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Mark Webber Q&A

Although it went largely unnoticed, Mark Webber put in a very impressive drive on his way to seventh place in Austria, even setting the third fastest lap. After a mistake in qualifying the team decided to sacrifice his lowly grid position and start him from the pitlane with a heavy fuel load. Unfortunately, after he'd refuelled the start was aborted, so technically he had infringed the parc ferme rules (had he taken the T-car, he would have got away with it). That earned a 10 sec stop and go penalty, which wiped out any advantage and cost Mark an even better finish. Nevertheless he managed to finish two places ahead of team-mate Antonio Pizzonia, despite the penalty and starting from the pitlane! Last year in Monaco Webber outpaced the Jaguars on race day and he could be a good bet for a decent result this time. Adam Cooper spoke to the Aussie star.



"Yes, for us it's good. We have to keep chipping away and getting points like that. Fifth was there to be had, even from the pitlane, until the bloody penalty. The rule is there, but I think a lot of people would admit that it was worth trying."



"The chances of it being aborted are quite small! The T-car had only done one lap all weekend, which we were a bit worried about, in terms of reliability. It should be reliable, but you never know. When the start was aborted, I said to the boys, get the lawyers ready!"



"Yeah, because he had his blankets plugged in. For that whole 20 minutes mine weren't plugged in - they were just covered. So my tyres were cold. It was like an F3000 for the first few laps. I was so happy that the safety car came out, because I'd lost so much time, and I managed to get some temperature into the tyres."



"He was just slow everywhere, and I knew he'd probably be heavier. We were quicker than him, anyway. I was happy with the move I pulled on him, and got out of there."



"I knew once I got past him that I could close up on the others. I knew the others were 30-40kgs lighter than me, so if I could hang in there, we knew we were going to trash them in the stops. Then the stop and go cost us 30 seconds!"



"It was quite good. I was quite light at that stage, and then they were a little bit heavier. We were a little bit worried, because we'd shifted our strategy quite a bit, and there was always a chance of head butting some of the people who were heavy. The Bridgestones looked totally out of shape - the boys were having a hard time, especially the Jordans and the Saubers. The car was just so strong. We did so much good balance work for the race."



"Yeah, I had a moment up at Turn Two, where I went a bit wide. But you just have to stay massively disciplined, because you've got the quite heavy spots on your visor, and coming from seventh gear down to first, you don't want to brake too early, but also you don't want to slide off. It only rained in certain parts, and it was bloody difficult to judge the grip level."



"They put the oil flags out after everyone went off! I saw Antonio go wide, then someone else, then it was me. I used a different line for a few laps, which seemed to work OK."



"On the second set the rears were a little bit more moody. I did give them a hard time on the first few laps, so maybe that took a bit of the fun out of them. They were struggling a bit at the end of the stint."



"Yeah, Monaco I really enjoy. Again, I'm looking forward to what Michelin can bring, compared to the opposition, so it should be a good scrap. We should have more street circuits. What I did in qualifying [in Austria], I should have been punished more heavily for that, instead of just going a bit high and coming back on. I have to be careful what I say!"



"Yes, that didn't happen last year! We were much, much faster than them."

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