Do you think Mark Webber genuinely has reason to complain, or is just bitter about his retirement?

Question

http://uk.eurosport.yahoo.com//04102007/58/chinese-gp-hamilton-s-fuji-win-under-threat.html

http://uk.eurosport.yahoo.com/04102007/58/chinese-gp-webber-slams-hamilton-s-driving.html

Answer 1

Comlaining about Lewis and is driving is an absolute Bl...y disgrace.He drove the race in immpeccable standards and maybe his delaying tacticts at the back of the Safety Car were to allow the engine to breath more freely on the lean fuel mixture.Ever since the lad proved himself earlier this year the knives have been out to stop him from everywhere.Let Lewis alone he has proved himself with his superb driving capabilities no point deduction let him race and win....We luv ya Lew.

Answer 2

Mark is a very talented driver who, due to lack of having a real quality car at his disposal, has never got as high as his talent should have got him. Seeing a talented young guy come along in a great car has rubbed him and other drivers up the wrong way.

The stewards saw nothing wrong on Sunday, nor did the commentary team and neither did Mark as he was slating Vettel for bad driving. He had nothing to say about Lewis then when he was right behind him so what has changed ?
He now accepts that Vettel (3rd place) hit him because Vettel was busy looking at what Lewis was doing (1st place). If Vettel was paying more attention to Hamilton than the car immediately ahead it's his fault, not Lewis's.

However, the FIA are sheepish that McLaren got punished and their drivers didn't so expect to see some punishment from the FIA.

I'm not an apologist for Hamilton by the way. If the team were banned for taking an unfair advantage from Ferrari then the drivers should be too. The FIA screwed that one up and I hope that they don't use two wrongs to make a right and penalise Lewis unjustly for this "incident".

Answer 3

I've seen the race and indeed the actions of Hamilton at one point seemed a little bit odd, at one point he went side by side with the safety car and another time he slowed down to a crawl, in the whole context I think he was getting a little frustrated with the pace car staying on track too long and wanted to get things going, he was a bit too anxious to get to the finish line because by this time he knew alonso was out of the race. Basically Webber is venting his frustration at everybody else where the reason is just bad luck and a bit of lack of attention from Vettel. The car that hits from the back has no excuse, especially in safety car conditions, no matter what Hamilton was doing. I think vettel is a very promising young fellow, but still very young and without patience.

Answer 4

You cannot overtake behind a safety car so what exactly is Webbers complaint?

I know it was a bit wet but you still need to keep things up to temperature, which could involve something that looked a bit iffy on the M25 but would be perfectly acceptable and expected on a racetrack.

Perhaps Webber just isn't used to being so close to a winner and lost concentration?

Answer 5

Webber is the director of GPDA, and as he mentioned in his interview, they had talked about driving behind the safety car prior to the race. I believe Mark wasn't too happy about Lewis' driving not just immediately before the crash, but also throughout the safety car period. He is probably having a go at Lewis to stamp his authority as the GPDA director, and I see no problems with that. GPDA is for safety, and the newcomers to F1 should pay attention. "Young kids with no experience"...I don't think he was referring only to Vettel....

Answer 6

Mark Webber is right. Conditions were bad enough and being Mr Nice Guy doesn't give you the right to sway right and left ,accelerating and breaking like you are the only one on the track. If Schumacher had done it everyone would be complaining about his lack of sportsmanship.
Get over it, Hamilton is a good driver but he can make mistakes too, and in Japan he did and can be criticised for it.

Answer 7

Vettel stated that he was watching Hamilton because he thought he had stopped. The next thing he knew he was almost in the back of Webber and there was nothing he could do.

In other words, he is saying that he wasn't watching where he was going!

Answer 8

I was quite disappointed to hear Mark Webber's comments - I've always thought he was a well-measured guy and a good driver just doing the best he could in the car he has, but this sounds like total sour grapes to me. It's sad that he is jeopardising the championship chances of such an amazing rookie driver just to make himself feel better...

Answer 9

i did not see the race but the fia have taken down the video link on you tube for some reason (they claim copyright,another cover up maybe),the fia are investigating Lewis behind the safety car but Bernie won't let anything happen to him even if he was guilty.
I hope next year has no spy saga's ,no holding drivers up in the pits,no calling cars earlier for their pit stops,no bias by the fia, and no backhanders by Bernie.
lets get back to the best driver wins on the track!

Answer 10

I'm soooooooooooooooo fed-up with all the politics in F1 now. You can't even be sure these days if after just having seen a driver win a race he won't be stripped of his points at a later date.