Mark Webber – A Career Retrospective
Wednesday, November 27th, 2013
Mark Webber is a race car driver, Ironically that’s one of the reasons he left the perceived pinnacle for a race car driver in Formula One and moved onto Sports Cars. He feels that Formula One has changed so much from when he started that guys who actually want to race and push hard are being penalized. It’s not something he enjoys and it’s not something he was willing to continue to do. That is the thing about Mark Webber, when everyone else associated with Formula One would construct an elaborate, un-offending explanation to explain away their retirement, Mark called it as he saw it. Just like he did throughout his whole career.
Mark grew up racing in rural Australia, Queenbeyan, New South Wales to be exact. Progressing through Karts he took the state championship before moving into the Australian Formula Ford Championship in 1994. Cutting his teeth in the open wheelers he showed constant improvement through the seasons and when a major sponsorship deal was signed by Australian telephone directory Yellow Pages he left the touring car stronghold of Australian racing to pursue his open wheel career in Europe.
Gaining some strong results in the British Formula Ford Championship Mark was able to make the move to Europe a permanent one. On route he was gaining exposure and building his name in Europe as well as his native country where he picked up the Australian Motorsport “Young Achiever” and “International Achiever” award in 1996. After successful testing with Alan Docking Racing he was signed for the 1997 season. This represented a graduation to Formula 3 but also the challenge of an increased racing budget needing to be obtained..
Mark made an immediate impact in Formula Fords getting victories on debut at several races, Including setting a lap record at Brands Hatch. Pushing through financial difficulties with a loan from well known Australian Rugby Union star David Campese he showed form consistently and was approached by Mercedes-AMG.
After testing in Austria, Mercedes took him on board as the works driver for the 1998 FIA GT Championship. This is a period Mark sites as a great period of learning for him. Learning from highly experienced drivers such as Bernd Schiender, Klaus Ludwig and Riccardo Zonto within his team he won five of the ten rounds partnering Bernd Schiender with the pair coming in second in overall standings for the season behind their Mercedes-AMG team mates.
In 1999 Marks career was thrown into turmoil when his Mercedes spectacularly flipped at high speeds at the Le-Mans 24 Hour Race. Due to issues with the Mercedes aerodynamics proven by a flip both in practice and warm up by Mark and during the race with team mate Peter Dumbrek the Mercedes campaign was ended for the year and Mark again looked to open wheelers to continue.
Mark got his break into Formula One as a test driver for the Arrows Team in 2000. He ran the Formula 3000 series under the guidance of Paul Stoddart concurrently producing solid results before moving to Bennetton as a test driver and then finally breaking into Formula One with a Stoddart owned Minardi team in 2002. This made Webber the First Australian to compete in Formula One since David Brabham. No mean feat for a boy from a country which has little to no support for open wheel drivers. Mark certainly had to do things the hard way.
After struggling through the season with an underfunded Minardi team Mark was still able to prove his raw skill and was quickly signed by Jaguar for the 2003 and 2004 seasons. Webber and Jaguar had mixed success for the two seasons including a DNF for the last race of the 2004 season, which was the last race for Jaguar in Formula One.
With Jaguars demise Webber jumped to Williams for the 2005-2006 seasons. After several DNF’S and not so great results, Webber was doing it tough and after some not so pleasant contract negotiations regarding the possibility of a third season driving with Williams Mark was off to Red Bull Racing to partner David Coulthard.
This is where Mark came into his own in a somewhat fractured team environment. He won his frst Grand Prix in 2009 in Germany and came within a whisker of winning the Drivers Championship in 2010. Webbers Red Bull time has been plagued with dramatic changes in Formula One racing with tyre preservation becoming increasing more important than going fast. Along with team politics and friction between Sebastian Vettel, Webbers Red Bull years have had plenty of ups and downs and took him up to his retirement in 2013 after the Brazil Grand Prix. His last seasons were plagued with mechanical difficulties and some say unfavourable breaks being delivered to him as the teams concentration laid with Vettel.
All through his career Webber was able to establish himself as a tough and very talented driver. Some say it was his positions in teams and the direction Formula One has taken which have left him not tasting championship success.
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