Earlier today Mark spent time at Heathrow airport in the cockpit of a Qantas A380 with one of the airline’s training captains, after having expressed a genuine interest in flying (no doubt citing his unique experience in the free-fall variety..).

Webber‘s ambitions will see him transfer his skill set from the grid to the skies.

The scary collision between Mark Webber and Heikki Kovalainen in the 2010 European GP, which saw Mark’s car take to the air at over 195 mph. Thankfully Mark walked away bruised but otherwise unhurt

Qantas will provide mentoring support with one of the airline’s training pilots and time in the Qantas flight simulators, and will recommend an approved pilot training organisation in order for Mark to learn to fly. They are certain his driving skills and his excellent hand/eye coordination will put him in good stead in learning to fly an aircraft.

Webber stated that flying has been something that has always fascinated him; and having had the opportunity to fly over the Albert Park Formula One circuit in a Qantas B737 simulator earlier this year, he really wanted to fly an aircraft himself one day.

Looks like his wish has just been granted.

Gallery

We will update you during the next few weeks on our future plans and the changes that are coming, but it looks like being a very exciting year and one that will see further change in the way you consume and enjoy your motoring fix online.

Anyone who has spoken to me will know how passionately I believe in empowering the end-user, and during the past few months we’ve watched and learned from the way you’ve used the functionality in our community. The first stage or our response will be a new community platform with several cool features which will enable you to track, share and discuss the content you view from around the web.

We will release this new platform in stages, letting you play with it and steer what comes next, so we look forward to hearing your feedback.

In the meantime have a great evening, enjoy the celebrations and let’s toast the end of 2009.

Cheers

The German car maker had announced earlier this year that it was pulling out of Formula 1, and had agreed a deal with Swiss company Qadbak, to run the team in the future. However BMW said this morning that the deal with Qadbak could not be completed, although they haven’t cited reasons why this was the case.

Dr. Klaus Draeger, Member of the Board of Management of BMW AG responsible for development, said this morning: “We are very pleased with this solution. Thus the most important prerequisite for a successful future of the team is satisfied. Our relationship with Peter Sauber has always been excellent and marked by the highest respect. We would like to thank Peter Sauber and the whole team for their excellent cooperation during the past four years. ”

Peter Sauber said: “I am very relieved that we have found this solution so that we can get to save Hinwil and most of the jobs. I am convinced that the new team will have a very good future in Formula 1, which is now developing in favour of private teams. We have skilled, motivated employees, and I am happy to accept them, together with the new challenge. I wish to thank BMW for four very successful years. ”

The deal assumes that the current BMW Sauber F1 team will be reduced from 388 to around 250 employees, however the team said that further layoffs cannot be excluded in the near future.