MOTORSPORT: Waiting for sparks to fly

There ought to be the crackle of electricity in the global motor sport air at the minute.

The first season of the all-electric open-wheeler series Formula E wraps up this weekend with a double-header 'ePrix' on a street circuit in London's Battersea Park.

While there will likely be plenty of banging on that track, the greenest, cleanest and quietest form of motor racing has registered barely a whimper on the Richter scale of interest, either with hard-core fans or newcomers.

Across the Atlantic this weekend there could be history made with the prospect of the first overall victory in the Pikes Peak hillclimb, otherwise known as the Race to the Clouds, by an electric-powered vehicle.

One of New Zealand's Millen dynasty, Rhys, a champion drifter and stunt driver in Dukes of Hazzard and Fast and Furious films, has qualified the Latvian-developed one-megawatt eO PP03 fastest for Sunday's 20km sprints to the 4300-metre summit in the Rocky Mountains in Colorado.

The event has been disrupted by the death of a motorcyclist competitor over a cliff between Devil's Playground and the peak and a vehicle and six people being struck by lightning.

The biggest attendance this weekend is sure to be at Goodwood House in England's West Sussex for the 23rd Festival of Speed, which has become known as the 'Garden party to the gods' and attracts crowds of 100,000 and more on each of three days.

It's a magnificently inclusive festival of all forms of motor sport from the various corners of the globe at which Americans Don Garlits, drag racing's 83-year-old 17-time world champion and 'Big Daddy', and 77-year-old Richard Petty, 'The King' of NASCAR, will be as feted as Sir Stirling Moss, John Surtees and modern legends Lewis Hamilton and Valentino Rossi.

Goodwood's theme this year is 'Flat-out and Fearless: Racing on the Edge'. The Porsche 919 Hybrid that won the Le Mans 24-Hour a fortnight ago will be demonstrated there – by Brendon Hartley, the New Zealander who co-drove the second-placed Porsche with Australia's Mark Webber in the French classic. An Audi R18 e-tron quattro from Le Mans and Toyota's TS040 also will go up Goodwood's hillclimb along with hundreds of other machines from the past and present, while Nissan has taken two of its radical front-engined GTR Le Mans cars there – but only for static display.

Garlits will demonstrate his 1957 Swamp Rat 1 dragster and Petty his 1970 Plymouth Superbird, while seven Mercedes-Benz 300SLRs have been brought together 60 years after Moss won Italy's Mille Miglia in one.

In America there's a milestone and an honour for Australia's IndyCar champion Will Power as that open-wheeler series and NASCAR both race in California – at separate venues.   

Either way Formula E looks like going Brazilian
The London finale of Formula E's inaugural season will mark the end of identical Spark-Renault cars – eight companies have been authorised to develop the powertrain over coming years.

Mahindra Racing, run by top British junior open-wheeler team Carlin, already has been testing parts for the second season, starting a month later – in October.

Most of the Formula E drivers have Formula One experience and two Brazilians, Nelson Piquet Junior and Lucas di Grassi, are fighting for the title with 17 points between them and a maximum 60 to be scored in the weekend's two races.

Piquet has won two races to date for China Racing and not finished lower than fourth since the third round.

Di Grassi was stripped of 25 points for bodywork infringements after winning in Berlin last month.

A third contender is Swiss driver Sebastien Buemi, 23 points behind Piquet and six adrift of di Grassi, while Nicolas Prost – son of French F1 great Alain – and Belgian Jerome d'Ambrosio are mathematical chances.

It is more than 40 years since high-powered single-seaters raced in London – at Crystal Palace.

F1 cars paraded through Regent Street more than a decade ago but hopes of a Grand Prix there came to nought.

There have been lots of driver changes for the Formula E final, with Spaniard Jaime Alguersuari sidelined for medical tests after fainting at the previous event in Moscow.

One of three Swiss drivers brought in is IndyCar podium finisher Simona de Silvestro, who becomes the eighth to have represented Andretti Autosport.

Frenchman Jean-Eric Vergne, who was Australian Daniel Ricciardo's F1 teammate at Scuderia Toro Rosso in 2012-13, has been Andretti's mainstay while Matthew Brabham, grandson of Australia's late triple F1 world champion Sir Jack Brabham, did two rounds of the Formula E series for the team.

    
Millen has 1367 horses for the big climb
Rhys Millen is hopeful that, weather-permitting, he can break nine minutes on his dash up Pikes Peak on Sunday to win the hillclimb – America's second-oldest motor sport event after the Indianapolis 500.

Even if Millen does that he won't come anywhere near the record set two years ago by France's nine-time world rally champion Sebastien Loeb in the Peugeot 208 T16 of 8 minutes 13.878 seconds.

In doing that Loeb slashed Millen's previous unlimited record of 9 minutes 46.164 seconds, set before the course was fully sealed.

There are 156 turns as competitors climb 2,862 metres.

Millen's eO PP03 car for this year produces 1020 kW (1367 horsepower) thanks to a 50kWh lithium-ion battery pack and six –yes, six – YASA-400 electric motors with controllers developed in-house by Latvian engineering company Drive eO.

The company specialises in the design and manufacture of electric and hybrid-electric prototype vehicles.

It was the first to complete the Dakar Rally with a hybrid-electric vehicle and has participated twice before at Pikes Peak with all-electric cars.

Power, the winner of last year's series and second – 27 points behind Penske teammate Juan Pablo Montoya – after 10 rounds this season, has been nominated in the best driver category for America's Excellence in Sports Performance Yearly (ESPY) awards.

"Racing is all I ever wanted to do. To be acknowledged by one of the leaders in the sports world is something that means a lot to me," Power said.

The winner of the award will be named in Los Angeles on July 15.

Montoya, who won the Indianapolis 500 on May 24 (and in 2000), also has been nominated for the ESPY, as have NASCAR top gun Kevin Harvick, drag racer Erica Enders-Stevens and F1 world champion Lewis Hamilton.

The Fontana IndyCar race has been the series finale the past three years but has been brought forward this year.

Power races a Chevrolet-powered car, while fellow Australian Ryan Briscoe returns to Schmidt Peterson's Honda-powered entry after missing the previous round in Toronto because of a commitment to race at Le Mans, where the Corvette he was to co-drive was crashed too badly in qualifying to make the start.

NASCAR is also in California this weekend, at the Sonoma road course in the Napa Valley.

Chevrolet SS drivers have won 10 of the first 15 races of the Sprint Cup and the Bowtie badge has been the most successful in previous races at Sonoma – again with 10 wins.

NASCAR has decreed that the race will go the scheduled 110 laps of the 3.2km track even if it rains – which traditionally halts American stock car events.

Rain tyres will be available if needed and the cars will have windscreen wipers and demisters.

American eyes on F1 ownership
F1's ownership has been in the spotlight this week, with reports of American tycoon Stephen Ross looking to buy private equity company CVC's 35.5 per cent stake in the business in association with Qatar.

A price of US $8 billion has been mentioned – close to the total value that was being put on the business at the time of the second aborted attempt to float it on the Singapore stock market two years ago.

Ross owns the Miami Dophins football team.

American cable TV mogul John Malone previously has been touted as a possible buyer of CVC's stake.

While F1 has major issues with falling audiences and costs for participants, especially teams other than the frontrunners, the picture is far grimmer for Auto GP – a European open-wheeler series that is a remnant of Formula 3000.

Auto GP has "suspended" its season because of too few entries for the round scheduled for France's Paul Ricard circuit this weekend.

It had nine cars at the delayed start of its season but only seven at Britain's Silverstone a month ago.

The opening round at Marrakech was cancelled.

Brazilian Antonio Pizzonia, who was Mark Webber's teammate at Jaguar Racing in F1 early in 2004, leads the points table in the series, which organisers insist "must not be considered over".

Rounds at Zandvoort in Holland, Brno in the Czech republic and Barcelona in Spain are still scheduled.