Australian Mark Webber surprised many by qualifying third at Interlagos and then scored Jaguar’s first points of the season on Sunday – despite crashing out of the race.
Australian Mark Webber surprised many by qualifying third at Interlagos and then scored Jaguar’s first points of the season on Sunday – despite crashing out of the race.
On lap 53, Webber was placed in a points-scoring eighth position but as he approached the fast left-hander leading onto the pit-straight, he lost control of his Jaguar R4 and crashed very heavily into the tyre wall.
The trail of carnage left in his wake caused the Renault of Fernando Alonso to collide with a wheel lying on the track and the resulting heavy crash forced the race stewards to abandon the race.
“It was not a race anyone will forget for many a year to come! Webber was running very well when the Safety Car was deployed on lap 32. He pitted for the second time and we fuelled him until the finish – a strategy that would have seen us on the podium today had we not have suffered from the huge accident on lap 53,” said Jaguar head of vehicle performance Mark Gillan.
“The Jaguar R4 has performed strongly here all weekend and the race was no different. The sector times were on the pace and even though Mark was carrying more fuel than was necessary to compensate for a fuel pick-up issue, his lap times were very competitive in atrocious conditions,” he added.
Webber said that the Brazilian Grand Prix had been the toughest race of his career. “Even though observers thought we were running a light fuel strategy because of our excellent 3rd place qualifying position, I think we proved many people wrong today by showing otherwise,” he said.
“There was a far amount of surface water lying all around the track but the kink after turn two was by far the most dangerous and caught many drivers out including my team mate Antonio (Pizzonia).
“I am not sure what caused my accident on the final left-hander,” he added.
