Webber: I’ll be fully fit for Silverstone 28 Jun 2010
Red Bull Mark Webber insists his high-speed crash in Sunday’s European Grand Prix will not hamper his preparations for the next round of the championship at Silverstone. Webber emerged largely unscathed from the 300 km/h shunt, after running into the back of Heikki Kovalainen’s Lotus.
“I feel a little tender today, but I’ll be fine come the race weekend and I cannot wait to get back in the car,” Webber told his official website. “I have a few cuts and bruises, but otherwise I’m fine.”
Onboard cameras captured the full drama of the spectacular accident, which saw the Australian’s car somersault through the air, briefly land upside down and then right itself before spearing into the Valencia tyre wall.
“My car felt like it was airborne for a long time,” said Webber. “I had time to worry about whether there were any bridges at that point on the track, which, luckily, there weren’t. If there had been one, I would have hit it because I went pretty high. But the car stood up to the accident well.”
While Kovalainen maintained the Red Bull had simply run into him, Webber questioned whether the Finn could have done more to avoid the clash, suggesting the Lotus driver braked for the corner 80m sooner than he himself had done on the previous lap.
“I understand that F1 isn’t a charity event; you have to fight for every position - but not when you’re five seconds off the pace and you have one of the quickest cars in the pack behind you. I mean, how long was Heikki going to stay ahead of me? Another 15 seconds? He must be asking himself whether it was worth it.”
The crash marked Webber’s first retirement of 2010 and he now heads to Silverstone - and into the second half of the season - fourth in the standings, trailing championship leader Lewis Hamilton by 24 points
“There’s still everything to play for,” he continued. “To be 24 points behind Lewis is nothing when you consider that I scored 50 points in the space of eight days a few races ago. And we’re taking nothing for granted at Red Bull Racing; we need to continue working flat-out because our rivals are bringing updates to every race.
“We hope the RB6 will be competitive at Silverstone because the track has lots of high-speed corners, through which our car excels.”
