After flipping his car, F1’s Mark Webber called Jackie Stewart

Retired Formula 1 star Mark Webber, 47, met the “Flying Scot” – three-time F1 world champion Jackie Stewart, 84 – when he was just 20. Stewart would go on to became a mentor, grandfather figure and literal lifesaver.

Jackie Stewart and Mark Webber. “I never did end up racing for him but, in many ways, he’s been like another grandfather to me, giving me advice during my career,” says Webber.Credit: Eddie Jim

Mark: As a young kid growing up in Australia, I spent a lot of time on a farm. I loved riding motorbikes and driving cars at a really young age – probably quicker than I needed to because I loved the wind in my hair – but Dad [Alan] was there to keep an eye on me. Jackie Stewart had obviously finished his racing career by then, but I’d heard all the stories about him through my father. Dad used to hitchhike from Queanbeyan to Sydney to watch Sir Jackie race at Warwick Farm, and that had a huge influence on him. There was no motor racing at all in our family until Dad got addicted to Formula 1 through this legend.

I met Sir Jackie for the first time in 1997, when I was only 20 and had just started in British Formula 3 racing. I was doing well in a team that didn’t have as much funding and finance as his team did, but there was this weekend when I managed to hose his drivers, and that got his attention.

He invited me to his house for dinner. I really didn’t want to be late, so I got to his home in Buckinghamshire one hour early and parked around the corner. I was busting for a pee-eye-double-five, so I went into the woods there for a little pit stop, but a security guy came out of nowhere and clocked me: “What are you doing here?” I explained myself, and this guy was like, “Well, we’re watching you.” It turns out his property is next door to Chequers, the official country house of the British prime minister. The officer was actually security for Tony Blair. We laugh about that now.

We had this incredible dinner together. You can meet elite sports people and feel this immense respect, obviously, but you sometimes connect in other ways, too. Yes, he and I are both from this dangerous, fast-paced world, but we ended up talking about our partners, our dogs, our lives. It was one of the most motivating evenings of my life.

I sometimes say that I owe Sir Jackie my life because he was a safety pioneer in our sport. There were a lot of racing fatalities in the 1970s and he lost many, many friends. He was, at the time, quite controversial in publicly calling for change, but he unified the drivers because they were going to a lot of funerals. He used his position until his very last race: he retired on 99 races instead of 100 because his teammate was killed that weekend.

He didn’t double down on ways to make conditions safer, he tripled down: medical facilities at the track, nearby hospitals on alert, the safety of the cars and the materials used and his vision for better tyre barriers or bigger run-off areas. It meant that when some of us had those bad accidents, we walked away.

‘I owe Sir Jackie my life as he was a safety pioneer in our sport. There were a lot of racing fatalities in the 1970s and he lost many friends.’

Mark Webber

In Valencia, in 2010, I touched another car, flipped, and when my car landed the roll hoop was strong enough to protect me. Without that, I wouldn’t have survived. There was also a medical centre right there at the circuit. Back in Sir Jackie’s day, ambulances would often have to fight traffic just to get out of the circuit. Now, you can’t drive a Formula 1 car without a helicopter at the track. So yeah, the night of that crash, I spoke to Sir Jackie on the phone, thanking him for what he did.

I never did end up racing for him but, in many ways, he’s been like another grandfather to me, giving me advice during my career. We’d catch up every two months, and still do – he’s an incredible sounding board. Whenever I’ve been under pressure in my career, he’s always had the right answers, and that’s something I cherish.

Jackie: When I first met Mark, he was a puppy. He really was. He’d just come to Britain, which is the home of all the big teams in Formula 1. He was still climbing the ladder, coming up through the ranks, and I wanted him to drive for Paul Stewart Racing, a team I created for my son, but it didn’t happen. Instead, we became friends.

I was also something of a mentor. I helped build him up from his beginnings in single-seater racing. He developed enormously within the sport and was so modest for an Australian! He carried himself well, never overdid anything. He really is a great ambassador for Australia.

Motor racing is the most important sport in the world because everybody drives a car: rich or poor, man or woman. There’s nobody who’s been at a traffic light and not seen themselves on the grid. It’s colourful, glamorous and exciting, but it hasn’t always been safe. I lost 57 people while I was a driver, and I’ve got 57 benches on my property in England, each one with a name on it. It was awful. Ridiculous. But because I was world champion, I had some influence and was able to make people understand that this couldn’t continue.

‘He developed enormously within the sport and was so modest for an Australian! He carried himself well, never overdid anything.’

Jackie Stewart

I was very unpopular in some circles because the changes were going to cost a lot of money and Formula 1 is more of a business than other sports. The cars then were dangerous; now they’re basically a survival cell. Huge crashes happen today at speeds faster than ever before, and the driver walks away. That’s what happened with Mark, and I know he’s grateful for that. You could say he was following my best advice: “To finish first, first you must finish.”

Mark also understands the commercial side of racing and I think that’s due to his wife, Ann, who had a great deal to do with managing his career. He’s an ambassador for Rolex, for instance, just as I’ve been since 1968. It’s a small team – Jack Nicklaus and Roger Federer are on board – so Mark’s a lucky boy. I had a bit to do with that.

Our friendship has only grown as the years have gone by. We live near one another and my wife, Helen, just loves Mark. Unfortunately, she’s got dementia, but he’s been so lovely with her. Whenever he comes over, he looks after her, and she loves that. He really is the golden boy.

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