Prost expecting Vettel to equal his champ’ships tally
Brawn staying at Mercedes, says Lauda
PARIS, Feb 26, (RTRS): Fourtimes Formula One world champion Alain Prost has backed Red Bull’s Sebastian Vettel to equal his tally of titles this season.
Frenchman Prost won his championships with two teams over nine years but Vettel is aiming for four in a row, a feat achieved before only by Argentine great Juan Manuel Fangio and Michael Schumacher.
Only three drivers have ever won four or more titles since the championship started in 1950.
“Oh yes, although I hope he doesn’t have a start to the season like he did two years ago when he won four or five races in a row,” the 58-year-old told reporters at a Renault engine event on the outskirts of Paris when asked whether Vettel would chalk up his fourth crown.
Vettel won five of the first six races in 2011 when he romped to his second title but he had a much tougher time last year, being taken down to the wire in Brazil by Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso.
“He is still the favourite. Behind him, it’s hard to say,” said Prost who won his titles with McLaren and Williams.
“Will losing (Lewis) Hamilton and having a young driver in his place be destabilising (for McLaren)? Mercedes will not be challenging for the title, I don’t think so. Alonso could be the most dangerous behind Vettel and why not an outsider like (Lotus’s Kimi) Raikkonen or (Romain) Grosjean?”
Prost’s son Nicolas is a development driver with Lotus.
Asked what conclusions he had drawn from the first two pre-season tests in Spain, Prost said Red Bull were still clearly the team to beat while Hamilton’s Mercedes team would be fighting to catch the other front-runners.
“Red Bull are still there and certainly better than last year at the same time,” he said. “Ferrari are also good. McLaren will be certainly among the top three and Lotus also up there.
“There’s a little question mark over Mercedes, we still don’t know their level. They were a long way away at the end of last season so I don’t see them suddenly returning to the front. But they will be up there at certain tracks.
“It could be a very even field, we’ll see some good races.”
In London, Ross Brawn’s position as Mercedes team principal is not in discussion despite Paddy Lowe’s departure from McLaren at the end of the year, Mercedes GP non-executive chairman Niki Lauda said on Monday.
McLaren announced earlier that Tim Goss had taken over as technical director with Lowe, who has been linked in the media as a possible replacement for Brawn, leaving at the end of the year for a “fresh challenge”.
“I cannot officially say anything... McLaren put him on ‘gardening leave’ so let’s wait and see,” Lauda, who is also a Mercedes team shareholder, told Reuters at a Motorsport magazine Hall of Fame event in London when asked whether Lowe would eventually find his way to Mercedes.
“But what I want to make clear is that Ross is not even discussed. If Paddy Lowe is coming or not, I cannot tell you now...but there is peace. Ross is in his position and will stay in his position. Everything is under control.”
Lowe is considered certain to join Lewis Hamilton, McLaren’s 2008 world champion who switched to Mercedes at the end of last year, at the first opportunity and media reports last month suggested he could take over Brawn’s job.
Brawn, who will be 60 next year, is one of Formula One’s grandees and a master tactician and technical expert who guided Germany’s now-retired Michael Schumacher to seven titles with Benetton and Ferrari.
He told reporters last month that he was planning on being at Mercedes for a long time but was also building a succession plan at a team that won championships under his name as Brawn GP before he sold it to the German manufacturer.
Fresh challenge
McLaren team principal Martin Whitmarsh said Lowe, who can expect to face a period of ‘gardening leave’ keeping him away from the team’s 2014 car, would have a different role until the end of the year.
Lowe was already conspicuous by his absence when the new McLaren was launched at the Woking factory last month.
“He’s been a good and successful F1 technical director and we wish him well when he embarks on a fresh challenge in 2014,” Whitmarsh said in the statement.
The Formula One rules are undergoing a major overhaul in 2014, with a new V6 turbo engine and energy recovery systems replacing the current V8s.