Formula One: Red Bull look for flying start to the season

MELBOURNE:

Reigning champion Sebastian Vettel and Australian teammate Mark Webber are bidding to give Red Bull Racing a flying start to the new Formula One season with victory in Sunday’s Australian Grand Prix.

Last year the German, at 23, became the youngest F1 world drivers’ champion with a showdown victory in the season-ending Abu Dhabi GP to win his first world title by just four points from Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso. Webber finished third to give the Austrian-British Red Bull team their first constructors’ world title, capping a season of dominance with nine race wins and 15 poles.

Red Bull have yet to win on Melbourne’s Albert Park street circuit, although Vettel was the fastest qualifier for last year’s race. But given the car’s rapid development bookmakers have Vettel and Webber as favourites this weekend.

“Surely our target is to continue the way we finished,” said Vettel. “As far as I know we won the last race, we gave a strong performance there, and we will try to carry that momentum into the new season.”

Our goal is the title: Alonso

Ferrari, who have won the Melbourne race six of the last 11 years, are pinning their hopes on Spaniard Alonso, a winner here five years ago with Renault. Alonso lost a potential third world drivers’ title in last year’s crunch final race and is backing his team to go all the way in 2011.

“If you race for Ferrari your goal is to fight for the world championship,” he said. “I think this team and the history about us is about passion, motivation and about winning. At the end you can win, you can lose, it depends on how competitive you are and many other factors as well, but we need to be there and I’m sure we will be there to the last moment.”

McLaren to exhaust all efforts: Button

Jenson Button said McLaren will introduce a new exhaust system into their cars for Sunday in a bid to stay with Red Bull and Ferrari.

The 31-year-old Briton revealed his team’s planning after a troubled winter testing programme which left McLaren trailing the two hot shot teams heading into the Melbourne season opener. And Button also predicted that the faster-degrading Pirelli tyres to be used by all teams this season may help McLaren in the final stages of the race on the abrasive Albert Park street circuit.

“You’d say that Ferrari and Red Bull have dominated winter testing in terms of their pace and reliability,” he said. “Those two teams are probably the happiest coming out of winter testing, so they’ve done everything that they wanted to. I just don’t know where we are, we could be pleasantly surprised this weekend.”

Published in The Express Tribune, March 25^th, 2011.