Red Bull Formula One driver Webber of Australia celebrates with his teammate Sebastian Vettel of Germany, who finished, after winning the Monaco F1 Grand Prix on 16/05/2010.
Red Bull Formula One driver Webber of Australia celebrates with his teammate Sebastian Vettel of Germany, who finished, after winning the Monaco F1 Grand Prix on 16/05/2010. Reuters

Sebastian Vettel's win at the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix gave him his first World Championship title. It also gave him a renewed friendship with Red Bull team-mate Mark Webber.

Over the course of the season, Webber and Vettel engaged in an intense rivalry, which bordered on hostility, especially after the Turkish Grand Prix when they were leading one-two, Vettel tried to over-take Webber only to crash into him ending his own race while demoting Webber to third on the podium.

Talks of favoritism emerged when before the Silverstone Grand Prix, Webber's front wing was taken off and attached to Vettel's car.

However, after Vettel's title triumph at Abu Dhabi, Webber went over to congratulate him and this became a sort of clear-the-air meeting.

Vettel said, He came to congratulate me after the race and showed me a lot of respect which was one of the most important things that happened.

We talked about some things that got in our way a little bit this year.

Webber was disappointed at having missed out on the title, despite coming so close but was full of praise for his young team-mate.

The Australian said, I'm still pretty raw at the moment. I'm feeling a bit low but that's inevitable with sport, you put a lot into it and you don't quite get the absolute fairytale result.

It is very, very good what he (Vettel) has done and in the age that he's done it, it's impressive. He fully deserves the championship this year, there's no question about that. He's a talent in Formula 1 for a long time to come, so long as he keeps his feet on the deck which I'm sure he will do. It should be a great career for him.

In the end there're parts of the season that I'm still incredibly proud of and I'm looking forward to it again next year. I'll be getting away from photographers and press and even personnel here for a while.

You have to go away and recharge and that's when the normal desire starts to fire up again. When you get the desire and motivation to come back and compete that's the most important thing.