MOTORSPORT: US powerhouse Penske retains both Aussies

Will Power, runner-up in the IndyCar series to the Ganassi team's Dario Franchitti the past two seasons, was already contracted for next year but there were doubts Penske would keep Ryan Briscoe and continue fielding three cars. However, it has now been announced that Penske will have the same driver line-up it has had for the past three seasons -- Brazilian veteran and three-time Indianapolis 500 winner Helio Castroneves and the two Aussies.

The trio has delivered Penske 21 race wins and 28 pole positions in the three years. There had been talk at times of Briscoe not having an IndyCar drive next year. More recently there were rumours of him joining Andretti Autosport in the seat Wheldon had agreed on the morning of his death in Las Vegas to fill next year in place of Danica Patrick, who is switching to NASCAR full-time.

"It's official -- I don't have to host Wheel of Fortune next year," said Briscoe, who finished sixth in the series this year with four podiums -- although him and Castroneves were winless.

Power, a six-time race winner this year who is recovering from a back injury from the 15-car pile-up that claimed Wheldon's life, said he took great confidence in the future of Indy racing from seeing the commitment of series chief executive Randy Bernard's to making it safer in the wake of the Wheldon tragedy.

American openwheeler racing circles are rife with speculation that there could be a third Australian, James Davison, in IndyCar's road races.  

Davison, who has previously raced in the Indy Lights series and won at Mid-Ohio in 2009, is being linked to a new team to be entered by Ed Carpenter, the driver stepson of former series and Indianapolis Motor Speedway boss Tony George. Davison is a cousin of V8 Supercar racers Will and Alex Davison and the son of the former promoter of Melbourne's Sandown International Raceway, Jon Davison.

Three manufacturers -- Chevrolet, Honda and Lotus -- will provide engines for the new generation IndyCars, which will have fairings behind the rear wheels intended to prevent the cars becoming airborne.

Penske, Andretti and Kevin Kalkoven and Jimmy Vasser's KV Racing will use Chevrolet engines, while Ganassi and A.J. Foyt's team will stick with Honda.

The team that Bobby Rahal co-owns with TV personality David Letterman and which has been part-time since 2009 intends to return full-time with two cars, probably with Honda engines too.

HVM Racing, run by Keith Wiggins, and a new team headed by Michael Shank from the American Le Mans Series have chosen to go with the new Lotus motor.

Ambrose said that when he moved to the US five years ago he "thought the cars were going to be closer than what they actually are".

"A V8 Supercar is more like a sports car than a NASCAR," he said. "They (V8 Supercars) handle better and have a nicer suspension with better weight distribution, but they don't have as much horsepower.

"A NASCAR is like driving tyrannosaurus rex and a V8 Supercar is like driving Miss Daisy... V8 Supercars are really nice cars to drive, a lot of fun, but a NASCAR is just a brutal machine.

"It's all about shaking and noise and power and heavy-handling. It's pretty hard to get around these American tracks in NASCAR."

Ambrose said he hoped NASCAR's biggest stars get into V8 Supercars at the new Texas race on the still-under-construction Circuit of the Americas due to become part of the championship in 2013.

"It would be fun for some NASCAR guys to drive those machines," he said. "I know they would have a tough time because they're a unique car -- you're driving on the right-hand side of the car and not the left, it's a six-speed sequential gearbox and NASCAR drivers aren't used to that, so it would be difficult for those guys to adapt... But it would be fun to see how they go."

The third last of this year's 36 races in NASCAR's Sprint Cup is at the 2.4km Texas Motor Speedway this weekend, with Ambrose looking to rebound from two lowly finishes after three straight top 10s.

Positives for the Tasmanian are that he was sixth there earlier in the year in his Richard Petty Motorsports Ford and that he has made more "quality passes" -- passing a car running in the top 15 while under a green flag -- at this oval than any other modern driver except Dale Earnhardt Junior.

Earnhardt has made 562 "quality passes" at Texas, Ambrose 521, Denny Hamlin 499 and Juan Pablo Montoya 364.

Ford driver Carl Edwards leads the Cup standings by eight points from Chevrolet driver Tony Stewart. Stewart has won three times in the first seven races of The Chase for the title, while Edwards has had only one win all season -- but he has three career wins at Texas, more than any other active Cup racer.

Retired F1 racer turned commentator David Coulthard is predicting that Ferrari may yet drop contracted Felipe Massa next season and recruit Nico Rosberg from Mercedes.

Germany's Sport1 has reported this week that Rosberg's teammate, Michael Schumacher, has made more first-lap passes -- 42 -- than anyone else in F1 this season. Second on that score, but more than 10 behind, was Toro Rosso's Swiss driver Sebastien Buemi, with Sauber's Japanese driver Kamui Kobayashi was third on 23.

World champion Sebastian Vettel has only made two first-lap passes -- understandable as he has started from pole position in 13 of the 17 races so far this season.

The F1 Commission this week has given its approval for three teams to change names next year -- Lotus-Renault, owned by Proton and sponsored by engine supplier Renault, to become simply Lotus, Team Lotus owned by Malaysian aviation entrepreneur Tony Fernandes, to become Caterham, ending the long-running wrangle over the Lotus name, and Virgin Racing to become Marussia.

The changes still need the World Motor Sport Council's rubber stamp.

Red Bull Racing's Australian driver Mark Webber alluded after last weekend's new Indian GP to the difficulties he was still having extracting the maximum from this year's Pirelli tyres.

Perth-based Scotsman McRae, brother of late world champion Colin, leads the championship by seven points from Queenslander Atkinson, who won in Malaysia, New Caledonia and New Zealand but had mechanical woes in Queensland in May and in Japan a month ago with his Super 2000 Satria Neo.

In Australia this weekend it's the Victorian tarmac event Targa High Country, in which Tony Quinn is favourite in his Nissan GTR after his victory last weekend in Targa New Zealand.

There's a bumper entry list for this first round of the Australian Targa Championship, including a host of Lamborghinis, Porsches, Nissans, Audis and Mitsubishi Evos as well as three utes.

Quinn's main dangers are Tasmanian Jason White in a new Lamborghini Gallardo Super Trofeo Stadale and legendary Jim Richards in his Porsche 911 GT2 RS.

After a stage around Mansfield late today there will be eight stages on both Saturday and Sunday before the finish at the top of the Mt Buller ski resort. Next week the Australian Rally Championship concludes in Victoria's Gippsland in a Friday-Saturday event, with Queenslander Ryan Smart (Toyota) and Victorian Justin Dowell (Mitsubishi) vying for the title.

On the world rally scene, former world champion and Dakar winner Carlos Sainz has given Volkswagen's Polo R its first test ahead of its 2013 debut in the World Rally Championship.

Dr Ulrich Hackenberg, a member of VW's board of management for technology, joined Sainz at the test, as well as Timo Gottschalk, who partnered Sainz in their Dakar victory in a Touareg. Sainz drove about 100km in the Polo on a stage in Veldenz, near Trier -- scene of Germany annual WRC round.

"Next year we'll be running an extensive testing program on tarmac, gravel, mud and snow to prepare ourselves for the 2013 season," VW motorsport director Kris Nissen said.

The final round of this year's WRC is only a week away in Wales, with Citroen's French superstar Sebastien Loeb eight points clear of Ford's Finn Mikko Hirvonen.

"If Mikko wins Rally Great Britan I have to be second with some good points from the Power Stage, but for sure I will try to fight with him and not to be behind," Loeb said. "We will have to fight hard -- we know it can be difficult in Britain."

Even if Loeb finished second in Wales, Hirvonen could still become champion if he wins the rally and finishes no lower than second on the Power Stage with Loeb outside the top three.

"I have no choice now -- I have to go out and win the rally and win the Power Stage," Hirvonen said.

Brabham and British co-driver Jamie Campbell-Walter have not had a win in the 18 races and nine rounds so far in their Nissan GTR entered by the Sumo Power team. They are ninth in the drivers' standings but if they were to win both this weekend's one-hour races they could yet finish the season third.

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