Mark’s Abu Dhabi Preview
POSTED ON November 11th, 2011
This weekend’s Abu Dhabi Grand Prix is the penultimate round of the 2011 World Championship. Mark goes into the race seeking his 10th podium of the year in what will be his 175th F1 start.
“It would be nice to stand on the middle step on Sunday,” he says. ” Any grand prix victory is special and it would be very satisfying to win here. But we know McLaren will be strong and Seb [Vettel] will be strong as well, so I’ll need to put everything together from the outset. But I don’t think it’s unrealistic to think I can be ahead with a few laps to go.”
Mark has finished on the podium in Abu Dhabi once before, when he came home in second place at the inaugural event in 2009. But the track isn’t on his list of favourites – at least not yet.
“I disliked Imola for ages,” says Mark. “Then I won there and loved it! It’s normal for a sportsman to have venues that he likes more than others; a golfer can certainly relate to that. If you get a hole in one, you probably love the course.”
He enters this weekend with 221 points, which is one more than he had at the same stage of the world championship last year. But Vettel’s runaway success in 2011 leaves him battling for second place in the standings, along with Jenson Button, Fernando Alonso and Lewis Hamilton.
“Momentum is a funny thing,” says Mark. “Seb’s had a great run since the end of last year, but things can change very quickly in F1. The devil is in the detail and you’ve got to maximise your opportunities. There’s no doubt he’ll be strong here because he’s always been good through low-speed corners and there are plenty of them.”
Last year’s title decider in Abu Dhabi was blighted by a lack of overtaking. There were only 11 passing manoeuvres in the whole race, but Mark hopes the situation will be improved by the presence of two DRS zones this year.
“The DRS is only going to help around here,” he says. “But whether that’s enough, we’ll have to wait and see. The zones look a sniff late to me, but it’s a fine line. If they’re too early the passing moves are too straightforward; if they’re too late they don’t have much effect, like we’ve seen in the last few races. In India we had the world’s longest straight from Delhi to Mumbai, but we still couldn’t do anything on it!”
Credit: Mark Webber (www.markwebber.com)
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