Webber drives Sydney Harbour Bridge

This Sunday morning the BMW WilliamsF1 Team gave Australia the first taste of Formula One action in 2005. With the season's opener in Melbourne just one week away Australia's best known landmark, the Sydney Harbour Bridge, developed into a Formula One track when Mark Webber drove over it at the wheel of the team's Formula One car. Spectators at the famous opera where listening to the BMW V10 cylinder's sound.

Exactly at 8.10 am the Australian set off and crossed the bridge a dozen times. The TV channel Network 10 provided countrywide live broadcast of the event, spectators where following the overdrive of their 28 year old countryman on a huge video screen.

Webber was delighted: "Thundering with 900 bhp over that time-honoured structure was an amazing feeling. The engine sound over the ocean was fantastic. I just can't thank everybody enough in my home state New South Wales who made this show for the fans possible."

For Webber's overdrive, the "coat hanger", as the Australians nickname their bridge, was blocked off for a couple of hours. Usually traffic runs over the nearly 50 metres wide deck in eight lanes, plus two railway lines, a walk way and a bicycle way.

The Sydney Harbour Bridge, opened in March 1932, is the biggest (not longest) steel arch bridge in the world. At its highest point, the arch reaches 134 metres over sea level. The deck of the bridge is 49 metres above Sydney harbour. The bridge has been often in the centre of international events. In the year 2000, the pictures of the Olympic Games closing ceremony went around the world.

This Sunday, Webber's drive has been unrivalled. But all views are already directed to the first round of the 2005 FIA Formula One Championship which kicks off with the first free practice next Friday in Melbourne.

-williams-