Mark Webber to drive F1 car across Melbourne’s Bolte Bridge

First filed 6 March.

On Saturday 19 March, one week before the Australian Grand Prix, Mark Webber will drive a Red Bull F1 car across Melbourne’s Bolte Bridge.

It will be Webber’s second F1 bridge crossing down under, after he drove across the Sydney Harbour Bridge in his BMW Williams back in 2005 (more after the break).

Details are yet to be officially announced, but the HeraldSun says that will happen sometime in the next week. It’s expected all six lanes on the 490m long Bolte will be closed for the early morning runs. The bridge was designed by Denton Corker Marshall and has dominated the city’s western fringe since it opened in 1999.

Last year Webber participated in a similar event to promote the British Grand Prix when he drove around London’s Parliament Square.

[Source: HeraldSun | Pic: Denton Corker Marshall | Thanks to Wayne for the tip]

UPDATE 10 March: Word has come through via grandprix.com.au that the “Red Bull Run” will take place at 9:45am on Saturday 19 March. After the drive across the Bolte Bridge Webber will greet fans at Docklands’ Waterfront City.

Mark Webber excites with overdrive of the Harbour Bridge

27.02.2005 | Press Release

Spectacular Show by the BMW WilliamsF1 Team in Sydney.

Sydney (AUS). This Sunday morning the BMW WilliamsF1 Team gave Australia the first taste of Formula One action in 2005. With the season’s opener in Melbourne just one week away Australia’s best known landmark, the Sydney Harbour Bridge, developed into a Formula One track when Mark Webber drove over it at the wheel of the team’s Formula One car. Spectators at the famous opera where listening to the BMW V10 cylinder’s sound.

Exactly at 8.10 am the Australian set off and crossed the bridge a dozen times. The TV channel Network 10 provided countrywide live broadcast of the event, spectators where following the overdrive of their 28 year old countryman on a huge video screen.

Webber was delighted: “Thundering with 900 bhp over that time-honoured structure was an amazing feeling. The engine sound over the ocean was fantastic. I just can’t thank everybody enough in my home state New South Wales who made this show for the fans possible.”

For Webber’s overdrive, the “coat hanger”, as the Australians nickname their bridge, was blocked off for a couple of hours. Usually traffic runs over the nearly 50 metres wide deck in eight lanes, plus two railway lines, a walk way and a bicycle way.

The Sydney Harbour Bridge, opened in March 1932, is the biggest (not longest) steel arch bridge in the world. At its highest point, the arch reaches 134 metres over sea level. The deck of the bridge is 49 metres above Sydney harbour. The bridge has been often in the centre of international events. In the year 2000, the pictures of the Olympic Games closing ceremony went around the world.

This Sunday, Webber’s drive has been unrivalled. But all views are already directed to the first round of the 2005 FIA Formula One Championship which kicks off with the first free practice next Friday in Melbourne.

[Source: BMW Motorsport archives]