Assessment: Red Bull and Vettel unbeatable at Suzuka

Sebastian Vettel was, today, the author of an impressive performance. Nothing and no one could stop him in his solo run of the day. The young German prodigy demonstrated all his top speed on the most technical circuit of the season. Vettel consistently lapped 2 to 4 tenths faster than any other driver. The gap even peaked at 6 tenths on certain laps, and generally, on the most important laps.

Vettel had an excellent start and immediately gained a 1-second lead on everyone. The first pit stop took longer than expected, but despite this, he rejoined the race well ahead. He held the fastest lap for a long time with 1:32.572 until his teammate Webber snatched it away in the 50th of 53 laps with a time of 1:32.569. For comparison, Räikkönen’s best was 1:32.999, Trulli’s 1:33.152, and Hamilton’s 1:33.259. The numbers speak for themselves… Sebastian Vettel led a race from start to finish for the first time in his career and secured his third victory of the season. In the championship standings, he gains 8 and 9 points respectively on Rubens Barrichello and Jenson Button, maintaining the suspense for the two remaining races. Sebastian Vettel is now 5 points behind Barrichello and 16 points behind Jenson Button. The driver’s championship is not yet decided!

As for Mark Webber, one could say it wasn’t his weekend. After having to start from the pits because his team had to change the chassis of his car following the Australian’s crash on Saturday, he spent his entire race in last position. Red Bull Racing took the opportunity to conduct tests for upcoming races. His only satisfaction of the weekend was setting the fastest lap, 3 thousandths ahead of his teammate Vettel. The constructors’ championship seems truly out of reach for Red Bull now. The team is trailing by 35.5 points behind Brawn GP, which means they would need to secure two one-two finishes and Brawn GP must not score any points in the remaining two races.

Sebastian Vettel – 1st:

What a race! We already had pole position and judging by the strategies, we were favorites, but, you know, you must first of all get a good start. We were quite confident that we could defend our position since we had good starts in the past, but it was closer than I expected. Coming into the first corner, I suddenly saw a silver arrow on my left but I was on the inside and had the advantage. After that, I put my head down and pushed hard every lap. The car was fantastic and I was able to build a gap pretty quickly. We had 2 more laps than Lewis [Hamilton] and 1 more than Jarno [Trulli] in the first stint. So everything worked perfectly, and I was able to control the race. We then put on the soft tires for the last stint, and I wanted to have some fun. I did a good lap (I think in 1:32.5), but then my engineers told me on the radio “watch your tires, there might be a safety car or something” and two laps later, the safety car was out on the track! It’s not what you want when you’re leading, but I kept preserving my tires and had a good second start. I was lucky because Grosjean was behind me and there were only 3 or 4 laps left to secure the victory. Finally, I did it! Fantastic. I shouted with joy on the radio. The last few races have been up and down, sometimes you have the speed and other times, you don’t. It’s good to be back on the top step of the podium on Sunday. A huge thank you to the whole Red Bull team for this.

Mark Webber – 17th:

I had to make two stops in my first two laps, from there, it was over. On the first lap, the headrest came loose and I had to pit to repair it. I went back out but the same thing happened again, so I had to come back in for the mechanics to fix it. We tested quite a few things today, as well as for future races. That’s all we could do today.

Christian Horner – Team Principal:

A brilliant job from Sebastian [Vettel] today. He was on the edge all weekend and he seems very pleased with himself. The car performed fantastically, and I want to say a big thank you to the whole team and everyone at Red Bull Racing, Renault, and all our partners who support us so well. For Mark [Webber], it was a hellish weekend, with a chassis change overnight and then issues from the first lap. It was a test for him and us, but it’s encouraging that in the end, he set the fastest lap of the race.