The Red Bull Car Is Wicked Fast
Sebastian Vettel may have made a mess of it late in the Australian Grand Prix, but that doesn’t change one thing. The Red Bull car is wicked fast and going to be a force in 2009.
The Formula One field is currently divided into two groups. The first is comprised by Brawn, Williams and Toyota who have the diffuser design that complies with the technical regulations, but not the spirit of the rules. The rest of the field has the more spirit oriented diffusers. The Australian Grand Prix revealed some amazing things about these two groups.
Brawn GP is clearly the class of the field. It isn’t even debatable. While Jenson Button drove a conservative race to win with a solid cushion, the true performance potential was seen in the car driven by Barrichello. Barrichello was a disaster. He botched the start. He compounded it by running into Weber in what appeared to be a panic move. Later, he drove into Raikkonen. All of this resulted in him dropping into the last half of the field. Despite this, he was able to race back up to second position. He had a broken front wing for at least half of his charge! Barrichello is an average driver at best, so the car is very good.
The shocker is the Red Bull car may represent the best opposition to Brawn. The car was wicked fast. The first qualifier of the “non-diffuser” cars, the Red Bull was blindingly fast as well. With Vettel qualifying third and Webber not far behind, the team is clearly the second best on the grid.
The key to the season is the April 14th hearing on the diffuser issue. The result really doesn’t matter as much as you think. Once a decision is made, the teams will all rush to comply with it. If the diffusers on the Brawn are upheld as legitimate, you can bet Red Bull, McLaren, Ferrari, Renault and BMW will be switching to their own version. If the opposite occurs, then Brawn, Williams and Toyota will be switching to the conservative form of diffuser.
Regardless of which way it goes, the teams will all be closer on performance. At that point, Red Bull should be much closer to Brawn or even perform better. Can anyone say “Vettel – 2009 World Champion”? Button better rack up as many points as possible now, because I fancy Vettel to be the better driver. Brawn versus Red Bull for the championship…who would’ve thought it possible?
Lemmy