Red Bull will adopt a ‘cautious, damage-limitation’ approach to next weekend’s Italian Grand Prix in a bid to endorse Mark Webber’s bid for the drivers’ world title – and try to keep ‘Crash Kid’ Sebastian Vettel in the reckoning.
Team boss Christian Horner admitted that his outfit were vulnerable to the all-out speed and power of the Ferrari and McLaren teams on high-speed tracks and conceded that Monza is likely to be another tricky challenge for them.
He said: “Hungary was a circuit that played to the strengths of our RB6 car – no straights and lots of corners. At Spa-Francorchamps, there were not many corners and very long straight sectors.
“But Singapore should be good for us, Japan should be good for us, Korea should be ok for us. We knew Spa and Monza would be McLaren territory so we just have to limit the damage, as we did with Mark in Belgium.
“To come away with a second place, thanks to Mark, was a very big result for us.”
Since that result last Sunday, in a race dominated by McLaren’s in-form Lewis Hamilton, the Red Bull team has kept a low profile – as much to protect Vettel as to give Australian Webber a little breathing space before he makes his next bid for glory in what promises to be a thrilling direct scrap with Hamilton for the title.
“Monza, for sure, will be a tough weekend for us,” added Horner.
“But we performed better than expected in Montreal and at Valencia this year. And, if you compare the tracks where McLaren have performed badly – like Hungary, where Mark lapped Jenson (Button), it was very encouraging that at a track like Spa, we still managed to get second place out of it.
“I think Monza will be our weakest circuit of the year arguably. A bit of rain there might be nice and then we go back to circuits that will much more suit our car.”
While Red Bull take stock ahead of the Monza weekend, their young tyro Vettel is licking his wounds following another error-strewn weekend that wrecked his own title hopes.
He is now in serious danger of joining an elite list of great drivers, including Hamilton, who failed to handle the pressure of a season-long title battle and threw their own chances away.
Hamilton did it in 2007 when he dropped 18 points in the final two races, allowing Kimi Raikkonen to emerge unexpectedly as the champion for Ferrari.
One notable error that year was Hamilton’s retirement in China where he slid into a gravel trap at the entry to the pit lane while driving on worn-out tyres.
Another Briton, Damon Hill, suffered similarly with a string of big accidents in 2005 when he had a title-winning Williams car at his disposal while others, including Niki Lauda in 1974, Carlos Reutemann in 1981, and Briton Peter Collins, in 1956, did it in different fashions.
Collins, infamously, or famously, depending on the viewpoint, was in a position to take the title that year at the Italian Grand Prix but was asked by Ferrari if he would hand over his car to the great Juan Manuel Fangio.
The Argentine driver then drove to his fourth world title thanks to the gentlemanly sacrifice of his team-mate – an action that is now not only banned by the rules, but also highly unlikely in the modern age of cut-throat competition.
It is unlikely to be repeated next weekend.