MOTORSPORT: Ford's new hunger for racing

Ford to concentrate its sponsorships on motorsport
It's been the week the Gold Coast motor racing carnival transformed from an international to a national event, amid massive controversy.

It's now the weekend the World Rally Championship comes to a thrilling climax, with just a point (84-83) between Ford's Finnish star Mikko Hirvonen and Citroen's champion of the past five years, Frenchman Sebastien Loeb -- although Citroen already has the manufacturers' title sewn up.

And today's the day the world governing body of motorsport, the Federation Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA), is to get a new president, with another Frenchman Jean Todt, former Ferrari Formula One team boss and previously Peugeot world rally chief, and another Finn, Ari Vatanen, a legendary rally driver and former member of the European Parliament, vying to replace Max Mosley.

And it's the week a story of enormous significance to Australian motorsport has almost slipped under the radar.

Tucked away in this week's Auto Action magazine is an article headlined 'Ford committed to V8 future'.

It is a story of "a shift in thinking" and "reawakened interest in V8 racing at Broadmeadows" (Ford's Australian headquarters in Melbourne) and that the Blue Oval is "set to reassert its presence next year".

The gist of AA editor-at-large Mark Fogarty's article is that, in the wake of Team Vodafone/Triple Eight Race Engineering's imminent switch to Holden, the loss of Craig Lowndes back to the enemy, and now the belting Ford copped from Holden at Bathurst, the decision to withdraw financial support from all but two teams, Ford Performance Racing and Stone Brothers Racing, will be reviewed.

Ford Australia president Marin Burela is reported to have revealed that chiefs at Ford's American head office have directed that the company should sponsor racing ahead of other sports like cricket or golf.

Burela attended the Bathurst 1000 immediately after a visit to Ford's Detroit base and Fogarty has now reported: "In a private meeting with the other Ford team principals at Bathurst, Burela declared that the company was staying in V8 Supercars beyond its existing commitment to the end of 2010.

"He also made it clear that racing would be restored as a major marketing platform for Falcon and indicated that a review of Broadmeadows' sponsorship strategy from 2011 would result in wider support.

"Described by insiders as a 'pep talk', the informal gathering was co-organised by FPR's director of business operations Mark Roworth and senior Ford Oz marketing executive Christine Bickley, who is responsible for the company's racing budget."

Fogarty then commented: "The gathering was significant because it was his (Burela's) first display of active interest in V8 racing since he took over the top job at Broadmeadows at the start of the year."

Fogarty quoted an "insider" saying: "The whole goal of the activity was to have Marin form a relationship with the teams. It was all about Ford being able to display their intention to be part of the V8 championship for a long time."

Another "informant" was quoted saying: "Ford Australia is committed to being involved in V8 racing for an indefinite time moving forward. It was a display of commitment."

An early building block in that commitment is likely to be the re-creation soon of the position of a Ford motorsport manager.

In this author's eyes, this is one of the major stories of the year in Australian motorsport.

We have seen Holden's commitment recently in its wooing of Team Vodafone and the Craig Lowndes, Jamie Whincup, Roland Dane package, and the Lion's determination and success in overcoming Ford's dominance at Bathurst.

Now the only other participating manufacturer in V8 Supercar racing is signalling its seriousness about getting fair dinkum in the sport again.

Its impact won't be as sudden as Team Vodafone switching sides, and there's no guarantee Ford will get it right in this major reversal of strategy, but it's got to be good -- indeed great -- news for Australian motorsport.

Just don't expect a third manufacturer in V8 Supercar racing in a hurry, but count on a massive bunfight in a few months over the Car of the Future.

And, incidentally, we have been seeing for a couple of weeks now reports of Greg Murphy possibly racing a Ford next year as part of a mooted merger of his Tasman Motorsport and Paul Cruickshank Racing.

That would be, certainly in New Zealand, almost as big as Lowndes switching camps again, although our suspicion is it might just be a ploy to try to extract some Holden funding.

Value of Gold Coast carnival under microscope
What a week of hot air it's been on the Gold Coast -- and plenty more of it to come over the weekend no doubt, on and off the street circuit at Surfers' Paradise.

The first head has already rolled over the A1 GP no-show -- that of Gold Coast Motor Events Company chairman and former Queensland deputy premier and treasurer Terry Mackenroth, although he's nominally around until after the event.

Next to go is expected to be event general manager and IMG (International Management Group) operative Greg Hooton, with confirmation of that likely as early as Monday.

V8 Supercars Australia executive chairman Tony Cochrane is determined to show that the SuperGP, nee Indy, can be just as popular without an international open-wheeler category.

Queensland sports minister Phil Reeves seems to be coming around to the Cochrane way of thinking, after the government has insisted for years that an international flavour is essential.

Reeves is already in a hot seat over the A1 debacle and the heat may yet be turned up a few notches after the weekend.

Gold Coast tourism chief Martin Winter, former Indy chairman John Cowley and many at the Gold Coast city council reckon the event still needs an international aspect.

Queensland opposition leader John-Paul Langbroek and federal opposition tourism spokesman Stephen Ciobo have weighed in with that view too.

The weekend's four 150km V8 Supercar races ought to be entertaining enough, but the upshot -- beyond Cochrane's huffing and puffing -- may well be how, despite its presence in NZ and expansion to the Middle East, insular the V8 Supercar Championship remains.

One of our international contacts has reported to us this week that the highest TV figure for Bathurst in Britain on October 11, the day of the Great Race, was 9000.

Yes, that's nine and just three zeroes!

That was on Motors TV, a subscription service, about 1pm, UK time.

Last Sunday a peak audience of almost nine million viewers in Britain watched Jenson Button clinch the F1 world championship, and Australia's Mark Webber win the Brazilian Grand Prix, on free-to-air BBC1.

That BBC1 coverage averaged 6.6 million viewers, a 34 per cent audience share, between 4pm and 7.15pm, peaking at 8.9 million between 6.30pm and 6.45pm.

When Lewis Hamilton clinched the F1 world title a year earlier in Brazil the peak British audience -- on ITV then -- was 12.5 million.

The Bathurst audience on Motors TV two weeks ago equalled that for the European Dragster Championship replay on the same service the same week.

If our biggest race only gets that many, or so few, viewers in a country with the motor racing passion and heritage of Britain, surely the Gold Coast race won't get any more, if indeed as many.

The Queensland government forked out $15 million on July's new Townsville V8 Supercar round, and is committed to continue tipping in at least $2.5 million a year on that street event for another four years.

Townsville was hugely popular with spectators, but on national TV it was just another round of the championship -- and the international coverage is minimal.

The Queensland government's traditional contribution to Indy, now SuperGP, is $11.6 million, but -- for this year at least -- its spend (other than the $1.8 million deposit paid to A1 and which it must have little hope of retrieving) is going on what is, in a TV context, just another round of the national championship.

Okay, so there are four races and they add up to 600km -- a bit longer than anything in the series except Bathurst.

The fans at the track should be happy -- and the legendary touring cars and drivers (see list below) brought in to fill some of the space left by the A1 no-show will be a thrill, at least for the older fans -- although extreme caution will be exercised in the "racing" of them to avoid a hefty damage bill, especially for David Bowden who owns 10 of the 12 cars.

There will be a celebration of the 50th anniversary of the first F1 world title of Gold Coast resident Sir Jack Brabham -- something that should have happened at Melbourne's F1 GP in March.

But, at the end of the day or weekend, the Queensland government looks like paying the same as in the past for something that, in TV terms, is very essentially of only domestic or trans-Tasman interest.

Not that Indy had been generating much worthwhile American or broader international TV coverage anyway, as we have highlighted here in the past.

It has been reported this week that IndyCar would consider returning to the Gold Coast -- for about US$20 million a time, and provided it was earlier in the year rather than later -- which doesn't suit the Gold Coast anyway.

And it's

Twelve of the 17 IndyCar races this year were on the Versus pay service in the States and averaged only 315,000 viewers.

That's half the Australian audience for a half-decent V8 Supercar Championship round!

The Indianapolis 500 dwarfs everything else in Indy racing, with 6.338 million viewers on the American ABC network. The other four races on that free-to-air ABC this year averaged 1.2 million viewers, in a country with a population of 300 million. That 1.2 million average was down 17.8 per cent on last year.

What the debrief or "post-mortem" on this weekend's SuperGP needs to focus on is not only who messed up in the A1 GP fiasco but what quantifiable or definable benefits the event has for the money it costs Queensland taxpayers to put on.

Part of the assessment could be a comparison with the US$6 million the Argentinean government is spending on its half of the Dakar rally -- and what it gets for its money.

Queensland premier Anna Bligh has promised a comprehensive review by an independent investigator, starting Monday.

There is a big opportunity in Queensland to put all the spin and propaganda aside and get to the nub of things.

A kind of retrospective due diligence. Better late than never, eh. What chance?

The FIA election, and what Honda has foregone
To conclude today, a couple of big-picture matters of interest.

A comprehensive backgrounder on the FIA presidential election (here) battle, from motorsport.com.

Out of the blue, the Weekend Australian newspaper ran a big feature on this election last weekend. It's a bit dated now, but an excellent read.

Written by Peter Lalor it made the little-known point that Australia has two votes -- one on behalf of CAMS, the Confederation of Australian Motorsport, by Garry Connelly, who will cast it for Jean Todt, and the other by the Automobile Association of Australia, the umbrella organisation of the state motoring bodies and whose representative Mike Harris will vote for Vatanen.

In a nutshell, Todt -- backed by Mosley and F1 tsar Bernie Ecclestone -- is favourite with a platform of more of the same except for the introduction of individual commissioners for F1, WRC and World Touring Car Championship.

Vatanen appears highly principled, keen to reform the FIA but politically inept against the crafty Todt and his supporters.

The other thing ...

Honda, according to a business analysis, has missed out on US$225 million of exposure from pulling out of a F1 this year as BrawnGP collects the spoils with what was the Japanese manufacturer's team.

Wonder what Toyota makes of it all as it contemplates its F1 future.

(Plus sons of legends Steve Richards, Steve Johnson and James Brock)

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