It is a case of so far, so good for Red Bull this season. They are currently leading both of the championships by a considerable margin and getting ready to go into the final fly-away races to claim their fourth successive Constructor's and Driver's title.
At the beginning of the season, it was just naturally assumed that Red Bull would be right up there and the team to beat this season. With all the focus on Lewis Hamilton's move to Mercedes, Red Bull were just able to get on with their business and start yet another season with number 1 and 2 on their cars.
Everything appeared to be well in the Red Bull camp, like a well oiled machine. When they arrived at Malaysia for the second race of the season they had left Melbourne with a 3rd for Vettel and a 6th for Webber. The team were tested after the 'Multi-21' incident during the Malaysian Grand Prix, which saw Vettel ignore team orders and overtake Webber to win the race. The brilliant 1-2 achieved by the team was overlooked by the event and it confirmed the fragile relationship between the two drivers.
However, the team and drivers moved on from the incident and once again we have experienced why the team have dominated the championships over the past three seasons. The car was once again very competitive, and after 12 races, Red Bull and Sebastian Vettel have won 6 of them. In addition, Webber and Vettel combined have achieved a further 7 podiums, excluding the race wins. As a result this has left Red Bull in first place in the Constructor's Championship with 352 points. This is 92 points better than after the same 12 races last season and their nearest contender Ferrari trails by a massive 104 points.
Both drivers also have more points than at the same point last season. Vettel currently has 222 points as opposed to 140 after 12 races last season and Mark Webber is ten points better off than last season with 130 points so far. This leaves Sebastian Vettel leading the Driver's Championship and the favourite to go on and claim his fourth successive title. Webber is clearly out of the championship battle, sitting in 5th place 92 points off the lead, but he is still scoring a decent amount of points even though he is yet to win a race this season.
I still strongly believe that Vettel had secured his fourth title in Hungary, with 8 races remaining, but whilst it is still mathematically possible, Alonso, Hamilton and Raikkonen will be pushing Vettel hard. The problem is trying to reduce Sebastian's points lead, which he appears to be extending after every race. Currently Vettel leads the championship from Alonso who is 53 points adrift. There is a huge task ahead to try and reduce and eliminate the lead, as even if Vettel didn't race for the next two, he would still lead the championship.
Another problem with trying to reduce Vettel's lead is that we are now heading into the fly-away races, which are strong circuits for Vettel and Red Bull. Last season, Vettel went on to win the next four races in Singapore, Japan, Korea and India. Then he scored two more podiums with a 3rd and 2nd in Abu Dhabi and USA and finalised his campaign with a 6th place after seemingly being out on the first lap after incidents.
Retirements are one way of reducing Vettel's lead, but the problem here is that the Red Bull is generally a reliable car. Each driver has only had one retirement each so far this season and even when it seems like Red Bull have a problem, they always manage to finish the race. Just look back to Italy, when Red Bull claimed they had a whole host of problems, yet they still managed to win the race by over 5 seconds.
Red Bull have also shown that they are not a team to rest on their laurels. They are consistently bringing upgrades to their car and have a seemingly continuous development rate on the car. Even if they are small upgrades, they pay extreme attention to detail and this means that they are always improving, making beating them much harder.
When Vettel qualifies on pole, he is an extremely difficult man to beat. He often goes on to dominate the race like in Italy and in other races this season. This is a combination of a great racing driver, but also the way Red Bull set up their car. They program it to run at the front and aim to build a gap so they are not in DRS range and then manage the race from there. They often give master classes on how to win races, with Italy being a prime example.
Even when Vettel doesn't qualify on pole, if he starts on the front row you can put money on the fact that he is likely to lead the race after the first lap. This is shown by the fact that he has only been on pole 4 times this season, but has won 6 of the races.
Red Bull are typically renowned for winning races that require high down-force and are not usually known for having the highest top speed. However this season, especially at the lower down-force tracks, we've seen that Red Bull have significantly improved in this area. In Monza especially they have a much higher top speed and this just illustrates how hard the team work in order to develop and improve the car. This improvement in speed means that they are now much closer to Mercedes in terms of qualifying pace and this now helps them to win more races.
The dominance of Red Bull is becoming the norm in the formula one world, and instead of being praised for their hard work and effort, I feel as though they are being criticised for running away with races and creating 'boring' races. Admittedly there were parts of this theory I subscribed to before, but now I'm starting to believe that it should be up to other teams to take the fight to Red Bull. Yes, Red Bull may have a bigger budget but I still don't think it is impossible to win a championship if you are another team. Red Bull shouldn't be criticised for what they are doing, they are simply illustrating the team-work and cutting edge knowledge to be currently, the pinnacle of the sport. This should be encouraged amongst the other teams and the blame should not fall with a team who, at the end of the day, are just doing their job. Admittedly, very well.
Red Bull may be on their way to their fourth successive titles, and with their strongest part of the season coming up in the fly-away races, is there any team or driver that could challenge and reduce the championship leads they have?
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