Marketing has a lot to answer for. The need to target a particular product towards a certain audience might seem a logical and necessary undertaking, but it can have unexpected knock-on effects. Just ask Mark Webber.
His team, Red Bull Racing, was formed out of the ashes of the old Jaguar F1 squad, but its primary aim is to promote the energy drink of the same name. In this respect it is very successful, particularly as its two drivers, Webber and Sebastian Vettel, have taken pole position for every Grand Prix so far this season and going into the Turkish GP were level on points at the top of the driver’s championship with Webber having scored two wins to Vettel’s one.
And here lay the problem. The company, which is owned by Dietrich Mateschitz, targets its product towards a youth market which the 22-year-old Vettel fits in with perfectly. Webber, on the other hand, is perceived as a solid racer but not the team’s choice to be world champion. History has shown Vettel to be the quicker of the two – until this season. The 33-year-old Webber has stepped up to the mark (if you’ll pardon the pun) and driven solidly, whereas Vettel has made mistakes and suffered unreliability problems with his car. Webber scored superb back-to-back victories in Spain and Monaco and suddenly is on a roll, which is not what Mateschitz and his marketing people had planned.
The situation came to a head in Turkey when the two were running first and second, troubled only by the McLarens of Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button. These four had disappeared into the distance and, with less than three seconds covering them, had left the rest of the field half a minute in arrears.
Both Red Bulls were running close to the limit on fuel, however, and Webber had been instructed to turn the power of his engine down slightly to conserve it. Vettel, who had been running behind Hamilton at one point, had used a little less fuel and so was able to get a run on Webber at the exit of Turn 11 with 19 laps still to run. He pulled out of Webber’s slipstream and moved alongside to overtake on Webber’s left. The Australian gave him just enough room but, as he was edging ahead, Vettel jinked slightly to the right and the pair touched at 195mph. The result was that Vettel spun into retirement and Webber had to pit for a new nosecone, dropping him to third, which is where he finished.
Red Bull had thrown away an almost certain one-two finish, handing the victory to Hamilton and McLaren.
In the aftermath of the incident it became clear that the management at Red Bull felt that it had been Webbers’ fault for not giving Vettel enough room, despite the fact that it was clear from the on-board coverage that it was the German who turned into the Australian, not the other way round. And just about every expert and pundit who was watching also placed the blame clearly with Vettel.
The team obviously wanted its young charger to win the race, and there are even dark mutterings that Webber was deliberately instructed to turn his engine down before Vettel in order to engineer this, but the plan back-fired and in Red Bull’s mind Webber was to blame.
Two days after the race and the team is back-tracking and admitting it wasn’t solely Webber’s fault but saying both drivers were to blame. Again, not the opinion of most who were watching but an improvement nonetheless.
It means that the championship is even more open than before and with fascinating duels being played out within the teams, as well as against one another. Hamilton and Button also had a near moment in Turkey but drove intelligently, giving each other just enough space. They were still fighting hard, however, and will continue to do so throughout the season. And while this inter-team rivalry was expected at the start of the season, as was that between Ferrari drivers Fernando Alonso and Felipe Massa – and to a lesser extent between the Mercedes pairing of Michael Schumacher and Nico Rosberg – the Red Bull spat most certainly wasn’t.
Mark Webber has shown that he is not prepared to play second fiddle to his team-mate and he can only hope that marketing doesn’t take precedence over racing and that there aren’t any more knock-on, or for that matter knock-off, effects.
