MOTORSPORT: Tyres rub Ricciardo wrong way

Formula 1 is back on its home ground in Barcelona this weekend for its first European grand prix of the year. The race marks the first anniversary of Max Verstappen becoming the sport’s youngest race winner at 18 years and 228 days.

That was a GP Verstappen’s Australian teammate Daniel Ricciardo could, and probably should, have won… Instead, Red Bull Racing got its strategy for him wrong – and got it spot-on for the Dutch wonderboy in his debut with it after promotion from its junior team, Toro Rosso.

It also was the race that Mercedes-Benz teammates Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg collided on the opening lap, yet Ricciardo still wound up fourth – off the podium.

And worse was to come a fortnight later, when Red Bull bungled a tyre stop at Monaco as the carsales.com.au ambassador led the ‘crown jewel’ race of the world championship after a scintillating, ‘Senna-eseque’ pole position lap. The 18 points from second place were little consolation.

Horror memories, but Ricciardo would dearly love to see those wrongs righted now this year’s championship has reached Europe.

While Red Bull will unveil a big aerodynamic upgrade to its Renault-powered RB13 when practice gets underway at the Circuit de Catalunya tonight, victory there is a long shot.

Red Bull has almost 2sec a lap to make up on Ferrari and Mercedes. This is far too much to expect from aero changes, even from the genius designer who it is said can see air – Adrian Newey. Major changes to the Renault power unit – arguably Riccardo’s biggest handicap – are at least another two months away.

If those portents are not bad enough, Ricciardo is concerned about the tyres Pirelli is supplying the teams for the Spanish GP – its three hardest compounds. He’s worried that it will be difficult to get the rubber into the ideal operating ‘window’ if weather temperatures are not high enough – and the forecast is only for tops of 22-23°C over the three days of the event.

“The harder compounds are just way too hard… it’s going to be a struggle,” Ricciardo said.

The 27-year-old West Australian is sixth in the championship after two non-finishes in the first four rounds. He has 22 points to Verstappen’s 35. Ahead of them are Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel on 86 points, Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton on 73, Rosberg’s replacement and last-start victor Valtteri Bottas 63, while Kimi Raikkonen has 49 in the other Ferrari.

A positive for Ricciardo, perhaps, is that, while Barcelona produces little overtaking, it has seen a different winner in each of its past 10 races – including fellow Aussie Mark Webber in 2010.

More likely though, if there is to be a new name on the list of Spanish GP winners, is that it will be Bottas, who has adapted well to his promotion from the Williams team where he had only a customer Mercedes power unit, while Hamilton struggled last-start in Russia.

Vettel is a two-time winner already this season and, although Ferrari was outgunned by Bottas and Mercedes from the start of the Russian race in Sochi, those two makes are in a higher league than Red Bull can dream of at the minute. Unfortunately for Ricciardo…

Reigning Carrera Cup Australia champion and new motoring.com.au columnist, 22-year-old Queenslander Matt Campbell, will start his Porsche Supercup campaign – for which he won a scholarship from the manufacturer late last year – as part of the Barcelona event.

In Britain, another Queenslander, former Australia Post courier Matt Simmons, will race a Nissan GT-R NISMO GT3 in the Pro Class of the Blancpain GT Endurance Cup round at Silverstone, where he won the GT Academy international prize for computer gamers in 2015.
Shahin family to keep Mallala alive
South Australia’s Mallala circuit will continue to operate following the death early this year of long-time owner-operator Clem Smith, with the Shahin family’s Peregrine Corporation having bought it this week – for an undisclosed amount.

Peregrine is the company developing The Bend Motorsport Park at the site of the former Mitsubishi proving ground at Tailem Bend, about 100km east of Adelaide.

It is hoping to have its development, said to be costing $100 million, ready to host a round of the Supercars Championship next year.

Peregrine’s Sam Shahin says that, after a review, Mallala will be improved with the aim of regaining national championship meetings, particularly the Shannons Nationals – and perhaps eventually Supercars.

It is almost two decades since the 2.6km track 55km north of Adelaide hosted a round of what was then the Australian Touring Car Championship.

Shahin said Peregrine wants SA, already with the Clipsal 500 as a premier event in the Supercars Championship, to become the prime destination for motorsport in Australia and Mallala “is a terrific fit for our motorsport plans for the state”.

“We want Mallala to be part of the renaissance of motorsport in SA,” Shahin told Adelaide newpspaper The Advertiser, calling on enthusiasts to “clean their sheds out, dust their helmets off and get ready”.

“This gives us another venue to really turbo charge [sic] motorsport here [in SA]; we can run major events, state series, state championships, and the circuit [Mallala] has landed in the hands of an organisation that is progressive and will continue to develop it and improve it.

“The plan is to continue to operate the Mallala circuit and improve it where needed, and we have some good ideas about how we can develop it into something great.

“Mallala does need some work, some ongoing investment to keep it up to modern standards, but that is the case with all infrastructure, and is no different to any other motor racing circuit in Australia,” Shahin stated.
‘Roval’ then the big oval for Indy racers
May means Indianapolis in the US and the IndyCars will race this weekend for the fourth time on the ‘Roval’ – the track combining a road course with part of the famed 4km oval.

Next week practice starts for the 101st Indianapolis 500 on May 28, with McLaren-Honda’s disgruntled Spanish dual F1 world champion Fernando Alonso flying straight out of Barcelona to step up his preparations for the 500 in an Andretti Autosports Dallara-Honda painted in the original McLaren papaya [orange] colour.

Australia’s Will Power, eyeing an Indy 500 victory after a decade of trying and coming close two years ago, is seventh in the series this year for Chevrolet-powered Team Penske.

French teammate Simon Pagenaud leads the championship with 159 points to Power’s 91, with New Zealander Scott Dixon second for Honda-engined Chip Ganassi Racing. Penske’s American recruit Josef Newgarden is third, 26 points behind Pagenaud and eight in arrears of Dixon, with early leader Sebastien Bourdais fourth in a Honda-powered Dallara for Dale Coyne Racing.

Penske has a three-time Indy 500 winner in his squad, Brazilian Helio Castroneves, and will field semi-retired two-time 500 victor, and ex-F1 star, Colombian Juan Pablo Montoya in the month’s two races at The Brickyard.

Montoya also is earmarked for the sports car racing program Penske is expected to launch next year, tipped to be in partnership with Honda.

Meanwhile, Penske and 2012 NASCAR Cup champion Brad Keselowski have lost their final appeal against penalties imposed for an illegal rear suspension setting in a Ford Fusion at Phoenix International Raceway in March.

NASCAR hit them with a US$65,000 fine, a three-race suspension for crew chief Paul Wolfe, and 35-point deductions for Keselowski in the driver standings and Penske in owner standings.

The team and its other NASCAR Cup driver, Joey Logano, were penalised for a suspension irregularity after winning more recently at Richmond, Virginia, and chose not to appeal.

Despite the setbacks, Keselowski and Logano are third and sixth in the Monster Cup standings, which are led by Chevrolet driver Kyle Larson from Toyota-mounted Martin Truex Junior.

Kiwis claw closer to WRC return
New Zealand is closer to being back in the World Rally Championship. And that could mean a period off the calendar for Rally Australia, which is the final round of this year’s championship on November 16-19 at Coffs Harbour (NSW).

David Evans, WRC correspondent for Britain’s Autosport, has reported that NZ and Croatia are vying for inclusion in next year’s series.

Evans quoted WRC promoter Oliver Ciesla saying that there was “a big passion” for the WRC to go back to NZ, especially because of Kiwi driver Hayden Paddon’s participation in the Hyundai factory team, and that the country has “these beautiful roads which we can use to make great television”.

The Autosport report suggested September as the most likely date for an NZ round but said that, while government funding has been pledged for an event, sponsorship still needed to be found to make it happen.
Revival in sight for Targa championship
The Australian Targa Championship is set to be revived next year.

The championship will comprise four events – Targa Tasmania, Targa North West also in the island state, Targa High Country in Victoria and another to be announced soon.

Motoring.com.au understands that Victoria’s Gippsland region could be the ‘home’ for the new event.

Two CAMS national championships will be contested – one for modern cars, another for classics.
Rallycross progress as Glenney joins in
Headway is quietly being made in the local resurrection of rallycross – the combination of rallying and circuit racing.

After the failure of two attempts a couple of years back (one with grand ambitions, the other aimed at grassroots competitors) a second round of an RXAus Championship is being held this weekend at Marulan, near Goulburn in NSW.

Steve Glenney, the South Australian who has starred at times in the Australian Rally Championship and won a Targa Tasmania (in 2008), joins the series at this round in a Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution IX.

Glenney won the solitary event run at Brisbane’s Lakeside in the ambitious but ill-fated Extreme Rallycross, beating Alister McRae, and last year was victorious at an international rallycross event in New Zealand.

The RXAus field includes former ARC champion Justin Dowel (Hyundai i20), Victorian Darren Windus (Evo IX), his son Aaron (Mazda2), Will Orders in another Evo, Irishman Richie Dalton and Jamie Sargeant in VW Polo S2000s and youngsters Sean Bolger and Troy Dowel.