Mark Webber had his future determined for him after Williams decided to not pick up the option on his contract for next season. In an earlier entry, I wrote about the great opportunity that Webber could be faced with at the end of the season, but now that Williams has decided to go in another direction, I believe Webber will end up driving for Renault.

Reliability issues have put a damper on Webber’s time with Williams

Whether or not Webber ends up with Renault next year will hinge on what Michael Schumacher and Kimi Raikkonen decide to do with their futures. If Schumacher retires, Raikkonen will most likely take his place at Ferrari and Webber will be used at Renault. If Schumacher stays at Ferrari for another season, Raikkonen could end up at Renault by effectively switching positions with Fernando Alonso (who has already signed with McLaren for next season). If this were to happen, it could definitely complicate things for Webber’s prospects. There is a slight possibility that Raikkonen will either end up at Ferrari as the second driver, even if Schumacher doesn’t retire (this seems unlikely though), or that he will stay at McLaren and team up with Alonso.

Webber has the talent to be a top Formula 1 driver, but so far he has been involved with teams that were sub-standard or just provided unreliable and slow cars. If he was given a shot with any of the big 3 teams (Ferrari, Renault, and McLaren), he would be a consistent podium threat. Time will tell where Webber ends up next year, but I’m sure he will be hoping to get a chance to prove just how good he can be.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 2nd, 2006 at 2:55 pm and is filed under Formula 1. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.