MOTORSPORT: Lowndes and Power blow it

The picture is much better for some others, especially Daniel Ricciardo with a podium finish in the British Grand Prix and Holden Racing Team’s Garth Tander and James Courtney are on the up after an excellent weekend at the Townsville 500.

But the outlook is blurred for F1 commercial tsar Bernie Ecclestone, with a report in London’s Guardian newspaper saying he will be ousted with the sport’s major shareholder, private equity company CVC, preparing to sell most of its stake and the unnamed buyer finding Ecclestone’s criminal trial for bribery in Germany too embarrassing for him to be retained. Ecclestone, meanwhile, vows that he’s not going anywhere and indeed may be a buyer of a bigger stake in the business.

Also blurred now is the F1 world championship favouritism after Lewis Hamilton won for the fifth time this season to close to within four points of Mercedes factory teammate Nico Rosberg.

We’ll come back to V8 Supercars and F1 later, but a lot else has happened over the weekend.

Toowoomba’s Will Power has seen his 39-point lead in America’s IndyCar series evaporate. Power led 69 laps at the Pocono trial-oval in Pennsylvania but copped a drive-through penalty for blocking Penske teammate Helio Castroneves, who has drawn level with him on the leader board.

The third Penske driver, Juan Pablo Montoya, won his first race since returning to IndyCar, Castroneves was second, Australia’s Ryan Briscoe fourth for Chip Ganassi and Power 10th. “Another penalty, another drive-through and another opportunity lost,” said Power, a three-time runner-up in the series without taking a title. Montoya is the eighth winner in 11 rounds this season and is now fourth in the championship. Australia’s Matthew Brabham was fourth in the Indy Lights round at Pocono.

Australian NASCAR racer Marcos Ambrose’s teammate Aric Almirola won the latest Sprint Cup round at Daytona that had two massive pile-ups and was cut short by rain, having already been delayed. It was the first victory by the famous No. 43 car of team owner Richard Petty this century – and came on the 30th anniversary of The King’s record 200th win as a driver. Ambrose was caught up in both pile-ups but survived to finish 10th in his Ford Fusion. Chevrolet veterans Jeff Gordon and Dale Earnhardt lead the series, 27 points apart, while Ambrose is 19th.

Swedish ace Mattias Ekstrom won the latest round of the World Rallycross Championship at Holjes in his homeland, driving an Audi. Rallying great Petter Solberg was in line to be second but a puncture on his Citroen dropped him to third. Latvian Reinis Nitiss leads the World RX in a Ford Fiesta.
And Australian teenager Mitch Gilbert flipped his Trident car in qualifying for his GP3 debut at the British GP and missed both the category’s races on the Silverstone circuit.        

At the only circuit in the series at which he has not won a race, almost everything that could go wrong did for Lowndes, some of it of his own making, and he may have blown his chance of a fourth title to add to those he won in 1996, ’98 and ’99.

He began by creating mayhem in Saturday’s first race, then he crashed into a tyre bank – ending a streak of 81 finishes.

Sixth in Saturday’s second race was his best yield for the weekend, stumbling to finish eight laps down – in 23rd, after eight pit stops because his engine kept losing water – in Sunday’s 250km feature race.

His Triple Eight Race Engineering/Holden teammate Jamie Whincup, who had such a lean trot through April and May, is now up to second in the series after two wins at Townsville and – 96 points behind Ford Performance Racing’s leader Mark Winterbottom – a much bigger chance for a record sixth title.

Lowndes is now 282 points behind Winterbottom – that deficit including a 25-point penalty for his Saturday antics.

Townsville was also a great round for the rejuvenated Holden Racing Team, with Garth Tander back in the winner’s circle late on Saturday afternoon and second in the other two races. His teammate James Courtney was on the podium too, second in the race Tander won and fourth and eighth in the other races.

On the weekend’s form, HRT and smaller Holden privateer teams Tekno Autosports with Shane Van Gisbergen and Brad Jones Racing with Fabian Coulthard and Jason Bright are going to be the main threats to traditionally-dominant Triple Eight.

Holden claimed eight of the nine podium positions in Townsville – Will Davison’s third in an Erebus Mercedes in Saturday’s early race the only exception.

However, Winterbottom is still out in front in the championship although he only finished 11th, eighth and sixth in the Townsville races – and his and FPR’s recent winning Sunday form has been consigned to history.  

V8 Supercar Championship driver standings after 22 of 38 races – 1. Mark Winterbottom (Ford) 1634 points; 2. Jamie Whincup (Holden) 1538; 3. Fabian Coulthard  (Holden) 1361; 4. Shane Van Gisbergen (Holden) 1355; 5. James Courtney (Holden) 1354; 6. Craig Lowndes (Holden)  1352; 7. Scott McLachlan (Volvo) 1211; 8. Garth Tander  (Holden) 1135; 9. David Reynolds (Ford) 1099; 10. Chaz Mostert (Ford) 1098.

Hamilton equals Stewart’s 27 wins in classic British GP
Formula One has had its worries this year – Mercedes streeting the field, concern over the quietness of the hybrid power units and falling TV audiences in major markets – but the British GP was a classic.

Lewis Hamilton delivered what the British fans wanted – a victory, from sixth place on the grid, that equaled the 27 wins of Sir Jackie Stewart.

Young Finn, Valterri Bottas was on the podium for the born-again Williams team for the second race in a row – in second place this time, and from 14th on the grid, after his third in Austria two weeks earlier.

And Australia’s Daniel Ricciardo claimed third at Silverstone from his eighth-placed start, driving 37 laps – almost three quarters of the race – on one set of hard-compound tyres and withstanding a late challenge from McLaren’s Jenson Button, the 2009 world champion who somehow has never stood on the podium at the British GP.

Button narrowed Ricciardo’s eight-second advantage four laps from the end to less than 0.9 seconds at the chequered flag and the West Australian, who turned 25 last week, admitted that “one more lap would have been tough” staying ahead.

Almost an hour was lost repairing a safety barrier after the race was red-flagged almost as soon as it began when Kimi Raikkonen had a huge crash – with the force reportedly 47G – in his Ferrari.

Raikkonen appears to have escaped with only a bruised ankle but not only was he eliminated from the event but Felipe Massa’s 200th GP ended at the same point when his Williams clipped the spinning Ferrari.

Nico Rosberg had the edge on Mercedes teammate Hamilton again until his gearbox started giving trouble on lap 20 and eventually caused his first retirement of the season.

Rosberg retains a narrow championship lead over Hamilton, while Ricciardo is now up to third in his Red Bull-Renault – albeit a long way behind the Merc pair.

Ricciardo’s four-time world champion teammate Sebastian Vettel outpaced him a lot of the weekend, starting alongside Rosberg on the front row – but then making “a Mark Webber start”.

In the later stages of the race Vettel had a compelling battle with Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso, both complaining about each others tactics and Vettel ultimately the “winner” by taking fifth ahead of the Spanish two-time world champion.

Alonso had incurred a five-second penalty for jumping the start – from an unaccustomed 16th on the grid after the weather vagaries in qualifying and penalties on others that promoted him three spots – but was proud to have kept Vettel at bay for 13 laps with a car he reckoned to be 2 seconds a lap slower.

Susie Wolff, the Williams development driver who was given a run in Bottas’ car during Friday’s first practice session, was disappointed to get only four laps before an engine failure.

The first woman to participate in any part of a GP on track since 1992, Wolff had to contend with controversy after a comment from the Force India team’s Mexican driver Sergio Perez that women were “better to stay in the kitchen” – a remark he promptly conceded was “unacceptable”.

Wolff handled the situation with aplomb, tweeting on Saturday that she “saw some comments made by Sergio Perez as I was making dinner in the kitchen last night … as my family will tell you, I drive better than I cook!”

Wolff will get another session on track on July 18 ahead of the next GP at Germany’s Hockenheim.

Formula One World Championship driver standings after nine of 19 races - 1. Nico Rosberg (Germany, Mercedes) 165 points; 2. Lewis Hamilton (Great Britain, Mercedes) 161; 3. Daniel Ricciardo (Australia, Red Bull-Renault)  98; 4. Fernando Alonso (Spain, Ferrari) 87; 5. Valtteri Bottas (Finland, Williams-Mercedes) 73; 6. Sebastian Vettel (Germany, Red Bull-Renault) 70; 7.  Nico Hulkenberg (Germany, Force India-Mercedes) 63; 8. Jenson Button (GB, McLaren-Mercedes) 55; 9. Kevin Magnussen (Denmark, McLaren-Mercedes) 35; 10. Felipe Massa (Brazil, Williams-Mercedes) 30.

F1 constructors’ championship - 1. Mercedes 326 points; 2. Red Bull-Renault 168; 3. Ferrari 106; 4. Williams-Mercedes 103; 5. Force India-Mercedes 91; 6. McLaren-Mercedes 90; 7. Toro Rosso-Renault  15; 8. Lotus-Renault 8; 9. Marussia-Ferrari 2.