MOTORSPORT: Hyundai tops WRC on both fronts

Hyundai was already leading the manufacturer standings in the World Rally Championship, but now its top driver has leapfrogged the world champion driver of the past five years.

The Korean manufacturer’s Belgian ace, Thierry Neuville, went to the sixth round in Portugal trailing M-Sport Ford’s French superstar Sebastien Ogier by 10 points but leaves 19 ahead of him (119-100).

It was a gravel rally of attrition, with Ogier’s hopes of a record sixth win in Portugal and the chances of third-placed Toyota driver, Estonian Ott Tanak (72 points), shattered by crashes on Friday’s rock-strewn stages.

Hyundai’s New Zealander Hayden Paddon spent a night in hospital with a back injury after driving his i20 into a ditch that day, while Citroen’s Northern Irishman Kris Meeke hit a tree on Saturday, as Ogier had done the day before.

Hyundai’s Norwegian Andreas Mikkelsen and Toyota’s experienced Finn Jari-Matti Latvala were other Friday victims.

Neuville and co-driver Nicolas Gilsoul’s second win of the year – their first was in Sweden in mid-February – was by a comfortable 40 seconds.

Reigning champion team M-Sport filled the other podium positions, with Welshman Elfyn Evans and co-driver Daniel Barritt second in one Fiesta and 24-year-old Finn Teemu Suninen and compatriot Mikko Markkula third in another to narrow Hyundai’s manufacturers’ championship lead to 13 points (175-162, with Toyota on 140 and Citroen 111).

Suninen’s first WRC podium came after an intense fight with countryman Esapekka Lappi (Toyota Yaris) and Spaniard Dani Sordo (Hyundai i20) over the final stages.

Lappi dropped from fourth to fifth, behind Sordo, after the finish when given a 10-second penalty for hitting a hay bale at a roundabout in Friday night’s street stage in Porto – a penalty the Spaniard had copped during the rally.

Norwegian Mads Ostberg, victor in Portugal six years ago in a Ford Fiesta, was Citroen’s top finisher this time – sixth in a C3.

The next round of the WRC is Rally Italy on the Mediterranean island of Sardinia on June 8-10, with Ogier saying he will “turn the page and look forward” after a crash that was not the result of a big mistake but which “came with big consequences”.

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Carpenter blows off Penskes at The Brickyard

Australian Will Power will start the 102nd Indianapolis 500 next Monday morning, Australian time, from the outside of the front row, while fellow Aussie James Davison will be on the seventh of the 11 rows of three 2.2-litre twin-turbocharged open-wheelers.

Team Penske looked set for sweep of the front row until part-timer Ed Carpenter, who only drives oval races in the IndyCar series, blew past them, averaging 229.618 miles an hour (369.53km/h) on the second last qualifying run of the Fast Nine Shootout over four laps of the 2.5-mile (4km) superspeedway known as The Brickyard.

Power, who has made the Fast Nine every year since it was introduced in 2010, averaged 228.607mph – slightly slower than one Pesnke teammate, Frenchman Simon Pagenaud, and slightly faster than another, American reigning series champion Josef Newgarden.

Power, from Toowoomba, almost won the ‘Greatest Spectacle in Racing’ in 2015 and a week ago gave team owner Roger Penske his 200th Indy racing victory in the ‘grand prix’ on the road course within The Brickyard.

Penske’s fourth driver, Brazilian Helio Castroneves, made the final run in the Fast Nine but was only eighth on the timesheet, leaving him to start his quest for a record-equalling fourth victory from the third row, between Carpenter’s teammate Danica Patrick (seventh) in what may be her final professional race and New Zealander Scott Dixon (ninth).

Chevrolet-powered cars dominated, with the best Honda-engined starter to be Frenchman Sebastien Bourdais in fifth, with Dixon the only other driver among the top nine with Honda power.

The trio on the fourth row, including 19-year-old Brazilian rookie Matheus Leist, all went faster than Dixon.

Carpenter was the only driver to average better than 230mph on any lap in qualifying – he went round in 230.088 on the first of his four laps in the Fast Nine.

Stepson of Indianapolis Motor Speedway chief Tony George, Carpenter has now had the pole for the Indy 500 three times, but the 37-year-old is yet to win the classic.

Davison, driving a third car prepared by the legendary AJ Foyt’s team, had a big crash in Friday’s practice and his crew had to work all night to repair it for Saturday’s first day of qualifying.

Davison scraped into the field that day on the cut-off point, 33rd, circulating at 224.798mph to withstand three attempts by British woman Pippa Mann and two by Canadian James Hinchcliffe in the last three hours.

In Sunday’s final qualifying Davison improved to 226.255mph in his Chevrolet-powered machinery to move up to 19th on the grid.

Davison said he “just had to man up and get on with it” after his crew repaired his car.

“The best way to repay them was to make ‘the show’,” Davison – cousin of Supercar driver Will Davison – said.

“The last 30 minutes [of Saturday qualifying] were pretty agonising … a Catch 22. I just had to sit and wait.

“It’s been a life experience … stressful to say the least.”

The last two winners of the event, Japan’s Takuma Sato (2017) and American ex-Formula 1 driver Alex Rossi (2016), will start 16th and 32nd – both with Honda power.

From 2021 the IndyCar series will use 2.4-litre, twin-turbocharged engines producing at least another 100 horsepower, with organisers hopeful the change will entice more manufacturers to participate.

“We’ve talked with a lot of key executives [in car companies] and they’ve all said this is a very relevant platform to what they’re doing,” IndyCar competition boss Jay Frye said.