Another Monologue From Sebastian Vettel
His victory at the European Grand Prix represented his sixth of the season and increased his lead over No. 2 Jenson Button to 77 points. While the Spanish media keeps on filling up their pages with excuses to make their countryman Fernando Alonso from Ferrari Scuderia look as the best driver in the Formula One, Red Bull Racing Sebastian Vettel keeps on proving them wrong race after race. Not only did he snatched the title from Alonso last season in the grand finale at Abu Dhabi, becoming the youngest champion of all time, but also opened a 99 point gap between them this 2011, year where he has won six races already, with his most recent victory taking place at the European Grand Prix on June 27. Vettel’s supremacy is such that despite there still being 11 races to go in the season, his contenders are starting to get frustrated and call off their fight for the title, just like a resigned Lewis Hamilton from McLaren didn’t hesitate to admit after finishing in fourth place at Valencia, as he watched how the defending champion was now 89 points ahead of him.
Despite trying to backtrack on his words through his Twitter account after realizing the impact of his title claims, posting that his “team will never give up and I will never give up!”, the statistics did the job alone for Hamilton. This championship is pretty much over for him, but McLaren and their fans have their pride and still want to see Hamilton fighting as if there were options to clinch title. The Constructors championship is the only front opened where McLaren could still have a chance to win, considering that it is based on the sum of both drivers’ results. Together Hamilton and teammate Jenson Button have achieved 206 points, 89 less than Red Bull’s duo Vettel-Mark Webber, situation that can only be reverted if McLaren begins to dominate the podium from now on. Seven pole positions, winner of six races and runner up in the other two are the numbers with which Vettel has made from this season start the best in F1 history.
In the last Grand Prix held at Valencia on June 27, the defending champion showed more signs of his dominance by securing his first fastest lap of the race with 1:41:852 on lap 53. The 2011 F1 season will continue on July 10at the Santander British Grand Prix in England, race that last year was won by Webber. It will be a perfect scenario for McLaren to shorten distances with Red Bull in the Constructors Championship, for they will be running with the support from the British fans on their side. As for Vettel, he will try to claim his second victory at Silverstone Circuit, where he won for first time in 2009, but didn’t run with the same luck last year, when despite of clinching the pole position he ended up seventh number. Vettel wants to avoid all distractions and relaxation, stressing that the championship is long and many things can still happen.