By Roger McCleery
GLOBAL MOTORSPORT OVERVIEW
Chapters close
in Formula 1
Never mind the racing, it’s the notable departures from
Formula 1 that have made the headlines recently.
A
fter 23 years
heading up
Ferrari, Luca
Cordero di Montezemolo
(67), previously CEO of
Fiat, has been fired by
the current CEO of Fiat,
Sergio Marchionne.
Moving to the World
Rally Championship
and Volkswagen needs
to be congratulated
on what they have
achieved this year.
Frenchman Sebastian
Ogier and Jari-Matti
Latvala from Finland
and Mikkelson, the
Norwegian, have taken
their VW Polo R’s to
1, 2 and 3 in the title
race.
It is rumoured that
tension between the two
stemmed from Ferrari’s
prolonged poor form on
the track. Off the track,
the two disagreed about
limiting sales of Ferrari to
7 000 units per annum, in
the name of exclusivity.
(I suppose the new Fiat
CEO wants to take on
Porsche and Lamborghini
at 150 000 units).
Ford’s Mikko Hirvonen
is 4th at the moment in
his Fiesta with Neuville,
➲ Ferrari’s woeful on-track performances in F1 have had off-track consequences
Hyundai’s Belgian ace,
set to take 5th spot in
the Korean car in its first year of WRC.
Meanwhile, Ross Brawn, the brains
behind Benetton, Ferrari and Honda’s
Back at home, multi-talented Leeroy
The big boss also took exception to
F1 team successes with Michael
Poulter and his navigator Elvene Coetzee
Montezemolo saying he will run Ferrari
Schumacher, South African Rory Byrne
(Castrol Toyota Yaris) are still looking
for the next three years. “Nobody is
and Jensen Button respectively, has
good for the 2014 South African Rally
indispensable,” says Sergio, despite the
turned down offers from leading teams to
Championship. It was also great to see
fact that Montezemolo headed up Ferrari
return to the sport.
Chris Visser (Ford Ranger) who seriously
during its greatest years of Formula 1
injured his back in a crash in the Dakar,
If he does return, it will be on his terms
success, and helped lift Ferrari’s share
recover to win the Vryburg 450 Donaldson
as he is enjoying the peace at the
price - due to limited production - into the
Cross-Country race with his regular
moment.
zillions.
navigator Japie Badenhorst.
Montezemolo, it has been said, could go
Best motorsport on TV bar none has got
on to head up the Italian Airline, Alitalia
to be Moto GP. This despite the fact that
that we don’t see in South African skies
only three riders have won races this
these days.
Now to see if South African
season: Spaniards Mark Marques (11
The other significant departure from
Formula 1 is Adrian Newey, one of
the greatest Formula 1 designers of
our time. Apparently, he can’t handle
the restrictions the sport has recently
imposed, which he believes limits
designer’s ingenuity.
“The only thing left is to paint all the cars
white, take the stickers off and they will
all look and go the same as the restrictive
FIA rules dictate,” he is quoted as
saying.
times) and Dani Pedrosa on their Hondas,
whilst veteran Valentino Rossi (Yamaha)
is the most recent winner not on a Honda
to stand on the top step of the podium,
doing so at his home race at Misano.
What a welcome difference it is to see
the sheer joy of the riders on the podium
compared to the miserable mob that have
adorned the F1 podium this year…Daniel
Ricciardo is a notable W