Rally Oz is on

Although there will be no Rally Australia next year, Brisbane was confirmed as the new host of Rally Oz -- on September 12-14 in '08 -- at a World Motor Sport Council meeting in Barcelona this week. The event is planned to be held within a 50km radius of Brisbane, using forestry roads closer to the city than the traditional Australian Rally Championship round at Imbil, near Gympie. Little is known yet about the promoter, IQG Rally Events, but Australian rallying's top man, Brisbane-based Garry Connelly, says more details of the new event will be made known next week at Western Australia's final Rally Oz.

If Flying Frenchman Sebastien Bourdais clinches a third straight Champ Car title this weekend he will join Ted Horn as the only other driver in the 97-year history of American open-wheeler racing to win three consecutive championships. Horn accomplished the feat from 1946 to 1948. Bourdais, already with 338 points, needs to finish ninth or better on Sunday to emulate him. The Frenchman has had two podium finishes from his three starts on the streets of Surfers' Paradise, including last year's victory.

Only three times in the 15 years of the Gold Coast event has the polesitter won the race, and only four of the 15 polesitters -- including those three winners -- have finished on the podium. No driver has won more than once on the Gold Coast since the first race in 1991. That's the longest such streak in Champ Car series history.

Newman Haas Racing drivers have won five of the Gold Coast races, seven poles, and taken nine podiums. Its drivers this weekend are Bourdais and Brazilian Bruno Junqueira, the 2004 Gold Coast winner.

Bourdais has started on the front row in each of the past five races this season, and only a last-lap tangle with Paul Tracy at Denver in mid-August has kept him from a string of six consecutive podiums.

The only two drivers with a mathematical chance of denying Bourdais the title are AJ Allmendinger and Justin Wilson, who are 58 and 69 points respectively behind him.

Englishman Wilson, who is in his third year in the series and is with the RuSPORT team with which Aussie Ryan Briscoe is making his Champ Car debut this weekend, must secure the maximum 70 points over the season's last two events (Gold Coast and Mexico) -- and rely on Bourdais not scoring any -- to stay in the hunt. If Wilson does not take provisional pole position today he is eliminated from the title chase.

Californian Allmendinger has the momentum of a victory at Road America three weeks ago, and that was his fifth victory of the season. He was second to Bourdais on the Gold Coast last year and sixth as a rookie in 2004.

Schumi needs a miracle
The odds, and statistics, are on Spaniard Fernando Alonso's side too as he tries to withstand Michael Schumacher's final thrust for an eighth world title in the Brazilian Grand Prix on Monday morning, Australian time. Alonso has 126 points to the German's 116, so Schumacher must win and Alonso not finish in the top eight at Interlagos for Schumi to retire with that eighth crown.

The F1 title has been decided at the last race of the season 22 times since the world championship began in 1950. Fourteen of those times it was won by the man leading before the race. Schumacher was involved in four of those showdowns -- and won the title on three of those occasions. If he wins this time he will also earn another record -- for the greatest comeback in a last-race-of-the-season title decider.

Schumacher would also set a record by winning the title on a tie-break -- if he wins at Interlagos and Alonso is not among the top eight. The narrowest margin to date is the half point that separated Niki Lauda and Alain Prost in 1984, when Lauda won 72 to 71.5. Half points were allotted then in races that ran less than half-distance.

McLaren has the best record of any team in Brazil over the years, with 11 wins, but has not won a GP this season. Kimi Raikkonen, driving his last race for McLaren before succeeding Schumacher at Ferrari, has been runner-up at the anti-clockwise Interlagos for the past three seasons. McLaren needs a victory to avoid its first winless season since 1996.

Schumacher and Alonso have each won seven times this season. If Schumacher wins on Monday, but fails to take the title, he will be the first driver to win eight races in a season without claiming the championship.

Ferrari has won six of the past eight races. If it overhauls Renault's nine-point lead to claim the constructors' championship it will be for a record 15th time. Ferrari has already won 191 GPs since 1950. McLaren has won 148 times, Williams 113 and Renault 33.

Shanghai circuit corruption scandal
The general manager of Shanghai International Circuit, Yu Zhifei, is embroiled in China's biggest corruption scandal for a decade, with allegations of "illegal operations" at the showpiece F1 track, where Australia's V8 Supercars also raced last year. Shanghai's Communist Party chief, Chen Liangyu, was ousted last month for alleged involvement in the diversion of US$500 million in pension funds into real estate deals with crony developers and into toll road projects -- including the road leading to the circuit. Yu was a close associate of Chen.

Ton up for Junior Johnson
Like fellow Ford racer Jason Bright, Steve Johnson is competing at his 100th V8 Supercar round this weekend. He did a handful of rounds in the '90s, some of the early ones in Holdens, but has been full-time with his father's Dick Johnson Racing since 2000.

Montoya has already driven two Automobile Racing Club of America races and done well, although he "wrecked" in the second. He is driving Dodges for Chip Ganassi and may get to make his debut in NASCAR's premier league, the Nextel Cup, in the final round of that championship at Homestead-Miami Speedway on November 19.

Montoya admits he's finding the oval tracks "a bit hard". He says that on road courses there is basically one racing line, while on ovals "there are probably four, maybe five". And "there's so many things that can help make a car tighter, (or) looser".