MOTORSPORT: Times 'A-changin' in Oz open-wheelers

Open-wheelers were top of the Australian motorsport tree until the late 1960s and early 1970s, but then came the demise of the Tasman Series and the emergence of Allan Moffat, Peter Brock and Dick Johnson in touring cars and the growth of Bathurst and a championship around it.

Tin-tops have long dominated the scene now, sons of Johnson and Brock have raced at various levels and with varying success, and just last Saturday a junior Moffat notched his first win in V8 Supercars.

James Moffat drove a Nissan Altima to victory at Winton on E70 fuel.

His was one of three cars in the field of 28 running, by agreement, on E70 rather than the usual E85, and therefore with twice as high a percentage of unleaded petrol as the other 25 and 15 per cent less ethanol.

Another Nissan on the same fuel and driven by Michael Caruso finished second to Moffat that day.

The third car on E70 was an AMG Mercedes driven by European Maro Engel for Erebus Motorsport.

Furore erupted in the Winton paddock after the success of the Altimas on E70 – Holden’s champion driver Jamie Whincup calling it “jungle juice” – even though Nissan Motorsport and Erebus insisted the fuel gave them only better economy but not performance, and for Sunday’s two races all cars had to use E85.

Controversy has raged on this week, with Nissan and Erebus wanting to use E70 in the Sandown 500, Bathurst 1000 and perhaps Gold Coast 600, or gain some other concession so that their four-valve-engined cars don’t require numerous more pitstops in the endurance races.

It won’t please the Holden and Ford camps, but it’s not hard to see V8 Supercars acceding to the wishes of Nissan and Erebus in the name of parity.

A decision is expected within days as the Sandown 500 is only two weeks away now.

CAMS has run that open-wheeler championship this year after the previous management was hamstrung by loss of the traditional funding from Ford Australia, whose financial problems are well-known, which will lead to plant closures and the phasing out of the Falcon.

Unlike the days when Australian and New Zealand drivers raced basically Formula One cars with slightly smaller engines and then Formula 5000s, now Formula 3 is our top open-wheeler category.

Formula Ford, meant to be a budget category for young drivers and without aerodynamic wings and slick tyres, is next in the open-wheeler pecking order.

Many V8 Supercar drivers were Formula Ford champions or race winners.

Mark Webber, winner of nine F1 grands prix in the past five years, raced in Formula Ford in Australia and Britain.

But CAMS chief executive Eugene Arocca declared that the Australian Formula Ford Championship was costing some competitors $250,000 a year and was not financially viable.

“We simply cannot justify the time and money it will take to continue ... beyond 2013,” Arocca said.

“We feel there is a better, more affordable, more sustainable way of showcasing Formula Ford racing nationally.”

CAMS may fall into line with the move from the motorsport’s world governing body, the Paris-based Federation Internationale de l’Automobile (FIA), for the new Formula 4 to become the junior open-wheeler category as the stepping stone for young drivers between karts and F3.

F4 will be a wings-and-slicks formula with a control 1600cc engine, perhaps different in each country or region, and multiple chassis suppliers.

How quickly it could start in Australia is unclear, but next year may be too soon.

Formula Ford certainly will continue with state championships, and Arocca has raised the possibility of a single, annual national Formula Ford Festival as a compromise way of containing costs.

However, the Formula Ford Association is investigating the possibility of continuing a national series on the Shannons Nationals program rather than at predominantly V8 Supercar Championship rounds.

That association is hopeful of having something to announce “in the near future”.

While Arocca appears keen to be in step with the FIA he claimed the axing of the long-running national Formula Championship was not made with any preconceptions about the introduction of F4.

Arocca said it was “all good and well” that drivers could progress to V8 Supercars from Formula Ford but added: ‘The reality is that motorsport needs participation at the highest levels and Formula Ford isn’t exactly what you’d call a natural feeder towards F1”.

“We need to ensure that Daniel Ricciardo isn’t going to be the last F1 driver that we produce,” Arocca said.

It could be said that “we” didn’t produce Ricciardo, now racing in F1 for Toro Rosso and touted as the likely replacement for Webber at Red Bull Racing next year.

Almost immediately he finished karting, Ricciardo commuted from Perth to Asia to race in Formula BMW and the next year started competing in Europe and promptly gained Red Bull’s backing.

As part of its review of the Australian open-wheeler landscape CAMS has appointed Cameron McConville – ex-V8 Supercar driver, 1992 Australian Formula Ford Champion and, like Mark Skaife, now a man with many hats – its driver development manager.

One of the aims of McConville’s new gig is to create a more successful path to F1 for young Australians.

The reality, though, might always be – as Webber and Ricciardo have shown – that to get to F1 an Aussie needs to get to Europe while still very young.
Neither Webber nor Ricciardo hung around trying to become a national champion – in Formula Ford or anything else.

They said this year’s F1 race at Albert Park had only been subsidised by the Victorian government to the tune of $50.671 million – almost 10 per cent less than last year’s $56.656 million.

And last year’s MotoGP at Phillip Island cost the government – or Victorian taxpayers – $5.947 million rather than the $6.586 million the year before.

That was on the back of a 40 per cent increase in attendance for Casey Stoner’s farewell to Australian motorcycle racing fans – an increase that could well be reversed this October without Stoner riding.

Westacott said total revenues at this year’s F1 race were “a touch over $40 million” compared with $36 million last year.

So revenues of $40 million yet a loss of more than $50 million, even if that was less than a year earlier.

Surely the bottom-line result should be some fraction of the revenue, not a multiple of it!

And, while keen to jump out to announce smaller losses before the traditional release of the AGPC’s annual report, minister Asher somehow forgot to mention that an earlier government of her same Liberal persuasion claimed when announcing it was pinching the F1 event from Adelaide almost 20 years that it would break even and perhaps even make a profit.

It’s never turned a profit and been nowhere near break-even since the very early years in Melbourne.

However, any comeback by the French company is unlikely to be before at least 2015, with Italian rival Pirelli likely to remain the monopoly supplier next season.

Englishman David Ward has nominated for the FIA presidential election in December.

It is not clear yet whether Frenchman Jean Todt, 67 and president since 2009, will seek re-election.

Ward, 56, has been director-general of the FIA Institute – a body with a focus on road safety and the environment – since its creation 12 years ago but has resigned that post to contest the presidency.

Ward was a close adviser to previous FIA president Max Mosley, who backed Todt against legendary rally driver Ari Vatanen at the last election.

Ward also was an adviser to Britain’s Labour Party and is expected to have the support of Mosley and F1 commercial tzar Bernie Ecclestone in the lead-up to the December poll of the 230 national motoring and sporting organizations affiliated with the FIA in 135 countries.

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