Some said that if Mark Webber didn’t have bad luck, he’d have no luck at all. Happily for the Aussie Red Bull driver, that was only during his first 100 Grand Prixs in Formula 1.
At Spa-Francorchamps in Belgium overnight, Webber knocked on wood, crossed his fingers and avoided all danger as he used a handy ‘Get Out Of Jail Free’ card and finished second after blowing the start from pole position.
Webber bogged the start as his car lost the clutch and momentarily went into anti-stall. He recovered, but battled through the first corners into sixth place as his major Championship rivals powered ahead.
“I had a big bump on the formation lap, and although we altered the clutch, it was worse at the start,” the Aussie explained.
“Once you have a micro-problem there it’s massively exaggerated by the performance of the other guys.”
However, with umbrellas a hot ticket item in Belgium during August, the inevitable rain materialised causing havoc a number of times during the race.
Opening showers saw the front runners all sail off the road into the ‘Bus-Stop’ chicane in some sort of synchronised off-roading move.
Rubens Barrichello went one worse in his 300th race, locking up into the same section and crashing into Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso, putting the popular Brazilian out of the race.
Amazingly, Alonso was able to continue on, although his Championship hopes for Ferrari slimmed dramatically after he was forced to retire later in the race after crashing.
Webber’s fortunes further improved when a dramatic overtaking move on Jenson Button from Red Bull teammate Sebestian Vettel ended in tears as Vettel braked hard on the outside, realised he’d left it too late and aggressively changed lines back to the inside. The slippery track combined with the last second change of direction speared Vettel out of control into Button.
“I tried to outbrake him on the outside. When I changed from the inside to the outside I lost it under braking over the bump and crashed into him” he said. “I’m sorry, obviously it was not my intention to destroy his race or mine.”
Further rain led to more incidents, as Fernando Alonso lost it into a wall bringing out a safety car, and Robert Kubica dived into the pits with Webber in a straight mechanics race to put on wet tyres.
Unfortunately for Kubica, he somehow managed to lock it up into his pitbox, skidding past his position and costing his mechanics valuable time in changing his tyres. Webber’s smooth stop jumped him into second as the last laps of the race finished in showers.
Hamilton was able to pull away from Webber at the end of the race in deserving victory, however Webber will feel pleased to have escaped with a solid points haul and his World Championship hopes still on course.
He now trails Hamilton in the Championship by three points with six races left.
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