Bahrain Grand Prix: Webber's bad luck can't last forever

18Apr 2013

Mark Webber has suffered a tough start to the Formula One season. Ralph Ellis, who successfully tipped Fernando Alonso to win in China, believes it's time for things to turn in the Australian's favour...

Mark Webber must have broken a mirror, run over a black cat and then walked under a ladder when he was getting ready for this Formula One season. How else do you explain his wretched luck so far?

In Australia he took second place in qualifying, only for a software bug from the new in-car computer system supplied by McLaren to ruin his start; In Malaysia he would have won, but then Sebastian Vettel defied team orders and zoomed past while he followed instructions to save fuel; and then in China he ran out of fuel on his qualifying lap and started last, and a wheel fell off in the middle of the race.

Now his arrival in Bahrain for the 200th Grand Prix of his career has already suffered a hitch - he will face a three place penalty on the starting grid as punishment for his shunt with Toro Rosso's Jean-Eric Vergne in Shanghai. Otherwise it's all going ever so well.

At 36 Webber is facing increasing questions about his place in the Red Bull team. It went on all last year, but he eventually signed a deal for another 12 months. Now his wretched start has brought the debate on his future to the surface again. The pit lane has been full of rumours that he could walk away and join Porsche to do endurance sports car racing.

The Aussie has vehemently denied that. But he knows the very best way he can underline his commitment to his current job is to put a stop to all the hard-luck stories right now and come up with a big drive in Bahrain.

Red Bull as a team had a nightmare in China. Maybe they got a bit complacent after their 1-2 in the previous race, maybe it was just more bad luck. But either way it wasn't only Webber who had a catalogue of problems. Vettel got his qualifying all wrong too.

Yet it finished up with the reigning world champion nose-to-tail with Lewis Hamilton on the final lap, and even Hamilton admitted that if the race had been any longer Vettel would have stolen his podium finish. So we know the cars are still strong. And a week on from the Shanghai debacle the team will surely be more focused then ever to put things right.

That makes Red Bull to be the winning car at between 3.05 and 3.7 in the early market the obvious value for this weekend's race. Vettel proved last year by winning the race that he could deal with the sand that can turn a relatively slow circuit into a tricky track, and that the cars can deal with the intense heat.

Bahrain is a circuit where losing places on the grid is not as big a handicap as elsewhere. As Pirelli's motorsport director Paul Hembery explained: "The track evolution is very hard to predict, depending on how much sand is blown onto the circuit. There will be plenty of scope for different race strategies which can allow drivers who have not qualifed as well as they hoped to recover." On that basis Webber at 4.7 for a podium finishwill be my other bet for the weekend. Surely he's due some good fortune?