Mark Webber, the motor-racing driver, faces a long period of recuperation before the start of the next Formula 1 season after fracturing his right leg in a bicycling accident in Tasmania on Saturday morning.

Webber was competing in an annual adventure race named after him, the Mark Webber Challenge, which raises money for charity.

The 32-year old Australian was helicoptered to Hobart Private Hospital after being involved in a collision with a car on a single-lane gravel track at the bottom of a hill in Fortescue Bay, near the former convict settlement of Port Arthur in the south-east of the island. Surgery was carried out on Saturday evening, and it is not clear when he will be able to return to England where Red Bull, his team, have already begin testing for next season.

A fellow competitor arrived on the scene minutes after the accident by which time paramedics attached to the event were attending to Webber. "It was really ugly," the competitor said. "Mark was still lying there and seemed delirious after receiving morphine. His leg had been at a horrible angle, and it looked like a double compound fracture. Apparently, he'd ridden down the hill at pace and met the vehicle - a four-wheel drive with bullbars - as it came round a corner. He steered right but this Nissan X-trail went left."

Webber had been due to fly back on Monday to England, where he lives with his partner, Anne, near Aylesbury in Buckinghamshire. She received an unwelcome call in the early hours, while his parents, who come from New South Wales, were summoned off a boat that was cruising down the picturesque Tasman Peninsula.

Having avoided serious injury in his motor-racing career, Webber's accident is doubly ironic. For he acts as patron of the Amy Gillett Foundation, set up to improve safety for cyclists after the former Australian road cycling team member was killed in Germany by a vehicle. He is also safety spokesman for F1 drivers.

While his colleagues have been relaxing since the final grand prix of last season in Brazil, it was typical of Webber, perhaps the most rounded of F1 drivers, that he should have been raising money for two charities.

One the eve of the start of the event last Tuesday, he almost broke down with emotional when speaking to fellow competitors. He himself underwrites the cost of the race, contributing significant money of his own to both charities, the Leukaemia Foundation and the Save the Tasmanian Devil Fund.

Anyone wishing to contribute to these charities can visit either www.markwebberchallenge.com or www.discovertasmania.com