Webber scores for Williams

Mark Webber scored his first Formula One world championship point in more than five months at the Chinese Grand Prix in Shanghai as Michael Schumacher drew level on points with Fernando Alonso with two races remaining.

Schumacher is now effectively leading the championship as he has seven wins this season to Alonso's six. The title fight is likely to go down to the wire in Brazil on October 22, but if Schumacher wins in Japan next Sunday and Alonso does not score a point the German would seal an eighth world title there.

Schumacher won in Shanghai from sixth on the grid, while pole man Alonso's hopes were destroyed in the pits, although he wound up second with eight points, leaving him and Schumi on 116 each. Conditions were tricky, with the track drying slowly after pre-race rain. Alonso's Renault crew opted to change only two tyres at his first pit stop and that left him hopelessly off the pace during his middle stint. Then at his second stop a wheel nut fell out of the power gun and he was stationary 11 seconds longer than he should have been.

From 15th on the grid, Webber brought his Williams home in eighth place, despite two spins, to take the race's final point -- and his first since the San Marino GP in Italy on April 23. That was the fourth round of the championship; Shanghai was the 16th. The move to Red Bull can't come soon enough for the Aussie, although he was ahead of the energy drink team's cars in Shanghai.

Schumacher's victory was the first time he had been in the points in China. It was a masterful performance. He has come back from 25 points behind after the Canadian GP in June. Now just three weeks from retirement, he said: "I am the oldest driver in the field and I can live quite well with that. It doesn't bother me because, fortunately, I'm not the slowest!"
Alonso's driving was outstanding too -- at one point he was 23 seconds in the lead -- but the heat is now squarely on the young Spaniard. He still called the weekend "fantastic" and has grounds for believing he can retain his world title. "In wet conditions we were much quicker and in dry also because of our times on Friday," he said. Asked if he was the moral winner, he replied: "It doesn't matter which feeling you have inside. The winner is Michael and he deserved the victory because he came in front of the other drivers. That is it. But I am confident for the last two races."

Renault, with Giancarlo Fisichella finishing third in Shanghai, has regained the lead in the constructors' championship from Ferrari, 179-178. And Fisichella has gone ahead of Felipe Massa, 63-62, with the Brazilian having a bad weekend in the second Ferrari, dropping 10 places on the grid after an engine failure in practice and then having a suspension failure in the race.

McLaren is a distant third in the constructors on 101 points and still winless this year. Kimi Raikkonen was second early in the Shanghai race but became the first retirement when his throttle failed.

Webber said it was a long and interesting GP in very tricky and changeable conditions. "I had a good fight with David Coulthard and passed three Red Bull/Toro Rosso drivers on the entry to turn 9," he said.

"All was going well up until just before my second stop. I was very low on rear tread on intermediate tyres (actually bald!). It was still wet in the first sector and I had a frustrating slow motion spin which wasn't going to cost me much time. But I was on the synthetic grass which I couldn't get off! It was just like glass or ice. I came in and pitted for slicks and then had a big fight with Felipe Massa. But he had too much pace once we got going, so then I had to try to consolidate and stay with Massa and DC. Both made mistakes ahead of me so I ended up getting a point."

Shake-up for driver association
Webber has rejoined the board of the Grand Prix Drivers' Association just months after quitting it because he wasn't happy with the way it was operating. Alonso has submitted to intense pressure from other drivers to become a director too, while Ralf Schumacher will now chair the body with his brother Michael, Coulthard and Jarno Trulli all stepping down. As so often in the past, there is pressure from within the driver ranks to concentrate more on safety issues than politics.

Barrichello barrels chat rooms
Rubens Barrichello has won a court order that invitation-only chat rooms offered by Google on orkut.com be shut down. Barrichello claimed the seven chat rooms were offensive. A Sao Paulo judge gave Google five days to remove the sites or pay US$500 a day in fines.

Briscoe third in A1 feature
Ryan Briscoe finished third in the feature race at the opening round of the second A1 Grand Prix series at Zandvoort in Holland. German rookie Nico Hulkenberg won the 41-lap feature, after South African rookie Adrian Zaugg had won the earlier 12-lap sprint.

Briscoe was 13th in that first race, 26.666 seconds behind Zaugg. In the feature he was 33.6 seconds behind Hulkenberg. These margins, and the six seconds separating 22 cars on the grid (and another car another six seconds slower), raise questions about car preparation standards in the one-make series. A1 GP founder Sheikh Maktoum Hasher Maktoum Al Maktoum of Dubai is selling out, leaving South African investors in control.

After Zandvoort, and heading into the second round at Brno in the Czech Republic next weekend, Germany heads the standings with 13 points from Mexico on 11, the US with nine, Australia eight, South Africa and Holland on seven and Great Britain six. Karl Reindler will be Australia's representative at Brno with Briscoe back in Australia for the Bathurst 1000.