This was published 9 years ago
The Stig takes advantage of 'amateur' loophole at Bathurst 12 Hour
By David McCowen and Sam Hall
Defending Bathurst 12 Hour champions Maranello Motorsport have raised eyebrows with their driver line-up for February's around-the-clock dash.
Race rules require that at least one driver in every three-driver team is an "unseeded" amateur without recent experience as a paid professional.
Loophole: Ben Collins will race in the Bathurst 12 Hour.Credit: Getty Images
Maranello engineered a coup by securing the services of Ben Collins, best known for his work as The Stig on TV's Top Gear, along with roles as a stunt driver for several films including the James Bond franchise.
Some argue that with recent starts in the Bathurst 1000 to the Le Mans 24 Hours, Collins is no amateur.
But all we know is that he meets the requirements of an unseeded driver, giving his team a handy advantage over hobby racers who will fill the third seats in other cars.
The British pilot will share a Ferrari with Finnish ex-formula one driver Mika Salo and local V8 Supercars refugee Tony D'Alberto, a young driver with plenty of laps under his belt at Mount Panorama.
Salo's fellow co-winners from 2014, John Bowe and Peter Edwards, have defected to a Bentley they will share with 2009 Le Mans 24 Hours winner David Brabham, while former Maranello man Craig Lowndes missed out on the race due to clashing V8 Supercar commitments.
Bentley revealed this week that former Le Mans winner Guy Smith and 2014 Bathurst 12 Hour runner-up Maxi Buhk will lead two other cars for their team, while Nissan will chase victory in a GT-R filled with drivers with experience at the mountain.
Audi will go into the race among the fan favourites with extreme athlete Felix Baumgartner featuring in an R8 finished in a striking mural that pays tribute to a classic race car.
The German brand won the "Race of a thousand years" in Adelaide on New Year's Eve in 2000 with an artful machine painted to resemble a crocodile in its jungle habitat.
Those colours return for the 12 Hour, along with a sister car featuring ominous kangaroo warning signs on its flanks.
Given the circuit's history of fauna ruining campaigns for dozens of racers, Germany's Phoenix Racing team may be tempting fate with their black and yellow machine.
Red Bull to rise, Honda to struggle in F1
In news that will be welcomed by Daniel Ricciardo, Mercedes F1 director and former Grand Prix champion Niki Lauda has told Britain's Autosport he expects Red Bull Racing to close the gap to dominant Mercedes cars enjoyed by Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg in 2014. The racing legend was less sure about the prospects of other teams.
"[Red Bull] will be right there, but the question is how far they get," Lauda said. "There is too little information about Ferrari at the moment, and McLaren-Honda will experience a difficult year."
Lauda says the opening race at Melbourne will not necessarily dictate the pecking order for the rest of the season.
"I would suggest you can only judge the quality of the field after the first three races," he said.
NASCAR legend steps down
Four-time NASCAR Sprint Cup champion Jeff Gordon has announced that he will leave the sport at the end of 2015.
The 92-time race winner has featured in the sport since 1992, regularly featuring at the pointy end of the field.
Gordon says he will remain involved in NASCAR through his part-ownership of Hendrick Motorsports, the team he worked with for the majority of his career.
Abreu stands tall after race win
Finally, to some fresh beginnings in the motor sport world.
Californian Rico Abreu has earned a permanent NASCAR seat after an emotional victory in the Chili Bowl Midget Nationals in Tulsa, Oklahoma last weekend. Of course, the event refers to the cars, not the participants.
The 22-year-old raised a lot of eyebrows in the motor sport world while doing so. Abreu stands at just 134 centimetres tall, not that he's letting his physical stature keep him from pursuing his racing dreams.
He has tasted plenty of success in open-wheel dirt racing to date. His proven ability was rewarded this week with a full-time drive with HScott Motorsports in the NASCAR K&N Pro Series East for 2015.
Abreu was understandably ecstatic: "It's just so cool to have the feeling that people really believe in you and would like to see you achieve," he said.
"I think a lot of people believe in me, and it gives me a lot of confidence and humbles me. So I'm glad that people can really see who I am and they don't judge me for what I look like or why I'm doing it. I'm doing it because I'm a racer and I love the sport."