Australian Formula 1 driver Mark Webber’s career at a glance
Australian driver Mark Webber was born in Queanbeyan, New South Wales, Australia on 27 August 1976.
In the early days of his career, he faced constant hardships before he made his way to Australian Formula Ford. Afterwards, in 1996, he took part in British Formula Ford championship and secured second position. Two years later, he won five races in FIA
GT championship and ended the season at second place.
In 1999, he raced at Le Mans with Mercedes AMG. However, his team left the tournament after they faced issues in the aerodynamics of the car. In the following year, he came third in FIA International Formula 3000 championship. In 2001, he improved his rank
from third to second in the same championship after taking three victories. Moreover, he became Benetton F1 test driver.
In 2002, he made his debut with Minardi and secured fifth place finish in his opening race while kept on showing impressive performances throughout the season.
Later in 2003, he continued to deliver convincing performances and finished at tenth position. In the next year, he had his final season with Jaguar and signed a contract with Williams for 2005.
In his first season with the British team he faced problems with the uncompetitive car. Although, he secured top five positions in the grid for seven times, nevertheless, he could not convert his grid positions into competitive race positions and could only
secure third podium finish in one GP at Monaco.
In 2006, he spent a rather tougher second season with Williams and scored only seven points after retiring in many races. Besides, he joined Red Bull Racing for the next year.
In 2007, he suffered due to the lack of reliability and could hardly score any points throughout the season. His best finish was at Nurburgring where he secured third podium. He finished at 12th place in the drivers’ standings. In the next year, he came
11th with 21 points.
In 2009, he improved his performance after his cycling accident in winter and claimed his first ever pole leading to a victory in Germany. In addition, he was retired in Italy and Singapore due to which his hope for winning the title came to an end.
In 2010, he won the races in Spain, Monaco, Britain and Hungary with incredible car RB6. However, he could only achieve third place finish due to poor pit strategy.
In 2011, he was completely outperformed by his teammate, Sebastian Vettel who claimed victories in 11 races while the Australian driver only won one race in which the German driver was encountered with some technical issues.
In this season, he is currently at third place in drivers’ standings with 48 points. Moreover, he has shown the most consistent performances in all the four races as he secured fourth place finish in all of them. Additionally, there has not been any big
deviation in his qualifying results in the season so far.
It will be important to mention that there have been four different winners in the first four races of the season who ran on completely different car setups. Therefore, the defending champions are not as confident as they were in the last year.
Furthermore, Webber has expressed that they need to keep on making necessary advancements for the races ahead in order to fight for the title. He added that he is aiming to perform with consistency throughout the season.
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