With the racing yet to even start, the leaders of Formula 1
for the past four years already find themselves on the back foot. Red Bull
completed just 20 laps in the first test at Jerez and just 116 laps at the next
test in Bahrain. In comparison the leaders of the winter, Mercedes, completed
309 and 315 laps respectively.
It doesn’t help that there hasn’t even been a hint of the
pace we’ve come to expect from Red Bull in recent times while Mercedes have
been toward the top of the charts in practically every day of testing so far.
These problems have mostly come down to the new turbo
Renault power unit which has suffered from heating issues amongst other things
while Adrian Newey has once again made the Red Bull as compact as possible to
the exclusion of cooling which apparently the Renault needs a fair amount of.
Obviously these problems are being sorted as quickly as
possible, but even if the team sort out their car, Renault say they are weeks
behind the development of Ferrari let alone the pace setting Mercedes powered
teams. Rumours go they may be even further behind than that.
It’s not often that Sebastian Vettel has had to struggle in
his Grand Prix career, or worse be faced with a car that might not be
competitive. This situation could about to become a reality as he tries to
equal Michael Schumacher’s record of five titles in a row.
At times when the car has not been fully optimised Vettel’s
former team mate Mark Webber was often able to equal or better the German.
Certainly in 2010 they were matched for almost all the season until the exhaust
blown diffuser came on stream to give Vettel a decisive advantage as only he
could fully exploit the driving style required.
After dominating 2011, 2012 started out with Red Bull
struggling slightly and again Webber was back on terms after being
comprehensively outperformed the previous year. What I’m suggesting is that
when the car is less able to perform at its maximum, Vettel is not as able to
drag that car to results as well as others like Fernando Alonso or Lewis
Hamilton might. On the other hand when a car is performing well, I don’t think
anyone can get the best out of it as well as Vettel.
But it’s all change in 2014, the blown diffusers are a thing
of the past. What made Vettel so special in these years was that he was perhaps
the finest in the art of counter intuitive driving, getting on the throttle to
blow the exhaust gases on to the diffuser to create more downforce while
usually you wouldn’t be touching the right pedal.
This technology is gone and with it one of the biggest
advantages Red Bull and Vettel had. He was also the best at using the high
degradation Pirelli tyres. With the new engines having so much more torque
Pirelli have rightly gone conservative for this year, so another advantage of
Vettel has been taken away.
It’ll be interesting to see how his new team mate Daniel
Ricciardo gets on. He is there to make an impression, it’s the biggest
opportunity of his career so far and he’ll want to make the most of it. If
Vettel struggles, Ricciardo could well take advantage. However, I just can’t
see this happening.
Let’s not get carried away with the Red Bull struggles just
yet, this is a mere hypothesis about what could happen. Red Bull have Newey and
a great team which will be working on how to solve their current problems 24/7,
if they’re not competitive now, they certainly will be at some point.
And as I have written before, to me Vettel more than proved
he had learned to get results from a less than perfect car, like in the first
half of 2013 where let us not forget it was a lot closer than the end result
would have you believe. Vettel was never out of the top four in that first half
and scored wins he really shouldn’t have. That part of the season really showed
that perhaps the issues that were once there had been eliminated.
The year is all up in the air still, but one thing is
certain Red Bull are not going to be cruising away with this one and Vettel
will be tested to the limit but there’s little doubt that he’s more than up to
the task. If anything it’ll make him better and more determined to get back to
the top such is his will to win and when Red Bull get it right, which they
will, Vettel will be there to exploit it.
all photo's taken from autosport.com
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