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Webber against Ecclestone's artificial rain idea

ESPNF1 Staff
March 4, 2011 « HRT still waits on 2011 car | »
Mark Webber "It wouldn't be the most sophisticated way to make the show more entertaining" © Getty Images
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Mark Webber has poured scorn on Bernie Ecclestone's suggestions that sprinkler systems should be fitted to circuits to create artificially wet races.

The F1 CEO proposed the idea this week after admitting that he did not think this year's main attempt to improve the show - moveable rear wings - would work. Instead he wants to see the track doused with water at random intervals in the race, recreating the excitement of some of the rain-affected grands prix in recent years.

But Webber believes such a plan would make a mockery of of the sport and it's history.

"It can be more exciting when we have some different weather conditions, that does happen," he admitted to BBC Radio 5 Live. "But you just think of Jimmy Clark, Jackie Stewart, (Ayrton) Senna and those guys - masters in the wet. Jackie's still here, but the other two would be turning in their graves if they thought we'd have sprinklers and hoses lined up around the track.

"It wouldn't be the most sophisticated way to make the show more entertaining."

But Ecclestone, backed by Pirelli, is still keen and yesterday told the same radio station: "My idea is that we should make a programme so that nobody knows exactly which one is going to be used and it would start at some time during the race. It would effectively be raining. It would maybe stop and maybe rain again later. Or maybe not. So nobody would know."

© ESPN Sports Media Ltd.
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