By .
October 29 2003

Webber talks about the highs and lows of the 2003 Formula One season ................................................................................ "I think there was always going to be a bit of heat on Jaguar Racing going into the 2003 season after the previous few seasons but in the end I think we did a pretty good job in ending up higher than last season and achieving a fair degree of respectability. It’s a pity we couldn’t have ended up even higher than seventh but Indianapolis and Suzuka proved tough races for us. Having said that, we had some strong races this season so finishing seventh in the championship was a good, if not fantastic result."

"It was good to finish ahead of Toyota but it would have been really sweet to have finished ahead of BAR. Although Toyota are a big budget team it doesn’t make us legends to have beaten them because they are still growing and have a long, long way to go,"

"Sauber were a little fortunate in Indianapolis and I think we’re a better team than Sauber, but what happened at Indianapolis happened and we couldn’t really do any more than we did in the circumstances."

"I think we could have beaten BAR if we had both cars finishing races on a more regular basis but that’s the way it goes. Of course you want to finish ahead of your team-mates. It clearly didn’t work out for Antonio but Justin got a good point in Indianapolis. I don’t yet know who my team-mate for next season will be because the team is talking to a number of drivers at the moment."

"Budapest was definitely the highlight of the season as far as I’m concerned. I was third in both qualifying sessions and we finished sixth in the race really off our own bat. Nobody retired in front of us and if they had we’d probably have had a shot at the podium but yes, Budapest was definitely a highlight. Brazil was a good weekend for us but at Budapest we were on it from the word go."

"As for the low point, Indianapolis was a shame. I was determined to go as far as I could on slicks. It rained three times and dried out twice so I decided to take a gamble and stood to win big time if it came off but unfortunately it was me who came off! Silverstone was also a shocking weekend for us and a lot of things were kicking off within the team at the time."

"I do think the new regulations helped to spice things up. Qualifying on race fuel on Saturday shuffled up the grid on occasion and made the tactical decisions interesting, as nobody knew what other teams were up to. All in all it served to simplify things as well as cutting costs. I agree with what Pitchy (David Pitchforth) that cutting out the two hour Friday testing session next season won’t be good for us because we definitely learned from the Friday mileage. But we’ve got to adjust our programme now as it’s all on the Saturday. To be honest, the Friday qualifying session was a bit of a non-event in many ways because the guys who went out first got hammered by a dirty track and we were often flattered by running later."

"We are still very motivated and we will work hard during the winter!”