MOTORSPORT: Bathurst, Gold Coast may go live to US

Aussies were at the forefront on tracks in Europe and America on the weekend but big things are in the V8 Supercar offing too as the endurance season looms

Stoner, Webber, Power, Briscoe and Ambrose star on big stages
It was a great weekend for Australians in international motorsport, while there are big V8 Supercar developments brewing.

Casey Stoner won his seventh MotoGP of the year for Honda at Indianapolis in the US and is seemingly on the way to a second world title.

Mark Webber got a contract from Red Bull Racing for another year in Formula One and finished second to teammate Sebastian Vettel in the Belgian Grand Prix at Spa.

For the second straight year Will Power won the IndyCar round at California’s Infineon Raceway, where he broke his back in 2009, and teammate and countryman Ryan Briscoe was third.

And Marcos Ambrose was in the top 10 in NASCAR’s latest Sprint Cup round on the short Bristol oval in Tennessee.

While all that was happening speculation swirled that one of the rising stars of V8 Supercars, Lee Holdsworth, will be switching from Holden team Fujitsu Racing GRM to Ford factory-supported Stone Brothers Racing next year.

Holdsworth says he knows what he’s doing but won’t be making any announcement until after the Bathurst 1000 on October 9.

And, on the subject of The Great Race, there are whispers that it and the Gold Coast 600 two weeks later, with international co-drivers in every V8 Supercar, will be screened live into the US on Speed Channel.

V8SA chief Tony Cochrane has been in America recently stitching the deal together with renowned expatriate Aussie TV executive David Hill.

V8 Supercar rounds are already being screened on Speed on delay but audience numbers have not been revealed and sources say they “don’t come close to even things like the GrandAm sports car series”.

However, a live telecast of Bathurst during the American evening would be a significant advance.

Speed would supplement the race feed from Australia with its own – or at least some of its own – commentary.

It could include Darrell Waltrip, a three-time NASCAR Cup champion, Daytona 500 winner and five-time victor in Charlotte’s Coca-Cola 600 who is now an ESPN commentator.

And, still in V8 Supercar land, a little story tucked away in the latest Auto Action magazine confirmed talk we’d heard before that John Crennan, the long-time Holden Special Vehicles and Holden Racing Team boss, has ambitions of making the Kelly Brothers/Jack Daniel’s outfit he’s now running the new HSV/HRT.

Walkinshaw Racing’s deal for HRT to be the Holden factory race team reportedly expires at the end of next year.

Crennan told Auto Action that, while there has been speculation about the Kellys linking up with a new manufacturer under the Car of the Future project, “it would disturb our goal of replacing HRT as the main Holden team at the end of their contract”.


Red Bull glory after rubber scares
Mark Webber’s Red Bull contract has been extended until the end of next year, as foreshadowed here on Friday, and while he set the pace through two wet days at Spa it was his teammate Sebastian Vettel who did the business in qualifying and the race.

Despite another shocking start, Webber took second to give Red Bull its second quinella of the season.

He remains second to Vettel in the world championship, but now 92 points behind.

However, Webber’s 167 points without a win this year is more than his tally at the same stage last season.

Before the mid-season break it seemed that McLaren and Ferrari had pretty much drawn level with Red Bull on race pace, if not outright speed, but the Belgian race disproved that.

Barring unforeseen circumstances, Vettel is pretty much already assured of a second straight world title at the age of just 24.

However, Spa was a stressful weekend for Red Bull Racing, especially because of concerns over whether its supply of Pirelli tyres would do the job.

So concerned was it about the blistering of Vettel and Webber’s tyres in qualifying that it sought special dispensation to be allowed to change its rubber for the start of the race.

When that was refused it contemplated starting its drivers from the pitlane so that it could have made changes, including to its suspension geometry.

Instead they took their place on the grid but Webber, who had qualified third, pitted on lap three and Vettel on lap five to change tyres.

Red Bull technical director Adrian Newey revealed that the team had run more camber in qualifying than recommended by monopoly tyre supplier Pirelli and that he had been concerned for the safety of the team’s drivers.

The BBC website’s Andrew Benson has reported that Pirelli’s recommended maximum camber – or lean of tyres away from the vertical - is four degrees.

Newey told Benson that Red Bull’s camber was “just a hair over four - four and an eighth, or something, just a tiny bit over”.

“Obviously if we had known there was a safety concern about it we wouldn’t have done it,” Newey said.

“Pirelli were telling us after qualifying that our tyres were very marginal and they wouldn’t say whether it was after half a lap or five laps, but they were going to fail.

“I have to say it was one of the scariest races I’ve been involved in - it was heart-in-the-mouth stuff, as first and foremost our duty of care is to the driver safety. Frankly at the end of the race I was very relieved our drivers were safe. Trying to make that call in making sure the car was safe, while not handicapping ourselves from a performance point of view, was quite a difficult judgment to make.”

Vettel’s seventh triumph of the year, after not winning any of the three GPs immediately before the four-week mid-season break, gave Red Bull its first victory at Spa.

However, he admitted it required “more management than usual” but that “if the car does what you want it to do this place is really fun”.

McLaren’s Jenson Button claimed third place from 13th on the grid and 19th place after his first pitstop. He wondered “who knows what would have happened if we had qualified well”.

Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso finished fourth, ending a run of four podiums (including his British GP victory), after leading some of the early stages but being brilliantly overtaken by Webber and then surrendering a place to Button in the closing laps.

Michael Schumacher celebrated the 20th anniversary of his F1 debut at Spa with fifth place after starting from the rear of the grid because his Mercedes lost a tyre in qualifying and prevented him setting a time.

In the final stages of the race Schumacher overtook teammate Nico Rosberg, who had charged into the lead, around Webber from fifth on the grid, but had to conserve fuel at the end.

Still, for 42-year-old seven-time world champion Schumacher fifth – his second best finish of the season – was “a wonderful ending to a wonderful weekend”.

Lewis Hamilton crashed his McLaren heavily while trying to overtake Japanese driver Kamui Kobayashi’s Sauber and admitted later it had been “100 per cent my fault”.

“I didn’t give Kobayashi enough room, though I thought I was past,” said Hamilton, who has dropped to fifth in the championship.


High marks for Webber flying past Alonso
Webber’s pass on Alonso at almost 300kmh through the revered Eau Rouge was a highlight of the Spa race – and of a season so far winless for the Aussie.

Webber was asked afterwards whether it had been a calculated move.

“Well, you don’t have much time to get the calculator out at that point, mate,” he said, with a big grin.

“It’s more rewarding when you can do it with someone like Fernando because he’s a world-class driver and he knows when enough is enough. Obviously my attitude might have been a bit different with someone else.”

Webber said he had felt frustrated most of the race because of another bad start.

“The lights went out and I got anti-stall at the start – I don’t know whether it was due to the start being uphill or not,” he said.

“We were worried about the tyres going into the race and had a lot of meetings in the morning. In the end, the right decisions were made and the team reacted incredibly well and did some good research to work out how we could best get through the race.

“We did a lot of damage to the tyres in qualifying and had to stop pretty early to protect ourselves from any issues from the tyre which put us out of position. We picked some people off, but in terms of the result I was after I was frustrated at that point. Then the safety car came out.

“The team wanted me to pit, but when I got the instructions of what to do in the pit lane I was the wrong side of the pit wall – I never heard the call to come in. I was worried, but we kept going and the car behaved well. I drove well from then on and we got a good result in what was one of the team’s best one-two finishes.”

Young Aussie Daniel Ricciardo’s fourth GP was cut short by a problem with the rear of his car, but – having started on the back row of the grid with Schumacher – he was 15th, the highest he’s been to date, on lap seven.

However, Ricciardo completed less than a third of the distance - the first time in the 22-year-old’s four-race F1 career with small Spanish team HRT that he has not finished. He had felt severe vibrations in the left rear side of his Cosworth-engined car.

“I can’t be fully satisfied because it has been a short race for me, but at least the time I was out there was really positive,” he said.

“I made a good start and then benefited from some incidents ahead, but also made the right choice - which let me pick up a few spots. The pace was quite good, a few of the faster cars ended up coming back through, but we let them go without losing much time with our direct rivals.

“It was looking quite good ahead of the Virgin and Lotus cars. Unfortunately we had a problem with the rear which made us end the race prematurely.

“But there is no doubt that there are some positives to take. It would have been nice to finish but we’ve always got next time. From my side I’m happy with how the race was going and we will try to build on it for the next GP in Monza (Italy, on the second weekend of September).”

Formula One drivers’ world championship after 12 of 19 rounds – 1. Sebastian Vettel (Germany, Red Bull-Renault) 259 points, 2. Mark Webber (Australia, Red Bull-Renault) 167, 3. Fernando Alonso (Spain, Ferrari) 157, 4. Jenson Button (Great Britain, McLaren-Mercedes) 149, 5. Lewis Hamilton (GB, McLaren-Mercedes) 146, 6. Felipe Massa (Brazil, Ferrari) 74, 7. Nico Rosberg (Germany, Mercedes) 56, 8. Michael Schumacher (Grmany, Mercedes) 42.

F1 constructors’ world championship – 1. Red Bull-Renault 426, 2. McLaren-Mercedes 295, 3. Ferrari 231, 4. Mercedes 98, 5. Renault 68, 6. Sauber-Ferrari 35, 7. Force India-Mercedes 32, 8. Toro Rosso-Ferrari 22.

Remaining GPs - Italy, September 11; Singapore, September 25; Japan, October 9; South Korea, October 16; India, October 30; Abu Dhabi, November 13; Brazil, November 27.


Power leads Penske sweep, closes on Franchitti
Will Power and Ryan Briscoe sandwiched Brazilian teammate Helio Castroneves in a Penske Racing clean sweep of the IndyCar podium at Infineon Raceway in Sonoma, California.

It was the first such emphatic Penske performance in Indy racing since Al Unser Junior, Emerson Fittipaldi and Paul Tracy did it for Roger “The Captain” Penske at Nazareth, Pennsylvania, in 1994.

More importantly Power narrowed Ganassi Racing driver Dario Franchitti’s series lead by 21 points to just 26 with four rounds remaining, the first of them a new street race at Baltimore next weekend.

Franchitti and Ganassi teammate Scott Dixon finished fourth and fifth at Sonoma as Power raced to his second straight victory there from consecutive pole positions and Briscoe gained a place in the championship standings to fifth.

IndyCar Championship after 13 of 17 races - 1. Dario Franchitti (Ganassi Racing) 475 points, 2. Will Power (Team Penske) 449, 3. Scott Dixon (Gansassi) 400, 4. Oriol Servia (Newman-Haas Racing) 327, 5. Ryan Briscoe (Penske) 312, 6. Tony Kanaan (KV Racing) 305, 7. Ryan Hunter-Reay (Andretti Autosport) 285, 8. Marco Andretti (Andretti) 282, 9. Helio Castroneves (Penske) 277, 10. Graham Rahal (Ganassi) 264.


Ambrose in hunt but Keselowski red hot
The mighty Penske outfit also triumphed in NASCAR, with Brad Keselowski continuing to be the hottest driver in the Sprint Cup.

Keselowski scored his third win of the season – and second since breaking an ankle in a testing accident on August 3 – in his Penske Dodge on the Bristol half-mile (800m) “bullring”.

He has not finished lower than third in his past four Cup races, has staked a big claim for a place in The Chase over the final 10 rounds of the series, and his form is threatening to end Jimmie Johnson’s reign after five straight titles.

Johnson drew level on points with Kyle Busch for the series lead at Bristol, but Busch has had four wins this Cup season to Johnson’s one.

The field for The Chase – the top 10 drivers plus two wildcards – will be settled after two more rounds.

Aussie Marcos Ambrose finished 10th at Bristol – his eighth top 10 of what is now his best Cup season, including his recent road race victory at Watkins Glen.

Ambrose said his Richard Petty Motorsports Ford Fusion “wasn’t perfect” at Bristol, “but we stayed on the lead lap and kept digging on the top groove”.

Next weekend, in the Sprint Summer Showdown at Atlanta Motor Speedway, Ambrose will be in the running to win a million-dollar bonus for his team, another $1m for a fan and $1m for a charity of his choice.

Jeff Gordon dominated much of the Bristol race but was edged out of second place by Martin Truex Junior, Johnson was fourth and Ganassi’s Jamie McMurray fifth, while Kyle Busch was 13th.

Tony Stewart remains winless this season – he was 28th at Bristol – and is in danger of missing The Chase.

NASCAR Sprint Cup after 24 of 36 races - 1. Kyle Busch (Toyota) 830 points, 2. Jimmie Johnson (Chevrolet) 830, 3. Matt Kenseth (Ford) 798, 4. Carl Edwards (Ford) 795, 5. Kevin Harvick (Chevrolet) 782, 6. Jeff Gordon (Chevrolet) 782, 7. Ryan Newman (Chevrolet) 762, 8. Kurt Busch (Dodge) 749, 9. Dale Earnhardt Junior (Chevrolet) 728, 10. Tony Stewart (Chevrolet) 710, 11. Brad Kesekowski (Dodge) 689, 12. Clint Bowyer (Chevrolet) 688. Australia’s Marcos Ambrose (Ford) is 22nd on 627 points.