Webber ended season with fractured shoulder

Red Bull’s Mark Webber drove the last four rounds of the 2010 season with a fractured shoulder, the Australian driver has revealed. Webber sustained the injury in a cycling accident prior to the October’s Japanese Grand Prix.

Webber chose not to divulge what had happened to the Red Bull team bosses and details have only just emerged in a new book published in the Australia. It was the first time he had been back on a mountain bike since breaking his leg in late 2008.

"I was riding with a great friend of mine,” explained Webber in ‘Mark Webber, Up Front’. “Suddenly, he crashed right in front of me and I had nowhere to go but straight through the ears of the horse! I suffered what they call a skier's fracture to my right shoulder.”

With the fracture too fine to be treated, Webber, who was leading the championship at the time, received pre-race injections to cope with the pain. Only his physio Roger Cleary and FIA medic Gary Harstein are believed to have known about the injury.

Webber narrowly lost the Japanese race to team mate Sebastian Vettel, after which his championship challenge faded, and many will now question whether the fracture effectively cost him the title, even if Webber himself disagrees.

He broke his right leg in November 2008 after being hit by a car while cycling in training for his Tasmania charity challenge. What wasn’t known by his team or the public at the time was that Webber also broke his shoulder in that incident.