MOTORSPORT: Young Aussie's seventh heaven

The motor racing world already knows of Mick Schumacher. Not just that he's a teenage race driver, but he was seen on the global telecast of the recent German Grand Prix, where he was in the garages of Ferrari and Mercedes – teams for which his seven-time world champion father raced.

The world, and even Australia, knows next to nothing yet about Joey Mawson.

But the 20-year-old from Sydney has won seven of 18 races in this year's German Formula 4 Championship.

The 17-year-old Schumacher has won four, and recent reports from Europe suggested that Schumacher junior anticipated being catapulted into F1 like Max Verstappen.

Mawson and the "new Schu" each won one of three F4 races at the Nurburgring at the weekend.

The Aussie leads the new German pin-up boy by 46 points with six races remaining – three at Zandvoort in Holland in a fortnight and the last three at Hockenheim on the first weekend of October.

Schumacher's pedigree and profile will help him climb the ladder towards F1. Mawson's talent alone will have to do all the talking for him. He needs to clinch this F4 title to be sure that opportunities continue to open up for him in the heartland of open-wheeler racing.

It's his third year in Europe. Last season he narrowly placed third in the series, and in 2016 he now has a commanding lead.

Mercedes F1 team principal Toto Wolff said of the young Schumacher during the German GP weekend at Hockenheim: "He is friendly, modest, well behaved – everything you want from a teenager."

But Sabine Kehm, the manager who continues to handle the affairs of Michael Schumacher – who has been out of public view for more than 2½ years since a skiing accident – and now the career of his son, has dismissed the talk of him emulating Verstappen's ascension to F1 so young.

"The next logical step is Formula 3, where he will soon do a test," Kehm said.

Driving for Italian-based Prema Powerteam, Schumacher won the first of the weekend's races at Nurburgring ahead of Mawson, who drives for Dutch team Van Amersfoort Racing.

It was described in a series bulletin as "an enthralling, high-calibre battle right from the start, the Australian repeatedly launching overtaking moves, but Schumacher kept him at bay, counter-attacking again and again as he defended his lead".

"In the closing stages the 17-year-old drew away from Mawson to win by 2.6 seconds."

That was Schumacher's first victory after a run of seven races without ultimate success, while Mawson's second place was his 12th podium of the season.

The pair had another thrilling battle in the next race, which Mawson won to extend his series lead while Schumacher copped a drive-through penalty for contact with the Australian – which had briefly put the German in the lead – and finished 15th after emerging from the pits 23rd.

"It's a pity that the outcome was decided by Mick getting a drive-through penalty," Mawson said.

"He made a small mistake which cost him dearly – but that's racing.

"Anyway, I was lucky not to have been taken out by the move.

"I never thought that the gap in the standings would be so great.

"Now we just have to continue in the same fashion – scoring points and finishing on the podium."

But in the final Nurburgring race it was Mawson's turn to cop a penalty for crossing the pit entry line and he was classified 28th as Schumacher finished second to Austrian 18-year-old Thomas Preninng, driving for Lechner Racing.

Mawson had started ninth – the top 10 drivers were reversed on the grid – and had fought his way to fifth before he was given a drive-through, but because there was little time left for him to take, it was converted to a 30-second penalty post-race.

However, Mawson departed the circuit with the 46-point lead – the same as it was when he arrived there.

The Aussie has 297 points to Schumacher's 251.

Doubling up in Asia and loving it
Lots of Australians aspiring to F1 are racing in Europe – where Victorian Thomas Randle is third in the BRDC British F3 Championship after the weekend's Snetterton round, with only the Donington Park finale now on September 10-11 – and the US.

But 17-year-old West Australian Jordan Love is combining an Asian campaign with his domestic commitments.

Third in the Australian F4 Championship, having won four of the first six races, Love won three of the six races at the first round of the new F4 South-East Asia Championship at Malaysia's Sepang circuit at the weekend.

A WA karting champion in 2014 and Asia Cup Series champion last year, Love had a mechanical failure in race three at Sepang, after winning the first two. He incurred a drive-through penalty for jumping the start in another while he was second in the final race, in which three drivers crossed the finish line within 0.5 seconds.

Singapore's Danial Frost also won three races at Sepang and leads Love in the championship, with another round at Sepang on the first weekend of September.

Solberg back on top in World Rallycross
Petter Solberg, winner of the first World Rallycross Championships, has regained the lead in the third season after the round at the Trois-Rivieres street circuit in Canada.

However, 22-year-old Swede Timmy Hansen won the round for Team Peugeot-Hansen, with Citroen driver Solberg only fifth.

That was enough for the Norwegian to take a four-point lead over another Swede, Mattias Ekstrom, who had won the previous three rounds in an Audi but was eighth in Canada after two punctures.

France's nine-time world rally champion Sebastien Loeb was only ninth in his Peugeot and American Kenny Block 10th in his Ford after breaking its suspension on the final lap of his semi-final.
Going Dutch on hydrogen prototype project
Further to our article last Friday on Le Mans organisers and the Federation Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA) working on introducing hydrogen fuel cells, a Dutch hydrogen prototype was publicly launched at the weekend.

The Forze VII, an LMP3 monocoque with a tank in which pressurised hydrogen is stored at 700bar, was unveiled at the Assen circuit.

The car has two electric motors – one connected to each of the rear wheels – and is claimed to deliver peak power of 200kW (270 horsepower).

Jan Lammers, a Dutch driver who raced in F1 and has competed in Australia a couple of times, attended the launch and said "hydrogen is an alternative with unlimited possibilities, unlike the limited amount of fossil fuel".

There had been plans for the Forze VII to race at Assen, which would have made it the first hydrogen prototype in an FIA-supported event, but that was postponed until further testing.

"We tested all the individual parts successfully, but we have not run the car on track yet," team manager Rick Everaert said.

"It is obvious that there is still a lot of work to do.

"It is important that this car covers long distances safely. Therefore more time for testing is needed."