Webber to be barred from future outdoor adventure challenges

(GMM) There will be discussions about the future of Mark Webber's participation in his annual outdoor adventure challenges.

That is the admission of Geoff Donohue, the director of the 2008 event in Tasmania, and also involved with the 32-year-old's management team.

Webber, who drives for Red Bull, at the weekend badly broke his right leg in two places when he struck a car head-on during a mountain biking descent.

The Australian driver, who underwent surgery, is likely to be fit by the start of the 2009 season, but he could have to sit out the entire pre-season test period.

Despite the energy drink company Red Bull's association with extreme sports, it is suggested that Webber's contractual freedom to engage in dangerous activities could now come under review.

"It would be a stretch to say the event was in any kind of threat from that perspective but having said that, Mark is very loyal to his employer so I'm sure all of that will be discussed," Donohue told the Sydney newspaper Daily Telegraph.

"But if you look at other formula one drivers you will find they all do a variety of training that has risk."

Webber's father Alan, one of the first on the scene of the accident, has told Britain's Times newspaper that his son was lucky to escape even more serious injury.

It is believed that Webber's breaks to his tibia and fibula were compound (through the skin). "It was messy," Alan Webber said from Hobart.

"Mark will have to stay in the hospital here for another four or five days.

"It's a question of whether he recuperates in Melbourne or comes up to our house in Queanbeyan, where he could use the Australian Institute of Sport to help aid his rehabilitation," he added.