Abu Dhabi - The newly-crowned Formula One drivers' world champion Sebastian Vettel will be united with perhaps his favourite circuit — Yas Marina — within days after the German achieved his awesome feat.
Vettel, who became the youngest champion when he outclassed three other rivals to win one of the most closely-fought title race on Sunday, partied late into the night and then left for a press conference in Salzburg. The Red Bull driver will however be back burning rubber on his favourite circuit, the only difference is that it will be the Pirelli tyres instead of the Bridgestone that were used on Sunday.
Next year's Formula One championship will be fought on Pirelli tyres and the Italian manufacturer start their winter-testing at the Yas Marina Circuit this Friday and Saturday. Each of the 12 F1 cars present will have eight sets of tyres available over the course of the two days.
Meanwhile, Red Bull owner Dietrich Mateschitz told Austrian TV ORG that Red Bull will allow Vettel to go if they can't provide him the right car. "He [Vettel] will be a World Champion a few more times provided he is sitting in the right car. We will do our best to give him that car and if we are not able to we will let him go somewhere where he can be champion again," said Mateschitz
Early testing
Red Bull are keen to extend Vettel's contract, which ends next year, until 2015. The Yas Marina Circuit will get busy even before Vettel and the other big stars test the Pirelli tyres as the official young driver testing starts today.
Virgin Racing will be giving Luiz Razia, Jerome D'Ambrosio and Rio Haryanto the opportunity to drive the 2010 CFD-designed VR-01. Razia will drive today morning and then D'Ambrosio takes over. Haryanto will drive the car for a full day tomorrow.
Davide Valsecchi, who won the GP2 race on Sunday, will also be driving while Paul di Resta, Yelmer Buurman and Antonio Felix da Costa will test for Force India. Sauber's representatives are Sergio Perez and Esteban Gutierrez while all eyes will be on Red Bull's Daniel Ricardo.
Sam Bird will be in the young driver line-up of Mercedes, Jean-Eric Vergne for Toro Rosso and Vladimir Arabadzhiev and Rodolfo Gonzalez for Lotus. Meanwhile, Williams said Brazilian driver Rubens Barrichello will be staying and confirmed that rookie Nico Hulkenberg is leaving.
Source: http://gulfnews.com