MOTORSPORT: New F1, WEC rules remain in melting pot

F1’s rules for 2021, which should have been finalised by now, won’t be decided until at least late this year because the 10 teams can’t agree on what to collectively submit to the Federation Internationale de l’Automobile’s World Motor Sport Council for approval.

News of the latest delay came just hours after Ferrari decided not to appeal the five-second that denied Vettel victory over Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton in last weekend’s Canadian Grand Prix.

Instead, it is likely to seek an official review of the incident at the centre of the controversy, but it will need to come up with new evidence by the end of the French GP on Sunday week.

Meanwhile, Canada’s 1997 world champion Jacques Villeneuve claimed this week that, rather than Vettel, Daniel Ricciardo should have been penalised in Montreal for his defensive tactics against Hamilton’s teammate Valtteri Bottas.

Ricciardo, the carsales.com.au global ambassador, said that holding off Bottas as long as he did was “the most positive thing” for him out of that race, in which he finished a season-best sixth.

An announcement is due tonight at Le Mans in France on rules for the 2020-2021 World Endurance Championship, but there is unlikely to be any finality on the proposal to make hypercars the premier category of sports car racing.

Toyota and Aston Martin appear to be the only manufacturers keen on the idea – and Toyota seems to have been frustrated in the talks about the details, while Aston Martin wouldn’t be ready to compete with its Valkyrie until the following season.

Interest in this weekend’s 24 Hours will be primarily on the GTE Pro category rather than outright honours, which should be a walkover for Toyota with its two 735kW, 2.4-litre twin-turbocharged V6 TS050 hybrid prototypes against six non-hybrid LMP1 prototypes and the fleet of LMP2 cars.

Toyota finally won Le Mans last year at its 20th try and one of its victorious drivers, dual F1 world champion Fernando Alonso, has said that “this year we do not have the pressure of winning for the first time and I hope we can enjoy the race a bit more”.

Japanese driver Kamui Kobayashi has put one of the Toyotas on pole position ahead of the one in which Alonso is defending his crown. The company will go home with both the manufacturer and driver titles from the first WEC ‘super season’ which began in May last year.

Seventeen cars from six manufacturers are vying for GTE Pro honours. The five top cars in qualifying were an Aston Martin Vantage, a Ford GT, a Chevrolet Corvette C7.R, a Porsche 911 RSR and a BMW M8, while the first of the three Ferrari 488s was seventh.

American-based Sydneysider Ryan Briscoe is sharing another Ford GT with New Zealand’s IndyCar ace Scott Dixon and Briton Richard Westbrook.

The other Australian in the race is Queenslander Matt Campbell, driving a Porsche 911 RSR in GTE Am – in which only one driver in each car can be a full professional.

Campbell has qualified second fastest in that category behind a sister entry of Dempsey Proton Racing, a German-owned team which American actor Patrick Dempsey as its frontman.

Campbell won with this team on debut at Le Mans last year, but Dempsey Proton later lost all its points up to and including the WEC’s Japanese round in October for having tinkered with the electronics that measure a car’s refuelling time in the pits.

However, Campbell and his co-drivers, Frenchman Julien Andlauer and German Christian Ried, have had multiple visits to the winner’s circle since.

The World Rally Championship is into its second half on the Italian island of Sardinia, with manufacturers compelled to field the same cars they did in Portugal a fortnight ago.

Hyundai leads Toyota by 20 points in the manufacturers’ championship, while French six-time world champion Sebastien Ogier leads Toyota’s Estonian Ott Tanak – winner of the past two rounds – by two points in the individual standings, with Hyundai’s Belgian Thierry Neuville another 10 points back.

Sardinia’s sandy stages with just short stretches of asphalt are expected to be rougher than the gravel in Portugal, especially on the second passes over them.
Meanwhile, four-time Australian rally champion Simon Evans, who has not competed in the national series since 2016, will drive in next weekend’s Rally Tasmania around Launceston.

Bernie Webb will be Evans’ co-driver in a Subaru WRX STI prepared by Launceston-based Les Walkden Rallying.

Three R5s (cars approved for competition in WRC2) are entered – a Ford Fiesta to be driven by Luke Anear and a Hyundai i20 in the hands of Tasmanian Marcus Walkem, both on debut, and a Skoda from Western Australia driven by John O’Dowd.

South Australia’s December motorsport festival will be split this year, with what was the Victoria Park Sprint in Adelaide reincarnated as The Bend Classic at Tailem Bend, supplementing the continuing Shannons Rally and street parties in Adelaide.

The Bend Classic, described as “a speed event for historic and performance-oriented vehicles that typically don’t compete on a regular basis”, has been introduced after a cut in SA government funding KO’d the Victoria Park Sprint at what has been the popular Adelaide Motorsport Festival at the city’s much-loved F1 and Supercars venue.

Festival organisers said the Victoria Park Sprint “is taking a pit stop through 2019”, while The Bend’s managing director, Sam Shahin, said the venue had responded to fan demand for motorsport activity in the state at what has become a traditional time.

The rally will run from December 4-7, with the track action at The Bend on December 7-8.