Rewards for Red Bull Racing

Red Bull Racing's 1-2 finish in Shanghai marks their first victory in Formula One. It should come as no surprise, since they have been strong since the start of the season, though until now they have not had the results to show it.

Vettel could have finished third or even second in Melbourne, until his collision with Kubica three laps from the end. And were it not for that incident and his subsequent (perhaps unnecessary) apology, he would have started from third on the grid in Sepang - rather than being penalised and demoted to thirteenth - and thus had a real chance of a podium finish there also.

Clearly the Red Bull car is fast - particularly over a single lap, since so far this season neither Webber nor Vettel has qualified outside the top ten. In wet conditions, too, the car appears unusually well-balanced compared to its rivals; indeed it was because of this that Red Bull were able to stay out in front. One suspects, however, that the result would have been very different had the race been dry: with fuel loads taken into account, the Brawns had the quickest car in qualifying, and probably the best strategy.

Of course for now Red Bull will relish the moment, and rightly so. But reliability still remains an issue; the driveshafts on both cars were a concern during the weekend. To challenge consistently for race wins in future they will also need to be able to translate their raw single-lap pace into performance over a longer stint. Nevertheless, it seems that an interesting title battle may be in prospect between Brawn, Toyota and Red Bull. 

Photo reproduced under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 license from an image uploaded to Wikimedia Commons by MorganaF1.