MOTORSPORT: 10th win proving elusive for Webber

Vettel equals one Schumi feat and nears Senna's tally of wins
Mark Webber has only two chances now to score a 10th win before he bows out of Formula One racing.

Cycnics might say those chances are Buckley’s and none.

They are better than that, but 37-year-old Webber need not be expecting his 26-year-old four-time world champion teammate Sebastian Vettel to be handing him a grand prix victory as a parting gesture before he heads off to sports car racing with Porsche.

Vettel’s victory in Abu Dhabi early today, Australian time, was his seventh straight, equaling Michael Schumacher’s feat in 2004.

He could yet match Alberto Ascari’s nine in a row in 1952-53.

The year’s remaining GPs are at the Circuit of the Americas in Austin, Texas, on November 17 and then the finale at Interlagos in Sao Paulo, Brazil, on November 24.

In both cases the clock will have ticked over into the next day when the red lights go out to start the racing at ungodly hours for Australian TV viewers.

Webber reiterated in Abu Dhabi that he still has raw speed, taking his second pole position in the past three GPs and the 13th of his career, equaling the number by Sir Jack Brabham – although Australia’s triple (and the oldest surviving) F1 world champion, now 87, competed in almost 90 fewer GPs than Webber’s 213.

In today’s race Vettel and Mercedes driver Nico Rosberg made better starts than Webber and the German wunderkind led every lap, cruising to the chequered flag 30.829 seconds ahead of the Aussie.

Vettel had been 40 seconds in front at his second pitstop.

Webber overtook Rosberg just after one-third distance and finished 2.821 seconds ahead of him.

It was Red Bull Racing’s third one-two result of the year, Webber’s second podium in three races and his sixth in 17 races this season.

Vettel has had 14 podiums in this year’s Renault-powered RB9 car, including 11 wins – for a career total of 37 victories, just four short of the late Ayrton Senna (third on the all-time list, behind Michael Schumacher, on 91, and Alain Prost, on 51).

Of this latest victory Vettel said: “I was flying at some stages. At least it felt like it.”

RBR team principal Christian Horner called it “a truly dominant display” and said the team repeatedly had been “astounded with the levels of performance that he’s reached this year”.

Webber admitted his teammate had been “on another planet today … very, very strong in the first stint”.

“I didn’t get away from the line as well as Sebastian or Nico, who made an unbelievable start,” Webber said.

“It was lucky that there was only a short run to turn one - if this had been Sepang (in Malaysia) or Monza (in Italy) it would have been a lot more painful.”

Suffering excessive tyre wear, Webber pitted for new rubber on lap eight. He also had a worry with his KERS (kinetic energy recovery system) early in the race.

“KERS became a bit warm at one point, so we had to give it time to recover - but it worked fine after that,” Webber said.

“I could never completely relax though because Nico wasn’t far away.”

Fellow Aussie Daniel Ricciardo had qualified 10th and started ninth but said that finishing 16th, only getting ahead of one-stopping Toro Rosso teammate Jean-Eric Vergne in the closing laps, was “not at all the race I was hoping for”.

“In this sport if the start doesn’t go well it’s hard to recover,” Ricciardo said.

“The car (Ferrari-powered) didn’t get off the line well and then, at turn one, there was a bit of chaos as I dropped back into the group behind me.

“I had to run wide to avoid some accidents and from then on my race was pretty much over.”

Last year’s Abu Dhabi winner Kimi Raikkonen started from the back of the grid because his Lotus-Renault had a defective floor and he was out at the first corner.

Reportedly unpaid by the team this year, there had been speculation he would not complete the season with Lotus before returning next year to Ferrari, with which he won the 2007 world title.

However, Mansoor Ijaz of the Quantum syndicate that is investing in the team owned by Luxembourg-based Genii Capital has pledged that lots of its outstanding bills will be paid this week.

Ferarri’s Fernando Alonso has escaped serious injury to his back and any penalty for running wide and hitting a kerb hard as he avoided a collision with Vergne’s Toro Rosso when accelerating away from a pitstop.

Alonso finished fifth, behind Lotus-Renault’s Romain Grosjean (who missed the podium for the first time in four GPs), from 10th on the grid, and set the fastest lap on his last, while Ferrari’s departing Felipe Massa, who led Alonso for much of the race, wound up eighth.

Courtesy of Rosberg’s third place and Lewis Hamilton’s seventh, Mercedes stretched its lead over Ferrari in the race for second place in the constructors’ world championship from four to 11 points.

Two more chances for Ambrose too
Although guaranteed another season in NASCAR with Richard Petty Motorsports, Marcos Ambrose has just two more chances this year to win a Sprint Cup race on an American oval track.

Ambrose finished three laps down in 21st place in today’s Texas 500 and his best result this season driving Ford Fusions remains sixth at the Michigan superspeedway in August.

His two Sprint Cup wins were at the Watkins Glen road course in 2011 and ’12.

The remaining rounds this season are the 500-miler (800km) at Phoenix International Raceway next weekend and then the 400-mile (640km) “grand final” at Homestead-Miami Speedway a week later.

Five-time champion Jimmie Johnson in a Chevrolet SS is seven points ahead of Toyota driver Matt Kenseth after today’s Texas round.

Johnson won the 334-lap race by 4.4 seconds over Hendrick Motorsports teammate Dale Earnhardt Junior, with Joey Logano a couple more seconds back in one of Roger Penske’s Fords, and almost eight seconds ahead of Kenseth in fourth.

Johnson and Kenseth went to Texas tied on points, with Jeff Gordon and Kevin Harvick – both in Chevrolets – third and fourth.

Harvick is now third but 40 points off the lead and Gordon has dropped to sixth, behind Kyle Busch and Earnhardt.

Shanghai sweep for Honda in WTCC
Honda has scored its second podium clean sweep in the World Touring Car Championship at the second of the races at the weekend’s round at Shanghai in China.

Portuguese driver Tiago Monteiro claimed his first victory with the Japanese manufacturer in the series, ahead of another works Civic 1.6T driven by Italian Gabriele Tarquini and the privateer entry of Hungarian Norbert Michelisz.

Frenchman Yvan Muller already had clinched the drivers’ championship in a Chevrolet, even though the bowtie brand is no longer a manufacturer participant. Muller has 393 points to Tarquini’s 235 ahead of the final two races at Macau.