After 130 GP's without a victory Mark Webber finally made it to the top step of the podium after a dominating race pace at the German Grand Prix at Nurburgring.
Starting from pole position helped him alot but everything didn't go as planned as the stewards handed him a drive through penalty after hitting Rubens Barrrichello a couple of hundred meters off the line. This only halted his progression though as the only real challenge came from Barrichello who was on a 3 stop strategy that didn't work out as planned.
A delighted Webber had this to say after the race: "It’s an incredible day. I wanted to win so badly after Silverstone, as I thought I had a good chance there, then after yesterday’s pole I knew I was in a good position to try and win the race today. The only thing that I thought was going to test me was the rain, but even that held off. It was testing to get the victory today, I lost Rubens completely at the start; I thought he was gone a little bit to the left so I went to the right and banged into him. That’s not normally my style and I got a drive-through penalty for that, so had to recover. My engineer kept me calm and I pushed as hard as I could when I needed to, so it’s a great day. It was a difficult winter, Sebastian showed in winter testing what the car could do, so that kept my motivation very high when I was hurting a lot with all the rehab. I had great people around me to recover from all the injuries I had and the team have been incredibly patient with me as well. I want to thank Dietrich Mateschitz, Red Bull and everyone at Red Bull Racing for what they did for me over the winter, everyone in Australia who has supported me on the way through my career - and there are a few people that doubted me too, so hello to them as well. It’s just an incredible day for all the people who have helped me get to where I am today."
Webber was followed over the finish line by teammate Sebastian Vettel. The German took advantage of the strategy of the Brawn cars after a poor start. Filipe Massa took his first podium of the season as he came home in 3rd after a strong race. Nico Rosberg took his and Williams best finishing possition of the year as he came home 4th in front of his homecrowd.
Championship leader Jenson Button managed to pass Barrichello in the 3rd round of pitstops to clinch 5th after they both suffering from graining throughout the race. Something that the Brazilian had thoughts about after the race. "To be honest, I wish I could just get on a plane and go home now. I don't want to talk to anyone in the team, because it would be a lot of bla, bla, bla... And I don't want to hear that. I'm just terribly upset."
Behind the two Brawn cars came a storming Fernando Alonso. The Renault driver came from no where to almost challenge the two teammates in the last few laps and even setting the fastest lap of the race while doing so but he couldn't get close enough to make a challenge and had to settle for 7th.
Heikki Kovalainen took his first points since the Chinese GP as he finished 8th, somthing he didn't belived in before the weekend started. "If you’d told me on Friday that I would score points today, I wouldn’t have believed it. This weekend has been difficult - it’s been hard to get the tyres working and to find grip, but we kept pushing throughout every session and things started to turn around. Qualifying went well and our KERS hybrid helped me to move from sixth to third at the start. From that point on, it was all about defending: I pushed the whole time and it was a hard way to earn points but we can be satisfied about it. KERS made my race today, no doubt about it..."
Adrian Sutil ran in the points when he colided with Kimi Räikkönen after trying to defend his position coming out of pit lane. He lost parts of his front wing and ended up in 15th. The Finn later pulled into his garage with damaged car due to debris. Also Timo Glock made a strong appearence starting from the pit lane. He would end the race just outside the points in 9th.
Starting from pole position helped him alot but everything didn't go as planned as the stewards handed him a drive through penalty after hitting Rubens Barrrichello a couple of hundred meters off the line. This only halted his progression though as the only real challenge came from Barrichello who was on a 3 stop strategy that didn't work out as planned.
A delighted Webber had this to say after the race: "It’s an incredible day. I wanted to win so badly after Silverstone, as I thought I had a good chance there, then after yesterday’s pole I knew I was in a good position to try and win the race today. The only thing that I thought was going to test me was the rain, but even that held off. It was testing to get the victory today, I lost Rubens completely at the start; I thought he was gone a little bit to the left so I went to the right and banged into him. That’s not normally my style and I got a drive-through penalty for that, so had to recover. My engineer kept me calm and I pushed as hard as I could when I needed to, so it’s a great day. It was a difficult winter, Sebastian showed in winter testing what the car could do, so that kept my motivation very high when I was hurting a lot with all the rehab. I had great people around me to recover from all the injuries I had and the team have been incredibly patient with me as well. I want to thank Dietrich Mateschitz, Red Bull and everyone at Red Bull Racing for what they did for me over the winter, everyone in Australia who has supported me on the way through my career - and there are a few people that doubted me too, so hello to them as well. It’s just an incredible day for all the people who have helped me get to where I am today."
Webber was followed over the finish line by teammate Sebastian Vettel. The German took advantage of the strategy of the Brawn cars after a poor start. Filipe Massa took his first podium of the season as he came home in 3rd after a strong race. Nico Rosberg took his and Williams best finishing possition of the year as he came home 4th in front of his homecrowd.
Championship leader Jenson Button managed to pass Barrichello in the 3rd round of pitstops to clinch 5th after they both suffering from graining throughout the race. Something that the Brazilian had thoughts about after the race. "To be honest, I wish I could just get on a plane and go home now. I don't want to talk to anyone in the team, because it would be a lot of bla, bla, bla... And I don't want to hear that. I'm just terribly upset."
Behind the two Brawn cars came a storming Fernando Alonso. The Renault driver came from no where to almost challenge the two teammates in the last few laps and even setting the fastest lap of the race while doing so but he couldn't get close enough to make a challenge and had to settle for 7th.
Heikki Kovalainen took his first points since the Chinese GP as he finished 8th, somthing he didn't belived in before the weekend started. "If you’d told me on Friday that I would score points today, I wouldn’t have believed it. This weekend has been difficult - it’s been hard to get the tyres working and to find grip, but we kept pushing throughout every session and things started to turn around. Qualifying went well and our KERS hybrid helped me to move from sixth to third at the start. From that point on, it was all about defending: I pushed the whole time and it was a hard way to earn points but we can be satisfied about it. KERS made my race today, no doubt about it..."
Adrian Sutil ran in the points when he colided with Kimi Räikkönen after trying to defend his position coming out of pit lane. He lost parts of his front wing and ended up in 15th. The Finn later pulled into his garage with damaged car due to debris. Also Timo Glock made a strong appearence starting from the pit lane. He would end the race just outside the points in 9th.
Just shows not even bad luck and stupid blind stewards could stop Webber dominance today!
