Sebastian Vettel will fight hard to defend his championship title in the 2012 Formula 1 season
Red Bull Racing driver Sebastian Vettel surely stands amongst the out-and-out favourites for the 2012 Formula 1 World Championship after winning the titles in the last couple of years.
Vettel is presently standing at third place in the drivers’ championship with 122 points. Moreover, he is 5 points ahead of Lewis Hamilton of McLaren and is just 2 points behind his teammate, Mark Webber.
Even though, Fernando Alonso of Ferrari who is currently at the top of the drivers’ rankings with 164 points has a strong lead over the defending champion, however, he has still been deemed as the potential candidate for this year’s championship title.
The Veteran German driver became the youngest world champion in the history of the sport in 2010. Furthermore, he completely dominated during the last year and became the youngest double world champion after winning 11 races and claiming 15 pole positions.
Although, he faced some difficulties in his car during the last pre-season test this year in which he could only complete 23 laps and came last in the charts. Nevertheless, he has still been considered as the strongest rival in this year’s championship battle.
In the season opener, he struggle during the qualifying and could only secure 6th grid position. However, he performed tremendously well and secured second podium finish in the race.
Later, he couldn’t pocket any points in the second race due to his collision with Narain Karthikeyan of HRT as he came 11th in the timesheets even after setting off from 5th grid slot. Then, in the third race, he showed a good pace
and secured 5th place finish after taking a start from 11th grid position.
Afterwards, he delivered a remarkable performance in the fourth race which was held at Bahrain International Circuit in Sakhir and took his first victory of the season after claiming the pole position.
Later on, he secured 6th place finish in the Spanish GP after beginning from 7th grid position. Though, he faced issues during the qualifying of Monaco GP in which he could only secure 9th grid slot, nonetheless, he performed
quite convincingly and came 4th in the race.
In the Canadian GP, he claimed an impressive pole position, however, he could not covert his pole into a race win and finished 4th in the standings. Later, in the European GP, he again secured an inspiring pole position but could not score even
a single point as his alternator stopped working and eventually he was retired.
Then, in the British GP, he secured third place finish after starting from 4th grid position and came 5th in the German GP after qualifying for 2nd grid position. Over and above, he secured fourth place finish in the Hungarian
GP after taking a start from 3rd grid slot.
It will be important to mention that the two-time world champion said that he could not maximise the given opportunities during the qualifying of the preceding race.
"I think for us it was more a difficulty to get everything to work properly," Vettel said. "I think the speed is there but it seems extremely difficult once you lose the balance a little bit, so I think we were struggling a little bit with that in qualifying.
I'm not entirely happy with the lap I had, I think Romain was in reach I think Lewis was a bit too far away today but I think with the progress we made this morning and through qualifying I think we should be in a good position tomorrow for the race."
Nevertheless, he is positively looking forward to defend his title this year and is aiming to fight back after the mid-season break.
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are solely of the writer’s and do not reflect bettor.com’s official editorial policy.
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