MOTORSPORT: A double dose of greatness

Sebastian Vettel has now won four grands prix in a row in his Red Bull-Renault and has led every lap of both Indian GPs at the Buddh International Circuit. Vettel has stretched his championship lead from six to 13 points over Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso, yet Alonso’s driving is at least the equal and perhaps better than Vettel’s.

More on all of that in a moment, but first it must be mentioned that Australia’s top rally driver, Chris Atkinson, has clinched the Asia-Pacific Rally Championship and helped Skoda take the manufacturers’ championship.

Greg Murphy, the “Prince of Pukekohe”, has won the final endurance round of New Zealand’s new V8 SuperTourer series at the famous circuit on the southern outskirts of Auckland – with Jack Perkins, who has a fine enduro pedigree as the son of multiple Bathurst 1000 winner Larry Perkins but is without a regular V8 Supercar drive. A spin by Perkins in their 7-litre Holden Commodore cost the pair victory in the first of the three races that comprised the International 500 at Pukekohe but they won the other two ahead of first-race winners, 19-year-old Scott McLaughlin and Jonathon Webb in another Commodore.

Chevrolet has won its 36th – and 10th straight – NASCAR Cup manufacturers’ championship, with its top driver, Jimmie Johnson, now perhaps headed for his sixth title after winning the third last race of the season at Martinsville, Virginia, and taking the series lead from Dodge driver Brad Keselowski. That was Chevrolet’s 12th Cup win this season – but its first in the past 12 races.

Marcos Ambrose finished 24th in his Ford Fusion while his Richard Petty Motorsports teammate Aric Almirola was fourth, his equal best finish, behind Johnson, Kyle Busch (Toyota) and Kasey Kahne (Chevrolet).

Toyota has notched its third sports car win in the past four rounds of the World Endurance Championship in Shanghai with its hybrid TS030, driven by Australian Alex Wurz and Frenchman Nicolas Lapierre, but Audi took the driver and manufacturers’ titles with German Andre Lotterer, Frenchman Benoit Treluyer and Swiss Marcel Fassler and the R18 e-tron quattro.

Audi’s Leena Gade, of Indian origin but who grew up in Britain, made history by becoming the first female race engineer to win a world championship, having already been part of Le Mans success with Audi. 

Australians David Brabham and John Martin co-drive cars that finished fifth and seventh outright in Shanghai. The Alan Docking Racing-Delta ORICA-Nissan in which Martin raced won the Le Mans Prototype 2 category by more than half a minute, earning maximum points for the fourth time this year and second place in the season’s teams’ championship in that class. Brabham was in a British-run Honda Performance Development car previously campaigned as an Acura in the American Le Mans Series.

And Italian ex-F1 driver Vitantonio Liuzzi, who drove at the Gold Coast 600 barely a week ago, has lost the Italian-based V8 Superstars series in hugely controversial circumstances. Liuzzi’s Swedish rival Johan Kristoffersson’s Audi was rammed out of the final race at Pergusa in Sicily on the first lap by Nico Caldaarola’s Mercedes and Liuzzi was headed for seemingly certain success in another Mercedes C63, needing to finish only fifth, but was hit twice in the closing stages by fellow Italian Andrea Larini in yet another Mercedes and was classified ninth.

The Italians had clashed previously and Liuzzi said: “Everybody saw what happened. I’m basically the winner of the championship, but the numbers didn’t say so. This is not a sporting way for it to end.”

Australia’s Sir Jack Brabham is a triple world champion and, at 86, F1’s oldest surviving world champ. A Queensland report a week ago suggested Sir Jack’s public appearances were probably over because of the regular kidney dialysis he requires. So it was a pleasant surprise to see Sir Jack and the designer of most of his racing cars, Ron Tauranac, at Melbourne’s Motorclassica at the weekend – both of them in excellent spirits and among 10 of their famous BT (for Brabham-Tauranac) open-wheeler cars.

Vettel matched a feat of another triple world champion in India yesterday, becoming the first driver since the late Ayrton Senna in 1989 to lead every lap of three successive GPs. While Red Bull teammate Mark Webber beat Vettel off the start line the German was ahead by the third turn and his drive after that was described by Red Bull team principal Christian Horner as “immaculate”.

Webber had problems again with his kinetic energy recovery system (KERS) and ultimately lost second place to Alonso but held off Lewis Hamilton’s McLaren-Mercedes for another podium.

“It’s maybe hard for people watching to know what it (loss of KERS) affects on the car – it’s power on the straight obviously, but also managing brake balances and those sort of things,” Webber said. “The guys (on the pit wall) were trying to help me get the KERS to recover … we were talking on the radio.

“I was pretty happy with how I drove … we should have finished further up the road, but it’s the way it was. It is so demoralising on that straight with no KERS. It was when I had no KERS that Fernando came past. I pushed as strong as possible to get to the end of the race, but I was lucky Lewis made a mistake on lap 57 [of 60]. That was important because he was starting to get a bit of momentum.”

Australia’s other F1 driver Daniel Ricciardo finished 13th and said it was “not exactly an exciting race” for him, although he finished two places ahead of Toro Rosso-Ferrari teammate Jean-Eric Vergne.

The grandstands had many empty seats after the huge welcome India gave F1 a year earlier.

The latest indication of Alonso’s brilliance was that he was the only driver in the top 10 on the grid to improve his position at the finish of the race. While Vettel could not improve from pole position, Alonso had started from fifth – behind the two McLarens as well as the Red Bulls.

“This second place is all down to Fernando’s talent, to his aggressive approach and the fact that he never wants to give up, backed by a team that is doing the maximum to give him a car that is worthy of him,” Ferrari team chief Stefano Domenicali said.

Had he not been taken out by others in the Belgian and Japanese GPs Alonso would still be leading the championship in a car that has never been the best this season, and be the favourite for what would be his third world title too. Even now he is barely half a win behind Vettel – and the German could so easily fall victim to the fate Alonso did at Spa and Suzuka. The Spaniard is amazingly consistent and nobody is ever left to wonder whether he could have extracted more from his machinery.

Alonso already is among the very finest drivers in F1 history. Vettel may well be among them too, but we may need to see more of him in equipment that is not the best, to judge that. Then again, he won his first GP in a Toro Rosso – a glorified Minardi – as “a kid”.

Three GPs remain to be run this year – in Abu Dhabi this weekend (with V8 Supercars as the support act), then the new American race at Austin, Texas, on November 18, and the finale at Brazil’s fabulous Interlagos a week later. These races, the last two in particular, will be at horror times for Australian watchers, but it will be a privilege to see these two greats fight for the title. It will be a bit like the seeing those memorable Muhammad Ali-Joe Frazier heavyweight bouts.

Atkinson finished second in the Chinese event in his Super 2000 Skoda co-driven by Belgian Stephane Prevost. Next up for Atkinson is his final outing in the Portuguese-entered, Italian prepared MINI in Rally Spain, the final round of this year’s World Rally Championship.

Atkinson’s Team MRF teammate in the Asia-Pacific series, Indian Guarav Gill, had a mechanical failure for the fourth straight rally after leading early and having been fastest on most stages this season.

Skoda won the APRC manufacturers’ championship – its third international title this year, along with the Intercontinental Rally Challenge and the European Championship. It also has won five national championships this year.

New Zealander Brian Green was the only driver to finish all six rounds of the series.

Proton dominated the two-wheel-drive class, with Malaysian Karamjit Singh winning that class in China and clinching the 2WD Cup for the second year.

Formula One drivers’ world championship after 17 of 20 rounds - 1. Sebastian Vettel (Germany, Red Bull-Renault) 240 points; 2. Fernando Alonso (Spain, Ferrari) 227; 3. Kimi Raikkonen (Finland, Lotus-Renault) 173; 4. Mark Webber (Australia, Red Bull-Renault) 167; 5. Lewis Hamilton (Great Britain,  McLaren-Mercedes)  165; 6. Jenson Button (GB, McLaren-Mercedes)  141; 7. Nico Rosberg (Germany,  Mercedes) 93; 8. Romain Grosjean (France, Lotus-Renault) 90; 9. Felipe Massa (Brazil, Ferrari) 89; 10. Sergio Perez (Mexico, Sauber-Ferrari) 66; 11. Kamui Kobayashi (Japan, Sauber-Ferrari) 50; 12. Nico Hulkenberg (Germany, Force India-Mercedes) 49; 13. Paul Di Resta (GB, Force India-Mercedes) 44; 14. Michael Schumacher (Germany, Mercedes) 43; 15. Pastor Maldonado (Venezuela, Williams-Renault) 33; 16. Bruno Senna (Brazil, Williams-Renault) 26; 17. Jean-Eric Vergne (France, Toro Rosso-Ferrari) 12; 18. Daniel Ricciardo (Australia, Toro Rosso-Ferrari)  9.

F1 constructors’ world championship - 1. Red Bull-Renault 407 points; 2. Ferrari 316; 3. McLaren-Mercedes 306; 4. Lotus-Renault 263; 5. Mercedes 136; 6. Sauber-Ferrari 116; 7. Force India-Mercedes 93; 8. Williams-Renault 59; 9. Toro Rosso-Ferrari  21. 

NASCAR Sprint Cup after 33 of 36 races - 1. Jimmie Johnson (Chevrolet) 2291 points; 2. Brad Keselowski (Dodge) 2289; 3. Clint Bowyer (Toyota) 2265; 4. Kasey Kahne (Chevrolet) 2262; 5. Denny Hamlin (Toyota) 2242; 6. Jeff Gordon (Chevrolet) 2237; 7. Martin Truex Junior (Toyota) 2228; 8. Matt Kenseth (Ford)  2225; 9. Greg Biffle (Ford) 2222; 10. Tony Stewart (Chevrolet) 2220; 11. Kevin Harvick (Chevrolet) 2203; Dale Earnhardt Junior (Chevrolet) 2151. Australia’s Marcos Ambrose (Ford) is 18th on 880 points.

Read the latest news and reviews on your mobile, iPhone or PDA at carsales' mobile site…