MOTORSPORT: Tassie test of Ford's superiority

Ford has won five of six races this year and it could so easily have been six victories. Ford Performance Racing's Will Davison leads the V8 Supercar Championship while teammate Mark Winterbottom won three of the four races at Melbourne's Grand Prix a fortnight ago.

However, Holden's main men -- Jamie Whincup, Garth Tander and Craig Lowndes -- have terrific records at Symmons Plains, which the V8 circus is visiting much earlier in the year than normal.

Whincup -- a triple series champion with Triple Eight team and the only Holden victor this year, in the very first race at Adelaide -- has won seven races at the 2.41km circuit near Launceston. And he has been in the top two in nine of the last 12 races there, although until the end of 2009 that success was in Fords.

Holden Racing Team's Tander, who turns 35 on Saturday, is the only other modern driver with as many race wins in Tassie as Whincup, while the late Peter Brock also had seven victories there, and Craig Lowndes has had six. Tander's teammate James Courtney has been under fire from Triple Eight boss Roland Dane lately, especially over a crash at the GP.

More concerning for Courtney though is that Tander has outqualified him 19-10 and outraced him 19-11 in championship races since he joined HRT after his championship year with Dick Johnson's Ford team in 2010.

Courtney has never finished higher than fifth in Tasmania -- and that was at his first start back in 2006. Since then he's had only two top 10 finishes at Symmons Plains.

Davison's championship lead is 18 points after the opening round in Adelaide but he too is winless in Tasmania, although he has been second to Whincup twice -- in 2009, when driving for HRT, and last year with FPR. He was the top points scorer in the 2009 Tasmanian round and his confidence is up after his Adelaide success and FPR's flying start to the year.

He has qualified in the top six at the last 12 championship races -- and could be the man to score Ford's 200th pole position in Australian Touring Car Championship/V8 Supercar history. However, his focus is on "a good haul of points" to retain the series lead. "The FPR Falcons were quick at Symmons Plains last year [Winterbottom, Davison and now semi-retired Paul Dumbrell were shaded only by Whincup] and we are looking forward to a mistake-free weekend," Davison said.

Drivers must use both Dunlop's soft and hard-compound tyres in each race this weekend -- over 59 laps on Saturday afternoon and 84 laps on Sunday. They have been allocated 16 soft tyres and eight hard tyres each for the weekend.

"We are confident we have a handle on it all as tyres and fuel economy will be important to manage," Winterbottom said. "We have a good car, good tyre life and good fuel economy... The lap times at Symmons Plains are so close [because the track is so short] and making up a tenth or two-tenths of a second is vital."

While David Reynolds settles into the third FPR Falcon, Stone Brothers Racing's Shane Van Gisbergen is the other prospective winner for Ford, having already notched one victory this year in the final race at the GP.

Van Gisbergen's new Stone Bros teammate Lee Holdsworth will chalk up his 200th V8 Supercar start this weekend while Rick Kelly makes it to 300 in a Holden Commodore before next year's switch to Nissan -- which is to unveil the Altima car which will be its new race car in New York next week.

Missing this weekend is Holden veteran Greg Murphy, who had surgery on a disc in his back midweek but is determined to be fit for the next round in his New Zealand homeland -- the final meeting on the streets of regional city Hamilton on April 21-22.

Murphy is even hoping to race at Easter's second round of the NZ's new V8 SuperTourer Series at Ruapana, after winning the first round at Hampton Downs, while V8 Supercar development series driver David Russell will substitute for him in Tasmania.

The magazine said the engine was being developed by Toyota's motorsport operation at Cologne in Germany and that it would be mounted in a Yaris.

The fourth round of the World Rally Championship is the first gravel event of the year in Europe -- Rally Portugal in the Algarve region, with a ceremonial start at Faro and then three night stages, which will be watered to quell dust.

The battle for outright honours will be between the Citroen and Ford factory teams again, but the MINI of Spaniard Dani Sordo has been heavily updated for this event.

Now running under the banner of the Prodrive WRC Team rather than a MINI works entry, the more than 100 modifications include a 3 per cent increase in engine power, a tweaked front bumper to improve cooling and aerodynamic performance, enhanced Ohlins gravel dampers, and significant weight savings with the use of a lithium ion battery for the first time.

MINI has already had three podium finishes from seven starts, but none at gravel events, and Sordo said the upgraded car was "a big step forward".

Prodrive team principal Dave Wilcock said: "The newly-homologated parts make a significant improvement to the car and, should we run error-free, I would certainly hope that Dani could be up there fighting for a podium. However, the competition does have the significant advantage of having already competed on gravel this year in Mexico, but Dani certainly knows the Portuguese event well and has achieved podium finishes on his last three outings in it (driving Citroens)."

Citroen's eight-time world champion Sebastien Loeb has welcomed a change of tyre usage rules following last year's Rally Australia at Coffs Harbour when cars were forced to run on hard-compound rubber in heavy rain.

Competitors complained at the dangers of that situation and they are now allowed 10 extra tyres for exceptional conditions.

Victorian Reeves, 23, is one of six drivers backing up from having contested the initial Academy last year. He and Smyth were fourth in Portugal last year and claim to be better prepared this time for the six-round series.

The Fiestas are prepared by the British M-Sport organization from a base at Krakow in Poland and run on Pirelli control tyres.

Academy competitors will contest six stages on Friday and three on Saturday, totaling 245km.

Queenslander Atkinson won three Asia-Pacific rounds last season but missed out on the title to Proton teammate, Perth-based Scotsman Alister McRae. Atkinson and Belgian co-driver Stephane Prevost have joined India's MRF squad this season as teammates to veteran Indian driver Gaurav Gill and his NZ-based Australian co-driver Glenn Macneall.

Atkinson has already done one of three scheduled WRC rounds with Ken Block's Ford team, in Mexico, and has had little chance to test the Skoda, but he said Volkswagen's star recruit for its WRC campaign next year, Frenchman Sebastien Ogier, had told him the Super 2000 Fabia was a fabulous chassis for rallying.

The Rally of Whangerei is in the Northland and Kaipara districts of NZ's North Island.

McRae is defending his Asia-Pacific title with fellow Perth resident and former WA policeman Bill Hayes, while Proton has installed Swedish ace Per-Gunnar Andersson in the other factory-backed Satrio Neo.

"P-G is going to be quick everywhere [in the six-round series]," McRae said. "He doesn't know these rallies but that won't stop him being at the front."

Atkinson said "it will be a good race with those [Proton] guys... There's no doubt it's going to be a closer season than last year -- and there's plenty to fight for against Proton," he said.

The International Rally of Queensland on the Sunshine Coast on May 26-27 is the third round of the series, after the New Caledonia round in late April.

Eli Evans delivered the success for Honda first-up but teammate Mark Pedder is aiming to challenge Evans for the victory in the second round of the new-look championship which has elevated two-wheel drive cars to premier status.

Pedder said the Jazzes had proven "incredibly nimble" but struggled for traction in the muddy conditions at Calder and should be much better suited to the WA roads.

Rally Calder was a short stadium event but the Forrest Rally is a traditional two-leg round with 215km competitive kilometres in 20 stages -- most of them on roads in timber country but with two on bitumen at night on the Busselton foreshore.

Evans' older brother and multiple champion Simon will re-enter the sport with a new Mazda entry at the Queensland round in late May.

West Australian youngster Tom Wilde won the four-wheel-drive category at Rally Calder in his Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution X and is a red-hot favourite in that section this weekend, especially as his family's property adjoins some of the stages.

TV and movie star Shane Jacobson has become "addicted" to the sport after Calder and is running again in a Lancer Evo VI.

Image: fpr.com.au

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