MOTORSPORT: U-turn on Rally Australia

The Coffs Coast City Council has had a change of heart on Rally Australia, reversing its decision of two weeks ago and agreeing to make a financial contribution to the event this year and next.

The dollars it will spend are still not known after last night’s 6-2 vote of councillors, although mayor Denise Knight has said the council’s ratepayers “do have a right to know” in time.

The council has previously revealed that it put $224,000 into Australia’s 2014 round of the World Rally Championship.

The funding is believed to account for less than 5 per cent of Rally Australia’s annual revenues.

A decision not to contribute to the next two rallies at Coffs Harbour was taken when only six councillors were present. The vote then was 4-2.

A couple of councillors have been concerned about council general manager Steve McGrath being on the board of the Rally Australia organisation, although that is an unpaid role.

Others were concerned that the vote two weeks ago flagged to the world that the rally was not entirely welcome in the region.

There were even fresh suggestions of New Zealand – which now has a WRC round winner, Hayden Paddon, after last weekend’s Rally Argentina – trying to poach it, while organisers said that they would have looked at taking the event elsewhere in NSW from next year without the support now shown.

Last night’s council meeting had a packed audience, including politicians, local business leaders and other supporters of the event.

“There are now just over 200 days until Kennards Hire Rally Australia on November 17-20 and, with this brief hiatus behind us, we’re clear to put the throttle down on planning and organisation for what will be our best event yet,” Rally Australia chairman Ben Rainsford said.

“We’ll do so with the strongest possible demonstration of support from the Coffs Coast community, which spoke out against the original decision and turned out in big number last night to see its will acknowledged.

“A Coffs Coast 2016 rally would have gone ahead whatever the vote, as we have other key supporters including the NSW government and commercial sponsors.

“But almost nothing is more important than this community support and its emergence like never before is the silver lining in this matter. We’ve actually gained from it.”

Negotiations had already begun with WRC officials to extend the contract for the Coffs Harbour event until 2020.
WRC manager Jarmo Mahonen and WRC Promoter chief Oliver Ciesla have been quoted by Autosport.com saying they had always been confident the dispute would not jeopardise the event.

“The amount of money is minimal in regard to the whole budget for the event,” Mahonen said.

“It seems there is some politics going on.

“I can confirm that the rally takes place. It is not in danger, it will happen.”
Having moved from its traditional mid-September to become the season finale, this year’s

Rally Australia will be the country’s 24th WRC event. The rally was staged in Western Australia for almost two decades before a move to northern NSW and then, after strong opposition from environmentalists, to Coffs Harbour in 2011.

Tommi treatment for Toyota in testing
Testing of Toyota’s Yaris for next year’s WRC that will usher in an era of more aggressive rally cars has begun.

Finnish four-time world champion Tommi Makinen, who will be Toyota’s team principal for its return to the WRC, did the first testing of the Yaris near his base at Puuppola in his homeland.
“The car feels very good … very, very good,” Makinen said.

The next test for the Yaris will be in southern Europe.

Meanwhile, the WRC champion of the past three years, Volkswagen’s Frenchman Sebastien Ogier, has stepped up his complaints about the championship leader always starting the first two days of events first on the road, calling it “a joke”.

Ogier’s complaint is that, as the series leader, he invariably loses time on the first two days of dry gravel rallies because he is “sweeping” the course for his rivals following him.

“It’s completely unfair and not how the championship should be for me to run first on the road 80 per cent of the time,” Ogier said.

“Rallying is quite boring for me at the moment.

“This championship is getting more and more a joke.”

Ricciardo gets high screen – for one lap
Red Bull’s alternative concept to Mercedes and Ferrari’s ‘halos’ for greater cockpit protection for Formula 1 drivers will be seen publicly, but only briefly, for the first time tonight – on Daniel Ricciardo’s installation lap at the start of practice for the weekend’s Russian Grand Prix.

The governing Federation Internationale de l’Automobile (FIA) is considering which of the designs is better, especially as a guard against flying debris, before mandating one for all F1 cars next season.

Ricciardo said Red Bull’s “aeroscreen” design “should be OK, visibility-wise”.

While one of the three pillars in the Mercedes- and Ferrari ‘halos’ is right in front of the driver, Ricciardo said Red Bull’s high screen “doesn’t really block any more vision than what we have already”.

“The front is pretty open. You've got the structure at the top, but that’s pretty high and out of your eyeline.”

Ricciardo said that, while fans would not see drivers’ helmets as well as they have and that the screen would affect a car’s aerodynamics, he supported the move towards greater cockpit safety. “If it does save even one life over the next 20 years you’d take that,” he said.

Triple world champion Lewis Hamilton of the Mercedes team said he also supported the safety initiative but much preferred the ‘halo’ to the Red Bull screen.

“If they're going to do this, close the cockpit like a fighter jet,” Hamilton said.

“That screen looks like a shield that the police use – a riot shield.

“You've got this cool, elegant, futuristic F1 car, and you've got a crappy riot shield sitting on top of it.

“The other one (the halo), carbon fibre, the structure was obviously good, but Fernando (Alonso) wouldn't have been able to get out of the car potentially in his crash in Melbourne.

“On top of that, it is a good thing to see that the FIA do take safety seriously.

“It is a constant thing that always needs to be worked on, as long as it doesn't affect, hopefully, the aesthetics and style and coolness of F1.”

Meanwhile, F1’s Strategy Group and the F1 Commission look to have failed – unsurprisingly – to agree on engine regulations for next year by tomorrow’s deadline.

Unable to entice another manufacturer into the sport and not prepared to fund its own engine program, Red Bull appears to have little alternative to continue using Renault’s V6 hybrid power unit.

A major upgrade is anticipated to that unit by the Canadian GP on June 10-12, the second anniversary of the first of Ricciardo’s three victories, but already he is pretty happy with the Red Bull RB12 in which he has finished fourth at all three races so far this season.

“Our car this year compared to last year is a bit better in traffic and also better on the brakes,” Ricciardo said.

“It seems like I can attack again.

“We are much closer than last year, although not quite in striking distance [of Mercedes and Ferrari] yet.”

Dakar heading into new territory
The 39th Dakar Rally – and the ninth in South America – will have quite a new look next year, starting in Paraguay rather than Argentina.

The opening stage of the two-week torture test on which Australian Toby Price will defend this year’s historic motorcycle victory will begin in Asuncion, the capital of Paraguay – the 29th country the Dakar will have visited.

Then will come five stages in Bolivia, including a rest day in its La Paz – the highest capital city in the world at 3500 metres.

In the second week the field of cars, motorcycles, quads and trucks will make its way down through the Andes mountains to the finish at Buenos Aires in Argentina, which has been the traditional starting point for the event since its move from Africa because of terrorism fears.