When in the middle of a race or in any sporting event, the sportspersons involved should obviously be in tip-top condition. Unfortunately, Red Bull driver Mark Webber was not afforded that luxury at the 2007 Japanese Grand Prix. On one hand, there was torrential rain at the Fuji Speedway, but fate decided to increase the difficulty to impossible levels after it transpired that Webber contracted food poisoning.
However, he decided to be a trooper and brave out the illness instead, unfortunately, it did not turn out to be one of his brightest ideas. What happened next, possibly gave his engineer nightmares for a few days. The Red Bull team on the pit wall radioed Webber, only to hear him retching in the cockpit.
“I’m going to have to retire, mate. I’m vomiting, I’m vomiting, I can’t drive,” he told them between attempts to not vomit in the car. His sympathetic race engineer responded: “Understood. Box, box, box.”, but Webber chose to forge ahead and brave it out, and said, “I’m gonna try and stay out, mate. I’m being sick in the car, but I’ll see how I go.”
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The good news was that Webber defied the odds and a violently protesting stomach to run as high as second place in atrocious conditions. Meanwhile, the bad news was that fate decided that he needed to take care of his body and recruited the then Toro Rosso driver, Sebastian Vettel to send him for an early shower.
Evidently, Vettel did the job a little too well as he rear-ended his future teammate during a safety car period. Needless to say, Mark Webber was not impressed at all and ripped apart Vettel in the post-race interview. He said, “It’s kids isn’t it, kids with not enough experience. You do a good job and then they f*** it all up.”
