motorsport 121; 2. Citroen Total Abu Dhabi World Rally Team 107; 3. Qatar M-Sport World Rally Team 55; 4. Qatar World Rally Team 36; 5. Abu Dhabi Citroen Total World Rally Team 27; 6. Jipocar Czech National Team 22; 7. Lotos WRC Team 12; 8. Volkswagen Motorsport 2.

Picture shows Jason Bright with Charlotte Richards, widow of the late Jason Richards – courtesy of Team BOC

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MOTORSPORT: BJR success perfect tribute to Richards

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