Vettel ignites Red Bull rivalry

Honest to God, it’s like we’re psychic here at Sporting Fare. No sooner had we speculated on the simmering rivalries at McLaren and Red Bull Sebastian Vettel decided it would be a good idea to run Mark Webber off the road and hand McLaren a one-two at the Turkish Grand Prix last Sunday.

Neither man was willing to accept blame for the collision which put Vettel out of the race and relegated Webber to third behind Hamilton and Button, but for us and almost everybody else the fault lay with Vettel for turning into his team mate. Interestingly, Red Bull boss Christian Horner seemed to find fault with Webber just after the race but we reckon he’ll have had time to reflect since and see that it was all down to Vettel.

Either way, he was rightly furious with his drivers. What should have been a third straight win for Webber and a one-two finish to strengthen Red Bull’s grip on the Constructors Championship was ruined in one moment of madness.

Smug smiles in the McLaren pit though as both Hamilton and Button regained ground in the Drivers Championship. The relationship between the two Englishmen seems to be holding strong in spite of the fact they are fighting each other for the title.

In Turkey they raced one another hard but, as both men pointed out, fairly. In the end both had to switch to fuel saving mode which meant that Hamilton got the win by default after some good racing between the two which saw a couple of overtaking manoeuvres. Team orders are, of course, illegal in F1 now but handily for the teams “saving fuel” remains a legal tactic and you can hardly blame McLaren for making sure both their men finished the race.

We can’t imagine Button was happy to give up the race to Hamilton but he put on an accepting public front. How long he is prepared to do this – or Hamilton for that matter – should the two end up really fighting for the number one spot we’ll have to see.

For now, attention switches firmly to Red Bull, Webber and Vettel. The next Grand Prix is in Canada on June 13th and should Webber out-qualify his team mate for a fourth race in a row you can bet that now obvious rivalry and resentment will once again come to the surface.

It’s starting to look like a four horse race but Red Bull still hold the advantage with a superior car over McLaren. Now they just need to make sure their drivers are, if not on the same page, at least not in the same racing line because McLaren are ready and waiting to take advantage of any mistakes.

This is all what Formula One needs, of course. Team mates racing each other for victories, a tight title race and simmering rivalries. Far, FAR better than a best car wins procession. Loving it.

It has become crystal clear that the Red Bull’s of Mark Webber and Sebastian Vettel are streets ahead of the rest of the Formula One field when it comes to speed and, increasingly, reliability.

Webber success causing Red Bull friction?

Despite McLaren’s early improvement on a shaky start during which Jenson Button went top of the Drivers rankings Red Bull have stormed through the last three races with Webber leading the charge. He now sits at the top of the rankings, as do Red Bull in the Constructors Championship.

It is no real surprise the Red Bull have the best car on the track. That was clear from the start of the season. What is a surprise is that it is Webber, not Vettel, that has taken up the mantle of World Champion contender.

A while back, we wrote a post anticipating fireworks at McLaren as the current and former World Champions battled it for this year’s title. Cracks were beginning to show as McLaren number one (so many thought) Hamilton struggled to keep pace with Button in the same car. McLaren were gradually switching there focus to Button and Hamilton, understandably, was not happy.

The pair presented a united front in public but such is the driven nature (pun very much intended) of a racing driver that behind closed doors we have no doubt Hamilton was feeling frustrated while Button was feeling slightly smug.

However, with the growing dominance of Red Bull we now wonder if the expected fireworks may now explode in their garage. Vettel was undisputed number one at Red Bull when the season started. Full of promise and talent, Red Bull were fully focused on him to lead their challenge this year.

Webber, though, had other ideas and three pole positions in a row, including for this weekend’s Turkish Grand Prix, and two wins in a row in Monaco and Spain has surely given Red Bull pause for thought.

Neither driver was particularly happy with the car in qualifying but nevertheless they sit one and three on the grid, with a confident sounding Hamilton splitting them and Button just behind Vettel. It makes for a fantastic race tomorrow, that’s for sure.

And as Jonathan Legard wrote in his BBC blog on Friday: “The in-house rivalry at Red Bull has become far more intense than many of us bargained for at the start of the season.”

Perhaps more intense than that at McLaren…at least unless or until McLaren retake the initiative in the championship race.