Question: Mark, congratulations and Happy Birthday for yesterday. I take it the present you asked for most was a spot of rain just after you bagged provisional pole.
Mark Webber: Yeah, we knew that the first lap was going to be pretty important as around here it is just so unpredictable. The weather yesterday and today has been very unique even for Spa to be honest as it has been so on and off. You know particularly in qualifying that every lap is important. First lap for me I was very happy with it but you just never know in this company if it is enough. But I pushed to the limit and it was enough for me to have pole half-way through the session. It is a nice thing to have going into your second run but, like you said, the weather made it a little bit more difficult to improve on our second attempts. But some people, like Lewis obviously, I am not sure it might have only been Lewis, he did a good lap on his second lap. But I think we would still have been pretty quick to have a crack if it stayed dry and consistent for the second round of laps. I was still looking forward to that part of qualifying.
Question: Certainly Red Bull have not got the advantage here that they had in Hungary. And in Q2 you were fully a second behind, so what were you were hiding? What made the difference in Q3?
Mark Webber: I think Q2 depended where you were on the track. The track was drying very, very quickly. Lewis did a good lap in Q2. Also you know you just need to do enough to get through. But it is pretty intense times in that situation when the track is a bit mixed up. It is easy to get outside the bubble and if you miss a braking point and you don’t get a clean lap in then you could be out. It was one of those days where it could easily go wrong and you could have a bit of egg on your face but I think apart from Fernando (Alonso) all the normal guys had normal days.
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Question: Mark, you go in to the race on pole position and the championship leader. You have been the championship leader at other stages as well but it is getting serious now, isn’t it with just seven races to go. Does that intensify the pressure?
Mark Webber: Not really. I don’t see it as just seven races to go. If we were sitting here in Brazil then it would be a little bit more intense. But we have got a lot of racing to do yet. It is a special place to get pole. It is a beautiful circuit. All the drivers love driving here, so I am going to enjoy the race tomorrow and do my best.
Question: Mark, leading the World Championship, pole position, it couldn’t have gone better, could it?
Mark Webber: Well, it’s always nice when you drive well. It felt like it was a great effort from the whole team and it’s a great place to get pole position. We’ve seen a few occasions this year that pole positions haven’t done too much, so we need to capitalise tomorrow on what could be a very challenging day, but we’re certainly up for it. We’ve been pretty quick in all conditions. You can only take each day as it comes and today we did what we needed to do and tomorrow we will do our absolute best.
Question: Reading the weather here seems to be a black art but you seem to have done that pretty well today.
Mark Webber: Well, it’s virtually impossible to be honest. The showers that pop up here and there, there’s no real consistency to them. It’s just a very special venue as we know, where it is here, tucked away in the forest. But it wasn’t that difficult today, to be honest, in terms of picking the weather. Most of the time everyone knew what they needed to do, it was just up to the teams and the drivers to do what they needed to do at the time, which is also reflected in most people, where they should be, within reason. It wasn’t too much of a mixed up session in terms of people out of position.
Question: Coming here I think the team had a few doubts about the straight bits, but not the twisty section in the middle. Have you been happily surprised as to how good the car has been on the straights?
Mark Webber: We’ve worked incredibly hard as we have done all year. We know there are some circuits that certainly suit us better than others and if we were to have seventeen races, we probably wouldn’t pick this track and certainly not the next track. That’s the way the World Championship is, you’ve got to have lots of different venues and test the technical people, test the drivers and Spa is a track which we always want on the calendar, so it’s up to us to have a good car at all venues and capitalise on when we have a good car, which was in Budapest and a few other venues. We’ve seen it ebb and flow a bit. These guys have been very, very strong on a few circuits and have a few weaknesses as well, so that’s the pinnacle of Formula One at the moment, measured by small margins. You can’t be doing purple sectors on every single track in every single condition every single time - fuel loads and different compounds - it’s just too competitive for that.
Question: Mark, do you think that McLaren on this particular track is quicker than you in the rain?
Mark Webber: China was an interesting grand prix. Obviously that was a very consistent condition. If you look at the whole grand prix, it was generally pretty wet, so whether we see that here tomorrow I’m not sure but they were better than us in Shanghai, but many, many things have changed since then, in terms of cars and how their cars have been developed, and of course we understood a lot from that race in those conditions ourselves. I’ll get back to you on that one tomorrow.
Question: Mark, how difficult will it be tomorrow to defend your position up the hill, given the fact that the others have a better top speed?
Mark Webber: That’s another one I’ll get back to you on. Impossible to say, Michael. Let’s see how the start goes. We don’t know if it’s going to be consistent both sides in terms of grip level, in terms of we’ve seen the right side of the track drying a bit faster than the left side, so if it’s going to be like that then I should get away OK, but if it’s even across both sides in terms of wet or dry then I’m probably expecting Lewis to be pretty close but it’s nothing unusual. We’ve been there before and we will try and do our best. I don’t think tomorrow’s grand prix will be won and lost on the first lap, to be honest.
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