Dec.8 (GMM) Red Bull has clipped Mark Webber's wings as the Australian attends his regular outdoor adventure challenge in Tasmania this week.

The event has not been run since 2008, when the now 35-year-old badly broke his leg on a mountain biking descent.

It has returned for 2011, but the local Mercury newspaper reports: "Webber was grounded (on Wednesday) by a climb deemed too dangerous for the formula one star to tackle".

And his participation will be further shortened when he flies to India on Thursday ahead of the FIA prize-giving gala.

"I'm disappointed," Webber said. "I would have loved to have been here for more of it, but it's not to be."

He insisted, however, that he does not allow his non-driving activities to be too controlled by his nervous F1 employer.

"I'm not going to wrap myself in cotton wool," he is quoted by The National newspaper.

"Formula one rules my life for most of the year, but I am going to go away, train and have fun doing it and nobody is going to stop me."

Recently, Webber's teammate Sebastian Vettel wanted to try German compatriot Stefan Bradl's Moto2 motorcycle, but Red Bull disallowed it.

"Not our champion, no," Dr Helmut Marko said firmly on Austrian television Servus TV.

Now, Volkswagen is said to be keen to get the back-to-back world champion at the wheel of its world rally car.

"It would be great for the sport if it was possible," the German carmaker's spokesman Kris Nissen is quoted by Sport1, "but it's not easy (to arrange)."

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