Mark Webber: a clear mark of maturity

Performance by Webber in Spain illustrates the Red Bull driver is getting stronger all the time as a racer.

Mark Webber, the Red Bull-Renault driver, out on his own at the Spanish Grand Prix.

Spain was a race dominated by Mark Webber and it showed just how much he has matured as a racer. In qualifying he was excellent, but that was no real surprise as qualifying and one-lap pace has always been Mark's strength, but in the race he was superb as he controlled proceedings and he looked as if he is getting stronger as a racer all the time.

He was in a different zone to everyone else and no-one could get near him. It was an important result for him as it puts him back in the championship race and he is now just 17 points off Jenson Button at the top and seven behind Sebastian Vettel, his teammate. I do like the new championship points system, which I think is making the season a lot more exciting. You can have a couple of bad races, but one good result can push you right back up the order and I think it adds to the unpredictability of the season and means the championship will not be decided until quite late in the season as different drivers' fortunes vary from race to race.

Mark endured some bad luck in earlier races, but he is now back in the hunt thanks to his relentless speed and the reliability of his Red Bull-Renault. It was, again, Sebastian who had reliability issues as he suffered brake problems and eventually had to settle for third. It is the third time this season that Sebastian has had a problem, while Mark has had none. I think these problems are down to bad luck rather than Sebastian doing something different to Mark. These days the cars are generally tough and rarely break down.

Fifteen or 20 years ago they were much more fragile and I would say there would have been something in it if one guy kept breaking down and the other didn't, but not in the present era. Red Bull will be concerned about the reliability, though, as it could hurt their quest for both titles and I am sure they will be working hard back in the factory in Milton Keynes to resolve them as quickly as they can.

If it was a good weekend for Mark then it was an awful one for Nico Rosberg as he had his worst weekend of the season for Mercedes GP. He struggled for pace throughout the weekend compared to Michael Schumacher, his teammate. I think he started on Michael's set-up then changed to his old set-up and did improve but he did not have enough time and in the race he was always in trouble after a poor start.

It was strange as he went into the weekend second in the championship and competitive in terms of challenging for podiums. Then, after the team made updates to the car after China, he is suddenly nowhere and Michael is setting the pace in the team. I hope it was just a coincidence that Michael has found form as Nico lost his, and that it isn't Michael steering the team in his direction at the expense of Nico.

Nico was looking very good and Michael is not going to win the championship as the car is just not competitive enough. It is strange if you have a team pulling in different directions and I just hope what is going on at Mercedes is not going to hurt Nico. Michael had his best result since his return and he showed he had lost none of his fight on the track as he passed Jenson during the pit-stop and then held him off.

Jenson complained afterwards about how Michael passed him, but I do not really see what his complaint was as, to me, he was not aggressive enough. Certainly, I do not think Lewis Hamilton, Jenson's McLaren- Mercedes teammate, would have allowed Michael to get past the way he did. Jenson's mistake was to allow Michael to even have a sniff of an opportunity as he braked a little early and, Michael being Michael, he was always going to be willing to attack and he put Jenson in a position where he had to back off and let him through or they would have collided.

Johnny Herbert is a former Formula One driver who competed in 161 races, winning three times [e-mail]