| rice_classic |
08-27-2013 01:19 PM |
This long read below is worth the time. I like Vettel, but my current dislike of Vettel is that he races for RedBull and I don't like Redbull primarily because I think they're shysters. What Horner did to Mercedes (and consequently to Pirelli) and what he's doing now.
And this..
Quote:
How Horner holds the key to the driver market
It might not seem at first glance that Christian Horner is controlling Formula 1's driver market, but as Dieter Rencken explains, the Red Bull team principal holds all the aces in his hands
One of the most fascinating aspects of the 'Who will fill Mark Webber's cockpit?' conundrum has been the back story; the jostling for position by teams and their principals, managers and headline sponsors.
It all kicked off, of course, with the Australian's late-June announcement that he would beswitching to Porsche and endurance racing from 2014.
The timing wrong-footed Red Bull Racing, and there exists evidence to suggest that Webber, who at times felt surplus to requirements, kept the drinks company's head honcho Dietrich Mateschitz in the loop, but failed to grant team boss Christian Horner the same courtesy.
Over the years Red Bull has invested an estimated ￡150million (excluding F1) into various young-driver programmes, one of which unearthed the talent of Sebastian Vettel. But aside from the triple world champion, there has been little to shout about as Jaime Alguersuari, Michael Ammermuller, Filipe Albuquerque, Mikhail Aleshin and plenty of others discovered how rapidly Red Bull's rotating door spins.
In fact, Wikipedia devotes a full feature to ex-Red Bull drivers, a list that features only drivers to have made it to international level running to 35 names, of which 13 achieved Formula 1 race seats.
Of these, only Vettel has won a grand prix despite the company entering four cars at every grand prix, and as a result, the entire Red Bull F1 programme effectively revolves around him.
While it's true that the total spend to date on the Red Bull Junior programme is a fraction of the combined annual budgets of Red Bull Racing and Scuderia Toro Rosso, it would be logical to assume that the company would prefer to promote a graduate of its own programme to the top echelon than buy in from elsewhere.
But logic and Red Bull have never exactly been bedfellows, have they?
Daniel Ricciardo, having performed solidly rather than spectacularly at Toro Rosso, soon found himself in the frame to replace Webber and remains firmly on Horner's shortlist. As Edd Straw argues, the Australian certainly deserves consideration.
That said, his results to date don't make him a natural successor to nine-time grand prix winner Webber. Thus Kimi Raikkonen entered the picture.
This is where the situation became complicated, for the Finn, who won the 2007 world championship with Ferrari, is hardly the type of driver to take a back seat position to Vettel, and his management group is certainly not prepared to accept number-two status or money, especially with him currently lying second to the German in the points.
He is, however, disillusioned with not having a consistently winning car, and above all else Raikkonen wants to win.
As a negotiating ploy, Red Bull's advances worked perfectly, keeping pressure on Ricciardo while setting Lotus back. With the Enstone-based team battling recently to pay the Finn's wages, the lure of the lucre - not to mention the theoretical chance of taking on Vettel in identical machinery - caused his mind to wander.
Then Kimi's representative Steve Robertson, who, together with father David, massaged their young charge's route from karting through to F1 via FRenault, told AUTOSPORT negotiations had broken down, ostensibly clearing the way for Ricciardo.
Had the talks really failed, or was it simply a means of squeezing more from the Red Bull pip - or the Lotus pulp? Was it even a means of opening a door to Ferrari?
While all this was happening in the week leading up to the Belgian GP, Fernando Alonso was explaining - unconvincingly - that he was settled and going nowhere.
He had been linked to Red Bull post-Hungary following leaks revealing that his own management team had been in talks with the champion constructor in Budapest.
However, manager Luis Garcia Abad maintained he had made contact with Horner to pursue options for another of his clients, Red Bull-backed GP3 racer Carlos Sainz Jr - whose father, Carlos Sr, won the 1990 and '92 World Rally Championships.
As one team boss pointed out, Carlos Sr has done all his son's bidding to date, making minds wander about Garcia's true intentions.
While this was happening, Ferrari president Luca di Montezmolo and team principal Stefano Domenicali issued rallying cries to the Maranello corps. The former rebuked Alonso for alleged comments - now put down to a misunderstanding - made in the wake of a below-par Hungarian result, while the latter reacted to suggestions that Raikkonen could return to the Scuderia, either as replacement for Alonso (should he join Red Bull) or Felipe Massa.
And so we arrived at the unusual mid-season scenario of having the number one driver at each of the top three teams feeling rather unsettled; Vettel by talk that he could be joined by either Alonso or Raikkonen at Red Bull, Alonso by speculation that Raikkonen could return to Ferrari and both the Scuderia and Lotus by rumours that either (or both) could be about to lose their foremost cockpit assets.
Alonso and Raikkonen know their careers are slowly drawing to a close, and each considers it a travesty that Vettel has won three consecutive titles while they have a maximum of two - won at least five years ago. No wonder they're unsettled, particularly as Red Bull seems sure to start 2014's 'green era' as strongly as it will finish the current V8 period.
All this unease comes at a time when the championship is delicately poised; at a time when it has nine races remaining over 14 weeks and so faces a pressure-cooker period as it flits across the globe.
The uncertainty could, though, have been ended on the first day back after F1's summer holidays through the simple expedient of Red Bull announcing Ricciardo as Vettel's 2014 shotgunner. But Red Bull is in no hurry to do so; it can afford to drag things out and watch dissention brew within its rivals.
Red Bull owns Ricciardo hook, line and sinker - so its banker is going nowhere outside the 'family'. It can therefore wait to see what happens elsewhere. If Lotus cannot afford to pay Raikkonen, he will be available at a bargain-basement rate, and Alonso could get tired of having yet another title slip through Ferrari's fingers... As long as both drivers know the second seat at Red Bull is still available, who knows how they will be thinking?
While Vettel may get a bit jumpy, the team can allay his fears, and maybe even persuade him to play along. A jumpy Kimi, lumpy Fernando or frumpy Lewis Hamilton is less of a threat, you might think.
Hamilton? Read on. Not content with watching Lotus and Ferrari twitching, Horner chucked yet another curveball into the paddock by suggesting that he had more options than many realised.
What could these be? Jenson Button, who admitted his immediate future was far from settled? Nico Hulkenberg, highly rated but frustrated at Sauber? Nico Rosberg at Mercedes? The German's mercurial team-mate Hamilton?
Then there is the domino effect. Should XY leave Team AB for BC, would Pastor Maldonado take his PVDSA millions to AB, or use any such overtures as leverage at Williams? Adrian Sutil has long fancied himself as a Ferrari driver, and so on.
The overall implications in the paddock of that single comment from Horner are endless, and in the process of answering a simple media question he managed to get two more teams, possibly three or four, furtively looking over their shoulders as they reach for their drivers' contracts.
Horner also added that negotiations with Raikkonen were far from over, certainly from his perspective. Where the driver market was dead quiet through to Hungary, it is now alive and writhing.
And while it's true that journalists at Spa normally witness F1's silly season in full swing, this time there is a major difference.
Where previously a single driver held the key to the market, now it is a team boss who holds court - and he is playing the role to perfection.
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