MOTORSPORT: Something old, much new from Phillip Island

Nick Percat drove brilliantly after starting the 500km race at Phillip Island from the pitlane, having squandered a front row start by stalling as he took his place on the grid. When he handed the Holden Racing Team Commodore to Garth Tander it was fourth. Later in the day the experienced Tander had the car in the lead, although in the end the Triple Eight Race Engineering Commodore of Lowndes and Skaife triumphed with the HRT car fourth. Percat, who only turned 23 last Wednesday, was the 2009 Australian Formula Ford Champion and has come through the V8 Supercar development series.

However, he still has open-wheeler ambitions and flies to India today for races in the new Formula MRF series there either side of the Bathurst 1000 on October 9, including at the new Indian Formula One Grand Prix at the end of next month. But of his Island drive Tander-mentored Percat said: “I drove every single lap like it was my last basically.

“I’m surprised the tyres hung on in the second stint. I used every car in front of me as bait.  The first five laps probably weren’t so good after I was pretty angry off the line, but I was pretty happy with how I drove. I think this weekend’s been a big step forward in my future. I’m not here just to be a co-driver - I’m here to drive the car to its limits.”

Another young star at Phillip Island was Andrew Thompson, unwanted by the Walkinshaw Racing/HRT camp after last year and who shared the second-place Triple Eight Commodore at the Island with championship leader Jamie Whincup. Thompson made an exceptional start but, after a fine stint, had difficulty handing the driving seat over to Whincup because of a door damaged in a knock from Skaife.

The Triple Eight/Team Vodafone quinella emphasised again the dominance of Roland Dane’s outfit in Australian racing – and was an ominous warning to the opposition with The Great Race at Bathurst just three weeks away. Dane made a pointed comment at Holden rival Walkinshaw/HRT after Sunday’s race.

Referring to his delight at having Thompson and Skaife as the co-drivers to his regular stars Whincup and Lowndes for the enduros, Dane said: “We like every so often to pick up ‘has-beens’ from that team.”

Skaife said he had “pulled up better” than last year, when he won at both Phillip Island and Bathurst with Lowndes.

Thompson said he felt a pre-race briefing to the Triple Eight drivers by the team’s race chief Adrian Burgess had been directed primarily at him.

“Adrian was looking at me the whole time,” Thompson said. Of the tap from the other Team Vodafone car he said: “Skaifey got a bit of a nudge from behind at the hairpin and it was just the worst point in the door to hit - and he got it.

“Then we lost a bit of time in the pitstop trying to get the door open. I had my feet and arms going everywhere trying to get that to open. The safety car (called out while stray geese were cleared from the track) really hurt us because we lost our track position and that got us behind.”

Whincup was “overall happy with our day” although he said: “Our race was pretty much over from the start when Skaifey strategically whacked my door handle and it wouldn’t open. Revenge sucks!”

Young New Zealander Shane Van Gisbergen, already a two-time race winner this season in his Stone Brothers Falcon, was blindingly quick again at the Island although that took a toll on his tyres and he faded to fifth at the finish. Behind him and fellow Kiwi John McIntyre were two other youngsters, David Reynolds and Tim Blanchard in a Kelly Brothers-prepared Commodore. Blanchard, 24, was the 2007 Australian Formula Ford Champion and runner-up in the British Formula Ford Championship the next year but has struggled in the V8 Supercar development series.

“I haven’t had the best year but I’m pushing pretty hard to get into the main series and I think I put my hand up to say I’m ready and capable of doing the job,” Blanchard said. “The car was awesome. It was pretty bad in the warm-up but come the race I stayed out of trouble and I surprised myself. I was happy to stay with a few of them.”

Reynolds, another former Formula Ford champion as well as Porsche Carrera Cup title winner, is hot property as he approaches his 24th birthday in early November. While it has been announced that he will stay in the Kelly camp next year he continues to be strongly linked to the third Ford Performance Racing Falcon being vacated by Paul Dumbrell at the end of this season. The whisper at the Island was that Reynolds could become the centre of quite a storm over his services.

A storm already has erupted over soccer star Harry Kewell’s ambassadorial role with FPR. Kewell, who has just returned to Australia to play for Melbourne Victory, was given a hot lap of the Island with FPR’s Will Davison at the weekend. It later emerged that Football Federation Australia is greatly concerned about Kewell’s Blue Oval connection conflicting with Hyundai’s A-league series sponsorship.

Meanwhile, Davison and Luke Youlden grabbed the third podium position at the Island after starting from pole position.

“We didn’t really have the outright speed or balance in the first stages of the stints so I concentrated on keeping cool and driving the car straight and seeing if some guys came back to me later in the stints,” Davison said.

Long-time FPR star Mark Winterbottom, so happy about his new Falcon before the event, said the timing of the sole safety car in the 113-lap race upset the strategy for him and co-driver Steve Richards.

“We were looking good but then the safety car came out and we could only fit two tyres as we needed to save the last four tyres for the final pitstop,” Winterbottom said. “Unfortunately that hurt the set-up of the car and we really struggled, particularly under brakes. That meant we were less racy, so we were vulnerable from those drivers who took four tyres. I then had contact with one of the DJR (Dick Johnson Racing) cars and that bent the steering, so it made it tough to get to the end.”

Winterbottom and Richards were classified 17th as Holden notched another victory – its 17th in 19 races so far in this year’s championship, although Ford won both the  qualifying sprints at the Island on Saturday not counted in that tally. The Lion is roaring loudly with Bathurst approaching, but a miracle for the Blue Oval at Mt Panorama on October 9 would massively change the perspective on the season.

V8 Supercar Championship after 19 of 28 races - 1. Jamie
Whincup (Holden) 1961 points, 2. Craig Lowndes (H) 1853, 3. Shane Van Gisbergen (Ford) 1568, 4. Rick Kelly (H) 1465, 5. Garth Tander (H) 1388, 6. Steve Johnson (F) 1375, 7. Mark Winterbottom (F) 1375, 8. Will Davison (F) 1372, 9. Alex Davison (F) 1282, 10. Lee Holdsworth
(H) 1183.

Saturday’s qualifying at the weekend drew an average 263,000 viewers in the five capitals – 18,000 less than last year – although the cumulative total for the two days of the weekend was down just 2,000 (630,000 this year versus 632,000 last year - and 708,000 in ’09). 

Power finished second to New Zealander Scott Dixon at the Motegi road course while his title rival Dario Franchitti ended up eighth. Power already has clinched IndyCar’s Mario Andretti Road Course Trophy for the second year and goes into the final two races on ovals in Kentucky and Las Vegas 11 points ahead of Scotsman Franchitti.

“I’m not really worried about points right now – I just need to keep finishing in front (of Franchitti) the rest of the way and we’ll be fine.”

Franchitti started ninth in Japan and had climbed to fifth when he hit the right rear wheel of Power’s fellow Aussie and Penske teammate Ryan Briscoe.

“I screwed up … that was a stupid move on my part because maybe it was a gap, but it closed quickly - and Ryan's job right now is to make sure that I’m behind him (Power),” Franchitti said. “He (Briscoe) had nothing to lose and ultimately I put myself in that position. I ruined his race (as well that of two others, including his teammate Graham Rahal). I made a stupid move and I hold my hand up to admit it. Not even a rookie mistake, just a stupid mistake.”

Officials sent Franchitti to the back of the field but he recovered 17 spots by the chequered flag.

“We had a good climb back through the field - that was the positive,” he said. “We're going to Kentucky and Vegas and we’ll see what we can do.”

Power had gone to Japan five points behind Franchitti after trailing by 62 in early August.

Dixon is third in the championship, 59 points behind Power, while Briscoe, who finished 20th at Motegi, is sixth in the points. He had been as high as third early in the race but Marco Andretti eventually took the final podium position.

It was the last Indy race that will be run in Japan – Honda subsidiary Mobilityland Corp which owns Motegi made that decision last February due to the global economic downturn and the venue’s oval track which hosted the previous races was damaged in the earthquakes that accompanied the tsunami early year.

Frenchman Vergne claimed Ricciardo, who has driven five GPs for Spanish F1 team HRT recently, “has been to the school for learning how to block, I think” after the Aussie finished second behind American Alexander Rossi at the Paul Ricard circuit in France with Vergne 1.4 seconds further back. Vergne tagged the back of Ricciardo’s car in one attempt to overtake him.

Ricciardo will miss the final round in Barcelona because of his F1 commitments while Canadian Robert Wickens goes to Spain with a two-point lead over Carlin teammate Vergne. Ricciardo, who also missed the opening round, is third in the championship for Czech team ISR after finishing a narrow runner-up last year with French team Tech 1 to Russian Mikhail Aleshin.

FOTA chairman Martin Whitmarsh, team principal of McLaren, told London newspaper The Independent that its advisers are DC Advisory Partners. No, it’s not a company associated with retired F1 driver David Coulthard.

DC Advisory Partners, formerly Close Brothers Corporate Finance, describes itself as “a leading, pan-European, corporate finance house offering independent advice in mergers and acquisitions, debt raisings, restructuring and public offerings”.

“We've appointed DC Advisory and IMG (International Management Group), and basically we're just saying, ‘Let's now come together and be a little bit more coherent as a group of teams’,” Whitmarsh said. “At the end of the day, F1 is owned by venture capitalists and one would suspect that they can’t hold the sport in their funds ad infinitum.”

The irony is that Whitmarsh’s predecessor as McLaren team principal, and still ultimately his boss, Ron Dennis, has believed more staunchly than anyone that Ecclestone should never have got control of the ownership of the sport. CVC bought a 63.3% stake in F1’s commercial rights in 2006 but there has been increasing speculation of a possible sale, with Rupert Murdoch’s News group identified earlier this year as trying to organise a syndicate of buyers, perhaps including Ferrari.

Read the latest news and reviews on your mobile, iPhone or PDA at carsales' mobile site...