MOTORSPORT: Ricciardo's chance for second win

It is a comparatively slow circuit that could negate the Mercedes' power advantage and play to the aerodynamics of the Red Bull-Renaults of Ricciardo and Sebastian Vettel.

Legendary Austrian triple world champion and now head (if only nominally) of the Mercedes F1 team, Niki Lauda said this week that Red Bull has "a perfect car and only problems with the engine”.

Lauda's statement came amid controversial comments about the Ferraris and McLarens.

“Mercedes is simply the best combination of good car with the best engine… McLaren also has the best engine but the car is not so good, and Ferrari has weaknesses on both sides,” he said.

That was his amended version, after he had called – in his more characteristic blunt style – the Ferraris and McLarens “shit”.

Lauda called Ferrari president Luca di Montezemolo, the man with whom he famously resurrected the Italian stable of the Prancing Horse in the mid-1970s, to apologise for the remark, but he would have known well that the mud he’d thrown would stick.

Lauda must have had a chuckle to himself, even if he couldn’t show it, when he told La Gazzetta dello Sport newspaper: “I was too heavy with my words – forgive me.”

More on F1 later, but there are a couple of other races overseas this weekend of significance to Australians..

Twice around the clock for V8 Supercar stars at Spa
The Spa 24-Hour is the highlight of the Blancpain Endurance Series, for production sports cars – rather than the prototypes that race at Le Mans and in the World Endurance Championship.

It’s the 90th anniversary of the Belgian classic this weekend, although the 66th running of the event – and a host of Australians and a top New Zealander are competing in it. Indeed, there are 10 drivers from Australasia taking part in the 61 cars on the entry list.

Our big gun representative is Craig Lowndes in a Ferrari 458 like that in which he won the Bathurst 12-Hour in February. Lowndes is partnered this time by fellow Australian Steve Wyatt and Italians Michele Rugolo and Andrea Piccini.

Lowndes, now 40, has ambitions of doing more endurance racing – including Le Mans – and is annoyed that he may have to miss defending his Bathurst 12-Hour crown because of the likely clash with the V8 Supercar test day, which looks like being brought forward a week next year.

He has experience of the famous 7km circuit in the Belgian Ardennes from his brief overseas foray in 1997, when he raced in Formula 3000.

“The combination of a Ferrari and the Spa circuit really is a dream come true,” Lowndes said.

Steven Richards, who will be Lowndes’ co-driver in the V8 Supercar enduros at Sandown, Bathurst and the Gold Coast in September-October, also is at Spa, racing a Lamborghini Gallardo with three other Aussies – Steve Owen, David Russell and Roger Lago.

The Kiwi there is V8 Supercar star Shane Van Gisbergen, who is sharing a McLaren MP4-12C with Britons Tim Mullen and Rob Bell for Von Ryan Racing.

Van Gisbergen has already displayed his great talent in a variety of machinery, including a stunning drive in a McLaren at the Bathurst 12-Hour.

“I’ve done a few laps on a simulator to learn Spa, but you never get the elevation changes and obviously Eau Rouge [the most revered kink in European racing] and other places are quite steep, so you never know until you do it in person,” Van Gisbergen said.

The McLaren is competing in the top class at Spa, the Pro Cup, while most of the Australians are in the next tier, the Pro-Am Cup.

While there are five Mercedes SLS AMG GT3s entered in the Pro Cup, the one in which young Australian GT Championship leader Richard Muscat leader is a driver is in the Pro-Am Cup.

In all, 23 drivers at Spa competed at the increasingly international Bathurst 12-Hour this year, the most renowned of them German Bernd Schneider in one of the Mercs.

Ambrose hopes for seventh heaven at Brickyard
The other big race overseas this weekend is NASCAR’s Brickyard 400 at Indianapolis in which Australia’s Marcos Ambrose will be making his seventh start.

Ambrose's best finish was 16th last year and while a victory for him there is a very long shot, he is still hoping to accumulate enough points in his Ford over the coming races to qualify for The Chase (the contest between top 16 drivers over the final 10 races for the NASCAR season title).

Ambrose is 20th in the championship now – 35 points out of Chase contention.

His best chance of a race win is at New York’s Watkins Glen road course in a fortnight, but Ambrose said he and his Richard Petty Motorsports crew were “not putting all our eggs in [that] one basket [to make The Chase]… We are concentrating on this weekend and getting a really good finish”.

The NASCAR team of iconic owner Roger Penske, who is contemplating entering V8 Supercar racing in the next couple of years and wants Ambrose as a driver if it does, will field a third Ford at the Brickyard – for Juan Pablo Montoya.

Montoya won the 2000 Indianapolis 500 for Chip Ganassi Racing and in all has made three IndyCar Series starts, seven NASCAR Sprint Cup starts, five Formula One starts and one in the Grand-Am Sports Car Series at the famed venue.

Penske has won the Indy 500 15 times, but never the Brickyard 400. However, his 2012 Sprint Cup champion, Brad Keselowski, has won two of the past three races this season and has three wins overall this year in a series otherwise dominated by Chevrolets.

Keselowski has qualified on the front row nine times this season and finished in the top five nine times in 19 races.

Penske’s other regular Cup driver is youngster Joey Logano, who might have been second in the previous race at New Hampshire had he not been taken out by aged Morgan Shepherd.

Engine oomph for 2017 world rally cars
Just before we get back to F1, the World Rally Championship rules for 2017 are now expected to be finalised for the World Motor Sport Council’s major meeting of the year in December.

The new rules will centre on controlling fuel flow (echoes of F1) and indications are that manufacturers will be able to run whatever engine they like within that fuel parameter.

WRC Commission president Carlos Barbosa said that deciding the 2017 rules this year was “the promise we gave the manufacturers”.

UK-based Autosport.com said its sources “have suggested there will be a significant change both in the size of cars – potentially moving from the current segment-B cars [fiesta and the like] up to segment-D [Mondeo, BMW 3 Series] – and in the engine power”.

Alonso to Williams? Vettel to Mercedes?
F1’s silly season is here, and there is talk of Fernando Alonso perhaps heading to the rejuvenated Williams team next season and Sebastian Vettel to Mercedes in 2016.

It appears that Alonso may have an “out” in his Ferrari contract because of the team’s underperformance and a move to the greatly-improved Williams would give him Mercedes power next year, when there won’t be a vacancy at the Mercedes factory team until at least the following year.

Brazilian veteran Felipe Massa most likely would be the Williams driver to make way for Alonso, unless the team – which has been strapped for cash in recent years – chose to sell its young Finnish star, Valterri Bottas, who has been on the podiums at the past three GPs.

Lewis Hamilton wants to extend his Mercedes contract beyond next year, but Red Bull powerbroker Helmut Marko has said the sport’s top team this season was trying to recruit four-time world champion Vettel to partner fellow German, Nico Rosberg.

Hamilton will be favourite to win in Hungary this Sunday, which would not only narrow (and perhaps overhaul) teammate Rosberg’s 14-point championship lead, but make the Brit the most successful driver in the history of the Hungarian GP.

Hamilton and Michael Schumacher have each won the race four times, with Hamilton’s victories including the past two years.

Vettel has never won in Hungary, although he has been on the podium the past three times.

Red Bull team principal Christian Horner, annoyed at the weakness of the Renault power units in this first season of F1’s new hybrid era, said pointedly after last Sunday’s German race that his team’s RB10 chassis “was very strong in the first sector and in the third sector we were right there… the damage was in the [high-speed] middle sector”.

“We need a bigger step [in the power unit performance],” Horner said.

Renault has revealed it is considering adopting the Mercedes split concept on its turbocharger (with the air compressor and turbine at opposite ends) next season, but its internal combustion engine is not likely to be radically overhauled, although it will have a lot of new parts.

The loss of FRIC (front and rear inter-connected) suspensions, effectively outlawed before last weekend’s German GP, is expected to be a greater factor at the Hungaroring than it was at Hockenheim.

The impact there was minimal, with Sauber thought to have been the greatest beneficiary and Lotus the biggest loser.

Rosberg said FRIC had been “more related to corner duration and speeds [than kerbs and bumps] and it might affect the car more here [at Hungaroring]”.

Ricciardo gaining acceptance at highest echelon
Daniel Ricciardo has been chuffed this week at Fernando Alonso’s comments about his “unbelievable” driving in their dice at Hockenheim.

“He’s driving fantastically… very, very smart,” Alonso said.

Ricciardo said that “to hear that from someone like Fernando, who is a world champion and let’s say a leader of the sport in a way, is nice”.

And he wants more of that kind of racing against the driver generally rated the best in F1.

Of this weekend’s event in Budapest, Ricciardo said: “I’ve always enjoyed the Hungaroring, but because it’s so tight and twisty it’s maybe not the ideal layout for a GP.

“It's like Monaco without the walls.

“It’s one of those weird situations where the driving is very satisfying but the racing, perhaps, is not.

“It’s a great, great track in qualifying, where you’re driving on low fuel and fresh tyres – there’s no let up and you’re completely in the moment.

“In a race, though, overtaking is difficult because the track is quite narrow and that exciting sequence of corners doesn’t give you the opportunity to line up a pass.

“DRS [drag reduction system] has improved things and the first corner and the downhill sequence that follows can be quite exciting.”