Ecclestone talks about Red Bull, Vettel, and Webber

In a cross-interview with Christian Horner published on the official Formula One website, Bernie Ecclestone took the opportunity to reflect on the success of the Austrian team, which he believes is partly due to luck: « Look at [their] competitors: Ferrari, McLaren, Mercedes. You don’t beat them without having some luck! But the fact is, Red Bull Racing has also done a fantastic job. »

Some, however, prefer to question the Austrian team’s adherence to the rules, which has been repeatedly suspected regarding the legality of its car and its budget for which the FOTA requested clarifications: « All the other teams are wondering why Red Bull wins and not them, so they nail Red Bull to the pillory instead of doing their own work correctly » criticized the Briton before confiding: « In the Brabham days, I had a significant advantage: we were the masters at cheating without ever getting caught. That’s no longer possible today! Today, it’s mainly about who will best interpret the rules […]. »

And in this field, Red Bull has major assets: « With Adrian Newey, they obviously have a design wizard, but it also has to do with the mentality of the whole team. Everyone there desperately wants to win and win again » he explains the current success of the team based in Milton Keynes.

The other asset of Red Bull is in the seat of the RB7 with the number 1: Sebastian has an absolute desire for victories but keeps his feet on the ground. No victory, no matter how beautiful, will prevent him from keeping his feet on the ground: this is extremely important in this business. Seb is relaxed and will always remain true to himself: that’s why things are easy, assures Bernie Ecclestone, who also believes that Vettel is not yet at the peak of what he can do in Formula One: There’s still a lot to come from him.

However, for this, Bernie Ecclestone strongly advises the future youngest double world champion in history not to eye a seat at Maranello, at least for the moment: « Looking at the current situation, it would be a good way to slow him down » he claims.

Ecclestone also doesn’t forget Mark Webber, whom he believes is not honored by the constant comparison with Sebastian Vettel: “This Sebastian is better than the Mark we’ve seen so far, but who else is better than Mark? […] I think it’s unfair to put Mark down. In this context, racing with Sebastian, he didn’t have the easiest task, because from my point of view, Sebastian is the best driver on the grid at the moment.”

From then on, the question of motivation arises for the Australian, and when asked what he would do to motivate his second driver in such a situation, Bernie Ecclestone replies that he would offer him more money, acknowledging, however, that back when he was the owner of the Brabham team, his drivers did not earn much even as leaders.