SVG RULES ON TRACK
SEBASTIAN Vettel has vowed to end Ferrari’s decadelong championship drought by beating Lewis Hamilton to the Formula One world title.
Ferrari made a giant step last winter to challenge Hamilton’s all- conquering Mercedes team, and at one stage Vettel was as many as 25 points clear of his rival in the championship race.
But Vettel and Ferrari’s assault faded in the second half of last season following a catalogue of driver and team failures, and the German was victorious at just one race after the summer break.
Hamilton raced to championship glory with two grands prix to spare, but Vettel, 30, hopes Ferrari can narrow the gap again and score Ferrari’s first title triumph since Kimi Raikkonen won the world championship back in 2007.
Vettel, who claimed the last of his four successive titles in 2013, said: “It is inevitable that everyone gets older, but it is always too long if the wait for a title is more than one year.
“I want to make sure that I can bring that championship back to Maranello. That is our big ambition and that is our target.
“Mercedes are the favourites, but if we can be close, very close, and closer than last year, that will be great.
“It is a long year. It is only March now, but we will keep going until the end of November when the season ends.”
Meanwhile, Formula Onedrivers haven’t hidden their disdain for the “halo”, the new protective cockpit device that is mandatory this season.
They quickly got used to it, though, and the season will start in Australia in three weeks with few complaints about the odd- looking shield implemented to improve safety. Most say that, as ugly as the halo may look, it won’t have a major impact on racing. TWO pole positions, two race wins.
The numbers don’t get much better for Holden’s Shane van Gisbergen after the opening weekend of the Supercars championship in Adelaide.
As his Red Bull Holden Racing Team stablemate and defending champion Jamie Whincup failed to finish a Supercars race for the first time in 136 races, van Gisbergen made it four wins from as many starts on the streets of Adelaide in yesterday’s 250km finale.
In front of a record crowd of 85,100, van Gisbergen made the most of Whincup’s drama to leave South Australia with a 32- point lead in the championship standings.
It’s the 2016 champion’s 26th race win in his career and he joins Whincup ( 08, 09) and Marcos Ambrose ( 04, 05) as the only drivers to claim four consecutive victories in Adelaide.
Bathurst 1000 winner David Reynolds, who briefly jumped van Gisber- gen mid- race following a pit stop before being overtaken a few laps later, took out second place and leaves Adelaide in second place on the championship standings.
Holden veteran Garth Tander came home third in a solid result for the 40- year- old driver.
“I love Adelaide, we have a dominant car, we battled and the car was quick,” van Gisbergen said.
“It was awesome, can’t thank my team enough. An awesome debut for the car.
“A great way to start the year; we just have to carry on the momentum.
“It was a shame not having a onetwo for the team but it ( the car) was great. We had to fight some cars off at the end there.
“We changed the car too much, it was good in high speed but then we had no traction.”
Where does here?
“We need to keep understanding the car, we changed it today and it the team go from worked the wrong way, we need to not make as many mistakes as last year,” van Gisbergen said.
“It’s been an amazing three months watching these cars come on board. Today is a special moment.”
Ford star Chaz Mostert was fourth, a position his teammate Mark Winterbottom seemed destined to claim before a drive- through penalty in lap 56 for excessively cutting the kerb at turn two of the 2.33km street circuit.
Winterbottom would eventually come home 13th but he was not the only major name to struggle.
Whincup was 11 secs clear at the front with 30 laps gone when his gearbox blew up.
The seven- time driver’s champion attempted to steer his Commodore back to the pits for repairs but the damage to his transaxle was too great and he had to retire for the first time since the Gold Coast event in 2013.
Incredibly, it was Whincup’s first DNF in his last 136 race starts.
“We had a really fast car,” Whin- cup said. “And we had it all under control. And then the gearbox temperature kept on going up and up. “And then bang.” Whincup handed the lead of the race to his Red Bull teammate Shane van Gisbergen after being struck down by the mechanical fault.
“It is only early days,” Whincup said.
“We are not thinking championship yet it is all about getting race wins.”
Ford driver Scott McLaughlin, who started the day just behind the Red Bull pair on the grid, had to settle for a 10th- place finish after a puncture on lap 25 scuppered any hope he held of a podium finish.
South Australian driver Yasser Shahin finished second overall in the Audi R8 LMS Cup category at the Adelaide 500, with Indonesia’s Andrew Haryanto taking out top spot.
The championship’s next stop is the Australian Formula One Grand Prix in Melbourne from March 22- 25.