MOTORSPORT: F1 passes with flying colours

In Canada another Australian international star, Will Power, resumes his IndyCar battle with his great rival Scotsman Dario Franchitti, who Power accused of dirty racing in the last race two weeks ago. More on all of that in just a moment, but interesting news this week in statistics from within the Mercedes F1 team on the amount of overtaking in GPs this season.

An international news agency, Agence France Presse (AFP), has reported Mercedes sources saying that motorsport's world governing body, the Federation Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA) has logged 623 overtaking moves in the nine GPs so far, compared with 547 in 19 races last year and 244 in 17 races in 2009.

A member of the Mercedes team said: "If this goes on we'll have 1200 by the end of the year."

The big jump from 2009 to 2010 was caused by the arrival of three new teams -- Hispania, Virgin and Team Lotus -- who struggled to keep pace and were consistently lapped.

The continued increase in overtaking this year has been attributed to the introduction of the driver-adjustable rear wings (or DRS, the acronym for drag reduction system) that produces higher top speeds and the new Pirelli tyres that degrade faster than the Bridgestone rubber did last year.

"Of the 623 passes, 175 have been at the expense of three teams at the back of the field and 43 between teammates," the Mercedes team member said. "About 180 (29 per cent) were made using the DRS and 225 without it."

The Canadian GP in Montreal saw the most overtaking, with 136 successful moves, while Istanbul (123) and Shanghai (97) also had plenty of excitement. But as so often, Australia -- the first GP of the season again, reverting to that position after Bahrain was skipped -- has not had the full advantage of the improvement.

Melbourne's race in March had 30 overtakes -- the third lowest of GPs this year behind only the tight Monaco with 22 and Britain's Silverstone two weeks ago with 29 -- and which would have been 30 if Webber had not been ordered to stay behind Red Bull teammate Sebastian Vettel.

Red Bull energy drink tycoon Dietrich Mateschitz indicated immediately after the British GP that Webber would be given another one-year contract extension -- because there was no better team for him, and because there was no driver better suited to fill his RBR seat at the minute. Webber also has said that talks about a contract extension have been progressing positively.

Yet we have come across a potentially explosive report on an Australian website, channelnews.com.au, which posts "information for sellers of technology". The LG company, which is a global and technology partner of F1 and "a major partner and official technology partner of the (revived) Mark Webber Tasmania Challenge", appears to have had some part in this report.

Billed as an "exclusive", it is headlined "Mark Webber to have showdown meeting with Red Bull owner Dietrich Mateschitz". That meeting supposedly was to be in Austria and, if it happened as this report suggested it was going to, it would have been this week.

Here's an extract of what is in that report: "Webber has told close friends in England that he believes his car is being 'restricted' and that he has been given a slower car to drive this season than his fellow driver Sebastian Vettel.

"Webber, who was 'angry' that he was ordered to 'retain the gap' behind Vettel … at Silverstone has told family friends that he will not sign with the Red Bull team until he has had a meeting with team owner Dietrich Mateschitz.

"The meeting is set to take place before the German GP… Privately Webber has said that he is not happy with Red Bull (Racing) team principal Christian Horner who he believes is showing favoritism to Vettel.

"A close friend of Webber said: 'He believes that he has a slower car, he wants to discuss the issue directly with Mateschitz the owner of the team. He said that Mateschitz's attitude to him being in the team will determine whether he signs with Red Bull in 2012'."

While the content of this report is not entirely surprising, it is another matter for it to be out in the public arena and could escalate tensions to new levels if Webber is taking his gripes to Mateschitz and his relationship with Horner is as unhappy as portrayed.

"It has undulations, challenging corners, track surface changes, it is not billiard-table smooth, the kerbs are different at all the corners -- all of which gives you something to get your teeth into as a driver," he said. "As always, you do not get the full impression on TV but probably the best bit is turns eight and nine, a fast uphill chicane that we take flat out in a competitive car.

"That is also the direction I remember the famously unpredictable Nurburgring weather generally coming from... The forecast looks pretty hit and miss for the weekend and that is completely normal there because of where the track is located -- high up in the Eifel mountains. You never know whether you are going to get rain, sunshine, hail or even snow. Or even all four sometimes!"

Webber's world champion teammate Vettel, who is already 80 points clear in this year's championship, is yet to win a GP in his homeland -- something he will be particularly keen to change this weekend. While Webber knows Vettel will be the race favourite, especially with the cars reverting to the exhaust systems they ran before Silverstone, he fears Ferrari's competitiveness now after Fernando Alonso's British victory.

"Fernando's a wise old fox and he will definitely be a force in the next two races," Webber said.  (The Hungarian GP is the following Sunday before the mid-season break). "[And] you never underestimate McLaren."

"It was nice to finish at Silverstone and get the first race and experience under my belt," Ricciardo said. "Ideally I would have liked to be closer to my rivals, but that's the aim for this race… I have learnt that there is a lot more to the tyres and managing them than I thought.

"For now this is one of the main things I need to learn quickly about… I am now looking at the second challenge of my career and to complete another good race. I know Nurburgring reasonably well, even if my worst 'souvenir' was in 2008 when I raced in F3 Euro Series for team SG Formula and I stalled on the start of the second race. But in the first race I finished sixth in the points.

"Recently I had a great race there in World Series by Renault with (Canadian) Robert Wickens in dramatically changing weather conditions. I didn't win the battle, but it was still a great race because I enjoy the track so much... The first sector is very technical and it has a nice flowing middle sector. But the weather changes a lot. It's a bit like Spa, but I'm hoping for the race we will have some nice weather for once.

"My goal this time is to finish the race and close the gap to my competitors and to Tonio."

However, Italian Trulli, who has struggled this year, will be back in the Lotus next week in Hungary, where Lotus will have a new power-steering system it hopes will help him. Trulli, 37, has been outqualified by Finnish teammate Heikki Kovalainen 8-1 so far this season. Last year Trulli out-qualified Kovalainen 11-8.

Cindrick spent 12 years doing that job with Helio Castroneves, during which time the Brazilian won 25 races -- including three Indianapolis 500s. However, Castroneves has not won a race this year -- and last year in Edmonton was stripped of victory for blocking teammate Power three laps from the finish, then stormed to the control tower and had to be restrained as he berated and manhandled an official.

Franchitti has four wins this season and leads three-time winner Power by 55 points, with Dixon third. Power claimed Franchitti was reckless and "dirty" in Toronto, while Franchitti reckoned he had track position, that Power needlessly "crowded" him, and called it "a garden variety racing incident".

The Edmonton race will be on a new track at the City Centre Airport that is completely different from the tight 3.175km circuit that hosted the first six races there. The change has come after the city closed the runways used by the former track.

The new 13-turn, 3.631km layout has three long straights followed by slow corners, which make overtaking tricky -- and perhaps a repeat of the Toronto mayhem.

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