The late legendary NASCAR racer and team owner Dale Earnhardt Sr. had famously said, “Second place is just the first place loser”. Sebastian Vettel, who on November 26 won his third consecutive Formula 1 world championship with Red Bull Racing (RBR), thinks along the same lines: “When you win, everything is crazy. When you lose, you have time for yourself, no one is interested”, he says.
Everyone is certainly interested in Vettel and Red Bull Racing, which also won its third constructors’ title in a row this season. What makes their accomplishments even more astonishing is the fact that the RBR team was formed in 2005 and its first win came in the 2009 Chinese Grand Prix.
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It’s not the first time that the Formula 1 title has gone down to the wire. Far from it, since any fan of the sport can certainly recall some epic finales.
In 2008, for example, when Ferrari’s Felipe Massa crossed the finish line, he had won not only the Brazilian Grand Prix but also the world championship as McLaren’s Lewis Hamilton was in sixth place. The latter, though, passed Timo Glock in the second-to-last corner and moved up to fifth, clinching the title by a single point and leaving Massa second.
The unpredictable weather conditions made the qualifying of the British Grand Prix something of a gamble, and the teams weather forecasts were expecting rain during the final session. So everyone made sure that they got out quickly in order to set a fast time before it started to rain again.
Ever since the Spanish Grand Prix, FIA has investigated the matter of some teams using exhaust gasses when the driver is off the throttle to improve the downforce of their cars. Eventually, FIA ruled that throttle opening when the accelerator is released would be limited to 10%.
However, McLaren’s Martin Whitmarsh disputed on Friday before the British GP the new regulation, claiming that Red Bull’s Renault engine retains 50% of its power under a concession for reliability.
Sebastian Vettel is on a roll and no one seems able to stop him and his Red Bull from adding a second Formula 1 championship to their trophy list. This was confirmed once again today in the European Grand Prix in Valencia, in the eighth race of the 2011, where Vettel took his sixth win of the season. The German world champion started from the pole position and was never challenged during the race as he cruised to another win.
The only driver to even come close was Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso who started from fourth place and, like his team-mate Felipe Massa, made a terrific start. Alonso had a fight with the Red Bull of Mark Webber who, despite starting from the front row, eventually lost out to the Spaniard who finished the race second, more than 10 seconds behind Vettel.
