Webber should be optimistic in ‘09

After another productive round in Italy last weekend, Australian F1 stalwart Mark Webber should be optimistic about 2009.

The Red Bull driver will be the team’s number one with the retirement of David Coulthard at season’s end, and after the brilliance of Scuderia Toro Rosso’s Sebastian Vettel’s performance at Monza he may be joined by the young German at the ‘big sister’ team of Red Bull.

There are occasional mumblings from fans back home as to when Webber, who rose to prominence in the consciousness of Australian motorsport fans with fifth place at his home Grand Prix for the now-defunct Minardi team squad in 2002, will get that elusive win.

There has been plenty of promise in qualifying over the years - last weekend’s third in a treacherous Q3 was further evidence of his brilliance against the clock - but there has always been something holding one of the F1 paddock’s most respected drivers back.

Be it car, crashes or other calamity, the 32-year-old from Queanbeyan has failed to convert promise into race results. This has prompted frustration and impatience from some fans although they would be well-advised not to jump off the train that has taken an extended period to arrive at the station of GP victories.

Take Felipe Massa for example.

The Brazilian has always shown good speed in qualifying but it wasn’t until last year that he established himself as a regular race winner. Granted, he’s younger than Webber but one has the feeling that Mark has been genuinely unlucky for the reasons listed above. His previous team, Williams, still hasn’t hauled itself out of the doldrums while McLaren signed the youth of drivers such as Raikonnen, Alonso and Hamilton when they could have gone for the experience Webber brings to a team.

We all know where that could have taken him.

There was just something about Monza last weekend for Mark Webber. It may have been the fact that he hadn’t expected to do so well in qualifying but did. It could have been his willingness to give Lewis Hamilton as good as he got, shy of running both off the road. Hamilton’s behaviour was obnoxious, and as noted on the ITV commentary he’s quickly developing a reputation the opposite of Webber’s.

Either way, it was almost like the Australian was saying: “Enough. Let’s get on with the show”.

In the immediate future however, there’s the Singapore GP next weekend - the first time F1 has raced under lights - where he could improve on his eighth place at Monza and move inside the top 10 of the championship, depending on the results of team-mate Vettel.

Strong finishes in the remaining four races will give Webber the confidence to hit 2009, so to speak.

Poor results and any mechanical reliability issues may have the opposite effect and prove a massive mountain for him to overcome.

Recently popular

Free Email updates:

Our daily emails are only sent if there is content for the sport or that author. You can subscribe to multiple daily emails; or get the daily Roar email with all our content in it. We value privacy. More...