MOTORSPORT: Year Webber won a GP

Racing in Review

Australia's F1 driver gets his wings
July 12 was the most significant day of the year for Australian motorsport. It could be said the most significant of the decade, or two or three decades.

Late that Sunday an Australian won a Formula One grand prix for the first time in almost 30 years.

After over seven years in motor racing's biggest global league and 130 tries, Mark Webber finally broke through for his first F1 victory in the German Grand Prix at the Nurburgring circuit. And his celebration in the cockpit of his Red Bull RB5 -- "Yes, yes, yes, ohhhh yes!" he screamed -- said it all.

It was sheer, absolute, unadulterated joy -- for Webber, and for those, particularly here in Australia, who had followed him from those early days in Formula Ford, the grind up through the ranks in Europe, the heart-breaking mechanical failures, the knocking and the doubting.

It was the first GP win by an Australian since the heyday of Alan Jones in the early 1980s, and together they are in a "club" which still has only three members -- the other being Sir Jack Brabham.

Unlike the other two, Webber has no world title. Hopes of that soared amid the euphoria of his breakthrough in Germany, but they were pretty soon extinguished -- by a run of five races without points.

But Webber backed up that initial victory with another in Brazil, where Jenson Button clinched the world title in a miraculous season -- certainly the first half of it -- for BrawnGP, the sudden reincarnation of what had been Honda's F1 team.

Webber was to finish fourth in the world championship -- behind Button, 22-year-old Red Bull teammate Sebastian Vettel and veteran Rubens Barrichello.

It was the Aussie's best season by far and fourth was a proper reflection of where he deserved to end up.

So much has been said and written of Webber becoming a GP winner this year that little probably remains to be mentioned -- except for a perspective we came across recently in an article on the world's best 10 drivers of the year at ESPN.com.

Including Webber in that list at No. 10, author Terry Blount noted: "Webber had two victories and Vettel had four (for the season), but that doesn't tell the whole story. Webber finished better than where he started nine times. Vettel did so only six times. That stat balances out because Vettel won four poles to Webber's one.

"But Webber finished worse than he started only four times; Vettel was worse off at the end eight times. Webber was a plus-15 in positions gained for the season. Vettel was a plus-3."

No longer need Webber be the butt of jokes, the most caustic of which always came from those with the least knowledge anyway. He will forever be a GP winner. He remains with Red Bull Racing in 2010, alongside Vettel, and they will have another car designed by Adrian Newey and again powered by Renault engines.

Webber may yet win a few more GPs before his time is up in F1, although we doubt he will join Brabham and Jones in the club of world champions. But it won't be for want of trying.

The year has been notable for many other things, including the first V8 Supercar events in Townsville (a great advance, although it ought to be on a permanent circuit) and at Sydney's Homebush/Olympic site (a big plus for bringing major motor racing to the big smoke, but a huge impost on NSW taxpayers with too many empty seats and disappointing TV audience) and he who must be obeyed, our publishing director, has asked us to pass judgment under various headings. So here goes.

The Brawn BGP001 may get the vote of the majority as the best race car of the year, but in the eyes of this author it comes in behind the RB5. Designed as a Honda, it had to be adapted to accommodate a Mercedes engine -- and it proved a marriage made in heaven. It won the most GPs of the year and carried Button and BrawnGP to driver and constructors' world titles, but its dominance was overwhelmingly in the first half of the season and by year-end it had been overtaken by the RB5 and McLaren's MP4-24 -- certainly in the hands of Lewis Hamilton.

That McLaren-Mercedes is in our top four because of the strides that were made in turning it from a pig at the start of the season to a race winner in Hungary and Singapore, driven by Hamilton. He hoisted that team to third in the constructors' championship, ahead of arch-rival Ferrari, and with next to no assistance from teammate Heikki Kovalainen, who is lucky to have retained an F1 seat with a new team, the reborn Lotus under Malaysian ownership.

The Peugeot 908 HDi FAP in which David Brabham won the Le Mans 24-hour race -- with Austria's Alex Wurz and Spain's Marc Gene - completes our top four. To end the five-year dominance of Audi in the French classic, which remains the world's major sportscar race, speaks volumes for Peugeot's engineering, even if both the leading manufacturers had curtailed lead-in programs because of the global economic crisis.

The reason for not including any V8 Supercars or NASCARs is that they are increasingly generic cars in series' where the build and preparation standards are greater determinants of success than the brilliance of the conception. And we lament that none of the cars we have selected this year display any of the genius of the Chaparaal sports cars or F1 cars of Colin Chapman or Derek Gardner of the 1960s and '70s.

Best race team
Hendrick Motorsports in NASCAR. It had the three top drivers in the Sprint Cup standings -- Jimmie Johnson, Mark Martin and Jeff Gordon. Its all-round excellence was unmatched by any other team anywhere in the world this year.

Surprise of the year
It has to be the instant success of BrawnGP, as Ross Brawn and Nick Fry salvaged Honda F1 and won both the constructors' and drivers' titles, before selling control to Mercedes for next year and seeing Jenson Button depart for McLaren. That switch by Button, leaving a vacancy that increasingly looks like being filled by a returning Michael Schumacher, and Team Vodafone/Triple Eight Race Engineering's switch to Holdens in V8 Supercar racing make the "podium" of surprises.

Disappointment of the year
The collapse of the A1 GP series, and particularly its no-show at the Gold Coast in October. While its five-year life was always troubled financially, A1 provided an alternative global open-wheeler series to F1. And, despite all the criticisms that can be made of it, it largely lived up to its boast to be the most competitive single-seater series in the circuit racing world. Its management and marketing were terrible and the failure to sort its problems and make it to the Gold Coast as a replacement for Indy created an horrific mess that V8 Supercars and some legendary touring cars and drivers of yesterday could not completely overcome. Also disappointing is news we hear today that A1 GP chief executive Paul Cherry snuck into Queensland recently during the reviews of the SuperGP fiasco but escaped without being called to public account.

Motorsport person of the year
Jimmie Johnson, the first driver to win NASCAR's major Cup four years in a row. Unfortunately he's a bland personality, but Johnson -- with the great assistance of Hendrick Motorsports -- has achieved something that Richard "The King" Petty and Dale "The Enforcer" Earnhardt couldn't, despite winning seven titles each.
A few special mentions in this category:
>> Sebastien Loeb for a sixth straight world rally crown.
>> David Brabham for winning Le Mans.
>> Sir Jack Brabham for continuing to be a champion Australian in his appearances around the country in the year of the 50th anniversary of the first of his three F1 world titles despite his failing health (and after shabby treatment by Australian GP organizers).
>> Mark Martin for five race wins in NASCAR's Sprint Cup, and runner-up in the series, at 50 years of age.
>> Tony Stewart for winning two Sprint Cup races in his first season as a team owner (and he's racing a sprintcar at Sydney's Parramatta Speedway over this holiday season!)
>> Jamie Whincup for repeating his V8 Supercar Championship with such polish and professionalism.
>> Will Davison for adapting so well on joining Toll Holden Racing Team, finishing runner-up in the V8 Supercar Championship ahead of teammate Garth Tander, and winning the Phillip Island and Bathurst endurance races in tandem with Tander.

Gripe of '09
V8 Supercar chiefs trying to create the impression that there is some enormous global audience for their series yet never providing the slightest shred of evidence, let alone facing up to the reality that the Australian audience has dwindled. They ought to content themselves with having a pretty good national series with three overseas races. There's a strong core audience and scope for expasnion, but please go easy on the hype, boys.

Team to watch in 2010
Kelly Brothers, to see if it can match up against the power teams of V8 Supercar racing. On the world scene, the Sauber team now that has survived BMW's exit from F1, is back in the firm control of Swiss businessman Peter Sauber, and has arranged a supply of Ferrari engines.

Driver to watch in 2010
Daniel Ricciardo, the 20-year-old from Perth who won this year's British Formula Three Championship and topped the recent test of F1 youngsters, driving a Red Bull RB5. Ricciardo is to race for French team Tech 1 in the Formula Renault 3.5 series (also known as World Series by Renault) and is in line to be Red Bull Racing's reserve F1 driver.

Series to watch in 2010
The Australian Formula Ford Championship for the next crop of emerging Aussie talent, including Sir Jack Brabham's grandson, Matthew.

What we'd pay to see in 2010
Either of Indy racing's Australians, Ryan Briscoe or Will Power, win the Indianapolis 500 with Team Penske, and/or Marcos Ambrose win a big oval track race in NASCAR's Sprint Cup.
 

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