MOTORSPORT: Minardi wins again!

Dutchman Robert Doornbos raced to his second victory in just weeks with Australian Paul Stoddart's new Team Minardi USA.

In the craziness that is Champ Car racing 2007, Doornbos won from 15th on the grid at San Jose in California to take the chequered flag first.

This victory came less than a month after the first win by Minardi/Stoddart/Doornbos at Mont-Tremblant circuit in Quebec, Canada.

Doornbos earned a bonus point today for gaining the most positions in the race but remains 10 points behind series leader and triple champion Sebastien Bourdais, who finished fifth this morning.

Australia's Will Power finished fourth at the street circuit described as "a mini Monaco" from 12th on the grid and remains third in the series.

Swiss driver Neil Jani finished second and felt that the soft tyres he was on at the finish prevented him hauling in Doornbos, while Spanish veteran Oriol Servia was third, while Justin Wilson – the Englishman who had pole position – finished an unlucky 13th and Paul Tracy ran out of fuel and was classified 11th.

Champ Car series points after 9 of 16 rounds -- Sebastien Bourdais 216, Robert Doornbos 206, Will Power 196, Justin Wilson 175, Neel Jani 156, Simon Pagenaud 154, Oriol Servia 146, Graham Rahal 145, Alex Tagliani 140, Bruno Junqueira 125.

That's probably the best place for it to be.

Inevitably there is a certain anticipation with the start of a new F1 season, and it's always been thought that – because it is the first official appearance of any new drivers or teams, and new liveries – there is a special value in being the first race.

Indeed, that was always the line from Australian GP chairman Ron Walker, until last Monday.

Suddenly that day it was no longer a big deal to be first on the F1 calendar.

"It's not the greatest thing to have the first race any more," Walker was saying on the day that Melbourne organisers were telling anyone who would listen that they would be the second GP in 2008, that the race would start at 3.30pm instead of its usual 2pm (but way short of the night race F1 supremo Bernie Ecclestone wants), and that the V8 Supercars would be back at Albert Park.

By Saturday, though, after the 2008 F1 calendar had been announced – much earlier than it normally is -- by the Federation Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA), being first on the calendar was "a surprise" – and "a very welcome one" – for Walker.

"Bernie, in the end, decided that it was best to go back to where we were," Walker was now saying.

Walker is fond of telling the world what great friends he and Ecclestone are.

Strange then that Ecclestone – who, apart from running his F1 commercial empire is a long-time vice-president of the FIA -- seems to have forgotten to flag to his mate Down Under just where the Oz GP was going to sit on the calendar, especially after the remarks that Australian mate made barely 72 hours before the calendar was announced.

Again, we say it's probably better to be the first race than not, and '08 seems certain to be the last year for Australia in that position anyway with Abu Dhabi claiming its new GP will be first in 2009, but perhaps the much-trumpeted Walker-Ecclestone friendship is a little less than it has been painted.

A strange parting shot?

Asked about his proudest achievements, Bracks mentioned the restoration of the powers of the auditor-general in Victoria under his reign.

That would be the auditor-general who recently found the costs of the GP to outweigh the benefits.

Specifically, he reported that Melbourne's 2005 GP had cost Victorian taxpayers $69.8 million -- $6.7 million more than the figure he put on the benefits.

But, importantly for something portraying itself as a world championship, no race in the US following the recent collapse in negotiations between Ecclestone and the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

France keeps its race at Magny-Cours, contrary to statements from Ecclestone just weeks ago.

He may have agreed to that on condition, after a recent top-level political meeting in Paris, that France deliver him a race in its capital after another year or two at Magny-Cours.

Singapore's new race, which apparently will be run anti-clockwise like only a couple of others in the championship, is set to be F1's first night GP on September 28.

So the 2008 Australian MotoGP at Phillip Island that is scheduled for that date is now clashing not only with the AFL grand final weekend but a new F1 event guaranteed to attract a lot of world attention, especially if it happens to be a title-deciding race.
  
2008 F1 calendar

March 16 Australia
March 23 Malaysia
April 6 Bahrain
April 27 Spain
May 11 Turkey
May 25 Monaco
June 8 Canada*
Jun 22 France
July 6 Great Britain
July 20 Germany
August 3 Hungary
August 24 Europe**
Sept 7 Italy
Sept 14 Belgium
Sept 28 Singapore**
Oct 12 China
Oct 19 Japan
Nov 2 Brazil
*Provisional
**Subject to circuit approval

"If the FIA have established McLaren had possession of Ferrari material then why is there no retribution? This verdict reminds me of Pontius Pilate," says the colorful Italian Flavio Briatore, boss of Renault's F1 team and managers of several drivers, including Australia's Mark Webber.

Briatore is comparing the FIA's decision late last week, to find McLaren guilty of a brach of its sporting code but not penalize it, to Pontius Pilate bowing to public pressure a couple of thousand years ago and washing his hands of the decision to crucify Jesus.

Another Italian Luigi Macaluso, a member of the FIA's 25-man world motorsport council, says McLaren's offence is worse than soccer giant Juventus' role in Italy's match-fixing scandal last year.

"Juve were demoted to Serie B for a lot less," says Macaluso, although powerbrokers within the FIA were most annoyed at him voicing an opinion outside the world council hearing.

It has also been revealed now that McLaren and Ferrari had struck earlier this year a strange deal to handle the frequent arguments between them, with the aim of keeping such stoushes out of the FIA domain.

But Ferrari's Jean Todt now says of that deal: "It is like playing poker with a rival who already knows what cards you are holding."

In another twist to the scandal -- which erupted from suspended McLaren designer Mike Coughlan being found to have a massive dossier of Ferrari technical information, allegedly sent to him by disaffected Ferrari executive Nigel Stepney – former Finnish F1 driver Mika Salo weighed in, then back-pedalled – under some pressure, we suspect.

Salo, who substituted for Michael Schumacher at Ferrari in 1999 after the German broke his leg at the British GP, says Ferrari was always monitoring McLaren's radios.

He says that, after every track session at the GP, he promptly had a transcript of everything his countryman Mika Hakkinen and his McLaren race engineer had said over the radio.

That's no great revelation. Rather, it's to be expected in F1. But someone, and we can only suspect Ferrari, were quick to get the frank Salo to detune his comments.

Bit late for that now.

As we mentioned last Friday, the FIA's spotlight is now set to be focused more sharply on Coughlan and Stepney directly, while Ferrari continues legal proceedings against both.

It's going to be interesting to see what comes of Stepney's hint that he "knows where the Ferrrari bodies are buried".

Equally, or perhaps more, important for Aussie fans, Juan Pablo Montoya finished second – the Colombian's best oval-track result in the Nextel Cup since he took refuge from F1, although he has won on a road course in California and in the second-tier Busch Series.

Stewart's victory was his second in a row in this year's Nextel Cup, his second in this event (his first was two years ago) and the 31st of his career.

Stewart started 14th but was up in the top five in the first 10 laps and in the lead by lap 16 of 160.

He ultimately led 66 laps in his Joe Gibbs Racing Chevrolet in beating Montoya Chip Ganassi Dodge by about 3.5 seconds.

Jeff Gordon, the Nextel Cup points leader and four-time Brickyard winner, was third, followed by Kyle Busch, pole-sitter Reed Sorenson and Mark Martin, while Kevin Harvick – who led 20 laps late in the race -- faded to seventh.

Newman had not visited the Brickyard since the split in American open-wheeler racing, for which the Champ Car fraternity blames IMS chief Tony George.

However, Newman attended the Brickyard 400 for an announcement that Newman Haas will join forces with a Ford NASCAR stalwart team owner, Robert Yates.

And guess what? One of the drivers, admittedly only in the Busch Series, for this new outfit -- Yates/Newman/Haas/Lanigan Racing -- will be Kyle Krisiloff, who like Tony George is part of the Hulman dynasty that owns the Brickyard.

There's also talk that Sebastien Bourdais, the Frenchman who has won three Champ Car titles for Newman-Haas, might now be in line for a move to NASCAR rather than F1 with Scuderia Toro Rosso.

Meanwhile, American Scott Speed may yet retain his Toro Rosso seat for the rest of this year – probably at the urging of his and the team's sponsor, Red Bull.

Ambrose qualified his Ford Fusion 24th, quickly worked his way up into the top 15, but then it soured with driveline problems and he wound up 32nd.

"We were running good, probably the best we've run in short track for a while and broke a rear-end gear," Ambrose says.

"There were all sorts of noises coming from the drive train or gearbox which sounded like popcorn in the microwave.

"Breaking the rear end gear is something that shouldn't happen and it hardly ever happens.

"I'm not blaming anyone. I guess it's just one of those deals. It's a tough part and it didn't do justice for us."

Ambrose now heads to next weekend's road course race at Montreal in Canada, while the Nextel Cup circus goes to Pocono, Pennsylvania.

Almost half the course in central Finland is new.

The rally starts on Thursday with 2.06km super special stage inside the horse trotting track at Killeri.

In total there will be 23 stages for a total competitive distance of 360.34km.

It will be Australian WRC star Chris Atkinson's fourth Rally Finland, but his first with Belgian Stephane Prevot as his co-driver in a factory Subaru Impreza WRX following Atkinson's split with fellow Aussie Glenn Macneall earlier this season.

The Australian Rally Championship resumes a week later in South Australia, with the much-anticipated outing of Steve Glenney – winner of last year's event in a one-off drive -- set to drive a Les Walkden-prepared Subaru.

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