MOTORSPORT: Webber claims he's in F1 title hunt

The odds are against Australia's Formula One veteran Mark Webber in the twilight of his career but he's talking with all his old, familiar defiant grit as the European GPs are about to begin

Coulthard declares Raikkonen ‘perfect partner’ for Vettel

Already 45 points behind teammate Sebastian Vettel after four races and only fifth in the Formula One World Championship ahead of the first European grand prix, Mark Webber has boldly declared himself still a title challenger this season.

In what is widely expected to be the Australian veteran’s last season in F1, certainly in a top team, with him now reportedly barely on speaking terms with his young triple world champion teammate, indications are growing stronger that Kimi Raikkonen will be Vettel’s partner at Red Bull Racing next year.

David Coulthard, the retired Scottish driver who was Webber’s teammate there for two years and remains part of Red Bull’s F1 promotional squad, has declared that the 33-year-old Raikkonen – three years younger than nine-time GP winner Webber – would be “the perfect teammate for Sebastian”.

Such an arrangement would thwart, in the short-term at least, the graduation to RBR of 23-year-old Aussie Daniel Ricciardo.

Mercedes team chairman and shareholder Niki Lauda has been making mischief, saying he was chasing triple world champion Vettel and then that the Mercedes pairing – Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg – is the best in F1 and that Vettel has a long-term Red Bull contract.

Elsewhere in motorsport around the world:

Toyota is demanding changes to the engine rules for next month’s Le Mans 24-Hour, saying that otherwise there is no way its normally-aspirated TS030 hybrid can challenge Audi’s long-time dominance, now with its turbo-diesel R18 e-tron Quattro – perhaps in long-tail form. See here for the background.
As the 28 Australian V8 Supercars are about to be freighted to Texas for next weekend’s first championship round in America the organisation’s propaganda machine has tripped itself, boasting here that “each V8 Supercar is worth more than $600,000 and $100,000 per engine” when the premise of its Car of the Future was that the cars cost $250,000-$270,000 minus engine. The Texas television schedule, in Australia and internationally (particularly the US), is awaited with interest.
NASCAR appeals bodies have slashed penalties on the Joe Gibbs and Penske teams, over one fractionally underweight conrod and suspension irregularities respectively, but hit Gibbs’ engine supplier Toyota harder in the manufacturer standings.
Practice for the 97th Indianapolis 500 on May 26 gets underway this weekend for Aussies Will Power (Team Penske) and Ryan Briscoe (Chip Ganassi Racing) and 31 other drivers,
New Mercedes motorsport chief Toto Wolff has flagged a possible return to the Indy 500 and Le Mans. “Today we are focusing on F1, the DTM (German touring car championship), and we also do GT3 cars and build engines for Formula Three. As for the future, I don’t rule out anything. I think it would be wonderful to go back to Indy and Le Mans, but just for the moment we have our program. We would look at any racing category … (but) it would have to make sense for the Mercedes brand.”
Rallying megastar Sebastien Loeb has told what “a rocket” his Peugeot 208 T16 is for America’s Pikes Peak climb on June 30. “I’ve never driven anything that accelerates so far. It’s so powerful. The first time you drive it each gearchange practically stuns you. The shifts are brutal and it takes a little time to anticipate the sudden jarring. It’s got the downforce of a Formula One car, the wide tyres of an endurance racing prototype and a differential like a WRC car.”
Volkswagen is withholding upgrades – particularly a hydraulic handbrake – to its World Rally Championship-leading Polo R until they’re totally proven, perhaps not in time for Greece’s Acropolis Rally at the end of the month. VW’s WRC leader Sebastien Ogier felt mechanical issues in the rear differential, pneumatic handbrake and suspension contributed to his defeat by now part-timer Loeb in a Citroen DS3 at last weekend’s Rally of Argentina.

Front row the only place to be

Formula One begins its European rounds this weekend at Barcelona’s Circuit de Catalunya, where qualifying can be as important – perhaps even more important – than on the narrow barrier-lined streets of Monaco in a fortnight.

Only once has the Spanish Grand Prix at this circuit been won from anywhere other than the front row of the grid. Eighteen of the last 22 winners have started on pole position.

Before the introduction of DRS – drag reduction systems, or the rear-wing adjustments drivers can make from the cockpit in two sections of track – in the past couple of years there was a GP at Catalunya in which there was only one pass made in the race.

After the four “flyaway” races in Melbourne, Kuala Lumpur, Shanghai and Bahrain, Pirelli’s tyres are likely to remain a predominant factor in Barcelona and teams have been given an extra, seventh set to ensure they are out on the track throughout Friday’s practice sessions to give spectators value for their money.

Even constructors’ championship-leading Red Bull Racing has struggled to balance its outright pace and preservation of the tyres in races.

“It is a different type of racing [this year] because it is a matter of achieving longevity with the tyre and ultimate pace is not the crucial factor,” RBR team principal Christian Horner said.

“So it is about adjusting – as we had to from Bridgestones to Pirellis (in 2011), from refueling to no refueling, from blown diffusers to no blown diffusers – and I am entirely confident that we will adapt.

“But it is going to take time – and in F1 there is never enough time.”

Barcelona is closer to the F1 team factories than the tracks already visited, and it is used for much of the pre-season testing, and it is here that major upgrades to the cars will be made – even though the teams give little advance detail on them and they will be largely invisible to fans.

McLaren and Williams are most in need of solutions, while Mercedes has one-lap pace but has struggled to optimise its rear tyres and Lotus, which won in Melbourne and has Kimi Raikkonen second in the driver points while it holds the same spot in the constructor standings, is searching for better balance to improve its qualifying positions.

Lotus has lost technical director James Allison – perhaps to Ferrari, where he worked for five years during Michael Schumacher’s glory days – and he has been replaced from within by engineering director Nick Chester.

Williams scored a surprise victory at Catalunya last year with its Venezuelan driver Pastor Maldonado, ending a drought of almost eight years for the team, and it ended the season with 72 points – but with major aerodynamic deficiencies it is yet to open its account this year with its FW34.

McLaren’s Mercedes-engined MP4-28 has not been right from the moment of its launch – much like last year’s Ferrari – and 2009 world champion Jenson Button is cautious about the impact of the team’s changes for Barcelona.

“There’s been a lot of talk about the importance of the weekend’s upgrades, but - as with every upgrade - they’re simply part of the series of continuous improvement that is made across the season,” Button said.

“As always, there will be elements of it that work, elements that perhaps work in a different way to what we had anticipated, and elements that don’t work – or perhaps require further work.

“That’s life in modern F1. So I’m pragmatic about what we’ll discover. Of course, I’m hopeful that it’ll move us a step closer towards the destination.”

F1 Aussies on their prospects

Mark Webber took a lights-to-flag victory in Barcelona three years ago – the first of four wins in the 2010 season that was his best – and, after a three-week break since Bahrain, is upbeat about the rest of this season.

Particularly so regarding this Spanish race – if he can get to grips with Pirelli’s latest hard-compound tyres.

“This year’s tyres have been very difficult for all of the teams to understand,” Webber said. “[But] If I can start to put away some decent results in the next few races, I still believe I can challenge for the title this year.

“I’m happy with the way I’m driving – I just need a clean weekend.

“I like this track in Barcelona – it’s high-speed and has a pretty good flow to it. It’s a good test of man and machine and it’s quite fun having the tower on the start-finish straight, because you see immediately where you are after a qualifying lap.

“Everyone will find out how good their car is here, so it’s certainly going to be interesting.”

Daniel Ricciardo is wanting more consistent top 10 finishes after his career-best seventh in China.

“I’d like to be able to do more,” Ricciardo said. “Hopefully our updates this weekend will push us further up the front.

“[The aim] is to try to get some more top 10s more consistently. It was great to have a one-off good result but we want to finish in the points more often.”

Asked what Toro Rosso parent Red Bull’s management expected of him and French fellow junior Jean-Eric Vergne to be considered as a replacement for Webber (or Vettel), Ricciardo said: “Just to maximise our equipment, to show some signs of being a potential winner, a potential champion, and just to make the most out of what we’ve got really.

“I definitely felt China, that was achieved, but doing it once isn’t really going to stick for 19 races. It’s got to happen more often. I think it’s along those lines really, just to maximise it and get some good results like I did there. I want more now, definitely ... not only for them but for me.”

2013 Formula One World Championship driver standings after four of 19 races – 1. Sebastian Vettel (Germany, Red Bull-Renault) 77 points; 2. Kimi Raikkonen (Finland, Lotus-Renault) 67; 3. Lewis Hamilton (Great Britain, Mercedes) 50; 4. Fernando Alonso (Spain, Ferrari) 47; 5. Mark Webber (Australia, Red Bull-Renault) 32; 6. Felipe Massa (Brazil, Ferrari) 30. Daniel Ricciardo (Australia, Toro Rosso-Ferrari) is equal 12th on six points.

GP demerit points in the pipeline

F1 drivers are likely to face demerit points for driving offences next year.

Seven teams have voted for the introduction of the licence penalty system – Red Bull, Toro Rosso, Lotus and Williams opposed it – and it will go to the Federation Internationale de l’Automobile (FIA) World Motorsport Council next month for ratification.

Any driver who accumulated 12 penalty points in 12 months would get a one-race ban.

Hamilton a man after his time

Lewis Hamilton is a huge fan of the late Ayrton Senna, and one of Sebastian Vettel’s main rivals.

In an article published by London’s Telegraph and Daily Mail, Hamilton aired his admiration for the late Brazilian triple world champion and talked of how Germany’s young triple world champ gets it easy. See here.

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MOTORSPORT: Webber claims he's in F1 title hunt

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