Could Webber have helped Vettel do better in Monaco?

Starting on soft tires, the first driver on the grid fitted with yellow-walled tires, Sebastian Vettel could have made the winning gamble of the weekend in Monaco, as rain was forecast around the thirtieth lap, and he would have consequently been the only driver not to have stopped at the front. Ultimately, with the rain not materializing, the Red Bull driver pitted on the 46th lap to switch to super soft tires just as his rivals, Mark Webber, Nico Rosberg, Fernando Alonso, and Lewis Hamilton, were closing in on him with their soft tires. The German was still able to snatch positions from Felipe Massa and the McLaren driver in the process, but according to Gary Anderson, an analyst for the BBC, the reigning double world champion was not particularly aided by the safety car’s deployment early in the race: « The strategy was a gamble for everyone in Monaco. The front runners didn’t know how their super soft tires would hold up, and it was the same with Vettel on soft tires. The safety car at the start of the race really helped the drivers on super softs to keep them in good shape. Normally, the rear tires get quite hot at the start, and if you can’t control that, they deteriorate. This usually explains the brevity of the first stint. Vettel probably lost some of his advantage because of that. »

But Gary Anderson also believes that Sebastian Vettel could have hoped for better than a fourth-place finish with a little help from his teammate: Webber could actually have helped Vettel a bit more in his attempt to gain positions. By holding off Rosberg and Alonso a little longer, Vettel could have come between them. Webber might have worried about being overtaken by Vettel himself, but he could have ensured that it didn’t happen by knowing the minimum pit stop time.

In the column he writes for the BBC, Mark Webber readily admits that he could have helped his teammate: « If we had to try something, I could have been even nicer. I left quite a margin for Seb. If I had wanted to help him get between the others, I could have slowed down and that would have been even better for the team, but it simply wasn’t part of the plan. »

The Australian, in fact, defends himself against having helped his teammate even though, after putting on new Soft tires himself on the 29th lap, he couldn’t achieve the same times as the German, who was on worn Soft tires: “I heard afterward that people assumed I was holding up Nico, Fernando, and Lewis Hamilton, who were also behind me, to help my teammate, Sebastian Vettel, gain positions. Holding up the pack to help Seb? That’s absolute nonsense. You simply can’t afford to do that in Monaco,” explains the tall Mark. The Red Bull driver adds: “In the end, Seb had no more tires and had to stop because we were starting to get faster, but if his tires had held up, he could have fought for the victory.”

The winner of the 2012 Monaco Grand Prix also explains that such a strategy could have been counterproductive and might have even ruined the Austrian team’s chances of victory: « The problem with trying to do that is that you expose yourself to even more pressure from the guys behind, Nico and Fernando in this case. Then, the guys in the pits could have messed up Seb’s stop, and we would have taken risks for nothing. You always run the risk of a backlash when you try to be too clever, so it’s better to avoid doing it, » concludes the Australian.