MOTORSPORT: Lots new and a little of the old

The line-up for the Daytona 500 will be set overnight, with two sprint races early Friday, Australian time, deciding the line-up of the 41 cars behind the Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolets of Mark Martin and Dale Earnhardt Junior on the front row for the NASCAR season-opener.

The World Rally Championship kicks off in Sweden tonight, with 2007 Formula One world champion Kimi Raikkonen in the field. For Raikkonen's views on what he likes about the WRC over F1. Nonetheless, the speculation won't go away about the Ice Man returning to F1 next year.

The Bathurst 12-hour production car race is this Sunday. It has eight classes, 45 entries and plenty of top drivers -- including Glenn Seton, Jason Bright, John Bowe and Neil Crompton, plus the Eric Bana celebrity factor and 77-year-old Bob Holden -- yet, unfortunately, it still fails to capture much attention.

The Alan Heaphy-led Team Mitsubishi Ralliart is favourite for a third straight victory, and for a preview of the event we recommend this week's Auto Action magazine, pages 32-33.

Preceding the 12-hour, just up the road at Orange on Saturday, the 50th anniversary of the Australian Touring Car Championship on the old Gnoo Blas circuit will be celebrated.

The first day of the second F1 pre-season test was plagued by rain and the RB6 had an oil leak, leaving Webber more than 5.5 seconds off the pace -- set by Nico Rosberg for Mercedes.

Nonetheless, great hopes are held for the Adrian Newey-designed, Renault-powered machine that Webber and his young German teammate Sebastian Vettel will race in the world championship starting in Bahrain in little more than a month now.

BBC Sport's Andrew Benson has reported on the RB6 that: "The scooped-out, 'scalloping' on the top of the chassis -- aimed at improving airflow -- is more pronounced (than on last year's RB5 that won five races); there is an intricately detailed front wing and a 'shark fin' engine cover similar to those that have appeared on a number of other (new F1) cars. Some of the biggest changes are at the rear of the car, including the abandonment of last year's innovative 'pull-rod' rear suspension system to allow the team to fully optimise the car's 'double diffuser'."

Autosport.com has an interview with Webber after his first run in the RB6.

Red Bull's new Australian reserve driver, 20-year-old Daniel Ricciardo from Perth, did not attend the "launch", instead working on the team's simulator at its Milton Keynes base.

The Virgin team backed by Sir Richard Branson, who last year was associated with the title-winning BrawnGP (now Mercedes) is the first of the four new F1 teams to run its car -- very slowly and very briefly, driven by German Timo Glock -- at an F1 test this year.

Malaysian-backed reborn Lotus ran its car at Silverstone in Britain this week and will officially launch it in London tomorrow (Friday). Autosport.com has a pic of it already.

Doubts persist about Spanish-owned Campos Meta and USF1, and -- contrary to quoted remarks earlier this week by F1 impressario Bernie Ecclestone and new Federation Internationale de l'Automobile president Jean Todt that teams will be allowed to skip up to three races this season -- the FIA has issued an official statement that: "From a sporting and regulatory point of view, each team that has registered for the championship is obliged to take part in every event of the season. Any failure to take part, even for just one championship event, would constitute an infringement both of the Concorde Agreement and the FIA regulations."

V8 Supercars Australia has been much more active -- indeed very aggressive (especially with circuit operators at Ipswich and in Perth) this off-season and is getting a lot more exposure as a result.

V8SA chairman Tony Cochrane says Pink was chosen to front the ad and be the category's ambassador for the next three seasons because "she's bold, she's outspoken and she's unapologetic".

"V8 Supercars and Pink are the perfect DNA match," Cochrane says.

Let's hope V8SA can follow up by turning on something at least approaching "The Greatest Show on Wheels" when the racing starts in Abu Dhabi next week.

He's Chris Styring, a marketing and sponsorship man who has most recently worked in tennis and AFL. Before that he was with the Williams F1 team for a long time.

The Ford role is a huge challenge, with Triple Eight Race Engineering/Team Vodafone, which won three Bathursts and two championships with Ford, having defected -- and taken Jamie Whincup and Craig Lowndes with it -- to Holden this year, leaving only 10 Falcons in the field, barely half the number of Commodores.

Marketing and sponsorship experience may be handy if Ford wins races, but the form guide says that what the Blue Oval needs firstly is an injection of engineering brilliance to produce some wins.

There are suggestions in the market that, with Dick Johnson/Jim Beam Racing now getting factory funding again -- along with Ford Performance Racing and Stone Brothers -- that Ford may have stretched its V8 Supercar budget by about $2 million this year.

"Ford is extremely pleased to be able to expand its partnership with Jim Beam Racing for 2010 and offer the team enhanced support for the upcoming season," Ford Australia president and chief executive Marin Burela says.

"Dick Johnson is an icon of the sport and a motorsport legend.

"His name and his team have been synonymous with the Ford brand over a long period of time, so it's fitting that we can continue to be so inextricably linked in the world of motorsport in Australia."

On the Styring appointment, Burela says: "Chris has three main priorities -- to win races, build strong and productive relationships with the Ford teams and to develop our longer term motorsport strategy. He will ensure the broader strength of Ford Motor Company is brought to bear to ensure our ongoing success."

Styring himself says: "Marin has been very clear in his brief to me -- he wants a strong and formidable Ford presence and success both on and off the track. I look forward to working collaboratively with all the teams that Ford supports to ensure we maintain our leadership position."

Leadership position? With Triple Eight gone (and it didn't even carry Ford badges last year), Toll Holden Racing Team having won the teams championship and Bathurst last year, what "leadership position" does Ford have in V8 Supercar racing?

Mark Winterbottom, left as the Blue Oval's main hope on the tracks now (along with James Courtney now that DJR has been brought back "home"), has urged Ford fans, in this week's Auto Action, to "not be too worried ... wait a few races before you get too concerned".

A more realistic perspective is that the time has arrived for the David Richards/Prodrive-led FPR, Winterbottom, Courtney and Co to deliver.

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