MOTORSPORT: Big rap on Webber for F1 title

Legend talks up Webber’s chances of claiming crown
Formula One resumes this weekend after a month’s break. And with the nine remaining races to be run in 13 weeks and Australia’s Mark Webber the closest challenger to Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso, no lesser than Sir Jackie Stewart has stated that Aussie Webber can win the world title.

And ahead of the Belgian Grand Prix at the famed Spa-Francorchamps circuit, Red Bull motorsport supremo Dr Helmut Marko has declared: “With us, both drivers [Webber and Sebastian Vettel] may be world champion. So Webber can go for the title too.”

Triple world champion and former F1 team owner Stewart has said that the world championship is Webber’s for the taking provided he remains mentally strong and learns from mistakes two years ago -- when he was a title contender to the end but didn’t get the results he needed in the final races, perhaps partially because of a shoulder injury.

“Yes, he can win it this year – Mark Webber is just at the right age [he turned 36 last Monday] to be able to deliver it,” Stewart this week told a British newspaper, The Bucks Herald, which circulates in the area where Webber lives and Stewart has his English base.

“This year he has the capacity to do it and a bit more experience [184 GPs].

Stewart said Webber had to remain strong and calm throughout the hectic final three months of the season during which seven of the races are outside F1’s European heartland and will involve taxing travel.

“Emotions can be very dangerous – certainly I found that if you remove the emotion completely I did a better job [when dominating F1 in the late 1960s and early ’70s],” Stewart said.

“Alonso does that well out of the current crop of racing drivers, but Mark Webber can also do that.”

Webber trails Alonso by 40 points – 124 to 164 – with Vettel two points further back.

Alonso has won three GPs this season, Webber two – brilliantly in Monaco and at Britain’s Silverstone – and McLaren’s Lewis Hamilton also two, to be five points behind Vettel. Kimi Raikkonen in the greatly improved Lotus is just one point behind Hamilton despite not having won a race yet in his comeback season, although it seems only a matter of time before he does.

Alonso is phenomenally consistent and this weekend could equal Michael Schumacher’s record of 24 consecutive points finishes, while for Schumacher it will be his 300th GP – a tally second only to Rubens Barrichello’s 326.

Schumacher made his F1 debut at Spa 21 years ago, scored the first of his record 91 GP wins there a year later and won at F1’s longest and most revered circuit in the Ardennes forests another five times – the last time a decade ago though.

In two starts with Mercedes since his comeback in 2010 Schumacher has been seventh and fifth but has said Spa is “like my living room”.

“It’s clearly the number one rac track in the world,” he said.

“It’s uncanny how I always seem to have special moments there – my debut, my first win, a world championship victory and many great races.”

However, the seven-time world champion, now 43, has conceded that Alonso is now the top driver in F1.

Alonso has said that, while he has a points advantage in the championship, Ferrari is still at a performance disadvantage to the other front-running teams.

During the month’s break he was quoted talking of Hamilton and Vettel as his main rivals, failing to mention Webber – who magically overtook him through the famous Eau Rouge section of the Spa circuit a year ago.

Webber had been just 13 points behind Alonso after nine races this season but the gap widened to 40 points as the Australian struggled to eighth place in Germany and Hungary.

Webber said he has been recharged by the break and having watched a lot of the Olympics.

Looking forward again to Spa, where he has finished second the past two years, Webber said: “It’s one of the classic tracks where you feel like an F1 car belongs.”

Teammate Vettel, world champion the past two seasons, has often been upstaged by Webber this year and Dr Marko has told him he needs to improve his qualifying form.

“Vettel doesn’t need five wins [to win the title again], but he can’t have any more failures,” he said.

Marko has absolved Australian youngster Daniel Ricciardo and his French teammate Jean-Eric Vergne from responsibility for the poor results by Red Bull’s junior team Toro Rosso since the first two races.

“If it rains they are quick. This shows that they are on it,” Marko said.

“The [Toro Rosso] engineers went in the wrong direction with the development of the exhaust.”

British engineer, formerly with the Sauber team, is tipped to start at Toro Rosso soon in place of dumped technical director Giorgio Ascanelli.

IndyCar, NASCAR and Sydney’s Muscle Car Masters
The other racing attention for Australians this weekend is on IndyCar and NASCAR in America and the Muscle Car Masters in Sydney.

The Muscle Car Masters at Eastern Creek, now officially Sydney Motorsport Park, has become a huge annual celebration of Australia’s big-horsepower racing heritage. This weekend historic sedans are joined by Formula 5000 open-wheelers, many of them from across the Tasman in New Zealand.

F5000 marques represented will be Chevron, Elfin, Lola, March, Matich, McRae and Talon. And eagerly awaited is the appearance of the Team VDS Lola T333CS in which Warwick Brown won the 1978 Rothmans Series. It was the last car Brown raced and has been restored in NZ by its latest owner Stan Redmond.

The weekend’s program includes races for the Touring Car Masters cars, historic tourers and NZ’s retro Muscle Cars.

Bob Jane is rolling out his 7.0-litre Chevrolet Camaro and Australian Touring Car Championship-winning Jaguar on what may his last public appearance in Sydney, while Ian 'Pete' Geoghegan’s son Michael will drive his late father’s Ford Mustang.

In the US, Toowoomba’s Will Power goes into the penultimate round of the IndyCar series on the streets of Baltimore with a 36-point lead over American Ryan Hunter-Reay and will be champion if stretches that to 54 points ahead of the finale at California’s Fontana Speedway.

Second to Penske teammate and fellow Australian Ryan Briscoe at California’s Sonoma road course last week, Power said: “I’m in win mode. Wins are right there, but we’re not getting them.

“You have to think of the championship as well. If we have the car to win, we go for it.”

The IndyCar title eluded Power the past two seasons but he has notched 15 wins in 100 starts, after three victories in 31 Champ Car races.

At Atlanta Motor Speedway the 500-mile (800km) 25th round of NASCAR’s Sprint Cup is the second last chance for Tasmanian Marcos Ambrose to grab the final wildcard for The Chase – the competition for the title between a dozen drivers over the final 10 rounds.

Winner at the Watkins Glen road course three weeks ago, and in the top five at two oval races since, Ambrose said: “We need another win to have a shot [at The Chase].”

Ambrose’s team owner, Richard Petty, still does not have a deal with Ford for next season but is hopeful of getting it done within three weeks – although he has acknowledged it probably will be worse than his existing contract because of Roger Penske’s NASCAR operation joining Ford.

Petty said his team has enough sponsorship to continue fielding two cars next season but would not confirm the drivers – although Ambrose is thought to be safe.

Petty’s other driver is Aric Almirola, who is 22nd in the championship – six places behind Ambrose.

“Right now everything we’ve got going is in the air, just like it has been the last three or four years… We’ll see,” Petty said.

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