MOTORSPORT: VW's priority is WRC not F1

Mercedes fights for slice of F1 float action
As Formula One's European races begin this weekend in Spain, Volkswagen -- with its sights on becoming the world's biggest seller of cars -- has had a change of motorsport director. And the new man, Jost Capito (pictured while in his Ford days...), has been quick to stomp on the perpetual talk of VW entering F1.

Capito says VW's entry to the World Rally Championship next year with its new Polo R is its absolute focus. F1 is "not on the radar", said the man who has succeeded Kris Nissen as VW motorsport boss.

VW, with 10 car brands in its stable, is preparing for fully-fledged WRC competition next year by running a pair of Super 2000 Skodas in this year's series -- to gain experience and to provide continuous competition for its star recruit, Frenchman Sebastien Ogier, who it snared from Citroen, where he was hugely competitive with eight-time world champion and countryman Sebastien Loeb.

There has long been talk of VW entering F1 -- thought most likely as an engine supplier, but perhaps as a full constructor. New F1 rules in 2014, which will introduce "greener" 1.6-litre turbocharged engines, have been thought to have been largely intended to entice VW. But when Britain's Autosport asked Capito when he took up his new role this week whether VW was considering F1 he said: "Definitely not. At the moment we don't even think about it because we're thinking WRC."

While Capito is assumed to be speaking for the VW group, it is always possible the conglomerate could choose to use its Porsche brand to go F1 racing -- or Audi, with which it has dominated sports car racing for more than a decade. However, VW has always been seen as preferring to spend its money on developing road car models than in F1 -- and new chief Capito's initial statements only reinforce that.

Meanwhile, Mercedes-Benz is trying to exert pressure on the majority owner of F1, private equity company CVC, as speculation continues about a float of the sport on Singapore's stock market within weeks.

Mercedes is the only major participant in F1 not to have agreed to the proposed new Concorde Agreement to set out the sport's commercial terms beyond this
year. However, Mercedes GP team chief executive Nick Fry said that the car company "absolutely, in capital letters, wishes to be in F1".
Mercedes, which recently won its first GP as a manufacturer for more than half a century, appears anxious that Ferrari, McLaren (still using Mercedes engines) and Red Bull Racing have apparently been assured of board representation on a publicly-listed F1 company.

It is envisaged that, while Bernie Ecclestone would remain at the sport's helm, Nestle chairman Peter Brabeck would chair the listed entity. Fry said that negotiations with CVC were not progressing "as strong as I would like".

"If CVC wish to float F1 I think they need this resolved fairly quickly -- possibly more than we need it resolved," Fry said. "The value they can derive (from a float) would be severely diminished if Mercedes was not a participant."

F1's revenues are forecast to top US$2 billion for the first time this year and a stock market float is expected to value the business at around US$10 billion.

Lots of pointers to Spanish delights
The Circuit de Catalunya in Barcelona, venue for this weekend's Spanish Grand Prix,  traditionally hasn't produced exciting F1 races -- and next to no overtaking. But that changed last year with the introduction of Pirelli tyres and DRS -- the drag-reduction systems, or driver-operated rear wings, on the F1 cars.

Only once since 1991 has the Barcelona race been won from beyond the front row -- and that in heavy rain in 1996, when Michael Schumacher scored his first victory for Ferrari. Sixteen times the race has been won from pole position and four times from second on the grid. For three years before last year there were an average of just two overtaking moves in Barcelona, but last year there were 51 -- 29 with the assistance of DRS and 22 normally.

Statistics from Mercedes show that overtaking has increased even more this season -- from an average of 43 passes a race last season to 54 in the first four GPs this year. And the increase is from normal overtaking rather than that aided by DRS.

Barcelona has been a good circuit for Australia's Mark Webber -- he has been on pole position the past two years and scored an all-the-way win there in 2010, starting a charge that made him a world title contender to the final round that season.

Although yet to score a podium finish this year, Webber is third in the championship with 48 points -- from four fourth places. He is just one point behind McLaren's Lewis Hamilton and five behind Red Bull teammate Sebastian Vettel, last year's Barcelona victor.

The first four GPs this year have been won by four different drivers from four different teams. There have already been eight different drivers from six teams on the podium this year. By comparison, in four rounds -- and nine races -- V8 Supercars has had only five drivers from three teams on the podium.

Teams will have some major upgrades to their cars for Sunday's first European GP of the year, with McLaren opting for a higher nose.

Seven-time world champion Michael Schumacher, still without a podium in the third season of his comeback with Mercedes, has been bleating about Pirelli's tyres.

"They are so peaky and special that we don't put the cars or ourselves to the limit," Schumacher said. "We drive like on raw eggs and don't want to stress the tyres at all. Otherwise you just overdo it and then you'll go nowhere."

The 43-year-old Schumacher's younger rivals, including his Chinese GP-winning teammate Nico Rosberg, don't appear to be having quite the same difficulty.

A Webber victory in Barcelona on Sunday night, Australian time, could make it the first F1 season since 1983 to have begun with five different winners. But, if the previous race in Bahrain was a good indication, Kimi Raikkonen or Frenchman Romain could break through for Lotus.

Lotus sued by young Penske yet teams with Alesi  
Lotus may be shining in F1 again, but its name is being sullied in IndyCar racing. Dragon Racing, run by the great Roger Penske's son Jay, has sued Lotus claiming US$4.6 million for what it has said are several instances of contractual fraud.

Dragon has entered Sebastien Bourdais and Katherine Legge for this month's Indianapolis 500 but has returned its Lotus engines -- after two other teams earlier opted out of Lotus engine deals -- and has been busy trying to source either Chevrolet or Honda power.

Yet Jean Alesi, the popular French Sicilian ex-F1 driver, fronted at Indianapolis this week with the untried Fan Force United team and a Lotus engine!
Alesi, now 47 and out of top-line racing for more than a decade, was to have had an Indianapolis entry with the famed Newman-Haas Racing but it closed its doors five months ago.

While six drivers -- including Rubens Barrichello and Simon Pagenaud - passed all three stages of rookie orientation at The Brickyard yesterday, Alesi didn't, doing only 18 laps -- barely a third of any other driver.

Alesi and New Zealander Wade Cunningham, with A.J. Foyt Racing, have only today to complete the rookie program if they are to participate in practice this weekend for the May 28 classic.

Alesi has described himself this week as "middle-aged crazy" -- and this exercise may just emphasise that.

'Comprehensive review' only adds to comprehensive confusion
It's also been a crazy time in V8 Supercars with the safety car controversy from last weekend's Perth round rumbling on. Triple Eight Race Engineering/Team Vodafone boss Roland Dane claimed the safety car in the third and final Perth race had cost his veteran driver Craig Lowndes a likely victory.

Dane called releasing of Lowndes from behind the safety car a "disgraceful bit of race management" and "an absolute cock-up".

Lowndes, who ultimately finished sixth in the race, said it "could potentially be a championship decider", while his series-leading teammate Jamie Whincup said Lowndes had been "heavily shafted".

In an announcement that will be hard to top as the most garbled in motorsport history V8 Supercars said this week it had "completed a comprehensive review" and that there had been "some errors", but that they had not affected the race results.

The announcement -- which avoided the use of names of any officials, executives or drivers, although there was references to cars 1 (Whincup), 12 (Dean Fiore) and 888 (Lowndes) -- said a specific error had been "the wording of which car to hold behind it [the safety car] which led to confusion amongst race teams and spectators".

"V8 Supercars is comfortable, however, that this error in wording had no impact on the end result," it said. "In fact the review reaffirmed the fact that during any safety car period there remains a likelihood that some cars may gain advantage and some may be disadvantaged."

Later it said that "many cars were affected by the safety car deployment". Yet there was supposedly no impact on the race results? As the series heads to Victoria's Phillip Island next week for the fifth round V8 Supercars is unlikely to be quite as "comfortable" with the situation as it professes to be.

Other storm clouds are gathering too -- over freight and travel costs for the Abu Dhabi round, the not-so-cheap cost of machinery under the Car of the Future, and long overdue engine rules for new manufacturer participants.

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