MOTORSPORT: Calendar clouds over V8 Supercars

Silence not golden on Gold Coast or Townsville, Red Bull Racing out to end F1 drought in Montreal, Will Power on probation, more penalties for NASCAR champs and Toyota detunes its engines

Finke Desert Race centre of this weekend’s Oz action

As speculation swirls about possible new manufacturer participants in V8 Supercars, Volvo is now confirmed as a starter and Chrysler is still touted as a prospect for 2014. Ford’s future participation is up in the air, but the big issue for next year could be the championship calendar.

While the Queensland government has not officially withdrawn its $7-8 million annual funding for the Gold Coast 600 its tourism minister Jann Stuckey has declined since this week’s state budget to commit to it beyond this year – and there is also now doubt about the $2-3 million set aside for the Townsville 400.

This uncertainty comes on top of the pending expiry of the contract for the Sydney 500, which began five years ago with a hefty injection of NSW taxpayer funds and smaller annual contributions, and the financial failure of last year’s late-addition round at Sydney Motorsport Park.

That event lost the Australian Racing Drivers Club more than $600,000, after which options for a more regular return to the calendar for the venue formerly known as Eastern Creek were not exercised.

Headway on addressing these difficulties has stalled this week after the death of prominent Sydney corporate director Richard Warburton, hit by a ute whose driver has been charged with multiple offences. Warburton's son James is the V8 Supercars chief executive.

The younger Warburton, formerly chief executive of the Ten Network and before that the senior sales whiz at the Seven Network, faces a battle to retain taxpayer subsidies for the Queensland and Sydney events as governments resist shelling out for them any longer.

Queensland treasurer Tim Nicholls made it clear before his budget this week that he could not see why V8 Supercars Australia should be handed money when it was a profitable organization, while in NSW the O’Farrell government appears to see the Sydney 500 as unwanted baggage of the former Labor regime.

Australia’s main motorsport activity this weekend is the Finke Desert Race – the two-day thrash for cars, buggies, quads and bikes from Alice Springs to the small Aputula (Finke) community and back – ahead of next week’s Darwin round of the V8 Supercars.

The Finke is the second round of the Australian Off-Road Championship on what Bruce Garland, a legendary competitor in such events, has labeled “the very worst road in Australia”.

“It is a brutal race, wet or dry, and any result is a bonus,” said Garland, competing again in an Isuzu D-MAX with long-time co-driver Harry Suzuki.

Last year’s winners Brad Gallard and Scott Modistach are back in their American-built 6-litre Geiser Brothers Trophy truck.

A prologue will be held Saturday morning with the two legs of the race for about 650 competitors on Sunday and Queen’s Birthday Monday.

Tyres remain at the eye of the storm in Formula One ahead of the seventh grand prix of the year in Montreal, Canada, early on Monday, Australian time.

Mercedes and tyre supplier Pirelli have been ordered by the ruling Federation Internationale de l’Automobile (FIA) to appear at a tribunal over the 1000km of testing they did at the Barcelona circuit in the three days after last month’s Spanish GP.

The issue has been the use of a 2013 F1 Mercedes and drivers Nico Rosberg and Lewis Hamilton.

Red Bull Racing (but not Mark Webber) and Ferrari claim Mercedes could have gained an advantage from the testing, but Pirelli and Mercedes say 90 per cent of it was trialing tyres for next year – when turbocharged V6 engines will replace this year’s V8s.

The FIA, headed by former Ferrari team boss Jean Todt, has indicated that – while group testing during the season has been banned – its concern is that all teams should have same opportunity to work with Pirelli.

Mercedes has said it was not even told what tyre compounds were being used and that it will explain the story in “an open and transparent manner” at the tribunal, unlikely to sit before mid-July.

“Sporting integrity is of primary importance to Mercedes-Benz and we have the utmost confidence in the due process of the FIA,” it said.

Concerns that Ferrari tested at Barcelona earlier with Pirelli have been dismissed by most of the F1 paddock because a 2011 Ferrari was used under an arrangement with the Italian manufacturer’s customer division Corse Clienti.

After the fuss about this year’s Pirelli tyres wearing too fast some new rubber will be tried in practice in Montreal and perhaps be introduced from the next GP – the British race at Silverstone.

In any case Pirelli is pondering whether it wants to continue as F1’s tyre supplier beyond this season, while Japanese manufacturer Bridgestone has ruled out a return and South Korean company Hankook has said it is not a starter.

Meanwhile, Montreal traditionally has been a circuit that favours McLaren – Lewis Hamilton won there for it three times in five years and Jenson Button in the famously long race two years ago – but the MP4-28 McLaren has been disappointingly uncompetitive this season.

Mercedes – Hamilton’s new team and for which Nico Rosberg won in Monaco a fortnight ago after four straight pole positions – is now the sport’s pacesetter, although the tight streets of Monaco allowed it to block rivals still probably better over race distances.

Red Bull Racing, world champion constructor the past three seasons, has never won in Montreal but its triple world champion driver Sebastian Vettel is leading the series again this season.

Mark Webber in the other Red Bull will be keen to add a 10th GP victory to his resume in Canada, where Australia’s world champions Sir Jack Brabham and Alan Jones both won – although Brabham’s victory in the country’s first GP in 1967 was at Mosport before Montreal joined the calendar in the late 1970s.

Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso has more points than he had at this stage last season but already is 29 behind Vettel and was surprisingly uncompetitive in Monaco.

Brazilian Felipe Massa has a new Ferrari for this weekend after his crashes in practice and the race there.

The BBC’s chief F1 writer Andrew Benson commented this week: “The irony is that while Ferrari’s car is more competitive this year than it was in 2012 they have lost their ability to maximise its potential. Red Bull, by contrast, are not as quick as they were last year – although the car is still out-and-out faster than the Ferrari – but Vettel is so far showing Alonso-like levels of consistency.”

Kimi Raikkonen in a Lotus-Renault this weekend could equal Michael Schumacher’s record of 24 finishes in the points, although they were only awarded down to sixth place when the German did it a decade ago rather than 10th place now.

IndyCar this weekend is at Texas Motor Speedway where Australia’s Will Power scored his only oval track win two year ago.

Power has been put on probation for the rest of what already is a horror season for him after an outburst that included throwing his driving gloves after Frenchman Sebastien Bourdais ran into the back of him in the second of the races at Detroit last weekend, triggering a 10-car pile-up. Bourdais is also on probation for the season.

In NASCAR reigning champion team Penske and driver Brad Keselowski have been penalised for the second time this season for a technical breach.

Keselowski’s Ford Fusion was found to be too low at the front after he finished fifth at Dover’s Monster Mile last round and a six-point penalty drops him from eighth to 10th in the Sprint Cup.

Crew chief Paul Wolfe, who had just returned from suspension over the illegal rear-end early in the season, has been fined $25,000 and put on probation for the rest of the year.

Australian Marcos Ambrose said Pocono Raceway, venue for this weekend’s Cup round, “is one of the toughest tracks” in the series.

It is known as the “Tricky Triangle” because of its three very different turns and Ambrose’s crew chief Drew Glickensderfer said it “is very fast and bumpy”.

Toyotas have led more than half the laps in the Sprint Cup this season, had eight pole positions and won five races, but Toyota Racing Development is scaling back the horsepower in the engines it supplies after valve spring issues that have caused three failures in the past two races at Charlotte and Dover.

Powerhouse team Joe Gibbs Racing has had four failures with its TRD-supplied engines this season.

Picture courtesy of Supercheap Auto Racing

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MOTORSPORT: Calendar clouds over V8 Supercars

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