MOTORSPORT: Oh, what might have been

Daniel Ricciardo drove perhaps the best race of his life in the Chinese Grand Prix yet his lightning start ultimately yielded no more than another fourth place.

Mark Webber put his Porsche 919 Hybrid in the lead of the opening round of the World Endurance Championship at Britain’s Silverstone, but his New Zealand teammate Brendon Hartley crashed it into a GT car, handing Audi its first victory among the top-level Le Mans prototypes for almost a year.

And muffed qualifying meant that Will Power started and finished last of Roger Penske’s four IndyCar drivers on the streets of Long Beach, California.

But it was much better news on Australia’s next-generation of international racers over the weekend.

Sydney 20-year-old Joey Mawson won the first two races of the German Formula 4 Championship against 34 other youngsters from around the world.

Mawson then had to start the third race 10th – as the top guns were reversed on the grid – yet still finished runner-up to Mick Schumacher, the 17-year-old son of seven-time Formula 1 world champion Michael Schumacher.

Safety car interventions amid the wet weekend at the Oschersleben made it tricky, but Mawson said it had been a “simply incredible and absolutely perfect start” to his second season in the German series.

He already has 68 points to the 49 of Schumacher, who was his teammate last year at Van Amersfoort Racing but has switched to Italy’s Prema Powerteam and finished fourth in the first two races before starting the third from sixth place.

Melbourne 16-year-old Luis Leeds was runner-up in two of the three races in Britain’s MSA F4 Championship at Donington Park.

A member of Red Bull’s junior development squad and driving for TRS Arden, Leeds now has three second places to his credit in that series and is fifth in the points -- 21 behind the Carlin team’s karting graduate Max Fewtrell, also 16.

Fellow Victorian Thomas Randle, who turned 20 this month, was third in one of the three races in the British Racing Drivers’ Club Formula 3 Championship – but ironically for F4 cars – at Brands Hatch.

Randle was fourth and fifth in the other two races and is third in that series after six of 24 races.

Ricciardo had taste of champagne on his tongue
Daniel Ricciardo reckoned that the left-rear puncture to his Red Bull-TAG Heuer from debris on the track as he led the Chinese GP, and then a safety car intervention that dropped him to 17th, “felt like getting punched in the stomach by a heavyweight [boxer]”.

“But the second part of the race I drove probably one of the races of my life … probably the best race of my career,” Ricciardo said.

“I would have sprayed champagne (made the podium) today.

“The package (Red Bull’s RB12 chassis and the Renault power unit badged TAG Heuer) is really promising.

“We’ve shown a strength in the three races so far … a strength we didn’t think we’d have this early in the season.

“It feels more like 2014 (when Ricciardo won three GPs). I am optimistic.”

Ricciardo climbed back from his early setbacks with a string of sensational passes to notch a hat-trick of fourth places and remains third in the world championship, just three points behind triple world champion Lewis Hamilton and three ahead of Sebastian Vettel.

Nico Rosberg won again for Mercedes, by almost 38 seconds, ahead of Ferrari’s Vettel and Red Bull’s 21-year-old Russian Daniil Kyvat.

Vettel called Kyvat suicidal, a madman and a torpedo for a daring move he made at the first corner of the race which caused the four-time world champion to nudge his Ferrari teammate Kimi Raikkonen, damaging both cars.

But Kyvat, who had started sixth, stood his ground as he came under fire from Vettel post-race.

“I think it was a fair move. I saw the gap and I went for it. We didn’t touch. For me it was a logical move and it paid off with a podium,” Kyvat said.

And Vettel’s perspective was toned way down by the time Ferrari issued its official post-race comments, quoting him calling it simply “a racing incident”.

And team principal Maurizio Arrivabene said: “Pointing the finger is not correct. This is racing. It’s not monopoly.”

Rosberg has won every race this season, six in a row since Hamilton clinched last year’s title in the US and has eclipsed Sir Stirling Moss as the driver with the most GP victories without clinching a world championship – 17.

His winning margin yesterday was the biggest in the 13-year history of the Shanghai event and he’s 36 points clear of Hamilton – 75-39.

Hamilton started from the back of grid after not registering a qualifying time and, after damage on the opening lap, made 18 passes and five pit stops on the way to seventh – his worst finish since the 2013 Brazilian GP, saying that his Merc had been like driving “a four-poster bed”.

Mercedes has won nine races in a row now but Vettel said Ferrari had “great pace, good strategy, fantastic pit stops” in Shanghai and he thinks the red cars can catch the Silver Arrows during this record 21-race season.

Mercedes-powered Williams is the only team apart the Mercedes factory outfit to have had both its drivers, Felipe Massa and Valtteri Bottas, in the top 10 at every GP so far this year.

Yet Renault, having bought back the Lotus team renowned for its excellent chassis and with exactly the same power units as Red Bull, has not scored a world championship point yet – and was further away from the top 10 yesterday than in the earlier races.

Ricciardo was the fastest of the Renault-powered quartet in Shanghai – qualifying on the front row alongside Rosberg and with a best race lap half a second better than Kyvat and more than 1.2 seconds faster than the Renault pair, Kevin Magnussen and Jolyon Palmer.

McLaren-Honda’s only point so far was from substitute Stoffel Vandoorne in Bahrain two weeks ago, with the returning Fernando Alonso and Jenson Button 12th and 13th in Shanghai.

Formula One World Championship driver standings after three of 21 races – 1. Nico Rosberg (Germany, Mercedes) 75 points; 2. Lewis Hamilton (Great Britain, Mercedes) 39; 3. Daniel Ricciardo (Australia, Red Bull-TAG Heuer) 36; 4. Sebastian Vettel (Germany, Ferrari) 33; 5. Kimi Raikkonen (Finland, Ferrari) 28; 6. Felipe Massa (Brazil, Williams-Mercedes) 22; 7. Daniil Kvyat (Russia, Red Bull-TAG Heuer) 21; 8. Romain Grosjean (France, Haas-Ferrari) 18; 9. Max Verstappen (Netherlands, Toro Rosso-Ferrari) 13; 10. Valtteri Bottas (Finland, Williams-Mercedes) 7; 11. Nico Hulkenberg (Germany, Force India-Mercedes) 6; 12. Carlos Sainz Junior (Spain, Toro Rosso-Ferrari) 4; 13. Stoffel Vandoorne (Belgium, McLaren-Honda) 1.

F1 constructor standings – 1. Mercedes 114 points; 2. Ferrari 61; 3. Red Bull-TAG Heuer 57; 4. Williams-Mercedes 29; 5. Haas-Ferrari 18; 6. Toro Rosso-Ferrari 17; 7. Force India-Mercedes 6; 8. McLaren-Honda 1.

Webber’s Kiwi teammate throws away victory
Mark Webber overtook within 16 laps the two Audi R18 e-tron quattros that started ahead of his Porsche 919 Hybrid at Silverstone in the first of two six-hour races leading up to the Le Mans 24-Hour in June.

After 27 laps Webber handed the Porsche over to New Zealander Brendon Hartley, who had a lead of more than 40 seconds when he spectacularly tangled with a GT Porsche on lap 71 – putting both cars out.

Hartley was reprimanded by stewards, who said he was “responsible for a lack of caution and didn’t watch out before overtaking”.

Hartley, who along with Webber and German veteran Timo Bernhard are the reigning WEC world champion drivers and took Porsche to the manufacturers’ championship last year, admitted the crash had been “a shocking moment … a true shame”.

Webber said the 919 had been “very good and we clearly have lost out on a good score here”.

Audi had not won in the WEC’s top category since last May at the Spa six-hour – the other lead-up event to Le Mans again this year.

The R18 of Switzerland’s Marcel Fassler, Germany’s Andre Lotterer and France’s Benoit Treluyer took victory 46 seconds ahead of the Porsche 919 of France’s Romain Dumas, Switzerland’s Neel Jani and Germany’s Marc Lieb which had a puncture late in the race. Both cars completed 194 laps.

Audi’s other new R18 dropped out before half distance with what was described as a “hybrid malfunction”.

One of Toyota’s new TS050 Hybrids – driven by France’s Stephane Sarrazin, Britain’s Mike Conway and Japan’s Kamui Kobayashi – took the third podium position, a lap down.

In the GTE Pro class two Ferrari 488s and an Aston Martin finished ahead of two of Ford’s new GTs, while another of those Fords – in which Australian Ryan Briscoe was a driver – was fourth in the GTLM class of the IMSA race that was a support event to the IndyCars at Long Beach, California.

Ahead of that Ford, which was 15th outright, were a Porsche 911 RSR, a Chevrolet Corvette C7.R and a Ferrari 488.

Four of the Blue Oval’s GTs are entered for Le Mans, which the American company famously won outright for the first time 50 years ago.

Power’s Penske teammate Pagenaud chalks one up
Will Power had been the early pacesetter at  the IndyCar round in California but started only sixth after sliding down an escape road during qualifying, stalling, and being denied his two fastest laps – and he finished seventh in today’s race.

Frenchman Simon Pagenaud scored his fifth IndyCar victory but his first since joining Roger Penske’s team last year.

His winning margin over New Zealander Scott Dixon was 0.3032 seconds – the closest in Long Beach history, and has given Pagenaud a 14-point series lead over the Kiwi.

Power, the 2104 series champion but who missed this season’s opening race in Florida because of an ear infection, is now eighth, with 62 points to Pagenaud’s 134.

Penske’s other drivers, Colombian Juan Pablo Montoya and Brazilian Helio Castroneves, are third and fourth on 106 and 92.

The series moves straight on to Alabama for the round at Barber Motorsports Park before the two races at Indianapolis next month – the first on the road course, the second the 100th running of the Indy 500.

Only a point in NASCAR’s Sprint Cup battle
Joe Gibbs Toyota driver Carl Edwards is within a point of NASCAR Sprint Cup leader Kevin Harvick after winning the eighth race of the series.

Stewart-Haas Chevrolet star Harvick has 287 points to the 286 of Edwards, who took the chequered flag today 0.766 seconds ahead of Dale Earnhardt Junior’s Chevrolet at Bristol, Tennessee.

Six-time champion Jimmie Johnson (Chevrolet) is third on 271 points.

Penske Ford driver Joey Logano is fourth on 266, ahead of Kyle Busch (Toyota, 262) and Earnhardt (250).
Penske’s other driver, Brad Keselowski, is eighth on 224.

Solberg off to a flyer … the old-fashioned way
Dual world rallycross champion Petter Solberg has made a flying start to his quest for a hat-trick of titles with a win in the opening round of the third series despite a faulty launch control in his Citroen DS3.

“I had to do a manual start [in the final],” Norwegian Solberg said.

“Sometimes the old-fashioned way can work.”

Audis filled the other podium positions at Montalegre in Portugal – Swedish privateer Robin Larsson in an A1 and Finn Topi Keiikinen in an S1 entered by Swedish ace Mattias Ekstrom’s team.

Series director Paul Bellamy boasted that five manufacturers were represented in the final, with the others being Volkswagen, Peugeot and Ford.

Nine-time world rally champion Sebastien Loeb was fifth in the final in his Peugeot 208, making a great start but transmission trouble later robbed him of a chance of a podium.

Ekstrom dominated the qualifying rounds and his outfit leads the teams’ championship.

American Ken Block was in trouble from early in the event with a sticking throttle in his Ford Focus, but his Hoonigan Racing Division teammate, Norwegian Andreas Bakkerud, made the final and finished fourth.