Heading to Melbourne, many, including myself, believed Red Bull would only be in the midfield. They haven’t been midfield runners since 2008, and we all wondered how Sebastian Vettel would cope being there once again.
Strangely, we didn’t see a lot of Vettel during the race. It turned out it was an issue with the engine that cost him in qualifying, leaving him just 12th on the grid following Valtteri Bottas’ penalty. He retired after just 3 laps with yes, you guessed it, an engine issue. The statistics will show that Red Bull were bottom of the Constructor’s standings after the first race, following Daniel Ricciardo’s disqualification (which is pending due to an appeal by Red Bull which will be decided finally on April 14th) for exceeding the 100kg/h fuel flow rate limit consistently, despite multiple warnings from the stewards.
The pace shown by Ricciardo in qualifying is hard to judge. Because it was a wet qualifying, it’s tricky to see where they are on a dry track. Yes he did well in Q1, but teams like Mercedes and Williams must have been keeping something in reserve; Mercedes even got through using the harder tire.
Compared to the Mercedes of Rosberg, Ricciardo finished over 20 seconds behind in a safety car affected race. Looking at the statistics of Rosberg’s race pace, he had what appeared to be at least half a second in reserve. So it’s quite clear, whether the car was illegal or not, it is quite considerably slower than the Mercedes at this stage, as expected.
How about compared to the other teams? How about compared to the likes of McLaren, Williams and Ferrari? Well, Ferrari also had engine issues; Kimi Raikkonen is having problems with the new brake-by-wire system. So it’s tricky to judge where Red Bull are compared to them. Both McLarens were challenging Dan by the end of the race, so perhaps the McLarens will have a slight edge should Red Bull run within the regulations. Williams is a tough one to fathom, however. They qualified poorly and Felipe Massa was spectacularly taken out by Kamui Kobayashi in the first corner. Bottas was running very strong before hitting the wall. Whether he could have finished ahead of Ricciardo is difficult to tell.
And then you have to add in the Vettel factor. Would Vettel have been any quicker had he not had those engine issues? It’s tough to say. Ricciardo didn’t put a foot wrong all weekend, it was a very strong performance by the Aussie, arguably his finest in a race. We expected the Red Bull car to be quick, but perhaps not quite as quick as it is showing itself to be. How much breaking the rules had to do with this I’m not so sure, but it certainly helped with fending off the McLarens at the end of the race. Splitting the Mercedes cars in qualifying was certainly a shock though. I don’t think anybody was expecting that. Like Mercedes, however, their star driver retired very early on with an engine issue, and it was a great performance for the other driver. The fact that Mercedes have shown, already, a sign of weakness in their engines will breathe a sigh of relief to Renault and Ferrari.
So, now we look forward to the extreme heat of Malaysia. Three wins in the last four years for Sebastian Vettel there, although last year was the scene of the infamous ‘Multi 21’ incident. Red Bull are currently bottom of the constructor’s standings, below even Marussia. Mercedes are quite possibly a second faster than anybody else, and Vettel was incredibly frustrated on the team radio. However, despite his teammate being on the back pages around the world at the moment for arguably the wrong reasons, it doesn’t look as bad as it seemed for Red Bull. At least until Spain, where in-season testing starts and teams bring lots of upgrades, podiums look far more likely for Red Bull, should the top Mercedes teams, and Ferrari struggle.
Thank you for reading. Please take a moment to follow me on Twitter – @Craig_O_F1. Support LWOS by following us on Twitter – @LastWordOnSport – and “liking” our Facebook page.
Interested in writing for LWOS? We are looking for enthusiastic, talented writers to join our Motor Sports writing team. Visit our “Write for Us” page for very easy details in how you can get started today!
Main Photo:
