Category: Red Bull Racing

Before the events of the Turkish Grand Prix you could be excused for thinking life at Red Bull Racing was akin to a motoring paradise. The RB6 has granted the team pole position in all of the seven races to date. In all of those races, for the most part, the team has had a winning opportunity. Either reliability or pit wall strategy has cost them the ultimate prize in fifty per cent of the results achieved. Until now.

As you can see from this image captured during yesterday’s Turkish Grand Prix the two Red Bull Racing drivers collided. And for Vettel, on the right, that meant instant retirement from the race. Webber quickly went to the pits for a new nose cone and some new tyres and was able to continue to racing. He finished third behind the McLarens of Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button. The 15 points earned by Webber takes him to a total of 93 and gives him an outright lead in the title race.

So what went wrong? Were there any issues in the build up to this unnecessary accident, or was it simply a “racing incident”?

Mark Webber has qualified on pole position for the third successive Grand Prix at Istanbul. Webber’s time of 1:26.295 was 0.138 seconds faster than the McLaren of Lewis Hamilton and 0.465 seconds quicker than his Red Bull Racing teammate Sebastien Vettel.

This weekend hasn’t been easy going for Webber who suffered an engine failure late in yesterday’s final practice session. Speaking at the post-qualifying press conference Webber said, “Obviously Friday was a little bit disrupted, but not massively so, to be honest. This morning, also, we were not having the easiest P3.

“Getting ready for quali things started to get a little bit better. I was a little bit on the back foot going in. But I knew I could dig deep, keep going and get something out of it. In the end it turned out okay.”

Of the previous five Grands Prix held at Istanbul Park the pole sitter has won four times. Ominously for his rivals Webber expects his car to show better race pace than it did during qualifying, “I’m more comfortable with tomorrow than I am with out and out pace. So, I’m starting in the right place.

“We’ve got, potentially, one of the more interesting races tomorrow. We’re optimistic we can get a good result from there, for sure.”

Thanks to dominant wins in Spain and Monaco, Australia’s Mark Webber is riding a the crest of Formula One’s wave right now. It’s a fickle place to be, certainly, but when the plaudits come in this sport you take them. Sir Frank Williams has endured a few disappointing years, and there are no signs of real improvement. Sir Frank has recently reflected that he may have got his assessment of Mark Webber wrong. He also reckons Webber is now the real deal.

Mark drove for Williams in 2005 and 2006, at the time it was seen as a great career move. Unfortunately for Sir Frank and Mark, as well, the results didn’t come. Webber achieved a single podium in his first year (third at Monaco) and he could only muster a miserable seven points in the entire 2006 season. Williams was happy to let Mark go believing the Australian was part of the problem. Now, he’s not so sure.

“When we had him obviously our car was a disappointment and we felt he was part of the problem. He probably wasn’t actually, with hindsight. The major point was that the car had problems,” Williams said.

Sir Frank also senses that Mark has matured as a driver, “He always used to put himself under too much pressure, but now I don’t see any evidence of that at all. He looks pretty calm in himself and what you’re seeing is real.”

Does Williams think Webber has the pace to beat highly fancied teammate Sebastien Vettel over the entire year? Well, he’s sitting on the fence there, “The end of the year will show it, they’ve got equal cars. Mark’s obviously on top form, and assuming Vettel is on top form, it’s pretty even stevens.”

[Source: ITV]