Pitstop: Murphy to race at Bathurst

Greg Murphy. Photo / NZPA

Four-time Bathurst winner Greg Murphy has nabbed a seat in next weekend's Bathurst 12 Hour driving the Trofeo Motorsport's Corvette Z06.R with Ivan Capelli and Jim Manolios. Murphy is without a full-time gig in V8 Supercars for the first time in 15 years but looks on course for an endurance seat.

Aussie to lead Team Kiwi

The Team Kiwi Racing Porsche will have an Aussie in the driver's seat for the 2013 Australian Porsche Carrera Cup series. Shae Davies will compete in the entire seven-round title chase replacing young New Zealander Andre Heimgartner who's moved up to the Dunlop Development Series. Heimgartner's exploits in the Porsche brought him to the notice of Porsche's worldwide driver talent search.

Taupo weekend revised

The possibility of MotorSport New Zealand and V8 SuperTourers co-hosting a race meeting at the Taupo Motorsport Park, March 9-10, has fallen over. Ruapuna has picked up the date after the Canterbury Car Club's revised offer was successful.

Storey joins ISport

Dominic Storey, who has raced Formula BMW, British Formula 3, Formula Renault Europe, GP3 and Formula Renault 3.5, has signed on the dotted line to race in this year's seven-round BNT V8 SuperTourer championship for new team ISport. The 23-year-old co-drove with Steven Richards at the Ruapuna long distance race last year.

Horner sticks with Red Bull

Red Bull Formula One principal Christian Horner will not be going to Ferrari. He's just re-signed with Red Bull for a multi-year deal. Horner has steered the team for the past eight years and has three driver and constructor's championships to his name. The team retains an unchanged driver line-up of Sebastian Vettel and Mark Webber.

Under the hood

New Zealand single seater racer Richie Stanaway hasn't been sitting on his hands since his big accident sidelined him with a dodgy back. While the body was healing Stanaway was keeping his mind sharp competing in the iRacing.com Road Pro Series - a virtual simulator F1 race series. Stanaway dominated the second half of the season to be crowned the 2012 world champion. He won four consecutive races and won the finale at the Suzuka International Circuit with a pole-to-pole win, beating out 24 other sim-racers all driving virtual Williams-Toyota FW31s. During his convalescence last year, Richie Stanaway maintained much of his mental racing fitness by competing in online simulation racing.