Illien's Engines Bound For Two Wheels

Sun Herald

Sunday September 10, 2006

Peter McKay

AFTER winning two formula one world titles and 11 Indy 500 races with his engines, Mario Illien is setting his sights on engineering a world championship-winning MotoGP bike.

Timing his team's debut to coincide with the new 800cc engine era, Illien will launch a serious two-bike MotoGP team in 2007, backed by an intended EUR20 million ($33.5m) budget.

Illien says he is talking with seasoned grand prix riders Alex Barros and Max Biaggi with a view to one of them shaking down the new bike at the last two races of the season next month.

"We have done three track tests, and we've had an engine running on the dyno since April," he told www.crash.net. "We haven't had a catastrophic failure yet, and one of the engines on the dyno has run for more than 13 hours."

The Swiss-born Illien said seven V4 engines and two complete motorcycles had been built.

Schu to be given time

THIS evening at Monza, Ferrari will announce their drivers for next season, ending the speculation about Michael Schumacher's future.

The most recent rumours suggests Ferrari will confirm three drivers - Schumacher, Kimi Raikkonen and Felipe Massa - under contract to Ferrari in 2007. This, the unconfirmed story goes, will give Schumacher, 37, some breathing space while he ponders whether to retire at the end of this season.

Bayliss closes in on title

DUCATI'S Troy Bayliss bounced back from a scary 210kmh "off" in the rain at Assen last Sunday to win the second of two heats and take an even tighter grip on his second Superbike World Championship.

The Aussie's heat win allowed him to extend his world championship lead to 100 points (332 to 232) over Briton James Toseland (Honda CBR1000RR) with 150 points still up for grabs in the remaining three rounds.

A strong points haul at Eurospeedway in Germany today could mean Bayliss can wrap up the title with two rounds left.

In World Supersport, 40-year-old Yamaha-riding Australian Kevin Curtain now leads the championship by seven points over arch rival, France's Sebastien Charpentier (Honda).

Stewards belt Sordo

CITROEN'S Daniel Sordo, the teammate to world champion Sebastien Loeb, lost his seventh-place finish at Rally Japan last Sunday when stewards excluded him for a seatbelt violation during the 11th round in the 2006 FIA World Rally Championship.

In the second-last stage, the Spaniard and his co-driver Marc Marti stopped and got out of their car to assist another crew which had crashed.

When they returned to their machine, they failed to refasten their harnesses correctly, an offence caught on their candid in-car camera.

Clucas a great Brit

BEN Clucas hasn't just won the 2006 Australian formula three title for the 50th Australian Drivers Championship and the CAMS Gold Star - the young Briton annihilated the opposition, winning 11 of the first 12 races contested.

It's a mightily impressive effort for a driver who had to learn tracks everywhere.

He was the first British winner in 50 years of competition in the Australian Drivers Championship, joining Australian greats Lex Davison, Bib Stillwell, Kevin Bartlett, Alfredo Costanzo and John Bowe among others.

© 2006 Sun Herald

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