MOTORSPORT: V8 Supercars in the night

Two 200km races will be run at Abu Dhabi's modern and magnificent Yas Marina circuit, starting at 1.30am eastern Australian summer time Saturday and Sunday.

While few of even the most devoted V8 Supercar fans are likely to catch the Seven Network's live telecasts at that time, or the qualifying for the second race on Seven's digital channel 7mate from 12.30am Sunday, there will be replays on both Foxtel's SpeedTV and Seven over the weekend.

On SpeedTV they will be at 10am each day, and again at 8pm, while Seven's replays will be between 1.30pm and 3.30pm each day.

For those at Yas Marina entry prices are much cheaper than for the Australian rounds, with general admission both days only A$14 and children under 14 free with a paying adult.

The cars are racing on the soft "sprint" tyres at this opening round, and will do so much more this season, which should spice up the racing.

The main interest this year could be in the performance of the factory teams of the two participating manufacturers, Holden and Ford.

Holden Racing Team has reigning champion James Courtney on board after his defection from Dick Johnson Racing and all eyes will be on how he adapts to the Commodore after winning the title in a Falcon, and how he and teammate Garth Tander get along.

HRT is trying to rebound from a poor season in 2010, but Ford Performance Racing has been an underperformer for years and needs to achieve big things this year.

There is plenty of confidence in the FPR camp, especially in light of its stronger form since Bathurst last year.

Will Davison becomes the new teammate of Mark Winterbottom, who has finished in the top five in the championship for the past five years without winning a title or a Bathurst 1000.

For Davison it is a return to the Ford fold, as he sprung to prominence with DJR before he vacated that seat for Courtney, and he is coming off a horror 2010 at HRT with a lot to prove.

While this is Courtney's first time in Abu Dhabi with HRT he drove for Holden's factory squad in the 2005 endurance races before racing Fords for five years -- firstly for Stone Brothers before DJR.

While a lot of attention will be on how the two factory teams do this year, 2008 and '09 champion -- and 2010 runner-up -- Jamie Whincup has been the star performer in overseas races, having won an incredible 11 straight since Bahrain 2008.

Whincup -- in a Commodore for the second year now -- was the pacesetter yet again in practice overnight in Abu Dhabi, with Team Vodafone teammate Craig Lowndes third, while Tim Slade was the quickest of the Ford drivers for Stone Brothers.

This is Whincup's 100th V8 Supercar round and he has an outstanding record of 42 race wins from 211 races, with 22 pole positions and 50 podiums since his debut in 2002. He starts the season favourite for a third title in four years.

Young Kiwi Shane van Gisbergen chalks up his 50th round in Abu Dhabi and, after nine podiums last season, will be pressing hard for his first victory.

Five V8 Supercar drivers are racing in the Middle Eastern emirate for the first time -- Greg Murphy (Commodore), having missed last year due to another commitment in New Zealand and now back in the Kelly family's squad, James Moffat (Falcon, in place of Courtney at DJR), Steve Owen, Warren Luff and David Reynolds -- all in Commodores.

Holdens still account for almost two thirds of the field, with 18 Commodores and 10 Falcons.

The support races for the V8 Supercars in Abu Dhabi are the GP2 Asia Series and UAE GT Championship.

Felipe Massa set the pace in the new Ferrari, which is now named the Ferrari 150th Italia after Ford took legal action over the Italian team initially called it the F150 -- a clash with Ford's renowned pick-up truck.

"Ferrari has misappropriated the F-150 trademark in naming its new racing vehicle the 'F150' in order to capitalise on and profit from the substantial goodwill that Ford has developed in the F-150 trademark," Ford said.

Ferrari replied that it "has decided to ensure that, in all areas of operation, the abbreviated version will be replaced at all times with the full version, Ferrari F150th Italia".

Fiat owns 85 per cent of Ferrari, which says it chose F150 to celebrate 150 years of Italian unification, and 25 per cent of Chrysler, of which it has management control.

Massa did his best lap on just his seventh lap of Jerez last night.

The surprise in second place on the timesheet was Mexican rookie Sergio Perez in a Sauber.

Ricciardo, the 21-year-old West Australian, had his first outing in a Toro Rosso, the Italian team's new STR6, after having topped post-season tests for young drivers the past years in Red Bull cars.

Ricciardo did just what is expected from him -- to turn up the pressure to perform on Toro Rosso's contracted race drivers, Spaniard Jaime Algeursuari and Swiss Sebastien Buemi.

Ricciardo, who will be on track for Toro Rosso in Friday practice at F1 world championship rounds this year, clocked a best of 1 minute 21.755 seconds in his 31 laps at Jerez last night, while Algeursuari turned in a 1:22.689 from 42 laps.

"Jerez is where I first drove an F1 car, when I tested for Red Bull Racing at the end of the 2009 season and the last time I drove an F1 car was last November, again with Red Bull in Abu Dhabi," Ricciardo said. "It doesn't sound like a long time, but three months out of a race car is long enough. It was good to be back in the cockpit. Fortunately I seem to have remembered how to drive!

"Driving for Toro Rosso for the first time was another exciting experience for me.

"It went well and I did enough laps this morning to get settled in the cockpit, which is important as I hope to get a bit more track time in testing, so that I can feel confident when I get to Bahrain and run in free practice on Friday morning at my first Grand Prix weekend.

"I also used both of the new elements -- the KERS (kinetic energy recovery system) and DRS (drag reduction system, or adjustable rear wing) which seemed to function as planned.

"I felt quite comfortable by the end of the morning."

Algeursuari will drive for Toro Rosso again tonight before Buemi gets two days in the STR6.

Webber said he had a "pretty good day" in Red Bull's RB7 and did his best lap early.

"There were a few red flags, but we did almost 100 laps and the car ran well," he said. "On the performance side I think we're going okay -- it's very early and you don't know who's doing what, but we're focusing on ourselves and seem to be going in the right direction.

"My wishes are with Robert (Kubica, Renault's injured F1 star). It was a big shock for all of us (to hear of Kubica's serious crash in a rally which almost certainly will sideline him for the year) -- I couldn't believe it.

"It looks like the people involved have done an incredible job for him after the accident to keep him in the best shape possible.

"It's a big loss for our sport that he's not here and a big loss for us as competitors, as we're motivated to race against the best guys in the world -- and Robert is one of them. I'm looking forward to having him back when he is ready."

Swede P-G Andersson took the early lead in Rally Sweden by winning the Karlstad super special stage that opened the event last night.

It is a one-off WRC start for Andersson, whose supporters donated the money to get into a Ford for this rally before he focuses on his Proton drive in the Intercontinental Rally Challenge.

Works Ford driver Jari-Matti Latvala was second on the opening super special, 0.6 seconds slower than Andersson, with Petter Solberg third in his Citroen, avoiding a repeat of the spin he had on that stage last year.

Mikko Hirvonen was fourth in a Ford despite a gearbox problem, while Citroen factory stars

Sebastien Loeb and Sebastien Ogier were fifth and seventh, with Stobart-Ford's Norwegian newcomer Mads Ostberg between them.

Kimi Raikkonen, who has mentioned as a possible replacement for Kubica in F1, was 10th in the Ice 1 Citroen, behind the production class leaders.

Australia's two top rally drivers, Chris Atkinson and Cody Crocker, will be competing in the Asia-Pacific Championship this year.

Crocker, a multiple Australian and Asia-Pacific champion but sidelined last year, has scored a driver in a Prodrive-built Subaru from Indonesia with the Cusco Racing team, with Ben Atkinson -- brother of Chris -- as his co-driver.

Chris Atkinson said Proton is looking for bigger and better things from the Super 2000 Satria he will campaign.

Apart from the six-round Asia-Pacific series, including the Australian round in Queensland, Atkinson is hoping for a regular drive in the Intercontinental Rally Challenge with Proton.

Meanwhile, the front row positions for NASCAR's Daytona 500 will be decided in qualifying this weekend, while the rest of the field will be set in two sprint races next week, with Australian Marcos Ambrose running for Richard Petty Motorsports for the first time, and the 500 to be run on the morning of Monday week (February 21), Australian time.

Much of the focus at Daytona this month has been on the 10th anniversary of the death in the Daytona 500 of the great Dale Earnhardt -- like Richard Petty, a seven-time NASCAR Cup champion.

The NASCAR website has a feature on how Earnhardt's legacy endures, see here.

Image: teamvodafone.com.au

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