Team Principal, Christian Horner, Red Bull Team, says that Sebastian Vettel, the reigning World Champ, has time and time again proved critics wrong when he made a spectacular move overtaking Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso after 5 laps at Monza having conceded the place to Alonso in the first lap of the race.
Christian Horner says it wasn’t in Vettel’s psyche to be doing that. He says looking at Sebastian Vettel’s driving percentages, there’re chances he could be erring at some point in the race. He, however, says his approach gets consistent as ever as he aims to win every time he races. Horner also says that if they achieve a 2nd, 3rd or a 4th on any given day, they would take that.
Sebastian Vettel has been criticised for his driving skills being so single-minded and strategically his approach to races being able to secure pole position and eventually winning the races. Without securing pole position, critics feel Vettel would find it very difficult when compared to past Champions that F1 racing has been a witness to for many a years.
A few drivers who believed in their race paces rather than sticking to winning pole positions during qualifying are Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso, Mercedes GP’s Michael Schumacher, McLaren’s Lewis Hamilton, former great Alain Prost and former McLaren king, Mika Hakkinen. These drives never shy to overtake taking all the risks it needed to keep them moving while Vettel’s reliability on the pace he sets at qualifying does not see him take risks or perhaps being inconsistent when overtaking safely in the main race.
The 2011 season, so far, has seen Vettel not retiring in any race and has been pretty extraordinary for the German. Vettel displays his driving skills and is seen dominating the track week in and week out.
Vettel was exceptionally skilful while overtaking Alonso who’s deemed as a tough driver to make a pass through. Horner says anyone that doubted Vettel’s ability to overtake should have their doubts cleared when he overtook Alonso sliding along the grass with two wheels, making the car stick to the track, and feels Vettel’s evolved both as a young man and a driver, and it would be easy to forget he was just 24 years old.
Red Bull’s phenomenal run this season again shows they are not an easy team to beat and pose a worry for top teams down the road.
Critics all over the world in any sport may be wrong or entirely right in their judgement. It mustn’t be forgotten that they are humans too. Their passion for the sport with vast experience in the field allows them to speak up for the right or wrong based on what they’ve been seeing so far. So, in this case, race pundits have come up with a taunting remark against reigning World Champ, Sebastian Vettel, terming him a good qualifier and not a good racer when it came to overtaking and believing in race pace.
This statement by critics is so true when we really dig deep into F1 history and go back to drivers like Schumacher, Senna and the superb Finn Hakkinen, but in the end, it’s the results that matter and Vettel’s been doing great in that regard for Red Bull, although for some it’s not the result, but one’s capacity when it came to racing 50, 60 or 70 laps in any circuit consistently, taking risks while overtaking and being flawless.
It is true Vettel’s been having a dream run in his F1 career with full backing from a team like Red Bull with the experienced Christian Horner by his side. Spectators do come to watch some neck to neck racing; Vettel could be a bit disappointing for some hardcore racing fans when it comes to inconsistent overtaking manoeuvres employed or just driving very carefully on an empty track for nearly 95% of the race.
It’s also not true when we say he’s not a good driver when it came to delivering consistent lap times on successive laps. He’s phenomenally been managing to do that in almost all the races this season. There’s no doubt now predicting a Vettel win on an empty track where he’s consistently shown he’s so strong. Given his young age, the coming years should see him believing in race pace rather than superb qualifying times to take pole positions. At Monza, he did show he could overtake in control when he passed Alonso on lap 5, though it still took him 5 laps to achieve that with Alonso already deemed a very difficult rider to pass through. Overtaking Alonso might be Ferrari’s inability to match Red Bull’s pace, but eventually Vettel won the battle in that regard. At Monza, he was flawless as ever this season with a comfortable 10-second win over Button, followed by Alonso in 3rd.
The coming years would surely be testing Vettel’s ability to grow as a complete driver much to the expectations of critics and surely he’d have a point or two to prove critics wrong again.
