Motorsport: F1 still a tobacco road

Midweek motorsportNovember 29, 2006

Cigarette sponsorship was totally outlawed in Australia from September 30 this year and the European ban takes effect from the start of the new year. The Ferraris will be painted mainly plain red and white in 2007, perhaps not greatly different to what they would be without Marlboro money, but the nature of the deal has angered some of Marlboro's rivals.

Marlboro's parent company, Philip Morris, says it will "develop innovative ways to convey the sponsorship to consumers". In some places Marlboro cigarettes have already been seen featuring a red F1 car with four-grooved tyres, a distinguishing feature of F1, on the white packets. Tommaso Di Giovanni, an international spokesman for Philip Morris, says: "We still believe it's appropriate for us to be involved (in F1)."

Mark Webber had his first outing with Red Bull, wearing black overalls as part of the arrangement under which Williams released him before the new year. Webber knew many of those in the Red Bull crew from the days when it was Jaguar Racing, for which he drove in 2003 and 2004. The Red Bull cars still have Ferrari engines in them from last season, rather than the Renault motors that will power them next season. Webber was fractionally faster than his new teammate, David Coulthard, but they were the slowest of 16 drivers at the test, with Webber more than 2.3 seconds off the pace of the fastest Ferrari. The Aussie will be on track again tonight, our time, but not Thursday night.

McLaren rookie Lewis Hamilton stopped out on track with an engine mapping problem but got going again to complete 63 laps and finished sixth fastest. Felipe Massa, winner of the last GP of 2006 for Ferrari, was fastest, almost 0.4 seconds ahead of McLaren's Spaniard Pedro de la Rosa, who is relegated to full-time test driver for 2007, with Hamilton installed as teammate to Fernando Alonso.

Dual world champion Alonso, who is crossing from Renault, and Kimi Raikkonen, who is moving from McLaren to Ferrari, cannot test yet as they are being held to their existing contracts. Honda's Jenson Button is missing because of cracked ribs from a kart crash.

Behind Massa and de la Rosa the order was Luca Badoer (Ferrari), Nick Heidfeld (BMW), Rubens Barrichello (Ferrari), Hamilton, Polish youngster Robert Kubica (BMW), British rookie tester James Rossiter (Honda), Alex Wurz, who has replaced Webber in the Williams race seat, Nelson Piquet Jr in his official testing debut for Renault, Anthony Davidson, the ex-Honda test driver who will now race for Super Aguri in its second season, and Renault's Finn Heikki Kovalainen, who has been promoted from test driving to replace Alonso. Vitantonio Liuzzi and Scott Speed -- the two drivers for Scuderia Toro Rosso, Red Bull's second squad -- were also ahead of Webber and Coulthard.

"Do people turn on the TV to see the best traction control or the best driver?" Berger asks. "As much as I like the technical side, I think it's over the top. The balance with driver skill isn't right at all." Berger was speaking at a seminar organised by F1 Racing magazine, also attended by Webber. "It would be nice to be a bit more challenged, and not have the car manipulate us so much," Webber says. The number of driver aids is already set to be cut in 2008, when all cars will use standard electronic control units.

$500,000 for Brock Torana
The Holden Torana in which Peter Brock won the 1974 Australian Touring Car Championship has been sold for $500,000 -- a record for a Holden. The family of former Holden Dealer Team mechanic Ian Tate sold the XU1, in which Brock also finished second at Bathurst in 1973, to a Melbourne construction company owner who is remaining anonymous for now.

Mercurial Rossi's rally victory
How good is Valentino Rossi on four wheels? Pardon the question mark; this is becoming more a statement than a query. After completing New Zealand's world championship rally just outside the top 10, Rossi has now won the Rally of Monza -- a two-day tarmac event on the track that is the home of the Italian F1 GP. He was second in this rally last year, beating Colin McRae, a former world rally champion. This time Rossi beat a field that included another former world rally champion, Frenchman Didier Auriol, who finished 12th. Driving a Ford Focus, Rossi won all seven stages of the 136.4km event.

"Winning in rally gives the same emotion as in MotoGP," Rossi says. "The car was perfect and, above all, I didn't make any mistakes, which is what counts."

What a coup it will be if Rossi eventually does the WRC rather than F1. Despite the seemingly limitless budgets in F1, Rossi is his own man -- and his heart is clearly more in rallying than open-wheelers. While he's back to MotoGP testing next week, Rossi says he's already lined up a rally test on snow stages early next year.

Atkinson was running sixth in his first Rally GB last year until he went off the road. He was eventually classified 38th. The event is later this year -- the past two Rally GBs have been in September -- and Atkinson says: "There will probably be ice and fog, which will make it tricky. It won't be a completely new experience for me though, because I've done winter rallies in places like Tasmania before, where the conditions were similar."

Atkinson is 10th in the championship and says of the changes to the route should help him. "Some of the stages are new, and that could level the playing field for me because the more experienced drivers will be learning the route too," he says. "We've had some good speed at certain points of the last two rallies (Australia and NZ), so now we're working on trying to find that pace for an entire event."

The 17 stages comprise 355.92 competitive kilometres. Atkinson's teammate, Petter Solberg, first won a round of the world rally championship victory at the 2002 Rally GB and became world champion the next year. The Subaru team, fielded by David Richards' Prodrive, will need a repeat of that 2002 victory by Solberg, or a super performance from Atkinson, if it is to avoid the ignominy of not winning one world rally in a season for the first time since 1992.

Crocker says the Chinese roads were "a quagmire, absolutely diabolical, but we stayed clean the whole way" in the three-day China event. "This championship is second in standing only to the world championship, so it means a lot to win it. I hope that something can come of this for Ben and me, either at world championship level or the chance to try to win this championship again."

Aussie fifth at BMW worlds
Australia's Daniel Ricciardo finished fifth in a field of 36 at the Formula BMW world finals at Valencia in Spain, where Alex Zanardi drove an F1 car with artificial legs. The 17-year-old Ricciardo was eighth, fifth and sixth in three heats, notching the fastest lap in the second one. The West Australian started the final ninth and crossed the finish line sixth but was promoted one spot when a driver ahead of him was disqualified. Ricciardo was given a special award as the best behaved driver on and off the track.
  
The final was won by Germany's Christian Vietoris, who -- like last weekend's A1 Grand Prix series winner in Malaysia, Nico Hülkenberg -- is a protégé of Michael Schumacher's manager, Willi Weber. Austrian Josef Kral finished second and Finn Mika Maki third. Vietoris, also 17, gets an F1 test with BMW-Sauber as part of his prize.

Da Matta almost 100 per cent
Cristiano Da Matta, the Brazilian openwheeler racer almost killed in a Champ Car testing crash in August, says he's almost fully recovered. The 33-year-old wants to race again and plans to get into a kart early next year. "I feel very well physically, almost ready in fact, but I can't risk hitting my head again now, so I'll have to wait a little longer," Da Matta says. However, there is a cloud over the future of RuSport Racing for which he was racing -- and in which Aussie Ryan Briscoe substituted at the last two Champ Car rounds.

"The buzz of driving an F1 car is great but I love racing -- I'm a racer. That means more than pounding around Silverstone in the winter. I have been through the whole process, and at least I was in the boxing ring with blood on my face having a go.

"The fact that I am racing at all gives me great satisfaction as I have never had much money behind me and it is still a rich man's game. I have been with guys who have been rated as some of the best around but are now doing nothing. So I'm delighted to be one of the few that is working professionally and fighting for world titles."