MOTORSPORT: Super weekend, except for Webber

Spinning and crashing out of the drenched new Korean Grand Prix cost Webber his Formula One world championship lead, initially it seemed to Red Bull teammate Sebastian Vettel but -- after his Renault engine blew -- ultimately to Ferrari's Fernando Alonso.

With just two GPs remaining now, Webber finds himself 11 points behind Alonso, but still a big chance for the title, especially if he wins one of the last two -- and certainly if he wins both -- races in Brazil and Abu Dhabi.

Even with Webber out, the Korean GP produced -- after an aborted start in the rain, a 48-minute delay, and almost 20 laps behind the safety car -- much of the best F1 racing of the year.

And the V8 Supercars did likewise in the closing laps of Sunday's second race on the shortened Gold Coast street circuit.

Young New Zealander Shane Van Gisbergen, in a Stone Brothers Ford Falcon, was sensational in the way he hounded dual champion Jamie Whincup in his Triple Eight Race Engineering Holden Commodore.

The breakthrough victory for Van Gisbergen cannot be far away. But, as brilliant as his performance was, Whincup's guile in keeping the youngster behind was the stuff of a true champion.

Whincup has narrowed James Courtney's championship lead from 125 points to 71, with six races remaining -- two each at Tasmania's Symmons Plains, Melbourne's Sandown and Sydney's Homebush.

The title fight is now likely to go to the wire -- and, for the sake of the category and the success of the Homebush street race in the country's biggest city, it should.

However, perhaps there is scope for further adjustment in the scoring system -- tweaked so often over the years, and which had seemed finally to be pretty right.

Courtney has had a fine season, his best since joining the V8 Supercars after an international openwheeler career that took him to the brink of F1. Courtney has won four races out of 20 this year, while Whincup has won nine -- yet trails by 71 points.

Rewarding consistency is one thing, but surely the driver who has won so much more during the season is the more deserving champion.

The Fords showed plenty of speed on the Gold Coast, especially with Ford Performance Racing's front row on Sunday and Van Gisbergen, Winterbottom and Courtney hounding Whincup at the end of the race, but Holden came away with another two wins -- making the season scoreline 14-6 in the Lion's favour.

Garth Tander and Cameron McConville's Saturday victory came amid plenty of controversy, with a black flag against the car withdrawn soon after it was ordered and no punishment for its loose front bodywork and headlight dropping out.

The damage bills from the weekend will have been huge, which won't please the team owners, but the format with 18 guest international co-drivers generally worked quite well.

There were loads of crashes, not all the fault of the visiting co-drivers, but far too many for some purists. However, overall the weekend -- especially the quality of the racing at the end -- may have gone quite some way towards arresting the slide the event had been on.

V8 Supercars Australia, now the organiser of the Gold Coast carnival, claimed a three-day attendance of about 170,000 -- better than had been expected last week, and assisted by the weather remaining fine after forecasts of rain.

However, the television "picture" was clouded -- with Saturday's average audience in the five major capital cities up almost 10 per cent on last year but -- pretty much in line with the year's trend -- down 23 per cent on Sunday.

Saturday's five-capital average was 392,000 and Sunday's 551,000.

Last year, after the no-show by the A1 GP openwheelers, two V8 Supercar races were run each day of the weekend with the Saturday five-capital averages being 212,000 and 358,000 and Sunday's 470,000 and 717,000.

Our comparisons with the latest numbers are made on the basis of the higher figure of the two on both Saturday and Sunday last year.

The Korean GP, which started around the time the Gold Coast racing concluded, and strung out over three hours, drew 326,000 viewers for the live telecast on OneHD and another 109,000 for Ten's late-night replay -- a total of 435,000.

Webber was quick to confess that his spin, soon after the safety car finally let the F1 field loose and which put him into a safety wall on the opposite side of the track and took out Mercedes driver Nico Rosberg too, was entirely his mistake.

But he has declared: "I absolutely believe that I can win the title. The RB6 is a great car and I'm going to relish the last two races.

"To be racing against guys of Fernando Alonso's calibre is very rewarding -- and beating them is what sport at this level is all about."

Webber won in Brazil last year and Vettel did likewise in the Abu Dhabi finale.

Alonso has now won five GPs this season, more than any other driver, and four of the past five, but Ferrari has finally admitted that it has an engine worry.

It has used eight engines in Alonso's car this season and will incur a 10-place grid penalty if it has to install a ninth at either of the last two races -- potentially threatening Alonso's chances of a third world title.

His other two, in 2005 and 2006, were with Renault.

Ferrari team principal Stefano Domenicali conceded last Friday that "it will be tremendously difficult to fight to the end" if Alonso has to take a 10-place grid penalty.

"We cannot really have any problems," he said. "We need to be careful not to overheat anything, that in terms of temperature we are not aggressive.

"This is something we need to sure above all for the hot races (in Brazil and Abu Dhabi)."

We are hearing now, unofficially, that Red Bull is in a similar position with the Renault engines of Webber and Vettel -- but at least it has two "irons" in the title "fire".

Webber won in Brazil last year and Vettel did likewise in the Abu Dhabi finale and Red Bull's RB6 car remains the pacesetter this season, occupying the two front row starting spots in Korea.

If Webber is to become world champion he is probably going to have to do it off his own bat.

Red Bull, unlike Ferrari, is against "team orders" in favour of one of its drivers -- although there is still a perception that Vettel is the favoured one within that camp.

Only if it becomes mathematically impossible for Vettel to win the title after Brazil might it contemplate prevailing upon him to assist Webber in the battle with Alonso and/or McLaren's Lewis Hamilton, who is 10 points behind Webber -- and 21 behind Alonso.

Vettel is another four points back, on 206.

The weekend was not all F1 and V8 Supercars.

French rallying great Sebastien Loeb, already with yet another world title in his pocket, won the Spanish round of the world rally championship, 35 seconds ahead of Norwegian privateer former world champion Petter Solberg with Spaniard Daniel Sordo third -- making it an all Citroen podium.

Fords filled the next six places, with Jari-Matti Latvala ahead of Mikko Hirvonen in the battle of the Finnish factory teammates.

Two young Australian rally drivers -- Molly Taylor and Brendan Reeves -- have been chosen to be part of the new WRC Academy next year. They were among six selected after the Pirelli Star Driver Global Shoot-Out in Spain at the weekend.

The six will participate in next year's WRC as part of the Federation Internationale de l'Automobile's young driver program.

And another horror race -- and future uncertainty -- for Australia's NASCAR driver Marcos Ambrose in the Sprint Cup round on the short oval at Martinsville, Virginia, after he qualified his Toyota second fastest there.

Ambrose had sought a release from the JTG Daugherty team last week to switch early back into a Ford entered by Richard Petty Motorsports (RPM), for which he is signed to race next year.

A vacancy came up early after 11-time Sprint Cup race winner Kasey Kahne quit RPM midweek, complaining of persistent brake problems with his car.

However, there are grave doubts about the future of RPM, which carries the name of NASCAR's greatest legend, Richard "The King" Petty -- who is still its front man even though he retains only a minor financial interest in the team.

RPM's majority shareholder, George Gillett, recently lost a bitter struggle for control of British soccer club Liverpool to fellow American tycoon John Henry.

Henry, best known as the owner of the Boston Red Sox, also is a co-owner of NASCAR's top Ford team, Roush Fenway Racing (RFR) -- which supplies RPM with its cars.

American reports suggest the Roush outfit may now squeeze RPM on that deal, creating doubt about RPM's survival -- and massive uncertainty for Ambrose.

"My team for 2011 is going through a rough patch, but I'm fully committed to it," Ambrose has said. "I've told everybody at RPM that as long as the boat is floating I'm on it standing with them.

"(But) as soon as they tell me the boat is sunk I'll jump off and swim to shore. Hopefully it works out."

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