With Vettel Dominant, F1 Becoming Battle for 2nd
Even with half the season to go, the Formula One championship already appears to be a battle for second place as hopes of catching Sebastian Vettel are fading fast.
The defending champion goes into Sunday's British Grand Prix with a commanding 77-point lead, having won six of the eight races and been runner-up in the other two.
"Sebastian is the best right now and that's why he is dominating," F1 boss Bernie Ecclestone said on the series website. "Every race weekend starts with a big question mark: Who will be able to beat Vettel?"
Red Bull teammate Mark Webber? McLaren's Jenson Button? They are locked on 109 points behind Vettel in the standings.
"He has an absolute will to win — and has everything in his hands to do it," Ecclestone said.
But despite rivals effectively conceding the title to Vettel, the German has dampened such premature talk.
"We had good races last year up to a certain point where things went wrong and we lost a lot of points, not necessarily making big mistakes but losing out, losing points," he said. "If you look at Formula One and you compare it to other sports, it's a very, very long season.
"We have a lot of races and there are so many things that can happen, and surely you will have some races where everything will work, but you will have races where you will struggle, where it will be difficult, where you have conditions like Canada or things not going your way."
In a rare blip in North America last month, Button took advantage of Vettel's last-lap slide to win.
The victory — the 10th of Button's near-200 race career — raised the Briton's spirits, having not triumphed since April 2010 in China.
"Getting the win in Canada was a very special one for me, and that will definitely keep me going for quite a bit longer in the sport in terms of excitement and really wanting to get back to that," said the 31-year-old Button, who followed up his championship triumph in 2009 with a fourth-placed finish last year.
"Winning becomes very addictive, and you really miss it when you haven't done it."
But the elation of Montreal was short-lived as pessimism reigned in the McLaren camp in the aftermath of the European Grand Prix. Vettel and Webber were only split by Ferrari's Fernando Alonso on the Valencia podium.
Button, though, is optimistic that his car will be more competitive at home as he chases his first-ever podium finish at the British GP.
"We had a discussion after the race regarding the improvements coming for Silverstone," Button said. "I was in the factory on Wednesday, and I drove the simulator, so hopefully we'll turn up with a good package."
And there is caution emanating from Red Bull headquarters near Silverstone in central England.
Although the Milton Keynes-based team enjoys an 89-point lead in the constructors' championship over the McLaren outfit of Button and Lewis Hamilton, a rule change could thwart their dominance.
From Sunday's race, off-throttle blown diffusers — a system that generates downforce and in turn assists performance — have been banned.
"We'll be quite heavily affected because our car was designed around the exhaust," Red Bull designer Adrian Newey said. "Everybody else has, generally speaking, copied somebody else's principle, mainly ours, and adapted it to the car they had in preseason.
"So it might be that because our car has been designed around it, it's going to be more of a hit for us, but it's very difficult to forecast. Right now we're less than half the way through the championship (11 races remaining) ... we certainly can't take anything as read."
Red Bull's preparations have also been overshadowed by suggestions that Hamilton could replace Webber next season.
The British 2008 world champion has a get-out clause in his contract with McLaren that could see him leave at the end of the year after spending his entire career with the team.
"It would be difficult to envisage a driver of Sebastian's caliber and that of Lewis under the same roof," Red Bull Racing team principal Christian Horner said. "Lewis is a wonderful driver, and you can understand why he might want to drive a Red Bull, it's obvious. But would it be the best thing for us? We have severe reservations it would be."
Horner's concern is the potential for friction between two main rivals using the same cars.
"History dictates that two world-class drivers in the same team has not always been the best pairing," Horner said. "We are hugely happy to have Sebastian committed to the team long term, and with Mark (Webber), we're very pleased with the job he is doing."
Source: Associated Press
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