You may have seen that Mark Webber announced his retirement this week- since finishing up in Formula 1, he's been racing with Porsche in the WEC.

As an Australian, Webber was a relief! We'd gone years without an F1 driver, so I'd followed Mark's career in the F3000 days and then his testing roles with Benetton. He got the job with Minardi in 2002 and then finished fifth in his first Grand Prix in Melbourne..and was invited up onto the podium with Paul Stoddard. I was also lucky enough to be at Monaco in 2010 when he was his first Monaco GP (and Dan Ricciardo won the Formula Renault 3.5 warm-up race for Red Bull).

And...there is a TAG Heuer connection! Webber was a TAG Heuer Ambassador from 2007 for a couple of years, but had to drop the deal when Casio signed up with Red Bull. Here he is with the Aquaracer



All the best for a well-earned retirement @aussiegrit

 

Sad end of an era but great bloke and a great career, world champion at last in WEC no less

 

Congratulations to Mr. Webber for a great career!

 

Makes sense for Alonso. I still think that he is the most complete driver in F1, but he has no path into Mercedes or Red Bull, so his only options are another year at McLaren (confirmed) and then next I'd expect that he'll move on to LMP1 at the end of the year unless Honda pull a rabbit out of that hat.

The only issue with that is that LMP1 is struggling a little with Audi now gone and the manufacturers turning their attention to Formula E