MOTORSPORT: Webber tipped for world title

Briatore backs Webber
Mark Webber's ultimate manager, Flavio Briatore, has declared that Australia's Formula One driver will be this year's world champion.

"Watch out, Webber is on his way to win the title," says Briatore, who managed Fernando Alonso when he won world championships in 2005-06 and ran the Benetton team when Michael Schumacher won the first of his seven titles in the mid-1990s.

Mysterious Italian Briatore (who was given effectively a life ban from F1 a year ago but who is now back attending races, perhaps preparing for a bigger role of behalf of the sport's ringmaster, his close mate Bernie Ecclestone) said Webber's victory in last weekend's Hungarian Grand Prix had been "phenomenal".

"But I'm not tipping Webber just because he is one of my drivers -- I only state what everyone has seen from home [on television]," he told Italy's Gazzetta dello Sport newspaper.

"Mark is a driver capable of exceptional feats. He has now reached a maturity and inner calmness that can take him really far. In Hungary he was the first one understanding that he could take a risk in running for three-quarter distance on the soft tyres he had at the start.

"That was the winning move, but it also demonstrated how much he uses his brain, unlike many others."

Briatore, the former Renault F1 team principal, was banned from the sport last year for having instructed Brazilian driver Nelson Piquet Junior to crash in Singapore's first night GP in 2008 to create a caution period to the advantage of his Renault teammate Fernando Alonso, who won the race. Webber stuck by Briatore after that ban, saying he did not want any other manager if he could not have Briatore, and the penalty has since been relaxed.

Meanwhile, Webber has strongly defended the legality of the Red Bull RB6 car in which he has won four GPs this year to lead the world championship with seven rounds to go.

Questions have become louder in recent days about the front wings on the Red Bull and Ferrari cars, which rivals (read: McLaren) say flex illegally at high speed. However, no protest has been lodged against Red Bull or Ferrari -- although testing of the carbonfibre wings will be twice as tough at the next round at Spa.

"Our guys have broken their balls to design a car in the spirit of the regulations, and every time we are tested by the FIA we pass," Webber said. "When people don't like what they see on the stopwatch they have to justify their own positions sometimes. You should never penalise things that are ingenious."

The aerodynamics of the Red Bull have given it a distinct edge on other cars this year, despite its Renault engine having reputedly 30 horsepower less than the Mercedes and Ferrari engines.

Red Bull has again called for equalisation under F1's engine freeze.

"We need parity on the engine and then it would be a fair game," Webber said.

Ambrose's best chance to win - still no word on future
Australia's NASCAR racer Marcos Ambrose has his best chance to win a Sprint Cup round this weekend (on the renowned Watkins Glen road course in upstate New York) and end the talk about the one he let get away from him at Sonoma, California, a few weeks back.

Ambrose has previously won twice in the second-tier Nationwide Series races at The Glen and was third and second in the Sprint Cup rounds there the past two years.

Having announced 10 days ago that he will leave JTG Daugherty Racing (which fields his Toyota under the Michael Waltrip Racing umbrella) at the end of this season, there has still not been any word on a new Sprint Cup mount for him.

Richard Petty Motorsports continues to be mentioned as the most likely home for him next year, although questions are being raised about the future of that outfit which suggests Ford would need to put up millions of dollars to secure Ambrose a drive.

Meanwhile, Ambrose says Tony Stewart (who has scored five of his 37 Sprint Cup wins at The Glen) is his role model for this weekend.

"We feel like we have got a possibility to win either or both races [Nationwide and Sprint Cup] and are pretty pumped up about it," he said.

"We have to put ourselves in contention and do everything right and hopefully the race(s) will work out in our favour. We can't go back and remember what happened at Sonoma [where Ambrose stalled the car under caution while trying to conserve fuel in the closing laps]. I got greedy there trying to save too much and we cost ourselves a win.

"We've just got to move forward with it and not let it impact our weekend. I want to win so badly that sometimes I get in my own way, and I think, you know, if I can guard myself from doing that again it will help us win the race."

While Ambrose has said again that there is a prospect of him returning to Australia (and the new wildcard entry system in V8 Supercar racing could get him a start as early as this year's Sydney grand final) he declared that his "heart is in NASCAR".

"I've got unfinished business at this level of racing. I feel like I've become part of the sport but I haven't become a contender on a weekly basis... If I left now, I would feel like I've got unfinished business," he said. "I have taken a risk right now. I have jumped out of the team that I had fully sponsored and I was contracted to drive for 2011, and right now I don't have any contract on the table to sign... But if I could I would love to stay in NASCAR and finish off what I started."

In a NASCAR teleconference this week Ambrose also weighed his comparative strengths on road courses and weakness on the predominant ovals.

"Clearly I'm good on a road course... Yet on the ovals I'm a little hit and miss. I have had occasions where I've run, qualified and run top-five speed; the other weekends where I don't run that well and it's a big question mark and that's really why I've made the decision to try to make a change (of team).

"I feel like it's time for me to make a change, because I just need to change my environment to see if it's me that's the missing link, or whether it's everything around me.

"I don't know whether there is any magic to it, whether it's just pure, hard work and driving the car flat out; whether it's road racing, kind of back entirely to the feel of an oval race car and be able to set them up.

"Clearly I'm lacking something right now on the ovals on a consistent basis, and you know, not many road racers have been able to cross over... Some have, but not many, and I hope that I'm able to prove any critics wrong and get an opportunity here to really answer that question..."

Power in box seat
The IndyCar series is at Mid-Ohio this weekend, with Australian series leader Will Power having the chance to clinch the new road/street course title.

Three other Aussies are racing there too: Ryan Briscoe in the Indy round; David Brabham in the American Le Mans Series round; and former Indy Lights driver James Davison in the GrandAm series.

Brazilian Helio Castroneves, the Penske Racing teammate of Power and Briscoe, has been fined US$60,000 and put on probation for the rest of the season after his outburst against officials at Edmonton, Canada, two weeks ago. Castroneves crossed the finish line first there but was relegated to 10th after officials deemed he blocked Power on the final restart.

Castroneves has accepted his punishment ("There's no excuse to get out of the car and act like I acted"), but says he will still count Edmonton among his list of victories

Going into the Mid-Ohio race Power comfortably leads the Team Ganassi drivers, Scotsman Dario Franchitti and New Zealander Scott Dixon by 50 and 71 points respectively.

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