V8 Supercar aero crackdown, and more

"If accepted [by TEGA's expanded seven-member board] the downforce generated by the front splitter undertray and rear wing will be cut significantly for next year," Fogarty writes. "The aim is to make overtaking easier by increasing braking distances and decreasing corner grip by reducing downforce levels. This would be achieved by a combination of changes to ride heights, undertray sizes, and rear wing locations and angles."

Driver swaps outlawed
Driver swaps like those that top Holden teams made with Garth Tander and Todd Kelly for this year's endurance races have now been outlawed, Auto Action reports.

After a vote by V8 team principals, regulations have been rewritten to ban the movement during the season of "primary drivers" -- those registered with each team at the start of a championship.

That said, a move to keep drivers in the same car all season, which would prevent some star pairings in the enduros, was overturned by the teams. Team owners felt this could significantly increase the cost of co-drivers by increasing competition for experienced part-timers to partner the full-timers. The idea may yet resurface.

"It would be a wonderful place to go racing," V8SA chief executive Wayne Cattach told Auto Action. "It has all the ingredients we look for."
V8SA has a policy of no more than four overseas rounds, including New Zealand. Cattach says V8S is not actively seeking another overseas round beside those already arranged in NZ and Bahrain. It would have to make "economic sense" and, Cattach says, it would prefer any in the future to be in places where motorsport is relatively undeveloped.

Team Kiwi's Auckland-based owner David John says: "We have $225,000 after visiting race meetings, taking the damaged Holden Commodore on tour (in NZ), receiving donations via the ANZ Bank or website teamkiwiracing.co.nz, and selling merchandise at reduced prices. We still have the lower half of the North Island and the entire South Island to visit with the Holden in the next 17 days and hopefully we can raise the balance of money required."

There have been some tensions between Team Kiwi and one of NZ's favourite racing sons, Greg Murphy, who has said that a team should not be in the V8 Supercar Championship if it can't afford it. David John says Murphy should mind his own business.

Stoddart is reportedly eyeing a takeover of the CTE/HVM team of Keith Wiggins, who ran the Pacific Grand Prix outfit in the early 1990s.

British-based Stoddart and two of his lieutenants have recently been in Indianapolis, the centre of American open-wheeler racing. Stoddart has hinted that his drivers will come from those who were associated with him when he owned the Minardi Formula One team for five years.

Lanky Brit Justin Wilson, runner-up for RuSPORT in the Champ Car series completed last weekend, is apparently at the top of Stoddart's list.

South Australia's former Le Mans winner, Vern Schuppan, is in a Mercedes SL 55 AMG coupe for the event, while 80-year-old Sir Jack Brabham is driving an SLK.

Today's Classic Adelaide's prologue is on a shortened version of the city's Grand Prix circuit around Victoria Park.

The rally will take crews into the Barossa Valley tomorrow, down the Fleurieu Peninsula on Friday, around the Adelaide Hills on Saturday, with the final day in the McLaren Vales before finishing in central Adelaide on Sunday afternoon. The rally covers just over 1000km with more than 250 competitive kms in 31 closed road special stages.

Rossi in rally rush
Valentino Rossi is a little underdone to be driving in Rally New Zealand this week. The MotoGP superstar only flew into NZ on Tuesday, at least two days later than ideal after promotional activities in the Middle East.

Although Rossi secretly tested the Subaru Impreza he is to drive in Britain recently, he ran late throughout yesterday's reconnaissance, trailing the troupe of about 50 cars which spent the day checking out course in the Waikato region south of Auckland.

The Subaru is the car that Australian Chris Atkinson drove in this year's Rally of Germany, repainted black and prepared for gravel rallying. While the Impreza will be serviced under Subaru's awning in NZ, it will be fettled by Prodrive's customer arm rather than the factory team.

Rally NZ has been chosen for Rossi's latest four-wheel escapade because of its fast, flowing roads and because of its distance from the world media throng that generally follows him. There will be a fair throng in NZ too -- just lots of different faces.

Rossi's aim for the event: "I want to understand how the car works and my potential in rallying - and make the finish. But I want to have fun and enjoy myself."

Under the sport's rules, the engine had to stay in Australasia and it has now been dropped back into the Focus for tomorrow's start in Hamilton.

Gronholm won in NZ in 2000, 2002 and 2003 for Peugeot. He's hoping to give Ford its first Rally NZ win since Kiwi Jim Donald in 1981 -- in an Escort RS1800 -- but more importantly clinch this year's manufacturers' title for the Blue Oval. Gronholm has already won five rallies this season but can't finish higher than second. French world champion Sebastien Loeb is doing reconnaissance in NZ but won't compete for the third straight round after a broken arm.

"I haven't got a spare $1.3m to go GP2 racing [the F1 support category in Europe], so it's basically World Series by Renault, Champ Car Atlantic in America, or another season of British Formula Three [in which he was 14th this year after winning the Australian F3 title in 2004]."

Reindler says he hopes to finalise some testing soon. Fellow Aussie youngsters Nathan Antunes and Michael Patrizi had World Series by Renault tests in France last week.

Previous winners include Ayrton Senna in 1983, Michael Schumacher in 1990, David Coulthard in 1991 and Ralf Schumacher in 1995.

Among the starters at the 53rd Macau GP are BMW-Sauber F1 test driver Sebastian Vettel, new European F3 champion Paul di Resta, and Englishman Oliver Jarvis, who was second in the A1 feature race in Beijing last Sunday. Qualifying starts Thursday with races on Saturday and Sunday.

Hakkinen, 38, has been racing for Mercedes in the German Touring Car Championship or DTM.

"Mika has been in the simulator [at McLaren's headquarters] and following his visit to Brazil [for Michael Schumacher's farewell Grand Prix] wished to understand if he could contribute to our program," McLaren chief executive Martin Whitmarsh says.

"We have no plans to run Mika alongside Alonso next year. The identity of our second driver will be announced in due course."

Bourdais settles for Le Mans
Champ Car champion Sebastien Bourdais admits he's unlikely to ever get an F1 drive --despite three titles in America since his International Formula 3000 Championship success in 2002. However, the 27-year-old Frenchman will definitely compete in next year's Le Mans 24 Hours sportscar classic, probably for Peugeot. Bourdais was born in Le Mans.

"There are loads of talented drivers who never went to F1... One can always say it's unfair, but that's F1 -- it's never been fair," he says, ruling out joining the list of open-wheeler drivers switching to NASCAR.

"I never say never … Yet," says the iconic Mario, who would still love to be the only man to win the "triple crown" -- the F1 world title, the Indianapolis 500 and Le Mans.