MOTORSPORT: Price battles injury odds on Finke

Two-time Dakar motorcycle winner Toby Price is in two minds as he tackles the Finke Desert Race in central Australia over the Queen’s Birthday long weekend with two extra wheels.

Price has foregone a shot at a seventh two-wheel triumph in the country’s major off-road endurance event – 250km over rugged red dirt from Alice Springs to Aputula on Sunday and then back on Monday – as he chases a first victory in it on four wheels.

However, Price says his right wrist (which required surgery immediately after his second Dakar success in Peru in January still only has 50-60 per cent movement.

Price will be nursing the wrist, as best he can, while driving a trophy truck at Finke, hoping to regain 80-90 per cent movement in it for next year’s Dakar with KTM in Saudi Arabia.

“I’ve got a clearance to start riding the bike again, but it would be too big a risk [on Finke]. I love racing Finke, but if something goes wrong it puts Dakar in jeopardy,” Price said.

“Trying to run both categories would be a complete nightmare and a lot of chaos. [I’ve] Got to be a little bit smart and try to be ready for Dakar again,” he stated.

Price was runner-up in his first four-wheel attempt at Finke in 2016, and won for the fifth time on two wheels that year, just months after his first Dakar victory, but has been a non-finisher on four wheels the past two years.

“I’m still very, very new to it all – hopefully can win it within five years,” he said.

The Finke doubles as the second round of the Australian Off Road Championship and Price will be up against the country’s best at the caper, including the defending champion Shannon Rentsch, Mark Burrows and David Fellows, while four-time Australian rally champion Simon Evans is tackling Finke for the second time, hoping at least to finish this time.

The ‘Bathurst of off-road racing’ has 165 four-wheel entries this year, with the field increased from 150 and including all eight winners of the past 20 years. The bike section has 650 starters.

While Formula 1’s owner Liberty Media tries to find new venues to win over American audiences, the sport’s five-time world champion Lewis Hamilton says the traditional grand prix format needs to be shaken up to make it more entertaining.

“Over the last 12 years, and beyond that, they always shift and change the regulations for the car, trying to improve costs, trying to improve overtaking and, in general, the decisions have not been great in all those years,” Hamilton has told racer.com.

“Liberty’s taken over now and you still have the same issues… I think there’s more to it than just changing the regulations of the car. That continues to be a fundamental issue, but there’s also the entertainment aspect.

“Every weekend is the same four days for 21 weekends in a year, and that format’s never changed, so I think there’s also the entertainment aspect of it that probably has to shift, to suit different tracks.

“You’ve got Monaco on which you can’t overtake – maybe you have two races there.” Hamilton proffered.

The Briton also wants technology removed to make it more of a physical challenge to drive the cars on the limit.

“Ultimately, if I had the choice I would go back to V12s -- naturally-aspirated engines. I would have manual gearboxes. I’d make it harder for the drivers… Take away all these big run-off areas that you have everywhere. [The cars] Should not have steering assistance or – even if you do have steering assistance – you’ve got to have it low. I like having it low so it’s harder for me.

“You should be just so physically exhausted after the race, to the point [that it’s] like a marathon.

“Sometimes you do these races and you can get up and, I could do a race… I could probably do two or three races in a row. Formula 1 should not be like that.

“Also it’s a man’s sport, you know, and a lot of youngsters come in and it’s quite easy for them to get straight into it.

“I think it should be the most physically challenging,” Hamilton stated.

It’s five years since Daniel Ricciardo’s first GP win in Canada and, while even a podium is beyond him this time in his Renault RS19 on Monday morning, Australian time, he calls the Montreal circuit “my type of track”.

“The walls are close, there are kerbs to ride and there’s no room for driver error,” carsales’ global ambassador Ricciardo said.

“It’s a tricky track to get right as each corner is complex and you need to get in a good flow to combine them all together.”

The Renault team, and Ricciardo in particular, feel the RS19 was considerably better than ninth place and two world championship points reflected in Monaco two weeks ago.

“In terms of results, I’m not exactly where I’d like to be, but the atmosphere and the energy in the team are excellent,” Ricciardo told French publication L’Equipe.

“I just have to learn to be patient. F1 is a complex science that takes time.

“I have a contract until 2020, the results are a little disappointing at the moment but we are still in the building phase.

“I’m confident that the results will start coming before the end of the season,” the Aussie said.

Renault team principal Cyril Abiteboul has pledged “substantial” improvement in the RS19 for the French GP at the Paul Ricard circuit on June 21-23 after delays in the wake of conrod failures at the second race of the season in Bahrain.

“We are committed by Paul Ricard to have all the problems and all the delays that have been hurting us at the start of the season sorted out," Abiteboul said.

“The engine will be back at full power and even a bit more. We will also have a number of upgrades, quite substantial, on the aerodynamic side.

"And we will have a number of performance projects that have not been delivered on time, because of all the delays in the rest of the organisation.

"That is our collective response to the situation, which is not acceptable, to come up with sufficient lap time improvement to put us clear of the midfield – which was our target for the season,” the Renault F1 boss stated.

Mark Webber claims Sebastian Vettel is “definitely at the crossroads” and needs to decide whether to keep racing for Ferrari or retire.

“It’s quite confusing. Sometimes he seems hungry and aggressive. Other times he’s relaxed to be second or third,” Webber said of the man with whom he had such a tempestuous relationship at Red Bull (where the German won four consecutive world titles in 2010-2013).

While Webber said there must be uncertainty about whether Vettel is content to accept not having won a title since joining the Italian team in 2015, he said: “Ferrari also needs to improve”.

Vettel, whose contract runs until the end of next season, told UK title Autosport he did not know where speculation about his future had come from.

Vettel stated: “I think I can stop whenever I want, and the team can probably kick me out whenever they want, but I’m very happy with the team and I hope the team is happy with myself.

“I’m very hungry and I have a mission here to win. That’s really the only thing that matters to me, to win with Ferrari, and that’s what I’m working for,” the four-times world champion stated.

“We’re not winning, so you can make the maths, and we still have something to do.”

Vettel said Montreal “looks a bit more promising” for Ferrari to challenge Mercedes, which has won all six GPs so far this year.

“On the other hand the asphalt is very smooth. It will be difficult to get the tyres up to working temperature. We’ve been struggling with that the last couple of races,” he said.