Webber weighs a career up in the air, but first there's Vettel, and Monaco

THE Red Bull pontoon is the choicest of the hospitality marquees - so extravagant, so immaculate, just so, so Monegasque.

THE Red Bull pontoon is the choicest of the hospitality marquees - so extravagant, so immaculate, just so, so Monegasque.

Built for only five days of fine wining, dining, dancing and partying, this three-level, multi-million-dollar folly is complete with disco-balled nightclub, gold-foiled bathrooms and, naturally, a swimming pool.

The supermodels in stilettoed heels haven't yet arrived to drape themselves as essential car accessories, nor the footballers or royalty. But this was Wednesday, four days from the F1 jewel, a race around the streets of Monaco so tight, mere centimetres separate drivers from disaster.

Yet Australia's most famous racing car driver, Mark Webber, relaxes back in his carefully ordered inner cocoon within the centre of the pontoon, ignoring the surrounding flashiness and associated pressure. He had just uttered words that flew around the world: "In terms of all the small dogs and the handbags and that sort of stuff, it's not really my thing mate."

Webber's Queanbeyan roots present a human oxymoron in this Principality of Excess. Webber doesn't do tax haven residences, unlike his driver rivals. He doesn't need the self-esteem boosting accompaniment of a leggy dolly celebrity and he doesn't do smarmy air kisses either.

This is a man comfortable enough in his skin to "go for a surf" when his teammate disobeys team orders and overtakes to win the Malaysia grand prix earlier this year.

Or to live in the damp grey of Buckinghamshire with his English partner Ann, taking comfort in staying as fit as he can by cycling, mountain bike riding and playing with his dogs. He begins our conversation: "Mate."

What we all want to know is is he going to continue driving for Red Bull next year, is he going to retire, and does he really not talk to his team rival Sebastian Vettel?

Webber, 37, admits no decision has been made and tomorrow's race in and around Monaco, one of his favoured circuits where he has won twice in the past three seasons, may well be a crucial decider.

He accepts the "autumnal" statement of Red Bull team leader Christian Horner that he is in the midst of that unpredictable "window of retirement" and of late he admits to ignoring all that is around him to focus his energies almost exclusively on driving the car.

Yet behind the scenes he has been preparing for an inevitable moment when his reflexes are not razor sharp, by adopting a new challenge that requires similar discipline and focus, but access to his beloved remote areas and copious shots of adrenalin - learning to fly a helicopter.

So just weeks out from contract negotiations for next year, will the steering wheel be permanently replaced by a joystick?

Webber says: "I haven't made any decisions on what 2014 will hold. It's like you want to stop when you are driving really well."

But if Red Bull doesn't renew his contract, perhaps preferring the young Australian Daniel Ricciardo, who has been driving so well for the feeder team Toro Rosso, Webber, says: "I certainly wouldn't be disappointed for him."

But pressed as to whether he would consider total retirement - perhaps in deference to his age - or instead switch to another team, Webber remains coy, saying simply: "You never say never in this game. We will have to see what happens."

What has happened is not in dispute. Webber has been disappointed that his teammate Vettel has been allowed unfettered licence to disobey team orders, at his own expense and success at the Malaysian grand prix. For a driver so grounded in practicalities, the team's response, tantamount to spoiling the precocious child, has been, to put in mildly, extremely upsetting.

Webber wasn't surprised at Vettel's selfishness and the relationship has been "purely professional" for some time. We can read into that that the two don't socialise.

Even their press conferences were at opposite ends of the pontoon this week, 10 minutes apart. Yet such disociation is not new in this most individual of sports and Webber notes the lack of team camaraderie.

"When you are racing at 300km/h, there is a boxer mentality where we don't tell each other or how or what we are thinking," he says.

Even more revealing was the sobriquet Webber used in describing Vettel, as "our little mate next door" when recalling his initial fear of driving an F1 car.

Says Webber: "Formula One has been dumbed down for entertainment since, but in 2001 there were very powerful engines, very sticky tyres and they were intimidating cars. The boys bring out the car from the garage and say 'that's for you'. I was thinking this is an absolute missile, how am I going to control this thing?

" I remember talking to our little mate next door here when he was driving for the first time and he said to me 'I can't do this, I can't handle it'. And that was 2005 and, to be fair, they were weapons as well and he was a young boy.

"It is so up there in terms of speed and consumption and calibration of the brain, in terms of dealing with what's coming at you, how quick it is, and on top of that saying how can we improve things. Well, mate, I am so underneath the car, the car was driving me."

Tomorrow Webber will takes on the most exacting course of all the F1 races. All of the drivers acknowledge Monaco is uniquely terrifying, yet Webber, with his Formula Ford car racing background, thrives on the technical tasks.

The Australian says of negotiating the infamous Tabac corner and the swimming pool section: "You are putting the car through its limit and you can feel the car completely on the edge, everything has got no more to give, the tyres are on their limit, on the kerbs, you are just dancing between the barriers, the whole car is on edge. You take that stuff to your grave."