Horner upset but Webber ‘heroic’ insists pundit Stuck

Pundits have leapt to the defence of Mark Webber, after his boss Christian Horner revealed “disappointment and frustration” with the Australian driver.

Suggestions that Webber, 34, is still at loggerheads with Red Bull – and possibly to split with the Austrian team before the start of the 2011 season – have resurfaced since it emerged he hid his recent shoulder injury from his bosses.

“Of course he has obligations to his employer,” said former German F1 driver and now VW advisor Hans-Joachim Stuck, “but it (the injury) cannot have been very bad,” he told the SID news agency.

In fact, Stuck thinks Webber’s performances whilst in pain during the crucial events in Japan, Korea and beyond were “absolutely heroic”.

“To have that handicap and still show such good performance, I tip my hat to him,” he insisted.

And Stuck thinks Webber perhaps kept quiet about the injury in order to “not weaken his position within the team”.

“Without doubt he did everything possible to try to become world champion,” he added.

Another pundit and former grand prix driver Christian Danner also backs Webber, particularly as it emerged that the Australian’s pain treatments at races were under the supervision of F1 doctor Gary Hartstein.

“If the FIA knew about it then he did nothing wrong, and it cannot have been too dramatic otherwise he would not have had such good performance,” he said.

 © RIF | GMM