Red Bull plotting Vettel-Hamilton 'dream team'?
Little more than four months ago Mark Webber was in contention for a Formula One world title; today there is speculation that Red Bull Racing wants to replace him next year with Lewis Hamilton to form a "dream team" with Sebastian Vettel.
Energy drink company Red Bull's powerful motorsport chief and ex-F1 driver Dr Helmut Marko is reported to be keen to lure 2008 world champion Hamilton away from McLaren-Mercedes.
Marko has said that Webber retaining his Red Bull Racing seat next year depends entirely on his performance this season and his willingness to work with the team.
"First we have to see how the season goes for Mark and what he decides," Marko told Germany's Sport Bild. "Definitely with his aggression and his speed, Hamilton must always be a topic.
"Our philosophy is to have the quickest drivers together in our team."
Red Bull Racing team principal Christian Horner also has spoken glowingly of Hamilton recently, calling him "a great driver ... one of the best there is", although he stressed that the team was "very happy with the two drivers we have".
F1 supremo Bernie Ecclestone has described Vettel and Hamilton as "gifts" for the sport, "even more if they were in the same team".
Webber's contract with RBR is only for this year.
Vettel, the youngest world champion in F1 history and still only 23, recently had his contract extended until the end of 2014, killing talk of any early move to Ferrari.
Hamilton has been seen as entrenched at McLaren, which groomed him for a decade -- initially in karting -- before his F1 debut in 2007.
In just his second season he became F1's youngest champion before Vettel last year.
While it would have been unthinkable until now to envisage Hamilton leaving McLaren, he said recently: "You never know which way the wind will take you."
Webber has won six grands prix -- four of them last year -- but, as we highlighted here a week ago, he has been comprehensively outperformed by Vettel at his past two starts.
While it would be premature to write off Webber, Marko's comments could be ominous.
At the very least they will serve as notice to Webber that he must lift his game if he is to be offered another extension of his contract with RBR.
Webber eyes podium in Malaysia
The world championship resumes this week at the Sepang circuit in Malaysia, where Red Bull Racing may use the KERS (Kinetic Energy Recovery System) it did not bother with in the Australian GP.
"Malaysia is a sensational circuit - it always provides an interesting race, especially with the weather," Webber said. "It's a great challenge for the driver too in terms of temperature and we'll need to see how the tyres go there.
"We got a lot of information from the first race and we expect our car to be good in Malaysia -- I want to get some champagne and up on to the steps."
Vettel described Sepang as "the first real track we go to, as Australia is a semi-street circuit"
"It (Malaysia) is hot and rains everyday, but the question is when and how much? It will be a tricky one.
"Circuit-wise you've got everything in there: Turn 14 requires you to brake the car while you're still turning into the corner, which makes it quite challenging."
Vettel has revealed that he is not a fan of KERS, which has returned to F1 after a year's absence, or the planned switch from the existing 2.4-litre V8 engines to "greener" 1.6-litre, four-cylinder turbocharged motors from 2013 so strongly opposed by Ecclestone and Ferrari.
"I would put a V12 engine in the car -- (I'm) against all the four-cylinder advocacy," Vettel said. "I definitely would go for a lot of power, a nice sound -- some brutal machinery so that you have to rise above yourself every time you jump back into the car."
Ecclestone fears that F1 will lose its noise appeal.
"People love and get excited about the noise," he said. "I'm anti, anti, anti moving into this small turbo four formula... We don't need it and if it's so important it's the sort of thing that should be in saloon car racing."
However, Rob White -- deputy managing director of Renault Sport, the supplier of engines to three teams including Red Bull Racing -- has vowed to Germany's Auto und Motor Sport that the new engines "will make a great noise".
Echoing the comments of Mercedes-Benz motorsport chief Norbert Haug, White said: "We are already working on this engine. There will be only new manufacturers coming into F1 with a new engine format."
V8 Supercar controversy in Tasmania
There have been rumblings in Tasmania in recent days about the future of the annual V8 Supercar Championship round at Symmons Plains.
Reports in Launceston's Examiner newspaper suggested the Tasmanian government intended to redirect the money it contributes towards the round -- more than $500,000 a year -- into Australian Football League games in the state's south.
However, Hobart's Mercury promptly reported that wasn't the case.
Recently-departed Tasmanian premier David Bartlett signed a new three-year, $1.7 million deal with the V8 Supercars Australia in November, saying the deal would "see a return of $3 million to $4 million a year to the Tasmanian economy".
The state's tourism minister, Michelle O'Byrne, said at the weekend the government "is committed to its arrangement with AVESCO to bring V8 Supercars to Tasmania".
"Following final negotiations with AVESCO, a contract is with the company to stage the 2011 event," she said. "AVESCO and the state government have jointly agreed to discuss arrangements for the subsequent two years... The V8 Supercar arrangements are in no way connected to AFL football."
V8 Supercar Events general manager Shane Howard said Tasmania was an integral part of the championship.
"We're definitely there this year and we are finalising the details with the Tasmanian government about the following two years," he said.
Longford gets hearts racing again
The weekend's Longford Revival, at what remains of Tasmania's super-fast circuit that hosted international racing in the 1950s and '60s, proved a huge success and is likely to be repeated -- if not annually then perhaps every two years.
This correspondent first watched motor racing at Longford in the early '60s but returned with low expectations, concerned at the lack of genuine Longford cars and name drivers.
However, that mattered little as many thousands of Tasmanian turned out over three days to see a fine array of cars and motorbikes sprint along the famous Flying Mile, complemented by a show 'n' shine and other off-track entertainment, especially '60s Beatles music, great food and wine and children's activities.
The fastest car of the weekend was the Bathurst 24-hour winning Holden Monaro, driven at more than 250kmh on three passes by new owner Rob Sharrard.
Dick Johnson -- in the state for this week's 20th Targa Tasmania - drove the famous Allan Moffat Coca-Cola Mustang on Sunday, topping 200km/h to huge applause.
Even the "Father of Formula Vee", 83-year-old Tasmanian-based Englishman Pat Stride, had a run, in a Porsche GT2 -- his first event since his retirement from racing in 1974.
Ambrose slammed in the wall
Marcos Ambrose, arguably Tasmania's most famous racing driver, was punted into a wall in today's NASCAR Sprint Cup round at Martinsville, Virginia.
Michael McDowell sent Ambrose into the turn one wall on lap 124.
"I was a victim. I don't know what McDowell was thinking," Ambrose said. "I got stuck on the outside and lost 20 positions just trying to get to the bottom and he just jacked me up and put me in the fence... It was uncalled for and unfortunate."
Initially Ambrose dropped only two laps but a damaged fuel filler later cost him more and he finished 13 laps down in 29th position.
He is 22nd in the season standings after six races, with round seven in Texas next weekend.
Martin Truex Junior walked away from a horror crash when his throttle stuck entering the third turn and speared him into the wall almost head on.
The race was red-flagged for 25 minutes.
Kevin Harvick eventually snatched his second straight Sprint Cup victory, overtaking fellow Chevrolet driver Dale Earnhardt Junior four laps from the finish.
Kyle Busch was third in a Toyota, Juan Pablo Montoya a solid fourth in his Chev after starting 27th and Jeff Gordon fifth in another Chev.
The 2007 Formula One world champion Kimi Raikkonen's debut in NASCAR's pick-up truck series on May 20 at Charlotte, North Carolina, will be with Kyle Busch Motorsports.
Raikkonen, 31, will do a few races in the series this year, alternating with his World Rally Championship campaign.
Atkinson notches international rally win
Australia's former World Rally Championship star Chris Atkinson has won the opening round of the Asia-Pacific Rally Championship (APRC), Rally Malaysia -- the Queenslander's first outright victory in an international event.
Atkinson, 31, dominated the two-day Malaysian event in the blistering heat and humidity in the Kota Tingii forest from the second stage in his Proton factory-backed Super 2000 Satria Neo.
He and Belgian co-driver Stephane Prevot finished a comfortable 1 minute 36.6 seconds ahead of India's Gaurav Gill in a Team MRF Mitsubishi Lancer Evo X, with Proton teammate, Perth-based Scotsman Alister McRae, more than another seven minutes away in third after overheating problems on the opening day.
Atkinson, who finished second in WRC rallies in Mexico and Argentina in 2008 in the final year of the Subaru World Rally Team, will drive several rounds of this year's Intercontinental Rally Challenge (IRC) for Proton as well as the APRC.
The next Asia-Pacific round is the International Rally of Queensland on the Sunshine Coast and in the Mary Valley on May 13-15 with up to 16 international entries in a field of about 80 cars.
Britain's MEM builds and runs the Atkinson and McRae cars for Proton, with new suspensions and engines this season.
First-up win for legend on return
Sports car legend Henri Pescarolo's team has made made a triumphant return to racing after a season away with victory in the opening six-hour race of the Le Mans Series at France's Paul Ricard circuit.
Pescarolo's Judd-powered LMP1 car -- driven by his younger French countrymen Christophe Tinseau, Julien Jousse and Emmanuel Collard -- started at the back of the grid after it was demoted in post-qualifying scrutineering.
It took the lead within 20 laps and stayed there until the chequered flag.
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