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McLaren heads into Formula One’s Malaysian Grand Prix on April 10 riding a wave of confidence gained by Lewis Hamilton’s second-place finish in the season-opening Australian Grand Prix on March 27.

The team arrived in Melbourne with a completely reworked exhaust and floor system in an attempt to make up for its lack of performance. The result was everything the team hoped for, with Hamilton finishing in second and Jenson Button capturing sixth.

“After the pace we showed in Melbourne, I think we can have another good race in Malaysia,” said Hamilton. “Albert Park is a great track, but a circuit like Sepang is where the differences between the cars will start to become clearer.”

The 3.444-mile Sepang International Circuit consists of a variety of low- and high-speed corners.

“Sepang is a circuit I really love,” said Hamilton. “It’s big, fast and wide with some really demanding high-speed corners where you can find a lot of time if you’re really able to get the car working to its full extent.”

His teammate Button added, “This is a track where you need a very efficient car–the corners here are big and will punish any car that lacks downforce. After Melbourne, when I really felt like I had a very solid car beneath me. I’m looking forward to getting out in practice to see how our package can adapt to this circuit.”

The entire F1 grid will have to battle with Malaysia’s high heat and humidity throughout the race weekend. A driver’s physical conditioning is critical to having a solid performance.

“Obviously, one of the main considerations for the drivers is to ensure we’re properly hydrated throughout the race weekend,” said Button. “Until you’ve been to Malaysia, you really can’t appreciate what an oven it is–it’s the toughest race of the year physically, and a place where good base fitness carried over from the winter will stand you in good stead for the race.”

Rain is usually another factor in Malaysian–it is not a matter of if it will rain, but rather when it will rain. Button won the rain-drenched race in 2009.

“I won here in 2009 in some of the worst conditions I’ve ever experienced in a racing car–it was like driving through a river at some spots,” he said. “Whatever the weather throws at us this year, I think we can have another strong weekend.”

However, McLaren must still attempt to overcome the performance gap between itself and Red Bull Racing. Sebastian Vettel, the pole sitter in Australia, was nearly 0.8 second faster than Hamilton, who qualified second.

“The reality is that there was a gap to pole position, and we finished second and not first,” said Martin Whitmarsh, team principal. “Our target is to close that gap and get Lewis and Jenson into a position where they can win.”

The 2011 Malaysian Grand Prix will cover 56 laps for a total distance of 192.879 miles. The average speed around the Sepang International Circuit last year was 127 mph, but drivers will hit a top speed of approximately 192 mph.

Sam Schmidt Motorsports on Tuesday confirmed that Townsend Bell and Jay Howard will join Izod IndyCar Series regular Alex Tagliani in the team’s three-car assault on this year’s 100th-anniversary Indianapolis 500.

American driver Bell, the 2001 Indy Lights champion, will drive the No. 99 Herbalife Sam Schmidt Motorsports car. Howard, the 2006 Indy Lights champ from Basildon, England, will drive the No. 88 Service Central car, a partnership between Schmidt and Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing.

Bell, who will attempt to qualify for his fifth Indy 500, returns to the Speedway with the same team for the first time in his career. Driving for SSM in 2010, Bell qualified in 10th place and finished 16th. His best finish at Indy came in 2009, when he finished fourth driving for KV Racing Technology.

Chris Griffis will be the team manager on the No. 99 while veteran Dave Higuera will be the crew chief.

RLL team manager Scott Roembke will lead the No. 88 Service Central team, with Ricardo Nault serving as crew chief.

Despite being one of the fastest cars in Indy practice during last year’s Bump Day qualifying, Howard’s bid to make his first 500 fell short. Driving a car owned by fellow driver Sarah Fisher, he found himself outside the 33-car field when qualifying ended.

Bell and Howard will join Schmidt’s full-season driver, Tagliani, as part of a three-car effort for the month of May.

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Izod IndyCar Series team Newman/Haas Racing on Tuesday announced that James Hinchcliffe will drive for it in the remaining North American events on the 2011 IndyCar schedule.

The 24-year-old Canadian driver finished second in the 2010 Firestone Indy Lights standings. He claimed eight podium finishes in 13 races with three wins, at Long Beach, Edmonton and Chicagoland. He also tested with Newman/Haas in December 2010 and January 2011. His previous open-wheel experience includes competing in the Star Mazda series, the Atlantic series and in A1 Grand Prix.

“We are pleased to add James to our team,” said Carl Haas, founder of Newman/Haas Racing. “He impressed us with how quickly he acclimated himself to the demands of driving an Indy car last December and showed he is more than talented enough to compete at this level since then.”

The driver will make his debut on April 10 at the Honda Indy Grand Prix of Alabama in Birmingham, Ala.

“Finally making my IndyCar debut really is a dream come true and the end of a 15-year journey getting me to this point,” said Hinchcliffe.

His primary sponsor will be Eric Sprott and Sprott Inc., an independent asset-managing company based in Toronto.

“Having the support from a prominent Canadian company as I start this next step in my career is extra special,” said Hinchcliffe. “I can’t thank Eric Sprott and Sprott Inc. enough for their commitment, and I’m sure we can do Canadian sport proud.”

Hinchcliffe will not compete in the international races in São Paulo, Brazil, and Motegi, Japan.

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Former team owner-driver and current NASCAR executive Brett Bodine is not worried about Kimi Räikkönen making a seamless move into the Camping World Truck Series after years in Formula One and now World Rally cars.

NASCAR star Kyle Busch on Saturday announced that the 2007 world champion will run a handful of oval-track Truck Series races for Busch’s truck team this summer, but Bodine is more worried about Räikkönen’s off-track adjustments than anything he might face in competition.

“I’ll be curious to see how he handles this open atmosphere, where everything in the garage is pretty much out in the open for everybody to see,” Bodine said. “He’s going to see a lot of things he’s never seen, a lot of things he’s going to have to learn to handle. He’s not used to being so open, to having crewmen on other teams working on their truck right beside him, with everything out in the open, not in closed garages.

“And he’s never been in a situation where the media is everywhere all the time, asking questions and taking pictures and asking for interviews. I heard he can be pretty cold with people [his nickname is the “Iceman”], so that’s something he’ll have to face. And he’s never been anyplace where the fans are right down in the garage and on pit road and in the public areas. We’ll all be interested to see how he adjusts to everything going on around him. This will be a whole new atmosphere for him.”

Juan Pablo Montoya made the transition–and it didn’t seem especially difficult–when he came from F1 through CART into NASCAR in 2007.

“Juan isn’t like Kimi, and he had the [Indy-car experience] to buffer his move from Formula One to over here,” Bodine said. “[CART] wasn’t as open as we are over here, but it was a good transition to help him get ready for NASCAR after his time in Formula One.

“I think [Räikkönen will] be good [in his May 20 debut] at Charlotte because for trucks, that’s like being at Talladega. You just run it wide-open all the time. And being in a Rally car is good training for this, more than F1. Rally-car drivers don’t worry about aero; they’re all about car control and the feel of that car on whatever surface they happen to be on at the time. He’s got great car control, so he’ll be just fine out here.”

Four-time champion Jeff Gordon said he is looking forward to Räikkönen’s first experience with the traveling NASCAR media.

“I can’t wait for him to do an interview because the one-word answers you guys will get from those questions are going to be hilarious,” he said. “I can tell you, he’s not going to say much. You ask a question and you might get a one-word answer–and that’ll be it. He doesn’t give you much to go on. I might come in here for that first session.”

Gordon is probably NASCAR’s biggest F1 fan. As such, he recognizes that Räikkönen has the talent to eventually figure out oval-track racing and be successful if he pursues it.

“I admire Kimi [because] he has a lot of talent,” Gordon said. “I can’t believe [he's coming over] just like I couldn’t believe it when Juan Pablo made his announcement. It says a lot about NASCAR that somebody like him is considering coming here, and I admire him for wanting to start truck racing and not just jump into a Cup car.

“Obviously, the word is out to the best drivers in the world [that] if you think you’re just going to come in here and jump in a Cup car and be competitive, you’re kidding yourself. And I think that’s pretty cool about our sport, that we’re drawing this international group of talent. That’s awesome. I hope to one day see him in the Cup series.”

Someone asked what advice Gordon would offer if Räikkönen came to him for words of wisdom.

“There’s not a lot you can tell them because they know how to get into different cars and adapt,” he said. “But this is a series with vehicles that are far more challenging than people realize, especially when you’ve come out of high-downforce cars. I think the rally car he’s been driving gives him more experience or gets him better prepared for this than any of his F1 cars. The last thing you want is to get one of these cars feeling like an F1 car, or even hope that maybe one day you can, because you never will.

“So I’d tell him to be patient and stay in the best equipment he can and go out there and follow the guys that are going fast. Learn the best lines and the braking points at each of the tracks. That would be the quickest way I think to learn and adapt and be competitive.”

Formula One teams earned $658 million in prize-fund payments in 2010, according to the accounts of Formula One Administration Ltd., which were revealed this week along with those of various other companies in the Formula One group.

The documents make for fascinating reading as one attempts to untangle the roles of the various elements of the complex web of companies that control the sport.

The headline prize-money figure was up from $544 million in 2009. The increase reflects the first full year of the current Concorde Agreement, F1’s governing document, and the fact that there were 12 teams on the grid, up from nine in the previous year.

Meanwhile, FOA’s overall turnover increased by $19 million from the previous year. The company said that the increase was a result of the addition of Korea and Canada to the calendar, which helped to offset other economic factors.

As of January 2011, FOA handed over the commercial rights to a different company, Formula One World Championship Ltd. This season represents the start of the 100-year rights agreement that commercial boss Bernie Ecclestone signed with the FIA on behalf of SLEC Holdings back in April 2001.

All commercial deals done with FOA have been transferred to FOWC, which ramped up gradually over the course of 2010 in readiness for its new role, while FOA is in turn now being wound down.

FOWC said, with some understatement, that “with the company now undertaking the commercial rights to the championship . . . the directors consider the company is well positioned to perform satisfactorily in the future.”

In June 2010, FOWC acquired FOM from fellow SLEC subsidiary Petara Ltd. for $23.5 million.

FOM provided “business-management services to FOA including the provision of technical support and broadcast services” at a cost of $70 million in 2010. It will continue to do the same job for FOWC.

One interesting detail shows that FOA wrote off $11.1 million in relation to the Istanbul Park organization–the company behind the Turkish Grand Prix–which was sold to FOWC for $1

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The Firestone Indy Lights Series will return to live television this season, with eight events broadcast on the Versus network. The feeder category to the Izod IndyCar Series had just one live broadcast last year.

Also part of this year’s TV package is a tape-delayed event in Trois-Riviéres, Quebec.

The live broadcasts will be from Barber Motorsports Park, Streets of Long Beach, Indianapolis Motor Speedway, Iowa Speedway, Streets of Toronto, Edmonton City Centre Airport, Streets of Baltimore and Kentucky Speedway.

“It is very important as we look to develop our future stars that we are able to provide opportunities to increase their exposure and build names,” IndyCar CEO Randy Bernard said in a statement. “The live broadcasts on Versus provide coverage [of the races] on the fastest-growing sports cable network in the country [and help] further integrate Firestone Indy Lights into the momentum surrounding the Izod IndyCar Series.”

Versus officials said they will name the announcers for the Indy Lights broadcasts at a later date.

On-track activities began Thursday afternoon for NASCAR’s annual spring double-header weekend at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. Nationwide Series teams had the 1.5-mile track to themselves for two practice sessions.

The Friday schedule features two more Nationwide practices between noon and 2:50 p.m. Eastern. There’s a 90-minute Sprint Cup practice session at 3 p.m. and full-field Cup qualifying at 6:40 p.m. Just as last weekend in Phoenix, only 44 cars are expected for the 43 grid positions.

Nationwide teams will qualify at noon Eastern on Saturday, followed at 1 p.m. by the final Cup practice. The Sam’s Town Nationwide Series 300 is scheduled for 3:15 p.m., the same time as Sunday afternoon’s Kobalt Tools Sprint Cup 400.

Carl Edwards (177.819 mph) and Kyle Busch (177.299 mph) were fastest in Thursday’s first Nationwide practice. The other top-10 runners were Ricky Stenhouse Jr., Denny Hamlin, Trevor Bayne, Mark Martin, Brian Scott, points leader Reed Sorenson, Aric Almirola and Elliott Sadler.

Busch easily led the second session at 178.094 mph. Stenhouse was second at 177.177 mph, followed by Martin, Edwards, Hamlin, Bayne, Sorenson, Scott, Kevin Harvick and Justin Allgaier. Twenty-nine of the 42 teams ran the first session and 34 ran the second. Only 40 cars showed up and raced last weekend in Phoenix, the first Nationwide short field since the second race of the 2008 season, in February at Fontana.

The famous Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course will celebrate its 50th anniversary next year with new owners.

Kim Green and Kevin Savoree, former co-owners of Andretti Green Racing, bought the track near Lexington, Ohio–and the driving school that goes with it–from TrueSports.

Terms were not discussed, but Green Savoree Promotions, which puts on the street-course events in Toronto and St. Petersburg, Fla., will retain TrueSports’ offices and staff.

“Properties like Mid-Ohio don’t come on the market every day,” said Savoree, president and chief operating officer. “It was a great opportunity to invest in a property with a great history and tradition that, like us, has deep roots in sports-car and IndyCar racing.”

The track’s 2011 schedule includes the Vintage Grand Prix of Mid-Ohio (June 24-26), Honda Super Cycle Weekend (July 8-10), AMA Vintage Motorcycle Days (July 22-24), Honda Indy 200 (Aug. 5-7), NASA Championships (Sept. 9-11), and the EMCO Gears Classic (Sept. 16-18).

The Mid-Ohio School has nearly 180 class dates.

Mid-Ohio was built in 1962 by local businessman Les Griebling and was purchased by racing enthusiast Jim Trueman in 1982. Trueman, who won the 1986 Indianapolis 500 as a team owner with Bobby Rahal driving, invested millions in the property.

Mercedes GP team principal Ross Brawn has admitted that his team needs to find a whole second’s worth of speed in the car upgrades it plans to bring to the next Formula One test in Barcelona and the first race in Melbourne on March 27.

The W02 car has clearly been off the pace in early testing, although it set some fast laps when running closer to low-fuel qualifying spec, making it difficult to assess the overall picture.

“It is very hard to judge because of different fuel weights,” Brawn said in a live interview with BBC Radio on Thursday. “Tires are going to be very important, and most sensible teams have been running with high fuel loads, because that’s where you get the highest [tire] degradation, that’s when you stress the tires the most, and that’s where you want to find a good solution. So it is difficult to judge [exactly where we are].”

Brawn insisted that Mercedes GP always intended to save its major upgrades for later in the winter as the team focused first on reliability. But on Thursday, he conceded that the plan might not work out.

“We said when we started [testing] that we had some things to learn on [kinetic-energy-recovery systems] and tires, and we were going to start with a fairly plain car, and you’ll see in Barcelona something quite different,” Brawn said. “We’re as quietly confident as we can be. We think our strategy is correct, to approach it the way we have, and we’ll all know when we get to the first race.

“It’s been pretty difficult to judge where everyone is. At the last test at Barcelona, we had a go at running low fuel and the supersoft tires, and we were the second-quickest car, but I don’t think that’s where we are overall.”

Pressed on where he thinks the team stands, Brawn said, “I think we’re about a second off where we want to be, and where we want to be is mixing it at the front. So we’ve got to find a second in the upgrade, which we think we can do, but you never know what other people are going to do as well.

“Everybody’s going to have new bits at Barcelona. If somebody does come through with a radical innovation that none of the other teams has thought about, then it can change things.

“But we set out our plan, and we’ll know when we get to Melbourne whether the plan was right. It’s fun to speculate at the moment, but it’s very difficult.”

Brawn also said that Michael Schumacher has not lost faith in the team.

“He’s very motivated, very committed,” Brawn said. “That steely determination we often see with Michael is there in spades. And he’s also been part of the plan; he’s understood what we’ve been putting together.

“We may get egg on our face; we may turn up at Melbourne and it hasn’t come together. But we’re optimistic. He’s part of it, he knows what we’re doing, and he knows why we’re doing what we’re doing. And we’re going to have to wait and see.”

Team owner Chip Ganassi will do his own driver swap during a closed-to-the-public event later this month in Alabama.

On March 16, NASCAR driver Jamie McMurray (he of 2010 Daytona 500 and Brickyard 400 fame) will drive Ganassi Racing’s No. 9 Target Honda Indy-car that Scott Dixon drives in the Izod IndyCar Series. It’ll happen at Barber Motorsports Park, east of Birmingham, about a half hour from Talladega Superspeedway.

Later that day, after a short jaunt eastward on Interstate 10 to Talladega, Dixon–a two-time series champion and the 2008 Indy 500 winner–will turn laps in the No. 1 Bass Pro Shop Chevrolet that McMurray drives in Sprint Cup.

April will be a crowded month for racing in Alabama. The Rolex Grand-Am Sports Car Series will visit Barber on April 7-9 for its third event of the year. The Izod IndyCar Series will race there on April 10 in round two of its 17-race season. ARCA has a 250-mile race at Talladega on April 15, the Nationwide Series has a 312-mile event there on the April 16, and NASCAR’s Sprint Cup teams have a 500-mile race there on April 17.

Later this summer, at Watkins Glen International, 2008 Formula One champion Lewis Hamilton will swap cars with two-time NASCAR champion Tony Stewart for a series of exhibition runs.