F1 talks Turkey this weekend
Istanbul
circuit
“You can’t go back to Constantinople,
‘coz it’s Istanbul, not Constantinople” went the old
song. So it’s the Istanbul GP, the very first, on a circuit
designed by Hermann Tilke, who has publicly expressed fears
about how it will go. However, Bernie Ecclestone says it is
going to be the best circuit ever, David Coulthard says it
looks nice, and Mark Weber walked the main straight while it
was still dirt.
So you can see, not much hard facts in that
lot! However, what I have gleaned is the following: it is
about 80 km east of Istanbul, Turkey; the circuit is 5.3 km
long and the theoretical top speed should be around 320 kph.
Racing is counter-clockwise, and for much more than that you
will have to watch the TV as I do. The GP should be at 7 p.m.
Thai time, but as always, check your local feed to confirm
this. I will be watching as usual from my perch at Jameson’s
Irish Pub on Soi AR (next to Nova Park), and we watch the
South African feed which has some decent commentators and no
adverts! Join me for a meal and a natter first.
Supercars at
Bira this weekend too
Another race-fest for the fans, as the
Supercar series returns to the Bira circuit this weekend. No
F1 cars, of course, but a spread of different classes, from
modified production cars through Mini’s and even belching
pick-ups.
Mini
in a bra
If it rains there is more mayhem than any
dodgem car circus, as the diesel fuel certainly makes the
track very slippery.
The racing action starts around 10 a.m. on the Sunday, and
it is very cheap to get in. Try getting on top of the hill to
see them braking at the end of the straight, and then coming
up to the next hairpin for some close racing. There is usually
a ‘pit-walk’ as well, where you can cross the circuit at
the start-finish over-bridge during the lunch break.
Porsche
Infineon Carrera Cup Asia going (very) High-Tech
The 2005 series is not even over, with two
rounds to go, and despite local Thai Nattavude clinging on to
the top spot, the news is already slanted towards the 2006
season, which will see the debut of the new 997-based Porsche
911 GT3 Cup cars.
The new Porsche race car will not be
available to private purchasers until 2007, so the 18
earmarked for the Porsche Carrera Cup Asia will be the only
such cars in the region in 2006. In the meantime, the new GT3
show car made its debut at the Shanghai Motor show earlier
this year, and is currently touring the region with a visit to
Hong Kong this month followed by a stop in Beijing for the GP
before travelling to Macau for the Macau GP meeting in
November.
To
show the degree of competitiveness in this class, several
Porsche Infineon Carrera Cup Asia Class A frontrunners have
already secured the new car for next season, including
reigning champions A-Ha Racing (Matthew Marsh), current series
leader China’s SCC Racing Team (Nattavude), and strong 2005
title contender Team Jebsen of Hong Kong. In Class B, for
non-professional racers, series leader Alain Li has booked his
slot on the grid for next year, as have William “Chip”
Connor and Philip Ma. Many others are putting the finishing
touches to their 2006 campaign preparations and are in the
process of confirming their orders. Hopefully one of these is
our own fastest pizza delivery driver, Bill Heinecke.
The new features incorporated in the
997-based Cup car will mean even faster, closer racing than
ever before. The six-speed sequential gearbox makes gear
shifting quicker and more failsafe, while the ABS brakes are
replaced in the new car by tandem racing master cylinders and
an in-car brake bias adjustment control. This feature will
enable racing drivers to brake later and gain maximum braking
effect.
The revised front end aerodynamics will
further improve handling, and the full digital readout data
logging dash (MOTEC) will assist drivers and engineers by
providing more data. In the ultra-competitive world of the
Porsche Infineon Carrera Cup Asia, data logging is critical in
determining where drivers can gain that crucial fraction of a
second.
The United States
Auto industry in deep diabolicals
Has the great US car economy ended up
tripping over itself? It would appear so from the outside.
Despite the much vaunted increase in sales in July, where the
Big Three slashed prices to move the stock, there are still
too many unanswered problems for the US auto industry.
In its lack of hurry to meet the Japanese
invasion, the response was too little too late, closing the
gate after the horse had well and truly bolted. Japan had
arrived in America with better factories, leaner production
methods, and quite frankly, better cars that they could sell
for less than the US domestic products.
Model
T and Henry Ford
However, the US auto industry had by the
1990’s dug itself a hole, out of which it will be lucky to
emerge. With future debts, including employee retirement
packages, about to ravage the coffers even further, and
financial analysts re-classifying GM and Ford stock to
“junk” bond levels, the US auto industry is in deep doggy
doo.
Various attempts have been made to ‘scale
down’ the respective auto manufacturing businesses, and make
them leaner by selling off parts suppliers, which might give
some respite. One of these was the huge Delphi Corporation,
the auto parts maker spun off from GM in 1999, now in urgent
talks to try and fend off Chapter 11 (bankruptcy)
reorganization. This is a company ranked last year as number 1
on the Automotive News list of Top 150 original equipment
North American suppliers with sales of USD 17.60 billion. It
also has 24,000 employees, and also managed last year to rack
up a USD 4.8 billion loss!
The problem for GM is that it cannot let
Delphi go under, as it is the major parts maker for GM. On top
of that, there are certain legalities in the US Labor laws
that would see GM lumbered with Delphi’s 24,000 employees,
and all the pension liabilities as well. So GM needs Delphi to
become profitable again. But how?
Delphi is really stuck between the
proverbial rock and the hard place. It has an agreement with
the United Auto Workers (UAW) which sees it having to pay USD
27.50 per hour for the employees covered by the UAW, when it
could hire non-UAW workers for USD 12 per hour. At USD 27.50
it makes a loss. Simplistically, at USD 12, it just might make
a profit. There is the potential to save 14.8 million baht per
week.
The UAW can also see that it is in trouble
too. Dig in its heels and the house of cards could come
tumbling down, but to publicly agree to its workers receiving
less than the ‘award’ wages goes directly against
everything the union has fought for.
For GM to continue to produce the cars, it
needs Delphi. For Delphi to stay alive, it needs respite from
the UAW. For the UAW to save face, it needs GM as the ‘white
knight’.
Delphi Corp. is in bailout talks with
General Motors and the UAW. Delphi President Rodney O’Neal
confirmed the discussions, saying, “We do have to have the
UAW and GM in cooperation with us to fix the situation because
we need a complete solution and we can only have that with our
two strategic partners being involved.”
GM is not the only one in trouble. There is
Ford as well, the company which under Henry Ford I pioneered
paying over the award rates to ramp up the production of its
Model T Fords. Unfortunately, that kind of thinking has come
back to bite them. The crisis facing Delphi comes less than
three months after the UAW agreed to a restructuring at
Visteon Corp., the former Ford Motor Co. parts-making unit.
Visteon, too, faced a bankruptcy court filing, analysts said,
until Ford agreed to take back control of 17,400 UAW workers
and 24 Visteon plants and locations.
Delphi’s O’Neal said his Delphi bailout
may or may not resemble the Visteon rescue. “It can come in
all different forms and shapes. The key is that it gets fixed.
How it comes about will take dialogue and creativity will
dictate that. I’m not going to speculate on how the
thing’s going to look.”
In the meantime, Delphi is racing against
time to get rid of unprofitable plants and business lines with
its “fix, close or sell” efforts. Whether there will be a
satisfactory outcome to this will greatly affect American car
manufacturing in the future.
Autotrivia Quiz
Last week, I mentioned that there was a
tractor, built in the UK, which shared an engine with two of
the popular sports cars of the day. I asked what were the
names of the sports cars. The engine was the 2 litre four
cylinder Standard engine used in Ferguson tractors, the much
unloved Standard Vanguard, and the sports cars I wanted were
the Triumph TR2 and the Morgan.
So to this week. Let’s get away from
pedestrian motor cars such as the Standard Guardsvan and into
the exotics. And Ferrari in particular. Incidentally I spent
an hour with the Ferrari importers, and he assures me the 800
bhp Enzo Ferrari FXX is not coming to Thailand. Landed here,
the price tag would be around 250 million baht, which means
I’ll never be seeing one in my garage, more’s the pity!
However, for this week’s question, and staying with Ferrari
importers, who was the youngest Ferrari importer in the world,
and where? Clue: he also made exotic cars under his own name.
For the Automania FREE beer this week, be
the first correct answer to email au [email protected]
Good luck!
