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Australian Mark Webber has defended his silence over his broken shoulder while chasing this year’s Formula One championship, saying his Red Bull team had no need to know about it.
The 34-year-old revealed in a book published in Australia this month that he fractured his shoulder falling off a mountain bike just before the Japanese Grand Prix while he was leading the standings.
The driver, who ended up third overall, said he had told only his physio and the FIA doctor about the injury that he carried through the final four races.
“A little bit of information can be a dangerous thing,” he said on his personal website in response to media.
“I came off a mountain bike while training between the races in Singapore and Japan, and an x-ray revealed a small fracture to my right shoulder. I was very confident it wouldn’t affect my performance in the car, which is why I didn’t tell anyone.” Times of India
“The shoulder wasn’t causing me a problem, so there was no need to talk about it to anyone.
“I was very confident it wouldn’t affect my performance in the car. [It] didn’t affect my main line of work.”
The Australian is refusing to blame the injury for his failure to win the title, but the period coincides with a dip in form in which Webber lost his championship lead and then the title.
Webber only told his physio, Roger Cleary, and F1’s chief medical officer Gary Hartstein about the injury, keeping his team in the dark.
Red Bull boss Horner responded in the Daily Telegraph on Tuesday, saying: “It is obviously disappointing that Mark said nothing. Our drivers have an obligation to make sure they are fit.”
Webber has now explained on his personal website that if the injury had been more serious he would not have hidden it.
“If I’d had any issues with it in the car, then of course I would have told the team,” Webber added. “But that wasn’t the case.
“I’ve never missed a grand prix but of course if I couldn’t drive the car a) safely and b) on the limit, I would have notified the team.”
Webber had cortisone injections before the races in Japan and South Korea to dull the pain but also downplayed their significance as “absolute precautions”.
Webber described the accident in his book, ‘Up Front - 2010, A Season To Remember’. BBC Sport
“Many people will be aware that shoulder injuries can be complex but I was lucky this mishap didn’t affect my main line of work. In that sense, that was the most important thing to me.”
Webber also defended the decision to make the injury public knowledge, insisting that it had only become such an issue because of a ‘fairly quiet week news-wise’.
“It’s what the book is all about,” he said. “I wanted to give the readers in Australia a closer insight to a sport that’s pretty hard for them to follow. I didn’t sit down after the season had finished with hindsight goggles on and pick and choose what went into it. We did it at the time after each race. It (the injury) is something that happened to me, it was part of my journey this season, so that’s why it’s in there.” Yahoo! Eurosport
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