For many Australians, Sebastian Vettel showed his true colours in March 2013 when he denied Australia’s Mark Webber victory in the Malaysian Grand Prix at Sepang after ignoring team orders.
Webber’s final years at Red Bull Racing were somewhat overshadowed by the well-documented intra-team rivalry between himself and the four-time German World Champion.
Admittedly, team orders have always been a controversial aspect of Formula One, as many argue it strips away the very essence of motorsport; closing gaps and fighting for the lead, no matter who sits in the car in front.
Citing the late Ayrton Senna, a legend of Grand Prix racing, “if you no longer go for a gap that exists, you are no longer a racing driver.”
Nevertheless, at the end of the 2013 season, Webber hung up his race suit and vacated his seat at Red Bull, seemingly to Vettel’s relief. 24 year-old Daniel Ricciardo, a promising young Australian driver, was plucked from the Red Bull Young Drivers Program and became one of the world’s chosen few to race Formula One in 2014.
No longer the pup of Infiniti Red Bull Racing, Vettel, 26, became the senior driver and over the winter break was tipped to defend his 2013 World Championship.
Ricciardo, the boy with the biggest smile in the Formula One paddock, shocked fans and his own team when he stood atop the second step of the podium at Albert Park, the season-opening Melbourne Grand Prix. Although subsequently stripped of his podium finish due to a breach of fuel flow limits, Ricciardo became an instant national icon and proved himself among the world’s greatest race-car drivers.
So far in the 2014 World Championship, Vettel has struggled with the new turbocharged V6 engines and an unimpressive Red Bull RB10 has seen Vettel retire in Australia, Monaco and Austria and has led to speculation the RB10 is being fitted to meet Ricciardo’s needs.
Ricciardo’s triumphant win in Montreal has seen him climb to third in the Driver’s Standings, bettered only by the dominant ‘Silver Arrows’ of Nico Rosberg and Lewis Hamilton at Mercedes. With 83 points, Ricciardo leads Vettel, in fifth place with 60.
Now faced with a likeable, fresh-faced and competitive younger teammate, it seems Vettel’s role at Red Bull is gradually transitioning to one similar to that of Mark Webber’s in 2013.
2014 will be decisive in determining the pecking order at Red Bull, but Ricciardo’s stunning start to his inaugural season could see frostiness develop between the two; frostiness which will potentially rival that which stood between Vettel and Webber in previous years.
It seems the honeymoon period of peace at Red Bull Racing is very much nearing an end.
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