MOTORSPORT: V8 Supercar debuts loom this weekend

As per usual Jamie Whincup was hogging the V8 Supercars headlines leading into this weekend’s pre-season V8 Supercars test at Sydney Motorsport Park. Mind you, a snake bite wasn’t exactly the news the six-times champ and his PR minders were anticipating.

The black-headed python latched onto Whincup’s right hand for a good three minutes when a photo shoot at Sydney’s Taronga Park zoo went awry yesterday. Thankfully, the snake was not venomous nor the injury severe, leaving the Red Bull ace ready for two days of testing in his Holden VF Commodore.

What was meant to be the big news was the announcement issued hours earlier that Triple Eight owner Roland Dane had successfully extended his hold on Whincup’s services for a further three years out to at 2018 — not the snake’s three-minute hold on the six-time champion.

And that, as V8 Supercars launches into a season where a significant number of talented drivers come out of contract, is certainly big news.

Taking Whincup, who is now officially our greatest ever touring car driver out of the equation, means the main focus of speculation will now fall upon his 40-year-old teammate Craig Lowndes and whether he will also re-sign.

Or will Shane van Gisbergen, the prodigiously talented 25-year-old Kiwi who races for Tekno Autosport, go from driving a T8-built Commodore to racing for the team itself.

Then a tier behind those two are the likes of Fabian Coulthard, David Reynolds and James Moffat; all talents, all winners and all out of contract at the end of 20015. No doubt the silly season driver story will run and run all year.

What we will be more focussed on this weekend is debuts, including:

New championship telecaster Foxsports, which will show the action from SMP on Sunday from 9:00am to 4:00pm

The first run for the last factory Ford Falcon V8 Supercar, the FG X, which will be campaigned by Prodrive Racing Australia (the artist formerly known as Ford Performance Racing) and the newly-formed DJR Team Penske

Marcos Ambrose, who is commencing his second era in the championship backed by US billionaire Roger Penske and Dick Johnson’s new outfit

Kiwi team Super Black Racing, which will have youngster Andre Heimgartner in the drivers’ seat of its PRA-fettled Falcon

PRA refugee Charlie Schwerkolt, who debuts his Walkinshaw Racing Fuchs Commodore with Lee Holdsworth at the wheel

Dunlop development series star Ash Walsh, who takes Holdsworth’s seat at Erebus Motorsport V8, driving a Mercedes-Benz E 63 AMG

Nick Percat, who shifts to Lucas Dumbrell Motorsport Commodore after being ousted from Walkinshaw Racing to make way for Holdsworth

Tim Blanchard, who lines up in LDM’s second Commodore

David Wall shifting with the Wilson Security/Payce money from DJR to Volvo Polestar Racing as wonderkid Scott McLaughlin’s teammate

The revised aerodynamics of the Nissan Altima, which has gone to an endplate-mounted rear wing, like all other cars in the field

A new rear wing for the Commodore … see if you can spot it

A whole lot of new liveries, although some will only be temporary with sponsorship announcements set to be made between the test and the Clipsal 500 championship opener over February 28-March 2.

A slew of engineering changes, including Grant McPherson shifting from Mark Winterbottom to Craig Lowndes to replace Jeromy Moore, who is off to Europe

There will also be the shadow of Mount Panorama looming over the entire weekend, as the test is running up against the Bathurst 12-Hour race, which is being telecast by former V8 Supercars host broadcaster Channel 7.

Within the motorsport community there’s no doubt the V8s, as the big boys on the block, have been seen as beating up on the 12-Hour, especially when it became apparent that the star drivers like Lowndes, van Gisbergen and Rick Kelly would not be allowed to race at the event this year as they have been in the past.

V8 boss James Warburton says it’s all about TV scheduling; Foxsports had one available weekend between the Asian Cup soccer and the World Cup cricket to telecast the test and it just happened to be the same weekend as the 12-Hour.

It’s a messy, bitchy, unfortunate and unhelpful situation. But the bottom line is it’s been a negative way to launch into a new telecasting paradigm for V8s where punters will have to pay $50 a month to see every event live, or console themselves with replays and only six live broadcasts on Channel 10.

There is a certain irony that the super test is free for spectators to attend but telecast on pay TV. Having said that, it was never telecast before at all.

Those that do show up to the western Sydney circuit will see three test sessions on Saturday, another session on Sunday morning and then a single-lap shootout for all 25 cars on Sunday afternoon, with $2500 going to the winner.

No doubt Jamie ‘snake bite’ Whincup wants to get his fangs into that prize as the first step towards title number seven.