The Year of the Bull
Red Bull F1 laid claim to the 2011 F1 Constructor’s title today with a routine Sebastian Vettel win at the Korean Grand Prix.
Same story, different track. Vettel actually started from second, but took the lead from a pole-sitting Lewis Hamilton in his McLaren on the first lap and never relinquished it, increasing his distance from the rest of the field for the remainder of the race. Mark Webber, in the second Red Bull car, desperately wanted to make it a one-two finish for the constructor as they clinched the championship, but his driving skills aren’t the match of his teammate’s, and Webber couldn’t get past a recently-resurgent Hamilton.
There few relatively few retirements throughout the day, the most noteworthy being when Michael Schumacher’s Mercedes was broadsided by Vitaly Petrov’s Renault, giving the 7-time world champion another inglorious race result.
With three races left in the already-decided season, we’ll see if Vettel will relent and make the remaining races anything but a battle for second, or if he’ll maintain his, and his team’s, crushing dominance in 2011.