Q&A with Red Bull’s Mark Webber
Mark Webber celebrated his 35th birthday in Spa-Francorchamps on Saturday with the announcement he would drive for Red Bull for another year and P3 on the Belgian grid. Webber evaluates his Saturday form…
Q: First of all, happy birthday! Is P3 a good enough present for you?
Mark Webber: I am a little disappointed I have to say. But it goes with the territory if you have sessions like that, especially in Q1 or Q2. We saw the same with Jenson Button in trouble and obviously Michael (Schumacher) had an interesting session too. Things like these happen very quickly, and before you know it, you are in trouble. I’m on row two and maybe more would have been possible. I set a good lap in the end. In Q3 we obviously went on to the slick tyres. I’m disappointed because I went too quickly too soon, as I thought the rain might come back, and therefore I did not have peak-grip at the end of the session. I had pole at the wrong part of the session.
Q: Under these conditions, how much does it come down to gambling?
MW: It doesn’t have a huge amount to do with gambling, as we cannot do much about the set-up. The set-up has to work in all conditions, as you make your choice on Friday. With the tyres it gets pretty much self-explanatory which ones you need to use. The track is drying up very fast, so the hardest part is to adapt to new conditions, and then it is very easy to run into mistakes.
Q: So how are you approaching the race then?
MW: To start with, it is always a very enjoyable Grand Prix. To be an hour and a half on the limit is what we love doing. You pressurise yourself to achieve a good result. I hope that we can have a good and clean race, and that I have a good start, with a good strategy in place and no problems at the pit stops.
Q: When there’s tricky weather your competitors possibly assume that they have a better chance of beating Red Bull. But you are again at the front…
MW: Everyone wants to see us fail, and especially in tricky conditions. But we are a well-organized team, and also the drivers are not so bad. In the end it is the same for all. If we are in trouble, so are they.
Credit: Formula One Administration Ltd (www.formula1.com)
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