MOTORSPORT: F1 down to Hamilton v Webber

Red Bull priority for Aussie 'not far away'
Mark Webber has lost the Formula One world championship lead to Lewis Hamilton after the Belgian Grand Prix but, with six races remaining, it's now looking like a contest between just that pair.

None of the other three contenders who had been in the cluster within 20 points -- Webber's teammate Sebastian Vettel, Hamilton's teammate Jenson Button and Ferrari's Fernando Alonso -- scored a point at Belgium's Spa-Francorchamps.

Although Webber lost the advantage of pole position -- his fifth of the season -- with a terrible start that promptly dropped him to seventh, finishing second behind Hamilton's McLaren-Mercedes in an intermittently wet and chaotic race at a track not expected to suit the Renault-engined Red Bull RB6 was a strong result for the Australian.

Poland's Robert Kubica finished a creditable third for Renault, losing second place to Webber when he overshot his pit on his final stop.

Brazilian Felipe Massa finished fourth for Ferrari, ahead of Germany's Adrian Sutil in a Mercedes-powered Force India.

Michael Schumacher, a six-time winner at Spa, started 21st after being relegated 10 places on the grid for his Hungarian indiscretion, and tangled twice with Mercedes teammate Nico Rosberg before the younger German grabbed sixth place ahead of the 41-year-old seven-time world champion.

Rubens Barrichello's record 300th GP was a huge disappointment as he was unable to stop his Williams approaching the Bus Stop chicane on the opening lap as a sudden shower made conditions slippery and he rammed Alonso's Ferrari.

That put the Brazilian out but Alonso continued in an incident-packed afternoon, finally spinning out of the race with six laps remaining.

Hamilton's third win of the year -- and 14th of his career -- gives him 182 points to Webber's 179 -- including four wins.

Vettel remains on 151, Button -- unlucky to be taken out by Vettel -- 147 and Alonso 141.

However, Red Bull remains a point ahead of McLaren in the constructors' championships.

Webber called his second place, worth 18 points, "a great result".

"The car bogged down as I left on the formation lap, so I made some changes to the settings in the hope that I'd make a better start when it mattered," he said. "Unfortunately, that wasn't the case -- it was even worse!

"The car bogged down again and cars streamed past me. It wasn't ideal to lose that many positions, but fortunately it's not Monaco or Barcelona where the positions often don't change during the race.

"After the start the car felt fine, which was a bit of a relief because we'd only done a handful of dry laps all weekend. I was able to overtake a few guys on the first few laps and get some of the positions back.

"I enjoyed my battles with Adrian (Sutil, Force India) and Felipe (Massa, Ferrari) and it was a bit frustrating to be held up, first by the safety car and then by Jenson Button once we were back racing.

"Jenson's slow pace allowed Lewis Hamilton to pull away at the front."

"It was very challenging in the last part of the race and it was difficult to keep the car on track. We put on intermediates (tyres) and at one point it looked as though wets might be needed, but we made it to the end of the race fine.

"I can't believe the top three qualifiers finished on the podium with all the changing conditions!

"It was a good day for me. Second was a great result, given where I ended the opening lap. Lewis deserved the win -- he did a good job.

"It was unfortunate for our team (Red Bull) that we didn't get some more points, but we're still leading the constructors' championship and hopefully we will do in Monza (the next round of the championship in Italy on September 12).

"I have 28 points more than Seb, with Jenson and Fernando further behind.

"The picture looks different to how it did 24 hours earlier, but there are still six races and 150 points available, so I'm not getting too excited. But roll on Monza.

"Red Bull have a good trophy cabinet, but not one like McLaren's, so it depends on how hungry we are to try and do that."

On whether Red Bull now should give him preferential treatment over Vettel, Webber said: "I think it's too early at the moment. I'm not sure. It's still too early at the moment -- but not far away, I would say."

Red Bull team principal Christian Horner said it was "a great drive by Mark -- a very mature drive after a bad start".

"He recovered fantastically well and drove with great maturity at a track that we always knew would suit the McLarens," Horner said. "To come away with second place was a great result for him today -- and it was great pit work by the guys to get Mark out ahead of Kubica (on the final round of stops)."

While Horner claimed Hamilton was "the luckiest man in Belgium" to win after a late excursion off the track without damaging his car against a guard rail, McLaren team principal Martin Whitmarsh called it an "utterly brilliant victory".

Hamilton was pretty much always in control but said it had been "very tough racing" and "the Lord definitely had his hand over me (when he ran off the track) as I was able to get away with it".

"I made it all the way out to the wall and just clipped it a little bit with the edge of my wing," he said. "Fortunately not the whole car, but very fortunate to get away with that. It was so slippery out there.

"I felt I was braking quite early, but the thing just did not want to stop and locked the wheel and I was gone."

Of the three championship contenders who did not score Vettel was the only finisher -- but only in 15th place, a lap down.

"For Sebastian, unfortunately everything that could happen today did happen," Red Bull boss Horner said. "He got pushed on to the grass on the first lap and then when he was coming back through the field was racing with Jenson.

"I think Jenson took him by surprise with how early he braked for the Bus Stop and, trying to avoid him, Sebastian got into a bit of a moment and collected Jenson.

"He was then unlucky with Liuzzi (puncturing a tyre), so not a great weekend for Sebastian. But it would be a foolish person to rule Sebastian out at the moment."

Vettel said of the Button collision, for which he was given a drive-through penalty: "What happened, happened and we can't change it now.

"Obviously I'm not proud of it. I lost the car going over the bump as I was braking and unfortunately hit Jenson, so he couldn't continue. I'm sorry for him. We'll have to see what we can do at the next races."

Button, who had been running second to Hamilton, said: "I don't know what Sebastian was doing."

"All I felt was a big bang in the sidepod, it ripped the radiator out and I lost drive completely.

"A very strange incident... a massive blow. It hurts [Button's hopes of back-to-back world titles] quite a bit really."

McLaren team principal Martin Whitmarsh said Vettel's move had been like something from junior racing.

"I'd rather he did it with his teammate than with us," Whitmarsh said in reference to the infamous Turkish GP collision between the two Red Bulls in May that handed McLaren a one-two finish.

Alonso said his retirement had been "very disappointing ... but it does not mean that I have given up on my chances of winning the title" -- despite now being 41 points off the lead.

Unlucky Power's IndyCar series lead slashed
Will Power's IndyCar series lead has been slashed from 59 points to 23 after he had to make a late pitstop for fuel at Chicagoland Speedway and Dario Franchitti took victory in the fourth last round.

It ended up being a bad night for Penske Racing, with Power finishing only 16th after he had looked a big chance to notch his first oval victory and fellow Aussie Ryan Briscoe ended up 11th after leading more than half the race.

Brazilian Helio Castroneves was the best Penske finisher in sixth as Dan Wheldon fought Franchitti at the finish, losing out by just 0.0423 seconds after 200 laps of the 2.4km oval.

Marco Andretti led an Andretti Autosport trio in the top five with third place his equal best for the season, followed by teammates Ryan Hunter-Reay and Tony Kanaan.

Power, who led three times for a total of 17 laps and now has 528 points to Franchitti's 505, called it "a really intense race".

"Man, I had a lot of fun out there ... unfortunately, we had a problem with our fuel late in the race and we had to come back in and lost positions," he said. "That was just a mistake that we couldn't afford, but these things happen.

"This obviously makes things tougher for the championship, but we're still in front and we proved how competitive we can be on the ovals.

"I never thought I could race ovals like that. I was looking good there until that last stop. As long as I was leading they couldn't get past me.

"We'll move on and we will work harder next week at Kentucky Speedway."

Briscoe had taken his third pole of the season, and third straight at Chicagoland, and led much of the first half of the race as he looked headed for his second straight victory there.

However, he fell back in traffic in the later stages and he was unable to make up enough ground to finish in the top 10.

He remains fourth in the championship -- 122 points behind Power.

"That was a wild night," said Briscoe, who led 113 laps. "The car was great running out front, and I was able to run fast on my own. After the last stop we lost a little track position. I tried everything that I could, but my car was just not as good in traffic."

The remaining races after Kentucky are on September 18 at Japan's Twin-Ring Motegi and the October 2 season finale in Miami.

David Brabham and Frenchman Simon Pagenaud were classified second in the shortened American Le Mans Series round at Mosport, Canada.

Europeans Romain Dumas and Klaus Graf in a Porsche RS Spyder were ahead of the Honda Performance Development Acura of Brabham and Pagenaud when the race was red-flagged because a crashing Porsche damaged a safety barrier.

In Montreal, also in Canada, Marcos Ambrose again struck bad luck in NASCAR's Nationwide race there, forced out by suspension failure.

American road racing specialist Boris Said finally scored his first Nationwide victory, grabbing the lead from Robby Gordon just after taking the final green flag and holding off a fierce charge by Max Papis.

Papis briefly got in front of Said but the order was reversed on the final turn and Said won a drag race down the straight, taking the chequered flag first by 0.012 seconds -- or about 1.5 metres.

Jacques Villeneuve, the 1997 F1 world champion, finished third on the track named after his legendary father, Gilles.

Ambrose started on pole position and led for the first 20 laps, then worked his way back to the front when he passed Carl Edwards on lap 36. He had to pit with an electrical issue with 29 laps to go and dropped off the lead lap.

A few laps later he had the suspension failure that put him out of the race.

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