The Monaco Grand Prix carries the same points as the other 18 Formula One races this year, but for prestige and kudos it's worth more than all the others put together.

Winning on the streets of the glamorous Mediterranean principality on Sunday was the best moment of Australian F1 driver Mark Webber's racing career.

Only a world title could top it.

Webber is now joint leader in the world championship, with his German wunderkind teammate Sebastian Vettel.

If the championship finished now, Webber would be champion because he has two wins this season to Vettel's one.

The German remains a slight favourite, but at the moment Webber has the better of him and it will fascinating to see how the "kid" - he's still only 22 - handles it; whether he is indeed of Senna or Schumacher (in his prime) class.

Webber's performances in Barcelona and Monaco in the space of eight days were absolutely faultless.

He's polarized public opinion at home - particularly in the "nanny state" controversy, most recently for hanging up on a radio interviewer who dared touch on the subject, and for his sometimes dorky manner.

Surely though any fair-minded Australian would love to see one of our own win a world title.

That aside, this author will wonder, until the mathematics say otherwise, whether the Melbourne incident alluded to here a week ago may yet prove decisive.

While Webber and Vettel have the machine to turn this into a two-man title tussle, nine drivers are in it for now - although Michael Schumacher may almost be out of calculations if the penalty that dropped him from sixth to 12th in Monaco, for overtaking Fernando Alonso illegally at the last corner, stands.

Ted Kravitz, the BBC pitlane reporter, writes an excellent post-race column on that organisation's website and revealed there after the Barcelona race that the secret to the stunning speed of Red Bull's RB6 car may be its unusual low-slung exhausts somehow making its aerodynamics so superior.

Webber's Monaco victory was the first by an Australian on those streets since 1959, when Sir Jack Brabham won - and he went on to world titles that year and the next with the Cooper team, and again in 1966 - that time, uniquely, in a car bearing his own name and with an Aussie-built Repco engine. That famous BT19 has only now been enshrined in a 1/43-scale model.

It is three decades since Australia last had an F1 world championship contender. Alan Jones won in 1980 and, with an ounce more luck, might have done the same in 1979 and '81.

If Webber does win the title, he will have something more in common with Brabham and Jones, in that all were/will be unlikely champions.

Brabham came out of speedway racing - more of a breeding ground for American-style Indy, oval-track racing than the road circuits of Europe that made up almost the entire F1 championship in his day.

Jones was no standout until a fortuitous "marriage" to the Williams team that hit its straps in the late '70s. He was the right man in the right place at the right time.

Webber may be, too.

There's even been talk in recent days of him being offered a drive next year with the most revered of all teams, Ferrari, alongside dual world champion Alonso.

But what could be better for him than a Red Bull car right now?

Niki Lauda, a triple world champ (and it should have been four times), says Webber is "absolutely unbeatable" at the minute.

"Vettel's problem is that suddenly his greatest enemy is within his own team, just as it was with myself at McLaren with Alain Prost," Lauda says.

Austrian Gerhard Berger, a winner of 10 GPs, including two in Adelaide, was glowing of Webber at Monaco, where he says "the driver can still make a big difference".

"We are seeing that it is not only the car but also the driver," Berger says.

And Sir Frank Williams, whose cars Jones drove at his peak and later had a succession of other champions, now admits he was wrong in his assessment of Webber when he had him in his stable in 2005-06.

"When we had him our car was a disappointment and we felt that he was part of the problem, but he probably wasn't, actually, with hindsight," Williams says.

"He has developed himself, believed in himself I am sure, and probably charmed everyone around him at Red Bull.

"Mark has risen, there is no question.

"Two or three years ago I would have said that Mark put himself under too much pressure, but I don't see any evidence of that now.

"He is cool and calm within himself, and what you are seeing is real.

"He has worked very hard. He's very impressive."

Webber was particularly chuffed that his name will go on the Monaco honour board with great names like Senna, the Brazilian six-time winner in the principality, and Brabham.

But of the bigger picture he says: "To get 50 points from the last two races is awesome, but there is a long, long way still to go. We've got so many different conditions and tracks coming up - there are many exciting times to come."

And speaking of exciting times to come, another Aussie is now at the very doorstep of F1.

Daniel Ricciardo, from Perth, (pictured, above right) is still six weeks away from his 21st birthday but he won a race too in Monaco on Sunday - in the World Series by Renault, against 23 other F1 aspirants from around the world in 3.5-litre open-wheeler cars - barely two hours before Webber.

Ricciardo's now won 22 races in Europe in 2½ years. He's already the reserve driver for Red Bull Racing.

Instead of following a traditional route through the Australian Formula Ford Championship, he has been racing overseas for 4½ years in cars with aerodynamic wings and slick tyres.

He came through a big F1 test in Spain at the end of last year with flying colours.

Webber has been quietly mentoring him and David Brabham - the youngest of Sir Jack's sons, a former F1 driver too and winner of last year's Le Mans 24-hour sports car classic - says Ricciardo "could be the best yet to come out of Australia".

Further down the track is a youngster from Mt Gambier, Scott Pye, also 20 and who has won four of the six races so far in this year's British Formula Ford Championship through which many F1 drivers have graduated.

Pye's teammate is Josh Hill, son of 1996 world champion Damon and grandson of dual champion Graham. The young Hill has won only once race against Pye.

It's too early to assess Pye's chances of making it to the very top level, and certainly he will need to get into wings-and-slicks cars quickly.

Ricciardo already is at the door, but even if he has to cool his heels a year or two for it to open - most likely with Red Bull's smaller sister team Toro Rosso (meaning Red Bull in Italian) - he'll still be only 21 or 22.

In the meantime Australian eyes - and those of the world now - will be on Webber, rising 34, and perhaps yet our next, unlikely F1 world champion.