APRIL 10, 2007

Action here and there

Will Power drove to his first Champ Car victory at the weekend on the streets of Las Vegas. The 26-year-old Australian was on pole and despite a bad start was able to get back into the lead to win for Derrick Walker's Team Australia, ahead of rookie Robert Doornbos (Team Minardi USA) and Paul Tracy (Forsythe Racing). Early in the race Tracy was the chief challenger as the series shuffled the pack as everyone got used to using the new Panoz DP01 chassis. Reliability was an important issue with several drivers suffering teething trouble with the new cars. Justin Wilson went out with a gearbox failure while Newman Haas Lanigan racing had a horrible weekend with Graham Rahal taken out in a crash at the beginning of the race and Sebastien Bourdais ending his race in the wall. All this meant that Alex Tagliani was able to finihs fourth in his RSport entry ahead of Frenchman Tristan Gommendy (PKV) and Katherine Legge (Dale Coyne Racing). Everyone else was lapped and only 11 cars made it to the flag.

The Toyota Atlantic race ended in a victory for Brazil's Raphael Matos.

In Nashville Carl Edwards gave Rouswh Racing another NASCAZR Busch series win for Ford but it was significant that second, third and fourth places all went to Toyotas with David Reutimann (Michael Waltrip Racing) second, Dave Blaney (Greg Pollex) third and Jason Leffler (Braun Racing). This is a good sign given that the Japanese car maker has been struggling in the Nextel Cup.

The British Formula 3 season kicked off at Oulton Park with victories going to Carlin's Maro Engel in his Dallara-Mercedes ahead of Hitech Racing''s Marko Asmer in a similar car. Raikkonen Robertson's Stephen Jelley was third ahead of Carlin's Sam Bird next. In the second race, which was disrupted by accidents Mercedes-engined Dallaras filled the top eight places with Asmer winning from Jelley and Fortec's Sebastian Hohenthal.

Incidentally, former F1 team boss Eddie Jordan and veteran engineer Frank Dernie are both involved in F3 this year helping young British racer Alex Waters to make progress in his career. Waters is racing this year with the Promatecme team in the national class with Dernie looking after his car while Jordan is helping with commercial matters. Waters is helping raise money for cancer charity CLIC Sargent, of which Eddie Jordan in the patron. Waters, a former cancer sufferer, has been given the all-clear by doctors and now hopes to get to F1.