MOTORSPORT: Ford set to win and lose

The ledger is much more even in terms of V8 Supercar Championship success -- since 1999 the champion driver has been in a Holden six times, and five times in a Ford. Indeed, those five triumphs by Ford drivers have come in the past seven years.

James Courtney can make it six driver titles for the Blue Oval at this weekend's season finale, the Sydney Telstra 500 at Homebush.

Yet for the second year in a row it seems that a Ford-mounted champion will promptly be switching to Holden the next season. All the indications are that not only will Courtney be leaving Dick Johnson/Jim Beam Racing but that -- contrary to earlier signs he would drive a Pepsi-sponsored Falcon prepared by Ford Performance Racing (FPR) next season -- he is headed to Toll Holden Racing Team.

The deal hasn't been formally announced -- and can't be until the now long-running ownership dispute within DJR unravels.

Courtney has a year of his contract there to run, but (if DJR survives beyond this season) there is likely to be only one car from that stable next season, for Steve Johnson.

Courtney's manager, British-based Aussie expat Alan Gow, apparently agreed a deal with HRT last week that will see the former karter and one-time Formula One test driver back where he began his V8 Supercar career in the 2005 endurance races.

If Courtney departs it will be a double blow for Ford, having already seen Whincup (and Team Vodafone teammate Lowndes) depart a year ago after Triple Eight Race Engineering/Team Vodafone boss Roland Dane struck a deal to switch to Holden.

Courtney, 53 points clear in this year's championship with just two 250km races to be run on Saturday and Sunday, goes into Sydney's final round a firm favourite to take the title -- and deny Whincup a third straight crown.

Courtney was an emphatic winner of the Sunday race at Homebush last year and is in the same car this time. Ironically, a Falcon built by Triple Eight! He reckons his intention is to race to win rather than bother with calculations of the minimum he needs to do to clinch the championship.

Whincup has had more wins this season but has been plagued by some uncharacteristic glitches from Team Vodafone. He says he is determined in pursuit of a hat-trick of championships but even if he wins both races this weekend he will need Courtney to finish worse than third and fourth or second and fifth in the two races.

FPR's Mark Winterbottom has a mathematical chance of becoming champion but probably would need to win both remaining races, collect the maximum 300 points, and have Courtney and Whincup add little to their scores. Realistically, he is going to have to wait at least another year for a title.

Whincup professes to be "relatively relaxed" about this weekend's showdown.

"It is a pressure situation ... there is an element of extra pressure with a championship on the line," Whincup said.

"But I've been going hard all year. I've put in my best at each round. I just need to make sure I do the same this weekend."

Courtney, with five wins for the year to Whincup's nine, is happy to have a substantial points lead going into the finale and said Whincup may find himself having to take more risks -- on a circuit with close, unforgiving concrete safety walls.

The Ford driver is in the box seat, but even if does the job there will be little for the Blue Oval to leverage from it if he's headed to HRT.

Petty has completed the takeover of RPM with the backing of two investment groups.

More than 10 days have passed now since the November 19 deadline imposed by CAMS. The matter has escaped the attention of Australian mainstream media, but international motor racing website pitpass.com has weighed in with an article on CAMS taking a hard line in the negotiations.

Three things could happen in this dispute: the parties finally reach agreement (most likely); an asterisk is placed against the GP's listing on the F1 calendar for next year (quite possible); or the Federation Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA) drops the event off the calendar (unlikely).

AGPC chairman Ron Walker's claim that an overseas organiser could be brought in to run the event is preposterous, especially when he claims to be trying to contain costs that have blown out to annual losses of almost $50 million a year.

Meanwhile, Spanish city Valencia is finding the losses on its street race (called the European GP) hard to take. Valencia reportedly wants F1 supremo Bernie Ecclestone to release it from the remaining two years of its five-year contract.

The first Valencia race drew 110,000 people but the figure had dropped to 75,000 fans this year when Australian Mark Webber had his spectacular crash.

Spanish newspaper El Periodico has reported that the European GP has "cost the public coffers 142 million Euros", see here

The circuit, on Perth's northern fringe, did not have a V8 Supercar Championship round this year but has been returned to the calendar next season.

The most optimistic Perth observers estimated Sunday's attendance at 20,000, while this writer -- present but no expert is judging Wanneroo crowds -- thought it to be genuinely in the range of 12-14,000.

While the venue could have accommodated more enthusiasts, many people turned around and headed home rather than endure a traffic queue that stretched to 8km. Many of those who persisted on the 35-degree day had to park 3km or so from the entrance gates.

Australia's F1 driver Mark Webber did two runs in a Red Bull car (an old Cosworth-engined model with some more recent aerodynamics) while Perth's openwheeler star Daniel Ricciardo did another, after a surprise drive of the car on the city's Riverside Drive two days earlier.

Ricciardo's Wanneroo outing came just a day after news that he will be the third driver for Red Bull's sister F1 team Scuderia Toro Rosso next year, participating in Friday practice sessions at all GPs.

That appointment, after having topped post-season F1 trials for potential GP drivers the past two years (most recently in Abu Dhabi), has turned up the heat on Toro Rosso's race drivers, Switzerland's Sebastien Buemi and Spaniard Jaime Alguersuari, to improve their performances.

Unfortunately, the Wanneroo commentators seemed unaware that Ricciardo was to drive the F1 car at Wanneroo until moments before he took to the track. He gave the fans some excitement with a series of donuts at the end of his run -- something Webber repeated after his final outing, the only one which took in the full circuit.

Organiser Terry Mader has admitted to teething problems with this inaugural Festival of Speed in the west.

Apart from the traffic chaos, the big oversight was in not presenting Webber, Ricciardo, 1980 world champion Alan Jones and perhaps Le Mans 24-hour winner Geoff Brabham, eldest son of triple F1 world champion Sir Jack, to the fans in a parade lap.

There was enormous interest around the marquee that housed the F1 car and in Webber's presence but, without a giant screen at the venue, many fans left feeling they had seen nothing more of Webber than his helmet as he sped by.

However, for a first try, the festival was a winner with an excellent array of four and two-wheel machinery and a snappy event schedule.

Ironically, Brabham did not win on either of his visits to Caversham -- he was third the first time and did not finish the second time.

It is envisaged that the suburb, which already has a Brabham Reserve, will have 5000 houses but retain 60 hectares of bushland.

The naming came at the instigation of the Vintage Sports Car Club of WA, which is active in perpetuating memories of the Caversham racing days that ended in the late 1960s.

Image: jamescourtney.com.au

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