MOTORSPORT: Super line-up now for 12-Hour

The 2018 Bathurst 12-Hour is only two weeks away and now there are 10 full-time Supercar drivers in the field.

And today there are suggestions that one of the latest of Ryan McLeod's MARC cars in the invitational class will run as a Ford Mustang powered by a 5.2-litre Coyote engine.

The latest Supercar driver additions are reigning Bathurst 1000 winner David Reynolds and Garth Tander.

Just before Christmas only four Supercars full-timers had been named, then four were added during the holiday period and now the field contains eight of the top 10 drivers from last year's premier national championship.

They are combined, of course, with an abundance of talent from overseas as well as other Australians, many of them Supercars endurance co-drivers.

Chief among them is motoring.com.au’s own Luke Youlden, who partnered Reynolds to victory in the 1000 at Mt Panorama for Betty Klimenko's Erebus Motorsport last October and will be back at Mt Panorama on February 2-4 in a Lamborghini.

An old master of the mountain, John Bowe, also will be there again, in another Lambo.

The line-up now is a far cry from 2015, when Supercars regulars were precluded from the 12-Hour by an edict that they participate in a test weekend at Sydney Motorsport Park. The turnaround has come since the takeover of ‘the other Great Race’ by Supercars later in '15.

Reynolds will be in a Mercedes-AMG in the pro-am class, partnering the well-performed John Martin and Liam Talbot and car owner Mark Griffith.

Tander, a three-time 1000 victor as well as winner of a 24-hour race at Bathurst years ago but yet to taste champagne at the 12-Hour, will be in one of the many Audis prepared by Audi Sport Customer Racing Australia.

That car will have an all-pro line-up, with Tander partnering South African Kevin van der Linde and Belgian Frederic Vervisch.

Audi is the predominant make in the major GT3 class, while there is only one Ferrari this year -- a 458 from Grove Motorsport -- and no sign of a Nissan GT-R while 13 other manufacturers are represented on the entry list.

Reynolds, seventh in last year's Australian Supercars Championship, loves enduros and says the 12-Hour is "one of the best races of the year ... a lot of fun".

"We have a good chance to win our class and we're even hopeful of challenging outright -- that'll be hard as pro-am, but it's still possible," Reynolds said.

Tander, ninth in last year's Supercars title, is another big fan of endurance racing but says the 12-Hour "is going to be very tough ... there's lots of strong combinations".

The other Supercars full-timers previously announced were Jamie Whincup and Cameron Waters in Merc AMGs, Craig Lowndes and Shane Van Gisbergen together and Scott McLaughlin and Tim Slade in McLaren 650s, Chaz Mostert in a BMW M6 and Lee Holdsworh in an Audi.

The only two drivers from the top 10 in last year's Supercars Championship missing are Fabian Coulthard and Mark Winterbottom.

Cosworth keen on F1 with Aston and Red Bull
As talks step up on the regulations for Formula 1 powerplants beyond 2020, Cosworth has made known that it is keen to work with Aston Martin on an independent engine for Red Bull Racing.

Aston Martin is already a sponsor of RBR and Cosworth powertrains boss Bruce Wood says his business is working closely with both of those companies on their Valkyrie hypercar project.

"Aston have been very clear that they want to be doing something [in F1] more than just badging someone else's engine," Wood said.

"They also don't aspire to designing it all themselves, so there's a natural fit there."

Wood said that any F1 engine project would require "huge investment" and that, rather than 2021, he could not envisage a unit by these three partners would be ready to race before 2022.

Meanwhile, the Williams team has confirmed -- as tipped here earlier this week -- 22-year-old Sergey Sirotkin as 19-year-old Canadian Lance Stroll's teammate for this year, with Poland's Robert Kubica as its reserve driver.

Sponsorship has been decisive in Sirotkin being picked ahead of 32-year-old Kubica, a GP winner a decade ago before he was badly injured in a rally crash which has limited his use of one arm.

However, the hugely talented Pole's presence puts massive pressure on the Russian to perform or be replaced.

British woman engineer Leena Gade, a leading member of Audi's once-dominant Le Mans efforts before its withdrawal from the World Endurance Championship, has switched to Indycar racing with Schmidt Peterson Motorsports, which fields Canadian driver James Hinchcliffe in a Honda-powered car.

Toyota hanging in on Dakar; odds against Price
Toyota is keeping Peugeot honest as the two-week Dakar Rally in South America nears the finish this weekend.
Toyota HiLuxes have won the past two stages -- Qatari Nasser Al-Attiyah the latest, after Dutchman Bernhard ten Beinke the day before.

Peugeot, in its last Dakar, is one-two with two days and less than 500 kilometres of competition to go.

Spaniard Carlos Sainz's lead over French teammate Stephane Peterhansel was cut by 18 minutes overnight but the gap is still 45 minutes.

Sainz had a puncture and had to drive the last 15km of the longest one-day stage of the event -- 520km from Chilecito to San Juan in Argentina -- in third gear after strange noises from the diesel engine of his 3008 DKR buggy in fourth and fifth gear.

Despite getting back 10 minutes he was penalised for allegedly hitting a quad earlier in the week, any failure now for the dual world rally champion and 2010 Dakar victor Sainz could hand Peterhansel an eighth success in the cars category -- and 14th overall in the Dakar -- or Al-Attiyah a third win.

At this point Al-Attiyah, Ten Brinke and South African Giniel de Villiers in a third Toyota are vying for the final podium position by the finish at Cordoba in Argentina on Sunday morning, Australian time, while the MINI X-raid squad has not had a top three finish on any stage this year.

Australian Toby Price's chances of repeating his 2016 Dakar triumph in the motorcycle class evaporated early in the week with a navigational mix-up and were not helped by the bike stage scheduled for last night being cancelled.

Price won Wednesday's stage to climb back to third overall (points overlooked by the half-hour international TV package) but KTM teammate Mattias Walkner is in the box seat to win as he holds a 32-minute lead (39 over Price), but a mishap could enable Argentinian Kevin Benavides on a Honda to end KTM's 16-year reign.

Sights high for Sunraysia Safari
The Sunraysia Safari introduced in north-west Victoria last year to revitalise cross-country rallying in Australia is to be held again in August, with announcements on revised classes and course expected in February.

Event director Troy Bennett is planning a 1500km course over four and a half days over August 7-11 with 80 to 100 entries for four and two-wheel machinery.

Following the demise of the Australasian Safari four years ago, Bennett has hopes of the new event attaining international status within five years.