MOTORSPORT: Briscoe's American breakthrough

Aussie delivers 'The Captain' milestone glory
Just a week after he was painted as the bad boy for putting Danica Patrick out of the Indianapolis 500, Australia's Ryan Briscoe has scored his first IndyCar win -- giving the great Roger Penske his 300th victory in motorsport.

Surviving mayhem just four laps from the finish at the famed Milwaukee Mile oval track, Sydneysider Briscoe beat Indy 500 winner Scott Dixon, the Brisbane-born New Zealander, and jumped from 19th to eighth in the reunited (and rejuvenated) series.

The win also came on the 30th anniversary of the first Indy racing win, also at Milwaukee, by American great Rick 'Rocket Man' Mears, the four-time Indy 500 winner who is Briscoe's mentor in the awesome Penske operation.

Briscoe, mysteriously discarded by Toyota after being groomed for Formula 1, became the 15th winning driver for Penske in IndyCar racing. Briscoe dedicated his Milwaukee victory to Mears.

"I wouldn't have won it without his advice here," said Briscoe, who started 11th in the 26-car field and was as low as 14th early in the race.

And Penske said of Briscoe: "I think, today, he really got the monkey off his back. We knew how good he was. From the standpoint of his confidence, this is exactly what he needed to break the ice."

Working his way up to third place around two-thirds distance in the 360km race, Briscoe overtook Brazilian teammate, Helio Castroneves, and then Dixon in quick succession to hit the front.

Dixon closed right back up in the closing laps and put Briscoe under pressure through traffic, briefly getting alongside him with five laps to go. Then Marco Andretti slid up the track in turn one and clipped Ed Carpenter's car, which spun and hit the wall. Indy 500 runner-up, Brazilian Vitor Meira, struck Andretti and got airborne.

Briscoe braked suddenly to miss Meira by less than a metre, then idled around under caution to take the chequered flag -- and put the crash with Patrick at The Brickyard behind him.

Patrick finished ninth at Milwaukee, a lap down, while the other Australian in the race, Will Power, was 14th, two laps down, after starting fourth.

Brazilian Tony Kanaan, winner the previous two years at Milwaukee, was third, ahead of Dixon's British teammate, Dan Wheldon, and Castroneves fifth -- to remain second to Dixon in the championship.

Dixon led the most laps, 147 of the 225, to Briscoe's 36 but was happy to survive with second place.

"Briscoe, you've got to give him credit -- he drove the wheels off that thing," Dixon said.

"He could really take advantage of the high line when I tried a couple of times and nearly ended up in the fence. It was a hell of a race towards the end."

Briscoe, who had crashed in three of the five earlier races this season, said: "A million things went through my mind when I saw all that smoke (from the Andretti-Carpenter-Meira crash). With a couple of laps to go, I knew how to keep Dixon behind me, (but) I think I'd have been in tears if I didn't get through."

IndyCar series standings after 6 races: Scott Dixon 234 points; Helio Castroneves 206; Dan Wheldon 185; Tony Kanaan 174; Danica Patrick 144; Marco Andretti 142; Oriol Servia 140; Ryan Briscoe 134; Ed Carpenter 132; Hideki Mutoh 131.

New Subaru flies but Loeb on top
Frenchman Sebastien Loeb scored his fifth win from seven rounds of this year's world rally championship at the Acropolis Rally in Greece to take the series lead, but the big thing to come out of the weekend was the competitiveness of the new Subaru.

Although Australia's Chris Atkinson was a non-finisher, he won a stage in the Impreza WRC2008 while his Norwegian teammate and former world champion Petter Solberg finished second to Citroen superstar Loeb, with Ford's Mikko Hirvonen third.

Loeb led by almost half a minute going into the last day and pulled away to finish 1min9.5sec ahead of Solberg, while Hirvonen finished 1:56.1 behind.

Estonia's Urmo Aava was fourth in another Citroen, while Loeb's factory teammate, Spaniard Dani Sordo, was fifth.

Loeb now has 50 points, one more than Hirvonen, and Atkinson is still third on 31 points; but Ford still heads the manufacturers' standings by two points.

Atkinson's hopes of a big points haul in Greece were wrecked when his car would not fire up for the second stage on the second day, traced to an electrical failure in the starter motor. After his lightning opening when resuming on day three, Atkinson had a spin on the second stage of the last morning while running third fastest and damaged his rear suspension when he hit a rock. He completed the stage but then retired from one of the roughest rallies in WRC history.

"It obviously hasn't been a good weekend for points for us, but other people have had bad luck this year and we were just unlucky this time," Atkinson said.

"We wanted to see what the car would do and it felt good on the final morning, which showed in the speed. It's good to get the first stage win for the new car on its first rally. We can be faster, though, as there is still more to come.

Excited teammate Solberg said: "This car has so much potential. I mean, so much. This is it, we're coming back! First time in the new car, second is not bad at all!"

And Subaru team boss David Richard said: "The many lessons we have learned here will stand us in good stead for the second half of the season."

Low and behold we wake up two days later to read in Sydney's Sunday Telegraph that the legendary Dick Johnson has "called for the V8 Supercars board to be sacked after the governing body implemented a rugby league-style salary cap to cut costs".

"Johnson predicted V8 racing would become as 'boring as batshit' after Supercars ordered teams to cut $1 million from their running costs over the next two years," wrote Sunday Telegraph scribe, James Phelps.

Johnson was quoted as saying independent people were needed as the existing board "don't really have any direction at the moment".

Specifically on cutting engine costs, Johnson said: "They are costing us money, not saving it. We are dogs chasing our tails. The teams that have got the money will go and spend it elsewhere."

The Times of London is still reporting that Mosley and his closest supporters are "quietly confident" he will win the vote on whether he is fit to remain in light of his S&M sex orgy with five prostitutes.

The grounds for this confidence are, according to The Times, are Mosley's "formidable personal power base" within the FIA and because he "has conducted business in an intimidating style and many people are scared of him".

However, even his old mate, F1 commercial tsar Bernie Ecclestone, has now said he ought to go.

The Australian Automobile Association, the national umbrella organisation of state motoring clubs, was among groups from 24 countries that called in a letter on May 28 for Mosley to step down. However, the Confederation of Australian Motor Sport has still not made known its stance. Nor, even, is it clear whether the CAMS delegate to the FIA, Garry Connelly, has to vote according to instructions from CAMS or whether he is free to decide for himself how to cast his vote.

Indeed, much is unclear about this EGM.

There are even suggestions that rather than all 222 members of the FIA general assembly getting to vote the number may be reduced to something like 180 because some member organisations have not paid their financial dues.

Nothing has been heard publicly yet of the report British QC Anthony Scrivener was commissioned by the FIA to do. That may surface in the hours leading up to, or at, the EGM, as may the outcome of another investigation by Lord Stevens of Kirkwhelpington.

It is clear that most F1 teams, other than Ferrari and Renault, sponsors and circuit promoters want nothing more to do with Mosley, but tomorrow's meeting is not for them -- it is only for members of the FIA assembly.

The Times has said that if Mosley is voted out his place will be taken by Michel Boeri, head of the FIA Senate, until another EGM is held within four months. Names touted as longer-term replacements include Jean Todt, who headed the Ferrari F1 team throughout Michael Schumacher's dominant years, former F1 driver Gerhard Berger and rally legend, Ari Vatanen.

It's all in the melting pot, but ahead of tomorrow's big meeting here are a few views to contemplate:

Ed Gorman writing in The Times: "You get the impression that a lot of the club presidents from distant lands are 'Mosley men' come hell or high water and that is why he has chosen to have his fate decided in this way. None of us know how strong the bonds are, or how hard others are working to break them. I would not like to bet on it just now, even if I am not sure it matters -- in the long run -- whether Mosley wins or not."

Sir Jackie Stewart, triple F1 world champion and strong Mosley critic: "The problem is that some people are concerned this won't be a secret ballot. Not one F1 team has said anything publicly, even though privately they're all saying he has to go. They're all scared that if they do say anything and he remains in power then they may be penalised... Mosley is now so damaged that he can no longer effectively represent the FIA. Were he the CEO of any company, he would have had to resign immediately...

"No one wants to see him! How can he go to the European Parliament to make F1's case, or speak to heads of state? He can't. No head of a multi-national company, for whom image is everything, would be seen talking to him or meeting him and there's a big risk of some major companies no longer being involved in motorsport if this continues. The damage he's doing to F1 is considerable. The bottom line is whatever argument he presents he cannot possibly perform his functions as FIA president."

And Kevin Garside writing in The Telegraph in London: "F1 is engaged in its own episode of The Sopranos. ... Bernie Ecclestone's decision to make public his views on the position of Max Mosley is equivalent to waking up to a horse's head on your pillow."

But, remember, this is not all about F1 -- it's about those who get to vote at the FIA EGM.

Nascar.com reported that the Coca-Cola 600 drew a 4.7 final rating compared with the Indy 500's 4.5 rating -- which it said was a 4 per cent margin.

"To be able to have one of our regular races -- one that isn't the Daytona 500 -- outperform every other motorsport in America is great," said Ramsey Poston, NASCAR's managing director of corporate communications.

Of the season overall, Poston said: "Kyle Busch has been a huge story this year, love him or hate him. We have 12 races under our belt, and we have eight different winners. All the manufacturers have won. All the major teams have won races. That's the kind of competition and intrigue that keeps people watching and coming back."

Quite a different scene to F1, where Ferrari and McLaren have won all of the past 24 races.

Incidentally, a blown right front tyre caused Aussie Marcos Ambrose to slam into the wall at Dover International Raceway to end a frustrating Nationwide Series NASCAR race after he had qualified a promising 12th. Ambrose dropped a spot to 15th in the series on 1443 points.

Image credit: BAMMedia - IndyCar Series Media

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