Race track

But it won't be next year. We will have to wait until the 2013 season to see another (highly competitive) make in the premium A1 class of WRC. VW last week unveiled the concept of the Polo R WRC, the car with which it will compete from 2013 onwards.With "the hottest Polo of all time" VW is looking forward to this new challenge and is working on the project with the same passion with which it won the Dakar Rally in the past three years. VW will leverage its involvement in the Dakar for its WRC campaign.The race car will have a 230kW, 1.6-litre, TSI engine and four-wheel drive based on the Polo. New technical rules have come into effect in the WRC this year. For the first time, engines with a maximum displacement of 1,600 cc, direct injection and turbochargers are prescribed.These new regulations are an ideal fit for Volkswagen's production car philosophy - downsizing, high efficiency and reliability are top priorities. VW will prepare and enter the Polo R WRC as a factory commitment.The Wolfsburg-based squad can build on structures which have been established over the past few years.

AT one point on Sunday in Hamilton our team was looking at a one-two in the championship. But motor racing can be a fickle thing and I ended up copping a drive-through penalty for crossing the bleed line going out of the pits.I had come in for a regulation pit stop and we put on a new set of slicks. I admit I went out of the pit exit a little bit too excited and understeered over the yellow line, copping the penalty. It was a fair cop, but quite disappointing.Our team could have been one-two in the championship if I hadn't got that penalty and had continued running strong. However, I'm still really happy that I leapfrogged from fifth to third in the championship and Team Vodafone is now one-three.The weekend was also a great result for V8 Supercars. On the one hand you now have a leader board where you could throw a blanket over the top five runners. It's a shame that Jamie had such a bad weekend, but I suppose no one wants to see a runaway leader early on. It was also a great result for the winners of both races.Saturday's victory for Rick Kelly was the first for his team after three years. And you could only describe Shane Van Gisbergen's win on Sunday as a fairytale. Your first win is always your best and to do it in front of his home crowd was pretty damn good. All the burn-outs he did after the win showed how happy and proud he was. I saw team boss Ross Stone at dinner on Sunday night and you could just tell the monkey has come off their back as a team.Saturday's wet race was one of the most treacherous I have ever driven. Toward the end of the race when the rain came down really heavily I was on the radio trying to get the guys to alert the officials to how dangerous it was. At one point I couldn't see where I was going and I had to look out the side windows to get a reference off the walls.I don't think the race should have been stopped as the whole circuit wasn't monsoon wet, just the back sections around turns five and six. But the safety car should have come out for a few laps to assess the situation.Our second place was great for me on Saturday. I've had such bad results in Hamilton in the past three years. Now I'm only 21 points behind Rick and 10 in front of Frosty and Garth. It really is game on in this championship now.

But I can't get my mind off New Zealand this weekend (16-17 April 2011) as it's going to be a whole new ball game.Even though we've raced in Hamilton the past two years, this will be like the first time because it's an all-soft tyre weekend. That's practice, qualifying and races on nothing but soft tyres. So all our set-ups from previous years are out the window and we have to start with a clean slate. That should help some teams and should it should hinder others.Luck will play some part, but it will also hinge on the hard work of the engineers who set the cars up in practice and qualifying.The Hamilton circuit is a tight track with a lot of bitumen surface changes so it will be interesting to see how that affects set-up and tyre wear. Hamilton is also notorious for track position. It's like the Winton track; if you have good position you can hold it. Therefore qualifying becomes all important. Start up the front and you have a good chance of holding your position.Passing is usually difficult there, but maybe the soft tyre will change that. The back chicane is a car killer. It's a much tighter chicane than it looks on TV, especially at speed. There is always a high percentage of cars that come through there with panel damage.My scorecard at Hamilton isn't too good. I've qualified in the mid-top 10 and the best race result is a fourth last year. We've had our share of bad luck there. Last year we had a brake caliper come loose and the year before I crashed into everything that I could. Jamie's had great results n Hamilton, but I haven't.This year I'm hoping to come away with some valuable points.

I classify this as one of the hardest races for fitness, mechanical sympathy - because we bash over all the kerbs and chicanes that we can _ and a driver's mental strength.Most drivers get through Saturday pretty much unscathed, everyone's pretty fresh. But then to recover Saturday night, redo it all again Sunday for the same distance, same strategies _ that's when soreness comes in and drivers start to fatigue.So you try to survive Saturday to make sure you're in good shape for Sunday, try not to put the team under too much pressure Saturday night in the sense of repairing cars. You don't want them to be tired going into Sunday's race and fatiguing.So it's definitely a big, big, weekend for team, driver and car.  Generally the one that comes out with a win here goes on to have a pretty successful championship. I don't know why, but it definitely starts the championship off well.It gives the drivers a lot of confidence in surviving a street circuit like this. This one's quite a demanding track, ninety per cent of the corners are blind and it's a very challenging circuit.The car set-up here translates to other V8 Supercar street races and we spent a lot of time at Sydney's Homebush last year trying to perfect a street circuit style of set-up. That'll put us in good setup for this weekend.Adelaide's a tough, bumpy circuit. The driver with good car speed here is one that has confidence that the car will turn, especially in the blind corners but it also needs to ride the kerbs, needs to put its power down well. And you need to try and do all that with the least amount of effort, you want it to come easy so you don't fatigue.It's a softer set-up than for a permanent circuit so the car rides the bumps and makes it easy on your body.  It's a tough weekend and a big team effort, strategy will play a big part this year because of fuel consumption. And if the temperature continues in the high 20s it'll be difficult fitness-wise.There will be six to eight good, competitive cars this weekend - HRT, the FPR cars have shown to be reasonably good around here, Garry Rogers cars have been extremely quick on street circuits, Jamie will be quick and the Stone brothers have got three good, competitive cars.I've won here before a couple of times but it's been a little while.

Vettel repeated Webber's first-day domination by taking his RB7 racer to the top of the times on the second day of the final pre-season test ahead leading up to the Australian Grand Prix.Once again, the Bulls' margin to their nearest challenge was clear and obvious around the Barcelona track, although this time it was Sebastian Buemi of Toro Rosso who best-of-the-rest. McLaren, which was runner-up on day one thanks to Jenson Button, was only fourth as Lewis Hamilton jumped into the action while Ferrari, Mercedes and Williams were back in the pack after starting their track work a day late."The speed looks good as far as  we can judge, but I think we have to wait until after Melbourne - maybe in Malaysia or China - to really see where we are," Vettel said."It was a good day and a good time, although to be honest, it's difficult to say where we are, as the lap times of the teams are all over the place." Buemi was quick in the B-team for Red Bull, although no-one is expecting Toro Rosso to be a serious contender at Albert Park."We showed a reasonable performance level and the team did a very good job in preparing the car so well. Overall, it has been a productive test. Now, we must wait and see if we can make even more progress over the next two days with Jaime driving and then we can see where we really are when we get to Melbourne," said Buemi.The other repeat from Monday's track work was Vitaly Petrov's run to the third-quickest time in his Renault.  "The most important thing was to complete the race distance, which we managed this afternoon. It's the first time I've been able to do consistent long runs and really start understanding the tyres," Petrov said.Ferrari said it was not chasing pace with the 150, as Felipe Massa logged an impressive 101 laps to bed-in some aerodynamic changes since the most-recent test.McLaren had a disrupted day as a hydraulic failure stopped Hamilton in the morning and then his car had an exhaust problem in the afternoon. But the former world champion is not optimistic about Albert Park. "Do I believe I have a car to win the world championship at the moment?"I don't. No," Hamilton said. "It was a bit on-and-off today, it wasn't a great day for us, but in terms of how the car felt there was an improvement with some of the upgrades we have. So that is at least a positive, it's not all negative."From today, the improvements we've had, it's something that can grow to be better, so as long as we keep pushing in the right direction with the development, and the new things we have coming several races down the line, hopefully they will enable us to close the gap and compete for wins."BARCELONA TESTING - Day 21. Sebastian Vettel, Red Bull-Renault, 1:21.8652. Sebastian Buemi, Toro Rosso-Ferrari, 1:22.3963. Vitaly Petrov, Renault, 1:22.6704. Lewis Hamilton, McLaren-Mercedes, 1:22.8885. Felipe Massa, Ferrari, 1:23.3246. Paul di Resta, Force India-Mercedes, 1:24.3347. Kamui Kobayashi, Sauber-Ferrari, 1:24.4368. Nico Rosberg, Mercedes, 1:25.8079. Jarno Trulli, Lotus-Renault, 1:26.09010. Pastor Maldonado, Williams-Cosworth, 1:26.989

In just over two weeks he will become a grand prix driver for a day when he hot laps a McLaren Formula One car at Mount Panorama, Bathurst. Final approvals are through, the cars are set, the date is booked for Tuesday, March 22, and Lowndes said yesterday he is fit and focussed for the F1 challenge."I'm going to live the dream. If I feel good I'll give it a bit of a go," Lowndes said yesterday. "The amazing thing will be driving it over the top of the mountain. It will be so fast."Lowndes will be strapping into a McLaren in a 'changing places' promotion orchestrated by Vodafone, which sponsors both his Commodore team in the V8 Supercar championship and the McLaren team. As part of the deal, former world champion Jenson Button - who drove a Vodafone Commodore at Albert Park last year in a swap with Jamie Whincup - will strap into Lowndes' car."It's actually happening. It's all finalised and going ahead," Lowndes confirmed yesterday. "I cannot imagine the budget for this. It's bigger than Ben Hur. They have to close the track, find all the marshalls, get the two teams organised, everything else."Lowndes is now famous in Australia as a five-time Bathurst 1000 winner and three-time V8 Supercar champion, but there was a time when he was headed to Formula One. He was backed by the late Tom Walkinshaw for a season of open-wheel racing in Europe, driving a Formula 3000 car as team mate to Juan Pablo Montoya, who subsequently raced F1 with Williams and McLaren."That was 1997. It didn't work out," Lowndes said. He knows he is getting a second chance and, even if it's only for a day, he is happy. "The ultimate goal is not to crash it. I didn't make it to racing in Formula One so this is the next-best thing."Lowndes says he is hoping for around 10 laps at Bathurst and plans to push hardest through the two easy 90-degree turns onto and off pit straight. "They are the easy ones to get a feel. If I can get about four laps to find my way, then I'll have a bit of a go.  Across the top I'm expecting it to be pretty exciting."Jenson Button helped drive Craig Lowndes' grand prix dream with his request for Bathurst laps in a V8 Supercar. Button traded places with Jamie Whincup a year ago in the lead-up to the Australian Grand Prix, lapping his Holden Commodore at Albert Park. But he said he really wanted a crack at Mount Panorama. "It was on his wish list. He wanted it to happen," TeamVodafone boss, Roland Dane, said yesterday."We're happy to provide him with one of our Commodores. For us it's about the F1 car at Bathurst but for Jenson it's about ticking one off from his bucket list. Dane said the car will be running on soft-compound tyres to give Button better feel, but there is no plan to attack the lap record. "There won't be any timing. But there is going to be a brilliant viral video at the end of the day," he said.

It was the first event for our new line-up with Dane down the back of the pits and former DJR guy Adrian Burgess up front calling the shots with our race engineers.  The boys have commented that they've now got two voices calling out at them.I think the new line-up went quite well.  Roland is there to see that the team is running at the level he wants and I didn't see him too displeased at the end of the day; bar the race results, of course.  He can be quite vocal at times, but I think Adrian took it all in his stride.Adrian was calm and made good, collective decisions with the engineers. I think he knows just what to do to make it all work.  Three of our team have been over in Germany at the Sachs factory checking out developments in shock absorbers and clutches that we use and distribute.There was my race engineer Jeromy, Adam who works on our suspension and Neil who does our customer cars.  It was helpful having face-to-face meetings with the engineers instead of having to deal with issues via emails and pone.It was also handy for them to be able to explain to their engineers about our unique style of race car with its weight and horespower configuration. It's quite different compared with lightweight European race cars as I found out when I raced the Audi R8 in the Bathurst 12-Hour.  One of the key elements is the Sachs clutch we use.I haven't had any issues with it, but our heavy race cars make it difficult to get them off the line so the clutch has to be tailored to those demands.  I see a recent survey says that more than of all Aussie motorists flash their lights to warn oncoming drivers of radar traps.That's something we see quite often out in the country, usually warning of speed cameras rather than police hand-held radar guns.I don't disagree with the practice, but I don't encourage it either. People who habitually speed should be caught.  But warning people of a camera serves to make drivers more alert and pay attention.I think it's particularly helpful in the country where drivers can lose concentration on a boring stretch of road and not realise they have drifted over the speed limit.I'm taking the family off to the beach for some fishing and a bit of a last-minute vacation before the season starts in earnest in Adelaide later this month.  I'm not much ofa fisherman, but it's going to be the last time I get a chance to relax before a busy year ahead with V8 Supercars and the Australasian Safari.

It certainly wasn't on the pace at Abu Dhabi last weekend.  It caused a lot of confusion and possibly danger when it dribbled along at 40km/h with the field in disarray behind it and cars flying out of the pits at full bore.There has been a lot of talk in the industry about the speed of the safety car and its procedures. We need more than talk. We need to sort this out.From what I can gather Frosty came out in front of the pace car and could have put the whole field a lap down if he'd continued.  However, I think he was taken a bit by surprise that the safety car was beside him and going so slow.Every now and then we have this problem with the safety car getting out of sync with what's going on in pit lane.  With all the pit stops that go on during a safety period, it's often difficult for race control to figure out who's leading the race.So we ended up with all that soap opera about race order and Steve Johnson not letting Jamie in.  It was just another incident in a surprisingly chaotic race meeting on the Yas Marina Circuit.I was a bit excited when I got pole for the first race. It was my first pole since 2009.  It all sort of unravelled from there when I stalled it on the starting line.The track had cooled off from the afternoon and grip had improved.  I used the normal starting procedure, but the soft tyres had so much grip, when I let go of the brake button, it stalled.I ended up seventh for the race, which was all I could salvage after that start and with a car that wasn't quite balanced right.  Jamie and I swapped places for race 2, but it was still an all-TeamVodafone front row.I had a much better start to race two even though I lost a spot to Frosty.  But then the fun and games began.  We were one of the big incidents in the race when I went in too deep under brakes into turn 10 and locked the rear tyres.I turned myself around, lost control and slid into the back of Russell Ingall's car. Unfortunately, his car sustained much heavier damage than mine.I went over and apologised to Russell after the race. Quite obviously he was not too happy as he was having a great run.  It's a little hard to swallow when a crash is not your fault, but we've both been around this game for a long time and agreed it's one of those things that happen every now and then.I apologised and now we'll move on.  We weren't the only incident. There was more carnage in that second race than I've seen in four races at Abu Dhabi.It is amazing that we have a track so wide and smooth with so much run off yet we have so much contact and damage.  In the end, the second race came down to an economy run.We had the best pace of the field, but Courtney had the better fuel strategy.  You can't discount Courtney in the series, but that win was more about strategy than car and tyres. The real standouts from the weekend for me were Alex Davison and Tim Slade.  Keep an eye on these guys this year.Abu Dhabi was the first event for our new line-up with team principal Roland Dane down the back of the pits and Adrian Burgess up front calling the shots with our race engineers.  The boys have commented that they've now got two voices calling out at them.I think the new line-up went quite well.  Roland is there to see that the team is running at the level he wants and I didn't see him too displeased at the end of the day; bar the race results, of course.He can be quite vocal at times, but I think Adrian took it all in his stride.  Adrian was calm and made good, collective decisions with the engineers. I think he knows just what to do to make it all work.At the end of the weekend, we can come away with a lot of positives.  We had the front row of the grid in both races, had a lot of car speed and had some good strategies.  It was just a shame we couldn't completely capitalise on our strengths.We've now got a five-week break before the Clipsal 500 in Adelaide, but I'll be back racing again this weekend.  No, it's not another safari or enduro; I'm racing go-karts in Toowoomba to raise money for flood relief.Like most racers, I started in karts and I always love to get back into them, plus it's for a really good cause.

Obviously I was very happy beating Skaifey's 1999 record by about half a second and coming out first thing with a car that still has plenty of speed from last year. But that was Eastern Creek and we don't race there, so a lot of the set-up work could be wasted and things we learnt may not be able to be applied to other tracks.We believed a base set-up in the car would work, which proved to be 95 per cent right, but there are always areas you can improve.My race engineer, Jeromy Moore, and I are working as good as ever and it looks like the changes of personnel in the team such as my new number one mechanic, Nick from DJR, are also working well.On the other side of the garage, Jamie (Whincup) was a bit disappointed with his car speed, finishing up 12th in the times. Even further back was James Courtney but that's no surprise. It'll take time for him and Will Davison to settle into their new teams, but they will still be forces to reckon with this year.The new concept of a mandatory pre-season test day was an outstanding success with a big crowd turning out. Not sure of the crowd numbers, but it's a lot more than footy teams get along for practice.We've struggled in recent years to get a fan base for Eastern Creek race meetings. While it doesn't look like we'll be returning for races anytime in the future, it was still good to hear that millions of dollars is being invested into the Sydney circuit.Most people know I am a big supporter of circuits for a multitude of uses, especially driver training. Eastern Creek is going to get a lot more facilities as well as four different tracks on two independent circuits. That's fantastic news for driver education and road safety.Eastern Creek is a fantastic facility and it's in the right place, especially since Sydney lost Oran Park.I hear that the boss of Subaru in Australia has claimed motorsport in Australia is irrelevant to our market and of no interest to youth. While there's always room for new motorsport categories, I disagree that V8s are irrelevant. The category has established itself over many years as an iconic series, not just something representative of what motorists are driving.You can invent a new category but you can't invent history and that's what V8s has in spades. And if you look at our fan base our demographic covers a huge age range. I'm sure Subaru would be happy to be a part of it if the company can come up with a vehicle to race when we introduce the car of the future.My immediate future is driving the Audi R8 in the Bathurst 12-Hour this weekend. I'm not nervous about it, even though it's a completely new team and the first time I've driven a race car with paddle shifts, ABS, stability control, left-hand drive and indicators.I had Audi Sport Team Joest email me the cockpit layout, switches and controls and I've been studying them. The first thing I have to do is learn the car, the team and most importantly figure out what I'll do about ABS and stability control. I'll have to get my head around how they work and how sensitive they are, but I'll probably start by turning them off.Some people have asked how I'm able to drive an Audi, but they don't realise I'm not contracted to Holden. I'm contracted to Triple 8, so there are no issues. It's actually the first time in my career I've had no direct connection with a manufacturer.I don't know whether this will lead to anything with Audi, but I do hope it leads to competing in the Le Mans 24-Hour race. The June race doesn't clash with any V8 round, so there's always a chance for this year. I'd love to think that if not this year then definitely next year.There has been a lot of talk about selling off half of the V8 Supercars Australia. It's an interesting move and I'll keep a close eye on how it develops. While there is a real danger of it being sold to foreign interests, HRT, FPR and Triple 8 are all foreign owned and that hasn't done any damage to the series.

... according to Subaru Australia managing director Nick Senior.  "Australian motorsport is at its lowest ebb," the passionate rally fan and former co-driver said at the launch in Canberra yesterday of the new Forester line-up that includes a "performance" S-Edition."We are riding on (Mark) Webber's wave of success alone.  V8 Supercars largely disenfranchises the majority of automotive companies and ARC (Australian Rally Championship) is a pale imitation of previous years."Subaru pulled out of world and Australian rally competition in the past few seasons, citing a lack of TV coverage, promotion and audience interest."There are a lot of other car companies with a rich motorsport heritage but with no outlet to go motor racing," he said.Senior called on the Confederation of Australian Motor Sport to chair a forum to discuss developing a new racing category with more representation of the automotive industry and audience interests.He pointed out that the compact SUV category had grown bigger than the large car segment which was the sold category represented by V8 Supercar racing."We need a wider participation rate that encourages the younger audience and gets them away from playing their PlayStation games," he said.  Motorsport is a cottage industry that has a big role to play in the economy because it's labour intensive and takes at-risk kids off the streets."Senior said he would like to see a wide range of vehicles competing at signature events such as the Bathurst 1000 and had planned to launch the Forester S-Edition at this weekend's Bathurst 12-Hour race."But it would have been swamped in the only category it would have been eligible to run in," he said.  "We have no motorsport channel to display products like these.  I'd like to see 60 cars running down Conrod Straight at Bathurst like we used to in the olds days.  Now that would be a sight to see."I'd like to see a new category that is inexpensive with a broad range of vehicles, even compact SUVs.  There is a lot of diversity in cars in the market but we are not representing them in motorsport."Senior also took aim at the state of global motorsport.  "It needs a rethink," he said."There is not one Japanese, Korean or Chinese manufacturer in Formula One or WRC, yet Asia is the fastest emerging market in the world."