When the Formula One season resumes at this weekend’s Chinese Grand Prix, the biggest battles will be between sets of warring teammates rather than rival teams.
The division is deepest at Red Bull where — three weeks on from the Malaysian Grand Prix — there is still plenty of ill-feeling between three-time world champion Sebastian Vettel and No.2 driver Mark Webber following the events of Sepang, where the German ignored team orders to stay behind Webber and instead overtook the Australian and claimed the race win.
The fury in the immediate aftermath — reports that Webber would walk out on the team, that Red Bull must suspend Vettel — has died down in the weeks since due to the German’s public contrition, but has not gone away entirely.
“He’s said he can’t turn back the clock but he’s accepted what he did was wrong,” team principal Christian Horner said of Vettel.
“He’s apologized to the team and to every single member of staff for his actions, because he recognizes the team is vitally important and being part of the team is a crucial aspect to being able to challenge for those championships.”
Horner, whose own authority was undermined by Vettel’s actions because it was his order that was ignored, once again finds himself having to placate an understandably angry Webber.
The events at Sepang represented the deepest fissure yet between the two Red Bull drivers, trumping 2010 when they collided on track at the Turkish Grand Prix and then at the British Grand Prix the same year Webber was forced to use an old front wing because his new one was handed to Vettel, but went on to win the race anyway.
Webber had returned to Australia in the weeks since Malaysia to mull over his future, but Horner was sure he would see out the remainder of his one-year contract.