In defence of: Webber’s Williams move

“I really wanted Mark Webber as a team driver in 2005,” says then-renault engineering director Pat Symonds,

“but Mark was absolutely adamant that Williams was the place to be and nothing was going to convince him otherwise.”

On the face of it, Webber’s decision to join a Williams team in decline above a return to the Enstone squad on the cusp of a world championship double, and for which he’d tested in its Benetton guise in 2001, has to go down as a blunder. In his autobiography, Aussie Grit, Webber describes his two-year spell with Williams as “the lowest time in my entire F1 career”.

While Giancarlo Fisichella grasped at the opportunity to trade a mid-pack Sauber for Renault’s R25 (the best all-round package of 2005, if not quite as fast as the fragile Mclaren MP4-20), Webber’s hopes of forging a new Alan Jones-esque alliance never came close to materialising.

Although there was a maiden F1 podium at Monaco, and strong drives to fourth at Spa and Suzuka, the 2005 FW27 was the first Williams not to win a race since 2000. Unbeknown to Webber, the marriage with engine supplier BMW was on the rocks, while a demotivated workforce meant the factory environment was “like walking into a morgue”. The nadir came in Turkey, where two tyre failures and contact with Michael Schumacher while trying to unlap himself made for an utterly forgettable day.

But while Webber almost certainly would have been able to win races at Renault – Fisichella managed two – and wouldn’t have made life easy for team leader Fernando Alonso, joining a team that Alonso had built around him would have carried significant risk, not least because the Spaniard was also managed by team principal Flavio Briatore. Webber too had links with Briatore, but only one could be the winning horse.

Although his Williams chapter wasn’t a happy one, it wasn’t a complete waste of time either. Amid the disappointments, Webber showed enough flashes – his Monaco 2006 performance was a strong indicator – to earn a career lifeline at Red Bull. Toughened by his travails, he went on to win nine grands prix and challenge for the 2010 world title.

Not a bad return, all told.