By Ian Lockwood
September 14 2009

After finishing outside the points in the last two Grands Prix, Mark Webber’s hopes of resurrecting his world championship aspirations at this weekend’s Italian Grand Prix ended abruptly on the opening lap when he was turned around by Robert Kubica’s BMW at the second chicane and ended his race beached in the gravel; the Australian forced to record his first DNF of the season.

Although the team arrived at Monza knowing that their RB5 wasn’t ideally suited to the low downforce characteristics of the track, they had hoped to deliver a lesson in damage limitation and the opportunity to bag a few points in the process. However, what actually emerged was a crushing performance by championship rivals, Brawn GP, who scored their first 1-2 victory since Monaco to virtually put both the constructors and drivers world championships beyond the reach of RBR with four races remaining. The only positive note for the team was that Webber’s team-mate Sebastian Vettel salvaged a valuable point on the very last lap of the race when Lewis Hamilton crashed out of third place. However, this puts the young German  2.5pts ahead of Mark in the Drivers Championship!

The Mercedes whitewash of this weekend’s Italian Grand Prix began in earnest yesterday when their powered cars filled six of the first seven places, the sole interloper being Kimi Raikkonen in his KERS-assisted Ferrari. Despite all this, the battle for the world titles appeared to be well and truly alive with Brawn GP drivers Jenson Button and Rubens Barrichello lining up fifth and sixth for Sunday’s 53-lap race while Red Bull Racing duo Sebastian Vettel and Mark Webber were ninth and tenth respectively. However, when the car weights were released yesterday evening, the writing was on the wall with both Barrichello and Button running heavier than the two Red Bulls despite qualifying ahead of them.

 “It’s pretty much what we expected,” said Webber afterwards of his own qualifying performance, “we knew it was going to be a tough session for us. We’ll see how the strategies pan out and move forward from where we are on the grid which is possible. We’ve got to try and grab everything we can. I’m pretty happy with the job I did today and the guys did well with the car – it’s just that we’re lacking a bit of pace here.”                                                                                                                          

Unfortunately Webber didn’t get the chance to move forward – he made a solid enough start to maintain his 10^thposition off the grid but was knocked around by Kubica.

“We weren’t really in the hunt all weekend and Monza proved to be a difficult venue for us. Unfortunately the first lap didn’t go our way today with some contact with Kubica who flicked me around when he put his front tyre inside my left rear. I’m disappointed to have recorded my first DNF of the year – but like Jenson at Spa two weekends ago, when you’re in the middle of the pack, you’re very vulnerable.

“It was pretty obvious we wouldn’t have been able to compete with Brawn GP today –  you’d have to say they’ve virtually killed both the constructors and the drivers championships with their result today. But, we will try and get what we can out of the last four races and see where we end up in the final mix.”