"I wouldn't say I'm happy in the Formula 1 paddock," Mark Webber told CNN. "It's an environment that's not always real. You can click your fingers for food, for whatever you want really. But for me, I always try to ensure that I treat people as I'd treat myself.
(CNN) -- The excesses of Formula One do not sit easily on the shoulders of Mark Webber.
The venue for the latest addition to the F1 calendar, the Circuit of the Americas, cost in the region of $400 million. It was built from scratch on 890 acres of unused land in Travis County, just a few miles from Austin, Texas, with the primary aim of returning a United States Grand Prix to the sport for the first time since 2007.
In the paddock over the next few days, wealth will ooze from every pore, champagne glasses will clink from all corners of the team hospitality suites as money pours into the sport from global sponsors.
Webber's life as an F1 driver is in sharp contrast to his upbringing in Australia. The son of a motorcycle dealer, he grew up in New South Wales in relatively modest surroundings. His dad Alan, a regular at race weekends, has always done his utmost to keep his son grounded -- he still does, even if at 36 he is one of the oldest drivers on the grid.
So while other drivers slot easily into the F1 lifestyle, Webber is in some regards the sport's outsider, brought up on watching the news at home every night with his father and far more immersed in current affairs.
Paddock life
It's a background that has left Webber junior almost a tad embarrassed by an annual salary at Red Bull thought to be in the region of $8 million, which still leaves him some way off the top earners in the sport but still generous enough in an austere age for much of the globe.
Mark Webber back in the go-kart
The US Grand Prix at Indianapolis in 2005 was won by Michael Schumacher. But the race is remembered less for his victory, than the number of starters -- just six cars, rather than the normal 20.
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"It's difficult and a lot of the time it doesn't feel right when you've got the global financial crisis or something like Sandy hitting the U.S.," Webber told CNN.
"I wouldn't say I'm happy in the paddock. It's an environment that's not always real. You can click your fingers for food, for whatever you want really. But for me, I always try to ensure that I treat people as I'd treat myself.
"It's not always a world that sits well with me but to drive the best cars in the world, that's where I have to be and I want to keep doing that."
Webber's journey into F1 has been more arduous than most. Initially a ball boy for rugby league side the Canberra Raiders it soon became clear that motorsport was his passion: his idols were F1 star Alain Prost and champion American motorcyclist Kevin Schwantz -- who, incidentally, worked closely on the creation of the Circuit of the Americas.
The Schwantz route looked the likelier initially for Webber as he began racing on two wheels before a switch to karts aged 14, then made his mark in various single-seater formats: Formula Ford, Formula and Formula 3000.
He was 26 years old before he made it into F1 -- a year older than teammate Sebastian Vettel is now, who is on the cusp of winning a third straight world title -- making his debut at his home race in Australia for backmarkers Minardi in 2002.
Phone-a-friend
Getting there had been no means easy.
Having relocated to the UK in his teenage years to pursue his racing ambitions, he lived hand by mouth for much of the time, before a most uunlikely knight in shining armor came in the form of Australian rugby legend David Campese.
Webber's compatriot stumped up an interest-free loan of £52,000 ($82,000) to keep the driver's career on track at a time when the money had finally run out.
"My dad played rugby with Campo when they were young so it was a sort of phone-a-friend thing and we felt maybe he'd get an idea of what we were trying to do. I gave it everything and it did the trick. Without that, I wouldn't be here, so I owe him a lot."
The bank balance is much healthier these days, but Webber is never allowed to forget how far he has come by his partner Ann Neal, who has also managed his career for as long as he has been in the UK.
New Jersey will stage Formula One's inaugural Grand Prix of America in 2013, and Red Bull took its RB7 car over to the state of New York one year early to test drive the streets.
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"I remember when I got my first paid contract, which was 7,000 German marks [from Mercedes in the FIA GT Championship], I said to Ann 'I've made it'," he recalls. "She still reminds me of that 14 years later - still takes the piss out of me for it.
"My dad's exactly the same so, between them, I can never get that ahead of myself. I think with some drivers, they do change as people. I'm not going to name names but I've seen that in Formula 1.
"It's important for me to be able to look back and think I've not changed too much and I have no regrets about the way I might have changed.
"A lot of these guys get tattoos. I'm not a tattoo sort of guy. I try to be as consistent as I can as a person from my late teens to my mid-60s. I try to keep it real."
Mr Reliable
It's that consistency at the wheel that is arguably Webber's key selling point.
Last season, bar one race retirement he never finished out of the top five as he completed 13 of the 19 races in third or fourth place.
On his day, he is blisteringly quick, dominating both race weekends at Monaco and Silverstone this year -- his two race victories to date in 2012.
Similarly he was flying in 2010 and, on the verge of a hat-trick of wins, when he and Vettel famously crashed in Turkey, leading to a sense of ill feeling within the team.
That animosity has long since evaporated but, despite protestations in public to say otherwise from team principal Christian Horner, Webber is very much the team's understudy.
Vettel has long been nurtured by Helmut Marko, titled a motorsport consultant at Red Bull but the eyes, ears and mouth piece of team owner Dietrich Mateschitz, and a figure Webber has not always seen eye to eye with.
"Everyone can see where Helmut's allegiance lies," says Webber.
"He's very, very powerful and that's something that will always be the case. But there are two cars and I have the opportunity to drive one of them."
Which perhaps explains the exploration of a switch to Ferrari and drive alongside Fernando Alonso.
Red Bull's Mark Webber is one of the biggest names in Formula One. The Australian has vast experience on the grid but the origins of his motorsport career lie in go-karts.
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Australian Grand Prix: March 18, Melbourne
Formula One 2012: The circuits
There were very serious talks for Webber but the move would have been a similar one - playing the part of understudy to Alonso.
"Ferrari approached us first," said Webber. "Things happen for a reason and it feels I'm staying here for the right reason. We made the decision just before Silverstone when both teams seemed pretty interested. I'm happy with that decision."
World champion hopes
Webber has repeatedly been on a one-year rolling contract at Red Bull leading to conjecture that each year will be his final year.
Whether that's the case in 2013 remains to be seen but the reality is that his last hopes of becoming world champion have probably disappeared
The best opportunity was in 2010 as Webber arrived in Abu Dhabi for the final race of the season among one of four drivers capable of winning the championship only to be upstaged by Vettel.
He insists returning there for the last race was far from uncomfortable for him.
"I didn't lose the championship in Abu Dhabi so that's not a problem at all, it wasn't mine to lose," he says and dismisses the tag that he might be the nearly man of the sport.
"The world title's still something I'm aiming for, something I believe I can do. I wouldn't bother turning up if I didn't think that."
Last year proved a tough one for Webber.
His driving style was not suited to the off-throttle blown diffuser, which Vettel used to such devastating effect en route to 11 wins in a truly dominant season.
It made Webber's stock as a driver fall although he rectified that with a victory at the season-ending Brazilian Grand Prix and far more assured performances this season.
"I like the car a lot more," he says. "I really didn't like the blown floor and it proved a very difficult car for me. I didn't have a great feel for it and getting the right set-up was hard for me.
"This year has been much better, well better than last year but not as good as 2010. I don't like making excuses but last year I was making plenty of them. Not so this year.
Jenson Button leads while his McLaren teammate Lewis Hamilton has made contact with the rear of Romain Grosjean's Lotus.
Mark Webber receives the winning trophy from Prince Albert II of Monaco after his superb victory from pole.
Webber seals Monaco Grand Prix triumph
"But this year I needed the perfect season to win the championship, I know that, and that just didn't happen. I'll get another chance next year."
Red Bull had looked off the pace for much of the year but are now clearly the team to beat, drawing a footballing analogy from Webber in the process.
"It's like the Premier League," he explains. "You have Manchester United, Manchester City, the top teams. But at the start of the year, you have teams that get promoted that are right up there at the start of the season but, as the season goes on, they don't have the players on the bench to sustain that. It's the same in Formula 1."
Mortality
Despite having spent virtually half his life living in the UK, Webber still remains very true to the land of his birth.
Arguably he slots into the Aussie stereotype, his off-season ambitions involving beers and barbecues, and every other sentence in conversation is laced with the word "mate".
He seems to have a greater sense of mortality than his younger peers and understandably so.
There have been some shocking accidents, one at Le Mans in 1999 and another in an F1 car at Valencia 11 years later, in which he flipped violently on both occasions but survived in one piece.
Both are worth watching just for the incredulity that he actually walked away unscathed. Then there was the cycling crash in 2008 in which he was left with a shattered leg after being hit by a car.
Looking back, he says: "The leg has never been the same again but I'm not a marathon runner so it doesn't stop me doing my day job.
"I feel incredibly lucky as I know it could have been a very different outcome. So often, you feel invincible in F1.
"The Le Mans crash was the biggest deal of all of them. I really remember it even now. My sister had just had a baby and I was thinking about her and also thinking 'mate, you're too long'. Flipping in the air lasted an age, so there was lots of thinking time. Thankfully it wasn't my time to go."
As he approaches the end of his 11th season in F1, the same could be said of his career in top-flight racing.
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Mark Webber led the way from pole on the way to his eventual victory at the Monaco Grand Prix -- his first win of the season.
Webber takes a post-race dip as the Red Bull team celebrate another Monaco GP triumph in May. It was the second time in three years that Webber had won the sport's prestigious race.
Red Bull's Australian driver Mark Webber celebrates after winning the British Grand Prix at Silverstone -- his second victory of the 2012 season. The Australian held off Ferrari's Fernando Alonso in a close battle to win the race.
Webber is very much the understudy to double world champion Sebastian Vettel, who is seemingly on his way to a third consecutive world title.
Vettel has long been nurtured by Helmut Marko, titled a motorsport consultant at Red Bull but the eyes, ears and mouth piece of team owner Dietrich Mateschitz, and a figure Webber has not always seen eye to eye with.
Before extending his Red Bull contract, Webber had talks with Ferrari over a possible switch to the Italian team. "Ferrari approached us first," said the Australian. "Things happen for a reason and it feels I'm staying here for the right reason. We made the decision just before Silverstone when both teams seemed pretty interested. I'm happy with that decision."
Webber switched to karting as a 14-year-old and the move paid instant dividends as he won his state championship in New South Wales. The Australian describes the medium as "very raw."
Webber started off in Formula One as a test driver for the former Bennetton team in 2001 and got his big break in the form of a race seat with Minardi the following season.
Webber still looks fondly upon his time as a go-kart driver and recently took to the seat again as part of the Red Bull Kart Fight event in Japan.
Webber says: "Karting is the best way for you to get a feel of how to race each other, dealing with the competition, dealing with winning, dealing with losing and you soak it up so much at a young age and learn very fast."
The forthcoming U.S. Grand Prix at the Circuit of the Americas in Austin, Texas will be the first F1 race to be held in the country since 2007.
A puncture during practice caused Ralf Schumacher's Toyota to crash at the banked final turn -- the fastest part of the track -- sparking the controversy that led to so few cars starting the race.
Toyota used Michelin rubber and, after further investigation into the tire failure, Michelin advised the seven teams who used their tires -- Renault, McLaren, Williams, Toyota, BAR, Sauber and Red Bull -- not to race.
At the end of the parade lap, the seven Michelin teams peeled off into the pit lane -- leaving only Ferrari, Jordan and Minardi to contest the race.
"I can clearly recall my heart sinking when one car after another peeled into the pit lane," said BBC commentator Maurice Hamilton.
"The fans were incensed -- and rightly so," added Hamilton. "While the mood in the paddock was a mix of bewilderment, silent anger and resignation."
With motorsport fans left feeling so shortchanged it nearly drove Formula One out of the U.S. for good.
When the contract for the U.S. GP expired at the end of 2007, F1 supremo Bernie Ecclestone chose not to renew his deal with Indianapolis for the following season.
In 2002 Michael Schumacher suggested he had conceded victory at Indianapolis to his then teammate Rubens Barrichello as a gesture of thanks after he had overtaken the Brazilian under Ferrari team orders to win the Austrian GP.
Former F1 driver David Coulthard was behind the wheel, causing a stir as he sped through Liberty State Park.
While the Hudson River flowed above, Coulthard tore through the tunnel below at speeds of up to 190 miles per hour.
Coulthard burns rubber, while the Statue of Liberty can be seen poking through the thick cloud of smoke.
Next year's grand prix will run through the New Jersey township of Weehawken, where Coulthard took the RB7 to get a closer look at what drivers can expect.
Webber still thinks go-karting is the best way for young drivers to learn about motorsport and see if they have what it takes to progress. Webber is pictured with a group of karting kids in Melbourne back in 2006.
Malaysian Grand Prix: March 25, Kuala Lumpur 
Chinese Grand Prix: April 15, Shanghai 
Bahrain Grand Prix: April 22, Sakhir 
Spanish Grand Prix: May 13, Catalunya 
Monaco Grand Prix: May 27, Monte Carlo 
Canadian Grand Prix: June 10, Montreal 
European Grand Prix: June 24, Valencia 
British Grand Prix: July 8, Silverstone 
German Grand Prix: July 22, Hockenheim 
Hungarian Grand Prix: July 29, Budapest 
Belgian Grand Prix: September 2, Spa 
Italian Grand Prix: September 9, Monza 
Singapore Grand Prix: September 23, Singapore 
Japanese Grand Prix: October 7, Suzuka 
Korean Grand Prix: October 14, Yeongam 
Indian Grand Prix: October 28, New Delhi 
Abu Dhabi Grand Prix: November 4, Yas Marina 
United States Grand Prix: November 18, Austin 
Brazilian Grand Prix: Sao Paulo, November 25 
Grosjean's Lotus is flipped upwards after the initial collision and is about to be catapulted into the air.
Grosjean's Lotus is about to fly over the red Ferrari of championship leader Fernando Alonso.
A dramatic view of Grosjean flying over cars on the first corner of the Belgian Grand Prix at Spa-Francorchamps.
Grosjean in the Lotus has cleared Alonso's front wing and is about the come to ground.
In the ensuing chaos Hamilton, Alonso and Sauber's Sergio Perez are all caught up in the crash and their race is over.
A disgruntled Hamilton gestures in the direction of Grosjean after being taken out in the first corner incident at Spa-Francorchamps.
A delighted Jenson Button was left to celebrate his 14th F1 career victory after a superb performance in the Belgian GP.
Red Bull driver Webber leads the way but behind him Romain Grosjean forces Michael Schumacher to go wide in an early clash.
Kamui Kobayashi of the Sauber team goes airborne in spectacular fashion at the Monaco Grand Prix.
F1 supremo Bernie Ecclestone with Hollywood actor Will Smith and Lewis Hamilton's girlfriend Nicole Scherzinger.
A view of the track from the harbor area of Monte Carlo which is part of the tight street circuit for the Monaco Grand Prix.
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