Canadian GP team review: Red Bull

Vettel celebrating with his team after his Canadian GP victory

Red Bull produced a dominant display at the 2013 Canadian GP, with Vettel winning comfortably and Webber finishing 4th, extending their lead in the Constructors Championship to 56 points over second-placed Ferrari.

Vettel put in a stunning lap in wet conditions during Q3 to take pole position, just 8/100th of a second faster than Lewis Hamilton. Webber qualified 5th fastest with a time 7/10th slower than his team-mate.

Starting from pole, the German led all but three laps to take his first win in Canada as Alonso’s Ferrari overtook Hamilton’s Mercedes with just nine laps to go to finish second. Vettel came into the race leading Lotus’s Kimi Raikkonen by 21 points in the Drivers Championship. Such was the pace of the Red Bull that Vettel was able to lap Raikkonen halfway during the race, and the drive was reminiscent of his dominant wins during the 2011 season. He now holds a lead of 36 points over Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso, with Raikkonen dropping to third.

” I had a good start which was important and then I was able to go with the car. Obviously on the supersoft we saw the tyres were falling apart, but I think we were as good as anyone else and I was able to build a gap and then keep that gap throughout the race,” said the Red Bull driver on the podium.

“At some stages we had a full pit-stop in hand and that makes it easier to control the gaps and control the race. It was a great race and a perfect job from the team, with perfect stops even though we had time in hand.”

The three-time world champion was finally able to break the jinx and win at Montreal, a victory which had eluded him before, having come close to winning at in 2011 and 2012.

“It was an important race for us to win and finally get it off the list.”

Vettel’s victory leaves the Austin GP as the only race on the calendar yet to be won by Red Bull.

“We had had good races before – two years ago we came very close but I lost it on the last lap and that was my mistake – but I made up for that today,” Vettel added.

“It is a great feeling and the car was great today and I was able to pull away from the rest of the field which was important to then control the race although it was difficult at times with the traffic.”

Vettel’s team-mate Mark Webber missed out on the podium after an incident at the hairpin with Caterham’s Giedo van Der Garde. The incident happened on lap 37, shortly after Webber had passed Lewis Hamilton on to run in the clear air he needed. The Aussie believes it handed Fernando Alonso the initiative in the battle for third.

“We finally got past him [Hamilton] and the car was happy then, everything started to cool down and we could get into a rhythm until we caught a pay driver with no mirrors and then lost the front wing,” said Webber.

“The car was very damaged after that. You can’t have a bleeding car with Fernando around you.

“They [backmarkers] are doing their own race as well, I’ve been there in a Minardi but you need to look in your mirrors,” complained Webber. The Caterham driver was given a stop/go penalty for triggering the incident, but Webber suffered a penalty of sorts, having to deal with an underforming front wing. Red Bull opted not to change the wing during Webber’s second stop, a decision he thinks was almost certainly the right decision.

“I think we are always experts in hindsight,” the veteran added. “It was probably best to leave it on – structurally it was fine, but performance wise it was a big loss.”

Despite their domination, Technical chief Adrian Newey insists the that team will not be taking the Championship battles for granted. When asked if they were now poised to run away in the championship, Newey replied,

“It would be nice if we did, but we’re only seven races in and we’ve got a long way to go.

“The characteristic of last year was the swings between the top teams, backwards and forwards, and this time last year Fernando [Alonso] had a huge lead in the championship. So it’s a long way to go, we’ve got some very different circuits coming up, so I wouldn’t like to make any predictions from here.”

The Spaniard held a 42-point advantage over eventual champion Vettel at the summer break, and this could act as a warning for the Red Bull team to guard against complacency.