Mark Webber talks to ESPN about the current state of F1 and the launch of his new autobiography Aussie Grit, which was released in the UK this week
One of the main themes of your autobiography is that F1 isn't quite what it seems from the outside, was that something you wanted to get across?
I think when you come into the sport you are just so naïve. When you arrive the rose-tinted glasses are just so deep that everything is mega and everyone is a legend, but of course not all sports are like that and Formula One is no exception. It is still the pinnacle, it is sensational, it's great, but there are other things you see with an agenda here or there, a bit of politics or the realisation that one guy is not as good as you thought or another is a lot better than you thought. You just learn and that is something you go through having been there for 15 years, you learn about what is actually the reality.
At one point you mention that you were always very apolitical, is that something you had to change or did you struggle to get your head around the politics?
I think I struggled with the amount of energy you needed to put into brown-nosing people you don't want to. I slightly struggle with that. That just can happen, so I think it's something you try to accept might be there but you try to be careful with your energy levels to make sure you don't blow up and put too much energy into things that will ultimately piss you off.
One thing you have been vocal about this week is quality of the current F1 field. At the start of your career there were more chances to test, do you think the talented drivers are out there but unable to prove themselves in F1 machinery now?
That's right. That's really the beef. We need the Max Verstappens, the Carlos Sainzs, these types of of drivers coming in and the drivers that are paying their way in and hauling their way into the sport I don't agree with. That's what we need to keep an eye on and stop it continuing. It doesn't happen in any other sport and it shouldn't be happening in our sport to that level. We have to have the young talent coming in and replacing the greats that we have in there now. We have four world champions on the grid, but they won't be there forever. Who's next? Well there's Daniel Ricciardo, Sainz and Verstappen and [Valtteri] Bottas, but the field could be deeper. We've had this period now where the pay drivers have been a bit heavier than years gone by and we just need to make sure that we don't accept too much of that in the future.
That comes back to money in Formula One, the politics behind it and its distribution, doesn't it? For some teams it seems there is no way to compete without pay drivers?
It's very much down to getting your team in order, operating well and punching above your weight financially and getting that exponential curve of financial rewards. Then you're on your way and holding the team together and getting the best drivers and engineers. The model has been very consistent from the outset, there are no handouts, it's a tough way to get through. But coming off the back of the financial crisis the sport was very delayed in reacting to that and sponsors have tightened the purse strings. Coming off the back side of that maybe we were a bit slow in reacting and if we didn't take the hit initially we are going through it in the last two or three years. The teams are hit financially, so where do they go? They have to go to drivers that can bring commercial relationships in order to pay the rest of their staff.
You mentioned Max Verstappen as a driver the sport needs, how impressed have you been by him and how would a 17-year-old Mark Webber have dealt with being in his position so young?
Rubbish! That was 20 years ago and I didn't have the exposure to the mileage he had and all sorts of things, but I couldn't have done it. Very rarely do you get a 17-year-old that can do the same. I suppose Kimi [Raikkonen] is the closest in terms of age, respect and what he did at that age to come in. Jenson [Button] too and Fernando to a degree, those two were very, very young. Lewis was later on but by then the simulators were a big part of the sport, so that early generation who just had to get in and get the job done. It's like a fighter pilot being forced through the system and then flying an F-18 very quickly, but Max is the real deal, done a great job and got the respect of the other drivers very quickly. He's an absolute pro, as much as he can be, and has done a great job.
Would it have been possible physically for a 17-year-old to come into the sport when you were starting out?
I think he's pretty mature for 17 and looks like a pretty strong lad. I think back then the cars were different to drive and there was a bigger physical component, so it's hard to compare. I think when you look at someone like a Fernando or JB, they got themselves in shape when they first arrived in the sport and applied themselves, so it was possible.
One thing that you mention in the book is how you struggled with the Pirelli tyres, is that something that really took the momentum out of the end of your career?
Definitely. One of my signature punches was fast corners, I always gained time in faster corners, but that just happened to be a thing that was lost when Pirelli arrived. Especially when we were learning about the tyres - the teams know a lot more about them now - but in the early days Red Bull really encouraged us not to go through the fast corners at top speed; we had to back off, go through there at seven tenths and save the tyres. At that age it's hard to teach an old dog new tricks and I wasn't adaptable enough and I lost some lap time with that and wasn't good enough to react in other areas, so that really did hurt me. That was one skill that I had relied on throughout my whole career and suddenly it was gone.
The tyres have been back in the headlines recently and we heard in Monza that the drivers have been told not to criticise Pirelli. I guess that's something you wouldn't have appreciated when you were in the sport?
If you want to keep having a career, you'll stay quiet. If you're at the tail end of your career like I was you might be a little more trigger happy and less concerned. I think what we should be talking about is Lewis winning by a big margin and the battles going on in the field, but I think unfortunately in the last few years we've been talking about everything but the racing and that's what we are all disappointed with, whether its tyres, engines or something else. We've just got to get back to the racing, focus on the drivers and their skill. That's the sport.
A lot of drivers complain about the tyres now, did the way the cars feel in the last few years of your career sap your motivation?
Oh yeah. It's the same for all the guys that had exposure to the cars that had lap-record pace in the mid-2000s, now when your five or six it feels pedestrian to say the least. That's something that frustrates the guys that have had exposure to those cars from the 2000s, because they wanted to peel that pace off to put more racing and more entertainment in and that's the decision they made. If people like watching that, that's fine, but also if you want to watch a lot overtaking and great racing you can also go to your local go-kart track. It's just finding what everyone likes, keeping the drivers happy, keeping the fans happy and the teams. It's a very technical sport now and we need to keep everything a bit more simple. All these engine penalties and understanding tyre compounds, people aren't interested in that, they just want to see some good racing.
With the changes for 2017 it's almost like F1 has gone full circle. We are going back to wider-track cars, 1000bhp engines, but have we lost an era of F1 in recent years with the current cars?
I don't know about that, the drivers will always be remembered and Lewis' purple patch people will always remember. It might be that there are more or less exciting periods in F1, there are sections of each decade that you might not always remember, but it's not the drivers' fault and it's usually due to changes that are a knee-jerk reaction on the back of domination. With Michael Schumacher in the Ferrari they looked at ways to change the regulations to stop Michael winning, then it was Sebastian [Vettel] and they changed the regulations so it wouldn't help Red Bull and now its Mercedes and the engines. Every four or five years we have a big regulation shift and sometimes you get it right and sometimes you get it wrong.