Tander plans repeat offence

Holden heat on Lowndes
Holden is increasing its pressure on Ford's Craig Lowndes as the V8 Supercar show heads to Tasmania this week for the third last round of its championship.

Symmons Plains near Launceston has traditionally been a Holden track. Commodore drivers have won five of the past six V8 rounds at Symmons -- from 1996-99 and 2004-05. Russell Ingall, in '04, was the only Ford victor in that time.

HSV Dealer Team's Garth Tander won all three races in Tassie last year and this time his teammate Rick Kelly is sitting just 30 points behind Lowndes in the chase for the title, with only the Bahrain and Phillip Island rounds after this weekend.

Lowndes has to face a stewards inquiry in Launceston on Friday in the wash-up from his track actions and comments at the Gold Coast Indy. He opted last week not to take an immediate penalty, which probably would have been a hefty fine, for an alleged "burnout" ahead of the start of the first race at the Gold Coast, then cutting a chicane and not immediately surrendering position, and for remarks he made that were taken as suggesting that officials were trying to manipulate the championship to a close finish. Lowndes and his Triple Eight team claim his comments were directed at Holden and in taking the fight to the stewards are risking a loss of points as well as a fine.

Kelly was third at the Tasmanian round last year and Steven Richards second, giving Holden all three podium positions. HSVDT feel they have Lowndes on the run now, although Kelly is not overstating the case. "I don't care at all about what's going on in other people's garages or what problems they have. We're worried about what happens in our own garage," Kelly says. "Certainly we had good results at Symmons Plains last year, but others had misfortunes and problems that I'm sure they won't have this year, so it won't be easy, no matter how well we went there last year."

Tander, though, says: "Our cars are probably better than last year's cars. I think we are a good chance to have a repeat performance."

The format for the weekend is a 100km race on Saturday with a compulsory tyre stop, and two races on Sunday, each of 140km, and also each with compulsory tyre stops.

Steven Richards, still with Larry Perkins' Holden team at the minute but set to join Ford Performance Racing in 2007, will be aiming for three pole positions in a row at the 2.41km Symmons. The only touring car racer to score three poles in a row at the Tassie track was Peter Brock in 1978, 1979 and 1980. And it was in 1980 that Brock gave the Commodore its racing debut -- with a victory.

New Commodore for Tasman
Tasman Motorsport will roll out a new VZ Commodore this weekend, even though the model has only three more race meetings before the VE is introduced next season. Jason Richards will have the new car while Tasman teammate Andrew Jones moves into the Commodore that Richards has raced all season. "My car had more hits than Elvis of late and, while it's repaired and fine for Andrew to now drive, there's some changes in the new chassis that we are wanting to try in preparation for the VE model next year," Richards says.

Be There for the V8s
The theme for the 2007 Clipsal 500 in Adelaide is 'Be There' and the event's advertising campaign will include a TV commercial for Victorians reminding them they will not see V8 Supercars at the Grand Prix in Melbourne in mid-March -- and that they should get to Adelaide instead at the start of that month. Clipsal will have eight categories of racing, concerts on each of the four nights (with artists including Evermore, Eskimo Joe, Lee Kernaghan, Jon Stevens and the Black Sorrows featuring Joe Camilleri) and "cool zones" for hot spectators. SA Motor Sport Board chairman Roger Cook says ticket sales already are 5 per cent up on last year, while Clipsal 500 chief executive Andrew Daniels says a four-day crowd of 200,000 is assured.

Besnard shines in NZ
David Besnard, relegated these days to a co-driver role in Australia's V8 Supercar endurance races, took two wins from his first three races in the New Zealand V8 Championship at the weekend. A veteran of more than 60 V8 Supercar races in Oz, Besnard has joined leading NZV8 Ford team Hydraulink Racing. He was second in the one race he did not win at Pukekohe. Luke Youlden and Cameron McLean were other Aussies to do well there in what was a strong weekend for Ford.

Porsches flunk, Lambo leads
The new Porsche 997 turbos of Jim Richards and Tony Quinn were early retirements from the Mt Buller Sprint, while the Lamborghini Gallardo of Tasmanian nephew and uncle pairing Jason and John White headed the field last night, after five of the eight 16km sprints. Cody Crocker, the triple Australian rally champion and new Asia-Pacific champion making his tarmac debut in a Subaru Impreza WRX STI, and Warwick Rooklyn in a Team Mitsubishi Ralliart Evolution IX Lancer have been locked in an intense battle for second place.

Richards didn't make it to the finish of the first stage on Saturday, reporting a computerised engine management system problem. Then Quinn had fuel surge problems that stranded him 200 metres short of the finish on the second stage.

The Whites had an 18-second lead last night, with Crocker just 0.36 seconds ahead of Rooklyn -- and the Mitsubishi's best dash up the mountain was fractionally faster than the Subaru. The best time of the three-day event so far has been the Whites' 8 minutes 50.62 seconds on the third run. The record 8:45.50 was set on the Australia Day long weekend last year by Richards in a 2003 Porsche GT2. Rooklyn's best has been 8:54.45 versus Crocker's 8:55.57, while Mitsubishi's gravel ace, Scott Pedder, is hovering around 10th after getting stuck in third gear on the third run, and Tony Longhurst was out after two stages with a strange rattle in the engine of his Subaru.

The sprint is being held for the second time this year as it moves from summer to spring. CarPoint-sponsored Team MINI's three cars have all posted sub-10min runs.

Montoya started 10th at Fort Worth in Texas but had to enter the pits for repairs on the formation lap, which meant he began the race from the rear. After making his way steadily up the order, he then brushed the wall and damaged his Dodge.

"If Alonso can get a good car from McLaren I don't think anyone will touch him again. He's the class in the field at the moment. There's no one who can compete with him consistently," Webber says. "He's double world champion when Michael was still around, which is a great feather in his cap and something which I know he's particularly rapt about. I think he will give them (McLaren) that lift actually. McLaren have been looking for a bit of direction for a while now and I think Fernando can give it to them.

"Kimi (Raikkonen, Schumacher's replacement at Ferrari) is phenomenally quick ... (but) ... whether he can take it to Fernando during the course of the season ... it's going to be a good fight between those two."

Webber says he found it difficult to motivate himself from the middle of this year with the Williams car continually failing. "It's never ever happened in my career before, but it was tough towards the end because you felt there was not a great deal you could do to make a difference and that was hard."

Webber tips Renault to remain strong. "Heiki Kovalainen (a Finnish newcomer) will be one of the finds of the season, and Fisi (Giancarlo Fisichella) could come out of his shell because he hasn't got Fernando there," he says.

Test curb to cut jobs
The mandated reduction in F1 testing next year is going to cost jobs. Teams will be limited to 30,000km each -- about half what some have been doing. The governing FIA is turning Fridays at each Grand Prix into a test session. Grandprix.com says teams are set to cut staff numbers as there will be only 13 non-Friday tests in 2007 and several of them  will be outside the racing season, leaving no logical reason for dedicated test teams as many have had.

Lexus in F1 - yes or no?
The Toyota engines in the Williams cars next year may yet be badged Lexus, according to US weekly magazine AutoWeek. However, Toyota F1 bosses John Howett and Tsutomu Tomita are opposed to the idea.

Rossi on Pirellis for rally
Valentino Rossi races on Michelin tyres in MotoGP but has agreed a switch to Pirelli for the Subaru he will drive in this month's New Zealand round of the world rally championship. Production WRC driver Nigel Heath is surrendering his number 46 for the event so that Rossi can use his regular number.