MOTORSPORT: Fourth V8 Supercar manufacturer close

Skaife declares 'it's going to be a very good brand'
A fourth V8 Supercar manufacturer participant is likely to be announced within weeks. V8 Supercar supremo Tony Cochrane is adamant there will be a fourth player next season along with Holden, Ford and Nissan.

Car of the Future project chief Mark Skaife says it's "going to be a very good brand for V8 Supercars".

Speculation is centering on Mazda -- which had one of its Japanese executives, Shoichi Kamimura, attend the V8 Supercar round at Victoria's Phillip Island in May -- and Korean manufacturers Hyundai and Kia. A report in this week's Auto Action magazine named long-time Ford team Stone Brothers Racing as "the outfit most likely to sign the new manufacturer", but co-owner Ross Stone has dismissed that.

While still awaiting word of Ford's sponsorship intentions next year, he says Stone Brothers will be racing Falcons in the debut season of the Car of the Future next year. That raises the prospect of whether the team could be the oldest Ford flagbearer, Dick Johnson Racing.

AA reported that, with Garry Rogers Motorsport and Brad Jones Racing denying they have potential deals with a new manufacturer in the pipeline, "only Dick Johnson Racing has the resources to build a new car in time for the start of 2013".

Apart from Holdens and Fords, Nissan is returning to Australia's premier racing series next season with the Kelly Brothers team after a 20-year absence.

Despite bickering within the sport over precise technical details for the new-generation race cars to be introduced in just eight months and the costs, Skaife said discussions were continuing with three manufacturers and "one of those three is very close" to entering the category.

"I would think it would probably be within two weeks when the final decision is made on that," he told AA. "Things are looking very positive."

Skaife wouldn't name the likely entrant because "it's at such a critical point that I don't want to tip it over by giving away any further details".

"It is at a very, very critical time ... [but] it's going to be a very good brand for V8 Supercars. It's going to be tight, but I don't think it's too late for a new manufacturer to join for 2013.

"The ability for us to build the cars quickly is part of the whole Car of the Future plan in terms of making it easier, faster, more cost-effective and all those sorts of things. So I think it's fine.

"Then it really all comes down to ultimate performance features like engine equalisation and aero efficiency. They're the two aspects that we'll have to grab very quickly and understand the complexity of.

"At no stage have we ever wanted to put a road block up for a manufacturer to say, 'Hey, there's a timeframe on this that you have to work to and it's too late for 2013 now'. The [fourth] manufacturer is acutely aware of the timeline.

"They are very up to speed as to what the demand would be."

Skaife reckoned the mystery manufacturer was just "one meeting" away from a decision and announcement. He rated the chances of it entering "a 6.5 to 8.5 out of 10". "They're pretty good odds," he said.

Cochrane reiterated his earlier claim that there would be four manufacturers in V8 Supercars next year.

"As I said at the Nissan press conference earlier this year, that whilst all the media might be writing doom and gloom about the future, I've got at least two manufacturers out there having a real hard look and trying to work out if they can logistically be on the grid for the opening round next season," Cochrane told AA.

"I'm not getting into speculation, but I'll just say that, like I said earlier this year, there's going to be four manufacturers in V8 Supercars next year."

Volkswagen's WRC car three months away
The fourth manufacturer for next year's World Rally Championship, Volkswagen, is set to give its Polo R its public debut at the Italian round of this year's champion in Sardinia in mid-October.

VW -- which will be joining Citroen, Ford and MINI in the WRC -- has made an agreement with the governing Federation Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA) for its star recruit, Frenchman Sebastien Ogier, to drive the car there.

VW had wanted the Polo to be used as the zero car, running ahead of the field, but its team's marketing chief Stefan Moser said of the arrangement struck with the FIA: "We can't run as zero car, but it looks like we take a test run in Sardinia. We will not run competitively; they allow us to start the race, but we will not take times."

Atkinson has WRC and Asia-Pacific sights set high
Australia's top rally driver Chris Atkinson is right back in the thick of the sport, eyeing another Asia-Pacific championship round victory in Malaysia this weekend and a podium in his return to the WRC in Finland on the first weekend of August.

Atkinson won the Malaysian round of the Asia-Pacific series last year in a Proton Satria but is chasing repeat success in the Indian-owned Team MRF Skoda in which he's won two rounds already this season, including in Queensland, and been second in the other.

Atkinson has a fresh engine for this weekend and has not even bothered with a pre-event test. Meanwhile, he reckons a podium is possible at Rally Finland when he takes over the Citroen DS3 of Qatar's Nasser Al-Attiyah, who will be competing as a shooter at the Olympics Games.

This year's Rally Mexico with Ken Block's Ford team has been Atkinson's only WRC start in the past three years, but he said his competition experience in the Asia-Pacific series the past two years would prove worthwhile. After his Subaru factory drive in the WRC evaporated with that Japanese manufacturer's pull-out at the end of 2008, Atkinson drove a Citroen C4 to fifth in the 2009 Rally Ireland. He will test the DS3 in Finland for a day before the start of next month's event.

"Obviously, the APRC's not at the same level as WRC, but it's still good racing and we've be able to push on when we had to," he said. "This is a massive opportunity for me in the Citroen and I intend to make the most of it.

"It'll be hard to compete with the top three or four guys who are out there and racing continuously, but last time I was in Finland I was running seventh and then hit some top-three stage times and pulled up to third at the end. A podium's not out of the question again this time.

"I'm sure I'll be able to get up to speed with the car pretty quickly. That was the case in 2009 [with the C4 at Rally Ireland]. OK, we had some different conditions, but by the end of Rally Ireland we were able to beat [multiple world champion] Sebastien Loeb on some of the stages.

"I'm not saying that's going to happen in Finland, but I know I've still got the speed to be driving full-time in the championship."

NASCAR driver's drug a mystery for now
All the talk in NASCAR at the minute is about a driver who won't racing in this weekend's Sprint Cup round at Loudon, New Hampshire -- and may not race again this season. A.J. Allmendinger has sought a B sample check after his A sample from the recent Kentucky round came up positive and led to him being suspended just a couple of hours before last weekend's Daytona 400.

Allmendinger has denied any wrongdoing and Tara Ragan, business manager of the American who raced an open-wheeler at the Gold Coast in the days of Indy, has indicated he may have been marginally over the prescribed limit from a stimulant.

Allmendinger is a brand ambassador for "Fuel in a Bottle" energy and protein power shots produced by BYB Brands, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Coca-Cola. Among the product's ingredients are mild stimulants L-Phenylalanine and caffeine.

NASCAR hasn't named the substance detected in its random testing but among those it prohibits are amphetamine, metamphetamine, Ecstasy, Eve, MDA, PMA, Phentermine and other amphetamine derivatives and related compounds.

Allmendinger is in the first year with Roger Penske's Shell-sponsored Dodge in the Sprint Cup. Apart from any other penalties if his B sample also is positive, he faces at least five months on the sidelines under NASCAR's stand against drugs and rehabilitations procedures.

While reportedly shell-shocked and dumbfounded, Allmendinger has said: "I fully respect NASCAR's drug usage policy and the reasons they have it. I am hoping this can get resolved as quickly as possible so that I can get back to driving the No. 22 Penske Racing Dodge.

"I am sorry that this has caused such a distraction for my Penske Racing team, our sponsors and fans. Obviously, I would never do anything to jeopardise my opportunity here at Penske Racing or to my fellow drivers. I am very conscious about my training and health and would never knowingly take a prohibited drug."

Team owner Penske, who is keeping substitute Sam Hornish Junior in Allmendinger's car until the drug case is cleared up, said: "I certainly endorse NASCAR's programme on substance abuse completely, whether it's a driver, one of our crew members, or anyone associated with the team.

"They have a process. We also have a process within our team that we do random testing. Obviously A J understands the consequences. He had the first test obviously, done through NASCAR's process, He failed. I understand from conversations with him that there will be a second test, I'm not sure when that'll be. But we're standing behind him until we understand the results.

"I can't really say what that's going to be. I'm hoping that the second test will find him clean and we can move on from this situation."

Webber's secret weapon ... and perspectives
Mark Webber has been in the spotlight a lot lately, winning the British Grand Prix and re-signing with Red Bull Racing for another season, but a couple of points have escaped notice.

Webber's turnaround from last season, when he was left in the shadow of young teammate Sebastian Vettel as the German ran away with the world title, has been aided by him reuniting with an old fitness adviser Bernie Shrosbree, who he met when a Renault test driver in 2001 -- before his GP debut with Minardi in 2002.

Webber now has the most F1 podiums of any Australian -- 32, compared with Sir Jack Brabham's 31 and Alan Jones' 24. However, our two world champions have still won more GPs -- Brabham 14 and Jones 12 (he claims 13) to Webber's nine.

In contrast to Webber's scintillating form this year, 2009 world champion Jenson Button has finished only eighth or worse in the past six GPs for the McLaren team.

Button won the season opener in Melbourne and often McLaren is the team that makes the greatest strides throughout a season but Button, now eighth in the world championship, has said: "It's not just the Red Bulls that are stronger than us. It's the Ferraris, it's the Lotuses, I even think the Williams' and the Saubers." And he could have added Mercedes.

Read the latest Carsales Network news and reviews on your mobile, iPhone or PDA at the carsales mobile site