F1 News
Date:
12/April/2013
The reigning triple World Champion ignored an order given to
both himself and Mark Webber to hold position, due to tyre wear concerns,
during the closing stages of the Malaysian race.
Instead Vettel overtook the Australian for victory, after
which he eventually offered an apology, claiming to have heard the order and,
somehow, not understood it.
To make matters worse, it was a much more defiant Vettel who
appeared in the Shanghai paddock on Thursday. The German not only stated he
would ‘probably do the same again’, but that his actions were an indirect form
of payback for Webber failing to support him in the past.
Those comments thrust Red Bull team manager Christian
Horner, whose authority has been openly questioned by Vettel’s actions, back
into the spotlight.
“Has my authority been undermined? In that race he [Vettel]
didn’t do what I asked,” recognised Horner. “Was I happy about it? Of course I
wasn’t. Did we discuss it? Yes, we did. Did he apologise? Yes. Has he learned
from it? I’m sure he has.
“Would he do it again? I think he’d think twice, but I think
as he explained yesterday there is an awful of history between those drivers.”
Hardly a guarantee that Vettel will bow to the team’s wishes
in future. Indeed, Horner then partly justified Vettel’s actions as the necessary
characteristics of a record-breaking race driver.
“Sebastian hasn’t achieved the success that he has in his
career by being submissive. He’s made a decision in a race as a hungry driver
and obviously based that decision on all kinds of emotions at that point in time.
“He saw an opportunity, he took it into his own hands, he’d
saved a set of tyres and he wanted that victory more than anything else. I
think he justified it to himself due to previous events.”
But Horner again insisted: “I don’t think Sebastian for one
moment thinks he runs the team.”
Aside from the public rift, the main fallout from the events
in Malaysia has been an instruction from Red Bull owner Dietrich Mateschitz to
avoid such team orders in future.
“I sat down with Dietrich after the race and discussed at
length with him what happened in Malaysia and Dietrich is a purist, he’s a fan
of the sport,” said Horner. “Red Bull is clear in its intent that it wants to
support competition.
“What Dietrich is keen not to see is a situation where the
drivers aren’t allowed to race each other,” added Horner. “Our concern in
Malaysia was not the fact that the drivers were racing each other, it’s what
the consequence would potentially be on tyre wear.
“We want to see the drivers race and compete fairly and equally,
as they have done on many occasions, but at the same time the drivers know that
they need to respect the requirements from the team.
“We will allow them to continue to race each other. They
will have the information from the team and they will know what they need to do
with that information.”
It now seems impossible that the Vettel-Webber partnership,
together since 2009, can continue beyond this season. It would be the
Australian who leaves.
“Sebastian is on a long term contract so he’s committed to
the team,” said Horner. “Mark’s contract has been renewed on an annual basis
over the last three or four years and that’s something that we tend to address
just in the same way again this year.
“Of course emotions are still fairly raw from the events in
Malaysia, but they’re still a very effective pairing and we won’t make any
decisions until later in the summer when Mark and the team will sit down and
discuss the future.”
Vettel leads the World Championship by nine points over
Lotus driver Kimi Raikkonen, the winner of round one in Australia, with Webber
14-points adrift in third.
Webber had the upper hand over Vettel during Friday practice
in Shanghai, but both finished well down the timesheets. Webber was fifth
quickest and Vettel tenth on a day when Felipe Massa continued his return to
form by setting the pace for Ferrari.
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