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| It is civil war at Red Bull between Mark Webber and Sebastian Vettel |
All eyes will
be on the Red Bull Racing drivers, world champion Sebastian Vettel and his
team-mate Mark Webber following the team orders storm three weeks ago in
Malaysia.
The debate
has kicked off again, and it seems like the team has lost all control over its
drivers.
Webber, who
is sporting a dodgy haircut this weekend, said the situation was tense and the
relationship between the drivers was strained.
Vettel
launched his own attack in a highly charged media conference of his own,
stating Webber has never helped him or the team, and although he respected him
as a driver, suggested his actions in Sepang were payback for Webber not being
there when he needed his help to win the title in Brazil last season.
I’ve kept
fairly quiet on the team orders debate, but having mulled over the arguments
and the various opinions over the past few weeks, it is time to state how I
feel about the situation.
The background
For those who
don’t know the full story of what happened at the Malaysian Grand Prix, here is
the explanation of events.
Timing a move
onto slick tyres better than Vettel had Webber in the lead for the majority of
the race. Despite some frustrations from
the German around half-distance, the team issued a coded instruction called
‘Multi-21’ after the final round of pitstops.
We’ve since
learned that ‘Multi-21’ is meant to mean car two ahead of car one. This should suggest Webber was ahead and
Vettel was not allowed to attack.
Sebastian
took matters into his own hands and disregarded the team order, and raced Mark
hard, but clean and took the lead against the accords of his team.
He apologised
to the team, and looked miserable on the podium but he has come out fighting
since, saying he felt Webber didn’t deserve the victory in Kuala Lumpur.
But should he have listened to his team?
It is about racing
At the end of
the day, Formula One is about ‘racing.’
It is what draws in the many followers to the sport. If racing doesn’t happen, you have to
question the morals and ethics of the sport.
I certainly
despise team orders. They have been a
part of Grand Prix racing for a long time though.
Some will
obey to team instructions. David
Coulthard stuck to a pre-race agreement and allowed Mika Hakkinen to win the
1998 Australian Grand Prix, as Hakkinen had beaten him to the first corner.
In 2002,
Ferrari staged the finish of the Austrian Grand Prix, when they brutally asked
Rubens Barrichello, who had dominated the whole weekend to gift the race to
Michael Schumacher. Barrichello did it
at the last possible moment, but the team were roundly criticised and it led to
a rule banning team orders.
And of
course, they did it again at Hockenheim in 2010, by asking Felipe Massa to let
Fernando Alonso by for the victory. This
was a race that finally lifted the ‘team order’ ban, but in reality, they had
never gone away from the background.
Others have
ignored instructions. Both
Carlos Reutemann and Rene Arnoux went back on agreements to win races in the
early 1980s, as did Didier Pironi famously in 1982 at Imola – leading to Gilles
Villeneuve vowing never to speak to him again.
He didn’t, as he was killed 14 days later in practice at Zolder in
Belgium.
Sebastian
Vettel should have listened to his team.
There was an instruction in place, and the common sense would have been
for him to obey the order and follow Webber home.
However, he
is a racing driver, a triple world champion and with his chief rival Fernando
Alonso out of the race after a crash on lap two, saw an extra seven points up
for grabs which could be vitally important come the latter part of the
championship.
You tell him
not to do it, and especially for the win and it is a difficult one to swallow.
Formula One
is a team sport. It is the teams that
employ the drivers, pay their wages and keep the sponsors happy. However, the drivers are racers and will want
individual honours.
Vettel had a case
Vettel had
every right to go for it if he felt he should have. It was ruthless and risky, but I praise him
for going against morals and showing the determination he has in proving what a
true racing driver he is.
Nice guys do
not win world championships, and we all know Mark Webber is not a serious
championship contender. He had his
chance to win the title in 2010, and blew it in the wall in Korea.
The neutral
wants to see racing at the highest level.
I do not want to see a race that is decided with 15 laps to go, and then
they just race around in circles until the chequered flag. If they did that all the time, I’d rather
watch a round of golf!
Vettel took a
pasting from the media afterwards, and on reflection – it wasn’t his smartest
move to make, but then again – he isn’t the first and won’t be the last to
ignore team orders.
Mark Webber
has been painted as a saint who has done nothing wrong. This is Mark Webber, a driver who has ran
into countless team-mates (some weren’t his fault, it has to be said), one who
has brake tested drivers in the past (Fernando Alonso in Bahrain in 2004), and
one who has ignored team orders himself against Vettel (Silverstone 2011).
He is not
whiter than white. Webber is a good
racing driver, traditionally has a fair reputation and on his day, is
unstoppable but he’s made poor errors of judgement in the past. Far too many people forget his character.
Lewis
Hamilton has ignored team orders before, so has Jenson Button. They have all done it. I can’t help feel that Vettel got so much
stick because of his nationality. Who
cares if he is German? I’m not bothered. Those who’ve branded him as Schumacher Mark
II look ridiculous. Of course, he has
made mistakes before, but who hasn’t in life.
And I have to
ask this question too? If you were in
the same situation as Vettel, what would you do?
What happens now?
Red Bull has
insisted there will be no more team orders this season, which is a strong
statement to make. I’m not convinced by
this at all.
This is
Sebastian Vettel’s team, and where does it leave the situation at Red Bull now,
both in the short and long term.
For now,
there will be no change. Mark Webber
will see the season out, and the competition between them on the track will now
be even fiercer than what it has been before.
Vettel was never
going to be sanctioned heavily. He
apologised for his actions to the team afterwards, and he went back to the
factory to apologise and explain last week in Milton Keynes. He is the golden boy of the team, and they
seriously weren’t going to ban him for one race for what he did.
If teams
started doing that to drivers – you could probably turn Formula One into a
reality show contest for Channel Five, and auction seats off on eBay.
Webber will
be gone at the end of 2013, probably into retirement you’d imagine. It is Vettel’s team, he owns it and whoever
come into the den in 2014 will have to get used to that pretty quickly.
What it does
mean is this Formula One season already has an explosive matter to remember as
it progresses throughout the summer.
Hopefully, we
can get on with the action of ‘racing’ and not ‘staging’ in China this weekend.
However, I
will leave you with one lasting quote from the fantastic Senna movie.
The late
Ayrton Senna famously said to Sir Jackie Stewart in 1990 during a tense
stand-off between the pair; "And if you no longer go for a gap that exists, you
are no longer a racing driver."
If you question
Sebastian Vettel’s will to win and determination to win, then perhaps you need
to ask yourself whether Formula One is a sport you really should be watching.
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