Red Bull chief Christian Horner believes Sebastian Vettel proved beyond any doubt in his brave pass on Fernando Alonso in the Italian Grand Prix that his overtaking skills are up their with the best of them in Formula 1.
Although the world champion’s natural speed and ability to dictate a race from the front have been clear from very early on in his career, some observers had said that question marks still remained over his strengths in wheel-to-wheel situations – particularly last year following high-profile collisions with team-mate Mark Webber in Turkey and McLaren rival Jensen Button in Belgium.
The fact that this season going into Sunday’s Monza race Vettel had claimed 10 poles from 13 attempts, and led an astonishing 65% of laps completed, meant he had faced limited opportunities to showcase his passing skills given he had inevitability led races from the front.
But after setting up his second Italian GP victory with a stunning move around the outside of Ferrari’s Alonso at Curve Grande – which saw him put two wheels on the grass at speeds of around 190mph – his team boss reckons accusations that he can’t overtake have been firmly put to bed.
“Fernando had an awesome start and looked like he was only ever going to be the leader out of the first chicane,” Horner said.
“Sebastian was already pressuring him before the safety car and then anyone that doubted whether he can overtake or not, I think he demonstrated pretty clearly today [that he can].
Although the world champion’s natural speed and ability to dictate a race from the front have been clear from very early on in his career, some observers had said that question marks still remained over his strengths in wheel-to-wheel situations – particularly last year following high-profile collisions with team-mate Mark Webber in Turkey and McLaren rival Jensen Button in Belgium.
The fact that this season going into Sunday’s Monza race Vettel had claimed 10 poles from 13 attempts, and led an astonishing 65% of laps completed, meant he had faced limited opportunities to showcase his passing skills given he had inevitability led races from the front.
But after setting up his second Italian GP victory with a stunning move around the outside of Ferrari’s Alonso at Curve Grande – which saw him put two wheels on the grass at speeds of around 190mph – his team boss reckons accusations that he can’t overtake have been firmly put to bed.
“Fernando had an awesome start and looked like he was only ever going to be the leader out of the first chicane,” Horner said.
“Sebastian was already pressuring him before the safety car and then anyone that doubted whether he can overtake or not, I think he demonstrated pretty clearly today [that he can].
“He did a very brave move with two wheels on the grass, made it stick, then got his head down and had tremendous pace.”
Vettel went on to cruise to the eighth victory of his remarkable season by 9.5s over Button to all-but wrap up his second straight title and Horner felt the whole Red Bull operation had performed remarkably strongly to break their Monza duck.
“I think the set-up – obviously there was a bit of debate over gear ratios and so on – we got absolutely spot-on today and it was a very well-executed race strategy wise, pit-stop wise and from Sebastian himself,” he added.
“[It’s] phenomenal for the team for the team and Red Bull to win in Monza.”
The high-speed Italian circuit had previously been the world champions’ weakest on the calendar and few had tipped them to set the pace ahead of McLaren and Ferrari last weekend.
But on the back of winning for the first time at Spa, Horner believes RBR “got our homework right” in their preparation work for Monza and, despite some post-qualifying suggestions that they would be vulnerable in the race after deciding on a shorter top gear for Vettel, made all the right set-up decisions.
“A lot of effort went into this race,” he said.
“As with all the teams, you turn up with your low-downforce package. Ours seemed to be a bit more lower downforce than some of the others, but I think as an engineering group through all the development and the production guys, they have all done their bit and it’s worked.
“We’ve had a tremendous car all weekend and I think we got our homework right. We came here with the right balance of straight-line speed and I think the gearing ultimately has proved to be right.
“It’s massively rewarding to win two races which on paper theoretically should be two of our weakest.”
Vettel’s back-to-back wins at Spa and Monza have moved him to the brink of retaining the championship he won at the final round last season – the German will be crowned champion at the next round in Singapore if he wins again and Fernando Alonso finishes off the podium with both Button and Webber third or lower.
But while Red Bull’s rivals have conceded the championship is now all-but mathematically over, Horner says there will be no let up from RBR now the title is within their grasp.
“Our approach to Singapore will be exactly the same as every grand prix this year,” he insisted.
“We will go there trying to win it – he [Vettel] came close last year, it would be great to win that race.
“And the championship will take car of itself at the end of the day. Our philosophy has been to attack each weekend and not cruise and collect points and I think that’s the right philosophy and we continue to learn valuable lessons for next year.
“So our approach will be exactly the same.”
Vettel went on to cruise to the eighth victory of his remarkable season by 9.5s over Button to all-but wrap up his second straight title and Horner felt the whole Red Bull operation had performed remarkably strongly to break their Monza duck.
“I think the set-up – obviously there was a bit of debate over gear ratios and so on – we got absolutely spot-on today and it was a very well-executed race strategy wise, pit-stop wise and from Sebastian himself,” he added.
“[It’s] phenomenal for the team for the team and Red Bull to win in Monza.”
The high-speed Italian circuit had previously been the world champions’ weakest on the calendar and few had tipped them to set the pace ahead of McLaren and Ferrari last weekend.
But on the back of winning for the first time at Spa, Horner believes RBR “got our homework right” in their preparation work for Monza and, despite some post-qualifying suggestions that they would be vulnerable in the race after deciding on a shorter top gear for Vettel, made all the right set-up decisions.
“A lot of effort went into this race,” he said.
“As with all the teams, you turn up with your low-downforce package. Ours seemed to be a bit more lower downforce than some of the others, but I think as an engineering group through all the development and the production guys, they have all done their bit and it’s worked.
“We’ve had a tremendous car all weekend and I think we got our homework right. We came here with the right balance of straight-line speed and I think the gearing ultimately has proved to be right.
“It’s massively rewarding to win two races which on paper theoretically should be two of our weakest.”
Vettel’s back-to-back wins at Spa and Monza have moved him to the brink of retaining the championship he won at the final round last season – the German will be crowned champion at the next round in Singapore if he wins again and Fernando Alonso finishes off the podium with both Button and Webber third or lower.
But while Red Bull’s rivals have conceded the championship is now all-but mathematically over, Horner says there will be no let up from RBR now the title is within their grasp.
“Our approach to Singapore will be exactly the same as every grand prix this year,” he insisted.
“We will go there trying to win it – he [Vettel] came close last year, it would be great to win that race.
“And the championship will take car of itself at the end of the day. Our philosophy has been to attack each weekend and not cruise and collect points and I think that’s the right philosophy and we continue to learn valuable lessons for next year.
“So our approach will be exactly the same.”
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