Red Bull motor sport boss Helmut Marko says that the Indian GP was a lot more stressful for the team than it looked from the outside, despite Sebastian Vettel’s huge advantage at the flag.
Marko adds that the team now wants to finish the season by winning the remaining races.
“We had this problem on Mark’s car with the alternator,” he told this writer. “And with an alternator, bang, it just comes, there’s not much you can do. We also had a risky strategy, coming in on lap two, and then I don’t know how many people Seb overtook – just to the people who say he can’t overtake! And everybody was really relieved and more than happy, and now we go to win the last three races, and then we think about 2014. That’s our passion, and our approach to racing. And that’s what makes us successful.”
Intriguingly Marko says that Vettel raised his game in the latter part of the season.
“Unbelievable. He was already on a high level, but when he came back from the summer break it was a different step – no mistakes, always quick, using the tyres in the right way. I think it was perfection.”
Regarding the mechanical misfortunes that have hit Mark Webber so often this year, he pointed out that Vettel has not been immune to problems in the past: “There have been so many little issues with Mark’s car that were unfortunate, but that’s racing. Last year Seb had two alternator failures, he had engine failures in 2010, and so on. In the end it equalises.”
Adam Cooper F1 
Marko is bound to talk up his man, but Vettel is still relatively unproven at overtaking, especially as we are racing in the DRS era and, like last weekend, teams are radioing their drivers to say “don’t worry about Vettel, we aren’t racing against him”.
“I don’t know how many people Seb overtook – just to the people who say he can’t overtake! … ”
This is the way Vettel picked up places from lap3 to lap 19
———————————————–
Lap 3: Overtakes Chilton (p16)
Lap 4: Overtakes Bianchi (p15)
Lap 5: Pitstop from Hulkenberg (p14)
Lap 6: Overtakes Bottas & Pitstop Button (p12)
Lap 7: Overtakes Gutierrez & Pitstop Rosberg – Raikkonen (p9)
Lap 8: Pitstop Massa -Hamilton -Maldonado (p6)
Lap 9: Overtakes Sutil (No opposition because of 1stop strategy) (p5)
Lap10: Overtakes Grosjean (No opposition because of 1stop strategy) (p4)
Lap12: Overtakes Ricciardo (Let him pass) (p3)
…
Running in clear air
…
Lap19: Overtakes Perez (No opposition because of strategy) (p2)
…
Running in clear air
———————————————–
Overtakings: Chilton, Bianchi, Bottas, Gutierrez, Sutil, Grosjean, Ricciardo, Perez.
Tough overtakings: Chilton, Bianchi, Bottas and Gutierrez.
I think Vettel carved his way through the traffic better than expected because most of the opposition either was in a different strategy (they had to pit before he had to overtake them) or they let him pass to not destroy their tyres and achieve their strategies (Sutil, Grosjean, Perez).
Moreover, with the RB9 being the class of the field, it doesn´t seem too difficult to overtake Chilton, Bianchi, Bottas, Gutierrez. Probably the former was his most difficult overtaking of the day.
Good point, well argued!
Yep, agreed. Question is, why couldn’t the others do the same?
Because they were short an RB9?