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Formula 1
COOPER: Red Bull Made Most Of Challenging Opener
Despite more than one setback, Red Bull managed to place both its drivers in the top four of the Australian GP finishing order...
The Australian GP looked likely to be something of a nightmare for Sebastian Vettel’s title hopes after he qualified only sixth, but a great job in damage limitation by the German saw him salvage second place.
With Mark Webber coming home fourth and bagging some useful points, the Red Bull team could be forgiven for thinking that they’d had a narrow escape. Coming away with a second and fourth on a weekend when much didn’t go to plan is a sign that the team is in a pretty strong situation, despite McLaren’s impressive start to the year.
Having said that, the team is clearly going to have to work even harder than in 2011, and it’s when you are pushed or have to push that mistakes are made, on the track and on the pit wall.
“I think on a sample of one, it looks close,” says team boss Christian Horner. “We know McLaren from winter testing were competitive; we’ve seen that here this weekend. I think our race pace was equal to them today.
“Neither of the drivers has been totally happy with their cars here this weekend; we know where we need to improve, we’ve got plenty of things in the pipeline. We’ll take an awful lot of positives out of this weekend with a podium and fourth-place finish.”
Vettel had been very frustrated with the car on Friday, when the lack of dry running made it difficult anyone to hone their setups. Then he beached the car in the gravel in FP3 on Saturday, which meant he didn’t get that crucial final run in just before qualifying.
The damning statistic is that he failed to appear in the top five in FP1, FP2, FP3, Q1, Q2, and Q3. Of course there were occasions when he wasn’t going for an out and out time, but last year he would have been up there almost without trying. In Q3 he was beaten by Mark Webber, who had a 0.3s penalty as his KERS wasn’t working.
“Yesterday we felt we’d underperformed in qualifying with a KERS issue with Mark,” said Horner. “And Sebastian missing that last run in P3, I’m not sure we went totally the right way in setup, because he didn’t have that run. We were compromised in qualifying so we felt we definitely underperformed. But in the race I think it was a very good recovery from both the guys.”
That’s an understatement. While Webber made his life even harder with another bad start and by getting involved in the first corner incident, Seb soon passed his teammate and Romain Grosjean, and then dealt with the fast starting Nico Rosberg. He took another spot when Michael Schumacher retired, so by lap 10 we were back with a more familiar Vettel versus the McLarens fight.
“We were very keen to get through the first couple of corners from that place on the starting grid unscathed," Horner said. "Mark took a bit of a whack from all angles through that first turn. A Force India hit him and there was damage to the rear of the car and I think a little bit to the front.
“And then from there Sebastian put a good move on Rosberg, and the race started to pan out. Once the drivers were able to get into clear air, Mark getting into clear air ahead of Rosberg and (Fernando) Alonso, and Seb after Michael went off ahead of him, we could see the pace of the car was pretty respectable.
“So we split the tire strategies at the first stop, and the prime tire looked pretty good at that stage, as well. Once again in clear air, Mark was the quickest driver on the track for a long period of time. That gave us an awful lot of confidence, then the pace car really came through at the right time, the first thing all weekend that went our way!”
It was pure luck that McLaren had already stopped and that the safety car emerged with Vettel halfway around the lap and with a relatively smaller amount of running to do at a controlled pace than the silver cars. But it got him ahead of Lewis Hamilton and put him in a position to challenge Jenson Button at the restart.
“We capitalized on that and then obviously we were effectively in a McLaren sandwich," Horner said. "It was nip and tuck between the four of them to the finish, with no real opportunity to overtake. I think the DRS zones weren’t particularly powerful.
“So all in all a very strong recovery from the team, plenty of points. If we’d been offered that yesterday (Saturday), I think we’d have definitely taken it.”
As we’ve said so many times, Australia is a bit of an unusual track, and we could get to Malaysia and find that the RB8 steps up a gear, certainly in terms of qualifying potential.
“Malaysia is a considerably different prospect to here," Horner said. "Here it’s short turns, it’s bumpy, there are not a lot of high-speed corners here. Malaysia offers that variance. So I think it will be interesting to see. We expect them [McLaren] to be quick in Malaysia, as well, but hopefully we will be in better shape there than we certainly were here in qualifying.
“There were some abnormal performances here. (Pastor) Maldonado was very quick in the Williams, at one point (Sergio) Perez was setting fastest laps, (Jean-Eric) Vergne was setting purple sectors at one time, so there was some random events going that you wouldn’t normally expect. But I think it’s healthy for F1 to have that.”
Horner fully expects the pendulum to swing in RBR’s favor.
“We saw it last year when there were swings and roundabouts, some circuits suiting different cars and different characteristics, and we saw that swing from week to weekend on occasion," he said. "McLaren have always gone well here. If you remember, Lewis harried Sebastian most of the race last year.
“I think there are circuits that will affect performance, but I think the teams are very closely matched at this point in time, and it will be as always a development race between now and the end of the season as to whoever gets the most performance to the car quick enough will see a gain from that.”
Adam Cooper notched up his 27th season as a racing journalist in 2011. He has written about F1 for SPEED.com since 2005. Follow him on Twitter.
The opinions reflected herein are solely those of the above commentator and are not necessarily those of SPEED.com, FOX, NewsCorp, or SPEED
With Mark Webber coming home fourth and bagging some useful points, the Red Bull team could be forgiven for thinking that they’d had a narrow escape. Coming away with a second and fourth on a weekend when much didn’t go to plan is a sign that the team is in a pretty strong situation, despite McLaren’s impressive start to the year.
Having said that, the team is clearly going to have to work even harder than in 2011, and it’s when you are pushed or have to push that mistakes are made, on the track and on the pit wall.
“I think on a sample of one, it looks close,” says team boss Christian Horner. “We know McLaren from winter testing were competitive; we’ve seen that here this weekend. I think our race pace was equal to them today.
“Neither of the drivers has been totally happy with their cars here this weekend; we know where we need to improve, we’ve got plenty of things in the pipeline. We’ll take an awful lot of positives out of this weekend with a podium and fourth-place finish.”
Vettel had been very frustrated with the car on Friday, when the lack of dry running made it difficult anyone to hone their setups. Then he beached the car in the gravel in FP3 on Saturday, which meant he didn’t get that crucial final run in just before qualifying.
The damning statistic is that he failed to appear in the top five in FP1, FP2, FP3, Q1, Q2, and Q3. Of course there were occasions when he wasn’t going for an out and out time, but last year he would have been up there almost without trying. In Q3 he was beaten by Mark Webber, who had a 0.3s penalty as his KERS wasn’t working.
“Yesterday we felt we’d underperformed in qualifying with a KERS issue with Mark,” said Horner. “And Sebastian missing that last run in P3, I’m not sure we went totally the right way in setup, because he didn’t have that run. We were compromised in qualifying so we felt we definitely underperformed. But in the race I think it was a very good recovery from both the guys.”
That’s an understatement. While Webber made his life even harder with another bad start and by getting involved in the first corner incident, Seb soon passed his teammate and Romain Grosjean, and then dealt with the fast starting Nico Rosberg. He took another spot when Michael Schumacher retired, so by lap 10 we were back with a more familiar Vettel versus the McLarens fight.
“We were very keen to get through the first couple of corners from that place on the starting grid unscathed," Horner said. "Mark took a bit of a whack from all angles through that first turn. A Force India hit him and there was damage to the rear of the car and I think a little bit to the front.
“And then from there Sebastian put a good move on Rosberg, and the race started to pan out. Once the drivers were able to get into clear air, Mark getting into clear air ahead of Rosberg and (Fernando) Alonso, and Seb after Michael went off ahead of him, we could see the pace of the car was pretty respectable.
“So we split the tire strategies at the first stop, and the prime tire looked pretty good at that stage, as well. Once again in clear air, Mark was the quickest driver on the track for a long period of time. That gave us an awful lot of confidence, then the pace car really came through at the right time, the first thing all weekend that went our way!”
It was pure luck that McLaren had already stopped and that the safety car emerged with Vettel halfway around the lap and with a relatively smaller amount of running to do at a controlled pace than the silver cars. But it got him ahead of Lewis Hamilton and put him in a position to challenge Jenson Button at the restart.
“We capitalized on that and then obviously we were effectively in a McLaren sandwich," Horner said. "It was nip and tuck between the four of them to the finish, with no real opportunity to overtake. I think the DRS zones weren’t particularly powerful.
“So all in all a very strong recovery from the team, plenty of points. If we’d been offered that yesterday (Saturday), I think we’d have definitely taken it.”
As we’ve said so many times, Australia is a bit of an unusual track, and we could get to Malaysia and find that the RB8 steps up a gear, certainly in terms of qualifying potential.
“Malaysia is a considerably different prospect to here," Horner said. "Here it’s short turns, it’s bumpy, there are not a lot of high-speed corners here. Malaysia offers that variance. So I think it will be interesting to see. We expect them [McLaren] to be quick in Malaysia, as well, but hopefully we will be in better shape there than we certainly were here in qualifying.
“There were some abnormal performances here. (Pastor) Maldonado was very quick in the Williams, at one point (Sergio) Perez was setting fastest laps, (Jean-Eric) Vergne was setting purple sectors at one time, so there was some random events going that you wouldn’t normally expect. But I think it’s healthy for F1 to have that.”
Horner fully expects the pendulum to swing in RBR’s favor.
“We saw it last year when there were swings and roundabouts, some circuits suiting different cars and different characteristics, and we saw that swing from week to weekend on occasion," he said. "McLaren have always gone well here. If you remember, Lewis harried Sebastian most of the race last year.
“I think there are circuits that will affect performance, but I think the teams are very closely matched at this point in time, and it will be as always a development race between now and the end of the season as to whoever gets the most performance to the car quick enough will see a gain from that.”
Adam Cooper notched up his 27th season as a racing journalist in 2011. He has written about F1 for SPEED.com since 2005. Follow him on Twitter.
The opinions reflected herein are solely those of the above commentator and are not necessarily those of SPEED.com, FOX, NewsCorp, or SPEED
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