Now 40, the boy from Queanbeyan will end his professional racing career this weekend driving in the final round of the FIA World Endurance Championship at Bahrain in the #1 Porsche Hybrid with the Kiwi Brendon Hartley and Germany's Timo Bernhard.
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Mark gave many thousands of Australian motor sport followers a huge amount of enjoyment across the country during his tenor in Formula One as he tried his absolute hardest to become the third driver from this country to become world champion.
Unfortunately that failed to eventuate, but it was widely believed he lost what was his title to win in 2010. With just three rounds remaining following that years Japanese Grand Prix Webber took a 14 point lead into the next round in Korea, but in bad conditions and with many believing he was pushing too hard he crashed out. From that point onwards he just couldn't get back on terms with Vettel and had to settle for third in the championship while his teammate went on to win his first of four world championships.
However the Aussie did win nine grands prix and finished third in the championship on three occasions before he turned his back on F1 at the end of the 2013 season and joined Porsche in the WEC. With Porsche he did secure a world title, that coming in 2015 when along with Hartley and Bernhard they won the FIA World Endurance Championship.
Webber would spend two years racing Formula Ford in Australia where his exploits behind the wheel of the Yellow Pages sponsored car stood out despite, not winning a national title, but he knew how much ability he had and moved to Europe in 1995 to pursue the dream of racing Formula One and hopefully to bag a world championship.
In the Pits became a fan of Webbers due to his tenacity in stay in Europe during the early days when the all-too-familiar mantra of dwindling funds loomed large; many other F1 hopefuls who have taken the well-trodden path from Australia to the UK returned home to early.
During his 12 seasons in F1 in which he competed in more than 200 grands prix, he drove for Minardi, Jaguar and Williams before joining Red Bull Racing where he achieved the bulk of his success.
Unfortunately at RBR he came up against a young German in Sebastian Vettel who was very good, having been groomed for F1 from a very young age, and it was a turbulent time for Mark as the team really seemed to be favouring the newcomer.
This weekend for one more time he'll take the helmet and balaclava off and the ear plugs out, and then take up a role as a Porsche special representative at global events and work as a consultant on motorsport programs.
