Red Bull The Team To Beat?
Despite Ferrari coming away from Bahrain with a maximum points haul, it has been Red Bull who have been playing on the minds of the top teams. Lewis Hamilton mused the possibility of Mark Webber retiring (although you have to wonder what the question posed to him was) while Ron Dennis made some cryptic remarks about Sebastian Vettel’s engine problems in Bahrain but it is the question of Red Bull’s pace that is most interesting, not least because Ferrari have also jumped on this particular bandwagon.
“I think maybe performance-wise maybe Red Bull is a bit ahead of everybody now, which is not a surprise because they finished 2009 very strongly, so they kept the momentum”
Fernando Alonso
“The Red Bull is ridiculously faster than anyone else’s car. It’s insane… They should be quite a lot further ahead in general.”
Lewis Hamilton
The general consensus from observers was that Ferrari and Red Bull were pretty closely matched in qualifying trim and Ferrari probably had the edge over a race distance as The Scuderia better preserved its tyres. So why all the platitudes for Red Bull? Lewis Hamilton even went as far as suggesting that Red Bull were a good half a second quicker than Ferrari and while Ferrari haven’t bandied around any numbers, the general message coming from the Italians is that they are part of a McLaren-Ferrari-Mercedes group trying to catch up with Red Bull.
We’re only one race down, and the Red Bull performance was hardly of Brawn GP proportions but are the Austrians really miles ahead of the opposition? Fix the reliability issues and will we see one team dominate?
Or is all this perhaps just linked to Renault’s desire to equalise engine power?
I see where you’re coming from and take Hamilton’s view on board, but F1 is all about points on the board and Red Bull are behind a few others at the moment. Doesn’t matter how good you look or how fast your car is if you can’t score the points.
Button said Webber’s tyres were graining badly last race and Ron Dennis actually said he thought that Red Bull may not have a fuel tank big enough to hold enough fuel to last a race at the pace needed to win.
I mean seriously, what was all that stuff about spark plugs! Are we really supposed to believe that?
McLaren are going to be very close to the top if not this race, soon. So we have 3 teams all pretty close and maybe all in front of each other in different areas of development.
Michael(Quote) (Reply)
I think you missed it entirely which leaves me thinking I need to rewrite it!
Ferrari and McLaren say Red Bull are far ahead but (ignoring reliability) there wasn’t any real sign that they were significantly quicker than Ferrari on Bahrain alone.
So why are they being so nice?
Maverick(Quote) (Reply)
Smoke and mirrors I think. Even Fernando said the F10 was the best car he had driven.
saltire(Quote) (Reply)
Doesn’t mean he wouldn’t like the RB6 even more though.
Mind you, he admitted he thought similar thoughts about last year’s Renault.
Maverick(Quote) (Reply)
After watching FP3 it might well be the car to beat as Webber ends the session 2 tenths ahead of Alonso
saltire(Quote) (Reply)
Quallifying kind of proved this too, a Red Bull 1-2 with Alonso in 3rd, 2 tenths off pole. Vettel seemed on the ragged edge though, so is he having to work too hard to get the best from the car?
Pitmonster(Quote) (Reply)
Leave your response!
Recent Posts
Recent Comments
Tags
Blogroll
2013 Circuit Guides
All the data for every stop on the 2013 calendar... [More]
Statistics
Grand Prix
Results Summary
Drivers:
Full Standings
Categories
Archives
Awards
Search the Blog
About Us
Most Commented
Most Viewed