Motorsport: Split GP races, says Briatore

Friday motorsport reportMarch 2, 2007

GPs can last two hours but generally go about 90 minutes, and Briatore -- who guided Michael Schumacher to the first two of his seven world titles, and Fernando Alonso and Renault to championships the past two years -- says that is 30 minutes too long.

"The last 30 minutes are very boring," Briatore has told the Bloomberg wire service.

He says F1 has to "improve our performance for TV -- because the income comes from TV".

Briatore says more still needs to be done to create more passing in F1.

"If the race is normal the way we operate, the two quick cars are in front and it's not so exciting," he says.

"It is good only if something unexpected happens, or if it's raining.

"There is a lot to improve in the race, but you need a strong majority (of teams, to implement change)."

One of Briatore's ideas is to split GPs into two shorter races.

Renault has been spending about US$300 million a year on F1, he says, and it will be "the same or a little bit less" this season.

V8s leading the green way - Cochrane
It's been a green week in motorsport. Just a couple of days after Honda unveiled its RA107 Formula 1 cars with a big green planet earth plastered over them, rather than sponsor logos, as its contribution to raising environmental awareness, V8 Supercars Australia announced what it claims to be the first carbon offset scheme for a race series anywhere in the world.

It says it wants to make V8 Supercars entirely carbon-neutral.

The Supercar people roped in federal environment and water resources minister Malcolm Turnbull in making an announcement in Canberra, while in Adelaide several V8 drivers were out at a school planting trees ahead of this weekend's Clipsal 500 -- the opening event of the season, to be run in 250km races tomorrow and Sunday.

V8 Supercars chairman Tony Cochrane says his organisation is committed to making its category of motorsport carbon neutral.

Under its V8 Racing Green program, about 10,000 trees will be planted around Australia this year, which the Supercar people say will completely offset the carbon emissions generated by a full season of racing.

It is estimated the series creates 2588 tonnes of greenhouse gases, most of it by the planes and trucks which transport cars and their crews rather than the racing.

V8 Supercars had already announced that its cars will race this year on a Shell fuel that contains 5 per cent ethanol.

"V8 Supercars Australia recognises the important role we can play in reducing carbon emissions and educating the public about climate change," Cochrane says.

"Through the V8 Racing Green program we can balance our carbon emissions while, at the same time, educating our millions of fans on what we see as the number one issue facing the environment.

"We are proud to lead the way for motorsport globally and want to make a difference."

V8 Racing Green will advocate "carbon trading" messages to fans of Supercars, encouraging them to return emissions from their everyday lives, and highlight the issue by visiting primary schools around the country and donating and planting trees.

Honda's initiative met a generally cynical response, and V8 Supercars may find the same. But at least it's a start.

The FIA's World Motorsport Council delayed plans to introduce waste heat recovery systems for exhaust gases to "coincide with the introduction of the new definitions for the engine".

F1 is expected to introduce new engine regulations heavily geared towards ecologically-friendly systems in 2011 and it is seen as more cost-effective to target waste heat recovery around the new engines.

In the meantime the FIA will continue pushing other devices such as energy recovery systems through braking.

South Australian Democrat senator Sandra Kanck called for the abolition of alcohol sponsorship at the event in the fight to reduce the road toll.

The Larry Perkins team's Commodores are sponsored by Jack Daniel's, Dick Johnson's Falcons by rival bourbon brand Jim Beam, and the Paul Morris team by Sirromet wines, while Cougar is sponsoring the after-race entertainment in Adelaide.

Senator Kanck says 34 per cent of drivers killed in 2005 had a blood alcohol content over 0.05, that people 17 to 24 account for 18 per cent of fatalities and 28 per cent of serious injuries even though they only make up 11 per cent of the population, while speeding causes 20 per cent of crashes.

"Having spirit and wine sponsorship of racing cars and concerts just promotes the lethal legal cocktail of alcohol and fast driving," she says.

"The government aim of reducing road deaths by 40 per cent by 2010 is being made more difficult by its addiction to alcohol sponsorship.

"This is crazy considering that SA's road fatality rate is 15 per cent above the national average.

"The Bannon government banned tobacco sponsorship in the interests of public health in 1986 and it's time to do the same with alcohol sponsorship of motor racing.

"If Mike Rann (SA premier) is serious about protecting young people and reducing road deaths he will phase out alcohol sponsorship of the Clipsal 500 and ban alcohol sponsorship of other motor racing events."

Brotherly love prevents teaming
They were controversially paired for the endurance races last year in Holden's infamous driver swap, but V8 Supercar champion Rick Kelly doubts he will ever race full-time in the same team as his older brother Todd, even though their parents own the HSV Dealer Team.

"Having a good rivalry with your teammate is part of being involved in a healthy team," Rick has told Sydney's Daily Telegraph.

"I'm not sure that rivalry would be there with my brother because he is family and I would want him to do just as well as me -- or better.

"Who knows what can happen in the future? But I think it is unlikely we would race together as a permanent team."

Red Bull's RB3 cars remained well off the pace of the top teams in Bahrain, and a little worryingly for Webber his veteran teammate David Coulthard was slightly quicker than him each day this week.

At the end of the Bahrain test Webber was still 1.753 seconds a lap slower than Massa, who topped the timesheets each day.

On the second day this week the gap between Massa and Webber was 2.598 seconds, while on the first day it was 2.28 seconds.

The Toro Rosso car -- the same chassis as the Red Bull but with a Ferrari engine instead of a Renault -- outpaced the RB3s, with American Scott Speed eighth fastest in the Toro Rosso on the final day.

Massa has established an early edge on Ferrari's much-heralded Michael Schumacher replacement Kimi Raikkonen, while Renault's testing form was good this week, despite rookie Heikki Kovalainen's big crash, and the McLaren-Mercedes are also near the mark.

Red Bull's form is disheartening for Australians wanting to see Webber do well in his home race in two weeks and it is a sad reflection on a car designed by the renowned Adrian Newey and powered by the engine that has been the championship winner the past two seasons.

Red Bull claims there were "signs of progress" this week, with Webber completing a race simulation on the final day and Coulthard doing several long runs.

Team principal Christian Horner has admitted to Britain's Autosport that Red Bull is "not where we want to be -- we are about four weeks behind".

"This has been a very useful six days (in Bahrain, including three days last week) during which time we have been able to see how the car responds in the conditions we faced out here, while also fine tuning our race preparation work for Australia," Red Bull team principal Christian Horner says.

"The test has not been trouble-free and a few elements still need fixing, but we have made some progress.

"Next week we will run at Magny-Cours for two days when, as planned, the RB3 will run with the new aerodynamic package that will be used in the first race in Melbourne.

"That will be a significant aero update but we are about four weeks behind at the moment."

Horner says Red Bull paid the price for not running an interim car when F1 testing started in December.

"We started (the RB3) with a clean sheet, with a new engine and new electronics, so we are only scratching the surface of this car," he says.

"It is not an evolutionary car, but a revolutionary one. Of course, we have teething problems to deal with such a new car, and it is hard to know where we are.

"There will be an aggressive development through the season that will move us forward. And I am confident we will stride forward.

"There is going to be a huge fight. Everyone is so tightly packed."

No they're not, Mr Horner! Your cars are nowhere near where they need to be. Unless things improve in a hurry, Webber will be on the ninth row of the grid in Melbourne, with only the Spyker and Super Aguri cars behind him and, much to his chagrin, the Williams-Toyotas in front of him.

For Webber's sake, let's hope for a miracle at Magny-Cours to make coming home to Oz to race worthwhile for him.

Sixty Ferrari road cars are to take part in both -- Melbourne on Saturday and Sydney on Sunday.

The Melbourne activity -- in Carlton, the city's Italian quarter -- will include a demonstration, restricted to 60kmh, by an F1 car in the hands of Ferrari test driver Marc Gene.

In the United States, Marco Andretti, runner-up by just a whisker in last year's Indianapolis 500 and who has recently done two F1 tests for Honda, has been toying with the idea of buying a Ferrari.

Turning 20 on March 13, Marco -- grandson of the great Mario -- already owns two properties.

His father, Michael, counseled him against getting a Ferrari, so he's keeping his "old" car -- a BMW M6.

All the top manufacturer teams -- Ford, Citroen and Subaru -- are on BFGoodrich rubber this year and supported it winning the sole-supplier contract for future.

Subaru ended its long association with Pirelli after not winning a WRC round in 2006 for the first time in more than a decade.

BFGoodrich's rally competition director F. Henry-Biabaud says: "We demonstrated during the 2006 championship that the BFGoodrich tyres were the best (it won all 16 rounds).

"Two world champion titles (by Ford in the manufacturers championship and Sebastien Loeb in the drivers) crowned these successes.

"In 2007 not a single competitor in the tyre industry wished to officially oppose the BFGoodrich brand.

"The financial and technical efforts we deployed for the past two seasons have therefore not been acknowledged, which is all the more regrettable since we know that today's and tomorrow's WRC car manufacturers unanimously supported our proposal.

"The BFGoodrich brand was therefore eliminated on the basis of criteria unknown to us but obviously unrelated to sports.

"For the time being, we take note of this decision."

The FIA's decision is supposedly based on Pirelli's commitment to developing young drivers and the promotion of about 20 national rally championships, including Australia, and the new Intercontinental Rally Challenge -- which has rounds in Europe, Africa and Asia.

The public are entitled to wonder, though, whether it is more of a payback for the refusal of seven teams on the tyres of BFGoodrich's parent, Michelin, refusing to race in the 2005 United States Grand Prix at Indianapolis on safety grounds.

F1's Cape of Good Hope
Among all the cities aspiring to host a GP, South Africa's Cape Town has re-emerged with a consortium reported to have several hundred million dollars ready to invest in a new track.

It supposedly has the backing of the South African government and would be built on land near Cape Town's international airport, with 2011 the target for its entry to the world championship.

However, South Africa's major sporting priority at the moment is its preparations for the 2010 soccer world cup.

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