October 30, 2013 · 12:13 pm

Helmut Marko: “Now we go to win the last three races…”

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.”

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October 28, 2013 · 2:07 pm

Stefano Domenicali: “These are crucial weeks that we have ahead of us”

Ferrari team principal Stefano Domenicali admits that the team hasn’t done a good enough job – and says that the coming weeks will be crucial as everyone prepares for 2014.

It he also acknowledged that only Fernando Alonso’s “amazing talent” had kept Ferrari in the fight this year.

“We are well aware what it’s like to rack up win after win, season after season, because only a few years back, we did just that and we know how much confidence comes from winning,” Domenicali said on the Ferrari website.

“Taking a world title is very satisfying, doing it several times is an achievement, but it’s also a good thing to always be up there, fighting for the very top places, as Ferrari has done pretty much all the time for over fifteen years, barring a handful of exceptions.

“This year, we were unable to give our drivers a car good enough to fight with Vettel on equal terms, apart from at the very beginning of the season. Thanks to Fernando and his amazing talent, we managed to worry the world champion elect more than the others, but unfortunately, our efforts were not enough to fight all the way to the very end. Now, it’s important to try and end this season in the best way possible.

“These are crucial weeks that we have ahead of us to the end of the year, because the work we are doing in preparation for 2014 is vital if we want to be the team that puts an end to this Red Bull dominance, just as we and Fernando have been their main rivals over the past four seasons.”

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October 28, 2013 · 1:06 pm

Fernando Alonso: “The race was uphill from that moment…”

Fernando Alonso’s hopes of a decent result in the Indian GP were over at the first corner after he hit the rear of Mark Webber – ironically the other frontrunning driver who took a gamble on qualifying on the medium tyre.

Alonso also hit Jenson Button on the first lap and a second lap stop for a new nose ruined his strategy and left him struggling to catch up. He eventually finished 11th.

“Obviously not a clear start,” said the Spaniard. “I was a bit unlucky because I think Mark also was having a contact with someone, and the third part was me in that equation. And with Button as well in corner four, it was a little bit of a mixed start, and the race was uphill from that moment. We were last with one stop more compared to the others already done. So a difficult race, and not enough pace.”

Matters were not helped by the car not behaving well after the contact: “It was damaged, I think the front toe or something, because the steering wheel was very heavy to the right corners, and very light to the left, so there was something going on there. It was not only that problem. The overall weekend was not good enough, and in Abu Dhabi we need to improve if we want to pass Mercedes in the constructors’ championship.”

Meanwhile Alonso had some nice words to say about Sebastian Vettel.

“Very, very good, I congratulate him. They’ve been very strong, very dominant, especially in the second part of the season, so they deserve to be be champions, so congratulations. Obviously we need to start thinking for next year and hopefully try to make things a little bit more difficult for him.”

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October 28, 2013 · 5:16 am

Video: Nico Rosberg on his second place in India

Nico Rosberg outran his team mate Lewis Hamilton to take second place in India. Here are his thoughts on the weekend.

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October 27, 2013 · 2:27 pm

Vettel gets a reprimand after celebratory donuts

Sebastian Vettel has been given a reprimand by the FIA after his tyre smoking donut display after the Indian GP.

Officially it was for failing to proceed straight to parc ferme after the chequered flag ‘without unnecessary delay.’ In addition Red Bull Racing was fined €25,000 for failing to sufficiently ensure by radio that he went to parc ferme.

The punishment might have been worse but the stewards accepted that there were ‘special circumstances.’ Meanwhile Vettel told the FIA that he knew exactly what he was doing and thus it was no surprise when he was called up.

“I didn’t think about the donuts before the race today – it just happened,” said Seb. “My engineer directed for the usual procedure, but I said ‘not this time!’”

While fans may not welcome the decision the bottom line is that the FIA had to set a precedent by giving some sort of punishment, as the rules are clear to all drivers.

Given the coverage that his display will receive the 25K is probably a small price to pay…

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October 27, 2013 · 2:02 pm

Christian Horner: “It doesn’t get any better than that…”

Christian Horner has made it clear what a fourth set of double World Championships means to Sebastian Vettel and the Red Bull team – and admits that he thought the achievement would be out of reach.

“Sebastian is very emotional and I’m sure every member of the team is emotional,” said Horner. “The effort that’s gone into this campaign has been huge, because not only is it this year, we’ve also got to develop and build a car for next year as well.

“You win a championship the first time the pressure is there to defend it. We defended it, and then we retained it, and having achieved a triple you think, OK, it doesn’t get better than that, and the likelihood of doing a quadruple double just seemed hugely statistically unlikely, if nothing else. But the passion, the determination, the dedication within the whole team, and of course the way that Sebastian has delivered this year, has been absolutely phenomenal.”

Horner confirmed that today there were concerns over the alternator in Vettel’s car following the earlier failure on Mark Webber’s.

“After the failure on Mark’s car, which was just sudden, there’s no reason to expect that it can’t happen on the other car. Immediately we tried to reduce the amount of draw on the alternator as much as possible, which included even turning off the KERS system in the end. There was then a problem with the sensor on the alternator, which gave us even more heart in mouth moments. And in the mean time Sebastian’s lighting up the timing screen with purple sectors!

“There were some heart stopping moments in there, but thankfully the car got to the end, and Sebastian did what he needed to. It was just tremendously cruel luck not to have Mark up there as well.”

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October 26, 2013 · 12:51 pm

Lewis Hamilton: “I’ve struggled a little bit through this weekend”

Lewis Hamilton will start the Indian GP from third on the grid, but the Brit was in a low-key mood after a qualifying session that clearly left him disappointed.

“It’s been a tough weekend for us,” said Hamilton. “Congratulations to Sebastian, it’s obvious that that’s some serious pace that they have, especially with Webber on the primes just behind us. But we’ve been pushing, as Nico said, as hard as we can. We really want to get a great result this weekend.

“Strategy is going to play a huge part but I was a little bit surprised to be where we are but generally, bit by bit, adjusting the set-up and everything, we got a reasonable balance and hopefully tomorrow we can push together to try and stay ahead of the rest.”

Hamilton played down the fact that he lost out to Mercedes team mate Nico Rosberg.

“It doesn’t really matter at the end of the day. Nico did a great job, he’s been strong all weekend and on my side, I’ve struggled a little bit through this weekend. I struggled a little bit with something different on the car this weekend which Nico had had experience of seeing maybe in the past.

“I came to grips with it really quite quickly at the end and I’m really happy with the result and the lap time that I was able to get. There’s always a little bit of time everywhere but we’ll try and push these guys as hard as we can in the race obviously. They’re in another world but we’ll try to stay ahead of the rest.”

 

 

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October 26, 2013 · 10:17 am

Mark Webber: “I thought we’d be a bit further back than that…”

Mark Webber has given himself a real shot at winning the Indian GP by qualifying as high as fourth on the medium prime tyre.

With those ahead expected to stop early when their soft tyres give up Webber has the chance to run a long first stint and potentially establish himself in front.

“We thought it was worth trying something a little bit different,” said Webber. “We probably thought we wouldn’t end up on the second row, to be honest, I thought we’d be a bit further back than that, but in the end it turned out to be a pretty good session for us.

“Not easy to manage the primes obviously when you just get a bit of a look at them in Q3, but in the end we all did a pretty good job and didn’t leave too much out there. So we’re in a good position to capitalise on a different approach, because we know the option tyre is not exactly a great piece of work.

“So we’ll see what happens with those guys, and we’ll do our thing. Obviously I’ve got to put that tyre on at some stage in the race. It’ll look quite exciting early in the race, but I’ve still got to get that tyre out of the way at some stage.”

Webber acknowledged that he might have a difficult time holding position at the start, when he’ll have less grip than those around him.

“We know we won’t have the grip initially on the first lap compared to the other guys, so we’ll stay out of strife hopefully, and we’ll get into the race from there. We know the option tyre is very high maintenance from lap three or four onwards.”

 

 

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October 25, 2013 · 7:05 pm

Boullier has “had enough” of rookie drivers

Lotus boss Eric Boullier says that 2014 is not the time to be bringing on a rookie – and has made it clear that the team does not intend to hire an inexperienced driver any time soon.

He admitted that there’s little chance of reserve driver Davide Valsecchi being promoted.

“Davide is on the list but to bring to the grid next year a driver with no experience is a huge step for them,” said Boullier. “I’ve done it twice with them, first with Petrov and then with a semi-rookie Grosjean, and I think I’ve had enough to be honest with you. Davide is on the list because we consider him as a good driver, as a GP2 champion, but it’s true that if you favour a scenario for next year it will be a driver with experience.

“If we cannot find any driver with experience, fitting the strategy of the team, obviously we will go for a rookie driver and then Davide is obviously on the top of the list. It looks harsh, I’m sorry but it’s true.”

Meanwhile regarding Romain Grosjean’s prospects of staying on he said: “Romain has a contract signed anyway for next year. It’s just, say, a matter of confirmation. We are being prudent after last obviously. But I think it’s on its way to be confirmed soon.

“We are definitely pleased with his performance, since Germany actually. Clearly, something switched on and he is working better. I mean the same tyre story as well, the latest spec of tyres suit a little bit more his driving style than Kimi’s one. But yes, we are pleased that he is stepping up. We don’t have a policy of driver number one and number two but we needed him obviously to step up.”

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October 25, 2013 · 3:03 pm

Team bosses say 2014 engines will still sound good

F1 team bosses say fans should not be concerned about the sound of 2014’s turbo powerplants – and that F1 has to ensure they make an acceptable noise.

Dyno recordings issued by manufacturers – most recently Honda – have led to considerable debate about the importance of engine noise.

“Well, for sure, the element of the engine sound is very important, no doubt about it,” said Ferrari boss Stefano Domenicali. “But on the other side we need to say that in the last couple of years we’ve moved from V12 that was a fantastic engine for Ferrari with fantastic high revs, high frequency, to V10, then to V8.

“Now we’re going to be V6 with turbo and then it’s just a matter of fine tuning the noise – I mean the sound, apologies for the wrong word – and then of course that is vital for the show, above all for the people who are coming to the track, because unfortunately you don’t feel it too much on television.”

“Noise of a Formula One car is part of the DNA of Formula One,” said Red Bull’s Christian Horner. “When people come to a Grand Prix for the first time, the thing that really stands out more than anything is the noise. Noise translates into speed, into excitement and so on, and I think it’s absolutely crucial that we don’t lose that element. We have to reserve judgement until we hear the cars next year; hopefully, whilst it will be a different noise, it will be an exciting noise that conveys what the sport is all about. Only time will tell.”

Meanwhile Ross Brawn is adamant that PR dyno recordings don’t tell the full story.

“I think we actually need to see the cars on the circuit because I don’t think a recording of a dyno cycle is actually that representative. If you listen to a V8 on the dyno it sounds nothing like it does in the car. I think we should all wait and see. It is what we have and we have to get behind it and it’s an exciting new period with these power trains.

“I think we needed to make a transition at some stage, we’re making it now, there’s no going back and I think it will be exciting for the fans but we’ll see how it sounds when we get out on the circuit. I remember the early turbo days and they seemed pretty exciting to me and we’ve had a whole range of different engines since then. I don’t think – to be honest –  that they’re been more  or less exciting than each other. Just different.”

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