MOTORSPORT: Factory teams flex muscles

Roland Dane’s Triple Eight Race Engineering, strongly supported by Holden without being its official factory team, is again the sport’s dominance force and its drivers, Jamie Whincup and Craig Lowndes, sit comfortably first and second in the championship after each winning a race in Darwin at the weekend.

Ford Performance Racing and Holden Racing Team are still far from perfect but there are plenty of positive signs from them, including FPR’s second race win of the season in the Northern Territory.

Putting aside the various dramas in the Hidden Valley races that made television highlights, eight of the nine podium positions in Darwin were filled by drivers from these three teams.

It would have been all nine if FPR’s Mark Winterbottom had not ruined his and teammate David Reynolds’ chances in the second leg of Saturday’s 60-60 race.

Winterbottom ended his victory drought of more than a year by winning the first of Sunday’s two races, Reynolds had two pole positions for the weekend, and Will Davison – also in the FPR fold – remains third in the championship.

HRT’s James Courtney had two podium finishes in Darwin and two front-row starts – one of them from pole position.

While it wasn’t a great weekend for HRT’s other driver, Garth Tander, he notched a fifth place in the final race and remains ahead of Courtney in the championship.

The sole driver on the podium from a team without major factory support was Shane Van Gisbergen in a Tekno Autosports Commodore built by Triple Eight.

Tekno, Brad Jones Racing and Garry Rogers Motorsport have all won races this year with Holdens, but the signs are there – with the endurance season looming in September-October – that the teams with factory backing are starting to assert themselves.

It was at the announcement early last year of Nissan’s return to Australian touring car racing this season that John Crennan – Nissan Motorsport chairman and former long-time Holden Special Vehicles and HRT chief – emphasised the importance of alignment with a manufacturer for sustained success in the category.

Nissan has made steady progress this season, with Rick Kelly fifth in Saturday’s Darwin race – helped admittedly by the Winterbottom-Reynolds contact.

The Mercedes-Benz E63s fielded by Erebus Motorsport do not have official Mercedes support, but Erebus owner Betty Klimenko’s millions are ensuring plenty of input from the manufacturer’s AMG and HWA arms in Germany.

The Mercs have not been as competitive as the Nissans but Tim Slade gave Erebus its best finish of the season in Darwin on Saturday – sixth place.
Today a “marriage” of Garry Rogers Motorsport and Volvo is being announced from next season – a deal more akin to the Nissan-Kelly Brothers arrangement than Erebus-AMG.

Whether the GRM-Volvo alliance produces racetrack and more enduring marketing benefits than Robbie Francevic’s 1986 Australian Touring Car Championship title and legendary Peter Brock and Jim Richards driving for the Swedish brand in the 2-litre Super Tourer era only time will tell, but the factory input into an established V8 Supercar team at least may provide some solid foundations for success.

And “Car of the Future” project leader Mark Skaife has continually hinted at another marque being in the wings. For now Holdens have won 17 of the 19 races in the championship’s new era, Ford the other two. It may be a while yet before we see another brand in the winner’s circle, but in time the best chance for teams not winning now looks likely to be through close alignment with a manufacturer.

V8 Supercar Championship driver standings after 19 races – 1. Jamie Whincup (Holden) 1423 points; 2. Craig Lowndes (H) 1264; 3. Will Davison (Ford) 1148; 4. Shane Van Gisbergen (H) 1127; 5. Fabian Coulthard (H) 1128; 6. Jason Bright (H) 1101; 7. Mark Winterbottom (F) 1079; 8. Garth Tander (H) 1062; 9. James Courtney (H) 1003; 10. Jonathon Webb (H) 996; 11. Scott McLaughlin (H) 819; 12. David Reynolds (F) 799; 13. Rick Kelly (Nissan) 791; 14. James Moffat (N) 702; 15. Alex Davison (F) 679.

V8 Supercar teams championship standings – 1. Triple Eight 2702 points, 2. Brad Jones Racing 2254; 3. Ford Performance Racing 2252; 4. Tekno Autosports 2138; 5. Holden Racing Team 2080.

The young Brabham won his fifth straight race in the Pro Mazda series. He was fastest in all the category’s practice sessions at the Milwaukee Mile, claimed pole position with a record time, and led all 90 laps to take the chequered flag 10 seconds clear of the field, after a period behind a safety car that bunched up the field, again in record time.

Driving for Andretti Autosports, Brabham has a 49-point lead in the series – a stepping stone to Indy racing – ahead of the next two races in the series, on the Toronto street circuit in Canada on July 13-14.

Will Power notched up his first podium of the IndyCar season in the ninth round at Milwaukee, finishing third behind reigning series champion Ryan Hunter-Reay, driving for Andretti, and Penske teammate and this year’s series leader, Brazilian Helio Castroneves.

Power had qualified third, earned a bonus point for leading the race – twice, each time for two laps – and moved up from 12th to 11th in the points – 111 behind Castroneves.

It was his best finish in five starts at Milwaukee and best finish on an oval track since victory at Texas Motor Speedway two years ago.
All his other 18 IndyCar wins have been on road and street courses.

“Hopefully we’re starting to get a bit of momentum,” said Power, who has finished runner-up in the series the past three years. He said he was taking “not a relaxed approach, but methodical, not desperate in any way ... not as much expectation”.

Fellow Australian Ryan Briscoe finished 15th in the Milwaukee Indy race for Panther Racing before flying off to Le Mans in France – as V8 Supercar driver Jason Bright did from Darwin – for next weekend’s 24-hour sports car classic.

Briscoe said the gears of Panther’s Dallara-Chevrolet “were a bit long, so that was hurting us as we tried to race people off the corners”.

While Hunter-Reay, Castroneves and Power delivered a clean sweep to Chevrolet in that Indy race, Greg Biffle today gave Ford its 1000th victory in
NASCAR’s three national series – the Sprint Cup, Nationwide and the pick-up truck championship.

Biffle’s Cup win at the high-speed Michigan superspeedway was his second straight result there, and his fourth among 19 in his Cup career. Series leader Jimmie Johnson was gaining on Biffle in the closing laps but a cut right front tyre dropped him to 28th.

Carl Edwards, whose pole position lap at more than 200mph (320kmh) was slower than Australian Marcos Ambrose’s last year, finished eighth in another Ford to cut Johnson’s lead by 20 points to 31.

Ambrose finished 23rd in his Richard Petty Motorsports Ford but will be better suited to the Sonoma road course in California that hosts next weekend’s round.

None of the four Chevrolets of top NASCAR team Hendrick Motorsports ended in the top 25 at Michigan.

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