Mark Webber: “I had nothing to fight with”

Webber contemplates his prospects before the start in Germany

Just a fortnight after his superb win at Silverstone Mark Webber endured a difficult German GP, starting eighth after his gearbox penalty and finishing in exactly the same spot 67 laps later, having lost out to both Saubers alomng the way.

Webber was at a loss to explain why he could not get any speed out of his RB8 in race conditions.

“I wasn’t quick at any stage in the race, I was just hanging on,” he said. “We need to look into why we weren’t quick today. Ultimately we expected to get more out of it for sure, after the first lap. The first lap wasn’t too bad, I got Lewis, and after that it was just hanging on. I had nothing to fight with today.

“It wasn’t very special at all, I couldn’t keep a solid pace at all. Obviously I was a little bit held up in the first stint, but after that I wasn’t strong enough at any point in the race to put up a serious challenge for a decent amount of points. It’s bizarre to have a lot of races [where you are] very competitive, and then you finish one 40 seconds away from leaders.

Asked why things were so different from Silverstone, Webber said: “A completely different track, obviously a different situation. We have to be quick in all conditions and today we weren’t for whatever reason, I don’t know why.”

Meanwhile Christian Horner said: “I don’t think Mark was totally happy with the balance of his car on the harder tyre today, on the soft tyre it looked in pretty reasonable shape. I think the lack of running on Friday definitely compromised things.”