Fernando Alonso drove a superbly judged race to emulate Nigel Mansell and Kimi Raikkonen, as he sped to victory on his debut for Ferrari in Sunday’s Bahrain Grand Prix. Alonso chased Sebastian Vettel’s fleet Red Bull fruitlessly in the early stages, when both were running the super-soft Bridgestone tyres, but had an advantage after they had respectively switched to the harder compound on Laps 17 and 16.

Alonso then began to hunt down the German, whose lap times got slower and slower until the moment of truth arrived on Lap 34. That was when exhaust problems hit the Red Bull and the Ferrari dived past in the penultimate corner, to grab a lead it never lost. Felipe Massa had also closed in driving the second Ferrari and passed Vettel as they braked for Turn One at the start of Lap 35. Crucially, however, Alonso put in some fearsomely quick laps to break his team mate’s challenge, after that there was nobody left to put him under pressure.

Read the rest of the race report on the F1 site.

Pity about Vettel but a solid performance from Michael Schumacher in 6th place.

Michael Schumacher in his first start since coming out of retirement has come in a credible seventh.

Bruno Senna, our outsdie pick came in an uninspiring 23rd out of 24 cars and looked well off the pace.

1 Sebastian Vettel  RBR-Renault
2 Felipe Massa    Ferrari
3 Fernando Alonso  Ferrari
4 Lewis Hamilton  McLaren-Mercedes
5 Nico Rosberg       Mercedes Benz GP
6 Mark Webber   RBR-Renault
7 Michael Schumacher     Mercedes Benz GP
8 Jenson Button   McLaren-Mercedes
9 Robert Kubica   Renault
10 Adrian Sutil   Force India-Mercedes

Planning to bet on Bahrain tomorrow?

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Under my interim Chairmanship the board will be responsible for setting the strategic direction and parameters (risk, governance, operational) for MSA while Executive Management, under Francois Pretorius, will be responsible for strategy implementation, within the prescribed frameworks, as well as effective and efficient use of available resources. The current strategic planning process, under Mrs. Beaulah Schoeman, remains a Board priority. Your Board has been concerned that over the past few years the distinction of roles and responsibilities between the MEC and the Board had become severely blurred; to this end with the Board’s support the current MEC was dissolved. A taskforce comprising several board members has been tasked to look at the structure and roles of the MEC and to make recommendations for adoption at the next Board meeting; this task force is working with Mrs. Schoeman to ensure alignment with the strategic planning forum recommendations; in the meanwhile Francois Pretorius, as MD, will continue to provide leadership to the executive team.

The ultimate objective is to have a clear separation of functions between the board and the MEC and to enable the MD to deliver on his commitments to the board. I am of the view, and so is the Board, that the MD runs the company and should be highly visible in his style to all of you.

All the best and further!
Dr. George W. Nyabadza

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The Audi S4 quattro® S tronic retails for R606000 and has the following engine specs:
Aluminum V6 spark-ignition engine with gasoline direct injection, DOHC, mechanical charger module with two intercoolers, two charge movement flaps, demand-controlled high-pressure and low-pressure fuel system. Top speed of 250km/h.

It weighs roughly 1700kgs.

The Merc I would have thought had more bite and while it might be physically a bit heavier it would have had more grunt. Who knows…?

Suffice to say it’s kudos to Audi – that S4 is nice!

Three Northern Regions and one KwaZulu-Natal regional championship events will run alongside high profile nationals. Northern Regions events will run alongside the Sun City 400, the Carnival City 400 and the RFS Magaliesberg 4000 with a KZN regional running in conjunction with the Sugarbelt 400.

“We are excited about what is an important phase in the development of our sport,” said MSA Off Road Car Racing Commission president Richard Schilling.
“Regional racing is in a healthy state but, as a commission, it is our responsibility to nurture the sport at grass roots level.

“One of our major objectives this year is to support regional racing and by exposing competitors to national competition we hope to encourage them to move up a notch. We are also hoping the move will encourage new blood into the sport at grass roots level.”

Schilling added it was encouraging to see regional racing drew good fields, there was a high level of sophistication where vehicles are concerned and there was a competitive spirit. The new initiative, however, provided further incentives for regional competitors.

The opening event of this year’s Absa Off Road Championship is the Adenco 400, in the Western Cape, on March 19 and 20. This year’s series will be made up of eight events in the Western Cape, Mpumalanga, KwaZulu-Natal, Gauteng, North West Province, Botswana and the Free State.

2010 ABSA OFF ROAD CHAMPIONSHIP CALENDAR

19/20 Mar ADENCO 400 Darling Western Cape CPMCC
16/17 Apr TOYOTA DEALER 400 Lydenburg Mpumalanga SANORCRA
21/22 May SUGARBELT 400 Eston KZN NORMC
16/17 Jul SUN CITY 400 Sun City Northern Province ORSA
27/28 Aug CARNIVAL CITY 400 Carnival City Gauteng SANORCRA
24/25/26 Sep TOYOTA 1000 DESERT RACE Gaborone Botswana FWDCSA
22/23 Oct BLOEMFONTEIN 400 Bloemfontein Free State SANORCRA
19/20 Nov RFS MAGALIES 400 Tarlton Gauteng SANORCRA

2010 KZN REGIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP CALENDAR

27 Feb NOODSBERG 250
10 Apr HLUHLUWE 250
22 May SUGARBELT 250
3 Jul DRAK 250
14 Aug KOKSTAD 250
11 Spt CREIGHTON 250
9 Oct NEW HANOVER 250
6 Nov Provisional standby if Crickets are not allowed to compete at Sugarbelt

2010 NORTHERN REGIONS CHAMPIONSHIP CALENDAR

13 Feb RUSTENBURG 200
13 Mar BARBERSPAN 200
1 May PIET PLESSIS 200
19 Jun LICHTENBURG 200
17 Jul SUN CITY 200
14 Aug VERWES 200
28 Aug CARNIVAL CITY 200
20 Nov RFS MAGALIES 200

The BMW brigade has a dominant position in Super Saloons starting with Paul Munro BMW M3 Coupe, Sav Gualtieri in his V8 eater BMW M3 Turbo, Johannes Kleynhans E 36 and Mike Trafoyer M3. These guys will have to contend with Corrie Uys Corvette, Anton Brits Mazda MX6 and Shaun O’Conner’s Mazda. The Super Saloons always put on a dramatic race even more so now that the safety car laps will not be consented as overall race distance. In other words they will have to keep going faster for longer.

The Tata Modified Production Cars continues to gain momentum however competitors will still have to contend with George Bezuidenhout touring car Nissan Primera.

The Goldwagen MotoEuro SuperHatch has drawn a series 45 car entry. A new record! Defending champion Jonathan du Toit will not be racing his Audi but has taken over his father’s prototype Camaro however, the previous year champion Mark du Toit will be out to regain honours in his Honda Civic. This will not be easy with the brave Claudette Vorster (neé Grover), Jeffery Kruger and Gary Silverwood. SuperHatch always provides real cut and thrust racing.

Sports Racing Association will also provide a revised field with some exiting new additions to the grid. The formula GTI and Formula Ford brigade will join forces to increase the dimension of single seaters racing. The Libre’s will then make up for even more variety.

Thunderbikes will as ever bring super Superbike racing to the program with Paul Jacobs, Stephen Steenkamp, Marco Pugi and Andrew Jones the most likely to take line honours.

Twelve categories 24 events and Zwartkops hospitality all ads up to an exciting days racing.

Practice starts early with racing from 10h00.

Adults R50, Students R30 and children under 12 free

See you at Zwartkops.

Small things amuse small minds but I have to say that it cracked me up that the president of the troubled car firm – Akio Toyoda has a name that similar to the company he manages.

Anyway that is just an aside – the main reason for this post is to discuss the impact of the troubles in the global automaker sector and try and work out whether or not it has changed your thoughts on what car you would buy going forward.

• Has the recall at Toyota put you off buying one of their cars or do you believe that on the whole they have handled the issue well and haven’t done as much damage to their brand as the media makes out? Personally  I still would continue to buy a Toyota before probably 90% of other vehicles on the market at the moment
• What about the US makers? Are the GM, Chrysler and Ford brands effectively in a death spiral? Ford rolled out a profit for the first time in a while recently and I recently overheard an American saying he would buy a Ford simply on the basis that he would be supporting US industry and brands.

Thoughts on these cars? Any brands you think are dying off or are going to successfully re-invent themselves?

Since retiring from his legal practice he has worked all around the world at kart events. In 2009 he was the English language commentator at the CIK World Championship in Macau, China, the Rotax World Finals in Egypt, and took up his regular series appointments with the Rotax Euro Challenge, the Florida Winter Tour and the Monaco Kart Cup.

This open letter to his South African karting friends was prompted by the brilliant South African 1-2 in Egypt in December 2009, when Caleb Williams won the Rotax Max Challenge World Finals, followed home by fellow South African Ralph Odendaal.

A few years ago I wrote an article in a Karting magazine under the title: “South Africans – why are they so good?”. It was prompted when South Africa made it four Rotax World Champions in a row at the January 2004 Grand Finals in Egypt won by Cristiano Morgado. That was my first ever commentary of a Rotax race and my first ever meeting of any South African karting people.

Indeed Wesleigh Orr made it five in a row a year later in Lanzarote, Canary Islands and the run was only broken when he was directed to race in the DD2 class at Langkawi, Malaysia the following year when the Senior Max class was reinstated as the class carrying the Rotax World Champion title. I always felt that decision had cheated South Africa out of a record that would probably never have been beaten.

Eighteen months ago I was reminded of my article by South African Arnold Neveling. He was racing at Assen in northern Holland in one of the car classes where European Superkarts were also competing. I remember being impressed that he could quote so accurately from that story I had written. Indeed I felt rather flattered.

Then last December during the 2009 Rotax Grand Finals, all those memories came flooding back to me. We were back at Ghibli Raceway, Sharm el Sheikh, Egypt where it had all begun for me. Better still, Cristiano Morgado and hid dad Rui, by now big friends of mine, were there. It got even better. Several of my, by now many, South African karting friends, led by the doyen of them all, Ed Murray were there and it was great to chat with everyone and catch up on news from SA.

Then they all repaid me handsomely. For me one of the best features of the Grand Finals is the Drivers Parade. It’s always a happy occasion and so colourful. The South Africans have always been ready to respond to my calls to wave the flag and cheer on their team. This year was to be no different – except that I was to be introduced to another aspect of South African culture hitherto completely unknown to me. It was the Vuvuzela (have I spelt that right?)

My first introduction to it was a disaster. Ralph Odendaal’s teenage sister Gillian was superb getting a long powerful note out of it. It looked easy, but when I tried, I don’t know what was worse – the fact of my feeble failure or the disgusting noise I did achieve out of it!

But all of that was immaterial during the drivers parade. Some real expert players got a fantastic sound. It all added to the carnival atmosphere of the occasion. Later on I heard more examples from the cliff top overlooking the back straight even during the racing. It goes without saying that they were acknowledging yet more SA success in this competition.

I have written elsewhere in the world karting press that South Africa is by far the most successful nation in this competition. I think the tally stands at something like eight world champions and 15 podium places – an amazing record in just 10 years. Having been appointed an Honorary South African last year ( by Mr. Eric Mafuna), and with a photo including me waving my Proudly South African flag alongside some ‘real’ South Africans, I was perfectly happy to see yet more SA success in this competition.

I had spoken to a distraught Caleb Williams early in the event after a disaster in his Heats and encouraged him by pointing out the numerous instances over the years of people coming back from a seemingly impossible position. He went on to prove another example of exactly that. Yet whilst happy to acknowledge his success, I confess that, despite always seeking to be neutral in what I do in karting, I was desperately sorry for Ralph Odendaal.

I had watched him have a superb season in winning the Rotax Euro Challenge title, and then to be fastest in the World Finals in all practice sessions, qualify on pole, win all his Heats and the pre-final and only get headed for the last few laps of the Final, must have been sickening indeed. Nevertheless what a magnificent example he set in the subsequent podium ceremony and press conference when he never once bemoaned his fate but retained his dignity throughout. So, many congratulations to Caleb for his win, but the same for Ralph for his sporting behaviour on and off track from start to finish.

Writing all of this just makes me want even more to come again to one of your races, and whilst my diary does get very full very quickly, it may just prove possible one of these days to make it back to SA and catch up with you all again. Maybe a big event at Zwartkops, or maybe somewhere else. I have been told I can’t regard my world karting education as complete until I have made at least one visit to idube. Let’s see what happens, but in the meantime good karting to you all from this honorary South African

Heading the International contingent will be Mick Grant 7 times Isle of Man Tourist Trophy winner – together with such names as Alan Walker, Alan Cathcart (now Sir Alan Cathcart), John Chapman, Tony Salt… a long list of riders who will be with the South African contingent of big names Dave Paterson, Alan North, Bucks Boshoff, Howard Mellet, Jerry Anassis, Jimmy Guthrie, Kevin Hellyer, Keith Zeeman, Les van Breda, Peter Ekerold, Rodney Gray, Wayne Duncan, Wayne Heaseman… the list goes on and on. It’s the meeting of the greats and Legends in the world of motor cycle racing.

Of special interest is that Ian Scheckter – six times South African motor racing champion will return where it all started from – racing motorcycles. Ian will be a special guest and will ride with the greats on Sunday.

Yoshiaki Nakamura M.D. of Honda South Africa will also be racing over the weekend on a Honda RC171. Mr. Nakamura was a factory racer in the seventies and still shows the form that brought him to the fore. Steve Plater who won the 2009 British 600 Supersport Championship as well as the senior Isle of Man TT Series. He will be launching a special edition of the TT winning Honda Fireblade at Zwartkops. The Historic Motorcycle Group will feature a full field of racing motorcycles with such great names as Norton, AJS, Bultaco, Greeves, Triumph and the Japanese onslaught in the sixties with the screaming Hondas, Suzuki and Yamaha before the Italian empire struck back with the might of Ducati. Huge names of man and machine will all be at Zwartkops. The day will not only be for demonstration events. There will be a full field of racing classic bikes, the Suzuki SV Cup, more contempory Thunderbikes. The stars of tomorrow will feature the first race for the Honda NSF 100. This is the Honda initiative for development and young riders.

The SA Tourist Trophy “Day of the Champion” for historic racing bikes will be a new addition to the program. This will be a fully fledged race on the day. Not to be missed and big bike day of legends, heroes – past, present and future.

Entrance for Sunday only R60 per adult, R30 per student and children under 12 for free.

See you at Zwartkops.