MOTORSPORT: Three cheers for openwheeler stars

A great weekend for Ford too, winning all four V8 Supercar races at the Grand Prix, but not good for Australians racing overseas with enclosed wheels.

Marcos Ambrose was classified 36th, 111 laps down, in the fourth round of NASCAR's Spring Cup at Bristol, Tennessee, after his Ford got tangled in a crash not of his making. Penske driver Brad Keselowski in a Dodge held off Matt Kenseth's Ford to win at the famous half-mile (800m) oval, while ex-F1 driver Nelson Piquet Junior scored his first NASCAR victory in a regional championship round there.

And suspension problems relegated the Honda Performance Developments sports car David Brabham raced in the Sebring 12-Hour in Florida to 17th, 11 laps down, as Audi R18s finished first and second, with another HPD Acura ARX-03a third -- six laps behind the winner.

It was at Sebring that 18-year-old Matthew Brabham, son of Geoff Brabham and nephew of David, won the opening race of the US F2000 Championship in a field of 36.

Both the weekend's races in that series for Mazda-powered cars were crashfests and cut short of the scheduled distance, but Brabham is the championship leader after finishing second in the later race and heading to next weekend's second round at St Petersburg, also in Florida, where the main event will be the opening round of the IndyCar season with the new Dallara cars -- two of them driven by Australians Will Power and Ryan Briscoe.

Brabham seized the lead at the first corner of the first Sebring race in his Van Diemen machine and headed Australian-born Roman Lagudi of Las Vegas when the chequered flag was waved three laps early.

Setting the fastest lap gave Brahbam pole position for the second race and he shot 3.5 seconds clear of top-rated American Spencer Pigot but that was negated by a full-course caution after five laps.

Pigot went to the outside on the restart and had the momentum to edge ahead of Brabham but the Aussie remained on the American's tail until the race ended under caution after a major pile-up.

"It was fantastic to get my first win in the first race of the series -- my plan worked," Brabham said. "Overall I feel absolutely fantastic about how the whole weekend went. To be heading the championship going into the next event is exactly what I wanted... It's what every driver wants.

"The second race was very tough at the end, but it was looking pretty good at the start... I was out in front by quite a bit and was just pounding out the laps. I am disappointed how it finished but Spencer was very, very good on the restart and got me."

The safety car's intervention distorted the final margins but Webber's fourth place bettered his previous best fifths in his home race -- in 2002, 2005 and 2011 -- and he has banked 12 world championship points despite yet another bad start.

Ricciardo looked way out of contention after having to pit for a change of nose after his first-corner drama with Bruno Senna but got himself into the right place at the end to make up two spots and grab two points.

Jenson Button proved what a superb racer he is in winning in Melbourne for the third time in four years, upstaging McLaren-Mercedes teammate and pole position starter Lewis Hamilton.

Sebastian Vettel advanced from sixth on the grid (outqualified by teammate Webber) to finish second. Vettel and Webber sandwiched Hamilton and showed that Red Bull's Renault-powered RB8 is a far better car than Saturday's qualifying had indicated.

Yet again Fernando Alonso displayed why he is so widely regarded as the supreme talent in modern F1, rocketing from 12th on the grid to eighth in no time and getting the F2012 model that clearly remains a handful home in fifth place.

Mercedes has improved on last year, although the race did not work out for either Michael Schumacher or Nico Rosberg, while Lotus Renault has made giant strides, with Romain Grosjean qualifying third and comeback world champion Kimi Raikkonen overcoming his lowly grid position, 18th, to finish a brilliant seventh.

There are five teams that could be contenders for race wins, a strong midfield now very much including Scuderia Toro Rosso, while Sauber and Williams have made gains, and an abundance of driving talent that runs way beyond the six world champions.

The F1 circus moves straight on to Malaysia for the second round of the championship next Sunday.

"I could have had any result if we performed better at certain periods -- i.e., the first lap," he said. "After the first lap we were a match for anyone... We were very strong, very quick.

"I leave a bit frustrated but the frustration's a little higher because the positives eventually unravelled. It was like a boxer finishing well. Sh#t first round, copped a few on the chin, then we finished off well.

"Saturday night we [Red Bull Racing] were pretty concerned at the gap to the leaders [McLaren]. There's plenty to take out of it for the team.

"In general, we have a huge amount of confidence to go to Malaysia with, which is very reassuring... Looking at Malaysia, the car should work pretty well on the Sunday again. But there's work to do on the Saturday."

Ricciardo reckoned he could have finished higher than ninth if not for his first-lap drama. "I made a decent start but there were too many of us there," the 22-year-old West Australian said of his 12th GP start -- but his first on home soil. "I hit the left front quite hard against a Williams and had to come in to change the nose. I had to race with a bit of damage after that.

"It was not easy to come back, but I never gave up, pushing all the time... I don't really know how that [jumping from 11th to ninth] happened on the last lap. I was a bit lucky to be the last one in that group because I could have a clear picture of the other cars going off in front.

"Then I had a chance to attack Jean-Eric [Vergne, Toro Rosso rookie teammate]. He defended into turn 13 and I thought I could make the switch back and I did, which put me in P9.

"The last few laps were crazy and I was pushing like hell... I'm extremely happy and it's great to score my first F1 points here at home in Australia, where the crowd has been just fantastic."

Had he still been with tailend Spanish team HRT, for which he drove 11 GPs last year, Ricciardo probably wouldn't have even started on Sunday.

Spanish veteran Pedro de la Rosa and Indian Narain Karthikeyan could not get this year's untested HRT cars within the required 107 per cent of the pole position time to make the grid.

Formula One Drivers' World Championship after first of 20 rounds - 1. Jenson Button (Great Britain, McLaren-Mercedes) 25 points; 2. Sebastian Vettel (Germany, Red Bull-Renault) 18; 3. Lewis Hamilton (GB, McLaren-Mercedes) 15; 4. Mark Webber (Australia) 12; 5. Fernando Alonso (Spain, Ferrari) 10; 6. Kamui Kobayashi (Japan, Sauber-Ferrari) 8; 7. Kimi Raikkonen (Finland, Lotus-Renault) 6; 8. Sergio Perez (Mexico, Sauber-Ferrari) 4; 9. Daniel Ricciardo (Australia, Toro Rosso-Ferrari) 2;  10. Paul Di Resta (GB, Force India-Mercedes) 1.

The weekend's races at the GP did not count towards the championship but will have buoyed the manufacturer, its teams and drivers, and fans of the Blue Oval so starved of success last year.

Mark Winterbottom, long–time lead driver for the Ford Performance Racing factory team run by Prodrive, won three of the four races. The other victor was aggressive young New Zealander Shane van Gisbergen in a Stone Brothers Falcon. Doubts were aired last week, in Auto Action magazine, about Stone Brothers remaining a Ford team -- it reportedly is trying to lure Korean manufacturer Kia to enter V8 Supercar racing.

Nissan has already announced its entry under the Car of the Future rules, but Chrysler has decided against joining the category next year -- although it has left the door open on 2014.

Meanwhile, the next test of Ford's revival will be the second round of the championship at Symmons Plains in Tasmania on March 31 and April 1, with Winterbottom's FPR teammate Will Davison going there as the series leader.

FPR team principal Tim Edwards said he was especially pleased with the soft tyre pace of his Falcons at Albert Park.

"Our pace here [Melbourne's Albert Park] this year was night and day when compared to this time last year, so to see such an improvement is very satisfying," Edwards said. "Now we look forward to Tasmania and a return to scoring points."

Winterbottom, who was fifth in Sunday's race on harder rubber, said it had been "great to take the overall win [at the GP] as last year we were not even close to being in contention".

"We tried a few things [in the fourth race] which really didn't give us the result we expected, so I am obviously disappointed not to make a clean sweep, but we'll take the win [overall for the weekend] either way.

"The thing that has made me happiest is my soft tyre pace... If we can carry the improvements we've made to tracks like Hamilton and Ipswich where we struggled last year, we will be looking good for the rest of the year."

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