Ultimate speed comparison for Melbourne.

The ultimate speed comparison is back! The unique races between a Formula One car, a V8 Supercar and a BMW road car that proved so popular with patrons at the 2001 Australian Grand Prix return in 2003.

A BMW-WilliamsF1 driven by that team's official test driver, Spaniard Marc Gene, will again chase down Larry Perkins' Holden Commodore V8 Supercar and a road-going BMW, this time a 318ti in the special one-lap handicap sprints each day of the 2003 Foster's Australian Grand Prix at Melbourne's Albert Park on March 6-9.

The two Australian driving legends, Moffat and Perkins, who have scored 10 Bathurst 1000 victories between them, are raring to go again in the Ultimate Speed Comparison, saying the 2001 experiment was so much fun it rated among their favourite experiences in motor sport.

"It was absolutely fantastic," Perkins said. "People have been asking me ever since, 'When is that going to happen again?'

"I was very happy with the performance of my Holden Commodore and I think I won two of the races last time.

"But what really grabbed the fans was not so much who won but just seeing the comparison of three cars that are so different being driven at the absolute limit."

A Formula One driver himself in the early 1970s, Perkins admitted that he was in awe of the BMW-WilliamsF1's speed. "I remember being halfway down the pit straight towards the chequered flag and I couldn't see the F1 car in my mirrors, then at the finish line it was alongside me. "It just came from nowhere, absolutely awesome!"

Good mates Perkins and Moffat have already ribbed each other that there is to be no "sandbagging" in practice for the Ultimate Speed Comparison on the opening day of the 2003 Grand Prix, Thursday, March 6, when the handicapper will finalise the starting advantage they will get on Gene.

"Larry knows every trick in the book, he invented most of them," said Moffat, still smarting that having an electronic sensor in the boot of his car rather than in the nose may have cost him a win in 2001.

"Moffat's got it easy," Perkins said. "He's in a road car, on road tyres, with the biggest start, more than a minute, compared to my half-minute, approximately, while Marc Gene and I have got to get our racing tyres up to speed from a cold start. But he better just stay out of the way when we come through!"

If the handicapper gets it right, and the Ultimate Speed Comparison is anything like 2001, the trio will flash across the finish line at exactly the same instant in all four runs each day of the Grand Prix.