Webber discusses first taste of Formula One

By steve
September 9 2003

I recently stumbled across an interesting interview from November 2000. It’s about Mark Webber's first steps into formula one – his first tests.

Webbers first test was in an Arrows A20 testing electronics for the A21 in December 1999. The nature of the test meant Webber was unable to explore the boundaries of the car and left feeling that he couldn’t tell whether he had what it takes to be in F1.
Here are the comments he made about that test “Each category is a new challenge. I wasn’t that brilliant in karts but formula Ford seemed to work well for me, then Formula 3 – I loved that, whereas some people struggled. Some people do brilliant in Formula 3 and then struggle in Formula One. Jan Magnussen(former driver for the Stewart Team that Jaguar evolved from) dominated all his categories and look what happened to him(barichello, his team mate at Stewart, smashed him). So you always have to be a bit careful.

“You can be competitive in each category, but each step is into new, uncharted waters and we have seen lots of great guys from formula 3 struggle in Formula One. I haven’t done much in Formula One yet and didn’t take too much from the arrows test in terms of my own performance because I didn’t get much of a run at it in any nice sort of way.

“I mean it was a good experience, Pedro(de la Rosa) was there, and he was the only one driving the same car – looking at the things that I did there. I wasn’t very happy with my performance. But I could never draw a real reflection on the job that I did down there.”

His next (First-Real) test came in Estoril, September 2000. Testing with Benetton. He was called upon to test as the team prepared for Indianapolis. Race simulations with the Indy-spec Bridgstone tyres were planned so Webber had to be on the ball. Webber had never driven at Estoril but it didn’t take long for Webber to find his feet. He finished the first day four-tenths slower than fastest man, Ralf Schumacher in a Williams.

On the second day Fisichella was on hand to set a bench mark in the same car. Mark had stated prior to the test: “I’ll be happy if I can get to within half a second of Fisi”. Fisichella set a time of 1m21.712 and Webber managed to shave 1.3 seconds of his day One time to get within half a second of his fellow Benetton driver.

The third and final day was even better. Again, with the same Tyres, fuel load and conditions they’d had the day before, Webber went out and after four laps was within 2/1000ths of Fisi’s time.

Impressed by his times the Benetton team invited him out on another timed run and he finished with a 1m21.33s - top of the time sheets for the three day test. Ralf set a best time of 1m21.5s.

When asked whether he’d seen a formula one driver match the times of the teams top driver, Benetton technical director was quick to respond. “Yeah! Schumacher, Senna,” laughed Symonds. He went on to say “Seriously, Giancarlo might have gone a fraction quicker if he’d been here for three days, but, to be honest it’s irrelevant. Mark got down to the times and did it in a very professional manner. I judge him very highly on that. I’d be very surprised if he’s not in F1 racing soon, very surprised….”

Asked about his confidence Webber said, “Um.....Estoril Makes me confident that I can make it.....Yeah, I mean I have driven with some pretty quick and experienced guys and I have learnt a lot off them, but I have also, on the odd day, shown them something, which is always nice for you that you can do that.

“like it always makes you feel confident that you could have qualities to drive in Formula One. I think I am slowly learning and I know the ingredients that you need to do well in Formula One. I am giving that plenty of respect and I know that there is a lot more to it than meets the eye. But hopefully I will be ready to go for it shortly.

“On the stopwatch, with the same compound, same fuel load, I matched his time on the day, maybe the track was tenth or three tenths quicker but, even still, you know I was right in the ball park.

“I am not saying that I have anything in reserve but, with those tests, the last thing you want to do is crash as well, as that car was allocated to go to Indianapolis. So I had little margin, but I’m sure Giancarlo did as well. It is his 700th test that he’s done this year probably, so he’s probably not highly motivated anyway. But he was down there to put a benchmark in. I was a bit surprised, but the surprise wore off when I started doing a few of them.”

Webber expected Benetton to be his break into formula one but had to wait ‘till 2002 when Minardi gave Webber the opportunity to race in a formula one car and he certainly made the most of that.