The New York Times notes that Queanbeyan’s Mark Webber has managed a career best second place in the Chinese Grand Prix in Shanghai yesterday.
With his Red Bull team mate Sebastian Vettel winning the race it looks like the team will be very competitive this year. So who knows, maybe he’ll get a win!
UPDATED: Furry Jesus sent in the following as a story which I’ve rolled in here:
- Local Boy Makes Good
Despite the rain in Shanghai, at last our Mark Webber has finally felt some F1 sunshine. After his near-win in Sepang a couple of weeks ago was lost to tyre strategies in the soaking conditions there, Webber was back at the front of the pack in Shanghai yesterday, snapping at the heels of his scrawny young team mate, the rising star Sebastian Vettel.
Red Bull had a dream day, starting with their first ever pole position courtesy of Vettel, and dominated the wet conditions to take first and second ahead of Jenson Button, 11 seconds separating winner Vettel from Webber in second place.
After coming to F1 in 2002, Webber drove for a string of turkeys (Minardi via Jaguar to Williams), making him one of the most unfortunate F1 drivers in a long time as he struggled with cars that even Ayrton Senna would have been hard-pressed to drive, managing only two third places until yesterday. His career is littered with DNFs due to either mechanical unreliability or collisions with other drivers (mostly their fault, I say without bias).
But now it seems that his decision to stick with Red Bull is paying off, with what looks like a much stronger and more reliable car. Is this second position a foretaste of things to come? Will he be feeling humiliated by Vettel ‘s success, and push himself to show the younger driver that he has what it takes? Or has he been a midfielder for too long, and lost the chance to develop that winning edge? Certainly his pass on Button in Shanghai towards the end of the race, to retake the second position which Button had just snatched from him with an equally artful move, shows that he has the nerve and the reflexes.
Roll on Bahrain.
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