FPV Pursuit Reviews

But it's not the four-legged animal that runs around parts of North America prairies, it's Ford's new alloy V8. Coyote is believed to be the codename of Ford Detroit's new light-weight engine that could end up powering local Ford Performance Vehicles.The new 5.0-litre V8 is slated for the Ford Mustang and F150 in North America soon and the engine could be in line to replace Ford Australia's current 5.4-litre FPV V8 ahead of moves to Euro IV emission standards from next July.A decision on Ford's in-line six-cylinder and V8 engine strategy is expected at the end of the month. However, neither Ford president Marin Burela or FPV boss Rod Barrett are not giving anything away.FPV is not commenting, and Burela is only saying that the I6 Falcon engine remains a key part of Ford's future. Nor is he saying if Ford will broaden its V8 reach from its hot FPV cars to the rest of the Falcon range.Burela has hosed down suggestions that Ford could add a V8 Falcon model to sit above the G6-E turbo, aimed directly at the Commodore Calais V8."We've looked at that and our response has always been what the market is looking for," Burela says."It's been very clear to us that the G6-E turbo is the right solution."We have the V8 but when you look at what people are asking for, inquiring about, it's the turbo six that ticks the box for them."The Coyote 32-valve V8 is said to develop around 330kW and 540Nm in standard tune with a hotter supercharged version possibly powering some top-end FPV cars.Burela acknowledges that GM-Holden has made its V8 more relevant to consumers by adding cylinder deactivation technology in an effort to chase better fuel economy. But Ford also has plans, he says."We've got a comprehensive plan that we've been working on between us and FPV," Burela says."We've been focused on ensuring that we put our efforts in the right place to cater to the different consumers."Burela believes there will always be a desire and need for a Ford V8."But the question is how do you deliver that without creating an aura around the brand that you are only a large car company with large engines, which then tends to send these messages that you're not about fuel efficiency and not delivering the right emissions levels," he says.Burela says Aussies love their large cars but are increasingly becoming more aware of the environment."But they want the costs to be competitive and emissions to be responsible," he says.Ford is slowly shedding its blokey Falcon car company image with a more focused European range from the Fiesta right up to the Euro-inspired Falcon."People saw us as old fashioned … no technology," he says. "Now they see us as being relevant." 

Macrow closes gapTim Macrow has closed the gap to British raider Joey Fisher after the latest leg of the Australian Formula 3 championship at Phillip Island. He claimed pole and won the second heat, after Fisher claimed the first, to close the points gap to the series leader to 17. In other action at the Island, David Wall was the GT championship winner in his Porsche GT3 and Brett Holdsworth claimed top points in the Commodore Cup.Ambrose in solid run MARCOS Ambrose continued his top-10 form with another solid run from the 14th starting spot in the latest round of the Sprint Cup on his home track at Charlotte, North Carolina. Ambrose came home tenth in his Toyota Camry, a solid build-up to the giant Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte this weekend, and a result which also kept him in the top 20 in the Nascar championship.Davison on test track ALEX Davison had his first full day of V8 Supercar testing at Queensland Raceway last week and is hopeful of improved form in coming races with Stone Brothers Racing. His Irwin Ford was also lapped by Mark Winterbottom of Ford Performance Racing as the two blue oval factory teams swap information in a bid to drive them forward and end the domination of the TeamVodafone cars of Jamie Whincup and Craig Lowdnes.McFarlane returns Andrew McFarlane returned from eight years overseas to blitz the field in the first race in the Australian Motocross round at Toowoomba's Echo Valley. But Jay Marmont still leads the Pro Open championship by13 points while Matt Moss closed the lead to Luke George in the Pro Lites series.ARC wraps up THE Australian Rally Championship will wrap in November following the postponement of the Coffs Harbour event originally set for June. Heavy rainfall over the course for the Daikin Coffs Coast Rally in March forced the organisers to re-schedule the event, although the exact date for the forest racing grand final has still to be set.Lola back in F1 LOLA is returning to Formula One in 2010 in a move which would see it join the proposed US GP team in a cost-capped world championship. The world's largest racing car manufacturer has not bee in F1 for more than a decade, after its last effort collapsed after an appearance at the Australian Grand Prix when funding from a major finance company did not eventuate.Repco route confirmed The route for the return of Repco Rally Australia to the world championship has been confirmed with a 340-kilometre course in the northern rivers region of NSW. The rally will be run from September3-6 and is expected to boost the local economy in the around around Murwillumbah by more than $30 million.Tagliani out ALEX Tagliani was the only high-profile casualty during final qualifying for this year's Indianapolis 500, with the former Champ Car front-runner missing a place in the 33-car field. The lineup for the race on May 24 is set with Helio Castroneves on pole — with Australia's Ryan Briscoe and Will Power in second and ninth starting spots — and Ryan Hunter-Ray at the back of the field.

PETFOOD magnate Tony Quinn scored the biggest success of his motorsport career when he drove to victory in the 2009 Targa Tasmania with his Nissan GT-R. His job was made easier when Jim Richards and Kevin Weeks both crashed out of contention, leaving the VIP Pet Foods boss with an eventual winning margin of six minutes over Jason White in a Lamborghini. Rex Broadbent completed a hat-trick with classic victory in his Porsche 911, while Greg Johnston took the showroom class in a Mitsubishi Evo.FOUR points was the margin between success and failure for Chad Reed in this year's AMA and World Supercross Championship as the superstar Aussie came up just short in the grand final in Las Vegas at the weekend. Reed scored 11 seconds places from 17 starts in the supercross series with his Suzuki, as well as three wins, but it was not enough to stop James Stewart lifting the title with a safe third place in Las Vegas.MARCUS Marshall surprised his V8 Supercar rivals by re-setting the lap record at Winton last weekend in his unsponsored BF Falcon. The speedy young Queenslander did the job in an ex-Triple Eight Ford on the soft Dunlop racing tyres used for the first time at Winton, dropping the benchmark time to 1 minute 22.9813 seconds as he raced to a memorable ninth place on Sunday afternoon.NICK Percat made another clean sweep of the Formula Ford championship races at Winton last weekend, with Chaz Mostert following him home in each of three heats. The weekend result gives Percat a 61-48 break over Mostert, with Mitchell Evans and Scott Pye next in the junior series.MARCOS Ambrose finished just outside of the top 10 in his latest Nascar start at Richmond in Virginia despite contact with the wall early in the event. Finishing 11th, after his benchmark fourth place a week earlier at Talladega, gave him his seventh top-20 result from 10 starts and moved him up to 19th in the Sprint Cup standings with his Toyota Camry.DEAN Canto and Luke Youlden have filled the co-driving seats at Ford Performance Racing for this year's V8 Supercar enduros. It is their second year alongside FPR regulars Mark Winterbottom and Steven Richards at Phillip Island and Bathurst, as Nathan Pretty also returns for the long-distance events as a member of Kelly Racing.The pace-setting car in V8 Supercar racing is now driven by a woman. Amber Anderson, a 25-year-old Melbourne lawyer who is trying to build a racing career, has been chosen to drive the Nissan GT-R safety car at several rounds of the series and had her first start at Winton last weekend.SWINE flu meant an early end of the A1GP season which was planned to finish in Mexico City at the end of May. The series ended instead in Britain last weekend, when Team Ireland raced to the championship with Adam Carroll, as Team Australia trailed in eighth after an identical finish in the feature race in the UK by John Martin.THE popular Speed on Tweed historic festival has been revived as part of the program for Repco Rally Australia in September. The course through the streets of Mulwillumbah on the NSW north coast will also be used as a special stage during the running of Australia's event in the World Rally Championship.THE remaining events in the Aussie Racing Cars championship have been re-jigged for the rest of 2009, with a break until the Shannons Nationals meeting at Winton on June 27-28. The baby racers then head to Eastern Creek on August 7-9, Oran Park on August 29-30 and Homebush for the Sydney 500 meeting from December 4-6.The re-scheduled Victorian Open Sprint Kar Championship will be held this weekend at the Hume International Raceway near Seymour. More than 400 of Australia's best racers will compete at an event which was postponed from February 13-15 because of the tragic Victorian bushfires. 

JOHN MARTIN and Team Australia only took a 10th and a 12th from the latest round of the A1GP series in Portugal as Team Netherlands took the sprint race and Switzerland scooped the feature event. The feature race win gave Neel Jani his 10th A1GP feature victory, a record for the category, while the overall results for the weekend leave Australia holding 12th place in the A1 championship and trailing well behind pace-setters Switzerland, Ireland and Portugal.CHRIS Dyer has just been promoted to team manager of the Ferrari grand prix team after a crisis meeting intended to get the Italian superteam back on track in this year's world championship. After guiding Michael Schumacher and Kimi Raikkonen to world titles as their race engineer the transplanted Australian was originally moved up to chief track engineer for 2009 but - after the worst season start since 1992, with zero points from the first two races - team manager Luca Baldisserri has been switched to a factory job and Dyer has moved up.RYAN Briscoe is favourite as the Indy Racing League makes its first visit to the former heartland of Champ Car racing at Long Beach this weekend. Team Penske took first and sixth with Briscoe and Will Power at the IRL season opener on the streets of St. Petersburg in Florida and is expected to be just as strong on the California street course.MARK Winterbottom has a new website. The lead driver for Ford Performance Racing, and last year's V8 Supercar championship runner-up, is moving to the latest technology and will file from his mobile telephone using the popular Twitter system to keep things current at www.markwinterbottom.comAMERICAN veteran Paul Tracy has finally found a place for this year's Indianapolis 500 despite failing with plans for a fulltime return to racing in the Indy Racing League. Tracy, who has not raced at all since a one-off Champ Car start last July, will drive at Indy with the KV Racing Technology team.SOME of Australia's fastest young rally drivers will go all-out in May to win a fully-paid promotion to the World Rally Championship. They will tackle Rally Queensland, a round of the 2009 FIA Asia-Pacific Rally Championship, as the regional qualifying event for the Pirelli Star Driver program. The ultimate prize, if they make it through the whole Pirelli process, is one of five WRC scholarships for 2010. 

The change in direction is being assessed against the backdrop of falling sales for the flagship Falcon and the failure of the F6 X based on the Territory SUV, which has just been cut from Ford Australia's showrooms.Planning for a more-flexible future is about to shift into top gear at company headquarters in Campbellfield, according to FPV's British boss, David Richards."We have to be flexible under the current circumstances and look into the future and work very closely with Ford to adapt the product that we produce to what the market requires," says Richards, speaking while watching his Ford Performance Racing team in action at the Clipsal 500 in Adelaide."I see a very strong partnership in the past continuing for some time.It's just that it will be in a different guise in the future and more flexible."Richards, who built FPV in Melbourne as an extension of his Prodrive motorsport and special vehicles company in the UK, says the hot Ford shop still has a solid future and he is confident it will survive any short-term downturns."The fundamentals are not about the individual cars, it's about the principle of what FPV can deliver to Ford," says Richards."What it does is provide a very flexible partner. Historically we have produced a range of performance cars, but who is to say that in the future we couldn't be adapting cars for other requirements."A lot of that is that a large factory like Ford Australia is very efficient at producing volume models, but quite often you do need 1000- off or 2000-off special vehicles that need to be done off the production line. And having the ability to that just next door to Campbellfield has been a great asset over the years."Richards says the situation is the same across the world and has created new opportunities for Prodrive in the UK."Recently we did an Alfa Romeo in Europe for the UK, because the feeling was that the product that had been produced for Italy and the rest of Europe didn't suit the British roads. And they wanted it tuned for British roads. And it's been a great success."Of course we've done other products in the past. The last Focus RS was done by us for Ford."He says the workload for specialist companies that can engineer and build smaller-volume cars is only going to increase."As the car companies slim down their facilities and focus on really delivering efficiencies into their model ranges, so the place for a business such as FPV - or Prodrive in Europe, for that matter - becomes even more important and valuable."That's what we do in Europe, more and more, for different manufacturers. It is often driven by the sales and marketing teams, who look for a particular product for a niche for a particular marketplace."So Richards admits there will be a changing job description for FPV."All we've got to do is adapt to the product requirements of the future. Whether that is small vehicles, whether it is still a smaller number of high-performance V8s, or what it's going to be is still a little hard to determine. But that's our role.But does Richards see the Falcon as the future of FPV?"Not necessarily. That's what its heritage is based on, but I fundamentally believe we've got to be flexible. If that means leaning towards smaller performance vehicles, the Ford Focus or whatever, then so be it."We work very closely with Ford and I'm very confident of our ability to do that." 

New challenge aheadCarrera Cup racers in Australia are looking for other challenges, including the latest GT championship, after the collapse of the Porsche one-make series. This year's championship was canned after only eight entries were received for the planned season opener on the streets of Adelaide for the Clipsal 500 meeting.A grip on the gridSebastian Bourdais has filled one of the few open seats on this year's Formula One starting grid, being renewed for a second year at Toro Rosso. Bourdais is a former multiple Champ Car series winner.Johnson in EnduroSteven Johnson will tune up for the V8 Supercar season by racing a Falcon at Bathurst. He is a late addition to the field for the 12-hour Showroom Enduro at Mount Panorama on February 22, sharing an FG-model Falcon GT-P with Nathan Tinkler and Nathan Callaghan.Life ban for drag racerChampion drag racer Brett Stevens has been banned for life and all his records and championships suspended after being charged with drug offences.Ambrose Daytona debutMarcos Ambrose will become the first Australian to start in the Daytona 500 this weekend in Florida, as he begins his first full season in Nascar's Sprint Cup with a Toyota Camry. 

The wraps come off his all-new FG Falcon this morning and Frosty is already working on what he needs to improve from runner-up to champion in this year's series."Every year is a different challenge. Every year you have to do the best you can," Winterbottom says."Last year we came close, and as a driver or sportsman you want to improve. There are definitely areas we need to improve, and if we do then we'll be around the money."The goal for the year is to minimise mistakes, and that should put us up there."Winterbottom believes his new Orrcon-backed FG, which was also displayed as it will be raced by Steven Richards, is the best thing yet from Ford Performance Racing. But he is not predicting a walk-over."You instantly think a new car should be quicker. But tte BF was already a pretty dominant car over the VE. So to think it will be a lot quicker - well, it won't happen," he said."You have to up the success rate, and that means being quick at all tracks. Not being quick at one track and then struggling at the next.We need to improve the consistency and minimise the mistakes."Winterbottom says he has done all he can to boost his own performance, even using a renovation project in Melbourne to improve his fitness."I've been up on the roof, ripping things out. And I run to the house, so it all helps," he says."I'm fitter now than I have ever been, by a long way. You look at all the areas you can improve."Everyone can improve. I'm pretty hard on myself, so I look at some rounds last year and realise where we made mistakes. That's where I can focus, so that's what I've been working on."He is expecting a similar step up from the FPR crew, which is one of only two factory-backed teams - Stone Brothers Racing is the other - to survive a Ford cull at the end of 2008."The team is pretty tough on themselves. They want to improve."Winterbottom will not drive his new FG until the start of March but has been keeping close tabs on development."I've been to sit in it and have a look around. I'm happier," he says."Also, the guys are happy because it is a lot easier to work on. If everyone is happy at the workshop, and they are not working 24 hour days, the team functions a lot better." 

Everything is ready at the blue oval factory team for a three-car assault on next year's touring car championship, but not until the final crucial piece of paper is in the safe.FPV is competing with several others - Walkinshaw Racing and Paul Cruickshank both want to grow their teams next year - for two remaining license. And each has a pricetage in the $1.3 to $1.5 million range."It's a bit of a struggle at the moment. The real issue is the license," says FPR's director of business operations, Mark Roworth.FPR is looking cashed-up and competitive after the re-signing of Orrcon and Castrol, which both have long-term deals with the team, and the arrival of Westrac Cat to take a place on both the Mark Winterbottom and Steven Richards' Falcons.Roworth believes he has the support to expand to a third car and is likely to be choosing between Andrew Thompson, Dale Wood and Jonathon Webb as the driver.But he stresses that a three-car team is more than just a money-making move."It comes down to the reason we want to run a third car. It has got to be strategic," he says."We want to find the next Mark Winterbottom. We need a succession plan for our existing drivers."There is no plan to get rid of them, and they both have long-term contracts, but you never know what is going to happen. It is far cheaper to develop a driver than it is to buy one."FPR has already run more than its own two Falcons from its base in Broadmeadows, with both Team Kiwi and Jim Morton's Ford Rising Stars operation taking their on-track hardware from the team.Ironically, Morton's decision to quit V8 Supercars has hurt FPR as he sold his license to Marcus Marshall, who is establishing a new team for '09 with a major internet company paying the bills."That's a bit disappointing. If we had known that Jim Morton was getting out we probably would have moved to get the license," Roworth says.But he stresses that FPR is not just planning to run a third car to boost the money it makes from Orrcon, Castrol and the rest of its backers."The key thing is to ensure the third car is not just a revenue stream, but complements the other two," Roworth says."That sets us apart from some other people, perhaps like the Walkinshaw operation. 

The last time FPV brought out a limited edition model - this time last year- it looked back to the late seventies and revived the Cobra badge for a limited run of 500 striped sedans and utes.

The Ford driver Posted his second round victory of the year in round seven at Queensland Raceway yesterday.Winterbottom won races two and three after finishing second in race one on Saturday to secure the overall round win from Holden's Russell Ingall and Ford's James Courtney.The Ford Performance Racing driver now holds a 122-point lead over defending V8 champion Garth Tander in the series, with the Holden driver fourth on the weekend.Winterbottom was flawless all day yesterday, setting up his triumph by surviving a race two crash-fest to win the middle peg of the three-race sprint round.He got the better of fellow Ford driver and Saturday's race one winner Courtney off the grid and also won the battle of the pitstops.Then Winterbottom held off Ingall at the start of race three and didn't give anyone else a sniff to close out the victory.Ingall, with a second and two thirds for the weekend, finished second overall to post his best result since moving to the Supercheap Auto team at the start of this season.