31/05/2010
NEWS STORY
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Every journo, TV pundit and fan had an opinion, and it was clearly only a matter of time before something went wrong and the team imploded. Be it McLaren, where Button was entering Hamilton's kingdom, Ferrari, where Alonso was keen to establish himself as numero uno, or Mercedes, where the young pretender Rosberg had to handle the wily old fox Schumacher, everyone had their doubts.
But further along the pitlane, where Mark Webber and Sebastian Vettel were teamed up for a second season, nobody had any such fears, this was Red Bull, the team that puts the fun into F1, the team that knows how to party.
In Monaco, we smiled as the joint championship leaders larked about in the swimming pool, grinned as they performed back-flips for the cameras and jumped into the Mediterranean. These were two drivers who revelled in one another's success and who got on like a house of fire. Until yesterday.
For what everyone appears to have forgotten is that these guys are racing drivers. For as long as anyone can remember, almost from the day they learned to walk, they had a competitive streak within them that drove them to walk for longer, faster and better than anyone else. While Sebastian joined in the post-race celebrations in the Principality, larking about for the cameras, he was fully aware that the 2010 season isn't exactly going by the script, that his teammate had taken back-to-back victories. While in Malaysia, Mark learned that his precocious young teammate doesn't wait for an invitation once the door is left open.
In an instant yesterday, the partying was over, Red Bull was just another racing team blessed with a pair of determined chargers, albeit with Adrian Newey providing the equipment.
However, it isn't the incident itself that is of interest - though it is fun to see how it is dividing the fans, just as it is dividing the media and TV pundits - it is what happened afterwards, what was said, what wasn't said.
While Vettel made gesticulations suggesting that his teammate had lost the plot, the fact that he removed his helmet so quickly after the clash also speaks volumes. Usually when a driver feels he is in the wrong he keeps his helmet on for as long as possible in order to avoid the searching gaze of the camera. It was clear, even as he made his way back to the pits that Sebastian didn't feel the clash was his fault.
In public, Webber kept a cool head, only admitting to a select few that it had been a "f***ing disaster". However, his suggestion, during the post-race press conference, that journos do some digging, combined with subsequent comments from Christian Horner and Helmet Marko, suggest that for the Milton Keynes outfit things may never be quite the same again.
Clearly, when Vettel lined up Webber to make his move, the Australian appeared to slow, however, it was subsequently revealed that Red Bull, like McLaren, was worried about conserving fuel. "The team had asked me to turn down my engine," Webber admitted later, however, it appears that teammate Vettel wasn't given the same order.
While Webber attempted to be as diplomatic as possible, not easy for a Red Bull driver far less an Australian, when asked why he was slower than his teammate before the incident, he replied: "Hmm... You guys need to dig more, somewhere else".
Later in the day, pushed again on the marked difference in speed between the two, and the fact that he had been told to turn his engine down, Webber said: "Whether or not Seb got the same message, I don't yet know, but that might explain why he was suddenly so much quicker than me along the straight."
While Webber continued his race, ultimately finishing a distant third to the McLaren duo, Vettel was under siege in the paddock, telling the baying mob of reporters: "I'm not very happy now obviously after something like this happening.
"We were all pretty much same conditions, same pace" he continued, "and I felt I was able to go quicker. I was able to come closer the last two or three laps. I was just trying to get the braking point and suddenly I lost the car. You can see we touched. I'm not the kind of guy who pushes the fault to one guy. We are a team and we have to respect that."
However, it was the comments of Horner and Marko that caused the biggest surprise, both appearing to back the German.
"They should never have been where they were," said the Englishman, "they have cost the team a great deal of points. Mark had changed down to a fuel-saving mode which lost us a little bit of performance on the straight and that also explains how Sebastian got a clear run on him.
"Sebastian managed to save an extra kilo of fuel," he revealed, "so he had one more lap of the optimum engine mode. We could not tell him to back off because he was under pressure from Hamilton behind. The large mistake was that not enough room was given."
However. Marko, Red Bull's advisor, who enjoys a private hotline direct to company founder Dietrich Mateschitz, was under no illusions, telling German broadcaster RTL: "Webber was slower and Vettel had immense pressure from Hamilton. Unfortunately, Mark was not told about the situation accurately by his race engineer.
"He had radioed the pits to say he was slower on the straights," he continued, referring to Webber. "He knew the situation and had just been informed about the pressure Hamilton was putting on Vettel. Vettel was so much faster that he had to pass. If Webber and he had braked together, then Hamilton would have passed Vettel."
Subsequently, Marko revealed that Mateschitz had voiced his displeasure at the incident, only admitting that the Red Bull billionaire was "not amused".
"Seb and I have to sit down and chat about what happened," said Webber last night. "We'll probably have a difference of opinion about what happened until we go to our graves, but we're both adults and we need to press on. If we'd been fighting for 18th and 19th positions when the accident occurred, no-one would have cared; as it was, we were fighting for the lead and it's all anyone wants to know about."
In private the recriminations will continue, while in public the team will work hard to show that all is well, nothing to see here, let's move on.
Yesterday was a turning point for the Austrian outfit, not only in terms of its championship but in terms of the fact that behind the rock and roll party facade, Red Bull is just another racing team with hungry racers eager to win, to whom the top step of the podium is what it's really all about.
The jokey press releases, the irreverence with which it (seemingly) approaches Formula One, all has been exposed in this one incident, an incident, if truth be told, which was inevitable.
Now the Austrian team is about to find out just how difficult it is to manage the egos of two highly talented racers, proven winners... others have tried, others have failed.