Vettel Fights No 2 Status at Red Bull

Sebastian Vettel is now more than a win away from his teammate Mark Webber in the Formula One standings and, as the season finale approaches, that can only mean one thing within his Red Bull team: getting closer to the No 2 status. Although the Austrian team have bragged endlessly about letting both of their drivers race for the championship, past experiences have taught us that all these policies tend to change in the final stages of a championship, once the distance between the two drivers is far enough to favor one guy.

Sensing that his last mistake in the Belgian Grand Prix might have ended his title hopes for the 2010 campaign, the German driver suggested that it would be a mistake for Red Bull to focus on one driver until the end of the season.

“For a driver this makes no sense – you don't give up trying to win the championship until it's mathematically impossible. For the team it makes no sense to favor one if that means penalizing the other because you need both drivers scoring maximum points to win the constructors' championship,” said Vettel in an email interview with the Associated Press published on Thursday.

Although level on points with Webber until recently – prior to the Hungarian Grand Prix – a couple of mistakes threw the 23-year old German 28 points behind his Australian teammate, with only 6 races to go. That being said, there will be no room for mistake for Vettel from now on. Especially since the very Red Bull advisor Dr. Helmut Marko, the one who made no secret of his bias towards Vettel inside the team, admitted that the Austrian squad will reassess its championship chances after this weekend's race, at Monza.

“After Monza we will sit down all together and assess our championship chances,” the team consultant is quoted by Kleine Zeitung newspaper, hinting that Monza might very well be Vettel's last chance to bring his final argument for the 2010 title.