National Post from Toronto, Ontario, Canada • 93

DRIVER'S EDGE IIRACING DT3 NATIONAL POST, FRIDAY, JUNE 21, 2002 Driver standings Looking for small victories MINARDI'S MARK WEBBER NASCAR WINSTON CUP (after 18 races) 1. Sterling Marlin, 2,164 points 2. Jimmie Johnson, 2,054 2. Jeff Gordon, 2,054 4. Mark Martin, 1,990 5.

Matt Kenseth, 1,974 6. Rusty Wallace, 1,972 7. Tony Stewart, 1,935 8. Ricky Rudd, 1,870 9. Kurt Busch, 1,838 10.

Bill Elliott, 1,825 CART (after six races) 1. Cristiano da Matta, 74 points 2. Bruno Junqueira, 54 2. Michel Jourdain, 54 4. Dario Franchitti, 49 5.

Christian Fittipaldi, 43 6. Patrick Carpentier, 38 7. Michael Andretti, 34 7. Scott Dixon, 34 9. Paul Tracy, 32 9.

Max Papis, 32 FORMULA ONE (after eight races) 1. Michael Schumacher, 70 2. Ralf Schumacher, 27 2. Juan Montoya, 27 4. David Coulthard, 26 5.

Rubens Barrichello, 16 6. Jenson Button, 8 7. Kimi Raikkonen, 7 8. Giancarlo Fisichella, 6 9. Nick Heidfeld, 5 10.

Jarno Trulli, 4 Mark Webber is hoisted in celebration by crew members after scoring points in the Australian Grand Prix. Picks and predictions Right 0 -ft ,3 rytif 'g team the cognoscenti refer to as an "Fl minnow." Still, it is not just points that motivate Webber. Winning is out of the question, but he is hoping to gain a lot of experience with Minardi, and he knows it is serving as a doorway into Formula One for him, as it has for other drivers in the past. That list includes the likes of Jarno Trulli and Giancarlo Fisichella, who are now with larger teams with larger budgets and better opportunities to score points. They may even win one if the moon is right.

Until then, what keeps him going on a race-by-race basis are small victories. "I've had plenty of victories this year. Our team's had plenty. Out-qualifying certain teams, out-racing certain teams at Monaco. They're huge positives for us.

It's a little bit of egg on their face that Minardi has managed to do that with such a small team. "It does ruffle the other guys up quite a bit. That's the positives that we all draw from." It is tough, Webber admits, to find himself on the last row so often. He has to question whether he got the most out of the car and the laps at hand. If the answer is yes, it helps ease the pain.

This is, after all, the toughest part of the season for Minardi. Its best chance to add more points to its total of two, the team's first since 1999, was the Monaco GP. "Monaco was a great chance for us to do well and we did make an impression." But the team did not add to its total, finishing 11th. There is, of course, one more source of inspiration for any Formula One driver. "You want to blow your teammate away.

Any guy would be lying if they said they don't want to trash their teammate. He's the only guy with the same equipment as you, so when Alex Yoong is close to me, I'm not happy. Michael Schumacher is the same with Rubens Bar-richello and Jenson Button is the same with Jarno Trulli. "I wasn't happy to see myself qualify second-last in Canada, but I was happy to see myself one second off Jacques Villeneuve. I was 1.2 seconds off David Coulthard and he's driving a McLaren on the same tires.

That's not much. Little positives like that are what you have to keep looking at." As the track cleared following the Canadian Grand Prix, which Webber left with an llth-place finish, someone mentioned to him he had been the quickest of all through the hairpin. I have no idea if this is true, but if it is, it's just the kind of small victory Webber would latch on to, at least until the big victories come. National Post I By Andrew Ross When you are ace Ferrari driver Michael Schumacher, winner of 59 Grands Prix, the source of your motivation is clear winning races and championships (though he claims to be doing it just for fun these days). When you are Mark Webber and the Formula One car you drive is a Minardi, you have to take a different approach.

"For sure our goals are different from when I was racing in Formula 3000 or Formula 3 and winning races. I'm never going to beat a Ferrari, a McLaren or a Williams," says Webber. "If Michael Schumacher was in a Minardi, he'd never win either. It's a financial and personnel and resources thing. Not everyone can win." Webber, who hails from Australia, says he views his time at the Minardi team as a stepping stone, and he made a great leap at the Australian Grand Prix, the first race of the 2002 Fl season.

"It was my first GP for the team and in my home country and we got points. It was a fairy tale," he says, still with a sense of wonderment. "Melbourne was one of those things that you dream about, except I didn't even dream about it because I didn't think it was going to happen. It was a great weekend for us and it was a great dose of medicine for the team after a long hard winter." Minardi had been through much uncertainty in the off-season, and the team was even viewed as a questionable entrant this year. Webber says it is difficult to describe how hard it is for all but the very top teams to get any points in Formula One to people who do not already understand it.

"NASCAR could give you six billion points for a win, and you score 10 points in a Grand Prix. There are plenty of championships that decide to filter it down and have more points because it looks more impressive." But Webber's two markers were Minardi's first in three seasons. Coming to the European Grand Prix this weekend at the Niirbur-gring, it is still tied in the Constructors Championship with the better-funded Toyota team and ranked ahead of Jacques Villeneuve's mega-buck British American Racing team, which has continued to lay the golden goose egg. Minardi is also only one point behind Ford-funded Jaguar. Webber's 13th-place standing in the Drivers' Championship is equally uplifting.

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Broadcast time: Sunday, June 23, 8 a.m. on Speed andTSN. CART The CART boys get the weekend off before three weekends in a row, starting June 28-30 at Chicago. The Toronto Mol-son Indy goes July 5 to 7, then it's off to Cleveland from July 13 to 15. NASCAR The Winston Cup teams see how well they remember turning right at the Sears Point Raceway round of the series.

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