MOTORSPORT: One car maker with passion

Toyota pulled the plug on its Australian Rally Championship just two weeks before the series gets under way in Tasmania.

Honda is dithering over the sale of its Formula 1 team, with team chiefs now trying to pretend that Saturday's deadline is not crucial. Except that those same team chiefs have said it will take six weeks to adapt the design of this year's car to another engine, most likely a Mercedes motor now, and there are two months to the day until the first grand prix of the season, in Melbourne on March 29.

So, unless a deal has already secretly been done, whoever buys the Honda team -- most likely, we suspect now, a management buyout with an unknown financial backer -- may not get to test its cars before Melbourne.

What a debacle that would be.

But, on the positive side this week, Aston Martin has thrown itself into a campaign to win the Le Mans 24-hour sports car race in June outright.

It will challenge the might of the diesels from Audi, which is building a new R15 TDI, and Peugeot and its 908 HDi FAP with a V12 prototype, running on petrol and in the famous blue and orange Gulf livery.

It will be the 50th anniversary of Aston Martin's only outright Le Mans victory, when it took on and conquered the mighty Ferraris of that era.

This year's Aston Martins will be based on a Lola that was run at Le Mans last year by Charouz Racing but updated with Aston Martin styling.

While bureaucratic Japanese manufacturers succumb to the realities of the massive downturn in the world economy and automotive business, understandably in most respects, how refreshing to see a great sports car company headed by an entrepreneur, Prodrive's David Richards, driven by its heart rather than its head on a project like this.

It may turn out to be a disaster, but is it not better to try and fail, even in this environment, than not try at all?

Richards admits it is "a David and Goliath exercise" for the manufacturer that has won the GT1 class at Le Mans the past two years against prototype giants Audi and Peugeot.

"But it is that British fighting spirit that we are going to give it a try and see what we can do," he said.

Five of the six drivers for two Aston Martin entries are in place, and there is some feeling that Australia's David Brabham might land the sixth spot.

There also is the prospect of a third Aston entry for the classic, which may also provide an opportunity for Brabham to return to Le Mans this year after being part of the winning GT1 class squad the past two years.

He is primarily a member of Honda's Acura squad in the American Le Mans Series these days, and has been busy this week testing the new Acura class 1 prototype at Sebring after the marque's great success last year with class 2 prototypes in the US -- six class wins and two outright victories.

Whether Brabham - whose achievements in recent years have gone largely unnoticed by the Australian public, even the majority of the motorsport public -- gets a start in France or not, we can't help admiring Richards' daring approach with this new Aston Martin campaign.

"In a year when the world is facing so much uncertainty, and even in our own business we are facing so many question marks, should we be doing something like this?" he asked in public this week.

"We came to the conclusion that there is only one chance to do these things and you can't let these opportunities go by.

"Even if to some it may appear just a frivolous dream, to us it's much more than that.

"I don't say it's a good year (to be doing it), it just happens to coincide with the experience of last year, leading us to understand exactly what we can do, a 50th anniversary which is never going to happen again, and a time when the rest of our business needs a positive message.

"So all these things come together and, after all, when is a good year?

"We have just got to take the chance.

"Also, the rules have moved in our favor; they haven't worked against us.

"I have got a feeling that, whilst we have an outside chance, it is not an unrealistic outside chance.

"Aston Martin is probably one of the best-loved British sports cars of all time and the emotion that the product creates in people, they still love them.

"I am sure we will have an enormous amount of support this year at Le Mans, win or lose."

Yes, indeed, D.R.

Sure it is a politically, and indeed probably financially, correct decision in this meltdown environment, but it probably also is a commentary on how little passion Toyota had for the ARC anyway.

Not only is it a big blow to an already crippled series, leaving the ARC without any factory participation now -- Subaru and Mitsubishi had already withdrawn in recent years -- but it derails reigning champions Neal Bates and Coral Taylor.

Bates and Taylor will do Rally Tasmania on February 13-15 and Bates' home event in Canberra, but beyond that is now up in the air.

It seems Bates, who has prepared Toyota's Australian rally cars at his Canberra base for many years, was only told of the manufacturer's withdrawal the night before the news broke.

The decision creates even greater uncertainty for his teammates, husband-and-wife Simon and Sue Evans, who won the 2006 and '07 titles.

And it is a huge dent to the morale of Australian rallying just nine months before Rally Australia is meant to be revived in northern NSW.

That's always been going to have been a difficult task, made more so now by this Toyota decision.

And, with the World Rally Championship getting under way this weekend with Rally Ireland, we glean that Chris Atkinson's deal with the Citroen junior team, after the closure of the Subaru factory team for which he was fifth in the championship last year, is only a one-off.

While indications have been that Atkinson would get to do about half the season, and may yet, there's apparently no guarantees of that.

A preview of the WRC season-opener by Reuters is here

He pulled out of that "race" a couple of weeks ago, but he said this week he hoped a buyer would be found.

Richards said: 'It is a team that should be racing and I am still a great supporter of Jenson Button (the team's British driver, who indeed was the great British hope before Lewis Hamilton came along).

"But it's going to be a very difficult uphill battle."

Despite claims three weeks ago that there was a list of a dozen seriously interested parties, there is no sign of a deal -- and indeed the team's top two men, Nick Fry and Ross Brawn, are now saying the January 31 deadline for a sale is not critical.

There are suspicions a secret deal may have been done, or be very close -- and we suspect if that is the case it will involve a new investor backing Fry and Brawn to keep the existing team going, albeit on a much reduced budget -- partly out of need, and partly as a result of cost-cutting measures agreed by the new Formula One Teams Association (FOTA) in league with the Federation Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA).

We are coming to the conclusion that a Fry/Brawn/investor structure is the best solution if this outfit is going to be on the grid in Melbourne in two months.

That's because it is probably the only deal that can be done in the timeframe now.

Brawn has said repeatedly that it will take six weeks to adapt the car designed for this year -- as a Honda, with a Honda engine.

Now, unless the deal has already been secretly done and the team is progressing in that knowledge, there are only six weeks from this weekend, and the January 31 deadline for a buyer, before all the F1 cars are packed up in Europe to be transported to Melbourne.

Even then, cars that are going to take six weeks to adapt, seemingly to Mercedes engines, may not get anything more than the most cursory of track tests.

And, with testing outlawed between races this season, that would put the team, whatever it is called and whoever it is bankrolled by, way behind the eight ball.

Time is against us today, but a few other matters just briefly ...

<<<Dutch company ING is to review its US$100 million F1 sponsorships mid-year as it faces huge losses in its financial services businesses and plans to shed 7000 staff. It has a global deal with Bernie Ecclestone's F1 empire, as well as naming rights sponsorship of several GPs, including Melbourne's. While ING says it will cut its spend 40% this year it is unlikely to have any impact on the Oz GP, which will be protected for this year by a contract done a couple of years ago. However, it probably is going to mean the Oz GP will need a new sponsor next year.

<<<We saw somewhere in the past couple of days confirmation of reports we've been hearing for months that Formula 5000 cars will run as a support category at Melbourne's GP. Surely only as a demonstration -- i.e. not racing flat out. We can't imagine the FIA sanctioning 40-year-old fuel tanks on wheels racing at full speed with those concrete walls so close. And no sign yet of a celebrity race at the GP this year, despite statements from organisers two months ago to expect news within two weeks (i.e. six weeks ago).

<<<Paul Newman will race at Bathurst next month. Not the movie star Paul Newman, who colorful motor racing identity Ron Dickson teased people for years would come out to race for him at the mountain, and who died last year, but a local lad, sharing a Subaru in the 12-hour production car race with fellow locals Matthew Windsor and Steven Shiels.

<<<Will Davison was confirmed on Wednesday as Holden Racing Team's new driver, replacing the retired Mark Skaife. No surprise there. And Skaife was not at the announcement, despite supposedly remaining an ambassador for the team. We gather he was karting with son Mitch a few kilometres away. Something really ought to be done to liven up these V8 launches -- and the F1 ones too.