Jenson wins again… but Webber’s comeback is complete.

Let’s begin with a word to the wise; Sebastian Vettel wouldn’t have won Sunday’s Turkish Grand Prix, even if he hadn’t fallen off the road on the very first lap. He started - and stayed - on a three-stop strategy to Jenson Button’s ‘two-stopper’, so the Englishman would have won, anyway. But, in many ways - from where I was watching, in the BBC radio commentary-box - that wasn’t the story of the race.

Because, for me, what particularly caught my eye as Jenson Button raced away to yet another victory, was that Sunday’s event confirmed the return of Mark Webber to full race fitness. It’s been Sebastian Vettel - the younger, sexier one, maybe - who has received most of the Red Bull team’s media attention this year, but it was Webber who beat the young German to the Istanbul Park chequered flag and he’ll seek to use that momentum to secure what he’ll see as his ‘natural’ position as the team’s senior driver.

For those of you who don’t recall - and Mark has done a very good job of shrugging this off - Webber was horribly injured late last year whilst competing in a triathlon. He broke a leg, mangled one of his shoulders and is only now, I believe, nearing full recovery. Mark’s a really tough Aussie, so won’t want to use his injuries as any kind of excuse for any slightly below-par early-season race performances so I’ll do it for him. He was nowhere near race-ready in March or April, and his results during that period were actually little short of miraculous.

Bearing that in mind, the Red Bull team will surely be doing a rain-dance in preparation for Silverstone in a fortnight, because there’s absolutely no doubt in my mind that Adrian Newey’s car is the best there is in F1 under damp or wet conditions. Both Webber and Vettel appear to be in fine form, right now. And anyone who’s ever been to Silverstone during June will tell you that rain is always a distinct possibility.

Wet weather and a colder air temperature may help Ferrari, too. For whatever reason - and perhaps it’s somehow connected to their KERS system - Maranello’s cars rarely seem to prosper under very hot air and track conditions. That’s something which they really shouldn’t have to worry about at Silverstone, and their step forward at Barcelona - they were the quickest cars of all through that circuit’s first sector - shows that the Scuderia have a fundamentally fast car. Perhaps they might surprise us all in a fortnight.

Both Felipe Massa and Kimi Raikkonen, however, finished behind two men who I’d argue were the real stars of Sunday’s Turkish Grand Prix - Jarno Trulli and Nico Rosberg. Trulli hustled an uncompetitive-looking machine to a really excellent fourth-place result, whilst Rosberg was fast and sharp all weekend. And those fine finishes leave Toyota and Williams both particularly looking forward to the British Grand Prix, in a fortnight.

Up front, Turkey’s Grand Prix was a significant rather than sensationally exciting race, I felt. Because it proved that Brawn have maintained their gap ahead of the opposition, even after an enormous amount of time and money was spent by the better-funded teams on new ‘kit’ in the period leading up to the start of the European season. The rest of the field have improved their cars in that time since, no doubt, it’s just that Brawn have just drawn further ahead.

Theirs is a story which will inspire the many new entrants who are set on entering the F1 fray, next season. I’m all in favour of increasing the number of teams and cars in the Paddock, presuming that they’re all up to the correct F1 standard. Firstly, selfishly, because I think that they may offer me my best opportunity of getting back on to the Grand Prix grid for next season and, secondly, because I think that they’ll offer a greater number of good, young drivers an entry into Formula 1.

Maybe this is a strange idea for the outside world to grab a hold of - we’re not even half-way through the Grand Prix season, after all - but this, traditionally, is the key time of the year for drivers to start talking to teams about next year, and vice versa. And I’m talking to a few people about a drive for next year, but can’t tell you who.

Quite obviously, it won’t do my profile any harm if I win at Le Mans next week, but I have to admit that’s unlikely. My Aston-Martin is a petrol-engined car, you see, and all the smart money seems to be on yet another victory for a diesel-powered machine. But an awful lot can happen during a 24-hour race, and I can guarantee that I’ll be giving it my all behind the steering-wheel for hours on end. And, whatever happens, I reckon that my Aston is the nicest-sounding car in the field, so that can’t be bad.