Mark Webber

Mark Webber is having the best year of his career by a long way. Not only has the Australian driver established himself as one of the favourites for the Formula 1 World Championship, but he is also a firm contender to end the year on top of the Castrol Rankings.

A Hungarian Grand Prix victory that drew parallels with Michael Schumacher's Hungaroring drive in 1998 was his fourth of the year, each one coming after a front row start.

Lying just four points behind Lewis Hamilton in the fight for the world title after finishing second in Belgium, Webber has relegated his team-mate Sebastian Vettel to the role of supporting player within the Red Bull squad - even if nobody will admit it.

His Hungarian win, coupled with his second place in Belgium last weekend helped him edge ahead of rally superstar Sebastien Loeb and made him EDGE Performer of the Month for August.

NASCAR aces Carl Edwards and Juan Pablo Montoya and IndyCar champion Dario Franchitti also achieved some superb results in August and completed the top five in the Performer of the Month standings. There was no stopping Webber though, who claimed the monthly award for the second time this year.

Webber's stock as a driver has never been higher than it is right now. He has, after all, risen to number two in the Castrol Rankings. The 34-year-old Australian has taken a while to get there though.

His name first began to garner a bit of interest when, aged 19, he won the Formula Ford race that supported Adelaide's final Australian Grand Prix.

That led to an invite to come to Britain and race for the works Van Diemen squad the following season. Second in the British Championship was followed by victory in the prestigious Formula Ford Festival.

Ranking Year

Race-winning campaigns in British F3 and in the FIA GT Championship followed, as did a monumental crash in a Mercedes at Le Mans in '99. It was the last time he drove a sportscar.

He settled back into single-seaters in F3000 and finished second in the 2001 championship with Super Nova.

That was enough to get him an F1 race seat at the Minardi team run by fellow Australian Paul Stoddart. The hysterics that followed a fifth place finish on his debut - at, of all places, Melbourne - have become legendary.

After leaving Minardi, the following four years brought spells with Jaguar and Williams, but granted him just a single podium finish - at Monaco in '05.

While the rostrum milestone was overcome, even a switch to Red Bull brought him just one more by the end of '08, his second season with the Austrian-owned team.

For the first time in his F1 career, he was given a race-winning car last year in the shape of the Red Bull RB5, and it finally enabled him to end a 130-race wait for his maiden grand prix victory.

Even more impressive than the win itself - which came in Germany despite an early drive-through penalty - was that just seven months earlier Webber had broken a leg in a cycling accident. His victory was one of true Aussie grit.

Another win followed in Brazil, resulting in a career-best fourth place in the championship and an ascension from outside the Castrol Rankings top 30 at the start of the year to seventh by its end.

This year has been even better. Webber made a solid start, but exploded in May with back-to-back wins in Spain and Monaco. His form heaped pressure on his team-mate Sebastian Vettel, which probably had a hand in the pair colliding in Turkey.

A controlled victory in Britain was followed by the Hungaroring victory and second at Spa-Francorchamps. With the gap to Hamilton looking miniscule, the title fight threatens to go right to the wire.