V8 Supercars Australia announced on Thursday this year’s round at the Ipswich circuit, just south of Brisbane, had been cancelled after an agreement between them and the racetrack’s administrators could not be reached.

And that decision could yet have a profound impact on almost half the teams in the category, who use the track as a testing location.

Among those teams are competition heavyweights Triple Eight Race Engineering (Craig Lowndes/Jamie Whincup), Ford giants Stone Brothers Racing and Dick Johnson Racing and Russell Ingall’s Paul Morris Motorsport team.

Ingall, the 2005 V8 driver’s champion and a two-time Bathurst 1000 winner, said the potential loss of Queensland Raceway as a practice venue could be devastating to his team.

“The implications of the cancelled round is far more than simply not having a race there,” Ingall told motorsport website SpeedCafe.

“Whether it will still be our test track, I’m not sure. QR is of massive importance to our team. It’s definitely not a good thing.

“If it still does remain our test track, we lose the advantage of having a home round where we test at. It gives the teams that test at Winton a huge advantage.”

Among those teams which test at Winton in Victoria are Holden Racing Team and Ford Performance Racing.

Ingall says using his four permitted test days in Winton was highly unlikely due to the increased costs involved in transporting everything nearly 2000km south.

“It adds a reasonable amount onto the race budget that hasn’t been factored in,” he said.

“There’s a lot of things that haven’t been thought about before the axe has fallen on this.

“The testing factor is one of the biggest things. I don’t think the fall-out of this has been totally realised.”

No replacement round is being sought to fill the gap in the 2010 V8 Supercars calendar, which will now feature 15 events this year.

V8 Supercars has held at least one race at Queensland Raceway since 1999.
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Kimi Raikkonen is to switch from Formula One to the World Rally Championship for next season. It has long been speculated the 2007 world champion would turn his attention to rallying after leaving Ferrari at the end of the recent F1 campaign.

Raikkonen had hoped to return to McLaren, only for his apparent pay demands to scupper the move, resulting in the Woking-based marque instead signing reigning world champion Jenson Button.

With no other competitive drive on the horizon, Raikkonen’s quest for new challenges means he will compete in 12 of the 13 rounds of the 2010 WRC, the only omission being New Zealand. The Finn will drive for the Citroën Junior Team, joining reigning Junior WRC champion Sébastien Ogier in the Red Bull-backed squad.

“I always wanted to compete in rally, especially in the World Rally Championship at some point,” said Raikkonen, who this year impressed on his rally debut in a WRC event in Finland driving an S2000 Abarth.

“Thanks to Red Bull, I have the opportunity to drive the best car of the series with the Citroën C4. This is a very exciting challenge. I’m really looking forward to testing the car and taking it to the start of the first rally.”

Raikkonen has signed a one-year contract, leaving the door open for a return to F1 in 2011 providing he can claim a competitive drive, adding: “We will see how it goes for the future.”

Raikkonen joins Citroën’s burgeoning stable of drivers that also includes factory stars in six-time world champion Sébastien Loeb and Dani Sordo.

Olivier Quesnel, the team manager, said: “We will continue to count on Sébastien and Dani to defend our world titles in 2010. We will also be prolonging our association with Sébastien Ogier, who showed outstanding potential this year. Last but not least, it is with immense joy that we welcome Kimi Raikkonen. We are very proud he has chosen Citroën.”

Loeb has won the last six world rally titles and Raikkonen will have one of the most competitive cars in the C4.

The team said Raikkonen’s co-driver will be compatriot Kaj Lindstrom, who partnered the now-retired Tommi Makinen to four successive world titles in the 1990s. Ogier will drive the junior team’s other car; Loeb and Sordo will continue to drive for the main Citroen team.
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Chad Knaus believes he and Jimmie Johnson can continue to add to their championship total for years to come.

But the crew chief first needs a new contract.

Knaus on Wednesday denied an ESPN report that he’s agreed to lead Johnson through 2015, the length of Johnson’s new contract extension with Hendrick Motorsports.

Knaus, who has guided Johnson to four straight titles and 47 victories since 2002, is still working under an extension signed in 2006 that runs through next season.

“We’ve only started very light conversations,” Knaus said. “I don’t have a new contract, and we’ve barely had enough conversation for me to agree to anything.”

Although Knaus said it is his intention to stay with Hendrick Motorsports, “you never know what will happen. There are so many what-ifs.”

Knaus began his NASCAR career with Hendrick in 1993 as an original member of Jeff Gordon’s “Rainbow Warriors” crew. He began as an assistant in the body shop, worked his way into the fabrication department and eventually was put in charge of the body development for Gordon’s car. He was also a tire changer on Gordon’s 1995 and 1997 teams.

Knaus left Hendrick after the 1997 season to try to advance his career, working at Dale Earnhardt Inc. as the car chief for Steve Park, then for Ray Evernham when he left Hendrick to start his own race team. He then spent one season as crew chief for Stacy Compton at Melling Racing.

Knaus returned to Hendrick in 2002 when car owner Rick Hendrick formed Johnson’s new team.
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When will the takeover happen?

It already has. The team will hit the grid next year as Mercedes Grand Prix.

So will the cars look different?

Yes. In Stuttgart yesterday the talk was of a new generation of the famed “Silver Arrows”. So it looks as if the white, black and yellow livery of the Brawn GP cars has already been scrapped, although a new design has yet to be finalised.

They might end up looking a bit like McLarens?

Good point. It seems that McLaren will still be known as McLaren Mercedes for now, despite the loss of their German partner. The McLaren cars will retain their distinctive silver-with-red livery, so the new Brawns — sorry, the new Mercs — are going to have to come up with something a bit different.

What is the ownership structure of the new team?

Well, Mercedes-Benz now owns 75.1 per cent of Brawn GP. This is made up of 45.1 per cent from Daimler, the Mercedes parent company, and 30 per cent from Daimler’s biggest partner, the Abu Dhabi-based Aabar Investments. The remaining holding — 24.9 per cent — will remain with the present shareholders led by Ross Brawn, the biggest shareholder, and four smaller shareholders, among them Nick Fry, the chief executive.

Will the new Mercedes team be championship contenders next season?

It would be foolish to bet against them at this stage. Even before the takeover, Brawn was sounding confident about his new car for 2010 and now he has the finance in place to pursue a full-on campaign. They should be there or thereabouts, alongside Red Bull, McLaren and Ferrari.

Will Jenson Button drive for the new team next year?

The speculation that he may jump ship for McLaren is intensifying but some believe this is a fairly ham-fisted attempt by Button’s management team to try to force more money out of Ross Brawn and that, in the end, Button will shy away from the challenge of Lewis Hamilton and stick with what he knows.

If not Jenson, then who instead?

If Button decides to take the risk against Hamilton, the new team would be led by Nico Rosberg, who is believed to have already signed for 2010. A leading candidate to partner him is Nick Heidfeld, the former BMW Sauber driver.

Who are the losers in all of this?

If Button makes the wrong choice, he could be a big loser. McLaren have lost a big partner and one of only two mass-market car manufacturers left in Formula One (alongside Renault). Although the Woking-based team will still be able to use Mercedes engines until 2015, things will not be quite the same now that the heart of Mercedes will be at the old Brawn.
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NASCAR placed driver AJ Allmendinger on probation Thursday following his arrest early in the morning on a charge of drunken driving.

Mooresville police said Allmendinger failed a field sobriety test after he was pulled over.

Late Thursday afternoon, he was placed on probation until the end of the year for actions detrimental to stock car racing.

Allmendinger, who drives the No. 44 for Richard Petty Motorsports, said in a statement he had drinks with dinner on Wednesday and made a mistake by driving afterward.

“I honestly felt fine, but I obviously should have erred more on the side of caution, particularly given what I do for a living,” Allmendinger said. “It was a bad judgment call and I apologize for that.”

Allmendinger registered 0.08 on the breath test, the police report said. Under North Carolina law, that means his license will be automatically suspended for 30 days.

NASCAR spokesman Ramsey Poston said the sanctioning body does not require a valid driver’s license to compete on the circuit. Under the probation, any type of further infraction, on the track or off it, could lead to a more severe punishment.

“I am deeply disappointed this has happened,” team co-owner Richard Petty said. “AJ has accepted full responsibility for his actions and will work to make this right. On behalf of everyone at Richard Petty Motorsports we sincerely apologize to our fans and partners.”

Allmendinger is a major factor in RPM’s long-range plans, and team officials told The Associated Press that Allmendinger was going to be moved into Petty’s famed No. 43 next season. Best Buy is expected to sponsor the car.

It’s not clear how his arrest may affect that relationship. Petty routinely shunned alcohol sponsorship, and refused to allow his teams to participate in NASCAR’s second-tier series when it was sponsored by Busch.
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There’s No Quit In Bliss

Mike Bliss (No. 11 Ridemakerz Toyota) is not only making the best of what could have been a trying season in the NASCAR Nationwide Series, he is also racking up some style points by doing so.

He’s been in the top 10 in the series points standings throughout the season, but following July’s US Cellular 250 at Iowa Speedway, he was without a full-time ride. At that point, he was sixth in the standings, 14 points out of fifth.

However, that didn’t deter the veteran. In fact, he has more than met his challenge. Since being released from his former team, Bliss has competed with five different organizations in five different cars but still cobbled together starts in the subsequent 10 races, which has kept him in the top 10 in points.

Bliss has run with his current team, CJM Racing, in two of the last four races, placing second in both. He’ll be in the No. 11 this weekend at Memphis Motorsports Park, where he has top-10 finishes in each of his four series races. He’s seventh in the rankings, only nine points behind Steve Wallace (No. 66 5-Hour Energy Chevrolet) for sixth, and 118 behind fifth-place Justin Allgaier (No. 12 Verizon Wireless Dodge). Allgaier is the NASCAR Nationwide Series Raybestos Rookie of the Year standings leader by 18 (226-208) over Brendan Gaughan (No. 62 US Fidelis Chevrolet).