MOTORSPORT: A trigger for genuine F1 racing

The overwhelming weight of opinion today, certainly in the English-speaking F1 world, is with Mark Webber, seen to have been denied a victory at the Sepang circuit last evening by his young triple world champion teammate, Sebastian Vettel.

Webber was in front of Vettel almost 80 per cent of the way through the race and after the last change of tyres, the Red Bull team decided it was to be Webber’s day, yet Vettel aggressively overtook him and won.

Was Vettel wrong? And another question, and more pertinent: is it right that a team decide, especially so far from the chequered flag, that its drivers simply maintain their position to the end of the race?

Obviously there is enormous heartache in Australia for Webber, having had so much bad luck or misfortune, even though he has been in the sport’s top team for several years now. But would it have been good, or right, for him to have won in Malaysia if a faster teammate had sat behind him for the last dozen laps?

And, in the fullness of time, would it have been satisfying to Webber to know that he won in that fashion?

Yes, there was agreement within the team that it was to be Webber’s turn to win. Red Bull team principal Christian Horner said last night: “Sebastian decided to take things in to his own hands today. What happened today is something that shouldn’t have happened.”

Although Vettel initially denied knowledge of the arrangement, within minutes he acknowledged it.

Initially he said he had been “probably a little bit too keen” to overtake Webber. Later he was “not entirely happy”, admitting to “a big mistake” and that he “should have behaved better”.

He went from denying, somehow, that his pass was not deliberate to admitting that, of course, it was.

Then he labeled himself “definitely the black sheep right now”.

He even confessed to having “f….. up”.

But Vettel might have done the F1 world a favour in doing what he did.

Shouldn’t racing be about racing? And racing to the chequered flag -- as it is in NASCAR, where drivers from the same team can fight to the chequered flag.

Red Bull Racing, or any F1 team, has its reasons for wanting certain outcomes. But what is more important in the big picture: that the two Red Bull cars continue circulating to gain maximum exposure for the team’s energy drink company owner; or that those watching get to see a race? A real race.

Vettel is the villain today in the eyes of the majority of F1 fans and even within the team that has marveled at his brilliance in winning three world titles by the age of 25. In time, and even though he has apologised quite profusely now, he may have done F1 a huge favour in tearing up, in the heat of battle, an agreement that went against the spirit of racing.

Behind the Red Bulls yesterday the much-improved Mercedes team finished third and fourth, with Lewis Hamilton at less than flat strap conserving fuel and his teammate Nico Rosberg unhappily ordered not to overtake him.

It was awful to watch a clearly faster Mercedes not overtake, forbidden by the team principal to pass, an identical but slower Merc in front of it in the final laps.

It would have been the same had Vettel stayed behind Webber.

In Europe, the heartland of F1, there has been a quite sudden shift to pay TV as the live telecaster of grands prix. Whether the races be on pay or free-to-air television, surely the viewers are entitled to see racing, but more particularly now that a substantial part of that audience is paying to see the “races”.

As much as Australian hearts ache for Webber today, should Vettel be condemned for being the man who wanted to race. This author thinks not.

Webber is coming home for a couple of weeks before the next GP in Shanghai on April 14. It will be a time for reflection and to ride his surfboard after saying he had “a lot things in my mind in the last laps of the (Malaysian) GP”.

Perhaps he was wondering whether he still wanted to be part of the Red Bull team, or at least whether he wanted to remain teammates with Vettel. The next couple of weeks will give him time to contemplate all of that, although he has a contract – for this year at least.

There has been this kind of friction between him and Vettel before, most famously at the 2010 Turkish GP. Webber always has been the underdog in the team and Vettel the golden-haired boy.

Christian Horner has been quite supportive of Webber, but Red Bull owner Dietrich Mateschitz’s personal adviser on motorsport, Austrian ex-F1 driver Helmut Marko, has made it known he doubts Webber’s ability to put together a campaign comprehensive enough to win a world title.

Webber’s Twitter tag is @AussieGrit. As he thinks ahead to the Chinese race and the rest of the season, he needs to put this disappointment behind him and draw on all that grit.

The bottom-line for Webber from Malaysia is that he is third in the world championship, behind Vettel and Melbourne race winner Kimi Raikkonen, who was seventh yesterday in his Lotus-Renault. The gap between Vettel and Webber is 14 points, with 17 races to go.

“I compromised my race even before the start when the conditions were very slippery, aquaplaning off at turn three,” Ricciardo said.

“I managed to keep going, but I went across the gravel quite fast and damaged the floor. That probably played a part in my problem at the end.

Ricciardo continued: “I got a reasonable start and made up a few places and was pretty pleased with the first couple of laps, but I did not have the pace to keep the Lotuses behind me and stay in the top 10, even though the switch to dry tyres was well timed.

“I think the damage on that opening lap affected my overall performance all race long,” he commented.
Somehow Ricciardo’s French teammate Jean-Eric Vergne crafted a world championship point with 10th place, even after colliding with a Caterham car as he ended a pit stop – which cost time for a change of his car’s nose and a $13,000 fine on the team for a dangerous release.

Toro Rosso principal Franz Tost said Ricciardo’s performance had been “positive in the circumstances” but acknowledged that the team’s cars are too slow in qualifying.

Fernando Alonso won in Malaysia for Ferrari last year but this year he collided with a surprisingly slow Vettel in a corner on the opening lap which damaged his front wing.

Surprisingly he and the red team’s chiefs decided not to pit him at the end of the first lap and suddenly the front wing blew under the chassis, almost made the car lift off, and sent Alonso into a gravel trap and out of the race.

The day’s humour was provided by Lewis Hamilton pitting his Mercedes at McLaren before remembering he’s changed teams.

Brabham won on Saturday from eighth on the grid and on Sunday from fifth, after making his way up to third on the first lap and into the lead on lap nine before winning by 6.255 seconds.

Driving for Andretti Autosport, he had beaten his main rival, Diego Ferreira, by 10 seconds the previous day.

Brabham now leads the championship by 12 points as the series enters a nine-week break until the “Night before the 500” at Indianapolis on May 25.

Will Power had pole position for the Indycar race at St Pete for the fourth straight year but wound up only 16th after contact from JR Hildebrand gave him a flat rear tyre and a bent mirror and he later made a mistake and brushed a tyre wall.

James Hinchcliffe won the race – the first Canadian victor in IndyCar since Paul Tracy in 2007. The win gave Michael Andretti his 44th success as an IndyCar team owner – two more wins than he had as a driver.

Helio Castroneves and Marco Andretti made the podium, New Zealander Scott Dixon was fifth (behind Tony Kanaan), and reigning series champion Ryan Hunter-Reay 18th.

Kyle Busch won today’s fifth round of NASCAR’s Sprint Cup at the Fontana Speedway in California for Toyota and Joe Gibbs Racing, ahead of Dale Earnhardt Junior and Kurt Busch.

Earnhardt has taken the series lead while Australia’s Marcos Ambrose slipped eight places today to 23rd after being classified only 36th and 18 laps down at Fontana after blowing a couple of tyres.

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