 Minardi
driver Mark Webber made a good recovery from a troubled opening stint in
Sunday's race to finish 15th in the 60-lap Grand Prix of Europe at the
Nurburgring, Germany, round nine of the 2002 FIA Formula One World
Championship.
Starting from 20th on the grid, the 25-year old Australian made a superb
start, diving down the inside on the run to the first corner where he
narrowly avoided the tangled Jordans of Takuma Sato and Giancarlo
Fisichella, to emerge in an impressive 15th place.
However, the pace of Webber's KL Minardi Asiatech was no match for the likes
of the Arrows' of Enrique Bernoldi and Heinz-Harald Frentzen and Jacques
Villeneuve‘s BAR which all re-passed him; Mark dropping back to 18th on lap
three.
Battling with an obvious tyre problem, Webber lost a further position on lap
seven when he briefly slid off the track and with his lap times clearly
suffering, he managed the best he could before pitting for his first
scheduled stop on lap 21, enduring a quick spin en route back to the pits.
Having rejoined the race in 20th position, there was an immediate
improvement in Webber's lap times, his best lap of 1:35.880 coming on lap 38
just before his second and final pit stop. Webber's lap times remained
competitive and consistent after his second pit stop too, and although there
was no opportunity to race for position, Webber gained five positions,
courtesy of retirements and accidents, to finish the race in 15th spot – his
seventh race finish of the season.
“It wasn't one of our better races but there were a few
reasons for that as we had quite a big problem with the balance of the car
on the first stint but after the pit stop, the car was transformed,”
Mark said. “We certainly had a tyre issue in the first
stint because the car was extremely difficult to drive on the limit. On the
second and third sets of tyres, we tried a different philosophy and we were
able to drive at the pace we should have been able to in the first stint. I
really enjoyed the last 40 laps of the race but the first 20 were not so
pretty!” |
