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Carsales Staff1 May 2015
NEWS

MOTORSPORT: Webber's final spar for Le Mans

Spa Six-Hour last chance for Porsche to stake its credentials against Audi and Toyota before world's biggest sports car race

As Craig Lowndes eyes his 100th V8 Supercar win in Perth this weekend, Mark Webber steps up his quest for a Le Mans victory next month.

The Spa Six-Hour in Belgium is the last race before the 24-hour French sports car classic on June 13-14.

The Porsche factory squad of which Webber is a member for the second year is fielding three of its 919 Hybrids at Spa and they were the pacesetters in wet practice overnight.

However, with time limited in the torrential conditions, Webber didn't get to do a lap of the world-renowned circuit in the Ardennes mountains.

The latest of the Porsche entries in the World Endurance Championship (WEC) set the fastest time in the hands of New Zealand driver Earl Bamber, who has German F1 driver but sports car rookie Nico Hulkenberg as one of his co-drivers there this weekend.

One of Webber's co-drivers, Timo Bernhard, another German, clocked the second fastest lap. The other driver in that car will be Brendon Hartley, the New Zealander who was a contemporary of Daniel Ricciardo in the Red Bull F1 junior development squad several years ago.

The Webber Porsche retired at quarter-distance of the opening round of this year's WEC, a six-hour race at Britain's Silverstone circuit, with a transmission problem.

The Spa race is Saturday night, Australian time, and after that the only official track time for the cars competing at Le Mans will be the test day at the French circuit on May 31.

It will be Webber's fourth trip to the world's biggest sports car race – two of them with Mercedes before the F1 career in which he won nine grands prix, although the Mercs were withdrawn before the start in 1999 after Webber's infamous flips that could have killed him. His third Le Mans sojourn was last year in the return of Porsche, the most successful manufacturer in Le Mans history, to the top level of sports car racing.  

Spa is a circuit Webber has fond memories of over two decades, having won a European Formula Ford Championship race there in 1996 and making a daring pass on F1 great Fernando Alonso through the breathtakingly-fast Eau Rouge kink towards the end of his career with Red Bull Racing.

While Porsche's 919 has phenomenal straight-line speed, Audi – which has won Le Mans 13 times in the past 15 years – was victorious at Silverstone last month and its updated R18 e-tron quattro is considered still the best all-round car among the top-tier Le Mans prototypes.

Two of its three entries this weekend will run in a comprehensively-redesigned trim that Audi intends to use at the 24-hour in six weeks.

Toyota is the other contender, but it has had a setback at Spa with Japanese driver Kazuki Nakajima breaking a vertebra that has sidelined him.

Nissan's radical front-wheel-drive Le Mans challenger has not made it to either of the first two rounds of the WEC and it will arrive at the 24-hour event unraced, although it has been tested extensively in America.

A spray from the sidelines for F1
While sports car racing is now Webber's focus, he still keeps a close eye on F1 and has been his usual outspoken self this week on what needs to change in the world's premier open-wheeler category.

In an interview with F1i, Webber said there was too much emphasis on drivers managing tyres in F1 now, and the quality of racing needed to drastically improve, even if it meant less overtaking.

"F1 should be about people going to the limit," he said.

"It should be 15 seconds [a lap] clear of any other category.

"As drivers and spectators should experience nothing else like it.

"It should blow you away.

"Two other categories [now] are within two seconds.

"Maybe we should enter an F1 race with a WEC car. We might score some points – and we are 250kg heavier!

"F1 cars should command more respect.

"Max Verstappen [the 17-year-old F1 rookie in Red Bull's junior team Toro Rosso] is a talent, but after just a handful of races he's already 'ahead' of the car.

"F1 shouldn't be like that.

"The engineers [in F1] are constantly focusing on tyre performance.

"Even in GP2 and GP3 a driver's performance is all about how he manages the tyres.

"People just want to see cracking good car racing with the best guys fighting it out.

"People now expect to see 20 passing moves per GP, [but] I think we could do with racing with less overtaking and better quality across the board."

And Webber added his voice to the many wanting F1 cars to make more noise again.

"You need to bring earplugs back," he said.

"You need to be able to hear the cars 5km from the track."


James Davison tipped for Indy 500 start

The member of the Davison clan racing overseas, James, may yet be a starter in the Indianapolis 500 on May 24.

Winner of a Pirelli World Challenge race last weekend in Alabama at the wheel of a Nissan GT-R, 28-year-old Davison made his Indy 500 debut last year and finished a creditable 16th in a car entered by KV Racing.

His name has been linked – by veteran IndyCar reporter Robin Miller – to one of the Dale Coyne Racing entries for this month's 99th running of the American classic billed as "the greatest spectacle in racing".

Ryan Briscoe, the Sydneysider who has raced in America for a decade, appears an unlikely start in the Indy 500 this year.

Honda has revealed its aero kits for the half of the 'The 500' entry using its power in Dallara cars, with Chevrolet's to come too before Sunday's test at The Brickyard.

Sauber back in legal firing line
The Sauber F1 team reportedly will face fresh legal action next week similar to that taken by Dutch driver Giedo van der Garde in the Victorian Supreme Court in the days before the season-opening Australian GP.

German driver Adrian Sutil, who lost his seat at Sauber this season, is said to be launching a court case in Barcelona ahead of the Spanish GP there.

Van der Garde won his fight against Sauber after his court case, with the Swiss team refunding money he paid it last year for a drive this season – and seemingly compensation on top of that.

The Dutchman launched contempt of court proceedings against the team after Sauber declined to install him in one of its cars despite a European arbitrator, then Mr Justice Croft in Melbourne and finally a three-judge appeal court of the Victorian Supreme Court finding he had been wrongly dropped from its line-up.

There was talk at the time of the Melbourne court action that Sauber may have had as many as seven drivers contracted for this season after not scoring a single world championship points last year.

Its fortunes have recovered this season, with the use of Ferrari's greatly-improved hybrid engine and Brazilian rookie Felipe Nasr and Swede Marcus Ericsson in its cars.

It is fifth of the 10 teams in the constructors' championship with 19 points after four GPs.

Rallycross entrants to be named soon
Rallycross, the combination of rallying and circuit racing on combined gravel and tarmac surfaces that enjoyed a boom in Australian in the 1970s, takes an important step in its revival today.

Top rally drivers Chris Atkinson and Alister McRae are driving a Ford Fiesta Supercar Lite – a car from the second level of the Rallycross World Championship that has just entered its second season – at Sydney Motorsport Park.

A seven-round Extreme Rallycross Championship has been scheduled for Australia starting on the Gold Coast at the end of August, with other events in Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide and Brisbane.

The man behind the series, David Ridden, has said that the first entrants in the series will be named soon after today's Sydney test.

Supercar Lites are to be the top category in the Australian series.

Among the numerous drivers testing today are Brendan Reeves and Jack Monkhouse, who have been more recent stars of the Australian Rally Championship.

Atkinson had a brief taste of the Ford Fiesta – which came from Olsberg MSE in Sweden – a few days ago and Ridden said the former World Rally Championship driver's feedback was that "the car is fast, fun to drive and the finish on it is second to none".

Separately, Australian rally legend Bob Watson is planning new rallycross events at Broadford in Victoria, seemingly aimed more at competitors with existing rally cars rather than the more costly machinery from overseas.

  • Extreme Rallycross Championship calendar

  • August 28-29, 2015 – Mudgeeraba Sporting Complex, Gold Coast, Queensland.

  • September 25-26, 2015 – Spotswood, Melbourne, Victoria.

  • October 30-31, 2015 – Sydney Motorsport Park, NSW.

  • November 2015 – Lakeside International Raceway, Brisbane, Queensland.

  • December 2015 – Wayville Showgrounds, Adelaide, South Australia.

  • January 2016 – Calder Park, Melbourne, Victoria.

  • February 2016 – Sydney Motorsport Park, NSW.

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Written byCarsales Staff
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