Sandown: Season finale preview

Championship concludes at Sandown. Tony Ricciardello appears likely to secure another Australian Sports Sedan Championship title with a good round at Sandown this weekend. His Alfa Romeo GTV/Chev has a good lead in the chase for the title and ...

Championship concludes at Sandown.

Tony Ricciardello appears likely to secure another Australian Sports Sedan Championship title with a good round at Sandown this weekend. His Alfa Romeo GTV/Chev has a good lead in the chase for the title and the combination will only need a handful of points from the two races.

The talented young gun from West Australia is fancied to take back-to-back series wins, the second time he has done so. With another title win Ricciardello will make it four championships and equal to arch rival Kerry Baily.

Baily has had another frustrating year where his the big horsepower six litre Chevrolet powered Nissan 300 ZX has shown to be fast enough to win races, but has been letdown with unreliability problems.

The only driver/car combination that has any chance of taking the title off Ricciardello is Darren Hossack aboard the John Gourlay-owned Saab/Chev. They were a surprise winner at the opening round at Phillip Island in April but couldn't match Ricciardello in the ensuing rounds at Oran Park (two) and Queensland Raceway.

Still Hossack and the Saab have been the category's most consistent runner with top six finishers in all but one race where rear suspension forced a rare non-finish. He would have to win the Sandown heats while Ricciardello would have to basically have a dismal day and score no points.

To all intents and purposes, the Championship winner and second has been decided, third spot is still up for grabs. An accident in appalling wet conditions at Sandown last year, robbed Tony Wilson of third, and the Commodore/Chev driver is hoping to atone this time around. However he will have to battle the likes of Baily, Des Wall in his Toyota Supra/Chev and the Saab/Chev of Dean Randle.

Scheduled to make its first appearance at national level is the new Falcon AU of Bob Gill. This state-of-the-art beast was constructed by Les Laidlaw from the remanants of the V8 Supercar Glenn Seton crashed at Sandown.

ROUND FIVE SCHEDULE

Friday November 29
10:45 Sports Sedans Practice
13:15 Sports Sedans Practice
16:30 Sports Sedans Qualifying 1

Saturday November 30
10:25 Sports Sedans Qualifying 2

Sunday December 1
09:05 Sports Sedans Warm Up
10:00 Sports Sedans Race One
12:45 Sports Sedans Race Two

CHAMPIONSHIP POINTS (after four rounds)
Ricciardello 159, Hossack 130, Wilson 109, Baily 97, Wall 78, Randle 72, Jameson 64, Barnes 62.

Highlights of each round of the AUSTRALIAN SPORTS SEDAN CHAMPIONSHIP can be seen on Network TEN's Trackside program. Each of the five rounds of the series will be scheduled for the program, which generally airs the week after the round. Trackside is a 90-minute program featured on Sunday afternoons from 2:30 pm right after RPM.