Motorsport: V8 storm clouds still threaten

Monday motorsport reportFebruary 26, 2007

Still no green light for HRT
An eerie silence hangs over V8 Supercar racing just days away from the start of the 14-round championship at Adelaide's Clipsal 500.

There has still been no confirmation that the Holden Racing Team has been given the green light by the Touring Car Entrants Group to race this year.

We keep hearing that HRT's new VE Commodores will be on track in Adelaide, driven by Mark Skaife and Todd Kelly, but equally there has been no announcement by TEGA that it is completely satisfied about the ownership situation.

Matters came to a head nine days ago when, after months of seeking documents from HRT and the HSV Dealer Team to clarify the ownership and control of them, TEGA withdrew the licences of the two teams as a reaction to the lack of information supplied.

By early last week TEGA was satisfied about HSV Dealer Team, but -- despite a continuing trickle of documents -- is still not satisfied regarding HRT.

TEGA's investigations centre on whether Scottish automotive entrepreneur Tom Walkinshaw has effectively regained ownership of HRT.

When Walkinshaw's Arrows F1 team collapsed three years ago, Holden hastily arranged for Mark Skaife to become the owner of HRT, which Walkinshaw had owned, and John and Margaret Kelly -- the parents of Todd and reigning V8 Supercar champon Rick Kelly -- took ownership of what was Kmart Racing and is now HSV Dealer Team.

Throughout all of that Walkinshaw retained control of the Holden Special Vehicles' road car operation in Australia and a year ago re-emerged in Australian motorsport, via an entity called Walkinshaw Performance, in charge of motorsport activities on behalf of the Holden  factory.

Interest in the HRT-HSV relationship heightened in the great driver swap Walkinshaw orchestrated for last year's Sandown and Bathurst endurance races, with Todd Kelly joining Rick at HSV and Garth Tander moving across from HSV to HRT for the two events to partner Mark Skaife -- a move that, ironically, may well have cost Tander the season title.

After the issue blewn up publicly recently, TEGA talked of an "unwillingness of both organisations (HRT and HSV) to reveal their ownership structures" and said that "some of the things we had seen needed to be adjusted".

TEGA's rules preclude the same person owning two teams.

While TEGA gave indications a week ago that the two teams should be right to race in Adelaide, and indeed very soon after that HSV was given the all-clear, it is intriguing that the HRT matter is still not resolved -- just three days before the cars are due to take to the track in Adelaide.

Not only are Ford teams delighting in seeing HRT in a tight spot, so too are some Holden teams which receive a lot less factory assistance than HRT.

In particular, long-time Holden team owner Garry Rogers was publicly outspoken last week, calling for penalties to be imposed.

We still expect HRT to be on the grid in Adelaide, but it's unlikely this saga is near its end. Indeed, it could rumble on for quite a while.

A review of this cap is underway even before the season gets underway and we keep hearing that the scheme may yet to be abandoned -- because of a refusal by key teams to accept it.

Other sources say it will be implemented, but only partially.

Most strongly opposed to the cap, which is meant to apply to racing operations but not marketing and promotion budgets, are big teams associated with British bosses -- Roland Dane's Triple Eight and David Richards' Ford Performance Racing on the Ford side, and HRT and HSV on the Holden side. Whoever owns the latter two, Walkinshaw Performance is providing engineering services to both.

As we have been reporting here for weeks now, the Red Bull RB3 -- powered by a Renault engine and designed by Adrian Newey, who created lots of winning cars for Williams and McLaren -- is nowhere near the pace it needs to give Webber the chance of salvaging his reputation, and indeed perhaps his F1 career, after his two horror seasons with Williams.

Apart from the last day of testing at Barcelona in Spain more than a week ago -- when Webber's teammate David Coulthard put in a quick time on a very light fuel load, apparently for the benefit of Red Bull energy drink tycoon Dietrich Mateschitz -- the RB3 has been a massive disappointment.

Nine F1 teams have already had three days of testing in Bahrain, with three more from tonight, but Webber could not get within 2 seconds of the fastest car on any day so far on the Middle East kingdom's 5.412km circuit.

The first day there he was 2.311 seconds slower than Felipe Massa's Ferrari, the second day he was 2.67 seconds behind Nick Heidfeld's BMW-Sauber, then on the third day he was 2.040 seconds slower than Fernando Alonso's McLaren.

The only consolation for Webber was that the first two days he was quicker than Coulthard, but on the third day the Scotsman headed him by almost 0.9 seconds -- but Coulthard was still 1.145 seconds behind Alonso!

Apart from that one day in Barcelona, the RB3s are invariably towards the bottom of the timesheets in testing.

Webber had troubles early with his seat fitting but that has been improved and he cannot be happy at the prospect of another season without a chance of being at least as competitive as he was in his second and third years in F1 with Jaguar, the predecessor of this Red Bull outfit.

Coulthard let it be known as the Bahrain test got underway that he could not see Red Bull meeting the targets he set for this year.

"We've got a lot of work to do to get the performance we want," Coulthard says.

"The package is not yet optimised.

"There are some upgrades for this Bahrain test and some things we should have prior to Australia, which should help.

"At the moment we're not going to achieve the goals I had for the year.

"But we have some more time to develop and hopefully, once we've done that, we can try to achieve them.

"The things we are working on are the gearbox, overall reliability and basically building our relationship with Renault and learning about its electronic systems."

Red Bull team principal Christian Horner's sights are on fifth place in the constructors' championship, and Coulthard diplomatically says that remains realistic.

"Other teams are not doing anything that's not humanly possible, it's just that they've got the right mix of technical investment and facilities," he says.

"That's what we need to continue to develop at Red Bull -- and then the results will come."

Red Bull's head of race and test engineering, Paul Monaghan, says there have been "some reliability concerns" to work through.

"I think we can sort these out before tackling the next three days of testing here (in Bahrain)," Monaghan says.

While teams have been in the Gulf region, news broke that Red Bull's head of development, South African Anton Stipinovich, has quit.

Stipinovich joined the team in 2005 from Ferrari, where he had worked as a software engineer.

Teams have been running in Bahrain on the two types of Bridgestone tyre they will have for the third GP of the season there in mid-April.

One consolation for the Red Bull camp has been that Webber and Coulthard have completed race-distance runs.

Just nowhere near fast enough!

So after weeks of keeping everyone waiting, Toro Rosso heads into the new season with the same line-up as last year.

Its other driver is Italian Vitantonio Liuzzi, who came into the sport two years with some big wraps but is yet to show any signs of greatness.

Toro Rosso joint-owner and team boss Gerhard Berger kept Speed waiting on the second seat, in the latter stages questioning the American's commitment -- which probably amounted to whether the 24-year-old Californian was committed enough to bring the necessary sponsorship dollars to secure the drive.

Make no mistake: Speed is a token American in the field for another season, if he even lasts beyond the United States GP at Indianapolis in mid-June.

Triple Champ Car champion, Frenchman Sebastien Bourdais, is in Berger's sights and, after the time he has spent on the other side of the Atlantic, would suffice, in F1 terms, for a while as someone to give North Americans a reason to take some interest in GP racing.

But the driver F1 needs from America, and will get, even if it's not for another couple of years, is Marco Andretti -- grandson of Mario, the 1979 world champion, and son of Michael, who was the last American in GP racing before Speed but whose days at McLaren lasted less than a season as he made way for Mika Hakkinen, who was to become a dual world champion.

The 19-year-old Andretti III, runner-up in last year's Indianapolis 500, has already done two F1 tests for Honda and is likely to be on track at this year's US GP -- at least in the Friday practice sessions.

Apart from indications the youngster has the pace, he has a magical surname necessary to woo Americans -- if indeed they can be wooed to F1.

Bet your bottom dollar that F1 supremo Bernie Ecclestone is working to make sure Andretti III is in GPs before too long.

Here's the full line-up for the start of this year's F1 world championship:

McLaren - 1 Fernando Alonso, 2 Lewis Hamilton
Renault - 3 Giancarlo Fisichella, 4 Heikki Kovalainen
Ferrari - 5 Felipe Massa, 6 Kimi Raikkonen
Honda - 7 Jenson Button, 8 Rubens Barrichello
BMW Sauber - 9 Nick Heidfeld, 10 Robert Kubica
Toyota - 11 Ralf Schumacher, 12 Jarno Trulli
Red Bull - 14 David Coulthard, 15 Mark Webber
Williams - 16 Nico Rosberg, 17 Alexander Wurz
Toro Rosso - 18 Vitantonio Liuzzi, 19 Scott Speed
Spyker - 20 Christijan Albers, 21 Adrian Sutil
Super Aguri - 22 Takuma Sato, 23 Anthony Davidson

Ambrose crashed his Ford Fusion at the start of his qualifying run, less than four hours before the start of the 150-lap race at California Speedway, and he had to start from 41st -- and last -- place in his spare Fusion.

He made it up into the top 30 on lap 60 and ran as high as 22nd before finishing 25th -- third best of the rookies in the race, although he is the leading rookie for the season, ahead of eight others.

While Ambrose was pleased with the final outcome, he was red-faced after qualifying.

"I don't know what happened there (in qualifying)," Ambrose says.

"I think I had the record for the slowest NASCAR crash on a two-mile (3.2km) speedway.

"I hadn't even gotten to the end of third gear and I had spun it out.

"I think it was just the way on the new tyres or something.

"If I could have buried myself in a hole I would have done it.

"I would have been like a wombat: I would have gone in head-first and not come out for three hours.

"It's big-time racing and you just have to take those licks and try to stay confident.

"I was shell-shocked there in the race early on, just trying to recompose myself.

"I managed to do all the laps and get a finish in a car (the spare) that we've only had two laps in, so all in all we can't complain."

Certainly not, as he came away better than two other high-profile rookies.

Juan Pablo Montoya did not finish the race in his Dodge. He started 29th and ran as high as 15th.

Indianapolis 500 winner Sam Hornish spun his Ford into the infield and retired with severe rear damage.

The race was won by Matt Kenseth from Casey Mears and Kyle Busch.

Kevin Harvick finished sixth to maintain his series lead with 345 points. Carl Edwards is second on 330 points, ahead of Kenseth on 327.

Ambrose, having completed all laps so far in the Busch series (he was 16th in the season opener at Daytona the previous week), is 10th with 203 points and has prizemoney of $US73,730 -- or A$93,640.

Now the Busch series goes to Mexico City for a race next weekend on a road course, which should suit the Aussie.

Kenseth's 0.679-second victory early today, Australian time, in a Ford over Jeff Gordon's Chevrolet was his 15th in the Nextel Cup from 258 starts and he made up 24 places in doing it.

Kenseth now has two Cup wins and four Busch victories at California Speedway.

Missing this time was Kenseth's crew chief Robbie Reiser, who is under a four-race suspension for technical violations at Daytona.

Team owner Jack Roush has appealed against the loss of points from Daytona on the basis it was excessive to take away points at the start of the season before any had been scored.

Third in California was Jimmie Johnson, fourth Jeff Burton and fifth Mark Martin -- all in Chevrolets.

Seven of the top 10 cars were Chevs.

The leading Dodge was Kurt Busch's in seventh and the top Toyota was Brian Vickers' in 10th at the Japanese manufacturer's second start in NASCAR's biggest league.

Martin, previously synonymous with Ford and only driving selected races this year, leads the points for the first time since September 22, 2002.

David Ragan in a Ford was the top rookie in 16th place and leads the rookie standings.

Juan Pablo Montoya started ninth in his Dodge but finished 26th, one lap down.

Montoya ran as high as eighth but spent most of the race mid-pack on the lead lap.

He is second of six drivers in the rookie standings, nine points behind Ragan.

The crowd was estimated at 87,000 -- less than expected but limited by bad weather and Sunday night's Oscars.

While the Busch series goes to Mexico this week, the next Nextel Cup race is not until March 11 in Las Vegas.

NASCAR standings after two rounds - Mark Martin (Chevrolet) 335 points, Jeff Burton (Chevrolet) 330, Jeff Gordon (Chevrolet) 309, Kevin Harvick (Chevrolet) 307, David Ragan (Ford) 270, Clint Bowyer (Chevrolet) 264, Joe Nemechek (Chevrolet) 259, J.J. Yeley (Chevrolet) 251, Kyle Busch (Chevrolet) 239, David Stremme (Dodge) 236.

In the 15-lap sprint race Reindler finished 1 minute 17.980 seconds behind Hulkenberg, while in the 49-lap feature race the Australian only completed eight laps.

The narrow track punished any errors and numerous cars slammed into the concrete walls that lined the circuit.

The 19-year-old wonderboy Hulkenberg dominated the weekend as he did at Sydney's Eastern Creek three earlier, taking pole position in qualifying, the two comfortable race wins and setting the fastest lap of the day.

He has won every A1 race this year, although he will miss the next round in Mexico on March 25 because of his commitment in the Formula 3 Euroseries.

Matt Halliday, who replaced Jonny Reid in the New Zealand team for Durban, finished third in both races yesterday -- 3.49 seconds behind Hulkenberg in the sprint and 10.519 seconds in arrears in the feature.

Frenchman Loic Duval was second in the sprint, while Britain's Robbie Kerr was second in the feature.

After Mexico, the final two rounds are in Shanghai and at Brands Hatch in Britain.

A1 GP championship after eight of 11 rounds - Germany 99 points, NZ 69, France 57, Great Britain 46, Switzerland 45, Netherlands 49, Malaysia 38, Mexico 34, Italy 29, Canada 28. Australia is way down the order on 18 points, with none from South Africa.

NASCAR has just switched from leaded to unleaded gasoline, but Brent Dewar, a senior General Motors executive, is urging the US stock car sanctioning body to look at switching to ethanol.

"We think it would be great on a lot of fronts, because obviously it would send a signal to the public," Dewar says.

"A lot of people don't understand the benefits of ethanol."

The Indy Racing League will race on 100 per cent ethanol this year and the American LeMans Series on 10 per cent ethanol.

New Zealand's premier single-seater championship, the Toyota Racing Series, will use a yet to be determined bio fuel in 2008.

That has come about with the backing of the country's greatest living racing identity, Chris Amon, who says: "When I started racing (F1) back in the early 1960s we were racing on methanol and alcohol-based fuels, so this is almost the wheel turning full circle."

In this year's Swedish Touring Car Championship, Flash Engineering is to run its team of BMW 320si cars on E85 bio-ethanol.

Rally Sweden earlier this month was the first time that cars powered by bio-ethanol had competed at a World Rally Championship round and three Swedish-entered Ford Fiestas running on E85 all reached the finish.

The cars ran in the Group N3 class in which they finished first, second and third.

The Federation Internationale de l'Automobile's Alternative Energies Commission recently supported a hybrid rally car project based on a Honda Insight E85 built and run by British team by Oaktec.

Oaktec is now working with the International Automotive Research Centre at Warwick University in Britain to unlock the performance potential of renewable fuels and technologies.

F1 engine rules are frozen for the next couple of years, but the FIA has flagged a move to "greener" technology in F1 towards the end of the decade.

Honda is expected to make a major environmental statement in the next few days with one of its F1 cars painted green.

That may well coincide with more from the FIA about its intended direction, particularly for F1.

Brawn is said to not want to return to Ferrari in his old post as technical director, preferring a new challenge -- which could be as team principal, with Jean Todt concentrating on Ferrari's road car business.

However, a report in Britain's Sunday Mirror says Brawn wants to return to England.

The Sunday Mirror quoted a source saying: "Ross has done it all and seen it all in F1.

"What he is looking for is something different, something that gets the creative juices going again.

"What McLaren have that few others enjoy is a variety of projects that might tempt Ross."

Time ticking on 'customer' car row
The bunfight over whether the F1 cars that Scuderia Toro Rosso and Super Aguri intend to run this year are legal is now little more than two weeks away.

It will come to a head at Australian GP scrutineering in Melbourne.

The Toro Rosso is similar to Red Bull's RB3 but with a Ferrari engine instead of a Renault, while it's been constantly reported that Super Aguri's car -- which won't be "launched" for another two weeks yet -- will be basically a 2006 Honda.

Rival teams -- in particular Spkyer and Williams, which are likely to be competing at the Toro Rosso/Super Aguri end of the field -- argue that "customer" cars are illegal, at least before 2008 (and Williams says they are still not yet legal for '08).

Super Aguri's Australian technical director Mike Preston says his team's car for this year "won't be the same (as the 2006 Honda), because you're not allowed to do that".

"There's various things that can be the same, and where we have to be different, we'll do something different," Preston says.

Preston says the monocoque of this year's Super Aguri is similar but different to last year's Honda.

End of road for F3 Masters
Along with the Macau Grand Prix, the annual F3 Masters in Holland has been a kind of unofficial world championship for Formula 3 since 1991.

Not this year, though.

The Zandvoort circuit is over its quota of days allowed for motorsport competition, because of it having an A1 GP round and now a World Touring Car Championship race and has had to cancel the F3 Masters that were scheduled for mid-June.

In the sand dunes of the Dutch coastline, and once an F1 venue, Zandvoort hosts rounds of the German Touring Car Masters Championship (DTM) and the F3 Euroseries.

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