Young Aussie Laps Up Newfound Fame
Newcastle Herald
Saturday June 6, 1998
IMAGINE. You and two friends are setting out for a drive.
The trip will last exactly 24 hours and the three of you will drive rotating shifts of 90 minutes apiece.
Each time you stop for a driver change the car will be refuelled and have all four wheels changed. How far will you get in that 24-hour period?
Perth, Western Australia, is just a shade over 3700km away but even breaking speeding laws in three states you would be unlikely to get there in one full rotation of the clock.
But in France this weekend young Australian driver Mark Webber and his Mercedes-Benz team-mates Bernd Schneider and Klaus Ludwig are planning to put 5000km under their wheels in the famous Le Mans 24-hour sports car race.
Webber, 21, is the second youngest driver in this year's race and his place in the factory Mercedes-Benz team has put a lot of weight on his young shoulders.
The young man from Queanbeyan has had a meteoric rise to stardom in a very short space of time.
Less than three years ago he was racing Formula Ford in Australia. Then he went to England, achieved major success in the British Formula Ford Festival at Brands Hatch (the unofficial Formula Ford World Championship) and caught the attention of the factory Van Diemen team.
After a year racing in the class in England he was snapped up by Formula Three team owner Alan Docking and competed with distinction in the class last year, succeeding despite a slender budget.
As the former Canberra Raiders ball boy hit the tracks in his F3 car another young Australian, Craig Lowndes, was easing himself into one of Dr Helmut Marko's Formula 3000 cars for the European championship.
Lowndes came home at the end of last season without a lot to add to his CV but a better driver for the experience, while Webber finished the season with a big fat Mercedes-Benz contract in his pocket.
His determined driving in the British championship had caught the attention of the powers-that-be in the Mercedes-Benz sports car team and Webber was invited to test the fearsome CLK-GTR racer.
Early this year he signed the contract and, after two races, leads the world GT championship in partnership with co-driver Bernd Schneider.
There has been more to Webber's racing life this year than just two championship rounds, of course, and a lot of time has been spent preparing for Le Mans.
`We have had some big tests in Florida, which took place about a month-and-a-half ago, and further tests at Paul Ricard circuit (in southern France).
`We've done some long tests in the United States which went well.
`It was the first time I had driven (at racing speeds) in the night over there so it was a good experience for me,' Webber said last week.
Then there was pre-qualifying at Le Mans, a track the young Aussie had never seen before and managed to do only six laps on.
`We qualified third behind Allan McNish in a Porsche and Martin Brundle in a Toyota so we were very happy with that.'
Driving one of the fastest cars at Le Mans will present a new set of problems to Webber and force him to change his parameters, especially at night. He has only once shared a race track with another car at night and that was during testing.
`I think it's something I will get used to when we get to Le Mans,' he said.
`The worst problem is that at the end of the straight, at the 250-metre or 200-metre braking board, I'm still flat to the throttle coming to a first-gear chicane and the (slower) GT2 cars have already been braking for 150 metres so the speed difference is 150kmh.
`You've got to make sure that you're well positioned before you start braking. That's the important thing, especially at night.
`I've got experience with that in the GT races but nothing like well over 300kmh so I'll have to warm myself for that one.'
And the big secret to lasting 24 hours in the cauldron of Le Mans?
`It's all about reliability, it's all about luck and it's all about don't hit the oil in the dark.
`There's so many things that can go against you.'
© 1998 Newcastle Herald