MOTORSPORT: Reliability worries for Webber

Le Mans is little more than a month away and Australia's reigning sports car world champion Mark Webber will go to the 24-hour French classic on very limited racing preparation.

New Zealander Brendon Hartley crashed their Porsche 919 Hybrid out of the first round of the World Endurance Championship (WEC) at Britain's Silverstone last month and on the weekend it spent more than 1½ hours of another six-hour race at Spa in Belgium in the garage for a gearbox change after two, separate left-front tyre punctures.

Rival Volkswagen-group brand Audi won at Spa, its victorious four-litre diesel V6 driven by Brazilian Lucas Di Grassi, Frenchman Loic Duval and Brit Oliver Jarvis completing 160 laps.

But all three manufacturers in the top LMP1 category for the hybrids – the third manufacturer is Toyota – had troubles with both their cars.

Even the winning Audi was in the garage during the final hour, although all three makes led at some stage in the unexpectedly hot conditions, with track temperatures up to 50 degrees Celsius.

Le Mans is on June 18-19 and, bearing in mind the reliability issues for all the factory prototypes, it is four times longer than the two lead-up races have been.

After the new Ford GT's class win at Laguna Seca in the US the previous weekend, with Australian Ryan Briscoe in that car, another of the Blue Oval's new machines was second in the GTE Pro class at Spa to a Ferrari, but the other Ford running there had a huge crash.

German Stefan Mucke was lucky to escape without serious injury after the rear end of the GT stepped out and it slammed hard into the barriers – destroyed.

Toyota led more than half the Spa race with one of its new 2.4-litre V6 twin turbo TS050s until engine problems.

The ultimately victorious Audi R18 e-tron quattro led by three laps at one point and finished two laps ahead of Porsche's other 919 which ran with less than full hybrid power after just the fifth lap.

The Porsches had qualified on the front row and Hartley led until pitting on lap 23, handing over the No. 1 car to German Timo Bernhard, who fought a thrilling battle with Swiss driver Sebastien Buemi in one of the Toyotas until a left-front tyre puncture early on lap 37.

Bernhard, who said he "probably ran over debris in the last chicane where there had been accidents", had to soldier 7km to the pits and, as the damaged tyre fell apart, the Porsche's bodywork was damaged.

The nose was changed at the pitstop and Webber took the wheel, but on lap 45 he had a front left tyre puncture too.

Porsche now found its lead entry four laps down in 14th position and then had to change the front gearbox which had been damaged due to the different speeds of the two front wheels when bringing it in with the damaged tyres.

The repairs took from 4.38pm until 6.17pm, by which time Webber was 51 laps down on the leaders – but in a 24-lap stint he made up two laps before handing back to Bernhard, then Hartley drove the final stint.

They finished 27th overall and fifth of the six cars in the hybrid class.

"The guys did a great job in getting the car back on track," Webber said. "We learnt a lot, but it was a tough day."

Swiss privateer team Rebellion took third and fourth places with its R-One AERs built by French constructor Oreca and with P60 V6 twin turbo engines.

They were four and five laps down on the victorious Audi, with ex-Formula 1 drivers Nick Heidfeld and Nelson Piquet Junior as well as Alain Prost's son Nicholas in the second of them.

The second-placed Porsche – which had inherited victory post-race at Silverstone when the Audi that crossed the line first was excluded because of the thickness of its front skid block – was driven by France's Romain Dumas, Switzerland's Neel Jani and Germany's Marc Lieb.

Despite the reliability problems, for the first time in the three seasons since it returned to top-level sports car racing Porsche leads both the manufacturer and driver standings heading into Le Mans.

Toyota is second in the manufacturer standings, with 45 points to Porsche's 54,  and Audi, dominant for most of this century until toppled at Le Mans last year by Porsche (with a third entry), only third this season on 41 points.

While the trio in Porsche's No. 2 car has a clear lead in the drivers' championship, with 43 points to the 30 of – amazingly – the unknown trio (ever heard of Alexandre Imperatori, Dominil Kraihamer and Matheo Tuscher?) in one of the Rebellions – Webber, Hartley and Bernhard are 14th with just 1.5 points.
Porsche big wig draws on theatre analogy
Reporting for dailysportscar.com, Stephen Kilbey has written that the Spa Six-Hour "had everything: great battles, incidents, reliability issues and extraordinary feats of endurance and intelligence all the way to the end".

"The 84th edition of the Le Mans 24 Hours has the potential to be a classic," Kilbey said.

Porsche vice-president Fritz Enzinger said the opening round of the WEC "wasn't easy, but Spa was even more difficult, although we were starting from the front row with both cars".

"Car No. 1 was very unlucky in the race. [However], giving up is never an option in endurance racing," Enzinger said.

"In the world of theatre people say a bad dress rehearsal is a happy omen for the premiere. This is how we consider our race day in Spa now with regards to Le Mans.

"We will not leave a stone unturned and will painstakingly prepare for the 24 Hours."

Webber saw Red Bull swap coming
Mark Webber wasn't surprised at Red Bull Racing dumping Daniel Ricciardo's teammate Daniil Kvyat last week, and says that 18-year-old Max Verstappen has "no choice" but to perform well as his replacement from next weekend's Spanish Grand Prix.

Webber said the move by Red Bull's powerful F1 consultant Dr Helmut Marko, with whom he was so often at odds during seven years at RBR, to send Kvyat back to junior team Toro Rosso and promote Verstappen had been "brewing".

"Helmut just wants performance," Webber told London's Telegraph newspaper.

"He wants the fastest guys in the best scenario as quick as possible.

"It was probably on the cards even before Russia [the most recent GP in Sochi, where Kvyat twice punted Sebastian Vettel – the second time out of the race – and cost RBR an anticipated strong championship points haul with both its cars].

"You could feel there was something brewing.

"He [Kvyat] has had a year there [at RBR] and they don't believe that he's done enough.

"Normally they [F1 teams] wait until the end of the year, but that doesn't happen sometimes – particularly with Red Bull. Bang.

"Let's see if Max can break Red Bull records again [with youthful success].

"Is Max ready? He's got no choice. He has to be.

"In F1 you have nowhere to hide. It's up to you every session. You're measured on your performance."

'Mr Versatility' Ekstrom wins World RX
Mattias Ekstrom, the Swede who starred in the 2013 Bathurst 1000 in a wildcard Triple Eight Holden Commodore entry, has won the latest round of the World Rallycross Championship and has drawn level with the winner of the two previous World RX titles, Norwegian Petter Solberg.

Arguably the most versatile race driver in the world, Ekstrom not only won the rallycross at Germany's Hockenheim but also competed in the DTM (German touring car championship) there on the weekend.

And Finn Topi Heikkinen was the rallycross runner-up in another of Ekstrom's EKS team's Audi S1s.

"I've never been happier in my entire life," said Ekstrom, a multiple DTM and International Race of Champions title winner.

American Ken Block was third in the World RX round in his Hoonigan Racing Division's Ford Focus RS.

Block qualified only 13th and would have missed the semi-finals until a disqualification gave him a place.

He now has two podiums from the four World RX events he has started.

Solberg had diff and then engine problems with his Citroen DS3 at Hockenheim and finished fourth overall, while Brit Liam Doran won a semi-final in a MINI down on power compared to the other 600-horsepower Supercars.

France's nine-time world rally champion Sebastien Loeb had a good weekend in his Peugeot 208 WRX until colliding with countryman Davy Jeanney in the semi-finals.

The next round is at Mettet in Belgium next weekend.

'Everything good' from Toyota's WRC testing
Tommi Makinen, Toyota's team principal for its return to the World Rally Championship, says he is "very happy" with initial testing of the Yaris the Japanese manufacturer will field under next year's regulations.

"Everything is very good. The testing is really non-stop for us now," said Makkinen, who has been doing much of the driving on the gravel near his Puuppola base in central Finland with countryman Juho Hanninen.

"We have very good roads in Finland and if something needs some modifications we have the flexibility to come and do it in the factory before going back out testing the next day."

A second Yaris will be tested in southern Europe soon, while a third in asphalt trim has almost been completed.

A full house at The Brickyard
All the massive grandstands at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway are sold out for May 29's 100th running of the Indianapolis 500.

It is the first sell-out of seating at the 107-year-old 2.5-mile (4km) Brickyard in two decades – since the great split in American open-wheeler racing, later reunited but in some respects permanently damaged.

All permanent hospitality suites at Indianapolis have also been sold, with temporary suites now being built.

General admission tickets are the only ones easily available now.

An IndyCar race will be run on the road course at The Brickyard next weekend, with Australian youngster Matthew Brabham entered – as well as for the Indy 500, in which his grandfather, the late Sir Jack, and father, Geoff, both raced.

A round of the IndyCar series scheduled for the streets of Boston has been cancelled, but there are moves to stage it at the famous Watkins Glen road course in upstate New York.

Another alternative venue is the new oval at Gateway Motorsports Park in Missouri.

IndyCar organisers are keen to add Watkins Glen and Gateway to future calendars.

NASCAR's reigning champion Kyle Busch has won the latest Sprint Cup round at Kansas in his Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota ahead of Kevin Harvick and Kurt Busch in a pair of Stewart-Haas Chevrolets.

Busch is now within four points of season leader Harvick.

A round of the Formula E electric open-wheeler global series scheduled for Moscow on June 4 has been cancelled because city authorities could not guarantee roads near the Kremlin would be closed for it.

Formula E organisers have tried but failed to have the round moved to Monaco.

The season's double-header finale at London's Battersea Park on July 2-3 also is in jeopardy, with a court case scheduled for May 24 after public protests.