MOTORSPORT: Tifosi rally for beloved Schuey

World waits on word of legend’s recovery prospects
It’s Michael Schumacher’s 45th birthday as he remains critical but stable in a French hospital without any indication yet of his chances of fully recovering from his skiing accident five days ago.

Even though Schumacher raced for Mercedes from 2010 to 2012 in his Formula One comeback, it is Ferrari fans who are displaying the greatest sympathy for the seven-time world champion.

Revered by those fanatical fans, known as the tifosi, for the five consecutive titles he won with the Italian team from 2000 to 2004, a “silent and respectful event all in red” will be held today outside Grenoble’s university hospital where Schumacher is still in an induced coma after suffering severe head injuries.

The German’s fan club in Kerpen, the town where he grew up, has said any celebration of his birthday would be in bad taste.

Lewis Hamilton, the British driver who replaced Schumacher in the Mercedes team last year, has been widely condemned for insensitivity after posting pictures on social media of himself on a snowfield since Schumacher’s accident.

Ferrari spokesman Renato Bisignani has said that members of F1’s most successful team who worked with Schumacher in his heyday at Maranello and fans from clubs in France and Italy would travel to Grenoble today to pay tribute to the winner of a record 91 grands prix.

Bisignani said they would take flags as “a sign of closeness to Michael Schumacher, done in a very respectful way”.

“We will make sure we remain sensitive at this difficult time,” he said.

Neurosurgeons have operated on Schumacher twice to lessen the pressure on his brain but say it is still too early to talk about his recovery prospects.

Jean Todt, the president of motorsport’s governing Federation Internationale de l’Automobile (FIA) and head of the Ferrari team throughout Schumacher’s time there, visited him yesterday.

Schumacher’s wife and two children have maintained a vigil at his bedside.

Son Mick, 14, was on the snow with Schumacher at the Meribel resort when he crashed last Sunday.

Although his manager Sabine Kehm has said Schumacher was not skiing at great speed increasingly there have been reports that the helmet he was wearing, and which his doctors say saved his life, cracked when he hit rock hidden in the snow.  

Australia’s two entries in the car section are Peter Jerie and Glenn Watman in a 2008 Isuzu D-MAX ute (driven to 11th outright by Bruce Garland and Harry Suzuki in 2009 and 38th by Adrian Di Lallo and Steve Riley last year) and Garry Connell in a Polaris buggy with Sweden’s Annie Seel, a five-time Dakar finisher on motorcycles.

There are six Aussie riders in the motorcycle section this year.

Rosario has been sweltering in record heat recently but rain is forecast for the weekend.

Aymara Indians are vowing to block motorcycles and all-terrain vehicles from Bolivia’s high-altitude salt flats fearing crowds will litter them, scare off flamingos and leave deep marks on the shiny white surface.

Only the lighter vehicles in two of the Dakar’s four categories are scheduled to cross the famous Salar de Uyuni while cars and trucks will take a different route in the middle of the marathon event.

The Mini All4s of Frenchman Stephane Peterhansel and Qatar’s Nasser Al Attiyah, which are among a dozen entries by the X-Raid team run by Sven Quant of the wealthy family long associated with BMW, are favourites to win.

Peterhansel is the Dakar ‘king’ aiming for a sixth victory on four wheels to add to his six on motorcycles.

He has won the past two years for X-Raid after Al Attiyah’s victory in a Volkswagen Touareg in 2011.

Three other X-Raid drivers have finished in the top five previously but South African Giniel de Villiers in a Toyota HiLux is seen as the main threat to Peterhansel and Al Attiyah.

De Villiers won the first Dakar in South America in 2009, in a VW, and has been third and second the past two years.

Buggies have become increasingly popular in the event and 51-year-old Spanish former world rally champion and 2010 Dakar winner Carlos Sainz is in one for a Red Bull-backed French team SMG.

“The Touareg was the perfect machine for the Dakar – four-wheel-drive, unbreakable, quick,” Sainz said.

“It won in 2009, ’10 and ’11 (the last three Dakars in which it participated) and was the first diesel-powered car to win.

“The SMG buggy takes a different approach – two-wheel-drive, more travel in the suspension, more power, less weight.

“The SMG will be fine on rocky and desert conditions, but it’s going to be slower on twisty roads and tarmac.”

Jack Perkins, son of Holden legend Larry and was last a full-time V8 Supercar driver in 2007 before he was diagnosed with Type One diabetes, will drive the fourth Ford Performance Racing Falcon entered by Charlie Schwerkolt, who was a co-owner of Dick Johnson Racing when James Courtney won the 2010 title.

Perkins junior was fourth in last year’s V8 development series, has been a regular endurance race co-driver and performed brilliantly last year as a Greg Murphy’s co-driver in New Zealand’s V8 SuperTourer enduros.

Champion team Triple Eight Race Engineering’s owner Roland Dane has cleared former team principal Adrian Burgess to start at Holden Racing Team next week.

Dane stood down Burgess last August when it was announced he would replace Steve Hallam at HRT, where he will reunite with James Courtney with whom he worked in his 2010 championship season.

Meanwhile, Britain’s triple world touring car champion Andy Priaulx is scouting for a V8 Supercar endurance drive after having been overlooked by Dane in favour of Steven Richards, who partnered Mark Winterbottom in last year’s Bathurst 1000-winning Falcon.

Priaulx and Swede Mattias Ekstrom finished 10th in that Bathurst race in a Triple Eight-built Holden.

The Aussies on the entry list comprising 66 cars are David Brabham in a Honda Performance Development ARX-03b, Ryan Briscoe in a new Chevrolet Corvette C7.R, James Davison in an Aston Martin and James Kovacic in an Oreca.

Shane Van Gisbergen, the New Zealander who drives almost anything anywhere and who was fifth in last year’s V8 Supercar Championship in a Tekno Autosports Holden after controversially departing Stone Brothers Racing (which became Erebus), is entered at Daytona in a Porsche 911 GT America.

The Daytona 500 will be the first round of America’s new United Sports Car Championship which has merged the country’s Le Mans and GrandAm series and eliminated the Le Mans Prototype One category in the US.

The remaining prototype category includes the radical DeltaWing car among its 28 entries.

One of Briscoe’s co-drivers in the GT category Corvette will be Danish ex-F1 racer Jan Magnussen, whose son Kevin will make his grand prix debut in Melbourne with McLaren in mid-March.

Only viewers of Rupert Murdoch’s pay-TV Sky channel can see every F1 race live in Britain now, while the free-to-air BBC screens nine GPs live and delayed highlights packages of the other 10.

The Canadian, Spanish and season-ending Abu Dhabi GPs will be live on the BBC as well as the new Russian race in Sochi in October and the classic Belgian, British, Italian, Japanese events.

The decision to award double points at this year’s Abu Dhabi race will be reviewed by F1’s strategy group this month.

While that attempt to ensure the world championship remains alive until the final race may be overturned, F1 supremo Bernie Ecclestone favours the last three GPs of the seasons carrying double points.

Young Mexican driver Esteban Gutierrez has been retained by Swiss team Sauber for a second season, while Russian teenager Sergey Sirotkin, who had been thought likely to get his seat, will be its test driver.

Sponsorship from telecommunications company Telmex controlled by Mexican tycoon Carlos Slim, reputed to be the world’s richest man, likely ensured Gutierrez’s place after anticipated Russian backing for Sauber did not arrive – at least in full.

Sauber already had hired German Adrian Sutil from Force India, which in turn snapped up Sauber’s former German star Nico Hulkenberg.

Only backmarker teams Caterham and Marussi have vacancies now.

Daniel Ricciardo, who has replaced fellow Australian Mark Webber as teammate to Red Bull Racing’s four-time world champion Sebastian Vettel, is holidaying in WA ahead of returning to Europe next week for the launch of the new-generation 1.6-litre turbocharged F1 cars.

There will be one F1 test at Spain’s Jerez circuit and then two in Bahrain before the cars are flown to Melbourne for the season-opening race.

Aerodynamic testing in wind tunnels and using computational fluid dynamics (CFD) has been restricted this year to a third of what it was.

Mercedes, runner-up in last year’s constructors’ championship, has recruited two of the top engineering ‘lieutenants’ to Red Bull’s genius technical director Adrian Newey.

Mark Ellis had been Red Bull’s chief engineer for vehicle dynamics since 2008 and previously was chief engineer at BAR Honda.

Giles Wood had been Red Bull’s chief engineer for simulation and analysis and previously was in charge of simulation at McLaren.

Red Bull already had lost its head of aerodynamics Peter Prodromou to McLaren.

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