Webber In Doghouse After Cleaner Breaks Leg

The Red Bull racer said his household had suffered another casualty.

Mark Webber's house cleaner may be in need of the Australian Formula One driver's crutches after having her leg broken by his dog.

The Red Bull racer, who smashed his right leg in a cycling accident in Tasmania in November and is walking with a pronounced limp, said his household had suffered another casualty.

Webber's Rhodesian Ridgeback 'Zimba', also known as an African Lion Hound weighing in at a hefty 42 kilos, floored the cleaner at the driver's home in England two days ago and just before the animal had been due to be castrated.

"He's like a human torpedo," Webber told Reuters on Monday at the launch of his team's new RB5 car at the Jerez circuit in southern Spain.

"He's used to mucking around with me and I go pretty hard with him. He clipped (cleaner) Pauline and knocked her over and she didn't come up too well out of it."

Webber, who was on crutches until late last month and will have to race with a titanium pin in his right leg for the next year and a half, was not in the room at the time and shrugged off any personal risk from the pet.

"The dogs know, they're clever. Every now and again they get a little bit boisterous but he knows I'm not firing on all 10 (cylinders) yet," he said.

Team principal Christian Horner was relieved to have his driver still intact with the season starting in Australia on March 29.

"Mark told me on the way down here yesterday and I said at least he's got all the crutches and kit that he can lend her and maybe she can go and sit in an oxygen tent with him or go in his deep freeze," he told Reuters.

"I just feel sorry for his partner who's now got a housekeeper and her other half hobbling around on crutches."

HEALING PROCESS

Webber said he had one pin removed from his leg last Thursday, was ahead of schedule for his recovery and would be back in the cockpit this week for the first time since the end of last season.

The Australian has been speeding up the healing process by using a cryogenic chamber, standing nearly naked in sub-zero temperatures for minutes at a time.

"It's still a bit tender," he said of the leg. "We're focusing on Melbourne and we'll see how we go here, how it feels to drive.

"We've still got another four tests after this.

"I've raced with fractures before, it's just that people don't know about it," he added, without giving details.

Webber will have to satisfy Formula One doctors before the Melbourne race he can jump in and out of the car in the required seven seconds but that did not worry him.

The sport's rules have changed significantly this year and Webber has a new team mate in Germany's 21-year-old race winner Sebastian Vettel.

While the RB5 remained an unknown quantity, the Australian recognised this season could be his best chance yet to win a race.

"There's a clean slate for everyone, it's very exciting for all the teams to have a chance to move up to maybe some different positions," he said.

"There is a good chance a team like Red Bull can do very well out of a regulation change."