Albert Park Grand Prix

[colcol]

  Greetings all, at the G.P. this year they have a old Touring car class for group c and group a combined, in the group a class, they have Hugh Harrison from Monza Motors driving the old Colin Bond group a Ignis car, this was first raced in 1985 by Colin Boond at the opening round at Winton, it has the original 2500cc V-6 motor, Hugh qualified at the back third of the pack, but made his way through in the race passing i reckon about 10 other cars when they run out of brakes, tyres and driving talent, the cars he passed included Toranas, Commodores and a Volvo, from where i was there was about 10 good drivers in the field, the ones that stood out were Jim Richards [BMW], Mike Roddy [Jaguar] and Hugh Harrison [Alfa Romeo], the rest of the drivers seemed to be out on a Sunday drive, it was though great to see the old touring cars go round.
  Other things to note, the Formula 1 was good with the new rules banning blown exhausts, have made the competition more even with the Torro Rosso's and Force India's, being right up the pointy end, where Ferrari's were nowhere, and to all you 156 JTS owners you will be pleased to know Formula 1 cars have some of the features found in your engines, they use 6-8 litres of oil every 2 hours, or 1 race.
  Mark Larkham who is on the V-8 commentary team is now doing the Formula 1 reports from the pits, with Louise Goodman, and he is as happy as a dog with 2 bones, along with Bob Constandurouss? and Neil Crompton, [the worlds greatest motorsport commentator], the descriptions of the events is first class.

[colcol]

  The Redbull challenge or whatever it is called this year is still the same waste of time it was last year, with the drivers just driving round in formation swapping places like its some sort of race, which it isn't, just another way of selling more energy drinks, like i am sure if was a real race, V-8  Supercar driver Rick Kelly would wipe the floor with all the others.
  Thankfully this year there is no celebrity race, which is a cronic waste of time, but seems to interest people who have no interest in Motorsport, as they can see their favourite pop star or actor or washed up footballer drive, the only interest i had in it, was hoping that my least favourite 'star' would bite the concrete barrier, and also last year it was good seeing the Toyota's get smashed up.
  The Porcshe race was good with former Formula driver Hans Harald Frenzen driving very well and ending up 4th, proving how good you have to be to be a Formula1 driver, and how good he still is, Colin.
 

[aggie57]

Great effort by Grosjean and Schumacher to ping 3rd and 4th respectively. The Mercs looked on the pace all day but the Lotus was a bit of a surprise.

Alonso threw the Ferrari away in front of us and was not a happy fella.....

[Evan Bottcher]

  ...like i am sure if was a real race, V-8  Supercar driver Rick Kelly would wipe the floor with all the others.

I'm going to bet that David Coulthard would be out there in front...

  The Porcshe race was good with former Formula driver Hans Harald Frenzen driving very well and ending up 4th, proving how good you have to be to be a Formula1 driver, and how good he still is, Colin.
 

Totally agreed the Porsche race was awesome today, it's probably my favourite series running today and receives far less attention than it should.  It's great to wander through the pits afterwards and ogle the cars up close walk up and almost touch them.  Massive wheels, brakes, great detail in paint and bodywork.  Sheldon was stoked to see the kiwis in front today, with the 16 year old Andre Heimgartner well up in the field.  Very exciting to watch.

[colcol]

You were right Evan and i was wrong, David Coulthard won the parade laps, they must have worked it out it was he's turn, about as real as pro-wrestling, Colin.

[vin sharp]

Great to see Aroca connection Daniel Ricciardo do so well in qualifying and, in the end after a pretty miserable first lap incident, quite a respectable finish, beating his team mate on both occasions.
Daniel's father Joe is a long time member and supporter of Aroca WA and also owned and raced the ex-Mildren GTA 1600 in the 80's. It was spending time at the track with Joe when young that sowed the motor racing seed for Daniel.
After not seeing him for several years, Joe made the time to come over and say hello at Philip Island Classic and is about the most grounded and down to earth father of an F1 driver you could ever wish to meet.
No wonder Daniel appears to be pretty easy going and relaxed about the whole thing. No great pressure or expectations from Joe, just the family support and wishes that Daniel enjoys the fantastic opportunity he has worked towards and achieved.
We passed on best wishes to Daniel and family on behalf of the AROCA membership, and reminded him to keep in mind where the spark started; with an Alfa GTA!  

[Neil Choi]

So Vin, now that the prerequisite is defined, there is still hope for those who owns and race a GTA then.

Good luck Branita.

[aggie57]

Indeed, a great race by young Daniel and a real indication of how well he did last year in what was clearly a very uncompetitive chassis. 

But what a great race overall despite Button dominating throughout.  Alonso managed to pull that pig of a Ferrari up into a decent result (Massa could hardly keep it on the road at times) and Schumacher went some way to showing that he's still very competitive when given the same machinery as the top teams.  Shame about Grosjean going out so early.  It would have been good to see how he fared over a full race distance.