Mark Webber is to get a replacement chassis from the British Grand Prix after the team felt it was not worth pushing his Valencia crash car back into full-time service.
Although the car that Webber crashed spectacularly in the European GP could be repaired, the team has decided to make that tub, chassis number 4, a spare for the remainder of the season.
On the back of that, AUTOSPORT magazine has learned that Red Bull Racing has elected from Silverstone to give Webber chassis number 3 – the same one that teammate Sebastian Vettel ditched after Monaco because he was not happy with it. Vettel claimed after Monaco that he felt there was something wrong with the car, and the team duly discovered faults with it that meant he moved to chassis number 2 from the Turkish Grand Prix.
Speaking about the change at the time, Vettel said: "I was complaining for the last couple of races that something was not feeling right, and it was good on Sunday night [in Monaco] when we decided to change the chassis anyway just to make a change and find something. I think it explains a lot. On top of that, we also found other things that weren't in proper shape."
Since the problems that Vettel encountered with chassis 3, Red Bull Racing has undertaken a thorough analysis of the car and made repairs to the damage that it found.
The likelihood that the issues with chassis 3 were more related to damage than a manufacturing fault are increased by the fact that it is the car that delivered Vettel's first victory of the season in Malaysia.