Portal:Motorsport/Selected biography/9
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Mark Alan Webber, (born August 27, 1976) is an Australian Formula One driver. He was born in Queanbeyan, New South Wales, son of Alan, the local motorcycle dealer. He is the first Australian to race in Formula One since David Brabham in 1994.
After some racing success in Australia, Webber moved to the UK in 1995 to further his motorsports career. He continued to win, although he gained his biggest headlines while driving for the Mercedes-Benz sports car squad at Le Mans in 1999 where he had two spectacular accidents during practice and warmup in which an aerodynamic fault caused the car to somersault off the Mulsanne straight. After Mercedes' withdrawal from the race, Webber began a partnership with fellow Australian Paul Stoddart, at that time owner of the European racing Formula 3000 team, which eventually took them both into Formula One when Stoddart bought the Minardi team.
Webber made his debut in Formula One in 2002, scoring Minardi's first points in three years at his and Stoddart's home race. After an impressive first season, Jaguar Racing took him on as lead driver. During two years with the generally uncompetitive team Webber several times qualified on the front two rows of the grid and outperformed his team mates. He joined the former championship winning Williams team in 2005, for whom he achieved his best finish in Formula One to date; a third place at the 2005 Monaco Grand Prix. He has since equalled his third placing at the 2007 European Grand Prix.
Webber is a keen sportsman away from the track. He has won the annual F1 Pro-Am tennis tournament in Barcelona three times and has recently set up the 'Mark Webber Pure Tasmania Challenge' trek across Tasmania to raise funds for cancer charities.
