Aussie Grit (37 page)

By the time we arrived at Monaco in 2012 my Monte Carlo record included a Formula 3000 win in 2001, my first
F1 podium in 2005, a fourth place in 2008, and that wonderful day in 2010 when I won. There, more than anywhere, starting from the front is crucial, and that’s what I did, for the second time in Monaco. It wasn’t all down to Webber brilliance on this occasion: a bloke by the name of Schumacher beat me to it by eight hundredths of a second, but sadly for Michael at the place where he had set his very first F1 pole 18 years earlier, he already knew he was carrying a five-place grid penalty for his part in taking Bruno Senna out in the previous race. If you’re going to enjoy a piece of good luck in securing pole position, then Monaco is the place to do it.

After an early safety car we were free to go racing. That meant managing my tyres very carefully: would supersofts last long enough for us to risk one-stopping or would we be forced into a two-stop strategy? The Pirellis hung on longer than we had dared hope and I made my one stop on lap 29. After that I had to manage the gap to Sebastian, who was leading but still had to stop again. He needed around 21 seconds on me to make that work. I managed to bring it back to 16 seconds or so and stabilise it there. It started to sprinkle with 10 laps to go, but luckily it got no worse and my second Monaco victory was in the bag.

It had been harder than two years earlier, not least of all because RB8 was less dominant than 2010’s RB6 had been. To see your name on the Monaco Grand Prix winner’s trophy is one of the most amazing things a driver can hope for in his F1 career; mine was there twice now. And by the way, this time I had taken a dinner jacket just in case …

Two days later I found myself back in Monte Carlo for an important meeting. At this point of the championship I was
on equal points with Seb, both of us three points behind the leader, Fernando Alonso. My meeting was with Stefano Domenicali, the Ferrari team principal, on Flavio’s boat in the famous Monaco harbour. There was now a very real chance I would be joining the Prancing Horse team. Flavio, Stefano and Fernando all wanted it to happen; contracts were sent but they were for one year plus an option for the second year, instead of the two years we were pushing for. At that stage I hadn’t taken a final decision to leave F1 and join Porsche; I just wasn’t interested in switching to another F1 team for 2013 when in the July of that season they might tell me my services wouldn’t be required the following year.

Canada and another struggle with the tyres was an anti-climax after that Mediterranean high, then I enjoyed a dice with Michael in Valencia where he sniffed the one and only podium of his comeback years with Mercedes – he would retire for good at the end of 2012 – and wasn’t about to let it slip. The next race was at Silverstone, where the Ferrari deal was still on the table. I remember driving to the track on the Friday morning and chatting to Fernando on the phone. We swapped a few more calls and although he asked me to wait for a bit longer, my gut was telling me that Ferrari wasn’t right for me. Red Bull Racing were having a bit of fun talking to other drivers too, Lewis in particular, as they had clearly got wind of the Ferrari approach, so there had been no dialogue about extending my contract.

At Silverstone, however, Christian suddenly wanted me to sign a new deal for 2013, which we did a few days later. It would have been a change of scenery to go to Ferrari: it was also nice to feel a little bit wanted. Interestingly Bernie Ecclestone did a U-turn on that prospective Ferrari move:
he was against it the first time, but in mid-2013 he asked me if I was comfy with my decision and said he believed we could still make the Ferrari deal happen for 2014.

Although there was no way I could have known it at the time, Silverstone would bring my final climb to the highest step of a Formula 1 podium. Alonso figured prominently again, taking pole position with me alongside him on the front row.

That sounds pretty straightforward. It wasn’t.

In Q2 Fernando came upon a pool of water at Chapel and demonstrated the reflexes that make him great when he caught the Ferrari and saved it from disaster. The session was suspended soon after. Then Q3 came down to the closing seconds, with Fernando and me in the hunt for pole. We delayed our run as long as we could, watching the weather, but as I was going for it the rain began again and I came up five hundredths of a second short. Fernando had given Ferrari their first pole of 2012: could I do anything about it on Sunday?

I have always enjoyed being the hunter rather than the hunted, and I am pleased that my final F1 victory came that way. Mid-race Fernando and I were running 1–2; I stopped for the final time after 33 laps, he came in to cover that move four laps later. Now he was on unused soft compound tyres, I was on the harder variety. There were 15 laps to go. At first it looked as if the Ferrari had too much of an advantage: Fernando was lapping under 1:36 to begin with, but soon he drifted back into the mid-1:36 range.

Meanwhile I was picking up speed and firing in laps in the mid-1:35 bracket. The hunt was on: I smelt blood. I was on his gearbox by lap 45 but bided my time before passing
him as we went into the left-hander at Brooklands three laps later.

It felt like another special victory. Like Monaco, Silverstone has always been one of F1’s ‘Blue Riband’ races. After all, despite all the changes to the track, it is still the birthplace of the World Championship. And, like Monaco, it was now a place where I had won twice in a Grand Prix car and it had taken me into second place in the championship. A year earlier at Silverstone, I had overhauled Alan Jones with my 26th F1 podium; in 2012 I overtook my second great compatriot, Sir Jack, with my 32nd.

*

The next three races in Spa, Monza and Singapore netted me the grand total of eight points, so two straight podiums in India and Korea were a welcome dose of better-tasting medicine. But I was disappointed in Korea when I took pole and set fastest lap but then couldn’t make it the hat-trick by winning the race. KERS raised its unlovely head again in India, where I started from the front row but finished third behind Vettel and Alonso, but there was an enjoyable end to the Indian trip.

Seb offered me a lift on a private plane he had organised and we flew together from Delhi to Dubai. There were stories circulating in the media at the time about how we weren’t getting on, I was refusing to help Seb with the championship and so on, so the press would have got a big shock if they had seen us travelling together. It was just Seb, his girlfriend Hanna Prater and me. We chatted about personal stuff we’d never had the opportunity to in our working environment, like our love of dogs, how private he is and how he
doesn’t much like the limelight. I always enjoyed Hanna’s company too. She had her feet firmly on the ground and was great for Seb. She was fiercely loyal to him, a quality I admired in her.

In racing terms 2012 went downhill for me after that: a run of 23 straight race finishes came to an end in Abu Dhabi when I tangled with Romain Grosjean and F1’s first visit to Austin in Texas proved an anti-climax when my alternator failed after 17 laps.

A great shame, that, as the Circuit of the Americas is one of the few new tracks that can hold its head high among the best F1 has to offer. We retained the Constructors’ Championship that day, but Lewis went and spoilt the party by winning the inaugural Austin race and so denying Seb the drivers’ title for the moment. Austin brought a defining moment for Ann. When she looked across the room and congratulated Marko on the Constructors’ title he simply dismissed her. Clearly the only title Marko was really interested in winning was the Drivers’ Championship.

I was immensely proud of my contribution to another Constructors’ success. You may be on your own out there, you may want to beat your teammate more than anyone else around you, but F1 remains a team sport in name and there is an enormous number of people who make it possible for two drivers to go out and chase the glory on a Sunday afternoon.

At the final race in Brazil, Seb and I were out-qualified by the McLarens; we started from the second row and I did what a racing driver is supposed to do – try to get off the line as fast as possible, position the car for the first corner and start racing. That meant getting away in front
of Sebastian as I was ahead of him on the grid, which I did, and then all hell broke loose a couple of corners later when the whole world sat in his cockpit through the magic of on-board cameras and watched as almost an entire Grand Prix field went past him – while he was facing the wrong way!

I had absolutely no part in his drama. He had turned across Bruno Senna’s Williams, which was later called a first-lap mishap. But he claimed afterwards that the main reason he was in a position to have an accident in the first place was that he had been squeezed by me at Turn 1! ‘The angle became worse and worse,’ was how my teammate put it, ‘I didn’t want to lose my front wing so I dropped down to first gear and lost both momentum and positions.’

Red Bull Racing management took exception to the fact that I didn’t let Sebastian come down the inside, but you just don’t risk that kind of manoeuvre at that stage of a race. Never mind that Seb had fought back for sixth place and enough points to beat Alonso to the title, Marko spouted off about me in the Red Bull in-house magazine,
Red Bulletin
, over the winter break. Enough’s enough: we told Christian that the man was now persona non grata and I don’t think we ever spoke again! On the other hand, Mr Mateschitz himself told me I didn’t have to move over for Sebastian – he should be able to look after himself.

While Sebastian was taking his third title the season ended in anti-climax for me when that chaotic Brazilian race finished behind the safety car and I was off the Interlagos podium for the first time since 2008. I was sixth overall in the championship, my worst finish in the final five years that I raced with Red Bull.

B
EFORE THE START OF MY FINAL SEASON IN
F1,
A FOUR-YEAR
marathon came to an end: in December 2012 the last piece of metal was removed from my right leg, a 40-centimetre titanium rod that forced me to relax the Webber training regime for a brief period. Although it wasn’t long before I began to concentrate on my fitness once again, my thoughts were increasingly turning away from Formula 1. Only those closest to me knew it, but this was to be my last season.

I had concluded my negotiations with Porsche and signed a contract for 2014 that would allow me to continue racing at the highest possible level after Formula 1. Ann had left the decision completely up to me. Perhaps if she had had her way I would have called a halt altogether, but I wanted to keep racing and she accepted that. While I wanted to make the most of my last season, I was also looking forward to life away from the goldfish bowl of the F1 paddock.

I set myself the task of learning to fly a helicopter, having had a fascination with aviation for many years. It was a daunting prospect at first: although I was always going to be fine with the practicalities of flying, studying for exams was another matter as it had never been my forte at school. I had to work hard to get the radio communications section of the licence right, and I have never done so much reading in my entire life! I was left wondering what might have happened if they’d taught this stuff at Karabar High. Thankfully I managed to get to grips with all the theory and I’ll admit I was very proud when I eventually qualified. I have to say that flying helicopters is not a pastime that sits entirely comfortably with Ann and I think she’ll always be a lot more nervous about me doing that than racing cars!

Another factor that had influenced my decision to leave F1 was the fact my parents weren’t getting any younger. I was very conscious that Mum and Dad, my sister Leanne and her young family had taken a back seat for most of my adult life. I wanted to redress the balance and find the time to enjoy special moments and experiences with them. Of course Dad had mixed feelings about my retirement – we had come a long way from Queanbeyan together – but he understood that bringing an end to the F1 adventure was my call, and I know he and Mum respected me for bowing out with my head held high. In Dad’s words: ‘How could we be disappointed? Our son was the first Australian to win a Grand Prix since Brabham and Jones, he enjoyed a wonderful 12 years at the pinnacle of world motor racing and he took us along for the ride with him.’

*

Back in the goldfish bowl Marko was making some pretty unflattering remarks about Red Bull Racing’s Australian driver. According to him, Red Bull had put me in a winning car, then a young kid had come along and beaten me to the prize. He suggested I had a couple of ‘unbeatable’ races each year but couldn’t keep it up, and that I couldn’t handle pressure.

All I could say to that was that everyone in our sport has their own agendas and it was clear I had never been a part of Marko’s. In a script like that you can read all sorts of things between the lines, but as far as I was concerned it was of very little consequence. My decision was made; Marko’s attitude would soon be a thing of the past. There was only one way to go about the season: do my absolute best.

As well as an old enemy, going into my 12th season I had a new colleague to work with. My long-time race engineer Ciaron Pilbeam had had enough of Red Bull Racing and was off to Lotus. In his place came Simon Rennie, so we needed to get to know each other’s way of working pretty quickly. With a new suite of regulations waiting to transform the face of F1 at the start of 2014, the 2013 RB9 could be seen as the last in Adrian Newey’s sequence of all-conquering Red Bull Racing cars.

Early in the season, with new Pirelli tyres using softer compounds all round, the car would struggle, perhaps because of its aerodynamic characteristics, although Sebastian managed to win four times in the period before the mid-season break. But when there was a switch mid-year to the 2012 constructions with the 2013 compounds it became practically unbeatable. Unfortunately Seb’s car was beating mine as well! From the Belgian Grand Prix onwards
Seb embarked on a run of nine straight Grand Prix wins, a season’s total of 13, and he won his fourth title by a country mile at Suzuka with four races to spare.