The Singapore Grand Prix takes place on Sunday, with Red Bull looking to stop Lewis Hamilton in his tracks
Not content with an almost certain second Drivers' Championship, Red Bull's boss wants his drivers to wrap up the top two and keep a certain UK driver out...
Once upon a time people gave interviews to a few newspaper journalists and said what they thought. Now, in the days of global internet coverage, there's a whole science behind the quotes that get offered up by sportsmen and their coaches and managers.
Sir Alex Ferguson was probably the pioneer of mind games, getting under the skin of Kevin Keegan and Arsene Wenger with clever comments that created a fuss and promoted his agenda. He made everybody else realise the little advantages that can be gained by pushing the right message into the worldwide media.
The latest to try some psychological warfare is Red Bull's chief Christian Horner, who's come out with some mischievous comments about Lewis Hamilton's season of mishaps and near misses. "I think Lewis is on first name terms with most of the stewards," Horner said ahead of Sunday's Singapore Grand Prix. "You can sense a degree of frustration in his driving."
Clever. While Red Bull's star man Sebastian Vettel disappears into the distance, Horner wants to make sure Hamilton, an instinctive racer with a win at all costs approach, goes on making mistakes because he's putting himself under too much pressure to catch him. What better way to get him to do that than to tell him, through the newspapers, not to?
Vettel has the title wrapped up, but what Horner really wants is a first 1-2 in the Drivers' Championship to reward his billionaire boss and Red Bull founder Dietrich Mateschitz for the money he's pumped into the team. And he's hoping that number two driver Mark Webber gets the same message to keep cool, but does as he's told!
Webber has admitted in his own column in the Sydney Herald Sun that he was to blame for the crash that knocked him out of the race at Monza - his first failure to finish since the Korean Grand Prix that cost him the title last year. "I'm kicking myself because the car felt good and I could have got a decent result if I had been more patient," was his verdict.
That crash means Webber is back out to 4.4 in the winner without Vettel market which makes him, once more, by far the best value. Singapore marks the start of the stage of the season where the tracks benefit higher downforce, and that's good news for Red Bull. It's reflected in short odds for Vettel to collect his ninth win of the season, and he is 2.64 to do the qualifying and race double.
The dominance of the young German has meant the other teams have basically given up this year - even Ferrari admitted earlier in the week that they won't be doing any more development work on Fernando Alonso's current car to focus their efforts on 2012. That will help Red Bull's cause even further and anywhere between 2.08 and 2.24 for Webber to collect a podium finish looks value.
He clearly learned some lessons from Monza - and his boss has very cleverly reminded him of them.
