MOTORSPORT: Pressures mount for changes

Prepare for months of politicking – on F1’s sound and its fuel regulations, and in V8 Supercar on engines, weights and aerodynamics.

In NASCAR it will be different. There the controlling France family simply will impose a cut in engine power and teams, drivers and fans will just have to cop it. That’s a little while off, anyway.

The prospects of any and all change comes against the immediate backdrops of Daniel Ricciardo having to start 10 places below where he qualifies for Sunday’s Bahrain Grand Prix, great interest in Nissan’s performance at Winton after its sole V8 Supercar win there last year, in the only race in which it was allowed to run on E70 fuel, and Marcos Ambrose’s best start to a NASCAR Sprint Cup season.

He’s at Texas Motor Speedway this weekend after two recent fifth places that have him 14th in the hugely-competitive series.

The World Rally Championship’s fourth round is on this weekend too in Portugal, with Volkswagens having finished one, two, three in the opening special stage overnight, ahead of a Hyundai, and Australia’s Molly Taylor driving a Citroen in the Junior WRC with mum Coral in the co-driver’s seat.

Reigning Australian rally champion Eli Evans has foregone this weekend’s national round in WA to drive a Honda in an upcoming European championship round, leaving Rally Canberra winner Brendan Reeves and veteran Scott Pedder, most likely, to fight out the Forest Rally in Mazda2 and Renault Clio respectively.
      

Ricciardo has dismissed that incident as “just one of those things” but vowed to make “an aggressive start” in Bahrain “to get me back into contention” after unluckily being left without points from the Melbourne and Kuala Lumpur races.

“I need to get some points on the board and that’s not going to happen if I’m cruising around in the middle of the pack,” Ricciardo said.

“I don’t think I need to change anything much. I think I’m driving with good intensity.

“I’d rather race at the front and have bad luck than run around in 10th and not be showing the team that I was what they thought I was [when choosing him as Mark Webber’s replacement].

“There’s a lot of positives. The car is competitive, aerodynamically and mechanically.

“And once we get to China [at Easter] and, even better, Barcelona [in early May], I think we can really take the fight to them [the Mercedes factory team that has won both GPs so far].”

More immediately though Bahrain this year becomes a night GP, with the prospect of a sharp drop in temperatures during the race – which would affect engine performance.

Red Bull’s appeal against Ricciardo’s Melbourne disqualification will be heard in Paris on Monday.

Ecclestone, di Montezemolo and Australian Grand Prix chairman Ron Walker have led the outcry against the rules that have produced this year’s much quieter hybrid cars that are restricted to using 100kg of fuel a race - and not allowed to pump that fuel faster than 100kg/hour.

Walker has made plenty of colourful comments since the Melbourne race, essentially that the new F1 is not the show the Victorian government is forking out so heavily for.

The most colourful are contained in an article in London’s The Independent , see here <<<< http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/motor-racing/exclusive-f1-warned-it-is-facing-fan-revolt-over-silent-engines--the-sound-is-a-disgrace-9213265.html >>>>.

The promoters of rounds of F1’s world championship are to meet in Bahrain too. While they pay or at least arrange hefty sanction fees to Ecclestone’s empire that contribute to its massive revenues, they are comparative lightweights in the game.

Certainly there is anger among fans at F1 having lost its piercing sound with the 1.6-litre turbocharged power units, but there are realities too.
F1 engineers like Renault’s head of track operations Remi Taffin say it can’t be changed easily and quickly.

Renault, Mercedes and another manufacturer preparing to return as an engine supplier, Honda, wanted his formula that was attuned to the direction of the road car industry – and the FIA implemented the revolution.

Ecclestone and di Montezemolo may not be happy with it, the latter likening it to “taxi-cab racing”, but they are old men now. So too is Walker.

Not only has the FIA introduced change, but a younger generation of power players in the sport – today’s men, like McLaren’s new racing director Eric Boullier – strongly favour it.

Red Bull’s four-time world champion driver Sebastian Vettel  has called this year’s rule “sh..”, Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso is lukewarm on them, but Lewis Hamilton – winner in KL last Sunday, the world title favourite and with a huge army of fans – loves them.

“We’re in a period of time when technology is everything,” Hamilton said.

“The fact is Mercedes have developed better technology than everyone.

“Di Montezemolo didn’t say a thing when Michael Schumacher won those five world championships in a row [with Ferrari].”

McLaren’s Bouiller has criticised Red Bull for not accepting the FIA’s fuel sensors.

“The FIA went with the sensors and we have to respect it. Whether we change the way we measure the fuel flow is another debate,” Boullier said.

Bouillier’s boss, Ron Dennis, is of the older generation but out of step with Ecclestone, di Montezemolo and Walker. “There are always going to be people who have negative observations. That is inevitable,” Dennis said.

The BBC’s chief F1 writer Andrew Benson has reported that the FIA insists the fuel-flow restriction is at the heart of the new F1 rules – that the new engines have been designed with that in mind.

Todt recently telegraphed a softer stance, perhaps prepared to do away with the fuel flow “speed limit” (but retain a maximum on how much fuel the cars carry) and possibly agree to something to restore some noise. Surely it can’t be that hard, even if artificial.

The two GPs so far were dominated by the early race leader and there was not the overtaking and strategy anticipated under the new rules.
Ecclestone and di Montezemolo may get some change, but perhaps not in a hurry and not as much as they want.

Walker ultimately will have to live with whatever the three most powerful figures agree. If he doesn’t like it he could advise the Victorian government against renewing its race contract – or at least cease payments under its existing deal expiring next year.

In time the FIA may relent on the fuel-flow speed, but probably not until well after it has proved its point to Red Bull in Monday’s Paris hearing that it will not tolerate blatant defiance of its rules and regulations.

Perhaps the biggest changes we’ll see will be Red Bull dropping Renault as its engine provider next year – its Helmut Marko has warned that “if there is no noticeable improvement in two or three months we will definitely be talking about an alternative” – and on the F1 ownership front.

Buried at the end of a report overnight by the BBC’s Benson on Alonso’s views on the rules was this curious paragraph: “There is speculation in the F1 paddock that Ecclestone is trying to drive down the value of F1’s shares as part of a bid to put together a consortium with Red Bull, Ferrari, Mercedes and McLaren to buy back a majority share in the sport.”

The outcome of Ecclestone’s imminent criminal trial in Germany might change things too.

It may be a while yet before the parity matters explode, but already there are moves towards what is being called “a total performance number” to be calculated from the power output of each of the five types of engine between 5800 and 7450rpm.

That inevitably will lead to applications for modifications to be approved.

Already there is a 200kg minimum engine weight, with newcomer Volvo and last year’s entrants Nissan and AMG Mercedes/Erebus using ballast to make that figure.

V8 Supercars is planning more aerodynamic testing in coming months that could lead to some re-homologations.

Ford, which has had weight issues in the past, again is concerned about some of its rivals having aluminium body panels.

“The engine will get a significant change,” NASCAR chief Brian France has said.

“I’m not going to say it will happen for 2015, but we are certainly sizing that up.

“We have to be in step as much as possible with the car manufacturers and where they’re going with technology and different things.”