MOTORSPORT: New F5000s one, even two, too many?

Australia now has two new 5.0-litre open-wheeler race car out in the open as rival parties try to create a modern version of the Formula 5000 racing of the 1970s.

The latest, dubbed Super5000, is backed by the Supercars organisation and is intended to give birth to a new support category at Supercar events.

The release of images of the Super5000 car comes after the unveiling last year of the Formula Thunder 5000, which is an adaptation of a Swift-designed chassis for Japan’s Formula Nippon series and powered by a quad-cam Ford Coyote motor of Mustang origin and built by the InnoV8 operation of F1 and Supercar engine whiz Roger Higgins.

Super5000 would use the 5.0-litre Chevrolet and Ford engines that have been the staple of Supercar racing for more than two decades.

While Supercars has the intellectual property to Super5000 and retains the rights to run a series, the project has been funded by property developer Brian Boyd of PAYCE Consolidated and its long-time motorsport sponsorship partner Wilson Security.

Formula Thunder 5000 was the brainchild of Chris Lambden, a former Australian Touring Car Championship privateer, publisher of the former Motorsport News magazine, at one time a V8 Supercars commissioner and a Formula 5000 historic racer.

Lambden is not happy about Super5000, claiming it is a ‘copycat’ of his idea of a new type of F5000 racing.

Supercars chief executive James Warburton says Super5000 is part of a vision for Australian motorsport out to 2025 and that the market will decide which form of 600hp open-wheelers with fat tyres and big wings it wants to see.

While Super 5000 is envisaged as a Supercars support category, Formula Thunder 5000 is intended to be run at standalone events in the summer, even recreating a ‘Tasman Series’ of up to seven rounds at New Zealand and Australian circuits in December and January.

The Super5000, with a cost estimated at $300,000, has been designed in Adelaide by Oscar Fiorinotto’s Supashock Racing Engineering.

Formula Thunder 5000’s Swift chassis has been adapted in Melbourne by former McLaren composites engineer Lee Cason and Borland Racing Developments, a long-time constructor of junior open-wheelers.

Lambden has put the cost of his version at $240,000 and emphasised ‘reasonable’ running expense. He needs at least a dozen orders; Malcolm Ramsay of Birrana fame was the first to put his hand up for one.

Both the new 5000s are made of carbon-fibre. The Super5000 has an Albins transaxle gearbox, the Formula Thunder 5000 a six-speed Holinger.

The Super5000 has been tested by Garth Tander, Lee Holdsworth and Alex Davison, while the testing of Lambden’s car has been primarily by Tim Macrow.

The big question though is whether fans want two new 5.0-litre open-wheeler categories, or even one – especially as historic F5000 is strong and popular.

And, unlike the proposed new control categories, F5000 has a great diversity of makes, including the international Lola, Chevron and McLaren as well as Australian-built Matich and Elfin.
Cheers for three Aussies in America
Three Australians were on podiums with third places in the US as the weekend – Chris Atkinson for the first time in the Global Rallycross Championship, Will Power at the second of the IndyCar double-header in Detroit and Matt Brabham in Stadium Super Trucks in ‘Motor City’ (with Paul Morris fourth).

In the two GRC rounds at Thompson Speedway Motorsports Park in New England, Atkinson finished seventh and then third for Subaru Team USA – which he joined late last season.

The Andretti Volkswagen Beetle squad scored a quinella on Saturday in the third round of this season, with Tanner Foust ahead of Scott Speed, and rookie Mitchell deJong third in a Honda Civic and Steve Arpin fourth in a Ford Fiesta.

The next day it was Arpin ahead of Speed and Atkinson, deJong and Atkinson’s teammate Patrik Sandell.

Speed leads the series on 150 points from Foust on 140, with Arpin on 133, ahead of three Honda drivers, while Atkinson is eighth with 57 points and Sandell 10th on 53.

In IndyCar, Power was only 18th in the first of the two 70-lap races on Detroit’s Belle Isle circuit after making an extra pitstop.

However, in the second one he came home third behind Graham Rahal – who won both days, with Honda power on Chevrolet’s home ground – and Josef Newgarden, the American who has become one of Power’s Penske-Chevrolet teammates this season.

Power overtook Takuma Sato, winner of the previous Sunday’s Indianapolis 500 and who had led 22 laps at Belle Isle, with a quicker exit from their final stops.

Scott Dixon, second and sixth at the weekend despite a sore left ankle from his huge Indy 500 crash, has regained the series lead from Penske’s Brazilian Helio Castroneves after eight of 17 rounds, with the next at Texas Motor Speedway next Saturday night.

The IndyCar community is incensed at triple Formula 1 world champion Lewis Hamilton questioning the standard of the North American series.

The Indy racers point out that there have been different winners on all seven weekends of their series so far this year, while F1 is generally a race between two and at most four drivers in only Ferrari and Mercedes cars – and that last year Hamilton was second in a ‘two-horse’ competition with his then Merc teammate Nico Rosberg.
Another entry in history books for JJ
Jimmie Johnson, chasing a record eighth NASCAR Cup, has notched his 83rd race win – equalling one of his heroes, Cale Yarborough (now aged 78).

Johnson’s latest victory was his 11th at Dover, Delaware, and came in ‘overtime’ after late multi-car crashes and the Californian having started from last place because of pre-race changes to his Chevrolet.

The only drivers ahead of Johnson and Yarborough on the NASCAR race wins list are Richard Petty (200), David Pearson (106), Jeff Gordon (93) and Bobby Allison and Darrell Waltrip (both 84).

While Petty and the late Dale Earnhardt won seven titles, Johnson and Yarborough are the only drivers to have won three in a row.

Johnson’s three wins this season are the most of any driver, but he is only sixth in the championship standings with 414 points – behind Martin Truex Junior (Toyota, 545), Kyle Larson (Chevrolet, 536), Kevin Harvick (Ford, 429), Kyle Busch (Toyota, 416), and Jamie McMurray (Chevrolet, 415).

Roger Penske’s drivers, Brad Keselowski and Joey Logano in a pair of Ford Fusions, are eighth and 11th in the series.

Toyotas on the pace for Le Mans
The 24 Hours of Le Mans is now less than two weeks away – and the Toyotas outpaced the Porsches at the weekend’s eight hours of official testing.

Japanese ex-F1 driver Kamui Kobayashi lapped the long French circuit more than 1.5 seconds faster than last year’s pole position time by Switzerland’s Neel Jani in a Porsche 919 Hybrid.

Another Toyota TS050 was 1.1 seconds slower than Kobayashi and the Japanese company’s third entry, as it chases its first win at Le Mans after years of heartbreak (most especially last year), was third fastest, but 3.3 slower than the best.

Porsche’s two 919s were fourth and fifth, with New Zealander Earl Bamber the fastest driver for the German factory.

A Chevrolet Corvette set the pace in the GTE Pro class ahead of two Porsche 9111 RSRs, while Ford – the defending class champion – struggled down in 10th, 11th, 12th and 13th.

The Chip Ganassi Ford team says turbo boost restrictions under the ‘balance of performance’ have hurt its GTs in overall performance and power delivery across the range.

Apart from the limits on the EcoBoost V6s, the Fords have a 20kg increase in minimum weight this year, while the Corvette C7R and Aston Martin Vantage GTE have been given larger-diameter air restrictors this year.

There could yet be more changes in GTE Pro before the race on June 17-18.
Happy 50th birthday Cosworth DFV
A significant 50th anniversary passed quietly on Sunday – the first victory of the Ford Cosworth DFV (double four valve) V8 that became the most successful engine in F1 history.

The DFV powered Scotsman Jim Clark’s Lotus 49 to victory on debut at the 1967 Dutch Grand Prix.

The engine was used in F1 for 21 years, at one time powering every car in the field except the Ferraris.

Twelve driver and 10 constructor championships were won with it.

A turbocharged variant, the DFX, scored 10 Indianapolis 500 wins, 10 CART (Championship Auto Racing Teams, forerunner of IndyCar) and three USAC series titles.

Adapted for endurance sports car racing, the DFV also won the 24 Hours of Le Mans twice.