Flip through the latest issue of Gulf Weekly.
Sebastian Vettel finally got the monkey off his back and triumphed at his home German Grand Prix but more challenges await this month with a tyre test and a race in Hungary he has never won.
Red Bull’s triple world champion increased his lead in the current standings to 34 points on Sunday after holding off a late charge from Lotus’ Kimi Raikkonen to the delight of thousands of German fans at the famous Nuerburgring track.
The victory was his first in July and he will now head to Budapest at the end of the month with renewed confidence, even if the tyres set to be used at the Hungaroring will differ from Germany.
A series of dangerous tyre blow-outs at the British Grand Prix two Sundays ago forced supplier Pirelli to rush out a safer set of rear tyres for the Nuerburgring which had an inner belt of Kevlar, a synthetic fibre, rather than steel.
A more long-term approach will be taken from Hungary with tyres similar to 2012 set to be introduced after a special testing session at Silverstone on July 17-19. Uncertainty still reigns though.
Vettel said: “I think at this point we don’t know which tyres we are probably running in Hungary.”
Ferrari took a bold approach by deciding not to push for pole in qualifying on Saturday to conserve tyres for the race but Fernando Alonso, second in the overall standings, only managed to climb to fourth.
Meanwhile, Red Bull are losing driver Mark Webber to endurance racing at the end of the year and a rumoured announcement of Raikkonen as his replacement cannot be discounted this month.
