MOTORSPORT: Ups and downs for V8s on TV

The Darwin round again showed signs of greater interest in V8 Supercar racing this year but lots of viewers were lost with Sunday’s race screened on digital channel 7Mate
Supercar fans slow to make digital switch
Some plusses but one big minus for the V8 Supercar telecasts of the Darwin round of the V8 Supercars at the weekend.

Lots of viewers were lost with Sunday’s race being screened on digital channel 7Mate that afternoon.

And for Ford, enduring dwindling sales of its Falcon, that was particularly tough medicine as it won just its second race in 13 so far this season.

It was Stone Brothers Racing’s 22-year-old New Zealander Shane Van Gisbergen who delivered that victory, two months after his debut win at the NZ round in Hamilton.

And, in a weekend of coincidences, Rick Kelly was the surprise winner of Saturday’s shorter race after the chaos on the late restart that resulted in 25-point penalties for championship leader Whincup, Ford Performance Racing’s Mark Winterbottom and Van Gisbergen.

Holden driver Kelly was the other winner at Hamilton in April.

He and Van Gisbergen both started 12th in the races they won in Darwin.

Saturday’s race attracted an average 299,000 viewers in the five major capital cities on the main Channel 7.

That was a healthy 53,000 or 21.5 per cent more than last year’s 246,000 for the Saturday race in Darwin.

But it was 70,000 or almost 19 per cent short of the 369,000 who viewed the Saturday telecast from the Northern Territory two years ago.

And, as so often, the country’s two biggest cities – Sydney and Melbourne – had fewer V8 Supercar viewers than Brisbane.

The big concern for the sport though was the audience for Sunday’s race on 7Mate – an average of 248,000 in the five capitals.

Not only – and not unexpectedly – lower than the figure for Saturday’s race on the main 7 channel but again with less viewers in Sydney and Melbourne than the far less populous Brisbane.

That 248,000 was 81,000 or almost 25 per cent less than watched the Sunday race last year in the five capitals on 7 proper.

And it was 205,000 or more than 45 per cent less than the 453,000 who watched the Sunday race in the five cities in 2009.

So the audience yesterday afternoon for the “live” telecast was not a whole lot more than half of what it was two years ago, obviously because it was on the digital 7Mate – to which not all viewers have access, although the vast majority now do – rather than the main 7 channel.

The Sunday OzTAM report, also shows 125,000 viewers for last night’s replay on 7 in the five major capitals of the afternoon’s Darwin action – with 96,000 or almost 80 per cent of those in Sydney and Melbourne.

Adding those 125,000 from late-night 7 to the afternoon’s 248,000 on 7Mate – a charitable addition in making comparisons – brings Sunday’s audience on the two 7 channels to 373,000, or 44,000 and almost 13.5 per cent more than on the main 7 alone last year.

However, even with that charitable addition, the combined figure is still 80,000 or almost 18 per cent short of the 453,000 who watched Darwin’s Sunday race on the main 7 two years ago.

So there is great cause for concern in these latest numbers, and circuit promoters and governments who have paid so heftily for the privilege of hosting V8 Supercar rounds might well be wondering at the bang they get for their bucks, especially with some of the “live” racing now on a secondary channel.

Darwin a weekend of coincidences
After their wins in Darwin, Shane Van Gisbergen and Rick Kelly go to Townsville on the second weekend of July third and fourth in the V8 Supercar Championship but still way behind Team Vodafone’s Jamie Whincup and Craig Lowndes.

Lowndes, with two podiums in Darwin, has narrowed the lead of Whincup, who wound up ninth and sixth in the two NT races.

The scene is set for even more intense rivalry between Whincup and Ford Performance Racing’s Mark Winterbottom after the blue-oval man bemoaned that he was hit from behind both days in Darwin by Whincup – and Team Vodafone chief Roland Dane branded Winterbottom “an amateur”.

Winterbottom’s pole positions have confirmed that FPR has corrected things in his Falcon and he can consider himself unfortunate to have finished only 15th on Saturday after leading most of the race but he came away with a podium on Sunday.

He has moved up a spot in the championship – from 10th to ninth – but FPR teammate Will Davison is sixth and there are two other Ford drivers ahead of him, Van Gisbergen and Steven Johnson.

But, if things are still from perfect at FPR, the weekend could hardly have been worse for Holden’s recently-revamped factory team.

The Darwin results sheets show reigning champion James Courtney 25th and 24th in the two races and Garth Tander 18th and 26th.

And Jason Bright, who has brought success to Brad Jones Racing this year and before Darwin was the season’s only multiple race winner apart from Whincup, was a spectacular non-finisher both days in the NT courtesy of a puncture and then an engine failure.

In comparison with the misfortunes of others, Craig Lowndes’ $10,000 fine for doing a burnout at the entry point to the podium area – when only race winners are allowed such celebration and only in a designated area – looks pretty small beer.

V8 Supercar Championship after six rounds - 1. Jamie Whincup (Holden) 1395 points; 2. Craig Lowndes (H) 1239; 3. Shane Van Gisbergen (Ford) 1134; 4. Rick Kelly (H) 1082; 5. Steve Johnson (F) 1030; 6. Will Davison (F) 1020; 7. Garth Tander (H) 1013; 8. Alex Davidson (F) 963; 9. Mark Winterbottom (F) 961; 10. Jason Bright (H) 920.

Atkinson wins second Asia-Pacific rally
Australia’s top rally driver, Chris Atkinson, still chasing a drive in his home world championship event on the Coffs Coast in September, has won his second Asia-Pacific Rally Championship round of the year for Proton in New Caledonia.

Atkinson also won Proton’s home round in Malaysia at the start of the season.

He had engine issues on the first day in New Caledonia and a broken driveshaft on the second day and said “we had a bit of luck, but generally the (Super 2000 Satria Neo) car was good”.

Indonesian Rifat Sungkar was second in an Evolution 10 Mitsubishi Lancer with Atkinson’s teammate, Perth-based Scotsman Alister McRae, third in another Proton.

Six WRC wins straight for Citroen
Frenchman Sebastien Ogier won Greece’s Acropolis Rally, the seventh round of the World Rally Championship, ahead of his legendary countryman and Citroen teammate Sebastien Loeb.

Finland’s Mikko Hirvonen was third for Ford.

Citroen’s victory was its sixth straight and Ogier equaled Loeb’s three wins for the season - although there is 22 points between them in the championship, with Hirvonen sandwiched between the pair.

Citroens dominated the rough Greek event with privateer Petter Solberg leading Loeb and Hirvonen by almost a minute after the first day.
Ogier deliberately slowed on Friday to be fourth on the road on the second day.

That tactic worked for him as he took the lead after stage 10 before repeating the same move on Saturday’s night-time stage, leaving Loeb ahead and first on the road for Sunday’s five stages.

Loeb and Ogier were split by just 0.1 seconds after two of those stages, while Hirvonen overtook Solberg into third place.

Ogier moved back ahead of Loeb after stage 16 before winning the concluding Power Stage by 0.009 seconds.

Ford’s Jari-Matti Latvala, sidelined by a diff problem on day one, rejoined the event under the SuperRally rules and posted several fastest times on the way to ninth – two places behind countryman and 2007 Formula One world champion Kimi Raikkonen.

World Rally Drivers’ Championship after seven rounds - 1. Sebastien Loeb (France, Citroen) 146 points; 2. Mikko Hirvonen (Finland, Ford) 129; 3. Sebatien Ogier (France, Citroen) 124; 4. Jari-Matti Latvala (Finland, Ford) 76, 5. Petter Solberg (Norway, Citroen) 73.

WRC Constructors’ standings - 1. Citroen Racing 250 points; 2. Ford 195; 3. Stobart-Ford 87; 4. Petter Solberg WRT 61; 5. Ice1Racing 34; 6. Munchi’s-Ford 32; 7. Abu Dhabi-Ford 19; 8. FERM-Ford 14; 9. Monster-Ford 8; 10. Brazil WRT 1.

Franchitti and Power tied in Indy series
Reigning IndyCar champion Dario Franchitti has drawn level with Australia’s Will Power in the lead of this year’s series after winning a crash-fest at the Milwaukee oval track.

Franchitti took the chequered flag comfortably ahead of American Graham Rahal and Spaniard Oriol Servia with Power fourth after starting 17th, while Danica Patrick notched her first top-five finish of the season.

Australia’s other IndyCar driver Ryan Briscoe finished 11th after avoiding crashes several times and losing a lot of time when a jack stuck under his car.

Franchitti’s victory was his 29th in Indy-style racing, equaling the tally of American great Rick Mears.

Frenchitti and Power are 73 points clear of Servia in the championship with 10 rounds remaining.

Power was relieved to wind up fourth at Milwaukee.

“We had a big moment and nearly crashed in practice on Friday and we kind of lost our way after that,” he said.

“Our race car was much better than our qualifying car and getting a really good restart after the last yellow helped out a lot.

“I just kind of bided my time in the first half of the race and people ahead of us started falling back.

“I’m pretty happy with fourth place after where we started.

“Good job by Dario. He came back from Texas (where Power scored his first oval victory a week ago) to teach us a lesson.”

IndyCar championship after seven of 17 rounds – 1. Will Power (Australia, Team Penske) 271 points, =1. Dario Franchitti (Chip Ganassi Racing) 271; 3. Oriol Servia (Spain, Newman-Haas) 198; 4. Scott Dixon (New Zealand, Chip Ganassi Racing) 195; 5. Graham Rahal (US, Chip Ganassi Racing) 176; 6. Tony Kanaan (Brazil, KV Racing) 171; 7. Ryan Briscoe (Australia, Team Penske) 165; 8. Alex Tagliani (Canada, Sam Schmidt Motorsports) 147; 9. Takuma Sato (Japan, KV Racing); 10. Danica Patrick (US, Andretti Autosport) 141.

Ambrose pins hopes on Californian redemption
Australia’s NASCAR racer Marcos Ambrose has dropped out of the top 20 in the Sprint Cup after finishing 23rd in the latest race at Michigan International Speedway, but he goes to California this week hopeful of a breakthrough victory on the Infineon Raceway road course after the embarrassment of stalling while leading there last year.

Toyota driver Denny Hamlin scored his first Cup win of the year – and the 17th of his career – at Michigan ahead of Matt Kenseth in a Ford.

Kyle Busch led much of the race in another Toyota before finishing third, ahead of Paul Menard in a Chevrolet and Ford’s series leader Carl Edwards.

Kevin Harvick, second in the series, finished only 14th as Edwards stretched his lead to 20 points.

Ambrose said he “copped a raw deal on the late-race cautions - but that’s racing”.

“Next week we’re off to Infineon Raceway and it’s a very big event for myself and the whole crew,” he said.

“We’re completely focused on bringing home a victory there.”

NASCAR Sprint Cup after 15 of 36 races - 1. Carl Edwards (Ford) 532 points; 2. Kevin Harvick (Chevrolet) 512; 3. Dale Earnhardt Jnr (Chevrolet) 505; 4. Kyle Busch (Toyota) 503; 5. Jimmie Johnson (Chevrolet) 503; 6. Matt Kenseth (Ford) 491; 7. Kurt Busch (Dodge) 491; 8. Ryan Newman (Chevrolet) 456; 9. Denny Hamlin (Toyota) 455; 10. Clint Bowyer (Chevrolet) 455. Australia’s Marcos Ambrose (Ford) is 21st on 369 points.

Ricciardo on the rise in Renault series
Western Australia’s Daniel Ricciardo is up to fourth in the World Series by Renault after the fifth round, despite having missed the two races at the first round in Spain.

Ricciardo finished second and fifth in the weekend’s two races at Germany’s Nurburgring.

Canadian Robert Wickens leads the series on 139 points – 37 ahead of Frenchman Jean-Eric Vergne and Estonian Kevin Korjus, who beat Wickens to victory overnight in the second Nurburgring race.

Ricciardo has 89 points and this week heads to the European Grand Prix at Valencia in Spain to continue his role as reserve Formula One driver for Red Bull Racing and Scuderia Toro Rosso – the latter of which he drives for in Friday morning practice at every GP.

World Series by Renault after nine races - 1. Robert Wickens (Canada, Carlin Motorsport) 139; 2.Jean-Eric Vergne (France, Carlin) 102, =2. Kevin Korjus (Estonia, Tech 1) 102; 4. Daniel Ricciardo (Australia, ISR) 89; 5.Albert Costa (Spain, Epic) 82.