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German GP: Post Race press conference

NEWS STORY
12/07/2009

Mark, take you back to November. You are lying on the road in Australia with a broken leg and maybe thinking your career is now over. Here you are today a grand prix winner. Tell us your emotions.
Mark Webber: It is an incredible day for me. I wanted to win so badly after Silverstone. I thought I had a good chance there. But after yesterday's pole position I knew I was in a good position to try and win the race today. The only thing in the end that I thought was going to beat me or test me even more was the rain but even that held off. To get the victory today was a little bit testing. Obviously I lost Rubens (Barrichello) completely off the start. I thought he had gone to the left and I went to the right and I banged into him. That is not normally my style, so I got a drive through for that and had to recover. My engineer kept me calm and I pushed as hard as I could when I needed to. It is a great day for me, like you say. It was a difficult winter. Sebastian showed in winter testing what the car could do, that kept my motivation very high when I was hurting a lot with all my rehab. I have had great people around me to recover from the injuries that I had. The team had been incredibly patient with me as well and I want to thank Dietrich (Mateschitz) and Red Bull for what they did for me over the winter as well. Everyone in Australia that has supported me on the way through and of course there are a few people who doubted me too as well, so hello to them as well. It is just an incredible day for all the people who have helped me get to where I am.

Sebastian, you had to work very hard today. Your thoughts on that and also on Mark's first grand prix victory.
Sebastian Vettel: First of all congratulations to him, today he was unbeatable. He was quicker than all of us, so he totally deserved to win. I am very happy with the result. In the end it was a good recovery. It was quite a bad start and then all the KERS cars around me. I got passed by both McLarens and then even Felipe, so it was quite difficult. You start fourth and then go into the first corner maybe eighth or something. And then basically I struggled a lot in the first stint. I was in traffic and you know altogether we are four or five cars. Obviously I could have gone quite a bit quicker but there was no way to pass Felipe. He always used his special button when I was quite close, therefore I was lucky to have the right strategy and in the end that brought us back to second position but Felipe didn't stop pushing, so it was quite hard until the end of the race, so we had to fight but obviously another one-two finish for the team. I am very, very happy. Good points today. Obviously I would lie to you if I would say I am very, very pleased with second. Of course I wanted to win but yesterday Mark did a better job and that is why he totally deserved to win. He was quicker. It is a good fight among us, so I am very happy and looking forward to the next races. I think our car is competitive, so looking forward.

Felipe, special button or not, it was a fighting drive for you today with lots of wheel to wheel action to bring you your first podium of the season.
Felipe Massa: To be honest, I missed to be here, to be in top three but it was a fantastic race. I did a fantastic start, passed many cars. I was struggling a lot with the soft tyres at the beginning like most of the people but fortunately I could manage to stay in front of Sebastian and managed to put out a good pace after a while. When we put on a second set of tyres I think that was very important for the race, to have a good pace at that stage. I am very happy. I am very happy that everyone in the team did a great job on the strategy, on the pit stops, so I think having a good result like this, a podium will definitely motivate the people to keep working, to keep pushing hard and preparing a good car for the end of the championship and especially another great car for next year.

Mark, you mentioned the incident at the start with Rubens. A lot of people have described it as very aggressive. It was a very aggressive drive generally but some wheel banging from you on the run down to turn one. Take us through it.
MW: I knew my start wasn't absolutely fantastic and I just moved across a little bit and as soon as I hit him I said 'there he is.' It was a bit of a surprise. I think I clipped the back of Lewis (Hamilton) if that was Lewis. I am not sure which McLaren it was. I lost a little bit of the front wing endplate I think but with these KERS cars and the way the mirrors are set up on these cars now, all the aerodynamic stuff, everyone is in similar situation. It was a difficult first run to the first corner but we got away okay.

Sebastian, you had a fair bit of wheel banging today not least with Felipe as you were mentioning. You could clearly see how much it meant for both of you to keep the place.
SV: Yeah, it was quite tough to get past him. I didn't succeed and he was defending well with his button, especially downhill. I thought now I am in the tow but couldn't get close and then unfortunately at the end of the straight I was at the limit, so couldn't make the big difference in the braking then but he was on the inside, so it was tight and he did a good job. Sometimes it was very close. I was thinking if he wants to get my front wing off the car. I had to be very cautious as obviously it is very difficult with these wide front wings. You have to be extremely careful.

What do you think, Felipe? Hard but fair?
FM: We are racing. Anyway we have the KERS, so it is a help to keep the position or maybe try to overtake. But you want to exchange the KERS for a bit of downforce. I change very quickly.

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