Formula 1 Driver Profiles Mark Webber

Mark Webber is the only Australian since 1981 to have won the Formula One race, apart from Alan Jones. Webber has 272.5 career points as of today and has 4 wins with 14 podium positions and 5 pole positions with 5 fastest laps. He won his first race at the 2009 German Grand Prix and his latest win was at the 2010 Monaco Grand Prix. He was born in Queanbeyan, New South Wales on August 27, 1976. His father was a dealer in motorcycles. Webber’s first brush with sports was when he was a ball boy who retrieved the ball from various corners of the field. He started with this stint for the Canberra Raiders, an Australian professional rugby league football club. But Webber admired racing and had Grand Prix motorcycle racer Kevin Schwantz along with Formula One World Champion Alain Prost as his role models. He started with motorcycle racing, but soon chose to continue racing using four wheels, rather than the more dangerous motorbikes. At the age of 14 he started with karting in 1991. Two years later in 1993, he won the New South Wales state championship. He decided to upgrade himself by participating in the Formula Ford, or Formula F, a single seater, open wheel class in motor sports. Along with karting, he looked upon Formula Ford as his entry-level series from which to move on to Formula One. Between races Webber also used to work as a driving instructor at Sydney’s Oran Park Raceway while also participating in races to emerge at 14th position in his debut season. To encourage him in his passion, his father brought him a Van Diemen race car that had been used by Craig Lowndes, an Australian racing driver. In the 1995 season he won the race organized in support of the Australian Grand Prix at Adelaide. An important boost during this phase was the sponsorship he received from the Australian Yellow pages. Championship coordinator Ann Neal helped him to get this sponsorship and Webber accompanied Neal to Europe to explore further career prospects there. In Europe he struck up a partnership with Paul Stoddart, also from Australia who is a millionaire and who at that time owned the European Racing Formula 3000 team. Later when Paul Stoddart purchased the Minardi Formula One racing team, Webber too landed into Formula One. In his maiden Formula One race which was also Stoddart’s home race, Webber scored the first points for Mirandi in three years. Later Webber signed up with Jaguar Racing, a Formula One team that competed in the FIA Formula One World Championship from 2000 to 2004. While he was with Jaguar, he normally outperformed his team mates. But considering that at that point in time the competition he faced was not a tough one, this was an easy record to make. He registered his first Formula One win at the 2009 German Grand Prix and followed this up with another at 2010 Monaco Grand Prix. In addition he reached the second position at the Turkish, British and Chinese Grand Prix events. Mark Webber’s performance has been noted by the sports media and he has been conferred with many awards from magazines like Autocar, F1 Racing, etc. Category:Home › Other • Pomegranates: A newly discovered superfood • Where did the joke why did the chicken cross the road come from and why is it funny? • Can mothers diagnosed with bipolar disorder make good parents? • Spiritual evolution of human consciousness • Tips for getting a college basketball scholarship • Living with Pseudotumor cerebri (PTC) • Caring for the caregiver • Technologys impact on society