{"id":18085,"date":"2013-04-15T06:52:35","date_gmt":"2013-04-15T10:52:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/?p=18085"},"modified":"2013-04-15T06:52:35","modified_gmt":"2013-04-15T10:52:35","slug":"webber-signs-five-year-porsche-deal-report","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/formula-1\/webber-signs-five-year-porsche-deal-report\/","title":{"rendered":"Webber signs five-year Porsche deal – report"},"content":{"rendered":"

Mark Webber has signed a five-year deal to switch from formula one to Le Mans-style sports car racing from 2014.<\/p>\n

That is the claim of Radio Le Mans, citing information from the paddock of Sunday’s Chinese grand prix in Shanghai, where the 36-year-old Australian endured another nightmare race weekend.<\/p>\n

\"Mark-Webber-2\"China was just one race on from the ‘Multi-21’ team orders affair, and where rumours flourished that Kimi Raikkonen is being lined up to replace Webber at Red Bull next year.<\/p>\n

Earlier this month, Germany’s Bild newspaper reported that Webber and Porsche had been in contact about a deal for 2014, when the famous sports car maker intends to race a Le Mans-style LMP1 prototype.<\/p>\n

A Porsche spokesman had not denied the Webber rumours, saying only that “Whether and to what extent additional drivers are added (to the existing roster) will be decided at a later date”.<\/p>\n

But AAP news agency quoted a Porsche spokesman on Monday: “There is a test plan (for Le Mans) and for sure Mark Webber is not part of them.<\/p>\n

“We can have perhaps some formula one drivers in the future but it is not necessary.”<\/p>\n

The latest reports follow wild rumours that Webber’s nightmare weekend in China, including fuel woes in qualifying and a wheel falling off during the race, is a Red Bull conspiracy to reinforce his de-facto ‘number 2′ status.<\/p>\n

“He (Webber) has no confidence in his employer,” wrote correspondent Simon Pausch in Die Welt newspaper.\u00a0 “And who can really blame him?”<\/p>\n

But team boss Christian Horner dismissed the conspiracy claims as “complete rubbish”.<\/p>\n

Dr Helmut Marko added: “We don’t put a car together for millions of euros only to deliberate sabotage it.”<\/p>\n

Even Mercedes’ Niki Lauda had to agree: “No sane person could intentionally put a wheel nut on wrong.<\/p>\n

“The cars do 320kph here and if one flies off, it is literally life or death.”<\/p>\n

Horner backed Webber – who has pledged to at least see out his 2013 contract – to bounce back.<\/p>\n

“He’ll be fine.\u00a0 He’s a tough competitor,” he said.<\/p>\n

\u00a9 RIF | GMM<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Mark Webber has signed a five-year deal to switch from formula one to Le Mans-style sports car racing from 2014. That is the claim of Radio Le Mans, citing information from the paddock of Sunday’s Chinese grand prix in Shanghai, where the 36-year-old Australian endured another nightmare race weekend. China was just one race on …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0},"categories":[3],"tags":[128,5262,5340,137,4391,165,279,129],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18085"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18085"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18085\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18086,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18085\/revisions\/18086"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18085"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18085"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18085"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}