MOTORSPORT: Whys and wherefores

There's an adage that there are three essentials in real estate -- location, location, location. We've been wondering whether, to some degree, the same applies in motor racing. Yes and perhaps no, we've concluded.

Three things got us thinking this week about motor racing locations -- this weekend's L&H 500 V8 Supercar event at Phillip Island; the imminent announcement of next year's V8 Supercar calendar, with the first two rounds set to be in the Middle East; and the wash-up from last weekend's Rally Australia in NSW's Northern Rivers region.

At the outset, this author is supportive of all three of these, although Rally Australia needs a rethink, to include Sydney (in the way Rally Argentina takes in Buenos Aires before heading hundreds of kilometres away) when the event returns… Which is in two years because 'our' round of the World Rally Championship rotates between Australia and New Zealand.

The move of the traditional 500km lead-in to the Bathurst 1000 from Sandown to Phillip Island has had pros and cons. It's taken the event to an iconic circuit, but it's also taken it 130km out of Melbourne.

V8 Supercars Australia sees itself "rebuilding" the 500 and, while the race last year at Phillip Island was a ripper, we question whether the Sandown 500 was as badly broken as some would have us believe, and wonder whether it would have been better to try to "fix" it in Melbourne.

While we have advocated here over quite some time now taking major motorsport, like V8 Supercar racing, to regional areas (like Townsville), we have also frequently stated the need to keep it strong in the country's main cities -- Sydney and Melbourne. V8SA will say there is the new Sydney 500 street race at Homebush in less than three months, but while there is a five-year contract in place, we wonder how tenuous that event might become in the volatile NSW political environment.

Oran Park is now gone as a circuit for national racing (and soon gone completely), and Eastern Creek's future has not been helped by the NSW government supporting a temporary Homebush track instead of the permanent circuit it already owns.

V8SA can also point to the success of Adelaide's Clipsal 500.

We might quibble about whether governments, rather than organisers/promoters, should be bankrolling motor races, but Adelaide does motor racing like nowhere else in Australia -- in large part because of the South Australian government's preparedness to foot the bills.

The 2010 V8 Supercar calendar, to be confirmed this weekend, is expected to have the first two rounds in the Middle East -- a new event in Abu Dhabi, where Formula One makes its debut in a few weeks, and then Bahrain, which is already a regular championship venue but has been much later in the year.

We hear some grumblings about starting the championship so far from home, but - really - what's the problem?

This author may be a Doubting Thomas on much of what V8SA does (certainly much of what it says) but if it can milk cash cows in the Middle East, rather than taxpayers in our various states, to run races at the end of the Australian off-season, and create a financial platform for itself for the new season (and especially the season after the global financial crisis), then that seems like very good business.

One of the grumbles will be that the Middle East races will be at night, Australian time.

Can't speak for everyone, but -- apart from Bathurst -- this author's favourite V8 Supercar round in recent years has been Bahrain. The track there is terrific for V8 Supercar racing, and the night-time telecast suits much better than those in daylight hours. (Not that we're advocating a return to those old Channel 7 late-night screenings of Sunday afternoon races!)

The bottom line so far is that we love Phillip Island, but it's a fair way from the bulk of its potential (spectator) audience. Bathurst is even further away from an even bigger population base, but it is a long-established annual ritual.

Just wonder whether anyone, even TC (V8SA executive chairman Tony Cochrane), can make a Phillip Island 500 anywhere near, even half, the Bathurst experience in the modern sporting, entertainment and economic environment.

Abu Dhabi hasn't been seen yet and Bahrain provides a backdrop of sand dunes and empty grandstands, but on TV, late at night, as an appetiser to the Australian season that's fine.

The one that bothers us, as much as we applaud taking a world championship event to the Northern Rivers, is Rally Australia.

Certainly its revival, after a three-year absence and before that held for almost two decades in Western Australia, was well received by the hard-core Australian rallying fraternity. It was a colossal achievement just to get the event back up, and organising committee chairman Garry Connelly claimed there were more fans than there ever were in WA, but there was some serious disquiet among the central figures in the WRC -- about the location and the reception from (admittedly few) protesters.

Connelly told Auto Action magazine: "We are here (Northern Rivers) because the (NSW) government wants the rally in this area, for its economic impact and because the general community wants us here.

"The rally is funded by the NSW government. Queensland was interested, but that interest went away, so Brisbane is not an option.

"If we based in Sydney you would need at least a three-hour run-out every day to find any stages.

"We have had (in Northern Rivers) three times the spectator numbers as we ever got in WA. It's been way above expectations.

"As for the protesters, there have been maybe six using unlawful means and about 40 to 50 who are lawful. Against that, we had 6000 fans in Kyogle alone.

"The government wants it and the community wants it, so why should we allow a very small group to tell us what to do?"

And, in Brisbane's Courier-Mail newspaper, Connelly was quoted saying: "We had a few little complaints about parking, toilet and exit from the stages because we were just overwhelmed with so many cars and people. We were just swamped.

"Unfortunately the teams did see the vocal minority, but I think what left a bad taste was the radical actions of what I would estimate were less than six people who did dangerous things. We're working with the police on a strategy for that, but we're not making that public."

Olivier Quesnel, boss of the manufacturers' championship-leading Citroen team, said such events should be based in capital cities and Rally Oz ought to be in Brisbane or Sydney (to which Connelly said Quesnel should study geography more).

And here's what some of the top drivers had to say, including the greatest of them all, French five-time world champion Sebastien Loeb – who won Rally Oz, but lost it on a technical – suspension – infringement.

"If the people do not want us to be here, I prefer not to come," Loeb said.

"I want to go to some place where the people enjoy to see us… Everything was good, but we feel that some people are not happy to see us come here."

World championship leader and Rally Oz victor Finn Mikko Hirvonen, reportedly said organisers would have to consider moving the event and that the protests "were not nice to see".

Another leading driver, Henning Solberg, said: "I'm sure the organisers will find a good place next time. With all this protesting I don't think this a place I want to come back to. You get the finger every kilometre, so it is not so good.

Ford boss Malcolm Wilson, said "it was quite intimidating at times".

"At one point I was surrounded by about 50 protesters who were all quite aggressive," Wilson said. It's a real shame as we were in Sydney the week before where we got a warm welcome. Here all we got was the finger."

The essence of these complaints is much more about behaviour than location. In the longer term the behavioural issues can probably be dealt with, perhaps quite easily.

But that leaves the question of location. For the new Rally Australia to genuinely connect with the Australian public, in particular in the country's major city, it needs an element, and ideally two, in Sydney.

Why not a Thursday night start and super special stage at Eastern Creek, then an overnight transport stage by crews to Northern Rivers with drivers flown by charter plane, and the reverse of that for a Sunday finish in Sydney.

We recall an Australian Rally Championship round starting at the Creek several years ago and attracting a bigger crowd than we would ever have imagined for rallying – and at the Creek.

Surely a happier medium can be found for the next Rally Oz in 2011.

Special venues, new…
Still on the subject of locations, something new and something old.

As the second F1 grand prix on Singapore's expensive street circuit nears at the end of the month, things are moving ahead for a permanent circuit on the Asian island state.

Three private consortiums are bidding to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on the facility. V8 Supercars Australia has already flagged interest in racing there.

And old…
While that is an exciting new venue on the horizon, this weekend's F1 world championship round, the Italian GP, is at one of the world's enduring circuits -- Monza, on the northern outskirts of Milan. What a location; in a park close to one of the world's capitals of style.

This author always enjoys this time of year, with the anticipation of the Australian endurance races and the Italian GP.

It's not just the historic venue but that the future of F1 -- especially the next season's driver line-up -- starts to take shape.

Already, as we predicted here weeks ago, Spanish bank Santander has been announced as Ferrari's new major sponsor, pointing to dual Spanish world champion Fernando Alonso joining F1's centrepiece team. There is no official word yet on Alonso going red.

The Scuderia already has three drivers under contract for next year -- the recovering Felipe Massa, 2007 world champion and last-start winner Kimi Raikkonen, and now Giancarlo Fisichella, the Italian veteran who makes his debut with the great team this weekend and will continue with it next year, although perhaps only as test and reserve driver.

Three drivers -- let alone four if Alonso arrives -- won't go into two seats next season.

Perhaps Santander will pay out the last year (2010) of Raikkonen's massive deal to free up a seat for Alonso? Or might the Spaniard, by our reckoning the best driver in F1 in the modern era, have to wait until 2011 to race a Ferrari?

Or might Raikkonen be headed back to McLaren next year as Lewis Hamilton's teammate and in place of Heikki Kovalainen? As much as Raikkonen was loved at McLaren, more so than he has been at Ferrari, the British team is unlikely to have the money, or even be interested in chasing it, to match what he's being paid (not earning!) at Ferrari.

The other driver change for Monza is the return of Vitantonio Liuzzi with Force India (originally Jordan) and succeeding Fisichella there. Liuzzi made it to F1 in 2005 with big wraps but was disappointing at Red Bull Racing and then its little sister team Toro Rosso, so he needs to impress in what is left of this season.

It was at Monza last year that the young Sebastien Vettel produced that miraculous victory for Toro Rosso (originally Minardi). This time Vettel, now with Red Bull Racing, and his Australian teammate Mark Webber need big results if they are to seriously challenge BrawnGP's Jenson Button and Rubens Barrichello for the world title.

It's a long shot for Webber, but a win at Monza and another DNF for Button would make it interesting.

Looking through the statistics ahead of this race we were reminded that Ferrari has won five of the past 10 Italian GPs; that the last Italian driver to win at Monza was Ludovico Scarfiotti with Ferrari in 1966; that the driver on pole position has won seven of the past 10 GPs there; and that six different drivers have won the past six GPs this season -- Button, Vettel, Webber, Hamilton, Barrichello and Raikkonen.

That also was a reminder that it's been a damn good season.

But, as so often in F1, there is bad as well as good. Things are turning very nasty ahead of the World Motor Sport Council's September 21 hearing of allegations that Nelson Piquet Junior was instructed by the Renault team to crash at last year's first Singapore night GP to help Alonso win that race.

Piquet's statement to the Federation Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA) has become public, while the sacked and disgruntled Brazilian is now being blamed by the team's engineering chief Pat Symmonds for having come up with the idea. And Renault team boss Flavio Briatore is claiming he is "a victim of extortion by the Piquet family".

Renault still will not comment ahead of the September 21 hearing.

It's a soap opera. But that's F1.

This was after the ignominious brief sponsorship by energy drink Nitro, which was ditched for not coughing up the required dollars.

We have seen mention that the Nikon deal may be worth $400,000 for this year's October 22-25 carnival, which makes us wonder whether total sponsorship income on the event comes anywhere near $1 million – which would still be a paltry amount.

The Nikon sponsorship announcement on Monday studiously avoided – understandably – any mention of the massive problems A1 GP faces.

Apart from only two races on a supposed 10-round calendar having been announced for its upcoming fifth season, the series' fleet of identical Ferrari-engined cars have reported been sitting in the open air at an airport in Britain.

Announcement with the Nikon sponsorship that A1 teams, cars and drivers will have a test day at Ipswich's Queensland Raceway early in SuperGP week was a diplomatic but desperate way of handling the collapse of the recent planned European pre-season test. Since then has come the news that the team principal of last season's championship-winning Irish team, Mark Gallagher, has resigned all his duties with that team to become project manager with engine company Cosworth for its return to F1 next season.

Gallagher, who worked for the Jordan team in its heyday, has been one of the strongest advocates for A1 GP and his departure is a massive blow.

Perhaps more than that… It may be the clue that A1's woes have overcome it and that it is about to collapse – if not before Surfers' Paradise then perhaps soon after.

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