MOTORSPORT: F1's biggest winner is Newey

Vettel stands one point away from a second world title after his success in the latest Singapore GP – his ninth win of the year and 19th of his career.

The Asian island city-state’s race has become the showcase of the championship. While it was revealed at the weekend that some ticket prices for Melbourne’s season-opening GP next March will be slashed by almost as much as 30 per cent in an attempt to re-engage the public, Singapore has embraced F1 like no other new venue of recent times. It will never have the history and magic setting of Monaco, but it appears to have just about everything else and is unique in being run at night.

But in chancing on a column in London’s Daily Mail newspaper over the weekend this author was struck that the biggest star of F1 ought to be Adrian Newey, even if he is little known to a large percentage of the F1 audience.

The Daily Mail’s Chris Evans pointed out that aerodynamics maestro Newey has created cars that have produced seven drivers’ and seven constructors’ world championships and, at that point, 123 GP wins.

Make that 124 after Sunday night in Singapore. Indeed, as the story highlighted, Newey's cars had already won roughly 35 per cent of the GPs over the past 20 years. And remember that those two decades have been the era of Michael Schumacher, winner of seven world titles too and 91 GPs – none of them in a Newey-designed car.

“They say he can see the air flowing over a car,” wrote Evans, suggesting a gong for Newey in Britain’s New Year’s honours. By then the eighth drivers’ and constructors’ world titles in which the 53-year-old engineer has been the key instrument will have been sealed, probably on October 9 in Japan (almost certainly in the case of Vettel).

In fact over the next two months Newey's tally of GP victories could go as high as 129, with five races remaining this season (in South Korea, India, Abu Dhabi and Brazil after Japan).

In a stunning career with the March, Leyton House, Williams, McLaren and now Red Bull Racing teams, Newey must be considered alongside the late Colin Chapman – the founder of the original Lotus – as the most brilliant engineer in F1 history.

Mark Webber may come to remember his decade or so in F1 not so much for winning a handful of GPs but for having had the privilege of working with a genius – Newey. Perhaps two – Newey and Vettel…

The German has the Midas touch. Nine times he has stood on the top step of the podium this season. Webber has been on the podium eight times, but never on the top step.

The Australian has made three daring passes on Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso, arguably still F1’s most complete driver, in recent races (one at Spa in Belgium and two in Singapore) yet he is fourth in the world championship driving best car in the field.

It must be said though that Webber is only three points off second place.

In Singapore the Australian was on the front row of the grid alongside Vettel but continued his string of bad starts. He admitted he has to do something about them, and that this one probably cost him second place to McLaren’s Jenson Button.

“Unfortunately I’ve found myself having to come back through the field too often this season,” Webber said.

“I can't make the starts I made last year at the moment. I need to work on those; we'll look at them and definitely improve. I have to keep working harder because it’s quite frustrating and it's quite risky to have to come back through and try to regain positions on the track, particularly when the DRS [drag reduction system or driver-adjustable rear wing] isn't working," the Aussie commented.

“In the end I probably lost a position today out of that. JB [Button] put a good last stint together so it would have been good battle with him, even if he did have track position.

“Seb [Vettel] deserved the victory and overall, if you come here and you get a podium, it’s not too bad. Of course you'd love a win, that's what we all strive for, but this is a very challenging venue.

It has been mentioned on the website of Britain’s ITV that Webber has lost more positions on the opening lap of GPs this year than any other driver. And he admitted: “When you constantly are recovering there is a chance for things to go wrong. It’s an area we need to respect and do better, with Renault, the driveline, etc.

“You can get criticised [for poor starts], and maybe I’m not doing a good job. But Seb is pretty good at most things and he’s been outperformed on the starts sometimes as well. So I think we need to look at it on the technical side as well.”

Webber remained upbeat about next year, for which he has been contracted by Red Bull, and has vowed to do a better job of taking the fight to Vettel.

“Next year I need to have a better start to the championship, and need to have a similar season to what I did last year [when he was a world title contender until the final race] – so, outqualifying Seb more often… and getting track position and getting the [pit] stops. If you don’t get that then you’re always going to finish one position behind, and you never really get the momentum," Webber opined.

“I think it will be much more stable next year in terms of continuity with the tyres [Webber had trouble adapting to the Pirelli rubber early this season], so we certainly need to put up a better fight than we did this year.”
?After losing his patience with a journalist on the Thursday before the Singapore race, calling him a “f…… w…..” and sarcastically saying he would “probably hang myself” because of Vettel’s season domination [the French journalist somehow thought Vettel already had won the world title again], Webber apologised in person soon after.

Importantly, the 22-year-old Ricciardo outqualified and finished ahead of his teammate, Italian Vitantonio Liuzzi, a veteran of seven years in F1.

“The race was quite tough; not only because the car was difficult to drive in the conditions but also because we have been a little unlucky,” Ricciardo, who drives for the backmarker Spanish outfit HRT, said.

“The first half of the race was quite good and then, in the last quarter, we were forced to change to our last set of tyres because the rear [grip] was going and had to put on the tyres that we used in qualifying.

“Immediately I felt that the car had a lot less grip, to the point where I locked the front on turn 14 without doing anything different and I touched the wall, which caused the wing to break. So I was forced to pit again.

“After the wall incident the car was difficult to drive with quite a lot of understeer, so we just tried to reach the finish from there.

“It was tough out there, but the positive was reaching the end.”

Schumacher crashed spectacularly (launching into the air and slamming into a barrier) after his Mercedes clipped Mexican Sergio Perez’s Sauber just before half distance.

Schumacher explained: “I was just about to dive inside...and at the moment I was about to go inside he lifted off the throttle to get prepared for his braking that I didn’t anticipate to be so early… So it was a shame.”

The great man has mellowed a lot!

But Felipe Massa, the Brazilian who was Schumacher’s last teammate at Ferrari and who has been left in the shade there since Fernando Alonso’s arrival, is fuming over McLaren’s Lewis Hamilton.

“In qualifying he tried to do a Superman on the out-lap, and then he tries to do the same in the race,” Massa said after Hamilton ruined his Singapore GP, clipping – and puncturing – his right rear tyre.

“He could have caused a big accident. He touched my wheel on a straight -- 300 kmh, and he punctured my tyres, so he destroyed my race.”

As Hamilton was doing a television interview in the paddock after the race the Brazilian tapped him on the shoulder, gave him a sarcastic thumbs up and said: “Good job, very good job.”

Massa was classified ninth. Hamilton was fifth after a drive-through penalty.

Alonso’s fourth place was the first time in four Singapore GPs he had not been on the podium – twice as the race winner.

Scotsman Paul di Resta’s sixth place in a Mercedes-engined Force India car was the best result of his rookie season, ahead of Mercedes driver Nico Rosberg and Force India teammate, Adrian Sutil.

Singapore was the Williams team’s long-time Australian technical chief Sam Michael’s last GP before becoming McLaren’s new sporting director next season.

Formula One world drivers’ championship after 14 of 19 rounds: 1. Sebastian Vettel (Germany, Red Bull-Renault) 309 points, 2. Jenson Button (Great Britain, McLaren-Mercedes) 185, 3. Fernando Alonso (Spain, Ferrari) 184, 4. Mark Webber (Australia, Red Bull-Renault) 182, 5. Lewis Hamilton (GB, McLaren-Mercedes) 168, 6. Felipe Massa (Brazil, Ferrari) 84, 7. Nico Rosberg (Germany, Mercedes) 62, 8. Michael Schumacher (Germany, Mercedes) 52.

F1 constructors’ world championship: 1. RedBull-Renault 491 points, 2. McLaren-Mercedes 353, 3. Ferrari 268, 4. Mercedes 114, 5. Renault 70, 6. Force India-Mercedes 48, 7. Sauber-Ferrari 36, 8. Toro Rosso-Ferrari 29.

Penske driver Power was the lead driver with five of the 21 media voting on the award. The September quarter winner was Penske NASCAR driver Brad Keselowski, with 10 votes.

Keselowski broke his ankle in a crash during testing in early August but won the Sprint Cup race at Pocono Raceway a few days later, then added a win at Bristol Motor Speedway and made The Chase for the Cup title.

In the seven races he drove in the voting period Keselowski also scored four top-five finishes.

Power heads Scottish ace Dario Franchitti by 11 points heading to the penultimate IndyCar round at Kentucky Speedway next weekend and the finale in Las Vegas on October 16.

Both races are on 2.4km ovals. Though known as a road circuit specialist Power, in a taste of things to come, said of the ovals: “That’s what I like racing most".

Chevrolet driver Stewart followed up his victory in last week’s rain-delayed round at Chicagoland Speedway with another at New Hampshire Motor Speedway. Clint Bowyer lost the lead in the latest race as he ran out of fuel with two laps to go, handing the win to Stewart in a reversal of last year’s New Hampshire fortunes.

Stewart, a two-time Cup champion who did not win a race in the 26 before this year’s Chase, took the championship lead from Kevin Harvick.

“Got eight long weeks still - it’s way too early to start counting chickens,” Stewart said.

Four other Chase qualifiers finished in the top ten in the 300-mile (480km) race - Brad Keselowski was second, Jeff Gordon fourth, Matt Kenseth sixth and Carl Edwards eighth.

Among other Chase drivers, Kyle Busch finished 11th, Harvick 12th, Dale Earnhardt Junior 17th, Jimmie Johnson 18th, Kurt Busch 22nd, Ryan Newman 25th and Denny Hamlin 29th.

Australia’s Marcos Ambrose was 30th, three laps down.

NASCAR Sprint Cup Series 28 of 36 rounds: 1. Tony Stewart (Chevrolet) 2094 points, 2. Kevin Harvick (Chevrolet) 2086, 3. Brad Keselowski (Dodge) 2083, 4. Carl Edwards (Ford) 2080, 5. Dale Earnhardt Junior (Chevrolet) 2073, 6. Jeff Gordon (Chevrolet) 2071, 7. Kyle Busch (Toyota) 2068, 8. Matt Kenseth (Ford) 2068, 9. Jimmie Johnson (Chevrolet) 2065, 10. Kurt Busch (Dodge) 2065.  Australia’s Marcos Ambrose (Ford) is 23rd on 712 points.

The 48-year-old Radisich, whose racing career was ended by an horrific Bathurst crash, will take the reins from Mark Petch.