KERS failure proves costly for Webber

Mark put in a gritty performance in the Malaysian Grand Prix to finish in fourth place and set the fastest lap of the race. But after starting third, he was immediately put on the back foot following a technical problem.

“The clutch didn’t behave itself initially,” says Mark. “That cost me a bit of time, but the biggest problem was KERS. When I pushed the KERS button as we left the grid, nothing happened and I was swamped. I ended the first lap in 10th place.”

The early laps saw Mark battle with Kamui Kobayashi and Michael Schumacher, but he quickly altered his strategy from three stops to four.

“Despite being very quick through the corners,” says Mark, “it was going to be very difficult for me to pass people with KERS because they were so quick in a straight-line. I had to do something different to make progress and that meant changing the strategy.”

Mark was very quick on his fresh sets of tyres and climbed as high as fourth, before his final stop dropped him back to eighth.

“I drove every lap on the limit,” says Mark. “I’d like to have stayed out a bit longer before making my final pitstop, but I was losing too much time behind Lewis [Hamilton] and I had to come in. But my car was very fast in my final stint and I was able to make quick progress.”

Part of that progress was an audacious overtaking manoeuvre around the outside of Felipe Massa at Turn 1 on lap 50 and he crossed the finish line 1.3s behind Nick Heidfeld in third place.

“As the race progressed,” says Mark, “it became harder to overtake due to the amount of marbles off-line. That’s why I passed [Felipe] Massa around the outside. It was a risky move, but it paid off because there was more grip on the outside of the track than the inside.

“Once I was ahead of Felipe, I thought I could finish on the podium because I was much faster than Heidfeld through the corners. But the he was very quick on the straights and I couldn’t get a run on him.”

Tenth to fourth was still a great result, particularly when you consider how much the Pirelli tyres have changed the nature of the races this year. There were a total of 63 pitstops at Sepang, compared with 22 last year.

“It was quite hard for us to understand what was going on in the race,” says Mark, “so I can understand why some people at home might have thought it was difficult to follow. More pitstops doesn’t always lead to better racing; you want the race to take place on the track and not in the pits.”

Mark is now staying in Malaysia for a couple of days before moving to Shanghai in the middle of the week for next weekend’s Chinese Grand Prix. He finished second there in 2009 and is hoping for another good result on Sunday.

“There’s no doubt that Seb [Vettel] has got off to a great start in the championship,” says Mark. “But I’m confident that the car will be competitive in Shanghai and I’ll be pushing hard. I’ll keep boxing; I’ll keep swinging.”