Motorsport: Pros and cons in Queensland

Friday motorsport reportApril 6, 2007

Progress has been made recently in the quest to get a V8 Supercar event up in Townsville, but more snags are arising in the grand plan for a big new motorsport complex at Norwell, between Brisbane and the Gold Coast (see map, pictured).

We aired our doubts midweek about the report of a $650 million project in what are now sugar canefields at Norwell, and the notion that the venue might snatch the Australian Formula 1 Grand Prix from Melbourne.

The Gold Coast Bulletin was quick to report the plan "has little chance of being approved by the Beattie Government, which has deemed the land rural".

The Bulletin quoted Premier Peter Beattie saying he would not be "ambushed" by the project's promoters -- West Australian interests operating under the name i-METT (Integrated Motorsport Education Tourism and Technology).

Beattie says the canefields have been specifically set aside as green space under the South-East Queensland Regional Plan and that he has "no interest" in helping woo F1 to the Sunshine State.

"Development on the site would be a significant change to the state's current planning. If it is a choice between the F1 and lungs for the south-east corner, we will choose the lungs," Beattie says.

Brisbane's Courier-Mail featured the Norwell project prominently on Wednesday and a follow-up report in that paper has taken a far softer line than the Bulletin.

In the Courier-Mail, Beattie is reported as saying he's "not ruling the project out at all".

But he adds: "What I'm saying really carefully is we are very unlikely to breach the South-East Queensland Plan."

The proposal has divided canegrowers, with some seeing it as a chance to cash in while others oppose it.

Rather than being anywhere near the final approval that was mentioned in the first big report this week, the project is a long way from reality.

Indeed, there must be very serious doubts about the proposed staging of Rally Australia -- the world championship event previously run in WA -- at Norwell in September 2008.

All Townsville needs is $10m
Meanwhile, hopes of a Townsville V8 race that three months ago were almost dead are buoyant now after recent confirmation that the Queensland Government is prepared to contribute $15 million up-front and $2.5 million a year for five years.

However, a $10 million contribution will still be needed from the Federal Government, but -- while the proponents of a national championship round in the Far North from 2009 are counting on having some leverage in the year of a federal election -- that is far from a foregone conclusion.

Certainly it is out of the question in this year's Federal Budget, to be announced next month.

Local politicians now strongly support a Townsville race, but the decision on federal money will be made in Canberra and may require a lot of arm-twisting.

V8 Supercar Australia chief executive Wayne Cattach says Townsville is a crucial market for the category.

Indeed, it is commendable that V8 Supercar Australia wants to take the booming national series outside state capitals, but the Federal Government may take the view that the promoters should be shouldering a large chunk of the financial burden.

Townsville City Council has committed $2.68 million towards capital costs and $500,000 a year in running costs.

It has been claimed the event will be worth $20 million a year to Townsville.

The city's plans include a 14,000-seat temporary grandstand and facilities that can be used for other major events and exhibitions.

Townsville car dealer and leader of the city's push for a V8 race, Tony Ireland, says the concept is "really getting some traction".

"What we are talking about now is having the best V8 Supercars event in Australia -- not just having one," Ireland says.

The $160,000 WRXs are based on Subaru's Group N rally car and some rivals at Mt Panorama claim they should be ineligible for the "showroom showdown" because they are not road-registerable.

One of the Subarus is being driven by Australia's world rally championship star Chris Atkinson, Asia-Pacific and triple Australian champion Cody Crocker and Dean Herridge, while in the other are Neil Crompton -- who won the 1994 Bathurst 12-hour with the late Gregg Hansford in a Mazda RX7 -- along with V8 development series drivers Grant Denyer (of TV fame) and Chris Alajajian.

The rally drivers are the outright favourites, despite their lack of circuit racing experience.

The main opposition to the Subarus is expected from a twin-turbo BMW335i coupe which Paul Morris and Craig Baird are sharing with last year's Performance Car champion Garry Holt.

Time for some brotherly love?
Wonder whether Chris Atkinson's older brother Ben might step into his WRC co-driver's seat for the rest of the year following Glenn Macneall's abrupt departure this week.

Ben sat alongside Chris until the younger brother went full-time in the WRC and may have the time for the job now that Cody Crocker's defence of his Asia-Pacific title is in grave doubt.

Meanwhile, Macneall will now partner his New Zealand girlfriend Anna Gilmour in the NZ rally championship in her Subaru.

The first round is the Otago Rally on April 14-15.

Macneall, who has had a base at Dunedin for some years, says: "Emma has already demonstrated she has great natural talent as a driver, and I hope the experience I can bring as co-driver will help lift her performances to the next level.

"With the likes of Alistair McRae (brother of Scottish former world champion Colin, and himself a former WRC driver) contesting the Kiwi series this year the competition is set to be intense."

Ambrose goes to Nashville
Marcos Ambrose and NASCAR's Busch series are back in action this weekend at Nashville, Tennessee, after a week's break.

Driving a Ford Fusion, Ambrose is seventh in the championship, just behind Juan Pablo Montoya -- and the dual V8 Supercar champion is the top Busch driver who doesn't compete regularly in NASCAR's premier Nextel Cup.

He likes the 1.333-mile concrete oval at Nashville, having finished third there last year in NASCAR's pick-up truck series in a Ford F150.

F1 breaks its drought
The three-week gap between the Australian GP and Sunday's Malaysian GP seems to have robbed F1 of momentum, despite several days of testing at Kuala Lumpur's Sepang circuit.

Ferrari's Melbourne winner Kimi Raikkonen risks a 10-place relegation on the grid if he needs an engine change because of a water leak.

All eyes will be on McLaren rookie Lewis Hamilton to see if he can repeat his debut podium.

Hamilton has described his new life in F1 as an "out of body experience".

"It's like I'm sitting out there watching myself," he says.

The last driver to win a race in his first F1 season was Montoya in 2001, with the Williams team.

Ferrari has won in Malaysia four times since the country's first F1 GP in 1999.

Renault won at Sepang the past two years, but Giancarlo Fisichella is doubtful of its chances this year because of the trouble the world champion team is having in adapting to Bridgestone tyres this year.

Australian Mark Webber is increasingly hopeful about his Renault-powered Red Bull RB3 after qualifying seventh in Melbourne and more impressive testing form at Sepang.

Spyker has protested against fellow Ferrari-powered Toro Rosso in the latest skirmish over "customer" cars.

Stewart believes temporary tracks are impractical for such a landmark development in F1.

"It will be difficult to do it in Singapore because there isn't likely to be any practice or dry run before the actual event," Stewart told Singapore's Today newspaper, stressing that safety has to be the top priority.

"The best solution could be to illuminate an F1 race on a permanent track first because, for sure, you are not going to get it right first time.

"There would be situations in many areas they would need to consider redesigning.

"On a permanent circuit they can do the testing and use different tyres as well.

"In the end they have to be sure that they are doing something that is properly analysed and physically tested.

"If a bad accident occurs, the complexity of dealing with it in (in night-time and possibly wet conditions) would be different.

"You've got to think of the (potential for) rain. You've got to think of all the ingredients that make for an effective management of an accident at night."

Pretty much a closed shop
F1 supremo Bernie Ecclestone doubts any other car manufacturers will enter the sport in the near future.

Six of the 11 teams this year are owned or aligned with major carmakers -- Ferrari with Fiat, McLaren with Daimler Chrysler, BMW in its own right with Sauber, Renault, Honda and Toyota.

The glaring absentees are Volkswagen and General Motors, while the much smaller Porsche -- rumoured to be interested in buying the giant VW -- could be a candidate at some time and Ford may have a change of heart one day, after bailing out in 2004.

But Ecclestone says of those not participating in F1: "It is very difficult for them to come in because a lot of the manufacturers are already in very good positions. It would take three years just to catch up."

Out of sight, out of mind
As much as we want to see the Champ Car series survive and prosper, it's been hard to get excited ahead of this weekend's season opener on a new street circuit in downtown Las Vegas -- especially as there is no longer Australian television coverage of the championship, other than October's Gold Coast race.

Champ Car has seven rookies this year, including 18-year-old Graham Rahal (son of triple champion and Indianapolis 500 winner Bobby) and 22-year-old Frenchman Simon Pagenaud with Team Australia, alongside Toowoomba's Will Power, who was the top rookie last year and sixth overall in the series.

New Zealand's Matt Halliday is a late addition this season with Conquest Racing.

But Sebastien Bourdais, the Frenchman vying for a record fourth straight Champ Car title before a likely move to F1 next year, is a red-hot favourite in what is now an all road and street-racing series.

Bourdais has won 23 times from 59 Champ Car starts. Last season he won half the rounds -- seven of 14.

RSports team, an amalgamation of RuSport and Rocketsports, has Englishman Justin Wilson and Canadian veteran Alex Tagliani.

The other Canadian veteran, Paul Tracy, has won more than anyone else in the series with 30 victories.

Tracy is with the Forsythe team, paired with Mexican Mario Dominguez, who was sacked in the middle of last season.

Australia's Paul Stoddart, former owner of the Minardi F1 team, makes his Champ Car entry with Dutch driver Robert Doornbos and Englishman Dan Clarke in Team Minardi USA.

Brazilian Bruno Junqueira, so close to landing the F1 drive that Jenson Button got at Williams in 2001 and three-times the Champ Car series runner-up, has joined Dale Coyne Racing, which also has Englishwoman Katherine Legge.

Expatriate Australian Kevin Kalkhoven, a major part-owner of the series, says: "It would be nice to have a few more teams and a few more cars in the line-up, but I don't think we're going to have to worry about competition."

Let's hope so. Pity we won't get to see any of it, other than our own race.

Champ Car World Series calendar
Apr 8 -- Las Vegas
Apr 15 -- Long Beach
Apr 22 -- Houston
May 20 -- China
Jun 10 -- Portland
Jun 24 -- Cleveland
Jul 1 -- St. Jovite
Jul 8 -- Toronto
Jul 22 -- Edmonton
Jul 29 -- San Jose
Aug 12 -- Elkhart Lake
Aug 19 -- Denver
Sep 2 -- Holland
Sep 9 -- Belgium
Oct 21 -- Australia
Nov 11 -- Mexico City
Dec 2 -- Phoenix

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