MOTORSPORT: V8 Supercar picture needs to change

So will it be another Team Vodafone/Jamie Whincup whitewash in Bahrain? Will Holden Racing Team bounce back? Can Ford win a race? Will Steven Richards improve at Ford Performance Racing? How will Greg Murphy go in his debut with Paul Morris Motorsport after missing the opening round because of a Top Gear TV commitment in New Zealand? And, what difference will using the full 5.41km grand prix circuit rather than the abbreviated 3.6km version make?

These questions and others will be answered by Sunday morning, Australian time, although the race telecasts again will be delayed to (Saturday afternoon and) Sunday afternoon.

We have noted some resentment, particularly from Motorsport eNews editorial commander Phil Branagan, about the Middle East telecasts not being live. We reported here last Monday that the Abu Dhabi viewing figures on Seven were not flash -- 282,000 for the first race shown on Saturday and 287,000 Sunday -- but the reality is they would have been even worse if screened live at very odd hours. Still, we will be watching to see if the numbers for the Bahrain telecasts are an improvement on Abu Dhabi.

Though the Holden-Ford fight is already looking close in terms of numbers in the top 10 finishers, it is winning that matters most. Thus there is concern for the championship if things between the the two participating manufacturers (and the two top Holden teams) don't level out quickly.

Firstly, it won't be good for the Australian rounds to start (in Adelaide on March 13-14) with a runaway series leader -- in other words, with the contest appearing lopsided so soon. And, further out, the championship needs to go to the wire to make the Sydney finale work.

Remember that last year, despite lots of genuine excitement about the new Sydney street race (and even more over-excited hype), Whincup only had to finish 28th in a 29-car field in either of two races to become champion. This translated to empty grandstand seats, and a TV audience which was a disappointment -- on the Sunday way below that for the Sunday of the round two weeks earlier in Western Australia, and which this year has been axed from the calendar.

The series needs to be a contest to the finish -- and it needs to get there in fair-dinkum competition, not some any doctoring as has happened in Formula One over the years.

We noted some interesting comments from Triple Eight Race Engineering boss Roland Dane this week in Motorsport eNews -- particularly that five of the top nine finishers in the second Abu Dhabi race were cars with T8 chassis.

And he said: "If we had not been there Ford would have had a very good weekend!"

And: "The DJR (Dick Johnson Racing) guys ... probably need to use our old engineers in all their cars, rather than just Webby's (Jonathan Webb's). They then will probably be right up there, and ahead of FPR."

Dane also has mentioned that perhaps the Middle East races ought to become a mini-series separate from the Australian/Australasian championship.

There are already top-class tracks in Dubai, Qatar, and Turkey. And perhaps Singapore would fit that mini-series idea too.

We like Dane's thinking. And we'd like to see some other teams, particularly those with big budgets, come up to the benchmark he's set in V8 Supercar racing, because one thing's for sure -- he and Team Vodafone won't be coming back [down] to their levels.

It's in the form of a column, virtually a blog, by an anonymous author identified only as The Horse Whisperer (as in black prancing horse/Ferrari emblem whisperer) and it's headlined 'For whom the bell tolls'.

It is an attack on F1's new teams and former Federation Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA) president Max Mosley. An extraordinarily opinionated piece, posting it on Ferrari's website gives it the unqualified imprimatur of what is undoubtedly F1's oldest, biggest, most popular and revered team; the centrepiece of the whole show.

The views this article espouses were an extension of sentiments expressed previously by Ferrari chairman Luca di Montezemolo.

It does indeed make some points, and it is beyond doubt now that one, if not two, of the new teams won't make the grid for the start of the season in Bahrain in a little more than two weeks. Yet it is unbelievably arrogant. Here's the gist of it:

"Of the 13 teams who signed up, or were induced to sign up, for this year's championship, to date only 11 of them have heeded the call, turning up on track, some later than others, and while some have managed just a few hundred kilometres, others have done more, but at a much reduced pace.

"As for the 12th team, Campos Meta, its shareholder and management structure has been transformed, according to rumours which have reached the Horse Whisperer through the paddock telegraph, with a sudden cash injection from a munificent white knight [GH: an obvious reference to Spanish tycoon Jose Ramon Carabante], well used to this sort of last-minute rescue deal… However, the beneficiaries of this generosity might find the knight in question expects them to fulfil the role of loyal vassal.

"All this means, it is hard to imagine the Dallara-designed car showing its face at the Catalunya circuit [GH: for the final pre-season four day test starting tonight], with Sakhir (Bahrain) a more likely venue to witness the return of the Senna name to an F1 session.

"The 13th team, USF1, appears to have gone into hiding in Charlotte, North Carolina, to the dismay of those like the Argentinian, (Jose Maria) Lopez, who thought he had found his way into the F1 paddock - albeit with help from chairwoman Kirchner [GH: Argentine president Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner], according to the rumours - and now has to start all over again.

"Amazingly, they still have the impudence to claim that everything is hunky-dory under the starry stripy sky.

"Next, we have the Serbian vultures [GH: a reference to Stefan GP, an outfit without an entry but hoping to get a start in place of USF1]… Firstly, they launched themselves into a quixotic legal battle with the FIA, then they picked the bones of Toyota on its death bed… Having got some people on board, around whom there was still a whiff of past scandals, they are now hovering around waiting to replace whoever is first to drop out of the game, possibly with backing from that very same knight in shining armour whom we mentioned earlier.

"This is the legacy of the holy war waged by the former FIA president [GH: Max Mosley]… The cause in question was to allow smaller teams to get into F1.

"This is the outcome: two teams will limp into the start of the championship [GH: Virgin/Manor and the reborn Lotus], a third is being pushed into the ring by an invisible hand [GH: Campos Meta] -- you can be sure it is not the hand of Adam Smith [GH: famous free market economist] -- and, as for the fourth [GH: USF1], well, you would do better to call on Missing Persons to locate it.

"In the meantime, we have lost two constructors along the way, in the shape of BMW and Toyota, while at Renault there's not much left other than the name. Was it all worth it?"

There ought to be questions about how the FIA chose the four teams it did, and whether there were more worthy applicants among the 10 that missed out. However, veteran and highly respected German F1 journalist Michael Schmidt's reaction to The Horse Whisperer has been the most appropriate.

Under the heading 'Red card for Ferrari' in his country's Auto Motor und Sport publication, Schmidt called it "a far-fetched conspiracy theory".

"I have rarely read such nonsense," he said.

There might have been better candidates for entry to F1, he said, but the sport needed new teams. Indeed, F1 -- and its commercial supremo Bernie Ecclestone in particular -- have been getting away for too long with fronting up with 20 cars as its "show" instead of the 26 it should have been delivering.

The signs are that this is not a genuine naming rights deal -- the lateness of it, the lack of ceremony in announcing it, and no evidence of any rush to incorporate the Qantas name in the event logo.

Victoria's tourism and major events minister Tim Holding, the man in the Victorian government with responsibility for the GP, had another motorsport duty as the Qantas sponsorship was announced -- revealing the long-term extension of the contract for the opening round of the World Superbike Championship at Phillip Island.

But in a prepared statement on the GP deal Holding said: "We greatly value the involvement of all our commercial sponsors -- their support reduces the cost of this event to the Victorian government."

The latter half of that comment is at odds with another by Australian Grand Prix Corporation chief executive Drew Ward in Melbourne's Herald Sun last December 29.

The Herald Sun reported that day (bearing in mind there was no "major' sponsor then) that: "Mr Ward said the race could run without a standalone major sponsor and would not cost taxpayers more if that was the case. 'There won't be any impact on the overall cost of the event in terms of overall sponsorship revenues'," Ward said.

There were many raised eyebrows at that statement at the time.

Holding is far closer to the mark on this matter, although we suspect the Qantas contribution this year is likely to amount to little more than the cost of having its name painted around the Albert Park venue.

The ARC has been a sad and sorry series in recent times, but the beauty of this tarmac round -- not surprisingly called Rally Tasmania -- is that it brings together competitors likely the still largely under-rated Steve Glenney in a Subaru Impreza WRX, Jim Richards in a Porsche 911, and young talent Brendan Reeves in another Impreza, against gravel specialists Simon Evans, a triple ARC champion in an Impreza, his younger brother Eli in a Honda Civic (the only factory entry), and the returning Pedder brothers, Scott and Mark, in Mitsubishi Lancer Evos.

Eli Evans expects the front-wheel-drive Civic to be fast on the tarmac, but knows it may struggle on the gravel of the other five ARC rounds.

Meantime Victoria is to get its first multi-stage tarmac rally. In place of the former single-stage Mt Buller Sprint, the new Targa High Country -- which will become part of a series with Targa Tasmania and the island state's Targa Wrest Point - will have 230km of competition in 17 stages in north-east Victoria in early November.

It will start with a 5km street stage at Mansfield, then have eight on each of the next two days -- heading to Wangaratta, via Whitfield, and Eildon, via Jamieson, ending with a 20km dash to the top of Mt Buller on each of the weekend days.

In WRC news, Australia's out-of-work rally star Chris Atkinson has tested a Proton Super 2000 rally car in Britain. While Atkinson hopes to be back in the WRC next year, Proton is yet to finalise its driver line-up for this year's Intercontinental Rally Challenge, so maybe there's a spot for there for the talented Queenslander.

And some excitement this week that the WRC may move away from its rotating format, under which there is only an Australian round every two years now. Euro sources suggest while some events may still be held only every second year, there are hopes Rally Australia -- now in northern NSW -- may be back on the calendar every year, and that the Monte Carlo Rally will again start the WRC instead of being part of the IRC.

Indeed Briscoe has told Motorsport eNews he wants to race in the Phillip Island 500 and Bathurst 1000 too, although there could be a snag with him taking part in the Great Race if he wins the IndyCar Championship. It ends the weekend before Bathurst, and he'd have a lot of commitments in the US if he became champion.

Phillip Island fits neatly between the Kentucky and Japanese rounds of the Indy series, however.

Briscoe, who took a stunning provisional pole position in his V8 Supercar debut at the 2006 Sandown 500, is working through the possibilities with his IndyCar team owner, the iconic Roger Penske.

Bet HRT would love to have him partnering Garth Tander or Will Davison in the September-October enduros.

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