MOTORSPORT: It's all Ford's way now

Monday motor sport reportNovember 5, 2007

Blue Oval's recent win rate 75 per cent
Twelve rounds of the V8 Supercar Championship gone now. Only two to go.

The tussle for the title is still incredibly close, with Garth Tander now heading the series again despite not being on the podium in Bahrain at the weekend.

HSV Dealer Team's Tander has a 20-point lead over Craig Lowndes, with Jamie Whincup dropping to third, nine points behind Triple 8/Team Vodafone teammate Lowndes after a barren trip to the Middle East and reigning champion Rick Kelly is fourth, another five points back and 34 behind his HSV Dealer teammate Tander.

The 12th round has had lots of TV time -- initially late at night but with a three-hour replay yesterday on the Seven Network -- and its share of press coverage, so we won't labor the detail here today.

Suffice to record that this was Mark Winterbottom's first solo round win and that Ford Performance Racing has now emerged on top at both visits to Bahrain (last year it was Jason Bright).

And James Courtney is getting it all together with Stone Brothers, taking second overall in Bahrain in his Falcon, ahead of the Dick Johnson Falcons of Steven Johnson and Will Davison -- another commendable performance from a team still struggling financially but that just won't lie down.

What occurs to us today is how things have changed since the mid-point of the season, and particularly in the past four rounds.

Holden, remember, burst out of the blocks at the start of the season with its new VE Commodore.

It won both legs of Adelaide's Clipsal 500, then all three races in Perth, and all three in New Zealand.

So the scoreline was 8-0 in Holden's favor after three rounds.

Whincup broke through for Ford's first victory in the 9th race of the season, at Winton, in Victoria, but Tander won the other two races there.

Then at Eastern Creek it was Holden Racing Team domination, with Mark Skaife winning two races and Todd Kelly the other.

So after five rounds the scoreline was Holden 13, Ford 1.

In Darwin, Skaife won the opening race but Lowndes the other two, so at the halfway mark of the 12 rounds now completed it was 14-3 Holden's way -- a better than 80 per cent  win rate for the General.

At Queensland Raceway it got even better, with Tander winning all three races, as he had in Perth in round two.

Holden's win rate hit 85 per cent -- 17 out of 20.

At Oran Park Holden won another two races, courtesy of Skaife and Lee Holdsworth for Garry Rogers Motorsport, and Lowndes the other. Still it was 19 out of 23 Holden's way.

Then came the endurance races, and suddenly fortunes changed. Lowndes and Whincup won both those for Triple 8/Ford.

At the Gold Coast Indy there was a return to some semblance of normality, with Tander winning two races before Steven Richards took the third.

In Bahrain it was all Ford -- Winterbottom winning the first two and Lowndes the third.

So in the last eight V8 Supercar races Ford has won six and Holden just two, after being so dominant up until the enduros.

From its high of 85 per cent after the Queensland Raceway round on July 22, Holden's strike rate has fallen to 67.75 per cent.

Conversely, Ford had just four wins after 23 races up to the end of the Oran Park round in mid-August, yet it has won 75 per cent of the races since -- including the enduros, and most importantly Bathurst.

Lowndes is Ford's main man now in the title chase, although Whincup is still right in there and perhaps had in Bahrain the round the every driver, no matter how good, is almost bound to have at some point each season, but FPR has won three of the past four races -- Steven Richards one at the Gold Coast, and Winterbottom two in Bahrain.

FPR team principal Tim Edwards says: "We knew we had the fastest cars over the last four rounds and it was great to translate that into a major result. Six more races and six more wins is the target!"

How, or why, have things turned from the early-season Holden dominance?

Triple 8, FPR, Stone Brothers and DJR have lifted their game with the ageing BF Falcon in a major way.

The HSV Commodores, and sometimes those of HRT, are still in the game, but those Ford teams just aren't allowing them to have it all their own way as they did early in the year.

Two rounds to go -- Tasmania's Symmons Plains in less than a fortnight now, and then the grand finale at Phillip Island.

Tander already has 11 wins from 31 races and would be a deserved champion.

But Lowndes is the consummate professional in this form of racing, sits just 20 points off the lead now, many would say was dealt a bad hand at last year's finale, and could be poised to seize his first title with Ford since his big move from Holden.

As much as Lowndes might deserve another championship, and it would be massively popular, Whincup has shown himself for almost two years now to be very much an equal No. 1 at Triple 8.

And then there's Rick Kelly. A craftier racer would be hard to find, but maybe he used up every ounce of luck last year and is going to have be a bridesmaid as this battle comes to its climax.

V8 Supercar Championship standings after 12 of 14 rounds - Garth Tander (Holden) 530 points, Craig Lowndes (Ford) 510, Jamie Whincup (F) 501, Rick Kelly (H) 496, MarkWinterbottom (F) 336, Todd Kelly (H) 330, Steven Richards (F) 311, James Courtney (F) 309, Russell Ingall (F) 297, Will Davison (F) 299, Mark Skaife (H) 294, Steven Johnson (F) 265, Greg Murphy (H) 230, Jason Richards (H) 199, Lee Holdsworth (H) 180.

Charge over Bahrain transporter crash
The woman driver blamed for causing the crash of a transporter in Bahrain that damaged the FPR Falcons and HRT Commodores has been charged.

The 20-year-old pregnant woman was allegedly talking on her mobile phone and holding a baby in her lap. She has been released on $300 bail.

She has told Bahraini authorities another vehicle cut her off so she took evasive action. It was her swerving that caused the transport to brake heavily and jack-knife.

The vehicle in front of the woman driver, if  it existed, has not been identified.

F1 jigsaw: Alonso and Rosberg the keys
The Formula 1 "marriage” of Fernando Alonso and McLaren has been dissolved after just a year. So what now?

Renault clearly would like to have back the driver who won the world title with it in 2005 and 2006, but there will be a couple of stipulations.

One is that sponsors rather than the French car manufacturer pick up the tab for most of Alonso's massive salary, and another that the Spaniard commit for a reasonable length of time -- at least two, if not three, years.

As we mentioned here towards the end of last week, Red Bull Racing has also come into the picture, although it has Australia's Mark Webber and Scottish veteran David Coulthard contracted for 2008.

Any team, other than McLaren and perhaps Ferrari, that had a chance to secure Alonso would move mountains to get him.

And a Red Bull deal may also involve the recruitment of Ross Brawn, the man who largely guided the Benetton and Ferrari teams in which Michael Schumacher won all seven of his world titles.

Just imagine it: Red Bull tycoon Dietrich Mateschitz's money, an Adrian Newey chassis, Renault engines the equal of those used by the factory team, Brawn and Alonso.

What a combination, although it may take another year or two to completely gel.

The F1 jigsaw for '08 revolves around where Alonso goes, and who fills the McLaren vacancy.

The three frontrunners for that seat are Nico Rosberg, Heikki Kovalainen and Adrian Sutil, with McLaren test driver -- and Alonso's compatriot and friend -- Pedro de la Rosa an outsider.

Rosberg, the outstanding youngster in F1 apart from Lewis Hamilton and clearly top of the McLaren shopping list, is contracted to Williams for next year, but selling him to McLaren would go a long way to improving the financials of the once-great Williams outfit, which this year rebounded strongly -- and that performance included a fair contribution from Rosberg.

A Kovalainen move to McLaren might be the smoothest of all deals.

McLaren has a history of Finnish drivers -- Mika Hakkinen, world champion in 1998-99, and Kimi Raikkonen, who twice came close to the title before moving to Ferrari and snatching a championship there this year.

Kovalainen may be temperamentally best suited to be Hamilton's teammate, while making way for either Alonso -- or perhaps Webber.

The Aussie had the chance to race for Renault in 2005 but decided against it, opting for Williams.

His experience as a Renault test driver in 2001 and with its latest engine this year could suit him well for the slot.

It also is likely to be the best option Webber is ever likely to have to race for a leading factory team.

Renault most likely will retain Giancarlo Fisichella for another season, if only for continuity. He would be very much a No. 2 to Alonso, as he was in 2006.

While Renault and Red Bull are Alonso's best options while Ferrari has Raikkonen and Felipe Massa locked in, Toyota has the money and room -- with Ralf Schumacher ditched -- to accommodate him.

Williams now uses Toyota engines and there is some speculation of it making a bold bid for the Spaniard.

Certainly Alonso is Sir Frank Williams' kind of driver, but -- despite its improvement this year -- that team is risky for Alonso, certainly as a long-term proposition.

The team that needs someone of Alonso's calibre, and with which he would be well suited if it had its mindset of 20 years ago, is Honda.

Jenson Button won a GP for Honda in '06 but it is questionable whether he is a genuine team leader, while Rubens Barrichello did not score a single point this year, probably more through the fault of his machinery than himself, but he is hardly the man now to lead the proud Japanese manufacturer back to the position it occupied in the days of Ayrton Senna and Alain Prost.

Red Bull would be the most exciting new home for Alonso, with Webber as his teammate -- and Coulthard either edged off to the Indian-owned team that has been Spyker (originally Jordan) or into retirement.

Conspiracy theorists have Alonso eventually ending up at Ferrari, but not before 2009.

We doubt it. Raikkonen is a fixture there now and Ferrari, and particularly Jean Todt, has invested a lot in Massa.

Only a Todt departure from Maranello could weaken Massa's position there and open the door for Alonso. A Raikkonen-Alonso teaming doesn't make a lot of sense.

More than any other team, Ferrari has always had No. 1s and No. 2s, rather than equality.

Alonso made clear at McLaren that he won't settle for equality. He wants to be treated as No. 1 -- but are Ferrari, how could he be?

Farewell Mika Hakkinen, one of the greats
Mika Hakkinen, who has been racing for Mercedes in the DTM -- or German touring car championship -- in recent years, announced his retirement from motor sport at the weekend, aged 39.

The occasion was marked by Hakkinen driving some laps at Mercedes' annual Stars & Cars festival at Stuggart in the McLaren-Mercedes MP4-13 in which he won the 1998 F1 world title.

Hakkinen will not be remembered as one of the sport's great personalities, although he had a charming dry wit that went unnoticed to most English-speakers, but he was a genuinely great F1 racer.

I had the pleasure of seeing him clinch both his world titles, and his drives in both those Japanese GPs were superb.

Three other memories of Hakkinen remain vivid.
*At his first GP as Ayrton Senna's McLaren teammate in 1993 he outqualified the great Brazilian, the greatest of all qualifiers.
* The Friday afternoon he almost lost his life in Adelaide in 1995.
* The magical overtaking of Michael Schumacher at Spa as each went either side of Riccardo Zonta at Spa in Belgium in 2000 -- perhaps the greatest split second in F1 history.

After all, a great year for Mercedes
It's easy to think of 2007 being a horror year for McLaren, and therefore its engine partner Mercedes -- stripped of a certain constructors' world title, and Lewis Hamilton, and for that matter Fernando Alonso, just missing out on the drivers' title.

But Norbert Haug, vice-president of Mercedes-Benz Motorsport, had a positive spin on it all at Stars & Cars.

"We won 15 out of 27 races in F1 and DTM, all 20 of the Formula 3 Euro Series, and also all 22 races of the British Championship and the F3 Masters,” Haug said.

"In the history of Mercedes-Benz Motorsport there have never been more victories in one season.

"In F1, DTM and F3 our drivers won 58 times out of 70 starts. A dozen races we did not win -- and 11 of them we finished on the podium.”

Tarmac rallying: time for a review?
Another tragedy in tarmac rallying at the weekend.

Paul Flintoff, 42, co-driver to rising star David Reynolds, was killed when the Elfin MS8 Clubman in which they were competing at the Mt Buller Sprint in Victoria spun off the road and plunged over a 20m cliff.

The great Jim Richards is a stout defender of tarmac rallying, but this death -- 14 months after that of Peter Brock in a Daytona Coupe in Targa West -- may well prompt a review, or at least loud calls for one, of vehicle regulations for such events.

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