Today proved a much better day for Webber whose Friday running was limited to 28 laps after a heavy shunt at the start of practice two eliminated him from the rest of the session. Webber was quick to admit he only had himself to blame for the accident which happened when his car snapped out of line after running across wet astro-turf at turn six. “I ran out of talent,” conceded Webber, “I didn’t give the astro turf enough respect; I got caught out by how wet it still was from an earlier rain shower.” Webber’s RB4’s speared into the barriers nose-first, taking off the two front corners and nose, but he was able to walk away unharmed. “I apologized to the team and said I would make amends on Saturday.”

In fact, Webber was true to his words quickly bouncing back this morning when, on his third timed run in the closing minutes of final practice, he topped the final time sheets with a lap of 1min 27.030s, closely followed by Fernando Alonso on 1min 27.172s and Coulthard third fastest with a 1min 27.193s.

Qualifying went without any real hitches with Webber eighth fastest in Q1 with a time of 1min 26.773s and easily through into Q2 where he ended up fifth fastest on 1min.466s. Webber only completed one timed lap in Q3 after aborting his first run despite his second sector being purple. Webber’s final run of 1mn 28.417s saw him jump into fourth position but ultimately wound up sixth with the first four positions claimed by Ferrari and McLaren. BMW’s Robert Kubica was fifth and so will start the 58-lap race alongside Webber. BMW’s other driver, Nick Heidfeld, could only manage eighth fastest.

“It’s been a good Saturday for us after only very limited running on Friday when I crashed. We did a little bit more race work this morning and then started to prepare for qualifying. I had a very smooth qualifying session; no traffic; no problems with the exception of my first run in Q3 on the prime tyres. I lost 3/10ths in turn one but thought I’d continue the lap to learn the car on the high fuel level but made another mistake at turn 12 and so I aborted that lap and came in for a set of options (softer) tyres. That meant there was quite a bit of pressure riding on my final lap as I knew I could easily be 10^th, so to get sixth was something I was very happy about.

“Again, we’ve put ourselves in a good position to try and nick a few points tomorrow. We are not racing anyone ahead of us as they have too much performance; we are racing everyone behind us.”

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