29/06/2015
NEWS STORY
Mark Webber has lifted the lid on his fractious relationship with Red Bull and Sebastian Vettel.
The former F1 star, now in WEC with Porsche, told ABC's Australian Story how he believed weak management at Red Bull ultimately led to the disintegration of the relationship between himself Sebastian Vettel.
"There's so much personal interest in some decisions," said Webber cryptically. "I just happened to be one of the jokers in the game."
As the programme walked through his career, Webber's manager Ann Neale recalled he initially liked Vettel. However, things turned sour midway through 2010 when the Australian won the Spanish and Monaco grands prix.
"We got the impression that Sebastian wasn't happy with how things were going," Neale recalled. "This old Aussie was beating him and it wasn't the way it was supposed to be."
"I'd just won the previous grands prix from start to finish and then a new rear wing arrives and it goes over to the other garage," said Webber. "I know for a fact the mechanics were furious.
"We just think yeah, is there a bit of an agenda going on?" he continued. "They were very keen to keep him a little bit happier... probably because I was an old dog I was expected to be a little bit washed up."
"The issue started to come because of poor team management, really, letting (Vettel) get away with things," Neale added. "I just thought 'Really? You're going to let him get away with that?'"
The frosty relationship hit an all-time low at the 2013 Malaysian Grand Prix when Vettel disobeyed team orders - the legendary multi-21 instruction - to pass Webber to win.
"We got off the podium and he just came over and said 'we need to talk, I've just done… I've f****d up, mate. I f****d up so bad'. I said 'well mate, let's just talk. Let's talk next week'."
Those discussions however didn't end well and all but signalled to Webber that it was time to call an end to his Formula One career.
"He just said he had massive respect for me as a driver and not much as a person," Webber revealed. "That really affected the relationship. At the time we could hardly stand the sight of each other.
"The team, after multi 21, were disappointed, no question about it," he continued. "They were shown how toothless they were. They couldn't handle the two of us on track which shouldn't be like that.
"They just needed something to change and I helped that decision for them and left!"
Mat Coch