Webber is determined to have another go at the title

Mark Webber opened his victory account last year with a win in Spain, then went on to dominate around the streets of Monaco, notched a third win in Britain and took a final victory in Hungary.

Those results and consistent scoring elsewhere took him into the Championship lead and although his challenge ultimately proved unsuccessful, Webber believes the lessons learned have given him a better platform from which to challenge again.

“2010 was my best year in F1, with a lot of big boxes ticked along the way,” he says. “It was a shame I didn’t manage to pull the Championship off, but it was still very rewarding to be competing for it until the very end.”

“Ultimately, I think qualifying is the area where the Championship slipped away and that’s something I will definitely be looking to address this season. Having said that, there were many things that we did absolutely right last year and there’s no point in saying ‘we must change everything’. You fix the small things that went missing along the way and match those to the good things that were achieved
and that’s what hopefully makes you up your game.”

Practical as ever, though, Webber confesses that major success ultimately comes down to having the right tools for the job.

“Everything is tempered with a little nervousness about what will happen when we get our hands on the new car,” he says. “We’ve seen in the last few years in F1 that they make big regulation changes every year and that’s something we, as a team, need to be on top of.”

“In Adrian Newey, we’ve got someone who’s better able to roll with those kind of punches than almost anyone else in Formula One,” he adds. “He’s absolutely brilliant at interpreting new regulations and I think I’d rather have Adrian in our corner than almost anybody else.”

And that gives Webber the confidence to enter this new season with a renewed sense of purpose.

“The fact that I had my best season last year does make you hungrier,” he admits. “I just missed out in the end last year, so if the package does come together again this year, and the chance of another run at the title is there, then we’ll do everything in our power to take it.”