MOTORSPORT: Gamers leave pros in their tracks

Gamers have upstaged professional racing drivers, many with Formula 1 experience, in a US$1 million (A$1.366 million) simulator race in Las Vegas.

Five of the top six finishers were gamers.

Ten gamers were paired with the 10 teams from the Formula E electric open-wheeler championship, each of the teams comprising two drivers, making a field of 30 for the event at the Venetian Hotel in Vegas.

Finnish gamer Olli Pahkala finished first but was later found to have gained an advantage through a software "glitch" that enabled him to use Formula E's "fanboost" feature more than allowed.

Pahkala was given a 12-second penalty, which dropped him behind 21-year-old Dutchman Bono Huis, who collected the US$200,000 first prize for the 20-lap race, after having already won US$25,000 for taking pole position.

Pahkala was also classified behind the best of the FE racers, Swede Felix Rosenqvist, who drives for India's Mahindra Racing, to which the Finn was allocated for the simulator race.

Next-best of the FE racers were Argentina's triple world touring car champion Jose Maria Lopez in seventh and his DS Virgin Racing teammate, Brit Sam Bird.

German Daniel Abt was ninth for ABT Schaeffler Audi Sport, ahead of the first two FE champions and ex-F1 racers – Brazilian Nelson Piquet Junior, of the NextEV NIO team, and Switzerland's Sebastien Buemi, of Renault e.dams.

Buemi was almost a minute behind victor Huis.

Even the lowest finisher was guaranteed US$20,000 from the prize pool.

Another of the top FE racers and ex-F1 driver, Brazilian Lucas Di Grassi, was unable to start when his simulator failed to work properly.

World motorsport chief Jean Todt, the president of the Federation Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA), attended the event, held in conjunction with the Consumer Electronics Show.

FE chief executive Alejandro Agag said: "The first eRace in Las Vegas was a great success. I think this can be the first in a big future for Formula E in eSports racing. We will continue to pursue new and innovative ways to improve our presence in this fast-growing landscape."

The next round in the third season of FE will be in Buenos Aires on February 18.

Buemi leads Di Grassi 50 points to 28 after the rounds in Hong Kong and Marrakesh in Morocco, with Nicolas Prost – son of the great Alain – third for Renault e.dams on 24 and Rosenqvist fourth on 19, then Bird on 18 and Nick Heidfeld, another ex-F1 driver, sixth for Mahindra Racing on 17.

Manor in all manner of financial bother
F1 could be back down to 10 teams by the time the new season begins in Melbourne on the last weekend of March, with tail-end British-based Manor Racing on the brink of collapse.

The team's operating company, Just Racing Services, has gone into administration two years after Manor was rescued by British businessman Stephen Fitzpatrick, owner of energy company Ovo.

Manor Grand Prix Racing, which owns the rights to the team's participation in F1, is not in administration.

However, administrators FRP say there is a "very limited window of opportunity" for the team to be saved before the season-opening Australian GP.

The 212 employees were paid up until the end of December but have been advised to look elsewhere for work.

Even if it is rescued again, Manor will have difficulty completing two cars to comply with this year's new rules, which bring back wider tyres and more aggressive aerodynamics.

Fitzpatrick said a sale of the team to an Asian investment consortium had been agreed in December, but time ran out on completing it by the deadline.

It has been reported that at least two groups have done due diligence on Manor, but it is not clear whether either had the money to buy it.

Manor's difficulties were compounded at the penultimate GP of last season when Brazilian driver Felipe Nasr finished ninth in his home race to give Swiss team Sauber two points and 10th place in the constructors' world championship, relegating Mercedes-powered Manor – with just one point, scored by German driver Pascal Wehrlein at the Bahrain GP – to 11th and last.

Finishing outside the top 10 in the championship is said to have cost Manor £10 million (almost A$16.75 million) in distributions from F1's prize pool, pushing it to the brink and diminishing its attractiveness to a buyer.

"Not wishing to repeat events of the past, we resolved in 2015 not to start any season that we did not know for certain we could complete," Fitzpatrick said in a note to Manor staff late last week.

"It was imperative that the team finish in 10th place or better in 2016.

"For much of the season we were on track. But the dramatic race in Brazil ended our hopes of this result and ultimately brought into doubt the team's ability to race in 2017."

Manor began life as Virgin in 2010 – one of three new teams that season – and later became Marussia, which Fitzpatrick rescued in time for the 2015 season.

The other teams that began in 2010, Hispania (later HRT, for which Daniel Ricciardo made his F1 debut) and the modern-day Lotus, have since disappeared.

Lotus was sold at the end of 2015 for just £1 pound to Renault, which returned last year as a full factory team but finished only ninth in the constructors' championship with eight points.

Nasr and Mexican driver Esteban Gutierrez are unlikely to find F1 drives this year unless a saviour with a spare US$50 million a year suddenly appears for Manor. The team's two drivers at the end of last season, Frenchman Esteban Ocon and Wehrlein, have already found new seats – at Force India and Sauber respectively.

Although things look grim for Manor, the administrators say they "remain highly focused on engaging with interested parties".

Extra safety precautions at Albert Park
The expectation that this year's F1 cars will be three to four seconds a lap quicker will require safety changes at Melbourne's Albert Park circuit.

The FIA is predicting an increase in mid-corner speeds of 20-50km/h on mid-to-high speed corners and later braking points.

The Australian Grand Prix Corporation is having to bulk up tyre walls at turns one, six and 14 as well as buy 80 metres of Tecpro high-speed barrier – the latter at a cost of more than $100,000 – to install at turn 12.

This expense, as well as pressure from America's Liberty group, which is in the process of buying control of F1, to turn all GPs into something akin to American football's 'SuperBowl' as an entertainment package, could lead to even higher losses at Albert Park than the regular $60 million a year this decade.

Pugs in charge but it's close in Dakar
The Dakar Rally goes into its second week in South America tonight with Peugeot 3008 DKRs running one-two-three.

Sunday was the scheduled rest day in the two-week event and Saturday's sixth stage from Oruro in Bolivia to the capital La Paz had been cancelled because of heavy rain. The fifth stage through Bolivia's high plans was shortened to 219km, also due to bad weather.

Sebastien Loeb won that fifth stage for Peugeot ahead of Spain's Nani Roma in a Toyota Hilux. But Loeb trails his French compatriot, 'Monsieur Dakar' Stephane Peterhansel, by a little more than a minute as they depart tonight, Australian time, from La Paz, the highest capital city in the world. Passing through Uyuni in south-west Bolivia, the event will finish in Buenos Aires on Saturday.

Peugeot's third French driver, Cyril Depres, is in third place, ahead of Roma, who is little more than 5½ minutes behind Peterhansel making an unusually-packed lead bunch at the halfway mark of the marathon.

Finland's Mikko Hirvonven is fifth in a MINI, but more than 42 minutes off the lead.

Navigational mistakes on stage five cost Toyota's South African driver Giniel de Villivers more than half an hour.

Peugeot's Spanish star Carlos Sainz was forced out by the damage he did on stage four, joining Toyota's Qatari Nasser Al-Attiyah and Australia's defending motorcycle winner Toby Price among the retirements. Price broke his left thigh last Thursday.

Peterhansel, with a combined 12 wins on two wheels and four in the Dakar, said this year's stages are "more in keeping with the spirit of cross-country rallying" than last year.

"I am expecting to see more dunes now and have some more challenging navigation, but that suits us," he said.

"I hope our car will continue to be just as reliable because we haven't had a single problem so far."