MOTORSPORT: Dominance disguises competitiveness

Finishing first is what it's all about in motor racing, but those hot on the heels of the winners in V8 Supercar racing and Indy racing at the minute deserve a share of the glory

Davison and Briscoe just a cut above
Ford, especially its factory team, is dominating the V8 Super car games Championship, with nine wins in 11 races now -- and Will Davison back in the series lead. Yet Jamie Whincup is only 10 points behind in a Holden, and Ford Performance Racing's other star Mark Winterbottom third -- with only 29 points covering the top three.

General Motors has dominated IndyCar racing this year, through the return of its Chevrolet brand as an engine supplier. Together Chevrolet and Team Penske have put an Australian on pole position for the Indianapolis 500 for the first time. Or rather, that Australian, Ryan Briscoe (pictured), has put Penske on the pole at The Brickyard for the 17th time, with Chevrolet power.

Over the required four flying laps of the most famous oval in motor racing, the 2.5-mile (4km) Indianapolis Motor Speedway, Briscoe averaged 226.484mph -- or 364.491km/h.

Canadian James Hinchcliffe, driving for Andretti Autosport after Danica Patrick's departure to NASCAR, had been quicker than Briscoe for three laps but after the four he averaged 226.481mph -- 364.486kmh. Taken to another decimal place the margin was .0023 seconds -- 23 thousandths of a second!

One reporter at Indianapolis, Reggie Hayes, called the difference between the pair "the length of Hinchcliffe's facial stubble".Bob Kravitz of the Indianapolis Star newspaper said it was "faster than the blink of an eye".

The gap was calculated at 9.168 inches -- or 23.3cm, which would make Hinchcliffe's stubble a beard, but after 10 miles or 16km it's just a whisker. It is the closest margin between the top two qualifiers in the history of the Indy 500, which will be run for the 96th time next Monday morning, Australian time. The previous record was 0.01 of a second, between Al Unser Senior and Johnny Ruttherford in 1970.

Briscoe's team owner Roger "The Captain" Penske is as big a legend as any driver at The Brickyard, His 17 pole positions there have been with 11 drivers. He's won the Memorial Day classic, known as "The Greatest Spectacle in Racing", 15 times.

This year there already have been four IndyCar races on street and road courses with the new wide-bodied Dallara DW12 cars and Penske has had the pole at all and won them all. His other Australian driver, Will Power, has scored three of those wins and has qualified fifth at Indianapolis. Penske's three-time Indy 500 victor, Brazilian Helio Castroneves, has qualified sixth.

"In this sport, and in this race, The Captain and Team Penske are miles and miles ahead of everybody else," Kravitz wrote in the Indianapolis Star. In qualifying though he, it and Briscoe were only the slightest fraction ahead of Hinchcliffe.

The top six cars in qualifying for the Indy 500 had Chevrolet power with single turbochargers. The first car powered by Honda's twin-turbocharged engine, that of rookie Josef Newgarden, was less than 4kmh slower than Briscoe over the 16km. His 224.037mph for seventh on the grid was only 2.447mph, or 3.938km/h, slower than the Sydneysider.

While the scorecards are so much in favour of Ford in V8 Supercar racing and Chevrolet in Indy racing this year, the dominance is disguising ultra-competitiveness in both arenas.

Tensions rise in V8 Supercar battle
The closeness in the V8 Supercar Championship, particularly between Ford Performance Racing and top Holden team Triple Eight Race Engineering, is bringing out competitive frictions too.

Triple Eight boss Roland Dane accused FPR driver Winterbottom of holding up his drivers on the track and in the pitlane at Phillip Island, calling it "unsportsmanlike". He also had concerns that Davison had braked, to disadvantage rivals, as the safety accelerated in front of him. FPR boss Tim Edwards retorted that Triple Eight now couldn't beat his cars on the track so it was resorting to the stewards room.

It's all adding spice to what has been the best competition in the 15 years of V8 Supercars. The tables have well and truly turned FPR's way. Davison has chalked up six wins this season and Winterbottom three. Yet "Frosty" Winterbottom's victory on Saturday was the first time in this year's championship a race had been won from pole position.

Two more teams have now been represented on the podium, making five for the season. Stone Brothers pair Shane Van Gisbergen and Tim Slade were up there on Saturday and Brad Jones Racing's Jason Bright on Sunday. Despite Davison crashing into Whincup late in Saturday's race, inadvertently but ruining the chances of both that day, they remain the best of mates while their team bosses feud.

Dane's other star, Craig Lowndes, copped a drive-through penalty on Saturday for shunting Bright and was relegated another two places from his 13th finishing position, yet grabbed pole position Sunday and, after stalling on the grid and dropping to 10th, charged back up to finish second -- just his second podium of the year. That returned Lowndes to fourth place in the championship, but he has the Stone Brothers trio -- Van Gisbergen, Lee Holdsworth and Slade -- directly behind him, with Holden Racing Team's Garth Tander behind them.

Bright's third place on Sunday hoisted him five spots in the championship to 11th, while FPR recruit David Reynolds is still struggling to convert his speed into podium finishes, standing 17th after qualifying on the front row of the grid both days at Phillip Island.

It's a ripper season. Just a pity there is a four-week break until the next round in Darwin on June 16-17, although there is a banquet of other racing in the meantime.

Australian V8 Supercar Championship after five rounds (11 races) - 1. Will Davison (Ford) 1216 points; 2. Jamie Whincup (Holden) 1206; 3. Mark Winterbottom (F) 1187;  4. Craig Lowndes (H) 977; 5. Shane Van Gisbergen (F) 953; 6. Lee Holdsworth (F) 932; 7. Tim Slade (F) 879; 8. Garth Tander (H) 816; 9. Fabian Coulthard (H) 766; 10. Rick Kelly (H) 673; 11. Jason Bright (H) 672; 12. Todd Kelly (H) 648.

Creek to the fore as Sydney Motorsport Park
Eastern Creek, the only race venue left in Australia's biggest city, has been renamed Sydney Motorsport Park. After the recent $12 million upgrade there are four circuits within the facility -- one of 4.5km, the original 3.9km "Grand Prix" track, a 2.8km "North GP" layout and a 1.9km "South GP" layout.

Which circuit will be used for the return in August of V8 Supercar racing after a four-year absence hasn't been announced yet. Nor has the event format or the tyre rules.

A huge feather in Briscoe's cap
Ryan Briscoe has been overshadowed the past couple of years in Team Penske by fellow Aussie Will Power, so taking the pole at Indianapolis was "a great feeling" for the former European Formula Three champion and one-time Formula One test driver for Toyota.

"This race is just so important -- it's so big, and I think even just a pole win here is remembered," Briscoe said. "They were four really good laps... It wasn't the outright speed that we had. It was the consistency we had over the four laps.

"This pole is an award where my name will go down forever as something I've won here at the Indy 500."

Power, who is still adapting to the oval tracks although he's had huge success on other tracks in the series, was content with his fifth place qualifying, putting him in the middle of the second of the 11 rows in the field. But Power is concerned at the speed difference between the fastest cars and those at the rear, especially the two Lotus-engined cars of Simona de Silverstro and ex-F1 star Jean Alesi.

The three slowest qualifiers, including that pair, all made the race with average speeds less than 215mph. Alesi, who will start 33rd and last, had a four-lap average of 210.094mph -- the slowest speed of any Indy 500 starter since 1997.

Power, who had grave concerns about the Las Vegas oval track before the final race of last season in which two-time Indy 500 winner Dan Wheldon lost his life, said the speed differences between the top and bottom qualifiers at The Brickyard were "bloody dangerous".

Frenchman Alesi is worried about them too, saying he feels unsafe with the faster cars continually passing him. He is concerned about being an impediment to the frontrunners, although he felt "a big relief" at completing the field, in which he is one of seven rookies.

"This is an amazing experience for me," he said. "I'm 47 years old and I have learned more in one week than I did in my entire F1 career."

Canadian Hinchcliffe's second place on the grid came in the car that Wheldon had signed to drive after his second Indy 500 victory last year.

Ryan Hunter-Reay is the top American qualifier in third, on the outside of the front row, with Marco Andretti fourth and on the inside of the second row, directly behind Briscoe.

Brazilian Rubens Barrichello, another rookie at 39, qualified 10th at the place where he won a controversial F1 grand prix a decade ago, when Ferrari teammate Michael Schumacher handed him the victory as a payback for the favour he had been done by Barrichello -- under team orders -- in Austria earlier that season.

Barrichello, who had been wary of Indy racing's oval tracks before his switch after 19 years in F1, said he was immensely proud at earning a start in the 500 but despite qualifying in the top third, "it's not as easy as it looks".

Honda-powered Ganassi team drivers, New Zealander Scott Dixon and Scotsman Dario Franchitti, with three Indy 500 wins between them, will start only 15th and 16th this year. They could not get the right aerodynamic package to offset their lack of engine power.

Sebastien Bourdais, another Frenchman well known to Australians for his successes at the former Gold Coast Indy, made the field in 25th yesterday with a speed that would have put him 15th had he done it on Saturday.

Ambrose's big shot in All-Star race
It's a big time in NASCAR racing too, with the $1 million All-Star non-championship race run at Charlotte at the weekend and the longest race in the Sprint Cup, the Coca-Cola 600, there immediately after the Indy 500.

Five-time Cup champion Jimmie Johnson won the All-Star race in a Chevrolet ahead of Penske driver Brad Keselowski in a Dodge. It was Johnson's third win in the event -- and the seventh victory in it for team owner Rick Hendrick.

Australia's Marcos Ambrose finished seventh in his Ford Fusion for Richard Petty Motorsports. Ambrose had looked a threat for the win for much of the race, a sprint run in five segments, standing as high as second in the closing stages.

"We sure let them know we were here," Ambrose said. "We couldn't quite finish it off... Would have loved to have finished third or fourth. I learned a lot."

Ambrose's lighting start from 18th place impressed NASCAR Wire Service's Reid Spencer, who reported: "My jaw dropped on the very first lap as I watched Marcos Ambrose streak around the outside of turns 1 and 2 as he mowed down nine cars on the opening circuit."

Homely welcome for NASCAR Commodore
Forced to wait a little longer for his first oval track victory, Ford man Ambrose said he was pleased at last week's news that Chevrolet's next NASCAR will be based on the next Holden Commodore, the VF model.

"It's the wrong make, but I'm really proud to think that Australia can produce, with their people and infrastructure, a world-standard car that Chevrolet would like to bring to the US and sell here," he said. "I've grown up driving rear-wheel-drive cars, manual cars -- it's just a standard thing out there [in Australia].

"It's a world-class product, and I look forward to racing against them and beating them, but it's definitely made a buzz in Australia... It's amazing to see."

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