Grace under pressure

By DAVID GREEN

A weekend ago, when qualifying was finished for the Chinese Grand Prix, Renault's Fernando Alonso was on the pole with teammate Giancarlo Fisichella alongside on the front row. Michael Schumacher's Ferrari was back in the third row. Schumacher, chasing the reigning champion Alonso, had sliced a 25-point deficit to a mere 2 points going into the Shanghai race.

As the qualifying session ended, chatter on the Renault team radios, broadcast by Speed, featured someone referring sarcastically to "poor old Michael."

Schumacher laughed last on that weekend, though, after a masterful drive to victory. Combined with Alonso's second-place finish, it lifted Schumacher into a tie in points, but because of his seven victories to Alonso's six, it meant the seven-time champion had actually edged ahead of Alonso with two races to go.

No doubt, Schumacher had claimed an edge in the mental aspect of the battle. Alonso was definitely showing signs of cracking under the stress of their championship fight. He complained that his team was not giving him proper support, and he criticized Fisichella for attempting to overtake him in the middle stages of the race as Alonso led, with Schumacher a close third.

In NASCAR, the Chase for the Cup format guarantees every championship fight will be just as close as the two-driver fight in this year's Formula One season, with even more drivers in the mix. It also guarantees that we will get a chance to see which drivers and their teams handle the pressure-cooker atmosphere of such a showdown.

So far, the greatest poise is being shown by Joe Gibbs Racing and its rookie championship contender, Denny Hamlin. Team and driver are both quietly putting together a solid performance and it has Hamlin in second place in points after three races. The Gibbs team also has a victory by non-Chase driver Tony Stewart, the reigning Cup champ.

High marks also go to Richard Childress Racing, which has the leading driver -- Jeff Burton -- and the fifth-place guy -- Kevin Harvick -- going into Talladega. The RCR team showed some angry emotion after an unconfirmed report by Speed's Bob Dillner accused them of using wheels that supposedly had been altered in violation of NASCAR rules, but while Harvick's performance seemed to go on a rollercoaster ride, Burton soared to his first victory in five years, at Dover. He followed that up with a fifth at Kansas that put him atop the standings.

Roush Racing also has two top-five drivers in third-place Mark Martin and fourth-place Matt Kenseth. There were signs of stress late in the Dover race when, after he came out second-best in a spectacular battle for the lead with Burton, Kenseth ran out of gas. "This is stupid," the normally stoic Kenseth radioed his crew as his car sputtered. And Martin, of course, has become a lame duck in the Roush No. 6 Ford, having announced a deal to run a part-time Cup schedule next year in an MB2 Motorsports Chevrolet.

Surprisingly, the Goliath of the Chase -- Hendrick Motorsports -- is languishing, with its drivers in sixth, eight and ninth place. Kyle Busch, who started the Chase among the circuit's hottest drivers, has stumbled badly. Jeff Gordon saw a promising finish go away at Kansas when the fuel pump in his Chevy failed. Jimmie Johnson continues to be victimized by the most bizarre of occurrences.

Seventh and 10th are Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Kasey Kahne. Junior and the Dale Earnhardt Inc. team seem unable to get their program back to the level it enjoyed in 2004, when Junior rose to the top of the standings with a victory at Talladega. That lead was short-lived, as Earnhardt was docked 25 points for using foul language in a televised victory interview. The team has never fully recovered from that setback.

Kahne, after seeing his efforts thwarted in his first two Cup seasons, finally made the Chase field this year. Making the cut was the last good thing to happen to Kahne and the Evernham Motorsports team.

As every Chase driver (except Kahne and Busch) will quickly affirm, it's way too early to start making determinations about how things are going to turn out. There are still many unanswered questions.

Will Hamlin pull off a championship in his first Cup season? (My guess -- it's possible.)

Will Burton maintain his performance and finally win the championship that he seemed destined to win in the late 1990s? (Good chance of it.)

Will Harvick regain the form that carried him into the Chase with the favorite's role and take the big prize? (It could happen.)

Will Roush win a third championship in four years? (Possibly, if Martin can take his performance up a notch or Kenseth can get back to the error-free level where his Robbie Reiser-led team usually operates.)

Will Johnson or Gordon race out from underneath the monkeys that seem to have perched on the top of their cars? (For sure, both have been on the outs with Lady Luck for a long time now. Who knows when that might change?)

Will Earnhardt Jr. regain his old form at Talladega, bounce back into contention, and keep his victory lane interview G-rated? (A 33rd-place qualifying run suggests no chance of the former, and, consequently, no worries about the latter.)

And finally, is it really over for Busch and Kahne? (The guess here is, yes.)