Norris McDonald's Auto Racing Blog

Top Ten motor sport stories of 2011

Here are my choices for the Top Ten motor sport stories of 2011.

1. The on-track deaths in October of two-time Indianapolis 500 champion Dan Wheldon and up-and-coming Moto GP rider Marco Simoncelli

Wheldon, a nice guy and a family man, died in the final IZOD IndyCar Series race of the season at Las Vegas while trying to win a special $5 million price from his scratch starting spot.

The "pack racing" promoted by the IndyCar series since it started business in the mid-1990s proved to be every bit as dangerous as feared. A slight collision between two cars near the front of the field became an unholy pileup involving 15 of the 34 cars on track.

Wheldon’s car was launched into catch fencing, where his head hit a pole. He was 33.

Simoncelli, a promising motorcycle racer who was in his second season in Moto GP after winning championships in lesser categories, was killed at the Malaysian Grand Prix after losing control and going down.

Although he was hit by motorcycles ridden by two others racers as he slid along the track, he died because his helmet came off and his unprotected head hit the pavement.

Simoncelli was famous for his "big hair" and was wearing a helmet a size too large. He was 24.

2. The dominance of Sebastien Vettel and Dario Franchitti in F1 and IndyCar

In winning his second consecutive World Championship, in only his third full season, Vettel made just about all the other drivers in Formula One this year look like pretenders.

In 19 races, he was on the podium for 17 of them and he won eleven. He also captured 15 poles, breaking Nigel Mansell’s record of 14 for a season. He seems well on his way to becoming the greatest of all time.

Franchitti won four races and had two poles in 17 races to win his third straight IndyCar title. In fact, he's won the championship every year’s he’s contested it in the last five but he took a year off to try NASCAR after winning his first one.

When that didn’t work out, he returned to IndyCar and hasn’t been beaten since.

3. The success enjoyed by three young Canadian racers – Robert Wickens, Kyle Marcelli and James Hinchcliffe

As the sun sets on the racing careers of Canadian household names Paul Tracy, Jacques Villeneuve, Patrick Carpentier, Alex Tagliani and Ron Fellows, these three young men are stepping up to take their places.

Wickens, in his third year of competing in European feeder series leading to Formula One, finally made it to the top step of the podium in Formula Renault 3.5 after finishing second the two previous years in GP3 and Formula 2.

In winning what’s called the World Series by Renault, Wickens laid a beating on French driver Jean-Erik Vergne, but Vergne was rewarded with a Scuderia Toro Rosso seat because his family or his sponsors could write the big cheque while Wickens, who does not have money, is unfortunately currently unemployed for 2012.

Marcelli’s career got a huge boost this week when speedtv.com’s John Dagys put the Barrie native at No. 2 on his Top Ten American Le Mans Series drivers list behind the team of Joey Hand and Dirk Muller and ahead of the team of Lucas Luhr and Klaus Graf.

That is pretty smart company, indeed.

In nine starts in the Prototype Challenge class, Marcelli had six podiums, two class victories and two poles. He made one start in Europe, in the international Le Mans Series at Imola in Italy, and he won his class in that race too.

Dagys calls him one of the sport’s rising stars, but we already knew that. He’s expected to announce his 2012 program in the coming weeks.

Hinchcliffe paid his dues in the lesser categories (Formula Atlantic, A1-GP, Indy Lights) and finally made it to the big leagues with the legendary Newman-Haas team in IndyCar, missing the first race of the season but storming back to win the Sunoco Rookie-of-the-Year title.

Although he didn’t win any races or poles, he did finish in the Top Ten seven times and in the Top Five three times. He led the race at Mid-Ohio for 26 laps.

Although known primarily as a road racer, he adaped well to the ovals and qualified third at Kentucky and finished fourth at Kentucky and New Hampshire.

His future is up in the air at the moment because Newman-Haas announced it would not participate in the IndyCar Series next year and although several knowledgable observers have suggested he will be employed in 2012, there has yet to be an announcement.

4. The firing of Kurt Busch

For the first time in just about any sport, an elite athlete was given his walking papers for being a jerk.

For years, Kurt Busch (his brother, Kyle, is no better) has been the epitome of everything that’s wrong with big league sport when a participant lets success go to his head.

Instead of being thankful, or grateful, for everything that’s come his way because of his wonderful, God-given ability to drive a racing car, Busch has consistently let his sense of entitlement balloon way out of all proportion.

The straw that broke the camel’s back came at the final race of the season at Homestead-Miami Speedway when Busch lost his cool while waiting to be interviewed on TV and insulted the interviewer and his camerman.

Although the official announcement said that he and Penske Racing had come to a mutual parting of the ways, the truth is that Busch was more of a liability than an assett and team owner Roger Penske decided he wouldn't put up with any more nonsense. 

While he has signed a contract to drive for Phoenix Racing in the 2012 Sprint Cup, his future is uncertain as that team has rarely been able to afford to run a full season.

5. The sale of Mosport International Raceway

When race fans journey out to the legendary racing circuit north of Bowmanville for the start of the 2012 season in May, they are in for a big surprise.

The place that opened for business in 1961 and has looked pretty much the same ever since has undergone a face lift since it was purchased last June by racing driver Ron Fellows, businessman Alan Boughton and real-estate developer Carlo Fidani.

Brush has been cleared away from spectator fences, hills levelled to improve spectator sightlines and a huge, double tunnel to allow race transporters (and spectators) to access the infield during competition are just some of the improvements.

The long-range plan – yet unannounced – is to attract a NASCAR Nationwide Series race as well as other, major series to race not only on the road circuit but also on a renovated and enlarged oval speedway that’s also on the property.

6. Tony Stewart wins 5 Chase races, Sprint Cup

Tony Stewart qualified in ninth place for this year’s NASCAR Chase for the Championship.

The only race he'd won all year to that point was the World of Outlaws sprint car race at Ohsweken Speedway on the Six Nations Reserve near Brantford in July. His Sprint Cup season had been very so-so and he was even quoted as saying he didn’t think his Stewart-Haas Racing team deserved to be in the stock car playoffs.

But then he went on a tear to end all tears. He won five of the ten Chase races, including the last one at Homestead-Miami Speedway. When the checkers flew, he was in first place and Carl Edwards was second and they were tied in points but Stewart was champion on the basis of more wins.

It was Stewart’s third title, the first two earned when he was employed by Joe Gibbs Racing. He became the second team owner-driver after Alan Kulwicki to win NASCAR’s biggest prize.

7. Canadian comes this close to winning British Formula Ford Fesival

For the first time in years, a young, talented and fast Canadian Formula Ford driver had his way paid to Britain in October to compete in the annual Formula Ford Festival that attracts upwards of 200 entries  and is held each year at the famous Brands Hatch circuit.

A project initiated by Brian Graham Racing Sports and Entertainment, in partnership with Grote Industries (manufacturers of vehicle lighting and safety systems), the aim was to give a Canadian racer a chance to compete against the best Formula Ford drivers in the world, just as such racing luminaries as Dan Wheldon, Jenson Button, Mark Webber and Danica Patrick had in the past.

After a selection process, Xavier Coupal, 21, of St-Jean-sur-Richelieu, Que., was chosen (Graham said he was absolutely the fastest driver out of the box of the ones who were eligible).

Coupal went out and finished second in his first race and then sat on the pole for the final. He was leading the race seven laps in when he was punted off track. So near and yet so far.

At the end of the day, though, he still set fastest lap in the final race and became the first Canadian to start from pole – an incredible accomplishment that deserves to be in this Top Ten.

8. The best Grand Prix of Canada – Ever

I’m sure I’ll get mail on this one, particularly from people who will point to Gilles Villeneuve’s first F1 victory in the 1978 Canadian Grand Prix as being the best home race ever, but I really don’t know how you could beat the one held on Ilse Notre-Dame in June, which had everything.

Jenson Button was the surprise winner in Montreal when race favourite Sebastien Vettel, feeling the pressure from Button, ran wide on the last lap and let Button through. Vettel finished second and his Red Bull-Renault teammate, Australian Mark Webber, was third.

Seven-time world champion Michael Schumacher of Germany, showing everyone that he's still "got it," drove to a storming fourth-place finish in his Mercedes, just missing the podium.

The race started in rainy conditions and a downpour eventually caused a two-hour rain delay. The race, which started behind the safety car at 1 p.m., finally finished just after 5 p.m.

Button came from the back of the pack on several occasions and visited the pits six times for tire changes, to have his car checked following a collision with teammate Lewis Hamilton, and for a drive-through penalty.

Button said it was probably his greatest Formula One drive. "It was a fanastic race and I enjoyed it immensely. When I look back, yeah, I'd have to say it was one of my best, if not my best."

How can you beat that?

9. Miss Supertest Gets Her Stamp

On Oct. 8 in Picton, Ont., the long-awaited celebration of one of Canada’s most magnificent sporting achievements took place when Canada Post officially unveiled a commemorative stamp in memory of the unlimited hydroplane racing boat Miss Supertest III and her driver, the late Bob Hayward.

The stamp honours the fastest racing boat in Canadian history, her driver Hayward and her owner, Jim Thompson, who designed and built her.

The ceremony marked the 50^th anniversary of Miss Supertest’s final defence of the Harmsworth Trophy, holding off the American challengers for the third consecutive year.

Several months later, on Sept. 10, 1961, while competing for the U.S. Silver Cup on the Detroit River in the sister boat Miss Supertest II, Hayward was killed. Thompson retired from the sport then and there and Miss Supertest III was never sent out to race again. The stamp is a fitting tribute to a boat and the two men who put Canada on top of the hydroplane racing world.

10. A tie, between . . .

– Danica Patrick leaves IndyCar for NASCAR. Yes, we knew it was coming but it was still a bit of a shock just the same.

She has her detractors, that’s for sure, but Patrick’s presence guaranteed coverage of IndyCar and now that she’s gone, that can’t be taken for granted.

And if there's anybody out there who doesn’t think she’s going to be a star in NASCAR, I will remind them of the reaction at Daytona last July when she took the lead late in the Nationwide Series race. The roar of the crowd as it rose to its feet could be heard – and felt – over the voices of the announcers and the roar of the engines.

NASCAR’s gain is very much IndyCar’s loss.

– Trevor Bayne, a 20-year-old driver with one Sprint Cup race under his belt, wins the Daytona 500 for the underfunded Wood Brothers team.

A devout Christian, Bayne credited his faith for helping him handle the pressures that followed his victory at Daytona and for helping him to beat off a serious illness that saw him admitted to hospital after being bitten by an insect.

- I love "comeback stories." A great comeback in 2011 was by sprint car driver Joey Saldana.

A front-running sprint car star with the World of Outlaws (they took a swing through Canada earlier this year, touching down at Ohsweken Speedway on the Six Nations Reserve as well as at race tracks in eastern Ontario and Quebec), Saldana has been knocking on the door of the series championship for several years now.

He was running particularly well this year before disaster struck when he flipped during the Kings Royal race at Eldora Speedway in Ohio and broke his right arm and some ribs. He also suffered a punctured lung.

Out of action for several months, Saldana returned to action in September at Hartford Motor Speedway in Michigan to go up against all the regular Outlaw runners— the Kinsers, the Dolanskys, the Schatzes and the rest of those guys — and promptly won his first race back.

- Jimmie Johnson is not NASCAR Sprint Cup champion. After five years of holding the title, it's news that Johnson isn't No. 1 any more. He was still pretty much in it until the last two or three Chase races, but it was just one of those years for Johnson when he didn't get the breaks he got previously.

There were suggestions that his partnership with long-time crew chief Chad Knaus might come to an end but that hasn't happened and I think it unlikely. They will regroup over the winter and go at it again in 2012 and don't be surprised if Johnson-Knaus aren't champions again before very long.

- Antoine L'Estage and Nathalie Richard won their 150th Canadian Rally Championship presented by Subaru. It's not really their 150th but nobody else ever wins, so it just seems like it. They are in a class of their own, so have to be considered.

So, there you go. Five possibilities for story No. 10 in my personal Top Ten. I can’t pick one over the others – or I would have!

Now, I’ll close with a personal anecdote. The rest of the Wheels section on Saturday will be made up of Bests and Worsts of 2011 – best car, best experience, etc.

So here are my personal Best and Worst experiences of the past year.

Best.

I was at Toronto Motorsports Park in July to take in a special match race between the NHRA brother act of Tony and Cruz Pedregon. They were in their Nitro Funny Cars – 8,000 horsepower each.

I was standing about 20 yards behind them (fingers tight in my ears, by the way) when they popped their clutches and unleashed all that power as they started their 1,000-foot run and I can still feel the earth move.

I’m not talking about that. What I’m saying is that my legs and knees went all-rubbery and my feet felt as if they were sliding in oil. 

It was scary.

Worst.

Dan Wheldon.

Kurt Busch gets his comeuppance

It’s finally happened.

A high-profile professional athlete has found out what things are like in the real world.

No more pampering, no more putting up with temper-tantrums, no more embarrassing the boss or the sponsor who pays the bills.

Kurt Busch has been told by Roger Penske not to let the door hit him in the butt on the way out. He’s been fired, canned, downsized, whacked.

And not a minute too soon.

Penske fired driver Busch late Sunday as the result of a public meltdown following his elimination from the season-ending NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race at Homestead-Miami Speedway earlier this month.

Penske waited until the weekend's end-of-season ceremonies in Las Vegas were over before handing Busch the pink slip. According to Charlotte.com, which broke the story Sunday night, the official announcement would be made some time Monday (Penske link here).

(Both Busch and a spokesman for Penske Corp. said Monday afternoon that Busch was not fired but that there was an amicable parting of the ways. Both Busch and the Penske executive couldn't have said nicer things about each other if they'd been written . . .)

The reason for the firing - er, amicable parting of the ways - was Busch's tirade directed at ESPN/ABC pit reporter Dr. Jerry Punch when the network was slow to leave race action in order for the driver to be interviewed after he was forced out of the race because of transmission problems.

After asking "why can't we tape this?" Busch became agitated and swore at both interviewer Punch and a camerman. Eventually, Punch said to "forget it" and walked off. Busch went into the Penske hauler but the scene was recorded on video by a fan with a cellphone (see the video below).

Warning: Strong language

This was the third or fourth incident this season in which Kurt Busch - not to be confused with his younger brother Kyle Busch, who escaped being fired recently by Joe Gibbs Racing after losing his temper during a Camping World Truck Series race and deliberately wrecking an opponent - lost control of his emotions.

He dressed down his crew and swore at his crew chief during a race (the profanity over the team radio was heard on live television), had to be restrained from attacking a television reporter who asked him a charged question and refused to answer questions when confronted by another journalist.

Some of these transgressions may appear to be minor (I sympathized - somewhat - with Busch when I saw the cellphone video of the Punch incident; he had just suffered a major disappointment and had to wait, and wait, and wait to be interviewed when, I'm sure, he just wanted to get out of there) but in the commercial world of NASCAR, where the teams and drivers are paid millions to represent corporations who are providing those millions, you can't behave like a Saturday night dirt car jockey just starting out.

As professional football, baseball, basketball, hockey and golf players are not allowed to behave like jerks, racing drivers aren't either. Both Busch brothers have lost sight of this throughout their careers and it is to Roger Penske's credit that he said enough is enough, and pulled the plug.

You wonder if executives at Mars Inc., which agreed with Joe Gibbs to continue to support Kyle Busch in 2012 after removing their wraps from his cars in the last two races of 2011, might be wondering today if they should have done the same thing.

Of course, Mars has an executive board and those things are quicksand when it comes to making a decision. Penske runs Penske and his word is law. Although Roger has a board of directors, it's clear that he calls the shots. And he calls those shots pretty well.

It's also clear that Kurt Busch didn't see the dismissal coming. He gave a press conference in Las Vegas on Friday in which he talked about working through some issues with a sports psychologist but then veered off on a tangent and said some pretty strong things about a previous employer.

He must have known he was walking on thin ice and yet he still kept going further and further out from shore.

The ice finally broke Sunday night.

There are few, if any, good rides available for 2012, so Busch could be in some trouble - unless he takes his personal millions and purchases the Red Bull team, which is in the process of going out of business, and runs his own entry.

On the other hand, this might turn out to be good news for Sam Hornish Jr. Hornish was a highly successful Indy car driver for Penske but has had trouble adapting to stock cars.

However, Penske has never wavered in his support for Hornish, who won the second-last Nationwide Series race this year (his first in NASCAR), and announced plans to run him for a full season in the Nationwide in 2012.

Might Penske move Hornish up to the big team? We'll see.

'KURT BUSCH STILL DOESN'T GET IT' - SEE NORRIS McDONALD'S TUESDAY COMMENTARY HERE

Meantime, last week was not a good one for promising young  Canadian racing drivers.

Two, in particular.

Ironically, they're both profiled in the current issue of Sportsnet magazine as young guys on the way up.

Robert Wickens, 22, of Guelph and Toronto, was the first one to get a kick in the stomach when he found out, at the Grand Prix of Brazil, that a Formula One ride in 2012 that he had been led to believe he had a shot at was being given to a young European driver whose curriculum vitae is nowhere near Wickens’s.

There was Wickens, at the Interlagos circuit in Sao Paulo, site of the last F1 race of the 2011 season, in his role as official reserve driver for the Marussa-Virgin F1 team. He was reigning champion of the World Series by Renault and had been told by his sponsor, the Marussia supercar company, that all they were looking for in a potential F1 driver was results.

He had kept his part of the bargain and delivered, in spades. He had won the 2011 Renault F3.5 title after two seasons of finishing second in two other European F1 feeder series, Formula 2 and GP3.

So right in the middle of the Grand Prix weekend, Wickens find out – as did the world – that a young French driver named Charles Pic, who in six years of racing in comparable series to Wickens had never finished higher than third in the standings, would become a Formula One driver in 2012 as a teammate to the underachieving Timo Glock.

Of course, the Marussia-Virgin F1 team – like most of the teams in F1 these days (McLaren, Mercedes, Red Bull and Ferrari excepted) – never saw a cheque it didn’t like. Despite what Wickens had been told, that all Marussa was looking for was results, in the end they went for the money and not the talent.

So that was disappointment No. 1. Here comes No. 2.

In mid-week, James Hinchcliffe of Oakville, who had won the Sunoco Rookie of the Year title in the IZOD IndyCar Series this year, found out that he was suddenly unemployed as a result of his team, Newman/Haas Racing, announcing it would not be participating in the IZOD IndyCar Series in 2012.

Hinchcliffe, who turns 25 today (Monday), had paid his dues and was enjoying his success. A veteran of the Formula BMW, Star Mazda, Champ Car Atlantic, A1-GP and Indy Lights series, Hinch put all his eggs in one basket over the winter of 2010-11 and made it plain that it would be the Big Leagues or nothing by the time spring and summer arrived.

Thank goodness that the Toronto investment firm Sprott Inc. opted to sponsor him. Despite missing the opening race of the season, Hinchcliffe went on to finish 12^th in points, won the rookie title and looked to be well on his way.

But then came Thursday’s announcement and despite putting his best face forward – "I'll have to regroup but there are still some seats available on good teams," he told me on the phone – he had clearly been gobsmacked.

"Hinch," like Wickens, is the perfect driver for a modern-day racing team: fast in the car but – just as important – social media savvy. He’s just the ticket needed to connect with young fans.

Although not officially disappointment No. 3, the fact that two young tiger Canadian drivers are now looking for rides in 2012 does not bode well for Paul Tracy in his quest to land full-time employment in 2012 (I still maintain Wickens would be better off trying Indy cars than continuing to try to make an impression in Europe).

It was going to be an iffy proposition in any event. Love him as we all do, Tracy is just not as fast as he was when he was a kid and when push comes to shove, and the choice comes down to a Wickens or a Hinchcliffe or a Tracy, some car owner is going to nod toward the first two before he sticks out his hand to the veteran who's third in line.

And that, as Stone Cold Steve Austin would say, is the bottom line.

Notebook:

– Tony Stewart was crowned NASCAR Sprint Cup champion in Las Vegas at the weekend and that pretty much wraps up the 2011 season. The Red Bull stock car team is kaput (although there is a rumour around that someone still wants to buy it . . . Jacques Villeneuve, perhaps? . . . but just what is left to purchase?) The employees have all been let go and what infrastructure remains is anybody’s guess.

On the driver front, Kyle Busch is being urged to just be a Sprint Cup driver in 2012; the thinking being that trying to race in three series might be contributing to his periodic meltdowns. Meantime, his brother, Kurt Busch, has let it be known he's working with a sports psychologist to try to get his emotions under control.

– Autosport magazine threw a gala in London Sunday night and handed out a pile of awards. Sebastien Vettel was named international racing driver of the year and Jenson Button was honoured as British driver of the year. Dan Wheldon was given a posthumous award to recognize his lifetime achievements in motorsport, which was accepted by his father, Clive, and his IndyCar friend and rival, Dario Franchitti. F1 driver Paul di Resta was named Rookie of the Year.

– French driver Sebastien Ogier won the Race of Champions over Tom Kristensen at the Esprit Arena in Dusseldorf. Michael Schumacher and a whole bunch of racing people were there. In Brazil, F1 driver Jaime Alguersuari won Felipe Massa’s annual go-kart celebrity race with Lucas di Grassi and Rubens Barrichello second and third. Jules Bianchi, a soon-to-be-Ferrari driver (development program) actually won but was disqualified for being underweight. His car was too light, that is.

– The World of Outlaws sprint cars will race four times in five nights in Canada next July, kicking off their "northern swing" at Autodrome Granby, Autodrome Drummondville, Cornwall Motor Speedway and then the Brantford-area Ohsweken Speedway, where the feature this year was won by none other than Tony Stewart. Trust me on this: if you have never seen the Outlaws in action, go.

If Wickens wants F1 ride, he should try IndyCar

For much of the last five years, Robert Wickens of Guelph and Toronto has been Canada’s next best Formula One hope. He’s turned heads every time he’s been in a car and on a track.

This year, he won the European-based World Series by Renault after finishing second the two previous seasons in GP3 and Formula 2. At Abu Dhabi two weeks ago, he drove a Marussia-Virgin F1 car in first practice on the Friday of the Grand Prix meeting, becoming the first Canadian to participate at that level since Jacques Villeneuve.

There then followed several days of Young Driver testing, in which he was very competitive when at the wheel of a quality car (third fastest on the first day when driving a Renault, for instance) but well down the pecking order (second last, in fact) when saddled with the Marussia.

Wickens is 22, lightning fast, good-looking and media-trained to a fault — everything you would want in a young tiger of a driver.

But he’s not on the F1 radar in Europe. He was mentioned almost in passing in dispatches from the Abu Dhabi test. The guy he beat for the Renault championship, Jean-Eric Vergne of France, got most of the ink and is currently the media favourite for an F1 seat in 2012 at Scuderia Toro Rosso.

Yes, Wickens could drive for Marussia-Virgin in F1 in 2012, but only if he’s able to bring between 3.5 and 5 million Euros to the table and, although there are people beating the bushes in Canada on his behalf, it doesn’t look likely.

And any hopes he might have harboured for a seat with one of the more competitive Grand Prix teams pretty much went out the window on Wednesday this week when Robert Kubica announced that he won’t drive for Renault in 2012 and all the stories then mentioned three or four drivers in line for his seat and not one of them was Robert Wickens (who’d done a pretty good job in that car at the Abu Dhabi test, remember).

Now, Vancouver businessman Teddy Yip Jr. has been a big backer of Wickens' for a number of years, so the driver could take whatever support he has and do yet another season in yet another F1 feeder series  (he hasn’t raced in GP2 as yet) but what would that prove? If finishing first once and second twice in three major European series to date isn’t good enough, one more isn’t going to do much for him.

And, yes, there is the slight possibility that he could drive for Marussia-Virgin next season without having to bring money but, again, what would that prove? Trundling around at the back of the pack, seven or eight seconds off the pace, could do more harm to his reputation than good, I would suggest.

So, if you’re Robert Wickens and your dream is a competitive ride in Formula One, what do you do?

I say he puts whatever financial support he has today in a briefcase, and he gets on a plane and flies to the United States of America, and he knocks on the door of one Michael Andretti, who happens to have a pretty good seat available in his pretty good IZOD IndyCar Series racing team. 

He hands the team owner the briefcase and he flashes that million-dollar smile of his and he says: “Hi, Mr. Andretti. I’m your new GoDaddy boy.”

And if Michael Andrett is smart – and I think he is – he hires the young Canadian on the spot because he's the complete package: he's got talent, good looks, some money and he's media savvy.

If Wickens then goes out and wins the the IndyCar championship, I guarantee that the top teams in Formula One would take notice. Even if he doesn't win the title, but he's winning races and/or fighting for wins, his name will be in headlines.

Robert Wickens will get more attention, and find it more satisfying being a celebrity front-line Indy car racer in North America, than he ever will being a "maybe" or a "might-have-been" overseas.

Don't believe me? Two words:

Dario Franchitti.

Vettel wins F1 pole; Canadian Wickens also on top

SATURDAY AFTERNOON UPDATE:

Robert Wickens of Guelph and Toronto won the World Series by Renault race today at Barcelona, giving him a nine-point lead over teammate Jean Eric Vergne of France going into the last race of the Formula Renault 3.5 season on Sunday.

Wickens led Vergne across the line by 20 seconds.

Speaking about his fifth victory of the season, the 22-year-old Canadian said:  “My goal going into the weekend was to win on Saturday and I’m happy I was able to achieve that. The whole weekend so far has gone to plan; we started off strong and after I got the pole position I was confident that if I could hold the lead I would be in good shape. 

Earlier . . .

F1 ROBBING FANS, VIEWERS BY NOT INSISTING TEAMS MAKE QUALIFYING EFFORT

Sebastien Vettel won the pole Saturday for Sunday's Japanese Grand Prix while Canadian F1 hope Robert Wickens won the pole for the first race of the World Series by Renault finale at Barcelona.

Oh, and Greg Biffle won the pole for the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race at Kansas Sunday.

Vettel won his 12^th pole of the season, beating Button by 0.009 seconds. It was up to the Englishman to beat the German driver’s time at the last second but he just missed as the clock timing the session ran out.

Vettel will win his second consecutive world championship of drivers in the Japanese race Sunday by one of two ways: scoring one point or Button failing to win the race.

Lewis Hamilton will start third in the second McLaren-Mercedes, with Ferrari drivers Felipe Massa and Fernando Alonso fourth and fifth. Vettel’s Red Bull-Renault teammate Mark Webber will go off sixth.

Michael Schumacher (Mercedes), Vitaly Petrov (Renault), Bruno Senna (ditto) and Kamui Kobayashi (Sauber-Ferrari) round out the top ten.

Nico Rosberg driving the second Mercedes suffered a hydraulic problem and never got out to qualify, so will start 23^rd, a spot in front of Antonio Luizzi, who crashed his HRT-Cosworth in practice.

The last four drivers in the top ten didn’t leave the garage in final qualifying. They and their teams should all be fined thousands of dollars for that stunt, which is now happening at all the Grands Prix.

Drivers of cars other than the top three teams – Ferrari, Red Bull and McLaren – know they probably don’t have a chance of improving their positions so they don’t even try. This is allegedly to save wear and tear on the cars, the tires in particular, and the drivers.

But it’s F1 arrogance and nothing else.

Those people are always talking about "the show" and what they can do to improve it for the paying and the viewing public. So every two or three or four years, organizers have to make a change in the qualifying procedure to ensure that everybody gives it a good shot.

But then somebody finds a loophole and the show suffers.

Michael Schumacher and his team, for instance, might not be aware of this but people pay serious money to go and watch him give everything he’s got and when he doesn’t he’s cheating those people.

And he, and the team, are also taking a gamble that nothing will happen to the guys who usually wind up in the top six. What if Vettel and Alonso, say, had both crashed before setting a final time in the final 10 minutes of the last knockout session? That might have put Schuey up to fifth on the grid - or even further - and rewarded him, his team and his fans.

This nonsense also happened earlier in qualifying. The Toro Rosso team of Sebastien Buemi and Jaime Alguersuari had been in the top ten throughout practice. Then, after surviving the first knockout session, they each made one flying lap in the second session and never went out again. Thus, they are going off 15^th and 16^th.

Once again, the powers-that-be have to go to work to ensure that the participants play the game the way it was intended. Each qualifying session is supposed to be populated by the cars that are eligible and they are supposed to give their all.

The last 10 minutes of qualifying, in particular, are supposed to have 10 cars and drivers on track, no fewer. Maybe a $100,000 fine apiece might get their attention. And a change to the regulations making effort mandatory.

In Barcelona, meantime, two red flags created a very uncertain qualifying scenario for Carlin Motorsports teammates Wickens, of Guelph and Toronto, and his teammate, Jean Eric Vergne of France, who are the only two drivers remaining who can win the Formula 3.5 Series championship.

Wickens leads Vergne by two points and it will all come down to the races later Saturday and again Sunday.

Wickens responded to the challenge of qualifying and is on pole for the first race while Vergne will have to start ninth.

It’s a good start to the weekend for the 22-year-old Canadian, who has yet to win a major championship in Europe. He was second two years ago in Formula 2 and was second last year in GP3 which is close, but no cigar.

If he wants to make it to F1, Wickens has to win this championship.

In Kansas, Biffle will start on the front row for Roush-Fenway Racing, beside teammate Carl Edwards. Matt Kenseth and Kyle Busch are on row two.

And Greg Murphy is on pole for the famous Australian Bathurst 1000 race, which can be seen at 7 o’clock tonight on Speed Channel.