MOTORSPORT: Ricciardo, Power and the crown jewels

The Monaco Grand Prix is the glamour event of Formula 1. The Indianapolis 500 is its equivalent in Indy racing. Australians are contenders in both races this weekend.

The F1 cars have already practised on the streets of Monte Carlo – they always start there on the Thursday, with Friday the Ascension Day public holiday – and Daniel Ricciardo is “very happy”.

He has unfinished business there after Red Bull Racing’s infamous tyre mix-up a year ago cost the Perth ace a victory after the sole – but ‘Sennaesque’ – pole position of his F1 career.

The 33 cars in the Indy 500 field have a final one-hour outing tonight (Friday), Australian time – called Carburation Day – before the 101st running of the American open-wheeler classic early Monday, Australian time.

Toowoomba’s Will Power will be making his 10th start in what is billed as ‘The Greatest Spectacle in Racing’. Two years ago he led 23 of the 200 laps and finished barely a car length behind Penske teammate Juan Pablo Montoya.

He’s the highest qualifier of Roger Penske’s five drivers in the field as ‘The Captain’ seeks to extend his record to a 17th victory. Power will start ninth, on the outside of the third row of the grid for the rolling start.

Penske’s other drivers are 18th (Colombian Montoya, a dual winner), 19th (Brazilian Helio Castroneves, a triple winner), 22nd (American Joseft Newgarden) and 23rd (Frenchman Simon Pagenaud, the reigning series champion).

New Zealander Scott Dixon is on the pole for Chip Ganassi Racing with Honda power, while the Penske cars have Chevrolet engines.

James Davison is another Aussie in the field, a late call-up to drive for Dale Coyne Racing in a Honda-powered Dallara.

Not the one that Frenchman Sebastien Bourdais crashed at 365km/h in qualifying last weekend while on a dash that might have been better than Dixon’s average speed of 232.595mph (374.33km/h) for four laps of the 2.5-mile (4km) superspeedway. It’s Coyne road course car only partly adapted for the nuances of The Brickyard.

Davison, from Melbourne – and a son of former Sandown circuit promoter Jon Davison, cousin of Will and Alex and grandson of Lex -- will start last and his car won’t be up to the speed of the front-runners.

But the Indy 500 is a race that can be won from anywhere in the initial order. Miracles happen there. Last year an American who had a brief taste of F1, Alexander Rossi, won on debut.

The race is no longer the biggest in America motorsport; certainly in terms of the American television audience it was long ago overtaken by NASCAR’s Daytona 500.

But there is enormous extra interest in Indy this year because of Fernando Alonso’s participation. The Spanish dual world champion has skipped the Monaco GP because his Honda-powered McLaren is uncompetitive.

Instead he’s driving a Honda-engined Dallara DW12 – the standard IndyCar chassis – prepared by Andretti Autosports, one of its six entries in the 500, and it’s painted in the original McLaren papaya orange.

Alonso qualified an incredible fifth, in the middle of the second row. He’ll have to race in packs, something he should thrive on, and something he would love to have done in F1 in recent years.

F1 greats like Jim Clark and Graham Hill won the Indy 500 long ago. Alonso is just the man who could emulate the feat, although perhaps it’s too much to expect at the first try.

However, Las Vegas money is giving him a big chance.
Hours after Brisbane-born Dixon took pole position, he, his wife and retired three-time 500 winner Dario Franchitti were robbed at gunpoint by two teenagers – 14 and 15 – in the drive-through at Taco Bell in the Indianapolis suburb of Speedway, just around the corner from The Brickyard.

And, while concentrated on becoming the first Aussie to win the Indy 500, Will Power has admitted to an interest in trying NASCAR, in which Marcos Ambrose competed for almost a decade.

Power says he mentioned it a long time ago to his boss Penske, who fields a strong two-car team in NASCAR’s Monster Cup, and ‘The Captain’ told him to win an IndyCar championship – which he did in 2014 – and the 500. “Then we’ll talk,” Penske said to him.

This week Power said: “We’ll see. It has to be the right opportunity for the team (Penske). I’d love to do it. Think it would be cool.”

Meanwhile, Bourdais – a two-time winner of the Gold Coast Indy in the days when the American open-wheeler show came to Australia – has been moved from hospital to rehabilitation to continue his recovery from multiple pelvis fractures and a broken right hip.

“I still have six weeks before I can put weight on my right leg and put my foot on the ground, but after that it should be pretty smooth sailing,” said Bourdais, who already is on crutches.

“I’m really looking forward to the day I can get back in the car, and hopefully that will be before the end of the season [in mid-September].”

Red Bull in the hunt with Ferrari and Mercedes
Daniel Ricciardo was second fastest in Thursday practice at Monaco, within half a second of Sebastian Vettel’s Ferrari.

Mercedes was mysteriously off the pace, with Lewis Hamilton only eighth and Valtteri Bottas 10th in the faster, second session of the day, but most likely will be up to speed when it counts.

Ricciardo’s teammate, Max Verstappen, was sixth in the other Renault-powered Red Bull car and behind the amazingly quick Toro Rossos with similar Renault power driven by Russian Daniil Kyvat and Spaniard Carlos Sainz Junior.

Jenson Button, back for a one-off race with McLaren while Fernando Alonso is at Indianapolis, was only 0.035 seconds slower than the Belgian who has taken Britain’s 2009 world champion’s place permanently this season, Stoffel Vandoorne. They were 11th and 12th in the Honda-powered McLarens.

Vettel’s best lap of 1:12.72 was the fastest in Monaco’s long history, almost a full second faster than Ricciardo’s pole position time last year, but the more powerful hybrid cars this year are also 20cm wider, which could make passing in the race on Sunday night, Australian time, harder than ever.

While it is the most glamorous race in F1, Monaco is not the most watched – that mantle often has gone to the Brazilian GP, especially when it has been the world title-decider, at the wonderful Interlagos circuit in Sao Paulo now under threat of being banished from the calendar.

But Ricciardo, carsales.com.au’s global ambassador, said the shortest (3.337km) and slowest track of the F1 season on the streets of Monaco, walking distance from the apartment in which he lives, was “always so much fun”.

“We are looking pretty good [for the weekend],” Ricciardo said.

“We put some good laps together and know where we need to improve, so I’m very happy with our position after the first day.

“We have good downforce here – the rear of the car feels like it is working the best it has so far this year.

“If we can get the tyres warmed up I think we can be pretty close [in qualifying] on Saturday.

“I’m pleased with the car’s rhythm and set-up, which gives me confidence and makes me feel we are back in that groove.

“I don’t think we need to do too much to the car set-up wise – just a couple of small tweaks perhaps.

“Being the first time round here with the new cars it definitely felt a little bit tighter, so that needs to be considered when pushing on quick laps.

“But so much fun, as always.”

The Federation Internationale de l’Automobile (FIA) has instructed F1 teams to ensure beyond Monaco that the rear jack points on their cars are changed so that they “cannot act aggressively” in crashes.

The move follows 17-year-old Formula 4 racer Billy Monger having his legs amputated after smashing into the back of another, stationary car at Britain’s Donington Park last month.

Meanwhile, there are several other Australians in action at Monaco.

Reigning Porsche Carrera Cup Australian champion, 22-year-old Queenslander Matt Campbell, is in the second round of the Porsche Supercup with Swiss team Fach Auto Tech after two pole positions and fifth and third-place race finishes in Barcelona two weeks ago.

And there are four Aussies in the Formula Renault Eurocup for 2.0-litre open-wheelers. They are Tasmanian Alex Peroni, who won a race in the series at the famous Pau street circuit in France last weekend with Fortec Motorsports; Melbourne’s Luis Leeds, with Josef Kaufmann Racing; Thomas Maxwell, from the Northern Territory, with Tech 1 Racing, Daniel Ricciardo’s team a decade ago; and Zane Goddard, from the Gold Coast, with the Arden team.

Ricciardo won the World Series by Renault races in Monaco twice on his way to F1, while Mark Webber won the GP twice.

ARC triple champ finally in MINI
Triple Australian rally champion Eli Evans should finally debut his AP4 (Asia-Pacific specification) MINI Cooper at this weekend’s National Capital Rally in Canberra.

Evans drove a rented Peugeot 208 at the first two rounds of this year’s Australian Rally Championship while awaiting fuel injectors from the US for the MNI.

”We’re going to run the car on E85 fuel with direct injection, so it’s not just a case of using any injector,” Evans said.

“We needed to choose a specific type of injection and then have it assembled in the US.

“If we have any hassles we’ll run the car on race fuel, but our plan is certainly to use E85.

“The car will use around 30 per cent more fuel running on E85.”

Evans tested the car in Canberra on Wednesday and has been shaking it down today ahead of the ceremonial start at Burbury Close, Barton, at 6 o’clock tonight ahead of 14 stages over the weekend in the Cotter and Kowan forests on the east and western sides of the national capital.

The event is also the Australian round of the Asia-Pacific Rally Championship after the collapse of the International Rally of Queensland.

Indian Guarav Gill has won seven straight Asia-Pacific rounds, including the first this season in New Zealand in late April, in a Skoda Fabia R5.

His Team MRF teammate is 20-year-old Norwegian star Ole Christian Veiby, while their strongest competition in Canberra is expected to come from Finn Jari Ketomaa in a Mitsubishi Mirage AP4.

Victorian Brendan Reeves, who won the ARC round in Canberra last year, had hoped to campaign an AP4 car this year but that did not come to fruition.

Coffs Harbour’s Nathan Quinn, who is leading the national championship in a Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution 9, this weekend has livery promoting Rally Australia on his home patch later in the year.

Defending national champion Molly Taylor goes into the Canberra round with recent success in WA’s Forest Rally under her belt.

“Heat one on Saturday brings some new challenges, with one all-new stage and all the others running in the opposite direction to last year – so the same but different!” Taylor said.

“It means that effectively about half the rally is different to last year in some form.

“The two heats are also like doing completely different events, with Saturday (54km) generally being fast and flowing and Sunday’s heat two (60.5km) more technical, twisty and narrow.”

It’s the home rally for rising star Harry Bates, elder son of multiple national champion Neal and the youngest driver to win an ARC round (at Ballarat in Victoria in March), in his Toyota Corolla S2000

His younger brother, Lewis, also is in the field in a leased Toyota Corolla after his own car was destroyed by fire on his debut at Ballarat, while Neal Bates and long-time co-driver Coral Taylor, mother of Molly, are in the ARC classic section in a Toyota Celica.

Century up for Shannons Nationals
The Shannons Nationals celebrate their 100th round this weekend – at Victoria’s Phillip Island – with the opening round of the Australian Endurance Championship the feature.

The 500km race for almost 20 GT cars, five of them Lamborghinis, will include two compulsory pit stops for cars, each with two drivers, and many are expected to stop a third time.

The Shannons program also includes the Porsche Carrera Cup Australia, the Porsche GT3 Cup Challenge being led by former Olympic sprinter John Steffensen, Formula 4 (being led by New Zealander Liam Lawson), and the Radical Australia Cup.