Australian Mark Webber has defended his silence over his broken shoulder while chasing this year's Formula One championship, saying his Red Bull team had no need to know about it.
The 34-year-old revealed in a book published in Australia this month that he fractured his shoulder falling off a mountain bike just before the Japanese Grand Prix while he was leading the standings.
The driver, who ended up third overall, said he had told only his physio and the FIA doctor about the injury that he carried through the final four races.
"A little bit of information can be a dangerous thing," he said on his website in response to media reports this week.
"I came off a mountain bike while training between the races in Singapore and Japan, and an x-ray revealed a small fracture to my right shoulder. I was very confident it wouldn't affect my performance in the car, which is why I didn't tell anyone.
"There was no need. The shoulder wasn't causing me a problem, so there was no need to talk about it to anyone," added the Australian, who finished second in two of the last four races behind team mate and eventual champion Sebastian Vettel.
"If I'd had any issues with it in the car, then of course I would have told the team.
"But that wasn't the case. I've never missed a Grand Prix but of course if I couldn't drive the car a) safely and b) on the limit, I would have notified the team."
Red Bull team boss Christian Horner said on Monday he would have wanted to know.
"It is obviously disappointing Mark said nothing," he said at an awards ceremony. "It was an injury that did not appear to have any effect on his performance but all the same it would have been nice to know about it."
It was not the first time Webber has hidden an injury from the team.
In late 2008, when he broke his leg in a mountain bike accident, he neglected to tell the team that he had also broken his shoulder.
The Australian complained several times this season that he felt the team were emotionally favouring Vettel, describing himself as a 'number two' and his title challenge as 'inconvenient' for the Austrian-owned team.
The latest injury came at a crucial part of the season and at a time when Webber was urging Red Bull to put their weight behind him rather than Vettel, who was behind him in the standings.
Webber said he had not undergone any operation since the end of the season and the shoulder break was not the reason why he had missed the post-season tyre test in Abu Dhabi.
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