Porsche doesn’t finish second very well.
Operationally, Porsche is the best in the world,
no question. They are meticulous and ultimately
we won a lot of races through operational
procedures, even beating other German teams like
Audi. Sometimes we just didn’t have the outright
speed but we wore the opposition down through
the pit-stops and through lots of things that
frankly, they just weren’t as prepared for.
My favourite Porsche racer is the 917. It’s
Porsche’s first Le Mans winner and I’ve been lucky
enough to drive one. It was very raw and not the
biggest car, and the last words from the engineer
before I took off were “Mark, your legs are partof the crash structure”, so that was interesting. I
own a 918 Spyder, and even painted it in unique
colours like the Salzburg 917, and I’ve raced the
919 as well, so those three cars are very special.
I enjoy developing Porsche’s new GT cars, as
well as Mission E, and I’m not only helping with
things like damping and ESC tunes, but making
sure we have no compromises. No other sportscar
has as wide an envelope as a Porsche and you
can’t just underestimate that. It comes from 70
years of trial and error. That’s what makes them
pretty spectacular.I WASN’T MUCH OF A SUPERCAR GUY WHEN I WAS YOUNG. I DIDN’T LUST
AFTER THEM; I WAS MORE INTO RACING AND DIRT BIKES, BUT I DID HAVE ONE
POSTER ON MY BEDROOM WALL – A SILVER PORSCHE 959, WHICH MIGHT HAVE
HAD A FEMALE NEXT TO IT AS WELL.
Garage evolution
Webber’s personal collection
of Porsches is extensive,
spanning from a 1954 356
cabriolet to a 918 Spyder
(shown above) painted in
Salzburg livery to match
the 1970 Le Mans-winning- The remainder are 911s,
including: 997 GT3 RS 4.0,
997 GT2, 997 Turbo S, 991
GT3 RS, 911 R, 991 Turbo S
Exclusive, 991.2 GT2 RS,
and one other he asked
to keep secret. Unlike
Rohrl’s collection, Webber’s
Porsches aren’t housed in
one location, with the Aussie
storing them “in different
places” around the world.
Porsches really started to interest me in my late
teenage years, but I didn’t own one until 2009
when I bought my 997 Turbo S. It’s been my daily
ever since, which is nice in Europe because you
can actually drive cars pretty hard here. I own
a few Porsches now, mainly 911s, and I’m very
precious about them. I don’t track them and I
don’t even like to drive them in the rain!
They’re subtle; that’s what I love about Porsches.
Some say they’re cold, a bit generic, a bit tough,
but they’ve got this timeless styling and the
performance way exceeds how understated they
are. Racing them is a real honour. There aren’t
many teams you can drive for that have the
owner’s name above the garage door and there’s
this history that comes through. The cars are
built to go racing and that means no weakness,
building racing parts and over-speccing things to
last 35 hours that also make their way into road
production.
It’s very different driving for Porsche to what
I experienced in Formula 1. It was like a big
family; the drivers all got on and the team liked
to remind us of all the Porsche legends that
came before us, like Ickx, Bell and Stuck. It was
a big responsibility, though, and we had to win.
The last words said before I drove the 917 were,
“Mark, your legs are part of the crash structure”
MarkWebber
THE QUIET OBSESSIVEIMPROVING
THE
BREED70 wheelsmag.com.au