KEY POINTS:
Three competitors in the production world rally championship have been excluded from Rally New Zealand next week after being caught breaking the rules in Rally Australia last month. Argentinians Marcos Ligato, Sebastian Beltran and Gabriel Pozzo were found to have illegal turbos on their Mitsubishis when they were checked on the final day of the rally. They all drove for Team Tango in cars prepared by an Italian team. They said they were ashamed to be associated with a technical infringement they knew nothing about. Their exclusion does not affect the championship, which will be decided here between Nasser Al-Attiyah of Qatar in a Subaru and Japanese driver Fumio Nutahara in a Mitsubishi.
Moving barriers solves safety issue
Plans to add a kink to the Pukekohe track for safety reasons have been dropped after opposition from leading drivers and an assurance from the FIA track inspector that all that was required was a realignment of some of the barriers.
Drivers cough up for infringements
Motorsport New Zealand's coffers were topped up by fines imposed at Pukekohe. Porsche driver Rob Steele was docked $3000 for an underweight car, British Toyota driver Ben Clucas was fined $1000 for a driving offence and driving offences cost Daynom Templeman (Toyota) and Paul Manuell (V8) $500.
Porsche crash ends driver's day at track
Australian Porsche driver Alex Davison's pickup drive at Pukekohe proved short and not very sweet. He crashed Shane McKillen's GT-3 heavily in practice and never got to race.
This weekend he will be racing in Tasmania where Kiwi Craig Baird has only to finish to win the Carrera Cup.
Homecoming for Waikato competitor
Champion co-driver Tony Sircombe is really coming home for next week's Rally New Zealand. Sircombe is the co-driver for current production car World Rally champion Toshi Arai (Japan). He was born and raised in the Waikato and learned his trade on the rally roads around the Waitomo and Otorohanga area which will be used on the opening day.
Blame bureaucrats for dates clash
If staging a world championship car rally and the biggest motorcycle meet on the world calendar in the same week and in the same area seems a bad idea, blame the bureaucrats in Paris. The final dates for Rally New Zealand were not confirmed until mid-year; the two-wheel extravaganza had been a fixture way before that.
Cunningham at the wheel for Halliday
Young Aucklander Wade Cunningham will play a vital part in setting up the New Zealand A1GP car for Matt Halliday to drive in the first Beijing street race tomorrow. Cunningham will drive the car in the two rookie sessions for which Halliday is ineligible, and his technical feedback will be essential for a successful weekend.
