Webber frustrated by team orders
Monday 11th July 2011
Mark Webber has admitted ignoring team orders has landed him in hot water with Red Bull team principal Christian Horner.
It was after his victory in last year's British Grand Prix that Webber uttered one of the quotes of the season when he said: "Not bad for a number two driver."
That followed a team decision to hand Sebastian Vettel a new front wing removed from Webber's car after his own had failed in practice ahead of qualifying.
One year on and Webber found himself hounding Vettel over the final laps of this season's race at Silverstone, pushing for second behind eventual winner Fernando Alonso.
With memories fresh of the duo's collision in last year's Turkish Grand Prix, Webber was told on at least four occasions to hold position.
The Australian, however, was not listening and at one point came close to squeezing past Vettel down the old pit straight.
Come the finish, the 34-year-old was forced to settle for third to now lie 80 points behind Vettel, something that clearly aggrieved him.
Told that Horner said he "should be fine" with the decision, an unhappy Webber said: "I'm not fine with it, no.
"If Fernando had retired on the last lap then we would have been fighting for victory. I was fighting until the end.
"I ignored the team because I wanted to try and get another place. Seb was doing his best, I was doing my best."
Asked about the sequence of messages, Webber added: "There was a lot of traffic coming to me. I wasn't talking too much back.
"I just wanted to race to the end, but with four or five laps to go they started to chat to me about holding my position.
"Of course, they want the points, but I also need to try and get some points as well."
Horner, however, has admitted he will be holding "private" talks with Webber which will almost certainly entail him reminding his driver of his responsibilities to the team.
Horner said: "About four laps from the end we felt it had gone far enough.
"From a team point of view, there was a big haul of points on the table and it made absolutely no sense to risk seeing both cars in the fence and coming back on a tow truck.
"His engineer asked him to maintain the gap a lap or two before my intervention. It was pretty clear Mark had chosen to ignore that.
"There comes a point in a race where it would be absolute stupidity to allow them to jeopardise it. We'd have looked pretty stupid if they'd crashed.
"Both drivers are now first and second in the world championship, and we're not going to do anything to jeopardise that."
Horner has admitted to being stunned by Webber's decision, adding: "It's something that he and I will talk about in private.
"At the end of the day the team is the biggest thing. No individual is bigger than the team.
"I can understand Mark's frustration in that, but had it been the other way round, it would have been exactly the same.
"I made it quite clear to both drivers this morning [Sunday] - in front of the engineers - the biggest thing was about getting a team result in front of all of the staff that put in so much effort into both those cars."
It was suggested to Vettel his second place was 'a sham', and that the best driver in the world should not have to resort to the team giving him a helping hand.
But the cool 24-year-old said: "I tried to stay ahead. Obviously we are racing each other. There's nothing wrong with that.
"Surely from the team point of view, if you have the cars quite isolated in second and third then there is no point in racing.
"There is no point trying to do something stupid because the points for the team are the same, and the difference between second and third is not massive."
Credit: ESPN STAR (www.espnstar.com)
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