MOTORSPORT: Cream of the crops

Lowndes, Whincup, Alonso, Loeb, Crocker - what wizards
The history books will record Sunday, October 12, as a day the cream came to the top in motorsport.

Craig Lowndes and Jamie Whincup conquered Mt Panorama yet again, earning a special place in Australian motorsport history by completing a hat-trick in the Bathurst 1000.

In the shadows of Japan's Mt Fuji Fernando Alonso scored a remarkable Formula 1 victory -- his second straight in a Renault that ought not be winning races against Ferraris and McLarens or beating BMW-Saubers.

In rallying the great Sebastien Loeb won in Corsica and tightened his grip on a fifth straight world title, while Australia's Cody Crocker won a major title for the sixth straight year -- after three Australian titles in 2003-2005, he has now won three straight Asia-Pacific Rally Championships.

Teamwork is the thing that counts at Triple 8
Bathurst ended up being terrific, as we always knew it would.

Triple 8/Team Vodafone was superb. The word that kept coming through in its celebrations was teamwork. That has been Triple 8's hallmark.

It has a phenomenal record in V8 Supercar endurance races over the past four years and, while not winning a championship, it is the long races that matter most and which remain longest in the memories of people.

Triple 8's engineering, its preparation, its drivers, its crew, and its tyre and fuel economy combined to put it in a class above the rest on the mountain over the weekend.

Much as we have lamented here over the past couple of years that foreign-owned teams have taken over Australian touring car racing, all credit must go to Roland Dane's Triple 8.

How ironic that this team -- the one that delivers results -- is not one of the two that will receive Ford financial funding in 2009.

The reality is that, with its massive Vodafone sponsorship and its record of success, Triple 8 doesn't need Ford money. What it has that others lack is a stronger and smarter work ethic.

"We work harder ... we put more effort into it, we think more, we have probably got the best quality people," Dane said. "We have two highly competent drivers and when you put it all together (it produces success).

"We do our homework properly and the end result more often than not flushes out in the longer races more easily than in the shorter races because, in the endurance events, it's less down to luck and more good engineering and good management and good driving."

Questions linger after this year's Great Race about why the other foreign-owned or controlled teams, Ford Performance Racing and Holden Racing Team, were unable to match Triple 8.

FPR has neither a championship nor a Bathurst success to show for several years under Prodrive ownership, while HRT's Walkinshaw Performance cars have faltered on pole position twice in three years. Has HRT/WP been up to something too tricky for its own good?

A 12th place finish has dropped Garth Tander from the championship lead to third, behind Whincup and FPR's Mark Winterbottom.

Walkinshaw Performance's performance at the weekend has been branded the "Clayton Calamity" and a major review is underway.

We have felt that calls over the past couple of years for the retirement from race driving of HRT half-owner Mark Skaife have been premature, but his admission that yesterday's brush with the wall at Forest Elbow was "a mistake ... I just blew it" can only focus heat on him in the review.

The dogs are barking about Will Davison getting that coveted seat.

Great to see the surge in competitiveness of Tasman Motorsport/Sprint Gas Racing at the mountain this year, ultimately with the most competitive Holden.

We queried here in our pre-Bathurst column how the Greg Murphy-Jason Richards Commodore could be left out of calculations. Sure it has taken this team three years to get its act properly together, but what a pleasure to watch when it did.

It brought out the very best in Murphy -- and that has got to be very good for V8 Supercar racing. He fired up about his first-lap encounter with Lowndes but he and Richards drove the wheels off that Commodore that carried a bent steering for the remaining 999km which Murphy claimed "hampered our race big time".

On the other hand, he said: "It was fantastic to be able to chase down the leader; it's been a while since we've been able to do that."

Like Murphy, James Courtney muscled past Steven Richards' FPR Falcon in the closing laps to complete the podium with Stone Brothers offsider David Besnard -- the only part-time V8 Supercar driver to make it up there.

Although he is yet to make it as big in touring car racing as he did on Dancing With The Stars, Courtney has shown plenty of brilliance which he will now take to Dick Johnson/Jim Beam next year, although it is far from clear whether Will Davison or Steve Johnson will remain there as his teammate.

The latter we suspect. Not sure the chemistry between Courtney and Davison would be right.

It's good to see Besnard accumulate an impressive Bathurst CV, with successive podiums now after his card seemed to have been marked as a chronic under-achiever after displaying such potential in open-wheelers.

By late Sunday afternoon everything to do with Bathurst felt pretty good.

"This is just an inspirational place. No one doesn't like driving here. It is just awesome," said rejuvenated four-time winner Murphy. "I thought it was a bloody good race today."

Now we agree with Murphy that it ended well, and we never doubted that it would. But let's hope that V8 Supercar racing is not going to end up like basketball, with the fans really only needing to see the last few minutes.

The excitement of yesterday's finish has masked some serious problems. In particular that the size of the Bathurst field is now only half of what it was when the Bathurst legend was being made.

Remember those days of 55 cars? Too many. And the speed differentials across the various classes in those days were too great.

But when you start with only 29 V8 Supercars on Thursday and lose a couple in the practice or qualifying sessions it leaves the grid very thin come race day.

Times have been made challenging by the global financial meltdown, but the V8 organisers had better have some smart clues on rebuilding the Bathurst field in future.

And therein lies something of a quandary. The entry list is now solely in the hands of the V8 Supercar chieftans.

By hiving off the Australian touring car championship to what is now V8 Supercars Australia some years back the Confederation of Australian Motor Sport has rendered itself impotent to address the problem.

Tyres are another concern. Lots of cars had problems with the Dunlops yesterday. For whatever reason the rubber didn't agree with certain parts of the Bathurst surface this year.

Triple 8 got on top of the issue sooner and better than anyone.

The reasons for the problem are for Dunlop, the teams and V8SA to study. They may know the answers already. But the bigger question is: why is there a single tyre supplier in V8 Supercars? Who is winning from having a sole contracted tyre supplier?

In recent years we have seen the tyre fiascos at the 2005 US Formula 1 Grand Prix, where the Michelins were unsafe to use and left a field of six cars, and the Goodyear farce in this year's Brickyard 400 at the same Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

What we saw at Bathurst was nowhere near as bad, but lessons need to be learned and mistakes not repeated.

The other notable area for improvement is in the projection of the event. As much as we, as motorsport fans, love Bathurst, we fear it has slipped a rung or two in the consciousness of the broader public.

We don't detect the same anticipation in the mainstream media that there once was and we're hearing reports that yesterday's Seven Network telecast figures were soft -- down 8 per cent on last year and 12 per cent on 2006, when the Great Race was last screened on Network 10.

That, we're told, equates to the loss of 200,000 viewers over the two years.

It's still the Great Race, still means much more to the fans than the season title, but before next October it's going to need a good rev-up.

Alonso the master in a class of brilliance
Fernando Alonso winning two F1 races on the trot in a Renault reminds us of Ayrton Senna's five victories in 1993 in a McLaren-Ford in which we doubt anyone else would have won one.

"I won in Singapore with special conditions with the safety car, but here (at Fuji in Japan) we had nothing and we won again," Alonso said.

Whatever scandalous clouds hang over F1 -- FIA president Max Mosley's Friday afternoon frolics or commercial supreme Bernie Ecclestone million-quid sling to Britain's Labour Party more than a decade ago that is still making headlines -- or the craziness of suggestions like a generic engine, GP racing has a lot going for it at the minute.

There's the sheer genius of Alonso in what is still only the fourth best team in the sport, the excitement of Lewis Hamilton's talent, and that of Robert Kubica and Sebastien Vettel, the prospect that Felipe Massa in a Ferrari may yet beat Hamilton and McLaren to the world title, and flickers of brilliance from Kimi Raikkonen -- but not often enough.

Raikkonen's first points in five races, from third in Japan, were not enough to keep alive his chances of retaining his world championship, even though Hamilton was out of the points at Fuji and Massa only got two -- and one of them after the race, when he was promoted to seventh place by a furious Sebastien Bourdais being penalised 25 seconds.

Australia's Mark Webber was another beneficiary, promoted from ninth to eighth, which gave him one point -- his 100th in F1.

Webber and Red Bull Racing are treading water at the minute, with David Coulthard outqualifying the Aussie on Saturday, although his race lasted only a few hundred metres before he speared into a safety barrier.

Red Bull is seventh in the constructors' championship, ahead of only Williams, Honda and Force India and we wonder what improvement it can make with a car with a similar Renault engine to Alonso's, and what Webber will produce when he has Vettel in the same garage next season.

Ferrari has regained the lead in the constructors' championship, with 142 points to McLaren's 135.

But of much greater interest is that -- with just next Sunday's Chinese GP in Shanghai and then the Brazilian race two weeks later -- there are just five points between Hamilton and Massa, 84-79, with Kubica in the calculations on 72 after his second place to Alonso at Fuji.

Now 12 points between Hamilton and Kubica may seem a lot, but remember that last year Raikkonen overcame a 17-point deficit in the last two races to snatch the crown.

"Kimi showed last year that anything is possible," Kubica said. "The difference is I have two guys in front of me, not one, and at normal pace it's no secret we are not as fast as Massa and Hamilton, so life is a bit more difficult."

We are going to see in the next three weeks whether Hamilton can convert consummate speed and skill into a title, or whether -- like so many other British sportspeople -- he has again flattered so much only to ultimately deceive and become yet another "bridesmaid".

As much as we reckon Hamilton deserves the title this year, which would make him F1's youngest world champion, something (intuition that the FIA will produce an anti-McLaren wildcard?) tells us that Massa will emerge on top.

That Kubica is still in the fight is testament to his and BMW's consistency as he has/they have won only one GP, while Nick Heidfeld was back to his qualifying mediocrity in Japan immediately after the extension of his contract.

What a story it will be if Kubica pulls off the unimaginable.

And Sir Frank Williams, perhaps as a way of delivering a hurry-up to Nico Rosberg, is already tipping that Vettel could be world champion within two years.

F1 drivers' world championship standings after 16 of 18 races -- Lewis Hamilton (Great Britain, McLaren-Mercedes) 84 points, Felipe Massa (Brazil, Ferrari) 79, Robert Kubica (Poland, BMW-Sauber)  72, Kimi Räikkönen (Finland, Ferrari) 63, Nick Heidfeld (Germany, BMW-Sauber) 56, Heikki Kovalainen (Finland, McLaren-Mercedes) 51, Fernando Alonso (Spain, Renault) 48, Jarno Trulli (Italy, Toyota) 30, Sebastian Vettel (Germany, Toro Rosso) 30, Mark Webber (Australia, Red Bull) 21, Timo Glock (Germany, Toyota) 20, Nelson Piquet (Brazil, Renault) 18, Nico Rosberg (Germany, Williams-Toyota) 17, Rubens Barrichello (Brazil, Honda) 11, Kazuki Nakajima (Japan, Williams-Toyota) 9, David Coulthard (Great Britain, Red Bull) 8, Sebastien Bourdais (France, Toro Rosso) 4, Jenson Button (Honda) 3.

F1 constructors' championship standings -- Ferrari 142 points, McLaren-Mercedes 135, BMW-Sauber 128, Renault 66, Toyota 50, Toro Rosso-Ferrari 34, Red Bull-Renault 29, Williams-Toyota 26, Honda 14.

Remaining F1 races -- October 19, Shanghai, China; November 2, Interlagos, Sao Paulo, Brazil.

Singapore night GP audience appears similar to ours
A TV figure we've come across for the Singapore night GP casts serious doubt over whether lighting is worth the cost, especially if Australia were ever to be pressured again by Bernie Ecclestone to do it.

The live telecast of the Singapore race into Britain on the last Sunday of September drew an audience of 3.95 million viewers on ITV.

Now that is only 50,000 more than watched the delayed (by a few hours) telecast of the season-opening Australian GP from Melbourne's Albert Park on ITV in mid-afternoon back in March.

So the Oz race is now the fifth most watched GP on ITV this year and Singapore No. 4 -- behind the British, Canadian and Monaco races.

Would the Oz GP get any more, or significantly more, viewers if held at night and shown live? And, in any case, would any increase in the audience, be worth the cost?

Based on the Singapore experience we suspect not on all counts.

The Max (Mosley) Factor
It's a while since we had a good read on our old mate Max Mosley, so let's have one -- The Max Factor -- from The Scotsman newspaper, here

Castroneves clear for Gold Coast Indy
Australian IndyCar driver Ryan Briscoe's teammate, Brazilian Helio Castroneves, has been given the green light to come to Oz next week for the Gold Coast Indy.

Two-time Indianapolis 500 winner Castroneves, on bail of US$10 million over charges of avoiding US$5.5 million in US taxes, has had a ban on him leaving America lifted for the Surfers' Paradise race.

The partial reprieve for Castroneves came a week after he had to surrender his passport because of the charges, which could see him jailed for more than 30 years if convicted.

Team Penske would have run only one car in the October 26 Gold Coast race if Castroneves had not been allowed out of the US.

The team will wait at least a month to decide on whether the Brazilian, second to Brisbane-born New Zealander Scott Dixon in this year's Indy Racing League championship, will be Briscoe's teammate next season, or whether to choose a replacement.

Team owner Roger Penske said it was not clear yet when Castroneves' tax case would be resolved.

"We don't even know when this thing might go to trial. It might not even be next year," Penske said.

Loeb in a league of his own
Not so long ago the World Rally Championship was a competition, but French superstar Sebastien Loeb is turning it into a walkover.

Loeb and his Citroen C4 finished nearly four minutes ahead of Finn Mikko Hirvonen's Ford Focus at the weekend's Rally of Corsica.

Hirvonen's fellow Ford drivers Belgian Francois Duval and Finn Jari-Matti Latvala were ordered to drop to third and fourth for Hirvonen to take second place and remain within 14 points of Loeb with just two rounds left -- in Japan and Britain.

Hirvonen had been second until a puncture forced him to change a tyre and dropped him to fifth on the final leg.

Subaru drivers Petter Solberg of Norway and Australian Chris Atkinson finished fifth and sixth in their Imprezas.

Loeb's Citroen teammate Dani Sordo of Spain dropped out but retained third in the championship, although only three points ahead of Atkinson now.

Sordo's retirement meant that Citroen dropped four points to Ford in the manufacturers' championship but the French make still leads by 23 points.

Crocker's title collection now totals six
Aussie Cody Crocker is the Asia-Pacific Rally Champion for the third year in a row, having clinched the title in Malaysia at the weekend even though there is a round to go and having missed the first round.

Driving a Subaru Impreza WRX STI for Singapore's MotorImage team, Crocker won the first leg of the Malaysian event and then cruised through the second leg, finishing behind his title rival, Team MRF's Japanese driver Katsu Taguchi in a Mitsubishi Lancer Evo IX.

Taguchi has now completed his allowed six championship events and has to miss the final round in China on November 8-9.

Taguchi has been on the podium in every event except the Rally of Canberra, while Crocker won that round and the New Zealand event but struggled in Indonesia and Japan.

New Zealander Mark Tapper won the Pirelli Star competition, earning a drive at six WRC rounds next year.

Aussie Eli Evans, a rival of Tapper, crashed on the second leg.

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