MOTORSPORT: Who's watching what on TV

And basically what we have found is that the Bathurst 1000 remains twice as big on TV as any other car race meeting in Australia. Adelaide's Clipsal 500 comes in at No. 2, with the recent Gold Coast Indy at No. 3.

However, late in the day at Surfers' Paradise -- when the V8 Supercars were on track, rather than the Champ Cars -- the numbers picked up and in that timeframe topped those in Adelaide.

Melbourne's Formula 1 Grand Prix is No. 4 among Australian motorsport events this year in terms of national audience. The first three placegetters in the TV "race" were seen on Channel 7. The GP was on Channel 10, and that event this year did not have V8 Supercars.

Channel 7 claims its figures for Clipsal, which marked the network's return to touring car telecasting in early March, were way ahead of those of 10 for that event in 2006. Seven also claims its Indy numbers were better than those of 10 last year.

However, 10 claims that Seven's Bathurst numbers this year are not as good as those from '06.

The barometer for assessing such telecasts is the average audience for each event in the five mainland capital cities -- Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth.

Seven's figure for the Clipsal on Sunday, March 4, was 710,000 viewers. The figure for the F1 GP two weeks later on 10 was 615,000.

The Bathurst audience on Seven in early October averaged 1.357 million. And two weeks after that the Indy telecast averaged 664,000 on the Sunday.

That Indy number is higher than the GP but below Clipsal, although in the late afternoon -- 4 to 5.30pm, during which the last V8 Supercar race was run -- the Indy number was another 97,000 higher at 761,000.

That figure is better than the Clipsal average, although we're now not strictly comparing apples with apples.

At 664,000 the Seven Network says its Indy average audience was up 9 per cent on 10's in 2006. Seven also says it was up 5 per cent on the Saturday, with a five-city average that day of 405,000.

The purest comparison is the Sunday figures across the four events, although the Saturday numbers are interesting too.

Adelaide's five-city Saturday average was 540,000 -- well ahead of Indy's Saturday at 405,000 and the Melbourne GP's 340,000.

The Adelaide Saturday was, remember, the first day of the year that the V8 Supercars had been seen on national TV and was the heavily-promoted return to the sport of Seven.

The Seven Network reckons its Saturday audience for Clipsal was 34 per cent better than 10's last year. And Seven says its Sunday audience was 46 per cent ahead of 10's in 2006.

However, 10 claims Seven's average Bathurst audience was 100,000 lower than its last year, and that Seven's peak audience -- 1.964 million in the five capitals -- was 280,000 below its '06 peak.

Beyond the five-city audience figures, there are regional numbers that can be added to give a fuller picture.

Clipsal's average regional figure on the Sunday was 324,000 and Indy's 323,000, while Bathurst's was almost 800,000.

We don't have the GP regional number at hand, but clearly interest in that event lagged this year -- largely due, we strongly suspect, to the absence of the V8 Supercars.

Not helping either, in terms of TV audience or crowd attendance, would have been the energy the GP organisers spent promoting an on-track bar with cheaper admission for women than men rather than the arrival in F1 of a brilliant young black driver in a highly competitive car.

Some of the GP's woes may be overcome next year with the return of the V8 Supercars to Melbourne's Albert Park and the global profile of Lewis Hamilton, although he will come back to Australia without the fairytale world title he ought have -- unless there is a surprise decision from the Federation Internationale de l'Automobile by November 15 -- and the sport's official flagbearer will be the publicly dull Kimi Raikkonen.

While the GP's domestic TV audience figures are an embarrassment for what is meant to be Australia's pre-eminent international motor sport event -- and particularly that they have now fallen behind Indy, which was built around a North American open-wheeler series that has only ever been an imitation of F1 and is now a very pale imitation of it -- the GP organisers could claim that it is the international audience that is most important.

That's true, but getting a handle on the size of the Australian GP's international audience is a challenge, even for those best placed to do so.

The repeated claims of several hundred million viewers in up towards 200 countries are never substantiated.

Some F1 research from three or four years ago puts the average global audience for GPs between about 90 and 120 million, depending on the timezone in which they are run.

One of the leading F1 teams, though, according to a report mid-year in London's Financial Times, put the average at "only" about 50 million viewers.

That is still a very sizeable audience -- and certainly much bigger than that of Champ Car, whose problems even in its home market we highlighted here a couple of weeks ago, pointing out that the US audience for the Gold Coast "Indy" race in recent years has averaged only about 125,000 households.

In the case of F1, Australia's race is at the lower end of any GP global audience averages because it has always been in the middle of the night for Europeans, who are the bulk of the F1 audience.

Even the later race start in Melbourne next March -- at 3.30pm, rather than the usual 2pm -- will still mean most European viewers will need to be awake at 4.30am to see it live.

Anyway, F1 TV audiences are a matter for a fuller examination another time -- as might be the figures for all V8 Supercar rounds.

The upshot, though, of all we have read over the past few days on TV viewing of motor sport in Australia this year is that the V8s are doing very nicely from the major events.

Now comes the 12th round of the V8 Supercar Championship in Bahrain this Friday and Saturday.

The first race will be screened on Seven at 11.30pm eastern summer time Friday, with the other two races from 10.30pm Saturday.

Those times will test the enthusiasm of motor sport fans, but far more viewer-friendly will be the replay program from 2-5pm Sunday.

Next year's V8 Supercar Championship calendar, now that the Brisbane round is confirmed in mid-July, as follows.

2008 V8 Supercar race calendar
February 21-24 Clipsal 500, Adelaide
March 7-9 Eastern Creek, Sydney
March 13-16 Australian Grand Prix, Melbourne (non-championship)
April 18-20 Hamilton, New Zealand
May 9-11 Perth, WA
June 7-9 Sandown Raceway, Melbourne
July 4-6 Hidden Valley, Darwin
July 18-20 Queensland Raceway
August 1-3 Winton, Victoria
September 12-14 Phillip Island, Victoria
October 9-12 Supercheap Auto Bathurst 1000, Bathurst
October 23-26 Indy 300, Gold Coast
November: 6-8 Desert 400, Bahrain
November 21-23 Tasmania Challenge, Launceston
December 4-7 Oran Park, Sydney

Lady first in Tander title chase
While Garth Tander is racing in Bahrain this weekend for what he hopes ultimately will become his first V8 Supercar series title, his wife Leanne will be at Sydney's Oran Park trying to clinch the Australian Formula 3 Championship.

That would make her the first woman to win a major circuit racing championship in the country.

Ambrose scored his first Busch pole position and finished fourth in the 250-lap race on the 3/4-mile (1.2km) oval that was marred by 25 caution periods that meant almost half the race was run under yellow flags.

The longest racing stint was just 19 laps of the short track.

Although starting at the front Ambrose passed more cars in the race (36) than anyone else and won the round's most improved driver award.

Race winner David Reutimann seized the lead at the start in his Toyota but Ambrose led 20 laps during the afternoon in his brand new Ford Fusion run by Wood Brothers/JTG Racing.

The imposition of 25 caution flags was the second most in Busch history -- the record was 26 in a North Carolina race in 1992.

Ambrose was helped in qualifying and the race by only four "Buschwhackers" contesting the round.

These are the drivers who usually do "double duty" -- drive in the Busch races as well as the Nextel Cup, whose round at the weekend was in Atlanta -- where there were 13 cautions as reigning Cup champion Jimmie Johnson closed to within nine points of leader Jeff Gordon.

Finishing fourth bettered Ambrose's previous best Busch result -- sixth at Dover, Delaware, in June. He'd had other top 10 finishes in Las Vegas and on road courses in Mexico City and Montreal.

Ambrose's crew may have erred somewhat in bringing him in earlier than the other frontrunners for his second pitstop while leading, but he was pleased to notch a strong result on a small oval.

"It really has been difficult for me to get my head around the short tracks," Ambrose said. "We had a really strong car all day.

"We didn't have the strategy that these guys (other leaders) did. But for our car, I think things worked out for the best. I fought all day and kept cool all day with all those cautions. We had a pretty straight day.

"We got the top 10 that we were after and the pole was a bonus. I think things worked out for the best.

"Once every now and again a short track is okay, but I prefer the mile-and- half (2.4km) or two-mile (3.2km) ovals -- that's the bread and butter out there."

This year's Indianapolis 500 winner and Indy Racing League champion, but NASCAR newcomer, Dario Franchitti qualified his Chip Ganassi Dodge third, ran as high as second, but his brakes faded towards the end and he became a hazard and ended up three laps down in 32nd.

Reutimann's victory was his first in 63 Busch starts.

Carl Edwards needed to finish at least eighth to clinch the title but crossed the line 25th.

Edwards now needs only a 36th place finish at Texas Motor Speedway next weekend to become Busch champion with two rounds to spare.

NASCAR Busch Series after 32 of 35 rounds -- Carl Edwards 4364 points, David Reutimann 3833, Jason Leffler 3606, Kevin Harvick 3523, David Ragan 3464, Bobby Hamilton Jr 3313, Stephen Leicht 3203, Marcos Ambrose 3152, Greg Biffle 3136, Mike Wallace 3083.

WRC survival of the fittest
Sebastien Loeb's chances of overtaking Marcus Gronholm in this year's world rally championship -- and of claiming a fourth straight world title in another month -- suffered a big setback at the weekend's Rally Japan.

Gronholm's Ford Focus was out of the rally on Friday, leaving Loeb poised to overhaul the Finn's four-point championship lead, but then the Frenchman's Citroen speared off the course on day two -- for which he blamed his co-driver, Daniel Elena, although he said it was his first such mistake in 10 years.

Loeb resumed on the final day but after four stage victories was forced out by oil problems on the penultimate stage.

Mikko Hirvonen, another Finn and Gronholm's teammate who won what may now have been the last Rally Australia -- in WA late last year -- took the honors in Japan. Hirvonen also won in Norway in February.

Norwegian superstar Petter Solberg's rally ended with a gear selection problem in his Subaru after just five of the 27 stages, while Australian Chris Atkinson crashed the second factory Subaru on stage 6.

"I was pushing hard through a sequence of bends when the car drifted wide and slid into a ditch," Atkinson said. "We were still going pretty quickly when we ran out of road, broadsided and took out a tree with the back door. The impact was heavy.

"We came here with high hopes and expectations, but we've let ourselves and Subaru down."

Hirvonen only won three stages of the tricky event but finished 37.4 seconds ahead of Citroen driver Daniel Sordo, with Henning Solberg a distant third in a Ford.

Briton Matthew Wilson notched his best WRC finish as he took fourth place in a Ford while Argentina's Luis Perez Companc, in yet another Ford, ended the rally another 2.5secs behind in fifth.

The next WRC round is in Ireland on November 15-18, followed by the final in Wales.

Drivers' world rally championship after 14 of 16 rounds -- Marcus Gronholm (Finland) 104, Sebastien Loeb (France) 100, Mikko Hirvonen (Finland) 84, Daniel Sordo (Spain) 53, Petter Solberg  (Norway) 38, Henning Solberg (Norway) 34, Chris Atkinson (Australia) 29, Jari-Matti Latvala (Finland) 24, Francois Duval (Belgium) 12, Manfred Stohl (Austria) 12.

Manufacturers' world rally championship -- BP Ford WRT 189 points, Citroen Total WRT 155, number is higher than the GP buFord RT 71, OMV Kronos Citroen WRT 43, 6. Munchi's Ford WRT 14.

Aussie almost pinches US rally title
A little-known Australian has just missed out on winning the American rally championship.

Expatriate Perth driver and Subaru privateer Andrew Pinker went into the final round, the Lake Superior Performance Rally in Michigan leading Subaru's factory drivers Travis Pastrana -- of motocross fame -- and Ken Block by four points in his debut season in the US.

However, Pastrana won the event to become Rally America's first back-to-back champion.

Pinker and co-driver Robbie Durant were down on power on the first day but rebounded on the second day to win a stage and finish third in the rally and second in the championship.

"It was close, but no cigar," said Pinker. "We'll get it next year."

On the surface, a successful appeal would see Nico Rosberg's fourth-placed Williams-Toyota and the fifth and sixth-placed BMWs of Robert Kubica and Nick Heidfeld excluded from the results, handing McLaren rookie Lewis Hamilton -- who crossed the finish line at Interlagos seventh -- an historic world title in place of Ferrari's Kimi Raikkonen.

But pretty clearly that's not going to happen.

In yet another daring example of how justice is dispensed by the FIA, its president Max Mosley has said: "For us the world championship is over.

"The result is what it is. A team presented an appeal. At the moment this doesn't change anything.

"It's up to them to prove they are right. You could argue whether McLaren had a right to appeal the stewards' judgment (not to exclude the three cars and drivers ahead of Hamilton and his McLaren).

"They (McLaren) could have protested the result of the race but they didn't.

"But even if the (Williams and BMW) cars classified ahead of Hamilton would be excluded, would this change his (Hamilton's) position? The court of appeal will have to rule on that."

Fuel in F1 cars is not meant to be more than 10 degrees Celsius below the ambient temperature.

It has been reported that the fuel in the three cars in question was 14 degrees cooler than the ambient, yet they were not disqualified.

The stewards said on the day: "There is presumption that for the purposes of determining ambient temperature regard shall be given to the FOM (Formula One Management) timing monitors ... the matter is complicated by the considerable discrepancy between the ambient temperatures recorded by FOM and by (FIA contractor) Meteo France."

In what has since been seen as a potential plus for McLaren's case, F1 supremo Bernie Ecclestone has insisted that FOM has no role in technical issues.

Asked whether the FOM temperature readings should have been taken into account, Ecclestone said: "We have nothing to do with the technical side. We're not stewards; we look after commercial things."

And, in any case, Mr Mosley has already made up his mind that McLaren is not going to succeed.

F1's for the big spenders
F1 is always tossing up mind-boggling spending figures.

Among some of the latest we've seen is the operating expenditure for Mark Webber's Red Bull team in 2006 -- 106.7 million English pounds, which now converts to A$238.5 million.

Staff numbers at Red Bull Racing, which was Jaguar Racing when Webber was there before his two years with Williams, rose 32 per cent last year to 478.

And Abu Dhabi in the Middle East, which it seems will host the first GP of the year from 2009, has just arranged US$204 million -- or more than A$220 million -- finance from three banks for the construction of its 5.6km track.

Townsville's $10 million question
As we reported last week, Labor's candidate for the seat of Herbert in Townsville at the upcoming national election, George Colbran, says he has Kevin Rudd's commitment for $10 million of federal funding towards a V8 Supercar street race in the northern city.

Sitting Liberal member Peter Lindsay says he can't yet make the same pledge, although he claims to working hard on prime minister John Howard.

We also pointed out previously that Herbert requires a swing of more than 6 per cent to change hands.

Even though there are indications of a landslide Labor victory, that 6 per cent in Herbert is a sizeable swing.

What happens if Kevin Rudd and Labor win the general election but Peter Lindsay retains Herbert -- and without any commitment of federal funding for the works at Townsville's Reid Park so that there can be a V8 Supercar race there in mid-2009?

The plan is for the park to be used as the pit area with a new building that will double as a home for a training facility for people in the automotive and hospitality industries.

We query, admittedly from a great distance, the viability of a street race and wonder why it would not be better to back a permanent circuit in Townsville.

Whatever, there's never been a better time for the Townsville lobby to secure federal money, but will it materialise?

Will Kevin Rudd deliver if he's elected PM but George Colbran does not win Herbert?

Court case keeps Kalkhoven busy
Champ Car's Australian co-owner Kevin Kalkhoven is in the midst of a big court case in California in which he is basically accused of insider trading as well as other US Securities and Exchange Commission violations.

Kalkhoven, formerly chief executive of JDS Uniphase, a fibre optics provider to the telecommunications industry based in Silicon Valley, and three other former executives of the company are accused of misrepresentations between April 25 and July 26, 2000.

Kalkhoven retired from JDSU on May 17, 2000.

He is attending the court hearings each day in Oakland and is hoping the case ends by Friday, November 9, so he can get away to the Champ Car season finale in Mexico City.