Motorsport: Finally, officially, it's Kelly and Holden

>> Like it or not, Rick’s Superman
A day after the racing finished on the track at Phillip Island, the V8 Supercar Championship has been decided in a four-hour stewards hearing at Melbourne’s Crown Casino, with Holden’s Rick Kelly confirmed as champion.

Just before 4.00pm eastern summer time, chief CAMs steward Steve Chopping announced that the drive-through penalty imposed on Kelly for bumping title rival Craig Lowndes’ Falcon early in the third and final race at the Island yesterday was appropriate rather than inadequate.

Lowndes has accepted the outcome graciously. He says his Triple Eight team had quickly explored its options and could have taken the matter further but will respect the decision of the stewards.

At 23 Kelly is the second youngest champion in Australian Touring Car Championship history. Lowndes was the only younger champion, at 21 in 1996.

Kelly has become champion without winning any of the 13 rounds, while Lowndes won four rounds. The Ford fans aren’t happy about Kelly winning, and the manner in which he has done it.

There was a “Shame Holden Shame” banner in evidence at the Island immediately after the racing finished yesterday. However, Holden and Kelly can now take the attitude that winners are grinners and losers can please themselves.

After Lowndes limped around in his battered Falcon to finish the final race four laps down, Kelly says that finishing 18th himself in that race “is not the ideal way of winning the championship”.

“Our strategy this year was to finish in the top five each round, and it got us the championship. I think it is fantastic that they have changed the points for next year [to award points only down to 15th place and place more emphasis on winning races] and it will need a very different approach. We’ll have a look at our strategy for that this summer.”

Kelly says that his two Bathurst 1000 victories, in 2003 and ’04, had been a huge thrill but winning the championship had been much harder.

“Bathurst took me more by surprise because it happened so early in my career,” Kelly says.

“The championship is harder to accomplish. It needs a whole season of effort to achieve.”

For the record, Kelly’s older brother Todd won the first two races at the Island for Holden Racing Team and Ford Performance Racing’s Mark Winterbottom the final race to seal third place in the championship, ahead of Garth Tander – Rick Kelly teammate in the HSV squad that won the teams championship.

FPR edged out Triple Eight for second place in that championship, with its departing Jason Bright ending up fifth in the driver points as last year’s champion Russell Ingall slipped out from fifth to eighth at the final round.

Ford had already won the manufacturers’ championship and the final scoreline there was seven rounds to six.

Final V8 Supercar driver points: 1 R Kelly (HSV Commodore) 3308; 2 C Lowndes (Triple Eight Falcon) 3271; 3 M Winterbottom (Ford Performance Racing Falcon) 3089; 4 G Tander (HSV Commodore) 2965; 5 J Bright (FPR Falcon) 2868; 6 T Kelly (Holden Racing Team Commodore) 2815; 7 Steven Richards (Perkins Commodore) 2740; 8 R Ingall (Stone Bros Racing Falcon) 2708; 9 Stephen Johnson (Dick Johnson Racing Falcon) 2378; 10 Jamie Whincup (Triple Eight Falcon) 2357.

Some other prominent stars: 11 James Courtney (SBR Falcon)  2347; 16 Mark Skaife (HRT Commodore) 2036; 23 John Bowe (Brad Jones Racing Falcon) 1743; 24 Greg Murphy (PWR Commodore) 1710.

Final V8 Supercar team points: 1 HSV 6597; 2 FPR 5817; 3 Triple Eight 5702; 4 SBR 5115; 5 Perkins 4932; 6 DJR 4461; 7 HRT 4423; 8 WPS 4285; 9 PWR 4249; 10 GRM 3929; 11 Tasman 3426; 12 BJR 3134.

The V8 Supercars annual awards gala dinner will be held at Crown Casino in Melbourne tonight.

>> Salary cap to curb big five
At least five V8 Supercar teams will have to cut spending under the $6.75m salary cap introduced for 2007.

Holden Racing Team, Toll HSV Racing, Ford Performance Racing, Triple Eight Engineering and Stone Brothers Racing are already thought to be over that figure, with some of them believed to be spending around $12m this year.

Fines of up to $1m as well as race penalties will be applied to teams contravening the rules of the Total Racing Expenditure Cap, which may be further reduced in 2008 and is expected to lead to retrenchments.

The cap includes driver salaries and the total cost of running two-car teams but excludes spending on promotions and marketing.

The clamp has been introduced after months of research by a panel that includes Ross Oakley (who headed the AFL when it introduced a salary cap), and former federal opposition leader and businessman John Hewson, as well as Adelaide businessman Roger Cook and commentator and former racer, Neil Crompton.

>> Fujitsu top guns want promotion
Ford driver Adam Macrow hopes to move up into the V8 Supercar Championship Series after winning the Fujitsu development series ahead of Holden pair Shane Price and Jack Perkins. Price and Perkins reckon they are ready for the main series too.

Dick Johnson Racing’s Andrew Thompson continued his impressive late-season form by following up his Bathurst round win with overall victory at Phillip Island and confirmed himself as a starter in the Fujitsu series again in 2007.

Price won the category’s first race at the Island and finished on the same points for the last round as Thompson, but the second-race victory for the latter made him the weekend’s winner.

Nonetheless, Price narrowed Macrow’s lead from 160 to 40 points. The eventual champion had qualified fastest but was relegated to the rear of the grid due to a technical infringement and finished ninth and tenth in the weekend’s two races.

Fujitsu series final points: 1 Adam Macrow (Falcon) 2024; 2 Shane Price (Commodore) 1984; 3 Jack Perkins (Commodore) 1597; 4 Michael Caruso (Falcon) 1567; 5 Nathan Pretty (Commodore) 1455; 6 Tony D’Alberto (Commodore) 1443; 7 Mark Porter (Falcon) 1423; 8 Andrew Thompson (Falcon) 1376; 9 Grant Denyer (MINI) 1313; 10 Mathew White (Falcon) 1272.

Kiwi Jonny Reid took pole position and victories in both races to lift NZ from 12th to fifth in the second season of A1, with the next round at Taupo in NZ on January 19-21 and then the Australian round at Sydney’s Eastern Creek on February 2-4.

Reid is the seventh driver to win in the series this season.

“To come back from 16th fastest in the opening practice to take pole and then win both races, I’m just ecstatic. I’m over the moon,” Reid said.

NZ’s previous best A1 result was a third and fourth by Matt Halliday in the inaugural event at Brands Hatch in the first round last season.

Halliday has done most of the A1 racing for NZ but admits that his V8 Supercar commitments have set him back in open-wheelers and his hopes of regaining the “Black Beauty” seat for Taupo have been shot by Reid’s success.

The Kiwi car is engineered by the British operation headed by David Sears, who was responsible for the Super Nova Formula 3000 car Australian Mark Webber raced in 2001. Sears says the NZ team fired up Reid for the Sentul meeting by forcing him to share a hotel room against his wishes.

As happened at the Malaysian round two weeks ago, the early stages of the main race in Indonesia were disrupted by monsoonal rain.

Germany’s 19-year-old Nico Hülkenberg took the lead from Reid on lap six and opened a gap of more than 20sec before a pit stop, after which he struggled with a fresh set of tyres and then pitted again three laps later for slicks as the track dried.

A charging Hülkenberg finished on the heels of Reid, with Nicolas Lapierre third for defending champion France’s fourth podium this season.

After 10 races in the five rounds so far this season, Team Germany (headed by Michael Schumacher’s manager, Willi Weber) has had four podiums from two victories and two second places and has stretched its lead in the series from six to 12 points.

A1 points after five of 12 rounds: Germany 48, Great Britain 36, Mexico 33, France 32, New Zealand 31, Malaysia 29, Italy 26, Holland 23, Canada 22, Czech Republic USA and Switzerland 19 each, Australia 18.

>> Young Andretti for F1 test
Might Marco Andretti become the first third generation F1 driver? The 19-year-old American is to drive an F1 Honda this week at the final pre-season test at Jerez in Spain.

The grandson of 1979 world champion Mario Andretti, and son of Michael who raced for McLaren in 1993 (until dumped to make way for Mika Hakkinen), is committed to another two seasons in the Indy Racing League with Andretti Green Racing. However, Honda may be lining him up as an eventual replacement for Rubens Barrichello, now 34 but fastest at the end of last week’s Jerez test.

Andretti was second in this year’s Indianapolis 500 and in August became the IRL’s youngest winner at Sonoma. He was named rookie of the year in the series.

For F1 to ever take hold in the USA it needs a name like Andretti not only in it, but at the pointy end of it!!!

FIA president Max Mosley said of the seven-time world champion and winner of 91 GPs: “It’s a career that has never been equaled in the past and probably never will be in the future. In addition to his extraordinary achievements on the track, Michael has helped us enormously with all sorts of work on road safety all over the world.”

F1 supremo Bernie Ecclestone said: “All sports need a superstar and Michael is a superstar. His achievements speak for themselves, but what they don’t say is what a lovely guy Michael is and he is supported by a really lovely family.”

Stirling Moss, 77 and still widely regarded as the greatest driver never to be F1 world champion (by those who overlook the genius of Gilles Villeneuve!) was also honored by the FIA.

Moss was teammate to the legendary Juan Manuel Fangio at Mercedes in 1955 and was runner-up in the F1 championship from that season until 1958, while also winning the Mille Miglia and Targa Florio sportscar races.

The World Motor Sport Council met in Monaco before the FIA dinner and we will take a look later in the week at what its decisions might mean for the future of F1.

>> Almost sorry, a decade late
Schumacher has finally shown some remorse for blatantly turning his Ferrari into Jacques Villeneuve’s Williams as they battled at Jerez for the 1997 world title, which the Canadian ultimately took.

“That was something I would do different today,” Schumacher says. “I am not someone who can analyse something immediately after it happens or admit things. In certain situations I need time to think about it and realise what a mess I made.”

There’s been no specific admission from Schumacher though regarding his similar action against Damon Hill at the 1994 Australian Grand Prix in Adelaide where the German clinched the first of his seven world titles… Or of any other misdemeanours -- notably blocking the track during qualifying at Monaco this year.

Schumacher generalizes that the enormous pressure he put on himself was the cause of his controversial actions.

“This pressure I constantly put myself under is something that goes around in my head whatever is going on,” he says. “I do not have this feeling any more and that is what has changed for me. I am a lot more relaxed now [in retirement].”

>> Nearly a boy in blue
Schumacher’s father, Rolf, says that had Michael not become an F1 driver he multi-times champ would have been a policeman.

“He used to say, ‘Either way, I can drive fast!’ ” Rolf said in an interview with Germany’s RTL television.

Meanwhile, another former German F1 driver, Hans Stuck, says F1’s television audience in the country is likely to be hit at the start of next year without Schumi racing.

“It is obvious that, at the beginning, many of Michael’s fans will not bother getting up at 4.00 in the morning to watch the Melbourne race,” Stuck wrote in a column for Eurosport. However, Stuck predicts the German audience will pick up once the European races begin.