MOTORSPORT: New Ford's wheels turning

Organisers of the Formula E international electric open-wheeler championship claim to have up to eight manufacturers queuing to get involved.

And Toyota reportedly is close to confirming its return to the World Rally Championship after a 15-year absence, with an announcement expected early in the New Year.

The Japanese manufacturer would not re-enter until 2017.

Meanwhile, opportunities for Australia’s top rally driver, Chris Atkinson, with Hyundai’s WRC team are looking slim after the Korean manufacturer’s announcement this week that New Zealander Hayden Paddon will do at least nine rounds with it next year in one of its i20s.

Hyundai already had Belgian Thierry Neuville and Spaniard Dani Sordo under contract for next season.

Atkinson did two rounds of this year’s WRC with Hyundai but recently has been driving a Prodrive-built Volkswagen Golf in China.

In Formula One, Red Bull Racing team principal Christian Horner says that, although Adrian Newey has cut his workload at the team, the technical genius will remain “very much involved” – great news for Daniel Ricciardo’s prospects of winning a world championship.

And F1’s commercial supremo Bernie Ecclestone has thwarted what looked like attempts to curb his power or even oust him.

FPR and Ford began working on the aero package for the final Falcon race car months before the Blue Oval’s recent confirmation that it will end its financial support for V8 Supercar racing next year.

The FG X will go through a week-long homologation process in January along with a slightly-tweaked VF Holden Commodore and most likely a revised Nissan Altima.

FPR is expected to have two FG Xs ready for the start of next season for Mark Winterbottom and Chaz Mostert, while DJR Team Penske also wants to have one for Marcos Ambrose.

FPR’s third driver, David Reynolds, and the proposed new Super Black entry from New Zealand are likely to start the season with the 2014-spec FG bodywork.

FPR’s development series and “main game” endurance co-driver Cameron Waters drove the FG X at the You Yangs proving ground this week.

It will be revealed publicly soon.

Meanwhile, Autoweek in the US has reported that Chip Ganassi Racing will field a two-car factory-backed Ford team in America’s United Sports Car Championship in 2016 and that it will tackle Le Mans on the 50th anniversary of the historic victory of the famous GT40 driven by New Zealanders Bruce McLaren and Chris Amon.

Cars in the first season running through until next June all use batteries produced by a company owned by the Williams Formula One team, while another F1 team,  McLaren, supplies the electric powertrain and electronics.

The cars have been built by France’s Spark Racing Technology under the guidance of Renault.

However, the regulations will be opened up for the second season and manufacturers allowed to compete – which would lead to Formula E meeting the requirement of motorsport’s governing Federation Internationale de l’Automobile (FIA) for it to be recognised as a world championship.

The FIA, and particularly its president Jean Todt, has been hugely supportive of the series.

Agag said before Formula E racing began in Beijing in September that he hoped to attract “three of four” manufacturers next season, but he is now talking of up to eight companies – including “some big names” – that he says could all bring new powertrain concepts.

“There was an application process by the FIA for future manufacturers for this championship. That finished on October 31 and 12 applications were presented,” Agag said.

“They are a mix of car manufacturers and others are technology companies -- which is a really different option for us, so ones that produce batteries, electric motors or even a full powertrain – and we will find out who has been successful in the next week.

“The selected manufacturers could be in a number from anything from six to eight.

“We will then have meetings to clearly define their roadmap of the technology level of the championship.

“It’s very important to develop a five-year roadmap to define the clear direction that this championship is going to go.

“We need to decide what areas can be developed and what cannot - but the focus must remain on the electric powertrain.”

Agag is keen to retain the Spark chassis for “a number of years” in order to focus on future development of the powertrains.

“The good news is that we will have quite a number of different powertrains next year,” he said

“We will have some big names delivering those.

“We have a great idea of the direction that we’re going to go, and we’ll of course work closely with the FIA on the regulations and with the selected manufacturers.

“We will have the competition that we’ve always wanted to have that will improve the technology.”

British motorsport 'bible' Autosport has reported that a timetable is being drawn up within Toyota headquarters for the comeback.

Autosport has quoted a source saying: “Things are moving inside Toyota right now. [President Akio] Toyoda-san has never hidden either his love of rallying or his desire to get Toyota back into rallying.

“What he wanted to see was the enthusiasm both in and out of the company for the same outcome. We believe we are there now.”

A Toyota motorsport spokesman said testing of the Yaris rally car would be ramped up and “we’ll be going further afield – we’ll go further north into Scandinavia [for a snow test], for example”.

However, Autosport said there was no guarantee Toyota’s comeback would be with the Yaris, but that it could be a Corolla – depending on the 2017regulations, which now are to be finalised next March – after the WRC Commission missed its December deadline to submit them to the FIA’s World Motor Sport Council.

The Toyota spokesman said the company had been involved in all discussions about the new regulations, was comfortable with how they were progressing and that it was not demanding a hybrid element.

“Rallying remains at the heart of the (Toyota motorsport) company and there’s a genuine wish to go back,” the spokesman said.

“As far as we can judge it seems there’s also a wish to go back from Japan. I think Akio Toyoda has communicated that quite clearly.

“It’s a wish and expectation to see a clear timetable. That would match the Japanese ethos to plan and prepare correctly for any possible activity.

“We would certainly hope for a clear timetable towards competition.”

It had been known for months that Newey was scaling back his involvement in F1 because of his exasperation with the sport’s technical regulations.

He is to work with Red Bull Advanced Technologies, in particular on an America’s Cup sailing entry by British Olympic sailor Ben Ainslie.

However, Horner has clarified that Newey has been integral to the design of next year’s RB11 car and that he will attend some of the pre-season tests and some races as RBR attempts to regain its ascendancy after the initial dominance of the new hybrid era by Mercedes.

“Adrian is taking a little bit of a step back, but he’s still very much involved,” Horner said.

“He’s overseen the design of the new car.

“He is going to be splitting his time between F1 and Red Bull Advanced Technologies.

“We recently announced a project with Ben Ainslie Racing … primarily focused on simulation and mathematical modelling.

“It’s great to still have Adrian as part of the [F1] team and still advising and mentoring … a strong senior technical team.

“F1 will still burn deeply inside of him.

“Despite the fact it will be a diminished involvement from Adrian, it’s still a very positive one.”

However, as Patrick Head’s latter days at the Williams team showed, you don’t make progress in the ultra-competitive world of F1 when you’re key technical person is working less than 100 per cent on the cars.

Unlike Head though, Newey may yet rediscover his total commitment.

Moves to install Paul Walsh, the former chief executive of alcoholic drinks company Diageo, as chairman of key F1 company Delta Topco were seen as an attempt to oust Ecclestone because of lingering concerns about this year’s bribery case in Germany – which Ecclestone ended by paying US$100 million – and his age.

However, Walsh declined to take on a role as executive chairman.

Instead he has become a non-executive director of the company.

Former Ferrari chief Luca di Montezemolo, who had represented the Italian company on the Delta Topco board for two years, has become a director in his own right now since his recent exit from Ferrari.

Montezomolo is likely to remain supportive of Ecclestone.

Peter Brabeck-Letmathe remains chairman of Delta Topco as well as confectionary giant Nestle, despite deteriorating health.

Ecclestone often has been criticised for not having a succession plan, but lately he has raised the name of his top in-house lawyer, Sacha Woodward-Hill, as his possible replacement.

However, evidence that he pretty much sees himself as irreplaceable came in his latest throwaway line: “It’s hard to find a singer like Sinatra.”