Webber off to Porsche

[yellowperil]

F1 sites are reporting Webber is leaving at season's end for Porsche sportscar program. I would think after his "Flyer" at Le Mans he'd never want to visit there
again. As you know he flipped backwards into the trees on Mulsanne straight, but looks like he be at it again.

BTW, who do you like at Silverstone? Lots of past winners to chose from.

[s_morrison57]

Before he leaves I hope he B-slaps Vettal for being a team player

[911Freak]

Links?

[Amail]

Originally Posted by 911Freak

Links?

Webber confirms F1 exit to join Porsche WEC team - F1 Fanatic

[cairns]

Any guesses as to who will take his place? Although I've heard rumors to the contrary IMO it won't be Kimi- he won't like all the publicity BS Red Bull would put him through and Vettel would be threatened.

[Aragorn]

I don't understand this move by Porsche. They have quite a few factory drivers and most have good prototype experience. Webber has not been in a P1 type car since the Mercedes CLK GTR days in the late 90's. Even then he wasn't the best driver in that group in my opinion. Seems like just a publicity stunt to get some PR and stage a graceful exit from F1 for Webber.

[livi]

Too bad for my girlfriend. She calls him the cute one..

[BReif61]

Well this is (not at all) surprising.

[911Freak]

Originally Posted by Amail

Webber confirms F1 exit to join Porsche WEC team - F1 Fanatic

Thanks for the link!
Well, this isn't a surprise, they have all (Porsche, MW & BRB) been denying this since the season started, with rumors RE-ignited after Seb passed MW for victory in Malaysia (Multi 2-1)

I say good for Webber, he's coming to Porsche to fight AUDI and Toyota in LMP1.

Now if only RBR would / could get Kimi in the #2 car to fight Seb!

[yellowperil]

Mark, Don't try this again! Once is enough.

[Tervuren]

Originally Posted by yellowperil

Mark, Don't try this again! Once is enough.

Car design is radically different to keep stuff like this from happening.

As for Kimi going not going to red bull...when he came to the USA to race some NASCAR he showed up at my local kart track in Charlotte and every time was wearing a Red Bull hat...

Kimi follows money and good equipment, and RBR offers both...

[Don Plumley]

[gorthar]

Originally Posted by yellowperil

Mark, Don't try this again! Once is enough.

Totally nit-picking here, but that is actually Peter Dumbreck flipping during the race. Webbers flip happened during the morning warm-up.

[Hawkeye's-911T]

^^^^^Man that is some scary $ch1tt!

[doug_porsche]

Come on guys, that was a silly Mercedes. What are the odds of a Porsche doing that?

[yellowperil]

[]Totally nit-picking here, but that is actually Peter Dumbreck flipping during the race. Webbers flip happened during the morning warm-up.


Thanks for pointing that out., I knew they both flipped same weekend just didn't know which was which., Tks again

[cockerpunk]

i had such high hopes for the Porsche LMP1 program

[sammyg2]

Mark Webber says he will walk away from Formula One without any regrets after signing a deal to join Porsche in Le Mans.

Webber announced on Thursday that he would be leaving Red Bull Racing and F1 at the end of this season. However, instead of the news being broken by Red Bull, it came from Porsche.

The Aussie, though, denied that it was a snub at Red Bull, insisting that while those back at the factory were not aware of his decision, team boss Christian Horner was.

"It was a Porsche announcement," he said. "I informed Christian before the announcement which contractually I should do, and that is what we did.

"It was about Porsche and Mark Webber today.

"I think I helped the team today; they have to make some decisions for the future."

He added that Red Bull owner Dietrich Mateschitz has always been in the know about his future.

"Dietrich has been completely up to speed with my thinking in the last few months, he has been on board, and encouraged me not to rush my decision when I approached him earlier this season," the Australian said.

"I think basically we went through all the right channels and avenues to get the message across and it was done in the right way."

The talks with Porsche had been going on for a while despite the announcement only coming on Thursday.

"The decision has been there for quite some time," he said.

"There's lot of reasons that come into the pot when any sportsman or woman comes to that time in their career when they want to call it a day. That's another small ingredient.

"There's going to be big, big changes in the sport next year so I may as well going to do those big, big changes where my future's going to be.

"So let's see how the category is next year in Formula 1. I'll be interested to watch every now and then and watch these guys do their stuff."

And the 36-year-old, who has vowed to "push until Brazil", is confident he will walk away from Formula One at the end of this season without any regrets even though he was "leading the Championship at the wrong race."

As for who he reckons should replace him as Sebastian Vettel's 2014 team-mate, Webber would not weigh in other than to say that he will "watch with interest."

Webber: No regrets | Planet F1 | Formula One News
.

[jyl]

I wish Webber well in closed wheel. His F1 career, what he's accomplished and how he's done it, has earned him respect. I still think he'd make a great color commentator.

As for Porsche's sport car plans, I've not been paying attention, and now I will - silly, but that is one example of why signing Webber makes sense.

Vettel only signed a one year deal with RBR, which makes the team's choice of its next No. 2 driver an interesting situation.

[Captain Ahab Jr]

Good for him, great news for Porsche, tough luck and well deserved for Redbull and Vettel.

It will take a special driver to fill his seat at Redbull, my money is on Kimi filling that space.

Forget how he does in a Porsche I'm more interested to see what he does if he can go fast enough to go head to head with Vettel.