Formula 1

keithroosters · Post by **keithroosters** » Wed Jun 10, 2009 5:29 am

yeah iit was a good race. had me biting my nails towards the end. your right, webber is only 1.5 points behind vettel. hes finished higher up than his teamate 7 out of 5 races. red bull dont seem to realise this though and IMO are treating webber as the backup drives! silverstone should be absolutely awesome. its a sellout crowd.

dibo · Post by **dibo** » Wed Jun 10, 2009 8:48 am

if it rains, it could actually come down to a red bull ding-dong battle. in malaysia those cars seemed to work very very well, and webber and vettel both seem to be absolute ducks (like the water). let's just hope vettel isn't following webber under the safety car sometime...

keithroosters · Post by **keithroosters** » Wed Jun 10, 2009 10:48 am

hahaha fuji was good that year. vettel was literally crying in the pitlane after that. i still maintain webber would have won that race. agree the red bulls were amazing in the wet. the brauns quite the opposite, no heat in the tires at all

keithroosters · Post by **keithroosters** » Tue Jun 23, 2009 2:45 pm

column by mark webber in todays tele. says what every F1 fan in Aus was thinking. it was what could have been on the weekend. bloody hell vetel is a smug bastard!

THE British Grand Prix ended in another brilliant one-two for Red Bull Racing. It was the team's second clean-sweep of the year, the other being China, and it was nothing less than we deserved. The guys at our Milton Keynes factory buried themselves to get the latest round of developments on to the RB5 at Silverstone, so this result was nothing less than they deserved.

Of course I was disappointed not to win, but after starting from the second row and getting held up by Rubens Barrichello for the opening 19 laps of the race, second place was the best I could manage. I was happy with the way I drove and this was my fourth podium finish in eight races, which shows a pretty incredible level of consistency.

In reality, I lost my shot at victory on Saturday afternoon. My final lap of qualifying was ruined by Kimi Raikkonen, who baulked me on the approach to Stowe corner, which left me with a near-impossible task on Sunday afternoon. Sebastian Vettel drove a strong opening stint of the race while I was stuck behind Barrichello and he was 20 seconds up the road by the time I had some clear track ahead of me. Had I started the race on the front row, it might have been a different story.

I've had numerous new parts on the RB5 at Silverstone and it was sensational to drive all weekend. The only performance glitch came after my second pitstop, on lap 47, when the engineers noticed some bodywork damage to the rear of my car. I'm not sure how it happened - perhaps some debris on the track damaged it - but the result was that I had to run a different gear pattern for the final stint. That meant using sub-optimal gears through several corners and, from that moment on, it became a matter of nursing the car home.

On the slowing-down lap I caught up with Sebastian and we cruised back to the pits in formation. We received a fantastic reception from the British fans, who really love motorsport, and it brought home to me what a travesty it will be if there's no British Grand Prix next year. There have been suggestions that Donington Park, which has the contract to stage the race from 2010, won't be ready and if that's the case I hope we return to Silverstone. It's an amazing racetrack with a lot of history attached to it.

We now have a three-week break before the next race in Germany and I'm taking the opportunity to have the two locking screws at the bottom of my right shin taken out. When I broke the leg in Tasmania last November, the screws were inserted into the tibia to keep the titanium rod in position, but the bone has recovered sufficiently for the screws to be removed, which is great news. It's not a big operation, just a local anaesthetic.

I'm then pretty busy before the next race. Next Saturday I'm heading to Cardiff in Wales to support fellow Aussie (and Red Bull rider) Jason Crump in the British Speedway Grand Prix. He's leading the World Championship, so it'll be good to see him in action. Then, on Sunday, I'm rounding off my two-wheeled bonanza by heading to Donington Park to watch the British round of the World Superbike Championship. I've ridden bikes for longer than I've raced cars, so I'm really looking forward to it

the crow · Post by **the crow** » Wed Jun 24, 2009 7:38 pm

The race was a bore...they just concentrated on the shittish racers in 6th and 16th

dibo · Post by **dibo** » Wed Jun 24, 2009 11:15 pm

keithroosters wrote:hahaha fuji was good that year. vettel was literally crying in the pitlane after that. i still maintain webber would have won that race. agree the red bulls were amazing in the wet. the brauns quite the opposite, no heat in the tires at all

webber has since said that if vettel had been bigger than him he would have hit him.

mind you, they seem to be getting along alright* this year.

* for a given value of alright - teammate relationships can be fraught sometimes, not least between ayrton senna and gerhard berger back in the day - berger one day decided that it would be a great laugh if he threw ayrton's briefcase out of a helicopter and it's fair to say that the brazilian was somewhere short of thrilled.

yob · Post by **yob** » Wed Jun 24, 2009 11:40 pm

I was pretty devo when Senna died.

the crow · Post by **the crow** » Fri Jun 26, 2009 7:02 pm

me too i remember watching the race and thinking thats not good...his races with Prost were great to watch...my next big OS holiday i think will be in italy so i can go to the track where he passed away tragicly so i can pay my respects.

on another note ONE is showing isle of man TT on Sunday night.......after the Assen GP...its gonna be so good.

keithroosters · Post by **keithroosters** » Sat Jul 11, 2009 11:05 pm

webbers on pole for germany!

hot_dogma · Post by **hot_dogma** » Sun Jul 12, 2009 1:16 pm

Ha! Webber namedrops my cousin whom I haven't seen since 1991 in Mildura lol.

the crow · Post by **the crow** » Sun Jul 12, 2009 4:22 pm

keithroosters wrote:webbers on pole for germany!

NICE JOB....funnel......first Australian on the pole since Alan Jones in 1980......now take it all the way champ.

beastjim · Post by **beastjim** » Sun Jul 12, 2009 11:59 pm

M Webber gets the business done, and the first Aussie to win a Grand Prix Race since 1981.

I personally think some credit to the people that believed in him for such a long time, he has been racing for a long time without much to hang his hat on. Now he finally has a car performing well, and he is showing why some people held the faith.

Jeffles · Post by **Jeffles** » Mon Jul 13, 2009 9:07 am

Yeah he's been through a bit. When he finished 5th at Albert Park at the beginning I thought it wouldn't be long before he crosses the line. It's been bloody ages.

It was funny to listen to his cheering inside the car when he won.

keithroosters · Post by **keithroosters** » Mon Jul 13, 2009 10:54 am

been wating eight years for last night. its great to see he thanked the fans back in australia quite a lot. he was unbelievably happy when he crossed the line and its great to see a sportsman show pure emotion. now on to leapfrogging vetel in the standings next race!

deejaybee · Post by **deejaybee** » Mon Jul 13, 2009 5:35 pm

beastjim wrote:M Webber gets the business done, and the first Aussie to win a Grand Prix Race since 1981.

I personally think some credit to the people that believed in him for such a long time, he has been racing for a long time without much to hang his hat on. Now he finally has a car performing well, and he is showing why some people held the faith.

I know its of little use coming out of the woodwork now...but I've never doubted his ability to win races, although it was starting to get uncanny with the amount of car problems whenever he is in a decent position.

I'm proud that he's Australian.