MOTORSPORT: Dick Johnson Racing picture no clearer

In announcing Blanchard a week ago, DJR said it would make more driver and team announcements in the next week. Yet, with just a few hours remaining today, there has been no more news.

We called DJR’s listed marketing and public relations manager Kel Constantine late this morning seeking to establish whether there would be any announcement coming today. Having left a voice message, we’ve had no word on whether there will be.

Things are looking ominous for Australia’s oldest touring car team. It sent only one Ford Falcon to last Saturday’s official V8 Supercar test day at Sydney Motorsport Park for Blanchard.

Dick Johnson, recovering from some recent surgery, did not attend. Nor did his son Steve, a long-time DJR driver who it has been thought may have to move aside this season to make way for another driver with sponsorship to keep the team afloat (in the wake of Queensland car dealer Maurie Pickering’s decision not to proceed as a co-owner).

Despite the arrival of Nissan and AMG Mercedes for the Car of the Future era, V8 Supercars (V8SC) has had a couple of months from hell – a greatly financially diminished television deal, the loss of the Abu Dhabi championship round, ending the international co-drivers at the Gold Coast 600 and the move of the Sydney 500 back a week deeper into December.

Now there appears to be the prospect of the sport losing its stalwart team.

Following the axing of the requirement that all V8 Supercars have an international driver for the Surfers Paradise street races in October, teams can now choose the same co-drivers for the Sandown 500, Bathurst 1000 and Gold Coast 600 in what will become the Endurance Cup.

The season-ending Sydney 500 will be on December 6-8 because of a clash the previous weekend with the Stereosonic music festival at Sydney Olympic Park.

It is the last year of the contracts for both the GC600 and the Sydney 500, with the darker cloud over the latter – which has been mentioned in NSW’s Independent Commission Against Corruption inquiry.

Ambrose in middle of Daytona 500 field
Marcos Ambrose is in the Great American Race, the Daytona 500, to be run in Florida early Monday, Australian time. The Tasmanian-born driver will start 24th in his Ford Fusion in the field of 43.

Ambrose finished 11th in the second of the two 150-mile (240km) qualifying races today.

Danica Patrick and Jeff Gordon had already claimed the front row starting positions last weekend in a pair of Chevy SSs.

Patrick’s car is entered by Stewart-Haas Racing headed by multiple NASCAR champion Tony Stewart with its engine built by Hendrick Motorsports, the team that fields Gordon among its all-star line-up.

Kevin Harvick won the first of today’s qualifying races in another Chevy and Kyle Busch the other in a Toyota.

Sixteen drivers made the Daytona 500 field from each of those races, with the last nine spots decided on qualifying speeds.

Ambrose’s 24th position in the field for the classic replicates his form in last weekend’s qualifying.

F1 going the pay TV route
Three weeks out from the start of the Formula One World Championship in Melbourne, and with increasing debate about the benefits of the Australian Grand Prix as its financial losses mount, there’s a worrying sign for its protagonists – the shift in its European audience to pay television.

It’s not happening yet in Australia, where F1 remains on the Ten Network and must stay on free-to-air – for now – under federal legislation.

Under the revised TV deal for F1 in Britain that took effect last year the live telecast of the Melbourne race is only assured on pay television – in that case Sky. The free-to-air BBC only shows half the season’s races live now.

The deal, by F1 commercial supremo Bernie Ecclestone in mid-2011, created huge angst among many British F1 fans who resented having to shell out to be certain of seeing GPs live. Now dedicated F1 fans in several other European countries (including Italy, France and Holland) are going to need pay television to see the races live this year.

Germany’s F1 TV landscape is similar to Britain, with races now live on pay television but extensive – although not all live – coverage on free-to-air.

French sports newspaper L’Equipe has called the shift of F1 to pay TV in France “a small earthquake”, while British commentator James Allen has said it is “another nail in the coffin for free-to-air broadcasters as purveyors of premium live sports”.

Teams, and particularly Lotus-Renault boss Eric Boullier, know that more pay TV rather than free-to-air coverage could reduce the sponsorship dollars they can demand – and on which they rely.

The trend also is a negative for advocates of the Australian GP, who have relied on the free-to-air global audience as an argument for retaining the Melbourne race, the contract on which expires in 2015.

Ecclestone built F1 into a global TV sport in the 1980s by guaranteeing the size of the grid (for a long time 26 cars but at times as few as 20 and this year set to be 22) and locking in free-to-air coverage.

Less than two years ago he was saying it would be “suicidal” for F1 to go to pay TV as talk mounted of Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation, which has big pay TV interests, making a play for the sport in association with an Italian company linked to Ferrari.

Yet now the races are increasingly headed to pay TV, and it is Ecclestone doing the deals – including with Murdoch-owned Sky in Britain and Italy.

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