MOTORSPORT: Winners on track, losers on box

Three big things out of the Clipsal 500 – Stadium Super Trucks are a winner, Holden is still winning all the V8 Supercar races, and – while the attendance in the Adelaide parklands was strong – considerably less people watched on TV.

On the Formula One scene, pre-season testing has concluded in Spain and Daniel Ricciardo seems pleased with his Red Bull RB11 car, but will it, the Williams FW37 and Ferrari's SF25-T be in the same league as the Mercedes W06 at Melbourne's world championship-opening Australian Grand Prix on March 15? Doubt it, unfortunately.

And sad to report that one of Australia's finest open-wheeler drivers, Leo Geoghegan, has died in Sydney of prostate cancer at 78. Geoghegan's heyday was in the era of the Tasman Series of the 1960s, when he raced against greats including Jim Clark and Jack Brabham. He was the older brother of Australia's first five-time national touring car champion, the late Ian "Pete" Geoghegan.

And what an all-round excellent support program at the Clipsal 500.

The trucks were more showmanship and entertainment than sport, but how long before Gordon has to create a franchise for someone to set up a series to perform regularly around Australia?

Not long, we suspect.

Five makes, but one still rules
V8 Supercars is into the third year of what started out as the 'Car of the Future' but came to be known as 'Next Gen', with Nissan, privateer Mercedes and last year Volvo joining Ford and Holden in the championship.

And, while Ford has won the past two Bathurst 1000s, Holden remains the dominant make.

Commodore drivers won all three V8 Supercar races in Adelaide – Jamie Whincup and Fabian Coulthard on Saturday, James Courtney on Sunday.

Eight of the nine podium positions over the weekend were filled by Holden drivers – Courtney and Coulthard twice, while Whincup, Craig Lowndes, Shane Van Gisbergen and Garth Tander also were up there. The exception was Ford youngster Chaz Mostert, second in Saturday's first race.

Holden Racing Team has made more progress in its quest to return to its former glory and its chief, Adrian Burgess, said Courtney's success in holding off the relentless Van Gisbergen with HRT teammate Tander hot on their heels on Sunday afternoon was the culmination of 14 months of hard work by the team.

Roland Dane's Triple Eight Race Engineering won't hand over the mantle as the top team easily and, with Whincup and Lowndes in its Commodores, can be expected to raise the bar, while Brad Jones Racing with Coulthard (and old soldier Jason Bright) and Tekno Autosports with Van Gisbergen are others the rival makes have to climb over.

The top six drivers on the points table are Holden men, ahead of Ford's Mark Winterbottom.

Nissan came away from Adelaide with the Kelly brothers, Rick and Todd, in the top 10, although James Moffat was headed for the Japanese brand's best finish of the weekend until he was caught up in Mostert's crash three corners from Sunday's chequered flag.

What is now Prodrive Racing Australia is up for a major rebuild of Mostert's FG X Falcon after just one outing, while Nissan Motorsport has a lot of work on its hands to repair Moffat's Altima.

Scott McLaughlin qualified his Volvo S60 in the top four for all three races, but each turned into a nightmare for him and already he's only 18th in the points – four places behind new teammate David Wall.

Marcos Ambrose gave an indication of what's to come from him and DJR Team Penske's FG X Falcon in his return from NASCAR, making the top 10 shootout on Sunday morning and his 12th-place finish was a major improvement from Saturday's two 16ths.

But he's still got a lot of catching up to do on the Holdens. The PRA Falcons for that matter, too.

Betty Klimenko's Mercs? As so many school reports have said over the years, must do better.

V8 Supercar Championship driver standings after three races - 1. James Courtney (Holden Racing Team) 258 points; 2. Fabian Coulthard (Brad Jones Racing, Holden) 241; 3. Garth Tander (HRT) 237; 4. Shane Van Gisbergen (Tekno Autosports, Holden) 222; 5. Jamie Whincup (Triple Eight Race Engineering, Holden) 216; 6. Craig Lowndes (Triple Eight, Holden) 208; 7. Mark Winterbottom (Prodrive Racing Australia, Ford) 202; 8. Rick Kelly (Nissan Motorsport) 177; 9. Jason Bright (BJR, Holden) 161; 10. Todd Kelly (Nissan Motorsport) 143.

V8 Supercar team standings – 1. Holden Racing Team 495 points; 2. Red Bull Racing Australia (Triple Eight, Holden) 424; 3. Brad Jones Racing 402; 4. Jack Daniels-Nissan Motorsport 320; 5. Pepsi Max Crew (Prodrive Racing Australia, Ford) 271; 6. Team Tekno Darrell Lea (Holden) 222; 7. Wilson Security Racing GRM (Volvo) 207; 8. Lucas Dumbrell Motorsport (Holden) 203; 9. Nissan Nismo 168; 10. Supercheap Auto Racing (Holden) 135.

It was the first V8 Supercar Championship round under the new six-year, $241 million deal with pay-TV service Fox and free-to-air (FTA) network Ten – and the size of the audience reversed from what it had been on former telecaster Seven.

On this author's sums, Saturday's TV audience was a quarter to a third smaller than it had been the previous couple of years and Sunday's was nine to 15 per cent down, on the most charitable reading of the figures, and, more realistically, about 20 per cent below what it was in 2013.

Sunday was not as bad as might have been feared from Saturday's numbers and some consolation was that web traffic was strong – visits to the V8 Supercar website up 26 per cent for the event and video impressions there up 28 per cent.

Ten is seeing things, at least publicly, through even rosier-coloured glasses.

Ten has issued a press release in which it says "the Clipsal 500 was the No. 3 program on Nielsen Twitter TV Ratings on Sunday".

"From Friday to Sunday tweets about the Clipsal 500 were seen 1.41 million times," Ten says.

It claimed a peak national TV audience of 1.1 million viewers on Sunday, an average of 776,000 nationally, and that its telecast "dominated its timeslot in the capital cities".

That bright perspective is not shared universally in the TV industry.

Whatever the past, the concern now – for teams, sponsors and viewers – is that, after the non-championship races at Melbourne's Grand Prix on March 12-15, which also will be screened on Fox and Ten under another new arrangement, there won't be any live FTA V8 Supercar Championship telecast until the Townsville 400 on July 10-12.

That's round six of the championship and the second of the six that will be simulcast live on Ten – the others will be the Sandown 500, Bathurst 1000, Gold Coast 600 and Sydney 500. Ten will screen packaged highlights of the eight rounds it's not showing live.

So now to the raw TV numbers for the Clipsal.
Fox Sports averaged 72,000 viewers nationally for Saturday's first 125km race and 75,000 for the second later that afternoon. Sunday's 250km race averaged 106,000 nationally on Fox – and was Foxtel's No. 2 program for the day, second only to the England-Sri Lanka cricket World Cup match with 135,000.

On Ten race one averaged 195,000 viewers (fewer than for some of Saturday's support activity) in the five major capital cities (Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth), race two 283,000 and Sunday's race three 487,000.

Simply adding these numbers together we get 267,000 for race one, 358,000 for race two and 593,000 for race three.

But the Fox numbers are national and the Ten figures for the five major capitals only – the latter being the usual TV industry measuring stick.

Assuming, perhaps a little generously, that 70 per cent of the national audience is in the five capitals the Fox numbers in those cities, for comparative purposes, would be 50,400, 52,500 and 74,200.

The adjusted (our adjusted) five-capital average totals for the three races thus would be 245,000, 335,500 and 561,200.

For the record, the comparative numbers on Seven in 2014 were 381,000 and 460,000 on the Saturday (and they comprised only four capitals as the races were on 7mate in Perth) and 647,000 (five cities) on the Sunday.

In 2013, when there was a 250km each day of the weekend, the five-capital averages were 557,000 for the Saturday and 694,000 for the Sunday.

On these numbers, this year's raw average (Fox national plus Ten five-capital) for Sunday's race was 91.65 per cent of what it was last year and 85.45 per cent of what it was in 2013.

Again adjusting the Fox figure, on the presumption that 70 per cent of the audience would have been in the five capitals, this year's 250km race in Adelaide had 86.74 per cent of last year's Sunday audience on Seven and 80.86 per cent of that on Seven in 2013.

This outcome will not be great joy to many V8 Supercar devotees, but it's perhaps not as bleak as may have been feared.

The audience for V8 Supercars may never be again what it once was, because of fans having to pay if they want to see all races live, and while there will be a three-month "blackout" on live V8 Supercar racing on FTA after the Grand Prix, viewer numbers on Fox may now pick up as the reality hits fans that the only way to see all races live on TV is with a Fox subscription.

It may not be pleasant, but it's the reality now.

Ricciardo reckons Red Bull on right track
Daniel Ricciardo will go into his home Grand Prix next week with a lot more mileage under his belt in Red Bull's latest car than he had a year ago with last year's RB10 and appears reasonably happy, without claiming the RB11 can beat the Mercedes W06 of world champion Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg.

"I think we have a lot of potential," Ricciardo said after driving 128 laps of Barcelona's Circuit de Catalunya on Saturday.

"We've added a few bits to the car which I feel are a step in the right direction.

"With some of our weaknesses from last year, I feel we are starting to iron them out, so it's good.

"I can't be too specific, but there are a few aerodynamic things which I think we have started to understand a bit better now.

"It took us a little while to get on top of those last year, but it seems like we made a good step in that direction for this season – and for Melbourne we have got a few more bits.

"With Renault [Red Bull's power unit supplier] we are getting there. There are still some gains to be made, but we know it will take some time.

"We have definitely started in a better place this year, but there is still some fine-tuning that needs to be made.

"It looks more promising.

"I don't think we have shown our true pace on low fuel yet.

"High-fuel stuff seems like we are a bit happier than where we feel like we should be.

"We will see in Melbourne when everyone is on the right fuel loads, but I think we do look more competitive on high fuel for now."