MOTORSPORT: V8 Supercar stars go GT racing

Friday motorsport report

Bentley Continental to get southern hemisphere debut

V8 Supercar drivers are forbidden now from driving GT cars at the Bathurst 12-Hour, but three of the top stars in the championship will race GT3s this weekend at New Zealand’s new mountain circuit, Highlands.

Shane van Gisbergen, a favourite on both sides of the Tasman now, will be back in the McLaren MP4-12C in which he set a lap record at this year’s Bathurst 12-Hour.

Craig Lowndes is getting behind the wheel of a Chevrolet Camaro, while Garth Tander has teamed up with Tony Quinn again in an Aston Martin Vantage.

Apart from their many V8 Supercar race victories, van Gisbergen, Lowndes and Tander are third, fourth and ninth in this season’s V8 Supercar Championship.

They – and many others in Australia’s major motor racing series – would like to race in
February’s 12-Hour at Mt Panorama but have been precluded by V8 Supercar organisers scheduling the official pre-season test on the same weekend at Sydney Motorsport Park.

This weekend’s Highlands meeting will host the final two 40-minute races in the Australian GT Championship as well as a 101-lap Sunday feature race on the 3.932km Tony Quinn-owned South Island circuit that opened little more than a year ago.

The impressive field includes a Bentley Continental making its southern hemisphere racing debut in the hands of Melbourne businessman Peter Edwards.

The outright GT Championship is a battle between Richard Muscat driving an Erebus Motorsport SLS AMG and Quinn in the Aston Martin Vantage.

Muscat has led the championship since the opening round at Melbourne’s Sandown in March and, with five wins to Quinn’s four, holds a 32-point advantage with a maximum 110 to be earned at Highlands.

Quinn has brought back Tander this weekend after the pair won another ‘101’ event at Victoria’s Phillip Island in May, when Tander reined in the Mercedes of Muscat and his co-driver that day, Jack Le Brocq, in the dying stages to claim victory.

Saturday’s two races both include a compulsory pit stop.

The field includes Steven Richards in a Lamborghini Gallardo FL2 and John Bowe and Cameron McConville in Ferrari 458s, with six Audi R8s and several Porsches in the field too.

Triple Rally Oz victor to quit WRC

Three-time Rally Australia winner Mikko Hirvonen is to retire from the World Rally Championship after next weekend’s final round of this season in Britain.

Finn Hirvonen is only 34 but has decided – after 15 victories in the WRC and missing out on the 2009 title to French great Sebastien Loeb by one point – he wants to spend more time with his family.

Hirvonen won three successive Rally Australias – in 2006 in Western Australia and in 2009 and 2011 in NSW.

All of that hat-trick was achieved in Fords – Focuses the first two times and a Fiesta the third time. Indeed, all but one of Hirvonen’s WRC wins have been in Fords, with the other during his two seasons with Citroen.

Back with the Ford team M-Sport this year, he is fourth in the championship behind the three Volkswagen drivers – Frenchman Sebastien Ogier, Finn Jari-Matti Latvala and Norwegian Andreas Mikkelsen.

Sauber takes the money – from drivers

Swiss Formula One team Sauber’s response to its financial predicament amid its dismal season has been to contract two pay drivers for next year.

First it announced it would bring Swede Marcus Ericsson and his sponsorship across from the collapsed Caterham team and now it has named Brazilian rookie Felipe Nasr as its other driver for next season.

Nasr is second in this season’s GP2 series, with four race wins, but more important to Sauber was the backing the 22-year-old brings from Banco do Brasil.

Once a well-run team that finished as high as fourth in the constructors’ world championship, Sauber has foundered in the past couple of years and is only 10th in the constructor standings this season, not having scored a point.

It is above only Caterham and behind Marussia – both of which are in administration and not turning up to races – with only the Brazilian Grand Prix and the Abu Dhabi finale a fortnight later to go.

The funding Sauber’s new drivers will bring the team obviously topped that it could have obtained by installing Russian teenager Sergey Sirotkin or Dutchman Giedo Van der Garde, who earlier looked to have secured a seat for next season.

German Adrian Sutil and Mexican Esteban Gutierrez, the Sauber drivers this year, find themselves out in the cold – with the Mexican sponsorship attached to Gutierrez set to dry up for Sauber.

Audi rules out switch to F1

Audi has dismissed talk of it entering Formula One and of any connection to Fernando Alonso, the Spanish dual world champion who is departing Ferrari – making way for Sebastian Vettel – but still has not revealed his future team.

Recent reports have suggested that Audi would end its long-dominant sports car program which has yielded a string of Le Mans 24-Hour victories, as well as its DTM (German touring car championship) activity, in favour of F1.

While Audi has long been touted as a potential F1 participant, its recent hiring of former Ferrari team principal Stefano Domenicali heighted the speculation.

However, Audi motorsport boss Wolfgang Ullrich has said that Domenicali won’t be involved in the company’s racing and that it still has no plans to enter F1.

“There is no decision that we are going in that direction,”

“Audi has a motorsport program that at the moment is based on the World Endurance Championship and the DTM, and we are working on the cars for next season. There is no other program.

“Yes, Domenicali has joined Audi, but we haven't said yet what his job will be; no, he will not be involved in motorsport.”

Domenicali is close to Alonso, who has been mentioned as a possible Audi Le Mans driver next year if he were to take a sabbatical from F1 – in the event he and McLaren can’t agree terms for him to drive its newly Honda-powered F1 car next season.

The sticking point appears to be the length of the contract.

Webber reckons Penske the perfect team boss

In 12 seasons in F1, Mark Webber drove for Australian Paul Stoddart’s Minardi, a Jaguar team bankrolled by Ford and once headed by Niki Lauda, then for Sir Frank Williams and finally Red Bull Racing under Christian Horner.

But the team principal he would have loved to have had was Roger Penske, the American for whom Marcos Ambrose will race a V8 Supercar soon and who guided Will Power to this year’s IndyCar title.

“Without question, he [Penske] is the man,” Webber told Red Bull’s website in a Q&A on his imaginary dream team.

“Roger is passionate, a straight shooter and has an awesome moral compass.

“The drivers I know who have raced for him can’t fault his methods.”

Webber said the drivers he would choose were Fernando Alonso and the young New Zealander the Australian nine-time GP winner has mentored in Europe, Mitch Evans.

“They’re hungry, determined and fiery - the perfect line-up,” Webber said.

He said Evans was “Alonso-esque in racing situations”.

Webber’s choice of team manager was motorcycle manufacturer Ducati’s Davide Tardozzi, while the man he obviously would want designing the car was Adrian Newey.

But the Newey car Webber has liked most was not one he drove at Red Bull but the Williams FW14B in which Nigel Mansell won the 1992 world title.

“My best memories are the [Red Bull] RB6, which had phenomenal predictability [in the 2010 season], but my all-time favourite F1 car is another of Adrian’s – the Williams FW14B. F1 at its purest,” Webber said.

“Adrian’s exceptional at knowing what areas to focus on and the best at communicating with drivers on maximising car potential. Generally, his cars are all attractive except when regulations dictate ugly features.”

Big chance of rain in Brazilian GP

Thunderstorms are predicted for the practice and qualifying days at the Brazilian Grand Prix at Interlagos, while there is said to be an 80 per cent chance of rain on race day – Monday, Australian time.

The drivers’ world championship fight between Mercedes pair Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg will go to the wire in Abu Dhabi, irrespective of what transpires in Brazil – where Hamilton starts 24 points ahead.

Even if Hamilton wins at Interlagos and Rosberg doesn’t finish in the top 10 the gap would be 49 points – with 50 on offer for winning in Abu Dhabi a fortnight later.
If Rosberg wins on Monday morning and Hamilton finishes outside the top 10 the German would be back leading the championship by one point.

But Hamilton can finish second behind Rosberg in the final two rounds and still clinch the title.

Hamilton is chasing his sixth win in a row – something no British driver has done.
Michael Schumacher and Sebastian Vettel and Italian Alberto Ascari are the only drivers to have won more than five in a row.

The McLaren team has not won for 36 races now – since Jenson Button’s victory in Brazil two years ago.

Ferrari’s last victory was in Spain in May 2013 – the last time a team other than Mercedes or Red Bull won.

No driver has scored in every race this season, although Australia’s Daniel Ricciardo has now gone 15 races in a row in the points.

The Sauber team has gone 17 races without scoring – its longest drought since it entered the sport in 1993. It went nine in a row between October 1995 and May 1996 when only the top six cars scored points.