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Webber: Vettel is not an enemy
Mark Webber says his relationship with former teammate Sebastian Vettel is vastly different now the Australian has left Formula 1.
Andrew van Leeuwen
Edited: Jul 28, 2015, 7:25 AM
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Webber and Vettel had a rocky relationship during their five-year stint as team-mates at Red Bull Racing, the finer details of which have been exposed in Webber's recently-released tell-all book.
However, with Webber having now moved on from Formula 1 to Porsche's sportscar programme, and Vettel now out of the Red Bull system and driving for Ferrari, Webber says the pair now enjoy a significantly improved personal relationship.
"Irrespective of whether he drives for Red Bull or not, I think the relationship would have taken a big positive turn," he told Motorsport.com.
"We were going for each other's territory at the time at Red Bull, so it wasn't an easy situation to handle.
"We learnt a huge amount about ourselves, me at the end of my career and Seb at the start of his. Things moved on very fast inside that relationship, in terms of how we used to compete against each other.
"Now I'm out of Formula 1, and things continue to change fast. I don't have many enemies in my life, if any at all. We have a great deal of respect for each other.
"We ultimately did while we were racing against each other too, but probably a bit more now."
Mateschitz, Vettel had warning
Given the controversial nature of his time with Red Bull Racing, particularly from 2010 onwards, Webber admits that he did speak to both Vettel, and Red Bull founder Dietrich Mateschitz in the lead-up to the book release to give them some insight into what to expect.
He did not, however, speak to Red Bull Racing boss Christian Horner.
"I spoke to Seb, I spoke to Dietrich," he said.
"The book was really a true reflection of how I felt at the time, at what went on for those few years in my Formula 1 career. It's not a reflection of Red Bull itself, it's a reflection of Milton Keynes, the race team.
"It was a testing time for a lot of us, and that's why I had to go into detail to explain the whole lot."
Not a fan of doing a book
Webber also says that he wasn't necessarily in favour of writing a controversial book, but that he wound up enjoying telling the stories from his early career, and the tough road he took to make it to F1.
"I wasn't a massive fan of doing [the book] initially," he admitted.
"It was more enjoyable to put the early years down, the try and explain – even to myself – the drive and determination it took to get through those early years.
"It's only when you look back you go 'wow, we really did tick a few boxes', and we're proud of that. That's been the biggest surprise for people, to know how tough it was to get through that period of my career.
"It was really rewarding to get that down."
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