If you’d believed everything you’d read in Social Media this week, Australian Mark Webber was out the door from the Red Bull F1 team and down the road to the Porsche factory sports car team effective immediately and racing at Le Mans in June.
Unfortunately there’s often more rumours in Formula 1 than there are overtaking maneuvers and the fact is Webber qualified 7th for Sunday night’s Bahrain Grand Prix (carrying some penalties from the Chinese Grand Prix, in particular his clash with Jean-Eric Verne’s Torro Rosso) and after a torrid race, finished seventh, passed in the closing laps by Lewis Hamilton’s Mercedes-Benz and Sergio Perez’ McLaren.
The “Webber To Porsche” rumours came from a German media source with close links to Austrian Dr Helmut Marko who is Sebastian Vettel’s manager and isn’t on Webber’s Christmas Card list. Given Marko’s constant manipulation, there’s no doubt Webber is at very short odds to raise the proverbial ‘middle finger’ to Red Bull at the end of 2013, but the man himself reckons he’s got more years in F1 so don’t rule-out a move to Ferrari to replace Felipe Massa.
Webber traditionally doesn’t make up his mind about contract negotiations until mid-year. For sure there would be a multi-million dollar deal hovering from Porsche should Webber eventually decide he’s had enough of F1 politics.
The other Australian interest in Bahrain was a report the 2014 the F1 calendar will ditch Melbourne as the opening round of the championship, replacing it with the Bahrain race.
F1 supremo Bernie Ecclestone is said to be keen on the idea as the final pre-season test would be held at the Bahrain circuit so the teams simply stay in-situ for official qualifying and the race itself. Given the Northern hemisphere is only just scraping out of winter at that time, it’s likely Australia would become the second race, followed by Malaysia and then China.
There’s some water to go under the bridge on this one as well, so don’t rush to make hotel reservations in Bahrain for the opening F1 race in 2014 just yet. For one thing there is the political situation in Bahrain which nearly saw this year’s race cancelled and then there’s the teams themselves, most of whom have separate developmental and race squads (the latter polished at the 2-3 second tyre change pit-stops and the sooner not usually in possession of the hallowed “Every Race Access All Areas Pass”) - so just who would go to Bahrain and when and for how long could be logistically complex and expensive.
As for last night’s race, Vettel emerged on top from some opening laps argy-bargy to pass Niko Rosberg’s Mercedes for the lead on lap three and thereafter never looked back. Running at the front, in clean air, Vettel managed his two-stop tyre strategy better than anyone else and recorded his 28th Grand Prix victory to lift him up one place on the all-time list, ahead of triple World Champion Sir Jackie Stewart.
In fact the top-three places at Bahrain this year were identical to the 2012 race with the Lotus duo of Kimi Raikkonen and Romain Grosjean filling second and third. The Lotus team were the talking point of Bahrain – easily the quickest cars in free practice on Friday but then hampered during qualifying.
Scottish driver Paul Di Resta finished fourth in a strong showing for Force India.
Hamilton scrapped mightily with Webber in the last few laps and did a great job to bring his Mercedes home in fifth place. Both Hamilton and his team-mate Rosberg were running rear tyre temperatures 20 degrees higher than anyone else so clearly the ‘Benz boys need to sort-out tyre wear as the championship heads to the first Euroepan race of the year – the Spanish Grand Prix in three weeks.
McLaren’s Mexican driver Sergio Perez responded to a pep-talk from team chief Martin Whitmarsh (and having his Mexican sponsors track-side) with a much better showing behind the wheel. Perez was aggressive throughout the 57-lap race and passed Webber in the shadows of the finish line to claim sixth place.
Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso had another frustrating race and drove headily to score some points with his eight-place finish. Alonso’s rear wing twice jammed open during the DRS sections of the lap and the Italian team called him into the pits to jam it shut - meaning he raced for most of the Bahrain Grand Prix with no DRS and that would not have been fun
Rosberg brought his tyre-burning Mercedes home in ninth place ahead of Jenson Button’s McLaren.
Both Ferraris suffered from heart-stopping rear tyre failures during the Bahrain weekend. Fingers were again pointed at tyre supplier Pirelli who responded that teams themselves need to be less aggressive in changing rear wheel camber and toe angles. The ongoing 2013 F1 tyre drama has more chapters to come before the teams race in Europe for the first time this year.
But the big picture in F1, highlighted throughout the Bahrain race, is the closeness in speed between Red Bull, Lotus, Ferrari, Mercedes-Benz and Force India. That’s a healthy sign for F1, especially as McLaren have some technical updates coming for Spain which should put them into the front-running again.
As we move to the Spanish Grand Prix, Vettel leads the drivers’ championship by 10 points over Raikkonen then comes Hamilton and Alonso.
However there were several controversial overtaking moves in Bahrain which may result in penalties being handed-out.
