Monthly Archives: November 2012

Red Bull has decided to start Sebastian Vettel from the pitlane rather than from the back of the grid, as per the FIA decision.

The team says it wants to investigate the problem, but it will also have a chance to change settings.

“During the slow down lap following the final run of Q3, Renault instructed to immediately stop Sebastian’s car on the circuit due to an issue with the fuel system,” said Christian Horner. “After speaking with the stewards, who accepted the situation of force majeure for technical reasons for the car to be stopped, unfortunately, for reasons yet to be fully understood, 850ml of the required one litre was pumped out of the car following post race checks.

“As a result, the FIA has excluded Sebastian from qualifying and we will withdraw the car from Parc Ferme in order to investigate further. Therefore Sebastian will start from the pit lane for tomorrow’s race. We will need to make the most of Mark’s strong front-row grid position and Sebastian will have a busy evening ahead of him.”

This is what the stewards had to say about Vettel

Sebastian Vettel will start the Abu Dhabi GP from the back of the grid after being excluded from qualifying.

The decision could turn the World Championship battle on its head.

Like Lewis Hamilton in Spain this year, Vettel was in affect accused of stopping on track at the end of the session without good reason in order to ensure that he had a fuel sample for scrutineering.

However the team was able to convince the stewards that it was a case of force majeure, unlike what  happened with McLaren in Barcelona.

However he did not have enough fuel in the car for sample and that led to the penalty.

Vettel had originally qualified third behind Lewis Hamilton and Mark Webber, and the decision means that title rival Fernando Alonso moves up from seventh to sixth.

Speaking to the media after qualifying, Vettel had said: “I don’t why I was asked to stop. I think probably some problem. It shouldn’t be something major.”

Vettel had endured a scrappy session, in large part because he did hardly any laps in FP3 due to brake problems.

“Obviously this morning wasn’t ideal, not being able to run,” he explained after the session. “So we didn’t get probably the answers that we were hoping for. Nevertheless, this afternoon we were settling in quite well and the pace was there, but I think as Mark touched on, McLaren, in particular Lewis, are pretty quick. So they were out of reach today.

“I’m not entirely happy with my qualifying, the last part of qualifying was quite tricky for me. I think I should have been a little bit quicker, whether it would have been enough to beat Mark. Obviously he’s on a different sheet of paper, but all in all I think we can be quite happy. Race pace should be good tomorrow. As we know it’s a long race here and there’s a lot of things that can happen, so looking forward to tomorrow.”

Lewis Hamilton admits he was surprised to be fast enough to beat Red Bull to pole in Abu Dhabi, and has no explanation for McLaren’s pace given that there are no updates on the car.

Hamilton’s first run in Q3 was good enough to take pole, and he was able to abort his final effort and save a bit of tyre life.

“No, I don’t know,” said Hamilton when asked about McLaren’s resurgence. “The car’s been feeling fantastic all weekend. We haven’t come with upgrade packages, we haven’t got any – we’re always modifying small, little wings but it does very, very little.

“But the car’s felt great from the get-go this weekend and done some fine tuning and every now and then you’re fortunate enough to make the right change and it feels even better, which it did. So, I didn’t really have to change too much going into qualifying. Actually I didn’t change anything going into qualifying from P3. That lap felt fantastic.

“The next lap I was up a little bit, I think I was up a tenth or so, and then I lost it. I had no idea I’d done a good lap, so it was just about going completely over the line and seeing if you can get something – but it didn’t work.”

Hamilton said he thought the Red Bulls would be faster.

“They were slower than I expected but we were faster than I expected as well. Mark did a great lap as well – what’s the margin, it is three tenths? I knew that they were very, very quick but I would never have imagined being this far ahead of them.

“But I did do a really, really good lap, very happy with the lap. I thought that we would be a match or slightly slower than them this weekend and it’s a blessing in disguise to be ahead of them.”

Fernando Alonso was surprisingly upbeat after qualifying only seventh in Abu Dhabi, insisting that he had got the maximum out of the car today.

Alonso starts four places behind title rival Sebastian Vettel.

“It was a perfect qualifying for us, we did the maximum,” said Alonso. “We went through Q1 OK, through Q2 OK. Then I did 41.5 in Q2, 41.5s first attempt in Q3, 41.5s second attempt in Q3. That’s the limit, and I think we struck the maximum again.

“The car was good, we are seventh and ninth, the three laps were perfect. If there are people faster than us we need to see and we need to accept it. There is nothing we can do and we need to work hard for the next one.”

Regarding Vettel having a less than perfect day, he said: “Always these things help in terms of championship hopes, but it’s better if these things happen on Sunday not on Saturday only. There are still three important Sundays, there are 75 points to play, and hopefully we score 14 more than him.”

The FIA Stewards have decided that teams can use two of their four annual curfew ‘jokers’ in one weekend without penalty.

This weekend Ferrari became the first team to break the curfew twice at one Grand Prix, and rivals are not happy with what the Italian team did.

In Sporting Working Group meetings the teams have discussed such an eventuality, and while no clear cut rule is in the sporting regs, a note sent by the FIA to teams at the Australian GP said: “It is our view that Article 30.19 prohibits a team from using two of their individual exceptions (“jokers”) in any one Event.”

However the wording of the current rule led to some doubt today. It says simply “each team will be permitted four individual exceptions to the above during a Championship season.”

After investigating the matter and considering elements such as the meaning of the word “individual” the stewards have now decreed that it did not prevent teams from doing it twice, and their decision set a precedent by saying that “no further action is necessary.”

Intriguingly the penalty agreed by the SWG for a fifth curfew breakage in a season is to have both of a team’s cars start from the pitlane.

Although if it happens the stewards have discretion, they have the power to impose that penalty…

Ross Brawn insists that his role as Mercedes team principal has not been affected by the arrival of Niki Lauda as part of the team’s management structure.

Lauda was brought in by Daimler AG to help conclude a Concorde deal with Bernie Ecclestone and to sign up Lewis Hamilton.

“Niki is non-executive chairman, chairman of our board,” said Brawn. “We meet our board several times a year, to discuss the major issues. I think Niki is also going to add a lot of racing experience to the board. The board meetings will probably have a slightly different complexion in the future.

“And Niki’s helping with some of the bigger strategic issues, such as the new commercial agreement with Bernie; obviously Niki had some involvement with persuading Lewis to join us – so those sort of issues but not involved with the day-to-day running of the team.

“I’ve just a got a new chairman. I had one before, I’ve got a different one now.”

Brawn also touched on what Lewis Hamilton can bring to the team in 2013.

“I think both drivers in the team contribute to developing a team, building a team. We are clearly not achieving the results we want to achieve yet, so we’ve got some progress we need to make and I think Lewis will be able to contribute a lot to helping us make that progress.

“We obviously believe and we know he’s a very very quick driver. This is perhaps a new challenge he’s facing of helping a team grow and develop and become more competitive.

“So there’s some different aspects, perhaps, to what he’s going to face with us and what he’s faced at McLaren, which was a pretty complete and rounded team.”

Mark Webber finished FP2 in Abu Dhabi in fourth place, but it was a frustrating day for the Aussie as his session was curtailed.

At one point Webber left a trail of water in the pitlane as he drove out of the garage, after which he returned and did not go out again.

The fact that a Red Bull – albeit that of Webber – has suffered a technical problem might give Fernando Alonso and Ferrari some encouragement.

“It looks like a water generator or some KERS issue, basically,” he said. “It’s a pain, it’s not great. Mileage is always limited, so it would be nice to get as much as you can in. Anyway that was today, we’ll come back tomorrow.

“It’s never a help to have less running. The track will probably move around a little bit, but not a huge amount here, it was in pretty good shape straight away. We missed the last part, but that’s the way it was.

“We’re not to the bottom of the fault yet that’s for sure, I think the guys will will be working on it tonight, and then go from there.”

Webber said he was happy with the overall balance: “It’s OK. Normally I struggle round car park sort of race tracks, but I’ll do my best to push as hard as possible round all the second gear corners that are here this week. I’ll do what I can tomorrow and qualify as high up as  can and enjoy the race on Sunday.”

Intriguingly at one point there were sparks coming from the underside of the car, as was the case with Vettel in India, leading to speculation about how low the RB8 is running. Webber said that kerbs might have caused some damage.

“Something was broken underneath, similar to Seb in the [last] race, but not a big deal.

“I’m not sure, but probably in Turn 20 most of us run a little bit wide there, so the ‘Zed zero’ strake – that means something under the car for you guys – looks like it got a little bit sore…”

Sebastian Vettel says that Red Bull has to improve the RB8 overnight, despite the German pipping Lewis Hamilton to the overall top time in FP2 in Abu Dhabi.

However McLaren also looked strong all day and showed potentially better race pace.

“I think we can be pretty happy overall,” said Vettel. “I got a very good lap in on the soft tyres. The general pace the McLarens were in front of us.

“Obviously we push as hard as we can. I think we got enough running today. We’re not entirely happy yet with the car, I think we can improve it. We must do so for tomorrow in order to make sure we qualify as high up as we can. It’s not in our hands what the others are doing, so we have to make sure we get grid spot we can, and then we see whether it’s enough to beat the rest.

“The base wasn’t bad but I think it was quite slippery for all the drivers, all the cars. We saw many cars going off the track here and there, trying to explore the limits. That’s what we usually do on the Friday. We’re more or less there but as I said we need to improve the car for tomorrow.”

Vettel expects to be battling with Hamilton in qualifying: “It looks like! At least today the battle was on with him, he was very quick on the medium tyre, so we need to do a bit of catching up to make sure we are very close to them and possibly ahead of them tomorrow.”

Fernando Alonso was in upbeat mood today as he continued to insist that he can still win the World Championship.

Alonso says that Ferrari is pulling out all the stops for the end of the season.

“We believe and we trust in our job and our team,” he said in Abu Dhabi today. “I think we’ve shown many times that we don’t give up, we will fight until the end, and when the things become stressful, when the things become difficult, I think we can deliver our 100% and we’re sure that we will fight until the end. I think the team has a lot of experience, fighting for World Championships, everyone is very motivated.

“I think in India we saw some good signs of recovering in terms of pace compared to Red Bull, we still need a couple more tenths, especially on Saturday. But there is a little bit of a step here, something also in the USA. I think things go up and down for everybody. Four consecutive ups for Red Bull, so we think they will go down before long.”

Intriguingly Alonso was keen to point out that he didn’t expect to be able to beat Red Bull on pace, but wanted to be close enough to put pressure on Vettel – and take advantage of any mistakes.

“We tried to prepare for this race better than ever. Every race we do, but we know the importance of these three races, so we’ve made some good preparations. There are some new parts coming that we will have to check tomorrow.

“We don’t think that we will close the gap completely to Red Bull from India, and five days later in Abu Dhabi to be competing with them with the same performance, I think that is not any magic button in F1, or any magic part.

“But we will try to get close to put some more pressure. I think they’ve had a very easy four races so far, so they have a lot of margin and can do maybe little mistakes with not any penalty, and we want to be so close to them to take the opportunity of everything that they don’t do perfect. So we need to find perfection this weekend, or these next three weekends, and be very close to them and attack all the race.”

As the battle enters the home stretch Sebastian Vettel continues to play down his chance of winning a third World Championship.

Vettel is 13 points ahead of Fernando Alonso, and if he stays ahead this weekend could clinch the title at the penultimate race in Austin.

“Obviously there are three races to go,” said a relaxed Vettel in Abu Dhabi today. “And it’s not a secret, every one is important, just as important as the first three, but obviously as the season closes you realise the points left are the maximum you can get. The end is near, nearer than when you start the season in Australia.

“That’s why it appears to be more important. As I said you don’t get any more points for this race than for five races ago or 10 races ago. We to try to therefore have the same approach we had 10 races ago.”

Vettel was keen to point out how quickly his luck could change.

“If you look back India was a great race for us. A couple of laps from the end we had some sparks. Obviously it was not a problem. It doesn’t take much imagination – if something like this comes up obviously it shows you how vulnerable you are no matter which position you are.

“If you are in the lead by a big gap, or you are somewhere in the midfield fighting for position, it doesn’t take much and you might end the race not scoring the points that you were hoping for, and then the whole picture looks different again. I think we’ve learned this year again.

“Obviously it would be very special for us to win the championship here, but in order to do so we have to have a strong weekend, a strong performance, and score more points than the others.”

Regarding last year’s early retirement he said: “Last year was a short race because I had the puncture in the second corner, but I think the pole was very special on the Saturday, to equal Nigel [Mansell’s] amount of poles in a season, and generally this place has been very good for us, a lot of very good memories. So I’m looking forward to getting in the car and going out tomorrow.”