MOTORSPORT: Whincup just can't stop winning

11 starts, nine wins, two seconds - top of the class
What a consummate professional Jamie Whincup is proving to be. Whincup's now won nine of his past 11 races -- and been second in the other two. He's won the past four rounds!

The V8 Supercar title is, at most, 68 points away in the final round in Sydney the weekend after next.

Whincup will go there 233 points clear of his only challenger, fellow Ford driver Mark Winterbottom, for the very last round of Australia's premier motor racing championship that will be staged at Oran Park.

What a wonderful circuit that's been, and what a pity that it has to make way for Sydney's urban sprawl -- and, we gather, a year earlier than absolutely necessary because of V8 Supercars Australia's determination to get the new Homebush street race up and running at this time next year.

Which makes us wonder whether the contracts for that new event have actually been signed yet, and whether the NSW government that so curiously has committed so strongly to the race at Homebush -- or Sydney Olympic Park -- will still be around if and when the event happens.

Whincup had talked before round 13 at Tasmania's Symmons Plains of going conservative in the interests of his championship quest, but he qualified second to Holden Racing Team's Garth Tander and ahead of Ford Performance racing's Winterbottom -- who were then his two title rivals.

In the weekend's three races he finished runner-up in the first to surprise winner Todd Kelly in a Jack Daniel's/Perkins Engineering Holden Commodore and won the other two, with Team Vodafone/Triple 8 colleague Craig Lowndes right behind him.

Nothing conservative about that, and again it showed what a benchmark Team Vodafone/Triple 8 is setting -- not only for the Holden teams but also the other Ford teams.

And to think that next this dominant team is not going to have Ford financial backing, pretty much for the simple reason, it seems, that its predominantly red color scheme doesn't fit with the Blue Oval's thinking.

Whincup's only blemish for the round was spinning his Falcon into a ditch on his victory lap, perhaps distracted from the Channel 7 commentary box.

Kelly was third in each of Sunday's two races which, on top of Saturday's victory in tricky wet conditions, made him runner-up for the round.

It confirmed to us what we mentioned here in our previous column -- that the Kelly brothers, Todd and Rick, and the engineering of Larry Perkins could make a very formidable team next year, if that is indeed the way it unfolds -- and providing the deal is structured in such a way to draw the very best of Perkins' engineering talents out of him.

Lowndes, happy to ride gunshot for his younger teammate Whincup in his title campaign, wound up third for the round, ahead of Winterbottom, who has had an excellent season but without stamping himself on it in the way Whincup has.

It's been reported that Whincup is in line for a big pay rise next year that will put him on around $600,000 a year.

More recently have come reports that James Courtney will be on more than $1 million a season when he crosses to Jim Beam/Dick Johnson Racing next season.

If all true and correct, there's quite a disparity there based on performance -- particularly race wins.

Jim Beam/DJR had another good weekend, with Will Davison and Steve Johnson fifth and sixth for the round -- moving what was once Ford's flagship team, and which has fought its way back from wilderness over the past year 18 months, up to third in the teams' championship, ahead of Holden Racing Team.

So the top three teams in that championship are all running Fords -- Team Vodafone, FPR and DJR. What a sorry state the General's stable is in.

The Walkinshaw Performance camp vowed in last week's Auto Action magazine that it will be back, bigger and better than ever next year -- but we will have to wait and see.

It's got a lot of catching up to do, particularly on Team Vodafone and FPR.

Holden's reigning champion driver Tander had an outside mathematical chance heading to Symmons Plains, but after qualifying on pole all hope of retaining his title was scuttled when he ran off the track and stalled in race one.

It's been that sort of year, even for the best of the Holden teams.

And, again, no joy for Mark Skaife as he moved ever closer to retirement. He qualified badly and was lapped by the leaders in all three races. It is a sad and sorry end to a great career and hopefully one of the greats of the sport, love him or loathe him, can walk away from Oran Park with something better.

Skaife equalled Peter Brock's number of Australian touring car championship rounds, 213, at Symmons Plains.

Interesting that it took the only man to have driven more rounds than that pair, John Bowe, with 225, to say what a lot of people are thinking about Skaife's departure from the driver's seat.

We heard Bowe on Melbourne sports radio station SEN's Sunday morning motorsport show say that, at 41, Skaife was retiring too early, that he was being forced out by someone in HRT who he declined to name, and that Skaife's results were reflecting a mind burdened with the hassles of team ownership -- or part-ownership as it's been for the past two seasons -- rather than age.

A lot, lot more to the Skaife-HRT situation than the motorsport public has been told.

We read in last week's Auto Action that the team claims to have made strides back to its best this year, that the picture was clouded by the events at Bathurst and Bahrain, and that all would be much better next year with a new driver, who obviously is going to be Will Davison.

Now Davison has done a commendable job in his brief V8 Supercar career and is certainly worthy of a seat in a factory team, but just how he is going to shape up against Tander and whether he will prove to be a better proposition than Skaife is going to be very, very interesting to see.

Certainly Skaife's recent results will make it somewhat easier for Davison to look good if he can simply replicate his form with DJR.

But a happier environment may have enabled Skaife to produce more of what we know he's capable, while that environment will now prove quite a test for Davison.

Interesting times ahead.

V8 Supercar Championship driver standings after 13 of 14 rounds - Jamie Whincup (Ford) 3208 points, Mark Winterbottom (Ford) 2975, Garth Tander (Holden) 2788, Craig Lowndes (Ford) 2619, Will Davison (Ford) 2375, James Courtney (Ford) 2224,  Steve Richards (Ford) 2214, Rick Kelly (Holden) 2029, Steven Johnson (Ford) 2010,  Russell Ingall (Holden) 1931.

Round 13 points - Jamie Whincup 292, Todd Kelly 272, Craig Lowndes 252, Mark Winterbottom 246, Will Davison 222, Steven Johnson 192, Lee Holdsworth (Holden) 172, Garth Tander 164, Fabian Coulthard (Ford) 156, Rick Kelly 148.

Rolling out the new Gold Coast look
Interesting times ahead on the Gold Coast too. Although it is now well-known that A1 GP will replace the IndyCars on the streets of Surfers' Paradise next October, sharing top billing with the V8 Supercars, there's to be an "announcement" about it all this Wednesday.

Just what's left to be announced we're not sure. Perhaps nothing.

But it looks as though A1 GP chairman Tony Teixeira is coming on from the weekend's third round of that series in Malaysia, along with Australia's A1 GP driver John Martin and, presumably, Team Australia A1 "seat holder" Alan Jones.

At the time of writing, details of Wednesday's "media opportunity" are scant, but expect,the A1 troupe to be joined by V8 Supercars Australia chiefs, led by Tony Cochrane.

And expect there to be much joy and (public) harmony among them all.

But, further to our previous column, it's going to be interesting to see how Cochrane publicly reconciles preparing for next year's Gold Coast event after insisting eight months ago that V8 Supercars would never race on the same program as A1 GP.

Perhaps a new five-year contract for V8SA at the Gold Coast will have made that all a whole lot more palatable for Cochrane and co.

One obvious question for Wednesday is whether the Queensland government's total financial commitment to the event that for 18 years has been Indy has been increased by that new five-year V8 Supercar deal -- and, if so, by how much.

Presumably V8SA has got a "pay rise", but will that rise be a slice of the money that traditionally has gone to the international open-wheeler category, or has the Queensland government had to dip into its coffers a little -- or a lot -- deeper to keep V8SA sweet if A1 is costing anything like the same as the American show was?

Looking ahead, we wonder what the TV implications are of A1 GP being added to the Gold Coast program.

As we recall, the A1 races are shown on Foxtel and Channel 9 in Australia, while the V8 Supercars are on the 7 network, with the production done by V8SA's TV unit.

We suspect there won't be too much volunteered about the above, except perhaps some clarification of how the telecasting will unravel -- and we are just a little concerned that there may not be any media present prepared to ask the right or relevant questions.

A1 Team Australia knocking on podium door
A much better round for A1 Team Australia in Malaysia, with John Martin fourth in the feature race from 13th on the grid, thanks to some excellent driving and a very slick pitstop.

A1 Team Australia boss Alan Jones said Martin "did exactly what we asked of him" and that regular podiums should not be far away now.

"He is improving every race and I feel we can end up with a very good driver achieving very good results," Jones said.

Ireland became the first country to score two victories this season, as Adam Carroll dominated the Malaysian feature.

Filipe Albuquerque took an excellent second place for Portugal, while Marco Andretti finished a great third for the US from eighth on the grid.

Switzerland won the sprint race in Malaysia for the third straight year, courtesy of the man who drove it to the A1 GP "World Cup of Motorsport" title last season, Neel Jani.

Ireland now leads the championship after three rounds and a break now until the New Zealand round at Taupo in the new year.

The sprint race at Kuala Lumpur's Sepang circuit provided some spectacular action, with Andretti crashing out two other cars and Martin having to dive out of the way of the incident.

He went on to finish eighth in that race, while New Zealander Earl Bamber was third -- behind Jani and France's Loic Duval.

In the feature the Australian team's pitstop was 1.3 seconds faster than the next quickest, by the victorious Ireland, but Martin was thwarted in his quest for a podium finish by a malfunction in his "push to pass" technology on the last two laps.

"I lost radio contact, so I didn't know how many 'push to pass' I had left, so I pushed it on the back straight and it worked, but on the front straight it failed.

"I was having to short shift most of my last laps and that cost me the chance to challenge Marco Andretti."

A1GP World Cup of Motorsport standings after three of 10 rounds - Ireland 43 points, Portugal 35, France 31, New Zealand 31, Malaysia 29, Switzerland 28, Netherlands 26, Australia 22, Great Britain 16, US 16, South Africa 15, Monaco 9, Italy 4, Brazil 4, Korea 4, China 4, Lebanon 3, India 1, Indonesia 0, Mexico 0.

An American 'marriage' made in heaven
We made mention in our last column Team Penske's predicament over Ryan Briscoe's IndyCar teammate next season because of Brazilian Helio Castroneves' big US tax avoidance case starting in March, just a month before the Indy Racing League season.

It seems that, while supportive of Castroneves, Penske is going to need to name a replacement driver -- with American Ryan Hunter-Reay, Brit Justin Wilson and Spaniard Oriol Servia reported to be in the running for the prize seat.

However, we've came across a blogger's interesting point of view that Andretti III might actually be the young man for the job.

Here's what the blogger had to say:
"Remember that for Roger Penske the primary goal every year is to win the Indy 500, or should I say yet another Indy 500. Winning that race brings everything else, and taking the checkers 14 times as an owner has allowed him to pretty much write his own checks in racing. It is the goose that lays his golden eggs.

"Now consider how Marco Andretti has fared in exactly three Indy 500s.

"2006 - Marco was passed for the lead between the final turn and the yard of bricks, finishing 2nd at The Brickyard at only 19 years of age.
"2007 - Marco brief leads a rain-filled race, crashing while battling in the Top 10 right before the race is called.
"2008 - Marco again leads 15 laps before eventually falling behind Scott Dixon and Vitor Meira, lock-stepping his way to third.

"In three races he's got two top three finishes and has led 30 laps, all by the age of 21. And, as John Oreovicz points out, he's quite possibly still a free agent.

"Unless the team chose not to publicise it, Marco still has not re-signed with Andretti Green Racing. Many observers believe Marco will not achieve his full potential until he gets away from AGR, the team owned by his father, Michael.

"And what an opportunity Penske would offer to the 21-year-old!

"Grandfather Mario drove Indy cars for Penske from 1976-80 and would certainly endorse this career move."

If you're interested, the full article is here

Blanchard back home after just one year
On young drivers, it's a pity that lat year's Australian Formula Ford champion Tim Blanchard's career in Europe has been cut short -- perhaps by the sudden weakening of the Australia dollar -- after just one season.

The 21-year-old Blanchard was runner-up in this year's British Formula Ford Championship and looked to be in line for a drive in the British Formula 3 Championship. Instead, he's now resigned to steering towards the V8 Supercar development series.

One year in Europe is too short for a prospect who was doing well.

Perth 19-year-old Daniel Ricciardo and his Red Bull sponsorship are locked into the British F3 Championship with top team Carlin Motorsports, but it would have been nice to have had two Aussies in there.

Webber ought to be well and truly back to full physical fitness by the time the new Formula 1 season gets under in Melbourne in March.

But he's going to miss pre-Christmas testing -- and that could prove crucial.

Drivers in the F1 cars before Christmas will get acquainted/reacquainted with slick tyres, after almost a decade on rubber with four grooves, and they will also have the chance to get familiar with the new Kinetic Energy Recovery Systems.

KERS is expected to be an area that could enable teams to get an early advantage on rivals, and drivers could be quite critical to the development of them.

The other negative for Webber being sidelined is that his new teammate, the 21-year-old German sensation Sebastien Vettel, will get the chance to get established at Red Bull Racing.

That could be the most important factor, if Webber finds himself returning in the new to a team that perhaps is revolving around a youngster who may just be every bit as good as new world champion Lewis Hamilton.

A feature we came across on the much tighter NASCAR sponsorship market is here

Image: jamiewhincup.com.au
 

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