Motorsport: V8SA learns to say sorry

Friday motorsport reportApril 27, 2007

"We apologise to our fans that it happened and assure them we will fix these problems," V8 Supercars Australia chief executive Wayne Cattach now says.

After two lengthy delays because of bad crashes, V8SA opted to cut the race short so that it could squeeze in the podium presentation -- supposedly because its "research" shows that to be important -- before Channel 7 began its telecast of an AFL game.

Indications now are that in future V8SA will let the race run and cut back, perhaps even cut out, the podium presentation.

V8SA has totally absolved Channel 7, as it should. We pointed out here on Monday that the telecaster was in no way to blame.

Remember that it is V8SA running this show and now in control of the television production and indeed telecast, up to the agreed finish time of that telecast.

A lot of the fan reaction, especially in letters published in this week's Auto Action, has been misguided nonsense.

Even today, one of the country's leading motoring writers is still trying to blame the telecaster.

"Channel 7 forced an early end to the V8 Supercar action ... Seven sacrificed the action for the sake of (AFL) fans in Perth," writes Herald Sun motoring editor Paul Gover.

Channel 7 had a deal to show V8 Supercars up to a certain moment, and AFL from the next moment. It has done just that.

As Ian Johnson, 7's executive responsible for its AFL and Supercar deals, says of the Pukekohe kerfuffle, "Not our problem."

In its public acknowledgement of responsibility yesterday, V8SA continues to sink the boots in to the NZ crash recovery team.

That team may not have been entirely without fault, but the ongoing attack on it by the series organiser is a bit rich.

V8SA is talking about "the development of a professional training package to instruct all recovery crews and speed up the amount of time it takes to rescue stricken V8 Supercars".

Well and good, but this series organiser has been running V8 Supercar races for a decade now -- and has taken its series to Pukekohe, a  notoriously dangerous track, for the past seven years.

Instead of sticking the slipper into the NZ crew, V8SA perhaps needs to take a look in the mirror and ask itself why it hadn't developed such "professional training package" already, or appointed an expert to oversee all car recoveries as it's now contemplating.

One final thing on this whole sorry saga.

Much has been made of the fiasco in terms of television viewers being short-changed and HSV Dealer Team driver Garth Tander missing out on winning the round, but has anybody given a thought to the paying public?

The punters paid their money for a schedule that included a 43-lap final race, but they got only 36 laps.

Those whingeing about the free-to-air coverage didn't pay a cent!

Short 'Round-Australia' in 2008
An abbreviated Round-Australia trial is being planned for September next year.

It will be for historic and classic rally cars, with turbocharged and four-wheel drive cars banned.

The man behind it is 1970 Australia Rally Champion Bob Watson, who ran the 1995 Round Oz won by Ed Ordynski in a Holden Commodore.

Watson's idea is to have various starting points around the country, feeding into a gathering at Alice Springs from where all cars will take on the Northern Territory and Queensland outback for about a week before finishing south of Brisbane, where Australia's reborn world championship rally is scheduled.

The total distance, including the assembly stages of roughly equal lengths, would be about 9000km.

Watson says that, while it will not be "around Australia" in the fullest sense, it will give competitors an event and an adventure typical of the classic Round-Australia trials.

He's hoping for a field of 100 cars.

Marko is insisting Red Bull Racing step up its work rate on the back of the speed the RB3 cars are now showing.

Red Bull may bring forward the introduction of its seamless shift gearbox, planned for the Canadian Grand Prix in June, to next month's Spanish GP if tests next week at Barcelona are successful.

"Its introduction is very much dependent on its success at the test. If the test goes well and we make good progress then we could race it in Spain," Red Bull team principal Christian Horner has told autosport.com

Dutch-owned backmarker Spyker and Red Bull are the only teams without continuously variable transmission.

"It costs us time with every change of gear and acceleration," says Marko.

"Apart from that, the RB3's aerodynamics are being completely reworked."

Marko also says a new quality-control system has been put in place at the team.

"From now on, every detected defect has to be reported to the factory within two hours." he says.

"The senior designer has to offer a solution within a day.

"The defect has to be eliminated within three days. Without exception.

"Red Bull's philosophy is this: We're not satisfied with 12th place. We'd rather risk something; we don't like to bundle all our resources into the development of reliability. We are also working on the advancement of speed at the same time."

On the performance of drivers Webber and David Coulthard so far this season, Marko says: "During the races both of them perform excellently. Mark also drove splendidly in the three qualifyings."

Change at the top for Toyota F1
Toyota's underperforming F1 team, now in its sixth season, is to get a new boss.

Toyota team principal Tsutomu Tomita will step down at the end of June in a major management reshuffle.

Tadashi Yamashina, who has been the F1 team's vice-chairman since last December, will take on Tomita's role.

Toyota is fifth in the constructors' championship this season but has not been anywhere near a podium in the three races so far.

Its Italian driver Jarno Trulli is seventh in the drivers' championship and German Ralf Schumacher 10th.

The departing Tomita still says he's "looking forward to celebrating Toyota's first victory in F1 sooner rather than later".

Optimism is a wonderful thing.

Mauro Iacconi and Angelo Santini were found guilty by a Modena court of charges that included gaining unauthorised access to Ferrari's computers and the misappropriation of files.

Santini and Iacconi, who were dismissed by Toyota before the case was made public, have appealed against their sentences.

Briatore says F1 needs to revolutionise its format in order to spice up the spectacle.

"We need two races -- a 45-minute sprint in the morning and a race for one hour in the afternoon," he has told Germany magazine Auto Motor und Sport.

Briatore would ban refuelling and use the results of the morning sprint as qualifying for the main feature -- with the top eight finishers made to start in reverse order.

Points would be awarded for both races.

Apart from the reversing of part of the grid, on which V8 Supercar officials and drivers could counsel Briatore, the rest sounds very much like the format used in the much-derided A1 Grand Prix series.

Dyk stays in for A1 finale
The second season of the A1 GP "World Cup of Motorsport" concludes this weekend at Brands Hatch in Britain.

The first season produced a loss of US$212 million and saw the departure of of founder Sheikh Maktoum Hasher Maktoum al-Maktoum.

Wonder what the report card will look like after two years?

Australia has retained Sydney driver Ian Dyk for the final race after Queenslander John Martin, the reigning Australian Formula Ford Champion, was mentioned as a possibility for Brands Hatch.

Germany has already clinched the title, courtesy of brilliant teenager Nico Hulkenberg.

Australia is 13th among the 22 competing countries.

New Zealand only needs to notch four points at the final round to clinch second place ahead of Britain, which has done well at the past two rounds -- with Oliver Jarvis winning both races in Mexico and Robbie Kerr victorious in the sprint and second in the feature in Shanghai, behind Kiwi Jonny Reid.

NZ will give Reid and Matt Halliday a race each this weekend.

Inaugural title winner France is in line to finish fourth this season.

Now, though, Richards concedes that famous name may be splashed on the team perhaps five years down the track.

The new outfit will be "customer" team, buying its cars from an established F1 constructor -- widely tipped to be McLaren, although Richards insists he is still considering two other options.

"I have two conditions -- the first is we must be competitive, and at the most in five years also profitable," Richards told Germany's Auto Motor und Sport.

He is aiming for the team to finish eighth of the 12 teams in its debut season.

He claims to have signed a title sponsor, "so since Christmas I've only worried about Aston Martin rather than F1".

"Max Mosley (president of the Federation Internationale de l'Automobile) said some time ago that US$100 million annually must be enough to maintain a successful F1 team -- that is also my goal," Richards says.

"One thing is clear ... Prodrive will not build its own car. We never intended that.

"If you look at the examples of Honda and Toyota, they have shown just how expensive it is to be successful with their own car. So we will work with an existing team."

GP telecasts healthy in Europe
F1 television figures in the "big five" European markets -- France, Spain, Germany, Italy and Britain -- have been generally good for the first three GPs of this year, according to Britain's Sportbusiness publication.

The sensational debut of Lewis Hamilton will have helped in Britain, while there has been some softness in Germany following Michael Schumacher's retirement.

But based on the few million viewers in each of these five countries, it is impossible to see how the total audience comes anywhere near the oft-claimed 350 million viewers globally for each race.

Diesel Volvo comes up trumps
Volvo's factory Swedish Touring Car Championship team's use of E85 bio-ethanol fuel has proved instantly successful.

Robert Dahlgren's Volvo S60 won the opening 35-lap race at Sturup Raceway near Malmo.

Volvo is also planning to race its E85-fuelled cars in selected rounds of the FIA World Touring Car Championship this year.

Fine, probation for Montoya
Juan Pablo Montoya has been fined US$10,000 and put on probation until the end of the year by NASCAR for an obscene gesture on TV.

Montoya waved a finger at a camera after practice at Phoenix International Raceway.

Montoya says: "It was only meant as a joke to one of my friends. I completely understand NASCAR's point of view and their decision. I really feel bad."

It's a "restrictor plate" race, with devices fitted to contain the speeds on the superfast speedway.

It will be Australian Marcos Ambrose's 10th race in the Busch Series, in which he stands eighth in his Ford Fusion.

"Talladega is very fast and quite treacherous," Ambrose says.

"It's different to Daytona -- a little wider and has more grip.

"The important thing on these superspeedways is to have a car that works well in the draft. If you can have that and also have some drafting help you can get a good result."

Ambrose's crew chief, Greg Conner, says the strategy this weekend is to "hang back and miss all the wrecks until the final pit stop -- then we'll go racing".

To comment on this article click here