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[sagi58]

He sure looks good in red!

So do you!!

[sagi58]

 wrote:">Vettel victory increases demand for Italian GP tickets

Another figure has hit back at Bernie Ecclestone's claim that Lewis Hamilton is a better world champion than Sebastian Vettel. In Malaysia last week, F1 supremo Ecclestone criticised German Vettel for living a private life in Switzerland, while Hamilton "gets out on the street and supports and promotes formula one". "He (Vettel) won four titles but went to ground. He should have done the job of world champion," Ecclestone charged.

F1 legend Gerhard Berger hit back at Ecclestone's claim, wondering: "Does he want his drivers to run wild on the Reeperbahn? On Sunday, Vettel trod on the only red carpet that matters -- as the winner of the race," the former Ferrari driver told Sport Bild.

And now Ivan Capelli, another former driver who now heads the organising body for the Italian grand prix, has also defended Vettel's contribution to the sport. "I do not agree with Bernie when he says that Hamilton is better for the sport," the Italian, set to negotiate with Ecclestone over the future of Monza's place on the calendar, told La Gazzetta dello Sport.

"Walking around with earrings or rapper medallions around your neck has no effect on me. But on Sunday I saw Vettel rejoice like a child despite already having four titles in his pocket. That's what brings people to the track," said Capelli. "After his victory, demand for tickets has increased significantly."

As for the future of the historic Italian grand prix, Capelli said he is hopeful his negotiations with Ecclestone set for Monaco next month will bear fruit. "I have already won the support of Pirelli in the talks with Bernie," he revealed.

As for Ferrari, there have been rumours the powerful Italian marque is not so supportive of Monza, as it would prefer to host the race itself at Mugello. Capelli said: "I talked with (Maurizio) Arrivabene in Australia and he said that his table is clear. Maurizio is an honest person and I believe him."

[sagi58]

 wrote:">Lauda: Vettel is not boring anymore

Niki Lauda believes Bernie Ecclestone can no longer complain that Sebastian Vettel is "boring" as the German's victory at Sepang was good for the "total image of F1".

In only his second race for Ferrari, Vettel came from second on the grid to claim the Malaysian Grand Prix ahead of Mercedes duo of Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg.

In the build-up to the race, F1 commercial rights holder Ecclestone compared Vettel to Hamilton and said the Merc driver has "been the best World Champion we've had" and he "gets out on the street and supports and promotes Formula One".

He added: "I told Sebastian: 'You should be doing what he's doing'... the job of World Champion.

"He was the Champion and got paid money for that and these guys think their only job is racing a racing car. It goes a bit further than that."

Lauda, though, has hit back at Ecclestone.

"I went to [Ferrari boss, Maurizio] Arrivabene straight away and I congratulated him from my heart," he said. "He is competition and the more competition the better, and if Ferrari wins Bernie can't complain about boring Vettel because Vettel is not boring anymore.

"It's very good this result for the total image of F1, because some people are always complaining."

[sagi58]

Just goes to show how important it is to have the right car and not just the talent!!

[sagi58]

, Staff wrote:">Chinese Grand Prix - Seb: our approach is unchanged

Sebastian Vettel met the press at Shanghai circuit on Thursday. Winning his first race for Scuderia Ferrari in Malaysia hasn’t changed his approach to the remainder of the season: “I think we’re realistic about where we are and what we want to achieve”, he said. “Targets haven’t changed. The victory we had in Sepang is a great result as a team but for the next race we haven’t changed our approach. We have to confirm that we have a strong package and a strong car and we’ll try to make sure that we stay ahead the people we stayed ahead the last couple of races, but knowing that Mercedes is in a very strong position.”

Asked whether Ferrari’s pace in the last race was a reaI indication of the car’s potential, Seb replied: “I think it was for real two weeks ago: I don’t think Mercedes backed off and everyone left. It has been nice but we had a couple of circumstances coming together. Most important of all, we managed to capitalize and get a very good result and win the race, but for the next races things can be up and down: we want to make sure that there are a lot of up and not so many downs as it is normal that at some races you’re more competitive than others.”

The four-time world champion reckons that it’s too early to make judgements: “We’ve had two races and usually you need at least a couple of races to understand where you are. I think we had a decent understanding, but the target is to confirm the fact that we vere close to the top class in Australia, fighting with Williams for the podium, and obviously in Sepang two weeks ago we were close enough to win, but – as I said – in general we want to make sure that we establish ourselves as the team behind Mercedes and it means that we stay ahead of strong teams like Williams and Red Bull for the entire season. The target is to ensure that the gap to Mercedes gests narrower and narrower.”

[sagi58]

 wrote:">Vettel says Ferrari could be last team before retirement

Sebastian Vettel thinks Ferrari could be his last stop in formula one. The 27-year-old switched to the fabled Maranello marque for 2015, and is believed to have signed at least a three-year contract. But the German, who won his four world titles with Red Bull, thinks he could now stay in red for a long time.

"Yes, definitely," said Vettel when asked if it is possible Ferrari will be his last team before retirement. "At the moment I'm not looking that far ahead, but I am not the sort of person who changes teams from one year to the next. I never was, in any area of my life."

Although retirement is a long way off, Vettel does admit to sometimes thinking about what he might do in his life beyond F1. Studying is one option. "You have to do something in your later life," he said, "so that you are not bored. What do you do with all that time? You can't just spend 30 years in retirement -- that would be a disaster!"

[sagi58]

What a guy!!

 wrote:">Vettel watches out for Schumacher son as F4 'patron'

Sebastian Vettel has become a patron of this year's Formula 4 series, the German newspaper Bild reports. The German junior single-seater category kicks off at Oschersleben this weekend. "I know some of the young drivers on the start list," Ferrari driver Vettel said.

All of Vettel's four titles at Red Bull were won at the wheel of an Adrian Newey-penned car. The Briton's teenage son Harrison will star in Formula 4 this year. But Vettel is also referring to Mick Schumacher, the 16-year-old son of his friend, mentor and F1 legend Michael.

The 27-year-old admitted recently he regrets not being able to turn to Schumacher, 46, for forthright advice as he weighed up joining Ferrari in 2015. "I think I missed that part a lot," said Vettel, "simply because I knew he would tell me the truth of what he thinks. The honesty he had in giving me advice over the years is probably the most special thing about it."

[sagi58]

 wrote:">Arrivabene defends Vettel after error-strewn race
The case of Sebastian Vettel shows how quickly things can turn around in formula one. Before Bahrain, the German was the new darling of Ferrari, dubbed 'Per-vettal' by the Italian press while teammate Kimi Raikkonen was once again struggling for results.

But on Sunday, it was the Finn who pushed Mercedes hard for victory, while Vettel had an error-strewn race. "After three perfect races, Vettel paid a high price for many mistakes," said La Gazzetta dello Sport. Another Italian newspaper, La Stampa, added: "This time Vettel was the number two at Ferrari ... imprecise, nervous, harried".

Team boss Maurizio Arrivabene said: "Sebastian made a couple of mistakes, otherwise we could have had two drivers on the podium. But he is - thank god - a human being, as we all are," the Italian insisted. Arrivabene continued: "We live in a world that is far too fleeting. He has won a race and stood on the podium twice, and is part of a team that has done something incredible over the winter."

And, that's because there is no "I" in TEAM!!

[sagi58]

Staff wrote:">Vettel - Wait and see

Montmelò, 7 May –

I think everybody is right: we have to wait and see what’s happening on Sunday as Barcelona has always been historically the track where to bring updates, sometimes bigger, sometimes smaller. We’re doing as all the other teams, bringing updates to catch up who’s in front of us. Every time you bring new parts you have to wait and see if they’re working well or not when you’re on the track and it also depends on how big is the step that the other teams has done.

Compared to the gap to the other teams we’ve seen here during the winter test session three months ago, we’ve improved a lot, but the gap is still there. What we really need is to be faster, in every condition: it’s true that we know this track very well, but it is also true that we have very different conditions compared to the winter session. It is 15-20° hotter now and I don’t need to explain you what does it mean

[darwin dali]

Posted By: James Allen | 26 May 2015 | 12:41 pm GMT |

There is an interesting line in Gazetta dello Sport today, noting that Sebastian Vettel has scored more points after six races for Ferrari than Fernando Alonso managed in the same period in any of his five seasons with the team.

Vettel, who has scored a win and four podiums, has 98 points which is comfortably more than Alonso managed even in his best start to a season with Ferrari. It’s also his second strongest start to a season, after his utterly dominant 2011 season with Red Bull.

Last year, the annus horribilis for Alonso’s relationship with the team, he had 61 points at this stage; 2013 he had 78; 2012 it was 76; 2011 just 69; and 2010 he had 75 points. So he was fairly consistent.

The 2012 season featured two early wins and another podium for Alonso, who led the championship after the first six rounds in a season when he took the title fight to the wire against Vettel, who was at Red Bull at the time.

His best start in points terms in 2013 was spoiled by a retirement.

[sagi58]

It's all about timing, isn't it?

[darwin dali]

Sebastian Vettel Q&A: Engine upgrade part of ‘aggressive’ Ferrari plan

05 Jun 2015
Having spent the majority of the season trailing in Mercedes’ wake, Ferrari have made a big play towards reducing the deficit in Montreal with the introduction of an upgraded engine. Heavy rain curtailed running on Friday, but even with a limited number of laps under his belt Sebastian Vettel ended the day feeling optimistic about the team’s progress…

Q: Sebastian, the big news at Ferrari are the engine upgrades. How much hope is attached to them to further close the gap to Mercedes?

Sebastian Vettel: Yes, it is true we have a new engine. It is a small upgrade that hopefully will help us to continue to chase Mercedes. We are very optimistic even though it is clear that they are still the favourites when it comes to the race win.

Q: Can you give a hint of what the ‘new’ is on your new engine? Are the rumoured 30 extra horsepower for real?

SV: I cannot give any numbers - and we all know that rumours are the favourite sport of the paddock, and most of it is not true. As I just said, it is a small step that hopefully will help us to get closer.

Q: Is this the right moment to be aggressive?

SV: Well, if you are not leading you have to be aggressive. But that goes for a number of teams that are behind at the moment. But you go into the season with a plan - you don’t wake up one morning thinking: now I have to be aggressive. You plan your season and this engine upgrade should help us in following that plan.

Q: Could the characteristics of this track help Ferrari make a step forward in catching Mercedes? Nico Rosberg said yesterday that he expects Ferrari to be a real threat here…

SV: A real threat - that would be great! But the gap is still there - I am under no illusion about that. But yes, moving again a bit closer - that should be within reach. Today we saw a typical Montreal day - three seasons within a couple of hours: thirty degrees in the sun, when the sun is gone a drop in temperature of about fifteen degrees, then we saw massive rain in FP2. So the most you could hope for was to get through your programme and have the best possible preparation for qualifying tomorrow.

Q: There was the impression that your race pace this morning was pretty promising…

SV: Yep, it felt good. Now we have to sit down and analyse where we are compared to the others. It is never clear on a Friday what others are doing in terms of fuel load. We know that Mercedes is quick - anything else would be a surprise - one that we would love to have! (laughs) In the end it was a bit of a shame that we only had thirty minutes in the afternoon - but everybody was in the same position. To sum up the day I would say that we did the maximum that we could - probably being in a slightly better position than Mercedes who decided to start on the soft compounds first so didn’t have so much time compared to us - even if I have to say that our runs were not ideal either and that there is still room for improvement. Overall I am quite satisfied with today’s running given the conditions that we had. We knew that it would rain - but not that much!

Q: At the end of last season you were frequently frustrated at race weekends when again it didn’t work out. Six races into the season with Ferrari, is that all history? Are we seeing the old positive ‘Seb’?

SV: I had no real expectations of how it would be at Ferrari. Now I can say it is very positive so far. I’ve had a lot of podiums and we are very competitive and improving our competitiveness with every race. So yes, it’s shaping up nicely and going into the right direction. For sure we are here to win - best if it would happen this weekend! But I have no illusions that in reality there is still plenty of work to do - that the gap is still there waiting to be closed.

[sagi58]

At Spa, when he spoke out about Pirelli, Vettel came under fire from some people who were not amused.
On the other hand you have David Coultharding defended Vettel and other drivers, saying they have the
right to speak their minds. I quoted bits and pieces, mostly those that referred to Vettel in the Spa thread
and rather than paste that entirely, here's the link to that thread:
Subject: Spa this wknd.

And, for those who would prefer to read the article in its entirety, you can find it here:

David Coulthard wrote:">Vettel right to tackle Pirelli on tires

[stonemonkey]

Vettel had a funny smile on the podium, looked like he was either amused by Nico's behaviour or he was thinking about Lewis 'I'm coming for you next year'.
Would be good to see them fighting it out on equal terms.

[darwin dali]

Vettel had a funny smile on the podium, looked like he was either amused by Nico's behaviour or he was thinking about Lewis 'I'm coming for you next year'.
Would be good to see them fighting it out on equal terms.

He's a cheeky chap with a wicked sense of humor.