{"id":21920,"date":"2014-05-13T07:07:46","date_gmt":"2014-05-13T11:07:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/?p=21920"},"modified":"2014-05-13T07:07:46","modified_gmt":"2014-05-13T11:07:46","slug":"vettel-thinks-chassis-change-helped-in-spain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/formula-1\/vettel-thinks-chassis-change-helped-in-spain\/","title":{"rendered":"Vettel thinks chassis change helped in Spain"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Sebastian Vettel thinks his &#8216;new&#8217; chassis helped him to pull out of his 2014 crisis.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"ngg-singlepic ngg-left alignright\" src=\"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/gallery\/f1-2014-rif-images\/f1-2014-drivers\/Sebastian-Vettel-1.jpg\" alt=\"Sebastian-Vettel-1\" width=\"437\" height=\"291\" \/>Until Barcelona, the reigning quadruple world champion has struggled at the wheel of his original RB10 car, affectionately nicknamed &#8216;Suzie&#8217; by the German.<\/p>\n<p>So, with Dr Helmut Marko fearing a chassis crack, Red Bull reverted as a precaution to its winter testing monocoque for Vettel to drive in Spain and beyond.<\/p>\n<p>Although grappling with nightmarish reliability for most of the weekend, Vettel ultimately scythed through the field in the race, declaring afterwards: &#8220;I feel like I have a car in my hands again.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Asked by Germany&#8217;s Auto Motor und Sport if he thinks the chassis change was key, Vettel agreed: &#8220;I do think it made a difference.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;At least the question mark went away,&#8221; he added, referring to the uncertain handling of the car he experienced in 2014 until Barcelona.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;As for the pace, it was reasonable,&#8221; said Vettel.<\/p>\n<p>While happy with the Adrian Newey-penned RB10 overall, Red Bull is pushing engine supplier Renault to make further improvements.<\/p>\n<p>In Spain, the team benefitted from a new blend of fuel supplied by Total.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;In the car itself you don&#8217;t feel more power,&#8221; said Vettel, &#8220;but we were not as vulnerable on the straight as usual, so I do think it gave us a bit.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>But for the moment, he acknowledged that Mercedes is a long way ahead.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;They have a phenomenal engine, two very good drivers, a very good car, and a very good team, they&#8217;re doing a good job so it would be wrong to complain and moan about how dominant they are.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;They worked better than everyone else in the winter and deserve to be in that position,&#8221; Vettel added.<\/p>\n<p><em>\u00a9 RIF | GMM<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Sebastian Vettel thinks his &#8216;new&#8217; chassis helped him to pull out of his 2014 crisis. Until Barcelona, the reigning quadruple world champion has struggled at the wheel of his original RB10 car, affectionately nicknamed &#8216;Suzie&#8217; by the German. So, with Dr Helmut Marko fearing a chassis crack, Red Bull reverted as a precaution to its &#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":[1628,5262,5340,129,164],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21920"}],"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=21920"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21920\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21921,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21920\/revisions\/21921"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21920"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21920"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21920"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}