MOTORSPORT: A triple crown for TV watchers

Glory for Webber and Dixon, sweet 'n' sour for Power and Briscoe
Mark Webber has notched his best finish of the Formula 1 season - fourth in the Monaco Grand Prix, his fifth straight points-scoring race.

Ryan Briscoe is in the "sin bin" after punting the darling of Indy racing, Danica Patrick, out of the Indianapolis 500.

Will Power made a creditable debut at The Brickyard, finishing 13th in the Indy 500, and Australians can lay claim to New Zealander Scott Dixon, winner of the American classic, because he was born in Brisbane!

Hamilton Senna-esque but Sutil the new star
Lewis Hamilton won the Monaco Grand Prix, emulating his idol Ayrton Senna - who was the master of the streets of the world's most glamorous principality.

Senna's nephew, Bruno, won the GP2 support race in Monaco, enhancing his chances of graduating to F1 next year, most likely with Scuderia Toro Rosso.

But the sensation of Monaco was German youngster Adrian Sutil, who was in line to finish fourth - between the Ferraris of Felipe Massa and Kimi Raikkonen - with seven minutes remaining in the race that was slowed by rain and ran two laps short of its scheduled distance.

Sutil's performance for Force India (previously the Spyker, Midland and originally Jordan team) was miraculous from 18th on the grid but was cruelly ended when world champion Raikkonen lost control and speared into the rear of the German's Ferrari-engined car.

"He apologised. He is a great sportsman and a very good driver so I have to accept it," Sutil said.

Robert Kubica continued to blow away his experienced BMW-Sauber teammate Nick Heidfeld, leading much of the race and finishing second to Hamilton and ahead of Massa.

Hamilton's drive was superb and gave McLaren its 15th victory in Monaco even though the Ferraris had filled the front row of the grid on the circuit famous for its tightness and difficult passing.

Hamilton brushed a safety barrier very early in the race and had to pit with a deflated right rear tyre, but the premature stop allowed refueling that worked in his favor as he picked off his rivals.

"It's the most fun I've ever had in a race," Hamilton said.

It was the 23-year-old's sixth win in 23 GP starts, and the first in Monaco by an Englishman since Graham Hill in 1969.

Hamilton now leads the world championship again for the first time since the season-opener in Melbourne in mid-March, while Raikkonen finished out of the points in ninth.

However, it is a four-man battle with Hamilton on 38 points, Raikkonen 35, Massa 34 and Kubica 32.

Webber is seventh on 15 points - all of Red Bull Racing's tally for the season, as David Coulthard crashed in qualifying and the race.

"We had to change to dry tyres maybe five laps earlier than we would have liked," Webber said.

"It would have been good to have had a little bit more fuel, but that was a great result which gives us a lot of points."

Red Bull team boss Christian Horner said Webber "didn't put a wheel wrong" throughout the two hour-long race.

"Unfortunately our cross-over strategy to go onto slick tyres was about five or six laps too early, which allowed Raikkonen and Sutil, who had the benefit of going several laps  longer, to just sneak ahead. 

"But Mark kept it all together and benefited from Kimi's accident with Sutil."

Even though Coulthard qualified 10th, just one place behind Webber, he was relegated five spots on the grid because of the repairs that were needed to his car.

The veteran's days in F1's elite driving ranks are fast coming to an end, with another German youngster, Sebastien Vettel, enhancing his claim to Coulthard's slot with fifth place in Monaco for Red Bull's secondary team, Scuderia Toro Rosso.

Rubens Barrichello notched his first points since 2006 with sixth place for Honda (teammate Jenson Button was 11th), Kazuki Nakajima was seventh for Williams (teammate Nico Rosberg had a big crash in the closing stages) and Heikki Kovalainen came eighth after starting last from the pit lane because his McLaren had a software glitch before the formation lap.

Fernando Alonso was 10th, a lap down, for Renault, while Giancarlo Fisichella didn not finish his 200th GP because of a gearbox problem in his Force India, but that is another career surely coming to an end.

There was speculation around Monaco that dual world champion Alonso has signed to drive for Ferrari in 2010.

Despite the rain, the principality lived up to its reputation as F1's premier event. Enzo Ferrari used to say it was worth half a world championship.

The great team that is Enzo's legacy still leads McLaren in the constructors' standings courtesy of its four-race winning streak, including two quinellas, between Melbourne and Monaco.

McLaren is going to need Kovalainen scoring consistent podiums along with Hamilton to catch the Italian squad.

Montreal, the next stop on the tour, should help McLaren in that respect.

Federation Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA) president Max Mosley made his first appearance at a GP since the revelation of his Nazi-themed sado-masochistic sex orgy with five prostitutes two months ago and was given a lot of cold shoulders.

His long-time ally, Bernie Ecclestone, the F1 commercial tsar, has vigorously disputed many of the claims in Mosley's letter to FIA member clubs around the world.

Car manufacturers involved in F1 declined to meet Mosley for talks on future engine rules.

Sir Jackie Stewart, one of the sport's most recognized and respected figures and an arch-enemy of Mosley, has bet $100 that the FIA assembly on June 3 votes narrowly in favor of him staying in his post.

Webber remains the only F1 driver on the record as saying Mosley should go and said he was disappointed but not surprised that no others had spoken out against the disgraced figurehead.

Confederation of Australian Motorsport (CAMS) president Colin Osborne said at the weekend that the national authority was waiting until it had all the information available before deciding how it wanted its FIA representative, Garry Connelly, to vote on June 3.

The undisputed evidence reported in London's News of the World newspaper in late March ought be all the information needed, although CAMS can hide behind the excuse of awaiting a report by an FIA-appointed London barrister on whether Mosley's behaviour impaired his performance as president.

The FIA needs a change of public face, although Mosley could still be a very valuable contributor behind the scenes on some matters, especially safety.

Dixon drinks the milk, daggers for Briscoe
Australia's cousin across the Tasman, New Zealand, has had some great racing drivers and Scott Dixon has taken his place up with the best of them with his victory in the Indianapolis 500.

Driving for the ruthless Chip Ganassi, Dixon did it from pole position in a race that had 10 crashes and 8 cautions that meant more than a third of the race was run at less than full pace.

But in its unique way the Indy 500 remained The Greatest Spectacle in Racing, complete with Dixon drinking the traditional milk in Victory Lane.

He led the most laps and earned US$2.5 million prizemoney but had to withstand the pressure of Brazilian Vitor Meira, driving for the minnow Panther Racing which by rights should not have been on terms with Ganassi Racing, Andretti Green and Team Penske.

Success was particularly sweet for Dixon, who finished second to Dario Franchitti at The Brickyard last year and then saw the Indy Racing League title go to the same rival as he ran out fuel on the last turn of the last race of the season.

Although he's known as "The Ice Man", Dixon confided that over the last 30 (of 200) laps "you feel quite alone out there".

"You're like, 'Oh, shit, it's actually down to me on this', I better not mess up because everybody has given me the tools to do it," he said.

Dixon won the IRL championship in 2003 and had an F1 test with Williams, but it came to nought.

His delighted dad, Ron, who ironically was a spotter for another team in this Indy 500, said his son's victory was "10 times bigger in America than winning the F1 world championship".

Marco Andretti, the young grandson of the great Mario and with an eye on F1 (although he has tactlessly claimed McLaren dudded his father, Michael, in his aborted 1993 season), took third place for the family team (co-owned with Australian Kim Green).

But Andretti incurred the wrath of Brazilian teammate Tony Kanaan for putting him and Sarah Fisher out of the race.

It was Danica Patrick's exit, though, courtesy of Aussie Ryan Briscoe, that was the major controversy of the day.

Pulling out of his pit with 29 laps to go, Briscoe made contact with the left rear of Patrick's car, causing both cars to spin - and neither returned to the race.

Patrick, who recently became the first woman to win an Indy race (in Japan), was the overwhelming favorite of the American public.

She was running seventh for Andretti Green, while Briscoe was in line for third place (which would have equalled his starting position) with Team Penske.

Patrick was furious at being put out of the race and headed in Briscoe's direction, only to be steered away by a security official.

While Patrick has the patriotic public on her side, Briscoe is refusing to accept that he was he was in the wrong - something that will only add to his unfortunate reputation in the US.

"We both have a brake pedal in our cars, and from what I could see there was still plenty of room for her to get around me," Briscoe said.

"I'm getting around (Dan) Wheldon in front of me and still staying in the middle lane and get run up the back, so it's a real shame for both of us."

Patrick's side of the story was: "It was obvious what happened. You just don't come out of your pit box and swing three lanes out. That's why there is a 'get up to speed' lane and an 'at speed' lane. I was at speed."

So the American fans have to wait at least another year for the fairytale of a Patrick victory at The Brickyard, while Briscoe has to endure the public wrath for the dual DNF.

One commentator called it "Briscoe's parking lot-calibre mishap".

Matters were made all the worse for the Aussie by his Brazilian teammate Helio Castroneves finishing in the top four for the fifth time in eight Indy 500 starts, including victories the first two times in 2001 and '02.

Unlike the Ganassi team - where he lasted only one season, in 2005, which ended with  that horrific crash at Chicagoland - Penske is very much a model of people management, but "The Captain", Roger Penske, will be wanting to see some results (rather than 20th in the series points) from Briscoe before he too long.

Australian Ryan Briscoe is 20th on 84 points. (All cars in series are Dallara-Hondas).

NASCAR ... the greatest show going around
After the Monaco GP and Indy 500, we needed match sticks to keep our eyes open for the Coca-Cola 600 NASCAR race at Charlotte, North Carolina.

But what a finale to a great day's racing on TV.

In so many ways NASCAR ought to be the model for racing series around the world.

It's regular, well-run, close, thrilling, with lots of overtaking, and fan and TV-friendly.

Kasey Kahne backed up his previous weekend's win, and US$1 million prize, from the non-championship All-Stars race at Charlotte with victory in the sport's longest race, which started soon after the chequered flag was waved at the Indy 500.

Behind Kahne's Dodge came a Ford driven by Greg Biffle and then the Toyota of the sport's new young superstar Kyle Busch, who had won the previous night's second-tier Nationwide Series round in which Australia's Marcos Ambrose finished 14th.

Chevrolets filled the next three places in the major Sprint Cup round, driven by Jeff Gordon, Dale Earnhardt Junior and Jeff Burton.

Earnhardt whacked the wall quite hard but fought on in a spirit synonymous with the family name.

Even though he has not won NASCAR's premier championship, unlike his legendary seven-time champion father, Junior is far and away the sport's biggest drawcard.

Even before the weekend, which was the one-third mark of season, the value of his television exposure to his sponsors so far this year was said by market research company Julius Joyce & Associates Inc to be US$150 million.

That was US$24 million more than for Jeff Gordon, while Jimmie Johnson - champion the past two years - ranked third for exposure this season, followed by Kyle Busch.

NASCAR Nationwide Series standings after 13 of 35 rounds -

Australia Marcos Ambrose is 14th on 1370 points.

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