MOTORSPORT: Mustang fortnight ahead in NASCAR

While Supercar fans still have two weeks to wait to see the return of the Mustang to Australian racing, Ford’s iconic pony car makes its debut in America’s NASCAR Cup this weekend.

Fourteen ’Stangs will race in stock car racing’s biggest event, the Daytona 500, in Florida on Monday morning, Australian time

Ford has had 15 wins in the Daytona 500, including four in the past eight years and two in the past four, and last year the blue oval won 20 of the 36 Cup races, taking the manufacturers’ championship.

As in Australia’s Supercar Championship in 2018, legendary team owner Roger Penske had the NASCAR champion too – Joey Logano.

Although the 61st Daytona 500 marks the debut of the ’Stang in NASCAR’s Cup, it has been raced in America’s second-tier Xfinity series for several years with lots of success.

But Chevrolet, traditionally the top make in NASCAR, has been the pacesetter at the Florida superspeedway this month, especially the Hendrick Motorsports cars.

It is the second year of Chevrolet’s Camaro in the Cup series and third for Toyota’s latest Camry.

“When Toyota and Chevy switched to their new body there was a learning curve for them and there will be a learning curve for us, but I think it’s gonna work out well,” Logano said.

Federal and Victorian health authorities scrutinising the Philip Morris company’s Mission Winnow livery on Ferrari’s Formula 1 cars surely now will pay similar attention to McLaren’s new association with British American Tobacco.

Philip Morris, the parent of former long-time McLaren and then Ferrari sponsor brand Marlboro, and BAT, which owned the British American Racing team from 1999 to 2006, are promoting their vaping products – e-cigarettes – through these latest F1 involvements.

BAT, which displayed the Lucky Strike and 555 brands on the BAR cars, says it now wants to accelerate its transformation by “leveraging its portfolio of potentially reduced-risk products, aiming to deliver the world’s tobacco and nicotine consumers a better tomorrow”.

McLaren, which was sponsored by Imperial Tobacco’s West brand after losing Marlboro to Ferrari, says its new F1 managing director, former Porsche sports car racing boss Andreas Seidl, will begin with the team on May 1 – the start of the European rounds after four long-haul races, the first of them in Melbourne in a month.

Daniel Ricciardo’s new team, Renault, says it is battling to have its RS19 model ready for testing in Barcelona next Monday. “Super tight … we should have the motorhome and the coffee machine working, but that’s as far as I’m 100 per cent,” said Renault team boss Cyril Abiteboul.

The C38 car of the newly-named Alfa-Romeo team, formerly Sauber, has displayed the most radical approach to the new aerodynamic regulations.

Its front wing design features a gap between the elements and the end plates. It also has three slots at the front of its nose and extra inlets around the sidepods and the air intake above the driver.

Kimi Raikkonen shook down the maroon and black C38 at Ferrari’s Fiorano test track.

Spaniard Carlos Sainz’s record number of World Rally Championship starts is being beaten in Sweden this weekend by Finn Jari-Matti Latvala.

It is the 33-year-old Latvala’s 197th WRC event and, although never world champion (Sainz was twice), he has won four times in Sweden – the championship’s only pure winter round on frozen forest roads that also take competitors into Norway – and at least one event each season since his maiden victory in 2008.

France’s six-time and reigning world champion Sebastien Ogier is starting first in his Citroen C3 after winning the Monte Carlo Rally last month and will be ‘ploughing’ the snow for the drivers behind him.

Finland’s 2000 and 2002 world champion, Marcus Gronholm, is making a one-off return after nine years in a privateer Toyota Yaris as a belated 50th birthday present to himself – he’s just turned 51.

France’s nine-time champion Sebatien Loeb is driving the second of his six-round campaign for the year in a Hyundai i20, while Norwegian 2003 champion Petter Solberg’s entry in a supporting historic event means the winners on the past 17 WRC titles are in action in Sweden.

The second CAMS Australia Targa Championship kicks off this weekend with Targa North West in Tasmania.

Heading the 50-car field are reigning modern class champion Paul Stokell and new co-driver Kate Catford (replacing Malcolm Read) in a Lotus Exige and Tasmanians Jason and John White in a Dodge Viper.

The other rounds are Targa Tasmania from April 29 until May 4, Queensland’s Targa Barrier Reef on August 30-September 1, and Victoria’s Targa High Country on November 8-10.