Webber never considered chasing Triple Crown, entering Indy 500 - MotorSportsTalk

Ex-Formula 1 and sportscar driver Mark Webber says he never considered entering the Indianapolis 500 and chasing motorsport’s Triple Crown, having been put off by racing on ovals.

Webber’s former colleague and long-time friend Fernando Alonso shocked the motorsport world last month by announcing his entry to this year’s Indy 500, opting to skip the Monaco Grand Prix.

Alonso’s decision to race in the ‘500 was fuelled by his desire to win the Triple Crown, having already taken the Monaco leg in 2006 and 2007. The Spaniard remains keen to race at Le Mans as well.

Webber is one of the few drivers in recent years who has been within striking distance of the Triple Crown, winning the Monaco Grand Prix twice and having a number of near-misses for victory at Le Mans.

Speaking to reporters at Spa over the FIA World Endurance Championship race weekend, Webber said he had no desire to race at Indianapolis despite having a chance to enter CART for 2000.

“I would have liked to of course won Le Mans, I went very close. Led every year I was there, pretty fast as well in certain years and it didn’t line up for us,” Webber said.

“But I wasn’t interested in Indy. I wasn’t overly interested to go there. I have absolute respect, my heroes like Rick Mears and Mario and Al Unser, these guys, Roger Penske, Dario’s a good friend of mine, Scott Dixon, Will Power. I have maximum respect for those guys but it’s something I didn’t want, I never really wanted to go and see.

“There was a chance I could have gone to IndyCar in ’99 with Forsythe, because Greg Moore was going to Penske. That was a period. After that I wanted to stay in Europe.

“I think I would do well in oval racing. Rocky, who was Sebastian Vettel’s engineer at Red Bull, he said ‘you would go really well on ovals’, because he did a lot of work with Sebastien Bourdais at Newman/Haas, and he said ‘look Mark, you would be perfect for ovals’. I said ‘thanks, but I’m probably not going to try’.”

Webber did admit that there may have been more pressure on him to race at Indianapolis had he won Le Mans, with Alonso even asking him to come and join him for the race this month.

“That’s a close shave because if I did get to the next step, I had pressure. Maybe it’s good I stayed on the second step,” Webber said.

“Fernando still asked me to maybe try to do Indy.”

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Media and fan attention focused on a controversial run-in between Haiden Deegan and his Monster Energy Yamaha Star Racing teammate Jordon Smith during Round 10 of the Monster Energy Supercross race at Detroit, after which the 250 East points’ Hunter Lawrence defends the young rider in the postrace news conference.

Deegan took the early lead in Heat 1 of the round, but the mood swiftly changed when he became embroiled in a spirited battle with teammate Smith.

On Lap 3, Smith caught Deegan with a fast pass through the whoops. Smith briefly held the lead heading into a bowl turn but Deegan had the inside line and threw a block pass. In the next few turns, the action heated up until Smith eventually ran into the back of Deegan’s Yamaha and crashed.

One of the highlights of the battle seemed to include a moment when Deegan waited on Smith in order to throw a second block pass, adding fuel to the controversy.

After his initial crash, Smith fell to seventh on the next lap. He would crash twice more during the event, ultimately finishing four laps off the pace in 20th.

The topic was inevitably part of the postrace news conference.

“It was good racing; it was fun,” Deegan said at about the 27-minute mark in the video above. “I just had some fun doing it.”

Smith had more trouble in the Last Chance Qualifier. He stalled his bike in heavy traffic, worked his way into a battle for fourth with the checkers in sight, but crashed a few yards shy of the finish line and was credited with seventh. Smith earned zero points and fell to sixth in the standings.

Lawrence defends Deegan — *Jordon Smith failed to make the Detroit Supercross Main and fell to sixth in the points. – Feld Motor Sports*

“I think he’s like fifth in points,” Deegan said. “He’s a little out of it. Beside that it was good, I don’t know. I wasn’t really paying attention.”

Deegan jokingly deflected an earlier question with the response that he wasn’t paying attention during the incident.

“He’s my teammate, but he’s a veteran, he’s been in this sport for a while,” Deegan said. “I was up there just battling. I want to win as much as everybody else. It doesn’t matter if it’s a heat race or a main; I just want to win. I was just trying to push that.”

As Deegan and Smith battled, Jeremy Martin took the lead. Deegan finished second in the heat and backed up his performance with a solid third-place showing in the main, which was his second podium finish in a short six-race career. Deegan’s first podium was earned at Daytona, just two rounds ago.

But as Deegan struggled to find something meaningful to say, unsurprisingly for a 17-year-old rider who was not scheduled to run the full 250 schedule this year, it was the championship leader Lawrence who came to his defense.

“I just want to point something out, which kind of amazes me,” Lawrence said during the conference. “So many of the people on social media, where everyone puts their expertise in, are saying the racing back in the ’80s, the early 90s, when me were men. They’re always talking about how gnarly it was and then anytime a block pass or something happens now, everyone cries about it.

“That’s just a little bit interesting. Pick one. You want the gnarly block passes from 10 years ago and then you get it, everyone makes a big song and dance about it.”

Pressed further, Lawrence defended not only the pass but the decision-making process that gets employed lap after lap in a Supercross race.

“It’s easy to point the finger,” Lawrence said. “We’re out there making decisions in a split millisecond. People have all month to pay their phone bill and they still can’t do that on time.

“We’re making decisions at such a fast reaction [time with] adrenaline. … I’m not just saying it for me or Haiden. I speak for all the guys. No one is perfect and we’re under a microscope out there. The media is really quick to point a finger when someone makes a mistake.”

The media is required to hold athletes accountable for their actions. They are also required to tell the complete story.

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