‘Crash kid’ Vettel to bounce back – Horner

Sebastian Vettel will learn from his mistakes and emerge as a stronger sportsman and championship contender, Red Bull boss Christian Horner insisted yesterday.

The 23-year-old German, widely seen as the natural heir to compatriot Michael Schumacher, was dubbed ‘crash kid’ for his continuing blunders and accidents after another afternoon when he was given a drive-through penalty and made five visits to the pit lane.

In the wake of Sunday’s incident-filled Belgian Grand Prix, Vettel trails world championship leader Lewis Hamilton by 31 points after his erratic and pointless drive at Spa.

Vettel’s team-mate, Mark Webber, is second, three points behind Hamilton, with defending champion Jenson Button four points back in fourth who was shunted out of Sunday’s race by Vettel.

McLaren team boss Martin Whitmarsh said Vettel was developing as a ‘crash kid’ when he was asked to react to the incident which took Button out of contention to finish second and possibly wrecked his hopes of retaining his title.

Horner said: “Sebastian, without a shadow of a doubt, is a talented driver. Here was one of those races where it just did not go his way. He needs to stay calm and focused. It was difficult for him. You have to make split second decisions and I think he made one mistake when he was racing Jenson.

“He is a great driver, he is still a very young guy and it is easy to be very critical on somebody who is relatively inexperienced but for sure he will learn a lot from what happened.”

After a series of incidents, Vettel has developed a reputation as an impetuous and unpredictable racer, but Horner believes he will shake off that image.

“Nobody knows that better than Sebastian, he is a pretty mature individual,” he said.

“He analyses his own performance carefully and I am sure he will bounce back from this.”