MOTORSPORT: Tons of spice in weekend's racing

Mercedes also broke through for its maiden victory in V8 Supercar racing.

Australia’s new F1 sensation Daniel Ricciardo turned in a brilliant performance at the Bahrain Grand Prix this morning, coming from 13th on the grid – courtesy of a 10-place grid penalty carried over from Malaysia the week before and having qualified an incredible third – to finish fourth.

It might well have been third place and a podium had there been another lap for him and his Red Bull-Renault to overtake the Force India-Mercedes of Mexican Sergio Perez.

Three V8 Supercar races at Victoria’s Winton circuit and three different winners in three makes of car – Fabian Coulthard in a Holden, Lee Holdsworth in a Mercedes and Mark Winterbottom in a Ford.

The five-make series is working well in a sporting sense, even if it is not translating into road car sales for the manufacturers represented.

Brad Jones Racing was fabulously competitive on its home ground throughout the weekend, the Erebus AMG Merc E 63s for a much of it too, Volvo’s S60 in Scott McLaughlin’s hands was lightning fast again as well without notching a first championship race win.

And a couple of Nissans made the top 10 in the third and longest race.

Ford Performance Racing and Mark Winterbottom scored their first win since last year’s Bathurst 1000 in the final Winton race, while usually-dominant Triple Eight Racing was comparatively and inexplicably uncompetitive at this round.

Amid the joy of victory on Saturday afternoon Erebus owner Betty Klimenko let it be known she has spent up towards $40 million on her motorsport adventure, taken out a loan that might be as much as $10 million, and may not be able to carry on beyond this season if she doesn’t find sponsorship for her two entries.

Even if she finds the sponsors they’re unlikely to contribute anywhere near enough for her to recoup her outlay.

That raises the prospect of whether Erebus might be a team that legendary American team owner Roger Penske might snaffle if he decides to come into the V8 Supercar Championship.

“The Captain” has history with Mercedes, most notably in winning the Indianapolis 500 with it 20 years ago.

On the subject of spice, three manufacturers were represented on the podium after the fourth round of the World Rally Championship in Portugal – Volkswagen, Ford and Citroen, although VW’s victory was its eighth straight, equaling Citroen’s record in 2011.

Sydney’s Molly Taylor was eighth of 14 drivers in identical Citroen DS3 R3s in the Junior WRC round in Portugal with mother Coral co-driving.

At the Australian Rally Championship round in WA – the Forest Rally at Busselton and Nannup – Scott Pedder and Dale Moscatt won heat one and 17 of the event’s 19 stages in a Renault Clio R3 yet, after a clutch problem on stage 16, finished runner-up to second-heat  winners Brendan Reeves and his sister Rhiannon Gelsomino in their Mazda2.

Hamilton now has 24 GP wins in his career – equal the number of the great Argentinean Jaun-Manuel Fangio.

Bahrain was the second straight race that Hamilton and teammate Nico Rosberg have finished first and second in that order.

Rosberg, winner of the season-opener in Melbourne, leads Hamilton in the championship though, 61 points to 50.

Mercedes was absolutely dominant in Bahrain, with the similarly Merc-powered Force India cars of Perez and Nico Hulkenberg third and fifth, sandwiching Daniel Ricciardo – for whom four-time world champion teammate Sebastian Vettel, down on power, had to make way under instructions from the Red Bull team and finished sixth.

The 24-year-old West Australian excelled for the third straight race, this time with the reward of 12 world championship points – which might so easily have been 15 for third place had not Hulkenberg been so effective in defending against him.

“It was an awesome race … exciting,” Ricciardo said.

“The first stint was a bit follow-the-leader, but from the second stint onwards the race really started to turn up the heat and there were more battles going on in front and behind – it was good to be a part of them.

“We got close to the podium today, within half a second, so I was doing all I could.

“The car came to me as the race went on and I was happy with how I moved up through the pack, so a good day.

“It was good fun to race Sebastian. It was hard but fair and we left each other room.

“That’s what we want from each other and we discussed it beforehand. We’re racers and that’s what we enjoy doing.”

Red Bull’s appeal against Ricciardo’s disqualification from second place in Melbourne for exceeding the fuel-flow speed limit will be heard in Paris next Monday (April 14).

On the matter of penalities, Venezualan Pastor Maldonado has been given a five-place grid penalty for the Chinese GP in a fortnight, after a 10-second stop-go during the Bahrain race, for his Lotus T-boning and flipping Mexican Estaban Gutierrez’s Sauber.

A five-place grid penalty for that, when Ricciardo copped 10 places for a wheel not fitted properly during a pitstop in Malaysia which clearly was not his fault.

And that’s all for now. And perhaps not for a while yet.

In a sign that the ultimate power in the sport is swinging from the old guard, commercial supremo Ecclestone and Ferrari, Todt – the Ferarri team boss during its most glorious era –  dismissed demands from the Italian team and Red Bull for rule changes.

Red Bull wants the 100kg/hour fuel-flow limit dropped, while Di Montezemolo – largely in sympathy with Ecclestone - had argued that F1 was becoming like “taxi-cab racing” and risked losing its massive global appeal.

“The driver has to save tyres, save fuel. This is not F1,” Di Montezemolo said.

“F1 is extreme from first to last. It is the engine music and not too complicated rules.

“We cannot have an F1 that is an energy/fuel economy formula. The public doesn’t like a taxi driver that has to respect the fuel. This is not F1.

“The second problem is the music of the engine, not the noise. And the third is that the rules are too complicated, particularly for the people on the track. How can they understand the fuel meters? It’s really complicated.”

But a defiant Todt responded: “Those doing well aren’t complaining. Those are that aren’t are.”

The BBC’s chief F1 writer Andrew Benson reported that Di Montezemolo accepted that nothing major could be changed this season and has written since this morning’s race that the Italian’s claims “were made to look ridiculous by a thrilling GP that featured breathless action from start to finish throughout the field”.

“It was a spectacular event on Bahrain’s 10th anniversary as an F1 venue, and on the occasion of the first night race in the Gulf state. And it should lay to bed any criticisms that there is no racing in the new F1,” Benson said.

Reuters correspondent Alan Baldwin said the race “made a mockery of suggestions the new v6 turbo hybrid era had turned flat-out racers into fuel-saving taxi drivers”.

The tide indeed appears to be turning.

Meanwhile, two new teams are close to being granted entry to F1 – perhaps as early as next season.

One would be owned by American Gene Haas, co-owner of the Stewart-Haas NASCAR team, and the other headed by Romanian former dentist Colin Kolles, who has previously been associated with middle-ranking and tailend teams – most recently the now-defunct Hispania Racing Team with which Daniel Ricciardo made his GP racing debut in 2011.

There also was a report at the weekend of “moments of consciousness” for Michael Schumacher, the seven-time world champion who has been in a coma in a French hospital for more than three months after a skiing accident.

Ingall vocally blasted “dopey rules made by dopey idiots”.

“It’s all right for these peanuts to sit up in that ivory tower of theirs and just hand out punishments like that,” he said.

“I’d like to drag those guys down in front of the fans to see what they thought.

“They’d kick the sh.. out of them.”

There was a sense among many that Ingall’s colourful reaction was good for the sport, putting it in the spotlight, creating much-needed media attention.

The latter two perhaps, but good for the sport?

At the essence of sport is accepting the umpire’s decision with good grace.

Those penalised may feel aggrieved, but there are ways to air grievances and have points of view heard.

Venus Williams may have got away with a somewhat similar outburst in tennis a while back, but dissent in the manner of Ingall at Winton, abuse of officials, is not tolerated in the football codes and cricket and motorsport officials would be wise to stomp on it, rather than let it become an example to others – in V8 Supercars and other categories.

World Rally Championship driver standings after four of 13 rounds – 1. Sebastien Ogier (France, Volkswagen Motorsport) 91 points; 2. Jari-Matti Latvala (Finland, Volkswagen Motorsport) 62; 3.  Mads Ostberg (Norway, Citroen Total Abu Dhabi World Rally Team) 48; 4. Andreas Mikkelsen (Norway, Volkswagen Motorsport II) 36; 5. Mikko Hirvonen (Finland, M-Sport World Rally Team) 36; 6. Thierry Neuville (Belgium, Hyundai Motorsport) 21; 7.  Elfyn Evans (Great Britain, M-Sport) 20; 8. Bryan Bouffier (France, M-Sport) 18; 8. Martin Prokop (Czech Republic, Jipocar Czech National Team) 18; 10. Kris Meeke (GB, Citroen Total Abu Dhabi World Rally Team ) 17. Australia’s Chris Atkinson is 14th with 6 points after just one event, Rally Mexico, for Hyundai Motorsport.
      
WRC team standings – 1. Volkswagen Motorsport 144; 2. Citroen Total Abu Dhabi World Rally Team 75; 3. M-Sport World Rally Team 60; 4. Hyundai Motorsport 45; 5. Volkswagen Motorsport II 40; 6. Jipocar Czech National Team 20; 7. RK M-Sport World Rally Team 4.