Red Bull Racing insists the champagne is not yet on ice, but the team’s owner Dietrich Mateschitz has already decided what present he will be giving Sebastian Vettel for winning the 2011 world championship.
“The same as last year,” Mateschitz said in an interview this week with the German news agency DPA. “His championship-winning car.”
In 2010, when German Vettel became F1′s youngest ever title winner, Mateschitz delivered the Adrian Newey-inked RB6 to his home in Switzerland.
Red Bull’s team management are coy over the 24-year-old’s chances of wrapping up a second consecutive championship in Singapore this weekend, but billionaire Mateschitz is more honest.
“We anticipate that, once again, we will achieve both of the titles this year”, said the famously low-profile Austrian, 67.
He has high praise for Vettel, who enters this weekend’s Singapore night race with a lead so big that his only championship rivals have already given up the fight.
“The fact that Sebastian is highly capable, we knew,” said Mateschitz. “That he would be able to deliver it so consistently over a long time has surprised many people.”
Bild newspaper said Vettel’s championship present, the RB7 chassis that he has unofficially dubbed ‘Kinky Kylie’ – but minus a EUR 200,000 Renault engine – is worth almost a million euros.
“Slowly, his garage in Switzerland is becoming too small,” confirmed Red Bull driver manager Dr Helmut Marko.
So what does Vettel think about his championship present?
“I am not thinking about that because I haven’t won anything yet,” said the driver at Zurich airport before boarding a flight to Singapore.
Vettel told the German-language Eurosport that he is not counting on celebrating his second title this weekend.
“When it happens does not matter. As long as we are still first after the final race, that will be ok,” he said.
The RB7′s designer Newey insisted that Vettel will not be playing a points-counting game under the Singapore lights.
“Seb doesn’t want to cruise to the world championship, he really wants to earn it,” the Briton told The Sun newspaper.
Source:YallaF1
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