Posts tagged ferrari

What an ending for the Formula 1 season in Abu Dhabi final showdown, wow!

As an Italian I’m mildly disappointed by the outcome, but in full honesty I’m happy for Vettel and for Red Bull, for a number of reasons, not too relevant here.

However, I think they (Red Bull team) have been a bit cheeky with all this thing about team orders. Let me explain… my ‘conspiracy theory’ is that they had a strong preference for Vettel to win the championship and to a certain extent they’d rather not win it in their pursuit to have Vettel champion. Hence the ‘no team orders’ strategy in my view, here’s why…

Vettel is younger, more talented (sorry Webber), closer to the teutonic ownership of the team and all sorts of other things. If he didn’t win this year he could risk some sort of psychological repercussion, which may have prevented him to become the new Schumacher (hopefully not coming back to racing when old and grumpy - not yesterday though, since he had a rather inappropriate laugh with Liuzzi on his way to the box after the crash… I wouldn’t laugh that much after a season like that!) and in general true multi titled champion, a goldmine for Red Bull.

Add to that the fact that Ferrari’s naivety in dealing with the infamous team orders in Germany gave Red Bull a moral advantage both in case of victory and defeat. So Red Bull wants so badly to win with Vettel and they’re confident enough in their car and his superior speed/performance to put at risk a championship already almost in Webber’s bag with several races to go. I see 3 scenarios that could have happened, clearly with different probability by the time the first claims of ‘no team orders’ were made.

Outcome #1 (say 20% probability): things turn out the way they dreamt about and everyone is a hero, except for ‘poor’ Webber which will probably retire. Victims by friendly fire: Webber.

Outcome #2 (say 35% probability): the trick doesn’t work out and Red Bull wins ‘only’ the Constructors Championship (which is a huge deal anyway and where the big money for the team is) and they can shield behind Ferrari’s lack of ethics for the team orders stuff. Friendly fire may not kill anyone or Chris Horner is the one to take the blame for everything.

Outcome #3 (say 45% probability): they win the championship with Webber and although they may have dreamt slightly different they all get a nice bonus and the status of favourites for next season. Vettel and his ego/psychology may get wounded by friendly fire here.

All in all, congrats to the Red Bull team, which built an amazing car and had a very strong team. They’ve been cheeky, confident, crazy and lucky enough to deserve several days of partying, before delving full time into the developments for the new season. I may be wrong in everything I wrote here but it sounds so possible to me that I want to believe I’m right :)