At this time of year we like to acknowledge some of the well deserving winners of 2024. Congratulations to HMO Customer Racing's Josh Buchan in becoming the first back to back champion in TCR Australia Series. We hope the championship will flourish as it's representative of world touring car format at this time. We look forward to the World Tour returning Down Under in 2025.
    Consistency certainly pays off as Will Brown collected his maiden Supercars championship. Despite team mate Broc Feeney winning more races, Red Bull Racing Australia's faith in signing Brown was certainly paid back as they netted the team's championship as well.
    In Formula One, Red Bull's Max Verstappen has entered the upper echelons of F1 success by securing his 4th Driver's title. He's now joined the names of Fangio, Schumacher, Hamilton, Vettel and Prost with 4 or more titles. Scary thing is, if he has the chariot beneath him, the sky's the limit. 
    The feel good story of F1 2024 has to be McLaren winning their first Constructor's title since 1998. Multiple drivers and teams won races this season and it just proves the importance of having two high performing drivers in the one team. Lando Norris is coming of age. Oscar Piastri is the real deal who is consistent and rarely makes mistakes. We've always said that once he learns how to manage the temperamental Pirelli tyres, he'll be unstoppable. This year he made a huge step. With the teams closing up in performance before the 2026 format change, we suggest that 2025 will be nothing short of salivating. 
​    Lastly, we'd like to wish you all a wonderful and holy Christmas. Always be grateful for your blessings and give thanks even in hard times. Our thoughts and prayers go out to all those who may be doing it tough at this time. We thank all our friends and surfers who have supported us along the way, and we look forward to your continuing support. We'll be back with our traditional start to the new motorsport year with our coverage of the Bathurst 12 Hour for GT3 at Mt Panorama. See you in 2025....
    

    Can you remember when the championship winning driver in Formula One came from a team that finished 3rd or worse in the Constructor's Championship? You would have to go all the way back to 1983. Nelson Piquet won his second title driving the revolutionary Brabham the first year after the banning of ground effect cars, yet the Brabham team finished 3rd in the constructor's. Or perhaps you remember the eventful, yet tragic 1982 season when Keke Rosberg won the title only winning one race throughout the season? His Williams team after experiencing the highest of highs by winning the previous two campaigns, languished in a lacklustre 4th place at end of the season. Now in 2024 Red Bull currently finds themselves in the Brabham position with 4 races left to run.
    Having just enjoyed a thoroughly enthralling Mexican GP, Red Bull's Max Verstappen is still in the box seat for the championship, but Red Bull are slipping down the order and now sit in third behind McLaren and Ferrari. Drivers say they take it one race at a time and are not thinking of the championship, but at this late stage of the season, doesn't Max have to adopt the bigger picture mentality? The Red Bull seems a tricky car to drive, but his apparent psyche of robustly defending every position could prove disastrous if an incident renders a retirement. A fourth title could very well be squandered. He knows how to maximise the package on offer. Wouldn't his title aspirations be better served by bagging as many points as possible? Could he and Red Bull for that matter benefit from more sustained support from their second driver Sergio Perez?   
    "Checo" Perez arrived at Red Bull with a reputation as a driver who could gently massage a car and not put it under too much stress. He has started the seasons well, but in recent times his performances have trailed off and now speculation is rife over his future. Red Bull are not adverse to unceremoniously dispatching a driver mid season. Just ask Daniel Ricciardo. They did however, in an effort to relieve some pressure, extend Checo's contract mid season for next year, but this tactic has not had the desired effect. Checo has regularly been eliminated in the first qualifying session with questionable moves in some races forthcoming. What's the bet there's performance clauses written in to the contract despite the Perez camp claiming it's iron-clad for 2025? With the talented yet feisty Liam Lawson currently being groomed at RB and his team mate Yuki Tsunoda already confirmed for the end of season test in the Red Bull, well, read into that as you will.  
    Interesting to note since design guru Adrian Newey announced he was leaving Red Bull earlier in the season stating it was now a mature team, he has made no further contribution to the car's development. Seems ironic to us that that was the moment the car's dominance started eroding, leaving Red Bull to lament over the championship position they're in now. 

    Formula One on a whole is such a progressive, always evolving entity. To be considered the pinnacle of motorsport necessitates that it remains fluid, constantly reinventing, pushing the envelope of technology to push the proverbial bar even higher. Same goes for the teams themselves. Even if they currently have the fastest, strongest package, if they're not stretching the development elastic as it were, instead blissfully resting on their laurels, then they're going backwards. Within every set of new F1 regulations, the teams inevitably close the gap between the frontrunners and the also rans. Hence F1 has a new set of regulations every few years or so. 2026 sees the start of another set. 
    The new regulations announced at the recent Canadian GP are only outlined at the moment and will be ratified in due course, so we won't go into them just yet. There is however one element that we find encouraging. The power units will have increased hybridisation with power derived from basically a 50-50 balance between combustion engine and battery power. The encouraging part is the use of fully carbon neutral, sustainable fuels for the combustion engine. One of the methods F1 is using to create the fuel is extracting carbon directly from the atmosphere. They could very well be also extracting it from non-food biomass or through the electrolysis or water. Sure the cars will still release carbon back out through their exhausts, but no more than what they're extracting, hence the neutral part of the equation. 
    What does this mean for the motor industry? More importantly, how long will it take the motor industry to catch up? We have said many times that motor vehicle manufacturers need to take their cues from F1. In fact, we believe that the Mercedes F1 team drove their fleet of transporters all over Europe last season already using sustainable fuels. Which got us contemplating what technological innovations F1 have pioneered over the years. Just think power steering, traction control, anti-lock brakes, semi automatic gearboxes, paddle shift gear changes with virtually seamless shift, to name a few. A lot of these features are now considered the bare minimum standard on road cars. When kinetic energy recovery systems came around some 15 years ago, it was the Williams team that acquired the contract to kit government buses out with the system. Or the top quality ventilators mass produced in record time by all the teams at the height of the covid pandemic when grand prix racing was placed on involuntary hiatus. You want something done, simply task F1 to devise a solution.
    With various authorities pushing electric vehicles at the moment, aren't they just a transitional form of private conveyance because they're seen to be green and just the flavour of the month? Their resale value is questionable and insurance companies often are writing them off all too easily after a collision as all their worth is in the battery. In a country as large as Australia for instance, infrastructure is still lacking. Why is the development of fully carbon neutral, sustainable fuels not accelerated so it can enter the domestic motor vehicle market? The motor industry would do well to follow F1's cue.

    There's the indelible image of a stunning black and gold liveried Lotus Formula One car with the driver donning a striking yellow helmet that was not only an intimidating site in fellow competitors' mirrors, but the remarkable beauty captured our immediate attention. That was 1985 and Ayrton Senna in his Lotus was what first ignited our interest in F1 and we've scarcely missed a Grand Prix ever since. 
    It's now been 30 years today since that horrific weekend at the 1994 San Marino GP where we lost Simtek driver, Austrian Roland Ratzenberger and 3 time champ Ayrton Senna, then driving for Williams. We are unashamedly huge Senna fans. An uncompromising racer who also had an enviable qualifying record, yet was deep thinking and wore his heart on his sleeve. He would not hesitate to send his car up the inside only to let the other driver decide whether or not to capitulate. We often wondered how many Senna simply frightened out of the way. His masterclass in the Donington wet, or his 6 Monaco victories, or his obvious passion when backed into a corner at a press interview are some of the traits that have inspired countless future race drivers. Mercedes' Lewis Hamilton has often quoted Senna as his greatest influence. His generosity with his home country of Brazil would result in the whole nation uniting behind him. In fact 3 days of national mourning was observed after his passing. 
    The passing of Roland and Ayrton and also the sad passings of Australian GP marshal Graham Beveridge in 2001 and Jules Bianchi in 2014, not to mention the countless lives that proceeded, have all left a legacy that has improved safety. We now have the HANS device for helmets, the cockpit halo, Tecpro barriers, the doubling of safety catch fencing height with photographer's openings effectively caged in and an increased use of the Red Flag to stop races so heavy machinery and marshals can clean up incidents safely and quickly with no chance of a subsequent incident. 
    Whether that yellow helmet was piloting a Lotus or a McLaren or a Williams, time has not diminished those memories. They remain as vivid today as they did over 30 years ago. 

    On a different note, fast forward to now. Hamilton to Ferrari. Hulkenberg to Sauber/ Audi. Whispers of Vettel also joining Audi. Alonso racing into his mid-40s. Race winner Carlos Sainz still unconfirmed for 2025. Now, arguably F1's greatest ever designer Adrian Newey leaving Red Bull after 19 years. Crazy eh?
    
    

    A Ferrari 1-2 at Albert Park! The last time Ferrari have secured the top two positions at the Australian Grand Prix was way back in 2004 in the Schumacher heyday. 
    A visibly still ginger Carlos Sainz climbed into his Ferrari on Friday for Free Practise 1, only to execute a masterful performance all weekend to claim a dominating victory on Sunday, thus vanquishing any ill effects from his recent surgery for appendicitis. Team mate Charles Leclerc had to work slightly harder to despatch the highly competitive McLarens, but picked up the extra point for fastest lap on his way to second place. Despite the fact that reigning champ Max Verstappen's Red Bull expired early, you can't help but suspect that Ferrari would have prevailed anyway. Congrats to Ferrari. Would've been a massive night in Lygon St.
    The fashion of which Ferrari engineered their weekend at Albert Park is the type of meticulous thorough approach needed GP after GP to mount a successful championship assault. Everyone knows that they have the capability and resources to achieve this, but there are some that would imply Ferrari have squandered opportunities in the past. Can Ferrari deliver on their undoubted potential by sustaining that form over the course of the entire season? Already after only 3 rounds, the championship standings have closed up enticing us to anticipate the materialisation of a closely fought campaign. Is it just possible that 2024 could be the year of the Prancing Horse? 
    Lastly, on a slightly different note, plaudits must be given to Williams' driver Logan Sargeant for the mature way he handled having his car handed over to team mate Alex Albon, after Albon's crash on Friday rendered his car unrepairable. A true team player who's confidence consequentially must of suffered a body blow. Australians love an underdog story, and we'd love nothing better than to see Logan Sargeant bounce back and score points at the next GP. Roll on Japan.
​    Oh, and how did we celebrate Ferrari's 1-2 at Albert Park? By eating pasta of course (with a few pints). Ciao.