Mark Webber

Hailing from Queanbeyan in New South Wales, this tall Australian earned his first motorsport laurels on four wheels when he won the New South Wales state karting championship in 1992. Further good results in the Australian Formula Ford encouraged him to make the jump to Europe in 1995. In the same year, he attracted attention with a third place at the prestigious Formula Ford Festival at Brands Hatch, which he won in 1996. In 1997, Webber moved up to the British Formula 3 Championship, placing second overall and becoming Rookie of the Year.

In the following season, he was engaged by Mercedes-Benz for the FIA GT Championship, where he competed as team partner of Bernd Schneider with the CLK-GTR and won the races at Silverstone, Hockenheim, Budapest, Suzuka and Donington. Despite this excellent record, at the end of the year it was only enough for the runner-up title behind brand colleagues Klaus Ludwig and Ricardo Zonta.

In 1999, Webber only competed for Mercedes-Benz in the 24-hour race in Le Mans. The Australian gained worldwide media attention through his spectacular, but fortunately not serious, high-speed accidents with the CLR in qualifying on the Thursday and in the warm-up before Saturday's race start.

After an intermezzo in Formula 3000 in 2000 and 2001, which he finished third and second respectively in the drivers' standings, he became a permanent fixture in Formula 1 from the 2002 season. Initially, he competed for Minardi, then Jaguar in 2003 and 2004, Williams in 2005 and 2006 and Red Bull from 2007 to 2013. With the cars of this team, he achieved third place in the drivers' world championship three times.

From 2014 to 2016, he raced as a Porsche works driver in the World Endurance Championship and won the world championship title there in 2015. He retired from active sport at the end of the 2016 season.