Sebastian Vettel and Team Red Bull have won the last four Formula One World Championships. However one prominent commentator and former World Champion is predicting that his reign is set to come to end this year and is saying as much to two large Italian Newspapers.
“He’s not going to win this year for sure,” Villeneuve told Autosprint and La Repubblica. “To me, Renault seems completely lost and unable even to finish a Grand Prix. Even if [Red Bull] are making a new car for the European races, it won’t change anything — maybe they’ll do 30 laps instead of 15. It’s not the car but the engine.
“I’m joking, but why bother going to Australia? They can’t do half a Grand Prix and are slower than most.”
Villeneuve, who recently announced he will drive in the Indianapolis 500, is basing his prediction on Red Bull and Renault’s poor results in pre-season testing. It seems that they have been the slowest to adapt to new regulations imposed on the F1 circuit this year, and have been unable to produce a fast, or reliable setup in any of the pre-season testing runs. The team just can’t seem to iron out all the issues with the RB10 and Renault v-6 Engine.
For his part, Sebastian Vettel admits that the team is not the favorite in Australia, for the first race of the F1 season.
“We didn’t do as much running as we would have liked in testing this year, so we have work to do in Melbourne, but it will be good to get to the first race,” Vettel said last week. “It’s hard to know where we are; it’s fair to say that we’re not the favorites to win and we have to catch up with others that have completed more mileage, but we’ll do our best with the great people that we have working for the team.”
As for Villeneuve he went on to state that he felt Mercedes was the early favorite for the 2014 title. However he wasn’t happy with the team’s driving tandem of Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg, who he said lacked a spark.
Villeneuve also praised Kimi Raikkonen and his move to Ferrari, where he believes he will form an effective tandem with Ferrnando Alonso.
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