Motorsport News Issue 430 - April 2013

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NEWS No.430 April 2013

Australia $8.50 NZ $9.99 inc GST

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THIS MONTH'S FEATURES Editorial Group Editor Steve Normoyle snormoyle@chevron.com.au At Large Phil Branagan

Editorial Enquiries

The Grid

Chevron Publishing Level 6,207 Pacific Highway, St Leonards, NSW 2065 Locked Bag 5555,St Leonards, NSW 1590 editorial@chevron,com.au

Contributing Writers

Mark Glendenning, Andrew van Leeuwen, Chris Lambden, Geoff Rounds, Bruce Moxon, Edward Krause

FUTURE TEST

Art Director Chris Currie

Photography

Sutton Motorsport Images, Dirk Klynsmith, John Morris, Andrew Hall, Geoff Grade, Paul Cross, Clay Cross, Peter Bury, James Smith, Dan Kalisz

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The V8 Supercars Car of the Future is finally here and racing.

An inside look at the fortunes of three teams as they rolled them out for the first time in Adelaide.

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Cover Photos: Dirk Klynsmith, Andrew Hall, Dan Kalitsz

Advertising Advertising Director Chris West cwest@chevron.com.au P 02 9901 6376 M 0416125 252 National Sales Manager Luke Finn lflnn@chevron.com.au P 02 9901 6368 M 0423 665 384

It's mot(fhan'ging its name to SJR ibuit'deteriorating fortunes at Di(:k Johnson Racing has meant that ; for this year V8 Supercars will be without a Johnson driving since ibefore V8 Supercars existed'. Steve Johnson spoke about his(new role as tearffli ibossto:idwafdi iKrause.-;

Chairman, Chevron; Ray Berghouse Circulation Director; Carole Jones Subscriptions: www.mnews.com.au

chevron PUBLISHING GROUP a division of nextmedia Pty Ltd.

Level 6,207 Pacific Highway, St Leonards, NSW 2065 Locked Bag 5555,St Leonards, NSW 1590 Chief Executive Officer, David Gardiner Commercial Director, Bruce Duncan Motorsport News is published by nextmedia Pty Ltd ACN; 128 805 970, Level 6,207 Pacific Highway.St Leonards NSW 2065 O 2013.

All rights reserved. Motorsport News is printed by Webstar, Sydney, distributed by Network Distribution. No part of this magazine may be reproduced, in whole or in part, without the prior permission of the publisher. The publisher will not accept responsibility or any liability for the correctness of information or opinions expressed in the publication. All material submitted is at the owner's risk and, while every care will be taken nextmedia does not accept liability for loss or damage.

Privacy Policy We value the integrity of your personal information, if you provide personal information through your participation in any competitions, surveys or offers featured in this issue of Motorsport News,this will be used to provide the products or services that you have requested and to improve the content of our magazines.Your details may be provided to third parties who assist us in this purpose. In the event of organisations providing prizes or offers to our readers, we may pass your details on to them.From time to time, we may use the information you provide us to inform you of other products, services and events our company has to offer.

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FINNISHING SCHOOL Vaitteri Bottas is an unusual name even by Finnish standards but it may well become as familiar as Raikkonen or Hakkinen. Phil Branagan caught up with the Finn as he prepared for his FI debut.^

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B U LLISM FUTU RE :. This is set to be a critical season ● I for Daniel Ricciardo and one that r- could literally make or break his fc- iPl career. Andrew van Leeuwen spoke with a fired up Ricciardo determinedi to make the most of the Opportunities ahead of him. motorsport news

Unusual Suspects

A BULL AT A GATE There is a new Red Bull in

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town as Triple Eight sheds its former dayglo/silver for the blue hues of Red Bull. Edward Krause

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Vaitteri Bottas Vaitteri who? Get used to the

chats with defending champion Jamie Whincup about the new sponsor, and the legal dispute that it inadvertently promptedy

name, because Bottas is a guy who comes highly recommended and is widely tipped as a real future star.

With that in mind, we decided to corner him at Albert Park.

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Some time ago we featured' Laurie Bennett and; the recoyery; job he'd done on the dldi;|lfihi 600' Formula Pordi he raeediiih the ligyOs. We track down the veteran racer from H'ealfesville again, this time at the Nurburgring where he was racing a settled for a McLaren MTB in the World

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Sportscars Mastery

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JASON GRIMA

The first win is often the hardest, and that's the situation Pro Stock racer Jason Grima currently finds himself in.

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VALE GRAHAM HOWARD

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THE NEXT BRAZIER This is a sport renowned for driver dynasties but there are few that can match the Brazier family. The latest in a long line of champion speedway Braziers is teenage sprintcar star Jordyn.

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well rest on what happens this season. It could just be that this year's battle between the West Australian and Toro Rosso team-mate Jean-Eric Vergne will determine who eventually replaces Mark Webber at RBR.

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WWW, mnews.com.au

Daniel Ricciardo Ricciardo's whole F1 career could

6

Motor Mouth with Phil Branagan

8

The Scoop with Steve Normoyle

10

On The Limiter with Chris Lambden

12

Box Seat

14

United States of Origin

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Model Behaviour

92

Trade

Steve Johnson For the first time since the 1970s,

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Classifieds

96

From the Couch

there will not be a driver by the name of Johnson at the wheel of the number

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Parting Shot

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17 Ford in touring car racing. We spoke to Steve Johnson, team manager at DJR. 5

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Motor Mouth ^

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ORRY Darwin race fans, Craig Lowndes is not going to make it to Hidden Valley this year.

On the flipside, Ford will be a Davison down in Townsville, with Alex not able to make the journey to FNQ to join brother Will. And Shane van Gisbergen is no certainty for Perth.

OK; none of those things are true. Barring unforeseen circumstances or bizarre acts of nature, the 28 V8 Supercar drivers you expect to see in all the V8 Supercar events this season will be there. That is one of the basics that underpins the sport.

I was just trying to illustrate how it must feel to be a fan of the Australian Rally Championship. The series is starting to look good but it is still in the process of going through a rebuilding process.

Put yourself in a rally fan's parka. There are good things to see, not the least of which are the drivers who split the heats wins in the opening event of the season in Canberra. Scott Pedder gave Renault a near-perfect return to the sport on Saturday and on Sunday, 2012 Champion Eli Evans rewarded Honda with a win. Tom Wilde and Will Orders led the younger contingent, and there are plenty of other good drivers in interesting cars to watch; some expected, like the Mazda2 of Brendan Reeves and Steve Mackenzie's Ford Fiesta, and some less so, like the Nissan Silvia of Jack Monkhouse.

Then there are the other categories to watch; in Classic, drivers like Neal Bates and Justin Dowel. In SUV, Brett Middleton. The Raymonds' Mazda RX7.

Then there is the somewhat stop-start

6

World Rally Championship career of Chris Atkinson, the Queenslander recently taking sixth in a rare WRC outing in Mexico. Yep, the signs are that the local rally scene is well on the way back. The hard-working people who are building the series, and sponsor East Coast Bullbars, deserve a lot of credit for putting their hard work and money where their hearts are.

But I can't help but wonder how good it could be if all the front-line drivers had something competitive to drive. There's no doubt that Simon Evans is rallying's human headline and has a huge following.

Notwithstanding the fun that they have competing in the Side-by-Sides, the talents of Cody Crocker and Michael Guest deserve to be seen in an outright class car.

There is a ready-made opportunity for any manufacturer to coming into the series and hit the ground running. The bad old days, during which one manufacturer used a WRC-spec sledgehammer to make the outcome of the local series as predictable as anything can be in motor racing, are gone.

Pedder confirmed that the level of investment needed by a brand coming in was in the "hundreds of thousands rather than millions"

of dollars which, given what part a program can play, seems to me like decent value in a growing and competitive car market.

Not every brand is a Renault or a Honda.

Both have long histories in the sport, much of it at the top end. Within hours of the Renault ARC cars being shown off to the press, pictures of the marque's 2014 Formula 1 engine appeared on the internet. A few days later, the suggestions that Honda would return to Grand Prix racing in 2015, probably with former partner McLaren, began to circulate in earnest.

But there is more to it than that. At the Canberra media event sat a Renault R8 Cordini in striking blue hues, similar to the one that won the ARC crown in 1970. Better yet, there to see it was the man who drove that car 43 years ago. Bob Watson, looking as chirpy as ever and downright thrilled to be associated, again, with the make he helped publicise in this country.

Rallying has a long heritage in Australia.

There is a chance there for some of it to be revisited and reconnected with in the 21st century. It would be great for the sport if those opportunities are taken. I hope that they are.

The bad old days, during which one manufacturer used a WRC-spec sledgehammer to make the outcome of the local series as predictable as anything can be in motor racing, are gone. motorsport news

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Normoyle

The Scoop

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wasn't at the Formula 1 Rolex Australian Grand Prix. But I was told what it was like to be there by one of our photographers.

Saturday afternoon by all accounts was not a whole lot of fun. While the mini heatwave Melbourne had been experiencing the previous week mercifully had opted to take its leave of Albert Park before the first Pirelli was turned, when time came for the all-important opening qualifying session of the year, things weather-wise had turned rather pear shaped.

First the rain came down, then the temperature dropped, and it was blowing a gale, so that at 5.00pm when Q1 got under way it was a bracing 13 degrees out on the circuit. And raining. Afterwards, by the time the last of the shooters got back to the media centre (with the handful of shots they'd managed to snap during the brief periods when there were cars out on the circuit) it was nearly 730 at night; they'd been out there in the icy wind and the wet (and now the dark) for hours.

Of course, copping the effects of the elements is all in a day's work for a motorsport photographer. As long as the weather isn't preventing the cars from leaving the pits, the photographers just have to deal with whatever driving rain, hail or scorching sunshine comes their way. And let's face it, a little discomfort is a very small price to pay for the privilege of being able to shoot the action up that close, and unimpeded by the masses of fans behind them.

For their photography colleagues in the northern hemisphere, a cold and even wet FI afternoon is something that's always on the

If Melbourne really is that good, if it's one F1 event in 19 that Bernie considers to be that valuable, then how about letting us run it at a time in the afternoon that suits us? cards. But as wet, cold and miserable as the Euro paparazzi might find itself out around the circuit, no one shooting a grand prix in Europe or North America would ever be stuck out on the track after dark.

This is not a call for better working conditions for our photographers. But a better deal for the paying public wouldn't go astray. Especially when it's the public that's footing the approximately $50 million bill it ends up costing the Victorian government each year to bring the FI show down under.

We have to wait until the end of the day to start our grand prix so that FI fans in Europe can watch it over breakfast at 7am. Even if you think 5pm isn't too late in the afternoon (because plenty of football matches also start around this time, no worries), the obvious drama, as we have just seen, is that it doesn't leave a lot of rescheduling leeway when the weather isn't cooperating.

The frustration is that they had all day to get qualifying done. Instead they managed to run out of daylight, leaving the first FI grand prix of 2013 with a club-level race meeting style of format, with qualifying and racing all on the Sunday.

The Australian Grand Prix is a fantastic event, and Albert Park is a brilliant place to put it on. The AGP compares more than favourably with plenty of the other races on

the F1 calendar; it genuinely does seem to be a destination that those involved in FI really enjoy. Certainly Bernie Ecclestone is among them - so much so that in the lead up to the race he said he hoped F1 would be going to Melbourne 'forever'. Fie even said he'd be happy to sign a 50-year contract.

That's great. But if Melbourne really is that good, if it's one F1 event in 19 that Bernie considers is really that valuable, then how about letting us run it at a time in the afternoon that suits us? You'd never start the race at 5pm by choice: even when the skies are cloudless, this late into the afternoon you've got issues with driver vision in the setting sun and, towards the end, the failing light.

But is it not too much to ask European viewers to set their recorders for 4am and then watch it over breakfast? That's still a lot better than the late-night/early morning live broadcasts we've been watching for the past 30-odd years.

We'd actually be better off starting the AGP at 7am. The sun's pretty much up by then, so the drivers won't have to squint, and it'd also leave us with the whole day to get it done in the event of bad weather.

More importantly it'd be 9pm prime time viewing in Europe. I reckon Bernie would sign up for another 50 years of that.

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Lambden

On the Limiter

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here was a definite buzz in the air at this year's Australian GP. Despite, or perhaps because of, a bit of unseasonal weather on the Saturday, it produced a riveting main event.

If Pirelli are in it to provide a tyre challenge for the teams, then they got it spot-on in Melbourne. Kimi Raikkonen was a significant 1.4 seconds off pole, yet managed to get through 58 laps with just two tyre stops, in contrast to his rivals' three and pull off a much-unexpected win.

That says volumes for both the ability of the Lotus to look after its tyres, and Kimi's ability to maximize it. Qne race doesn't necessarily set the tone for the year, but all of a sudden it's looking interesting.

Afterwards, The Iceman, not known for his expansive chat, described the race as "pretty easy" ... Gotta love Kimi, don't you ...

Further down the pit lane at Albert Park, in V8 Supercar Land, things are also starting to look interesting.

The shiny new CoTF may have a few dollars and cents issues, but as with F1, the early signs are that 'out of the box' there could well be a shake up in the established order.

Adelaide and Melbourne have produced winners and front-runners from Team Tekno (alias Triple SB), Brad Jones Racing, and Garry Rogers Motorsport. None of these teams is reputedly as 'cashed-up' as the acknowledged pace-setters - and history suggests that ultimately those better-backed squads will develop into consistent winners but for now, it's a shot in the arm to see new faces on the top step of the rostrum and a boost for their teams.

Shane Van Giz, Fabian Coulthard, Scott McLaughlin ... all winners. All Kiwis. Now there's a stat...

QK, so you've also noticed that all those teams run Holdens. I'm not sure this suggests 10

ROLEX

an early parity issue (aero testing was, by all accounts, conclusively fair)- more a case of weight of numbers. Ford is only represented

by FPR (four cars) and DJR - the former has been near the pace but hit with some gearbox issues, while the latter is struggling to be there at all.

Among the new boys, Nissan has made a very solid start - all four running nose-to-tail in the top half of the field at one point at the GP. Things have been a bit tougher for Erebus/AMG, though you do have to bear in mind that incredibly short 109-day gestation period from concept to grid.

Both Nissan and AMG have a small way to go to get solidly into the horsepower/torque 'parity window' which now governs V8 Supercars. Once they do, there's no reason to expect that one or the other won't appear on a podium as the year progresses.

For now, it's enough that the CoTF switch appears to have, for now, opened things up at the front. Long may it continue.

The other personal highlight of GP weekend for me was the opportunity to watch P3 and Qualifying from within the Red Bull garage, complete with team headset.

Now that was really interesting (and great concept, RB).

I know we all know that the drivers are in contact with their chief engineer, but what is surprising is just how much chat goes on.

Apparently, we blokes aren't as good at multi-tasking as women - from what i saw and heard, FI should be ideally suited to the fairer sex!

Talk? It's all very matter-of-fact tech talk,

ROLEX

but there's a surprising amount of it, while the man at the wheel is also pushing pretty hard for a grid spot. KERS settings, diff settings, full wets/inters, is DRS activated ... it's pretty busy on the airwaves. Fascinating.

I felt so sorry for our man Webber on Sunday. The newspaper headlines screamed ‘another dud start' when in reality his start, and race, was ruined by a major failure with the McLaren-supplied control ECU in his car, which meant total practice start data hadn't been transmitted car-to-pit. Nothing he could do about it, except make the best of a bad job - and get by without KERS for half of the race. After originally shying away from blame, McLaren apologised a couple of days later ...

There have in the past been those pointing to the number of times startline getaway glitches appear to affect just one of the RB cars. You'd really tend to hope there's nothing untoward going on ... but how's this for an interesting scenario; During the last few moments in Qualifying 3 in Melbourne, with pole at stake, there was a crucial late switch from Intermediates to Slicks as the track dried out. Car 2 - which was running a fair way ahead of Car 1 on the road - was directed into the RB garage for its tyre change, whereas Car 1, some time later, performed a rapid 2.5 second pit-lane tyre stop. While this (just) allowed Car 1 the time to complete two, rather than one, laps on slicks, the delay robbed Car 2 of that option, for no discernible reason.

I'm still trying to figure out why you'd do that...

For now, it's enough that the CoTF switch appears to have, for now, opened things up at the front.

Long may it continue. motorsport news

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illiams and McLaren have picked a bad year to get things wrong.

The early signs for both British teams were bad in Melbourne. The McLaren looked OK in the wet, but dog slow in the dry. As for the Williams, things looked dire in any conditions.

The problems were bad enough to inspire some surprising driver reactions. The first to lose patience and hit out in the media was Pastor Maldonado, who was talking things down as early as Friday evening.

"We need to work very hard, try to understand our problems," he said after the first two practice sessions. "The thing is they are clear - we just need to work very hard to solve it and that is it. We are a bit surprised by the performance here. We need to analyse why we are that slow."

By Saturday evening, Maldonado was even more upset. Having been dumped from Q1, he admitted that it felt like 2011 all over again, that being the year that Williams slumped to ninth in the constructors and 12

suffered its worse season in Grand Prix racing.

"I think we're back to the condition of two years ago in the team," said Maldonado.

"We need to work very hard to solve the problems. The car is undriveable at the moment and we need to work. That's it.

"For whatever reason, we didn't adapt our car to this track, whatever the conditions. In the wet we were slow, in the dry as well."

Things didn't really improve on Sunday.

Maldonado spun out of the race while Vaitteri Bottas circulated his way to 14th.

Over at McLaren, the Melbourne weekend didn't look much better. By Friday evening, Jenson Button - who won in Melbourne just 12 months ago - was talking things down.

He warned the media that McLaren would be lucky to score points at all, and pointed out what was already quite obvious to anybody watching - the car wasn't good.

"After the last test we knew we didn't have the pace," Button said.

"We couldn't have got anywhere near the lap times the other guys were doing in testing. We were over a second off, and it's

even more here. And that's not right. We have quite a few weaknesses with the car."

New signing Sergio Perez agreed.

"The car is so unpredictable," he said. "It's not only doing one thing, it's doing so many things that it will be very difficult for us to set up. The car is quite inconsistent through the corners. It's quite difficult to drive and to extract the maximum performance."

While Button did manage to look quite fast during the wet sessions on Saturday evening and Sunday morning, he was quick to point out that it would be hard to run near the front on a dry circuit. He was right. Button nabbing a couple of points with ninth, while Perez was just 11th.

"There is a lot of work for us to do," conceded Button. "It's not something we are going to change overnight. We are not going to suddenly be competitive."

"We're lacking downforce, we're lacking stability," added Perez. "It's not only one thing. I think we've got a lot of problems. The car is not quick enough and this is our reality." motorsport news

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Designing, building and developing a terrible racing car is never a good thing, but 2013 is a particularly bad year to make such a mess of things. With drastic rule changes coming next season, teams are already working on 2014. Concurrent development programs are nothing new, but this year, with the V6 closing in, the development of 2014 cars will start earlier and soak up more resources than usual.

In other words, teams won't want to be wasting too much time trying to fix a dog of a 2013 car, when they should be working on the '14 car.

So, what do Williams and McLaren do now?

For Williams, there could be a simple solution.

The team has already made noises about reverting the FW35 to launch-spec, a solid move given that the car looked decent enough when it first appeared in Spain. Then, the team can pray that the usual Spanish CP upgrades will work a little better, score a few points, and look forward to getting it right in 2014.

But McLaren don't quite have that option.

While the days of expecting Williams to www.mnews.com.au

Designing, building and developing a terrible racing car is never a good thing, but 2013 is a particularly bad year to make such a mess of things regularly win races are over, McLaren are still one of the super powers in this sport. Having a car that isn't even remotely capable of winning races is simply not good enough for a team like McLaren, so like it or not, some of those resources that should be going into next year's car will have to be focused on this year's car. And that could very well have repercussions in 12 months time.

Given that last year's McLaren was a fundamentally good car, and that McLaren is a big team with a healthy budget, they are more than capable of turning it around this season. When the show gets back to Europe, the big upgrades will come, and you would imagine that few teams will change as much on the car as McLaren. But it should work.

Neither Button or Perez are likely to be title contenders, but a race win or two late in the season is not out of the question.

But what effect will that have on next year's car? We will have to wait and see.

Last but not least, it's important to clarify that I'm writing this straight after the Australian Grand Prix. As I tap away on this keyboard, the teams are busy winging their way to Malaysia for the second race of the season, which will happen before this story hits the stands. I say this because there is always a chance that either McLaren or Williams could turn it all around in the next couple of days and this story will be irrelevant.

But I doubt it. Cue the rain dancing.

13

niess you've spent a bit of time in the US - and in different parts of the US - it's hard to imagine how a 27-word passage, drafted 221 years ago, could be so divisive. Or that it could have any sort of ramifications for motorsport.(With the world's first motorsport event, the 1894 Paris-Rouen, being 102 years in the future, it's a safe bet that the original authors weren't thinking about that either).

The words in question comprise the Second Amendment to the US Constitution, and in the version ratified by then-secretary of state Thomas Jefferson, they read as follows; 'A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed'.

In other words, if you want a gun, the government won't stop you. The government won't stop you owning lots of other things, either - a garden gnome perhaps, or a snow dome containing a tiny Eiffel Tower, or maybe a collection of 1970s interior decoration magazines. It's just that those rights are not constitutionally enshrined.

The purpose of the Second Amendment is different depending upon to whom you are talking, but it's widely accepted that the original intention was to protect the fledgling state, spread across an immense geographical area, from the various uprisings that could cause instability. Citizen-based militias played an important role in maintaining order in the event of a slave revolt, or an Indian attack. In other words, allowing citizens to arm themselves was designed to protect the country as a whole.

That reasoning has been distorted a bit since, as has the fundamental entitlement that the Amendment contains. Note that it doesn't specify a type of arms, for example. And it is these kinds of loopholes that are seized upon by pro-gun groups such as the National Rifle Association (NRA), who argue that banning automatic weapons would be 'unconstitutional'.

I'm not sure how much information about the NRA makes it over to Australia, but in the US they are big news. Gun control is a massive issue in the States, on a par with unemployment and healthcare and right to life.

The perception that everyone in the country walks around with a weapon and that you can't walk into a supermarket without at least a 50/50 chance of getting shot are patently ridiculous, but it is true that the US in general, and certain regions of the US in particular, have a deep, genuine, cultural relationship with guns that make about as much sense to outsiders as foot binding does to anyone not born in China before 1930.

At this point, we can fast-forward to this year's Daytona 500, where eagle-eyed viewers might have spotted Michael Waltrip carrying a special commemorative livery recognizing the victims of the massacre at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut, where a gunman shot 20 children and six adults 14

having earlier killed his mother - before turning his weapon upon himself.

The timing of this mass shooting, coming so soon after incidents such as the killings in the cinema in Aurora, Colorado, as well as the young age of so many of the victims, appears to have made it a catalyst for change to America's gun control laws. Groups such as the NRA, which have enjoyed a degree of mainstream support in the past, now find themselves on the defensive. Politically, it's a delicate time in the entire debate - which is why so many people were surprised to learn that the NRA will be naming rights sponsor for April's NASCAR race at Texas.

Texas Motor Speedway track president Eddie Gossage insists that the deal is purely about sports marketing, although his denials that it could alienate some fans who do not support the NRA came across as rather disingenuous, particularly when he compared the issue to mobile phone service providers: "I use Sprint phones, and I went to a bowl game sponsored by one of their competitors," he told USA Today. "It never dawned on me that I shouldn't go there because of that."

But analysts have also made the point that both the location and the timing of the race can benefit the NRA. Northern Texas is an area where the pro-gun movement enjoys a strong level of support, and according to Jim Henson, director of Texas Politics Project at the University of Texas, the race is an opportunity for the organisation to reinforce its heartland..

"It makes sense that they would come to Texas and shore up their position in what will be a favourable audience," he told the Dallas News.

The 'favourable audience' part is right, if driver Ricky Stenhouse Jr is any guide: "The NRA is our core fan base, and we all have guns, and all us racers love to go out and shoot. It's part of who we are," Stenhouse said recently "Any time you have a sponsor that embraces their market and who their core customers are, it's great for us."

Timing-wise, the race falls just a few weeks before the NRA holds its national conference in Houston.

The one concession that is likely to be made at Texas Motor Speedway In response to the NRA's involvement in the race is that the track's traditional winners' celebration - donning a 10-gallon hat and firing two six-shooters loaded with blanks into the air - will be changed.

Does any of this really matter? Once the green flag drops, it's unlikely that any of the fans In the grandstand will be thinking about who the event sponsor is, and TV viewers have long since become immune to sponsors being name-checked during broadcasts. But it's an interesting new smudge in the eternally blurry line between sport and politics, and an interesting development from a series that is usually so conscious of any potential division between itself and a segment of its fan base.

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OR V8 Supercar fans, the Clipsali SO© was the start of something new and exciting. Two new makes had joined the Holden/Ford duopoly - one a factory Nissan entry, the other a customer Mercedes funded by a dedicated and determined new team owner.

But for the teams- arriving at Adelaide was more akin to the ending of a season,for the off-season, and in fact well before that, had: been the most arduous most of them had ever faced, The Car of the Future project had' expended more dollars, time and man hours than had been planned or budgeted for, But beneath the weariness was excitement, anticipation and, dare we say; pride, ifinally the object of their efforts would compete and, hopefully, it would all'be worthwhile.

No matter whaCtlieir”pfia^as well placed^ <■“ V8 Supercar fans should be ever grateful' for to the personnel on these teams for thiS; superhuman effort.

That 25 of the 28 cars finished the race w^i a credit to these teams and their people.

Between them. Ford Performance Racing, Brad Jones Racing and Erebus MotorspqrtS provide 1© of the 28 cars on the grid. Each of them had a unique path to the grid over the preceding months; *with»different chalienges.

FPR, as Ford's factory representative, wasTJ «f*m- .0 involved in the homologation process for the FG Falcon as well building four cars.

BJR had the challenge of trying to build: . . three cars while simultaneously racing ini the 2012 championship with a workforce iess than half of some of its competitors.

Stone Brother Racing changed owners, team name and, of course, from Ford to AMG Mercedes, in the final quarter of 201:2.

They too had to homologate bodywork and engines with a much shorter lead time than any of the three rival manufacturer's teams.

Add to that the shared challenges of building race cars using the supplied control componentry program that wasn't always running to schedule expectation.

With the combination of in-house build and the supply of control components, all arriving at differing times, the project management of the build was always going to be a tricky one with moving schedules, but a hard deadline!

We sat down with Matt Nilsson and Campbell Little of FPR, Wally Storey of BJR and David Stuart of Erebus who all, despite ' a lack of time, a lack of sleep and a lot to do, provided a detailed account of their experiences in building and racing the new Carof the Future.

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FPR F

PR's Engineering Manager, Matt Nilsson was charged with project managing the Car of the Future build and he explains how they approached the build process for the FG Falcon.

It was more about mapping how you were going to build the car to meet your deadlines and how we wanted to put the car together," he explained. "From the start we highlighted the components that were the longer lead items and what we needed to design for Car of the Future to be FPRspecific.

"Some of the difficulty was that the release of some of the information from V8 Supercars was not in the order of how you'd build the car. [For example] we waited quite a while before we started making rear uprights because of when they were released and some of the issues they were still working through with the design of the rear geometry.

"Some of the control items that weren't going to change, we focused on getting that stuff done early while we designed other key components, like driver insulation.

"Our first car ended up becoming a mule.

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initially, for dummy fit ups, so our first shell took the longest. We really focused, for the first four months, on jigging the car for repeatability of all the components that bolt into the car so that all the set-ups ultimately (are) the same, and for repairs as well. So if you put a car back on a jig to repair it, you're going to get it back to exactly where it was.

It's the most jigged car that we've ever made in terms of fabrication for making the shell.

So we put a lot of effort into that early on, rather than make too many individual components we're going to bolt on we've spent a lot of time designing those components into the car."

FPR Technical Director Campbell Little highlighted some of the challenges.

"There's been some unique challenges.

It's half a custom car - some of it's ours and then they give you a steering column that someone else makes, but only half the steering column so you've got to adapt your bits to this steering column. The pedal box is made by somebody and we've never used that kind of pedal box before, so working out how to set it up and what the drivers like.

They're quite finicky and some of the things (we want to do) we can't do under our rules.

So(we go) back to V8 Supercars(and ask) can we do that, can we not do that. It's been

a challenge for everybody.

The design and Bull'd»0f.‘Some control components, which were not supplied by third party companies, became a responsibility of the bigger teams in pit lane.* They were involved in either designing or ^ reviewing, and in most cases building, many of the control components for V8 Supercars.

As one of those teams. Ford Performance .

Racing had a major role in this process.

Not just FPR, but Triple Eight and MRT,. primarily, did an awful lot of work behind the scenes in every area of the car," Little added.

"They(V8 Supercars)just kept giving us projects to do where we had to do all the drawings and send it back to them and they'd give us even more drawings. [FPR's] done more drawings in the past 12 months than they've done in the life of the company. It was a lot of work."

One element that was critical to the success of COTF was open communication between the teams and V8 Supercars, mostly through the Technical Advisory Panel (TAP), as well as between the teams themselves. In this project the teams put away their natural rivalries and were constructive and open in sharing information to find a way forward.

"From day one (FPR has) been very open with V8 Supercars whenever we've flagged

motorsport news

issiues," exflainedi IslilSsori!.

Whether that's sorriiething that needed to’be thought of for designing or something that was ireleasedi that we hadi issues with'. fhe information from'Vg'Supercars has been p:re% good throughout the process and they've been open'to discussions if we bad issues or suggestions ® they've aliways been pretty wiliing tO'ilisteni.

'TheWS worked'reasonably well at covering'Off some'of the bigger issues and coming up with'so'fatjOnS'and;'I think the teams hawe done a ireally good job of working together, it've been!able tO'ring up several; other teams andi speak it©''relevant people about,for example, the irear iuipright required; a design;chan'ge qiuie late for some clearance -issues. SO'llithimlk i'S ibeen a really good project to-fee aipaiii ©f and see that level- of interaction'amongst the teams."

Erebus o

yer at ireb;us„,the team 'formerly -known as Itone B'roithers fRacing, they pulled ©iff what was p'rofeably the biggest task of alii-teams.

At -the time of the announcement that

the long-time Ford team was switehing to AMG Mercedes in September 2012, SBR had one Falcon chassis ‘just about complete' including body panels, engine mounts. ancifiaries built, just about ready to roll except for some bodywork and some of the cOntrcil components., But the change of manufaeturer meant that as well; as the cohstruction of three cars, they would need'to get the Mercedes bodywork and engine homologated,just like Ford, Holden: and; Missan', but in;a much shorter timeframe.

Erebus General: Manager David Stuart explai ns just what went into creating the first ever AMG Mercedes V8 Superear.

One of the bi'ggest things we had working against us was time. From Our launch we had 1'09 days to get to the first test day. taking inito account the time we were away for race meetings.

We also needed to have a car that was running in early January for aero parity testing and homologation of the body.

'Once the deal was finally signed we were able to get access to CAD(Computer Aided Design) models of the body panels - not the eompiete body panels but enough of the inner panelling to work with -s- and a CAD model of an engine. So on CAD we were able

to start doing ewei^thinig straight avwajt ? J "Ross(St0n#‘awdrfhy|gl|jmehtfe^errh'ai^ and we sat down'there and 'broke-upithe; responsibilities of how we cah approach ithis'a target. We worked out what we could'-d'o?;: what(AMG)could dafor us, and thefirst^^ .V part of that was what body do we usej "AMG were very keen on.'Usingthe^'~*Sc^ series, which actually fits perfectly with'piA«F5 category and our'chassls,, but:need_ed,ito.‘be'5tf‘i shorted in a similar fashion to the.RG Ralcorifc.

So we worked out where to shorten it; how to position it on the-body andi present that-_ % to V8 Supercars for approval. Once the positioning was approved, then we eouldi ''. work on the aerodynamic aspect oflit.

We were given target figures for front and' rear downforce and we did a lot of work to ' tij get to that'point.

As was announced at the launch AMG in Germany would be handling the engine development,irebus provided all the necessary engine specifications and,,to assist them;further, sent over one of their Ford; powerplants to run on the dyn© for comparison purposes.

I think they were a little surprised;that' we could have an engine that put out the horsepower and torque figures that they do," Stuart smiled."We've had a lOt of

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years of development in them and they make very good horsepower for the engine configuration that they are."

For AM'G the first issue to face was what engine to use. It was too late to build a bespoke five-litre engine as AMG had from mid-September to end of December to develop and supply a ready-to-race powerplant, with another five required before the season kick-off in March.

"They had to look at the components that they had existing in Mercedes Benz, so a cylinder block, sump, oil lubrication set up for the engine, and then what type of cylinder head they have, and then put all that configuration together with pistons and crankshaft and con-rods. So quite lot of work had to be done in a very short space of time.

The easiest way to do that was to look at what production based parts they had - and that was a challenge in itself."

The 6.2-litre Ml59 quad cam,four-valve engine, which is found in the SLS AMG twodoor, was the chosen engine model. In road going form it produces 622hp at 7400rpm with 635Nm of torque at 5000rpm - already comparable to V8 Supercar outputs but with 1L2-litres more capacity.

The first of these engines were supplied on New Year's Eve, 2012, a welcome present to see in the new year.

But by this stage the Erebus team were well aware of the complications of fitting the engine into the COTF engine bay. In addition to the original GAD models, they'd received a physical dummy engine in November for measurement and placement.

The Ml59 was significantly wider and taller than the Ford and the block design is different, which means the weight is more forward of the centre line than the Ford or Nissan. The engine is also wider in the sump region, necessitating a redesign of the steering racks and also how they were going to mount control arms to the chassis, as well as a cross member.

"It's quite an involved process," explains Stuart."It also determines, or dictates, your front geometry, so the front suspension was one of the biggest challenges we faced.

Thankfully from the rear of the firewall the redesign and changes from Ford to Mercedes were relatively minor, so most of the previously completed Falcon FG could be adapted for the Mercedes E63. Some modifications to the bellhousing ancillaries was ail that was required, ensuring that much of their work to date didn't need to be scrapped.

whose workforce was Brad less than the For a smaller team like Joneshalf Racing, size of some of the bigger teams, the plan was, by necessity, quite different. They would not be involved in any homologation like FPR or Erebus and would, in theory, be constructing three chassis using the approved control components in addition to their existing engines. Other than the transaxle gearbox and the independent rear end that

were standard for the category, their major changes were moving from their previous Walkinshaw Performance front end to one sourced from Triple Eight Engineering.

It also meant that the changes of specs to, or issues raised with, control or supplied components had a far bigger impact, explains BJR's engineer Wally Storey.

"Because it’s a smalltdam, and it's not massively funded, you can't do two things at«i» once and can't afford to take half the people off running the cars you're racing and start building new ones.

"We deliberately didn't rush into too much because we don't have the resource to do it twice, to start building new cars and then pull them apart and build them again when things aren't working out right. So we hung back-to see if everyone else would sort most of it for us, which pretty much worked out that way."

BJR effectively waited until the end of the season before commencing the build of their chassis, which meant an intensive off-season building cars at the end of a long championship season.

"The chassis build and stuff, we had that under way in the fabby (fabrication) shop (during the season), but there were no extra fabbies, so they could only do COTE stuff when they had time. They sort of tore into it, and they had three chassis sort of finished by the end of the year.

"They had one finished properly, one pretty well finished and one not finished.

You've only got to build one and then build multiples, but it's just a time thing. We did it because nobody went home, basically. From /X / //

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don’t dosign it, we’ro not sore aH it £

Homebush onwards everybody just worked like mad. Our blokes were given the option of starting at normal time and going till midnight or starting at five in; the morning, having a couple of hours off in the middle of the day and then coming back and going till 10pm, which is just ridiculous when you're talking about doing it for two months.(So) you start the year with a bunch of very worn out blokes."

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Testing Of the three testing teams, miles FPR was the one that had,logged any significant prior toonly the official category test day at Sydney Motorsport Park in February and had probably completed the most on track time of any team.

As such they were one of the first to discover just how much had to be re-learned in setting up the car.

"The first thing was getting our drivers over the fact that it's not the same car," explained Campbell Little.

"The inertia's less, the mass is in different places and all the things that go with it. But in particular the independent rear end makes the car completely different.

"So we're trying to learn what it's sensitive to, what makes the biggest effed, so that if we go into qualifying with too much understeer - what's the fix. Is it a spring, a roll centre, is it camber, is it tow.

"We've had two test days (as well as Sydney Motorsport Park) and we've almost come out of every day with more questions than answers.," "Also, none of the changes are quick. If you want to do a geometry change, the rear roll centre takes half an hour.(On the old car) we could just wind the thing up and down, but now it's suspension arms and bolts out and all this sort of stuff. The trans-cooler package came very late and It just kind of got plonked on, so you've got to pull those off every time you want to do something major."

"It makes tuning in qualifying a bit of a pain," said Wally Storey."in qualifying, you're looking for hundredths and it's not easy to tune now.

You might have to do that with a roll bar instead of a watts link, and really your watts link is what you'd want to do.

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r iuit ii|lis-^iprSl'albly innsre ituineable <ini other arelsi\y®u clni dhainff the ibump steer and a few other things. ilt'S juSt different, it'll take a while unll everybody gets a handle on it. ihadiion’ly irnanagedi to get the Team BO£ 6'Oniilih®d.i0:re <@:ii track at Winton in midS-ilanuary/lor itwoi A'Ccredited Manufacturer teat dhfs.irdbus ihadionly'the single test day - andi that mas'irn;paeted'Iby a brake failure.

The contrdl!A'P brate-rotor broke, pitching Lee ‘NlOld^worthi lihto the %«re barrier and ending,their d'^y. They then! had to spend time irepaihng the car aiheadi of travelling to Sydney for thecategoty test day, fhisJhadtert beeni the)first brake rotor issueiiS teitihg andl, with'the championship GomtihenGing'Only/.a few weeks iater at Adelaida, there were some nervous people in: the ipaddeck.

At the oiieiaii test day at Sydney M0t0:rs;p;o:rt ^Park jniibruafyi some had ideas of wihat they thought would happen;, but nobody was.really su re.

What nobody saw coming was that BJR wouldi go 1h2 at the end of the day. Jason Bright and Pabian!Co,ulthard ended the day cOmp'I’etedi two test days with a single car since they ipit their first COTF car on the track armcist exactly one month earlier.

With'a 1lm2-8.96 and: 1im29..00, the two BJR ears were the only ones to go under Craig iLawndes'diualifying mark 1im29,2-4 from the charnpionsbip!rO;u ndi iri! August.

"We were surprised we were the quickest, admiitted Wally Storey. "It not only surprised us,1 would have surprised everyone in the feld, I would think. But we sort of felt we had pace. Our first day at Winton we did a 1m23;.3 on hard tyres. On the second day all four FPR cars were there they all fired a shot oni green tyres and they all did 24.0 to 24,2.

Fabs (Fabian Coulthard), although he didn't fnish the lap, was on about a 24,2, so we had a fair idea we were in the game."

Of the FPR cars, David Reynolds was quickest in eighth, Mark Winterbottom was ninth. Will Davison 16th and Alex Davison 23rd of the 25 runners. That they were all over 1.5 seconds slower than Bright was a talking point after the day, but Campbell Little wasn't concerned.

"We weren't trying to get a set up for Eastern Creek, we were just trying to learn what changes make to our cars," he explains.

"We spent a lot of time making major changes on rear geometry, and on Alex's car front geometry even,just trying to see what it's going to do to the car. We were making changes on one car and if that gave us a positive direction we'd try it on a different car to see if the other driver got the same kind of response. Which meant we spent a fair bit of time in the garage. I think we only did 200km or something like that, where a typical test day for us would put us well over 500km."

"We'd been to Eastern Creek in October last year and we went back with different

everything on each car (in February) and probably didn't think we were as competitive as we could, or should have been. We actually thought what we had back ih: October was pOssib'ly*a'better direction.

Before the test day Dave Stuart felt thStlr^:, his cars would be mid-pack 'sort of in that 14-18 area',, and encouragingly new recruit Maro Engel delivered, running 14th fastest Tim Slade was just outside that range in 2'Oth while Lee Holdsworth was back in 24th.

Having struggled with driveability issues with their drive-by-wire throttle system at their previous test day, rectifying this was their main focus at SMP. But they were left a little frustrated by the lack of track time at SMP. "We would have liked to have done a lot more testing. There's a lot of restrictions that are placed on that test day by V8 Supercars., You can't Start until 9am, but then we have to stop in the middle of the day for an hour to have the cars out on track. They wanted to do a simulated two-car Safety Car restart.

So the best testing miles we got was (in the morning) and the rest of the afternoon was impacted by activities from V8 Supercars. So we didn't get as much running as we would have liked and we weren't happy with the outcome of our performance from the test.

We need to work on our chassis balance quite a bit and we're still working through.the driveability issues."

BJR were so encouraged by their performance they cancelled the test day they V

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had planned between the category day and Adelaide. While it was due to their strong showing, it was almost a necessity to ensure they had cars ready for the season opener.

"The cars were nothing like finished," said Wally Storey. "We had no cool suits, no helmet fans - a lot of bits and pieces like proper bumper bar mounts, battery covers.

When you build a car there's about 200,000 five minute jobs. Suffice to say, we went pretty flat out and didn’t have a day off since Eastern Creek."

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II three BJR cars rolled out of the factory on the Tuesday morning before Adelaide.

Cars 8 and 14 left at Sam. Car 21, David Wall's car, left nearly six hours later - and it still wasn't TOO percent fi nished."

"We never had a problem driving it (the gearbox),’’ explains Storey. "When we pulled it apart we didn’t know what to expect and we found, enough damage to concern us, given that the longest gearbox mileage was 700km. There were some gears starting to lose case hardenings in some areas, some of the needle rollers were playing up - apparently they had a batch that weren't right. Other people are having problems with the dogs, but we're not having that problem." /

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to fourth in the Shootout, while Jason; Bright was back in 20th after not nailing the setSqp ■' of the car.

FPR, meanwhile,:had ;bothjthe 'faMory^ .<■ r. cars of Will Davison and Mark Winteribottomt in the top TO, whiietiHi'‘€astomer "entniey of Alex Davison and DavidtReyrVdids were^<*^ . further back inf T6th and!^^. From the outside of the front row Winterbottom would ledd almost the entire' opening lap before losing third: gear and pulling into the pit$. This handeditherleadito Coulthard, who had jumped weltlrprnfhe second row, to lead the field foV the very-first-, racing lap of the new era of.V8iSupercarsr ’ The big surprise was that the race>t^;^‘ flag to flag with no Safely Cars and' only ( four DNFs. Two of therri werelgRTalconS - Winterbottom and Reynolds,, who had an early driveline failure.

Another to strike gearbox woes was pole sitter Shane van Gisbergen in the Teknb Commodore. On Saturday night, most, if not' all teams changed gearboxes as a precaution.

Despite the lack of DNPs, there were a lot of issues encountered during the day which Campbell Little put down to the lateness'of the cars being ready.

There was also the Issue of new, parts and software being delivered on race weekend.

A new gearbox bearing was supplied to the field on Thursday morning, while On Saturday morning it was new ECU software because the pit lane limiter was letting the cars run to

There were also concerns expressed by some about the vulnerability of the new rear suspension, but Ererbus' Dave Stuart summed up the overriding feeling in pit lane on the eve of the Clipsal event.

"I think every team would have had a niggling doubt about reliability in the back of their mind. We're coming to a street circuit first up, Adelaide is usually pretty tough on cars and I think everybody had some question marks over the reliability of components. I think that’s just the way race teams think - if we don't design it, we're not sure about it."

Where they'd end up in the field was also some he wasn’t sure about.

"Coming here, I thought we would be in the 8-12 bracket," said Dave Stuart.

"After looking and analysing all the sector times from Friday, I then revised that to 14-18."

During the four practice sessions either Lee Holdsworth or Tim Slade was usually around that mark, while Maro Engel was further back while he came to grips with the circuit.

But qualifying didn’t go well. Engel had an oil line issue, causing a halt to the session, and then neither Holdsworth nor Slade got a clear run on new tyres at the end of the session. So Holdsworth and Slade would share the 12th row of the grid while Engel was off the back - none of them improving significantly from their practice times.

BJR had a mixed run, with Fabian Coulthard qualifying in fifth and improving

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That these lupdates hadi been 'happening <®:n' a day●^by-d‘ay' b,asis - either through: late delivery i®r revisions to existing components was frustrating the teams, "fheiplane wOuld^ have been full of people eanying ipatte over here because we' ve been waiting for crash: imaterials to turn: up - just jobs t® get done ilike that," said: Little. ©,ne of the imore luiniusuairsights on: TV was bee :hl®IdSworthi having his racing boofe wrapped! in: insulation tape due to the excessive !heat ilni the pedal box. Dave' Stuart admitted that this sunprisedi them = and' that the dash reading for cabin temperature was a seorehihg, 65 degreesl "I think there's a couple of things that have exaGerbated: the cabin: temperature. It's a vertical firewall, so ithat means that the way the airflow hits; the firewall and disperses under the car lis different. The engine's moved back 1t0@mmi an:dlthe exhaust, and: it might only be particular to our car because of the A/iercedes engine, but the exhaust is very close to the floor.

"One thing we did learn :is our cool suit is very effective s s® we're happy with that."

The team made some insulation changes overnight and; there was no* repeat on: Sunday ^ although fim: Slade tweeted a picture of his blistered' foot on Saturday night.

Despite impressive pace, both' the Goulthard and Bright cars ran: into problems that meant they finished way down the order,, ibut were, optimistic of a stronger

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run on’ Sunday.

"Brighty's very pleased! with the car," said: Wally Storey. " Fabs is not so happy generally; hard to believe because he's got pretty good pace. " We changed a few things at Eastern Greek to overcome some of the problems, but when we (came here) the problem that we thought we'd calmed down was still quite a big problem. The minute you go near the throttle, you're chasing it with correetjon " While the 'niggles' encountered from race one meant re-thinking certain things and the serviceability of the cars has been: made more complicated. As a result, there were few teams not still working on the cars past midnight Saturday night.

"Keep in mind that 90 percent of the work we do is not because it has to be done, " explains Wally Storey. "We do iit to head off having a problem. Every time the car pulls up we pull everything off and have a look.

Everything's got a maintenance schedule.

Generally speaking,, the things would probably go twice as far.

"This (car) - a lot is the same, but a lot is different, so it's going to take people a while to learn and they're naturally cautious."

Another reason for the extra work was the fear of the unknown.

"1 think the biggest issue we face is we don't have enough history on these parts," said Dave Stuart.

"With the old ears we knew the history and how long (parts) would last. We put new

transaxles 'itiii for today, but we baven't ireaJly replaced anything extra but we've cheeked everything probably twice as much than w/hat we would normally have done."

Come Sunday and: mostly the same group' of cars were near the fronts Winterbottom;, Davison and 'Gbulthardkall iin the top five in qualifying,, despite Coulthard's well- t documented fun-ih with Garth Tander.

But the Sunday race saw 11 cars fail tO: finish. From F.PR Winterbottom and: Willi Davison were fifth and sixth respectively, but both Reynolds and, Alex Davison were nonfinishers, as were Bright and Goulthard;.

For Erebus Sunday was tough. Filling three of the last four positions on the grid and ronly Lee HOldsworthi finishing - one lap down.

Dave Stuart admitted after the weekend: that he was disappointed with the result and it was clear that, despite improvements to their chassis balance, which would‘ continue, their drive-by-wire throttle was still problematic, and they were down on horsepower. Neither will be quick fixes, but these short term struggles are not surprising for anyone. This is a long term project and it will take some time before Erebus is challenging for honours.

For the category as a whole it's an exciting start. The racing was its usual high standard and the reliability, while not great on the Sunday, was acceptable for such an early stage, particularly for a traditionally high- ● attrition event such as Adelaide.

There are some issues that need to be ■ </ motorsport news

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addressed. The fuel filling system has been panned, there are inconsistencies with the fuel tanks, and some other control items need refinement or improvements.

While some of these problems possibly should have been avoided given the extended lead time that the project team had, teething troubles were always to be expected.

The cost blowout has been well documented andi is embarrassing for V8 Supercars and painful to the teams. Dick Johnson Racing Is the most visible example of this“and their iproblem is more than just C©fF rOiated - but there are several teams out there that will be in a similar position if the cost targets are not, if not met, at least get close.

The big ticket item that has everyone concerned is the transaxie gearbox. On top of the breakages throughout the weekend, which follow on> from issues throughout pre-season testing,,the fragility and wear is worrying.

BJR stripped down five of their transaxles after Adelaide, none having done much more than one race and some practice and qualifying.

The wear that they were seeing was not dissimilar to what they encountered at 700km running after the category test day. This is the item that will need to be fixed if the cost aims have any hope of being met.

There was a Technical Advisory Panel meeting scheduled for the Grand Prix to discuss the problems encountered at Adelaide and hopefully, by the time you read this, some steps will have been taken to fix up these issues and ensure the objective of reduced costs is met.

But for the first time in 20 years the Australian touring car category has four marques represented. It's been a long, tough journey so far, but every team in pit lane should feel proud of what they've achieved.

We picked three - and these were the first chapters of their respective stories.

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