As Mark Webber has been putting on the pressure, Sebastian Vettel has become increasingly rattled by his inability to outpace his team-mate and this resulted in an accident that handed Team Britannia an easy 1-2 finish in the Turkish Grand Prix. After conducting a spirited inter team battle themselves, Hamilton and Button came home 24 seconds ahead of the recovering Mark Webber.

The moment of the gift - Vettel takes off Webber while the Hoon takes the lead

 Just a quick look at the numbers shows why the next Unter-Ubermensch is getting concerned. Since Malaysia, Webber has converted a 13 point deficit into a 15 point lead over his highly touted team-mate, a 28 point turn around in just four races. Not only that, but Vettel has been out-qualified by Webber in four of the last five races. A quick summary; Webber 2 wins, Vettel 1, Webber 4 Poles, Vettel 3 (two were in the first two races of the season), Webber 6 front row starts, Vettel 4 (and not since Spain), Webber 2 Fastest Laps, Vettel 1, Webber 4 podiums, Vettel 3, Webber 93 points, Vettel 78, Webber 1st in the championship standings, Vettel 5th.

   Many thought that this would be Webber’s last season in a top line team and that Vettel would build his dominance that he appeared to gain last year when Vettel out-qualified Webber 14-3. Appearances then could be deceiving how-ever. No only was Webber recovering from the pre-season broken leg, but more seriously from a driving point of view, a cracked shoulder-blade. Also his car was often heavier in the fuelled-up final qualifying sessions last year meaning that he could run a little longer in the race.

    It was that tactical move by Webber’s crew that sure, saw him being out-qualified but by the time the teams finished the Hungarian Grand Prix, Webber was leading Vettel in the championship. It was only a horror five race run without points where Vettel scored 22 points that saw the apparent domination by the young German. What were the reasons for those 5 races without points? Valencia – dubious drive-through for an overtaking move on Jenson Button which saw Webbers car drift wide on the exit, Belgium, drive-through for the team releasing him from the pits in a dangerous manner, Italy, nerfed off the track on lap one by Robert Kubica, Singapore, brake disc exploded and in Japan Mark crashed in qualifying and started 19th. None of the first four of these could be considered Mark’s fault, it was just the way things go sometimes.

   Mean-while Vettel continued to pile on the points in what had become the fastest car in the field and seemed to be doing the same in the first few races this year. Without some bad luck on his side, Vettel should have won the first three races of the year, but a spark plug failure and a wheel hub breakage saw him lose those wins in the first two races.

    Then came Malaysia, which has really been the turning point at Red Bull. Yes Vettel won it with that daring move inside Webber into turn one, but most believe that it was that moment where Webber steeled himself to not let anything like that happen again. And the confidence Mark got from that stunning wet qualifying lap to take pole by over a second meant that he KNEW he could beat Vettel.

   Since then he has not been off the front row and has taken three poles in a row. It would have probably been three wins in a row except for Vettel’s desperate swerve to the right while trying to take the lead. It is unlikely that Vettel would have held the lead through the final series of corners as he was braking on the dirty side of the track while Webber was on the correct racing line. Vettel knew this which is why he tried to force Webber to go wider.

    Webber, after Malaysia, was not going to “open ze legs” again and held his line and the two came into contact. It is important to note, Webber did not change his line an inch, and he does not have to when defending the line into a corner. Vettel did move across into Webber and any fault to be allocated lies squarely at the feet of the young German for Red Bull losing this race. Vettel’s little crazy finger waggling gesture on exiting his car should really be aimed at no-one but himself.

   There is no doubt that Vettel had the right to have a lunge at Webber. Webber was slower for a couple of laps as he had already had to turn down the revs on his engine due to fuel consumption concerns. As he had been doing all the front running, and under extreme pressure from the Hoon through the first portion of the race he had used more fuel than Vettel and the two McLarens who had the benefit of being “towed” on the long straights. This gave Vettel a couple of laps where he could run higher revs than Webber and he knew that those laps were his only real chance of taking the win. On laps 39, he saw his chance and went for it.

   No problems there. It was the swerve to the right, and into his team-mate, that showed just how unsettled Vettel has become by Webber’s pace in recent events. The battle, almost ten laps later, between Button and the Hoon, showed just how it can be done. The Hoon stayed to the left, on the dirty side, and did not move over into Button who was braking down the outside, on the cleaner line. This allowed Button a faster pace through the final series on bends and he emerged onto the main straight ahead despite the pair going side by side through several corners.

   It was only a slightly better exit from the final turn that allowed the Hoon the better run down the main straight that saw him retake the lead and from then on he was never troubled. Had Vettel not swerved into Webber, the pair could have fought through those final bends just as the McLaren pair did and Webber, being on the same line as Button would have probably emerged onto the main straight in the lead as well. But we will never know. Let’s hope the Wunderkind learns, as this is the second time he has carted Webber out of a possible race win. Remember Japan in the rain a few years ago? I bet Webber does!

   Even though the race was gifted to him the Hoon still should still receive all the plaudits for an excellent win. He savagely hassled Webber in the opening phase of the race and only lost out to Vettel due to being held up in the pits during the tyre stops. He then hassled Vettel just as fiercely and it was that pressure, as much as anything, that made Vettel have the go at Webber. He then dealt with Button in the correct manner before backing off with fuel concerns to take a deserved first win of the year.

   Button’s race was almost as good. He was jumped at the start by the Unter-Ubermensch but muscled his way back by on the opening lap and then gradually hauled in the leaders. His battle for the lead with the Hoon showed real class and spirit but the day was not to be his.

   The Silver Slings were next home with the Unter-Ubermensch holding off a train of cars including team-mate Rosberg, Renault’s Robert Kubica and the Ferrari of Felipe Massa. The gap from fourth to sixth was just 1.7 seconds at the flag. Alonso led home the final point scorers a further ten seconds back in eighth ahead of Sutil’s Force India and Kobayashi scoring Saubers first point of the year in tenth.

   The other real hard-luck story of the day was the increasingly impressive Vitaly Petrov. The young Russian had matched his vastly more highly rated Renault team-mate throughout the weekend and was defending a strong eighth place, right behind Felipe Massa, when Alonso gave him a nudge while the two were dicing for the four points on offer. This resulted in a puncture on Vitaly’s Renault and a visit to the pits with just five laps to go. Even on fresh tyres Petrov had no hope of scoring but was able to put them to good use and capture his first ever race Fastest Lap. A very good effort.

 For full results go to; 

 http://www.mmmsport.com.au/index.php?option=com_docman&task=cat_view&gid=150&dir=ASC&order=name&limit=5&limitstart=10 

Sam Snape 

31/05/2010

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