By Ian Lockwood
April 8 2007

For the second race in succession, Webber reached the top ten shoot-out in official qualifying by virtue of an impressive last-gasp effort in quali two which promoted him to ninth fastest with a lap-time of 1min 35.579s. “I knew I had to find a 1/10^th or so as it was very close between everyone. I hadn’t done enough in the first two sectors so it all hinged on finishing the lap as best as I could. Coming down to turn 15, I was thinking how many times I’d been through that corner all weekend and how I could find a bit more time. I made the apex and braked as late as possible  - I don’t think I could have done it again; I was a bit jammy really! It was a lot, lot more difficult to get into the top 10 here than it was in Melbourne.”

Final quali didn’t go quite to plan as the team gambled and brought Mark in early to change tyres so he could set his lap ahead of an expected rain shower. It might have proved a master stroke had the predicted rain arrived as Webber went fourth fastest. However, the weather conditions remained constant and so Webber had to pit again and this time, having to use harder tyres, set his final qualifying time of 1min 37.345s to end the session 10^th fastest. 

Webber’s race was relatively uneventful, the 30-year old Australian starting tenth and finishing tenth. “I had a pretty good start although I couldn’t go to the middle of the circuit off the start as Heikki Kovalainen was already there. That meant I had to go to the right of Jarno Trulli. It all washed up that I finished the first lap in 11^thposition as I had lost a position to Heikki and Giancarlo Fisichella but gained one from Ralf Schumacher at the first corner.

Webber stayed in 11^th spot, unable to do anything about the pace of the Renault of Kovalainen but comfortably ahead of his own team-mate David Coulthard in 12^thwho was battling with Williams driver, Austrian Alex Wurz. Wurz finally got the better of the Scotsman on lap 11 and began to close the gap to Webber before the Austrian pitted on lap 17. Webber pitted on lap 21 and when the order had settled down, had lost a position to Wurz.  

The Australian/Austrian battle continued for the remainder of the race. Wurz pitted first on lap 34 and with Webber not due to stop again until lap 42, he moved into 10^th and pushed as hard as he could to try and build a sufficient enough cushion over Wurz. As others around him made their final pit-stops, Webber moved as high as eighth before finally stopping himself. Despite his efforts though, Webber still hadn’t done quite enough to jump ahead Wurz; the Red Bull Racing driver rejoining the track as the Williams driver flashed by.                                                                     

Webber hauled himself onto the back of the Williams, trying to pressure Wurz into a mistake. However, sitting so closely behind another car also took its toll on his own tyres, and Webber dropped back in the closing stages to take the chequered flag in tenth.

“In the first stint we had a bit too much understeer which we addressed at the first stop. We elected to keep the harder compound tyres on for the second stint which, as a team, we’ll review to see if it was the right decision at the time as clearly the softer tyre was the faster tyre to have as we proved when I caught Alex up. I put him under pressure for quite a lot of time but sitting that close behind took its toll on my tyres and so 10^thwas the best we could manage.”