MOTORSPORT: Three more overseas wins

What a year it's turning out to be for Australians in international car racing.

Apart from Mark Webber's breakthrough Formula One win and the successes of Ryan Briscoe, Will Power and Marcos Ambrose in America, and the one-off victories of less-known racers overseas we've mentioned here in recent weeks, three Aussies notched victories abroad at the weekend.

>> Daniel Ricciardo scored his fifth win in the British Formula Three Championship and, with just four races remaining, has a commanding 45-point lead in that prestigious series. That championship has been won over the years by the likes of Ayrton Senna, Mika Hakkinen and Emerson Fittipaldi as well as Australians David Brabham in 1989, Dave Walker in 1970-71 and Tim Schenken in 1968. Those three Aussies each went on to race in F1, while Ricciardo now has won as many races this season as last year's British F3 champion, Spaniard Jaime Alguersuari, who made his F1 debut at the recent Hungarian Grand Prix.

>> David Brabham, already with a victory in the Le Mans 24-hour sports car classic to his credit this year, won the seventh round of the American Le Mans Series at the Road America circuit at Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin, with American co-driver Scott Sharp to stretch the gap over Acura rivals Gil de Ferran and Simon Pagenaud that had been narrowing in recent weeks.

>> Cody Crocker and his co-driver Ben Atkinson are close to a record fourth Asia-Pacific Rally Championship after winning Rally Malaysia at the weekend in a Subaru Impreza WRX STI for Singapore's MotorImage team.
While Crocker and Atkinson are now set for the revival of Australia's World Rally Championship in NSW's Northern Rivers region on September 3-6, the chances of Atkinson's brother, former Subaru WRC driver Chris, competing there are looking to have almost vanished, despite the suggestion a few days ago that he may get to drive one of multiple Australian champion Neal Bates' Super 2000 Toyotas. Atkinson has raised doubts that he will even attend the event, instead concentrating on trying to secure a new WRC drive for next year.

Fears appear to be growing that protesters might disrupt the new Rally Oz. We will keep an eye on that situation and perhaps report on it later in the week, as well as the hearing of Renault's F1 appeal against suspension from next week's European GP in Valencia, Felipe Massa's recovery from his head injuries, developments in the Federation Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA) presidential race between Jean Todt and Ari Vatanen, and the earlier start for next year's Malaysian GP -- 4pm instead of 5pm, in an attempt to lessen the chances of the race being ruined again by rain. Melbourne's Australian GP, though, will start again at 5pm.

Little joy for Marcos Ambrose in the latest oval round of NASCAR's Sprint Cup in Michigan today -- he finished 35th after his second place on the Watkins Glen road course last week, and his victory there in the second-tier Nationwide Series round. Brian Vickers won in a Toyota at Michigan from the Chevrolets of Jeff Gordon and Dale Earnhardt Junior, with Carl Edwards (Ford) and Sam Hornish Junior (Dodge) fifth.

'Another sterling job' as Ricciardo nears British F3 title
The 20-year-old Daniel Ricciardo from Perth is closer to adding his name to the illustrious list of winners of the British F3 Championship after the weekend's two races at Silverstone.

Ricciardo won the first of those races -- his fifth victory of the season, this time by almost 10 seconds, leading all the way from his fourth pole position in the series.

In the later race he finished third -- for his 10th podium of the year -- after having started from fourth on the grid.

Four races remain in the championship -- two at Portimao in Portugal on September 13 and two at Brands Hatch back in Britain a week later.

Racing a Volkswagen-engined Dallara car for Carlin Motorsport, Ricciardo has 210 points to Austrian Walter Grubmuller's 165 and Dutchman Renger van der Zande's 157.

Grubmuller and van der Zande drive Mercedes-powered Dallaras for the Hi-Tech team.

A win is worth 20 points, second place 15, third 12 and fourth 10, with points being awarded down to 10th place.

Apart from his five wins, Ricciardo also has had three second places and two thirds in the 16 races so far.

Van der Zande has scored three wins, including the second race at Silverstone at the weekend, and Grubmuller has two wins.

Carlin team boss Trevor Carlin praised Ricciardo's maturity at Silverstone.

"Daniel did another sterling job, avoided any incidents and increased his championship lead further," Carlin said.

Ricciardo said his victory in the first race there was "pretty straightforward".

"I got the start I needed to get and I saw that my teammate Max Chilton didn't get away well and let the Hitech boys through.

"But that was out of my control, so I had just to focus on my race, and fortunately I set the fastest lap and took the win.

"After a few laps I saw the cars in my mirrors getting a bit smaller, and that's what I wanted to see."

Of his third place in the later race Ricciardo said: "The start wasn't great for me and Grubmuller was able to get past me and I dropped back to fifth. The top three seemed to pull away a bit then.

"After a few laps I was able to get past Grubmuller, who made a bit of a mistake coming into the infield section.

"There was some really intense fighting going on at the front and I really wanted to be involved, but at the back of my mind was the championship.

"I was close to (Japanese driver) Daisuke Nakajima after Max Chilton went off and I was just waiting for him to make a mistake, at which point I would have taken advantage of it, but if not I was happy to keep third."

Brabham a cool hand in close sports car finish
David Brabham and Scott Sharp, American Le Mans Series teammates for Highcroft Racing, ended fellow LMP1 Acura squad De Ferran Motorsports' streak of ALMS wins at Elkhart Lake, the fastest and longest (almost 6.5km) road racing circuit in the US.

Brabham absorbed the late-race pressure from Gil de Ferran (a French-born Brazilian and another British F3 champion, in 1992) to win the 2-hour, 25-minute race by 0.5 seconds, stretching his and Sharp's points lead back to 13 points from the nine before this seventh round.
Unlike rivals de Ferran and Pagenaud, Brabham and Sharp have scored points at every round, including winning round two at St Petersburg in Florida.

"This win feels fantastic because the last few races haven't gone to plan," Brabham said. "That misfortune hasn't helped us, but this was a great straight-out fight.

"We had a good car, good strategy and excellent teamwork.

"The last few races have made us stronger. Everyone involved in the team has just dug deep and put in a massive effort to pull this off.

"As a driver I couldn't ask for any more commitment from the guys on the team. They really are a special bunch.

"It is an honor to drive for them. When we win races like this it brings us even closer together and now we look forward to the next one.

"In this race we had a very strong car -- probably the best we had all year. The tyres from Michelin also had a big impact because we were able to change left side tyres only and that saved us some precious seconds in the pits. The performance and durability was brilliant again."

Crocker just five points from fourth Asia-Pacific rally crown
Cody Crocker took a stranglehold on a record fourth Asia-Pacific Rally Championship by scoring maximum points at the weekend's Rally Malaysia.

The three-time APRC champion was the outright winner and set the fastest time on both days to score 16 points, taking his total from the four events he has contested this season to 63 points from a possible 64.

Over those four rounds in New Zealand, Australia (Queensland this year), Japan and Malaysia, Crocker and co-driver Ben Atkinson have been faultless in the MotorImage Impreza WRX STI.

Crocker has a 27-point lead over Japanese driver Katsu Taguchi in a Mitsubishi. Taguchi did not add to his 36-point tally in Malaysia, failing to finish the opening day and then crashing heavily on day two.

Crocker's teammate, New Zealander Emma Gilmour, is third in the series on 34 points. She collected 11 points in finishing second in Malaysia.

Saturday's weather made the roads almost impassable and Crocker and Gilmour were the only two APRC drivers to make it to the end of the day.

They repeated that feat on Sunday, with Indian Gaurav Gill also making the finish -- indeed just 0.5 of a second behind Crocker, having rejoined the event under SuperRally rules.

 "The roads were incredibly slippery, particularly on the opening day when it just bucketed down the whole time," Crocker said. "Today (Sunday) at least the rain stayed away, but the damage to the roads had already been done.

"It was a really tough weekend. Today the temperature hit 37 degrees, with high humidity, so to maintain condition and concentration takes a huge effort.

"But we now need only five points to make if four titles in a row.

"We like both Indonesia and China. We won't take anything for granted, but we are in the box seat, and we won't let this slip."

The Indonesian round starts on October 3.

Images: Ricciardo - Jakob Ebrey for danielricciardo.com; Brabham - davidbrabham.com; Crocker, Atkinson - malaysianrally.com
 

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