Question: Mark, you took a big gamble on tyre strategy early on in the race. It paid off just, but what about that collision with Lewis Hamilton?
Mark Webber: Well, first of all back to the start. The start was pretty good, so thanks very much to the team. As Seb touched on he had a pretty good one too, so that is good for us to get away and sets the base of the race in a better fashion. Settled into the first stint. Safety car early. Then as you said we decided to pit. I questioned the team to start with and they said it is the right thing, let’s have a go. We pitted and I thought ‘oh, this is going to be a long stint on the primes’. We came back out and when we re-queued up on the safety car I thought ‘okay that’s not too bad’. We were in a reasonable position. I passed a few guys and then I got to Rubens (Barrichello) and he was driving very well. I couldn’t clear him. Then another re-start and it is very difficult to get away cleanly when you have got the backmarkers involved. I got caught up behind one of the Virgins. I don’t know which driver it was. He was doing his best but Lewis got a big run of me. It was pretty harsh for me to have to clear those guys. He could set me up and have a crack at me. Unfortunately we made contact. The contact was similar to what he had in Monza with Felipe (Massa) and it could have easily been my front right tyre over as well. It was not desirable. It was a key part of the race for me to keep him out and there was contact, so it is not something you want to do all the time. After that I had a pretty decent vibration in the front end of the car, very worried if the car would get home to the end. But these two guys drove a fantastic race today. All weekend they drove very well and it was a good race for everyone to see and I am very happy with third.
Question: Mark, I guess the main thing for you is that you are still leading the World Championship.
Mark Webber: Hey look, I am very happy with third place today. It has been a pretty difficult weekend here to be honest for me. Probably the toughest weekend of the year for me. In Monaco it was the other way around on a street circuit. I felt incredibly comfortable. Did not feel mega-comfortable here most of the weekend but very, very happy with how the race went for me. To get third place out of it. There were parts of the race where I had to stay composed, not panic and it is very easy to get worried about losing so much time behind the guys who are a bit slower, so yeah, getting out of bed this morning I would have taken third. It is a pretty good podium. Of course Fernando is still hanging in there, so need to try and get rid of him somehow, but it is going okay.
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Question: Mark, we talked about that early stop but what were the tyres like at the end?
Mark Webber: Perfect actually! Completely finished. Fifty eight laps, yeah, there was not much left of them, and obviously there is a lot of straightline and exiting on this track, so the rear performance of the tyres is very important.
First of all, to recap on the race a little bit, the start was very good, so thanks again to the guys there, they’ve done a very, very good job. Gavin and all the guys have done a good job there with the starts. We both got away well which puts you on a good foundation to get going. Safety car early, pitted, I questioned the team, to be honest. I thought ‘hmm, I’m not sure about this, we go back a lot’, but it looked like the field already… or I was surprised I didn’t lose as many positions, so that was good. Then I came back out, I had to clear a few guys. Michael (Schumacher) was very good, fair. I had a good battle with him. Then I got to Rubens. First of all I followed (Kamui) Kobayashi, just for a few laps. I thought ‘my God, if he drives like that for two hours it’s going to be interesting’ but he was really on the limit and missing all the walls and jumping kerbs and I thought ‘God, I’ve got to get past him as quick as possible.’ And then I got to Michael, so that was good and I had a good fight with him. And then Rubens was driving well and clean. The Williams was not too bad in certain sections of the lap, so that made it difficult to get the move done on him. Then it turned into an incredibly strategic race for us, also mechanically and lots of things with the car. The team did a great job keeping me informed. Restart, after everyone stopped I went to third. On the restart I had to clear both Virgins which makes it very difficult if you’re the attacker in this case, which was Lewis. It’s very easy to be set up and then to have a slipstream. Unfortunately we made contact, very similar to like he was with Felipe in Monza, just touching the front right on the inside of the back tyre. I was pretty much locked up - not locked up but I was trying to get the front away and I was very concerned that I had damage. For sure, the vibration was quite solid after that. Yeah, I made contact and I just had to get the car home from there on a completely finished set of tyres.
Question: And fortunately no pressure from Jenson (Button) at the end.
Mark Webber: No, that was useful. It was just enough to keep the gap nice. That’s how it was. It was similar in Budapest, when I went very, very long on the options and then when I came back out it was very, very nice on the primes and you can drive away, so I knew I had absolutely no chance with these guys and congratulations to both of them, they both drove a very good race. For two hours it’s a long race to watch, it’s certainly long enough for us and certainly long enough for the spectators to watch us going round for two hours, so maybe there’s something we can look at, which Fernando I know has spoken about, but apart from that it was a very good event.
Question: Mark, when you had your battle with Lewis it seemed he had his nose a little bit ahead of you but do you think he gave you enough room, and were you concerned when the team told you there was a stewards’ investigation?
Mark Webber: Lewis was certainly a little bit ahead, yeah. As I said, it was probably similar to the last race with Felipe and Lewis. Felipe probably didn’t really even know he was there because there was contact, Lewis was quite a long way back from behind and this can happen sometimes in open-wheel racing. We brake completely on the limit. For sure it was incredibly tight. We did not hit that hard but it was enough to nearly put both of us out of the race. Fortunately I continued, and that was it.
Question: Mark, when you decided to change your tyres so early, was Hamilton your main target or did you imagine you could catch Fernando and Sebastian?
Mark Webber: To be honest I was surprised that I was even going to get as far as Lewis, because I asked the team what was the gap to Jenson in front of Robert (Kubica), because I knew I would clear both Rubens and Robert because I could see them, but I couldn’t see Jenson and I couldn’t also see Robert’s pit board to see how far Jenson was ahead of him, so I needed to get confirmation from the team because I was looking for the pit board to see how far ahead the other guys were. Then they said ‘it’s Lewis’, so I thought ‘OK, that’s beautiful, third place, hopefully it can work well’ and then I thought ‘God, I’m losing so much time behind these guys, the leaders will be pulling away for sure’. I saw a little bit on the big screen that Fernando had a bit of a gap and then it was Seb and then I saw Lewis on his own, so I thought ‘yeah, that’s probably the maximum I’m going to get’ which was third place out of the strategy and that worked very well.
Question: Mark, just to clear up, do you think Lewis was a bit ambitious at that point?
Mark Webber: No, he had to have a go, he saw that it was very difficult for me to clear the Virgins. We know that with this regulation where we have backmarkers in the queue on a restart it’s not easy for the guy in front, which was my case, to clear the backmarker. Lewis had a pretty good run on me, but that is the only corner on the track where stuff can happen. Fernando and I had contact there last year, where it was close to contact. When you’re on a restart, when things are a little bit cold, it’s the same for all of us. We know it’s a key point in the race to get right and obviously neither of us wanted to give an inch and in this case it ended up in some contact.
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