MOTORSPORT: F1 heat on Renault

Renault's F1 team boss Flavio Briatore, the mysterious but successful Italian whose various hats include managing Australian driver Mark Webber, has been dismissive of allegations that have led to his team being called to appear at the Federation Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA) World Motor Sport Council (WMSC) on December 6.

The case centres on former McLaren engineer Phil Mackereth taking 11 floppy disks with him when he joined the Renault team in September 2006.

A submission to the upcoming hearing by McLaren's lawyers has been leaked, with potentially explosive allegations that may make it hard for the WMSC not to be as hard on Renault as it was McLaren for having a dossier of Ferrari information.

That is potentially more damaging for F1, especially as the Renault F1 team is wholly-owned by a car manufacturer, unlike McLaren -- which is only partly-owned by Mercedes-Benz.

There are reports that Renault may want out of F1 if it is penalised anywhere near as heavily as McLaren.

The uncertainty is probably also contributing to Fernando Alonso's reluctance to re-sign with Renault, the team with which he won the 2005 and '06 drivers' world championship -- and helped it to back-to-back constructors' titles -- before his unhappy 2007 season with McLaren and rising star Lewis Hamilton as his teammate.

Briatore had tried to set last weekend as a deadline for Alonso to agree to a three-year contract, but the Spaniard is on holidays and ignored it -- and apparently is only prepared to sign a one-year deal anyway.

The leaked document from McLaren's lawyers, Baker McKenzie, claims that 33 files containing more than 780 drawings outlining the whole technical blueprint of the 2006 and 2007 McLaren F1 cars were copied on the disks Mackereth took to Renault.

McLaren says the disks were loaded on to 11 Renault computers and were discussed by up to 18 Renault personnel.

While Renault has previously downplayed the importance of the technical information as covering only four "basic systems," one of which was obsolete, Baker McKenzie has said: "It is clear that McLaren's confidential design information was knowingly, deliberately and widely disseminated and discussed within the Renault F1 design and engineering team."

That had provided Renault "with a clear benefit and unfair advantage", it said.

Baker McKenzie also complained about a "cavalier attitude" on the part of senior Renault personnel and responses had been "incomplete", "misleading" or "incorrect".

It attacked Mackereth's suggestion that he had kept some confidential McLaren technical information for "sentimental reasons".

The Times of London said McLaren had "sought to underline that the French team's possession of McLaren technical secrets is as bad or even worse than McLaren's possession of Ferrari secrets".

And, it said that if the same penalties came to be applied to Renault as McLaren, "many believe that the team (Renault) would quit F1.

While many in F1 are saying that taking secrets from one team to another has been going on forever, but some powerbrokers fear the damage that the ongoing espionage scandal could have commercially, the Williams team's Australian technical director, Sam Michael, has said it is all for the best.

"I think we will look back and say this was good for the sport," Michael said.

"Right now everyone has had a gut-full of it, but you are going to look back in a few years' time and say, ‘No, they actually stopped it. They didn't allow it to continue'."

F1's monopoly tyre supplier, Bridgestone, will provide all 11 teams with three sets of slicks to evaluate in the test at Jerez in Spain on December 4-7.

Bridgestone claims the supply of slicks is in response to a request by the teams as F1 considers a return to them in 2009.

Wonder if anyone has thought to tell FIA president Max Mosley, who drove them out a decade ago and is still one of the most powerful figures in the sport -- perhaps even more powerful than Bernie Ecclestone these days.

The retired seven-time world champion was the fastest among more than 20 drivers when he tested for two days in Barcelona recently.

He has said he is taking to the tracks again "half for pleasure, half for technical reasons" -- related to his experience of driving F1 cars without traction control and anti-lock brakes, as they will be in F1 next year -- but has no thoughts of a racing comeback, despite being three years younger than Nigel Mansell was when he won his sole world title in 1992.

Schumi's brother, Ralf, seems to be someone who can't take a hint.

Dumped by Toyota's F1 team, 32-year-old Ralf is making noises about being interested in the McLaren seat left vacant by Fernando Alonso.

He apparently feels he is good enough to challenge and even beat Lewis Hamilton.

He'd have trouble finding anyone to second him on that suggestion.

Finn Heikki Kovalainen, who raced for Renault this year, must be favored for the McLaren drive unless Nico Rosberg is somehow unlocked from his Williams deal.

McLaren test driver Pedro de la Rosa is the fallback if a better teammate cannot be found for Hamilton.

Nelson Piquet Junior seems set to get a Renault seat, with Alonso most probably back there in the end.

Toyota has already signed German Timo Glock to replace Ralf Schumacher.

There are vacancies with Force India (previously Jordan, Midland and Spyker), with Indian Narain Karthikeyan in line for one seat, and perhaps Austrian Christian Klien the other.

Australia's Ian Dyk didn't finish the sprint race but was ninth in the longer feature -- although 24 seconds behind eighth-placed New Zealander Jonny Reid.

German newcomer Michael Ammermuller was disqualified from the feature of some questionable tactics in both races.

Brazil and Germany were each given a 2-second penalty in the feature, which relegated Brazilian Sergio Jimenez, who led part of the race, to third place -- behind Frenchman Loic Duval.

South Australians Kevin Weeks and Bec Crunkhorn overcame a last-minute drama to win in a 1975 Porsche 911 RSR -- 12.5 seconds ahead of the event winners the previous five years, Rex Broadbent and Michael Goedheer, in another 911.

"We lost fourth gear in Mount Lofty and did three stages with only one gear before we were able to repair it at the lunch break," Weeks said.

Broadbent said he overshot a corner on Saturday "and lost about 12 seconds -- and that's the margin we lost by today" -- but he acknowledged Weeks' superb driving.

Jim Richards and Barry Oliver were third, 37.7 seconds behind in a four-cylinder Porsche 944 Turbo Cup.

Local crew Cameron Wearing and Rebecca Cochrane drove a 1971 Ford Capri V8 to victory in the classic class, for cars from 1948 to 1972, while Ray Jones and Wolf Grodd won the historic class in a 1929 Chrysler 75 Le Mans roadster.

It consists of 17 stages, which total 359.54 competitive kilometres - the longest of them is Sunday's 28.89km test at Brechfa.

Some of the high-speed stages will be run in the dark, while rain, mud and fog are on the cards.

Subaru's Australian factory driver Chris Atkinson said: "This year I have more experience of driving on slippery and icy surfaces going into Rally GB, whereas last year it was new and I had a lot to learn. It's especially important to find good stability on the fast and slippery gravel."

Atkinson's Norwegian teammate Petter Solberg has won on these stages three times in the past five years and another triumph would do wonders for his battered morale.

However, most interest is in whether Frenchman Sebastian Loeb can clinch a fourth straight title with Citroen or his main rival, Finn Marcus Gronholm, can yet steal this year's crown in a Ford Focus before heading off into retirement.

The Townsville Bulletin reported today that the result is likely to hinge on a handful of votes.

Labor's George Colbran was in front on Sunday night, leading his Liberal rival Peter Lindsay by 460 votes.

Another 1500 pre-poll votes and about 4000 postal votes are expected to be counted over the next week.

The Bulletin said that if the ballot papers fell in a similar way to the 1998 contest in Herbert, when Peter Lindsay ultimately beat Labor's Ted Lindsay by 150 votes, Colbran's lead could be whittled away as pre-poll and postal votes are counted.

After close of counting on Saturday night Colbran had led by 506 votes, but the Bulletin said that if things fell the same as 1998 Peter Lindsay would win by four votes!

However, Colbran is tipped to win by about 100 votes.

As we pointed out here during the election campaign, John Howard committed the Liberal Coalition to a $10 million contribution to the Townsville street race concept while Colbran announced that Labor would tip in that amount too -- but that commitment was never heard directly out of Kevin Rudd's mouth, leaving a slight query over how firm the Colbran pledge is.

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