Friday motorsport report
December 29, 2006
For sheer speed, Webber's up with the greats
Despite his lamentable finishing record in Formula One in 2006, Australia's Mark Webber has been ranked among the 50 fastest grand prix drivers of all time. In a survey by F1 Racing magazine, in which drivers are compared against their teammates, Webber emerged 43rd among the 619 drivers who have started GPs in the past 57 years.
Australia's world champions Alan Jones and Sir Jack Brabham are on the list, too -- A.J. at 22nd and triple champ Brabham 32nd. And New Zealand great Chris Amon, perhaps the best driver never to win a GP, is there too at No. 24.
Webber is rated six places ahead of Jenson Button, the British driver who this year broke through for his first GP victory in Hungary, while Webber had a woeful season with the Williams team, scoring only seven points to be equal 14th in the world championship. The Australian finished only seven of 18 GPs this year, with sixth place in the opening race in Bahrain and again at round four, the San Marino race at Imola in Italy, his best finishes. Webber has had only one podium in his five-year career in F1 -- third at the 2005 Monaco GP, but he was on course for second there in '06 until a mechanical failure.
Having consistently outpaced his teammates, Webber is rated quicker than flying Frenchmen Rene Arnoux and Jean Alesi. The driver who has best matched Webber, albeit briefly, is Anthony Davidson towards the end of his first season with Minardi in 2002. Davidson will be racing full-time in F1 for the first time in 2007 with the Honda-linked Super Aguri team.
Ayrton Senna topped the rankings, ahead of Michael Schumacher. Fernando Alonso, world champion the past two seasons, ranked eighth. Apart from Schumacker, Alonso and Webber, the only drivers from this year's field in the top 50 are Kimi Raikkonen in 13th, Jarno Trulli 42nd, and Button 49th.
Of Webber, F1 Racing says: "In the absence of a competitive chassis to expose his talent properly, qualifying pig-dogs outrageously high has become Webber's trademark -- and the biggest clue to his natural speed, as it has been since he stuck his Jaguar R4 on P2 (second position) on the grid in Brazil in 2003. It isn't just the grid position that's impressive on these occasions (he was P2 in Malaysia in 2004), but his merciless demolition of teammates."
Apart from statistical comparisons with teammates, the F1 Racing survey drew on assessments from 29 experts including Federation Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA) president Max Mosley, Ferrari team chief Jean Todt, British great Stirling Moss, 1982 world champion Keke Rosberg (winner of Australia's first world championship GP in Adelaide in 1985 and father of Webber's 2006 teammate, Nico Rosberg), former F1 team owners Eddie Jordan and Australian Paul Stoddart, as well as Williams' Aussie technical director Sam Michael.
For the record, the 50 quickest drivers in F1 history according to F1 Racing are: 1. Ayrton Senna, 2. Michael Schumacher, 3. Jim Clark, 4. Nigel Mansell, 5. Ronnie Peterson, 6. Juan Manuel Fangio, 7. Mika Hakkinen, 8. Fernando Alonso, 9. Sir Jackie Stewart, 10. Jochen Rindt, 11. Gilles Villeneuve, 12. Stirling Moss, 13. Kimi Raikkonen, 14. Alain Prost, 15. Nelson Piquet, 16. Alberto Ascari, 17. Emerson Fittipaldi, 18. Niki Lauda, 19. Stefan Bellof, 20. Keke Rosberg, 21. James Hunt, 22. Alan Jones, 23. Francois Cevert, 24. Chris Amon, 25. Juan Pablo Montoya, 26. Jacky Ickx, 27. Mario Andretti, 28. Carlos Reutemann, 29. Tom Pryce, 30. Jody Scheckter, 31. Damon Hill, 32. Sir Jack Brabham, 33. Giuseppe Farina, 34. Hans-Joachim Stuck, 35. Carlos Pace, 36. Tony Brooks, 37. John Surtees, 38. Johnny Servoz-Gavin, 39. Gerhard Berger, 40. Jo Siffert, 41. Didier Pironi, 42. Jarno Trulli, 43. Mark Webber, 44. Rene Arnoux, 45. Jean Alesi, 46. Dan Gurney, 47. Riccardo Patrese, 48. Jean-Pierre Jarier, 49. Jenson Button, 50. Tony Brise.
Argue as much as you like about the order, but what a list!
Worthy of a top drive, but not in Roebuck's book
Britain's Autosport magazine, the Haymarket publishing group's weekly "parent" of the monthly F1 Racing, has rated Webber sixth in its top 50 of all the world's racing drivers in 2006, saying he is "playing the swashbuckling Mel Gibson role in F1". Ahead of the Australian in that report are Alonso, Michael Schumacher, France's triple world rally champion Sebastien Loeb, Raikkonen, and Button.
"His drive at Monte Carlo (this year) was absolutely astonishing, and he did a sound job of putting the upstart Nico Rosberg in his place after the rookie had earned all the plaudits at the beginning of the season," Autosport says. "Webber showed that he truly deserves a top drive in F1: will that be an Adrian Newey-designed, Renault-engined Red Bull? Don't bet against it."
Behind Webber in the Autosport top 10 of '06 are Alonso's Renault teammate of the past two years, Giancarlo Fisichella, Finnish rally star Marcus Gronholm, Italian Trulli and Brazilian Rubens Barrichello, who has been in Button's shadow at Honda's F1 team after several years as "bridesmaid" to Schumacher at Ferrari.
Some other interesting entries on the Autosport list: GP2 series winner and 2007 McLaren rookie Lewis Hamilton 11th, BMW's young Polish star Robert Kubica 12th, New Zealand Indy racing driver Scott Dixon 13th, German Nick Heidfeld 14th, Brazilian GP winner Felipe Massa 15th, France's triple Champ Car champion Sebastien Bourdais 17th, Jacques Villeneuve 18th, David Coulthard 20th, Ralf Schumacher 21st, Juan Pablo Montoya 22nd, Britain's world touring car champion Andy Priaulx 23rd, 19-year-old Marco Andretti, runner-up in the 2006 Indianapolis 500, at 34th, and Webber's 2006 Williams teammate Nico Rosberg 38th.
Despite Webber's high ranking on that list, he did not make Autosport GP editor Nigel Roebuck's top 10 F1 drivers of '06 -- but Nico Rosberg did! The esteemed Roebuck's list is: Alonso, M. Schumacher, Raikkonen, Button, Massa, Fisichella, Barrichello, Trulli, Rosberg and Coulthard.
Aussie trio among tin-top titans
In another Autosport survey, three Aussie V8 Supercar stars have been rated among the top 15 touring car drivers in the world for '06. Craig Lowndes makes the list at No. 6, the man who beat him to the national title, Rick Kelly, is No. 8, and Garth Tander is No. 13. Ahead of Lowndes, in the eyes of Autosport, are Andy Priaulx, DTM (German Touring Car championship) drivers Bruno Spengler from Canada and German veteran Bernd Schneider, Brazilian Augusto Farfus, who competes in the World Touring Car Championship, and Denmark's, and Audi's, DTM ace and Le Mans icon Tom Kristensen.
Berger F1 team wanted Montoya
Scuderia Toro Rosso, the second Red Bull team in F1, is the only GP team not to have finalised its line-up for '07 and it has been revealed that it tried to convince Juan Pablo Montoya to join it rather than persist with his stock car racing aspirations in America. However, Montoya -- who walked out on McLaren in the middle of this year -- is said by an associate to be "like a kid in a candy store" about NASCAR.
Toro Rosso, formerly Minardi and headed by Gerhard Berger -- the winner of 10 GPs, including two in Adelaide -- has been expected to retain Italian Vitantonio Liuzzi and American Scott Speed, but Portugal's Tiago Monteiro, dumped by Spyker (formerly Midland and originally Jordan) has come into the frame, while Champ Car ace Sebastien Bourdais tested with Toro Rosso recently and seems to be in favor -- but is out of calculations until 2008 as he is contracted to Newman-Haas for another season in America.
Briscoe's hat in Champ Car ring
Ryan Briscoe's name continues to be linked to the PKV Champ Car team, but a drive there for the Aussie seems dependant on what happens with Katherine Legge. Champ Car ringmaster and PKV part-owner Kevin Kalkoven is committed to keeping Legge in the series for another season, either with PKV or another team. Briscoe is Australia's main man in the A1 Grand Prix series which resumes in New Zealand in mid-January, followed by the Australian round at Sydney's Eastern Creek at the start of February.
Ralf will never be Michael - Maas
Before Michael Schumacher, Jochen Maas was Germany's most successful F1 driver. Now 60, Mass raced in 138 GPs between 1973 and 1982, winning the 1975 Spanish GP for McLaren. He remains a respected voice on F1 and doubts that Ralf Schumacher, at 31, can lift and lead Toyota in the way his older brother did Ferrari.
"As a driver, Ralf is right up there, and if he gets a good car then he can win races. But to get the title, Toyota must make a gigantic step forwards," says Mass, who reckons Ferrari's 2007 line-up, Kimi Raikkonen and Felipe Massa, is "risky", adding: "Usually they have a number one driver, and like this their team has operated successfully.
In contrast, McLaren have ignored this policy for years and suffered because of it." Maas approves of McLaren installing rookie Lewis Hamilton as teammate to its world champion recruit Fernando Alonso but says Hamilton will need two years to get up to speed fully.