On 4-Time WDC Sebastian Vettel: From the inside view, it was apparently clear that Vettel and his RB9 were so much in sync with the existing regulations that they were simply unbeatable. Proof of this can be seen from Webbers best years challenging Vettel - 2009 and 2010 - after which he faded (3rd in 2011, 5th in 2012 and 3rd again in 2013 but with an immense gap of 198 points). In those two seasons, the diffuser rules were not set in stone and Adrian Newey was still exploring more downforce from the exhausts. As he found success, it suited Vettels style of driving, and voila! Webber had been with Red Bull since 2007 but never did downforce play such an essential part of their design as it did in Vettels championship years. It was pivotal in helping the German control wear-rate of his tyres (Bridgestone or Pirelli). It particularly helped in grinding out their performance in the last two sectors of a qualifying lap, one of the reasons why he was almost always on pole in a dominating car. However it was not always about the machinery, and there is evidence from 2014 - in a relatively inferior car - that proves so. In Malaysia this year, during a wet qualifying when Mercedes dry-pace advantage was nullified, Vettel put in a P2 lap-time of 159.486 compared to Lewis Hamiltons pole-time of 159.431. In Monaco, before Rosberg made that mistake on his last-run and denied him - and others - a second run on option tyres, in Q2 Vettel clocked a P3 time of 117.074, reportedly without any ERS assistance, almost 0.2s ahead of Daniel Ricciardo. He finished P4 in the end, by nearly that same margin, but still maintained the gap to Ferrari despite his problems. This past weekend in Canada, Red Bull and Williams were pretty evenly matched in terms of pace, fighting for honours in both qualifying and race. Their four drivers spread from P3 to P6 after qualifying were separated by a mere 0.041s. Driver skill matters in such proximity and Vettel pulled an amazing final lap in Q3 to finish ahead of the other three drivers, despite having been the slowest of all four in both Q1 and Q2 prior. Moving on, the umpteen reliability problems plaguing him nearly every weekend have denied Vettel enough time in the car to grow any confidence in the new downfoce levels. Webbers struggles in the latter part of his Red Bull career, perhaps, indirectly point to Vettels current form. With redefined downforce levels not optimised to his driving style, he is struggling to cope with the machinery at hand which however retains much of its aero superiority. A prime example is the Chinese GP, where his tyre-wear rates were very high and he lost massive pace leading to some fun radio communications. At the same time, Ricciardo has found the car to his liking. Frankly, he has never driven a better car, thus able to push and wring out its maximum, seeking new limits at every weekend. Vettel will desperately want to win a race this season, just to prove that he is not being out-driven by the new Australian-on-the-block, but a second Red Bull victory will surely need yet another Mercedes failure. In other words dont write off Vettel.
Posted on: Thu, 12 Jun 2014 11:10:14 +0000
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