Motorsport: Heat's on Red Bull F1 drivers

Friday motorsport reportMay 11, 2007

>> Webber v Coulthard for 2008 seat
With indications of major improvement in the Red Bull cars driven by Australia's Mark Webber and Scottish veteran David Coulthard, the tycoon who owns the team, Austrian Dietrich Mateschitz, has turned up the heat on his drivers ahead of this weekend's Spanish Grand Prix.

Mateschitz says the team will consider hiring or promoting one of its younger drivers to partner one of its veterans in 2008.

"The cars will be very equal next year, in our opinion, so it might make sense to have one veteran and one young driver," Mateschitz told Motorsport Aktuell magazine.

That is a subtle way of saying that Webber and Coulthard are in a cut-throat competition for one seat next year. And the focus on his veteran status has made Coulthard a bit testy this week.

"I feel irritated to have to answer a question based on the fact that I was born in 1971," Coulthard says.

"The facts are my underlying race pace in each of the first three grands prix this year is quicker than Mark's. This is absolute fact.

"Would you choose the guy that appears to qualify the car or the guy that appears to drive it more quickly in the races?"

Mateschitz says the two young drivers in the Toro Rosso team he co-owns with Gerhard Berger (American Scott Speed and Italian Vitantonio Liuzzi) are options for Red Bull next year, but they still need to prove their worth.

His favourite appears to be German teenager Sebastien Vettel, who has been on loan to BMW-Sauber as a test driver.

Vettel is ultimately under contract to Red Bull but the BMW arrangement could run until at least the end of 2008.

Mateschitz says he would like to hire a "star" driver, but only when he feels Red Bull is capable of winning consistently.

"A star driver longs for such a car and first we have to prove that we have the means to build such a car -- then you can start to talk with top drivers," he says.

"We never daydreamed of having a top name such as Michael Schumacher in the car in 2007. He would have had to cut back his salary by 90 per cent!

"At the point where we were, Mark Webber was ideal for us.

"Our cars were lying seventh and eighth in the Bahrain race (the last GP, four weeks ago), so we have overtaken (world champions) Renault, Williams and Toyota. But it would be foolish to talk about Ferrari or McLaren-Mercedes as possible opponents in the first proper year.

"BMW-Sauber has made a solid step ahead, but I would say that they have to be our goal for this year. But the real goal is to finish fifth in the constructors' championship this year.

"And, according to the latest progress in Barcelona [testing] and a further evolution step in Canada [next month] I would say that this is entirely possible."

>> Rick Kelly tells how it is
Holden's reigning V8 Supercar champion and the leader of this year's series, Rick Kelly, is irritated today about a report which could be interpreted as him giving the Ford camp some needle ahead of next week's fourth round at Winton in northern Victoria.

Kelly is portrayed as saying he's surprised at the lack of competitiveness of the Fords this season. However, Kelly says what he's surprised about is that the Fords haven't scored more points in the three rounds so far.

Kelly, who copped a caning from Ford fans for not winning a round on the way to last year's title and the controversial circumstances in which he became champion, looked in a report circulated late yesterday on the Australian Associated Press wire service -- and published in various newspapers today -- to be rubbing in the fact that Ford hasn't won a race this year, let alone a round.

But he is claiming today that his comments have been misinterpreted; that what he's saying is that the Fords have plenty of speed and he can't quite understand why they haven't chalked up more points -- although he points out what a fine job his HSV Dealer Team has done.

The Toll HSV cars are built and fettled by Walkinshaw Performance, which does the same for Holden Racing Team -– the sister outfit that is next best-performed in the V8 Supercar ranks this season.

Holden has won all eight 2007 races -- seven by Kelly and HSV teammate Garth Tander, the other by Kelly's brother Todd for HRT.

Kelly leads the series on 173 points, Tander has 160, Todd Kelly 132, while HRT's Mark Skaife and Ford team Triple 8's Jamie Whincup are equal fourth on 104.

"I'm really surprised, actually, with Triple 8 and FPR (Ford Performance Racing), in particular, and how far back they are in the field," Kelly is quoted by AAP as saying.

It seems he has no quibble with what he's quoted directly as saying, but rather the overall slant.

"I thought those teams (Triple 8, which also has Craig Lowndes, and FPR, with Mark Winterbottom and Steven Richards) would push a lot harder," Kelly told AAP.

"I guess for Steven Richards, he's just come over from Holden and it takes a bit of adjusting, but I don't really know what's going on with the other guys."

Richards is only 13th in the championship on 55 points, while Winterbottom is eighth on 59 and Lowndes seventh on 79.

"I guess, maybe it just comes down to the good work of our team," Kelly says. "We gel well. Garth and I push each other."

"I've been lucky in my career in that I've been teamed up with a fantastic driver -- Greg Murphy before and now Garth, he's really at the peak of his powers at the moment."

Of the vitriol he copped over the way he won the 2006 title, Kelly says: "Look, they said what they said. There's not much I can do about it now. Nothing can be changed.

"I'm certainly very pleased with the way I've started the year, and whether that's silenced any critics I'm not sure.

"All I'm worried about is that we continue to extend our lead at the top of championship."

>> Hamilton aims at Villeneuve feat
Lewis Hamilton is all the rage in F1, making history as the only driver on the podium in his first three GPs and the only man to lead his first three F1 races since the great Juan Manuel Fangio in 1950.

So can Hamilton match the 1996 feat of Jacques Villeneuve and win at his fourth GP start on Sunday (dual world champion teammate Fernando Alonso's home race!)?

The last driver to win a GP in his debut season was Juan Pablo Montoya with Williams in Italy in 2001.

 If McLaren win in Barcelona it will be the 150th GP victory for the team founded by late New Zealander Bruce McLaren in the 1960s.

Ferrari has won 194 GPs, Williams 113 and Renault 33.

BMW's Dr Klaus Draeger explains: "In F1 the focus is on guiding the car quickly and precisely around the track, which is why F1 cars have extremely direct steering. Road cars, however, have to meet additional demands.

"In order to achieve the same level of agility as a racing car, series-produced models require variable ratio steering -- and that is where BMW Active Steering comes in.

BMW debuted active steering in its E60 5 Series and now offers it on a number of models. Interestingly, however, Active Steering is not featured on the marque's highest performance models, the M3, M5 and M6.

Logging on to www.active-steering.com will take you to a website which starts with BMW-Sauber driver Nick Heidfeld demonstrating the differences between racing in F1 and driving on the road and you can click through to find out more about active steering.

"He might sit on the (Ferrari) pit wall, but Michael does not want to interfere with the racing -- his only function will be advisory," says the seven-time world champion's spokeswoman, Sabine Kehm.

However, it is subject to the regional government's president Francisco Camps winning the local elections next month.

Between the Australasian rivals were Danica Patrick, Dan Wheldon and Tomas Scheckter, with Marco Andretti and Sam Hornish Junior immediately behind Briscoe.

Pole position will be decided this weekend for the May 27 Indy 500.

Briscoe will be looking to grab a good qualifying position as next week he will have to concentrate on driving his Porsche RS Spyder in the American Le Mans Series (ALMS) race at Salt Lake City.

>> Next Rally Oz chapter 'by end of June'
The plans for the supposed new south-east Queensland headquarters of Rally Australia will be unveiled by the end of June, according to a report in Brisbane's Courier-Mail newspaper this week.

After two decades of the event in Western Australia, and its absence from the world rally championship calendar this year, a consortium is reported to have a 15-year contract for the staging of the event in Queensland. The first Sunshine State Rally Oz will take place in September 2008 it's claimed.

While some grand but sketchy details emerged a few weeks ago of a supposed $650m motorsport and motor industry development at Norwell, between Brisbane and the Gold Coast, time is ticking down with few public signs of progress.

The consortium associated with the Norwell plan, i-METT (Integrated Motorsport Education Tourism and Technology), needs a favourable outcome from a Queensland government land planning review before getting the go-ahead for the proposed big development.

This week's Courier-Mail report says: "i-METT says that it has contingency plans in place and the super special [stage] is more likely to be in an area away from the propsoed site at Norwell in its first year."

It quotes i-METT's Ron Brown saying: "Next year will always be an interim event in terms of operation. If we do it on site [Norwell] it will use a mix of permament and temporary infrastructure. If we run it somewhere else -- depending on where we run it -- it could be either permanent or a mix of permanent or temporary all together.

"What we're trying to address is the long-term position and the concern of the government in terms of access to state forests and national parks where they have community concerns about running all sorts of things and not just motor sport.

"We've got a 15-year contract for Rally Australia so what we're looking at is that we can afford to take steps now that will enable us to enjoy the benefits of that for the long term.

"It also means we can amortise costs over a longer period of time and we can incur those costs at todays value and make every dollar a winner into the future."

There is talk of using some forestry roads in northern NSW for some of the event's outlying stages.

>> Earnhardt Junior on the move
Massive news from the world of American stock car racing -- NASCAR's most popular driver, Dale Earnhardt Junior, is quitting the team started by his iconic late father, seven-time champion Dale Earnhardt Senior, at the end of the season.

Earnhardt Junior and his stepmother, Teresa, can't agree on a common vision for Dale Earnhardt Inc.

Earnhardt Senior, known as The Intimidator, was killed on the last lap of the 2001 Daytona 500.

His son has won 17 premier league NASCAR races but has never been a consistent title contender, yet he is the sport's highest-paid driver, earning $US20.1m per year -- more than multiple champion, Jeff Gordon.

Earnhardt Junior is worried the millions of fans who still worship his father will feel betrayed by this defection, probably to another Chevrolet team -- most likely Richard Childress Racing, where his father won six of his titles -- but perhaps a Ford outfit.

Dale Jnr says: "It's time for me to compete on a consistent basis and contend for championships now. It is time for me to continue my father's legacy in the only way I know I can -- by taking the life lessons that he told me: Be a man, race hard and contend for championships.

"I feel strongly that I would have my father's blessing."

Earnhardt Junior admits his relationship with his stepmother, who helped found the family team with The Intimidator, "ain't a bed of roses".

She says: "We are very disappointed that Dale Junior has chosen to leave the family business. Dale and I built this company to be a championship contender, and those principles still apply. Dale Earnhardt Inc will win."

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