MOTORSPORT: Rain on Webber's parade

Mark Webber is just days away from a world drivers’ championship in sports car racing, but there’s a cloud on the radar – a rain cloud, over Bahrain of all places.

The eighth and final race of the World Endurance Championship (WEC) is to be run on Saturday on Middle Eastern desert island, which has an annual rainfall of only 72mm (or 2.8 inches in the old imperial measures).

Webber has raced in Bahrain 10 times (nine Formula 1 starts and last year’s WEC round) and talked this week of its weather being stable.

However, after clear skies and temperatures in the mid to high 20s until Friday, rain is forecast for Saturday, although still warm temperatures – but they tend to vary a lot over the six hours of the twilight race.

Weather shouldn’t be a major obstacle to Webber clinching his first drivers’ title in car racing though as he and his co-drivers in the No.17 Porsche 919 Hybrid have won similar six-hour races in rain at Fuji in Japan and Shanghai in China in the past six weeks.

Indeed, they have won the past four WEC rounds since finishing runner-up to an identical 919 with a turbocharged 2-litre V4 engine and two hybrid systems at the Le Mans 24-Hour in June and Porsche already has clinched the manufacturers’ championship.

Daniel Ricciardo will get to take on Sebastian Vettel in equal machinery again at the Race of Champions in London. They will even have Mercedes power, in the form of the 4.0-litre bi-turbo AMG GT S, as well as driving seven other types of cars – including NASCARs, a favourite of Ricciardo – over two days.

Ricciardo will partner motorcycle great Mick Doohan in the Nations Cup on the first night of the event at London’s 2012 Olympic Stadium, with the individual competition on Saturday.

In America NASCAR’s Sprint Cup comes to its conclusion this weekend, without either of the drivers of Roger Penske’s two Ford Fusions, Joey Logano and Brad Keselowski in the title fight.

While there will be the usual 41-car field at Homestead-Miami Speedway, only four can become champion now.

Three of the four – Jeff Gordon, Kevin Harvick and Martin Truex Junior – race Chevrolet SSs derived from Australia’s Holden Commodore VF, while Kyle Busch is in a Toyota Camry.

Marcos Ambrose’s replacement at Richard Petty Motorsports this season, Sam Hornish, has lost his drive for next season. Hornish is 26th in the Sprint Cup standings – three places lower than Ambrose finished last year.

Third place enough for Webber to clinch title
Mark Webber was third in last year’s WEC round in Bahrain and a repeat of that on Saturday will be enough for him and New Zealander Brendon Hartley and German Timo Bernhard to become this year’s world endurance drivers’ champions.

Toyota won in Bahrain last year on the way to the manufacturers’ championship, but this time it is Audi that is Porsche’s main opposition at the 5.4km circuit.

Audi trio Marcel Fassler of Switzerland, Andre Lotterer of Germany and Benoit Treluyer of France trail Webber, Hartley and Bernhard by 12 points (155-143).

However, Fritz Enzinger, the head of Porsche’s Le Mans prototype program, has cautioned: “One should never underestimate the uncertainties of a six-hour race, with heavy traffic and countless lapping manoeuvres.

"You’re always in thin air at the limit. With the first phase of the race run when the sun is low and then with around two-thirds of the distance in darkness, we are facing additional challenges at Bahrain.

“Our early win of the manufacturers’ title – which is, of course, particularly important to Porsche – richly rewarded us for our courageous technical design of the 919 Hybrid and for the intensive development work within the team. Now we’re going for the drivers’ world championship. Even if Audi was able to manage a one-two, a third-place finish would hand the title to Timo, Brendon and Mark.”

Webber, now within 10 months of turning 40, said: “We always want to get the best possible result every time we race. Our target is to get pole position (carrying a bonus point) and have a smooth race.

“Bahrain was never a happy hunting ground for me in F1, but we (Porsche) got a nice double podium here last year with our two cars – which was a big step for us (in the manufacturer’s first year back in top-level sports car racing).

“Bahrain is a test track and we do a lot of work here. It’s a venue where we know the weather is very stable, which is a bonus.

“The track has its unique challenges with four high-speed stretches and slow-speed corners, some of which are very tight.

“The wind conditions play a big role too with your top speed and also your cornering performance.”

Saturday’s race will be the last with Toyota for Austrian Alex Wurz, who was in the winning car last year. He was victorious at Le Mans in a Porsche in 1996 and again with Peugeot in 2009, when Australian David Brabham was one of his co-drivers.

Wurz also made 69 F1 starts with the Benetton, McLaren and Williams teams, achieving three podiums. He is the president of the Grand Prix Drivers Association and has been touted as a future principal of the Manor team that has failed to score an F1 world championship this season.

Manor already has recruited New Zealander Dave Ryan as racing director for next year. Ryan had a long career with McLaren, rising to the position of sporting director before he was forced to resign amid a furore after the 2009 Australian Grand Prix when Lewis Hamilton was found to have misled the race stewards.

In recent years Ryan has run the Von Ryan team which has campaigned GT cars internationally and for which V8 Supercar ace Shane Van Gisbergen has made occasional appearances.

Champions on equal footing in London
The Race of Champions in London will feature stars of F1, Le Mans, IndyCar, rallycross and GT and touring cars.

Team Australia has been drawn to meet Team Germany in the quarter-finals of the Nations Cup on Friday night, with Daniel Ricciardo first going head-to-head with Sebastian Vettel in equal machinery for the first time since they were Red Bull Racing teammates last year – when the Aussie won three GPs to the four-time world champion’s none.

Germany’s other representative is Nico Hulkenberg, the Force India-Mercedes F1 driver who won the Le Mans 24-Hour this year.

Hulkenberg and Ricciardo, along with Valterri Bottas and Max Verstappen, could be rivals in future for an F1 drive at Ferrari. Hulkenberg was under consideration by the Italian team for 2014 but reportedly was overlooked because of his height – 184cm.

Apart from the Mercedes-AMG GT S, the ROC competitors will race Ariel Atom Cup pocket-rockets, Radical SR3 RSXs, ROC Cars well suited to the event’s twisty layout, KTM X-Bows, 5.7-litre V8 Euro NASCARs, two-seater Rage RX200 Comets powered by Kawasaki’s ZZR1400 motorcycle engine, and single-seater RX 150s with Honda CBR 1000 RR engines.

One of the 20 drivers competing this year is Alex Buncombe, the Brit who has had success in a Nissan GT-R in the Blancpain Endurance Series and co-drove the carsales.com.au Nissan Altima with Todd Kelly in this year’s V8 Supercar endurance races in Australia.
The ROC will be the last competition outing for Susie Wolff, test driver for the Williams-Mercedes F1 team.

Driver line-up for the 2015 Race of Champions
Daniel Ricciardo, three-time Formula 1 Grand Prix winner (Team Australia)
Mick Doohan, five-time 500cc MotoGP world champion (Team Australia)
Ryan Hunter-Reay, 2014 Indianapolis 500 Winner (Team Americas)
Jose Maria Lopez, dual world touring car champion (Team Americas)
Felipe Massa, 11-time Formula 1 Grand Prix winner (Team Brazil)
Nelson Piquet Junior, reigning FIA Formula E champion (Team Brazil)
Jason Plato, dual British touring car champion (Team England 1)
Andy Priaulx, triple world touring car champion (Team England 1)
Alex Buncombe, 2015 Blancpain Endurance Series champion (Team England 2)
Jenson Button, 2009 Formula 1 world champion (Team England 2)
Sebastian Vettel, four-time Formula 1 world champion (Team Germany)
Nico Hulkenberg, 2015 Le Mans 24-Hour winner (Team Germany)
Tom Kristensen, nine-time Le Mans 24-Hour winner (Team Nordic)
Petter Solberg, reigning world rallycross champion (Team Nordic)
David Coulthard, reigning ROC champion of champions (Team Scotland)
Susie Wolff, Williams-Mercedes test driver (Team Scotland)
Jorge Lorenzo, dual MotoGP world champion (Team All Stars)
Romain Grosjean, 2012 ROC champion of champions (Team All Stars)
Jolyon Palmer, 2014 GP2 champion (Team Young Stars)
Pascal Wehrlein, 2015 DTM champion (Team Young Stars)

Race of Champions Nations Cup draw (Friday November 20):
Round 1
Team ALL STARS v Team YOUNG STARS (Match A)
Romain Grosjean v Pascal Wehrlein
Jorge Lorenzo v Jolyon Palmer
Team ENGLAND 1 v Team BRAZIL (Match B)
Andy Priaulx v Nelson Piquet Jr
Jason Plato v Felipe Massa
Quarter-finals
Team NORDIC v Team AMERICAS (Match A)
Tom Kristensen v José Maria López
Petter Solberg v Ryan Hunter-Reay
Team AUSTRALIA v Team GERMANY
Daniel Ricciardo v Sebastian Vettel
Mick Doohan v Nico Hulkenberg
Team ENGLAND 2 v Team SCOTLAND
Alex Buncombe v Susie Wolff
Jenson Button v David Coulthard
Winner Match A v Winner Match B
Grosjean/Wehrlein v Priaulx/Piquet Jr
Lorenzo/Palmer v Plato/Massa

Race of Champions draw (Saturday, November 21):
Round 1
José Maria López v Ryan Hunter-Reay (Match A)
Pascal Wehrlein v Andy Priaulx (Match B)
Mick Doohan v Jorge Lorenzo (Match C)
Alex Buncombe v Jolyon Palmer (Match D)
Quarter-finals
Sebastian Vettel v Petter Solberg
Daniel Ricciardo v Nico Hulkenberg
Jenson Button v Felipe Massa
David Coulthard v Susie Wolff
Tom Kristensen v Nelson Piquet Jr
Romain Grosjean v Jason Plato
Winner Match A (López/Hunter-Reay) v Winner Match B (Wehrlein/Priaulx)
Winner Match B (Doohan/Lorenzo) v Winner Match D (Buncombe/Palmer)

Ford out of NASCAR final
The grand finale of NASCAR’s Sprint Cup is the Ford EcoBoost 400, but no Ford drivers are competing for the title after Team Penske’s Joey Logano and Brad Keselowski were eliminated from the Chase in last weekend’s rain-delayed race at Phoenix, Arizona.

The four vying for the crown at Homestead-Miami Speedway will be Jeff Gordon, Kevin Harvick and Martin Truex Junior in Chevrolets and Kyle Busch in a Toyota.

Gordon is a four-time champion – in 1995, ’97, ’98 and 2001 – and will retire after this race.

A Hendrick Motorsports stalwart, the 44-year-old’s form in his quest for a fifth title could be inspiration for Australia’s 41-year-old Craig Lowndes, who has not added to his three V8 Supercar crowns since 1999.

Harvick is the defending Sprint Cup champion, driving for the team of Tony “Smoke” Stewart and Gene Haas, the industrialist entering F1 next year with a new American team.

Truex races for a single-car team based in Denver, Colorado,
Kyle Busch drives for three-time Super Bowl-winning gridiron coach and three-time NASCAR champion team owner Joe Gibbs and has made the final four (16 drivers began the 10-round Chase) after missing 11 races at the start of the season with a broken right leg and left foot from a second-tier XFINITY series crash at Daytona.

Neither Truex nor Busch has won a Sprint Cup, although 30-year-old Busch has been a top-line driver in the series for several years.

Eliminated from the Chase at Phoenix along with Logano and Keselowski were Busch’s older brother Kurt, who drives a Chevrolet for Stewart-Haas Racing, and Carl Edwards, another of the Joe Gibbs Toyota squad and who – when driving a Ford – lost a thrilling 2011 Cup decider to Tony Stewart.

Logano has been the form driver most of this season, winning six of the 35 races – including the ‘crown jewel’ Daytona 500 and three straight in the second round of the Chase.

However, in the eliminator round the 25-year-old was wrecked by Gibbs driver Matt Kenseth at Martinsville, lost a lot of laps at Texas after a tyre failure and damage, and then the Phoenix race was stopped at barely two-thirds distance after an earlier seven-hour rain delay.

“God didn’t have it in the cards for us, but there’s no doubt in my mind we’re still the strongest team on the track,” Logano said. “We just had a couple of bad races at a bad time.”

It was hard for Team Penske to see Logano and 2012 Cup champion Keselowski eliminated just weeks after its IndyCar championship leader Juan Pablo Montoya had that title snatched from him by New Zealander Scott Dixon.

Team Penske president Tim Cindric has spoken this week of wanting to expand to three NASCARs in 2017 and eventually four, like Hendrick, Stewart-Haas and Gibbs.

“I don’t think we’re viewed yet as an elite team within NASCAR because we only run two cars,” Cindric said.

All four Gibbs cars qualified for the Chase this season, Hendrick had three representatives and Stewart-Haas two.

Richard Petty Motorsports didn’t have a driver in the Chase this year after Aric Almirola made it last year.

Almirola is 17th in the standings going to Homestead-Miami with team co-owner, Richard “The King” Petty, mulling a replacement for the disappointing Sam Hornish Junior in his other car next season.

Hornish is a three-time IndyCar champion and won the 2006 Indianapolis 500 for Penske, but has now failed twice at full-time NASCAR racing.

He hasn’t won a race in 166 Sprint Cup starts and has finished in the top five only three times.

Petty said when RPM hired Hornish after Ambrose’s decision to return to Australia that he would bring “a lot of versatility” to the team.

“Marcos was super on road courses and stuff, but he never got the hang of being ready (on oval tracks),” Petty said.

“He could have good races and bad races, and good times in the races, but I think Sam will be much more consistent with it.”

A year on it’s been proven that he was no better.