Formula One: Italian Grand Prix – 1 race, 24 different reactions! (Part 2)
The feature looks ahead with views from the Red Bull and Mercedes garage.
Red Bull
Sebastian Vettel was perhaps part of the best, the most innovative, unorthodox and most of all, riskiest race strategies that this Formula One season had to witness.
"Our strategy was a risk today - if it works then you're the king and if it doesn't you can be the idiot!”
Thankfully the latter half of the prediction didn’t hold true as the strategy most fortunately worked and the team did a great job pulling it off – The pit stop on the final lap was sublime! The young German driver conceded that he made a ‘bad’ start by
his standards. The Red Bull driver has started half the races this season on pole and not being on the front row was clearly something he hasn’t gone around being used to. Vettel admitted that the car lacked the extra speed on the straights which made overtaking
an uphill battle for the Red Bull. Attacking the corners was the only remaining option to stay in contention. He also reflected upon the bad news given by his race engineer on the radio, suggesting that the lack of performance might have been due to some friction
in the car but luckily the problem solved itself – A ‘friction’ problem seems rather vague and somewhat timely, as the only driver to take advantage of the temporary malfunction was his teammate and title contender Mark Webber. But then again, this is only
the writer’s view and the prevailing controversies in the sport further fuels the “creativity!” – Vettel felt that with his car’s momentary dip in performance, the cars ahead appeared a distant challenge. Staying out on track, while the group ahead dived into
the pits worked in his favour in the end. Overall, the team was able to score some good points and finds itself as number 1 in the constructor’s standings – Fourth spot was the maximum the struggling Red Bull could achieve in the end.
Mark Webber believed that both drivers could have scored more points than they did eventually, which was disappointing. However, he was grateful that he scored ‘some’ – More than Lewis Hamilton’s zero, is that what you mean Webber? – The Australian also
struggled for traction at the start and lost a couple of places. The most noticeable of those cars was the McLaren of title contender Lewis Hamilton. Webber found it increasingly frustrating cooped up behind a defensive Nico Hulkenberg, who in Webber’s words,
“seemed to spend every second lap going through the chicane, but the stewards left him alone.” After finally overtaking the Williams’, the amount of lost time meant settling for a mediocre sixth. While he was able to gain a little breathing space from closest
title contender Lewis Hamilton, he lost a sizeable chunk of his advantage over Fernando Alonso, who got 25 points.
Mercedes GP
Nico Rosberg outperformed his team mate yet again. The young driver deemed fifth an ‘ok’ result and was reasonably happy with his performance overall. Losing a spot to Sebastian Vettel was a touch disappointing he admitted. It was a tough race for the Mercedes
driver with respect to his placement in the race. Firstly fighting off a confident Kubica at the start, and then contending with Vettel in the latter stages of the race. However, the youngster believed that he was able to get the best out of his car this weekend,
getting another double-digit point finish and importantly getting ahead of Robert Kubica again in the Driver’s standings.
Michael Schumacher remarked on having a relatively clean race and was happy about his start. After twisting his way through the first chicane, avoiding contact, he had to give away two positions to both Red Bull drivers who proved to be a handful for his
Mercedes. Afterwards, the race was rather “lonely,” according to the seven-time champ. Taking into consideration where they started from, Schumi concluded that both drivers were able to score some important points for the team. An overall, decent race for
Mercedes GP.
Tags: