Mark Webber

Mark Alan Webber (born 27 August 1976) is an Australian Formula One driver.

After some racing success in Australia, Webber moved to the United Kingdom in 1995 to further his motorsport career.Webber began a partnership with fellow Australian Paul Stoddart, at that time owner of the European Racing Formula 3000 team, which eventually took them both into Formula One when Stoddart bought the Minardi team.
Webber made his Formula One debut in 2002, scoring Minardi's first points in three years at his and Stoddart's home race. After his first season Jaguar Racing took him on as lead driver. During two years with the generally uncompetitive team Webber several times qualified on the front two rows of the grid and outperformed his team mates. His first F1 win was with Red Bull Racing in the 2009 German Grand Prix, which followed second places at the 2009 Chinese, Turkish, and British Grands Prix. By the end of 2009, Webber had scored eight podiums, including another victory in Brazil. His eight podiums in 2009 compares to only two podiums in the first seven years of his career. He has since added ten more podiums in 2010, including victories in Spain, Monaco, Britain and Hungary. Webber finished the 2010 season in third place having led for a long period, losing out to teammate Sebastian Vettel.
Webber was born in Queanbeyan, New South Wales,son of Alan, a local motorcycle dealer. He started his relationship with sport at a young age, working as a ball boy for premiership winning rugby league team, the Canberra Raiders, during the late 1980s. However, motorsport was where his interest lay, later listing Formula One World Champion Alain Prost and Grand Prix motorcycle racer Kevin Schwantz as his childhood heroes. Starting out racing motorcycles, Webber moved to four wheels in 1991, taking up karting at the age of 14. He won the New South Wales state championship in 1993, and moved straight into the Australian Formula Ford Championship after his father bought him an ex-Craig Lowndes Van Diemen FF1600. Working as a driving instructor at Sydney's Oran Park Raceway between races, Webber finished 14th overall in his debut season. Continuing in the series in 1995, Webber scored several victories, including a win in the support race for the Australian Grand Prix at Adelaide. He finished the series in fourth place but, perhaps more importantly, teamed up with Championship coordinator Ann Neal, who secured him a seven-year sponsorship with Australian Yellow Pages,and would become his manager and accompany him on a trip to England in an attempt to start a career in Europe.
Webber was given a test at Snetterton with the Van Diemen team, and subsequently earned a works drive for the team at the 1995 Formula Ford Festival, held at Brands Hatch, where he finished third.It was a result good enough to prompt the team into signing him for the 1996 championship.Before moving to Europe permanently, Webber won the Formula Holden race at the 1996 Australian Grand Prix in Melbourne. During the 1996 British Formula Ford Championship, Webber took four victories on his way to second place overall, finishing his strong season with a win in the Formula Ford Festival. He also won the Spa-Francorchamps race of the Formula Ford Euro Cup, taking third in the series despite competing in only two of the three rounds. His results throughout the year saw him voted as Australian motorsport's "Young Achiever" and "International Achiever" of 1996. Two days after his Festival victory Webber completed a successful test for Alan Docking Racing, and was signed by the team to graduate to Formula Three in 1997.
Without the financial backing he had enjoyed during his time in Formula Ford, Webber and his team struggled to find the money to fund their championship campaign. He was almost forced to quit halfway through the season, but was able to obtain significant financial and personal support from Australian rugby union legend David Campese, which helped him to complete the year. Mark has since stated he has been able to pay back the money Campese gave him
Webber took victory in just his fourth ever F3 race, at Brands Hatch, leading from start to finish and setting a new lap record in the process. He took a further four podium finishes, including a second place in the support race for the 1997 British Grand Prix, and finished the season in fourth overall. Webber also took strong finishes in the Marlboro Masters at Zandvoort (3rd) and the Macau Grand Prix (4th), both times making his circuit debut.
During the 1997 season, Webber was approached by Mercedes-AMG to compete in a sports car race. Although he initially declined the offer he was persuaded at the end of the year when invited to participate in a test session for the team at the A1-Ring in Austria. AMG were suitably impressed with Webber, and he was signed as the official Mercedes works junior driver for the 1998 FIA GT Championship, alongside reigning champion Bernd Schneider. Travelling around the world, including the United States, Japan and Europe, the pair won five of the ten rounds on their way to second in the overall standings, beaten to the Championship by teammates Klaus Ludwig and Ricardo Zonta by just eight seconds in the final race at Laguna Seca. Webber remained with the AMG team for 1999, and was promoted to his own race car for the season. However, his sportscar career came to an early end after he flipped twice on the Mulsanne straight during practice for the 1999 24 Hours of Le Mans race.An aerodynamic fault on the team's Mercedes-Benz CLRs caused Webber to spectacularly become airborne during both practice and race-day warm up, with the same fate befalling teammate Peter Dumbreck five hours into the race. Both drivers escaped uninjured, but the crashes forced Mercedes to shelve their sportscar program for the year and Webber to reconsider a return to open wheel racing.