Sports / Motor Racing |
Relieved Webber happy to be back on F1 podium(Reuters)Updated: 2007-07-23 16:05 NUERBURGRING, Germany, July 22 - Mark Webber celebrated third place for Red Bull with typical Aussie bluntness at the European Grand Prix on Sunday. "Relief? You don't say, mate. It's a bloody huge relief, for the whole team and myself," declared the Australian. "We've been ripped off quite a lot in the past..." The third place matched the 30-year-old's best result in Formula One, with Williams in Monaco in 2005. It was only his second points finish of a troubled season that has seen him fail to finish four times in 10 starts. In Canada he had run in second place only to finish ninth. Webber had started the race in sixth place but without any expectation of a podium in a season dominated by leaders McLaren and Ferrari. However the retirement of Ferrari's Kimi Raikkonen, a collision between the two BMW drivers at the start and McLaren's Lewis Hamilton out of contention at the back of the field, changed the picture. "I am absolutely stoked, very happy to get a podium and a big chunk of points for the team," Webber told a post race news conference. With British team mate David Coulthard finishing fifth, Red Bull leapfrogged ahead of Toyota to go sixth in the championship. They are now just two points behind Williams, who had Austrian Alexander Wurz finish fourth and just 0.263 seconds adrift of Webber. For a moment, it looked as if Webber was going to be overtaken on the last lap, with Wurz almost alongside, but he held on. "I thought 'We've got it all in the bank, it's all fine, let's maybe start to wind the engine down and look after a few things'," said the Australian. "And then I saw the rain coming towards us and I thought 'Oh my God, they're not going to give it to us easy.' "The fun started on the last lap," he added. "I thought 'Yeah, everything's fine, we're okay.' I went down to the first corner and braked and the front right just locked up. "I lost a lot of time to Alex then, got it back, I was quite calm ... I locked the rears quite heavily and so I had to be quite defensive to finish the lap."
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