Webber planning to de-throne Vettel in India

Mark Webber is targeting the perfect weekend as he looks to end Sebastian Vettel’s dominant run of form at the Indian Grand Prix despite his teammate being in the position to win his fourth world championship this season.

Vettel has won both runnings of the Indian Grand Prix from pole position, as well as leading every lap of both races and holding the track record around the Buddh International Circuit. Despite acknowledging his teammate’s success at this race in the past few years, Webber is keen on winning his first race of the season in style.

“He’s on a phenomenal run obviously and as you said his stats here in the last few years he’s been pretty strong,” the Australian said in the Thursday press conference. “It needs a perfect weekend – pole, perfect race, perfect strategy, perfect everything to obviously put him off the top step, so that’s got to be the plan.”

Webber had scored his first pole position of the season at the Japanese Grand Prix, but he eventually finished the race in second place behind his teammate. The Australian inferred that the team’s decision to pit him three times compared to Vettel’s two stops could have cost him a chance of winning the race, and his opinion has not changed.

“I still stand by what I said at the time but obviously a bit surprised that we elected to do that,” Webber said. “Having a three stop, you’ve got to pass two cars to win the race instead of maybe sticking to a two where we just focused on trying to beat Romain. What I said at the time is still pretty accurate today.”

Nevertheless, Webber will be keen on claiming his tenth grand prix victory during the final four races of his F1 career before his retirement at the end of the season and subsequent move to Porsche’s LMP1 programme.