Peter Windsor reflects on Mark Webber's ability to act as a team player, and how it has helped Sebastian Vettel settle in so quickly at Red Bull Racing.
Things may be a bit slow on the track but Ferrari continue to innovate away from it: this is their latest "smoking zone" - a free-to-air trellis structure with hi-tech ash trays (Photo: Peter Windsor)
You don’t need me to tell you about the quality of Sebastian Vettel’s driving: just look at his results. He won in the wet at Monza in a Toro Rosso-Ferrari, beating the factory Ferraris on home soil. And now he has won again in the rain in Shanghai, only three races into his new life with the Red Bull-Renault A-team. End of story. End of analysis.
Sebastian Vettel is genuinely a great Grand Prix driver – already.
I was intrigued in Melbourne, when we chatted on the Thursday and Seb said something like, “Well, jumping from one team to another wasn’t always easy. There are inevitably some things you don’t like with the new team and you have to work hard to change things around…”
One of these issues was brakes. You’ll recall that Sebastian won Monza last year on Brembos – the brake disc/pad material that is generally considered to be “softest” to the foot (followed closely by Hitco). The Carbone Industrie brakes (consistently used by McLaren and Williams) are by contrast harder-wearing but less sensitive. Ferrari, you’ll remember, switched to CIs for Monza last year, gambling that the race would be dry. It was wet – and they were nowhere.
Anyway, it was Mark Webber who first alerted Red Bull to the Brembo/Seb Vettel issue. When Vettel was first asked to test at Jerez late last year, Mark had the wherewithal to ask the design team if they were going to switch the test car from Red Bull’s regular Hitcos to the Brembos favoured by Seb.
“No. Why would we do that?” they responded.
“Because there’s no point in letting Seb do a back-to-back with our car unless we even-out all the variables – and brakes are one of those variables. Put him on Brembos and he won’t have to spend half a day wondering about how to drive with Hitcos…”
“Ah. Good point. Do you know anyone at Brembo…?”
“As it happens, yes. I used to drive for Minardi, remember...”
The test went well. Seb reported that the Red Bull had less downforce at the rear than the Toro Rosso – probably because the Ferrari gearbox was slimmer than that of the Red Bull. Adrian Newey, Geoff Willis and the boys thus went to work on a transmission and general rear-end size reduction – and the result is the exquisitely beautiful Red Bull car you see today.
Along the way, Seb also convinced Red Bull to switch permanently to Brembos. He’d never had a wear problem with them at Toro and he loved the feel of them, particularly in the wet. Red Bull obliged, even though they have an historical link (via Renault) with Hitco. Thus Seb’s comments about “some things needed to be changed”.
Think about Mark Webber at this point. He used his brain when the first Vettel test took place…but now he was at a slight disadvantage: he likes the Brembos, and probably they are giving him a little more room with which to play as he nurses himself back to full fitness; even so, to beat a guy like Vettel in the wet in equal cars you have to be 100 per cent in all areas. I suspect that it was in the braking zones that Seb had his advantage over a long race distance in China. No-one brakes later than Mark Webber, but Mark seems to be a hair’s width harsher than Seb with his initial touch. Thus Mark will make a braking mistake on maybe one lap out of five, particularly if the conditions are poor. Seb, on the same scale, will commit an error on one lap out of eight – and will have more scope for recovery when he does so.
