Strange going-ons at Red Bull

[segedunum]

Interesting perspective from Joe Saward on who Helmut Marko is and how he's the real Team Principal:

http://joesaward.wordpress.com/2010/06/ ... it-matter/

Pandamasque beat me to it! Good piece though, and I always wondered what happened to Berger at Torro Rosso.........

[myurr]

It was quite clear that with the speed advantage the McLarens had on the straight, it was impossible to fall back into them. Mark had requested the lap before to ask Sebastian to back off a bit. There was no way you could do that because of the McLarens being right there. It looked like Mark started to struggle with the rear tyres a bit more - that's what it looked like on the pit wall. And Sebastian, between laps 38 and 39, really closed up rapidly to the back of Mark...

Somebody has yet to make one single point that contradicts the theory. Vettel had no means to show his true speed behind Webber and was putting the pressure on prior to the accidents.

Well there's the inconvenient quote directly from Marko himself that Red Bull lost a guaranteed one two with the incident. If Vettel was under pressure from Hamilton, then the same would have been doubly true for Webber if he was indeed slower. So either it was a guaranteed one two, or Hamilton was likely to overtake one or both Red Bulls.

In one or other statement Marko is clearly lying which calls into question everything he says.

Edit: In fact it goes beyond that. Mark's lap times were identical and Vettel was only able to pick up the pace through using a different engine setting, a fact confirmed by the team (despite initial lies indicating otherwise). If Mark's rear tyres were going off then surely his times would have been rising and Vettel would have hit the same problem within a few laps anyway!

The team have been caught lying already and now magically a few days after the event the team were concerned about Mark's rear tyres. Why didn't they mention this before amongst all their other excuses?

[segedunum]

It isn't another interpretation at all. It is just confirmation that Horner and Marko thought Vettel was the faster driver that afternoon.

No, it's an excuse that we haven't heard before. Read it carefully and look at the lap times that were posted previously. Webber was clearly fast enough to stay ahead of Vettel and Hamilton comfortably. I'll also point out again that you don't switch positions for who you think is faster with the positions they were all in. Doesn't happen.

Somebody has yet to make one single point that contradicts the theory.

You can't come up with a theory and say that nothing contradicts it. It doesn't work like that I'm afraid. There is certainly nothing that confirms any theory, and you don't switch positions when you have a one-two with your rivals just behind. Vettel was under no pressure from Hamilton whatsoever. End of story. That didn't happen, which is where this "Mark wasn't fast enough and had tyre trouble" thing has miraculously appeared from. Again, he certainly wasn't any slower than he had been or than Hamilton was and it was Vettel who miraculously sped up. In two laps.

They're trying to find all ways to say that Webber had slowed but there is no evidence to back that up. Indeed, the lap times say otherwise.

Vettel had no means to show his true speed behind Webber and was putting the pressure on prior to the accidents.

That's an interesting way of saying that Vettel got a helping hand to be faster, because he certainly didn't show anything before lap 37.

[marcush.]

the Dr.piece from saward is really hitting the nail..

[bill shoe]

Interesting perspective from Joe Saward on who Helmut Marko is and how he's the real Team Principal:

http://joesaward.wordpress.com/2010/06/ ... it-matter/

Joe Saward will go for weeks at a time with silly postings about the weather and how many pigeons there are in some city. Then out of nowhere he puts together a tremendous piece that gives perspective on a current event and explains the line of history that led to it. The link above is the latter. Now we will have 6 weeks with more posts about weather and traffic.

[WhiteBlue]

@ myurr and segedunum. I don't agree with your view here. Let me just say that all your points don't convince me. A driver stuck behind his team mate for 40 laps cannot show any superior speed he may have due to setup or driving style. Only when he gets into clean air will he be able to prove his point. This is why all research on lap times is moot. So let' stop the discussion on the point if Vettel would have been faster. We cannot know. All we know is that the RB management probably thought so or pretended to see it that way because it comes up in all the early statements.

Letting Vettel and Webber swap positions was not supposed to cost Red Bull anything. If Vettel was faster, the swap had the advantage that he would open a gap to Webber and the McLaren drivers. If Hamilton then had launched a successful attack towards the end of the race on the back straight the 25 points for winning the race would have been much more secure. But again we do know not if Hamilton was a real danger to the Bulls. It depends of what you like to believe. Katholics and Protestants have disagreements on similar issues of believe.

Joe Saward adds a bit of detail on Marko but isn't saying anything new that I havn't posted before. Marko screwed Sauber and Berger with his delegated power from Mateschitz. Horner was always carefully to keep his dick in his trousers when Marko started effing around because he knew he would loose a pissing contest. So these two wankers between themselves should carry the blame for the sh!t that went down on Sunday. The drivers were both caught out in the cross fire IMO.

[segedunum]

I think we have to go back a few years to when Mark Webber said Red Bull were treated as a 'joke'. Between Red Bull and Torro Rosso these were the teams who fannyed about with Klien, Liuzzi and Speed and fired an experienced driver in Bourdais and replaced him with a 19 year old kid who they told they didn't expect anything from for the rest of the season.

Scott Speed was another Mark Webber type example, because even though they'd given him a drive they quite clearly didn't want him or Liuzzi to be there, and the soundbites Torro Rosso dropped to the media sound very familiar. They pointed fingers at any incident until they got the driver changes they wanted. In reality, that attitude comes down from Helmut Marko.

With Red Bull's recent success maybe we were too optimistic that that would go away overnight?

[segedunum]

A driver stuck behind his team mate for 40 laps cannot show any superior speed he may have due to setup or driving style.

He didn't show any superior speed because he wasn't anywhere near to doing what he did on laps 37 to 39. Put simply, there is no evidence for it.

This is why all research on lap times is moot.

Well, it's not because even behind Webber on lap 37 and 38 he started miraculously going faster than he had.

All we know is that the RB management probably thought so or pretended to see it that way because it comes up in all the early statements.

It depends of what you like to believe. Katholics and Protestants have disagreements on similar issues of believe.

Well, no. Vettel miraculously sped up on lap 37. What are the odds that the longer a discussion goes on someone will say "Oh, it's all just like religion"? It isn't. The facts tell us that Vettel wasn't faster than Webber at any stage until lap 37 when he was suddenly significantly much faster. They also tell us he wasn't under threat from Hamilton. We'd also need the gaps between the drivers which we don't have, but they all looked constant until that point.

All this tells us is that Red Bull are simply trying to engineer that impression and pave the way for a driver's exit behind his back, as they always do.

[WhiteBlue]

The facts tell us that Vettel wasn't faster than Webber at any stage until lap 37 when he was suddenly significantly much faster.

I don't know why you disregard the fact that one cannot tell the speed of a driver who is stuck behind another and can't overtake. All these ramblings are without a purpose. Why don't we agree that the public had no way to tell which of the two drivers would, could, should have been faster in free air? What is so hard about agreeing to disagree?

The majority of people think that Vettel is to blame because it looked that way. I have a minority opinion and believe that Red Bull are to blame. I can live with being in the minority. So let us rest the case.

[Pierre6]

The facts tell us that Vettel wasn't faster than Webber at any stage until lap 37 when he was suddenly significantly much faster.

I don't know why you disregard the fact that one cannot tell the speed of a driver who is stuck behind another and can't overtake. All these ramblings are without a purpose. Why don't we agree that the public had no way to tell which of the two drivers would, could, should have been faster in free air? What is so hard about agreeing to disagree?

The majority of people think that Vettel is to blame because it looked that way. I have a minority opinion and believe that Red Bull are to blame. I can live with being in the minority. So let us rest the case.

+1 --> Red Bull to blame.

[strad]

W/B: You're missing my point...They were not ever going to come on the radio and simply say..."let Vettel by"..It has to be couched in some innocuous form

[madtown77]

Certainly the team are to blame, they apparently created a situation where Vettel was expecting Webber to roll out the red carpet for him.

The accident is Vettel's fault though since he inexplicably swerved to the right and contacted Webber's car. I think it was telling when the BBC was talking to Whitmarsh after the race when he said something to the effect of "if it were my driver who did that I don't think I would be shaking his hand afterwords."

Red Bull tried to cater to Vettel and Webber wanted nothing of it. He didn't do anything inappropriate; he just held his line on the track. If Vettel was smart he would have braked early, or even better went to the outside and try to gain position for the next turn. He was desperate and he screwed up big time.

[segedunum]

I don't know why you disregard the fact that one cannot tell the speed of a driver who is stuck behind another and can't overtake. All these ramblings are without a purpose.

You're the one rambling. You're trying to muddy the waters by saying we can't tell when a driver behind is faster when in this case we can quite clearly see when Vettel was faster - and it wasn't before lap 37 when the gaps were consistent. The speed difference was huge and clear thereafter.

Why don't we agree that the public had no way to tell which of the two drivers would, could, should have been faster in free air? What is so hard about agreeing to disagree?

Put simply, you've tried to argue that Vettel was faster which was why Red Bull did what they did. Now that we've seen there is no evidence that was the case you're trying to muddy the waters the other way.

The majority of people think that Vettel is to blame because it looked that way. I have a minority opinion and believe that Red Bull are to blame.

I can't disagree there. They engineered that situation, but it wasn't based on Vettel being faster. Vettel is all Red Bull's young driver programme has to show for itself and the problem here is not Mark Webber. It's the fact that their protege might well not be as good as they thought.

[Richard]

Simple - the team tried to stage manage events and got caught out. I'm glad it ended in disaster, the lack of team orders has been refreshing in the last few years.

[madtown77]

Agreed, I would much rather see what happened Sunday over the embarrassment of an overtake like Massa had over Raikkonen in 2008.

It's just too bad for Webber that he had to pay the price in not winning, even though he did get to open a bigger lead over his teammate. In the end, this may prove even more beneficial if Red Bull can keep just a half step ahead of Mclaren.