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Formula 1
COOPER: Vettel Slip Adds To Intrigue Of China Grid
Sebastian Vettel will start the Chinese GP from 11th, a surprisingly low spot for the reigning World Champion...
After all the distractions created by the controversy over the Bahrain GP, we had a fantastic qualifying session in China, and we’re set for an amazing race on Sunday.
Anyone who could have predicted the grid before the weekend deserves to win a lot of money, because it’s one of the most unusual orders we’ve seen in a session that was not affected by bad weather. It’s helped, of course, by a penalty for Lewis Hamilton shuffling a few people up, but even without that, it had a refreshing look to it.
For the first time in three attempts this season, Nico Rosberg got a clean lap and duly earned pole, although whether Mercedes can sustain its pace into a race stint remains debatable. He starts alongside teammate Michael Schumacher, with an impressive Kamui Kobayashi and Kimi Raikkonen behind the two Mercs.
But it’s further back where it gets even more interesting. Mark Webber could manage only seventh – although he gains a spot from Hamilton – while the big news was Sebastian Vettel’s failure to make it out of Q2. The double World Champion starts 11th, his worst grid position for three seasons.
It’s an extraordinary about turn since last year, when Vettel could seemingly snag pole even when crashes in practice and setup and KERS issues impacted his weekend.
This time it’s different. My personal feeling after he had two less than stellar weekends in Australia and Malaysia was that Seb and his team would bounce back here and maybe even win, but that’s simply not happened.
It says a lot this weekend that Mark Webber and Vettel have been running very different exhaust packages, with Mark focusing on the latest iteration – the fourth or fifth version – while Vettel went back to the original spec, with which he felt more comfortable. Webber rightly says that Red Bull is gathering a lot of data with this comparison, but it’s never a good sign when a team has to resort to that sort of thing.
In other words, RBR is on the ropes, and unlike the past couple of years, has no margin to play with. Weaknesses of any kind will be severely punished.
The intriguing thing is that Vettel was happy with the car, in that he liked the way it handled and so on, but the performance simply wasn’t there. Indeed, the fact that he did more than one lap of very similar speed showed that he’d found the limits. Despite the disappointment, he remained surprisingly cheerful.
“The car felt pretty good. We were just not able to find the last couple of tenths,” he said after qualifying. “It’s a long lap here, it’s not as if we are missing an awful lot. Of course, if you look at Mercedes’ pace in qualifying, especially in Q3, the lap of Nico was very, very strong. We could never have done that. I think Q2 was exceptionally close, so maybe if things came together. ... But at that time I wasn’t quick enough.”
Vettel was quick to point out that he wasn’t using the switch to the old exhaust package as an excuse – he wanted to do it, and he wanted to keep it for qualifying and, thus, the race.
“Don’t get me wrong, but I don’t want to blame today’s result on any sort of packaging or not. Mark was faster in qualifying, full stop," Vettel said. "I was happier with the car yesterday; that’s why I decided to keep that package. If I wouldn’t have been convinced yesterday, then we would have changed it. It doesn’t feel right to sit here and blame the car or the packaging.
“At this stage I don’t think there is any individual thing to blame. I had a good session and I was happy with my lap. It was probably not the best lap of my life, but it was a good lap and I was happy with it for qualifying, and it was just not quick enough.”
He insists that the team has learned a lot by back-to-backing the two specs: “Friday was very useful in that regard. I think we probably had a couple of answers before Friday, but I think the confirmation on that. As I said, I think I felt happier with the car yesterday than at previous races, but then again, conditions here are different.
“I think China is a different track, and globally probably we were happier here than in other places in terms of car balance. We got the answers that we were looking for.”
It would be silly to say it’s been a while since Vettel has been under pressure – performing at the level he has for the past three seasons, even with a good car, takes an extraordinary effort. But he’s definitely experiencing something he hasn’t had to face for a while. He insists he’s not fazed by the challenge.
“I think it’s not a problem, it’s not as if we expect to have the best car," the reigning World Champion said. "I think even if we have the best car, you never really think about things like that. You try to improve what you have, and work on that.
“You realize by the result whereabouts you are relative to the others, but by now there’s nothing wrong. We know we are not where we want to be, we are not there in terms of competitiveness where we have been at the end of last year. No doubt we need to work and improve the car. That’s the only way to in that regard come back.
“I think the key is it’s not a different mental challenge. I think if you would sit here now and say that now you have to try harder, then you would admit that last year you weren’t trying hard, which wasn’t the case. I think we always try to do the best, and so we do now. ...
“I think, being completely honest, we can look at ourselves and be happy with the work we have done. I think we got everything out of the car that there was today, I think we did a good job in qualifying. Surely the result isn’t good enough, and we need to improve and work on that, but for now I think we need to be honest to yourself. As I said, it’s not as if we’ve been lazy and we didn’t care really, and then that’s why we had a bad result.”
Loyal Vettel fans might be a bit disappointed, but there’s no denying that for the sport as a whole, his current struggles are good news, simply because it allows others some time in the spotlight, and reminds everyone of just how hard it is to win – and to keep winning. Indeed it also makes you realize just what a good job Red Bull did, with or without any blown diffuser advantage, to dominate the past two seasons.
Meanwhile, I’m looking forward to the race. And I’m not planning to risk any money on a bet.
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
Anyone who could have predicted the grid before the weekend deserves to win a lot of money, because it’s one of the most unusual orders we’ve seen in a session that was not affected by bad weather. It’s helped, of course, by a penalty for Lewis Hamilton shuffling a few people up, but even without that, it had a refreshing look to it.
For the first time in three attempts this season, Nico Rosberg got a clean lap and duly earned pole, although whether Mercedes can sustain its pace into a race stint remains debatable. He starts alongside teammate Michael Schumacher, with an impressive Kamui Kobayashi and Kimi Raikkonen behind the two Mercs.
But it’s further back where it gets even more interesting. Mark Webber could manage only seventh – although he gains a spot from Hamilton – while the big news was Sebastian Vettel’s failure to make it out of Q2. The double World Champion starts 11th, his worst grid position for three seasons.
It’s an extraordinary about turn since last year, when Vettel could seemingly snag pole even when crashes in practice and setup and KERS issues impacted his weekend.
This time it’s different. My personal feeling after he had two less than stellar weekends in Australia and Malaysia was that Seb and his team would bounce back here and maybe even win, but that’s simply not happened.
It says a lot this weekend that Mark Webber and Vettel have been running very different exhaust packages, with Mark focusing on the latest iteration – the fourth or fifth version – while Vettel went back to the original spec, with which he felt more comfortable. Webber rightly says that Red Bull is gathering a lot of data with this comparison, but it’s never a good sign when a team has to resort to that sort of thing.
In other words, RBR is on the ropes, and unlike the past couple of years, has no margin to play with. Weaknesses of any kind will be severely punished.
The intriguing thing is that Vettel was happy with the car, in that he liked the way it handled and so on, but the performance simply wasn’t there. Indeed, the fact that he did more than one lap of very similar speed showed that he’d found the limits. Despite the disappointment, he remained surprisingly cheerful.
“The car felt pretty good. We were just not able to find the last couple of tenths,” he said after qualifying. “It’s a long lap here, it’s not as if we are missing an awful lot. Of course, if you look at Mercedes’ pace in qualifying, especially in Q3, the lap of Nico was very, very strong. We could never have done that. I think Q2 was exceptionally close, so maybe if things came together. ... But at that time I wasn’t quick enough.”
Vettel was quick to point out that he wasn’t using the switch to the old exhaust package as an excuse – he wanted to do it, and he wanted to keep it for qualifying and, thus, the race.
“Don’t get me wrong, but I don’t want to blame today’s result on any sort of packaging or not. Mark was faster in qualifying, full stop," Vettel said. "I was happier with the car yesterday; that’s why I decided to keep that package. If I wouldn’t have been convinced yesterday, then we would have changed it. It doesn’t feel right to sit here and blame the car or the packaging.
“At this stage I don’t think there is any individual thing to blame. I had a good session and I was happy with my lap. It was probably not the best lap of my life, but it was a good lap and I was happy with it for qualifying, and it was just not quick enough.”
He insists that the team has learned a lot by back-to-backing the two specs: “Friday was very useful in that regard. I think we probably had a couple of answers before Friday, but I think the confirmation on that. As I said, I think I felt happier with the car yesterday than at previous races, but then again, conditions here are different.
“I think China is a different track, and globally probably we were happier here than in other places in terms of car balance. We got the answers that we were looking for.”
It would be silly to say it’s been a while since Vettel has been under pressure – performing at the level he has for the past three seasons, even with a good car, takes an extraordinary effort. But he’s definitely experiencing something he hasn’t had to face for a while. He insists he’s not fazed by the challenge.
“I think it’s not a problem, it’s not as if we expect to have the best car," the reigning World Champion said. "I think even if we have the best car, you never really think about things like that. You try to improve what you have, and work on that.
“You realize by the result whereabouts you are relative to the others, but by now there’s nothing wrong. We know we are not where we want to be, we are not there in terms of competitiveness where we have been at the end of last year. No doubt we need to work and improve the car. That’s the only way to in that regard come back.
“I think the key is it’s not a different mental challenge. I think if you would sit here now and say that now you have to try harder, then you would admit that last year you weren’t trying hard, which wasn’t the case. I think we always try to do the best, and so we do now. ...
“I think, being completely honest, we can look at ourselves and be happy with the work we have done. I think we got everything out of the car that there was today, I think we did a good job in qualifying. Surely the result isn’t good enough, and we need to improve and work on that, but for now I think we need to be honest to yourself. As I said, it’s not as if we’ve been lazy and we didn’t care really, and then that’s why we had a bad result.”
Loyal Vettel fans might be a bit disappointed, but there’s no denying that for the sport as a whole, his current struggles are good news, simply because it allows others some time in the spotlight, and reminds everyone of just how hard it is to win – and to keep winning. Indeed it also makes you realize just what a good job Red Bull did, with or without any blown diffuser advantage, to dominate the past two seasons.
Meanwhile, I’m looking forward to the race. And I’m not planning to risk any money on a bet.
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
Spanish Grand Prix
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