MOTORSPORT: GT3 an emerging world for Aussies

The racing year is in full swing now and May is always a big month.

Formula 1 begins its European races this weekend, with the Spanish Grand Prix in Barcelona. Next up is Monaco in a fortnight.

In America the focus is on Indianapolis, with road racing there this weekend and the 100th Indianapolis 500 in two weeks.

At home we've already had a V8 Supercar round this month in Perth, with another next weekend at Winton in northern Victoria. Then the following weekend there's an Australian GT round at Phillip Island.

Something more obscure in GT racing has caught our attention this week – what Australians, or indeed Antipodeans as they include gun Australian-based New Zealander Shane Van Gisbergen, are doing in GT3 racing abroad.

The GT3 category has just celebrated its 10th birthday internationally. It began with 42 cars at Britain's Silverstone circuit in May 2006. Allan Simonsen, the late Dane who raced a lot in Australia, overtook several cars in one lap to claim the first GT3 win in a Ferrari. Sean Edwards, the British driver killed while tutoring a young Brisbane driver at Queensland Raceway almost 2½ years ago, was on the podium too that day at Silverstone.

GT3 racing is back at the home of British motorsport this weekend for the second round of its Blancpain Endurance Cup – a European series backed by the world's oldest watch brand.

Van Gisbergen won the opening round at Italy's Monza last month in the McLaren 650S he shares with Brit Rob Bell and Frenchman Come Ledogar.

They are among 54 entries representing a dozen marques at Silverstone this time. Bell is the overall leader in the Blancpain series, which also includes sprint rounds – there was one at Brands Hatch last weekend – in which The Giz can't compete because of his V8 Supercar commitments.

Matt Simmons, the former Brisbane "postie" who has become a professional race driver through the Nissan PlayStation GT Academy that vets thousands of Gran Turismo computer gamers with ambitions, is having his second Blancpain start in a Nissan GT-R NISMO with Romain Sarazin, of France, and Sean Walkinshaw, of Britain. They were 30th at Monza and 12th in the Pro-Am Cup class, but Simmons said it had been "an incredible weekend".

"We faced a lot of challenges, but that's motorsport," Simmons said. "We became stronger as a team and will take everything we learned into Silverstone, which is a special place for me. It's where my life changed forever [as the first Australian winner of the GT Academy] and my racing journey began."

Another Australian driving at Silverstone is Liam Talbot, also of Brisbane, in a Kessel Racing Ferrari 458.

Kicking off as well this weekend is the seventh season of GT Asia, in which a 20-year-old from Melbourne, Jonathan Venter, won a race last year and had two other podiums before a broken hip from a cycling accident sidelined him.

Venter partnered two-time Bathurst 12-Hour winner Darryl O'Young, the Canadian-born Hong Kong driver, in a Craft Bamboo Racing Aston Martin Vantage V12.

Championship-winning Craft-Bamboo and O'Young have switched to Porsche this season and Venter has moved to the Absolute team that is fielding three Bentley Continental V8s – and he was fastest in one of the pre-season test sessions this week at South Korea's Yeongam circuit which hosted F1 grands prix for four years.

The first two rounds of GT Asia, with seven marques, are there this weekend. The next two are in Thailand in June, then there are two events in Japan – at Okayama and Fuji – in July and two in China – at Shanghai and Zhejiang – in August and October.

Visiting Yeongam is veteran Australian racer, team owner and Port Macquarie car dealer Andrew Miedecke, who has bought two Prodrive-built Craft-Bamboo Vantages and just landed them in Australia. He already had one here, acquired from Australian GT series owner, promoter and racer Tony Quinn.

Miedecke has become the official Aston Martin Racing partner in Asia and plans to field at least one and perhaps two Vantages – engineered on the Gold Coast by Matt Stone, son of Jim (of V8 Supercar fame, in particular) – in the Japanese and Chinese races.

Miedecke's son George and Sydney driver Nathan Morcom will race the first car, while Miedecke will talk to prospects for the second at Yeongam and while elsewhere in Asia in the following days.

Miedecke hopes the GT Asia activity will lead on to Macau's world-renowned November racing festival, while further out his sights are on the Bathurst 12-Hour next February.

"I believe there is potential for young drivers from Australia to make a living in Asia, and I think there is a market for Asians to come to Australia [to race]," Miedecke said.

"Running cars in both series [GT Asia and Australian GT] will help to facilitate that, I think."

Asked where he would base his GT Asia team, Miedecke replied: "Out of a 40-foot container, which I've already got.

"It might seem daunting, but I'm going to give it a crack – my best shot.

"There's quite a lot of racing in Asia ... China's growing.

"There aren't many drivers getting paid to race in Australia. Some in Asia are.

"I've taken a good look at all categories of racing and I really believe in GT3.

"They are proper sports cars ... a very good base.

"There's an expensive entry price [in buying cars], but then they are sane and sensible to own and run.

"And you can race these cars absolutely worldwide."

Websites for further information are gtasiaseries.com and blancpain-gt-series.com, while Matt Simmons' progress in the Silverstone race can be followed on NISMO.tv.

Ricciardo as good as anyone in F1 – Red Bull Racing chief
Red Bull's F1 team principal Christian Horner reckons Australian Daniel Ricciardo may now be the best driver in GP racing.

High praise indeed when the field includes multiple world champions Lewis Hamilton, Sebastian Vettel and Fernando Alonso, and the man on course already to win the title this year – Nico Rosberg.

Horner has said in Barcelona ahead of this weekend's Spanish GP that Ricciardo and new 18-year-old teammate Max Verstappen could become the best line-up in the sport.

The Dutch wonderboy has been promoted into Red Bull's premier team after it sent 22-year-old Russian Daniil Kvyat back to its junior squad Toro Rosso.

Kvyat had crashed into the Ferrari of Sebastian Vettel – a four-time world champion with Red Bull – three times in the past two GPs in Russia and China, but the team felt he had been mentally destroyed by Ricciardo's speed and polish anyway.

Red Bull has extended its contract with Verstappen to keep him out of the reach of top team Mercedes and Ferrari, although Horner would not say how long his deal is.

"He [Verstappen] is beyond any doubt committed to this team for multiple years," Horner said.

"I think this move kills off the driver market regarding Red Bull drivers for the foreseeable future.

"He's demonstrated he's got a great deal of natural talent, he can overtake, he can race ...  everything I've seen of his development [since his debut at 17 with Toro Rosso in last year's Australian GP] so far has impressed me enormously and I think that curve will continue.

"A Ricciardo-Verstappen line-up for me is potentially one of the, if not the, strongest pairing of future years."

Horner said Verstappen had "absolute burning desire within him" but would now be measured against one of the best, if not the best – Ricciardo.

"The way Daniel's driving at the moment I don't believe there's a better driver in F1," Horner said.

"The thought of the pairing is fantastically exciting for us."

Kvyat revealed that he had just started to watch an episode of Game of Thrones in Moscow when Red Bull tycoon Dietrich Mateschitz's motorsport emissary Dr Helmut Marko rang to give him the bad news that he was being swapped with Verstappen.

"I got to know many interesting details, but I'll keep it to myself for now," Kvyat said.

"We finished the call and I went back to finish my TV series."

Kvyat said he was "extremely hungry" to prove his worth again at Toro Rosso, while Horner said – contrary to popular belief – that Red Bull had not given up on the Russian.

"If we didn't believe in him as a talent he wouldn't have been retained," Horner said.

Third-generation Brabham on track at Indy
Sir Jack Brabham's grandson Matthew makes his IndyCar racing debut this weekend at the home of American open-wheeler racing, the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

There's a 200-mile (320km) road race there tomorrow (Saturday) before attention turns to practice, qualifying and the running – on May 29 – of the 100th Indianapolis 500 on the 2.5-mile (4km) oval.

Sir Jack Brabham, a triple F1 world champion, began the switch to rear-engined cars at The Brickyard – as the Indianapolis venue is known – in 1961. It was the first of four starts he made in the American classic and his fourth place in a Cooper that year was to be his best finish there.

Geoff Brabham, son of Jack and father of Matthew, raced in 10 Indy 500s finishing fourth in 1983.

Matthew won an Indy Lights race at Indianapolis two years ago but his career foundered last year for lack of sponsorship.

Gold Coast media man Brett Murray has put together the young Brabham's Indianapolis campaign this month and the 22-year-old participated in two practice sessions on the road course overnight.

He had a couple of interruptions because of mechanical issues but ended the day in his Chevrolet-powered Dallara car only 1.1 seconds slower than pacesetter, New Zealander Scott Dixon, around the 3.8km circuit.

Toowoomba's Will Power, the 2014 IndyCar champion and narrow runner-up in last year's Indy 500 to one of his three Team Penske teammates, Juan Pablo Montoya, had topped the first practice overnight.

Jordan Lloyd, Australia's first Formula 4 champion last year and also from Toowoomba, will compete in the USF2000 race at Indianapolis this weekend.

Melbourne teenager Luis Leeds, another graduate of the inaugural Australian F4 season, won a British F4 race at Thruxton in Hampshire last weekend and is the joint leader in that series.

Fellow Victorian Thomas Randle has won a race this year in the British Formula 3 Championship – for enhanced F4 cars with 230-horsepower Cosworth engines – and is fourth in that championship, ahead of Lando Norris – winner of New Zealand's Toyota series last summer.