MOTORSPORT: Whincup hits 'em for six

An umpteenth manufacturer title looms for Holden, most likely at Sydney Motorsport Park this month.

Will Power has regained the lead in America’s IndyCar series and could have his first title there, after years of near-misses -- within a month as the championship ends on August 30. Two of the remaining three races are on ovals.

Meantime, New Zealander Scott Dixon came from the back of the field to win the weekend’s round at the Mid-Ohio road course, his fifth victory there in eight years – but the first IndyCar triumph for Chip Ganassi Racing this season.

Power’s Penske teammate Helio Castronves, who had led the series, lost five laps for repairs after the parade lap and the Brazilian finished 19th, 13 places behind Power, giving the Toowoomba ace a four-point lead heading to the Milwaukee Mile in a fortnight.

Ryan Briscoe was eighth for Ganassi and is 11th in the series, while Matthew Brabham had gearbox trouble in the first Indy Lights race at Mid-Ohio and finished fifth, then crashed at the first corner of the next race, losing control after his left rear tyre was cut in a start-line skirmish.

Eighteen-year-old Australian Formula Ford champion Anton De Pasquale continued his great debut season in Europe and now has five wins and three seconds from eight races in the Formula Renault 1.6 North European Cup.

Pasquale (18), from Melbourne, won the weekend’s first race at Assen in Holland, got a bad start in the second race, which dropped him to fourth but he fought back to finish directly behind maiden winner, Estonian Ralf Aron.

“I had a very average start and made another mistake, so I had to fight to regain my position but could not take the lead back – it was tough competition, but I really enjoyed myself,” De Pasquale said.

The next round is at Zolder in Belgium.

Marcos Ambrose finished 14th in the latest round of NASCAR’s Sprint Cup at Pocono, Pennsylvania, but is looking forward to the Watkins Glen road course – where he has had so much success – next weekend.

Dale Earnhardt became NASCAR’s third three-time winner this year at Pocono, beating fellow Chevrolet driver Kevin Harvick and the Penske Ford of Joey Logano.

Four-time series champion Jeff Gordon still leads in another Chev, 17 points clear of Earnhardt, with Penske’s Brad Keselowski third.
     

Latvala led by more than half a minute at the halfway mark but Ogier narrowed the gap to 3.6 seconds at the end and scored maximum bonus points on the Powerstage.

Latvala’s Polo had brake troubles for 3½ stages after he hit a rut on Saturday.

The VWs have won all eight WRC rounds so far this season. This was Latvala’s third victory of the year and the second of his career in his homeland.

Britain’s Kris Meeke finished third, more than 50 seconds behind Latvala but enhancing his prospects of being retained by Citroen.

Norwegian Andreas Mikkelsen in another VW was fourth, a minute behind Meeke, and is third in the championship.

A four-wheel-drive Toyota GT86, developed by Finnish rally great Tommi Makinen with a Subaru gearbox and front driveshafts, was demonstrated at the Finnish event. A rear-wheel-drive version of the 86 and a new Yaris rally car from Toyota’s European motorsport operation will do something similar at the next event, Rally Germany, with the round after that being Rally Australia at Coffs Harbour.

Closer to home, the lead has changed in the Australian Rally Championship, with successive victories by Scott Pedder in a Renault Clio – at Rally South Australia at the weekend after the previous Rally Queensland – giving him a five-point advantage over Mazda2 driver Brendan Reeves.

Reeves lost his left rear wheel on Sunday, dropping him to fifth place in SA’s final heat. Tony Sullens was third for the weekend in a Citroen.

The fifth ARC round will be held in conjunction with Rally Australia.

FPR star’s lead wiped in two rounds, Nissan on the up
Holden has now won 17 of 25 V8 Supercar Championship races this year, while Ford Performance Racing’s former series leader and last year’s Bathurst 1000 winner, Mark Winterbottom, has lost momentum.

Winterbottom hasn’t finished in the top five in the six races over the past two rounds at Townsville and Ipswich.

A pair of sixths in Saturday 100km sprints at Queensland Raceway and then a 22nd on Sunday, after a puncture at two-thirds distance of the 200km feature, turned his 96-point lead before the weekend into a 15-point deficit after it.

However, Winterbottom’s young FPR teammate Chaz Mostert was on the podium twice at Ipswich – and another youngster, Scott Pye, just off it on Sunday with his best result in an FPR-built Dick Johnson Falcon.

Scott McLaughlin is regularly a pacesetter in his Volvo S60 but had some bad luck at Ipswich, while the improvement in the Nissan Altimas was a surprise after the pessimism leading into the event.

McLaughlin and Nissan’s Michael Caruso were dicing for the lead in Saturday’s second race until a mistake by the Altima driver spun the Volvo, with the upshot a second victory on the day for Whincup.

The five-time and reigning champion has come from sixth in the championship before the Darwin round in mid-June to overhaul Winterbottom. Even sixth place Sunday was enough to give Whincup the lead with the Ford man so far back in the field.

James Moffat in another Nissan (like Caruso one of the Norton Altimas rather than the Jack Daniel’s cars of the Kelly brothers, Rick and Todd) took pole position for Sunday’s race and finished the 200km fifth in further evidence of the Japanese make’s shock improvement.

It was Moffat who had been most downcast publicly about Nissan’s chances at Ipswich before the round.

He is now ahead of Rick Kelly in the championship, although Caruso is the highest-placed of the Nissan foursome in 12th.

Only one more event remains now, at Sydney Motorsport Park on August 22-24 before the three endurance rounds at Melbourne’s Sandown, NSW’s Bathurst and Queensland’s Gold Coast in September-October.