MOTORSPORT: It's go again for V8 Supercars

Some of the co-drivers already named for the Sandown, Bathurst and Gold Coast endurance events in September-October will have a run during the seven hours of testing at the track previously known as Eastern Creek, as will a couple of foreign drivers who are potential draftees.

The first round of the championship is just another two weeks away in Adelaide.

Jacques Villeneuve, the 1997 Formula One world champion, is to compete in the new World Rallycross Championship starting in Portugal in early May, and with a round in his native Canada – and at the announcement he gave modern F1 a huge spray.

Villeneuve said F1 was: “not epic anymore… There’s nothing special about it… It’s artificial”.

He was particularly critical of the drag reduction systems used. DRS lets drivers manipulate their rear wings and was introduced in 2011. The Canadian is also not keen on the plan for double points at this year’s last grand prix in Abu Dhabi.

And, of this season’s new, more environmentally-friendly V6 turbocharged cars, he said: “F1 is not green… There is no point even trying”.

And, for good measure, he reckoned today’s grand prix drivers were “highly uninteresting”.

Controversy too in America, where the greatest NASCAR driver of all, and Australian Marcos Ambrose’s team owner, Richard Petty has said ahead of next weekend’s season-opening Daytona 500 that woman racer Danica Patrick could only win in the Sprint Cup “if everybody else stayed home”.

Patrick, who finished 27th in her first full Cup season last year (Ambrose was 22nd), has declined to “bite” at Petty’s comments.

Meanwhile, Morgan Shepherd – an American who raced at Melbourne’s Calder Park Thunderdome in the days of Australian stock car racing – is to attempt, at 72, to become the oldest driver to race in the Daytona 500.

Shepherd already is the oldest driver to have competed in a Sprint Cup race, driving 92 laps in a Toyota at the New Hampshire speedway last season before retiring. But Shepherd did eight races in NASCAR’s second-tier Nationwide Series last year and has competed in 15 Daytona 500s, finishing second in 1992.

Eyes on Volvos at V8 Supercar test day
The V8 Supercar test day at Sydney Motorsport Park will mark the debut of new manufacturer participant Volvo with its pair of S60s, new colour schemes on the other 23 cars and lots of drivers in new seats.

Much of the interest will be in the performance and sound of the Volvos driven by Scott McLaughlin (rookie-of-the-year last season when the team that now is Volvo Polestar Racing was Garry Rogers Motorsport) and Swedish newcomer, Robert Dahlgren.

There also will be scrutiny on whether the four Nissan Altimas have improved, after sticking with centrally-mounted rear wings after trying end mountings over the summer, and the AMG Mercedes E63s of Betty Klimenko’s Erebus Motorsport – now two rather than the three in the first year of the new-generation V8 Supercars.

Nick Percat, Bathurst 1000-winning co-driver with Garth Tander for Holden Racing Team in 2011, begins his first full season in the V8 Supercar Championship.

Percat will be in an entry from Walkinshaw Racing, which will field four Commodores. Alongside the youngster will be two HRT cars for Tander and James Courtney (still recovered from last year’s broken leg) and another for Tim Slade, who has moved across from the Erebus Mercedes squad.

Jack Perkins, son of the legendary Larry, returns after several years out of a full-time drive after he was diagnosed with diabetes. He will be in the fourth Ford Performance Racing Falcon, entered by Charlie Schwerkolt who co-owned Dick Johnson Racing in his 2010 championship-winning season with James Courtney.

Chaz Mostert, who at DJR in his rookie season was the standout youngster last year along with McLaughlin, joins the FPR line-up alongside mentor and reigning Bathurst 1000 winner Mark Winterbottom, who is starting his ninth year with the team.

David Reynolds enters his third season in the third FPR Falcon after his breakthrough race win last year.

The big move over the summer has been Will Davison’s switch from FPR to Betty Kilmenko’s Erebus Mercedes squad as teammate to Lee Holdsworth.

Dale Wood steps back up into the “main game” with Holden team Brad Jones Racing after a lot of success in the development series in recent years. And veteran Russell Ingall has joined Lucas Dumbrell’s team for yet another season rather than head into retirement.

DJR’s new line-up is Scott Pye, who was with Dumbrell last season, and David Wall, from BJR.

At top team Triple Eight Race Engineering, or Red Bull Racing Australia as it is at the racetrack, Jamie Whincup starts his quest for a record sixth title at just 31 years of age, while teammate Craig Lowndes (who has had to play second fiddle to Whincup for so long now) is intent on improving his qualifying performances as he tries to win a fourth title – and his first this century.

Lowndes already has a big victory under his belt this year – driving a Ferrari 458 in last Sunday’s Bathurst 12-Hour.

Among those gone from the V8 Supercar driver line-up are Jonathon Webb, whose Tekno Autosports team has reverted to one car (for Shane Van Gisbergen, although Webb will return as Van Gisbergen’s co-driver in the endurance races -- after his hopes of co-driving with HRT were scuttled by the supplier of his Commodores, Triple Eight).

Also absent from the full-time scene will be: German Maro Engel, a casualty of Erebus dropping back to two Mercs; Frenchman Alex Premat, who had to make way for Dahlgren at Volvo but will return for the endures; as well as Tony D’Alberto and Dean Fiore – whose team licences have been shelved, for now at least. Tim Blanchard is also gone from DJR.

Potential international co-drivers for the enduros on trial at Sydney Motorsport Park tomorrow will be Englishmen Oliver Gavin, with Walkinshaw Racing, and Alex Buncombe, with Nissan Motorsport.

Gavin, once on the cusp of F1 and now a Corvette sports-car racer, and Buncombe, a member of Nissan’s global driver exchange program, have stayed on in Australia after the Bathurst 12-Hour.

Buncombe did not get a stint in the Nissan GT-R after it was crashed by its Japanese driver in the third hour. However, Nissan global motorsport boss Darren Cox has indicated that the manufacturer wants international co-drivers at this year’s Bathurst 1000 – so Buncombe would seem a certainty.

New Walkinshaw Racing head Adrian Burgess said there was no guarantee yet of Gavin getting a seat, however -- although he could easily slot in with Percat for the enduros.

While the V8 Supercar field is smaller this season it is a lot healthier than the interim European V8 series that anticipates a minimum of only 16 cars at its six rounds.

It is a transition year between what has been the Italian-based V8 Superstars series and what is being called the new “league-based SuperTouring Series format” next year.

The six teams committed for this season will field Audi R5s, BMW M3s, Chevrolet Camaros and Lexus ISFs.

Germany’s high-tech DTM is the major touring car championship in Europe.

V8 Supercars clearly dominates the Australian racing landscape, although the January car sales figures raise fresh questions about the category’s value as a marketing tool for road cars.

A veteran observer of the Australian motor and motorsport industries has pointed out that Ford, the first of the Australian manufacturers to announce it would stop producing cars locally, saw sales drop 12 per cent last month from January last year, led down by Falcon with only 461 sales for the month.

Holden, which also is to stop local production and has been V8 Supercar’s strongest manufacturer participant, showed a slight increase in January with Commodore sales comparatively strong (2364).

However, Nissan – an importer for two decades now – suffered a 41.3 per cent drop with our observer calling the newly-released Altima “insignificant in a brand that had a shockingly bad month”.

He pointed out that Altima sales in January 2014 were 109, while new V8 Supercar participant Volvo’s S60 chalked up 65 sales for the month – both less than the 110 Kenworth heavy trucks.

Mercedes-Benz Australia, which has always distanced itself from the Erebus V8 Supercar effort, had a 15.3 per cent rise in sales between January last year and this year.

V8 Supercar Championship full-time driver line-up
Triple Eight Race Engineering (Holden Commodores) – Jamie Whincup, Craig Lowndes.
Ford Performance Racing (Ford Falcons) – Mark Winterbottom, Chaz Mostert, David Reyolds, Jack Perkins.
Walkinshaw Racing (Holden Commodores) – Garth Tander, James Courtney, Tim Slade, Nick Percat.
Brad Jones Racing (Holden Commodores) – Jason Bright, Fabian Coulthard, Dale Wood.
Tekno Autosports (Holden Commodore) – Shane Van Gisbergen.
Volvo Polestar Racing (Volvo Polestars) – Scott McLaughlin, Robert Dahlgren.
Nissan Motorsport (Nissan Altimas) – Rick Kelly, Todd Kelly, James Moffat, Michael Caruso.
Erebus Motorsport (AMG Mercedes) – Lee Holdsworth, Will Davison.
Dick Johnson Racing (Ford Falcons) – Scott Pye, David Wall.
Lucas Dumbrell Motorsport – Russell Ingall.

V8 Supercar season calendar
February 27-March 2 – Clipsal 500, Adelaide
March 13-16 – Australian Grand Prix, Melbourne (non-championship)
March 28-30 – Tasmania 400, Symmons Plains
April 4-6 – Winton 400, Benalla, Victoria.
April 24-27 – Auckland 500, Pukekohe, New Zealand
May 16-18 – Perth 400, Barbagallo Raceway
June 20-22 – Darwin Triple Crown, Hidden Valley
July 4-6 – Townsville 500, Reid Park
August 1-3 – Ipswich 400, Queensland Raceway
August 22-24 – Sydney Motorsport Park 400, Eastern Creek
September 12-14 – Sandown 500, Melbourne
October 9-12 – Bathurst 1000, Mt Panorama
October 24-26 – Gold Coast 600, Surfers’ Paradise
November 14-16 – Phillip Island 400, Victoria
December 5-7 – Sydney 500, Homebush Olympic Precinct

500kW, four-wheel-drive rallycross Peugeot for Villeneuve
Rallycross may be the new hit in international motorsport this year with fans (rather than the new Formula E electric open-wheeler series) and Jacques Villeneuve is going to be part of it. Villeneuve, 42, has signed with Scottish-based Albatec Racing, to drive a 500kW, four-wheel-drive Peugeot 208 in the new World Rallycross Championship.

The 12-round series starts at Montalegre in Portugal on the first weekend of May and has a round three months later at the Trois-Rivieres venue in Canada that Villeneuve’s late father Gilles made famous in the mid-1970s. (Formula E starts in September).

Villeneuve Junior’s star has faded greatly since his exit from F1 in 2006, including running around at the back of a couple of V8 Supercar rounds in Australia and disgracing himself by punting Danica Patrick in a NASCAR Nationwide race in North America.

But, having tested the Peugeot 208 at Dreux in France, the 1997 world champion is excited about rallycross.

“The car is just so responsive. The power is amazing,” Villeneuve said.

F1 ‘trying to cater to the wrong people’
While rallycross is now the focus of Villeneuve’s attention, he does some F1 commentary – and does not like what he sees of modern grand prix racing. Indeed, Villeneuve said at the announcement of his new rallycross drive that F1 was: “trying to cater to the wrong people”.

“I’m worried about the state of F1. I just hope I'm wrong,” Villeneuve said.

“I don’t understand what they are trying to do. I don’t understand the concept. Formula 1 is not epic anymore. The drivers are not heroes.

“The problem is that the changes are being made in an artificial way – and that doesn’t work. It may be fun for six months, but after that everyone gets bored, and once you start going artificial you have to do it more and more – to the point where it's not even real racing anymore,” he said.

"Imposing DRS [drag reduction system] where you press a button to [vary a rear wing and] overtake someone else… Once you start going down that route you cannot stop. You have to make more and more of it.

“So now we have double points for the last race. What’s the next thing that will come?

“It becomes more and more artificial and, instead of having a positive effect, you end up making it where people don’t respect it anymore.

“With the engine regulations, everything is so restrictive that it’s not Formula 1 anymore –    there’s nothing special about it. Conserving fuel [This season cars are limited to 100kg per race] is fine, and it was great in the past. The problem is that the drivers don’t have to do it. It’s all done electronically. You sit there and it saves fuel for you - and that defeats the purpose.

“The epic has been taken out of F1… And they want to cater to the younger fans that don’t have an attention span, and just want an overtake every two seconds, even if it is a terrible one, because they don’t understand it,” he stated.

“I’m a purist and I love the sport. I loved the ’60s and ’70s, when the fans even enjoyed the races [even] where only four cars finished and they were two laps apart. You respected what the drivers had done.

“They [F1’s rule makers] are making a lot of decisions that in the long run are not helping F1,” Villeneuve said.

Image:V8 Supercars

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