And so we head to China for the third round of the 2011 season where the common opinion dictates that Sebastian Vettel is on course to win his 3rd straight win. Red Bull have been fast, no question there but now the chink in the armour has been revealed; KERS.
Adrian Newey is famed as being the designer sans peril in Formula One circles and while he has yet again created a race-winning machine that is a title contender, he has sacrificed potential reliability over speed with the development of red Bull's KERS system.
There was much to suggest over the Australian GP weekend that the team were not running the device because of reliability concerns yet it was difficult to gain a 100% accurate reading on that. Christian Horner's admission after last weeks Malaysian GP that the reliability of the device was a severe worry has set tongues wagging in the pitlane that the title is far but assured to be staying in Milton Keynes for another year.
Although McLaren had made massive gains in the weeks between the final winter test and the first race, they were, over a single flying lap, still adrift of the Red Bull's, and by some margin. races however, are not won on Saturday's and Lewis Hamilton's second place in Melbourne and Jenson Button's second place last week in Malaysia would indicate that a McLaren victory is in the offing over the next few races.
China presents a different challenge with it's mile-long back straight and the fear for red Bull is that in the interests of winning once more, reliability concerns may have to go out the window as the team will need to utilise the additional power afforded by the KERS system which will obviously be used by their nearest rivals.
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