MOTORSPORT: High price on Chris Atkinson's return

$250,000 for Atko's Rally Oz, $2 million a season?
Easter is all about remembering a resurrection long past, but this Easter we've also been wondering about the chances of a resurrection of the World Rally Championship career of Australia's Chris Atkinson.

We'd like to think there's a good chance, because in the four years the Queenslander spent in the WRC he showed the talent to compete at that level and, in the right equipment, at the very front of the field.

Unfortunately we missed a chance to catch up with Atkinson last week due to clashing commitments, but in scouting around for news about him we've come across a reminder of just how tough it is going to be for him to get back into the WRC, certainly full-time and at the level he would want -- and his talent deserves.

That reminder came in a story in Lismore's Northern Star newspaper. It was the seventh paragraph of a story by Steve Spinks. It read: "Atkinson said he needed to raise about $250,000 for the Kyogle rally and about $2 million to get on to the WRC full-time next year. A rally car is estimated to cost about $1.5 million alone."

The Kyogle rally is the scheduled rebirth of Rally Australia, our WRC round, in northern NSW in mid-September.

It's the event that was held in Western Australia for almost 20 years until 2006 and which it is now intended by the world governing body of motorsport, the Federation Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA), will rotate in Australasia between the Northern Rivers area of NSW and New Zealand, instead of the two countries each having a round every year.

Now Rally Australia absolute needs Atkinson in the field. It already is up against enough obstacles -- isolation from major population centres, costs, the economic meltdown, etc -- and the absence of Australia's top rally driver would only make matters worse.

Atkinson -- still only 29, young in rallying terms -- has been back in Australia for several weeks trying to find the sponsorship to revive his career.

He told the Northern Star: "We've had a couple of good leads and had a couple of big companies interested. We've also had a couple of smaller companies already sign, which helps."

A drive in Citroen's junior team, with which he contested the opening round of this year's world championship, is his -- for at least half the WRC rounds, we believe -- if he can fund the entry.

This is just another reminder of how tough it is for talented Aussies to make it on motorsport's world stage.

Here is a driver who finished fifth in last year's WRC, was on the podium five times, and had proved himself among the best in that championship, who lost his place because Subaru withdrew its long-established, Prodrive-run world rally team in the global economic meltdown. And the guy's got to buy his drive!

If Atkinson can't retain a drive in the WRC, or find the financial support to obtain one, what hope is there for other Aussies in all the various forms of international motorsport?

There are others who have succeeded or been lucky, perhaps a combination of both -- Casey Stoner and Chris Vermeulen in MotoGP, Mark Webber in Formula 1, Ryan Briscoe in IndyCar, and Will Power is hanging in there too, thanks to Brazilian Helio Castroneves being sidetracked by a big tax evasion case.

But these are the fortunate ones. For each one of those there are many who have had to pack up and come home.

One for whom we feel particularly sorry is Tim Blanchard, the 2007 Australian Formula Ford Champion who was runner-up in the British Formula Ford Championship and had the chance to advance to the British Formula 3 Championship this year, until the collapse of the Aussie dollar cruelled his chances of finding the necessary sponsorship.

Another young Aussie, Daniel Ricciardo, is beginning his British F3 campaign over this Easter and indeed is one of the title favorites -- if not the favorite -- already, as he is with the top team in the series, Carlin, is on the front row for the two races at Oulton Park, and has the benefit of substantial Red Bull sponsorship.

There are no guarantees Perth teenager Ricciardo will fulfill his F1 dream, but at least he's in with a good shot.

Atkinson's career, regrettably, is seriously dislocated. Hopefully a deal comes together for him to compete at Rally Oz at least.

As the Northern Star story says, he's "hopeful of flying through the Tweed and Kyogle come September". But even if he makes it there, Atkinson cautions against expectations becoming inflated, because it's not as though it's home ground for him.

"I was brought up on the Gold Coast and I was in the Brisbane Rally Club, but I have never been down around there," Atkinson says. "So while it would be good to drive at home, I won't have any home advantage, even though the event is being held about 50km from where I lived."

That Northern Star report is here and background on Atkinson's career is here.

Let's keep our fingers crossed for an Atko resurrection, but it's going to take more than good wishes for that to happen fully and properly.

Sell-out not a priority at Hamilton this weekend
The V8 Supercar Championship resumes this week -- at Hamilton in New Zealand -- after the opening round's two races in Adelaide and three non-championship races at Melbourne's F1 GP, all won by Ford Falcons.

It will be the second year on the street circuit in the NZ regional city about an hour south of Auckland.

A report in the local Waikato Times newspaper indicates there are still plenty of tickets available, although somewhat curiously event promoter Dean Calvert is quoted saying that a sell-out is "not a priority".

"Ticket sales are only a part of the bigger picture. Our priority this year is the quality of experience that the fans get," Calvert says. That Waikato Times report is here.

There are also indications out of NZ that V8 Supercars Australia is intervening in the long-running saga of Team Kiwi Racing -- and that the licence will be on the market next week.

TKR's licence is held by a company called Numero Uno, whose shareholders are the bankrupt David John (who claims he is close to paying off his debts) and a Taupo farmer, Wayne Webber.

NZ's Sunday Star Times newspaper's motorsport correspondent Bernard Carpinter has quoted Webber saying: "I'm totally frustrated. It has been going on for months since he (John) was bankrupted and now V8 Supercars have pulled the licence."

Among the parties interested will be Dean Fiore, the Aussie temporarily buying the drive in TKR's Falcon, Aucklander Mark Petch, Ford Performance Racing, which -- as Carpinter points out -- is looking to expand and is well financed, and perhaps Stone Brothers Racing, whose principals Ross and Jim Stone have tried to acquire it previously. The Sunday Star Times article is here.

We'll take a look at Hamilton again later in the week, but already we recall it was at this round last year that Jamie Whincup wrote off a Triple 8/Team Vodafone Falcon and missed all three races, yet bounced back to take the series title.

Whincup has won the two races so far this year counting towards the championship.

Here's a reminder of the top 10 drives in the series going into round 2 -- Jamie Whincup (Ford) 300 points, Will Davison (Holden) 267, Lee Holdsworth (H) 249, Steven Johnson (F) 222, Jason Richards (H) 207, Craig Lowndes (F) 168, Shane Van Gisbergen (F) 168, Rick Kelly (H) 156, Jason Bright (F) 141, Fabian Coulthard (F) 141.

Three Kiwis among that group -- Jason Richards, Van Gisbergen and Coulthard -- and expect NZ's favourite V8 "son" Greg Murphy to produce something special at Hamilton. And perhaps FPR's NZ-born Steven Richards as well.

Drivers to pressure Bernie over twilight GPs
The controversy over twilight F1 races rumbles on. Autosport now reports that GP drivers will push F1 supremo Bernie Ecclestone to bring forward the start times of the Melbourne and Kuala Lumpur races next year.

Neither of the recent races that began at 5pm local time saw it to the chequered flag under green -- in Melbourne the field was crawling behind the safety car, and drivers complained about glare, while in Malaysia the cars had been stopped after little more than half distance by a tropical storm and could never have restarted as darkness descended.

One F1 driver told Autosport: "We spoke to (FIA race director) Charlie Whiting in the drivers' briefings to express our concerns about what could happen, and our fears came true.

"It was common sense that there would be problems. In Australia it was very difficult. Because of the low sun, it was hard to see into turn 1 and the pit lane exit line, while in Malaysia the fading light made things very difficult.

"It wasn't the rain that was the problem in Malaysia ... but there was no chance to restart the race when it started so late because it got too dark -- and that was the problem."

As we concluded in our previous commentary, here perhaps the best solution in Melbourne is a return to the 3.30pm start of 2008.

Ecclestone has said he has not seen the 5pm starts as a problem, but we bet he will step up his push for full night GPs in Melbourne and KL.

However, the Victorian government appears totally opposed to paying to light up Albert Park for a night race.

We suspect the Malaysian government, despite its reluctance, will be more likely to succumb to Ecclestone's wishes, particularly in light of the perceived success of neighboring Singapore's historic night GP last September.

However, there has been some caustic commentary in KL's New Straits Times newspaper.

NST journalist Arnaz M. Khairul wrote: "If there was anyone to be blamed for the rescheduling of the race at 5pm from 3pm previously, it was Ecclestone and his never-ending quest for ‘more' out of everything.

"Malaysia has spent what is estimated to be well over M$1.5 billion on F1 since the inception of the Malaysian GP in 1999, including giving the world its first purpose-built F1 circuit at Sepang.

"Europe is the centre of the earth as far as Ecclestone is concerned. Asia is merely a new frontier, so we just pay the money and do as we're ordered to.

"The 5pm start was a mistake for reasons only because it left no room for error, unless Sepang already had the lighting system that would have cost another M$30 million to put in place."

However, Sepang chairman Datuk Mokhzani Mahathir, while admitting that a night GP would not be a perfect solution for Malaysia, told the the NST: ""We can recover the cost (of installing floodlights) by renting out the track for other events."

The 5.16km circuit will be in Yeongam county, 320km south-west of Seoul, with a 1.2km main straight.

The developer, Korea Auto Valley Operation (KAVO), is a joint venture between private company M-Bridge Holdings and the provincial government of South Jeolla.

>> The Japanese media has come closer to confirming that the price for which Honda sold its F1 team to Ross Brawn's syndicate was about $2.

"It was our priority to sell the team on condition it continues its F1 activities -- the price was not a problem," the Yomiuri Shimbun newspaper quoted a Honda official saying.

"We also needed to protect the jobs of hundreds of people."

Honda's problem was that if it folded the team it would have been up for massive redundancy benefits, while it is far easier for the new owners to slash the workforce by about one-third.

It was a similar story with Ford offloading Jaguar a few years ago to Red Bull, although there was not the same pressure to cut staff numbers then.

>> F1 race director Charlie Whiting says world champion Lewis Hamilton privately apologised for deliberately misleading him and fellow stewards at the Australian GP.

"I was distinctly uncomfortable about Lewis' demeanor on the Sunday in Australia," Whiting told autosport.com

"The fact that he came and apologised to me in Sepang sums it up pretty much.

"He came to me and wanted to talk to me privately, and just said he wanted to apologise for everything he'd done and he wouldn't do it again."

A report -- some will say sensationalist report -- in London's News of the World newspaper yesterday says: "McLaren face being kicked out of the constructors' championship for the second time in 18 months.

"It has emerged that, at the stewards' second hearing in Sepang, Hamilton and Ryan (sacked McLaren sporting director Dave Ryan) were played the tape of Hamilton's pit-to-car radio conversation which proved they had lied -- but they refused to change their story."

News of the World writer Ian Gordon says that Mercedes, which owns 40 per cent of McLaren already, "could launch a takeover bid or switch their backing to Brawn GP" -- the ex-Honda team that has won the season's first two races with "customer" Mercedes engines.

The FIA's McLaren hearing on McLaren is at the end of the month, but the "double-decker" diffuser row will be heard tomorrow (April 14).

A1 GP worth watching, but Team Oz not
Really enjoyed what we saw of A1 GP's sixth round at the new Algarve circuit in Portugal.

The circuit had character and the there was some terrific open-wheeler racing and plenty of action, even if not a great crowd other than a few patriotic locals.

Despite the problems A1 has had throughout its five-year history, we have always liked what we have seen of the track action, and indeed felt it was on solid ground in claiming to be the most competitive open-wheeler series in the world -- although we've got to say that F1 has belatedly come close to its "numero uno" status recently (and its magnetism is not purely the quality of its racing).

However, Portugal was another dud round for A1 Team Australia.

John Martin qualified 12th and 17th of 20 drivers for the sprint and feature respectively. Martin finished 10th and 12th (four laps down and in the pits at the chequered flag) in the races.

Australia remains eighth in the championship with 30 points, barely one-third the tally of leader Switzerland.

Swiss driver Neel Jani won the feature at Algarve and now has 10 A1 victories to his credit -- the most of any driver in the history of the series.

Despite a drive-through penalty for a false start, Ireland's Adam Carroll came back -- helped by some slick pit work -- to finish second, but had got into strife again for overtaking Martin behind the safety car and copped a 25-second post-race penalty, dropping him to fifth.

That promoted Portugal's Filipe Albuquerque, who had come from seventh on the grid to cross the line third, up to the second step of the podium, with Malaysia's Fairuz Fauzy classified third, ahead of Mexico's Salvador Duran.

Dutchman Robert Doornbos won the earlier sprint, ahead of Carroll, Albuquerque, and Italy's Vitantonio Liuzzi, who had qualified on pole position at his first A1 outing.

Doornbos dropped out of the feature on the formation lap.

If Australia's weekend was bad, New Zealand's was even worse -- with driver Earl Bamber landing in the gravel early in the sprint and put South Africa's Adrian Zaugg and himself out of the feature.

However, NZ remains ahead of Oz in the standings.

While Switzerland leads from Ireland and Portugal, if countries already dropped the score from their worst round -- as they will at the end of the season -- Ireland would still be in front.

Our advice on A1 GP is: don't give up on it yet, and let's look forward to its arrival at the Gold Coast in October. The racing is excellent and there is an abundance of talent in the field, even if the names are not well known.

A1 GP World Cup of Motorsport after six of eight rounds -- Switzerland 88 points, Ireland 86, Portugal 82, Netherlands 66, France 46, Malaysia 43, New Zealand 36, Australia 30, Monaco 27, Great Britain 24, US 19, South Africa 19, Brazil 18, Italy 15, India 11, Mexico 8, Lebanon 8, China 7, Korea 4, Indonesia 3, Germany 2.

The rise of Ambrose and Waltrip Racing
Came across, by chance, a brief but independent assessment of Aussie Marcos Ambrose's season in NASCAR'S Sprint Cup in an article in the Gaylord Herald Times newspaper in Michigan.

Columnist Mike McCourt's report card on Ambrose is that he "has done very well considering this is his first full year in the Cup series".

Equally interesting to us in that article was the commentary on how Michael Waltrip Racing -- the team whose umbrella Ambrose is now under, via JTG Daugherty's marketing -- has improved in super-competitive NASCAR.

McCourt's column is here. Another article on MWR's improvement is here.

But the most fascinating piece we've read on NASCAR recently was a feature in the Wall Street Journal on Joe Gibbs Racing and its oils. Usually we would suspect some oil company spin-doctoring behind such an article, but it looked to us like genuine good oil -- and it's here.

The first is an article on what's been dubbed the best job in motorsport -- interviewing a who's who of American racing for the centennial of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. See here.

Secondly, as we mentioned a week ago, Jeff Gordon has won on 23 of the 24 tracks in NASCAR's Sprint Cup. But now we can add that Tony Stewart is second in that category, having won at 19 of those tracks. No other NASCAR driver has won on more than 16 of them.

And, thirdly, in an explanation of KERS (Kinetic Energy Recovery System) by the Renault F1 team we learned that every 10kg of unnecessary weight in a GP car can cost 0.35 seconds a lap.