MOTORSPORT: Fear factor catches up with Webber

Porsche can clinch back-to-back manufacturer titles in the World Endurance Championship this weekend. Three of its drivers could become world champions too, but the retiring Mark Webber won’t be among them this time.

The Six Hours of Shanghai is the penultimate race of Webber’s career, with his finale coming at the ninth and last round of this year’s WEC in Bahrain on November 19.

Webber, who is drawing his professional career to a close soon after turning 40, has admitted that he has become fearful of another major crash like he had at Interlagos in Brazil two years ago – his first season driving a Porsche 919 Hybrid in the WEC – when he was concussed and badly bruised.

“Sometimes I’ve been in the car in the last while and I’ve said, ‘Why am I in the car?’” Webber told motorsport.com recently.

“And when you ask yourself that question it’s time to stop.

“On race weekends a bit more often I think, ‘I’d rather be somewhere else’. That’s not good.”

The 919 Hybrid, with a 2.0-litre V4 turbocharged petrol engine and two energy recovery systems, produces more than 900 horsepower (662kW).

Webber said the Interlagos crash, in which he collided with a GT Ferrari, had been “a really hard moment … horrible” for his wife, Ann.

“I was very lucky. It was an enormous impact. And it was the longest time I’d ever taken to recover from a crash. That was an education, to say the least.”

Webber said another crash when one of his Porsche co-drivers, New Zealander Brendon Hartley, tangled with a GT Porsche in the opening round of this year’s WEC at Silverstone in Britain had increased his concerns.

He also recounted that two massive flips in a Mercedes CLK GTR at Le Mans in France in 1999, before his 12 years in Formula 1, had been “one of the hardest points of my career to get over”.

He will bow out without having won the 24 Hours of Le Mans, saying: “Maybe the race and I didn’t love each other.”

Runner-up to another Porsche there last year, his 919 had a faulty water pump this year and wound up 38 laps behind the victorious Porsche of Switzerland’s Neel Jani, France’s Romain Dumas and Germany’s Marc Lieb – who are set to be this season’s WEC’s champion drivers despite not having won any of the four six-hour races since Le Mans in June.

But Webber said: “Le Mans this year was exceptional for me in terms of performance. It was clarification that I did everything I could. I was pretty much the fastest guy there for Porsche.”

He has no regrets that he won’t race there again, knowing that victory could elude him no matter how many times he took part.

“You can do it for five more years, have a technical failure, your teammate crashes… that's the race,” he said.

“If I didn't have my F1 results (including nine Grand Prix wins), it might be a bit different.

“But I’m comfortable with what I did with Porsche, and part of me has won Le Mans, because I helped developed the car [that won there the past two times, this year after the leading Toyota TS050 Hybrid faltered with barely a lap to go].”

Jani, Dumas and Lieb have 140 points this season, to the 117 of Toyota’s Kamui Kobayashi (Japan), Stephane Sarrazin (France) and Mike Conway (Britain) – winners at Fuji in Japan three weeks ago – and 111.5 of Audi’s Lucas Di Grassi (Brazil), Loic Duval (France) and Oliver Jarvis (Britain).

Webber, Hartley and German Timo Bernhard are fourth on 93.5 points. The other Porsche trio will be champions on Sunday if they emerge from the Shanghai race 26 points in front of either their Toyota or Audi challengers.

More likely is that Porsche will be the champion manufacturer again on Sunday. It already has 263 points to the 204 of Volkswagen group stablemate Audi, which is withdrawing from sports car racing at the end of this season (as VW is from the World Rally Championship). Toyota is a distant third on 174 points.

Porsche, with wins in five of the seven rounds so far, will have the title again if it is at least 44 ahead of Audi after Shanghai.

While everything points to manufacturer and driver championships for Porsche again, if not in China then in Bahrain, the three makes of hybrid prototypes have been represented on the podium, separated by less than 30 seconds after six hours of racing, at the past rounds in Texas and Japan.

Four-time world champion out of a drive
Rally Australia at Coffs Harbour in a fortnight will be the farewell for Volkswagen after its shock withdrawal from the WRC this week after four years of domination, but its French four-time world champion Sebastien Ogier has declared it’s not the end of his career.

“Don’t worry about me, we (sic) gonna see us again!!!” Ogier has tweeted.

Citroen, the French manufacturer for which Ogier and his co-driver and countryman Julien Ingrassia scored the first seven of their 37 WRC rally victories, already has contracted three drivers – Northern Irishman Kris Meeke, 37, Irishman Craig Breen, 26,  and Frenchman Stephane Lefebvre, 24 – for its full-time return with its C3 under next year’s new rules.

Citroen team principal Yves Matton said he would be interested to talk to Ogier, but won’t be tipping out any of that trio to make way for him.

“If Sebastien Ogier gives me a call I will answer and we will have a chat, but there’s no question about changing my driver line-up for next season,” Matton said.

“We took the decision to develop young drivers, but when you have a four-time world champion [who is still only 32] this can be interesting.

“[But] there is no idea in this team to change the driver line-up we have made.”

As Hyundai also has three contracted drivers – Belgian Thierry Neuville, New Zealander Hayden Paddon and Spaniard Dani Sordo – the best new home for Ogier (unless a deal is struck for him to privately campaign a new VW) could be Toyota, which is coming back to the WRC for the first time this century.

The Japanese company’s team, headed by Finnish four-time world champion Tommi Makinen, has announced only one driver so far – 35-year-old Finn Juho Hanninen, who has done the bulk of the testing of its Yaris. Another driver announcement has been expected after Rally Oz.

Ogier’s teammates – Norwegian Andreas Mikkelsen, 27, and Finn Jari-Matti Latvala, 31 – also are on the market after VW’s pull-out.

Citroen’s Matton said that he would accept calls from that pair too, but it would only be for polite chat. “They are not French and they don’t have the world title,” he said.

Now it’s ‘See you Lada’ in WTCC
Audi out of the WEC, Volkswagen out of the WRC, next it will be Lada out of the World Touring Car Championship.

The Russian brand first dabbled in the WTCC in 2008 and has contested each of the past five seasons but is expected to confirm its withdrawal on November 10.

Italian Gabriele Tarquini and Dutchman Nicky Catsburg won the races at the WTCC’s Moscow round in June driving Lada’s Vesta model.

Catsburg, 28, is seventh in the championship and extended his contract with Lada into next year.

Tarquini, the 2009 WTCC champion, is ninth this season – and aged 54.

Dominant Citroen long ago announced its withdrawal at the end of the end of the season ending in Qatar on the last weekend of this month.

That will leave only Honda and Volvo’s Polestar as manufacturer teams in the WTCC next year.

Another teenager strolls into F1
Lance Stroll has just turned 18 – and he will be on the Formula 1 grid in Melbourne next March.

Stroll is the replacement for Brazilian veteran Felipe Massa at the Williams-Mercedes team and he insists it has more to do with his results – including winning 14 of the 30 races on the way to this year’s European Formula 3 title – than his father Lawrence being a billionaire.

Stroll will be the first Canadian in F1 since 1997 world champion Jacques Villeneuve.

He has only raced cars for three years but has been “training” since August in a two-year-old Williams, thanks to his father’s fortune – which comes primarily from the Tommy Hilfiger and Michael Kors clothing brands.

“I come from money, I’m not going to deny that, but I believe I earned my shot in F1 because I won every championship that I’ve competed in in single-seaters (including last year’s Toyota Racing Series in New Zealand,” Stroll said.

“Now the FIA (Federation Internationale de l’Automobile) have put in the superlicence [criteria, after Max Verstappen became an F1 driver at 17, and) so people can't buy their way into F1 (Verstappen didn’t), and you have to prove yourself and win in junior categories. I don't know what else to say.”

Verstappen, Daniil Kyvat and more recently Pascal Wehrlein and Esteban Ocon have graduated to F1 from the Euro F3 series.

Williams team principal Sir Frank Williams is back at work after several weeks in hospital with pneumonia, but his daughter – and deputy team principal – Claire made the Stroll announcement.

She too insisted he was signed for his talent rather than financial considerations.

“There have been a lot of comments about Lance's background and I want to make it clear Williams has been a team that has made a statement of intent we would not allow financial considerations to influence our driver choice,” she said.

“Money doesn’t drive performance – you either have the talent or you don’t. Lance has proved he has talent and has done what he has done.

“He has to do the job next year, and he will do that, to dispel those rumours.”

Vettel’s ‘sorry’ plenty enough for FIA
Sebastian Vettel escaped punishment for his expletive-laden outbursts during the Mexican Grand Prix after a verbal apology to race director Charlie Whiting and then letters to Whiting and FIA president Jean Todt.

The FIA said Vettel had “spontaneously sought out Whiting” and then “apologised profusely” in writing.

“He also indicated that he would likewise be contacting Max Verstappen (who he had complained did not give up third place after cutting a corner across grass) and vowed that such an incident would never occur again,” the FIA said.

“In the light of this sincere apology and strong commitment, the FIA president has decided, on an exceptional basis, not to take disciplinary action against Mr Vettel by bringing this matter before the FIA International Tribunal.

“The FIA will always condemn the use of offensive language in motor sport – especially when directed at officials and/or fellow participants – and expects all participants in its championships to be respectful and mindful of the example they set for the public and the younger generation in particular.

“In the event of any future incident similar to the one that occurred in Mexico, disciplinary action will be taken by bringing such incident before the FIA International Tribunal to be judged.”

So, saying sorry was enough for Vettel to escape any punishment (the 10-second post-race penalty was for changing his line against Daniel Ricciardo under braking) after calling a rival a ---- and telling the race director to f--- off, twice.

Weak as -- by the international governing body. There could have been a hefty fine and a suspended suspension, at least.