Mark Webber did an impressive job to overcome front wing damage in Canada to not only finish fourth but also set fastest lap.
After the race the Aussie made it very clear that he was not impressed with Giedo van der Garde, who received a drive through penalty after the pair collided.
Webber felt that with an undamaged car he might have had a better chance of fighting for a podium.
“I got a sensational start,” he said. “I really didn’t have too many places to go. I went to the middle and obviously Bottas and Nico were in there, so I had to go to the other side, and I lost a little bit of momentum. It was a bit like Monaco. We’re getting our starts sorted, but these last two races we haven’t had opportunities to show how good they’ve been.
“But anyway, I settled in behind Nico, and it became quite evident that he was managing the pace a little bit more, and trying to clear him wasn’t that easy. We had the car very critical on temperatures, so I had to sit out of the slipstream and manage the car temperature, which was also a little bit of a curveball.
“Mercedes covered us well at the stop, and then the battle was on again. I was happy to see Mercedes did the option for Nico, because I thought that was going to bite him in the arse, and it turned out it did, which was good. I finally got past him, the car was happy then obviously, and we could get into a rhythm – until we caught a pay driver with no mirrors, and then I lost the front wing…
“The car was very damaged from that. It was very difficult from there. I was very keen to get on the podium, I think we had everything teed up very well to do that, but you can’t have a bleeding car with Fernando around you. He’s going to capitalise on that.”
Regarding problems with backmarkers Webber said: “They’re doing their own race as well obviously, I’ve been there in a Minardi, I’ve been there in a shitbox, but you need to look in your mirrors. When the guys fighting for the podium are coming along, there’s four corners with blue flags… We can’t disappear into a hole either. That was that.”
Meanwhile Christian Horner agreed that the collision was not Webber’s fault.
“Van Der Garde left the door open,” said Horner. “It’s under blue flags, it’s his responsibility to make way for the race leaders coming through, and then he just turned back. It was just a silly move. He obviously got a penalty for it, but he just wasn’t aware of what was going on.
Horner said the team considered changing the nose but opted not to: “We looked at it but the performance loss was outweighed by the time loss to change the nose box in the pitlane. So we decided to leave it.
“I’m sure without that [damaged] front wing he could have held Fernando off, or maybe closed down Lewis.”
Adam Cooper's F1 Blog 
I am a fan of Mark Webber. That said, regardless of van der Garde’s error, Webber is just as much to blame for compromising his own race in that incident by *assuming* that said pay driver wouldn’t do something stupid. I hate to say it but Vettel would never have done that; he would have waited to make the pass on the long run towards the pit entrance. Think, Mark. Crying abut it aftewards doesn’t turn back time and give you that great, undamaged car again.
At least we have to give Mark the credit for saying it as it is instead of all the “political correctness”!
Van der Garde pays for his seat yes, but he is not the only one in the field. I would not call him a “pay-driver” he has had a decent career untill F1, he also put the Caterham in Q2 in Monaco.
And put Alonso, Vettel, Raikkonen etc. in the Caterham and they would struggle too, maybe not as much, but still. Kovalainen said it’s very hard too drive.
Ofcourse it’s a mistake, but he knows that too. And besides there are many great F1 drivers who made ‘such’ mistakes too. Schumacher in Singapore last year for example.
I didn’t say that he’s the only one making mistakes or bringing a budget with him. What I said is that I like Marks “no bs” attitude, which is IMO far more refined than Kimi’s attitude which often just comes out plain rude.
Well, for me it seems Vettel and Webber are more alike that they would admit: Beeing a little bit too incautious while lapping sometimes just to give the other drivers names after that ^^ Let it be “paydriver” or “gurke” 😉
Gotta question why Webber was able to set fastest lap when trying (specifically to ensure Vettel didn’t get it…I’ll leave you to make your own judgements on how mature that is) yet Alonso romped away from him and picked up 2nd place.
It felt very much like Webber just cruised to the end, and only tried for one lap or two to ensure he got that fastest lap.
That’s why he’s a number 2 at Red Bull…..
Mark has a history of sticking his nose into corners and expecting the other guy to surrender. When your front wheels are near the other guys rear wheels going into a corner I’d say it’s up to you to back off, not expect the other guy (if he can see you) to cede the space.
Precisely. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me 22 times…
First of all Guido van der Garde made a mistake, there is no doubt about that and the penalty he got reflects that. What I find regrettable about Mark Webber’s comments is that he seems to forget that he also made mistakes in his first season. Sometimes it looks like from his comments that rookies are not allowed to drive their own race, not allowed to make mistakes, etc. And I say this not because of GvdG but he also has the same comments with the many other collisions he had with backmarkers. And as far as I can tell this was the first race where GvdG made big mistakes, everyone in F1 is allowed to make a couple of rookie mistakes as long as he does not repeat them. So in this instance give him some slack and complain extra hard about him when he as a second race where he makes these kind of mistakes.
And last but not least I have to ask “Why does Mark Webber seem to have more collisions with rookies/backmarkers than most?”. In a Red Bull you get to see the backmarkers sooner than in a Sauber but he seems to hit them also more often than other front running teams… There must be something about his style of driving that confuses the rookie drivers because I believe that if someone crashes so often in the back of other cars there is also something small that Mark Webber must be doing differently from other drivers. Just like Grosjean has something in him that makes him lose sight of the things around him and therefore makes him crash more often than others.