Mark Webber’s hard work on the opening lap of last night’s Singapore Grand Prix proved to be in vain when a highly questionable decision by the FIA stewards ordered him to concede two track positions for opting to avoid contact accident on the first lap!  As it turned out, it was all rather inconsequential as Webber’s race ended prematurely after his RB5 suffered suspected brake failure on lap 46, the Australian pitched into a violent spin at turn one before crashing backwards into the fence, thankfully with only a minor cut to his knee.

Starting from fourth place on the dirty side of the grid, Webber was always going to have his work cut out trying to stay ahead of fifth placed Fernando Alonso on the cleaner side of the track. And indeed, it was the Renault driver who made the better start but Webber wasn’t going to give up without a fight. 

“There’s so much at stake on the first lap of any race these days because it’s generally the only time you can overtake,” said Webber. “Fernando pulled alongside me on the run to the first corner and the gloves were off at turns one and two. It was a fair ding-dong. He almost had me into the wall at turn five but it was fine – we were racing.  We were both late on the brakes for turn seven and I could see Fernando out of control on the inside of me, sawing at the wheel as he was about to have a big moment over the kerbs as we were both too deep. I couldn’t get into the apex, if I had, we would have made contact and so we both ended up going behind the kerbs coming out of the exit.  On the run down to turn 8 I couldn’t see him at all. I lifted a bit because it had been 50/50 but when I looked in my mirrors he was still at turn seven having his moment.”

Alonso lost a further position to Timo Glock at turn eight while Webber continued to chase hard after his team-mate Sebastian Vettel, the two Red Bulls nicely placed in third and fourth behind race leader Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg who had beaten Vettel off the line.

However, despite there being no complaints from Alonso and Renault, Webber’s fate was sealed several laps later when he received the instruction from the stewards that he was to let Alonso back through which also meant letting Glock through in the process. Alonso and Glock ultimately went on to finish second and third behind race winner Hamilton.

Webber was forced to sit on Alonso’s tail for the remainder of his first stint which killed his pace before pitting on lap 18. However, with the race brought under the Safety Car a few laps later, he found himself pushed even further down the order when Jenson Button and Heikki Kovalainen pitted and jumped him.. On the restart, he regained a position when Nico Rosberg was given a drive through penalty for a pit-lane exit discretion which cost him a probably second place.

Webber remained entrenched in eighth position until Vettel was given a drive through penalty for allegedly speeding in the pit-lane which effectively destroyed his strong second place behind Hamilton. However, tell-tale signs of Webber’s imminent demise from the race became evident when his RB5 emitted a puff of dust from its front brakes. The team pitted him earlier than planned on lap 44 to check the brakes but although he was given the thumbs up to continue, he had only been out on track for less than a lap when he was sent into a spin and backwards in the wall after a brake failure.

“My engineer had his finger on the radio button to tell me to retire from the race but it was too late.”