The Gold Coast 600 is quite a different kind of V8 Supercar round, but for the regular drivers it’s still about their championship hopes. And some perspectives on Indy Cars games and ovals
Triple Eight teammates focus on tussle for title
Amid the grieving for Dan Wheldon and the hype about 28 international co-drivers, it could easily be overlooked that the Gold Coast 600 is a round of the V8 Supercar Championship. For the regular drivers it is this they need to keep focused upon.
It is a particularly important weekend for Jamie Whincup, the 2008 and ’09 champion who saw a title get away from him last season and lost the lead in this year’s standings two weeks ago at Bathurst to Triple Eight teammate, Craig Lowndes.
Whincup has seemed quite despondent this week about the tussle ahead and intimated that battling the other star in the Team Vodafone camp is worse than battling another rival. He has said that Lowndes’ 100-point advantage “looks like a really big gap” and that, with five rounds remaining, overhauling it “almost looks undoable”.
“I have to focus on my job and drive to the best of my ability, but Craig is really quick at the moment and the only way I am going to beat him is if he has bad luck,” Whincup said.
The visiting co-drivers, who have to drive at least a third of each of the weekend’s two 300km races, inject an uncertainty into this round. That said those who participated at the Gold Coast last proved more adept at driving V8 Supercars than was anticipated.
While there are many complete “rookies” this time, all 28 are professionals and aware that the regular drivers in the series have a lot on the line in terms of championship standings. So there shouldn’t be too much rash behaviour, although it is a temporary street circuit with walls and fencing very close -so carnage is never far away.
There is an abundance of talent among the international co-drivers but, with the two championship contenders, Triple Eight has been particularly astute in its selections. Lowndes is one of only four regular drivers to have the same co-driver as last year – multiple world touring car champion Andy Priaulx, who has had plenty of experience in V8 Supercars over the years.
Whincup is paired with Frenchman Sebastien Bourdais, who for several years was the dominant force in Champ Car racing, has raced a lot at Surfers’ Paradise and was a stand-out performer in his V8 Supercar debut here last year.
While it would take a major catastrophe for Triple Eight now for the championship to become anything other than a contest between Lowndes and Whincup, Bathurst winner Garth Tander must loom as the main danger to that pair this weekend.
Tander has an impeccable record at the Gold Coast and is paired in his Holden Racing Team Commodore with Aussie international Ryan Briscoe, who has already shown himself to be well-suited to V8 Supercars.
The street circuit has been friendlier to Fords than other venues in recent years, but the pre-race form certainly points to more glory for Holden this weekend.
We published a full driver/co-driver line up at motoring.com.au earlier in the week.
V8 Supercar Championship drivers standings after 20 of 28 races: 1. Craig Lowndes (Holden) 2329 points, 2. Jamie Whincup (H) 2229, 3. Shane Van Gisbergen (Ford) 1895, 4. Garth Tander (H) 1848, 5. Mark Winterbottom (F) 1687, 6. Will Davison (F) 1646, 7. Rick Kelly (H) 1638, 8. Jason Bright (H) 1502, 9. Alex Davison (F) 1448, 10. Steven Johnson (F) 1411.
V8 Supercar teams Championship standings: 1. TeamVodafone 4583 points, 2. Stone Brothers Racing 3418, 3. Ford Performance Racing 3358, 4. Toll Holden Racing Team, 3075, 5. Fujitsu Racing/GRM 2683, 6. Jack Daniel’s Racing 2611, 7. Brad Jones Racing 2573, 8. Jim Beam Racing 2531, 9. Kelly Racing 2391, 10. Paul Morris Motorsports 2275.
Power says ‘something has to change’ in IndyCar
Dan Wheldon’s death in the IndyCar finale at Las Vegas last Monday morning, Australian time, has dominated the week’s motorsport news.
The most successful international co-driver at the Gold Coast 600 will receive the Dan Wheldon Trophy, while services will be held for the American-based Brit in the US over the weekend.
The family funeral will be at St Petersburg in Florida at 10am Saturday, eastern American time, and a memorial service will be held several hours later in the hub of Indy racing, Indianapolis. Wheldon won two Indy 500s, including this year’s in spectacular fashion after J.R. Hildebrand hit the wall in the last corner – the 800th turn in the 500-mile (800km) race.
Debate has raged in the US throughout the week about the safety of IndyCar racing.
NASCAR’s champion of the past five years Jimmie Johnson saying that the open-wheeler cars were too fast for oval tracks and belonged only on road courses made huge headlines in the US. Johnson has since clarified that he meant only that they were too fast for high-banked ovals like Las Vegas, where Wheldon died in what became a 15-car crash.
Will Power, the Australian who was in contention to win the IndyCar title that ultimately went for the third straight year to Scotsman Dario Franchitti, said “something has to change”.
“We are averaging speeds [on high-banked ovals] of something like 370km/h, inches apart and when something does happen -- which it does, in most races there is some sort of accident – there is no space to react,” Power said.
“This sort of track [Las Vegas] is too fast and too close. It is too high a speed – and it’s a recipe for disaster.”
Power said that, while the back and neck injuries he suffered at Vegas were not serious, he withdrew from the Gold Coast 600, in which he was to have partnered Ford Performance Racing’s Mark Winterbottom, simply because he preferred not to race so soon after Wheldon’s death.
The oval perspective from Mario Andretti
Amid all the opinions on IndyCar and oval racing, two of the smartest perspectives have come from the great Mario Andretti and Spaniard, Oriel Servia, who drives for the Newman-Haas team with which Andretti had so much of his success.
Andretti, a champion in Indy and Formula One, said it was “ludicrous” to contemplate scrapping oval races for open-wheelers in America.
“We have to review some of the venues that we go to, but you cannot tell me that IndyCar does not belong on an oval,” Andretti told the Indianapolis Star.
Andretti said he and another Indy racing legend, Rick Mears, had been asking IndyCar to reduce the amount of downforce the cars have so drivers go slower in corners than on straights.
“It’s not the straight-line speed that’s the problem,” Andretti said.
“If you increase the [engine] power and decrease some of the downforce, I think it’s the formula to separate [the cars]. Right now they’re inches apart for two hours.”
Andretti said the bodywork on the new 2012 IndyCar, designed to protect the wheels from getting tangled and launching cars, and on which Wheldon had been the development driver – would be effective.
“To have that protection in the back (of the car) is exactly the formula that you need,” he said.
In USA Today Andretti was quoted saying: “The notion of saying, ‘Yeah, we should be pulling out of ovals’ is totally ridiculous.
“IndyCar is the most versatile of all the sanctioning bodies - more versatile than NASCAR. Formula One is strictly road racing, and that’s how IndyCar differentiates itself. They should not give that up. I’ve always thought it’s very valuable, very rich and very special.”
Servia said that adding horsepower or reducing grip would decrease handling and break up pack racing as at Vegas.
“The problem starts when you put IndyCars on an oval where handling is not an issue and it is too easy for all cars to go full throttle for the whole race,” Servia told Associated Press.
“IndyCars on low-banked ovals are safer than most street and road courses we race. It is on the high-banked ovals under this configuration where we increase the potential for a big crash.
“The speed is not the problem either - we have raced at other fast ovals above 245mph [almost 395kmh] and do it in reasonably safe manner.”
Servia said track safety, especially the fencing, needed to be improved to keep high-banked ovals on the IndyCar schedule.
“When there is a crash at those speeds the fence acts like a giant saw or cheese grater and, in an open-wheel cockpit, you basically have to really hope to not get into the fence,” he said.
“As much as the SAFER barrier has saved many lives in the last ten years, it is time now that ovals reconsider a new type of fencing.”
NASCAR assessments of and by Marcos Ambrose
NASCAR is at arguably its most dangerous superspeedway, Talladega, this weekend as the Sprint Cup heads towards its climax.
Australia’s Marcos Ambrose has described his season with Richard Petty Motorsports as “a fairytale year”.
NASCAR publication SceneDaily commented this week: “The Petty team might have stumbled a bit out of the gate, but Ambrose has hit his stride of late, finishing ninth or better in his last three starts. For the most part he’s been able to duplicate or improve his efforts at tracks a second time around. He has climbed from 20th to 18th in points, which is far better than a year ago when he found himself 26th in points down the homestretch.”
An interview with Ambrose, his teammate A.J. Allmendinger, who is 14th in the Cup standings, and the Petty team’s chief operating officer Robbie Loomis was published by Ford Racing in the US this week.
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