Formula One news
'BMW not taking Vettel back' - Horner
29 April 2009Christian Horner how vowed to retain the services of Sebastian Vettel at Red Bull Racing, and ensures that the BMW Sauber team will not be able to rehire the German following a deal which came between the two parties. Vettel, whose F1 career started with BMW in 2007, has since won two Grands Prix for the Red Bull organisation.
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| Christian Horner, Red Bull Racing team principal |
Following Robert Kubica's death-defying accident in the 2007 Canadian Grand Prix, a 19-year-old Vettel was drafted into the BMW team to replace the Pole, impressing by scoring points on his first outing. After that single race, the German moved to Toro Rosso in 2008 before stepping up the sister Red Bull team for his second full season this year.
"Sebastian, since his first test, has been driven by the heart," Horner told German publication Sport Bild. "He is incredibly focused and it helps the team to move forward. He does not mix matters, always remains calm and is fully compatible with each problem and its individual solution. He is also incredibly productive in everything he says." Horner went on to describe how designer Adrian Newey - who has worked in the past with the likes of Senna, Prost, Mansell, Häkkinen and Räikkönen - had been particularly impressed when first working with Vettel.
The Red Bull team principal then talked of his driver's transfer from the BMW team to Toro Rosso for 2008, and of BMW's chances of re-signing the double race winner - a former member of Red Bull's young driver development programme - for the 2011 season. "Definitely not," Horner said firmly. "They can't get him now, but they did have an option on Sebastian. The condition was: BMW gives him a solid race cockpit for the 2008 season. But by mid-2007 they had given him up for the Red Bull family and Toro Rosso, so their rights to him are now permanently lost."
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| Vettel (right) and Timo Glock at BMW in 2007 |
Vettel has followed up from two retirements in Australia and Malaysia with a win and second place at the last two back-to-back races of China and Bahrain; he lies third in the drivers' world championship and now just one point behind Brawn's Rubens Barrichello. The gap from Sebastian to leader Jenson Button, though, is 13 points - what are Vettel's chances of becoming Germany's second World Champion? "The season is still long and we are not even a quarter of the way through," Horner continued. "It depends on how the big teams will evolve and how we succeed at the same time; basically, I have to say that we know we have a fast car - it is important that we get the optimum out of our package at each race and then anything is possible."
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