MOTORSPORT: Webber 100 times a bull

'Ton' for Hamilton too amid contract speculation
It's milestone time for Mark Webber. Having renewed his contract with Red Bull Racing for another, seventh season next year, since his British Grand Prix win two weeks ago, Australia's Formula One world title hopeful notches his 100th grand prix with the team at this weekend's German GP at Hockenheim.

It's also the third anniversary -- actually a few days past it (somehow it went unnoticed) -- of his unforgettable first GP win, which was in Germany too but at the country's other F1 venue, Nurburgring, now on the brink of a massive financial failure.

Webber's 99 starts with Red Bull have followed 88 with Minardi, Jaguar and Williams. His career tally of 187 is many more than either of Australia's world champions, Sir Jack Brabham and Alan Jones.

Webber's 5½ seasons so far with RBR have produced nine wins (less than either Brabham or Jones), 10 pole positions, 31 podiums, 13 fastest race laps and 716.5 world championship points.

"I'm not big on statistics, but 100 races is a lot. It's a good number," Webber said this week. "The team has grown a lot during that time. It's now much bigger, but a team is only as good as the people in it and we have a lot of good people here. I know them all well, particularly when you consider that many of them were around in my Jaguar days [Red Bull bought the Jaguar team at the end of 2004], and it's one of the reasons why I re-signed for 2013."

There are other milestones in international motorsport this weekend too.

Lewis Hamilton notches his "ton" in F1 -- all 100 of his starts with McLaren, as the F1 world awaits word on whether he is renewing his contract with that team or going elsewhere, perhaps now Lotus-Renault it is speculated.

Hamilton has won 18 GPs, twice as many as Webber in his time with Red Bull, and the world title in 2008, his second season -- after coming within a point of it in his first year.

However, he and McLaren have been unable to repeat that title form since and this season Hamilton is standing fourth in the championship with 92 points -- behind Ferrari's Fernando Alonso (129 points), Webber (116) and Red Bull's world champion of the past two years, Sebastian Vettel (100).

Former McLaren driver and one-time GP winner Heikki Kovalainen also reaches his century of races in F1 at Hockenheim, while across the Atlantic, at Edmonton in Canada, Australian one-time F1 test driver for Toyota Ryan Briscoe will make his 100th start for Roger Penske's IndyCar team.

Briscoe has had six wins, 25 podiums and 13 poles with Penske. He has finished as high as third in the series but is ninth this season, without a win.

Greater attention is on Briscoe's Aussie teammate Will Power, who has made 50 starts with Penske and is a contender for the series title for the third straight year but is locked in battle with American Ryan Hunter-Reay after losing out to Scotsman Dario Franchitti the past two years.

Internationals lining up for V8 Supercar racing
More on the two major international openwheeler championships in a moment, but firstly a few other matters.

Jacques Villeneuve, Canada's 1997 F1 world champion who raced at the recent Townsville round of the V8 Supercar Championship, will be back in Australia for the next rounds of the country's premier series at Ipswich and Sydney Motorsport Park (Eastern Creek).

Villeneuve's two starts in Townsville, in place of injured Holden driver Greg Murphy, produced a DNF and 24th in the field of 28, but Villeneuve has said: "I was pleased with the progress we made as a team through that weekend."

Team co-owner Todd Kelly said of Villeneuve's return: "Jacques is an absolute professional and will add a lot of value to the team, especially as he secures further seat time over the next couple of rounds."

Villeneuve appears keen on a full-time V8 Supercar drive next year, when the Kellys will field Nissans, but is not among the names of invitational co-drivers announced for this October's Gold Coast 600.

Stone Brothers Racing this week announced Frenchman Simon Pagenaud, a rising star in the IndyCar series, Dutchman Jeroen Bleekemolen and expatriate Australian veteran David Brabham as its three guest drivers for that event.

Triple Eight Race Engineering already had another Frenchman, Sebastien Bourdais, and Irishman Richard Lyons locked in, while Walkinshaw Racing has Brit Darren Turner teed up.

Kelly Racing has Marco Andretti, the third generation of the famous American racing family, in place, while Ford Performance Racing has signed German ex-F1 driver Nick Heidfeld -- and is likely to have Will Power in its fold again, while Ryan Briscoe is expected to be with Holden Racing Team again.

Dick Johnson Racing's four guest drivers will be Italian Gianni Morbidelli, American-based Italian Max Papis, Dutchman Peter Kox and American Boris Said.

New Zealand's V8 SuperTourer series organisers, who controversially have found they won't have the services of Australian-based Kiwi V8 Supercar stars Shane Van Gisbergen and Fabian Coulthard for their three endurance races, have stepped up efforts to lure European drivers -- and may entice well-credentialed Alain Menu from Switzerland.

Meanwhile, Honda has confirmed that the drivers of the Civics it will campaign in next year's World Touring Car Championship will be Italian Gabriele Tarquini and Portugal's Tiago Monteiro. The Hondas will be run by Italian team JAS Motorsport.

Monteiro will contest three Asian rounds of the WTCC this year in one of the Civics in preparation for next year's campaign.

Citroen's dominant World Rally Team has said it won't be affected by the French manufacturer's problems, which include 8000 redundancies and the closure of a factory after a 13 per cent slide in its sales in the first half of this year.

However, the rally team is under pressure to increase external sponsorship and is awaiting a decision on eight-time world champion Sebastien Loeb's future.

Webber in great shape at halfway mark
As the F1 season reaches its midpoint at Hockenheim this weekend Mark Webber is fighting fit, in fine form and extremely focused now that the distraction of his contract negotiations are out of the way.

Fernando Alonso and Webber are not only first and second in the world championship but are the only two drivers to have won more than once in the nine races so far this season. And Webber told formula1.com this week: "My prediction is that we will see more fresh winners this year."

The obvious candidates are Kimi Raikkonen, Michael Schumacher with Mercedes and perhaps Raikkonen's Lotus-Renault teammate, Frenchman Romain Grosjean. And just maybe a Sauber driver, more likely Mexican Sergio Perez than Japan's Kamui Kobayashi.

While Red Bull's RB8 could now be emerging as the best of this year's crop of F1 cars, Webber said: "The Ferrari has been a good car at the last couple of races ... you also saw that with Felipe Massa's performances [in the second Ferrari].

"Fernando has scored at every race [this season] and my guess is that the McLaren [driven by Lewis Hamilton and mysteriously out-of- form Jenson Button] is a bit sensitive to some circuits at the moment... But this can change very quickly."

Webber said his triumphs at Monaco and Silverstone had been "very prominent wins" and that it was "nice" having his contract settled "because I want to fully concentrate on racing".

"The contract being settled brings a bit of calm in the team -- and that is positive," he said.

Webber's German teammate Vettel has never won his home GP - although he has finished second, third and fourth -- and, even more amazingly, has never won a GP in July.

However, both Red Bull drivers were on the podium for the first time this year at Silverstone, with Vettel finishing third behind second-placed Alonso -- ending a run of four GPs without a top-three finish for the reigning world champion.

Webber has never finished in the top five at Hockenheim, a circuit drastically shortened a decade ago, and obviously wants better this weekend.

"This championship is all about consistency," he said. "There have been a lot of different winners [this season] and it's vital to get the maximum from every weekend.

"The team is performing well at the moment. The car has been competitive in the last few races and we're hoping to carry that performance into this weekend.

"We haven't won here as a team in the past and we'll be pushing hard to do that... We haven't raced here for two years, so this is the first time we've used Pirelli's tyres at the track.

"That shouldn't pose a problem, because we've worked with these tyres for a while now, but it's going to be important to get lots of tyre data during practice."

Power has an IndyCar fight on his hands
Will Power again has been the top road racer in IndyCar this season but, with five races to go, finds himself 34 points behind Andretti Autosport driver Ryan Hunter-Reay.

Power won the Mario Andretti Trophy for scoring the most points on road courses the past two years, and this season he has 227 points (including three victories) from six road-course events -- 28 more than Hunter-Reay.

However, Power is only 17th in points from oval races. Power conceded this week that Hunter-Reay, winner of the past three rounds of the series, was now the strongest all-round driver in the field.

"He's always been strong. This year he's just been more consistent," Power said. "He's executing week in, week out. In my opinion he's the strongest guy in IndyCar right now because he's strong in both disciplines -- oval and road."

While Power led the series again for seven races and more than three months this season, he has not been on the podium other than for his three early-season wins.

This weekend's round is on a temporary course at the City Centre Airport in Edmonton, Canada, where Power won in 2009 and last year -- and was second in 2010. He gives himself a good chance of snaring the title that Ganasssi team driver Dario Franchitti deprived him of the past two years.

"It's all about executing on the race weekends and being mistake-free in the pits, on the track, strategy-wise, everything," Power said. "I feel I'm a contender.

"If we get everything right in the next five races we have a legitimate chance of winning the championship... We're one of the quickest out there, and when things go right on a weekend we're always on the podium or we win the race."

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