Geoffrey Harris•13 Jan 2012

NEWS

MOTORSPORT: MINI two days from Dakar glory

The Hummer challenge is shot, so MINI and Stephane Peterhansel are headed for victory in the Dakar Rally, while Ferrari says its new F1 car won't be pretty -- and David Brabham's new Le Mans drive

No. 10 coming up for French great in word’s toughest event

MINI is on course to win the Dakar Rally in South America, with French marathon rally superstar Stephane Peterhansel is poised to notch his 10th victory in the event.

MINIs are still first and second in the Dakar with just two days remaining.

Peterhansel – who won three Dakars on four wheels and six on two wheels in the event’s days in Europe and Africa up until 2008 - is almost 23 minutes ahead of Spanish teammate Nani Roma, while another MINI driven by Russian Leonid Novitskiy is fifth – although more than two hours off the lead.

The MINIs are not factory entries but are run by Germany’s X-Raid, headed by Sven Quandt – a Dakar specialist and member of a family that is a major shareholder in BMW.

South African Giniel de Villiers is third in a Toyota Hilux but 71 minutes behind Peterhansel, with American Robby Gordon fourth in his Hummer – but only 40 seconds ahead of Novitskiy.

Gordon has continued racing under protest against disqualification for what officials have deemed an illegal tyre reinflation system.

They say Gordon has a system which allows extra air induction, but he denies that and says nothing has changed since pre-event scrutineering.

Gordon’s protest against the disqualification won’t be heard until next month in Paris.

Gordon won a stage early in the week but lost a lot of time yesterday, especially from a one-hour stop in sand dunes in Peru with a damaged CV joint, clutch and wheel that left him only 25th for the day.

Last year’s Dakar winner for Volkswagen, Nasser Al-Attiyah of Qatar, dropped out midweek in another Hummer from the Gordon workshop that succumbed to engine and alternator drive belt failures after looking the fastest combination for much of the event.

Australian Geoff Olholm, of Cairns, has soldiered on in his BMW-powered Desert Warrior after a couple of bad days in the first week, finishing 24th on Wednesday’s stage to be just outside the top 50 in the car section.

Cyril Depres could win the event’s other prestige class for France too as he leads Spanish rival Marc Coma in the motorcycle section. Both are riding KTMs and there is only 2 minutes 22 seconds between them.

The three Australian bike riders still running continue to do well, with David Schwarz (Husaberg/FE450) 41st, Dean Nuttall (KTM/450 Replica) 46th and Jamie Chittick (Honda/CRF 450X) 57th.

Atko in WRC – a one-off for now

Australia’s top rally driver, Chris Atkinson, has secured a start in the second round of the World Rally Championship in Sweden on February 9-12.

Atkinson will be back at the wheel of a privateer Subaru Impreza R4 for his first WRC outing since a one-off drive in a Citroen C4 at Rally Ireland in 2009.

He drove for Subaru’s factory team from 2005 until it folded at the end of 2007, earning six podiums in that time.

The past two years he has driven a Proton in the Asia-Pacific Rally Championship.

The WRC starts in the middle of next week, with the Monte Carlo Rally back in the premier series – rather than the Intercontinental Rally Challenge – for the first time since 2008.

The air still has not been cleared after the turmoil of WRC promoter Convers Sports Initiatives’ collapse, although Eurosport will replace CSI’s North One Sports as telecaster of the Monte Carlo event at least.

Speed not appearance Ferrari’s F1 priority

Ferrari chiefs admit the Italian stable’s new Formula One car to be released on February 3 or 4 won’t be pretty, but they’re hoping it is considerably more competitive than last year’s model that won only one grand prix.

Ferrari team principal Stefano Domenicali said this week the new car, codenamed 663, is “definitely different”.

“It’s not that pretty … our hope is that it is at the very least quick,” he said.

The Ferrari chassis reportedly failed the governing Federation Internationale de l’Automobile’s crash testing at the first attempt and, after being reinforced with more carbon sheets, is due to undergo a second test at a technical facility near Milan.

Lotus has developed a reactive ride-height system for its new cars to be raced by 2007 world champion Kimi Raikkonen, returning to F1 after two years in the world rally championship, and Frenchman Romain Grosjean, who is back in F1 after winning last year’s GP2 title.

Ferrari is believed to have a similar system to Lotus, which Autosport reported this week had pioneered a way for the right height to be maintained under braking to help aerodynamic performance and stability.

Autosport said the system was fully mechancial and activated by brake torque.

It would not be allowed if it had to be driver-adjusted, but the FIA is said to have approved the concept almost a year ago.

Ferrari’s No.1 driver Fernando Alonso has echoed the views of Ferrari president Luca de Montezemolo in calling for the reintroduction of more F1 testing.

Apart from the four tests scheduled in Europe before the season starts in Melbourne in mid-March only one three-day test is allowed during the year.

Alonso said it was odd for a sport not to allow “training” and that there was a limit to what could be learned from computer simulators.

“It’s like telling (soccer superstar) Lionel Messi to train with a little tennis ball, or (tennis ace) Rafael Nadal to play with a ping-pong bat,” he said.

As pressure mounts on Brazilian Felipe Massa to lift his game to retain his Ferrari seat, Alonso rated injured Polish driver Robert Kubica his most talented rival.

However, Kubica – who missed last season with injuries from a rally crash - has now fractured his right leg again after a fall on ice.

Out of contract with Renault, there has been speculation Kubica already has a Ferrari deal for 2013, but the team denies that.

However, Alonso said: “I am sure when he is going to return he is going to be the best driver of the group.”

Meanwhile, Williams is to use American gold medal Olympic sprinter Michael Johnson to help train it to improve its pit stops after the worst year in its history.

Johnson, who met team founder Sir Frank Williams at the 1990 Belgian GP, said his high-performance company should “benefit the Williams F1 team pit crew in their goal to cut hundredths and even tenths of a second from their pit stop times”.

Jail sentence for ex-GP driver Lehto

An update on a couple of ex-F1 drivers behaving badly.

Finn J.J. Lehto has now been sentenced to 28 months’ jail over the boating crash in which a friend of his was killed.

Lehto was found to have a blood alcohol content of 0.253 and to have been driving a boat at almost 80km in a narrow canal with a speed limit of less than 10km/h in the June 2010 incident.

He has appealed his conviction for endangerment, aggravated manslaughter and boating while intoxicated and is free until the appeal is heard.

Dutchman Jos Verstappen has been charged with attempted murder of an ex-girlfriend reportedly left with heavy bruises and abrasions after he allegedly drove his car into her in Dutch city Roermond.

He has been accused of previous attacks on the 24-year-old woman after convictions for assaulting his ex-wife in 2008 and striking another man at a kart venue in 2000.

Brabham deal takes him back to Le Mans

David Brabham has landed a drive in the Honda Performance Development ARX-03a Acura he helped develop in America in this year’s World Endurance Championship, including the Le Mans 24-Hour he won in 2009 with Peugeot.

Brabham finished second in the Acura at last year’s Sebring 12-Hour before the collapse of Highcroft Racing.

He will now drive it for the JRM Racing team of James Rumsey with which he competed, in a Nissan – in last year’s FIA GT1 world championship.

Brabham’s teammates will be Peter Dumbreck, famous for flipping a Mercedes-Benz at Le Mans like Mark Webber in 1999, and Indian ex-F1 driver Karun Chandok.

The world endurance championship starts at Sebring on March 17, with other rounds at Spa in Belgium, Silverstone in Britain, the Carlos Pace Autodrome in Brazil, the Bahrain International Circuit, Fuji Speedway in Japan, and a Chinese event at either Zhuhai or Shanghai.

Bourdais with Penske’s son and Lotus

Sebastien Bourdais, the Frenchman well known to Australians from competing at the Gold Indy and now V8 Supercar rounds there, has regained a full-time American open-wheeler drive – with Roger Penske’s son in a Lotus-powered car.

Bourdais, a four-time Champ Car champion, and British woman racer Katherine Legge have been signed by Jay Penske’s Dragon Racing for which Aussie Ryan Briscoe finished fifth in the 2007 Indianapolis 500.

Dragon is one of four teams that will use the new Lotus 2.2-litre V6 IndyCar engine, while Penske Racing is among those with Chevrolet power against previous monopoly engine supplier Honda.

Bourdais has been a sportscar driver – Le Mans is his home town – since the merger of Champ Car and the Indy Racing League four years ago, and drove half the Indy season last year with Dale Coyne Racing.

Legge drove Audis in the DTM after Champ Car was folded into IndyCar racing.

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MOTORSPORT: MINI two days from Dakar glory

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