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joesaward'sbusinessofmotorsportN E W S , T R E N D S , I D E A S A N D E C O N O M I C A N A LYS I S F RO M T H E M OTO R S P O RT WO R L D

Issue 11.06

February 7 2011Kubica seriously hurt in rallying accidentClouds over Indian Grand PrixMarussia Virgin becomes a Russian teamStewart signs up with GeniiForce India extends deal with McLaren

The GP2 field for 2011Peugeot aims for victory at Le MansConway joins Andretti... and other dealsMouton is the FIA’s woman in the WRCA sign of the times

A Toyota touring car projectWhen your dreams come trueLukoil to fund SEAT team in WTCC

Kubica seriously hurt in rallying accidentLotus Renault GP's ambitious plans for 2011 have taken a major knock with the news from Italy that lead driver Robert Kubica has been seriously injured in a rallying accident.

The 26-year-old Polish driver suffered multiple injuries in a crash in the village of Testico, during the second day of the Rallye Ronde di Andora, which takes place in the hills behind the town of Marina di Andora on the Italian Riviera, not far from the city of Savona.

Kubica was taking part in a special stage at around 08.30 in the morning when he went off in his S2000 Skoda Fabia. The car appears to have hit the end of a metal crash barrier head-on and the impact was of such violence that the barrier went through the engine compartment and into the cockpit area, which would explain why Kubica suffered injuries to the right side of his body, while at the wheel of a left-hand drive car, while his co-driver Jacub Gerber, was unhurt. The car had both of its front doors and the windscreen intact, but there was a hole visible through the engine bay into the footwell. The left rear door of the car was removed, almost certainly by rescuers.

Robert was trapped in the car for more than an hour, while the local fire brigade rushed mechanical cutters to the scene of the accident. He was then flown in a Vigili del Fuoco (fire service) helicopter to the Emergency Department of the Santa Corona Hospital in Pietra Ligure, on the coast, where surgeons went to work on his hand, which was badly crushed in the accident. The bone structure was repaired and the surgeons then attempted to restore the muscle functionality. Kubica has multiple fractures of his arm, leg and hand.

The accident is a big shock of the Lotus Renault GP team, which was relying on Kubica this year, having decided to re-sign newcomer Vitaly Petrov as its number two driver this year. There is no doubting that Petrov is talented but it is hard to imagine that he is yet ready to lead the team and win races, after just 19 races. The team's two reserve drivers are Bruno Senna and Romain Grosjean. The Brazilian has 18 Grand Prix starts to his name, but his experience with HRT is hardly to be considered , while the Frenchman raced for Renault seven times in 2009. The team may be forced to look outside its current structure, particularly as the new R31 seems to be a car which could be challenging for victories, after a very promising first test in Valencia. It remains to be seen whether the team is really ahead of the game, but it really needs a driver with lots of experience if it is going to get the most out of the new car. The choices are somewhat limited in this respect but one can imagine a concerted effort to sign up Kimi Raikkonen, who has had 156 starts and 18 wins, plus the World Championship in 2007. An alternative might be Nick Heidfeld, who has raced in 172 Grands Prix but has yet to win a race. Another name that might be considered is Giancarlo Fisichella, who raced for the team for several seasons and has competed in 229 Grands Prix and won three races. Another name that may come up is that of Nico Hulkenberg, although his experience is also limited, in comparison to a driver like Kubica.

For the moment the team says it is making no decisions, but things are likely to move quickly as testing time is limited and the Jerez test kicks off on Thursday.

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Clouds over Indian Grand Prix Work is progressing on the new Jaypee Circuit at the Jaypee Greens Sports City, at Noida in India (right), where the inaugural Formula 1 Indian Grand Prix is due to take place at the end of October. The first tarmac was laid last week at the facility, which is ahead of schedule at the moment. However, there are allegations flying around in India about the financing of the new facility, with the role of Suresh Kalmadi under particular scrutiny.

The former Minister of State for Railways and a member of the ruling Congress Party is under investigation for alleged corruption and has been removed from his position as chairman of the Organizing Committee of the Commonwealth Games. It is claimed that there were irregularities over the allotment of broadcast rights for the Commonwealth Games. Pressure is also mounting in Delhi for him to resign as president of the Indian Olympic Association, a post he has held since 1996.

Kalmadi’s involvement in Formula 1 dates back to 2003 when he attended the Italian Grand Prix with Chandrababu Naidu, then the leader of the state of Andhra Pradesh, who was trying to promote a Grand Prix in Hyderabad. In 2005 Kalmadi was appointed to head the Organizing Committee for the Commonwealth Games in New Delhi. A year later a new F1 project popped up, headed by Sunder Mulchandani, the boss of Argus Integrated Systems, who hoped to convince the government to agree to fund a street race in New Delhi. In 2007 Kalmadi announced plans for this event, saying that the Indian Olympic Association (IOA) would promote the race and raise the money but soon after that the plan was switched to a brand new circuit in the Greater Noida development, a planned city to the south east of New Delhi. This project involved JP Associates, a subsidiary of the Jaypee Group, a vast and diversified industrial conglomerate, involved in civil engineering, cement, hydroelectricity, real estate, highways and hotels, which had been introduced to the F1 project by Mulchandani. The result was a new company called JPSK Sports, which was 74 percent owned by Jaypee, with 13 percent belonging to Mulchandani and another 13 percent to Kalmadi’s son, Sumeer. It soon emerged that Kalmadi’s daughter, Payal Aditya Bhartia, and his son-in-law, Aditya Bhartia were also directors of the business.

The Central Vigilance Commission (CVC) is reporting that as much as $1.8 billion may have been siphoned off from the Games budget and there are allegations that much of this money ended up being poured into the construction of the F1 circuit.

Kalmadi is denying all the corruption allegations and says he will not step down as the head of the IOA. It remains to be seen whether his problems will affect the race itself, but if there is found to have been fraudulent activities over the Commonwealth Games and the profits from these frauds ending up invested in the F1 circuit, one can imagine that the government may wish to claim a share of the track and any profits that it will generate in the years ahead. While hosting a Grand Prix is not a very cost-effective business for the circuit owners, presumably there are reasons that such investment has been made and there must be some profits expected at the end of the day.

The scandal is not going to help India's international image for being rather more corrupt than some other countries. This is unfortunate as the hope was that the Grand Prix would paint India as a modern and progressive society moving rapidly into the developed world.

Marussia Virgin Racing becomes a Russian team The Marussia Virgin Formula 1 team will race under a Russian licence in 2011. In addition Marussia Motors personnel will take more important roles within the team, with the company founder and president Nikolay Fomenko becoming engineering director, working alongside technical director Nick Wirth to oversee car development, engineering and collaboration with the Marussia’s road car programme. Marussia UK's managing director, Andy Webb has been named as the chief executive officer of the team, replacing Graeme Lowdon, who becomes the team president, a position which means that he will spend less time dealing with the business side of the team and will concentrate on the team's dealings in the sport, notably with the F1

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Commission and the FOTA Executive. Lowdon will also be the team’s sporting director, while Webb will concentrate his efforts on finding sponsorship. The team has also strengthened its operations with the recruitment of Ian Phillip as chief operations officer. John Booth continues in his role as team principal and director of racing.

Phillips is a man with wide-ranging experience in the sport. Initially a journalist, he went on to run the Donington Park racing circuit, before becoming the administrator of the Gunnar Nilsson Cancer Research fund. He then returned to journalism and specialised in Formula 2 until the late 1980s when he was asked by Robin Herd - the founder of March - to be the team manager of the March F1 team and stayed on with its successor Leyton House Racing until he was sidelined by an attack of meningitis. In 1990 he joined the new 7 Up Jordan team and stayed with the team until last year.

The team also has a new chairman in Darryl Eales, the CEO of Lloyds Development Capital (LDC), one of the team’s shareholders. The role was previously held by Etienne de Villiers.

"The Board of Directors has reviewed and examined all aspects of the team’s commercial and racing operations during its debut F1 season in order to ascertain what is required to move the team forward quickly and prudently,” Eales says. “The changes announced today, together with Marussia’s wealth of knowledge and experience, provide us with a solid foundation as we enter our second season. I believe we are very fortunate to have such depth of commercial and racing leadership as we embark on the next step in our ambitious plans for the team."

Stewart signs up with Genii With the Royal Bank of Scotland dropping out of Formula 1 in 2011, Sir Jackie Stewart found himself without a consulting deal. After many years working with the Ford Motor Company, Stewart moved to RBS in 2005 to work as an ambassador for the F1 programme, using his networking skills to create new business for the bank. Although Sir Jackie is now 72, he shows no desire to stop working and his pulling power seems as strong as ever and he has now been hired to help Gérard Lopez with his Genii Business Exchange concept. This is what Lopez likes to call Genii's "embassy" in the Formula 1 paddock, which is designed to be a place where company executives, politicians and other key people can meet and do business against the backdrop of Formula 1 races. The goal is to create billion dollar deals which will reward Genii for its networking skills with a share of the profits or sponsorship revenues to fund the Renault F1 team. Up to now this has been run by Guillaume Casella, who previously ran his family's Mécachrome empire between 2002 and 2008 before being ousted by his father when the company ran into difficulty. The firm later went into administration and was eventually taken over by new investors. It is not clear how successful the Genii Business Exchange has been although the Renault team does have two new sponsors this year : the California-based technology company SunCore, which is pioneering solar-charging systems for mobile phones, which may have done a deal with the Chinese solar power company TrinaSolar, a Renault F1 sponsor. The team also has sponsorship from Sibur, a Russian petrochemicals company controlled by Gazprom, which has close links with Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, who is keen to help Vitaly Petrov. The team has lost HP (which was a Renault car company deal) and Snoras Bank. The latter is believed to have loaned Lopez money to pay a debt to Renault’s RCI Banque group, which was previously the team sponsor through its DIAC subsidiary. It is believed that RCI loaned Lopez the money to buy the F1 team from Renault, when the French car manufacturer was keen to offload the team after the damaging Singapore Scandal in 2009.

Lopez is an expert in such clever financial dealings and has yet to explain how the Genii company owns 100 percent of the team, while also being happy to rename the company Lotus Renault GP Ltd, a move which clearly suggests that Group Lotus is a shareholder in the business. Having Stewart onboard will help Lopez as he seeks to make Genii Business Exchange work.

“For the last few years, the automotive world has continued to grow territorially, especially in the emerging markets like China and India,” Stewart says. “As a result, the number of drivers on the world’s roads rises constantly. In the same way, Formula 1 is a sport with unparalleled global reach, helped by the arrival of new destinations from season to season. Genii Business Exchange established its reputation in the high technology markets and one of its key missions is to build bridges between the competitive racing environment and the technology industry. Now, as a partner of this group, my ambition is to help its development by using the unique platform that Formula 1 represents as a valuable marketing and communication tool. It’s a fascinating challenge that I will be happy to rise to in the years ahead.”

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Force India extends deal with McLaren Force India's partnership with McLaren Applied Technologies has been extended until the end of the 2012 season. The two companies have been linked since 2009 when Vijay Mallya decided that it was more cost-effective to buy McLaren technology, rather than trying to develop its own. The deal was agreed at the same time as the team did a deal with Mercedes-Benz for a supply of engines and included not only gearboxes and hydraulic systems, but also other technical assistance which includes time in the McLaren simulator at Woking (right). Originally, it also included help with the team management provided by Simon Roberts, the McLaren team's number three executive, but this was a short-lived arrangement and Roberts returned to McLaren. There were rumours in the course of 2009 that Force India had not been paying its bills on time, but these have not been heard in 2010, although the Silverstone team still has a reputation of not parting with money without a fight. Recently GP2 driver Giedo Van der Garde had to employ bailiffs to collect money which was owed to him by Force India following a lawsuit last summer.

Force India has also confirmed the appointment of Andrew Green as technical director with immediate effect.

"He knows the team inside out, both from his previous tenure with the team and through his position this year," said Mallya. "I am also delighted to be able to give Andrew and his team the stability and opportunity to take us forward with the extension to the McLaren Applied Technologies contract."

There is no doubt that Force India has benefited from McLaren assistance, although it has not been cheap for the team. Force India's results seem a great deal better on paper and, naturally, Vijay Mallya has claimed that "in 2009 we scored 13 points, one pole position and one podium and in 2010 we secured our highest-ever championship position and 68 points overall". This sounds rather better than it actually was because the points system changed last year. In reality the team scored a second, a fourth, two ninths and two tenths in 2009; while in 2010 it collected two fifths, two sixths, two sevenths, two eighths, five ninths and a couple of 10ths. This showed that the cars were a great deal more reliable than previously but perhaps not quite as quick as they were on certain circuits the previous year. The team was ninth in the Constructors' Championship in 2009 and moved up to seventh in 2010, although it should also be pointed out that the poor performance of Sauber last year and the disappearance of Toyota also helped the team to look better.

The GP2 field for 2011 The GP2 field for this season is now almost complete and the signs are that it will be an exciting year in the series, despite budgets being much higher than many youngsters can afford in these austere times. When GP2 was introduced in 2005 it was supposed to be a much cheaper alternative to Formula 3000 but in the space of six years budgets have ballooned and today a season of GP2 costs at least twice the budget of F3000 in the old days. This is fine for CVC Capital Partners, which owns the championship, but led to the FIA re-introducing Formula 2 in 2009, in an effort to help young drivers climb the open-wheeler ladder. Thus far Formula 2 has not really challenged GP2, but the FIA has recently introduced a new Single-Seater Commission, designed to examine the best possible structure to help youngsters move through the sport. This is headed by Barry Bland, the boss of the race management company Motor Race Consultants, which has run the Macau Grand Prix for many years.

Despite the problems with GP2, the field this year looks strong with the 2010 championship-winning team Rapax, formerly Piquet Sports, having done deals to run 21-year-old Swiss driver Fabio Leimer and 20-year-old Colombian Julian Leal. Last year's runners-up Barwa Addax goes into 2011 with Giedo Van der Garde staying on for a second year with the team, his third in the championship, while Sergio Perez has moved on to F1 and his place has been taken by rising French star Charles Pic, who goes into his second season in the series. The ART team finished third last year but has since agreed a deal with Lotus and now becomes Lotus ART and will run Jules Bianchi, the best rookie in 2010, and Esteban Gutiérrez (right), the highly-rated GP3 Champion, who is already a test driver with the Sauber team and will obviously be a man to watch in 2011.

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Racing Engineering has the second best rookie from last year, Spain's Dani Clos, who will be partnered once again by Germany's Christian Vietoris, who began to show well at the end of 2010. This is a strong line-up.

iSport will have Britain's Sam Bird, who was a revelation in 2010 with ART. He will be joined by Marcus Ericsson, who spent last year with Super Nova but achieved little. The Swede is highly-rated but needs to get some good results in 2011 if he is to maintain his good reputation.

The DAMS team will run former F1 man Romain Grosjean and rising Norwegian star Pal Varhaug, who moves up after a less than impressive season in GP3.

Arden Motorsport had a pretty disappointing year in 2010 with Charles Pic scoring only one win and Rodolfo Gonzalez doing nothing to suggest that he has what it takes to go further in the sport. It is all change in 2011 with the team opting for Czech Josef Král and Jolyon Palmer. Král had a difficult season last year with Super Nova Racing, suffering two fractured vertebrae in a crash in Valencia, which meant he missed most of the races. Palmer moves up from Formula 2, having finished runner-up in 2010.

Super Nova Racing struggled in 2010 and may not find it easy in 2011 with Johnny Cecotto Jr and Fairuz Fauzy. The Coloni team has decided to go with Michael Herck, who has done three seasons in GP2 without any real results and James Jakes,who moves up from GP3. Trident will run Rodolfo Gonzalez but may be able to achieve some results with Stefano Coletti, who graduates from the Renault World Series. Ocean Racing Technology will also be back with Britain's Oliver Turvey, who did a decent job last season with iSport and Italian Andrea Caldarelli, who did well in the Italian Formula 3 series last year.

There are two new teams in GP2 in 2011, with DPR and Durango having dropped out: Carlin has a long record of success and will run Renault World Series champion Mikhail Aleshin and Max Chilton (the son of the team owner), while Team Air Asia will have a good solid line-up with former GP2 race-winners Davide Valsecchi and Luiz Razia.

Peugeot aims for victory at Le Mans Peugeot has won the Le Mans 24 Hours on three occasions in the past: in 1992 and 1993 and then again in 2009, but the current 908 HDi FAP programme has not been quite as successful as the French company might have hoped. The team has won 19 of the 28 races in which it has competed in the last four seasons, but four attempts at Le Mans have resulted in just the one victory - but that is the race that really counts in sports car racing and last year's unexpected defeat at the hands of Audi was a real humiliation as the Peugeots were much faster than the Audis, qualifying more than two seconds a lap quicker, but they proved to be less reliable, leaving Audi to score a dominant 1-2-3 finish. The team has produced a new car for the latest Le Mans regulations, which will be called the 908 (right) and there will be three crews at Le Mans this year, featuring the same driver line-up as last year. Alex Wurz, Marc Gene and Anthony Davidson will race one car, with Nicolas Minassian, Franck Montagny and Stéphane Sarrazin in an all-French car and Sébastien Bourdais, Pedro Lamy and Simon Pagenaud in the third entry.

The new car appears to be very similar to its predecessor, but the team says that there have been a lot of changes under the bodywork.

"The regulations have evolved a great deal but we didn’t start from a clean sheet of paper," said technical director Bruno Famin. "The experience we have gained over the past four years helped to steer the decision-making process and our technical choices, although at the end of the day the only component which has been carried over is the windscreen wiper. One of the principal difficulties we faced was having to design an all-new car while continuing to race another at the same time."

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There is a new turbocharged 3.7-litre V8 replacing the V12 unit that powered the previous 908. This was chosen because its characteristics are similar to the original engine. The car also features the same sized wheels front and rear.

"Today’s LMP cars have a shortcoming with regard to front-end road holding performance," said Famin. "The logical way to cure this was to increase the size of the contact patch between the tyres and the track, which entailed running bigger front wheels, within the limits specified by the regulations.

The new car will be used to defend the Intercontinental Le Mans Cup (ILMC) title which the team won in 2010. The series will be rather different in 2011, having increased from three rounds to seven and will now include Le Mans as well as two races in the United States and one in China. The team will field two cars in the ILMC, beginning with the Sebring 12 Hours in Florida in March.

Conway joins Andretti... and other deals Mike Conway will return to IndyCar racings this season as the fourth driver of the Andretti Autosport team. The English driver, who comes from a wealthy family which runs a major highway maintenance civil engineering and construction company, employing more than 1,800 people, suffered serious leg injuries at Indianapolis last year (right) and has been recuperating ever since. He joins Marco Andretti, Ryan Hunter-Reay and Danica Patrick, the team having released Brazil's Tony Kanaan when 7-Eleven discontinued its sponsorship of the team at the end of last year.

There has also been an announcement in recent days from KV Racing Technology which be will expanding its relationship with Group Lotus in 2011.

"Last year was all about learning," said Lotus's director of motorsport Claudio Berro. "This year we would really like to achieve some podium finishes. We want to start to compete with some of the front runners. What we’re doing with IndyCar is very similar to the way we tackle all our race involvement, first we test the water with an established team, we then explore ways in which to expand our involvement – increasing our commitment to KVRT is one such step, as is our intention to supply engine and aero body kits from 2012 onwards."

The team will run Takuma Sato and EJ Viso but it remains to be seen how the cars will appear as Viso has backing from PDVSA, Herbalife, CANTV and SBA Airlines. Sato is also talking of support from his sponsors. A third car is expected to be run in different colours for Brazil's Mario Moraes, who comes from one of Brazil’s richest families.

IndyCar champion Dario Franchitti remains the big European name in the series but Justin Wilson will continue to race for Dreyer & Reinbold, while Swiss rising star Simona di Silvestro stays on with HVM and Belgium's Bertrand Baguette will again be seen racing for Conquest Racing.

There is a chance that there will be two Frenchmen in the series with Indy Lights champion Jean Karl Vernay having recently tested for Conquest, while there has been talk of a return to the US of Sébastien Bourdais, who won a string of Champ Car titles before his disastrous foray into F1. Bourdais tested recently with Dale Coyne Racing, which may run him in a second car, alongside 2010 rookie of the year in Alex Lloyd, another British driver. There is also talk that the FAZZT team will be running a car for Sino-Dutchman Ho Pin Tung.

Mouton is the FIA's woman in the WRC Michèle Mouton has been appointed Manager of the FIA World Rally Championship (WRC). In this role she will be responsible for the co-ordination of all aspects of the series. She will represent the federation at the majority of events, working in close collaboration with the manufacturers, promoters and event organisers. She will also continue as a member of the FIA working group responsible for the future development of rallying, as well as being head of the FIA's Women & Motor Sport Commission.

Mouton was the first woman to win a World Rally Championship event when she took victory on the San Remo Rally in 1981, at the wheel of an Audi Quattro. She won the Portugal, Acropolis and Brazil rallies in 1982 and finished runner-up in the

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World Championship to Walter Röhrl, finishing ahead of her Audi team-mate Hannu Mikkola. In 1984 and 1985 she won the Pikes Peak International Hillclimb but dropped out of the sport after the ban on Group B cars in 1986. She went on to play an important role in organising the Race of Champions.

"This is a very exciting and challenging opportunity, especially at a time when Jean Todt wants to significantly increase the profile of the sport and take it to new heights," Mouton said. "I am looking forward to working with all the WRC stakeholders; together I believe we can bring new dynamism to our spectacular sport."

A sign of the times Penske Racing is a team of legend. Its history goes back 45 years and it has been involved in IndyCar racing in one form or another since 1968, when Roger Penske ran an Eagle-Chevrolet for Mark Donohue. Four years later Penske entered NASCAR for the first time with an AMC Matador for Donnie Allison. Since then the team has won 15 Indianapolis 500s and nine CART titles, between 1981 and 2001.

It is a little recognised fact that the team has won only one open-wheeler championship since then, that being the 2006 Indy Racing League title with driver Sam Hornish Jr. The team has been runner-up three times with Will Power in 2010, Gil de Ferran in 2003 and Helio Castroneves in 2002. In the mid 2000s the Andretti Green team was dominant in the IRL, with championships for Tony Kanaan in 2004, Dan Wheldon in 2005 and Dario Franchitti in 2007. Since then Target Chip Ganassi Racing has won three consecutive titles with Scott Dixon in 2008 and Franchitti in 2009 and 2010.

The Penske Racing entries have always been competitive and the team still enjoys a great reputation, but the fact is that it could have done better. The organisation is fortunate in that it can benefit from Roger Penske's extraordinary business contacts and because it can leverage sponsorships with its NASCAR operations,, but in the current economic climate raising money is still very difficult, particularly after the ending of the team's long-standing alliance with Philip Morris USA at the start of 2010, after 20 years together in CART, IRL and ultimately IndyCar. Mobil too has moved on and Penske has relied on Verizon and companies from within his own business empire.

Times are hard and although substantial money has been found for 2011 from Shell (Hélio Castroneves), Izod (Ryan Briscoe) and Verizon (Will Power), the team is now starting to use the NASCAR system of having different primary sponsors at different races with the news that PPG Industries and Guidepoint Systems are both going to be seen as primary sponsors at races in 2011.

PPG Industries will be primary sponsor of Ryan Briscoe at the races in Milwaukee, Iowa and Kentucky and Guidepoint, a vehicle tracking service which is sold through the Penske Automotive Group dealerships, will be seen on the car at two races. In addition Guidepoint will be the primary sponsor of Castroneves's car for five events.

A Toyota touring car project The new NGTC (Next Generation Touring Car) regulations are being introduced in the British Touring Car Championship in 2011, in a phased transition from the current Super 2000 specification, which promoter TOCA believes are now too expensive. The new rules have been devised to allow more manufacturers and privateers to race by reducing the costs.

This has led to interest in the series from a number of new teams, notably Dynojet, which is a family-owned team which to date has been run to develop the career of Frank Wrathall. The family business sells after-market performance products and diagnostic tools for the motorcycle and automotive industries. To date the team has been running in the Ginetta G50 series,

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but after winning the Drivers' and Teams' title in 2010 the family decided to try BTCC and did a deal with Toyota GB to develop an Aventis for the series. The engine development is being carried out by engineering consultancy X CTech R, which is run by Mark Faulkner, a Cosworth-trained engineer who has since worked as a consultant engineer with Advanced Engine Research (AER), Mahle, Cummins, Mercedes Benz HPE and McLaren Automotive. The development work is being funded by Toyota GB, which hopes that the project will put the Toyota name back in the limelight in the BTCC. There is no direct Toyota involvement in the project beyond this, but there is no doubt that the aim of the programme is to convince the Japanese manufacturer that the Avensis is a car with a future in the sport.

The BTCC will see a similar project involving an Audi A4 which is being prepared by Rob Austin Racing, with engines developed by Ric Wood Motorsport. AmD Technik Essex is already preparing Volkswagen Golfs for the NGTC regulations which will be driven by Shaun Hollamby. Neither project is officially supported.

When your dreams come true Two years ago Joe Denette was in trouble. He was laid off from his job as a maintenance man with a home-building company in Virginia, as the housing market in the US collapsed. He could not find work and in May 2009 had to resort to entering a trivia quiz on a local radio station because he wanted tickets to see the NASCAR race at Richmond International Raceway.

His prize included a ride in the pace car, which was being driven by Hermie Sadler, the NASCAR Nationwide rookie of year back in 1993, who never quite managed to establish himself as a Sprint Cup star, unlike his brother Elliott. Denette enjoyed the experience and returned home to find that he had won the Virginia Lottery's Mega Millions - with a prize of $75.6 million... Denette's dream was always to get into NASCAR and rather than opting for an annual payment that would have kept him more than comfortable for the next 26 years, he decided to accept an instant payment of $47.8 million and repaid Sadler by paying for him to race in the NASCAR Truck Series at Bristol, Tennessee later that year.

Last season the duo worked together again, with Denette funding six Truck Series races, with machinery provided by Andy Hillenburg. This year, however, the lottery winner was decided to get serious and has established Joe Denette Motorsports, headquartered in Huntersville, North Carolina, in NASCAR country. He has negotiated a deal with Kevin Harvick Inc to provide him with a Chevrolet Silverado truck and technical support for the championship and has signed up Jason White to drive. The 31-year-old from Richmond has been trying to break into the big time for several years and enjoyed his best season in the Truck Series in 2010.

Funding for the project comes from White's regular sponsor Gunbroker.com, an Atlanta-based auction website specializing in firearms, which was created in 1999 when eBay announced that it was not going to advertise any firearms and ammunition on its site. The company has an average of 230,000 auctions and attracts more than two million unique users each month.

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Lukoil to fund SEAT team in WTCC When SEAT decided at the end of 2009 that it wanted to scale down its involvement in the FIA World Touring Car Championship, it handed over its cars to the Sunred team, which has previously been running SEAT Léons for Tom Coronel and Tom Boardman. As part of the deal Sunred entered a team called SR-Sport which ran former factory drivers Gabriele Tarquini, Tiago Monteiro and Jordi Gené, alongside Coronel, with Sunred fielding rookies Michel Nykjær and Fredy Barth. This year the squad has been cut back to four cars, with Tarquini and Russia's Alexey Dudukalo racing a pair of Lukoil-funded SEATs. Sunred will run another team for Nykjær and 16-year-old Spanish racer Pepe Oriola (right), who will become the youngest driver ever to race in the WTCC if all goes to plan.

Dudukalo (35) started his career in autocross in 1996 and then switched to circuit racing in 1999, winning a number of national titles and winning backing from Lukoil.

The Lukoil Racing Team is the primary funding organisation in Russian motorsport and has been involved in the sport for 10 years. Since 2003 it has run a Drivers Support Programme to promote young Russian drivers, notably Mikhail Aleshin, Sergey Afanasiev and Sergey Chukanov.

WHISPER WHISPER WHISPER g The Formula 1 teams were in action last week in Valencia, with several testing their new 2011 cars and others still using updated versions of the 2010 chassis. The fastest time of the three days of testing went to Robert Kubica in the new Renault R31, who completed 200 laps in the new car and set a best time that was two-tenths faster than the new Ferrari F150, driven by Fernando Alonso. The new Renault features a radical exhaust system, which exits at the front of the sidepods, but several other teams are believed to have considered that idea and may be introducing it in the tests to come. Second fastest overall was Adrian Sutil in the 2010 Force India, but with the older cars being quicker at the moment this should not be taken too seriously. New cars were run by Lotus Renault GP, Ferrari, Red Bull Racing, Williams, Sauber, Mercedes, Scuderia Toro Rosso and Team Lotus. Older cars were used by McLaren, Force India, Marussia Virgin Racing and HRT.

g The FIA Institute has announced that Norway's Even Wiger will be its new Director of Sustainability. The managing director of Rally Norway, Wiger has also headed the environment division of the Norwegian ASN – Norges Bilsportforbund – overseeing environmental, political and strategic work in all branches of motor sport in Norway. The appointment means that Gus Glover, who was overseeing the sustainability programme at the FIA Institute will now become Director of Policy.

g The FIA World Touring Car Championship has signed a three year alliance with Vicar Promoções Desportivas, which runs the Copa Caixa Stock car series in Brazil, for Vicar to organise the WTCC races in Curitiba in 2011, 2012 and 2013. The WTCC event will take place alongside a round of the Brazilian series and it is hoped that this will help to boost interest in the FIA championship in the Brazilian market.

g Sweden's Patrik Sandell, who won the Junior World Rally Championship in 2006 and who finished runner-up in last year's Super 2000 World Rally Championship (S-WRC) to Xavier Pons, has decided to switch to the Intercontinental Rally Challenge this season. Sandell will drive a Skoda Fabia, prepared by the Czech Republic team JM Racing, with technical support from Skoda Motorsport and funding from Skoda Sverige, the Swedish national importer.

g There was a significant fire on Friday in the engine department at Joe Gibbs Racing after what was described by the local fire department as a "significant flash fire". The incident happened at nine o'clock in the morning when the team was running a test on one of the team's two dynamometers . The incident appears to have damaged both dynos. An hour after the incident, team members were allowed back into the facility to assess the damage done.

g Team Lotus Team Principal Tony Fernandes has been appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, for services promoting commercial and educational links between the United Kingdom and Malaysia. Fernandes has turned Air Asia into Asia's largest low-cost airline in recent years, while also bringing the Lotus name back to Formula 1. He has also developed the Tune Hotels, the Tune Talk mobile phone service and the Tune Money insurance and finance company. Fernandes was the prime mover in creating a Malaysian campus for Britain's Epsom College, where he studied as a schoolboy. Last year Fernandes was appointed an Officier de la Légion d’Honneur by the French government.

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ConneCtIvIty

g Frank Stoddard, a longtime NASCAR crew chief has gone into partnership with Bob Reath, the owner of the US Chrome Corporation, to establish FAS Lane Racing, a new NASCAR Sprint Cup team that has acquired Fords from Richard Petty Motorsports and Roush-Fenway. The two men have been working together on and off since the late 1980s. Stoddard was involved with the now-defunct Latitude 43 Motorsports team in 2010.

g Igor Salaquarda's ISR Racing from the Czech Republic ran cars in the 2010 World Series by Renault season for Filip Salaquarda and Esteban Guerrieri, the latter being very competitive. This year the team will run Red Bull protege Daniel Ricciardo with a second car for rising French star Nathanael Berthon. The original plan was for Ricciardo to partner Formula 2 Champion Dean Stoneman, but his withdrawal from racing because of illness opened the way for 2009 French Formula Renault Champion, who raced for the Draco team last year.