Strange going-ons at Red Bull

[BreezyRacer]

Boy, if this breaks down this way Vettel is going to lose a lot of credibility. I can just hear everyone refer to him as a marketing tool from now on.

No wonder Webber is sick about this. He just found out that after two convincing wins and 3 poles that he is the designated number 2.

[WhiteBlue]

Boy, if this breaks down this way Vettel is going to lose a lot of credibility. I can just hear everyone refer to him as a marketing tool from now on.

No wonder Webber is sick about this. He just found out that after two convincing wins and 3 poles that he is the designated number 2.

I dont understand why you blame Vettel. It was obviously a team policy, not a Vettel decision. Blame Marko, Horner or Mateschitz please if you must. Btw, I still think that Webber only was on pole in Turkey because Vettel's car broke in qualifying. The poor guy had enough frustrations and now he is the main victim of the mess his superiors have created.

[bill shoe]

Red Bull has grudgingly backed away from their previous It’s-Webber’s-Fault position (damn video tape!!), and have now “conceded” that Vettel going into Webber was the fault of both drivers.

This is like a bank robber “conceding” that the theft was not entirely the fault of the bank staff, rather it was the fault of both himself and the bank staff.

http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/84085

There is also the usual double-talk about what is and is not a team order.

http://formula-one.speedtv.com/article/ ... s-meeting/

[andrew]

Who finished 2nd in last years championship? And where was Webber last year?

Red Bull are astute enough to give their drivers the correct positions whichin the team.

[segedunum]

The drivers were not on different strategies, Pup. There were on exactly the same strategy. Webber reached the switch point to fuel saving one or two laps earlier because he ran in free air at the front while Vettel was slip streaming most of the race. Please read DC's comment which said the same.

DC is merely towing the Red Bull party line there. Saving 1 kilo of fuel wasn't going to do anything for Vettel, and he quite clearly had more than one lap's worth of whatever advantage he had as Christian Horner said that he'd had.

In fact, the lap times suggest that Webber never went into any fuel saving mode. It rather suggests they already were saving fuel and they gave Vettel leave to turn it off...........

[segedunum]

The race engineer (Pilbeam) received the order to explain to him (Webber) what was going on. To explain that Vettel was not attacking him but needed to go faster to avoid being passed by Hamilton.

Webber was supposed not to fight the faster Vettel but save his car to fight Hamilton. It is still not entirely clear today why (Webber wasn't informed). This engineer simply had a black out, he did not do the right thing.

Vettel was under no pressure whatsoever from Hamilton and the status quo was being maintained as it had been for many laps. That was simply an excuse. To interfere would give Hamilton the opportunity he needed, and it duly arrived.

The plot thickens there though, because it confirms that someone on high was on the hotline trying to manipulate the result of the race in Vettel's favour. Whatever Christian Horner might say in public, and I'm sure he's firefighting in private, he's going to be pissed because it totally undermines his position as Team Principal.

[segedunum]

Boy, if this breaks down this way Vettel is going to lose a lot of credibility. I can just hear everyone refer to him as a marketing tool from now on.

Not only that, but it raises the question of whether Vettel is as good as people think he is. Remember that Red Bull have already tried to explain away Vettel's lack of performance at Barcelona and particularly Monaco as being a strange chassis problem.

No wonder Webber is sick about this. He just found out that after two convincing wins and 3 poles that he is the designated number 2.

When Webber sits down and thinks about this he'll realise that his closest championship rival scored no points and he made a net gain. While Red Bull will be unhappy about gifting McLaren a one-two Webber's realistic title rival is his team mate.

[marcush.]

lets face it :the damage is done and the reason for having a team in F1 for didi Mateschitz is to promote his redbull brand.
This is already backfireing on the brand ..no question about it.
How can nobody restrain Marko from babling around like he was not paid by the team ,talking in stark contrast to Horner who is officially the guy in charge...
as I said months ago ..RedBull as a team is not doing well ,they do have a quick car
good people but the team is not really a well oiled machine producing results as it should ,given the incredients.

[BreezyRacer]

No doubt Webber got the points from Turkey but 15 points in the context of 25 point wins is chump change. And guess who Webber has to rely on to make he doesn't land with a DNF or two .. the same team that tried to set him down. The only these 15 points will help is if McLaren kick Red bull's butt in Canada, which is quite likely anyway.

BTW, that whole article is worth translating. I tried to copy/paste but the German text stuck.

Anyway, in the article Helmut sees nothing wrong with it and laughingly he finishes proclamation of the order to Webber with "this is not a team order" Sooo funnny!!!!

When this whole thing spills out and taints team Red Bull maybe Helmut will have to take a bit of a walk to calm things down. "We treat our drivers equally" .. based on that perpetual comment what is Vettel having to give up?

[Richard]

[Btw, I still think that Webber only was on pole in Turkey because Vettel's car broke in qualifying.

I missed that (nursing a baby with measles!), what happened? Can't have been that bad to get to 3rd on the grid.

[BreezyRacer]

Earlier this year, I guess it was Malaysia, Webber indicated that the "race" between Red Bull teammates was over after turn 1, as in this is/was an agreement in the team. Does anyone else remember that? If so maybe the rule is really ..

If Vettel.Lap1.Turn1=1
then Webber.LastLap.LastTurn>1
Else

[raymondu999]

I thought that he only mentioned the fact that whoever got to turn 1 first should be given room?

[WhiteBlue]

[Btw, I still think that Webber only was on pole in Turkey because Vettel's car broke in qualifying.

I missed that (nursing a baby with measles!), what happened? Can't have been that bad to get to 3rd on the grid.

Lower right rear wish bone assembly broke. Rear center damper linkage broke.

[WhiteBlue]

The drivers were not on different strategies, Pup. There were on exactly the same strategy. Webber reached the switch point to fuel saving one or two laps earlier because he ran in free air at the front while Vettel was slip streaming most of the race. Please read DC's comment which said the same.

DC is merely towing the Red Bull party line there. Saving 1 kilo of fuel wasn't going to do anything for Vettel, and he quite clearly had more than one lap's worth of whatever advantage he had as Christian Horner said that he'd had.

In fact, the lap times suggest that Webber never went into any fuel saving mode. It rather suggests they already were saving fuel and they gave Vettel leave to turn it off...........

Actually having thought a little bit more about the whole business I now think that Red Bull definitely issued a team order to their drivers although they would never admit it.

I also think that the reason for the order might have simply been that Vettel was the faster of the two Red Bull drivers in Turkey and Horner knew it. It would make more sense than Marko and Mateschitz trying to screw Webber in favor of Vettel.

In fact Vettel had been the faster driver all weekend with the only exception of the last stint in qualifying when his suspension was broken. And even then he managed a third place in qualifying.

This theory would explain why team order was issued in the first place. It was simply an optimization to get Vettel past Webber and into clean air and avoid the risk of eventually loosing the lead to Hamilton.

Screwing up the team order by delivering it via the race engineers was a huge hiccup. Webber's race engineer Ciaron Pilbeam stalled the order by not passing it on to Webber for two laps. Horner had no radio channel to the drivers to talk to them himself.

In the meantime Vettel was under the impression that the team asked him to pass Webber. He duly did on lap 40 but he took Webber's defense as a bit of showboating for the stewards. Next he tried to get to the racing line and must have received a huge shock as Webber did not yield. Hence the hand gestures when he had parked his damaged car and taken off his helmet. It must have looked like bedlam for him what happened.

What do you think of this?

[BreezyRacer]

Seg
Follow this link and you'll see that Helmut even admits to what you say, all be it for a German audience. At the end of the quoted order is "this is not a team order". It's so pathetic and funny all at the same time ..

http://translate.google.com/translate?j ... auto&tl=en