Sebastian Vettel and Jamie Whincup live parallel lives Sebastian Vettel dominated Formula 1. The parallels between Sebastian Vettel and Jamie Whincup are striking, verging on uncanny. Both have been dominant in recent years, with Vettel winning four formula one world championships in a row and Whincup taking three V8 Supercars title in succession - and a record-equalling five in the past six years. But more than just being the best drivers of their generations, they share other similarities that have contributed to their successes. Both drive for Red Bull-backed teams that are the benchmarks in F1 and V8s respectively. Both have been pushed to their heights by veteran teammates who were still dangerously competitive - Vettel by 37-year-old Mark Webber and Whincup by 39-year-old Craig Lowndes. Neither Vettel nor Whincup is particularly popular, fans turned off by their overwhelming success and their perceived arrogance and clinical approach to winning. Vettel, 26, and Whincup, 30, are also young enough not to have reached their peaks, with the real prospect that they will establish more records for race wins and championships. Jamie Whincup dominated the V8 championship. Until he won the Bathurst 1000, Mark Winterbottom was the nearly man of V8 Supercars. Since 2006, "Frosty" Winterbottom had won races and was regularly a front-runner but he or his Ford Performance Racing team kept finding ways to lose Bathurst or the championship. They finally got it all together at Mount Panorama this year, out-thinking and out-running the crack combination of Jamie Whincup and Triple Eight Holden. Winterbottom and his veteran co-driver Steve Richards were solid after recovering from Frosty's startline stumble, while FPR read the strategic play correctly for a change. But it was Frosty's ice-cool driving in the final stages, when Whincup was closing on him relentlessly, that was the difference between a redeeming win and an heroic defeat. On Winterbottom's bumper going into the final lap, Whincup wasn't going to be left wondering and tried to throw his Commodore around Winterbottom's Falcon on the outside of the uphill second turn. It was an all-or-nothing move that would have rattled a lesser driver but Frosty resisted and the race was over. Although safer than it has ever been, motor racing is still dangerous. Freak crashes can have fatal consequences despite improved car designs and better track safety. Among the reminders that it remains a risky business were the deaths of popular sports car drivers Allan Simonsen and Sean Edwards in very different incidents. Simonsen, a peripatetic Dane, was an accomplished GT competitor who was also highly regarded in Australia, in demand as a pacesetting lead driver in GT races and competitive co-driver in V8 Supercars long-distance races. He died just minutes into the Le Mans 24 Hours when his Aston Martin slid off on a damp portion of track and slammed awkwardly into a steel barrier that was hard up against a tree. His death shocked the international racing community. Edwards was also highly rated and was poised to win the Porsche Supercup series - run as support races at European F1 events - until his fateful visit to Australia in mid-October. He was on a flying visit to coach young Porsche driver Will Holzheimer in a private test session at Queensland Raceway. Edwards was a passenger when Holzheimer's car speared off the track into a tyre barrier at high speed, with the young Briton suffering fatal injuries. Holzheimer is still recovering from serious injuries. Edwards was the son of 1970s F1 racer Guy Edwards, who was awarded the Queen's Gallantry Medal for his part in saving Niki Lauda from the burning wreck of his Ferrari during the 1976 German Grand Prix. Sean Edwards drove some of the cars in the racing movie Rush, including playing his father in the Lauda rescue scene. There were many close calls, with drivers - and spectators - surviving huge crashes. Among the miraculous escapes were those by IndyCar ace Dario Franchitti and V8 Supercars star James Courtney. Franchitti suffered career-ending head, spinal and ankle injuries in a spectacular aerial accident at the Houston street race in September. The US-based Scot's car was launched into the air after running into the back of another, flying high into the safety fencing and tearing a big hole in the protective steel mesh amid flying debris. Franchitti, 40, announced his retirement from racing soon afterwards, ending his hopes of adding to his remarkable record of four IndyCar championships and three Indianapolis 500 victories since 2007. At Phillip Island last month, Courtney's HRT Commodore was hit in the driver's door by Frenchman Alex Premat's similar Holden. A wheel failure sent Premat's car off into the grass approaching a tight turn, skidding out of control and backwards towards the corner as the rest of the field filed through. It launched off the inside kerbing, slamming into Courtney's car. It was a massive impact that wrecked both cars and crushed the side intrusion section of the roll cage into Courtney, who suffered a broken leg that sidelined him from last weekend's Sydney 500. Although he wasn't badly hurt, the concern was that it was subsequently found that a couple of roll cage bracing bars fractured. V8 technical officials are investigating to determine whether the improved side impact safety measures of the New Generation V8 racers need further improvement. V8 legend Mark Skaife had an early-hours run-in with Holden Motorsport's media manager Gerald McDornan at a bar in Austin, Texas, the night/morning after the series inaugural (and possibly last) appearance in North America at the Circuit of the Americas in May. Long story cut short, McDornan punched Skaife after a physical altercation, claiming self-defence. Although a report was filed to local police, no charges were laid. In any other major sport, such an incident involving a former champion competitor turned TV commentator and senior adviser (Skaife was also chairman of the V8 Supercars Commission at the time) would have been widely reported. It has also been learnt that Holden Racing Team driver James Courtney and V8 series course commentator Chris Jewell came to blows during a heated confrontation after the sport's awards dinner in Sydney on Monday night. It was also kept under wraps outside the V8 inner circle, until now.