MOTORSPORT: Still uphill for DJR

This week's edition of Auto Action magazine says DJR is now "stuggling for survival".

There is talk too in Auto Action of a "fighting fund" to keep "iconic outfits threatened by financial difficulties" alive.

Now what's this? "Iconic outfits (n.b. plural) threatened by financial difficulties"?

And there is concern that, with the time it will take to establish a "fighting fund", perhaps along the lines of that for struggling clubs in the Australian Football League where the ruling body oversees the financials of any beneficiary, DJR may not survive long enough to take advantage of any potential assistance.

As we've pointed out here several times over recent months, V8 Supercar racing has had the appearance of booming for a decade, and its promoters have been forthright in pushing the line that it is almost conquering the world.

The average fan is entitled to wonder how and why DJR is in any financial plight.

In light of the predicament we keep hearing about, it is a credit to someone that DJR is fifth in the V8 Supercar teams championship and that its drivers, Will Davison and Steve Johnson, are seventh and 12th.

We're not quite sure where the credit is due.

Perhaps a lot of it belongs to Triple 8/Team Vodafone, the top Ford team of the season and which has provided a lot of engineering input to DJR in recent times.

And Davison, despite the angst in Darwin, has acquitted himself well since joining the V8 ranks full-time.

There remains a lot of goodwill around for DJR, and there seems to be pretty much a consensus that it not be allowed to fold.

"High-ranking V8 Supercar officials believe the sanctioning body should step in to save one of its most iconic teams," Auto Action editor-at-large Mark Fogarty writes.

"V8 Supercar supremo Tony Cochrane is rallying support for a system for providing temporary financial aid to marquee teams in danger of collapse."

It seems to be reality that DJR is on the brink, but what prospect is there of other marquee teams falling into such a position -- and why?

Fogarty writes that "Cochrane and his partners at SEL (Sports Entertainment Ltd), which owns 25 per cent of V8 Supercars Australia, are reportedly keen for V8SA to help Johnson out".

But there's a snag.

"V8SA has no mechanism for bailing out iconic teams that get into strife and the Teams Licence Agreement bars TEGA (Touring Car Entrants Group) from providing financial assistance to its members," Fogarty writes.

"Any move to establish a 'fighting fund' would have to be approved by the V8SA board, which is made up of four TEGA-nominated directors and two SEL representatives."

DJR general manager Steve Chalker has been one of the TEGA-nominated directors on that board, but Fogarty reports that Chalker relinquished that position last weekend.

He will be replaced by another Ford team representative until the V8SA board elections in October.

Chalker appears realistic that, much as assistance from within the sport would be greatly appreciated by DJR, it's unlikely to come in a hurry.

As Fogarty points out, the idea of a "fighting fund" hasn't even been presented to the V8SA board yet, let alone been discussed and approved.

Again, we wonder how a team of DJR's ilk got into bother, but we wonder even more about the undertone that others may also come to need help.

As professional as the modern V8 Supercar teams are, few could be considered iconic, simply because they are not that old.

Which other teams, particularly that could be called iconic, could possibly be facing financial difficulties?

Here is the V8 Supercar teams championship points table at the halfway mark of the season: Toll HSV Dealer Team 728 points, Team Vodafone 548, Holden Racing Team 510, Ford Performance Racing 321, Jim Beam Racing 314, Stone Brothers Racing 312, Tasman Motorsport 181, Garry Rogers Motorsport 115, WPS/WOW Racing 67, Team Sirromet Wines 56, Fujitsu Racing 52, Team Kiwi Racing 36, Autobarn Racing 35, Jack Daniel's Racing 22, Glenfords Racing 17, Supercheap Auto Racing 16, Team BOC 8.

Toll HSV is flying, in all respects. Team Vodafone is the nearest Ford equivalent.

HRT has had its problems, and the air has still not been completely cleared, but in financial terms the issues there seem to be between the partners rather than a question mark over the viability of the team itself.

Certainly it is hard to imagine there would be support for any "fighting fund" for HRT in light of its position as Holden's factory team and the involvement of the Tom Walkinshaw engineering powerhouse.

FPR, with its Prodrive association and as Ford's factory team, surely is immune to undue financial pressure.

Then comes DJR, also known as Jim Beam Racing, and again it is staggering that it stands so high on the table in light of the concerns about its future.

Stone Brothers Racing is going to need new sponsorship but surely is not a candidate for assistance from any "fighting fund".

Of the rest, we can see only three that could lay any claim to being iconic or marquee teams -- Larry Perkins' Jack Daniel's Racing, Garry Rogers Motorsport and Supercheap Auto Racing.

Indeed, in our view the Perkins outfit is iconic but has always had, more so than any other, Bathurst as its main focus and not been overly concerned about its position in the championship.

This year its position is compounded by its very conscious decision to go with two young drivers, Shane Price and Jack Perkins.

Whatever its position on the championship table any year, Larry Perkins has always had the team on a firm financial footing and we cannot imagine he would ever want or expect any assistance from any "fighting fund".

Rather, we can imagine "LP" simply wanting a larger slice of the cake for teams generally to ensure their viability.

GRM and Supercheap we don't see as iconic but rather younger teams that had purple patches.

Certainly they are not enjoying the success they once did, but any other difficulties they may have surely are well short of those of DJR.

So why this need for, or talk of, a "fighting fund" for anyone other than DJR?

Are there wider problems bubbling below the surface?

For now we can only wonder.

Kevin Murphy, driver Greg's father, steps aside for Grech and to devote his energies to building Greg Murphy Racing, his Fujitsu V8 Supercar and Porsche Carrera Cup teams.

Grech has previously been general manager of HRT and a director of Tom Walkinshaw's TWR Australia.

In those roles he led HRT and Kmart Racing to six V8 Supercar championships and six Bathurst 1000 victories.

"Tasman Motorsport has all the ingredients to become one of the sport's premier teams -- a strong engineering base, two very good drivers and great staff," says Grech, who had a brief stint with Supercheap Auto Racing between his HRT days and this appointment.

Tasman is short of where it would like to be, and perhaps ought to be at this stage but is one that may just come into contention around Bathurst time.

Ford Performance Racing has had an organization shuffle this week too, but mainly to cover the transfer of previous commercial manager Rod Barrett to Ford Performance Vehicles.

Following the decision late last week of the Federation Internationale de l'Automobile's world motorsport council that McLaren had breached its sporting code but should not be penalized, FIA president Max Mosley has now referred the case to an FIA appeal court.

That move came under intense pressure from an Italian member of the world council, Luigi Macaluso, who is closely aligned with Ferrari.

While F1 supremo Bernie Ecclestone generally enjoys any controversy in F1 attracting attention to the sport, he may have been genuine in saying before last week's world council hearing that he wanted the matter over and done with quickly.

If so, he may not be pleased that the case is now getting legs.

We mentioned last Friday that there was too much information and too many names in the public domain for the matter to go away.

Expect more revelations before the appeal court sits, probably at the end of August.

McLaren and Ferrari are now going to be full-on fighting each other in public and the court as well as on the tracks in the remaining seven rounds of the world championship, starting with the Hungarian GP this weekend.

In particular, it's going to be interesting to see what comes of McLaren's accusation that Ferrari won this year's Australian Grand Prix in Melbourne with an illegal car.

That claim is based on the "flexi-floor" that Kimi Raikkonen's Ferrari had -- which sacked Ferrari executive Nigel Stepney is said to have tipped off McLaren about.

From the Italian side, Macaluso alleges that McLaren-Mercedes repeatedly breached the FIA's sporting code "over several months, through several top team representatives, to the detriment of its most direct competitor and therefore to its direct or indirect advantage and knowing that such infringement would still be ongoing would it had not been fortuitously discovered."

That discovery was through suspended McLaren designer Mike Coughlan's wife photocopying a 780-page Ferrari dossier at a shop near the McLaren headquarters.

Meanwhile, Stepney has told Italian daily newspaper La Repubblica that it wasn't him that gave Coughlan the dossier.

"Someone gave away the designs, but it wasn't me," Stepney says.

"Someone set me up and that person is still within Ferrari."

Stepney also continues to vigorously deny trying to sabotage the Ferraris at the Monaco GP by putting a white powder in the fuel tanks.

"I didn't put it there," he says.

"They (someone at Ferrari) put the powder in my pants pocket while I was taking a shower."

It's all going to get ugly, and complicated.

But it's going to be fun watching it all unravel.

"I don't want to get wrapped up in the details, but as far as Ferrari's attitude towards their (McLaren's) lack of a penalty goes, I can see where they are coming from," Webber says.

"As I understand it, from what I've read and what I've been told, it wasn't just technical design details in the dossier that Mike Coughlan had, it was details about how the team was being run operationally.

"If that's true, and if the dossier was seen by somebody else, then it's a massive deal for Ferrari.

"It's not something the FIA could police like they could a physical piece of bodywork.

"Of course we all want it to be swept under the carpet as soon as possible because it isn't how we want people to see F1.

"I don't know where it will go to now but I have a funny feeling this was just chapter one in a story that will run for a while."

Elsewhere, in talking about his form this year and about being regarded as an excellent qualifier (he's outgunned Red Bull teammate David Coulthard 9-1 in qualifying this year) but an unlucky racer, Webber says: "I've been happy with all my races this year as, I think in terms of the lack of incidents and the pace, I've been the most consistent driver for the team since the start of the year to now - and I'll continue to do that."

Webber says Red Bull Racing "now has an absolutely clear focus to beat Toyota and Williams to fifth in the constructors' Championship".

Another podium in Hungary this weekend wouldn't go astray for Webber.

It's hard to believe now that it was this GP that Jenson Button scored his first F1 victory a year ago, yet this season he and Honda have just one world championship point.

Scuderia Toro Rosso has installed 20-year-old German Sebastian Vettel in place of American Scott Speed after all.

Vettel already has a world championship point from his US GP debut for BMW Sauber when Robert Kubica was ruled out after his crash in Canada.

Japan's Sakon Yamamoto will be in the second Spyker for the first time this weekend, but not even rain at the start, as happened at Nurburgring two weeks ago could see him in the lead like Markus Winkelhock.

Surely not!

Piquet, world champion in 1981, '83, and '87 and now 54, had lost more than the maximum allowable 20 points in the past two months alone -- mostly for speeding, but also on parking tickets.

Piquet's wife, Viviane, also had her licence withdrawn and has joined him on the mandatory "driver awareness course".

They will have to sit fresh driving tests at the end of that.

"It is not very nice, but one never stops learning," Piquet says.

Meanwhile, a former Indianapolis 500 driver, David Walther, has been in jail this week after allegedly escaping a police chase.

Police reportedly gave up the chase out of fear that Walther's recklessness while being pursued on Interstate 675 would harm others.

Walther is also in strife for not paying more than US$20,000 in child support.

And Tony Stewart, winner of last weekend's NASCAR race at Indianapolis, has been fined US$25,000 and docked 25 championship points for using "inappropriate language" during a post-race televised interview.

"This one is for everyone in the stands who pull for me and have to take the bull....from everyone else," Stewart -- nicknamed "Tony the Terrible" -- told an ESPN interviewer.

Stewart remains fifth in the standings, 477 points behind series leader Jeff Gordon.

Now 39, Gronholm may then announce whether he will continue in the WRC beyond this season.

He is known to consider the 16-round championship too long, but from next year it will be cut to 12 -- which may be enough to keep the Finn in the sport beyond his 40th birthday.

Still no sign of progress on plans for Rally Australia in south-east Queensland in September next year.

That's only 13 months away!

This weekend the second-tier Busch Series in which the dual V8 Supercar champion is racing is on the street circuit in Montreal, Canada, that also hosts the Canadian F1 GP.

Prize money for the race is more than US$2 million and it should be a good prelude to Ambrose's anticipated Nextel Cup debut the following weekend at the famous Watkins Glen road course in New York State.

Ambrose has had three top 10 Busch finishes this year, with sixth place on the oval at Dover, Delaware, his best.

He was eighth on the road course in Mexico City.

At Watkins Glen he'll be doing "double duty" -- driving in the Busch and Nextel Cup races.

"We're relying on Montreal and Watkins Glen to gain some points and get us back on track (in the Busch Series, in which he's standing 10th)," Ambrose says.

"We're happy go be going road racing, but I'm in NASCAR to race the ovals.

"It's an important two weeks though."

Australia is down for a round again on the first weekend of February -- presumably at Sydney's Eastern Creek.

The series will start in Holland, where it seems most popular, there will be two events in China again, but the Beijing street race has been scrapped in favor of the Zhuhai permanent circuit.

The series, which lost hundreds of millions of dollars in its first two seasons, will finish again at Brands Hatch in Britain.

One Asian round on November 4 has not been assigned a venue following Indonesia's refusal to pay a US$6 million sanction fee for a race at Sentul.

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