Lance Armstrong’s Dirty Laundry Hung Out By Red Bull F1 Icon: “Was All About Planet Lance” – EssentiallySports

Mark Webber’s friendship with the then-superstar cyclist, Lance Armstrong, was a story in itself. The cyclist’s book, which signified his zeal to live and fight cancer, inspired the driver. Webber had lost his grandfather to cancer, and that is where Armstrong’s book struck a chord. However, their friendship came to a sour end soon. To add to that, the divine image of Armstrong was also shattered by growing doping rumors.

In an interview with Oprah Winfrey, Armstrong admitted that he had taken performance-enhancing drugs during all of his seven Tour de France wins. He subsequently had those wins stripped from him and received a lifetime ban from cycling. Mark Webber sees this as a cycle of Karma.

“Whenever I think of Armstrong now, I think of the clean cyclists who competed in the system Armstrong was fueling week in, week out … Sadly, we don’t even know their names but in my reckoning, they’re morally streets ahead,” Webber stated in his column in BBC.com.

He also added, “I think what’s staggering to everyone is the number of people he was prepared to take out on the way up; people who were morally on the right side of the bridge. He wasn’t worried about the ramifications and the position he may have put these people in; it was all about Planet Lance.”

The absence of the American from the historic Monaco Circuit had hurt Webber so much that he did not shy away from making blunt comments about the surfacing doping rumors surrounding Armstrong.

Mark Webber had expressed his disappointment with former acquaintance Lance Armstrong in his F1 column for the BBC. He mentioned that the close bond they had shared got destroyed because of the lack of commitment showcased by Armstrong. “.. he failed to show without a word of an apology. I thought it was very poor form, and I was disappointed.”

In 2008, during the Monaco Grand Prix, Webber and his partner Ann were expecting Armstrong’s attendance. They had pulled a lot of strings to arrange that. However, they were deeply disappointed when Lance did not show up without any communication.

“He let my partner Ann and I down after we organized passes for him for the Monaco Grand Prix. Red Bull Racing had gone out of its way to meet all his demands, which were not inconsiderable, and had everything laid on, but he failed to show without a word of an apology. One of Lance’s mates had a huge shunt and was badly injured. He spent the next few days in hospital but he still managed to haul himself down to the track on race day Lance was a no-show.” said Webber in his column.