MOTORSPORT: Oh what a silly season

But this looks like being a particularly silly silly season.

Take, for example, the suggestion in the past 24 hours that Australia's Formula 1 grand prix might be moved from Albert Park in Melbourne to Flemington racecourse, home of the Melbourne Cup.

This is hot on the heels of renewed suggestions that the F1 GP might be relocated to the Gold Coast or to Sydney, with NSW starting a major events company -- years after most other states.

Haven't we heard all this, apart from the Flemington idea, before?

Seven months ago some dreamers had the F1 GP going to a new $650 million motor sport complex at Norwell, between the Gold Coast and Brisbane -- a project that has now been revealed to be so far off course that the world rally championship round scheduled for it next September has already been postponed (perhaps ultimately to be cancelled altogether).

The reality will become, we suspect, that no Australian state government will be prepared beyond 2010 to pay the kind of fees Bernie Ecclestone's Formula One Management will be demanding for the right to stage a round of the F1 world championship.

The Victoria Racing Club, which runs horse racing at Flemington, has already dismissed the latest idea of transferring the Oz GP to its venue as "nonsense" and "not worth considering".

It's the silliest thing we've heard since the notion that F1 night racing was going to be trialed at Albert Park next year, but only on the start-finish straight.

So were the 300kmh F1 cars going to crawl around the rest of the track in darkness, or somehow loop back behind the pit building?

The Victorian government - which picks up the bill for the GP, this year amounting to $34.6 million -- says it knows nothing about the Flemington concept.

It's been reported that Australian Grand Prix Corporation chairman Ron Walker and F1 supremo Bernie Ecclestone discussed the Flemington "option" in London this week.

Perhaps it is not so much an option as a distraction.

That is, a distraction from the size of the annual fee paid for the race, the rate of increase in that fee, and the thumping loss on this year's Melbourne GP, the full damage from which came to light with the tabling of the AGPC annual report in the Victorian Parliament a little more than a week ago.

We commented here a week ago that one bright spot in that annual report was that the GP's engineering costs -- the bulk of which are the putting up and pulling down of the temporary grandstands -- had not risen.

The report states, at page 29, that the recurrent engineering costs were $23,759,095 this year, compared with $24,127, 914 in 2006.

On reflection, that decline is perhaps not so much a bright spot as an indication -- or confirmation - that less corporate suites and grandstand seats were required at the GP this year.

Which brings us back to another point from last week: how did the GP organisers come to claim at the end of this year's event that the four-day attendance was roughly in line with, even a few hundred more, over four days than that of 2006, despite the absence of the V8 Supercars and with the revenues now announced making that stated attendance incredibly doubtful?

And so how did the loss on the event this year blow out more than 60 per cent to $34,627,000 -- from $21,275,000 in '06 -- if the attendance was roughly the same, claimed to be a smidgeon over 300,000 in both cases?

Firstly, we doubt that the 2007 attendance figures are accurate. Why would the general admission crowd and overall attendance have gone up, especially without the V8 Supercars there, when clearly the grandstand and corporate numbers were down?

Secondly, the importance of the accuracy of attendance figures is that they surely are one of the fundamental starting points in the studies of the GP's economic benefits done by the National Institute of Economic and Industry Research (NIEIR).

Those NIEIR reports are done every few years, rather than each year, and the last was in 2005.

So, while no NIEIR report was done this year, the GP organisers still lean on the '05 study which claimed the economic benefit of the event that year was close to $175 million.

Now, even if that figure was valid in '05, is it still valid in '07 if the attendance is not what it was in '05?

And, if the attendance this year was not really what it is claimed to have been, what about other years?

If these figures have been overstated previously, where does that leave the NIEIR findings?

And there is another issue if these figures have been overstated.

The AGPC board comprises prominent people who are involved with companies in various lines of business, some of them listed companies.

It would be dangerous for board members to be associated with, even responsible for, any entity issuing misleading information.

At the least, the credibility of those people in the business community could be diminished by that.

If the AGPC were a public company, and it is not, the repercussions could be more severe.

Perhaps there should be an expectation that all reporting, financial and other, by quasi-government entities such as the AGPC should be of the same standard expected of public companies.

After all, an entity such as the AGPC is underwritten by public money -- this year to the tune of almost $35 million.

The author was the media manager of the Australian Grand Prix from mid-1997 until early 2005.

Tony Cochrane seems to have reasserted himself as the sport's figurehead in recent weeks, with the threat of former federal politician John Hewson removed.

The Touring Car Entrants Group -- the major stakeholder in V8 Supercars Australia and whose chief, Kelvin O'Reilly, has mysteriously been under some form of suspension in recent days -- is holding its annual meeting on the Gold Coast today.

We await the outcome with interest.

Two weeks ago Ambrose had his best weekend of the long season, taking pole position on the tricky short track at Memphis and finishing the race fourth after leading about 20 laps.

We have always admired Ambrose's courage in taking up the NASCAR challenge rather than be satisfied with being a bigger fish in the much smaller Australian pond.

However, it is difficult to get an accurate handle on how well, or otherwise, he is doing in American stock car racing, especially as Wood Brothers/JTG Racing for which he drives is no longer the A grade team it once was.

We have come across today a curious stat that may add some perspective to Ambrose's Busch campaign.

The point is made on autochannel.com that, despite his fine efforts at Memphis, Ambrose's average finishing place over the last four races has been 28.3.

There is a mention on that site of Ambrose's "slump" and a suggestion that, in ninth place now, he could struggle to remain in the top 10 after this weekend's round in Phoenix, Arizona, and then the final at Homestead in Florida.

Going into the 200-mile (320km) race on the lightly banked 1-mile (1.6km) oval at Phoenix, Ambrose heads 10th placed Mike Wallace by 37 points.

Ambrose will race the same Ford Fusion he drove at Memphis in Phoenix.

"I think we've definitely got everything in place to get the job done in Phoenix," Ambrose said.

If he does, his earnings in the series this year should top the million, at least in Aussie dollars.

So far this season he has accumulated US$918,193 -- or about A$980,000.

NASCAR Busch Series standings after 33 of 35 rounds - Carl Edwards 4494 points, David Reutimann 3942, Jason Leffler 3733, Kevin Harvick 3713, David Ragan 3576, Bobby Hamilton Junior 3434, Stephen Leicht 3337, Greg Biffle 3256, Marcos Ambrose 3225,  Mike Wallace 3188.

It was in Mexico last year that Power scored his first Champ Car podium, and he reckons his Team Australia is "definitely due for a bit of good luck" after he was unable to convert pole position at Surfers' Paradise into a victory in his home race for the second year running.

Power will be given 15 minutes on the track in Mexico tomorrow to trial the wrist brace before official practice.

Not much else of interest in this round, with four-time champion Sebastien Bourdais having his last race in Champ Car before his move to F1 next year with Scuderia Toro Rosso.

The Gold Coast has been confirmed on next year's Champ Car calendar as the penultimate round on October 24-26.

Series organisers have scheduled six US races, three in Canada, the final in Mexico, plus three in Europe -- at Zolder in Belgium and a new race at Jerez in Spain in early June, then at Assen in Holland in mid-September before the trip to Australia.

Champ Car series after 13 of 14 rounds - Sebastien Bourdais 332 points, Justin Wilson 270, Robert Doornbos 262, Will Power 234, Graham Rahal 220, Neel Jani 218, Bruno Junqueira 216, Simon Pagenaud 213, Oriol Servia 212, Alex Tagliani 197.

Toyota has already won the manufacturers' championship and husband-and-wife combination Simon and Sue Evans lead the driver and co-driver championships by 119 points and are needing just a couple more to seal back-to-back titles.

They have won all previous five rounds and 10 heats.

It's a pity the series has been diminished by the withdrawal of Subaru and Mitsubishi entries over the past couple of years and Ford's factory team fielding uncompetitive Ford Focuses.

The Evans' will see out this season in their familiar Group N (Prototype) Corolla rather than a Super 2000 Corolla like that of Toyota team boss Neal Bates and his co-driver, Coral Taylor, who are second in the drivers' championships with 121.5 points on offer in Melbourne -- 50 per cent more than at earlier rounds.

Congratulations to Macrow, but how different would the awareness of the outcome been had Tander, wife of V8 Supercar championship leader Garth, emerged as champion.

She would have been the first woman to have won a major Australian circuit racing title.

Although she has acquired a new car for another season of F3, there is speculation of her racing in the Formula V6 Asia Championship or even Champ Car or the DTM -- the German touring car championship.

Nakajima was the team's test and reserve driver this year and raced for it in the season-ending Brazilian GP after Austrian Alexander Wurz's sudden retirement.

Although Nakajima injured a mechanic in a pit lane incident at that race, the team was happy with him as he recorded the fifth fastest race lap and finished 10th after starting 19th.

Having the support of Williams' engine supplier Toyota will have helped Nakajima secure the second slot for next year.

His father spent five seasons in F1, making his race debut with Lotus-Honda in 1987 and taking career best fourth places in the 1987 British GP and wet 1989 Australian GP.

He ended his career with Tyrrell in 1991.

Although Williams has named Rosberg, also 22, for next season and insists it has an option on him for 2009 as well, the son of 1982 world champion, and 1985 Australian GP winner, Keke Rosberg remains at the top of McLaren's list to take the seat vacated by dual world champion Fernando Alonso.

Alonso appears to be moving closer to a deal to return to Renault, with which he won his titles, while the French team's Finn, Heikki Kovalainen, is more likely to end up with the McLaren drive.

It now seems that Nelson Piquet Junior, whose father was a triple world champion in the 1980s, will be Renault's other driver next season.

Giancarlo Fisichella apparently has been told he is not required after 194 GPs.

Red Bull Racing remains in the tussle for Alonso's services, while Toyota has the biggest cheque book but the head of its serially-underperforming team, John Howett, said: "I'm not sure we're yet ready to offer Fernando the sort of (competitive) package he's looking for."

There are indications from Japan that senior management at the car company is fed up with the F1 team's poor showings.

"I wish F1 could (still) be run by Bernie, supported by Max, as a dictatorship," Briatore has told F1 Racing magazine.

"(But) that isn't possible any more, because the F1 world has become so corporate.

"So we must introduce a majority-rule system with the new Concorde Agreement.

"At the moment, nothing can be decided without unanimity.

"You wouldn't even run the residents' committee of an apartment block like that, let alone a global $3 billion sport. It's crazy.

"If nothing can be decided without unanimity, then the minority become as important as the majority. That's wrong.

"From next year on, if 51 per cent of the teams want something to happen, it should happen."

And, on a familiar theme, Briatore said: "F1 must be more of a show -- more of a TV spectacle.

"Bernie and I agree on that -- so does Max."

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