I wasn’t overly surprised to hear Mark Webber made the decision to leave his formula one cockpit next year to drive sports cars for Porsche in next years FIA World Endurance Championship.
After seven loyal years with the Red Bull racing team, the time was right for Webber to move on to his next challenge.
It’s become obvious there is a noticeable bias towards Webber’s Red Bull teammate Sebastian Vettel and it’s possible Mark thinks the same way.
This bias was made clear by the lack of reprimand the German received in March, when he blatantly ignored team orders at the Malaysian Formula One Grand Prix.
Vettel overtook his teammatefor being ‘too slow’, disobeying clear directions from pit lane to maintain the status quo they had at the front of the race with Webber in the lead.
It wasn’t a case that there were cars ahead of Webber to be caught and more championship points to be won.
The race was safe and Webber was on his way to his 10th Grand Prix win, with the full compliment of constructor’s points also in the bag.
The blatant lack of respect shown by the German toward his teammate in Kuala Lumpur was the final straw in a long-running spat between the pair.
Red Bull principal Christian Horner has tried for years to pour cold water on what is now a very public feud. I don’t know who he is kidding.
The two teammates have said, in not so many words, they don’t like each other. And I don’t know how much Webber is to blame for that, if at all.
What appeared to me like healthy competition in 2010, when Webber won five races and was having his best season in Formula One, was seemingly looked upon with resent by Vettel.
Once again Horner came to his star attraction’s rescue, saying there was no problem.
In more recent times, the defence has continued to be staunch. Can you blame him? He is the three time defending world champion after all. A little bit more honesty is all Webber and the Australian public wanted.
Beauty of an argument is that there are two sides to every story and on the other side of the coin, Red Bull is more than just a Formula One racing team.
They are a multi-million dollar business with sponsors to keep happy and salaries to pay.
Unfortunately in this day and age loyalty doesn’t radiate as brightly as world championships. Maybe it shouldn’t; maybe results and success is all top level sport should be about these days.
Red Bull and Horner have backed Webber into a corner and instead of cowering in it, he’s walked straight past them with his head held high.
Interestingly, in an interview just before the British Grand Prix on Sunday, where Webber fought from an early setback to finish second, he said it was too good an offer to pass up and he had a limited amount of time to take it.
He went on to say if he didn’t grab the opportunity then next year he might have been improving his surfing and not a happy person.
Reading between the lines, and seeing as he is on rolling one year deals at present, he may well have jumped before he was pushed.
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