MOTORSPORT: Some joy amid dark clouds

If you're a Ferrari fan there is a 1-2 finish in the Bahrain Grand Prix to celebrate, with Felipe Massa winning there ahead of Kimi Raikkonen, the reigning world champion who now heads this year's championship for the first time.

Joy too for BMW, which is leading the constructors' championship after Robert Kubica and Nick Heidfeld finished third and fourth in Bahrain -- after Kubica gave the German manufacturer its first pole position.

It was a woeful race for Lewis Hamilton, who drops to equal third in the driver standings while McLaren tumbled to third on the constructors' table, although it's tight at the top with BMW on 30, Ferrari 29 and McLaren 28.

So now we have a genuine three-way tussle instead of the usual Ferrari-McLaren showdowns.

Continuing to overshadow everything though is still the sex scandal involving Max Mosley, who ironically drove in the same Formula 2 race at Hockenheim in Germany in which Clark was killed.

We will not dwell on Mosley here today but point out that he seems to feel he can wriggle out of his predicament on some kind of technicality. Many of the prominent member organisations (most notably German and American) of the Federation Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA), of which he is president, are flagging they want him to resign, and some Formula 1 sponsors are showing signs that they are no longer happy spending money on a sport of which he is the head.

Mosley has initiated legal action against London's News of the World which broke the story of his weird sex orgy, but that has not deterred the newspaper from another installment yesterday, which you will find at the link more here

Until the fateful day of Clark's unbelievable death in 1968, and perhaps for almost 20 years after it, the two names that always figured in any discussions about the greatest F1 drivers were Fangio and Clark.

Since then there have been perhaps three others whose records put them in that league -- Michael Schumacher, Ayrton Senna and Alain Prost. Perhaps a sixth, Jackie Stewart.

On records alone (although not for want of sheer talent) we cannot include Gilles Villeneuve, Jochen Rindt or Stirling Moss. Nor yet any of the modern crop.

But of all of F1's greats Clark and Fangio were distinguished almost as much for being the men they were off the track as they were on it.

But back to racing, and the weekend's events.

We highlight Webber's consecutive seventh places in Malaysia and Bahrain because it was not only reward for him but something of a vindication in the faces of a cynical Australian sporting public that sees him only as a serial non-finisher.

Again Webber outqualified his Red Bull teammate David Coulthard, and -- to coin his phrase -- kept his nose clean in getting his Red Bull to the chequered flag four seconds behind Jarno Trulli's Toyota and 10 in front of Nico Rosberg's Williams-Toyota.

Also behind him, for the second straight race, was dual world champion Fernando Alonso, although the Spaniard had been the victim of an unintentional "Liberace" from Hamilton on the second lap and carried some damage to the finish in 10th.

Hamilton had already made a mistake on the starting grid and his 13th at the chequered flag was his worst finish in F1 (he's had only one retirement too in 20 starts), while Coulthard was a lap down.

The revelation of the season, though, has been the BMW-Sauber squad, with one of its drivers on the podium at each race, Heidfeld second in the championship and Kubica equal third in the standings with Hamilton and his McLaren teammate Heikki Kovalainnen, who finished fifth in Bahrain.

F1 world drivers' championship standings after three of 18 races -- Kimi Räikkönen 19 points, Nick Heidfeld 16, Lewis Hamilton 14, Heikki Kovalainen 14, Robert Kubica 14, Felipe Massa 10, Jarno Trulli 8, Nico Rosberg 7, Fernando Alonso 6, Mark Webber 4, Kazuki Nakajima 3, Sebastien Bourdais 2.

F1 world constructors' championship standings -- BMW-Sauber 30 points, Ferrari 29, McLaren-Mercedes 28, Williams-Toyota 10, Toyota 8, Renault 6, Red Bull-Renault 4, Toro Rosso-Ferrari 2.

On the other side of the pond, we must say we are finding the unified American open-wheeler series refreshing, even if its races are on at a more ungodly hour than F1 -- and only on pay-TV.

The wet second round of the IndyCar series in St Petersburg, Florida, this morning produced a teenage winner -- 19-year-old Graham Rahal, son of Bobby -- who didn't even get to start the first round the previous weekend at Homestead-Miami Speedway.

Australian Will Power qualified on the front row, alongside Brazilian Tony Kanaan, in what was an excellent performance as he is still very new to the Dallara-Honda that is the standard machinery in IndyCar.

The race didn't go Power's way, though. He had contact with Rahal and wound up eighth, still quite creditable in the circumstances.

The other Aussie in the field, Ryan Briscoe, started fifth and led the race for a while but clipped a kerb and finished way back.

We assess Briscoe's prospects as the better of the Aussie pair because he's with the mighty Team Penske, but with nothing to show in the way of finishes from the first two rounds he's going to need to get some scores on the board.

A sign of the improving health of the Indy series is that Coca-Cola has entered a three-year sponsorship with it.

One of the cars, the Newman-Haas machine of lanky Englishman Justin Wilson, is already sponsored by McDonalds.

We find it interesting that Indy, but not F1, has been able to entice these iconic American and global brands.

Perhaps it is just that Indy is cheaper to enter than F1.

Still on the American scene, Australian dual V8 Supercar champion Marcos Ambrose had his seventh start of the year in NASCAR's Nationwide Series at Texas Motor Speedway.

It was his first race with Gary Gogswell back as his crew chief following the departure two weeks ago of fellow Australian Walter Giles.

But the race result was little different and Ambrose is standing 16th in the series.

In the seven races his finishing record this year is now: 39th, 22nd, 28th, 11th, 19th, 23rd, and 18th.

On the home front, Toyota not surprisingly won both heats of the opening round of the Australian Rally Championship in south-west Western Australia.

Simon and Sue Evans, national champions the past two years, won their 14th straight heat on Saturday, and their first in a naturally-aspirated Super 2000 Corolla, but an engine problem put them out of Sunday's heat and let team boss Neal Bates and co-driver Coral Taylor take the day's honors -- and those of the weekend ahead of Eli Evans in a Subaru Impreza and WA champion Alex Stone, also in a Subaru but who is not down to do the whole series.

At Wakefield Park in NSW Tim Slade won the V8 development series round ahead of David Reynolds and Steve Owen, but Owen still leads the series on 534 points to Jack Perkins' 472, with Michael Trimble on 414, Slade 385 and Reynolds 378.

And in the Australian Formula Formula Ford championship round at Wakefield Park Kristian Lindbom stood atop the podium with Rob Storey second and Paul Laskazeski third.

Laskazeski retains the championship lead with 77 points to Ben Morley's 72, Nick Percat on 61, Brad Lowe 54, while Storey and Lindbom each have 52.

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