MOTORSPORT: New teammate for Ricciardo

Daniel Ricciardo’s teammate in Renault’s Formula 1 squad next year will be 22-year-old Frenchman Esteban Ocon after Mercedes opted to retain Valtteri Bottas alongside Lewis Hamilton.

Meantime, the Brabham BT62 supercar will make its race debut in November – in Britain.

Porsche has launched its first electric race car, which will make its debut when the sixth season of Formula E begins later in November.

And the second Targa Great Barrier Reef – the third of a four-round tarmac rally championship – is underway in Cairns with three entries from rallying great Ross Dunkerton’s family.

The battle for outright honours though is likely to be between inaugural winners, Tasmanian Jason White and his co-driving uncle John, in a Dodge Viper ACR Extreme and Queensland-based Tasmanian Paul Stokell – the maiden Australian Targa Championship title winner – and Kate Catford in a Lotus Exige.

This year’s Formula 1 World Championship resumes at Belgium’s Spa circuit this weekend after a four-week break and the news that Esteban Ocon will replace German Nico Hulkenberg in the Renault team next season.

Ocon will be joining the Regie a year later than had been anticipated.

He had been in line for a move there this year until the surprise announcement during last year’s mid-season break that carsales.com.au global ambassador Daniel Ricciardo was quitting Red Bull Racing to join the British-based French team.

That, and Canadian billionaire Lawrence Stroll’s takeover of the Force India team and the installation of his son Lance in that outfit in place of the highly-regarded Frenchman, renamed Racing Point, left Ocon as the reserve driver for the Mercedes factory team, with simulator work the closest he has come to racing this year.

He was either going to be Lewis Hamilton’s teammate next year or released by Mercedes, which is now happening – at the end of the season – because of the decision to retain this year’s Australian Grand Prix winner Valtteri Bottas in the garage beside five-time – and likely soon six-time – world champion Hamilton.

German Nico Hulkenberg will depart Renault after three seasons with the possibility of joining Ferrari-powered American team Haas alongside Dane Kevin Magnussen or perhaps going to Formula E with Mercedes, which – like fellow German manufacturer Porsche – will be making its electric open-wheeler racing debut in the new season starting in Saudi Arabia on November 22.

Meanwhile, Ricciardo – fresh from a holiday in Los Angeles – is looking forward to Spa, where the lap is the longest of the F1 season at 7.004km and he won in 2014 and has had two podiums since.

While his first season for him in yellow and black has been “challenging”, the Australian leads Hulkenberg by five points (22-17) in the drivers’ championship, although they are a disappointing 11th and 14th and Renault only sixth in the manufacturer standings after finishing fourth last year.

“We’re targeting a better second-half of the season to catch our competitors. I know we can do it, we just need cleaner weekends,” Ricciardo said.

However, dominant Mercedes and greatly-improved Honda have upgraded power units for Spa which – taking into account customer teams – will cover half the field, while the super-fast Belgian circuit is expected to suit Ferrari, which hasn’t won since Sebastian Vettel’s success there a year ago.

British-Thai first-year driver Alex Albon is to make his debut with Honda-powered Red Bull Racing after just 12 races with Red Bull’s junior team Toro Rosso, while French flop Pierre Gasly has been sent in the other direction.

Kimi Raikkonen has pulled a muscle in his left leg, so the Ferrari-engined Alfa Romeo team (nee Sauber) has pulled its reserve driver, Swede Marcus Ericsson, out of the weekend’s penultimate IndyCar round in Portland, Oregon, to deputise if the 2007 world champion isn’t fit to race.

McLaren rookie Lando Norris is a certain starter after having his left foot in plaster during the break.

While March 15 had already been announced as the date for next year’s season-opening Australian GP in Melbourne, the rest of the calendar has now been revealed – with a record 22 races.

Apart from a new Hanoi street race in Vietnam on April 5 and the return – after 34 years – of a GP at Zandvoort in the Netherlands on May 3, on the back of Max Verstappen’s success and massive following, there are seven back-to-back weekends, sure to tax the stamina of the teams.

Despite the excitement of the July 28 race at Hockenheim, when Verstappen won and Vettel came from last on the grid to second, Germany drops off the calendar next year.

Neither the Hockenheim nor Nurburgring promoters were prepared to pay the price of staging a championship round, despite Michael Schumacher’s seven world titles and Vettel’s four in the past quarter of a century, and Mercedes’ constructors’ championships the past five years with another imminent.

The Brabham BT62’s race debut on the second weekend of November will be in a twilight ‘Britcar’ race at Brands Hatch.

David Brabham says that’s “where the opportunity is, we’ve had customers say that they'd like to race it” because the 5.4-litre V8 “doesn't really fit into any regulations for any series”.

The BT62 will compete in less powerful trim to bring it into line with the GT3 machinery leading the Britcar championship.

The car will run in an invitational class and not be eligible to score points in the series.

The driver line-up is yet to be confirmed.

The GTE Pro class in the 2022 World Endurance Championship remains the target for the BT62.

Brabham Automotive also is reported to be “looking closely” at the WEC’s ‘Hypercar Prototype’ premier category proposed from next year.

“We’re waiting to see what the final regulations are,” commercial director Dan Marks told American publication Racer.

Racer commented that it was unlikely that Brabham could race a hybrid-powered car – at least initially under what whatever regulations are framed.

However, David Brabham said hybridisation may be explored in the longer term.

“This is a very interesting time right now, as companies are moving towards electric and hybrid cars,” he said.

“We’re not doing that and that will be some time if we end up going down that road. Everyone has been waiting for the regulations to settle so you can get your head around it. I’m sure there are a lot of manufacturers still evaluating whether it’s a program they want to do.”

Porsche has dubbed its first Formula E car the 99X.

“The highest number, nine, was used twice, to re-emphasise the importance of the Formula E project for Porsche, while the X stands for the forward-looking approach and prototype racing,” it said in unveiling its first open-wheeler since a disastrous IndyCar effort in the 1980s.

All Formula E cars use the same chassis, wheels, brakes, tyres, and suspension, so any edge Porsche can get will have to come from its drivetrain and software.

Its drivers for the 14 races in 12 cities on four continents – but still not Australia –
will be Switzerland’s Neel Jani and Germany’s Andre Lotterer.

New Zealander Brendon Hartley, a 24 Hours of Le Mans winner with Porsche and briefly an F1 driver, has joined the Dragon Formula E team founded by Roger Penske’s son Jay.