Tag Archives: Red Bull

Following an informal victory party in the hotel in India on Sunday night Sebastian Vettel headed home to Switzerland for a couple of days before returning to duty in Abu Dhabi today.

The four-time World Champion says that he enjoyed the chance to relax and recharge his batteries after the release of winning in Delhi.

“Well, the reaction has been very positive,” said Vettel. “Obviously great relief when I crossed the line on Sunday, a great feeling. Sunday night, obviously the whole team still had to do the pack-up, but we had a little bit of fun in the hotel bar – quite spontaneous. Obviously, there’s not a lot of time between the race in India and the race here, so the team is very busy.

“So we couldn’t go completely mad, but I had a time on Sunday night and then I had two days at home before coming here, again fairly quiet, not very spectacular. I just enjoyed the peace at home. I had some time for myself, back with my girlfriend as well. So, fairly quiet.”

Vettel made it clear that the team won’t be backing off in the remaining races, despite the title being in the bag.

“Well, I don’t think we approach the weekend as if there’s nothing to gain. I think we – as a fact – we love what we’re doing. We enjoy the challenge and that’s why there’s no question as to why we are here and what we have to do. We want to race, race the others as hard as possible. If we have a chance, we want to win. As I said, I had some quiet days at home which was good, to sober up after India and get ready for here.”

However, he says he’s taking nothing for granted: “To be honest, I’m not getting in the car and thinking that there’s a guarantee that we will do well. Maybe that’s a little bit the impression that you get from the outside; obviously since the summer break we’ve won all the races but we come here and there’s absolutely no guarantee that we will do well, so we have to give it everything we have.

“Yes, we have a strong package so I think we have reason to be confident. I need the team, I think the team needs Mark and myself to push the car to the limit and to get some good results. There’s no guarantee for what we’ve been doing the last couple of races to make it last.”

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…

Christian Horner hopes that Red Bull can continue its winning momentum to the end of the season – and he would like to see Mark Webber win a race before he walks away from F1.

Sebastian Vettel has built-up a remarkable streak of five consecutive wins since Spa.

“Sebastian’s won every race since the summer break, which is an incredible achievement,” said Horner. “There are still four races to go, our target is to try and carry this momentum into these last four races. I don’t think any of us would have imagined that he would have had the run of success that he’s had. The way he’s driving at the moment is quite supreme. We’ll see. India’s a different challenge, as is Abu Dhabi. Mark got pretty close today, so it will be great to see Mark win a race before the end of the year as well.”

Meanwhile Horner said that the Suzuka victory showed just how good Vettel is.

“He picked up a bit of damage from the incident with Hamilton that took about 20 points of downforce off the car. So he had a damaged car, and he just managed to adapt. He played the thinking game today, he watched, he waited, in that first stint, he preserved the tyres. He knew he wasn’t going to get priority at that first stop, and we discussed it before the race, that the lead car would get priority.

“He was very, very smart in the way he handled the race. He created the options for him by having that range in the first stint, and then by doing the same in the second stint, by making those tyres go longer and further than any of the other drivers. And of course when he had the one opportunity that he needed to nail Grosjean, he did it immediately.”

Christian Horner says a fourth pair of titles for Sebastian Vettel and Red Bull would be a major achievement – and adds that winning doesn’t get boring.

Horner insists that the 2013 title battle isn’t over yet, but has pondered what a fourth success would represent.

“We haven’t allowed our thoughts to drift like that to be honest with you, we’ve just stayed in the moment, stayed focussed,” said Horner. “If we were to achieve it, of course it would be massive. To win the first one was special, to defend it was remarkable, to do a triple, we didn’t think we could surpass that. So if we do manage to defend both titles it’s something that the whole team will be absolutely blown away by.

“It never gets boring, winning. To win races takes so much effort from all the departments behind the scenes, all the guys and girls back in Milton Keynes are working flat out at the moment. We had Adrian [Newey] in the operations room supporting the team through all of the sessions this weekend, so he was a virtual attendance at the Grand Prix, as if he was on the pit wall, but he wasn’t sitting there. So it’s down to that kind of team work and the effort that goes in behind the scenes that we’re able to achieve the kind of results that we’ve managed to achieve over the last 4-5 years.”

Meanwhile Horner says that Vettel could have done a two-stop in Korea even without the safety car making things easier.

“Yes ultimately, but it would have been right on the edge. The tyres that came off Sebastian’s car and had done very long stints in the first and second stints compared to other cars were pretty much through their wear life. He should have just been OK to get to the end of the race. It was certainly marginal.”

Regarding criticism of Pirelli he said: “I think that at the end of the day we’ve been driving around with the same issues that we had 12 months ago. Here the tyres were too marginal, last week they were fine. For sure it’s a challenge meeting the different criteria of the different tracks that we go to. I think this weekend arguably while having produced a great race they were a bit too much on the limit.”