Posts Tagged ‘Jenson Button’

Sebastian Vettel’s Costly Mistakes

Sebastian Vettel of Germany

Sebastian Vettel of Germany

Starting from the fourth slot on the grid after mistakes in the qualifying session, he survived the slipping and sliding of the opening lap and two laps later forced his way inside Robert Kubica to snatch third place.

But a dozen laps of sitting behind Jenson Button, whose stout defence of his position was enabling Lewis Hamilton to build a cushion at the front, clearly frayed Vettel’s patience. An attempt to challenge the second-placed McLaren as they approached the Bus Stop chicane saw him losing control under braking before spearing into the flank of Button’s car.

With some frustration he looked for a run up the inside into the final chicane. Button fairly closed the door so Vettel violently flicked to the other side at 200mph.

He was further into the braking zone than he realised, and there was a little moisture on the track (although Button did insist afterwards that the track was “bone dry”). Add in the swerve, braking, and downshifting, and he slewed into the side of the McLaren, immediately damaging its radiators.

Luckily for Vettel, he had only damaged the front wing and he was very near the pit-lane entry. The stewards were not so impressed and rightly gave him a drive-through penalty.

It was a clumsy error, born of frustration and intemperance, and not unlike the one that caused him to crash into his team-mate, Mark Webber, while trying to force his way into the lead in Istanbul in May. This time the perpetrator was lucky to be able to limp in for a new front wing while the world champion’s race ended amid clouds of steam from a ruptured radiator.

The stop dropped Vettel to 13th, and he found himself even further back after serving a drive-through penalty for provoking the accident that severely prejudices Button’s chance of defending his title.

Impatient to work his way back through the field, the young German chopped so brusquely across Vitantonio Liuzzi that he punctured a rear tyre against his rival’s wing. Later he took a risk on fitting a set of full wet-weather tyres in anticipation of a predicted shower but wore them out on a mostly dry track and, with six laps to go, came in for a second set, which suited the worsening conditions well enough to allow him to finish an undistinguished 15th.

Vettel is now 31 points behind Hamilton in the drivers’ standings and 28 behind Webber, who failed to capitalise on starting from pole position but drove a canny race to secure second place.

Vettel’s Race Beginning

Having made his Formula One debut as BMW’s reserve driver in 2006, Vettel became the youngest driver in history to win a world championship grand prix two years later when, at the wheel of a Toro Rosso, he mastered difficult conditions on a rainy weekend at Monza. It was a victory that owed nothing to luck and everything to touch.

The following summer he won a memorable standing ovation from a Silverstone crowd yearning for a home win by Button or Hamilton, when he started from pole position and took a flag-to-flag victory as imperious as anything produced by the great Jim Clark in the Scot’s four wins (all from pole) on the same track. His speech at the subsequent press conference, which showed a graciousness to go with his quick sense of humour, earned him more admiration.

“This is what I was dreaming of when I saw the Grand prix here in the era of Mansell and so on,” he said then. “It’s kind of unreal now to think I am here and I have won this grand prix. I regret a little bit that I am not an Englishman as the fans are fantastic.” His listeners swooned, momentarily forgetting that there have also been glimpses of a darker side to his temperament.

It was Nigel Mansell who, as one of today’s race stewards, imposed the drive-through penalty, and Vettel’s summary was appropriately downbeat. “What happened happened,” he said, “and we can’t change it now. Obviously I’m not proud of it. I lost the car going over a bump as I was braking and unfortunately hit Jenson. I’m sorry for him.”

In terms of sheer ability Vettel ranks with Hamilton and Fernando Alonso as the best of the current generation but he is currently being outperformed by the more mature man in the other Red Bull. Until the 23-year-old learns to focus his gifts at all times the brilliant will continue to be mixed with the best forgotten and he will have to wait to become Formula One’s second German world champion.

Vettel is an unbelievably quick and talented driver. At 23 years of age, he has shown he can win races. And in some style too. I don’t think there are many in the paddock who believe he will never win a world title. He may still win it this year.

Experience Rivals

Where he is badly lacking, in comparison with the four other guys in the championship fight, is experience. Vettel has 50-odd grands prix to his name. Button is a world champion with 180-odd races under his belt; Alonso is a double world champion with more than 150 grands prix behind him; Mark Webber has a decade more experience than his young German Red Bullteam-mate.

The only title rival with a comparable race tally is Lewis Hamilton, but he arrived ready to go, having been groomed at McLaren since the age of 12.

He arrived from GP2 and did not have to move from team to team learning the ropes.

Sebastian moved from BMW-Sauber to Toro Rosso (where he became the sport’s youngest race winner) and is now in his second season at Red Bull, where he is in title contention for a second year running.

I want to make it clear I am not trying to excuse Sebastian’s recent high-profile errors. He reacted poorly in Turkey after his collision with Mark. He made a silly mistake in Hungary when he fell too far behind the safety car. And he was clearly at fault in Belgium last weekend when he shunted Button out of the race. He lost control.

His performance showed uncontrolled emotion that can undermine a great talent.

Courtesy of BBC Sport, The Guardian and The Telegraph


Hamilton Wins Belgian GP

Lewis Hamilton and teammate Jenson Button celebrate with the team.

Lewis Hamilton and teammate Jenson Button celebrate with the team.

Lewis Hamilton produced a drive worthy of the greatest race track in the world to win the Belgian Grand Prix and reclaim the championship lead just one race after losing it.

 

The spectacular Spa-Francorchamps circuit in the Ardennes mountains tests Formula 1 drivers to the limit, and never more so than in the sort of changeable conditions in which Sunday’s race took place.

Two of Hamilton’s title rivals, Fernando Alonso and Sebastian Vettel, failed the examination. Hamilton, by contrast, was virtually flawless all weekend and this win will surely come to be ranked among his very best.

“Perfect,” was the judgement of three-time world champion Niki Lauda, which seemed about right.

The foundation for the victory was a quite brilliant final lap in qualifying, with which Hamilton clinched second place on the grid despite a light shower of rain.

From there, he was in the ideal position to benefit from a slow start by pole-position man Mark Webber, and his team-mate Jenson Button, slowed by minor damage to his front wing, backing up the pack while Hamilton built his winning margin.

Rain late in the race, though, meant it was far from an easy cruise to the finish and Hamilton survived an off-course moment at Malmedy, when running in the rain on dry-weather ’slick’ tyres, and the tension of a re-start after a safety car intervention to win his third race of the season.

His reward is to leapfrog Webber to the top of the drivers’ standings after falling behind the Australian following Webber’s win in Hungary before F1’s summer break.

Hamilton’s advantage is only three points but there is every chance it will increase at the next race in Italy in two weeks’ time. Monza is a low-downforce track dominated by straights and chicanes – just like Canada, where McLaren finished one-two – and Hamilton will head there as favourite.

Webber, by contrast, will be viewing the trip to another of F1’s iconic tracks as an exercise in damage limitation before F1 heads east to Singapore, South Korea and Japan, three circuits which will suit the Red Bull far better.

After that, only Brazil and Abu Dhabi will remain.

Mark Webber

Webber – who celebrated his 34th birthday on Friday, and knows this could be his last chance to win the title – will be a little disappointed to have finished second after starting from pole. But far more important for him is the lead he has now established over Vettel.

He is 28 points – more than a win – ahead of his team-mate with only six races remaining. It is still too early for the team to start backing one driver over another, not least because of their massive emotional and financial investment in the German, but they will have no choice if Vettel does not make up some serious ground over the next two or three races.

Spa was yet another example of Vettel’s propensity to make critical – and very costly – errors. They cost him the title last year, and are looking like doing so again in 2010.

After crashing into Webber in Turkey and costing the team a victory, Vettel made a beginners’ error in Hungary by slipping back too far behind the safety car, earning himself a drive-through penalty and costing himself an easy win.

In Belgium, it was a catastrophic error of judgement by Vettel behind Button that cost him and his rival dear.

With the frustration of following a slower car building inside him, Vettel was closer than ever to Button as they steamed through Blanchimont on lap 16. He had a look down the inside approaching the Bus Stop chicane, but it was soon clear that Button was defending that line, so Vettel switched to the outside. But he did it too late and too violently.

Initially, the suspicion was that his error might have been provoked by the fact that it had just started to drizzle, but Button said during the BBC F1 Forum that the track was “bone dry” at that point.

Either way, Vettel lost the rear of his car and speared into the side of Button’s McLaren, taking the world champion out and ending his own hopes of victory as well. A later collision with the front wing of Vitantonio Liuzzi’s Force India punctured one of Vettel’s rear tyres and put paid to any remaining faint hope of points.

A driver who is chasing the world championship can normally get away with one – or possibly two – such major errors in the course of a season, but any more than that and you are making life very difficult for yourself.

As Lauda said after the race, Vettel is “too aggressive – he has to get his act together”. BBC F1 analysts David Coulthard and Anthony Davidson pointed out quite rightly that Vettel is still young and has time, in terms of his career, to iron out these rough edges. They may have already ended his hopes of winning Red Bull’s first world title this year, though.

Both he and Button, who is four points adrift of Vettel, have now slipped back significantly in the championship and, as Button acknowledged, this result was a “massive blow” to their hopes. They need a big result pretty soon to ensure Hamilton and Webber do not get too far ahead.

The same applies to Alonso, the third contender whose hopes suffered a major setback at Spa.

Unlike Vettel, Alonso entered this season with a reputation for incredible consistency and making very few mistakes. Yet in his first year with Ferrari he has made almost as many errors as he had in his entire career.

Knowing he needed to score heavily in Belgium and with the car to do so, there were a number. Alonso and the team chose the wrong tyre strategy in qualifying, making his first run in the top-10 shoot-out on used tyres, and setting only 10th fastest time. He expected to move up to the front with his final run on new tyres, but a mistake and the rain shower cost him dearly.

In the race, he was blameless when Rubens Barrichello crashed into him on a slippery track at the end of lap one – although when you qualify in the midfield that is the sort of thing that can happen, as Hamilton and Button discovered at Spa last year, when they were taken out on the first lap.

But his gamble in coming in to fit intermediate tyres immediately after that failed to pay off, and he had to come in again two laps later to put on dry tyres. He chose the harder ‘prime’ tyres, hoping to pick up some places by not having to stop again, but that throw of the dice also failed to come off thanks to the late-race rain, in which he crashed.

Just as with Vettel and Button, it is not yet too late for Alonso to get back into the thick of the title fight but, also like them, it is beginning to feel as if this might well not be his year.

Courtesy of BBC Sport


Belgian GP A Challenge

Spa's-Eau-RougeEDJenson Button believes “big b***s” will be required to tackle one of the most fearsome corners in F1 this weekend.

The legendary Eau Rouge represents a different challenge to the 24 drivers on the grid for Sunday’s Belgian Grand Prix around Spa as they will have up to 150 kilos worth of fuel on board.

That makes the uphill left-right sweep an even more hair-raising proposition than normal, particularly if running side-by-side with a rival.

Due to the weight there is a serious risk of bottoming out, the car losing grip and with it increasing the chance of a collision should there be a duel through the corner where speeds can hit 180mph.

“With 140 to 150 kilos in the tank it’s going to be pretty tough, really tricky,” said Button.

“We need to make sure people know where the edge of the circuit is because you’re going to get a lot of people trying to go straight.

“They’ll be thinking it won’t get noticed because it’s a massive benefit, so we need to make that clear to (FIA race director) Charlie Whiting beforehand, which I will do.

“The first lap is pretty manic anyway, with a wide start but then it narrows up at turn one.

“Then you have Eau Rouge, side by side through there on 150 kilos hitting the floor, it’s going to be pretty crazy.

“It will be a buzz. You have to have big b***s, and I’ve brought them this weekend.

“It will be F1’s version of chicken going through there. It will be a case of how stupid can you be, rather than how brave.

“But at least there is a bit of run off on the exit and if you do have to go side by side you can take avoiding action.

“Hopefully I’ll be so far in the lead that it won’t really matter.”

Button goes into the race 14 points behind Championship leader Mark Webber and without a win since mid-April, a run of eight races, when he took the chequered flag in China.

There is hope, that despite being trounced by Red Bull in the last outing in Hungary almost four weeks ago, that McLaren can claw back some of the deficit so glaringly lost in Budapest.

The reason being that Spa is a relatively low downforce circuit, so aiding the McLarens in comparison to Red Bull and Ferrari.

The flipside is that if McLaren are not as strong as they hope here and in Italy, then the titles will start to slip away from them.

After recovering from the tonsilitis he suffered during the recent summer break, reigning World Champion Button added: “This is a good circuit for us, as well as Monza for the next race.

“I’m very happy these two races have come at this point because it gives us time to work on developing the car for the last five where you have to run a lot more downforce.

“I can’t see any reason why we can’t be competitive here because we don’t have the excuse that we don’t have enough downforce.

“So if we don’t score heavily at these next two races then it will hurt us a lot.

“It doesn’t end the Championship if we don’t score well here and we’re not leading, but they are important, and it will make the last five even more difficult.”

Courtesy of The Bleacher Report


300 Up For Rubens

Rubens Barrichello celebrates a very wet and wild victory in the 2000 German GP at Hockenheim.

Rubens Barrichello celebrates a very wet and wild victory in the 2000 German GP at Hockenheim.

Rubens Barrichello will race in his 300th GP this weekend at the Spa-Francorchamps – we look back at some of the highs and lows of the jovial Brazilian’s Formula 1 career.

Aged 38, Rubens Barrichello’s passion for racing shows no sign of abating – as his wheel-to-wheel tussle with former team mate Michael Schumacher in Hungary proved. Winning out against the 41-year-old German, it was a battle born out of a different era. For Barrichello, who will celebrate his 300th Grand Prix in Belgium this weekend, it was all par for the course, but for his legion of fans it was further proof of the unswerving verve and vigour of the grid’s most experienced driver. We look back on some of the ever-cheerful Brazilian’s best (and worst) F1 moments…

1993 South African Grand Prix
Rewind to his Formula One debut and it really underlines just how long Barrichello has been part of the Formula One fraternity. Driving for Jordan (now Force India) at the long-since-absent South African Grand Prix, Barrichello’s first race was promising. Fourteenth on the Kylami grid may not have set the world alight, but it fulfilled his aim of a top-15 slot and he was almost half a second quicker than experienced team mate Ivan Capelli. And in the race the Brazilian newcomer had made it up to seventh when the gearbox of his Hart-engined car failed nearing half distance. Capelli spun off on the third lap.

1994 San Marino Grand Prix
While he didn’t compete in the race itself, this was far and away the toughest Grand Prix weekend of Barrichello’s career. During his first flying lap on Friday afternoon, he lost control of his Jordan through Variante Bassa and crashed heavily, his car landing upside down. Knocked unconscious by the accident, he awoke in hospital to discover that the quick response of circuit medics had saved his life and that he’d somehow escaped with little more than a broken arm. His sense of humour was still intact, however, and after acknowledging he’d have to stay and “play with the nurses” for a while, he vowed he’d be back. And so he was, albeit not at Imola that weekend. The drama from San Marino wasn’t over, however, and on Saturday the much-loved Austrian rookie Roland Ratzenberger was killed, followed by an even more personal loss for Barrichello on Sunday with the death of friend and mentor Ayrton Senna.

1997 Monaco Grand Prix
For 1997, having found himself usurped by Ralf Schumacher at Jordan, Barrichello jumped ship to the new Stewart team. He was still targeting his first Formula One victory, but he knew it would be a long time before the newcomers would be competing for wins. And he was proved right. Woeful reliability meant he finished just two Grands Prix that season. However, one – Monaco – earned him six points after he finished a spectacular second. He had qualified well in tenth, a feat in itself as he was the fastest Bridgestone runner. The tyres helped him out on Sunday too, performing consistently in the wet weather to ease him into P2 behind Michael Schumacher by lap six, and he held the place until the chequered flag. At the track where Senna had excelled, after the race Barrichello’s thoughts turned to his late countryman. “It’s just great to be here, on the podium at Monaco,” he said. “It is not so long ago that I used to get up at eight in Brazil, and watch Senna at Monaco. For me to be on the podium here is something else.”

2000 German Grand Prix
In 2000 Barrichello joined Ferrari as team mate to Michael Schumacher. Competing against the German on home turf was always going to be a tough ask and mechanical problems meant Barrichello qualified 18th to his colleague’s second. By the end of the first lap, however, Schumacher was making his way back to the pits after crashing out and Barrichello was up to tenth. Eleven laps later he had made up another six positions and was charging in fourth place. Jarno Trulli was the next to fall into the Brazilian’s clutches and by the time he pitted he was up to third. But with the McLarens of Mika Hakkinen and David Coulthard well clear up front, it looked as though a podium finish was his best hope. That was until a spectator climbed on to the circuit, crossing the track to avoid capture. The safety car was hastily deployed, bringing Barrichello into contention, and rain late in the race mixed things up further. Hakkinen pitted for wets, but brave Barrichello was one of four drivers who opted to stay out on dry tyres. It was a gamble – compatriot Ricardo Zonta span on his slick rubber – but the Brazilian persisted and crossed the line first. After nearly a decade in Formula One, Rubens Barrichello had finally won a race and it remains one of his finest performances.

2002 Austrian Grand Prix
Some would say a low point as much for the sport as it was for Barrichello. When he signed for Ferrari, Barrichello no doubt knew his races would be dictated to a large degree by the demands of Schumacher and he fell victim to team orders on more than one occasion. This occasion was particularly memorable. After an outstanding weekend, during which he’d clinched pole position and dominated the race, Barrichello was asked to move aside for Schumacher on the final lap to boost the German’s championship hopes. Outraged outbursts from commentators, jeers from the crowd, and an awkward podium ceremony where Schumacher attempted to force Barrichello on to the top step followed. In the aftermath Ferrari were fined a US$1,000,000 and new rules were introduced to prevent team orders affecting race results.

2003 British Grand Prix
Barrichello arrived at Silverstone feeling pretty besieged. Despite a highly competitive car, he’d failed to win any of season’s preceding rounds and had qualified almost seven-tenths adrift of team mate Schumacher at the last race in France. In Britain, however, he took a strong pole position and went on to claim victory despite two safety-car periods, one prompted by debris and the other by an errant spectator dressed in a kilt and carrying a placard on the circuit. As at Hockenheim in 2000, when a track invasion also disrupted the race, Barrichello kept his head and took a memorable win.

2008 British Grand Prix
Silverstone again, five years later, and Barrichello was driving for a different team, Honda, struggling to make an impression in the largely troublesome RA108. Starting 16th on the grid, the Brazilian, who had last taken a podium at the 2005 United States Grand Prix, didn’t hold much hope of a strong result. But a clever strategy switch during the race saw him take on extreme wet-weather tyres at a vital point. As the rain worsened, and his competitors chose to struggle on using their standard wets, Barrichello took advantage. He finished in third, although had it not been for a refuelling rig problem at his second stop, it might have been second. It was the team’s first – and only – podium of the season.

2009 European Grand Prix
A full five seasons after he’s last clinched a win – at the 2004 Chinese Grand Prix – Barrichello returned to winning form last year. Staying with Honda as they were raised from the ashes to become Brawn GP, he’d already seen team mate Jenson Button win five times in the superb BGP 001. In Valencia he finally matched the Briton, capitalising on his third-place grid slot, plus graining issues for Button, and a McLaren error during a Lewis Hamilton pit stop, to win the event. It was the tenth victory of his F1 career and the 100th for a Brazilian driver. Barrichello was ecstatic: “It’s just amazing and a weekend that I will never forget. Even after five years, you don’t forget how to win and the feeling is so good!”

Courtesy www.formula1.com


Who Will Dominate The Remaining F1GPs?

Spa's-Eau-RougeEDAnd so it begins. Again. Only this time we’re down to three teams, five drivers and seven races. It will feel almost like the beginning of a new mini-season when the lights go out at Spa in the Belgium Grand Prix on Sunday.

The three-week summer break was all well and good – necessary even, given the relentless grind of Formula One these days – but as a former grand prix racer myself I know the protagonists will have been positively itching to get back in their cockpits.

There is only so much sunbathing you can reasonably expect to do when your mind is trained on one thing and one thing only.

With the top five drivers all separated by just 20 points, less than the prize on offer for a race win, it’s fair to say the championship could go any number of ways come Abu Dhabi on Nov 14.

And for the British public the dénouement will be especially interesting.

McLaren’s Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button are still right in the hunt; there is the prospect of a first ever title for the Milton Keynes-based Red Bull team.

And the return to form of Ferrari just prior to the summer break has added a whole new dimension to the run-in, especially given the fact that the Italian team is the only one openly favouring one of their drivers over the other.

Of course, Fernando Alonso’s title hopes may still be contingent on the outcome of the World Motor Sport Council hearing on Sept 8 into their use of banned ‘team orders’ in Germany last month.

My own views on that matter are well established and I won’t go into them again, suffice to say I hope Ferrari are not overly penalised simply for breaking the rules more clumsily than everyone else.

So who is my money on? As I am fond of saying, racing drivers have balls but unfortunately they aren’t crystal. Purely in performance terms, however, I feel both championships are Red Bull’s to lose.

People will say I am biased given my professional relationship with the team, but I’m sure they won’t thank me for increasing the pressure on them.

The reality is they have had the quickest package all year and the gap, if anything, is growing.

Then you look at the circuits. The next two races, in Belgium and Italy, are relatively open and I don’t think they suit any one car more than any other.

Once we get out of Europe again, though, you have to say the tracks look Red Bull-friendly.

Singapore is a street circuit like Monaco where Red Bull were utterly dominant in May; Suzuka’s high-speed corners are made for the RB6; and although Korea is an unknown entity, Interlagos and Abu Dhabi both look to me to be Red Bull circuits too.

That is four out of seven venues I can see Red Bull dominating and they are hardly unsuited to the other three. In fact, now that they have their F-Duct working they don’t really have a weakness.

I’m reliably informed that the governing body’s new, more stringent tests for their ‘flexible’ front wings (the ones which caused such an uproar in Hungary) will not prove a problem for them.

Even reliability, often touted as the team’s Achilles heel, is not perhaps the issue it has been built up to be. In fact, Red Bull trail only Ferrari on that score this season in terms of laps completed.

But as any fan of F1 will know it is not always that simple. Hamilton, Button and Alonso have all won world championships and that experience will count for a lot. McLaren or Ferrari might introduce some new gimmick that throws everything up in the air.

Luck will play its part too. Remember Nigel Mansell at Adelaide in 1986 when his tyre blew? You never know what is going to happen in this sport. That’s why we love it.

And so it begins. Again. Only this time we’re down to three teams, five drivers and seven races. It will feel almost like the beginning of a new mini-season when the lights go out at Spa in the Belgium Grand Prix on Sunday.

The three-week summer break was all well and good – necessary even, given the relentless grind of Formula One these days – but as a former grand prix racer myself I know the protagonists will have been positively itching to get back in their cockpits.

There is only so much sunbathing you can reasonably expect to do when your mind is trained on one thing and one thing only.

What a few months F1 fans have in prospect. Has there ever been a season like this? Certainly none that I can recall has been as open and competitive.

With the top five drivers all separated by just 20 points, less than the prize on offer for a race win, it’s fair to say the championship could go any number of ways come Abu Dhabi on Nov 14.

And for the British public the dénouement will be especially interesting.

 

McLaren’s Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button are still right in the hunt; there is the prospect of a first ever title for the Milton Keynes-based Red Bull team.

And the return to form of Ferrari just prior to the summer break has added a whole new dimension to the run-in, especially given the fact that the Italian team is the only one openly favouring one of their drivers over the other.

Of course, Fernando Alonso’s title hopes may still be contingent on the outcome of the World Motor Sport Council hearing on Sept 8 into their use of banned ‘team orders’ in Germany last month.

My own views on that matter are well established and I won’t go into them again, suffice to say I hope Ferrari are not overly penalised simply for breaking the rules more clumsily than everyone else.

 

So who is my money on? As I am fond of saying, racing drivers have balls but unfortunately they aren’t crystal. Purely in performance terms, however, I feel both championships are Red Bull’s to lose.

People will say I am biased given my professional relationship with the team, but I’m sure they won’t thank me for increasing the pressure on them.

The reality is they have had the quickest package all year and the gap, if anything, is growing.

Then you look at the circuits. The next two races, in Belgium and Italy, are relatively open and I don’t think they suit any one car more than any other.

Once we get out of Europe again, though, you have to say the tracks look Red Bull-friendly.

Singapore is a street circuit like Monaco where Red Bull were utterly dominant in May; Suzuka’s high-speed corners are made for the RB6; and although Korea is an unknown entity, Interlagos and Abu Dhabi both look to me to be Red Bull circuits too.

That is four out of seven venues I can see Red Bull dominating and they are hardly unsuited to the other three. In fact, now that they have their F-Duct working they don’t really have a weakness.

I’m reliably informed that the governing body’s new, more stringent tests for their ‘flexible’ front wings (the ones which caused such an uproar in Hungary) will not prove a problem for them.

Even reliability, often touted as the team’s Achilles heel, is not perhaps the issue it has been built up to be. In fact, Red Bull trail only Ferrari on that score this season in terms of laps completed.

But as any fan of F1 will know it is not always that simple. Hamilton, Button and Alonso have all won world championships and that experience will count for a lot. McLaren or Ferrari might introduce some new gimmick that throws everything up in the air.

Luck will play its part too. Remember Nigel Mansell at Adelaide in 1986 when his tyre blew? You never know what is going to happen in this sport. That’s why we love it.

Courtesy of David Coulthard and The Telegraph


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