Mark Webber retires from racing

Mark Webber has announced he is to retire from full-time racing at the end of the 2016 World Endurance Championship season.

The nine-time Grand Prix winner and 2015 World Endurance champion has decided to call it a day on his long and successful career while still at the top of his game, following advice from legends Jackie Stewart and Niki Lauda who did exactly the same.

While Webber's full-time racing career is coming to an end, he will continue to work with Porsche in an ambassadorial role, providing training to young drivers, consulting to the motorsport program and lending his hand to road car development, in a similar role to the one Walter Rohrl has performed for nearly 30 years.

Webber is one of Australia's most successful motor racing exports, starting his professional career as a Mercedes sports car driver in 1998 before his infamous airborne accidents at Le Mans in 1999 caused the German marque to cancel its program.

Switching to F3000, his big break came in 2002 with with Minardi team, owned by fellow Aussie Paul Stoddart. Initially only contracted for the first three races, a sensational fifth place at the season-opening Australian Grand Prix led to Webber being retained for the whole year.

Stints at Jaguar and Williams showed hints of his potential but were ultimately unsuccessful but a switch to the fledgling Red Bull Racing team alongside David Coulthard would prove to be a career masterstroke.

Despite sustaining a horrific leg injury during the off-season, Webber took his first win during the 2009 season, following it up with eight more over the course of the next four seasons. His best championship result was third in 2010 (where he missed the title by just 14 points), 2011 and 2013.

Following his retirement from F1, Webber switched to Porsche's LMP1 program in 2014, teaming up with Brendon Hartley and Timo Bernhard to win the 2015 World Endurance Championship.