MOTORSPORT: High five for Caitlan Wood

Australia’s Caitlan Wood has had her best finish in the W Series – the new all-female open-wheeler category in Europe –greatly improving her chances of contending next year’s championship.

Wood, 22, from Maitland in NSW’s Hunter Valley, finished fifth in the latest championship race of the series at Assen in The Netherlands at the weekend.

She finished within 10 seconds of title rivals Jamie Chadwick, of Britain, and Beitske Visser, of The Netherlands, who were third and fourth at the chequered flag.

The women race identical Formula 3 cars, with big prizemoney on offer – US$1.5 million (A$2.13 million) in total, with US$500,000 for the series winner.

Wood had qualified sixth, just 0.353 seconds slower than Finn Emma Kimilainen’s pole position time.

Kimilainen, who missed the early rounds of the series because of injury, won the race from Britain’s Alice Powell.

Wood finished 18.5 seconds behind Kimilainen after 30 minutes (19 laps) of racing and collected 10 points, which – with her sole point from the four earlier rounds – has lifted her from 15th to 11th in the standings, with the final at Britain’s Brands Hatch on August 11. The top 12 drivers from the inaugural season are guaranteed places next year.

Chadwick, who has links to the Williams Formula 1 team, has 98 points to Visser’s 85.
A reverse-grid, non-championship race also was held at Assen, which was won by the youngest competitor in the series, 17-year-old Canadian Megan Gilkes, by 0.003 seconds from Powell.

Gilkes led all the way from pole position, while Powell started 17th. Chadwick finished eighth while Wood was 12th after starting 10th.

Wood raced GT cars in Europe before gaining a place in the W Series field of 20 after more than 100 women applied and 54 were trialled.

An international enduro for the carsales.com.au-sponsored TCR category is firming as the favourite to be the fifth annual event at Bathurst’s Mt Panorama.

Bathurst Regional Council has announced that, after interest was expressed by six parties, it has invited only TCR Australia and Supercars to tender.

TCR Australia organiser Australian Racing Group, in association with the Confederation of Australian Motor Sport (CAMS), wants to bring a round of the World Touring Car Cup to The Mountain for the front-wheel-drive 2-litre touring cars introduced to Australian racing this year.

Supercars has not publicly stated its intention for the fifth Bathurst event allowed under

NSW legislation but it is believed to favour a carnival of speed modelled on Britain’s Goodwood festival.

The TCR enduro idea offers Bathurst the potential for greater international exposure than a historic festival and Supercars already stages the Bathurst 1000 every October and Bathurst 12-Hour each February.

The third and fourth annual events, run by Yeehah Events, are the Six-Hour at Easter and Challenge Bathurst in November.

TCR Australia has staged three rounds of its new national series – at Sydney Motorsport Park, Victoria’s Phillip Island and The Bend in South Australia – with the next at Queensland Raceway on the first weekend of August.

Eight makes are represented in the series: Alfa Romeo, Audi, Holden, Honda, Hyundai, Renault, Subaru and Volkswagen.

The Bathurst council wants a five-year agreement for the fifth event at The Mountain.

“Council is finalising the tender specification and we expect the two companies invited to take part in that process will receive those documents before the end of the month,” mayor Graeme Hanger said.

“We anticipate council will consider these tenders in September.

“Council will not be making any further comment on this process until the selective tender process has taken place.”

Will Power remains winless after 12 races in this year’s IndyCar Series after being bested by one of his Team Penske peers again, American Josef Newgarden.

After qualifying second and leading the second-most laps, Power was given a stop-and-go penalty for improper pit entry late in the weekend’s race at Iowa Speedway.

“Very unfortunate,” the 2014 series champion and 2018 Indianapolis 500 winner from Toowoomba said after finishing a lap down in 15th.

Newgarden, the 2017 champion and four-time winner this season, stretched his lead over Andretti Autosport’s Alex Rossi to 29 points (487-458), while Penske’s winner of this year’s Indy 500, Frenchman Simon Pagenaud is third, New Zealand’s reigning champion Scott Dixon fourth and Power a distant fifth.

Five races remain, the first of them next Sunday at Mid-Ohio and the finale at Laguna Seca in California on September 22.

While Honda is now supplying the V6 hybrid power units to Formula 1 team Red Bull Racing, Aston Martin’s sponsorship contribution to the outfit for which Daniel Ricciardo and Mark Webber won 16 races (with Renault power) is reported to be US$40 million a season.

That’s the figure put on the deal by F1 business correspondent Christian Sylt, writing for Forbes.com.

Sylt said Aston Martin’s payments to RBR rose five times last year when it became the team’s title sponsor, a major step up financially from its previous relationship that included the alliance with Red Bull Advanced Technologies to build the road-going Valkyrie hypercar.

Aston Martin has explored the possibility of building an F1 engine, but chief executive Andy Palmer said it would only pursue that avenue if Honda decided against continuing when the technical regulations for 2021 and beyond are finally resolved.

“Clearly they (Honda) have a lot more money and muscle power than we do,” Palmer told Britain’s Autosport.

“I don't think we’re going to muscle in on that while the relationship with Honda exists.

“We’re very happy with that relationship and we’re happy to see it continue. But nobody knows quite what the regulations will be beyond 2021 and who is going to be involved in that.

“We stand ready from that point of view, with the hope that Honda will continue.

“Our focus is now mainly looking at the development of the Valkyrie, Valhalla, Vanquish series and the exploits in Le Mans (annual 24-hour race).”

Palmer could not foresee Aston Martin’s title sponsorship of RBR concluding.

“I don't think we see a contractual end date,” he said.

“We just see it continuing as long as they are racing and we are involved with other things with them, we'll continue.”

British Grand Prix organisers have saved themselves about US$10 million annually on the new five-year contract that keeps the long-threatened heritage race in the F1 world championship, again according to Christian Sylt on Forbes.com.

Sylt has reported that the British Racing Drivers’ Club, promoter of the GP at Silverstone, will now pay US$25 million a year, which he says is a saving of US$66.3 million on what it otherwise would have paid under the seven years that were remaining on the contract it renegotiated.

The Victorian government last week announced it had agreed a two-year extension to 2025 of the contract for Melbourne’s traditional season-opening GP.

While the state’s tourism, sport and major events minister Martin Pakula made no mention of a discount from F1 owner Liberty Media in that deal, Sylt said that contracts for the German, Italian, Mexican and Spanish GPs expire this year and “Silverstone’s success could encourage them to threaten to walk away from F1 in a bid to reduce their fees”.