MOTORSPORT: Silly season - already!

Pigs may fly, but not while Uncle Tom's around
It's only mid-May but the silly season, or seasons, is/are in full swing.

Silly seasons usually come later in the year and often when not a lot else is happening, thus filling a vacuum. But there's been plenty going on in the main motorsport championships that Australian fans follow -- V8 Supercars and Formula 1.

The talk this week has been about the prospect that V8 Supercar racing's top team, Triple 8 Race Engineering's Team Vodafone, might switch from running Ford Falcons to Holden Commodores next year -- and the official Holden factory Commodores... Oh and F1 may be without its crown jewel, Ferrari.

We'll come back to those matters in just a moment, but something significant we've noticed this week is that the Garry Rogers and Paul Morris V8 Supercar teams have announced their driver squads for the endurance races (the Phillip Island 500 in September and Bathurst 1000 in October) and that Mark Skaife is not in either. In fact, the only inclusion of great significance was David Besnard joining the Rogers outfit.

The eminently qualified Skaife not being placed yet leaves the new Kelly Racing or Greg Murphy's Tasman team in September-October as his possibilities. The word we're getting is that Tasman is the more likely. The sticking point could be the kind of money available that Skaife could expect to command, thus he may instead stick to his new Channel 7 commentary role.

While that makes some sense, if he misses the enduros this year it will be harder for him to return next year.

>> Sydney supercar rehearsal
On the subject of races still some way off in the distance, V8 Supercars Australia will launch the new December 4-6 Sydney 500 this Saturday with a cavalcade of eight cars over the Harbour Bridge and four hours of activities in the centre of the city.

Two lanes of the bridge will be closed as three Falcons, three Commodores and the Nissan safety and course cars drive over the bridge earlier in the day, but -- it seems -- the show will steer well clear of Homebush (and controversy).

This week's Auto Action magazine has comprehensive coverage of what's in store at the Homebush rehersal, including 18 V8 Supercar drivers in attendance, $299 for three-day undercover grandstand seats and mention that V8SA expects a total first-year attendance of about 175,000 people.

That estimate is at odds with one we spotted this week in a NSW government document that had V8SA forecasting a few more than 93,000; and government bureaucrats around 84,000 (more conservative, yet somehow anticipating 17,500 international and interstate visitors!).

The document stated that the NSW government's commitment to what some are calling the Taxpayer 500 is $25.5 million -- $13 million up front this year and then $2.5 million for each of the five years of the contract.

V8SA always said it was prepared to shoulder the bulk of the risk on this street race, and if $25.5 million -- and especially "only" $2.5 million a year -- is indeed the full extent of the government's liability on it we reckon V8SA is very much taking on considerable risk. What was not transparent in the document that came across our desk was whether the annual $2.5 million includes a race sanction fee, or whether -- if there is such an impost on this event -- it is sourced from another (government) coffer.

The weekly electronic version of MNews highlighted that the Walkinshaw contract to run HRT is expiring, mentioned "an indirect approach" to Triple 8, and how a deal could bring Craig Lowndes and Jamie Whincup back into the Holden camp. Triple 8, of course, no longer has Ford financial support although it does all the winning for the blue oval (albeit with the Hogster symbol of the Hog's Breath Café in place of the Ford logo), and Lowndes' personal Ford deal is up this year.

So the MNews team seemed intent on convincing itself that this big switch is entirely possible, although it covered itself by alluding to "a myriad of issues" and an "insider" saying it was only 50-50.

But the most pertinent words in the MNews article were that the Holden Special Vehicles roadcar program was recently re-signed with Tom Walkinshaw for another decade.

Now it's all well and good to speculate about Triple 8's Roland Dane replacing Walkinshaw as the man responsible for Holden's factory race team, but surely it is contradictory while ever Walkinshaw has the HSV deal.

We don't doubt that Roland Dane would be happy to build and race Holdens or even Toyotas [Ed: or Hyundais] if either of those manufacturers wanted to talk turkey about him doing that. But, as much as many at Holden headquarters might like to have Dane on their side, we can't see them courting him while ever they have a (HSV) deal with Walkinshaw or in the  financial and automotive industry climates we have now.

And, as much as some in V8 Supercar racing want to see another manufacturer in the sport, there is not the slightest sign of Toyota wanting to play in this game.

We can envisage Triple 8 running Holdens, but probably on a fairly similar basis to how it now runs Falcons -- funded by its very generous Vodafone support, rather than the manufacturer. Dane would obviously be happy to field Holdens if he was backed by the factory, but we expect he could do it without that support if he chose.

What's to say Triple 8 won't end up building and racing both Fords and Holdens? It already has stolen the march in the supply of customer cars -- an area in which Larry Perkins and to a lesser extent Dick Johnson (ironically now a Triple 8 customer) were once the key players.

>>Just before we leave V8 Supercars...
Another idea mentioned this week, and which perhaps also ought to come under the silly season banner, was for a night race next season. Again, this surfaced in MNews.

Potential circuits mentioned were the Gold Coast, the new Townsville street course, Queensland Raceway and WA's Barbagallo Raceway.

Ford Performance Racing's Tim Edwards, a guy who generally talks a lot of sense (even if his cars don't win anywhere near often enough), was quoted saying "a street track possibly lends itself better to a night race ... the nature of the lighting is already there with street lights".

Now following that logic, why wouldn't Adelaide or Sydney be the night race? But who needs one anyway? Our recollections of the couple in the late '90s are that they were a bit more trouble than they were worth.

>> No Ferrari? P-l-e-a-s-e!
The silliest thing of all this week has been the notion that Ferrari won't participate in F1 next year. And, basically, all other teams [Ed: Renault, too has issued a media statement saying as much...] except Brawn, Williams and Force India are threatening or hinting at withdrawal too.

It is all over Federation Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA) president Max Mosley's stated objective of introducing a budget cap of 40 million pounds (around $A80m) on teams.

That cap is quaintly painted as being optional. The idea is that the smaller teams, like Williams and Force India, and newcomers (and there are several touted, including one or even two from the US and Aston Martin/Prodrive/David Richards, but -- contrary to last week's reports -- not a reborn Super Aguri) would be able to compete on such a budget. The amount would exclude driver salaries, engines, marketing and hospitality, fines and penalties.

Under the Mosley scheme, teams that opted to compete outside the budget limit would have to run to tighter technical regulations. And that is the source of the angst -- that it would create a two-tier system in F1.

What almost everyone loses sight of in situations like this is that Mosley is a great one for putting such things in play knowing that they will never eventuate, but that they will start the ball rolling on generating an ultimate outcome -- dare we say, even compromise. It is a classic F1 controversy.

Mosley said a few days ago that F1 would survive without Ferrari. That, of course, offends Ferrari's sensitivities, so it pretends it is seriously considering taking its bat and ball and departing. Cue everyone else in the circus talking about how life cannot possibly continue without the red cars and acknowledging how the Italian team is central, and essential, to the whole show.

Through all of this comes the reminder from the great impresario Bernie Ecclestone that F1 and Ferrari are made for each other, that it's a marriage made in heaven, that like all married couples there will be the odd argument, but that really they can't live without each other -- and there's no need to worry about the thought that they might even try.

So, dear motorsport fans, don't fear. Mosley and the teams will talk before next week's Monaco GP. There will be some argy-bargy and though there is a deadline of May 29 for teams to enter for next season, if peace has not arrived then that deadline will be extended.

At some point everyone, or almost everyone, and certainly Ferrari, and probably up to three new teams, will enter the 2010 F1 world championship. And the championship will live, if not happily ever after, with all the politicking it's always had.

It might even continue with some of the better racing we've been seeing this year... Hip, hip, hooray.

>> Mospo Shorts
On the idea of an F1 budget cap, an informative feature in The Times this week about it and what flow-on effects it could have, see here.

And an article about Red Bull's optimism for better things to come for it in F1 this season is here.

We saw mention recently that Red Bull may be seeking Mercedes-Benz engines, like those used by the all-conquering Brawn GP (nee Honda), for next year. Another clue in that puzzle came this week with mention by Red Bull team boss Christian Horner that he needed to know whether his existing engine supplier, Renault, is staying in F1. Renault has joined Ferrari in ‘announcing' a withdrawal, but that too will pass.

The next round of the Australian Rally Championship, scheduled for June 27-28 around Coffs Harbor in NSW, has been postponed because of the state of the roads in the area after the huge storms there at the end of March.

Finally today an article from The Wall Street Journal on how NASCAR is feeling referred pain from Chrysler's woes. It's here.