MOTORSPORT: Webber's F1 title chance gone

Australia's international glory now coming in North America
The Belgian Grand Prix was one for the tifosi -- Ferrari's fanatical fans -- as Kimi Raikkonen delivered Formula One's most famous team its first victory of the year.

Raikkonen is the modern master of the Spa-Francorchamps circuit, having won four times in the past five GPs there.

This was the 18th victory of his F1 career but his first in the last 26 GPs -- and it came because of Ferrari's KERS (Kinetic Energy Recovery System), giving Raikkonen extra power at vital times.

Force India, the latest incarnation of the old Jordan team, was the surprise of the weekend, with its Italian veteran Giancarlo Fisichella qualifying on pole position, finishing a narrow second to Raikkonen, and feeling a little unlucky not to win.

As glorious as it was for Ferrari to return to the winner's circle, the injured Felipe Massa's replacement, Luca Badoer, again disgraced himself. He was the last finisher, 14th, in a race that saw world championship leader Jenson Button (Brawn-Mercedes) and reigning world champion Lewis Hamilton (McLaren-Mercedes) among the first lap retirements.

Badoer wants to drive again at his home race, the Italian GP in two weeks, but the pressure on Ferrari to install someone better is going to be enormous -- and, hopefully, for the credibility of F1, it will be successful.

Fisichella's fabulous form at Spa was a reminder of what a pure talent he is, and that perhaps he is the man who ought to be deputising for Massa -- but with Force India using Mercedes engines this year rather the Ferrari motors of the past a Maranello call-up for him is probably out of the question.

BMW-Sauber was another big improver in Belgium, with Robert Kubica and Nick Heidfeld finishing fourth and fifth, Nico Rosberg was in the points with his Williams-Toyota for the eighth race in a row, while the Toyota factory team dunced again after having qualified so well -- especially Jarno Trulli on the front row.

It was also a shocking weekend for Renault, with new Frenchman Romain Grosjean punting Button (and himself) out of the race and Fernando Alonso a later retirement with tyre troubles.

Even worse for the French team is that it is under investigation in relation to last year's Singapore Grand Prix, with the talk that recently-dumped Nelson Piquet Junior was ordered to crash to help Alonso win now very much in the public domain after a report on Brazilian television.

But, for Australia, the story is that any chance Mark Webber had of winning the world title is now virtually shot. In the space of eight days Webber has slipped from second in the championship to fourth -- 20.5 points behind Button with five races to go.

Rubens Barrichello moved ahead of Webber by winning the European GP at Valencia, and at Spa the Aussie's young German teammate Sebastian Vettel went ahead of him in the standings again by finishing third.

Webber was only ninth after a drive-through penalty because his Red Bull Racing crew released him prematurely from a pit stop in the path of Heidfeld.

"I had a good first lap and laid the right foundations to get some good points," Webber said. "But, at my first pit stop, I was released in front of Nick Heidfeld, which I was given a drive-through penalty for.

"After that it was a case of damage limitation. I tried to get back into the points and when we had free air, which was not often.

"We had good pace, but it wasn't enough. It's very frustrating not to take any points away. I thought I deserved them from that drive, but the drive-through wrecked that.

"No one's interested in excuses though; that's how it is, so let's get on and look ahead to the next race."

Australia's international motorsport success is instead now coming in North America.

Ryan Briscoe won the weekend's IndyCar round at Chicagoland, the oval track where he had that massive crash three years ago. And David Brabham moved closer to the American Le Mans Series title with another victory in his (Honda) Acura at Mosport near Toronto in Canada.

Marcos Ambrose came close to winning NASCAR's Nationwide Series street race in Montreal, Canada, but made a costly mistake at the last corner and had to settle for second place.

And James Davison was second in the Indy Lights race at Chicagoland and is now second in that championship to J.R. Hildebrand, who is one of the favorites for a drive with the new US F1 team next year.

The weekend also saw the death of Australian motorsport legend Frank Gardner at 78 and the World Rally Championship drivers arriving in Sydney for this week's revival of Rally Australia in NSW's Northern Rivers Region. More on those matters during the week.

Briscoe's win at Chicagoland was the fourth-closest finish in IndyCar Series history. Indeed, three of those four closest finishes have been at this speedway.

Driving for the mighty Team Penske, the Sydneysider won by just 0.0077sec after 480km at the 2.4km oval from New Zealander Scott Dixon, the Ganassi team's reigning IndyCar champion who was second for the fourth year running at Chicagoland.

Briscoe now leads Scotsman Dario Franchitti, who finished fourth for Ganassi at the weekend, by 25 points while Dixon is 33 points back with two races to run -- at Motegi in Japan and Homestead in Florida.

"The Target (Ganassi) cars are going to be there in Motegi and Homestead, so we just have to stay focussed,"  said Briscoe, who now has three wins and seven second places this season. "We've had good cars on all the 1.5 (2.4km) ovals this year.

"We had a couple of mistakes here (including a problematic refuelling) but were able to come back. We just have to try to avoid those situations."

Dixon said: "We've all seen this movie several times. Unfortunately at Chicago we just keep finishing second. The whole night I think we drove a better race. The pit stops were flawless.

"We launched out there a few times, but we just didn't have the speed. Our mile-and-a-half dominance that we seemed to have last year on the Target team has just really been affected.

"We need to play catch up with Penske. They clearly are a lot faster than us.

"That's all I had. Great job by Ryan (Briscoe)."

Meanwhile, James Davison's second place finish in the Indy Lights round at the same track gave the Melbourne youngster and his Vision Racing team their third consecutive podium finish and fourth overall this year in addition to their fourth consecutive top-five finish and seventh overall for the season.

Davison started from sixth and on the first lap powered his way to second, where he challenged New Zealander Wade Cunningham for the lead. Davison eventually led and then held on to second as he defended his teammate Daniel Herrington on the way to his maiden victory.

Adding a second place finish to a season that has also produced a victory, two pole positions, seven top-five finishes, and just one finish outside the top 10 has propelled Davison into the second spot in the championship standings. He has 416 points -- 87 fewer than American J.R. Hildebrand.

At Mosport, David Brabham and his American co-driver Scott Sharp took their second consecutive American Le Mans Series victory. he win pushed the Highcroft Racing team's championship points advantage out to 17 points with only two championship rounds remaining. It also clinched the manufacturer's title in the LMP1 category for Acura.

This latest victory for Brabham and Sharp came after the team won the previous round at Road America and at St Petersburg, Florida, earlier in the year. Brabham said the Mosport performance was "100 per cent faultless by the entire team".

"We head to Petit Le Mans next but I'm not focussing on Audi or Peugeot [European manufacturers making a rare American appearance this year] -- we have a championship to win and that is what we will have our sights firmly set on," he said.

Marcos Ambrose dominated the Nationwide NASCAR race in Montreal for the third year but again left without the win.

Ambrose led 60 of the 76 laps this time, only to make a small mistake at the final corner of the race and let American Carl Edwards to pass him in the sprint to the chequered flag.

The previous day Edwards denied Ambrose the chance to compete in his debut Daytona prototype sportscar race.

The two had paired for the Grand-Am race in Montreal but Edwards crashed heavily on the warm-up lap and end their race before it had begun.

Then in the Nationwide race Edwards closed in on Ambrose on a drying track after the Australian led away from a late-race restart with two laps to go.

The second half of the race had been drawn out by a series of cautions that meant the event lasted almost four hours.

Ambrose had qualified his Toyota on pole position and never looked like losing the race but clipped the kerbing at the final chicane, losing momentum and allowing Edwards's Ford to slip by and deny him victory in Montreal yet again.

In 2007 Robby Gordon robbed Ambrose when the American deliberately spun the Aussie at the second turn after a late-race restart as Ambrose led.

Last year terrible weather and a pitlane speeding violation cost Ambrose the win after he led 27 laps.

He was third that time when the race was red flagged in the heavy rain.

Ambrose said of his third Montreal heartbreak: "I just made a mistake at the end there and lost the race.

"Any other lap, any other corner, I would have got it straight back.

"It just happened to be the last corner of the race.

"We had a drag race coming off the hairpin. Carl got position on me and I just tried to make sure I out-broke him -- and I out-broke myself. I'm jinxed around this joint.

"We had 15,000 restarts and got away with them all. I feel pretty devastated because I've let my boys down and we came here to win and anything less than that was a disappointment."

Edwards said: "Marcos just made that one mistake through the curves at the end and gave me the chance to get by ... he's a hero of mine, it's cool to pass him."

Meanwhile Toyota says NASCAR provides value for the company, with a senior executive telling how it has "legitimised" itself in US stock car racing, see here.

F1 constructors' world championship standings -- Brawn-Mercedes 128 points, Red Bull Racing-Renault 104.5, Ferrari 56, McLaren-Mercedes 44, Toyota 38.5, Williams-Toyota 30.5, BMW-Sauber 18, Renault 16, Force India-Mercedes 8, Scuderia Toro Rosso-Ferrari 5.

Image credit: Webber - photo4.com

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