Alonso pays the price for Ferrari’s strategic error

ABU DHABI: Fernando Alonso gestured angrily at Russian racer Vitaly Petrov but he might as well have shaken a fist at his own Ferrari bosses after being denied a third Formula One title by a strategic error on Sunday.
The Spaniard was far too much of a team player to do that and Petrov – a rookie with an uncertain future at Renault – was a much easier, if unfair, target for merely doing what he was paid to do.
On an evening that started so promisingly for Alonso, but then turned to dust in the desert, Ferrari let the championship slip through their fingers and be picked up instead by Red Bull’s Sebastian Vettel.
Alonso had been 15 points clear of 23-year-old Vettel going into the season-ending Abu Dhabi Grand Prix and ended up seventh, overall runner-up and four points behind Formula One’s youngest champion.
The Spaniard, winner of five races this year, sat hunched and sweating in silence at the back of the Ferrari garage as team-mates commiserated.
“After the race it is always very easy to see the best strategy. If we didn’t stop, Webber would probably overtake us, if we stop, we let Rosberg and Petrov overtake us, very difficult call,” he said.
Alonso had been fourth, which would have been enough to take the title even with Vettel winning, but came in for fresh tyres at the end of lap 15 after his closest championship rival Mark Webber pitted in the other Red Bull.
The pitstops put both men back out on track behind several drivers including Renault’s Petrov, who had pitted when the safety car was deployed.
On a track where overtaking is difficult, Alonso was unable to get past Petrov.
“Afterwards it was really clear it was a mistake,” said Ferrari team boss Stefano Domenicali, without saying who had made the call. — Reuters

Hamilton and Button pay champ Vettel fulsome tribute

ABU DHABI: A smiling Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button hugged new drivers’ world champion Sebastian Vettel and supplied a neat sense of historical continuity on the victors’ podium following a memorable Abu Dhabi Grand Prix.
The 2008 and 2009 champions con­­gratulated their 2010 successor with natural warmth and enjoyed their own success in securing second place for McLaren in the constructors’ world championship behind Vettel’s Red Bull team.
Vettel, 23, also clearly revelled in the moment and the German returned the congratulations of the two Englishmen with respectful tributes to their achievements, particularly Hamilton whose record as the youngest championship winner he had taken from him by winning Sunday’s stirring 55-lap race.
Hamilton was obviously happy to see his record passing on to a worthy racing successor and satisfied that he and Button had done all they could in the final race of a rollercoaster year.
“It has not been the most spectacular season for us, but huge congratulations to Red Bull and Seb... He did a fantastic job this season,” he said.
Having struggled to be competitive in recent races, McLaren had improved their pace for the Abu Dhabi race at the Yas Marina Circuit where Hamilton and Button completed their first season as team-mates together on the podium.
Hamilton added: “For us it was a great end of season result. This year, me and Jenson pushed hard. Next year will be a better year.
“I’m looking forward to next year. I’m hoping our car will be even better and that we can really fight with these (Red Bull) guys.”
Hamilton mounted a strong challenge to Vettel in the opening part of the race, but struggled to pass Pole Robert Kubica of Renault after his pit stop. He could not pass him until Kubica pitted.
Button warned Vettel of the media pressures that lay ahead and jokingly suggested it would be a good idea to “have an early night” as he confessed to doing when he won the title in 2009. “Or maybe not,” he added with a grin. — AFP

Vettel destined for glory from the first day he walked into F1

ABU DHABI: Sebastian Vettel’s career trajectory has always been sensational and had the youngest ever world champion hurtling to glory from the first day he walked into Formula One and began to break the sport’s records.
In the wake of youthful Spaniard Fernando Alonso’s impact as the young title-grabbing successor to the old “red baron” German Michael Schumacher, Vettel created a whole new set of youthful standards.
He was the youngest participant in Formula One, at 19 years and 53 days, with Sauber in Turkey in 2006, the sixth youngest race-starter in 2007 in the United States and, in the same race, the youngest man to score points.

Bull power: Sebastian Vettel wearing a bull mask as he celebrates with his team after being crowned the 2010 Formula One world champion at the Yas Marina racetrack in Abu Dhabi on Sunday. — AP

In 2007, in Japan, he was the youngest race-leader and in 2008, in Italy, at a rain-hit Monza, he became the youngest pole-sitter and then youngest race winner.
That result for Toro Rosso triggered a move to Red Bull for 2009 when he almost landed the drivers’ title, but ultimately had to settle for runner-up behind Briton Jenson Button.
It was his first major setback and disappointment – and he was only 22.
His Red Bull team-mate Australian Mark Webber did not even enter For­­mula One, with the underfunded back-marking Minardi team, until he was 25.
So it was no surprise when, against the odds on Sunday, he became the sport’s youngest champion, usurping 2008 champion Briton Lewis Hamilton by nine months.
Born in Heppenheim on July 3, 1987, Vettel adored what he later described as “the three Michaels” while at school – Schumacher, Jackson and Jordan, the first being the man whose achievements he would love to emulate.
Originally, he said, he wanted to be a singer like Jackson, but discovered he did not have the voice and, after starting in karting in 1995, found another road to success.
Vettel, whose father Norbert was a carpenter who raced in hill-climbs, has one brother and two older sisters and comes from a family with English connections that encouraged him as a boy to learn the language and grow to understand and enjoy British humour and music.
He loves The Beatles and can reel off jokes from Monty Python’s Flying Circus and Fawlty Towers as well as Little Britain. His wit, and an ability to crack a funny line, endeared him to much of the media at an early age.
“I am still listening to the same music as always,” he said recently. “But, you know, unfortunately, The Beatles have not released much new stuff.”
If life and languages came easy to him, he made the most of it, just as he did in a racing career that saw him rise rapidly through karts and junior formulae, where he was nurtured by the Red Bull juniors training scheme.
He entered F1 with the BMW Sauber team, after running in the BMW juniors, and swiftly made an impact before switching to join the Red Bull-owned Toro Rosso outfit, securing his first full-time seat with them in 2008. His racing in the rain, always impressive, dazzled that year at Monza when a new F1 star was born.
The rest was, swiftly, to become history as he cut a swathe towards the top, his one-liners, cheeky grin and brilliant driving earning him soubriquets like ‘the baby-faced assassin” and the ‘new Schumi’ even if moments of impetuosity punctuated the success story.
Having raced for the Swiss Sauber team, it was no surprise that Vettel chose to take up residence in Switzerland. — AFP