MOTORSPORT: Good guy Whincup, bad boy Lowndes

We had seen Jamie Whincup races winning races before, including two Bathursts, but never had he looked so obviously a series champion in waiting.

Judging by his polished performances on the streets of Adelaide he won't be waiting more than a few months to become champion.

At the same time, this year's Clipsal may prove memorable for one other thing.

It was the first time in our memory that other leading drivers have publicly attacked Whincup's senior teammate, Craig Lowndes, over his driving manners.

Mark Winterbottom called Lowndes "one of the dirtiest drivers in the field, but he has a big cheesy grin that hides it".

"He's the king of tapping people up the backside to push them wide.

"If you ask 29 people in pitlane -- Jamie probably won't say it -- they will agree he is one of the dirtiest drivers, but he gets away with it."

James Courtney, too, was furious with Lowndes.

"He got up beside and then just turned in on me," Courtney said.

"It's disappointing for a guy of that experience to drive like that."

And then, for good measure, Courtney fired in a barb that Lowndes "is under a bit of pressure" because of Whincup's form.

That form is nothing new.

We first saw it in Adelaide two years ago and it has been evident regularly since.

So much so that now, it seems, we can expect Whincup to be consistently ahead of Lowndes.

Ford's form is not new either.

We well remember Holden's domination early last year with the VE Commodore, but things changed dramatically from the Sandown 500 onwards.

Whincup and Lowndes won there, then again in a new BF Falcon at Bathurst.

The Triple 8 Falcons, and Winterbottom's Ford Performance Racing machine, won 10 of the last 14 races of last season and, even though Garth Tander won the series crown with Holden, the momentum was with the Blue Oval.

That has carried over into this new season, with a trifecta in Saturday's race, another win Sunday and the new Falcon model now to come into racing at some stage -- perhaps in time for the enduros, we suspect.

The Clipsal told us a lot of other things too.

All in all, the weekend was a reminder that V8 Supercar racing is a mighty fine racing and entertainment package, although there have been questions raised about whether new driving standards observer Tomas (N.B. spelling correct) Mezera was too lenient in his debut

The weekend also emphasised yet again how dangerous racing can be, with two very bad accidents in the support races that have left one driver fighting for his life (27-year-old Ashley Cooper from the V8 development series), another suspected of having spinal injuries (Matt Kingsley) after a bingle in the V8 utes that also saw two other drivers taken to hospital for checks.

There was also one other big thing to emerge from the weekend that concerned us.

It relates to V8 Supercar chief Tony Cochrane flagging that a 10-year deal is imminent for the traditional 500km warm-up for Bathurst to be held at Phillip Island, rather than Sandown.

We have no problem with Phillip Island being the venue for that enduro per se, but we see it as another step towards the demise of Sandown, the only truly active circuit remaining within metropolitan Melbourne.

Although Sandown will host a championship round on June 7-9 this year, the signs are ominous that V8 Supercars Australia and the Melbourne (Horse) Racing Club, owner of Sandown and now the operator of motor racing there following the departure of Jon Davison, are not going to be happy bedfellows.

We have mentioned here before that if Sandown is lost as a motor racing venue that will soon leave Sydney's Eastern Creek as the only active circuit in Australia's two major cities.

Amaroo Park has gone in Sydney, Calder Park is virtually moribund in Melbourne, and Oran Park's farewell in Sydney is already booked for December 4-7 this year.

Eastern Creek has survived for almost two decades now after its stormy beginnings but has never captured the public's imagination in the way of some of these other circuits.

Sure V8 Supercars are thriving in many places outside Sydney and Melbourne, particularly in Adelaide, but without a major presence in those two cities we are concerned that the championship will become a glorified regional series.

The V8 Supercar races at Melbourne's Formula One Grand Prix are non-championship, the GP contract may not be extended beyond 2010 anyway and there is little prospect the Victorian government would agree to Albert Park continuing as a race venue for anything like Adelaide's Clipsal 500.

V8 Supercar Championship driver standings after round one -- Jamie Whincup 300 points, Lee Holdsworth 258, Rick Kelly 192, Steven Johnson 186, Todd Kelly 180, Shane Van Gisbergen 180, Greg Murphy 174, Steven Richards 171, Jason Richards 156, Mark Skaife 138, Mark Winterbottom 138, Cameron McConville 129, Craig Lowndes 129, Fabian Coulthard 123, Andrew Jones 120, Marcus Marshall 114, Kayne Scott 102, Will Davison 96, Garth Tander 84, Jason Bright 78, Michael Caruso 72, Russell Ingall 63, Paul Morris 57, James Courtney 57, Tony D'Alberto 54, Andrew Thompson 45, Shane Price 42, Paul Dumbrell 0.

Teams championship points -- Team Vodafone 429, Garry Rogers Motorsport 330, Tasman Motorsport 330, Ford Performance Racing 309, Jim Beam Racing 282, Brad Jones Racing 249, Stone Brothers Racing 237, Jack Daniels Racing 222, Toll Holden Racing Team 222, Fujitsu Racing 192, HSV Dealer Team 192, Glenfords Racing (S) 123, Supercheap Auto Racing 120, Team Kiwi Racing (S) 102, Rod Nash Racing 54, PWR Performance Products 45.

Martin crossed the line seventh but was promoted a place after a penalty for German Michael Ammermuller.

Martin had a trip to hospital the night before the race with a stomach bug -- something that also affected Neel Jani, who won the feature race to increase Switzerland's lead in the series.

Canadian 18-year-old Robert Wickens won the sprint and was on course for second in the feature until he spun at the tricky first turn in Durban's street circuit and made contact with Englishman Oliver Jarvis, who had finished behind him in the sprint -- with Jani third.

The feature took two attempts to get going because of crashes at turn one -- the first shunt causing a 10-car traffic jam, the second triggered by Martin.

Jani ended up winning the incident-packed race from Frenchman Loic Duval with Portugese debutant Filipe Albuquerque the third driver on the podium after starting ninth.

Championship contenders New Zealand eliminated themselves by waving Jonny Reid out into the path of another car in the pits, breaking the nose of his car and causing him to take a drive-through penalty.

Switzerland is now 10 points ahead of France with NZ third and Australia 14th.

This series is seeing some emerging stars.

China's Congfu Cheng was in superb form, racing from 10th on the grid to finish fourth in the sprint and from 11th to sixth in the feature -- in which he also collected a bonus point for setting the fastest lap.

Malaysia's Fairuz Fauzy had a strong afternoon too, making his way through the field to finish fifth in the feature having started from 12th on the grid.

A1GP World Cup of Motorsport standings -- Switzerland 118 points, France 108, New Zealand 98, South Africa 83, Germany 77, Great Britain 70, Netherlands 69, Canada 52, Ireland 50, China 43, Brazil 40, India 28, Mexico 22, Australia 20, Portugal 19, USA 13, Czech Republic 10, Malaysia 10, Italy 7, Pakistan 1.

Remaining A1 rounds -- March 16, Mexico City; April 13, Shanghai; May 4, Brands Hatch

The first is whether Will Power will have a drive; the other whether the Gold Coast race in October has any championship status.

The IRL has a contract with the Chicago round of its series in September that it be the venue at which the champion will be crowned, which could mean the race on the streets of Surfers' Paradise may have to be non-championship this year.

That is not necessarily a big deal, although at least two Gold Coast Indy officials are headed for the US later this week to clarify matters.

Any brawling over the Queensland event could see the A1 GP series step into the frame as an alternative to the American-based troupe, but we doubt that at this stage.

Power's fortunes are linked to team owner, or co-owner, Craig Gore, who shut down his V8 Supercar squad just days before the start of the season.

Gore has welcomed the merger in the US and has indicated he wants to be part of the revamped IRL, but how that would happen is not clear.

We have seen a US report indicating that Gore and his fellow Team Australia co-owner Derrick Walker are in financial dispute.

As highly as Power is regarded in American circles, it is hard to see him getting a full-time drive unless any issues between Walker and Gore are resolved.

Hopefully everything will move quickly now that there is a broader "peace" deal.

Ecclestone met Russian president Vladimir Putin and St Petersburg governor Valentina Matviyenko last week to discuss building a track and holding a GP each year from 2010 -- possibly in place of the Australian GP in Melbourne.

Delovoi Peterburg apparently said that Ecclestone's conditions were unacceptable to St Petersburg.

"F1 turned out to be a massive bleeder, losing two million euros a month because some sponsors did not pay," Spyker chief executive Victor Muller told Automotive News Europe.

"This drained our production capital."

It has been reported that under Indian billionaire Vijay Mallya and Dutchman Michiel Mol, who has remained in the team, Force India's F1 budget this year will be up to US$50 million higher than in the Spyker era.

The team's technical boss, Mike Gascoyne, said that the former US$70 million budget was "barely enough to get to the races".

"With that there was nothing left for research and development," Gascoyne said.