MOTORSPORT: Reindler fires up at Winton

The Brad Jones Racing driver has said that his hands are “feeling really good” three weeks after the Barbagallo fire, He is practising at Winton today in the Walkinshaw Racing-built Commodore that he drove last season, hastily prepared by his team in recent days.

Andrew Jones is on standby in case it is decided Reindler can’t drive in the weekend’s two races -- 40 laps of the 3km circuit on Saturday afternoon and 67 laps on Sunday afternoon.

Jason Richards, still battling cancer, also is at Winton participating in today’s practice along with many co-drivers for the endurance races later in the year.

Steve Owen, the other driver in the fiery Barbagallo incident, is back on track in his rebuilt Paul Morris Motorsport Commodore.

Both this weekend’s races are on the soft compound Dunlop tyres.

Winton is the nominated home test circuit for 17 of the 28 cars in the championship and many of them have tested at the track recently, but Queensland-based teams have won nine of the past 15 V8 Supercar races at Winton since 2003. It was at the Victorian country venue last year that James Courtney (the racing for Queensland-based Dick Johnson Racing in a Ford) took the championship lead, winning both races, on the way to claiming the title ahead of 2008 and ’09 champion Jamie Whincup.

The nine championship races so far this year have produced six different winners. Whincup is the only multiple victor, with four wins, and starts the weekend with a 142-point series lead over Team Vodafone teammate, Craig Lowndes.

Lowndes won both races at Winton in 2009, the event that saw the debut of the Dunlop soft tyre, and finished second to Courtney in both races last year. However, Lowndes has never qualified on the front row at Winton.

Garth Tander, third in this season’s championship, has qualified second on the grid at Winton six times - but never on pole position.

Tander has had four V8 Supercar wins at Winton and, 241 points ahead of new teammate Courtney in the championship, is Toll Holden Racing Team’s main title hope this season.

Ford has had only one win this season, by Kiwi youngster Shane Van Gisbergen for Stone Brothers Racing in New Zealand, and will be looking to its factory team, Ford Performance in particular to improve on that dismal record.

FPR’s Mark Winterbottom turns 30 today and will be hoping for a birthday present by notching his first victory of the year over the weekend.

[Photo credit: Brad Jones Racing]

Webber has been fifth, fourth, third and second in the four GPs so far this season and has set the fastest lap in each of the past three races.

While teammate Sebastian Vettel has firmly established himself as the squad’s main man (scoring 93 points of a possible 100 this season from three wins and a second place, after last year becoming the youngest world champion), Newey still sees Webber as integral to the team.

There has been speculation that Red Bull wants to secure McLaren’s 2008 world champion Lewis Hamilton, but Newey told The Guardian newspaper: “I’m hoping Mark continues next season.

“Apart from being a great person, his contribution has been significant. He’s been a pillar of the team from the start,” said Newey.

“Seb is very perceptive in his feedback in some regards, and Mark is very perceptive in other areas. We listen to both, and it helps the car.

“At the moment, Seb is really on top of his game. It’s certainly not a case that Mark has been driving any slower – that’s for sure. Mark’s just taken a bit longer to adapt to the Pirelli tyres (new this year), but the gap is closing.”

The options for Webber next year have narrowed this week in any case, with Brazilian Felipe Massa assured of his Ferrari seat again next year, while Spanish dual world champion Fernando Alonso’s Ferrari contract has been extended to the end of 2016.

The driver under most pressure at the minute is Force India’s German, Adrian Sutil, who appears likely to face criminal charges over an attack on Eric Lux, the Luxembourg-based chief executive of Renault F1 team owners Genii Capital, in Shanghai after the Chinese GP on April 17.

Apart from that, Sutil has been consistently outperformed by Scottish rookie teammate Paul Di Resta this season.

Meanwhile, 52-year-old Newey, who has created world title-winning cars at Williams, McLaren and Red Bull, has ruled out joining Ferrari, which is reported to have contacted him several months ago.

“They’re a great team and, just like many drivers end up succumbing to Ferrari’s romance, engineers aren’t completely callous, but I won’t be going to Ferrari,” Newey said.

“One reason is that my family is in England. And being involved with Red Bull from the start has been hugely rewarding. I have no desire to work for anyone else in F1.”

Benson wrote that F1 technical chiefs have voted to reject a move by the FIA to bring back “ground-effect” underbody aerodynamics. He said the teams want to pursue less radical changes but which will still reduce drag and cut fuel consumption.

The FIA has until the end of June to decide whether to force through its plans against the wishes of the teams.

The FIA commissioned Williams director of engineering Patrick Head and former Ferrari chief designer Rory Byrne to come up with a new set of car regulations.

Benson said the aims were to help reduce fuel consumption by 35 per cent in tandem with the switch from 2.4-litre V8 motors to 1.6-litre turbo engines with “green” technology and for the cars to be more challenging to drive while being no more than five seconds a lap slower.

Benson said the initial plan was to reintroduce shaped underfloors as a more efficient way of reducing drag while retaining high levels of aerodynamic downforce.

Meanwhile, F1 teams are set to reject an offer by Todt to reintroduce limited testing during the season from next year. Ferrari, whose team Todt previously ran, has been arguing strongly for testing to return.

However, Red Bull Racing team principal Christian Horner said: “One of the biggest cost savings we have seen is the reduction in testing, so I think the balance we have with the pre-season and the young driver test at the end of the year is right - and fiscally beneficial not just to the big teams but to the small teams as well.”

Raikkonen will drive for Sprint Cup ace Kyle Busch’s team in the third-tier series but there is mystery about Raikkonen’s intentions.

Associated Press’ Nate Ryan writes: Is he intrigued by NASCAR because he grew bored with sliding rally cars through the European wilderness? Does he miss the skirmishes with his former teammate, Juan Pablo Montoya? Does he miss the verbal sparring (though truncated) with rivals and the racing media?”

We will soon know… Perhaps…

The feature race at Charlotte this weekend is the Sprint All-Star Race, which has a first prize of $1 million but carries no points towards the Sprint Cup.

Australia’s Marcos Ambrose is not certain of a start and will either have to finish first or second in a shootout or win the fan vote to compete.

Ambrose’s No.9 team had a lot of success at Charlotte with its former driver, Kasey Kahne. It won both Cup races there in 2006 and the All-Star Race and the Coca-Cola 600 in 2008.

Ambrose finished third at Dover last weekend and is relishing his return to Ford with Richard Petty Motorsports. Ford has won four of the 11 Cup races this season – as many victories it scored in all of last season – and is second to dominant Chevrolet in the manufacturer standings.

Power circulated the 2.5-mile (4km) Brickyard at an average 227.778mph, or 366.55kmh, while Briscoe lapped at an average 227.217mph, or 365.65kmh.

Sandwiched between the pair was Canadian Alex Tagliani, while Penske’s three-time Indy 500 winner Helio Castroneves was fourth fastest, with 36 other drivers on the famed oval track during the day.

Last year’s rookie of the year, Switzerland’s Simona De Silvestro, suffered burns to her hands in a fiery crash in which her HVM Racing car flipped early in the day but was released from hospital after four hours.

Today is Fast Friday at Indianapolis with qualifying over the weekend for the May 29 race.

It has been confirmed this week that Chevrolet will return to IndyCar racing next year with a new 2.2-litre, twin-turbocharged, direct-injected V-6 engine.

Team Penske is the first team committed to using Chev power. It has had 31 previous open-wheel victories with Chevrolet engines, including four of “The Captain” Roger Penske’s 15 Indianapolis 500 wins.

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