MOTORSPORT: Queensland Raceway’s future in melting pot

A by-election to choose a new mayor of Ipswich this weekend could be crucial to the future of Queensland Raceway – certainly under its existing management.

The favourite to be elected mayor, councillor Paul Tully, is a director of the council-owned Ipswich Motorsport Park Pty Ltd (IMPPL), which is trying to drive a $220 million upgrade of the venue at Willowbank, a suburb of Ipswich.

A deal announced four weeks ago for the QR round to remain part of the Virgin Australian Supercars Championship for the next 10 years hinges on the first part of that upgrade of facilities and safety, forecast to cost $52.3 million, going ahead.

Second favourite among the 11 candidates for mayor is councillor Andrew Antoniolli, who reportedly has promised to shut down IMPPL if he is elected the city’s leader.

John Tetley, whose Queensland Raceways company leases the QR circuit to Supercars for the annual round (and also operates Brisbane’s Lakeside, now essentially a club racing track), claims he, the neighbouring Willowbank Raceway drag strip and the Ipswich Kart Club are being bullied – and that they won’t tolerate it.

Tetley said in an emailed letter to QR’s supporter base this week that he has “a succession strategy in place for the operation of QR for about another 20 years”, although the kart club’s lease is only for another four years.

He said a valuer “with an impeccable court record” had put an asset valuation on QR of $20.4 million. Combined with the drag strip and kart club, the assets in the precinct were worth $40 million, he said.

“None of these facilities were built with ratepayers’ money,” Tetley said.

The land in the precinct had been donated to the council long ago by the federal government, the operators on it had never sought or needed public money from ratepayers or taxpayers, and that buying the operators out of their leases now would take “an awful lot of ratepayers’ dollars”.

Tetley claimed “some pressure was brought to bear” on him in discussions with the council.

The reason for the mayoral election is that the 13-year holder of the position, Paul Pisasale, quit in June, citing ill-health but the day after a raid by Queensland anti-corruption investigators and police.

Pisasale faces charges including extortion. He was detained at Melbourne airport early in the year carrying $50,000 after a single-night visit to the city.

Pisasale was a director of IMPPL for 15 months until June 12.

Tully was deputy mayor to Pisasale and has been acting mayor since his departure.

Just days before Tully and Supercars chief executive James Warburton announced the 10-year deal for Supercars to continue racing at QR, Tetley had announced a deal for the track hire to Supercars through to 2019 and said discussions were taking place about extending that for another three years.

In his emailed letter this week Tetley said there “overt verbal threats of resumption of leases to all of the operators [at the Willowbank precinct] so that council can take ownership of those assets”.

“This is a legitimate but sneaky way getting hold of the tracks and buildings as they are supposed to go to the council at the expiration of the leases,” Tetley said.

“All three of us have made it clear those leases are not going to be surrendered without one hell of a fight.

“We like what we do and we will not be bullied by people seeking self-aggrandisement at the cost of grassroots motorsport.”

Tetley concluded his letter by asking: “Is it fair to say the council should get back to serving its residents and not using the residents’ money to set up ratepayer-subsidised corporations intent on building monuments to their ability to spend public money?”

He said that councillor Antoniolli had attended a meeting of the Ipswich Motorsport Precinct Users Group this month and subsequently “promised to shut down IMPPL if he is elected”.

Tetley claimed that, in discussions with the council, its representatives – who had included chief executive Jim Lindsay – refused to listen to “compromise offers or sound arguments”.

IMPPL had hired former Supercars racer and administrator Damien White to be general manager of the upgraded precinct it envisaged but that he had quit (in February) “once he understood the real situation and had a falling out with councillor Tully and the [council’s] chief financial officer Andrew Roach”.

Tetley claimed the council’s actions had been “an ego grab on the part of the bureaucrats who were driving this thing”.

“It certainly does not make any business or financial sense to take over QR,” he said.

“There was no business case that would hold up to any basic scrutiny.”

Four, three, two … Rally Oz the one
Three months – and only three World Rally Championship rounds – now until Rally Australia, which could be the title decider in the most competitive season of rallying this century.

Already there have been six different winners in nine events, with all four major competing manufacturers victorious at least once.

This weekend’s round is in Germany, on tarmac, and it’s an event that Ford squad M-Sport has never won, although it’s leading the manufacturers’ championship this year and has four-time world champion (with departed Volkswagen) Sebastien Ogier equal top of the driver standings

M-Sport team principal Malcolm Wilson said that Ogier knows what it takes to succeed in Germany, “having won the event on three separate occasions”.

“We feel that we have a good package for tarmac,” Wilson said.

“The great thing about this year’s championship is that it’s anyone’s game.”

Wilson described the German event as “three rallies in one” because of the differing stages each day, and Ogier said it “presents some of the most challenging sealed-surface roads on the calendar”.

“It’s a difficult rally and you have to find the right mindset – and the right set-up – for the many different characteristics”.

While Ogier claimed M-Sport’s Fiesta “has behaved very well on asphalt this year”, the only other all-tarmac round so far, in Corsica in April, was won by Hyundai’s Thierry Neuville – who has as many points as Ogier and heads him in the championship with more event wins (three to two).

It was in Germany that Hyundai scored its first WRC victory three years ago, with Neuville, although there are many new elements to the event this year.

It’s the first tarmac rally for Hyundai’s New Zealander Hayden Paddon with his new British co-driver Seb Marshall.

“Rally Deutschland is unique, almost three events rolled into one,” Paddon said. “We have vineyards, public road and the classic Baumholder military [training ground] sections, which combine to make it an interesting challenge.”

Toyota has concentrated on suspension damper and braking improvements since young Finn Esapekka Lappi’s stunning victory at the previous round in his homeland.

Lappi won the WRC2 round in Germany last year but this will be his tarmac debut in a premier division car, while the Japanese manufacturer’s lead driver, Jari-Matti Latvala, has twice been on the podium at this round.

Citroen, after six days of testing and input from its retired from its record nine-time world champion Sebastien Loeb, has had a disastrous start to the event, with Kris Meeke crashing his C3 into a concrete barrier on the first, 2.05km stage at Saarbrucken.

The car had to be towed to the service park and Meeke will resume tonight with a 10-minute penalty. Paddon also clouted a barrier, but without major damage.

Surprise winner of Thursday night’s opening stage, albeit an asphalt expert, was Czech Jan Kopecky in a Skoda Fabia R5.

After Germany there is a six-week break, due to the failure of the hoped-for Chinese round again, until the Catalunya Rally on a mixture of travel and asphalt, then the mud and slush of Rally Great Britain in Wales.

Rally Australia at Coffs Harbour is the season finale on November 16-19.

Toyota is losing the sporting director of its Tommy Makinen-run WRC team, Jarmo Lehtinen, long co-driver to perennial Finnish championship bridesmaid (to Loeb) Mikko Hirvonen, immediately after this weekend. Lehtinen’s unexpected departure is to “seek new opportunities in the sport”.

His duties will be shared between the team’s test manager, Timo Kankkunen (brother of multiple world champion Juha) and engineer Christopher Rowden.

McLaren or nothing for Honda in F1
If Honda is in Formula 1 again next year it will be with McLaren only again.

Honda’s deal to supply its hybrid V6 to Swiss-based Sauber has fallen through, while talks to provide it to Red Bull’s junior team Toro Rosso have reached a dead end.

Toro Rosso will continue to run Renault power units next year, while Sauber will have Ferrari power – and at least one driver nominated by Ferrari, perhaps Monaco youngster Charles Leclerc.

Even McLaren could end up with Renault power next year if it splits with Honda after a horribly unsuccessful three-year ‘remarriage’ of the partners that were so successful together in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

Top manufacturers Mercedes and Ferrari have said they won’t supply McLaren, while Renault is thought to be reluctant to supply a fourth team on top of its factory squad, Red Bull and Toro Rosso.

That would leave Honda as McLaren’s only option – and a huge challenge to retain disgruntled Fernando Alonso, although a return to the Renault factory team with which the Spaniard won his two world titles last decade would appear his only serious alternative.

Ferrari, Mercedes and Red Bull are likely to retain their 2017 line-ups in 2018, but there could be big changes in 2019 – with carsales.com.au global ambassador Daniel Ricciardo among the movers.