Mark Webber: “It looks like we need to keep improving”

Mark Webber was clearly relieved in China after he recovered from a bad qualifying session and a poor start to salvage fourth place.

He passed RBR team mate Sebastian Vettel right at the end as he made good progress through the leading pack.

It was the Australian’s third fourth place in a row this season, and ensured that he also stayed ahead of Vettel in the World Championship.

“When you run that sort of strategy, which worked well in the end, you also pay the risk with traffic,” said Webber. “How is it going to work for you, where do you get the traffic, do you get the marbles, where do you get off line? It’s tricky. In the end to gain a few positions off some of those guys was good.

“It was fun – as long as you keep getting positions it’s good. We’re not the strongest on the straights, so you have to get the passing move done in other places, which can be a little bit more risky.”

Webber’s life was made harder after he dropped three places in the first lap, ending it in ninth.

“There was plenty to do in the first stint, we were a fair way back in the pack. And then obviously people started to lay their cards on the table in terms of what strategies to use. There were a lot of cars evenly paced, strategy wise it was very, very important to execute that as cleanly as possible. The out laps were important. I had Lewis j-u-s-t in Turn One on one of my out laps, and got on the marbles there.

“It was tricky to keep the balance of the car together, and keep pushing as hard as possible. In the end we got a good handful of points, I think it’s three fourths on the bounce now. Anyway we leave here reasonably satisfied. At the start of the race we looked like we were going to get a lot less, we got something at the end, we kept boxing and it looks like we need to keep improving.”