Vettel dominance puts Schumacher’s F1 record at risk

It’s a testimony to Red Bull driver Sebastian Vettel’s complete dominance on the Formula One Circuit that his nearest rivals are now hoping the German would suffer a freak mishap and somehow miss a couple of races!

Vettel stormed to victory in the Singapore Grand Prix on Sunday to extend his lead to a whopping 60 points, something that almost rules out the possibility of anybody else gatecrashing his party.

Ferrari, on their part, have virtually given up, with team principal Stefano Domenicali saying they would be now concentrating their energies on 2014 when they hope to come up with a better car to halt Red Bull’s domination.

 “Now it’s clear that 99 per cent of our energies will be concentrated on the 2014 project, as complicated as it is important,” Domenicali said.

“We still have some new parts for the car that we will bring to the coming races but, above all, we will now try to make the most out of what we already have.”

Vettel, with his boyish good looks and a somewhat cavalier attitude on the track – he disregarded team orders and overtook teammate Mark Webber during the Malaysian Grand Prix – has endeared himself to motorsport fans ever since he started driving for Red Bull in 2009, finishing the year as the youngest-ever runner-up in the drivers’ standings.

From then on there was no looking back as he won the world title three times in a row – in 2010, 2011 and 2012 – to become the youngest-ever triple champion in history. Still only 26 and with a fourth title apparently in the bag, it could be safely said he is on the way to emulate, or even surpass, the great German Michael Schumacher, who won seven world championships  in a career spanning more than 20 years.

Schumacher was Vettel’s idol growing up, and the young German has easily proved himself a worthy successor to the now-retired veteran. But presuming there is at least a decade of competitive racing ahead of him, Vettel is a genuine threat to Schumacher’s record, if not his legacy.

Pakistan’s existential threat

The terrorist attack on a church in Peshawar that left about 90 people dead should open the Pakistani leadership’s eyes to the existential threat the country is facing from fanatics.

Sunday’s attack is the deadliest atrocity on Christians in the country’s blood-soaked history and should serve as another grim reminder to the government that any effort at making peace with its perpetrators is destined to end in failure.

Under Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, Pakistan has displayed a needless urgency to bring the Taliban to the negotiating table and have even released some of their leaders from prison despite the fact that such efforts in the past have failed miserably. It points to a confused leadership whose sole agenda is to hold on to power by appeasing the terrorists.

As one survivor of the suicide blast wailed: “They don’t spare mosques, they don’t spare churches. What sort of people are they?”

It’s a question that needs to be taken seriously. Christians form just above 1.5% of Pakistan’s population and have never been involved in any communal riot despite being marginalised and largely condemned to a life of misery.  It’s a pity that the government cannot even protect such a minuscule minority.