I promise, with fingers firmly crossed, this will be the last post about the Turkish Grand Prix and Red Bull’s coming together.
Autosport has a story up saying, essentially, that Red Bull’s Mark Webber and Sebastian Vettel have “agreed to disagree” about the crash. Essentially, in that I’m not sure the two drivers ever say that. Maybe they get close, but, oh, I don’t know. You all be the judge:
Mark Webber and Sebastian Vettel say they have agreed to disagree over the Turkish Grand Prix collision that ended their chances of a one-two finish for Red Bull Racing.
Though neither man is prepared to accept full responsibility for the clash, which happened when Vettel tried to overtake Webber for the race lead approaching the final corners, both are adamant that the incident is now completely behind them.
“I’m cool, absolutely fine,” said Webber when asked if there was any lingering ill-feeling. “I’m totally over it and ready to go this weekend. I’m looking forward to getting back on the track.”
Vettel agreed that the crash was now in the past and that there was no point disputing blame anymore.
“What happened, happened so there’s not much more to say,” he said. “You can look at it from many different angles and you can’t change it now, so looking back I wouldn’t have done anything differently.
“What happened was bad for both of us and especially for the team because we gave a present to McLaren, but the most important thing is to move on.
“To be honest, F1 is not about yesterday, it’s about tomorrow. I don’t want to spend much time talking about what happened. It’s important to understand what happened and that’s why we met and talked about it.”
Webber said he did not think continuing to debate whose actions triggered the crash would help the situation.
“It happened so bloody quickly,” he said. “As I said at the time, I was a bit surprised at what happened, but that’s how it was.
I definitely get that both drivers want to put it behind them and are saying they’re moving ahead, not (real) hard feelings. But “agree to disagree”? I’m just not getting that.
Then there’s this quote from Webber:
“I’ve just kept my head down and tried to do my job. It’s turned out pretty well for me this year, and the team have, to be honest, been great to both of us, and that’s why we’ve a good package. We’re pushing each other, and it’s been good.”
Now, am I wrong that anytime someone says “to be honest” it means they are hedging the truth?
Honestly, I’m not looking for any Red Bull conspiracy, and I’m not trying to question the Autosport story. I think it probably is one of those instances when the subject of a story never quite gave the “money” quote, and so the writers had to paraphrase it.
I think, anyway. But the fact remains that Red Bull has handled this whole situation almost as badly as could be imagined, and so the inclination to parse through everything a little extra closely is hard to argue.
And it really sounds to me more like both drivers are trying their best to move on, but neither of them is very happy. And that they probably don’t agree on anything.
