One last little turn and then goes away!

A look in the rearview mirror, Mark Webber began karting at the age of 15 in 1991, and as soon as he reached adulthood, he competed in the Formula Ford championship in Australia. He quickly stood out from the competition and managed to go to England, where he finished second in the British Formula Ford Championship.

In 1997, he joined the Formula 3 Championship and despite good results, he was on the verge of deciding to end his career when his fellow Australian, rugby player David Campese, offered him financial help to finish the F3 season.

Spotted at the time by Mercedes, he began the 1998 season as an official driver for Mercedes in the FIA GT, and then, still with Mercedes, made a brief appearance at Le Mans. Everyone still has in mind the incredible image of his Mercedes taking off on the straight of the Le Mans circuit.

In 2000, he returned to Formula 3000 with the sister team of Arrows F1, marking his first real contact with F1. He became a test driver for the Benetton Formula team, where he met a certain Flavio Briatore who became his manager and financed his entry into F1. It was 2002, and it was the beginning of his career as an official driver for the Minardi team. He stayed there for one year before joining the Jaguar team from 2003 to 2004, finishing 10th and 13th respectively in the world drivers’ championship.

He will sign for the 2005 and 2006 seasons with BMW Williams but will not succeed in finishing races due to too many errors during the 2005 season and a lack of reliability of his car in 2006 will lead him to make the decision to join the brand-new Red Bull team for 2007.

After a first mixed season for Red Bull, he will have a very difficult 2008 with his best result being a fourth place at the Monaco Grand Prix, then in 2009 he meets his new teammate and nemesis Sebastian Vettel, after 130 starts in F1, it is that year at the Nürburgring Grand Prix in Germany that he achieves his first victory, finishing fourth in the 2009 World Drivers’ Championship.

With 5 pole positions and 4 victories, 2010 will remain Mark Webber’s best season, and it’s also the year his car took off at the Valencia Grand Prix, just like his Mercedes at Le Mans in 1998, a strange coincidence. His teammate, Vettel, became world champion in 2010.

In 2011, he was overshadowed by his teammate Sebastian Vettel, who racked up victories and won his second world title. In 2012, it was again the German who was crowned, ahead of a disheartened Mark Webber due to all the problems he faced with his car throughout the season. Early in 2013, the coexistence with Vettel became very complicated, as Vettel decided to ignore team orders and overtook Mark to win the Malaysian Grand Prix.

A few weeks later, Mark Webber announced that he would retire from F1 at the end of the 2013 season to join the Porsche endurance team. He has recently been released from his commitments by Red Bull and will be able to join his new employer starting tomorrow.

À bientôt M. Webber