MOTORSPORT: Ambrose coming back… kind of

A date has been set for Marcos Ambrose to return to the seat of a V8 Supercar: May 4.

That’s Monday week … and there’s no V8 Supercar Championship event on that day.

But DJR Team Penske (DJRTP) is having a ride day for VIPs at Perth’s Barbagallo Raceway immediately after the third round of the championship there next weekend.

Roger ‘The Captain’ Penske, the American automotive billionaire who is trying to resurrect Dick Johnson’s long-established team, will be in the WA capital for that event.

Ambrose, the 2003-04 V8 Supercar champion who then spent almost a decade in America’s NASCAR before his return to Australia late last year, stepped out of DJRTP’s Ford Falcon FG X seat before the second round of the championship, saying he wasn’t the driver to get the car competitive in a hurry.

He has described himself as “still quite a rookie” with the new-generation V8 Supercar introduced in 2013 “and I don’t want to hold them (DJRTP) back”.

Scott Pye, the 25-year-old who had lost his V8 Supercar drive this year with DJRTP deciding to field only one car this season, replaced Ambrose at the Tasmanian round at Symmons Plains and will race the Falcon again in WA.

Pye drove about 400km at Queensland Raceway (QR) yesterday as the team used the sole test day it is allowed, with 38-year-old Ambrose looking on and liaising with his substitute.

Prodrive Racing Australia engineer Adam De Borre also was there as DJRTP tried a different brand of shock absorbers, Supashock, already used on the four PRA FG Xs – three of which, driven by Mark Winterbottom, David Reynolds and Chaz Mostert, are in the top 10 on the points table.

The fourth, in the hands of New Zealand youngster Andre Heimgartner, is 14th, while Ambrose and Pye – each having driven only one round – are 24th and 25th, with only Ash Walsh in an Erebus Mercedes E63 behind them. Walsh, incidentally, also was on track at QR yesterday.

Ambrose said he had offered to drive the Falcon yesterday if required, but that it made sense for Pye to do the full day.

There is still no certainty that Ambrose will race again before the endurance events in September-October.

DJRTP managing director Ryan Story said Ambrose had played “an important role” at QR “and will be able to give the car a run at our ride day in Perth on Monday week”.

De Borre, who is Mostert’s engineer, oversees the technical alliance between PRA and DJRTP and Story said he had given “valuable insight” at the test, which he described as “productive”.

DJRTP is “looking to align its FG X more closely with the race-winning Prodrive Falcons”.

“There are some encouraging signs and we are now looking forward to going racing in Perth,” Story said.

Pye said the changes to the DJRTP car tried at QR had greatly reduced its understeer.

Ambrose told the Gold Coast Bulletin that it was “pretty tough for the team to catch up”.

“And I’m not sure how or when I can get back in [to race],” he said.

“But we’re all in this to get DJRTP turned around and as far ahead as possible.”

V8 Supercars has offered automatic entry to development series teams that acquire new-generation cars in time for the Great Race.

The new-gen cars will be eligible for the development series next season, but it won’t be compulsory to have one for two years.

Last year’s Bathurst 1000 field was only 25 cars, after Dragon Motor Racing – which had been granted two wildcards – did not take part.

Apart from up to $250,000 to progress up the motorsport ladder, the champion from the seven rounds -- to be run at V8 Supercar events – will be given a Formula 3 test with top British team Carlin.

Daniel Ricciardo won the British F3 Championship with Carlin in 2009 and James Courtney was runner-up with it in 2001.

The condition on the test drive is that Australia’s first F4 champion has to be aged between 15 and 19.

Red Bull Racing (RBR) team principal Christian Horner has suggested that his drivers, Daniel Ricciardo and Russian Daniil Kyvat, may need as many as nine engine “lives” each in the 19-race season.

Ricciardo already has used up three Renault engines at the first four GPs, while Kyvat had one fail on the formation lap of the Australian GP in Melbourne.

As it stands the limit this season is four engines per driver before a 10-place grid penalty is imposed.

There is to be a vote on May 14 – after the Spanish GP – to raise the limit to five engines, which is what it was going to be when there were 20 GPs on the calendar, before the demise of the German event.

Horner claims the F1 teams already have agreed unanimously to making it five, although talk of unanimous agreement in F1 and it actually happening are two very different things.

In any case, Horner added: “For us (RBR) we would need that number to increase to seven, eight or nine engines for the season. We are not looking great within these rules.”

Renault, which won four consecutive world championships with RBR in 2010-13, reportedly has accepted that it is going to have to increase its spending if its hybrid power unit is to have any chance of becoming competitive again with those of Mercedes and Ferrari, while Honda is only in the early stages of development of its unit in the McLaren cars.

In the discussion about F1 engine regulations beyond next year, the sport’s commercial supremo Bernie Ecclestone now has floated the idea of budget (i.e., comparatively cheap) twin-turbocharged V6 engines with kinetic energy recovery systems (KERS) to be made available to customer teams.

Toto Wolff, team principal of the Mercedes team that has dominated the hybrid era that began last season, has claimed that the four companies supplying F1 engines now – his German manufacturer, Renault, Ferrari and Honda – want to retain the existing power units on which they have invested so heavily.

Ecclestone has denied wanting to revert to the previous naturally-aspirated V8s and said that there had been two types of engines in F1 at the same time before.

“We used to run turbos with naturally-aspirated engines. You can do either,” he said.

However, his suggestion of cheap twin-turbo V6s for teams other than the biggest-budget outfits is seen as a way of pressuring the existing four manufacturers to slash the costs of customer units.

The midfield teams paying up to $40 million a year for a supply of power units now claim they are funding the research and development of the manufacturers.

Ecclestone said the hybrids now being raced “will never be used in any [road] car or boat or anything”.

“The regulations were put out, the engineers got hold of it and said this is what they can do. They’ve done a super job, but it has to be cheaper,” he said.

His unaccustomed 20th place finish last weekend on the streets of Long Beach, California, dropped Power from third in the series to sixth – 49 points behind the leader, Juan Pablo Montoya.

Colombian Montoya is one of three teammates of Power in Roger Penske’s IndyCar squad this year, with another, Brazilian Helio Castroneves, in second place, three points behind Montoya (119-116). The third teammate, Frenchman Simon Pagenaud, is close behind Power (80-73), but the Aussie has an outstanding record at the circuit in Birmingham, Alabama.

He won there in 2011 and ’12, has never finished outside the top five, and said this week he was “very motivated” to rebound from Long Beach, where – among many woes – he stalled his Chevrolet engine entering the pits.

Organisers have shortened the longest stage of the rally after competitors struggled on reconnaissance to get through mud after recent flooding.

They have cut the first 14.5km off the San Marcos to Characato stage tomorrow that was to have been about 56km.

Another stage tonight, Australian time, has been revised but there will be two runs on the 51.2km Ascochinga stage at this fourth round of the WRC.