Numbers don’t do justice to Mark Webber's remarkable career

“Fantastic career! It has been brilliant working with you,” came Christian Horner’s voice over the team radio as Mark Webber crossed the finish line for the last time bringing the curtain down on his Formula One career after twelve seasons in the sport. “You can be proud of everything you’ve done because we certainly are,” the Red Bull team-principal added as the Australian drove around on his slowing down lap with his helmet off, his emotions clearly visible as he wiped away a few tears. Up until that point, Webber had been playing down the significance of his retirement – “if the Kleenex is out I have made the wrong decision,” he had said before the race. There was no special farewell party planned, and the only thing Webber did to mark the occasion was hand out t-shirts with a ‘made my mark’ hashtag on the front and a ‘215 declared’ hashtag on the back to select members of the paddock. But it was clear that his emotions had finally overwhelmed him as he stepped into his Red Bull one last time on Sunday and in the end they spurred him on to put in one of his best drives of the year — the straight-talking Aussie driving a typically gritty race to finish second behind teammate Sebastian Vettel. [caption id=“attachment_1251077” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Mark Webber’s helmet is seen as he prepares to drive in his final F1 race. Getty Images[/caption] Webber was on top form on Sunday. There was no sign of any slowing of reflexes, any waning of abilities or any rustiness creeping into his racecraft that you would expect from a Formula One driver heading into the sunset. Instead, Webber was typically tenacious as he fought back from a now customary poor start, scything through the field with a superb pass around the outside of the Nico Rosberg under braking for the Senna S before also disposing of Alonso a few laps later to move up to second. A slow first pit-stop dropped him back behind Alonso but Webber fought back and for the second time found his way past the feisty Spaniard who, with the aid of the drag reduction system, clung on to the back of the Red Bull all the way down the second straight, the Ferrari hassling Webber through turn four and on the run up to the blind double-apex Ferradura corner as the old sparring partners went at it for one last time. As Horner said over the team radio, Webber can be immensely proud of what he achieved in his twelve seasons in Formula One. On the face of it, the numbers may not seem that impressive – nine Grand Prix wins, 42 podiums and 13 pole positions from 215 Grands Prix – and it would appear he has been firmly put in the shade by his far more illustrious teammate in the five seasons they’ve spent together. But when you think about the fact that the 37-year-old from Queanbeyan, Australia was always swimming against the tide, from struggling to find the budget to keep moving up the motorsport ladder early in his career, to thrashing around in uncompetitive cars once he beat the odds and made it to Formula One, to being cast in the role of the number two driver once he found himself in a winning car, you realise that the numbers don’t do justice to what has been a truly remarkable career. That fact is evident in the respect that Webber — a hard but fair racer, always sporting in his actions on track and always disarmingly honest — has earned from his peers. “A great man, a great character, a driver of the old school, a lot of values in his personality. He is not afraid to say what he thinks,” Alonso, who has gone wheel-to-wheel with Webber on several occasions, said. Vettel, whose relationship with Webber has been tested to the point of breaking several times in their five seasons together (an indication of just how close Webber ran Vettel), also paid tribute to Webber the racer. “We didn’t have the best relationship but with some things turning out differently it could have been a different story," Vettel said. “But we always had huge respect on a professional level. I can certainly say I learned a lot from him. I learned to become a better driver due to his skills.” In the end, Webber may have left the sport without adding to his tally of wins in his swansong year, after having had the victory stolen from him in Malaysia by his team-mate who has gone on to re-write the sport’s record books. But, in an indication that he has lost none of his speed and perhaps getting a little bit of his own back on Vettel, Webber well and truly made his mark by clocking out with the fastest lap of the race. “Formula One is a sport which I’ve loved,” Webber said. “I could never have dreamt of the career that I’ve had, the tremendous highs, the tough lows – you know they have to happen and you learn from adversity.” “The biggest and strongest memories you have are from when you are in the car; it’s what we were tuned and trained to do. Driving on the limit is what I was paid to do and what I enjoyed doing. They are the strongest memories you have as an individual at this level.”