MOTORSPORT: Button for Suzuka 1000

Semi-retired British Formula 1 star Jenson Button will race a Honda NSX-GT prepared by Team Mugen at the 46th international Suzuka 1000km race — Japan’s longest running car race — on August 27.

The McLaren-Honda driver and 2009 F1 world champion will join the team for a one-off appearance in the GT500 class of the race, which forms round six of Japan’s SUPER GT Series.

He will join regular drivers Hideki Mutoh and Daisuke Nakajima, following two days of tyre testing on June 6-7 at Suzuka, which will host the 1000km race for the last time.

“After driving an NSX Concept-GT at Honda Racing Thanks Day last December, I became interested in racing in SUPER GT,” said Button.

“I spoke with Honda and they have given me the chance to race at the Suzuka 1000km. As an F1 driver and a member of Team Mugen, I will push to win. I am very much looking forward to racing in front of my Japanese fans again.”
Rally Oz winner joins Citroen
The winner of last year’s Rally Australia finally has a top-level World Rally Championship drive again.

Andreas Mikkelsen will drive a C3 for Citroen at next week’s Rally Italy on the island of Sardinia and the French manufacturer is trying to find a way to extend the relationship.

The Norwegian gave Volkswagen a triumphant end to its four-year reign in the WRC at Coffs Harbour last November in Rally Oz – the last event before its withdrawal as the German group contained costs and damage in the fallout from the Dieselgate emissions scandal.

Mikkelsen’s VW teammates, multiple world champion Sebastien Ogier and Finn Jari-Matti Latvala, promptly found new drives with Ford squad M-Sport and the returning Toyota respectively, but Mikkelsen has had only three second-class starts in a Skoda Fabia so far this season.

While Citroen is fourth (that is, last) of the four top-level makes so far this season – with 85 points after six rounds, behind Ford/M-Sport on 199, Hyundai 173 and Toyota 113 – it holds the record for WRC manufacturer titles with eight from its days with Sebastien Loeb.

Mikkelsen will replace Frenchman Stephane Lefebvre in Italy and Citroen – which also has Northern Irishman Kris Meeke, Irishman Craig Breen and the UAE’s Khalid Al-Qassimi on its books – wants to retain the Norwegian, if it can find machinery for him.

“Andreas has nothing to prove to us,” Citroen team principal Yves Matton said.

“We don’t want drivers to come to us just once. Car availability is difficult though. We will take it step-by-step.”

Mikkelsen – who has been testing with Citroen this week, and earlier tried two of the more powerful, more aerodynamically-aggressive rally cars, the 2017 Hyundai i20 Coupe and the Polo that VW had developed – declared himself “really, really happy” with his Citroen tie-up.

“This is what I have been waiting for and looking for [since Rally Australia] – the chance to be back at the top level,” he said.

“Obviously this year the championship is destroyed for me, but what’s important now is to be in the best position possible for next year.”
AP4 Toyota Yaris for ARC leader Bates
Two more turbocharged four-wheel-drive Asia-Pacific (AP4) rally cars are expected in the Australian Rally Championship, one of them to be driven by series leader Harry Bates, at the next round – Rally South Australia in mid-September.

Bates, 22, has won two of the three ARC rounds so far this year – at Ballarat and his home event, the National Capital Rally, in Canberra last weekend – in a Toyota Corolla S2000, but is set to debut an AP4 Toyota Yaris at Rally SA.

Work on the Yaris has been slowed by Neal Bates Motorsport ‘s work on Toyota 86s for circuit racing, but NBM hopes to have the Yaris completed by the end of July.

The elder son of four-time national champion Neal Bates wants to drive the new car in SA as preparation for November’s Rally Australia, which doubles as the final round of the ARC.

An AP4 Peugeot 208 also is in the works for Tasmanian rally driver Marcus Walkem at Race Torque Engineering in Western Australia.

Triple ARC champion Eli Evans gave his AP4 MINI Cooper its debut in the National Capital Rally after delays forced him to run a borrowed Peugeot in the earlier rounds.

Evans won three stages in Canberra’s Saturday heat despite set-up problems but retired from the event with a broken front control arm.
Panoz to unveil his ‘Holy Grail’ at Le Mans
Don Panoz, the American pharmaceutical tycoon who was the patron of the radical DeltaWing sports car, is to reveal this month what he’s billing as “a never-before attempted road racing concept”.

Panoz, 82, also has called it his ‘Holy Grail’ and it’s expected to be an all-electric car for next year’s 24 Hours of Le Mans.

It is a project of Panoz’s Green4U Technologies, into which he has folded the DeltaWing Technology Group.

The announcement will come at Le Mans on June 15 ahead of this year’s ‘24’ on June 17-18.

The project is expected to be given next year’s Garage 56 entry at Le Mans, reserved for cars with new technology.

BMW also is set to be back at Le Mans next year with its new M8 big-body coupe.

It last competed there in 2011 with the M3 GT2.

The M8 GTE’s endurance race debut is expected to be at the Daytona 24-Hour in the US at the end of next January.
Next three GPs uphill for Ricciardo
While Daniel Riccardo has been on the podium at the past two Formula 1 World Championship rounds, Red Bull Racing team principal Christian Horner has flagged that the “the next three circuits are really tough for us”.

They are at Montreal in Canada (where carsales.com.au global ambassador Ricciardo scored his first F1 victory three years ago), Baku in Azerbaijan and the Red Bull-owned track at Spielberg in Austria.

“They are going to be our biggest challenges of the calendar perhaps bar Monza (the super-high-speed track that hosts the Italian Grand Prix in September),” Horner said.

“If we can perform OK at those next three venues, then with what’s in the pipeline for further in the season, I think the second half of the season can be stronger than the first half.”

Horner said Red Bull’s Renault-powered RB13 car was suffering from a lack of engine boost for the third and final stint of qualifying sessions.

Meanwhile, Mercedes team executive chairman Niki Lauda has claimed his outfit’s run of three consecutive seasons of constructor and driver championships will end unless Ferrari’s leading driver Sebastian Vettel is a non-finisher in at least one of the remaining 14 GPs.

Mercedes is struggling, particularly on Pirelli’s ultra-soft tyre compound, and Vettel, with three wins and three seconds from the six races so far, has a 25-point lead over Merc’s Lewis Hamilton.

“Vettel needs to retire at least once, otherwise it’s over,” Lauda said.

“Ferrari has got a momentum going.

“If it stays like this the gap will become huge – alarming.”
Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff said Ferrari had started development of its 2017 car in December 2015 – three months ahead of Mercedes.

While Ferrari is back on top, Hamilton brought some perspective by pointing out that Vettel and his teammate Kimi Raikkonen will start incurring grid penalties soon for exceeding the allocated four engines per driver which will make it harder for them to win races.

Vettel is already on his fourth turbocharger and Raikkonen the third heat unit on his 1.6-litre V6.
Nissan may take over from Renault in Formula E
Renault’s dominant entry in the Formula E electric open-wheeler global championship may be switched into the name of its Japanese partner Nissan, according to Autosport.com.

“Nissan has been searching for a flagship motorsport program since axing its failed LMP1 (Le Mans Prototype) project at the end of 2015,” Autosport has reported.

“With Nissan being one of the biggest sellers of electric vehicles in the world, it would be the ideal option for the [Renault-Nissan] alliance to maintain a presence in Formula E in place of Renault.”

Nissan would be the first Japanese manufacturer in Formula E.

Renault, through its association with French team e.dams, won both the manufacturer and driver titles last season and its champion driver, Sebastien Buemi, has won five of the first six races this season.

The reason for a Renault pullback on Formula E would be that it has massively increased its Formula 1 program since reverting to a full factory team last year as well as supplying Red Bull and Toro Rosso with its power units and wants to maximise the value of that investment.

Autosport said Nissan could adopt Renault’s Formula E technology and take over its entry in the electric series for the next season starting late this year.

While it would remain aligned with e.dams, there would be a snag in retaining Swiss driver Buemi, who also races in the World Endurance Championship for Toyota.

WEC is a priority for Buemi and Toyota would be unlikely to let him represent a Japanese rival in Formula E.
Sato’s mammoth pay day for Indy 500 win
Takuma Sato, the first Japanese driver to win the Indianapolis 500, received a cheque for $US2,458,129 – almost $A3.33 million – a day later for his achievement.

Australians James Davison and Will Power, who were eliminated in a pile-up 17 laps from the finish but were classified 20th and 23rd respectively, received $US355,129 and $US388,129 prizemoney respectively.

They both led two laps of the race – Davison from 33rd and last on the grid, after only landing his drive after qualifying.

Fernando Alonso, somewhat controversially adjudged rookie of the year ahead of third-placed Ed Jones, got $US305.805 for 24th place – after his Honda engine expired – and a $US50,000 bonus as the top rookie.

The total prize pool for the event was almost $US13.2 million.
Sato’s best pay day was a little smaller than American Alex Rossi’s last year ($US2,548,743) for winning on debut, while the $US3,048,005 that New Zealander Scott Dixon was paid in 2008 remains the record.

Dixon looks set to drive in IndyCar’s double-header in Detroit this weekend – 70 laps races on the Belle Island circuit on Saturday and Sunday – after his spectacular Indianapolis crash.

However, Mexican Esteban Gutierrez – who had three seasons in F1 and has been in Formula E – will fill the seat of injured Frenchman Sebastien Bourdais that Davison filled at Indianapolis.

Bourdais is likely to miss most if not all of the rest of the IndyCar season as well the chance to defend last year’s class victory in the 24 Hours of Le Mans with Ford.

IndyCar veteran Tony Kanaan has been named in the Frenchman’s place in one of the four Ford GTs, partnering American Joey Hand and German Dirk Muller, at Le Mans – where Brazilian Kanaan will be a rookie.

Australian Ryan Briscoe is going back to Le Mans in one of the Fords with Scott Dixon and Brit Richard Westbrook. They were third in the GTE Pro class last year.

Meanwhile, another Brazilian veteran, Helio Castroneves, now leads the IndyCar series after his second place in the Indianapolis 500 – the sixth of 17 races scheduled in the series.

Apart from winning the Indy 500 three times, Castroneves now also has been runner-up three times at The Brickyard in 20 starts in the Greatest Spectacle in Racing.
RIP Lola’s Eric Broadley, an engineer’s engineer
Eric Broadley, the designer synonymous with Lola racing cars, died this week, aged 88.

Lolas were most prominent in Australia in the days of Formula 5000 and are now a huge presence in historic racing.
Among Broadley’s countless projects were several forays into Indy and F1 racing, the latter with little success.

However, he was renowned as “an engineer’s engineer”, his Lolas competing against many other great makes – including Brabham and Ron Tauranac’s Ralt – and his factories were a stepping stone for many other famous motor racing engineers, including Patrick Head, John Barnard, Ralph Bellamy and Ben Bowlby.

Arguably the most beautiful of Broadley’s creations was the T70 sports car.