MOTORSPORT: Clipsal 500 on the move?

Thursday motorsport reportOctober 18, 2007

Now, before there's any panic, it would not be a move out of the City of Churches but rather a relocation within it.

In a front-page story on Tuesday, The Advertiser newspaper in Adelaide reported that "an all-new Clipsal 500 racing circuit is the centrepiece of a bold plan to develop a major sport and public events precinct around the city's western parklands".

The Advertiser says that the Civic Trust, an independent body, is pushing for major works in Adelaide's neglected west as an alternative to the South Australian government's redevelopment of the Victoria Park area, which takes in the Clipsal -- and former F1 grand prix -- circuit(s).

The report talks of a suggestion for a seadragon-shaped racetrack for the Clipsal between West Terrace and Mile End South.

"The motor racing facilities would also be used for other major sporting events, such as a future Commonwealth Games," it says. "Permanent and temporary grandstands would be constructed around the track."

Civic Trust chairman Darian Hiles is quoted as saying the proposed development on the west of Adelaide would make it "primarily a pedestrian city with emphasis on walkways, bicycle paths and light public transport" -- and that he believes it will help any future Adelaide bid to host the Commonwealth Games.

He estimates the cost of the racetrack at $10 million, with $30 million for the main grandstand and corporate area, $35 million for a parking station and $45 million for a transport hub.

The SA government has said it welcomes any "sensible ideas" for redevelopment of Adelaide's inner west, and a government spokesman says major investment is wanted there.

Adelaide is often the butt of jokes from Australia's eastern seaboard, but no city has embraced motorsport as enthusiastically as the SA capital and gone to such lengths to present it well.

To us, this idea came out of the blue and our immediate reaction was that old line about not fixing something if it ain't broken, but on reflection we take it as perhaps a sign of progressiveness and forward-thinking -- qualities that are not always in abundance.

We'll leave it to the South Australians to work out where they run their main motor race but we'll keep an eye on what comes of this concept.

The F1 permutations for title decider
All the froth and bubble of the F1 season aside, let's look at the simple arithmetic ahead of the Brazilian Grand Prix early Monday, Australian time.

Lewis Hamilton has 107 points, Fernando Alonso 103 and Kimi Raikkonen 100.

If Hamilton wins or finishes second in the race at Sao Paulo's Interlagos circuit he is guaranteed of becoming world champion -  the sport's youngest, beating Alonso's record (at 24), and the first rookie champion since the first season of F1 58 years ago. He will also be the first rookie to have won five GPs in his debut season.

If Alonso wins at Interlagos he goes to 113 points, while Hamilton will end up on that score too if he finishes third.

If the McLaren drivers are tied in this way Alonso will be world champion for the third straight year because he will have five wins to Hamilton's four.

If it's a McLaren one-two finish, with Alonso in front, 22-year-old Hamilton will become champion by finishing second.

Raikkonen will virtually be depending on the McLaren pair not finishing, even taking each other out, for him to take the title.

If they were to do that, the Finn would only need to finish second to become champion.

Imagine, though, if Raikkonen won and Hamilton finished sixth. In that scenario Raikkonen would get 10 points for victory to go to a season tally of 110 and Hamilton three for sixth place and also a total of 100, but Raikkonen would be champion as he would have six wins for the year.

But if Raikkonen wins, Alonso is second and Hamilton sixth then the Spaniard will be world champion again, with 111 points.

Any of the trio, in a driving sense, will be worthy world champions, particularly either of the McLaren pair on the grounds of consistency this season.

A Raikkonen title would be more fluky (he was 17 points behind Hamilton after the Japanese GP) and even ironic, in light of the superiority of the McLaren cars most of the year -- without any use of the Ferrari secrets acquired in the shady circumstances that came to light via "Spygate"!

Raikkonen has his army of fans, but as a personality he is the third best of the three options to be the world frontman for the sport.

A Hamilton title would complete a fairytale -- the kid go-karter who had the cheek to tell McLaren chief Ron Dennis he wanted to drive for him one day, within a few months was on a McLaren "scholarship" that funded his racing for a decade until he burst on the F1 scene as teammate to a dual world champion.

History doesn't mean a lot in this situation -- it was in Adelaide 21 years ago that there were last three drivers in contention for the title at the last round -- but it favors the driver going into the final race standing second.

Alonso has clinched both his titles in Brazil the past two years, yet he has never the won the race there.

In our estimation, Alonso is up there already with the greatest drivers in the sport's history and would be worthy of a third straight title, which would make him the only man other than Juan-Manuel Fangio (in 1956-57) to win consecutive titles for different manufacturers. Yet Hamilton may yet prove to be the greatest of all.

And Raikkonen? Brilliant, but possibly flawed; perhaps unable to put it all together in the way that Alonso has proven he can, and that perhaps Hamilton can do.

Kimi has the sheer speed of his Finnish predecessor Mika Hakkinen, but perhaps is not -- and may never be -- as complete.

We have seen a report suggesting rain is likely in Sao Paulo throughout the weekend. We also saw this week on-board vision from Felipe Massa's Ferrari as he diced with Robert Kubica's BMW-Sauber in the closing stages of the Japanese GP, and it was some of the best F1 footage of all time.

It rivals that of Gilles Villeneuve's Ferrari and Rene Arnoux's Renault dicing at Dijon in the 1979 French GP. Although briefer, the Massa-Kubica racing is perhaps even better, made so by the wet track.

That got us thinking during the week that perhaps this is what F1 needs: not night races but wet races, to produce a superb spectacle.

We'd love to post the Japanese GP vision of which we speak, but suspect that it would be illegal -- i.e. a breach of supreme Bernie Ecclestone's rules and regs.

Anyway, if there is rain during the Brazilian GP that will make the outcome even more of a lottery.

And just in case we get a freak result -- Aussie Mark Webber winning?! -- if Alonso finishes third (for six points) then Hamilton only needs to cross the finish line sixth (for three points) .

If the Spaniard is fourth (five points) the Brit only needs to be seventh (two points), and if Alonso is fifth (four points) Hamilton only needs to finish eighth (one point).

It's a promoter's dream.

Ron Dennis made it so for Bernie Ecclestone by bringing Lewis Hamilton into F1, yet along the way poor old Ron has had to cop a US$100 million fine and see his team banned from the constructors' championship.

Perhaps a Hamilton title on Monday morning will ease all that pain. And perhaps it is destiny.

As a boy Hamilton worshipped Ayrton Senna. On the first weekend of May 1994 he went behind his kart transporter so his father couldn't see him crying after Senna's fatal crash at Imola.

Now he is in Senna's home town, preparing to don his yellow helmet like his idol's -- and to visit Senna's grave after the race.

"In a way, I am continuing his legacy," Hamilton says.

If he wins this world title, Hamilton will be unquestionably the biggest thing motor sport has seen.

Massa stays in red until 2010
Felipe Massa won at Interlagos last year -- a superb and emotional home victory.

Although he is out of contention for the world title this weekend, Ferrari has extended Massa's contract until the end of 2010.

That would seem to rule out any chance of Alonso, so unhappy at McLaren, joining the Italian team in the near future.

For the record, Massa has won three GPs this year and is on 86 points. In 34 GPs for Ferrari he has five wins and 16 podiums. He has started on pole position eight times and has notched the same number of fastest laps. 

We would have thought Giancarlo Fisichella's career with Renault was coming to an end this weekend, but that may depend on whether Alonso becomes available to return to the team with which he won his two world titles.

Even so, Renault team boss Flavio Briatore says: "Giancarlo has done a great job, very important this year. His experience is very important for us, especially when the car wasn't performing well. I am very pleased with his work."

Of Renault's other driver, Finn Heikki Kovalainen, who has been mentioned as a possible swap for Alonso, Briatore says: "For me he is this season's revelation."

Briatore's assessments of his drivers are surprisingly generous. The Kovalainen call is a big one in light of Hamilton's performance, but we may come to remember 2007 as the season that unearthed some very special talents.

Not just Hamilton, but Sebastien Vettel (initially with BMW-Sauber and now Scuderia Toro Rosso, and despite Mark Webber's criticism of him at the Japanese GP) and Kovalainen, as well as the progress of Robert Kubica and Nico Rosberg.

Stewart returns fire on Mosley
What a year it's been for F1, on and off the track -- and now Sir Jackie Stewart has fired back at Federation Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA) president Max Mosley, who a few days ago called the triple world champion "a certified halfwit".

Nobody is ever going to win a war of words with the eloquent Mosley, but at 68 Stewart has little to lose in tackling him -- something he probably would not have dared 10 years when running his Stewart Grand Prix team.

"There is an escalating awareness that he (Mosley) is being called into question over the proper governance of the FIA and his authority is being undermined, to an increasing degree, largely because we are in the most exciting F1 campaign there has been for years, and yet the papers are full of negative publicity," Stewart says.

"As far as I am concerned, it looks as if we are shooting ourselves in both feet, not with a pistol, but with a semi- automatic rifle, and the governing body is damaging the reputation of the whole sport and bringing it into disrepute.

"They are acting in self-interest and I believe there has to be greater accountability. Perhaps Max Mosley has been in the job too long. I definitely think that he should consider his position and that a new president should be head-hunted from outwith the sport, so there is no conflict of interest.

"I honestly think that decisions are being made which are detrimental to our business and we have to accept that it is time for a change."

Much of the recent angst between the pair has been over the treatment of McLaren this season.

Stewart is at pains to point out that he is not pushing McLaren's barrow but has blasted Mosley and the FIA for appointing a special observer for this weekend to ensure Alonso gets equal treatment to Hamilton.

"The governing body should have no say in the internal workings of any team and, apart from that, it is hypocritical," Stewart says. "Can you imagine the FIA going to Ferrari, while Michael Schumacher was at the helm, and insisting that his No.2 Rubens Barrichello or Eddie Irvine, was accorded the same privileges and that both men had to race on an equal footing?

"It would never have happened and, for that reason, I hope that McLaren do their best for Lewis in Brazil, because the lad has responded magnificently to everything he has faced in the last few months.

"But you have to be concerned for him in the current climate: he could be taken out at the first corner and it sounds as if the FIA would do nothing about it."

Stewart has a strong supporter in Damon Hill, Britain's last F1 world champion, in 1996, and son of one of Stewart's contemporaries, the late Graham Hill.

"What Max said was a gross insult to one of the sport's leading figures over the last four decades," Damon Hill says. "Not only is it bad manners, it calls into question the character and judgment of the man who represents motor sport throughout the world through the august institution of the FIA.

"I regard it as conduct most unbecoming of an FIA president."

Mosley dismissed Stewart's remarks as perhaps being a publicity drive for his new autobiography.

"Jackie Stewart's latest comments are as misconceived as those he made prior to the McLaren (FIA) world council hearing in September," Mosley says.

"It is not the role of the FIA to court popularity by supporting one party or the other. It is the role of the FIA to ensure that the rules of the sport are respected and that fairness is applied consistently for all competitors.

"When the Spanish motor sport authority seeks safeguards to ensure fair play should the international governing body ignore their request?

"Jackie Stewart seems to have forgotten that McLaren received information on a daily basis for over three months plus a dossier of 780 pages from a spy in its main rival.

"It was for this they incurred a record sanction and expulsion from the constructors' championship. They did not appeal as they undoubtedly would have done had Jackie's ill-considered views had any merit.

"The bandying of partisan and ill-informed comments in the media may well result in increased book sales for his new autobiography, but they can do little more than confirm my view that Jackie is in no position to provide useful observations upon issues of motor sport governance."

Ecclestone biography on hold
Will the full Bernie Ecclestone story ever get told? A book about the 76-year-old by Susan Watkins, wife of Ecclestone's good mate and former F1 medical chief Professor Sid Watkins, was due for release this month has been postponed.

Publishers Ebury Press had announced that the book, titled simply Bernie, would reveal "the true struggle behind his fortune, the background to his relationships with politics and what reality, if any, there is to his detractor's accusations".

And Ecclestone had told the author: "It must be open and it must be honest."

One thing is certain: there will be a rush of people to tell tales when Ecclestone is dead, but at this rate we're never likely to get all sides of the story while everyone's alive.

Whincup keeps the Bathurst car
The V8 Supercar scene has seemed a bit anti-climactic since Bathurst, perhaps overshadowed by last weekend's MotoGP -- and Aussie world champion Casey Stoner's success in his home race.

Hopefully the track action at the Gold Coast this weekend will quickly reinvigorate things.

New V8 Supercar Championship leader Jamie Whincup gets to drive Triple 8/Team Voafone's Bathurst-winning new Ford Falcon at Indy.

Teammate Craig Lowndes reverts to his normal car for the meeting at which he copped crucial penalties last year but won in 2005.

Whincup's Gold Coast record is not good - he has only finished in the top 10 once, when ninth in 2005 -- but he's now a man approaching the peak of his powers.

"There are four major races in V8 Supercars and I've had success in three - Adelaide, Sandown and Bathurst," Whincup says. "Indy is the fourth and the one I now want to win.''

Fingers crossed for Power victory
We devoted most of this week's earlier motor sport column to the Champ Car situation, and not a lot to add now.

Most interest this weekend will be in whether Aussie Will Power can win on the Surfers' Paradise streets, or whether the race will see its first repeat victor.

The five past winners in the race at Paul Tracy, Mario Dominguez, Bruno Junqueira, Sebastien Bourdais and Nelson Philippe, whose start this weekend is his first for the season.

Bourdais, who rolled a Subaru Impreza, without injury, at a promotional event during the week - only needs to finish in the top 14 to clinch a fourth straight Champ Car title before the final round in Mexico -- and next year moving to F1 with Toro Rosso.

In 16 previous CART/Champ Car races on the Gold Coast, only three times has the winner started from pole position - Nigel Mansel in 1993, Jimmy Vasser in '96, and Dario Franchitti in '99.

Champ Car series leaders - Sebastien Bourdais (Newman/Haas/Lanigan Racing) 301 points, Justin Wilson (RuSPORT) 243, Robert Doornbos (Minardi USA) 238, Will Power (Team Australia) 228, Graham Rahal (Newman/Haas/Lanigan Racing) 209.