Porsche 911 2009 News

But the global financial crisis has caused heartache of a different kind for German carmaker Porsche.

RETIRED V8 Supercar racer Paul Weel is going back to his motorsport roots with an all-out attack on the 2009 Australasian Safari.Weel began as an off-road racer and is heading back into the bush for the Safari, driving a V8-engined Holden Colorado.But there is a twist.He is doing the outback enduro in Western Australia with his father, Kees, as his co-driver. And their car is one that Weel Snr crashed in last year's Safari.Weel is so committed to success he even ran a 500-kilometre test last week, the first time he drove a competition car since a massive crash at Bathurst last year which could easily have been fatal. He was T-boned in his PWR Commodore at the top of Mount Panorama."I'm pretty excited. It's been quite a while since my Bathurst accident, so it's great to finally be back behind the wheel of a racing car again," Weel says."I'm learning how to drive on dirt again after so long racing V8 Supercars. You feel like you're going pretty quick, racing through the bush at 200km/h with trees flashing past on either side of you."The Safari begins a week from tomorrow, August 1, and covers 3600 kilometres from Perth to Kalgoorlie, with overnight stops in Geraldton, Mt Magnet, Leonora and Laverton.DAVID Wall continued his romp towards the Australian GT championship title when he swept two of three sports car races at Eastern Creek last weekend with his Porsche GT3 Cup S. The other star on the packed Shannons Nationals program was Mat Sofi, who broke through for his first win in Formula 3 while Tim Macrow reduced overseas raider Joey Foster's lead in the championship battle.CHAD Reed continues to lead the chase for the 450cc title in the AMA Pro Motocross championship following a 1-2 result at Millville last weekend. He is now 37 points clear on his Rockstar Suzuki with five rounds to run.NEAL Bates is looking for more speed this week from his Toyota Corolla as he prepares for the winner-take-all showdown with his former team-mate, and championship leader, Simon Evans at Rally SA next weekend. Bates knows Evans has a top-speed advantage with his Mitsubishi Lancer and has several tweaks to test in Canberra before packing for the trip to Adelaide and the last event of this year's national championship series.Off-road superstars Bruce Garland and Harry Suzuki will tune up for next year's Dakar Rally by competing in the 2009 Australasian Safari with their Isuzu D-MAX ute in Western Australia. The five-time Safari winner was third last year and expects better in his latest beast thanks to engine upgrading, which he also believes will allow him to improve on his 11th overall in this year's Dakar in South America.FRENCHMAN Jamie Alguersuari will become the youngest driver to race in Formula One, at 19 years and 125 days, when he replaces Sebastian Bourdais in the Toro Rosso team at the Hungarian Grand Prix. Alguersuari is a former British Formula 3 champion who was groomed through the Red Bull young driver academy.CHRIS Atkinson is back in Monaco to try and revive his stalled career in the World Rally Championship, including a start in his home event, Repco Rally Australia, in September. His trip to Europe included a stopover in the USA to visit Ken Block, a Subaru driver who also stars in the X-Games, perhaps pointing to more American action for the speedy Australia.DANIEL Ricciardo continues to lead the race for the British Formula 3 championship despite finishing slightly off the pace in both races at Donington Park last weekend. The young Aussie was quickest in qualifying but fell back to seventh in the first race before recovering for third, but in the second heat could do no better than fifth with the Carlin Motorsport team.THE son of John Surtees, the only racer to win world championships on both two and four wheels, was killed last weekend in a Formula 2 crash in Britain. Henry Surtees had taken his first F2 podium at Brands Hatch in the first of two heats, but died after being hit in the head by a wheel from another car that crashed in the second race. 

NewsText - PITSTOPS Yamaha dominatesYAMAHA is on track to win both divisions in the ADB Manufacturers' Cup with only two rounds of the national motocross series to run. Factory Yamaha riders Jay Marmont and Cheyne Boyd lead the Pro Open class going into the next round on July 26 in NSW. Yamaha's off-road dominance is also reflected in Stefan Merriman's big lead over Honda factory racer A.J. Roberts in the Australian Off-Road Championships.Alcohol headlinesTHE blown alcohol championships will headline the first meeting of the 2009-10 drag-racing season at Ipswich's Willowbank Raceway on August 8 and 9.A1 for SurfersTHE A1 GP will join the V8 Supercars on the streets of Surfers Paradise on October 22-25. The race will be the first of 10 rounds in A1 GP's calendar, and replaces the defunct Champcar series event previously staged in Surfers.Up the CreekTHE sixth round of the Shannons Nationals series is on at Eastern Creek on July 18-19, with Formula 3s, GT3 Porsches, Commodore Cup entries and Superkarts all on the track.Details: www.thenationals.com.au

...as the company works its way through the global financial crisis and its high-pressure bid for the Volkswagen group."Another model line is not something we are concentrating on at the moment,” Executive Vice-President for Sales and Marketing, Klaus Berning says. "We may start looking at that after the launch of this car (Panamera) but my gut feeling is that we do not need one."I am not a magician, I do not know when the world situation will go back to the levels of 2008 — it could be 2011 and it could be 2017, I do not know but when it does I believe we have the potential with the product line we have to grow our sales to 120,000 or 140,000 without having to push for another model.”At then end of the 2008 financial year Porsche had set a sales record of 98,652 cars worldwide with the three existing model lines — the 911, Boxster and Cayenne. First year production for the four-door GT Panamera has been set at 20,000 with Berning predicting that as many as 80 per cent of those cars will be incremental sales."People are constantly asking whether there will be another Speedster small sportscar but there is simply no need for that,” Berning says.When asked whether it was possible that a four-cylinder Porsche could be in the offing to assist the company with its overall fuel averaging Berning was less dismissive of the idea. "You never say never, but we have not made any decision to go that way."It could be possible to have a four-cylinder again in a 911 ... but it would be a Porsche four-cylinder. The 911 is the core of the brand and it follows different rules to the rest of the brand models.”Berning made it clear that he had no intention of taking questions on Porsche's stalled bid for the VW Group but did say that suggestions that Porsche was facing a total restructure were "totally BS”."In the car business we are one of the very few car makers the world over still writing black figures today — in the middle of the biggest recession and without benefiting from the scrappage bonus paid by the government in Germany,” Berning says. "Our operative return on turnover is in the double digit percentage range — a level of profitablity other manufacturers can only dream of.”With a brand value of $17.5 billion (US) Porsche ranks 35th in the world for all companies and third in the global ranking of car manufacturers behind Toyota and BMW."Our brand alone is a precious jewel ... believe me, this small manufacturer of exclusive sporting cars is strong — very strong. I promise you that in a sybiosis with the Volkswagen Group Porsche will retain the independence and freedom we need to continue our success in business."Anything else would simply not make sense.”

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. 

Courtney new hopeJames Courtney will be back in his new FG Falcon when the V8 Supercar championship gets underway again in Hamilton, New Zealand. The crash-prone new star of the Jim Beam team was relegated to an old BF Falcon for the Australian Grand Prix meet while his car was being repaired after slapping the wall during the Clipsal 500 in Adelaide.Reed near world titleChad Reed is on track for the world and AMA supercross titles despite another second place to American James Stewart in Toronto, Canada, last weekend. With four rounds to run the Aussie on the Rockstar Makita Suzuki has an eight-point break from Stewart.Boost for WallDavid Wall leads the Australian GT championship after the support races at the grand prix last weekend in his Porsche Carrera Cup S. He benefited from a disastrous weekend for Craig Baird in a Mosler. Tony Quinn was second in his Aston Martin and Jim Richards was third in another Porsche.Windus switchDarren Windus has switched brands for his home event in the Australian Rally Championship. The former Ford factory driver has hired a Toyota Corolla from Neal Bates in a deal that gives the defending champion the cash he needs to compete in the Forest Rally near Busselton, WA, this weekend.Percat at the doubleNick Percat is heads the Australian Formula Ford championship after winning both races at Albert Park ahead of 14-year-old New Zealander Mitch Evans. Chaz Mostert was third for the round. The Formula Ford title fight resumes at Winton on May 1-3.Stoner toast of JerezCasey Stoner has put another BMW in his garage after winning the qualifying test in the final pre-season MotoGP test at Jerez in Spain. The former world champion rode the latest Ducati to a 0.7 second win from Italian ace Valentino Rossi in a significant hitout before the season opener in Qatar.Mossig aims to motorPearcade rider Kade Mosig deubts for the Motorex KTM team on Sunday in the first round of the national motocross championship at Albury-Wodonga. Mosig will ride a KTM 250SX-F in the Pro Lites class and rates teammate Tye Simmonds, Matt Moss on a Suzuki and Kawasaki's Luke George as the riders to beat. Pro Open champ Jay Marmont will be the man to catch on his Yamaha.Tickets to BroadfordThe Honda Broadford Bike Bonanza is your chance to hit the track during the Easter holidays. Visitors can enjoy any or all of Broadford's circuits in a relaxed, non-competitive outing. The complex includes speedway, dirt track, minibike, observed trials, an enduro and three scrambles/motocross tracks. carsGuide has 10 passes to the event to give away.To enter, SMS the word BIKES and your name and address to 1993 3300 or ph: 1900 999 174. Competition calls cost 55c incl GST. More from mobile or public phones. Competition open to Victorian residents only and closes at midnight on Sunday. Winners will be notified by phone. 

V8 Supercar driver David Besnard of the Gold Coast has bought a `full-blown' 700 horsepower racing Falcon which he will use as a hot-lap car on April 26 at Queensland Raceway.He has organised V8 Supercar drivers Craig Lowndes, James Courtney, Steve Johnson, Craig Baird, Shane van Gisbergen and Alex Davison to take people for three-lap rides in the car for $795.However, it's now turned into something much bigger than just a ride day.Dick Johnson's legendary Tru-Blue and Greens Tuf race Falcons also will be there, plus Glenn Seton's old Ford Capri, drift cars, classic race car displays, entertainment and a race around the track between a V8 Supercar and a Yamaha R1 motorcycle."I just couldn't believe it; everyone we asked has said yes," the two-time Bathurst podium finisher said yesterday at a "shake-down" test for the new car at Queensland Raceway."I reckon we can raise about $50,000 for the Salvation Army to distribute to flood and bushfire victims."If this is a success, I'd like to do none every year for the Salvos, maybe one in every state."The `Real Deal' Disaster Appeal day will also include a charity auction with items such as Porsche Carrera Cup rides, Broncos jerseys and Layne Beachley's signed surfboard.Admission will be $10 and fans can get their photo with their favourite racer for $3, with all funds raised going to charity. 

The collapse of the Carrera Cup race series for identical Porsche 911s has cost the AGP one of its major supporting events, second only to the V8 Supercars.The survivors of the Carrera Cup will slide across to the Australian GT sports car races already set for Albert Park, while race organisers are now looking for an extra category to fill the vacant slots in the program."We think we can still get a great outcome," the chief executive of the AGP, Drew Ward, said yesterday."We are committed to staging the best quality entertainment - both on and off the track.Ward refused to discuss potential replacements but the obvious front- runners are Formula Three and Aussie Racing Cars, which have both been on the AGP program in the past, with the Toyota Racing Series from New Zealand as an outside - and costly - possibility.A series of meetings has already been held, including one to find a home for the Carrera Cup cars."The Carrera Cup guys go across to GT and that field is enhanced. It's not an ideal situation but we get a good outcome," Ward said.He is fast-tracking the category change, as well as finalising timings for the support races at an event which will now start and finish much later than in previous years."I would like to have it all sorted by the middle of the week. I would like to have an announcement by the end of the week that confirms all categories, event timing, everything," he said.The Carrera Cup category has collapsed after just eight entries were received for the first race of the season, at the Clipsal 500 meeting in Adelaide a week ahead of the GP, and despite work by Porsche Cars Australia to give competitors a better deal."Motorsport is an integral part of Porsche's activities in Australia so this decision is not taken lightly," said the managing director of Porsche Cars Australia, Michael Winkler.The importer of the German sports cars is now looking for other opportunities for the purpose-build 911 GT3 race cars, which had previously been restricted to the Carrera Cup contest. This is expected to include the Australian GT championship series.Porsche has not ruled out a revival of the Carrera Cup, most likely at the next full model change of the 911. 

There was a lot of attention in April when the Nissan GT-R did a lap of the Nurburgring in 7:29.

Nissan is standing firm on its claim to the production car lap record at the Nurburgring despite a blistering attack from Porsche.