Red Bull: Team clinch title despite missed one-two

A mis-timed pit stop cost Red Bull a potential one-two but they secured the constructors’ championship.

	Sebastian Vettel	Mark Webber
Qualifying position	2	4
Qualifying time comparison (Q3)	1’36.042 (-0.426)	1’36.468
Race position	1	3
Laps	55/55	55/55
Pit stops	2	2

Red Bull drivers’ lap times throughout the race (in seconds):

https://www.racefans.net/charts/2011drivercolours.csv

	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	15	16	17	18	19	20	21	22	23	24	25	26	27	28	29	30	31	32	33	34	35	36	37	38	39	40	41	42	43	44	45	46	47	48	49	50	51	52	53	54	55
Sebastian Vettel	107.844	105.467	105.241	105.111	105.409	105.321	105.127	105.068	104.727	104.468	104.401	104.569	104.332	104.625	104.888	109.489	148.894	147.7	167.274	154.356	102.532	102.269	102.42	102.304	102.613	102.739	102.961	102.669	102.672	102.264	102.433	102.281	102.044	105.736	118.689	100.974	101.252	101.227	101.57	101.2	101.078	101.336	101.103	101.068	100.679	101.298	101.224	100.947	100.995	101.364	100.836	100.806	100.927	101.568	99.605
Mark Webber	109.966	106.214	105.448	105.615	105.94	105.988	105.616	105.802	105.181	105.134	105.068	105.442	105.999	110.228	121.094	104.168	137.356	135.065	166.41	153.926	103.29	102.643	102.472	102.437	102.867	102.511	102.29	102.811	102.582	102.557	102.69	103.349	108.323	121.526	101.755	101.882	101.994	101.685	101.844	101.433	101.251	101.21	101.118	101.438	100.897	101.144	101.539	101.225	101.442	100.513	101.223	101.046	101.005	100.525	100.294

Sebastian Vettel

Sebastian Vettel, Helmut Marko, Jonathan Wheatley, Christian Horner, Mark Webber, Red Bull, Korea, 2011

Start tyre	Super soft
Pit stop 1	Super soft 19.985s
Pit stop 2	Soft 20.17s

Red Bull looked under pressure on Saturday as Lewis Hamilton ended their unbeaten run in qualifying and the team appeared to be concerned by tyre wear.

But Vettel’s tenth win turned out to be one of his most straightforward of the year. His eventual winning margin of 12 seconds was one of his largest of the year, second only to Australia.

He coolly dispensed with Hamilton on the first lap, squeezing through a narrow gap at the inside of turn four, and was untroubled from that point on:

“Lewis was very fair going into turn four,” he said afterwards. “I was right on the edge, nearly went straight.

“It was crucial and then I was a little bit afraid as I had really pushed hard. I knew that with the headwinds down the straight from the second to the third corner it would be very easy for the cars behind to close the gap as I would be the first one facing the wind.”

His lead was almost five seconds by the end of the first stint, but the safety car wiped that advantage away.

Having saved three fresh sets of soft tyres for the race he opted not to use any of them until he had to, instead using another set of super softs for his middle stint. He didn’t pull away from Hamilton as quickly this time, but the gap began to grow as Hamilton and Webber became embroiled in their battle over second.

He had more than ten seconds in hand throughout the final stint and cruised home to win at the track where he was cruelly robbed of victory last year.

He even indulged in his pleasure for fastest lap-hunting on the final tour, despite his team urging him not to: “I think they will kill me now,” he said after the race.

“On the radio, they said ‘you didn’t get the fastest lap’ which obviously isn’t true, and then they came on the radio and said ‘idiot, you got it.'”

Sebastian Vettel 2011 form guide

Mark Webber

Start tyre	Super soft
Pit stop 1	Soft 20.828s
Pit stop 2	Soft 20.8s

For only the second time this year, Webber gained a position on the first lap of the race. He had initially fallen to fifth behind Felipe Massa, but took advantage of Jenson Button running wide at turn four to gain one place, then opportunistically took Massa on the outside of the following bend.

Unlike Vettel, Webber used soft tyres for his second stint. He closed on the leading pair towards the end of the stint, but was unhappy to end up coming into the pits on the same lap as Hamilton. It cost him his best chance of taking second place.

He explained: “The last pit stop was really what snookered us, I suppose. I was informing the team that my tyres were still good, but we still pitted.

“Yeah, that was a bit disappointing to do the same thing as Lewis because we should have done something different.”

Christian Horner said the team had been trying to get Webber in on the lap before Hamilton, but ended up bringing him in on the same lap. The team were not convinced the place could be gained by staying out longer than Hamilton. Fernando Alonso had done this to overtake Massa, but the Ferrari is kinder to its tyres than the Red Bull.

Webber spent the remainder of the race locked in a battle with Hamilton which was exciting but did not produce his desired outcome: “The fight after the pit stop was haymakers, full-on into each other. It was a good battle.

“So I think overall I’m satisfied how the battle turned out. It was nothing extreme, just a good car race.”

Mark Webber 2011 form guide

2011 Korean Grand Prix

Browse all 2011 Korean Grand Prix articles

Image © Red Bull/Getty images

19 comments on “Red Bull: Team clinch title despite missed one-two”

Nixon (@nixon)
17th October 2011, 18:34

Show just how fast the RedBull is and how Webber manged to get such poor results. I mean with a car like that they should have won the constructers championships a couple of races ago.

Nixon (@nixon)
17th October 2011, 18:35
*Shows*
David-A (@david-a)
18th October 2011, 22:56
It shows how Vettel has been the difference between RB being close to Mclaren, and RB being in a league of their own.

BasCB (@bascb)
17th October 2011, 18:53

I just think Red Bull should start listening to the radio and have some1 watch that McLaren pit talk app. Or just the TV feed.
All of us heard McLaren telling Hamilton to come in almost a lap before he did, I find it quite a lapse Red Bull failed to act on that (did they think it was a dummy?).
Apart from that, there was not much Red Bull could have done better this weekend.

John H (@john-h)
17th October 2011, 20:08
FOM always seem to play the McLaren “pit to overtake” messages and pretty much nothing similar from anyone else.
I’m not blaming FOM… why McLaren haven’t got a code word for this I cannot understand – don’t they realise it might be broadcast? (They weren’t dummying I believe).

MattHT (@mattht)
17th October 2011, 23:47

Why bother pushing for a 1-2? Title gonna be wrapped up either way!

AndrewTanner (@andrewtanner)
18th October 2011, 13:55
@MattHT For glory! They’re probably a little perturbed by how Button stole Vettel’s thunder a little in Japan.

DaveW (@dmw)
18th October 2011, 1:37

Webber gives the best comments. He should quit already and join
the press. He could throw some solid haymakers in the interview room.

Vettel’s performance was really just kind of annoyingly predictable now. Remember on Saturday when everyone was sure McLaren had the measure of them? He just walked away from Hamilton in the first stint. He didn’t even use his soft tire hoard. He had this thing totally covered.

raymondu999 (@raymondu999)
18th October 2011, 7:02
I don’t think he’ll do that after he retires. He’s gone on record to say that if he retires it will be complete retirement, completely away from anything Formula One
Keith Collantine (@keithcollantine)
18th October 2011, 11:56
@dmw
Webber gives the best comments.
Hear, hear! His team mate’s getting better though.

vjanik
18th October 2011, 10:36

Webber should have stayed out having seen Hamilton pit in front of him. I know that F1 is a team sport, but sometimes it feels like the decisions are being made by computers and mission centers back in england rather than drivers. The teams now have so much information at their disposal and drivers are nowadays basically just blindly following orders. We rarely see teams and drivers take a chance and making risks, almost as though they are more afraid to look bad if it goes wrong, than their desire to risk and win.

Keith Collantine (@keithcollantine)
18th October 2011, 11:55
Webber should have stayed out having seen Hamilton pit in front of him.
A fair point but this might have been hard to do given Korea’s pit lane entrance. It’s hard for a driver to tell if the driver one second ahead of them is coming in. Somewhere like Sepang it would be rather easier to do this.

sumedh
18th October 2011, 11:26

Red Bull bungled this up in Germany too where Vettel was fighting with Massa for fourth.

Vettel was told with 3 laps to go to do opposite of Massa does next time. Massa went past the pitlane, Vettel was supposed to go in, but he didn’t. As a result, both pit simultaneously on the last lap.

At that time, Ferrari cocked up their pit stop and Vettel got fourth anyways. But Mclaren made them pay for this mistake.

This is about the only chink in the Red Bull armor this year, I think.

Keith Collantine (@keithcollantine)
18th October 2011, 11:54
Good point. Though it seems to me if they were trying for the ‘undercut’ in Germany they should at least have brought Vettel in on the penultimate lap instead of waiting until the last lap.
Still, they got him out in front, so can’t criticise them!
1. sumedh
  18th October 2011, 12:05
  In Germany, I think they were only going for a clean lap for Vettel. So, the message – do the opposite.
  By seeing Alonso’s times, it was pretty obvious that a Ferrari on fresh hard tyres was slower than a Red Bull on worn soft tyres.
AndrewTanner (@andrewtanner)
18th October 2011, 13:57
Yea, I was trying not to be too harsh on them regarding the pit-stop with Webber and Hamilton. It worked in Vettel’s favour in Germany and could have quite easily gone Webber’s way on this occasion.
1. uan (@uan)
  19th October 2011, 15:44
  As Jenson pointed out with the Rosberg situation, coming out of the pitlane as the second car and straight into the DRS detection zone is actually to your advantage. The only problem for Webber is that he couldn’t get the drive out of turn 2 that Lewis did (oversteer or not, that’s the corner that kept Hamilton ahead of Webber the whole race).