MOTORSPORT: Davo in Merc, Chinese hot in Dakar

Erebus deal opens up more than V8 Supercars for Davison
AMG Mercedes V8 Supercar team Erebus has finally confirmed its recruitment of former Ford and Holden factory driver Will Davison in a long-term deal that could take him into other forms of racing, while Chinese manufacturer Great Wall Motors leads the Dakar Rally after a sweltering start in Argentina.

The victorious driver in GWM’s Haval 8 -- the manufacturer’s premium SUV, based on BMW’s X3 CC – described the conditions on the course as “an inferno” and said he and his co-driver “suffered like dogs”.

A former winner of the two-week marathon rally said it was “almost impossible to drive in the conditions”.

French investigators are to examine a camera from Michael Schumacher’s ski helmet as they try to piece together the accident that has left the seven-time Formula One world champion still critical but stable a week after he crashed into rock on the French Alps. It is not yet certain though that the camera was switched on.

Betty Klimenko’s Erebus Motorsport, which has downsized from three E63 AMG Mercs to two for its second year in the V8 Supercar Championship, made its long-awaited announcement today that Will Davison will be one of its drivers, along with Lee Holdsworth.

Tim Slade has departed Erebus for Holden team Walkinshaw Performance while German Maro Engel has been squeezed out of the Erebus V8 Supercar line-up after just one unproductive year.  

Erebus chief executive Ryan Madison called snaring Davison from Ford Performance Racing, with which he was third in last year’s championship, “a major coup”, while Klimenko said he would be “a perfect fit for us”.

Klimenko gave a strong hint that Erebus has more in mind for Davison than just V8 Supercars, perhaps meaning a drive in next month’s Bathurst 12-Hour -- at which it will be defending last year’s victory -- in one of its SLS AMG GT3s.

The Erebus deal could also take 31-year-old Davison back overseas, perhaps to Asia and even Europe – where he had a previous link to German company HWA, the builder of Klimenko’s V8 Supercar engines, during his days in Formula Three in Europe.

“He understands that he is coming into a team that is still finding its roots and he understands that we are just not one category,” Klimenko said.

“We are a motorsport company, we embrace the whole of the sport, and we want drivers and crew to be able to do the same thing. He will be, as all our drivers have been and will be, part of the evolution of our cars.

“I believe this makes for a good team, the synergy between driver, engineer, mechanic and car. He understands this and this is what drew me towards him as a driver in the first place.”

Madison said that signing Davison was “the final and highly significant piece for our program with future planning”.

Davison has won 16 V8 Supercar races, including the 2009 Bathurst 1000 when at Holden Racing Team, and apart from beating FPR teammate Mark Winterbottom to third in last year’s championship was second in the 2009 championship.

The V8 Supercar year begins with a test day at Sydney Motorsport Park, formerly Eastern Creek, on February 15.

Davison’s older brother Alex, also an FPR driver last year, is expected to join him as an Erebus co-driver for the V8 Supercar endurance races at Sandown, Bathurst and the Gold Coast in September-October.

Garry Rogers Motorsport, which is transforming to Volvo Polestar Racing, and Brad Jones Racing each have one driver still to announce for the new season, while it is unclear whether Lucas Dumbrell Motorsport and Tony D’Alberto Racing will make it to the grid this year.

Haval breaks through the great wall of Dakar
The Great Wall Motors Haval H8 is the surprise leader of the Dakar Rally after the opening stage in Argentina.

Driven by Portuguese veteran and former marathon rally world champion Carlos Sousa with countryman co-driver Miguel Ramalho, the Haval leads three Mini All4s (the closest of them just 11 seconds behind), the buggy of former world rally champion and Dakar winner Carlos Sainz and another Mini driven by the Dakar victor of the past two years (and 11 wins in total on two and four wheels), Frenchman Stephane Peterhansel.

Australians Peter Jerie and Glenn Watman in a 2008 Isuzu D-Max were 60th of the 142 cars that completed the stage.

Their time of 2 hours 57 minutes 35 seconds was 36 minutes 59 seconds slower than the Haval. The other Aussie in the car category, Garry Connell in a Polaris SSV with Swedish co-driver Annie Seel, was 86th in 3:10.04.

Slovakia’s Robert Kasak with Aussie co-driver Chris Watman was 65th of 68 trucks in a Tatra. Ben Grabham, of Bathurst, was the best of the Australians in the bike section – 11th on his KTM.

Spaniards lead the bikes, with Joan Barreda Bort on a Honda ahead of Marc Coma on a KTM and Frenchman and defending champion Cyril Depres on a Yamaha this year.

The first day, which comprised a long liaison stage followed by 180km of competition, was horrid for two of the big guns in the car category, American Robby Gordon in his new, lighter Hummer, and South African Giniel de Villiers in a Toyota Hilux, as well as the two South African-built Ford Rangers.

But the heat made it tough on all competitors.

“Our car (the Haval) doesn’t have air-conditioning and all the air inlets got clogged,” Sousa said.

“After 50km the turbo air outlet broke down and sent all the air from the engine directly towards me, into the passenger compartment. It must have got hotter than 70 degrees Celsius and we had trouble breathing.

“Actually the reason I drove so fast was that I wanted to get out of that inferno, but I really thought we wouldn’t make it.

“In the end we drove well and made no mistakes so we won. I’m happy for the manufacturer, but this is a really well-deserved victory because we suffered like dogs to earn it.”

It is the fifth year of GWM’s Haval in the Dakar – and it has a perfect finishing record.

China’s Zhou Yong steered the first one to 33rd in the 2010 event, the next year it was 22nd and the past two years sixth.

Late last year it won the 6000km China Grand Rally contested by more than 300 vehicles.

The top Mini on opening stage of this year’s Dakar was driven by Argentina’s Orlando Terronova, with Qatar’s 2011 victor Nasser Al Attiyah in third and Spaniard Nani Roma fourth, ahead of Sainz and Peterhansel. Sainz said the stage had been “very demanding ... taxing”.

“It was very sinuous and slow – probably the slowest one I’ve ever raced in the Dakar,” he said. “It was really, really slow – exactly what my buggy hates!”

Peterhansel had to change a tyre after a puncture 30km from the end of the stage and said that being 4 minutes 21 seconds behind Sousa “wasn’t a great start”.

De Villiers, the Dakar victor the first year the event was run in South America in 2009, said his Toyota started to lose its power steering after 30km, which he called “terrible news on a course like this one”.

“My arms and hands are burning,” de Villiers said at the stage finish at San Luis, where he found himself 15 minutes down on the leader.

“I had to drive very slowly and we even had to stop three times to put all the oil we had into the system. However, it continued to leak and the power steering bailed out on us in the last 50km. Frankly, it was almost impossible to drive in these conditions.”

Gordon, seeking to become the first American to win the Dakar, began the stage 26 minutes late and said his Hummer “had vapour lock problems from the moment we started the special (stage) and we had to stop”.

“Then all the other fluids started to overheat, so we had to stop at least five or six times,” he said. “At the end we had stopped for the umpteenth time when competitor No. 390 offered to tow us to the end of the special. It’s disappointing to lose two or three hours on the very first day ... it’s worrying.”

Another high-profile American competitor, B.J. Baldwin, dropped 52 minutes.

Both the Team Ford Racing Rangers lost a lot of time with mechanical woes. The lead Ford entry of Argentinians Lucio Alvarez and Ronnie Graue encountered problems with their Ranger’s throttle body 100km into the stage and finished two hours five minutes and eight seconds behind the Haval.

South Africans Chris Visser and Japie Badenhorst were as high as ninth early on the stage but later wheel nuts sheered off the front right hub and they had wait for the team’s support truck to arrive to make repairs and already they are more than 4½ hours off the lead.

Day two begins with a 304km liaison stage before a 433km special – the fastest of the event and taking the field into sand dunes for the first time this year – and another 62km liaison to the overnight stop at San Rafael.

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