MOTORSPORT: Renault getting there, Honda not

Daniel Ricciardo isn’t satisfied with the upgrades to Renault’s Formula One power unit but he’s growing confident that all will be right by the season-opening Australian Grand Prix in three weeks.

“We are not where we want to be yet with the engine and driveability,” Ricciardo, now the team leader at Red Bull Racing, said after the first day of the second pre-season F1 test in Spain.

“We are still fine-tuning, definitely, but come Melbourne we will be there.”

Honda can’t say the same. Coming back to F1 this season with McLaren, a year behind Mercedes, Ferrari and Renault in the era of hybrid power units, Honda had fresh trouble in Barcelona last night and may be restricted again tonight as pre-season testing reaches its midpoint.

Honda has achieved little mileage in seven days of testing in Abu Dhabi, Jerez in western Spain and now Barcelona.

A faulty seal in its energy recovery system (ERS) prevented Jenson Button doing more than 21 laps and any track time Fernando Alonso gets in the McLaren MP4-30 tonight will be with the same seals as Honda rushes to make better replacements for the third day of the Barcelona test.

“It’s a fault problem, not a design problem. It’s a quality issue,” Honda’s motorsport chief Yasuhisa Arai said.

“We’ll need to run a redesigned component to avoid a potential repeat of the problem. Unfortunately we won’t be in possession of that updated part [from its British F1 base] until Saturday.”

Renault, which is powering only Red Bull Racing and its junior team Toro Rosso this season, had problems with a cheap metallic shaft linked to the water pump in its ERS at Jerez.

Mario Illien, the main man behind previous generations of winning Mercedes engines when they were produced by the Illmor company he jointly owned, is now consulting to Renault on its power units, which are said to have been as much as 45kW down on the dominant Mercs last season.

While Ricciardo ran only short stints again in Barcelona, as Red Bull did with its RB11 model in Jerez, 17-year-old Dutch rookie Max Verstappen did the most laps for the day (94) in the latest Toro Rosso.

Ricciardo was third fastest of 10 drivers on the track and Verstappen sixth.

“We are definitely making progress,” Ricciardo said.

“It’s now just fine-tuning and getting it (the Renault power unit) a bit more driveable, getting power down when we need it.”

Pastor Maldonado was fastest last night in a Lotus now powered by Mercedes, and on soft tyres – although he vowed that this Lotus is “a huge step” forward from last year’s disappointing car.

Sauber’s new Brazilian pay driver Felipe Nasr and Williams tester Susie Wolff brought testing to a halt when they collided at the Catalunya circuit’s fifth turn.

Wolff was on an out lap and Nasr at full speed and they blamed each other for the crash. The left front wheel of the Williams and the Sauber’s right rear touched, sending Nasr into a barrier and Wolff into a gravel trap.

Wolff asked Nasr, “What the hell went on?” and he claimed she had admitted not seeing him approach. Both made it back on to the track later and Wolff notched the second most laps for the day (86).

Kimi Raikkonen was second fastest for Ferrari, with Ricciardo – and no doubt others – wondering whether the Italian team’s continued pace with its new car is a sign that it has turned the corner after the doldrums which left it winless last season.

Mercedes had trouble with its fuel system and its world champion Lewis Hamilton could do only 11 laps because of a fever.

German Pascal Wehrlein, a Mercedes tester, began the day with Mercedes-powered Force India, driving last year’s car on this year’s Pirelli tyres, but switched to the Merc W06 when Hamilton was sidelined.

Hamilton’s teammate Nico Rosberg has had trouble with a nerve in his neck, so Wehrlein may continue in the W06 cockpit tonight.

Seven screened the entire race – split between its main channel and 7mate – for the first time early this month and its head of sport Saul Shtein declared it “a great event”.

Details of Seven’s plans for next year are not known yet, nor whether the V8 Supercar pre-season test will be a week later to avoid a repeat of this year’s clash.

'American' Davo lands Godzilla drive
Expatriate Australian James Davison is to race a NISMO Nissan GT-R like that which won this month’s Bathurst 12 Hour in North America’s 12-round Pirelli World Challenge sports car series.

Davison also is driving an Aston Martin Vantage in this year’s United Sports Car Championship in the US.

The Nissan GT3 drive has come about through Davison’s involvement with Los Angeles-based Always Evolving, which supported his entry in last year’s Indianapolis 500 with KV Racing Technology.

The factory-backed GT-R will be fielded by AIM Autosport, with computer gamer Bryan Heitkotter (the first North American winner of Nissan’s GT Academy in 2011) in another Godzilla.

The cars originally were going to be run by Andretti Autosport.

AIM is rushing to have them ready for the opening round of the Pirelli World Challenge at the Circuit of the Americas in Texas on March 6-8.

Taylor at home in title-winning Renault
Sydney’s Molly Taylor, the world’s top woman rally driver, is to compete in this year’s Australian Rally Championship – in the Renault Clio in which Scott Pedder won last year’s title.

The drive is a reward for Taylor helping Pedder arrange a five-round program in this year’s WRC2 (a support category to the World Rally Championship) in a Spanish-entered Ford Fiesta.

Taylor has competed overseas for the past five years, including in the world and European championships.

Pedder, who ran the ARC for two years before resuming his driving career, said it was “a great thing for the series (ARC) to have someone with Molly’s profile, work ethic and experience competing in Australia”.

“Given her experience in this type of [two-wheel-drive] car, and rallying at the level she has been, I think she could be a genuine championship contender,” Pedder said.

Taylor said she was “looking forward to taking care of Scott’s ‘baby’ in the ARC while he’s away” and that she still hoped to do some overseas events later in the year.

The ARC begins with WA’s Forest Rally at the end of March.

Pedder’s brother Mark will return to the ARC – driving the first ‘Maxi Car’ in the series, a Peugeot 208 – after a season in the Asia-Pacific Rally Championship.

The car have been developed in Argentina and are four-wheel-drive with a north-south engine mated to a control gearbox casing and control rear differential.

The Peugeot will be prepared by WA’s Race Torque and features a 1.6-litre turbocharged engine.

“Maxi Cars are light. They are fast and they should be super-competitive against the traditional Group N and even Super 2000 cars,” Mark Pedder said.

Two-time national champion co-driver Dale Moscatt is to partner the Pedder brothers at home and abroad this year, with the only clash of their schedules coming at Rally Australia at Coffs Harbour in mid-September.

“If all is going according to plan with the WRC2 campaign then obviously that would be the priority, but we have some Plan Bs in place if need be to help Mark,” Moscatt said.

SuperTourers hit the wall in NZ
New Zealand’s SuperTourer series, in which the cars are similar to Australia’s V8 Supercars but with a generic 7-litre Corvette-based engine, is in major strife.

Rounds scheduled for NZ’s South Island next month – at Timaru and Christchurch’s Ruapuna track – have been cancelled because there were only five confirmed entries.

There were eight cars in the field at the most recent round at Hampton Downs, the modern circuit between Auckland and Hamilton.

The next round scheduled now is at Pukekohe in April.

Despite the gloom, SuperTourers chief executive Ray Noonan said: “We are confident that we have a pipeline of team owners and drivers that will ensure credible grids for the future.”