MOTORSPORT: Walkinshaw needs V8SA approval to take complete charge

Speculation is rife that international automotive entrepreneur Tom Walkinshaw is set to regain full ownership of the Holden Racing Team.

The move is believed to be part of HRT's thorough "post-mortem" of last weekend's disappointing Bathurst 1000, which saw Ford win the Great Race for the third straight year after Holden's seven in a row, but an HRT ownership restructure will have to be approved by the board of V8 Supercars Australia.

According to this week's Motorsport News subscriber electronic magazine, it could also involve veteran driver and HRT half-owner Mark Skaife moving into a "satellite" car with E85 ethanol branding to promote a "green" campaign for Holden.

Will Davison -- out of contract at Dick Johnson/Jim Beam Racing at the end of the season, and unlikely to want to remain with James Courtney joining -- and Lee Holdsworth are the frontrunners to become reigning series champion Garth Tander's teammate if Skaife is moved aside.

Walkinshaw, who controls the Holden Special Vehicles road car operation, lost ownership of HRT in 2003 as his Arrows Formula 1 team collapsed.

Holden quickly assumed ownership of the V8 Supercar team but the manufacturer was precluded from retaining it, so a sale was arranged that put Skaife at the helm -- with a 10-year sponsorship of the team from Holden.

By 2006 Walkinshaw Performance was openly providing/selling technical assistance to HRT, and by early 2007 had regained half-ownership "in lieu of monies owed to it by Skaife Sports".

However, TEGA -- the Touring Car Entrants group, which has since been rolled into V8 Supercars Australia, along with Sports Entertainment Ltd's stake in the sport -- pointedly stated in early '07 that it had not approved Walkinshaw "as a person suitable to hold a controlling interest in a licence nor hold a licence in his own right".

And in the demise of Arrows a British High Court judge, Mr Justice Pumfrey, said Walkinshaw's behavior had, in certain respects, fallen well below the standards to be expected from the managing director of a large company.

The judge said Walkinshaw had been "in over his head" in running an F1 team. He called Walkinshaw's business acumen seriously into question.

"Mr Walkinshaw left me with the clear impression of a man who was in over his head. He appeared to lack the clarity of thought necessary to follow a clear policy," the judge said.

"He obviously had a high opinion of his own business abilities, but my impression was different."

The judge said Walkinshaw had shown "wholesale disregard for the interests of Arrows Grand Prix's creditors", although he did not consider he had been dishonest.

Arrows went into liquidation after a winding-up petition by former driver Heinz-Harald Frentzen.

It was excluded from the 2003 world championship after missing five of the last six F1 races of 2002.

Arrows had been in F1 25 years -- only the last few under Walkinshaw -- and went 382 starts without winning a race.

Some V8 Supercar teams are likely to come under severe pressure to survive in the financial meltdown now afflicting the world and V8SA may have little alternative but to approve a Walkinshaw return to full ownership, if indeed such application is made.

At the centre of the dispute was the CAMS fee to V8SA for the race permit, with suggestions in AA editor-at-large Mark Fogarty's article that it may have been almost doubled from $82,000 to $156,000.

And V8SA chairman Tony Cochrane is quoted saying: "The argument is far from over. We're going all the way to Baghdad on this one."

Fogarty also has quoted a V8 Supercar "insider" saying Cochrane "has declared a jihad on this" and reported that V8SA withdrew 36 of CAMS' 42 credentials for the race.

CAMS president Colin Osborne described the row as only part of a "commercial negotiation" and refuted claims of a doubling of the race permit fee.

In a nutshell, the average national audience for the Seven Network telecast was 1.93 million viewers, compared with the same network's 2.145 million last year and the Ten Network's 2.2 million in 2006.

By our calculations, and we're a bit rusty on such calculations, the numbers were down 10.5% on last year and almost 12.3% on two years ago.

A far more bullish report on the telecast numbers, from the Seven Network.

As to be expected, Seven has put the most positive spin it can on the situation, but the bottomline -- for regular comparative purposes across the season and against other events  -- is the average audience was 1,935,912 for Sunday's race and 1,930,060 for the post-race presentations.

The gist of our article was that less than 130,000 households were viewing our Indy, and only on cable TV, and that the Queensland government was effectively massively sponsoring those comparative few households -- to the tune of almost $100 each -- to watch.

and we just add that the American audience for last year's Indy -- the final Champ Car race at Surfers' Paradise -- was 121,000 households.

A far, far cry from the 2.390 million households that saw the race on network (free-to-air) TV in the US in 1995 (the earliest our figures, courtesy of RaceFax.com, went back).

Following the merger of Champ Car and the Indy Racing League early this year, the field for next week's event will be the full, amalgamated show -- although it is a non-championship race (Brisbane-born New Zealander Scott Dixon having won the series for Chip Ganassi Racing).

And the event is not on the IndyCar calendar for next year, although the Queensland government and local race organisers claim to be confident of a deal being done during this year's event to keep it -- even if the signs are that they have already bungled it.

"I certainly expect to see Indy at the Gold Coast in 2009 and beyond, obviously we're still in the middle of negotiations and we're going to fight very hard, but I expect to see that we will see Indy in '09, '10 and beyond," Queensland premier Anna Bligh said today.

To keep it, the IRL insists, the event will need to be either early in the season (March/April) or in September, which clashes with NRL and AFL football finals and is a time when Gold Coast accommodation is already filled by school holidaymakers.

RaceFax publisher Forrest Bond has told us from the US: "What surprises me is that the IRL is racing at Surfers this year, not that they won't be back in '09.

"I never thought the League would keep Oz on the calendar (after the amalgamation).

"Surfers' is a square peg that can't be made to fit the IRL's round holes.

"Money (the race fee) is not the point; the League loses money on every race except the Indianapolis 500.

"Non-championship/post-season races do nothing for the League, and (Indianapolis Motor Speedway and IRL boss) Tony George has never been seriously interested in expanding outside North America.

"I suspect this one-off was necessary to get Kevin Kalkhoven (former Champ Car series co-owner, now joint owner of KV Racing that fields Australian Will Power's IndyCar) to go along with the 'unification' (of Champ Car and the IRL) and the (arranged) bankruptcy (of Champ Car)."

Bond told us that the IRL's TV audience in the US this year had improved, especially on cable and "presumably as a result of 'unification'."

"It seems that quite a few CART/Champ Car fans who wouldn't watch the IRL previously are now doing so," Bond said.

"Nothing else is apparent to explain the increase. On network TV, though, the increase is all but insignificant."

Sunday week's race boasting 500 Indy 500 winners, 10 IRL race winners and three previous Gold Coast winners is likely to have little or no influence on the event's future.

The Gold Coast is already slotted on next year's V8 Supercar Championship calendar for its traditional late October date.

V8 Supercars Australia, whose show has shared equal billing on the track program with the American open-wheelers in recent years, has said it won't budge on that date.

National telecaster Channel 7's attitude is almost as firm.

Queensland Sports Minister Judy Spence -- in the hotseat, having been seen as botching things already -- has said "alternative dates" will be couched with IRL chiefs next week.

But it's hard to see a resolution.

All of which could open the way for the A1 Grand Prix series -- identical Ferrari-powered open-wheelers representing, if all is well, up to 24 countries -- to replace the IndyCars at the event.

Which would mean it would no longer be "Indy".

And the even bigger problem is that all is not well with A1 GP.

Far from it. The series could collapse at any time, but hopefully not.

The Federation Francaise du Sport Automobile (FFSA) cited "reasons related to the economic context".

The race was to have been the last at Magny-Cours, with F1 supremo Bernie Ecclestone trying to move it to Paris.

With the Canadian GP having been dropped due to what Ecclestone called a "contract problem", suddenly next year's F1 calendar has shrunk to 17 races.

The FFSA had begun selling tickets for next year and has promised all monies will be refunded.

Magny-Cours' disappearance may yet save Montreal's race, provided Ecclestone's demands are met -- which most probably will have to be with government money.

For his sake he better, because the final race two weeks later is at Massa's home track, Interlagos in Sao Paulo, Brazil.

BMW-Sauber's Robert Kubica is an outside chance to beat both the frontrunners, but the man of the moment is Fernando Alonso, Renault's 2005 and '06 world champion.

The shock winner of the past two GPs, in Singapore and Japan, Alonso has now scored more points (35) than any other driver in the six races since the German GP in July.

Hamilton has scored 26 and Massa 25 in the same time.

After an unhappy 2007 at McLaren alongside Hamilton, Alonso has made no secret that he will do anything he can to assist Massa's championship quest.

And asked about Hamilton's drive-through penalty for the first-corner incident in Japan, Alonso said: "I don't know what he did, but it's good he's punished anyway."

Meanwhile, Hamilton has vigorously denied having claimed he was "better than Ayrton Senna".

"I never said that -- and I definitely wouldn't say it about Ayrton, because he's my favourite driver," Hamilton said.

"I think he's the best driver of all time and, to this day, I still don't believe anyone would beat him.

"If I could achieve just a small part of what he achieved, it would be a dream for me."

Take your seat by the TV for the decisive round(s) of the championship -- but expect the unexpected.

Mosley will propose that standard engines be used from 2010, built by the teams themselves or by a single supplier or contractor, and that cars from 2013 use a chassis with more "common parts".

Not quite as alarming as it initially sounded a few days ago, but nonetheless unpalatable to participating major car manufacturers.

"Most of us are not happy at all with the idea of a standard engine," Honda's Nick Fry said.

"We are the largest manufacturer of internal combustion engines in the world -- it's the core of the company."

An article from The Times on the FIA's five-year plan to "save" F1 is here

Although sponsorship revenue among the 10 teams is estimated at US$900 million this year it will inevitably tighten in the rapidly changing world financial environment.

Suddenly the once mighty Williams team is looking vulnerable -- it's the only F1 outfit not funded by a manufacturer or a billionaire.

And the financial turmoil is starting to affect NASCAR in America, as reported here

Barrichello, 36, and a starter in more GPs than any other driver in history, has said Honda's silence has become "tiresome".

South American portal Grande Premio has reported that Barrichello is to test a Honda-powered Penske Indy car at the Homestead track in Florida.

In April a German report claimed Barrichello would swap places with Andretti Green Racing's young IndyCar star Marco Andretti, grandson of the great Mario, but Andretti III's form has not warranted an F1 ride.

Honda is more likely to opt for Bruno Senna, nephew of the incomparable Ayrton, with Jenson Button for next year -- unless it can woo Alonso, who appears to have made his decision (probably to stay at Renault) but won't announce it until after the season.

And Brazilian Castroneves, on US$10 million bail for allegedly avoiding US$5.5 million in tax, reckons he will focus on racing again next year as he doesn't expect his case to go to court until after the '09 IndyCar season.

His goal next year is to win a third Indianapolis 500 and a first series championship for Penske.

He was runner-up to Scott Dixon this year, and won two races and finished second in four others in the last six rounds -- taking the fight to the last lap of the last race.

Castroneves originally was not allowed to leave the US when bailed, but a judge in Miami amended his bail conditions, allowing him to race in Surfers Paradise.