MOTORSPORT: Toby Price putting greater priority on four wheels

Australia's two-time Dakar motorcycle winner Toby Price is stepping up a transition to ultimately becoming predominantly a four-wheel racer.

Price's priority this year is winning the Finke Desert Race in the Northern Territory on the Queen's Birthday long weekend in June in a trophy truck.

He's won the Finke six times on two wheels but has failed to emulate that success in three attempts on four wheels.

In six Dakars on motorcycles he has had five podiums, including victories in 2016 and 2019 and third last month when the torture test was held for the first time in the Middle East.

Price has dabbled in Stadium Super Trucks, ute circuit racing and side-by-side (SXS) off-roaders.

Last year he partnered Qatar's Yasser Al-Attiyah – a three-time Dakar winner for Volkswagen, MINI and Toyota and runner-up to 'El Matador' Carlos Sainz in Saudi Arabia last month – to second in the Baja 1000, the 'granddaddy' of all desert races in Mexico.

He's planning on driving in the Mint 400 – 'The Great American Off-Road Race' which this year will be over four 107-mile (172.2km) laps in the Nevada desert near Las Vegas on March 8 – as well as more SXS competition overseas and at home, as well as a return to the Baja.

He'll also continue in the Federation Internationale de Motorcyclisme's Cross-Country Rallies World Championship.

So still plenty of two-wheel racing but increasingly more on four wheels.

At 32, and after 30 broken bones in his bike career, Price's philosophy is that "with age comes cage".

He's intending the balance to be much more on four wheels by the time he's in his mid-30s, with a switch to having bodywork around him on the Dakar in three or four years.

The three four-wheel failures on the Finke gnaw away at him.

In 2017 he was third with 80km to go when he had engine sensor failure. In 2018 he was second after the outward leg of Oz's outback enduro but had a power steering failure. Last year it was a gear failure on the return leg.

Ideally he will get to "do the double" on Finke - win on two and four wheels in the same event.

But for this year he just wants to go to another level on four wheels and says he has a new approach for Finke this time.

"Finke is always one I am trying to do well at and at this year's event [June 5-8] we are doing a lot of different strategies," Price said.

"We are building a new truck with [California-based] TSCO Racing because I am putting everything on the line to try to make this work and finish the event after three years of bad luck.

"We're going all out for Finke with the completely new truck.

"While it's a year with more pressure than ever before, I also have great support from sponsors, a new program and new people behind me.

"If it doesn't quite work this year I don't know what my options are to try to get things across the line in the future, so it's exciting but nerve-wracking at the same time.

"I'm also trying to work out if we can secure a ride on the bike there too.

"If we can do the double there again it would be great.
"I'd like to do the Baja with Nasser again and it would be fantastic to do a couple of SXS rounds again."

Australia's SXS championship is over four rounds between May and October, starting at Cessnock in NSW's Hunter Valley.

"Whenever there is a free spot available to go do one of these rounds they are definitely on the cards because it's a fun environment with good events and it's always exciting to compete in them," Price said.

"I have been in chats with Can-Am to do rounds in both the US and here but, due to my schedule, I can't book anything straight away and I need to assess as the year goes on.

"If the stars align and there is an opportunity to race in SXS this year then I will be signed up and ready to go because I really want to do them."

This year's Formula 1 cars will start to be unveiled next week, with Ferrari first out of the box on Tuesday and Daniel Ricciardo's Renault RS20 and Red Bull's RB16 a day later.

American team Haas and once-mighty but now-lowly Williams have already teased F1 fans a little online.

Haas, which dropped to ninth in the constructors' championship after having been fifth in 2018 in just its third season, has released some digital artwork of its VF-20, while Williams fired up a Mercedes power unit at its British factory, perhaps as an assurance there won't be a repeat of 2019, when it was more than two days late starting testing.

Mercedes, the top team of the past six years, will unveil its W11 next Friday, the day after rejuvenated McLaren streams vision of its MCL35 from its factory.

The season starting in Melbourne on the middle weekend of March will be McLaren's last with Renault power before it reverts to Mercedes.

Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff is expecting tougher competition this year from Ferrari, which disappointed after the promise it showed in testing last year, and Red Bull as it enters its second season with Honda power and Max Verstappen on a contract that will take him until the end of 2023.

Renault's launch will be in Paris. Ricciardo is going into his second season with the French manufacturer's team, which disappointingly slipped a peg to fifth in the constructors' championship last year, behind McLaren with the same power unit.

Frenchman Esteban Ocon, a 23-year-old former Mercedes protege who raced for Force India (now Racing Point and next year to become Aston Martin) in 2017-18, becomes carsales.com.au global ambassador Ricciardo's teammate, while Renault has shaken up its aerodynamics team and now has highly-regarded Pat Fry on board as its technical director.

The only 'pure' rookie this season will be 24-year-old Nicholas Latifi with Williams, whose father Michael – of Iranian origin – has pumped money into the team and could end up as its owner.

The two pre-season F1 tests are in Barcelona on February 19-21 and 26-28.

A decision is awaited on the Chinese Grand Prix scheduled for Shanghai on April 19. It is likely to be postponed because of the coronavirus outbreak, but F1's sporting chief Ross Brawn says it could be squeezed back in later in a season which has a record 22 rounds.

"China is an enthusiastic, growing market, so we'd like to have a race in China," Brawn said.

"We will try to find a window of when the race could happen towards the end of the year."