At Sepang, team orders take a walk. For worse

Agencies/Sepang, Malaysia

The frank statement, during a tense press conference featuring both drivers, did little to appease the emotional Webber, who led into the closing stages and had been told by his team that he could cruise to victory with Vettel second.

Instead, Vettel ignored team orders and plunged past his teammate with a risky overtaking manoeuvre, snatching his 27th grand prix and denying Webber his 10th.

“I cannot say much more than I did a mistake, I’m not proud I did it. If I had the chance to do it again I would do it differently,” Vettel said.

He added: “When I came back I saw the team’s reaction and I had a short word with Mark, it hit me quite hard that, language, I f***ed up.”

However, Vettel, Formula One’s youngest ever three-time world champion at 25, stopped short of pledging that he would make amends by handing a victory to Webber if given the chance.

For Webber, who has played second fiddle to Vettel as the 25-year-old German won the last three world championships, his teammate’s behaviour was galling after orders were issued over the team radio.

“The team rang up and said the pressure is off now, you need to look after the tyres until the end, basically don’t fight each other. I turned the engine down. Seb made his own decisions and will have protection as usual. I turned my engine down and as we know he’s a quick pedaller. Emotions obviously are probably not the best at the moment,” said Webber.

Formula One teams often issue orders to their drivers to desist from competing with each other in order to avoid mishaps once both teammates are well placed.

Team principal Christian Horner said the team would discuss the “frustrating” incident. “Sebastian decided to take things into his own hands today and race Mark, thankfully making a clean pass and switching the order to the flag. We know there is a bit of history between them...so it’s one of those things and the type of thing we will sit down and talk about internally,” he said.

“Formula One is both a team and an individual sport and sometimes there is a conflict between a driver’s desire and a team’s interest. What happened today is something that shouldn’t have happened,” he added.

Webber said that while he was personally in favour of allowing teammates to compete, Vettel’s decision to disobey orders could now prove difficult for the team in the future with trust now shot to bits between the two drivers.

“I’m a huge sports fan. I think we want to see people give their best until the end. It’s extremely unusual to have both cars at the end of a race together,” Webber said.

“Obviously now is a difficult situation for the future but it’s part of Formula One.” He added: “We are professionals and we did the job today. But it’s not an easy situation for the team and it’s always spoken about, always has been and always will be.”

Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton, who finished third, was also contrite after team principal Ross Brawn told a frustrated Nico Rosberg not to overtake his illustrious new stablemate in the closing stages.

“I don’t feel spectacular to be here. I think Nico deserved to be where I am now,” Hamilton said. “But obviously the team thought that with the position of the championship perhaps it was logical to stay in the positions we were in. But I have to say congratulations to Nico because he drove a much smarter, much more controlled race than I did today.”

Vettel’s first win of the season sent him top of the standings with 40 points to Kimi Raikkonen’s 31. Webber is third overall on 26. Red Bull took the lead in the constructors’ championship from Ferrari after two races.

Last year’s winner Fernando Alonso crashed out on the second lap after he hit the rear of Vettel’s Red Bull and damaged his front wing, which broke off and became wedged under the Ferrari’s chassis.

Ferrari’s Felipe Massa came home a distant fifth, after qualifying on the front row. The Lotus pair of Romain Grosjean and Raikkonen, winner in Melbourne a week ago, took the sixth and seventh spots.

Alonso’s 200th grand prix was short-lived with Ferrari appearing to make a major error in keeping the Spaniard on track with a broken wing rather than bringing him in to the pits.

McLaren’s Jenson Button was enjoying a good race and briefly led before a botched stop left him stranded in the pitlane as mechanics raced to tighten a loose wheel. He dropped down to 12th place before retiring on the penultimate lap. Teammate Sergio Perez took his first points for McLaren, and the first since he was announced last year as Hamilton’s replacement, by finishing ninth behind Sauber’s Nico Hulkenberg. Jean-Eric Vergne grabbed the final point for Toro Rosso.