F1: Webber Frustrated By More KERS Problems

Formula 1

F1: Webber Frustrated By More KERS Problems

Mark Webber endured a troublesome Friday in Abu Dhabi...

Adam Cooper | http://www.speedtv.com | Posted November 02, 2012 Abu Dhabi (ARE)

Mark Webber finished FP2 in Abu Dhabi in fourth place, but it was a frustrating day for the Aussie as his session was curtailed.

At one point, Webber left a trail of water in the pitlane as he drove out of the garage, after which he returned and did not go out again.

The fact that a Red Bull – albeit that of Webber – has suffered another technical problem might give Fernando Alonso and Ferrari some encouragement.

“It looks like a water generator or some KERS issue, basically,” he said. “It’s a pain, it’s not great. Mileage is always limited, so it would be nice to get as much as you can in. Anyway, that was today. We’ll come back tomorrow.

“It’s never a help to have less running. The track will probably move around a little bit, but not a huge amount here. It was in pretty good shape straight away. We missed the last part, but that’s the way it was.

“We’re not to the bottom of the fault yet; that’s for sure. I think the guys will will be working on it tonight, and then go from there.”

Webber said he was happy with the overall balance: “It’s OK. Normally I struggle around car park sort of race tracks, but I’ll do my best to push as hard as possible around all the second gear corners that are here this week. I’ll do what I can tomorrow and qualify as high up as I can and enjoy the race on Sunday.”

Intriguingly, at one point there were sparks coming from the underside of the car, as was the case with Sebastian Vettel in India, leading to speculation about how low the RB8 is running. Webber said that curbs might have caused some damage.

“Something was broken underneath, similar to Seb in the [last] race, but not a big deal,” the Australian said.

“I’m not sure, but probably in Turn 20 most of us run a little bit wide there, so the ‘Z0’ strake – that means something under the car for you guys – looks like it got a little bit sore.”

Adam Cooper notched up his 27th season as a racing journalist in 2011. He has written about F1 for SPEED.com since 2005. Follow him on Twitter.