Q & A with Mark Webber

Mark Webber: We just have to do a better job. Brawn have been banging it onto the front row and having perfect races. Any team in the pitlane has got a shopping list of excuses of why it didn't happen, but Brawn is leading the constructors by a huge amount, and we're second by a huge amount.

The scoreboard never lies. We're the second-best team at the moment, and that's a big, big credit to us. Brawn have done a better job up until now, but there is still a long way to go. If we can get a bit more pace and maybe extract a bit more out of race weekends in terms of maybe a few different little things going for us here and there, maybe we can put them under a bit of pressure.

Q. You had the upgrades in Monaco - are there more tweaks here? How did the double diffuser work?

MW: It worked well. We needed it, otherwise we'd have been even less competitive. We were pretty competitive in the race, which we were happy with, but there is not as much at this event in terms of upgrades as we had in Monaco. So this is a bit more of a holding station and we might have a little bit more stuff at Silverstone.

Q. As a driver, what do you feel about your future and your career in terms of all the political things that are happening?

MW: Well, as a driver you are very excited about driving in Formula 1 and competing in Formula 1, and you want it to remain the pinnacle of the sport. And I think all the drivers share the same view. We want to be compared against the best drivers, and we want to race against the best teams. And that's what we're been doing since I was in Formula 1, and I hope we can do it in the future.

Q. You thought that your relative lack of performance in Monaco was track-specific - fairly confident of a good showing here?

MW: I hope so. The car seems to like the slightly flowing circuits a little bit better. We were always a little bit tentative going into Monaco about how the car might perform there, but it performed pretty well, to be honest - but maybe not as good as it was in Barcelona and Sepang and Shanghai, and those sorts of circuits. So hopefully at the next two we can be a little bit closer to where Brawn were.

Q. Chance for the new diffuser to stretch its legs this weekend?

MW: Yep. Looking at the characteristic of that, it could be a bit stronger here than it was in Monaco, just because of the characteristics of it. So hopefully it will be good.

Q. Has it been developed at all since Monaco

MW: Not at all. It's exactly the same as in Monaco. We haven't had much time. After Monaco we just ... it was bolted on there quite quickly. We've had an aero test since then to characterise it and make sure it did what it was supposed to do at Monaco, and it did. So it's staying on.

Q. Adrian talked about the compromises that had to be made to fit it to the car - have any of the changes been noticeable from the cockpit

MW: No. There's obviously nothing that goes on the car that's going to make the car slower. It's always about trying to make the performance of the car ... there's always compromises in terms of packaging, but ultimately everything that goes on the car will make it go quicker. Monaco is a very specific track; it's a one-off in terms of the way the track is; how slippery it is, how slow it is, all that sort of stuff. So here, I think we'll get to feel it a little more.

Q. Jenson Button just said that Red Bull was Brawn's main threat this weekend ...

MW: He's talking us up. He's talking us up. They're fine.

Q. But you are the second-best team ...

MW: Oh, we are the second-best team. We're second in the constructors', we're doing a very good job and we're going to do our best to make sure that they work very hard this weekend to get the result that we hope they don't get. But Jenson has won all of the dry races, and they're going to be a tough act to nail. But they can only go backwards from where they are, so we're going to try to start that here. But they're doing a great job. The car is reliable, they're making all the right calls, and they are there because they deserve to be. They've done a great job and it's up to us to create some pressure on them.

Q. Does that leave room for you to be optimistic?

MW: Of course I'm optimistic!

Q. Can you make it this weekend?

MW: No one knows. That's why we're all here.

Q. Does Red Bull have a specific advantage here?

MW: I don't think we have a particularly big advantage. I think it's going to be tight. The Brawn car has been fast everywhere, and also we've been quite fast everywhere. But at the moment they just have that small gap, which maybe this weekend might close a bit. We'll see.