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TGTC Round 2
at Lopburi
The second round of the Thailand Grand
Touring Car championships will be held at Lopburi this weekend
on a circuit laid out on the airstrip. The racing starts at 10
a.m. on the Sunday with the Sport Challenge cars (Concept I)
followed by the touring cars Group N and Class C. There will
be a pit walk at noon so you can get close to the cars and
drivers too. Great photo opportunities. After lunch there are
more touring cars and then the Sport Grand Champion cars with
two races back to back with a short re-fuelling break in
between. If you need further details you can contact AIM
Racing Project (the promoters) on 02 940 6600.
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European
GP this weekend too
The Euro GP is being held at Nurburgring
(the new one) this weekend. Viewing time in Thailand should be
7 p.m. as usual (not the midnight of the Canadian round) so it
will be easy to come and join me at Shenanigans in front of
the new big screen. The Ferrari dominance is not as strong as
it was - BMW Williams on pole for the last two GP’s and
McLaren on the podium twice in the last two GP’s as well.
BMW and McLaren (Mercedes) will be anxious to do well in front
of a very partisan German audience, so expect a cracker of a
race.
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What did we learn from the
Canadian GP?
Well first off, the Ferrari team
deserved their 150th GP victory. That is quite some
record. It was almost a Ferrari 1-2 as well, if Rooby Baby
had been able to pressurise David Coulthard a bit more.
 Start
of the Canadian Gran Prix, courtesy of pitpass.com and
Bothwell Photographics
For seconds, if I hear those two Star
Sports bletherers rabbit on any more about what a great
job Jacques Villeneuve is doing, I think I’ll puke. I
still say he is a barger and that’s all. He won his
world championship in what was at the time the most
superior car, so much so that blind Freddie could have got
the title. Since then he’s been nowhere.
What about Takuma Sato in the Jordan?
He may have been the ace in F3 last year, but he has not
made the transition to F1 as well as Jenson Button did a
couple of years ago, or Kimi Raikkonen last year - or for
that matter, Felipe Massa (Sauber) this year. I refuse to
comment on Alex Yoong, other than the fact that he was two
seconds slower than his team mate Mark Webber in
Qualifying. Need I say more?
BMW Williams have a very fast package
in Montoya, but I still feel he is something of a car
breaker. His finishing record compared to little Schumi is
not good. He is obviously quicker than Ralf, but at the
expense of the engine perhaps?
| Autotrivia
Quiz
Last week I asked you to have a look
at this photograph (above).
This car was rear engined and had a
3.4 litre V8. 20 were built before the Italian
government pulled the plug. The answer was the Tipo 8C
Isotta-Fraschini Monterosa of 1947.
So to this week and study this
drawing (below). This car was called the Lotus Eminence
and it was to be produced in 1985/86. It was to be the
ultimate “presidential” executive style car, high
performance and stylish. It was never built. Why was it
canned, even though Lotus received many orders for it?
For the Automania FREE beer this
week, be the first correct answer to fax 427 596 or
email [email protected]
Good luck!
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Seen on the UK Scene
I have just recently returned from a quick
trip to the UK after 5 years. It was interesting to see the
changes in the vehicle distribution in that time. A drive
through Devon and you’d think you were in Provence. More
than half the cars on the road are now French! And what a
great looking bunch of cars they are too. The new Citroens and
Peugeots in particular.
 MG
The British cars are dominated by the Ford
Focus varieties and the new Mondeo looks very good, like a
slightly larger Focus featuring Ford’s “Edge” styling
theme. After that, it is the new Rover sedan (designed by BMW)
which is showing up in increasing numbers. There is a more
powerful MG variant of this car too, but I believe the Rover
version is much nicer looking.
 Cooper
Another vehicle that was seen in reasonably
large numbers was the new Mini, with the Cooper version very
popular. (Actually, I am unsure as to whether we call this a
“British” car or a German one, since BMW make the things.)
Germans (VW, BMW, M-B) and Spanish (SEAT)
make up the bulk of what is left.
 Speed
camera
Despite all their economic woes (try eating
in that country if you want to see how expensive it is - I
took my family for a Thai dinner and it cost 9,000 baht!) most
of the vehicles are new. Old bangers are very rare these days,
though I did see one 3 wheeler Reliant.
Speeding is a thing of the past in the UK
too. There are so many speed cameras that you can do your
license in driving 3 miles! That’s no exaggeration.
| Eddie (the
mouth) Irvine is talking himself out of a job
Poor “Fast Eddie” as he used to
be known, is now languishing down the bottom end of the
grid dicing with Minardi’s in his Jaguar F1. As the
highest paid employee of Ford Motor Co, he realises that
he might be a bit like the pork chop at the Jewish
picnic. He’s no dunce, despite some of the things that
come out from his mouth.
He was reported on the pitpass.com
website as saying, “If I thought I was going to have
another season like this I wouldn’t continue,” Eddie
told Reuters. “There’s no point. It just depresses
me so I’d rather not. It’s better to walk away but I
don’t think we can ever come up with a car this bad
again. Really it was Ground Zero at the beginning of
this year, when Bobby Rahal’s R3 came out. It’s not
a very nice feeling. I never dreamt I’d have raced
Minardis in my F1 career. It’s switch off until the
new car comes.”
 Eddie
Irvine
Although Irvine has a reputation for
being interested in money the 36 year old insists that
it is not what motivates him, and says that all he wants
is to enjoy racing again. “F1 is what makes me smile
and makes me depressed,” he continued. “If I lose
money on a stock I don’t really care so much. If I
make money it’s nice but if I have a good result I’m
happy for two weeks. That’s my motivating factor for
sure. I want to have the best car I can have. That’s
all that interests me really. The money’s not the
issue. I just want to have the most competitive car I
can get. I don’t need the money, I’ve made plenty in
F1 and outside F1 so that part’s a game. Results are
what is serious.”
I particularly like the way he has a
swipe at Bobby Rahal, the man who wanted to get rid of
Eddie last year! Ah well, tit for tat I suppose. He is
probably correct when he says the money is not the be
all and end all - I believe he is getting something in
the vicinity of 15 million dollars a year from FoMoCo.
Even Eddie can’t spend all that in one year. However,
don’t expect to see Eddie awearin’ the green next
season!
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Noble drive
nobbled by Queen Elizabeth
When in the UK I had teed up the chance of
going for a fang in the Noble M12 GTO, the new British
Supercar. What I hadn’t remembered was the Queen’s 50th
Jubilee celebrations and the whole country shut down for 4
days. Not only that there were 30 mile tailbacks on the
motorways. Pity, the thing does 0-100 kph in a smidgin over 4
seconds! Quicker than the BMW M3, for example.
| Fiat
in a bit of bother
CEO Giancarlo Boschetti has admitted
that Fiat Auto’s situation “is damn difficult.”
He’s not wrong with 2002 profit and loss ending up in
the red side of the ledger again.
Boschetti said that Fiat Auto should
return to profitability by 2004. But that will be
difficult as Fiat’s market share is falling fast even
in its home market of Italy. Boschetti said he expects
Italian sales to drop 15.6 percent this year, much
steeper than previously predicted.
The new CEO’s “back-to-basics”
plan to save Fiat Auto includes cutting expenses by
about $521 million, by year end. Fiat Auto also said
that it will lay off 1,800 workers, plus 600 in external
service companies, cutting its Italian work force by 7
percent. That is a big slash.
Fiat Auto’s loss in 2001 was $506
million, but in the first quarter of this year Fiat Auto
lost $395 million on an operating basis. Boschetti vowed
to achieve longer term savings from the joint-vehicle
projects with GM, which owns 20 percent of Fiat Auto.
The plan is that by 2005-2006, 50% of Fiat vehicles will
be based on common platforms with GM.
With the General heavily invested in
Daewoo, another loss maker, and Fiat also in trouble,
this has to reflect adversely on GM’s profitability I
feel.
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