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Webber not worried by slow time

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Author: Andries van der Walt

Publishing date: 28.08.2010 13:47

Mark Webber Red Bull Racing

Championship leader Mark Webber believes there were plenty of reasons to be pleased with his opening day at the Belgian Grand Prix, even if he finished it down in 18th position. Both Friday practice sessions took place in changeable weather and made any meaningful set-up work difficult with the track conditions not stable for long enough to allow drivers sufficient time on one type of tyres.

Webber failed to take advantage of the late drier conditions and set a more representative lap time in his Red Bull RB6 but still felt that, given the challenges posed by the weather, it had been a positive start to the weekend. Today was a bit of a messy day with the changing conditions, but it was actually pretty good for us, said the Australian.

We got some good information to go through and I'm looking forward to tomorrow. There are a few quick guys out there, but we're not slow either. It's hard to get a feel for what everyone's doing with the changing weather. It's a beautiful track here, it's special - today we got to sample it in all conditions.

Team-mate and fellow title contender Sebastian Vettel was the quicker of the pair in both sessions, following up his fourth-fastest time from the wetter morning session with the afternoon's sixth-best lap. With teams limited to seven sets of wet tyre in total, three full wet and four intermediate, per car for the entire weekend Vettel confessed the inevitable lack of Friday track time in the wet was frustrating and meant it was a case of simply trying to find the right balance when on track. Obviously with these conditions it's always a bit tricky, the German said.

Track time is limited, tyres are limited. We would love to run more even though it's raining, it's nice to have some rain. Also within the season, especially on Friday, we don't have a lot of tyres. Looking [ahead] at the weekend, you don't want to burn you tyres today. You might still need them tomorrow or Sunday in the race.

At the end you need to feel if you've got the right balance in the car and that's more or less it. Vettel believes the weekend could end up taking a similar pattern to Friday, with being on track at the right time on the correct tyres key to a fast time. As I said, there's not enough time with a consistent tyre because the conditions are changing and there's not enough tyres in general to run a lot, he added. So whoever is out [on the track] depending on the track condition, might be fastest.

So that's maybe the name of the game for the weekend. We were looking at the balance, it feels good, but it's hard when the conditions are changing. We still have some work to do for Saturday and Sunday.

Mark Webber Red Bull Racing

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