MOTORSPORT: Classic Holden-Ford battle for V8 title

Now come the endurance rounds – the Sandown 500 in mid-September, the Bathurst 1000 in early October and then the Gold Coast 600.

The championship returned to Sydney’s sole remaining permanent circuit (formerly Eastern Creek, now called Sydney Motorsport Park) at the weekend, drawing an attendance officially stated at 24,341 for the two days.

A modest figure that after four years without V8SC racing there. The TV figures also are looking modest, with indications of about 300,000 viewers in the five major capital cities both days on Seven in Sydney and Brisbane and 7mate in Melbourne, Adelaide and Perth.

The big positive is that the title fight looks like going to the wire, with just the single point between Jamie Whincup and Mark Winterbottom (2238 to 2237) and Will Davison and Craig Lowndes right in the battle on 2116 and 2084 respectively.

In another title fight, Will Power has taken a tighter grip on the IndyCar crown that has eluded him the past two years, now 36 points clear with two races remaining (each worth 50 points for the win) – although he finished second to Penske teammate and fellow Australian Ryan Briscoe at Sonoma in California today.

Marcos Ambrose notched his third straight top five finish (including his Watkins Glen victory) in NASCAR’s latest Sprint Cup round at Bristol, Tennessee, while Chris Atkinson also was fifth in Germany in his first outing in a Mini in the World Rally Championship.

Triple Eight and Whincup have the slightest edge
Jamie Whincup lost the V8SC Championship lead for a day in Sydney - after botching his start on Saturday, having the right rear tyre on his Commodore delaminate in the closing laps and finishing 23rd – but bounced back Sunday with his sixth win of the season.

Ford’s top gun Mark Winterbottom was on the podium again both days – second behind Craig Lowndes on Saturday and third behind Whincup and Lowndes on Sunday.

Winterbottom was the championship leader after Saturday’s 140km race 18 but was relegated to second again by Whincup winning Sunday’s 220km race 19.

Triple Eight/Team Vodafone’s eight straight victories not only has surpassed Ford Performance Racing’s early-season dominance but has equaled Holden Racing Team’s performance a decade ago, when Mark Skaife and Jason Bright won eight races straight.

Although not on the podium in Sydney, HRT’s form was much improved at the weekend after reverting to an older front suspension, with Garth Tander and James Courtney in the top 10 both days (and top six Saturday). And Russell Ingall, in another Walkinshaw Performance-built Commodore, has had four straight top 10 finishes – and was fifth and fourth in Sydney, while the Stone Brothers Falcons were not as strong as they have been most of the season.

FPR team principal Tim Edwards has grown concerned at main rival Triple Eight’s recent streak.

“We should be winning races,” Edwards said.

“We made some decisions that didn’t help us to find the speed we need to gain our advantage back.”

Triple Eight boss Roland Dane said the difference between the two teams now was so minute that the smallest detail would make the difference.

Dane said his team had “pushed a bit harder after we’d seen the FPR blokes get six on the trot earlier in the year”.

“I am very, very happy with the way the guys have responded – on the back of the pressure of building the new cars for 2013 as well,” Dane said.

“We definitely weren’t as strong in the pitlane [at the start of the year] and we have made strides in managing that. FPR handle that side very well.

“We’ve closed up in that area, but also we got a bit smarter in set-up in a couple of areas.

“There’s a whole load of tiny little things that make a difference these days especially between Frosty [Winterbottom], Davo [Davison] and our two guys. The differences are so small it’s really a matter of who drops the ball.

“Sometimes it obvious that we have dropped the ball, like we did with Jamie on Saturday, and other times it is so subtle that only the team realises they could have done a slightly better job in a particular area. It’s a matter of minimising all the mistakes all of the time and cutting those margins as fine as you can it pitlane.”

Championship leader Whincup predicted the title would “come down to a handful of points in the last race on the last day [at Sydney’s Homebush]”.

“It has been an absolute dog fight from the start of the year and I expect it to go right to the last race. I’m sure there will be a few different winners along the way, but it all comes down to who is leading on the last lap in the last race.”

That will be on the streets of the Homebush Olympic precinct, perhaps the penultimate event there with doubts the conservative NSW government will renew that contract.

Meanwhile, Dane – one of the key powerbrokers in V8 Supercar racing – has endorsed Sydney Motorsport Park as a long-term venue for a championship round. He said the venue “most definitely” should be part of Australia’s major motor racing series.

“It’s a great circuit… A good flowing track, a proper motor racing circuit… We should be here every year,” he said.

V8 Supercar Championship standings: 1 Jamie Whincup (Holden) 2238 points; 2 Mark Winterbottom (Ford) 2237; 3 Will Davison (F) 2116; 4 Craig Lowndes (H) 2084; 5 Shane Van Gisbergen (F) 1634; 6 Garth Tander (H) 1527; 7 Tim Slade (F) 1464; 8 Fabian Coulthard (H) 1432; 9 Lee Holdsworth (F) 1286; 10 David Reynolds (F) 1179; 11 James Courtney (H) 1169; 12 Jason Bright (H) 1149.

Briscoe breaks drought, Power closes on title
Ryan Briscoe’s victory at Sonoma was his first since 2010, indeed for 813 days.

It was the Sydneysider’s seventh IndyCar win.

He crossed the finish line 0.44 seconds ahead of Will Power, who had dominated most the race but got caught in traffic after pitting as caution flags were waved after a heavy crash involving Sebastien Bourdais and Josef Newgarden. Power also had one slow pitstop, but blamed backmarkers who he said had been “dawdling around”.

“It’s tough [to finish second] when you lead so many laps and have the quickest car,” Power said.

Power has clinched the Mario Andretti Trophy as the top road racer in the series for the third straight year and is poised to clinch the overall title that has eluded him – and gone to Dario Franchitti – the past two years.

Power’s main title rival, American Ryan Hunter-Reay, finished only 18th after he was spun by Canadian Alex Tagliani while fourth late in the race and also was penalised for running into EJ Viso.

The other two serious title contenders, Penske’s Brazilian driver Helio Castroneves and the Ganassi team’s New Zealander Scott Dixon, tangled at the start and have slipped further behind Power with just races on the streets of Baltimore and at Fontana Speedway to go.

Brazilian long-time Formula One star Rubens Barrichello notched his best IndyCar finish at Sonoma – fourth for KV Racing.

IndyCar championship after 13 of 15 rounds: 1 Will Power (Penske, Chevrolet engine) 422 points; 2 Ryan Hunter-Reay (Andretti, Chevrolet) 386; 3 Helio Castroneves (Penske, Chevrolet) 381; 4 Scott Dixon (Ganassi, Honda) 368; 5 Simon Pagenaud (Schmidt, Honda) 337; 6 Tony Kanaan (KV, Chevrolet) 327; 7 James Hinchcliffe (Andretti, Chevrolet) 327; 8 Ryan Briscoe (Penske, Chevrolet) 317; 9 Dario Franchitti (Ganassi, Honda) 306; 10 Graham Rahal (Andretti, Honda) 286.

NASCAR ‘war’ between Chevy and Ford stars
The highlight of the NASCAR race at Bristol was a clash between reigning champion Tony Stewart and Matt Kenseth while leading on the short oval.

After climbing from his damaged Chevrolet, Stewart threw his helmet at the nose of Kenseth’s Ford in the pit road.

“I checked up twice [got off the accelerator] to not run over him,” Stewart said.

“I’m going to run over him every chance I’ve got from now till the end of the year. Every chance I’ve got … just drive through him.”

Denny Hamlin won in a Toyota, ahead of the Chevrolets of Jimmie Johnson and Jeff Gordon, with Brian Vickers fourth in a Toyota ahead of Aussie Marcos Ambrose in his Richard Petty Motorsports Ford.

Ambrose had started ninth and ran as high as second in the race.

This latest fifth place hoisted Ambrose a spot higher to 16th in the championship.

The next round – the second last before the start of The Chase, the 'playoffs” for the title between a dozen drivers over the final 10 rounds – is at the 2.41-mile (almost 4km) Atlanta Motor Speedway.

NASCAR Sprint Cup after 24 of 36 races: 1 Greg Biffle (Ford) 849 points; 2 Jimmie Johnson (Chevrolet) 838; 3 Dale Earnhardt Junior (Chevrolet) 834; 4 Matt Kenseth (Ford) 823; 5 Martin Truex Junior (Toyota) 797; 6 Clint Bowyer (Toyota) 794; 7 Brad Keselowski (Dodge) 790; 8 Denny Hamlin (Toyota) 774; 9 Kevin Harvick (Chevrolet) 767; 10 Tony Stewart (Chevrolet) 746. Australia’s Marcos Ambrose (Ford) is 16th on 679 points.

Nine out of 10 ain’t half bad for Loeb
Germany celebrated a decade of hosting a World Rally Championship round at the weekend – and French ace Sebastien Loeb won it in a Citroen for the ninth time.

It was the eight-time world champion’s seventh win this season – and fifth straight.

Loeb, who now has a 54-point lead in his march to a ninth world title with four rounds remaining, said it had been “a perfect weekend”.

Ford’s Finn Jari-Matti Latvala recovered from an off-road “excursion” early on the second leg of the tarmac rally to finish second, 2 minutes behind Loeb. Citroen’s Finn, Mikko Hirvonen, was third – more than another half a minute back.

Norwegian Mads Ostberg took fourth in another Ford, almost a minute behind Hirvonen.

Aussie Chris Atkinson drove conservatively to fifth – 9 minutes 10 seconds behind Loeb – in his first rally in a MINI – prepared in Italy for Team Portugal.

“You can’t hope for a better start together than what we got this weekend,” said Atkinson, formerly a full-time Subaru factory driver in the WRC who had already driven a Ford and a Citroen in one-offs this year and leads the Asia-Pacific Rally Championship in a Skoda.

“The car and the team have been awesome. Fifth place is my best ever result in Germany, so I’ve got to be happy.”

World Rally Championship driver standings after nine of 13 rounds: 1 Sebastien Loeb (France, Citroen) 199 points; 2 Mikko Hirvonen (Finland, Citroen) 145; 3 Petter Solberg (Norway, Ford) 104; 4 Mads Ostberg (Norway, Ford) 102; 5 Jari-Matti Latvala (Finland, Ford) 87; 6 Evgeny Novikov (Russia, Ford) 55; 7 Martin Prokop (Czech Republic, Ford) 38; 8 Thierry Neuville (Belgium, Citroen) 32; 9 Daniel Sordo (Spain, MINI) 31; 10 Sebastien Ogier (France, Skoda) 31. Australia’s Chris Atkinson (MINI) is 14th with 10 points.
     
WRC constructors’ standings: 1 Citroen Total World Rally Team 323 points; 2 Ford World Rally Team 198; 3 M-Sport Ford World Rally Team 127; 4 Citroen Junior World Rally Team 54; 5 Qatar World Rally Team 51; 6 Adapta World Rally Team 47 ; 7. MINI WRC Team 26; 8. Brazil World Rally Team 16.

White and Lambo take Targa Adelaide
Reigning Australian Targa Champion, Tasmanian Jason White, has won the opening round of this year’s championship, Targa Adelaide, in his 2011 Lamborghini Gallardo.

White finished 25 seconds clear of Tony Quinn’s Nissan GT-R, with Peter Rullo three minutes further back in third in another GT-R.

White has now won four straight Targa events, with the next Targa High Country at Victoria’s Mt Buller on November 9-11.

There was a fatality in Targa Adelaide. Classic Adelaide, the event Targa Adelaide replaced, has previously claimed two lives. The incident occurred on Friday on Main Rd at Chandlers Hill on the Clarendon stage.

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