MOTORSPORT: NZ in new move to snatch WRC round

New Zealand will make a fresh play to grab – or at least share on rotation – Australia’s round of the World Rally Championship after stinging criticism of Rally Australia at Coffs Harbour.

Jarmo Mahonen, the Finn who is the rally director for motorsport’s world governing body the Federation Internationale de l’Automobile (FIA), made a scathing attack on Rally Oz, saying it was “very safe – because there are no spectators!”

And Alain Penasse, the Belgian team manager of Hyundai’s factory team that won last weekend’s WRC season finale, wants Rally Oz to go back to Western Australia, where it was held for almost 20 years.

While the event is on the WRC calendar as the final round again next year, on November 15-18 with Destination NSW financial support, the campaign against it continuing at Coffs Harbour is gaining momentum.

NZ, which last hosted a WRC round in 2012, made a big effort this year to replace Australia on next year’s calendar but was denied.

However, the man who led that Kiwi bid, Peter Johnston, has told the New Zealand Herald that there will be a new push for inclusion in the 2019 schedule and that the best chance of regaining a round will be at the cost of Australia.

“All the criticism [of Rally Australia] is correct,” Johnston told the paper, NZ’s biggest.

“If it weren’t for Kiwi spectators going over for it [to follow Hyundai’s Kiwi driver Hayden Paddon] then the crowds would be half as small again.

“We would get 30,000 spectators a day out on stages [in NZ]. (Rally Australia organisers claimed an attendance of 63,415 at the rally and related activities from Thursday last week to Sunday, which they said was up more than 6000 on last year).

“Our rally is far more accessible,” Johnston said.

“Coffs Harbour is a five-hour drive inland. [Perhaps he means up the coast from Sydney!]

“We have the roads and the teams and drivers love coming here [to NZ].

“I’ve always said we should be alternating every couple of years with Australia. It would keep the event fresh.”

Johnston said he would begin talks soon with the WRC promoter about getting NZ on the 2019 calendar.

Oliver Ciesla, who heads the company WRC Promoter controlled by energy drink giant Red Bull, says Australia is important to the WRC but that he wants to see bigger crowds.

“They [Australia] are one of the best organisers we have,” Ciesla said.

“Coffs delivers everything we need from the sporting requirement and we get a warm reception from the people, but it’s no secret that we would like to reach out to more people. The number of people is the limiting factor.”

FIA director Mahonen said Rally Australia “does a marvellous job with social media, but it’s not enough”.

“I have been against this rally being the final round of the championship,” Mahonen said.

“Let’s be honest, we are a European-based sport and we need to finish the season in that timezone.”

However, Hyundai’s Penasse asked: ‘Why can’t we go back to Perth? It’s closer to Europe and it’s a city with 1.5 million people. (Coffs Harbour has about 70,000).

“Twenty years ago Rally Australia was the best [WRC] event in the world.

“Garry Connelly [then the director of Rally Australia but now the FIA Formula 1 steward strongly criticised recently by Red Bull F1 star Max Verstappen] brought us the first ‘super special’ [stage] and so many innovations in Perth.”

However, Malcolm Wilson, head of M-Sport which won the WRC manufacturers’ world championship for Ford this year and took Frenchman Sebastien Ogier to his fifth straight world title (in a Fiesta, after his previous four in Volkswagen Polos), has defended Coffs Harbour.

“These stages [at Coffs Harbour] are some of the best in the world,” Wilson said.

“We all need to work hard to ensure the event stays relevant and exciting, but a move to another part of Australia isn’t necessarily the answer.”

Ben Rainsford, the chairman of Rally Australia and with the task of leading the fight to keep a WRC round in Oz beyond next year, has said that a return to WA would be difficult as the stages used there would now be considered too far from Perth, while a shift in NSW closer to Sydney was unlikely to work either.

Destination NSW is supportive of regional events rather than seeing more concentrated in or near Sydney.

Rainsford said diplomatically that he “would like to look at some options [to Coffs Harbour]” but that “a lot of what happens in the future depends on NSW government [funding]”.

The Destination NSW funding for Rally Australia is provisionally allocated for another three years.

Ogier narrows decision – Citroen out of the equation
Sebastien Ogier’s future should be known by the end of the month – three months later than he wanted.

His decision is now between continuing with M-Sport or retiring – or perhaps a year’s “sabbatical”.

French manufacturer Citroen, with which he began his WRC career, is no longer in the race for his services in 2018.

“We made an offer, but it was not at the right level [for Ogier’s liking],” said Citroen team principal Yves Matton.

Ogier said he was “not playing games or teasing” by delaying his decision, but he has made continuing at M-Sport conditional on full Ford support rather than just the technical assistance it has given the team in recent years.

“I am 99 per cent decided … the decision is to stop or to stay with my current team,” he said.

New ARC champ among mega field for Alpine Rally
The capacity 130-car field for next week’s Alpine Rally in Victoria includes new Australian Rally Champion Nathan Quinn in a Mazda RX2.

The Alpine was first run in 1921 and ranks as the world’s second-oldest rally, behind the Monte Carlo, but these days is run every two years – with bumper fields.

It is a classic gravel event for non-turbocharged two-wheel-drive cars built before the turn of the century, meaning lots of Datsuns, Nissans, Mitsubishis, Mazdas, Toyotas and Ford Escorts.

It is run from Lakes Entrance in East Gippsland now because the previous base around Bright, in Victoria’s north-east, became unworkable as many of the roads in that area are now required exclusively for the forestry industry.

The Alpine is a ‘blind rally’. Instead of crews making pace notes during pre-event reconnaissance runs, the crews are simply issued roadbooks containing basic instructions and diagrams, known as ‘tulips’.

New ARC champion Quinn, of Coffs Harbour, is seeded No.13 in the field for the event starting with two stages at Lakes Entrance next Friday.

Quinn says the seeding is appropriate as the RX2 is “all noise, no go”.

The top seed is flamboyant NSW-based South Australian Jack Monkhouse, winner two years ago, back with his Datsun 180B rebuilt and with Dale Moscatt, Australia’s top co-driver, alongside him again.

No.2 seed is four-time Australian champion Simon Evans in a Datsun Stanza with Ben Searcy as his co-driver.

Searcy partnered Quinn to last weekend’s ARC triumph at Rally Australia over Subaru’s 2016 champions Molly Taylor and Bill Hayes.

The Alpine field includes many of Australian rallying’s great identities, including David ‘Dinta’ Officer and his wife Kate, two-time winners in the 1980s, in their Mitsubishi Galant, Bob Watson in a Datsun 1600, and multiple Australian Safari winner – and multiple Dakar Rally competitor – Bruce Garland in an Escort.

There is great interest too in a couple of top New Zealand drivers competing in Escort Mk2s, Deane Buist and Derek Ayson, and an Irishman, Greg McCormack, in a similar car.

Challenging the Escorts and Japanese makes will be the Porsche 911 driven by Sydney’s Jeff David, the Alpine winner in 2013.

Mildura has big plans for motorsport complex
Mildura – which proudly boasts that it’s within 400km of Sydney, Melbourne and Adelaide – is making its pitch for funding for a permanent motorsport complex.

The centrepiece of the proposed facility, 15km from the centre of the Victorian city, would be a 3km circuit, with a skid pan as well. A kart track, drag strip and jet boat course are envisaged later.

The first stage is budgeted at $21 million.

The Confederation of Australian Motor Sport (CAMS) is strongly behind the concept, while funding is being sought from governments – a presentation was made at Victoria’s parliament house this week – and private investors.

Mildura mayor Mark Eckel says there is “fuel in the blood” at Mildura and the city is ready for construction to start straight away.

Ricciardo aiming to finish to the fore
Most interest for Australians in the 20th and final round of the Formula 1 World Championship in Abu Dhabi on Sunday night is whether Daniel Ricciardo can hold on to fourth place ahead of Kimi Raikkonen.

Red Bull-Renault driver Ricciardo has 200 points to the 193 of Ferrari’s Raikkonen, who has been on the podium at the past three GPs while Ricciardo has scored only eight points in those races.

Basically Raikkonen needs to finish four places ahead of the carsales.com.au global ambassador to overtake him in the championship, already won by Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton (345 points) ahead of Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel (302) and Mercedes’ Valtteri Bottas (280).

Sunday’s race will be the last GP before the introduction of the ‘halo’ safety hoop over the cockpits of the cars next season, starting in Melbourne on the last weekend of March.

Poland’s Robert Kubica, a one-time GP winner whose career was wrecked by a rally crash, and Russia’s Sergey Sirotkin, are vying to replace retiring Brazilian Felipe Massa in the Williams team next season.

Williams will assess the pair over the two days of the official F1 post-season test in Abu Dhabi next week alongside the team’s Canadian youngster Lance Stroll.