Motorsports

Australians Will Power and Ryan Briscoe had a tough time in the   classic Indianapolis 500 last weekend, although Power battled with eventual race winner Dario Franchitti in the early laps from second on   the starting grid and came home eighth. Briscoe, his Penske Racing team mate, crashed on cold tyres after a pitstop and was classified   24th after starting fourth.Garth Tander and Will Davison have all-new Holden Commodores for the next round of the V8 Supercar championship in Darwin. The new cars are   chassis numbers WR012 and WR013, replacing the Holden Racing Team Commodores which have run for more than three years, and Davison's is his first new car since coming into the championship.Sebastian Loeb is finally under threat in the World Rally Championship after being beaten by his Citroen junior protege Sebastian Ogier in the Portugal Rally last weekend. Ogier is the standout youngster in the championship and, after threatening to unseat Loeb in New Zealand last month, finally delivered a 7.9-second win in Portugal in an identical Citroen C4, with the third of the French factory cars in third with Dani Sordo driving.The deal for the Australian Motorcycle Grand Prix at Phillip Island has just been extended until 2016, with future options which could see the race at the Victorian track until 2026. The Australian GP Corporation confirmed the extension as it named truck company Iveco as naming rights sponsor for the MotoGP races in 2010 and 2011.Porsche driver David Wall dominated the third round of the Australian GT Championship last weekend at Eastern Creek, qualifying second and winning both mini-endurance events relatively easily. Mark Eddy had his best finish yet in his exotic Audi R8, finishing second ahead of Tony Quinn in a Mosler, after twin one-hour events at the Sydney track.FORMER V8 Supercar racer Darren Hossack was the big winner in the Sports Sedan feature event on the Shannons Nationals' program at Mallala in South Australia last weekend, driving from the rear of the field for one memorable win as he swept three starts in his V8 Audi.  Series leader Matt Kingsley was the winner in the Porsche GT3 Cup Challenge and Ben Barker emerged as a serious Formula 3 title contender after beating young New Zealand ace Mitch Evans.

Hankook chief financial officer Hyun Bum Cho said he had held talks with F1 boss Bernie Ecclestone about supplying tyres to the premier motorsport category.  "Bernie Ecclestone has had trouble with tyres and we have talked to him personally a few times, but we have decided not to go with the program, because it will take time and he needed a tyre very quickly," he said."But we had a very good talk and maybe we will participate in the future. But not more than in to two three years."  Cho, who launched the South Korean company's motorsport program 10 years ago, said the company, which spends about 3 per cent of its sales revenue on marketing, needed to become involved in the "top categories" of world motorsports."Right now we have a little Le Mans team and some rally teams here and there," he said.  "The worldwide motorsport market is about 2 million a year which is quite profitable because motorsport tyres are quite expensive."So we need to be in WRC, F1 or the top end of Le Mans.  "In future we need to be in those but it will cost a lot of money."He said Hankook was well poised to be in premium motorsport categories because it was the seventh-biggest tyre manufacturer in the world, most of the companies above it were either old or disinterested and the Japanese brands did not have the money to participate."So it is quite obvious that in the motorsport field we are emerging as a new rising star," he said.  Hankook Tyre Australia managing director Paul Park said the company was represented at the Bathurst 12 Hour race, where they finished fourth in difficult weather conditions."That race was the Australian motorsport debut of our Ventus TD semi-slick road-spec tyre," he said.  The same tyre was recently used by Dean Evans on his Mitsubishi Evo when he finished 10th outright at Targa Tasmania and scored a hat-trick of results when the United States race team Sierra Sierra finished second at the World Time Attack Challenge in Sydney.Their fastest time was within a second of the Eastern Creek lap record for a V8 Supercar on full racing slicks.  "this motorsport expertise can be found in our new Ventus R-S3," he said.  "This is an example of the old saying that motorsport improves the breed."We believe it will also, ultimately, improve our sales in Australia."  Although the Korean giant now supplies tyres as original equipment to many of the world's luxury brands, don't expect to see their tyres on supercars soon.Hankook CEO Seung Hwa Suh said they had been approached by a supercar company to supply tyres, but they had declined.  He wouldn't name the company or either confirm whether it was Italian, English, Swedish, Japanese, American or German."It is a privilege to us (to have been asked), but we are not yet at that stage," he said.  "Profitability is good but the development costs are very high."

Our sport is forever trying to find ways to improve the racing for the benefit of the fans.  Over the past couple of years we've experimented with a soft-compound sprint tyre and it's yielded some great racing and spectacular passing at the last two rounds. However, it's not going to work at all tracks and certainly not at any of the longer or enduro rounds as it would be destroyed too quickly and there would be too many pit stops.  But there are other things the category is considering in our continual self-examination. In the next couple of years we will see a totally new car hit the tracks.  One of the things we'll be looking at changing is the locked or "spool" differential in our current race cars. A locked diff means the rear drive tyres always spin at the same rate, but when cornering the inside wheel needs to turn slower than the outside wheel, as it has less distance to cover. This in turn means the inside wheel is forced to travel faster than it wants to. Apart from ripping up the track surface, it also causes mid-corner understeer, which means the car doesn't want to turn the corner but go straight ahead.  Next week at the Darwin round and the following Townsville round, certain teams will be allowed to test various differentials in practice sessions to gauge what they do. The aim is to allow several different lines into a corner to encourage more overtaking.  With the spool diff there is basically only one line and if you dive down the inside into a corner, your percentage of contact with the car you are passing goes up. The two types of differentials being tested are the Detroit Locker which is either locked or open and the limited-slip differential which alows different wheel rotation speeds at either end of the axle.  The locker is a bit agricultural, and another piece of dinosaur technology I suppose and that seems strange when we are going to more advanced technologies in the car of the future project. Both types of diff are also going to be a bit more expensive in the short term, but once everyone's got one, the running costs shouldn't be any more costly.  We ran a style of locker two-and-a-half years ago when they were looking for more passing opportunities and it definitely reduces understeer, improves mid-corner speed and makes the car a bit more unsettled under brakes because it is completely free when you are off the accelerator. With the limited-slip differential, teams can play with the settings to change the amount of slip or speed difference between the rear wheels, so they can make the car better at one part of the corner, but worse at another.  So there will be different strengths and weaknesses out on the track which will only improve the racing. I'm a big supporter of this diff technology.  If our category is looking for more passing opportunities, this is one way to do it.  I think if it allows drivers to have more confidence on diving down the inside and knowing you can turn the car it will make much better racing and more passing.  It should also cause far less track damage. Even though we're not racing at Perth this year, I have to fly over for some promotional ride days early next week which are always fun.  However it means I'll be missing out on a team track day at Morgan Park in Warwick.  Our team principal, Roland Dane, encourages us to burn off some steam and doesn't pack us in cottonwool like some of the other bosses. And because he's a mad-keen motorcycle fan with a garage full of great bikes, he's right behind these track days that we have from time to time.  He's just bought himself a new BMW S1000RR sportsbike and this will be its first track outing. It's funny how he's been getting all the workers to run it in for him. There certainly hasn't been a shortage of volunteers to help out.  I was really keen to have a ride on the track and see how it goes. Maybe next time.

WILL Power and Ryan Briscoe will start second and eighth in this year's Indianapolis 500. The Team Penkse pair were not able to match   their team-mate Helio Castroneves, who took pole position, and Briscoe actually dropped from fourth in the provisional running by taking a second shot at the top spot.CHAD Reed returned to the top of American motocross with victory in the first round of the outdoor championship following an injury-  plagued season in the supercross series earlier this year. Reed rode his Monster Kawasaki to an easy win at Sacramento in California, leading from start to finish.CHRIS Atkinson has a onfirmed start in the IRC rally series - second only to the world championship - with Proton as part of the deal which sees him chasing the Asia-Pacific championship with the Malaysian maker. His first IRC start is in the Ypres Rally, an all-bitumen event   in Belgium next month, following an engine problem that took him out of contention in Rally Japan last weekend.DAVID Brabham has scored another big win in the ALMS sports car series in the USA, taking victory in a six-hour race at Laguna Seca in California. Brabham shared his Honda racer with Simon Pagenaud and Marino Franchitti and they had to drive from last to first after a   technical penalty.JASON Crump has dropped to fourth in the World Speedway Championship rankings after a mediocre meeting in Prague last weekend. The defending champion was only eighth on the night and admits to feeling "out of form" with his riding.MARCOS Ambrose finished a pacey fifth in the showdown race ahead of the Nascar All-Star race last weekend but is still only 28th in the Sprint Cup standings. He finish was not good enough to win a transfer place in the main event, as only the top two drivers from the showdown were promoted to the All-Star even won by Kurt Busch.AUDI swept the latest round of the German Touring Car championship series at Valencia in Spain, with Mattias Ekstrom winning from Bruno Spengler in a Mercedes. Martin Tomczyk was originally second in an Audi but was excluded when his team made a mistake on tyres.YVAN Muller continues to lead the World Touring Car championship after another win with Chevrolet at Monza in Italy. The Frenchman is confirmed for the Gold Coast 600 international later this year with Andy Priaulx, who is fourth in the WTCC pointscore after Monza, will also jump into a V8 Supercar.

It is - this handcrafted British road machine - a fabulous collection of mechanicals, style and luxury. It is a most enticing grand tourer, a head-turning coupe of some pace and grace. With a sweet balance to the chassis and brakes thatd stop a bull elephant in its tracks. It will, says the factory, jump from 0 to 100km/h in 4.2 seconds and run out to better than 300km/h. Easy to believe. For this is an explosive package, a big-engined yet lithe two-seater with ability to take on misty morning mountain roads, sweeping stretches of highway or Monday morning traffic.HISTORYBut pause to praise the Lord for the mighty farm tractor. For the history of modern sports machinery, including this Aston, is littered with famous plough-lugging marques. Lamborghini was first a tractor maker. Porsche built tractors from 1934 to the early 1960s to keep sports cars coming. Irishman Harry Ferguson made little grey Fergies before developing a four-wheel-drive system used by the Jensen FF. And tractor maker David Brown (an early partner of Ferguson) went on to buy Aston Martin in 1947; that's where the DB range of Astons comes in.PRICE AND PACKAGEToday the Vantage line of Astons sits below today's DB9, DBS and Rapide in size and sometimes in price. V8 Vantages can be had with six-speed manual or Sportshift, coupe or roadster. The V12 Vantage comes only as a manual coupe, priced at $379,251 which puts it among the DB line-up in price.But this Vantage is a different kettle of fish _ a compact, pretty light, two-door coupe with a six-litre V12 shoehorned into a tight spot and producing many smiles per mile.That means the V8s handsome bonnet here has a bulge plus a clutter of carbonfibre vents for airflow; these, if necessary, look a little vulgar on this hunkered-down, hip-high machine with a sculpted long nose and short tail.While the V12 engine weighs 100kg more than the V8, this Vantage, with a fair chunk of aluminium aboard, is only some 40kg heavier at 1680kg. This is a serious piece of sports machinery, more power to weight than the average Fergie.Carbonfibre is used from front to rear splitter and across the leather-clad cabin. Inside is a place of comfort and purpose with two seats, a large parcel shelf and decent sized boot nestled under that rear hatch.The cabin carries the usual line-up of convenience features from air conditioning to powerful sound system, trip computer and navigation aid.There are carbonfibre, one-piece seats which hold driver and co-driver in fine form. There are exquisitely machined pedals, the tachometer swings counter clockwise and the analogue speedometer (hard to read) is complemented by a digital readout for road speed. Watch that space.DRIVINGThe Vantage V12 is fired up with an Emotional Control Unit, a push-in starter plug which wakes up 12 cylinders with a polite whirring of mechanicals and hint of menace from twin exhausts. These are best appreciated barking from outside. From inside a bloke could swear this was a rear-engined machine for there is a sweet symphony of sounds from behind the driver's head.Snick that polished gearstick into first of six speeds, a little throttle, out with the clutch and.nothing much, just steady progress into the traffic. For the Vantage can be as docile as the family Commodore, as easy to shift through the traffic as a Corolla. Visibility, despite low seat and high window sills, is pretty good.Major and minor controls are intuitive and mechanicals well behaved. No need to slip the clutch, blip throttles or panic for another gear. The ride is firm, not intrusive. This all changes out on open roads where the Aston can be one fast and furious machine.Best on a wet and mucky day to keep full traction control on and leave the Sport (go-faster) button off. The Sport button remaps engine tuning for sharper throttle response; it delivers an extra nudge in the back when engaged at road speed, a wilder take-off and a little too much extra verve on a wet track.The traction control has three stages _ on, half-on and off. The last is really for good and brave drivers. Even half-on was a bit whooaa on a greasy road; full traction control is far more sensible and quite sociable, allowing a little slip and correcting with discretion rather than violence.There is all this power to be had and enjoyed as the Aston sweeps hard toward the next bend. But here, on the approach and through the turn, the Vantage shows off more to appreciate.The steering is well-weighted, and you'll always know where those 19-inch front wheels are pointed. The big disc brakes pull speed down with confidence, whether chasing a little slow down or a major stop.The transmission and gear gate offers positive shifts. And now the Aston's balance comes to the fore as the car moves through the turn. It does this with finesse and confidence, speed and smiles. Wet roads and traffic muted any foolhardy manoeuvres this time around. But this Aston Martin Vantage V12 appears, as expected, a fine piece of powerful machinery.It is expensive, powerful and well-built. It is also a most comfortable and stylish sports tourer which deals with day-to-day motoring while offering dynamic performance when prodded.ASTON MARTIN V12 VANTAGEPrice: $379,251Body: 2-door coupeEngine: 6-litre V12Power: 380kW @ 6500rpmTorque: 570Nm @ 5750rpmTransmission: 6-speed manual, rear driveDimensions (mm): 4380 (l), 1865 (w), 1241 (h)Weight: 1680kg

Our sport needs to be national and not having Western Australia in the calendar is a real shame.  I hope they can do something about ensuring we are back there next year. On a personal level, it is a shame because Perth was one of my best results last year.However, next stop is Darwin a track I love and where I've had some great results in the past few years. I love the heat and from what I understand we are using the sprint tyre there again, but not for the whole meeting like we did at Ipswich and Winton. We get one set of softs to be used only in Sunday's race. So it's back to hard tyres for qualifying and Saturday's race, and half to two-thirds of Sunday's race. Should make things interesting.Speaking of interesting, you just can't help getting caught up in all the hype about State of Origin football. It's like our Bathurst. It's the main game of the year. It's like Holden versus Ford, only it's NSW versus Queensland. There has always been a battle between the two brands and the two states and there always will be so long as people have their passionate loyalties.Although I grew up in Victoria and still have a real passion for AFL, I've now been living in Queensland for 13 years and I've grown to love rugby league as well and consider myself a Queenslander through and through. So I just hope the Maroons can go on and make it a five-series winning streak. Not only because I'm a Queenslander but also because Billy Slater is a good mate, having done the Rexona Greatest Athlete show with him.He is the consumate athlete and having competed against him in that show it's now great to sit back and watch him perform. I've also been watching two of our Aussie exports performing on the world motoring stage. It's quite impressive to watch Mark Webber dominating in the past two F1 races with qualifying and on race day.That's not only a great confidence booster for himself, but also psychologically it demoralises his rivals. He's driving extremely well. His performance at Monaco in particular was impressive because that's an unforgiving street circuit like Surfers Paradise.You have to maintain your concentration 100 per cent of the time or you could easily hit a wall. On the flip side we've got Casey Stoner whose MotoGP season seems to be falling apart. It's such a shame because even though he didn't have the qualifying pace at Le Mans, he had the race pace and was starting to catch Valentino when he fell again.There are a lot of rumours running around in this early start to the silly season that he is going to Honda. I just hope he can get past all that and get himself right for next year and finish this season on a positive note because it's pretty much safe to say he's not going to be able to get score the title this year.Finally, I want to make a plea for people to support the Fatality Free Friday road safety campaign.(MAY 28) There is no one magic solution to the road toll, but it all helps. For me, the biggest thing is driver education. We work in a program with Jim Murcott driver training in which we have drive days where we go out and give people rides in the race car, but also educate them on braking, vision, seat position, fatigue and more.For race drivers it's all just commonsense because we've been driving for so long, but for some people they have to be shown the correct methods. My opinion is that people only learn how to get a licence; many never really learn how to drive a car properly.I get frustrated watching people driving on the streets. My pet hates are people sitting in the right-hand lane doing 10km/h under the speed limit, people who don't indicate when they change lanes and people who stop on merge lanes instead of getting up to the correct speed and merging smoothly.But the main one is young people who drive from almost the back seat with their seat back reclined right down. It's something to do with peer pressure, but if they observed race drivers they'd see we sit up nice and close so we are in total control of the vehicle.

DANIEL Ricciardo scored the biggest victory yet in his career when he won the Renault 3.5 supporting race at the Monaco Grand Prix. The Perth youngster qualified on pole and beat home the series leader, Russian Mikhail Aleshin, to also move into second place on the points table.CAM McConville starred in his first serious hit-out since retiring from full-time racing in the V8 Supercar championship, dominating the Fujitsu Championship round at Winton last weekend. McConville -- who took his only "main game'' win at Winton - scored two wins and a second to take maximum points ahead of Steve Owen and Nick Percat, as he used the weekend to warm up for endurance co-driving work with the Holden Racing Team at Phillip Island and Bathurst.GLENN Seton is back for Bathurst in October, joining the Kelly Racing driver roster of Jason Bargwanna, Todd and Rick Kelly, for the V8 Supercar endurance events. Seton, now 45, will be making his 26th start at Mount Panorama and is still searching for his first win, with his final co-driver at Mount Panorama yet to be confirmed.JACK Perkins will join Tim Slade in his Falcon for Phillip Island and Bathurst. The two youngsters are great mates and will drive a car in the Stone Brothers Racing stable.SIMON and Sue Evans took top points at Coffs Harbour in the latest round of the Australian Rally Championship, benefiting as Scott Pedder -who won the first of two heats in his Mitsubishi Lancer - rolled late on the second day, in a similar mishap to the factory-backed Honda Civic of Eli Evans.ASH Walsh used a pair of wins to take round honours in the Australian Formula Ford championship at Winton, though a slow start to the season means he is still only third in points, behind Chaz Mostert and Nick Foster. Mostert won the other race and Liam Sager took the hard charger award.GRANT Johnson and Andrew Fisher finished first and second in the V8 Utes round at Winton and hold the same positions in the championship pointscore. Johnson, from Perth, won two races, with the third going to Gary Baxter of Adelaide.SIR Jack Brabham is already confirmed as special guest at the Christmas party for 20 Victoria car clubs that will be held at the Powerhouse in Albert Park on November 27. The three-time world champion follows previous guests Harry Firth, Jim Richards and Larry Perkins at the annual event, which is backed by Shannons.

His eyesight isn't the best and his hearing is shot but the motor racing great has been getting writer's cramp in the past few months.  The three-times world Grand Prix champion launched a signed scale model of his famous Repco Brabham BT19 race car last week. The famous race car forms the cornerstone of model car maker Top Gear's new Legends series.  Just 1000 "signature edition" models will be made, all personally signed by Brabham. Brabham designed and built the BT19 with the help of Repco, winning the 1966 word driver's championship in the car.  The BT19 also helped Brabham score points in his Constructor's Championship wins in 1966 and 1967. The Top Gear BT19 is No1 of the series, which will recognise the outstanding achievements of legendary Australians in their respective fields.  Top Gear plans model tributes for five-times world motorcycle champion Mick Doohan and aviation pioneer Charles Kingsford-Smith. Brabham, 84, took time out last week from following his grandson Matthew's burgeoning Formula Ford career to launch the Legend series at the National Sports Museum in Melbourne.  He says the model BT19 is faithful to the original, right down the the paint. "It's fantastic. It's a beautiful little model. It's very much like the actual car," he says.  Brabham reckons the BT19 was the last of the 1960s Grand Prix cars that actually look stylish.  "This BT19 was before the wings," he says. "Unfortunately when the wings came good-looking motor cars didn't happen any more."  The BT19 remains one of his favourite cars, partly because of the involvement of Repco in helping develop the V8 race engine for the car. "They came up with an engine that went out and won the world championship straight off," Brabham says.  "Really it was mostly a very nice engine to drive.  "It was torquey. For driving around short circuits it was ideal.  There were cars around with more horsepower but we were still able to beat them." Brabham is proud of his achievements but says the motor racing dynasty he has spawned is his biggest achievement.  The Brabham racing genes have passed down to his sons Geoff, Gary and David and now grandson, Matthew, is taking the family name to Formula Ford. "It pleases me more than my actual racing career," he says.  "I have three sons who've all done very well in motor racing, particularly Matthew's father, Geoff who's done very well in the States. and of course my son David is doing well now in America. "He's leading the American Le Mans series now and he's going to come out here for three races in Australia, which is great."  But it is grandson Matthew that is clearly now the apple of the Sir Jack's eye. "He's been driving since he was 7 and he finished go-karts last year with four State championships to his name and he's already had one win in the Formula Ford."

I have to agree that the racing has been brilliant.  Even on circuits like Winton where it can be boring because there are limited places to pass, the softer and gripier Dunlops provided plenty of passing opportunities.It made for very entertaining racing, not only for the spectators, but also for us drivers.  However, I don't think the format for this year should be changed when we are halfway through the season.We can definitely use it at other events to improve the racing and the passing opportunities, but it shouldn't be used in the long-distance events because the tyre hasn't got the structure for durability.Rounds such as Townsville, Darwin and maybe the Gold Coast could certainly do with it.  But not until next year.Let's sit down and think it through and work out which circuits could be improved by running on the sprint tyres and then make the decision at the start of the year so the teams can work out their strategies.  We all still have a lot of work to do to get a full understanding of this tyre.It generates a lot more grip and we're always looking for more turn in the car, but that means we have to adjust our car settings and balance.  We also have to get our heads around how it heats up and reacts to ambient temperatures.At a cold track like Winton, the tyre can actually act like glass rather than rubber until it heats up and if you charge too hard before it gets to the right temperature you can effectively rip grain-sized pieces off the tyre.  These are the sorts of things we need to sort out.Anyway, we had a ball at Queensland Raceway and then again at Winton with these tyres.  We ran two totally different strategies last Saturday and Sunday and I'm happy to say they were the right ones both times.I was concerned about the Saturday strategy of pitting late because of the lack of pace in the middle of the race, but it worked out well. My race engineer Jeromy Moore and the team made a good choice.  At the end we had massive closing speed and grip, so I was able to pass a stack of cars.Sunday was a different format because it was a longer race with two pit stops instead of one.  Our last stop was forced by the safety car and we stopped straight away which worked out well.However, knowing we still had about 24 laps to go, I was worried about our car having consistent pace and longevity.  Full marks to James Courtney and Dick Johnson's team.  James drove a very sensible couple of races for the second round in a row.He's matured a lot in the past year and he's driving really well. He's also not making the mistakes he did last year.  He's not just leading races, but also showing he's able to come through the pack like he did on Sunday when he started in sixth on the grid. He showed plenty of patience and good strategy.I don't think this is a matter of Ford gaining the ascendancy in the series, but simply that this team now has two years of development under their belt and they are getting the best out of their cars.  I know just how good that Triple 8-spec car is.It's also a good combination of car, team and driver. It be will be a hard combination to beat.  However, in just two rounds the whole top 10 has changed dramatically, so no one is unbeatable.From my point of view, I've come from eighth to fifth to third and am now only 108 points off my teammate, Jamie, and 222 off Courtney.  With more than half a season to go that puts me within striking distance and gaining momentum.It's a far cry from how I was at this time last year when I was fading the other way.  Needless to say, Jamie is bitterly disappointed with the results from the past two rounds.On Sunday he had a flat left hand tyre and got caught out in the gravel. It wasn't the result he was hoping for.  But knowing him, he will no doubt strive harder to bridge the gap and then try to get back the lead.The next two events in Darwin and Townsville will be crucial to the championship, knowing we have an eight-week mid-season break.  Everyone will want to go into that break with the momentum behind them.

He was in a league of his own as he converted a stunning pole position performance into a start-to-finish romp for Red Bull - and an equal lead in the 2010 world championship battle.  The closest anyone got to Webber was on the starting grid, although his margin at the front was erased three times by the Safety Car and he had to pull away again from his Red Bull team mate Sebastian Vettel.Webber survived a final scare when Jarno Trulli and Karun Chandhok collided just three laps from the finish, but he was able to blast to the chequered flag when the safety car was withdrawn to clear his run to the line.  Vettel was second for Red Bull, beating Robert Kubica of Renault after jumping him at the start, with Felipe Massa in fourth for Ferrari.Webber blazed to victory after a string of fastest laps that left four world champions - Fernando Alonso, Lewis Hamilton, Jenson Button and Michael Schumacher - with no answer to his speed and commitment.  "Unbelievable. Brilliant. A 1-2 at Monaco . . . maximum points at two races," Webber said on his cool-down lap.The win was a repeat of his all-the-way romp a week earlier in the Spanish Grand Prix, and the 25 points he clocked for the victory moved him equal with Vettel at the top of the world championship standings.The surprise star of the race was Felipe Massa, who was forced to start from the pitlane after crashing his Ferrari in practice and missing qualifying. He got all the way up to seventh place, although a late pass by Michael Schumacher - which cost him a spot - was being investigated by race officials.Jenson Button lost his world championship lead after engine failure in his McLaren and there were predictable retirements at the back of the field by the new Hispania and Virgin teams, as well as both Saubers with gearbox hydraulic failures.Webber's victory completed an Australian sweep at Monaco, as Red Bull's reserve driver Daniel Ricciardo won the Renault 3.5 series curtain-raiser. The 20-year-old from Perth also sat on pole position and his first victory in the junior series bumps him up to second in the championship standings.PROVISIONAL PLACINGS:Monaco Grand Prix1. Mark Webber, Red Bull2. Sebastian Vettel, Red Bull3. Robert Kubica, Renault4. Felipe Massa, Ferrari5. Lewis Hamilton, McLaren6. Michael Schumacher, Mercedes7. Fernando Alonso, Ferrari8. Nico Rosberg, Mercedes9. Adrian Sutil, Force India10. Tonio Liuzzi, Force IndiaPROVISIONAL POINTSCORE:1. Mark Webber/Sebastian Vettel, 873. Fernando Alonso, 734. Jenson Button, 705. Felipe Massa, 61