MOTORSPORT: Mr A1 GP's latest swerve

And the first question that must be asked is just how Tony Teixeira (pictured) could be either a partial or total owner of Campos Meta, the team with which Bruno Senna -- nephew of the incomparable Ayrton -- is to enter F1. Teixeira was the boss of the A1 GP series that failed to show at Surfers' Paradise -- after he had vowed just days before that it was on a new, sound financial footing -- and who still owes Queensland a refund of almost $2 million plus a promised donation to charity.

This is the man quoted in the Gold Coast Bulletin last October 13 saying: "We (A1 GP) are definitely coming." In the same article, he claimed to have new investors pumping in money "for up to four seasons". As all Australian motor sport fans well know, A1 neither made it to the Gold Coast nor has it had a race anywhere else in what was meant to be its fifth season. It is defunct, with creditors owed many millions of dollars -- including the $1.8 million deposit Gold Coast Motor Events Corp paid for the open-wheeler show it never got.

The Queensland government is still copping flak for the lack of due diligence done on A1 by it, GCMEC or event manager International Management Group (the joint partner in GCMEC with the government). Yet Teixeira is now reported to be one of several parties supposedly looking to invest in or take over Campos Meta, a team founded by Spanish former Minardi F1 driver Adrian Campos and which is seriously short of money two months before its scheduled race debut at the season-opening Bahrain Grand Prix.

Italian chassis manufacturer Dallara has apparently slowed construction of the car in which Campos plans to fit a Cosworth engine because of slow -- or no -- payments. And, happy to be portrayed as a potential saviour, Teixeira has told Autosport: "I've built my own cars and designed my own chassis. I have my own factory. I can now build my chassis and run with a Ferrari engine." Autosport, for so long the respected "bible" of all things motor racing, has not lived up to its reputation by swallowing such nonsense from such an unreliable source. Teixeira was eventually forbidden from using the Ferrari logo on the A1 GP letterhead, let alone having any right to use Ferrari power in F1.

He has previously been linked to investment in other GP teams -- Spyker and Force India, two of the incarnations of what was once the Jordan team; Toro Rosso, the former Minardi and the "little brother" of Red Bull Racing; the misconceived Japanese experiment Super Aguri and even Honda, which as BrawnGP won the world championship last year and is now controlled by Daimler and will race as Mercedes this year. A Campos source has been quoted saying" "It is no secret that we do not have the budget -- and time is scarce."

F1 has always had more than its share of rogues, but how could anyone seriously consider Teixeira as a white knight? Born in Portugal, Teixeira became a diamond and gold miner and trader in South Africa and unquestionably made a fortune, but he has shown little inclination to draw on it to settle debts A1 accrued under his leadership.

And it was the Gold Coast Bulletin that highlighted on October 22 last year that a simple Google check on Teixeira "brings to light a plethora of startling allegations and worrying connections". Among those it mentioned were that "almost a decade ago he was named in the British Parliament as a UN sanctions breaker, supplying guns to Angolan rebel movement Unita, a group once supported by the South African government and known to pay for its weapons in blood diamonds, blood gold and blood-drenched ivory".

"Mr Teixeira's daughter is married to Congolese warlord Jean-Pierre Bemba, a man also accused of dabbling in blood diamonds and who has been charged by the International Criminal Court in The Hague with committing war crimes and crimes against humanity," the Bulletin reported.

New F1 teams -- and Campos is one of four this year, along with Virgin/Manor, the reborn Lotus and USF1 -- face enough difficulties without coming to the grid with this kind of baggage. The new Senna's name has not been enough to entice massive sponsorship to properly fund Campos Meta, and now the team is reportedly looking at Venezuelan Pastor Maldonado or Russia's Vitaly Petrov as second driver with the potential to bring vast amounts of money to it.

Meanwhile, USF1 still has not named a driver but Australian John Anderson, a veteran crew chief in American open-wheeler racing, has been appointed its team manager. USF1 is due to begin testing of its American-built car in Alabama in early February before joining other teams at the final pre-season test in Europe or Bahrain.

"I came to the US for what I thought was a few years and I've never left," said Anderson, who has been associated with two Indianapolis 500 victories and two series titles.

"Now to be able to have the opportunity to work with America's F1 team, especially with my longtime friend Ken Anderson (co-owner with journalist Peter Windsor), is an unbelievable opportunity.

"Ken's mindset of US F1 -- to have an open mind, be flexible and explore best practices, is why I'm here and I want to be a part of this."

Attempt to bridge Queensland Raceway's great divide
The Ipswich Council has begun fighting to have Queensland Raceway restored to the V8 Supercar Championship calendar following last Thursday's dumping.

It will be trying to twist the Queensland government's arm into producing a solution.

"I won't rest until this is sorted out," Ipswich mayor Paul Pisadale told the Queensland Times newspaper. "It is absolutely essential this race (that was provisionally scheduled for the first weekend of May) goes ahead. I'll keep going until I get it back on the calendar."

Hotels are already complaining about bookings being cancelled -- and the amounts of money that is going to cost them. And top team owner Roland Dane and veteran driver Russell Ingall have public lamented the situation.

"I'd prefer we were racing there," Triple Eight Race Enginerring/Team Vodafone boss Dane told Brisbane's Courier-Mail newspaper. "It's always a shame when you can't race at a permanent circuit like that."

And Australian Associated Press quoted Ingall saying "the implications of the cancelled round is far more than simply not having a race there".

He said Queensland Raceway was of "massive importance", and not only as the test track for Queensland-based V8 Supercar teams.

"I don't think the fallout of this has been totally realised," Ingall said. "If it still does remain our test track, we lose the advantage of having a home round where we test at."

While V8 Supercars Australia probably seized the initiative in this spat once it became public, if for no other reason than that its profile guaranteed it more say than a little-known circuit operator, Queensland Raceway's John Tetley is now getting his views out in the open.

Tetley has said that the "unrealistic demands" the V8SA claimed Queensland Raceway imposed "came down to recognising the contribution of QR passholders by allowing them free access to the event".

"Under V8SA's contract, QR was forced to recognise V8SA's passholders, of which there are some thousands, versus a few hundred QR passholders. It is difficult to agree that this condition was either unfair or unrealistic. Without these passholders QR could not have been built in the first place.

"Queensland Raceway was built with a dollar-for-dollar grant to a club from the Queensland Department of Sport. Approximately $1.5 million was raised by selling life memberships and further funds were raised from a variety of commercial sources and private investors. They also had a loan, on commercial terms, from Queensland Treasury. It is the original life members, who are now QR passholders that V8 Supercars have refused to recognise.

"The second major requirement (of QR) was that they (V8SA) would undertake the repair of any damage suffered by the track whilst they had the keys. Would you hand over the keys to your property to someone and not expect them to fix the damage they did? Shane Howard (V8SA's acting CEO) said on national television: 'We won't. Repairs could cost a lot of money'."

Tetley said QR found it "particularly galling" that V8SA was "criticising QR for wanting to protect public property". He revealed that QR had sought a five-year deal "to try and avoid the annual haggling that is so irksome for everyone".

On V8SA's claim that QR demanded "a near-record hire fee for the hire of the venue despite its ageing facilities, and also insisted the venue would not be responsible for obtaining the very necessary CAMS licence", Tetley said: "QR agreed to accept the hire fee offered by V8SA."

He claimed QR has had "very, very few complaints from the fans about the facilities we provide -- lack of shade is the major complaint".

"The CAMS licence is a furphy," Tetley said. "QR agreed to take responsibility for maintaining the track to the standard approved by CAMS for the days the V8s would be there. It is standard practice for an event promoter to provide all of the insurances required by a venue to deliver an event. As the V8s would have been the only CAMS-sanctioned activity in 2010 it makes even more sense that the licence should be held by V8SA. It does not make business sense (for QR) -- there is no point buying a track licence for a whole year when it is needed for three days."

On V8SA's statement that "fans and corporates have dropped off from attending QR because of the lack of decent facilities, (which) means that QR at Ipswich is no longer a viable venue for Australia's premier motorsport championship", Tetley said: "This is absolute nonsense. Firstly, QR cannot compete head on with publicly-funded events like the Gold Coast and Townsville. Both of these events had a significant impact on our sales last year, resulting in a huge loss of money for QR -- money that now has to be made up with revenues from grassroots motorsport. The 2009 event was sandwiched between both of these events and placed on top of the Ekka (the Brisbane Exhibition, or Show).

"QR has strong feelings about the morality of grassroots motorsport subsidising professional motorsport. (And) what QR fails to understand is how facilities it doesn't have could be looking run down. The requests from V8SA have never been written down, defined or quantified. ... Dealing with the management of this organisation is never a pleasure. Negotiations usually have to be carried out through their lawyers. As they constantly escalate their requirements, access to QRs assets and sanction fees every year becomes more unpleasant and difficult to justify. Perhaps the word 'no' is a nightmare for some of the people in V8 Supercars."

Tetley insisted that QR had not closed its door to V8 Supercar teams for testing or future events, but accused V8SA of "trying to shift the blame" in floating the idea of enlisting the Queensland government to facilitate a new permanent circuit in the state's south-east.

It's obvious the two sides are many miles apart, and it's going to take a magic wand to resurrect the circuit's round of the championship.

VWs 1-2-3 in Dakar, but Peterhansel/BMW charges back
After a well-deserved rest day, the remaining competitors in the Dakar Rally, about two-thirds of those who started in Buenos Aires more than a week earlier, have resumed the battle -- with rally-raid master Stephane Peterhansel winning stage eight.

That success on the 472km run down the Chilean coast from Antofagasta to Copiapo extended the Frenchman's record of Dakar stage wins to 54 on two and four wheels.

Volkswagen still holds the top three spots in the car section ahead of Peterhansel, who is in a BMW this year after years of glory with Mitsubishi when the event was in Europe and Africa.

Spanish world rally championship legend Carlos Sainz retained the overall lead for Volkswagen with second place on the latest stage, 45 seconds behind Peterhansel and 22 seconds ahead of American Mark Miller in another VW.

The five-car VW factory team's Qatari driver Nasser Al-Attiyah is second won the seventh stage before the rest day, from Peterhansel with Sainz third.

Peterhansel has regained most of the places he lost last Thursday but he remains more than two hours behind Sainz.

South Africa and VW's defending champion Giniel De Villiers was fourth on the latest stage and is now ninth, but he has been out of contention for outright honours again after a troubled start.

American NASCAR star Robby Gordon is 10th in his Hummer.

Australian Bruce Garland's Isuzu D-MAX ute has been out of the rally since the sixth stage.

The event now continues further south to the Chilean capital, Santiago, before heading east and back into Argentina for the last four stages and the finish in Buenos Aires on January 17.

Dakar rally outright standings after eight of 14 stages -- 1. Carlos Sainz (Spain, VW Touareg) 31 hours 28 minutes 13 seconds; 2. Nasser Al-Attiyah (Qatar, VW) +14m35s; 3. Mark Miller (US, VW) +22m28s; 4. Stephane Peterhansel (France, BMW) +2h02m25s; 5. Guerlain Chicherit (France, BMW) +2h24m13s; 6. Krzysztof Holowczyc (Poland, Nissan) +2h45m45s; 7. Carlos Sousa (Portugal, Mitsubishi) +3h29m23s; 8. Guilherme Spinelli (Brazil, Mitsubishi) +4h04m12s; 9. Giniel de Villiers (South Africa, Volkswagen) +4h34m49s; 10. Robby Gordon (US, Hummer) +5h01m24s.

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