Red Bull boss Christian Horner has backed his new driver Sebastian Vettel to succeed in the upcoming season. Horner, one of the youngest team principals in the paddock, told Motor Sport magazine that the German was a special talent and would cope well with the new regulations that look set to play a big part in 2009.
[Here] we have a driver at the start of his career who, from what I ve seen, has a tremendous amount of spare capacity when he s driving the car on the edge, on the absolute limit,” said Horner.
Such words will recall Michael Schumacher, who was famous for being capable of dealing with race strategy while driving the car. It is not the first time the 21 year old Vettel has been compared with the seven-time world champion. But when Schumacher raced, technological aids meant drivers had relatively little to do in the cockpit. This will change in 2009, according to Horner.
“This year the drivers will have a greater input, and they will have to do the right things at the right time. There s a lot more going on in the car and they will have to be on top of it all. The more intelligent driver will win through; that s always been the case, and in some ways we re going back to the days when the driver played a bigger role.
Horner considered that his young charge was in a position to benefit from the new laws.
Sebastian will only get better and stronger he s still very young, and this will be an interesting stage of his career.”
The German is to partner Mark Webber at the Milton-Keynes based team.
