Mark Webber’s European Grand Prix came to a premature end on Sunday when he suffered a horrifying accident at 300kph. At the time of the crash on lap nine, he was fighting his way through tailenders, having made an earlier than scheduled pitstop, and he made contact with Heikki Kovalainen’s Lotus who was racing for position.
“Initially, I thought Heikki was going to let me through without a fight,” says Mark, “but as we approached Turn 12 he started moving towards the middle of the track. As I pulled out from his slipstream, he braked and before I knew what had happened I was pointing at the sky. The telemetry showed that he braked 80 metres earlier for that corner than I had on the previous lap, so it was completely unexpected.”
What followed was a terrifying sequence of events. Mark’s RB6 headed skywards, then landed upside down – still doing 240kph– before hitting a kerb, flipping upright and ploughing headfirst into the barrier.
“My car felt like it was airborne for a long time,” says Mark. “I had time to worry about whether there were any bridges at that point on the track, which, luckily, there weren’t. If there had been one, I would have hit it because I went pretty high. But the car stood up to the accident well. This chassis – number 4 – has been good to me: I used it to win back-to-back races in Barcelona and Monaco, and now it’s saved me from serious injury in Valencia.”
“I have a few cuts and bruises, but otherwise I’m fine. What’s frustrating was that this accident should never have happened. I understand as well as anyone that F1 isn’t a charity event; you have to fight for every position – but not when you’re five seconds off the pace and you have one of the quickest cars in the pack behind you. I mean, how long was Heikki going to stay ahead of me? Another 15 seconds? He must be asking himself whether it was worth it.”
This crash was Mark’s first retirement of 2010 and, as a result, it was the first time that he’s finished outside the points this year. As we reach the halfway point in the season, he lies 24 points behind world championship leader Lewis Hamilton.
“There’s still everything to play for,” he says. “To be 24 points behind Lewis is nothing when you consider that I scored 50 points in the space of eight days a few races ago. And we’re taking nothing for granted at Red Bull Racing; we need to continue working flat-out because our rivals are bringing updates to every race. There are now four drivers who have two wins apiece – Lewis, Jenson, myself and Seb – and it’s going to be a fascinating second half of the year.”
The next race is the British Grand Prix and Mark cannot wait to get back behind the wheel...
“We hope the RB6 will be competitive at Silverstone,” he says, “because the track has lots of high-speed corners, through which our car excels. I feel a little tender today, but I’ll be fine come the race weekend and I cannot wait to get back in the car.”
MW
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