Yes, well, as the world around us looks increasingly like descending into some sort of dystopian hell, all I can really say is ‘thank goodness we’ve still got motor racing’ to take our minds off…let’s see;
1/ The current epidemic level of the Omicron variant of COVID-19, and
2/ The way we as a nation appear to be now split into pro and anti-mandate sides, with a huge gulf now apparent between the majority of law-abiding citizens (which is what you get when over 96 % of eligible Kiwis have had at least two shots of the anti-COVID-19 vaccine) and a rag-tag bunch of other flotsam & Jetsam ‘represented’ by a couple of hundred deluded protestor/rioters who ended up making such absolute, total dicks of themselves when their makeshift protest ‘camp’ in and around Parliament was finally cleared by Police after a self-styled 23-day ‘occupation.’
3/ Russian President Vladimir Putin’s callous decision to attack and endeavour to annex the sovereign state of Ukraine, a move which included;
4/ The intentional bombing of one of Europe’s largest nuclear power stations, as well as;
5/ Attacks on civilian as well as identifiable military targets, and
6/ Not so thinly veiled threats of using Russia’s vast nuclear weapons arsenal against ‘the west’ if NATO and its allied countries decide to apply even more sanctions on his country…
Sure, our plucky little island paradise is – literally – a world away from any possible fallout (radioactive or otherwise) from Putin’s cynical attack/power-grab on the Ukraine as it is possible to get.
But how can you ignore the pain, the death, and the obvious human suffering when it is beamed into our lounges every night as a staple of both our TV networks’ 6.00pm news bulletins……?
Finally, if that little ‘cocktail of calamity’ is not enough to elevate your heartrate just a tad, closer to home we had whole towns in rural New South Wales more used to the danger from forest fires at this time of the year, literally underwater (Westport-style) thanks to 1 in 100-year floods in the past week.
In fact, ‘to hell in a hand cart’ sounds like a very good way to describe how – I think, anyway – the world as a whole (hole???) is going right now.
So, thank goodness we have motor racing to – even if it is just momentarily – take out minds off the horrors of the real world.
In fact, in the now 20+ years since I first got tangled up ‘professionally’ in banging the drum (i.e., publicising) about our fantastic sport I can’t remember a week in which so much positive either happened or was announced.
For the purposes of this particular ‘spin’ on things, we head to St Petersburg on Florida’s lesser-known western coast (which borders the Gulf of Mexico rather than the North Atlantic like Miami, Daytona Beach etc. etc. and the traditional late winter!!!! opening round of the United States’ IndyCar series.
For most of those 20 years this time of year has always been dominated by talk of how a certain Scott Ronald Dixon would ‘go.’
Last year that chat expanded to allow local and Aussie fans to consider the prospects of three-time Supercars’ champion and Bathurst 1000 race winner Scott McLaughlin.
And this year we also had to factor in – let’s see – third-generation Kiwi/Aussie Hunter McElrea in a Giltrap Group-backed Andretti Autosport-run car in the Indy Lights class, and not one but two former Kiwi kart champions, Billy Frazer from Pukekohe, and Jacob Douglas from Christchurch, competing in the main Road to Indy Presented by Cooper Tires FF2000 category.
That’s not only five Kiwis competing at the meeting but five ready, funded, and able to win – which IMHO (In My Humble Opinion) is the best bit.
Two of those five – Scott McLaughlin and Hunter McElrea – started their races from pole position, one – Scotty McL – went on to win his first race in his particular category, another – Billy Frazer – ended up qualifying sixth and on the podium (second place) in his first Cooper Tires USF2000 race of the season, then sixth in the second category race to leave ‘St Pete’ in second place (out of 19 starters) in the 2022 series points standings.
It was a mixed bag of results for the other Kiwis competing, but as they say; ‘you get that on the big jobs.’ Scott Dixon, for instance, started the big race (the IndyCar one) from P7 and ended up crossing the finish line in P8.
Little has been said about Scott’s race run, particularly in comparison to the second place-with-a-bullet of Ganassi Racing teammate – and defending 2021 IndyCar Series champion – Alex Palou. But trust me, I wouldn’t be writing the now 40-year-old’s chances off quite yet.
Afterall, he was second only to compatriot McLaughlin in terms of laps led at St Pete’s (24 cfm 46) and was more a victim of circumstance than anything else.
Hunter McElrea, meanwhile, made the most of his first Indy Light Series pole, establishing an early race lead of a good three seconds only to clout the concrete wall exiting the final corner on lap 11.
A bitter pill to swallow, no doubt, but at least he didn’t run out of fuel while in what looked like a race-winning position on the final lap like Andretti Autosport teammate Christian Rasmussen, handing the win to series returnee Matt Brabham…
Young gun Jacob Douglas, meanwhile, making his series debut in the Cooper Tire US Formula 2000 category, found himself with a lot to process and – as one of only five true rookies in the now packed (18 strong) field – admitted he was off the back foot from the start.
In saying that, Douglas qualified for his first race in the category 13th and finished 11th before a dnf in the second race after contact with a prone car involved in a huge multi-car crash halfway through.
Meanwhile, in the Middle East, Kiwis Liam Lawson and Marcus Armstrong were participating in the key first FIA Formula 2 series test of the season the very same weekend at the Sakhir circuit in Bahrain.
Though it was his fellow Red Bull Junior, India’s Jehan Daruvala who was quickest on the first day of testing (with a best lap of 1m42.074), and Brazilian Felipe Drugovich who topped the time sheets on the shortened third and final day (with a best time of 1m44.911) of testing, it was ‘Our Liam’ who was quickest of them all (1m41.623), setting the best lap of the three day test on the second day.
The result bodes very well for Lawson who this season will be run by the UK-based Carlin team.
Fellow Kiwi Marcus Armstrong, who this year will be running with Lawson’s old team, Hitech Grand Prix, was never far behind, stopping the clocks with the seventh quickest lap time on the first day of testing (Lawson was P4) before he clipped the barriers at Turn 8 early in the afternoon session on the second day.
If you think that Liam Lawson has the potential to go ‘all the way’ to F1, you’re going to love the next piece in the puzzle…14-year-old Christchurch ace Louis Sharp literally being plucked out of the South Island Formula Ford championship and placed on an aeroplane to the UK where he will kick off a campaign in the Rokit British Formula 4 championship with the crack British-based Carlin Motorsport squad.
Key to his fast track to the UK is the involvement in Sharp’s career of the management group backing Liam Lawson, including South Island-based Australasian computer industry mover and shaker, and track-day car manufacturer David Dicker of NZ/UK-based company Rodin Cars.
With Lawson already guaranteed an F1 rookie driver test spot with the Red Bull-aligned Alpha Tauri team this season there is now an obvious ‘pathway’ from domestic racing here to pro racing in the US and now Europe.
The talent is still there…as is the desire and now the wherewithal.
Not just for what I will call ‘grip’ events either.
Late last month, for instance, reigning Valvoline D1NZ National Drifting champion Darren Kelly confirmed long-rumoured plans to head to the United States this year to contest the full 2022 US Formula Drift series in his Heart of Racing-backed RB3.4-powered Nissan GT-R35.
Then just last week I read (here on Talk Motorsport, of course!) about former WRC works Hyundai driver and rally winner Hayden Paddon’s ambitious two-year plan to return to the ‘world stage’ via the WRC2 class in a locally fettled and run Hyundai 120N rally car.
Finally, I spent much of the past weekend with my eyes pretty much glued to the Fast Company laptop watching and re-watching the ‘cut-for-YouTube’ clips of the opening round of this year’s Repco Supercars championship from Eastern Cr….er…Sydney Motorsport Park.
The obvious ‘take’ from the round is that it is not just south-eastern Queensland and northern and central New South Wales that are suffering from the effects of unprecedented rain… far-western Sydney was greener than I can ever remember seeing it – either in person or via a TV or computer screen…cue commentator Neil Crompton’s gag about rice paddies lining the circuit.
The other obvious ‘take’ from the meeting was the value of having a driver of the calibre of Shane Robert van Gisbergen on your team.
Honestly, I have absolutely no idea what new Triple 8 team boss Jamie Whincup is paying him but seriously, it can’t be enough.
Despite all the changes that have gone on with his team over the past six months, Shane has simply stuck to what he does – and knows – best, which is ringing the living daylights out of the car he has underneath him. Oh, and playing (to win…it is always to win!) subtle little mind games with his fellow drivers.
The result was a typical SVG Masterclass; in the first race of the weekend on Saturday night, which he won going away; thanks in part to a canny three-stop race strategy from Shane’s new race engineer Andrew Edwards, and in the second (race) on Sunday, when he started from P21 on the grid and at one stage was at least a lap and a half down before working his way back up through the field to cross the finish line in 6th place.
Remarkable…and though Walkinshaw Andretti United driver Chaz Mostert now leads the 2022 championship points standings from DJR Shell V Power Racing Ford ace Anton De Pasquale with SVG back in third place, long-time rival Mostert says the latter remains ‘the man to beat’ to the 2022 crown.
“He was a bad day and somehow makes it back to sixth? We had two clean races this weekend…. (yet) he doesn’t have a bad day when it looks like he’s having a bad day!”
Speaking of which Shane also got some valuable practise in at Sydney Motorsport Park for his next extracurricular excursion next month – driving a pukka Skoda rally car (main picture) in the Netier National Capital Rally, the opening round of this year’s RSEA Australian Rally Championship in Canberra.
The local (Aussie) press got their first look at the car in its Red Bull livery yesterday (Monday March 07) and SVG will get his first opportunity to ‘see what she’ll do,’ at the ARC’s annual test and rune day at Canberra today (Tuesday March 08).
Like most Talk Motorsport readers, I’ll be following SVG’s foray onto Aussie gravel with a great deal of interest….as I will all the other Kiwis competing in Europe, the US and Australia this year.
If nothing else, it will at least keep mind constantly churning away with the daily COVID-19 numbers in our community. Or the death toll in the Ukraine…………
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