Sebastian Vettel is determined to wrap up second place in the drivers' world championship at this weekend's Abu Dhabi Grand Prix.
The Red Bull driver currently holds second, two points ahead of Rubens Barrichello, meaning that he is likely to hang on to the runner-up spot by finishing within one place of the Brazilian.
Despite Vettel's obvious disappointment in Brazil at failing to take the title fight down to the final round, he is happy with his season.
"Generally I'm not here to finish second or third," the German said. "This hasn't changed, but for now third is worse than second, so I want to be second in the championship.
"Of course it's normal to be disappointed [as he was in Brazil], but when you look at the positives, this has been a very good season for us. A lot of things happened and we learned a lot of lessons.
"All in all, there are a lot of things we can do better next year, but for now the focus has to be on securing second place in the drivers' championship and having a very good race on Sunday."
Vettel said that strategic errors from Red Bull, plus his own on-track mistakes, had robbed him of vital points across the season.
"Sometimes you may find yourself in a situation where you're not strong enough to win, but still it matters to bring the car home third or fourth or fifth and collect points," he added.
"I think that at every race this year we were strong enough to finish in the top five, unlike anyone else, except maybe for Monza.
"Sometimes you may call it bad luck, but at other times we made mistakes with the strategy. Other times it was a mistake from myself.
"All in all, we had five races where we didn't finish or didn't score points. What's important is we learn from this and don't make the same mistakes next year."
Thursday 29 October 2009
Tuesday 27 October 2009
Wednesday 7 October 2009
Our Brazilian Track Record
Our long haul trip to Brazil will take us to a track which is renowned for its bumpy nature and the fact that it’s at altitude.
It’s also a bit of a roller coaster, from the steep drop at the first set of corners to the grid which is actually on a slope and gets steeper towards the back, making race start for poor qualifiers even more of a challenge.
And that bumpy surface isn’t the only pain in the neck for the drivers because, like Istanbul Park, Autodromo Carlos Pace is one of the few anti-clockwise tracks.
It boasts instantly recognisable corners, such as the Senna Esses (that steep first corner drop), the hairpins at turns eight and eleven and the sweeping final corner, which leads up to the start-finish line. Each of the 71 laps is only 4.3km long, considerably shorter than most other circuits, and the lap times are reduced even further by the high speeds the cars attain through the Cafe Corner and along the home straight. The fastest lap time around Sao Paulo is a blink-and-you-miss-it 1:11.473 set by Juan Pablo Montoya in 2004.
Often called Interlagos (two lakes, now no longer there) from the district in which it’s situated, the circuit is actually named Autodromo Carlos Pace Sao after the Brazilian F1 driver who died in 1977.
The circuit has been home to the Brazilian Grand Prix on and off since the event was first staged in 1973 in a race fittingly won by Brazilian Emerson Fittipaldi. The race moved to Rio de Janerio during the late ’70s and’ 80s, but returned to Sao Paulo in 1990 after a major re-development during local hero Ayrton Senna’s heyday. A trip to Senna’s grave in the city, to pay respects to the three-time world champion who died in 1994, is often one of the pilgrimages fans, drivers and members of the Paddock make when visiting Brazil.
Last year the race was the final date in the calendar and famously saw Lewis Hamilton clinch the world title from race winner Felipe Massa in the final lap and our own David Coulthard dedicate his final grand prix race to Wings For Life the spinal injury research foundation of which he is an ambassador.
Our own track record here looks like this:
2005
David Coulthard DNF
Christian Klien 9th
2006
David Coulthard DNF
Robert Doornbos 12
2007
David Coulthard 9th
Mark Webber DNF
2008
David Coulthard DNF
Mark Webber 9th
It’s also a bit of a roller coaster, from the steep drop at the first set of corners to the grid which is actually on a slope and gets steeper towards the back, making race start for poor qualifiers even more of a challenge.
And that bumpy surface isn’t the only pain in the neck for the drivers because, like Istanbul Park, Autodromo Carlos Pace is one of the few anti-clockwise tracks.
It boasts instantly recognisable corners, such as the Senna Esses (that steep first corner drop), the hairpins at turns eight and eleven and the sweeping final corner, which leads up to the start-finish line. Each of the 71 laps is only 4.3km long, considerably shorter than most other circuits, and the lap times are reduced even further by the high speeds the cars attain through the Cafe Corner and along the home straight. The fastest lap time around Sao Paulo is a blink-and-you-miss-it 1:11.473 set by Juan Pablo Montoya in 2004.
Often called Interlagos (two lakes, now no longer there) from the district in which it’s situated, the circuit is actually named Autodromo Carlos Pace Sao after the Brazilian F1 driver who died in 1977.
The circuit has been home to the Brazilian Grand Prix on and off since the event was first staged in 1973 in a race fittingly won by Brazilian Emerson Fittipaldi. The race moved to Rio de Janerio during the late ’70s and’ 80s, but returned to Sao Paulo in 1990 after a major re-development during local hero Ayrton Senna’s heyday. A trip to Senna’s grave in the city, to pay respects to the three-time world champion who died in 1994, is often one of the pilgrimages fans, drivers and members of the Paddock make when visiting Brazil.
Last year the race was the final date in the calendar and famously saw Lewis Hamilton clinch the world title from race winner Felipe Massa in the final lap and our own David Coulthard dedicate his final grand prix race to Wings For Life the spinal injury research foundation of which he is an ambassador.
Our own track record here looks like this:
2005
David Coulthard DNF
Christian Klien 9th
2006
David Coulthard DNF
Robert Doornbos 12
2007
David Coulthard 9th
Mark Webber DNF
2008
David Coulthard DNF
Mark Webber 9th
Sunday 4 October 2009
Webber suffers catalogue of woes
Mark Webber’s nightmare Japanese Grand Prix weekend got no better on race day as a catalogue of misfortunes left him two laps behind his victorious Red Bull team-mate Sebastian Vettel at the finish.
After a practice crash necessitated a chassis rebuild, Webber started the race from the pit lane and immediately suffered further setbacks that put paid to any chance of a decent result.
He pitted three times in the first four laps, the first two to secure a loose cockpit surround and the third to replace a punctured tyre – turning the rest of the race into little more than a test session.
“I had to make two pit stops on the first two laps, so it was all over from there,” said Webber.
“On the first lap, the headrest came loose in the car, so I had to come in and get that fixed.
“I went back out, but the same thing happened so I had to come in again in order for the guys to tape it down.
“We tested some things today, and tried some other items for future races.
“That's all we could really do from there.”
Webber showed what might have been by setting the race’s fastest lap while running in experimental mode in the final stint.
Team boss Christian Horner sympathised with the Australian’s predicament.
“For Mark, this was the weekend from hell – with a chassis change overnight, then issues on the first lap with a headrest that had somehow come loose and then a puncture,” he said.
“After that the race was little more than a test, but it's encouraging that right at the end he got the fastest lap time as a small consolation
After a practice crash necessitated a chassis rebuild, Webber started the race from the pit lane and immediately suffered further setbacks that put paid to any chance of a decent result.
He pitted three times in the first four laps, the first two to secure a loose cockpit surround and the third to replace a punctured tyre – turning the rest of the race into little more than a test session.
“I had to make two pit stops on the first two laps, so it was all over from there,” said Webber.
“On the first lap, the headrest came loose in the car, so I had to come in and get that fixed.
“I went back out, but the same thing happened so I had to come in again in order for the guys to tape it down.
“We tested some things today, and tried some other items for future races.
“That's all we could really do from there.”
Webber showed what might have been by setting the race’s fastest lap while running in experimental mode in the final stint.
Team boss Christian Horner sympathised with the Australian’s predicament.
“For Mark, this was the weekend from hell – with a chassis change overnight, then issues on the first lap with a headrest that had somehow come loose and then a puncture,” he said.
“After that the race was little more than a test, but it's encouraging that right at the end he got the fastest lap time as a small consolation
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
