MOTORSPORT: V8s, GTs on collision course

The 12-Hour is slotted for Sunday, February 8. V8 Supercars Australia is contemplating bringing forward its annual, compulsory  pre-season test at Sydney Motorsport Park (formerly Eastern Creek) from mid-February by a week - and expanding it to two days.

The two days that would coincide with qualifying and race day of the Bathurst 12 Hour.

It may be no coincidence that Seven (which plans to screen the first three quarters of the 12-Hour on its 7mate and the final quarter on its primary channel) is the outgoing V8 Supercar telecaster, to be replaced next year by pay TV service, Fox. Just six V8 Supercar Championship rounds will be simulcast live on the Ten Network.

Seven is the network most synonymous with Bathurst motor racing, largely responsible (under its former sports chief Mike Raymond, along with the Australian Racing Drivers Club and the Bathurst City Council) for creating the institution that is October's Great Race, the Bathurst 1000.

That's a race Craig Lowndes has won five times, as well as three Australian touring car (now V8 Supercar) titles at the end of last century.

Lowndes also won the Bathurst 12 Hour this year, in a Ferrari with three co-drivers, including fellow V8 Supercar legend John Bowe and ex-Formula One driver, Mika Salo.

Having competed in the February enduro four times and now triumphed in it, Lowndes wants to return next February. Having turned 40 last Saturday, he has stated he wants to do more endurance racing, including France's famed Le Mans 24 Hour.

Rick Kelly is another Bathurst 1000 winner and V8 Supercar champion who this year was at Mt Panorama in February in a Nissan GT-R as part of the Japanese company's Nismo team and hopes to be back there early next year for a more successful outing.

Other V8 Supercar stars have driven in the 12-Hour and want to do so again.

Lowndes and Kelly have told niche motorsport website Speedcafe.com that they are "hugely disappointed" about the potential clash of that event and the V8 Supercar pre-season test, which doubles as a de facto season launch with free entry for the public.

"There's not only myself that drives at the 12 Hour but there's other V8 drivers that love doing it," Lowndes said.

"I think it'd almost be interesting to see who decides to turn up to what!"

Kelly said that having V8 Supercar drivers in the 12 Hour, which has gained foreign teams and international significance in recent years since its emphasis on GT cars (including marques such as Lamborghini, McLaren, AMG Mercedes, Audi and Porsche) had helped boost the profile and credibility of V8 Supercars.

"I think it's helped the whole sport because it puts V8 Supercars even further on the map in terms of the drivers that we've got in our field and their capabilities," Kelly said.

"For us not to be able to race in events like the 12 Hour is bad for us and it's bad for getting the sport out there a little more.

"I'm disappointed if it [the clash of dates] does happen. The opportunity to drive in the factory Nismo car is something I really enjoyed and it's been the highlight of my year, to be honest."

Kelly is only 17th in the V8 Supercar Championship and yet to win in the category since his family team switched from Holden Commodores to Nissan Altimas last season.

"Not being able to do that [Bathurst 12 Hour again] is a tough one... But, at the end of the day, we're in V8 Supercars for the long haul and we'll do what we get told to do."

V8 Supercar chief executive James Warburton told Speedcafe.com that he wanted to avoid a clash of the pre-season test with the start of cricket's World Cup, which begins in Melbourne on February 14. [Fox is committed to televising both -- and has the multiple channels to do that simultaneously].

Warburton said "a World Cup in Australia... is going to be huge, so we've got to look at the timing of that".

"Calendars are always compromises - they're never easy things," he said.

"Everyone has an opinion but we've got to put the best possible calendar we can together."

The V8 Supercar calendar is due to be finalised by September - and compromise on this potential clash may need to become part of it. It may suit Fox, which is paying a lot of money to become the V8 Supercar telecaster, to bring forward the pre-season test.

It also would deny the 12 Hour, and its new telecaster Seven (after SBS screened the final stages this year), the participation of the highest-profile race drivers in the country.

While Warburton has given the cricket World Cup as the reason, many in the Australian motorsport community will see it as an inflammatory act of aggression more expected in a bygone era of V8 Supercar administration.

The Confederation of Australian Motor Sport (CAMS) may have a role to play in a compromise here.

More so perhaps CAMS' parent body, the Federation Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA), especially as V8 Supercars will need the FIA's sanction if it wants to reintroduce events to its championship outside Australia and beyond New Zealand next year.

The FIA may not look kindly on an application for V8 Supercar races abroad (most likely in America) from an organisation it may see as trying to cut across an alternative endurance race at the mecca of Australian motorsport, with growing international importance, and for which it has a rather soft spot.

FIA president - and master politician - Jean Todt has said previously that perhaps V8 Supercars might be best to "stick to its knitting" in this part of the world rather than have grand international ambitions.

But before these matters get to that height in motorsport circles, other entities (including the NSW government and its tourism body, and the Bathurst City Council) may have two bob's worth to contribute.

And compromise and common sense may need to be the key drivers.

Otherwise there may be some very, very unhappy V8 Supercar drivers, at the least.