_iop_k0_hh_00k.jpg)
Question: Mark, you didn’t seem to share our excitement after Canada. Now you’ve seen the race again, if you have seen it again, did you think it was a good race?
Mark Webber: Yeah, it was a good race. Actually I have not watched it all myself to be honest. I think mixed conditions always provide good F1 races. We know that. It is easy to confuse things for the drivers, for the teams, making the right strategy, when to go at the right time and things like that and no-one expected to see what Jenson (Button) did at the end there. It was a very good drive from him so it was unusual to have the podium positions all up in the air still with three laps to go. That was the case in Canada so it was quite unusual so yeah, it was good.
Question: This one. Obviously front row here last year and then your accident which I am sure you’d prefer just to put behind you, wouldn’t you?
Mark Webber: Yeah, it was a nasty one. We know that. The next race weekend I did okay so I think I have done a bit of racing since then. Looking forward to hitting the track tomorrow and getting on with it.
Question: There are some regulation changes coming up. How much do you think those are going to affect Red Bull Racing.
Mark Webber: I don’t think they will make the car any faster, but I think it is the same for everybody. We have got to adapt again, get used to it, but it is nothing new for our team to adapt to a change in regulations. All the teams have to adapt and see what they can do to do the best out of it. I don’t think it is going to turn the field upside down. I think everyone will still be in reasonable shape. McLaren and Ferrari are fast, we know that. We are quick but the changes, whether they will turn the championship around, I think it is unlikely.
Question: And DRS and KERS. Do you think it is going to make a difference to overtaking here?
Mark Webber: It is a very sensitive track to both of those, probably the most that we have been to. Yes, you need to have both working and it is track where there are two DRS zones here. We need to see how the first one goes, but it should be pretty straightforward in terms of how they work in the race.
Question: Mark, what’s your opinion about this: suddenly the officials have discovered that the exhaust systems that all the teams are using are illegal.
Mark Webber: There’s always something floating around in our sport, isn’t there? We know that. We had the double diffuser a few years ago; some people say it’s right, some people say it’s wrong and now we obviously have the exhaust thing which is their interpretation. Obviously it’s not within the spirit of the rules so we change the rules. Obviously it would have been very, very cost effective for all of the teams to know this before the season started because everyone was already looking at it at the end of last year. Obviously, you look at the people from Enstone [Lotus-Renault] and those guys have done a huge, huge job, packaging their car and designing their concept around something like this working. So it’s not a trivial thing to throw into the middle of the season for the teams but they will all adjust. Everyone is in the same boat so yeah, [change it] either at the start or at the end [of the season], but in the middle - it makes it a little bit more difficult, but it’s the same for everyone. We’re not overly concerned. I’m not sitting here saying they shouldn’t have done it, it’s just that it’s not a cheap exercise for people to make adjustments off the back of that.
Question: Kamui two weeks ago, drove a beautiful race but after the finish, two different drivers - Nico Rosberg and Nick Heidfeld - accused him deliberately braking or at least lifting off just in front of them. Your reaction, because you know well the danger of this type of situation.
Mark Webber: I think people at hairpins are always trying to mix up the pace a little bit, particularly in Canada. Michael was also doing a good job to make the rhythm a little bit different each lap; that’s normal. But obviously hitting the brakes is a different story. Obviously if you’re a bit later, a bit earlier on the throttle, that’s part of racing but if you’re playing with the brake pedal it’s obviously not something that we all agree to. I’m sure he’s not playing these tricks
Question: You were also in this situation a few years ago when you were with Renault and you had the mass damper which the FIA said was OK and then it was banned by the Federation. Now it looks like there are a lot of new rules which prejudice against Red Bull. Do you think that fans can accept this, do you not think that it’s not serious to continually change the rules, new rules, yes, no and how can they accept it? Do you not think that it’s not very serious to change the rules continuously: new rules, yes, no, perhaps, we don’t know if this is legal or not?
Mark Webber: I think the majority of the fans aren’t that bothered, to be honest. They just want to see what they have been seeing so far this year which is a lot of interesting car races. They basically have ten to fifteen per cent knowledge of what’s going on behind the scenes in our sport. They just want to watch a good car race actually. You have really, really hard core fans, obviously, who understand a bit more but most people want to see a good car race so they obviously have no idea of the politics that go on in the background at this level, because they will always be there. But they’re obviously making these decisions because they think it’s the right thing for whatever reason it is, so you need to ask the guys who are making the decisions, why they make the decisions. I don’t… or the team. You design a Formula One car at the start of the season to a very very, very tight, strict regulation and go through the fine print as much as you can and then obviously there is a massive, massive conceptual change with that design book in the middle of the year. That’s the way it is and we have to get on with it.
| 
|