Mark Webber suffered his first non-finish of the season at the Italian Grand Prix in Monza, but while he admitted the failure was a blow to his championship chances, he insisted he would come back stronger.
Monza, with its long straights broken by tight chicanes, always carries with it the danger of a collision-packed first lap, and while the field snaked through the first chicane without major incident, Webber found himself in trouble as he went into the Variante della Roggia on lap one.
“I had a reasonable start and I was trying to find a good line through the chicane,” Webber explained. “I had Sebastian [Vettel] in front, so I was pretty clean as I didn’t want to get tangled up with him. Both of us got through the first chicane, and I was following Seb into the next, but then I had a racing incident with [BMW’s] Robert Kubica.
“It seems like his front wheel was inside my rear left at the second chicane – it was difficult to know he was there,” he said. “We had contact which flicked the car into the air a little bit, then nosed it into the guard rail. The car was undamaged, but I couldn’t get it out and back onto the track. I couldn’t have done anything differently.”
With Button scoring 8pts, Webber now finds himself 28.5pts behind the championship-leading Brawn driver, but despite the setback, Webber vowed to push hard in the final races.
“It’s frustrating to retire through such a small incident, especially when all the guys have put so much effort into preparing the car,” he said. “It’s not great for the drivers’ championship, but this is my first DNF of the year. We will bounce back from this and do what we can in the final races.”
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