Webber: Title battle still on track

In his 150th grand prix start, Mark won the Hungarian Grand Prix in emphatic style to retake the lead of the World Championship. It was his fourth win of 2010, which is two more than any other driver.

“It feels great to go into the summer break on the back of a win,” says Mark. “I had to drive what was effectively a three-part race because I didn’t pit for tyres when the Safety Car came out early on, but the strategy paid off and I won the race pretty easily in the end.”

Red Bull Racing’s RB6 suited the tortuous layout of the Hungaroring. It was the class of the field during practice, and, unsurprisingly, the battle for pole position was a private battle between Mark and his team-mate Sebastian Vettel. Mark was fastest in Q2, but Vettel snatched pole position in Q3 to get the benefit of the clean side of the grid.

At the start of the race, Mark – predictably – lost traction in all the dust away from the line. Vettel moved further ahead and Alonso, who’d started third, overtook him.

“I immediately got into Fernando’s slipstream,” says Mark. “I was pretty close to him as we approached Turn 1, but he defended well. This wasn’t his first grand prix; he knew what to do to stop me getting through and I had to settle for third place.

“At this stage, my plan was to try and pass Fernando at the pitstops. I knew I could lap much faster than him in clear air, so I was waiting for a couple of traffic-free laps later in the race. As it was, I didn’t have to wait that long because debris at Turn 11 brought out the Safety Car on lap 15 and that’s when we decided to do something different.”

While the rest of the field pitted for tyres during the Safety Car period, Mark stayed out and took the lead of the race. In clean air, the team thought he could open enough of a gap on Alonso that would allow him to emerge from the pits ahead later in the race. When Vettel was then given a drive-thru penalty and emerged behind Alonso, suddenly Mark’s battle for second place became a battle for the lead.

“For the 25 laps after the Safety Car,” says Mark, “I drove nearly every lap like it was a qualifying lap. I needed a 20s gap to Alonso, so I pushed very hard. There was an element of risk because we hadn’t done anything like a 42-lap stint on the option tyre during practice.”

By lap 43, Mark was 23s ahead of Alonso and he dived into the pits for his only pitstop of the race. The mechanics turned his car around quickly and he emerged from the pitlane six seconds ahead of Alonso. The race was won.

“Some people will say I was lucky today,” says Mark, “but I’ll take it. I’ve been in this sport long enough to know that you have to take the rough with the smooth and none of my other victories have been gifted to me.

“There’s everything to play for, but not until I’ve turned my phone off and had a couple of weeks’ holiday! I’ll be in touch again before Spa.”