Motorsport: Eastern Creek special for Courtney

Monday motorsport reportJune 4, 2007

Courtney's feeling at home
The fifth round of the V8 Supercar Championship at Sydney's Eastern Creek this weekend will be something special for James Courtney.

Courtney grew up at Penrith, close to the Creek, yet has never raced at the circuit.

"Eastern Creek should be my 'home' track considering I grew up a couple of exits down the freeway, but I was overseas for a long time so I've never raced there," the Stone Brothers/Ford driver says.

Courtney made a lightning start to this year's series at Adelaide's Clipsal 500, where he qualified on pole position and finished second and third in the two races, but has been frustrated that he hasn't been able to improve on that since.

"We've had good car speed just about everywhere since Adelaide, but I haven't finished some races for various reasons," says Courtney, who is fifth in the standings.

Eastern Creek would be an appropriate place for him to break through for his first championship round victory.

And, even though he now lives in Queensland, it would be fitting for a driver still essentially from Sydney to win in the country's biggest city.

Ford has a decisive lead in the manufacturers' championship, with 114 points to Citroen's 86.

"The second half of the year won't be easy with four events on asphalt -- his (Loeb's) favourite surface," Gronholm says.

Finn Gronholm and his Focus RS WRC were unchallenged in the latter stages of the Greek rally as he kept a comfortable lead over Frenchman Loeb, who finished 38.6 seconds behind in his C4, while Norwegian Petter Solberg completed the podium for Subaru, almost another minute behind Loeb.

Both factory Subaru Impreza WRCs showed some genuine pace, winning five stages.

Australian Chris Atkinson put in perhaps his best performance of the season to lead for part of the first day before several punctures and serious damage to the front of his Subaru saw him finish sixth -- more than 6½ minutes behind Gronholm.

Atkinson is seventh in the championship on 15 points.

The final Acropolis leg was shortened, with the Imittos stage canceled due to environmental concerns, but Gronholm says it is a huge-confidence booster for him to have taken two wins off Loeb (he also won Italy's Rally Sardinia two weeks ago) before the mid-season break.

Loeb won six of the 21 Acropolis stages but had a spin at a hairpin on just the second stage and lost his chance of victory after hitting a rock on the second pass through the long Agii Theodori stage and punctured a tyre.

Solberg and Atkinson had front shock absorber failures and the Norwegian veteran lost a full minute in the late stages of the second day.

"It's been a difficult rally but I'm very happy to finish on the podium," Solberg says.

Gronholm's Ford teammate, Mikko Hirvonen, had to settle for fourth after losing time when he found himself 60 metres off the course due to a broken windscreen, while Henning Solberg -- Petter's brother -- made it three Fords in the top five.

Atkinson's early lead was aided by Gronholm and Loeb having to drive first over the rocky roads and he was third, and only nine seconds off the pace, at the start of the second leg.

However, a bad puncture during the first pass through Agii Theodori cost him almost two minutes.

With the subsequent shock absorber problems he was lucky to salvage three championship points.

"We definitely made a positive start to this rally, and it was more than a good road position that enabled us to do those times," Atkinson says.

"The car was working better than it had done on the last few rallies, so that was a good sign.

"But unfortunately we lost some of that performance later on in the day.

"Saturday just wasn't our day and we suffered with some classic Acropolis problems like the punctures and damaged components.

"In the end we weren't able to rediscover the performance or the feeling we had enjoyed on the first morning, and that's the challenge for us over the next two months (the mid-season break).

"We're certainly getting closer, and I really hope we'll be able to win more stages when we get to Finland (for the resumption of the championship on August 3-5, with the tarmac Rally Germany two weeks later)."

Evans extends perfect record
Toyota's reigning Australian rally champion, Simon Evans, dominated in Canberra at the weekend, winning every stage of the Capital Rally, the third round of this year's ARC, as well as clearly beating Asia-Pacific round winner Cody Crocker.

Evans and his co-driver wife Sue have won all six of the ARC heats so far this season -- and 58 of 63 stages contested -- in the same Group N prototype Corolla Sportivo in which they took the national title last year.

They beat the new Super 2000 Toyota of teammates Neal Bates and Coral Taylor by more than 2½ minutes in Saturday's heat, although Bates lost more than a minute with an early puncture, and won Sunday's heat by almost a minute.

Evans has a 71-point lead over Bates, 243 to 172, in this year's title race with three rounds remaining -- the next being Rally South Australia on August 10-12.

Subaru privateers claimed third place in each heat of the Capital Rally -- Will Orders on Saturday and Eli Evans, younger brother of Simon, on Sunday after a rollover in heat one.

Spencer Lowndes took fourth place in both heats in his return to the ARC as a privateer in a Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution IX.

But it was a miserable weekend for Ford's Super 2000 Fiestas.

Michael Guest rolled on Friday night's opening stage, recovered to finish sixth in the opening heat, then was hampered by power steering problems on Sunday that forced him into retirement midway through the second heat.

Teammate Darren Windus had a lower control arm break on the first stage on Saturday and then engine problems sidelined his Fiesta mid-Sunday.

Crocker and co-driver Ben Atkinson took out 10 of that rally's 16 stages (run jointly with the ARC round) in the Singapore-entered Motor Image Subaru Impreza WRX, eventually winning by more than a minute from Japan's Katsu Taguchi and Australian co-driver Mark Stacey in an Evolution IX Mitsubishi.

Crocker won the APRC title last year and has now won both rallies he has driven for Motor Image.

Taguchi has now moved ahead of his Finnish teammate Jussi Valimaki in the championship.

Valimaki won three stages in Canberra, including two on the final day, but finished fourth in his Evo IX, behind the Impreza of West Australians Dean Herridge and Bill Hayes, who will now contest some rounds of the Chinese championship.

The next round of the Asia-Pacific series is Japan's Hokkaido Rally on July 6-8.

Ambrose on the up in Busch Series
Three things went right for Marcos Ambrose at Dover, Delaware, at the weekend that resulted in his best finish in NASCAR's Busch Series.

Firstly, veteran Ford NASCAR racer Mark Martin -- who has won the most Busch races -- spent some time during practice in the Ford Fusion of Ambrose's sick teammate Jon Wood, which produced some improvements that were then applied to Ambrose's car.

Ambrose promptly qualified third in the 43-car field.

And, late in the 200-mile (320km) race, the 14th round of the Busch Series, Australia's dual V8 Supercar champion and his recently restructured team opted against a tyre change.

That saw Ambrose finish sixth -- his third top-10 finish of the season, but better than his eighth on the Mexico City road course and 10th at Las Vegas Speedway.

He was the top Busch rookie for the fourth time this year and is now up to eighth in the championship.

"We've turned a corner, there's no doubt," says Ambrose.

"I feel like I've arrived somewhat, holding up Kevin Harvick (reigning Busch champion and winner of this year's Daytona 500) at the end.

"The front right tyre was showing cord, so we used everything up there.

"Good strategy, good teamwork, good team, good race.

"Mark Martin jumped in our 47 car (Jon Wood's) in practice, caught on to a couple things, we copied it, and look where we are!"

Carl Edwards led 122 of 200 laps at Dover's "Monster Mile" speedway, crossing the line under the race's 11th caution ahead of pole starter Denny Hamlin for his third win of the season and 12th of his Busch career.

Ambrose and fellow Ford driver David Ragan are tied on 139 points in the rookie-of-the-year battle, two points ahead of Juan Pablo Montoya in a Dodge.

The next Busch race is this Saturday at Nashville Superspeedway, where Ambrose finished third in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series round last year and qualified second before finishing 17th earlier this year in a Busch race.

Toyota eyes Joe Gibbs NASCAR team
Toyota is prepared to pay the NASCAR team of gridiron legend Joe Gibbs US$25 million a year to field a four-car team in 2008, according to Sports Illustrated.

The move is being likened to Toyota wooing Chip Ganassi's Champ Car team away from Honda engines several years ago after four straight titles.

Toyota's entry to NASCAR's premier league, the Nextel Cup, has been far from dazzling this year with Michael Waltrip Racing, Bill Davis Racing and the new start-up racing.

There is a shortage of top teams available to it, and the Sports Illustrated report paints Joe Gibbs Racing -- which already has three drivers, including Tony Stewart -- as the best of them.

Gibbs' contract with Chevrolet runs out at the end of the year, and if he made the switch he would not be able to test Toyotas until the start of '08.

"The hidden asset is Gibbs' outstanding engine department," Sports Illustrated says.

"The Toyota engine has competitive top-end power, but its middle-range drivability is suspect.

"It's said to be 40 horsepower down at certain places in the power band.

"The unknown factor for Toyota is Dale Earnhardt Junior (who is set to leave the team established by his iconic late father).

"If Earnhardt decides to sign with Gibbs -- which would entail leaving Budweiser behind and aligning with a new sponsor -- before the non-negotiating period is over, Toyota would be frozen out.

"Earnhardt has said he'll only drive for Chevrolet.

"Earnhardt's marketability is awesome and he'd become the fourth driver at Gibbs and bring a financial package worth at least what Toyota is expected to offer."

We're fine, says Spyker F1 boss
Dutch sportscar manufacturer Spyker is seen as being in some financial difficulty, but the Formula 1 team bearing its name claims it isn't affected.

"The F1 team's security is not based on the profits, losses or financial security of Spyker Cars NV in any way," says team boss Colin Kolles.

"Spyker F1 is financed through its own consortium of investors, partners and suppliers and we are not reliant on input from the road car division."

China Champ Car race not on this year
Champ Car won't have a race in China this year, according to world motorsport chief Max Mosley.

A China round was originally scheduled for the North American-based series at Zhuhai in mid-May but was postponed.

Then it wanted to run its race on October 14 or 28, a week before or after the Gold Coast Indy, but Bernie Ecclestone's Formula 1 Management protested that was too close to the October 7 Chinese Grand Prix in Shanghai.

Champ Car organisers have been hoping the Federation Internationale de l'Automobile may still see its case favorably, but FIA president Mosley says: "The question of a Champ Car race in Zhuhai in October of 2007 is closed. There is no question of such a race taking place.We are looking forward to receiving an application for a Champ Car race in Zhuhai in May of 2008."

Unable to secure an open-wheeler drive this year, Philippe has made no secret that he would like to try the Aussie V8s.

He's also teamed up with the reigning Miss Indy, Sarah Buller.

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