Mark Webber on the verge of his maiden world championship

As Formula One enters qualifying for its final race of the season in Abu Dhabi next Saturday, 440 kilometres across the Persian Gulf one man will be hoping to atone for events that ended his world championship aspirations five years ago.

When the Formula One world championship slipped from Mark Webber’s fingers at the 2010 finale in Abu Dhabi, it was also the closest he came to winning any championship – period.

In fact, his first place in the 1996 Formula Ford Festival at Brands Hatch is the closest the Australian has got to a proportionate achievement.

Fourth in the 1995 Australian Formula Ford Championship, a runner-up spot in the 2000 International Formula 3000 Championship, as well as three third-place finishes in Formula One make for intriguing stats given the quality of drivers he’s been up against in the top formula.

Webber left Formula One chiefly because he felt there was not enough to challenge drivers under the current regulations, and in some respects he’s right. Modern F1 drivers spend more time ‘managing’ their tyres and fuel loads than pushing the limit from lights to flag.

The World Endurance Championship is the opposite – for six hours no less.

It’s a fact that Webber believes Lewis Hamilton is only too aware of, despite the British driver declaring to have no interest in WEC.

“He deserved the third world title,” Webber was quoted in The Guardian as saying on Hamilton. “He’s an exceptionally gifted driver, very strong in all conditions, that’s why I love watching him drive. He would also be even more potent if the cars were quicker and stronger and more demanding to drive because he’s that type of guy. I think he’d even get more out if it.”

Webber – along with Porsche team mates Brendon Hartley and Timo Bernhard – only needs a third place finish at the Six Hours of Bahrain to seal the World Endurance Driver’s Championship. Doing so would not only score Webber his debut title, but in a fashion far more noteworthy than Hamilton’s double with Mercedes.

Why? Because a championship should be rated against strength of the opposition you beat, and this year the Webber, Hartley and Bernhard partnership is on the verge of trouncing the most formidable sports car squad – or any racing team for that matter – of all time, and could do so ahead of schedule.

Audi’s dominance of sports car racing since 2000 has been nothing short of legendary, winning 14 out of 16 Le Mans starts, with sporadic challenges from Peugeot and Toyota after protracted development periods.

Porsche only really expected to be challenging for wins in 2015, yet the Weissach outfit have already won Le Mans and the Manufacturer’s Championship despite returning to the sport only 12 months prior.

Their run was bolstered by a four-race winning streak courtesy of the aforementioned trio, with the last coming after an arm-wrestle in Shanghai where Audi threw everything and the Spülbecken at Porsche and still came up short.

In contrast, the sports car titles won by Porsche’s 917, 956 and 956 models were achieved against considerably inferior opposition, while the GT1’s 1998 Le Mans title owed as much to BMW’s fragility as it did to the prodigious speed of its drivers.

For a race program still in relative infancy it is a remarkable achievement, and if Webber does cross the line as champion at 5am (AEST), he will do so in the knowledge he beat the best drivers in the best equipment available.

If the champagne does indeed flow, hopefully it will also drown the monkey perched on his shoulder since 2010.