MOTORSPORT: Uphill for Power's IndyCar title

The odds of winning the 2011 IndyCar title got longer for Aussie Will Power on the weekend.

Power lost the lead of the IndyCar series through no fault of his own yesterday [US time] and goes to the decider in Las Vegas in two weeks trailing Scottish rival Dario Franchitti by 18 points.

Meanwhile Marcos Ambrose has notched his best finish in NASCAR’s Sprint Cup – ninth at Dover’s Monster Mile - since he won at Watkins Glen in mid-August.

The World Rally Championship is deadlocked with two rounds to go after a weekend of drama in France. Citroen’s Sebastien Loeb and Ford’s Mikko Hirvonen are level on 196 points with Citroen’s younger Frenchman Sebastien Ogier just three points behind the pair after winning the latest round narrowly from the MINI of Spaniard Dani Sordo in just its fourth WRC start.

Mixed fortunes for young Aussies Brendan Reeves and Molly Taylor in the WRC Academy round in France, while the Asia-Pacific Rally Championship will go to the wire in China in early November with Perth-based Scotsman Alister McRae two points ahead of Proton teammate, Australian Chris Atkinson.

In other news, two-time Indianapolis 500 winner and dual CART champion Al Unser Junior is in strife again for drink-driving and speeding on a public road and has been suspended from his role as an IndyCar official. And the Mercedes Formula One team has hired ditched Ferrari technical director Aldo Costa and top British engineer Geoff Willis, who most recently was with small Spanish team HRT for which Australian Daniel Ricciardo is racing.

But the Aussie open-wheel specialist's race was ruined by the Dreyer and Reinbold team releasing Ana Beatriz into his path as he was leaving the pits. The damage that resulted from the collision required lengthy repairs and, even when Power got back on track, cost him speed. He eventually finished 19th.

Ed Carpenter scored his maiden victory in the race with Sarah Fisher’s team, pipping Dario Franchitti by 0.0098 seconds.

The second placing has put Franchitti 18 points ahead of Power as they head to another 2.4km oval at Las Vegas for the series finale.

Power said he had a car capable of winning at Kentucky but was philosophical about having lost the 11-point lead he had held over Franchitti.

“They just sent her [Ana Beatriz] into me - there’s nothing I could do about that one,” Power said.

“We had the quickest car -- an unbelievably fast car -- but after that happened it tore a hole in the side pod, we lost 4mph and that was that.

“It was a fight just to hang on to the back of the field after that. The car was still handling well but it had no speed - there was so much drag it was just impossible.

“I wasn’t surprised Dario ended up leading, but I don’t think he was as quick as we were… Our car was really fast and in that first stint we were able to pull away.

“I was expecting those guys [Penske’s great rival, the Ganassi team for which Franchitti and New Zealander Scott Dixon race] to end up at the front, no question, but I wasn’t expecting us to have a day like we had - lose so many points and so much potential.

“That’s racing. We will just come back at Vegas. It is what it is, we can’t do anything about it now.”

Dixon finished third and Australian Ryan Briscoe eighth for Penske.

Carpenter drove about 20 laps towards the end one-handed as the visor on his helmet came loose.

“Dario raced me hard and clean but I knew we had a better car,” Carpenter said.

Ogier scored his fifth win of the year beating Spaniard Dani Sordi in the MINI Countryman WRC car by just 6.3 seconds. He has now moved to within three points of seven-time world champion, Loeb.

Sordo closed on Ogier on the final morning after opting for soft tyres in cold conditions, but Ogier’s harder rubber was advantageous as the temperature rose at the finish.

Nonetheless, it was MINI’s second podium from just four WRC events.

“Two rallies on tarmac and two podiums is amazing and feels like a victory,” Sordo said.

Norwegian Petter Solberg was originally third but his privateer Citroen DS3 was adjudged 4kg under the minimum 1200kg after it was weighed three times and he was excluded.

That lifted Finn Hirvonen, winner of Rally Australia at Coffs Harbour three weeks earlier, to third in the event – and level with Loeb in the championship.

Hirvonen had started the final day almost one and a half minutes behind Ford teammate and countryman Jari-Matti Latvala, who won five of Sunday’s six stages but – as he did at Rally Oz – sacrificed himself for championship contender, Hirvonen.

Latvala deliberately checked into a regroup early, incurring a two-minute penalty that elevated Hirvonen to fourth in the rally – and then Solberg’s disqualification raised him to third.

While Loeb and Hirvonen are equal on 196 points and Ogier has 193, with rounds in Spain and Britain to come, Loeb is theoretically ahead of the Finn as he has had more wins this season – four to Hirvonen’s two.

Citroen team chief Olivier Quesnel admitted a mistake in the preparation of Loeb’s engine, which failed on the third stage of his home event.

“Sebastien had a new engine… I think we did a mistake when building the engine,” Quesnel said.

“It didn’t happen in more than 10 years, but it happened this time and it was Rallye France in Sebastien Loeb’s car – we are very sorry, but this is rallying.”

Loeb said it was: “the first time I’ve had an engine failure during a rally since 2003 or 2004”.

“We think it was the oil pump that failed, so there was nothing we could do. Obviously this opens up the championship up again.”

Taylor finished fifth, her best result in the series in which all competitors drive Ford Fiestra R2s, but Reeves had his clutch fail while running fourth with two stages remaining.

He has dropped from third to fifth in the championship, which concludes at Wales Rally Great Britain in mid-November.

Indian driver Gaurav Gill won the APRC section of the event in a Mitsubishi [although Japan’s Toshi Arai won outright in a new R4 Subaru Impreza], setting up a three-way fight for the title.

Gill held off Japanese teammate Katsu Taguchi as Perth-based Scotsman McRae chased down the Team MRF pair.

Jimmie Johnson, champion the past five years, was second in his Chevrolet and Carl Edwards third in his Ford.

Australia’s Marcos Ambrose has finished in the top ten at both rounds this season at Dover’s Monster Mile – and his ninth place this time was his best Cup finish since his breakthrough victory on the Watkins Glen road course in mid-August.

Tony Stewart lost the series lead when he finished 25th and two laps down in his Chevrolet at Dover.

Edwards and Kevin Harvick, tenth at Dover, are now joint leaders, nine points ahead of Stewart and Busch with Johnson a further four points back.

The 49-year winner of the 1992 and ’94 Indianapolis 500s, as well as two CART titles, was stopped by police near his native Albuquerque, New Mexico, at 3am last week after clocking more than 100mph (160kmh) drag racing another car on a public road.

A test showed a blood-alcohol content twice the state’s 0.08 limit. He was booked for drunken driving and reckless driving.

IndyCar, which has sought to rehabilitate Unser after previous drinking incidents, immediately suspended him from his role as a driving coach and race control official.

Unser was convicted four years ago of driving three times over the blood-alcohol limit, lost his licence for three months, was fined, had to attend a course to educate him about the dangers of drink-driving and did 100 hours of community service.

He was already a member of Alcoholics Anonymous and had been treated for alcohol abuse after hitting his girlfriend in the face while drunk in Indianapolis.

Aldo Costa, dumped by Ferrari as technical director in May, will start at Mercedes engineering director on December 1. While Geoff Willis, formerly with Williams, British American Racing and Honda but most recently small Spanish team HRT, will become technology director for the Mercedes team on October 17.

Mercedes team principal, Ross Brawn, who took the outfit to the world title when it carried his own name in 2009 after Honda’s pullout from F1, said the squad was not yet spending to the limit of the Resource Restriction Agreement… But it would once it got its structure right.