MOTORSPORT: Webber 'very, very optimistic'

Formula One is back in Germany, not at Nurburgring this time but at Hockenheim -- even more of a home ground for Sebastian Vettel, the young teammate Webber beat to the chequered flag by almost 10 seconds last year.

Ten rounds of the world championship have been run this season. There are nine to go.

Millions of words have been spoken and written since the British GP that Webber (pictured) won two weeks ago against the perceived odds of Vettel being Red Bull Racing's favourite son. Team principal Christian Horner said a week or so ago that Webber regretted his "Not bad for a No 2 driver" dig on the cool-down lap at Silverstone, but Webber said last night he didn't regret it.

Webber said that remark may not have got to air on the global telecast if he had book-ended it with expletives, which most likely would have prompted the television producers to beep out his comments.

There have been numerous reports of clearing the air in and around Red Bull Racing these past few days, and to a large extent it has been. Webber and Vettel have been promised equal equipment as a rule, but if there is to be any preference it is to go to the one higher in the world championship -- which at the moment is Webber.

Webber is very confident of his prospects for the rest of the season and -- in an Auto Action interview with that magazine's editor-at-large, Mark Fogarty, in this week's edition 1400 -- he has predicted the fight for the world title "will be pretty vicious all the way to the end". As ominous as that sounds, take it to mean hard rather than dirty.

And hard against McLaren's Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button, already on 145 and 133 points respectively, as well as Vettel, who has 121 points to Webber's 128.

Webber has been interviewed and quoted endlessly since Silverstone, but nowhere have his thoughts and feelings come through better than in the AA interview.

"There's been all sorts of thing happen and I don't see it being too different for the rest of the year," Webber stated.

Again, don't take that too literally -- as in colliding with Vettel again like in Turkey, or running up the back of Heikki Kovalainen's Lotus and pirouetting through the air, as at Valencia -- but to mean that it is a season to expect the unexpected.

And he clarified the situation regarding Vettel.

"I don't actually have a massive problem with Sebastian. He did nothing wrong to me at Silverstone. [It wasn't Vettel but Horner who took the new nose with its double-edged wings off Webber's car before qualifying and had it fitted to the German's, and Vettel magnanimously congratulated the Aussie post-race]... We're not bosom buddies. I'd say it's a pretty standard teammate relationship at that level within reason," Webber said.

But, more importantly, on his own prospects, Webber said: "I'm massively optimistic that there are some good times ahead of us. We just need to keep the rough days to a minimum.

"You have to prove you can go out and maybe put a championship together."

Hey, forget the maybes, Mark. Just get the job done for your sake, and all of us in Oz watching on...

Marko, the Austrian ex-F1 driver who is the motorsport adviser to Red Bull energy drink tycoon Mateschitz, has said (in Germany's Auto Motor und Sport magazine soon after the British GP): "If Mark imagines there's a conspiracy between us (Red Bull) and Vettel against him, then he is on the wrong track.

"If I was Vettel then I would have suspected the opposite. Which car has permanently had something damaged? Did Mark have the defective spark plug in Bahrain, the loose wheel in Australia, the broken brake disc in Barcelona, the defective chassis in Monte Carlo, the transmission problems in Montreal and now the broken wing at Silverstone?"

"Mark is having a great season, and has also improved big time, but he should not forget that he owes much of this to the team. Where was he two years ago? Then he could not even dream of Grand Prix victories. Today, we have given him a car that he can win on his own."

The 66-year-old Mateschitz, whose money (plus the technical genius of Adrian Newey) has enabled the creation of the RB6 supercar, told Kleine Zeitung newspaper Red Bull does not believe in having a No 1 and No 2 driver in the team.

"This philosophy is not keeping with my understanding of racing," Mateschitz said.

"You cannot just programme a champion. Our two drivers know that a) they have to beat each other, and b) they still need each other to take away as many points as possible from the competition.

Declaring that he was not consulted about the Silverstone wing issue, Mateschitz said: "If you ask me today who will be champion, I say one of our two drivers. But the pits must not interfere, because then the problems begin in earnest.

"Both drivers have cars to exactly the same standard. The problem with the new wing at Silverstone was the first exception."

And Mateschitz dismissed any notion that Red Bull's drivers could be gagged in the future.

"Such a thing would not be our style. Everyone can tell the truth - which is one of the highest virtues of Red Bull."

Mansell, the 1992 world champion, has given Webber a big wrap but said tensions within the team need to be settled down.

"There is obviously trouble in the Red Bull camp at the moment," Mansell said.

"The decision they took [with the wing at Silverstone] obviously upset Mark, but the main thing is to put that behind them, get on with it and let their actions on the track do the talking, because that's the most important thing for any driver.

"They have a great team, great drivers, fantastic engineers and a fantastic team manager, but everyone knows that the two drivers are having some challenges between themselves, and that isn't conducive to the team doing well nor the drivers themselves - so they have to settle down.

"Mark still has a chance to be champion. He has done an outstanding and fantastic job."

Schumacher said yesterday he was "not entirely happy with the results" (no podiums with the Mercedes team this year, while young teammate Nico Rosberg has had three) but that he was "still motivated to achieve my goals in the three years (of his contract up to the end of 2012)".

"There is an expectation out there that it is impossible to meet," Schumacher said.

"I am away [retired] three years and just to come back and start exactly where I finished, with a car that doesn't allow me to, is probably unrealistic. I am not a magician either. It just needs time."

Schumacher said Rosberg was the strongest teammate he's had in F1 -- perhaps risking a backlash from his former teammates, especially Rubens Barrichello.

And while Eddie Irvine hasn't yet fired up on that matter, he has aired his views on Schumacher's return this season.

"Michael took his gamble (to return) but it's backfired," Irvine said.

"Ross Brawn was [is] running the team, Mercedes were coming back, so every box was ticked. Except the new car was shit."

Villeneuve, the 1997 champion who later was integral to the formation of British American Racing which has now evolved into MercedesGP, was at pains to say that this latest venture was totally funded by corporate sponsorship, not private investors.

There had been talk of Libyan president Moammar Gadhafi's 37-year-old son, Al-Saadi al-Gadhafi, and former Renault team boss Flavio Briatore being part of Villeneuve's syndicate.

Briatore has visited Ferrari's headquarters at Maranello in Italy recently, perhaps representing his great mate, F1 ringmaster Bernie Ecclestone, but raising questions about whether he was there on behalf of Mark Webber -- who it seems he still manages.

Meanwhile, Villeneuve -- who last raced in F1 in mid-2006 - this weekend is trying to qualify for the Brickyard 400 NASCAR race at Indianapolis.

Australia's Marcos Ambrose also is there, hoping for better results than on his previous two visits.

The USA Today newspaper this week had a major feature on NASCAR's attendance and television ratings slides, in contrast to the health of America's National Football League, National Basketball Association and Major League Baseball.

American team owner Chip Ganassi has the chance to become the first to win the Daytona 500, the Indianapolis 500 and the Brickyard 400 in the same season if either Juan Pablo Montoya or Jamie McMurray is victorious for him at Indianapolis early Monday, Australian time.

With McMurray's win in February's Daytona 500 and Dario Franchitti's May triumph in the Indy 500, Ganassi is already the first owner to win "The Great American Race" and the "Greatest Spectacle in Racing" in the same year.

Ganassi also will have Franchitti and Scott Dixon in the IndyCar round at Edmonton in Alberta, Canada, early Monday -- again trying to stop the domination of Australia's Will Power for Penske Racing on the road courses in that series.

David Brabham, yet another Aussie racing in that part of the world, will be chasing a fourth straight American Le Mans Series victory in an Acura with Highcroft Racing and French teammate Simon Pagenaud at Lime Rock in Connecticut.

It will be the 11th straight year with the French manufacturer for Loeb, who is on target for a seventh world title this season.

Ogier, who won his first WRC round this year in Portugal, is set to move up from Citroen's junior team to be Loeb's factory teammate, in place of Spaniard Daniel Sordo, on the remaining gravel rounds of this year's championship.

Loeb had urged young gun Ogier to take up an offer from rival Ford.

"If he is in the [Citroen] team next year it can be a close fight between us -- and it could be difficult for the boss to handle," Loeb told L'Equipe newspaper.

"It could create tensions between the pro-Ogier people and the pro-Loeb people. Whereas, if he goes to Ford it would be clear -- we would be rivals and we would defend our companies.

"I understand that he might be keen to stay at Citroen, but if both me and him dominate the championship Ford might go [leave the championship] as well - and then Ogier would have lost everything.

"His decision is important for the future [of rallying]."

Sordo's role with Citroen next year is not clear but the manufacturer will have a program for him.

Kimi Raikkonen, the 2007 F1 world champion now in his WRC debut season, is the only driver in Citroen's stable without a deal for next year, although he is expected to confirm soon that he will stay in rallying another season.

Loeb said recently of Raikkonen: "If he stops then he has lost this year. If he continues he will arrive on the rallies knowing where he is. He can improve a lot next year."

Meanwhile, there are fresh reports of Volkswagen of perhaps entering the WRC in 2012.

For next year its priority remains its four-car Dakar program, but Spanish former world champion Carlos Sainz is tipped to drive a bio-fuel VW Scirroco as the zero car on the all-tarmac Rally Deutschland next month.

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