{"id":11233,"date":"2011-02-24T07:03:35","date_gmt":"2011-02-24T12:03:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/?p=11233"},"modified":"2011-02-24T07:03:35","modified_gmt":"2011-02-24T12:03:35","slug":"champion-vettel-weighs-up-title-challengers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/formula-1\/champion-vettel-weighs-up-title-challengers\/","title":{"rendered":"Champion Vettel weighs up title challengers"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Reigning world champion Sebastian Vettel has singled out two leading challengers to his F1 title, and mentioned two more rivals that could spring a surprise.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Alonso for sure, and Hamilton is without question one of the best drivers,&#8221; the German told Sport Bild during an interview.<\/p>\n<p>But Vettel has also warned rivals and pundits against writing off 2006 Ferrari teammates Felipe Massa and Michael Schumacher.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;He (Massa) didn&#8217;t have a good season but no one should underestimate him; it&#8217;s not so long ago that he was really strong,&#8221; said the 23-year-old, referring to Massa&#8217;s title challenge of 2008.<\/p>\n<p>And Vettel said the same logic also applies to Schumacher.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I think neither of them have forgotten how to drive,&#8221; he said.\u00a0 &#8220;Schumacher&#8217;s history is too great to write him off, and Nico Rosberg has also showed us his strength,&#8221; he added.<\/p>\n<p>Vettel also said Jenson Button has unique skills that kept him in last year&#8217;s title race, and admitted that his own Red Bull teammate Mark Webber is similarly a threat.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;If our car is good enough, he (Webber) will get involved again.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>On Webber, Vettel said he and the Australian have cleared the air since their 2010 clashes, but admitted that the pair are &#8220;not necessarily on the same wavelength&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #888888;\"><em>\u00a9 RIF | GMM<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Reigning world champion Sebastian Vettel has singled out two leading challengers to his F1 title, and mentioned two more rivals that could spring a surprise. &#8220;Alonso for sure, and Hamilton is without question one of the best drivers,&#8221; the German told Sport Bild during an interview. But Vettel has also warned rivals and pundits against &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0},"categories":[3],"tags":[5262,5340,129,164],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11233"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11233"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11233\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11234,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11233\/revisions\/11234"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11233"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11233"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11233"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}