Formula One Racing: McLaren Slam Red Bull “Crash-Kid” Sebastian Vettel
McLaren driver Jenson Button has suggested that Red Bull Racing favours its mercurial young racer, Sebastian Vettel, and will not prefer Australia’s Mark Webber over the German. This attitude is in spite of the fact that the Australian is Red Bull’s best bet for the Drivers’ and Constructors’ championship title. Although he had to relinquish the championship lead to McLaren’s Lewis Hamilton in the aftermath of the Belgian Grand Prix, Webber is only 3 points behind the Englishman, and hence, still very much in the title race.
Webber took the second spot at this weekend’s action-packed Belgian event, whereas a resurgent Hamilton clinched the winner’s trophy at the Spa-Francorchamps circuit. The Australian has bagged more race victories than any of his Formula One colleagues this season, and has a 28 point advantage over his teammate Vettel. Yet it is Vettel who in the eyes of most people is the favourite at Red Bull Racing headquarters. With his best years in Formula One yet to come, the young German is a highly marketable asset for the Austrian team.
There is no denying the fact that the accident-prone German is incredibly fast and immensely talented, but he lacks the essential experience that is required to put up a solid bid for the championship title. All too often this season, Vettel has failed to translate his numerous pole positions into race victories. At the Belgian Grand Prix this weekend, the German was slapped with a hefty drive-through penalty after he barged into Jenson Button’s McLaren, causing the Englishman to lose valuable points in the championship race and also damaging his own title chances in the process. In Turkey earlier this year, Vettel once more squandered several meaningful points after bumping into Webber’s Red Bull in an ill-thought-out attempt at overtaking.
It was the incident in Turkey that first led to allegations that Vettel was the number-one driver at Red Bull after the team initially chose to accuse Webber for the debacle, when most experts held Vettel to be in the wrong. The Austrian side later retracted its initial statement, saying the team had not had enough time to analyze the situation properly. At the British Grand Prix in Silverstone, rumours of favouritism at Red Bull resurfaced after Vettel’s RB6 was equipped with a brand new front-wing that had been taken off Webber’s car after the German’s got damaged; Webber was then handed down an older wing.
Red Bull manager, Christian Horner, however, categorically denied there was a number-one or number-two driver at his side, asserting the decision had been made on the basis of the two drivers’ championship standings, where Vettel was leading his teammate by a few points back then. Following the German racer’s recent blunder at the Belgian Grand Prix, Christian Horner has once again jumped to the defence of his young driver, saying that the talented German will bounce back soon after overcoming the follies of his inexperience compared to other drivers on the grid.
The McLaren side was, unsurprisingly, less than impressed by Vettel’s costly error. Jenson Button said that he had little idea what the German was attempting to do when he had bumped into his MP4-25. The Englishman remarked that Vettel’s driving was too error-prone to support his title hopes. McLaren principal Martin Whitmarsh concurred with Button, asserting that the German had made too many mistakes this season to be worthy of the title. Whitmarsh further reasoned that Vettel was too well-liked at Red Bull for the Austrian side to prefer Mark Webber over him.
Meanwhile, Mark Webber has said that his team will soon have to make a decision over whether they would prefer one driver over the other with just 6 races to go in the battle for the 2010 title. However, the team’s boss responded that it was too early in the season for the team to start thinking along those lines and that there was every possibility that Vettel would fight back to revitalize his title dreams.
Tags: