Red Bull Racing has confirmed pre-Christmas rumours that Sebastien Buemi will be the test and reserve driver for the 2012 season. He will carry out simulation work at the team’s HQ in Milton Keynes and will be present at all the Grands Prix, standing in for either Sebastian Vettel or Mark Webber should either of them be injured or unavailable. It would make sense for him also to fulfil a similar role for Toro Rosso as he will be at the races, knows the team and it’s highly unlikely that both teams would find themselves a driver short at the More…

The performance of the Toro Rosso cars at the weekend underlined how much progress the team has made in the second half of the season. But where is the boost coming from and is there a back story to it? Jaime Alguersuari and Sebastian Buemi both qualified in the top ten in India and Alguersuari raced strongly to another points finish. In the last five races the team has scored 29 points, while rivals Sauber in the same period have scored six and Force India 19. Since Suzuka in particular the Toro Rosso has been making huge strides. In Singapore More…

Sebastian Vettel made more history today as he won the first Indian Grand Prix, setting a new record for most laps led in a season in the process. The German went past Nigel Mansell’s 692 laps led from the 1992 season. It was his 11th win of the season and the 21st of his career. It was one of Vettel’s most comfortable wins of the season; he won from pole position, led every lap and set the fastest lap. “I’m very proud to be the first winner of the Indian Grand Prix,” said the world champion, “It’s a great country, More…

Sebastian Vettel may have clinched the 2011 World Championship, but it’s not dented his motivation as he again out raced and out thought his opponents, despite the race not working out the way Red Bull had thought it would in terms of tyre strategy. Pole sitter Lewis Hamilton battled with understeer all race and finished second. It was Vettel’s 10th win of the season, making him the only driver apart from his countryman Michael Schumacher do win 10 or more races in a season. It was the 20th victory of his career and with Mark Webber’s third place it gave More…

Some say he’s going to win as many titles as Schumacher, others say he’s still improving as a driver, while others say it’s all the car and Vettel cannot overtake. No 24 year old driver has achieved more – two world titles, 19 wins, 27 pole positions. And now Fernando Alonso has challenged him to a contest to see who can be the youngest ever three times world champion – one of them is likely to beat Ayrton Senna’s record of 31 years of age. Alonso has been waiting five years for his third title.. Whatever the hype, the hyperbole More…

Sebastian Vettel is just one point away from clinching the world championship after another dominant performance in the Singapore Grand Prix. Only Jenson Button stands in his way, but a single point from any of the remaining five races will do it for him. It was Vettel’s ninth win of the season, he joins Michael Schumacher and Nigel Mansell as the only drivers who have won nine races in an F1 season. It was also the 19th of his career. Amazingly, having led almost 600 laps this year this was the first time this year he has led a race More…

Many readers will be wanting to know the mathematical situation going into tomorrow’s Singapore Grand Prix with regard to Sebastian Vettel clinching the championship. As I said in my qualifying post, Vettel has been untouchable all weekend in qualifying and race pace and only a misfortune of some kind will rob him of victory tomorrow. He easily has the pace to win. Thanks to Sean Kelly, who goes by the soubriquet of Virtual Statman and is the stats guy for many of the TV companies working in F1, here are the permutations which will clinch it in Singapore. If Vettel More…

One of the most striking stats from the JA on F1 Strategy Briefing, supported by UBS, is the start record this season of Mark Webber. The Red Bull driver had lost 20 places on aggregate off the start line and after he lost five places at the start in Spa many readers have posted questions about this recently. So we spoke to Red Bull boss Christian Horner and he gave this explanation, “It’s been a culmination of things really, ” he said. “The Spa thing was more a calculation on the Renault side really, measuring the amount of torque that More…

The decision of reigning F1 champions Red Bull and Renault to extend their deal with for a supply of customer engines for five more years was announced over the Monza weekend, before Sebastian Vettel went out and won a second race in a row on what’s always been considered a “power circuit”. This deal is significant in that it means that not only will the team use the current V8 units with the Renault KERS system for 2012 and 2013, but is committed to the marque for the new generation of fuel efficient V6 1.6 litre turbo engines from 2014 More…

Sebastian Vettel is now potentially just one race away from being crowned world champion for the second year in a row and at the age of 24. A win at Singapore would guarantee him the title. He won his eighth race of the season on a track where Red Bull had not been considered one of the favourites, thanks to a bold pass on Fernando Alonso in the early stages of the race. It was Vettel’s 18th career win, his second at this circuit and Red Bull’s first at Monza. Behind him there were intense battles featuring Hamilton, Button, Alonso More…

Sebastian Vettel dominated the European Grand Prix in Valencia, his sixth win from pole of the 2011 season and extended his championship lead to 77 points. A week short of his 24th birthday, he gave himself a present of pole position, win and fastest lap and he has the championship in his hands. It was also a great response to critics after he made a rare mistake on the last lap in Montreal two weeks ago. He also became the first man to finish either first or second in the first eight races of the season. He has only dropped More…

Sebastian Vettel took his seventh pole position of the season, ahead of team mate Mark Webber, showing that the FIA’s mid season rule changes to engine maps have had little effect on his or Red Bull’s competitiveness. It was the 22nd pole position of his career and the ninth in the last 11 races. Lewis Hamilton qualified third. The German was on imperious form, setting the fastest time in both the second and final parts of qualifying. But after a tricky start to the session, it was a strong finish by Webber who ended up only a tenth and a More…

The FIA Technical Working Group met at the end of the week to rubber stamp the FIA’s ban of off-throttle blown diffusers. They also discussed how the ban can be policed. They also accepted that from next season the whole concept of blown diffusers goes out of the window. From Silverstone this year onwards engine makers will be limited to using just 10% of engine over-run when the driver is off the accelerator. This will kill of the current practice of blowing high pressure exhaust gas through the diffuser when the driver lifts off the throttle – ie in corners More…

Although he has started less than half as many races, Sebastian Vettel has now equalled Fernando Alonso’s 20 pole positions, has passed Lewis Hamilton’s pole tally easily and with his win on Sunday he equalled Hamilton’s total of 14 wins. The events of Monaco weekend showed that this is all rather hard to take for Hamilton, as it was for Alonso before him. The three men stand head and shoulders above the other F1 drivers in terms of their quality and their dominance of the sport. This year Vettel has the faster car and has made good use of it More…

Mark Webber took his first pole position of the season for tomorrow’s Spanish Grand Prix, repeating his Barcelona pole of last season, ahead of Sebastian Vettel and Lewis Hamilton. The superiority of the Red Bull car was confirmed as the gap between Webber and Hamilton was a second. It was the first pole for the Australian since last September. However Vettel had a problem with his KERS in qualifying and was forced to run without using it, giving up around 4/10ths of a second. Webber’s margin over him was exactly 2/10ths. Fernando Alonso managed to split the McLarens for fourth More…

Today’s first day of practice at Barcelona for the Spanish Grand Prix showed a varied picture, with Red Bull over a second clear in first practice, but Lewis Hamilton’s McLaren pushing them hard over a single lap in the second session, ending up less than a tenth of a second down on Mark Webber. But Sebastian Vettel, who was third, has generally been a few tenths ahead of Webber in qualifying this season, so we’ve not necessarily seen the full picture today. All of the leading drivers set their fastest times on the first lap of a short run on More…

The first three races have given us much to reflect on in terms of the new style of racing F1 now provides, but there are some fascinating details emerging too about the relative performance of the cars. One of the things to catch the eye has been the relative pace of the Red Bull and the McLaren in qualifying and in the race. And it’s not just about who has the newest tyres. When you look at it closely you see that there is reason to feel very excited about the competition between the two cars this season. At the More…

World Champion Sebastian Vettel set the pace on day one of what could turn out to be a defining test in the build up to the new season. Unlike the permanent Valencia track and Jerez, Barcelona is an F1 race venue and is still considered one of the best circuits for showing up a good car. It’s combination of corners and short and long straights is a great test for a car’s aerodynamic efficiency and a quick car around Barcelona is always a contender. With the political situation in Bahrain still volatile, the F1 teams met to discuss the final More…

The winter break ended today with the first day of Formula 1 testing on the permanent circuit in Valencia ahead of the 2011 season and the top of the time sheets looked much as they did in November with Red Bull and Sebastian Vettel on top. In total eleven teams were running today, all except Lotus, whose planned programme in the new car starts tomorrow. Although world champion Sebastian Vettel set the pace today in the new Red Bull RB7, not all teams were using 2011 specification cars. Force India, McLaren, HRT and Virgin were using last year’s models, aiming More…

There is a piece in the new edition of the Red Bulletin magazine where the key players in the Red Bull team talk about their favourite moments of the year, which offers a few insights into what motivates them and what was most important to them, with the benefit of hindsight. Adrian Newey said that for him the most special thing about this year was taking on the big teams and beating them. The Red Bull project is the fulfilment of a dream he had tried to fulfil over 20 years ago, of building up a small private team to More…

Mark Webber and Sebastian Vettel have buried the hatchet after a season long duel for supremacy in the Red Bull team. The duo, who looked at times as though they were shaping up to reprise the bitter Senna/Prost team rivalry of the 1990s, have revealed that they spoke at length during the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix weekend and put their differences behind them. Webber also revealed that once the competition was over, and Vettel emerged victorious, it was important for him to drop his competitive guard and bow down to the younger man’s achievement. “I went to him, ” said More…

Australian Daniel Ricciardo dominated the second day of the Young Guns test at Yas Marina Circuit, Abu Dhabi today, closing out with a time comparable with Sebastian Vettel’s pole lap from last weekend, once track condition is taken into account. Ricciardo set a time of 1m 38.102s, which was 1.292 seconds faster than the pole lap last weekend. Engineers I’ve spoken to at the track say that the track improvement was around 1.2 seconds yesterday, compared to qualifying day, and it was even faster this morning. There was more grip and there was also a favourable tailwind. Also cones which More…

The Red Bull Racing team goes into the final race of the season with two drivers in contention for the Drivers’ World championship, but their best placed driver Mark Webber has a harder task than he would have had if they had thrown their weight behind him today. Webber would have been one point behind Alonso if the team had backed him today, instead he is eight points behind, more than the gap between first and second places in the final race. After today’s race – won by Sebastian Vettel, who now needs to outscore Alonso by 16 points and More…

The tension is showing in the run up to the final pair of races in this year’s world championship as the three team bosses fighting for the titles lead their troops into the great unknown at Interlagos. And with it has come a suggestion from Red Bull that if Fernando Alonso wins, there will be a stain on the result because of the team orders row back in July. “It would be frustrating (if Alonso won the title) because we’ve obviously worked under the auspices that team orders have been illegal,” Red Bull Racing boss Christian Horner told BBC Radio. More…

Images from today’s free practice session for the Japanese Grand Prix show that the Red Bull car is still managing to get its front wing low to the ground for extra downforce, despite the FIA making the flexi wing tests twice as stringent. Click here to see photo – Red Bull picture The load tests now are 100kg, rather than the 50kg which was used up to and including the Hungarian GP, which Red Bull dominated. The FIA also has much stricter tests on the floor stays, which all the teams have had to adapt their cars to pass. But More…

Sebastian Vettel has admitted that he is the outsider going into the final five races of the season. Placed fifth of the five contenders, with 24 points fewer than Mark Webber, Vettel is nevertheless still less than a win away from his team mate. He’s never stood on the podium here in Singapore, even though he was competitive here last year, qualifying on the front row. This season he has been the most consistent of all the front runners in qualifying, with top three placings in all the first 12 races, only slipping back in the last two races. It’s More…

There has been a clip on the internet for the last 48 hours showing the on board shot from Sebastian Vettel’s car as he lost control and hit Jenson Button. The clip was originally on You Tube, but has been taken down on the request of FOM. This is to protect the rights of the broadcasters, like BBC, RTL and La Sexta, who also have the online rights in their countries. As a result the clip is available on the BBC website today and maybe on your local broadcaters’ site. Apologies for raising this if your local broadcaster doesn’t have More…

Red Bull Racing has added LG Electronics to its roster of commercial partners as it consolidates its position as one of the top teams in F1. The team, which was bankrolled for many years by Red Bull alone and was criticised by some for not being able to attract sponsors like the grandee teams McLaren and Ferrari, has shown recently that it can compete with them commercially as well as on the race track. In addition to LG it has Casio, Pepe Jeans, forex trading company FXDD and Rauch and team principal Christian Horner told me this morning that there More…

After calming words from Red Bull team principal Christian Horner to attempt to end the row over preferential treatment between drivers, Red Bull adviser Helmut Marko has weighed in today, saying that Webber needs to remember that he was no-where before Red Bull gave him a competitive car. In an interview with Auto Motor und Sport, Marko says that Webber should not believe that the team favours Vettel, as it is always Vettel’s car which breaks. “If Mark imagines there’s a conspiracy between us and Vettel against him, then he is on the wrong track,” Marko said. “If I was More…

In the fall out from Saturday’s decision by Red Bull Racing team principal Christian Horner to take the sole remaining new front wing from Mark Webber’s car and give t to Sebastian Vettel, he has said that he acted alone after consultation with the team’s technical chief Adrian Newey. “There has never been any pressure from Red Bull to favour one driver over the other,” he is quoted in the Telegraph today. “I didn’t have a conversation with Helmut [Marko, Red Bull's motorsport adviser] or anyone from Red Bull regarding the decision to give Sebastian the wing. It was purely More…

Mark Webber has confronted head on the issue of his “number two” treatment by the Red Bull team in the aftermath of today’s British Grand Prix. On the radio on the slowing down lap he said, “Not bad for a number two driver” and then in the press conference he said that he would not have signed his contract renewal last month if he had thought that the team would act this way. He described his win today as an “appointment with karma”, poetic justice after the events of Saturday. Yesterday, after a component failure, the team found itself able More…

Red Bull has drawn a line under the episode in Istanbul where its two drivers hit each other, but the points remain lost. We calculate that the total points lost by Red Bull this season in the opening seven races adds up to 120. Under a photo with the caption “Sh*t happens” the team said that the two drivers plus Helmut Marko and Christian Horner met at the team’s HQ in Milton Keynes to clear the air. The statement also contained the first words from Vettel about the incident since his brief appearance in front of the microphones in Istanbul. More…

As we mentioned the other day, Sebastian Vettel is getting a new chassis for next weekend’s Turkish Grand Prix. And in keeping with his tradition of naming cars after girls, it’s going to need a name. Red Bull announced that Vettel’s Monaco chassis was damaged and the team has built up and sent out a new one to Istanbul. It should be identical to the old one as chassis are homologated these days as a cost saving measure, so there is no incentive to bring out a B Spec car. Vettel has a tradition of naming his cars, as American More…

The car everyone has been waiting to see broke cover this morning in Jerez, ahead of the second official F1 test. On paper, Red Bull are favourites for the championship this year because they had the fastest car at the end of the season and had taken a direction in design and philosophy that other teams have clearly copied with their 2010 cars. The new Red Bull is an evolution of last year’s car and as long as Adrian Newey and his team have got their sums right and haven’t built in any reliability issues, this should mean that the More…

Mark Webber’s Japanese Grand Prix looked like a bit of a write-off; he finished last, two laps behind his team mate who won the race in the same car. But it could turn out to have been a very worthwhile afternoon. The Australian crashed on Saturday morning, doing enough damage to his car for it to be scrapped and this meant he had to miss qualifying and start the race from the pit lane. He was back into the pits twice in the first few laps to fix a loose headrest. From then on his race was a test session. More…

The Red Bull team has a lot of work to do if it is to challenge for the win here this weekend, according to Mark Webber. The Aussie who lies second in the world championship, 18.5 points behind Jenson Button, says that the team expected Valencia to suit their car less well than other tracks coming up, like Spa, but nevertheless he is concerned by the difference in lap times with the Brawns in particular, “We’ve got a bit of work to do tonight,” he said. “We are not at our normal level at the moment. Seems to be [that More…

Sebastian Vettel will be a Red Bull driver for at least another two seasons, with an option to stay for 2012 as well. The 22 year old German has developed in the last 12 months into one of the sport’s leading drivers and with Red Bull producing a race winning car this year the combination has become very strong. His decision to stay is no great surprise but it is timely as the driver market is starting to really kick in now and this announcement needed to be made to stop any speculation about Vettel’s future. Mark Webber was recently More…

One of the great success stories of this season has been the arrival at the front of the grid of the Red Bull team under Christian Horner. The team has been building up steadily over the last few years since Red Bull took over the former Jaguar team. Horner has assembled a talented technical team, bringing in Adrian Newey to head the design department and other less well known but equally important people like Neil Martin, who heads the strategy group. People may well look back on this 2009 season as the year when the double diffuser issue meant that More…