MOTORSPORT: Anzacs excel on world stages

Queenslander Chris Atkinson has just notched up his fourth podium finish in five rounds of this year's World Rally Championship and is now third on the points table.

Mark Webber finished fifth in the Spanish Formula 1 Grand Prix, earning another four world championship points -- doubling his season tally.

New Zealand teenager Brendon Hartley has won a race in the British Formula 3 Championship at the Croft circuit in North Yorkshire, just a couple of weeks after three days of testing Scuderia Toro Rosso's new F1 car.

Brisbane-born Kiwi Scott Dixon had pole position for the IndyCar race at Kansas and finished an unlucky third, while Aussie Ryan Briscoe finished seventh -- his best result with Team Penske this year ahead of May's Indianapolis 500.

Will Power, winner of the final Champ Car race on the streets of Long Beach in California a week ago but still new to oval racing, crashed out of the Kansas race after covering barely 10 per cent of the distance.

Marcos Ambrose got tangled up in the pile-up at Talladega in NASCAR's Nationwide Series, but had been running 17th before that and was ultimately classified 28th.

In NASCAR's premier Sprint Cup round at the Talladega Superspeedway the ex-F1 star Juan Pablo Montoya finished second -- his best result on an oval track.

Montoya was beaten only by Kyle Busch, whose victory for Toyota was his seventh in NASCAR's three categories this year.

If Lewis Hamilton was the sensation of international motor racing in 2007 then Busch may prove to be THE MAN of 2008.

Finland's Mikko Hirvonen moved back to the top of the world standings with his first win of the season in his Ford Focus.

Hirvonen won two of the final day's stages to finish 1 minute 15 seconds ahead of Spaniard Dani Sordo's Citroen C4.

Sordo had been the overnight leader but Hirvonen and his countryman and teammate Jari-Matti Latvala slowed towards the end of Saturday's stages to leave Sordo the unenviable job of sweeping the roads as the first car on the road on Sunday.

Hirvonen's victory is his fifth in the WRC after his first at the (perhaps) last Rally Australia in WA in 2006, then in Norway, Japan and Britain last year.

Loeb remains second in this year's championship, five points behind Hirvonen, with Atkinson third on 28.

Despite ending up almost five minutes behind Hirvonen, Atkinson has established himself now as a consistent WRC contender.

His Subaru factory teammate, Norwegian former world champion Petter Solberg, has only nine points after another retirement following a rollover in Jordan.

Drivers' world rally championship after 5 rounds -- Mikko Hirvonen 35 points, Sebastien Loeb 30, Chris Atkinson 28, Jari-Matti Latvala 18, Dani Sordo 17, Petter Solberg 9.

Manufacturers' world rally championship standings -- Ford 57 points, Citroen 50, Subaru 39.

Yet now they are excelling.

Ferrari scored its third consecutive F1 victory, and its second straight 1-2, in Barcelona last night, with reigning world champion Kimi Raikkonen heading home Felipe Massa.

Webber qualified his Red Bull car seventh, 10 places ahead of teammate David Coulthard, and finished fifth -- seven places in front of Coulthard.

That earned Webber four world championship points, doubling the four he had accumulated with seventh-place finishes in the previous races in Malaysia and Bahrain.

Apart from the Ferraris, the only drivers ahead of him at the checkered flag in Barcelona were Lewis Hamilton in a McLaren and Robert Kubica in a BMW-Sauber.

Almost 18 seconds behind the Aussie, Jenson Button scored his first points of the season in a Honda.

Webber's knockers won't be satisfied until, or unless, he wins a GP but he is doing an excellent job, getting everything possible out of Red Bull's RB4 and consistently showing up his well-credentialed veteran teammate.

Barcelona marked Webber's 50th start inside the top 10 in 107 GPs.

Now that does not sound as impressive as top three, six or eight, and there are no points for qualifying, but consider the teams he has been in -- Minardi, Jaguar, Williams at probably its lowest point, and Red Bull, which is not in the league of Ferrari, McLaren and now BMW, and perhaps should not even be expected to be on terms with Renault, Honda, Toyota or Williams -- and it is a mighty fine performance.

In terms of the machinery he has had available to him, Webber's record (particularly in qualifying -- a good guide to speed, although not necessarily racecraft) in comparison with rivals of similar F1 experience stacks up well against Massa's although not so well against Fernando Alonso and Raikkonen obviously.

Raikkonen's 17th win gave him a nine-point lead in the championship, 29-20, over Hamilton, while Massa is next with 19.

Webber is eighth on the points table.

Alonso amazingly put his aerodynamically revised Renault on the front row of the grid alongside Raikkonen's Ferrari but was light on fuel and out with an expired engine by mid-race.

Heikki Kovalainen had an horrific crash in the other McLaren after the left front wheel failed and the car speared across a gravel trap and buried itself in a tyre wall.

When the telecast went off the crash scene, where rescuers were feverishly waving for extra assistance, there were serious fears for the Finn but it seems he had only concussion and should be fit to race in Turkey in a fortnight.

Seven F1 teams -- and F1 commercial supreme Bernie Ecclestone now reportedly too -- favor disgraced Max Mosley bowing out as Federation Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA) president.

Ferrari, Williams and Toro Rosso abstained from voting at a meeting in Barcelona, while the financially-stricken Super Aguri did not even attend.

Ecclestone made it known that Jean Todt is being lined up to succeed Mosley.

While Todt has many years of experience in F1 and world rallying, his continuing strong Ferrari connections are sure to infuriate many other F1 powerbrokers.

Mosley, meanwhile, says he will attend the Monaco GP at the end of May, just days before the scheduled FIA vote on his future.

Mosley was at the Rally of Jordan at the weekend, but the Jordanian royal family made it known they did not want to meet him.

F1 drivers' world championship standings after four of 18 rounds -- Kimi Raikkonen 29 points, Lewis Hamilton 20, Robert Kubica 19, Felipe Massa 18, Nick Heidfeld 16, Heikki Kovalainen 14, Jarno Trulli 9, Mark Webber 8, Nico Rosberg 7, Fernando Alonso 6, Kazuki Nakajima 5, Jenson Button 3, Sebastien Bourdais 2.

F1 constructors' world championship standings -- Ferrari 47 points, BMW-Sauber 35, McLaren-Mercedes 34, Williams-Toyota 12, Toyota 9, Red Bull-Renault 8, Renault 6,  Honda 3, Toro Rosso-Ferrari 2.

Dixon sees one go begging in Kansas
Scott Dixon led the most laps in the Indy race at Kansas Speedway but his Chip Ganassi teammate Dan Wheldon ended up taking the win ahead of Tony Kanaan, while there was no joy this time for Danica Patrick after her first victory a week earlier.

Patrick started third but she was never in serious contention in the race and ended up retiring with a broken wheel hub.

Wheldon's victory was the 14th of his Indy career, including the 2005 Indianapolis 500, but it was the first time he had taken a checkered flag since winning on the 2.4km Kansas oval a year ago.

The race looked to belong to Dixon as he led 145 of the first 152 laps.

Winner of the season-opening race at Homestead-Miami Speedway, Dixon ran into bad luck when he made his final pit stop just before Buddy Rice crashed, bringing out a caution flag that allowed all the other leaders to pit under yellow.

Wheldon took the lead and stayed there until the finish.

Dixon was seventh with 27 laps to go in the 200-lap event and climbed back up to third but could not get close to Kanaan and Wheldon.

Dixon pounded his fists on the steering wheel before getting out of his car and said: "It was pretty frustrating. You have a good car that you think should win and it doesn't."

Ryan Briscoe's Brazilian teammate Helio Castroneves, yet to finish worse than fourth this season, was right behind Dixon, followed by Marco Andretti, Japanese rookie Hideki Mutoh and Briscoe.

IndyCar series standings after 4 rounds -- Helio Castroneves 144 points, Scott Dixon 138, Dan Wheldon 135, Tony Kanaan 129, Danica Patrick 110, Will Power  97, Marco Andretti 95, Oriol Servia 93, Ed Carpenter 90, Graham Rahal 88. Ryan Briscoe is 16th on 72.

The helmets were stolen from Avalon Airport before the southern contingent of the V8 Supercar series was flown to New Zealand for the Hamilton 400.

Rick Kelly's $20,000 steering wheel was also stolen and has been recovered too after the tip led police to a Melbourne man believed to be an airport worker.

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