Webber not giving up on 2011 title dream

Mark Webber insists "anything can still happen" before the end of 2011 season, but admits he is looking forward to starting the 2012 season afresh and taking the fight to Red Bull team-mate Sebastian Vettel.

He is currently Vettel's closest challenger for this year's title but 92 points separate the pair with just seven races remaining. Webber signed a year's contract extension with Red Bull over the Belgian Grand Prix weekend and while he is looking forward to starting from zero in 2012, he has not given up on 2011.

"I'm still driving well," he said in his BBC column. "I had a bit of a slow start to this year because it took me a little while to get on top of the new tyres. I'm looking forward to taking on Seb - and everyone else - again next year.

"But this year isn't over yet. There are still seven races to go, starting with Monza next weekend, and anything can still happen."

Webber also referred to Red Bull's 1-2 at Spa-Francorchamps as one of the team's best performances ever, after it overcame tyre blistering problems to finish ahead of the rest of the field. During qualifying the cars' high camber settings caused the Pirelli tyres to blister and there were serious concerns before the start of the race as to whether the compound would hold up. In the end Red Bull made some alterations to tyre pressures before the start and then pitted both cars in the first five laps to take on fresh rubber. Webber said he and the team had not been expecting such a good result in such trying circumstances.

"Although we could have reduced the camber, it was not absolutely clear that would fix it," he added. "We push the cars to the limit and this was just something that happened. Because of all the tyre problems, we went into the race thinking about damage limitation rather than victory. But we made all the right decisions as a team and it turned out we got the ultimate result. We were very surprised by that."

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