Vet tel: genius or goof ball?
He has same ruthless streak that we saw in Senna and Schumacher
HE fascination of Sebastian Vettel ’ s dark duplicity at Sepang is not a question of what, or how, but why. Just why did he double-cross Mark Webber, his supposed Red Bull teammate, with an act of ruthlessness at best supremely ungallant, at worst morally questionable? Why did he insult his inquisitors’ intelligence by mumbling that his ignoring of team orders — by passing Webber instead of finishing second behind him — was “not deliberate”, only then to shrug, “I f***** up”?
Here was no ordinary competitor but a calculating marksman, far more of an heir presumptive to Ayrton Senna and Michael Schumacher than even his most strident advocates had imagined.
Vettel, at 25 already a triple world champion, is fond of projecting the image of a lapsed choirboy, spicing his outward amiability with a very un-German grasp of the nuances of Monty
TPython. Britta Roeske, his PR handler, is at pains to ensure his portrayal as quirky, goofy, mischievous, as confirmed by his disclosure that he is never happier than when behind the wheel of his Volkswagen camper van. Quite what Red Bull’s title sponsor, Japanese car maker Infiniti, made of that is another matter.
It is all a cunningly crafted facade. In a Formula One cockpit this cherub morphs into the type of perfect Frankenstein envisaged by the Red Bull junior programme, abandoning his plausibly engaging alter ego in favour of a pedal-tothe-metal fury whenever the scent of victory beckons.
Obscured by Vettel’s latest imbroglio with Webber is his record as a brilliant, uncompromising racer, whose 27 wins and 38 pole positions continue to expose the fallacious logic that he has achieved three world titles solely because he drives a car designed by the peerless Adrian Newey.
Let us not forget that his maiden triumph arrived as long ago as Monza in 2008 — in a humble Toro Rosso. If his distinctions were mechanically enhanced, then why has Webber won only nine GPs with the same machinery? The explicit hierarchy at Red Bull is in place for a reason.
And it is this accepted order that Vettel so mercilessly exploited at the Malaysian GP on Sunday, ignoring the authority of team principal Christian Horner and emasculating even a proud Antipodean male such as Webber without the slightest remorse.
He was there to win his 25 championship points, to pounce upon the first-lap retirement of chief rival Fernando Alonso, to assert his status as Red Bull’s leader. Webber’s molten stare afterwards also betrayed a frayed self-esteem, the pain of which he is now trying to palliate with a fortnight ’ s surfing in Australia.
How disparate are the standards we apply to the greatest drivers. Senna once defended his audacity by claiming: “We are competing to win, and if you no longer go for a gap that exists, you are no longer a racing driver.” Then, the F1 world genuflected. Now, the same people label Vettel as brattish because he displays the same characteristics.
It is perhaps the legacy of the Schumacher era that Vettel is unfairly painted as just another Teutonic automaton. The fact that he has a reputation for being remote, sheltering from the lenses with girlfriend Hanna Prater in the Swiss village of Walchwil, and that he represents a team created from an energy drink all adds to a misplaced suspicion of soullessness. But viewed another way, his antics in Malaysia could underline the emergence of the finest driver we have been privileged to witness.
Win a fourth title and Vettel would elevate himself to the company of Alain Prost. Only Schumacher and the great Argentine Juan Manuel Fangio would remain ahead and he would, scarcely credibly, still be 26. Vettel is simply astoundingly talented and possessed of that touch of the devil where true greatness lies. — ©The Daily Telegraph, London