Q & A with Mark Webber

Mark Webber: Ha! I'm a team player.

Q. You had a good weekend though and it was a tainted a bit by a gearbox glitch...

MW: Yeah... It didn't help for sure. No question about it. I was a bit frustrated with the start. Both David and I had poor starts. I was focussed on the first stint, getting ahead of myself, but normally we have been able to capitalise on wet races and I was confident that we could do the job.

Obviously when I shifted I lost the car, which was a shame. Then I had a lot of work to do to get back and then I had and a lot of people made different calls towards the end of the race. But it's like when you lose money and you try to keep gambling and it all goes wrong.

Q. In a race like that you needed to be up at the front didn't you?

MW: Yes. But also Rubens wasn't that good in the dry. Unfortunately we knew when that rain was falling that qualifying wasn't going to mean anything. At Silverstone grid positions in the dry are bloody important. Qualifying went bloody well for us and unfortunately the weather was different a day later.

Normally I am always up for an interesting, wettish race, which gives me a chance to get a result. It has done in the past like Monaco this year, Nurburgring last year, and Fuji wasn't going too badly... It's the same old thing.

Q. Are you looking forward to Vettel as a teammate?

MW: Yeah it's good mate.

Q. Another reputation for you to destroy?

MW: Nah nah. There's not many quick youngsters around with experience at the moment. So it's a real coup for Red Bull. He is the first real Red Bull-backed driver to come through their junior programme to have the talent to back the cash.

Q. It will be an interesting measurement for you too?

MW: Yeah. I he blows me away people we say Webber's past it, but if I blow him away then people will say Vettel's not quick. That's normal. I had that with Rosberg.

I'm more than comfortable with what I have done since I have been in Formula One. It's nice to have that qualifying reputation, but it would be nice to drill that this year with some solid race results.

Obviously Silverstone didn't go my way, but even in the first stint I carved my way back up there, and we have finished every race this year.

Q. What did your race simulation say would have happened if it stayed dry?

MW: Well first of all we were one lap shorter than Heikki, so our qualifying lap turned out to be a bit better than even we thought it was. That was encouraging. I was confident that we could race the BMWs at Silverstone. Not Ferrari and McLaren. Renault looked like they were slower around there in comparison to us. But it was never going to be a dry Grand Prix.

Q. Can you carry that pace over to this weekend?

MW: Silverstone has always been good to me. I have been on the front row in every category I have done. I have won there in Formula Ford, Formula 3000 and I have won there in sportscars. I had pole position in F3.

Also the car was working really well, the quick corners benefited our car. It's a really quick car. Adrian has done a good job. The slow and twisty stuff we are still working on, which here might be a problem for us.

Q. That's a shame because it would have been nice to keep up the momentum.

MW: Well yes, but we have good momentum. A one-off qualifying session just popped us up there and everyone's expectations just go to an unrealistic level. It was a windy afternoon and a lot of other people underperformed in other cars. I managed to get a lap in that worked for me on the day. No we are not on McLaren and Ferrari pace, we are not even BMW pace. We are still where we were, but we have consistently been a good team at every Grand Prix this year and we will continue to do that at least.