‘Frosty’ crash-hot after V8 dramas
Awesome car, awesome job by the boys. Bring it on tomorrow. Mark Winterbottom
The V8 Supercars Championship continues today with Race 11 over a longer, 200-kilometre race length.
Meanwhile, Team Vodafone boss Roland Dane has refused to speculate on the driving future of Casey Stoner, who has been linked to a move to V8 Supercars after announcing his retirement from Motogp.
As rumours swirled at Phillip Island yesterday, Dane remained quiet but Stoner has a strong affiliation with the team, impressing in a test drive in December before enjoying the Sydney 500 in the Team Vodafone garage. The two-time world Motogp champion, 26, said yesterday that racing V8 Supercars next year was high on his agenda.
‘‘It is something I am definitely interested to do in the future,’’ Stoner said. ‘‘That will be not in the near future, the immediate future. I have tested the V8 car, and that is something we have been trying to do for the last two or three years, to be honest, and finally it happened. So there is no coincidence to it.’’
The only obstacle is Triple 8 sourcing a third racing entitlement contract to run the extra car. But given the money on offer to sell or lease a licence, that should not be too hard.
Paul Morris Motorsport is the most obvious source given he owns two licences and leases them to Tekno Autosports (Michael Patrizi) and Dick Johnson Racing (Steve Owen). Jason Bright, running his licence out of the Kelly Racing garage, is another option with Karl Reindler at the wheel.
V8 Supercars said they would welcome Stoner with open arms.
According to commentator and former driver Neil Crompton – who spent four years racing alongside Wayne Gardner as he made the transition from motorcycle champion to V8s – it is unlikely Stoner would be competitive for at least two seasons.
And Stoner agreed. ‘‘It’s something I’m interested in. Whether I will be fast enough or not is another thing.’’