Well, if this report is true, there goes a great topic for debate.
The Telegraph is reporting that Mark Webber will resign with Red Bull, despite the crash and aftermath from Turkey.
Oh well. It would have been fun to figure out where Mark could have gone. (Renault? Ferrari? Whatever the new team is?)
Here’s the salient parts:
Afterwards, Webber hinted darkly that the team might have been favouring Vettel and encouraged journalists to “dig†into the reasons why he appeared suddenly to be slower than his team-mate.
The fallout from those comments has been intense with speculation that by casting such aspersions Webber might have cost himself a contract extension.
Others felt the Australian might no longer wish to drive for a team whose senior figures, men such as Red Bull motorsport adviser Helmut Marko, publicly backed Vettel in the immediate aftermath. The 22-year-old German is the sport’s youngest ever race winner and a huge marketing tool for the energy drinks company.
Red Bull’s own website has been awash with angry comments about the team’s lack of support for Webber in public.
However, it is understood that Webber has cleared the air with Red Bull’s management and will stay beyond the current season.With the McLaren pair of Jenson Button and Lewis Hamilton — who have managed to escape relatively unscathed from their own disagreement over a race incident on Sunday — keen to exploit the rift, Red Bull set about yesterday trying to repair some of the damage.
Now, I don’t mean to cast doubt on this report, but it is definitely one of those cases when the headline, “Mark Webber’s future at Red Bull safe despite fallout from Sebastian Vettel crash,” isn’t supported with a ton of on-the-record facts. In fact, the “it is understood” is the basis for the whole story.
So, there’s hope Webber will drag this out, giving journalists, bloggers and fans something to talk about, and Adrian Newey and Christian Horner something to have an ulcer about.
Unless, of course, Red Bull doesn’t want Mark… :)
