Mark Webber insists retirement will be the furthest thing from his mind when he competes in the 2012 Championship.
Many predicted 2011 would be the Australian’s final year in F1, but he signed a new one-year contract with Red Bull midway through the season and now everyone is speculating that 2012 will be his swansong.
The 35-year-old, though, is adamant he won’t be thinking about retirement during the season.
“That’s not the right attitude. The attitude is to focus 100 per cent on the next race. The results are the important thing, not the age,” he is quoted as saying by Autosport.
“I’ve had team-mates who don’t get the results and they are finished when they are 21. It’s a results based industry. If you don’t get the results, you don’t operate with the top teams.”
The Australian is coming off a difficult season when results are compared to team-mate Sebastian Vettel’s.
While the German won 11 races en route to his second consecutive world championship, Webber could only manage one race win.
The F1 veteran, though, is not dwelling on the past season and hopes to start next year with a bang.
“I haven’t started recharging the batteries yet and I’m completely ready to do that,” he said.
“2011 is over, in my view, so it will be nice to start to recharge soon, to spend some time with the family and relax. But I know that I won’t do that for long.
“I get quite impatient to go back racing. Three or four weeks is the limit before I start to get itchy feet so I’m really looking forward to how next year’s car is going to roll out.
“There would be something wrong if you weren’t looking forward to that and seeing how we were going to come up against Ferrari and McLaren.”