Webber on Le Mans chances: “We have form, pace and trust ourselves”

Webber, whose #1 Porsche 919 Hybrid that he shares with Brendon Hartley and Timo Bernhard has only scored 1.5 points from two starts, while the series-leading sister #2 car has registered 43.

A big crash at Silverstone, when Hartley tripped over a GTE Am Porsche 911 while leading was followed by two punctures at Spa and a front gearbox failure.

Despite this, on the eve of the Le Mans Test Day Webber says the underlying pace remains its strong point, and key to its chances of success in France this month.

“Obviously we’ve been the fastest car, the form car, with some very dominant speeds, particularly at Silverstone,” Webber told Motorsport.com. “And then also in Spa it looked very, very good for us, probably with a fight with a Toyota.

“But in the end we had lots of different scenarios unfold, little bit outside our control and some inside our control. So we don’t have any podiums this year or no momentum coming into this race in terms of results.

“We have a lot of momentum in terms of form and pace and trust within ourselves, actually. That’s very, very important. So we had three tough races now: Bahrain and Silverstone and Spa.

“So the three are over. It comes in three, so we’re ready for Le Mans.

“We respect the race massively. It’s 24 hours. Reliability you can never be too confident with. But we’ve done everything we can to take the 24 on.

“We’re not overly nervous of the distance. We respect it. We’re going in with good ambitions.”

“As good a chance as anyone” to win

When asked about whether he can win his first Le Mans, after finishing second last year, he replied: “Yeah, we’re pretty confident. I think we have as good a chance as anyone to try and do it.

“Obviously the preparation has gone really well. We’re pretty happy with that. The drivers are driving well. Timo, Brendon and myself certainly feel ready for the race. We have to navigate our way through, obviously it’s a long, long, long day.

“We have to see how the testing goes here, see how the opposition’s looking, which we cannot control, we focus on ourselves. But I’ve been excited for a few weeks.

“We get the test day… not out of the way, it’s important to do the test day, get the information we can. It looks like there’s some rain around so we’ll do what we can. But the race weekend, obviously, is a big one.”

Interview by Erwin Jaeggi