MOTORSPORT: Survival of the fittest

Max Mosley

Motor racing is such a costly sport that at any time many events, teams and people face difficulties in continuing, but it seems to us that viability is a bigger issue than normal at the minute.

This weekend's fourth round of the V8 Supercar Championship at Perth's Barbagallo Raceway has inevitably focused the spotlight on the future of this national series - for the country's premier and most popular form of motor racing - in WA. Arrangements between V8 Supercars Australia and the Perth race organiser, the WA Sporting Car Club, expire next year (not this year, as we inadvertently said here recently), and V8SA has made it plain it does not want to race at Barbagallo, or Wanneroo as it is still known to many, beyond 2009.

The WA Sporting Car Club has offered to upgrade the long-established venue, but not to V8SA's satisfaction. Indeed, it seems V8SA does not want satisfaction on Barbagallo. Instead it has wanted a street race in downtown Perth, along the lines of Adelaide's Clipsal 500, Hamilton in NZ, Townsville next year it seems, and, of course, what we've seen at the Gold Coast Indy and Australian GP for many years. However, the WA government is showing no interest in bankrolling a street race in its capital.

A third, not unexpected, option has been mooted this week - by reigning V8 Supercar champion Garth Tander, who grew up in Perth.
Tander -- running hot again after clean sweeps of all the V8 Supercar races at Melbourne's GP and then in Hamilton and who could take the series lead from Rick Kelly this weekend -- has called on the WA government to consider a new permanent track in the west.

In saying publicly that the feasibility of a new purpose-built facility deserves to be investigated, we thought Tander may not have endeared himself to the V8SA honchos clearly wanting a street race, but we now hear they are seeing the reality that a temporary city circuit is as good as out of the question and that the Tander idea is perhaps the only practical solution.

There's always lots of posturing in these situations, as we're still seeing in Townsville, but one way or another a solution needs to be found in the west. WA is essential to a genuine national championship and there is enormous demand for the V8 Supercars in the state that would be foolish to neglect.

Just on Townsville, we note that the city's new mayor, Les Tyrell, said on the ABC this week that, contrary to reports that construction at Reid Park needs to start next month, there is still plenty of time to build the track and facilities for the debut event in the middle of next year. Tyrell said the Queensland government was investigating ways of saving money on the race and the council would wait until the study was finished… Another example of lots of posturing.

On the future of V8 Supercar teams, the dogs are still barking loudly about Team Kiwi and yapping incessantly now about the prospect that Ford is going to cut its funding to DJR (which has already survived other financial hurdles), SBR and Britek.

Although the latter three would still supposedly get technical assistance, cutting the financial cord threatens to create V8 Supercar racing's very own credit crunch.

F1 loses Super Aguri
In the F1 world, Super Aguri is in administration now, with Honda not even considering the last-minute Weigl rescue proposal, and the team won't be racing in Sunday's Turkish GP in Istanbul.

However, one of the three administrators from the firm PKF, Philip Long, has said: "This administration provides a unique opportunity to get into high-level motorsport without having to build an operation from scratch. In terms of capability a new team could easily be up and running for the 2009 F1 season."

Whether F1 supremo Bernie Ecclestone, the remaining 10 teams and the Federation Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA) still see the Super Aguri licence being alive may be a very different, and more relevant, matter. Whatever, it is always sad to see the demise of a race team and this case highlights a couple of serious problems with F1 - other than its costs being out of control.

It is now a long time since GPs had the 26 cars that were the norm in the heyday under Ecclestone's management, and the move a couple of years ago to settle the number of teams at 12 by allowing customer cars is now long dead. Prodrive gained an F1 franchise, made clear its intention to field customers cars (which would have been McLaren-Mercedes), yet got nobbled. Now a team that was racing has gone and the show is diminished to 20 cars.

Bet the GP promoters around the world aren't given a pro-rata discount on their race fees or paying specatators cheaper tickets for the lesser show!

In bowing out of F1, Aguri Suzuki, the first Asian driver to achieve an F1 podium finish, said he had learned well as a team owner what a "piranha club" F1 was.

"I'd like to thank God for giving me so many chances to do what I wanted to do, but if someone wants to take part in F1 I'm going to advise him that he better not," Suzuki said.

Red Bull billionaire Dietrich Mateschitz, who is trying to offload his second team, Scuderia Toro Rosso (which is no longer a manufacturer since being transformed from Minardi), has said: "The cheapest thing you can do in F1 is buy a team. It only gets expensive when you try to run one seriously."

Super Aguri's demise raises questions about the futures of drivers Takuma Sato and Anthony Davidson in GP racing. Sato, we suspect, may have prospects, as it seems he is a favorite son of Honda - and he may get a seat there, if not soon then next year.

While Rubens Barrichello will break the record of 256 GPs he now shares with Italian Riccardo Patrese in Istanbul this weekend, the popular Brazilian has not scored a world championship point for 21 races, since 2006, and his time must almost be up.

Several months ago the speculation was that Barrichello and American Marco Andretti would swap places at the end of this year, seeing Barrichello follow so many other Brazilians to IndyCar racing and the grandson of one of F1's legends, Mario Andretti, and son of the less accomplished Michael, make the switch to GP racing.

Although he set the pace for the Indianapolis 500 as official practice got underway at The Brickyard this week (with Aussie Ryan Briscoe fourth), Andretti III has not yet proven that he is worth a shot in F1. More likely now is that Sato will be Barrichello's replacement, and we suspect that may be before too long.

A few points ahead of the Turkish GP

Keeping up with Jones
Meanwhile, Australia's last F1 world champion, Alan Jones, this week questioned whether F1 has a future in Australia. Jones said that Sydney was "kidding themselves" if it thought the mooted upgrade of Eastern Creek would entice Bernie Ecclestone to stage the Australian GP there under lights.

And he added: "If I was a betting man I wouldn't say F1 is going to be in Melbourne either after 2010 (the expiry of the city's GP contract)."

However, Jones threw his weight behind embattled FIA president Max Mosley, saying he was more concerned about Mosley's performance in office than his private life.

The FIA has appointed London barrister Anthony Scrivener, QC, to look -- before the June 3 vote of the FIA general assembly -- into claims there were Nazi connotations in the orgy Mosley had with five prostitutes. Scrivener was elected by the FIA general assembly in 2006 to serve as a judge on the FIA International Court of Appeal - the highest independent legal authority in motorsport.

Wickens the man
Now, if you have found today's news -- and Australia's miserable performance in the recently-ended third A1 GP season -- all rather bleak, here is something in which we found a bit of cheer.

Robert Wickens, the Canadian teenager who was named the A1 rookie of the year this week, won the award for the most spectacular overtaking manoeuvre of the season - for his pass of Germany's Michael Ammermüller during the sprint race in treacherously wet conditions at Eastern Creek early this year. Wickens charged through the pack from 15th to third in that race.

Only joining the series at the third round as an 18-year-old, Wickens -- now 19 -- notched five podium finishes, including a sprint race victory at Durban in South Africa. He also became the youngest driver to qualify on pole position in A1.

Pity he's not an Aussie, but it's always exciting to see young talent emerge and Wickens might just be one to keep an eye on.

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