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Vettel becomes youngest F1 champ ever

Germany's Sebastian Vettel was crowned as the youngest drivers champion in Formula One history on Sunday, when he outstripped all his rivals and won the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix for the outstanding Red Bull team.

Published: 14 November 2010 19:57 CET

Vettel becomes youngest F1 champ ever

Photo: DPA

At 23 years and 106 days, Vettel took the title with a faultless drive from pole position to the chequered flag, resisting a strong challenge from Briton Lewis Hamilton of McLaren, who in 2008 had achieved the same feat at the age of 23 and 307 days.

Hamilton came home second after a long period of frustration behind Pole Robert Kubica’s Renault and was followed home by his team-mate and compatriot Jenson Button, the outgoing 2009 champion.

It was Vettel’s 10th career win – his fifth of the season – and came from his 15th pole.

Finn Keke Rosberg came home fourth for Mercedes on a day when his 41-year-old team-mate and compatriot Michael Schumacher had been forced to retire following a big accident on the opening lap.

Kubica came fifth ahead of his team-mate Russian Vitaly Petrov of Renault with two times champion Spaniard Alonso of Ferrari back in seventh place, failing to deliver the result, after a disappointing early pit stop, and the points he needed to maintain his championship lead and take the title.

Vettel ended up with 256 points to take the title ahead of Alonso on 252, Australian Mark Webber, his Red Bull team-mate, on 242, and Hamilton on 240. Webber came in eighth behind Alonso after a difficult and disappointing race.

In Vettel’s hometown of Heppenheim, around 1,500 of his fans celebrated his victory. Cheers of “Sebastian, Sebastian” echoed round the town of 25,000 south of Frankfurt.

“All residents of Heppenheim are very proud and congratulate Sebastian Vettel for his extraordinary, historic feat,” mayor Gerhard Herbert told news agency SID. “We’ll organise something to celebrate this event in Heppenheim.”

There are plans to hold a reception for Vettel here once he has visited the Red Bull headquarters in Salzburg, Austria, after his return from Abu Dhabi.

Vettel is only the second German, after seven-times world champion Michael

Schumacher, to win the world title.

AFP/The Local/mry

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From lizards to water, eco-bumps snag Tesla's giant Berlin car factory

Tesla's gigafactory outside the doors of Berlin. dpa-Zentralbild | Patrick Pleul

“When I saw on TV that the Tesla factory was going to be built here, I couldn’t believe it,” said Steffen Schorch, driving his trusty German-made car.

The 60-year-old from Erkner village in the Berlin commuter belt has become one of the faces of the fight against the US auto giant’s first European factory, due to open in the Brandenburg region near Berlin in July.

“Tesla needs far too much water, and the region does not have this water,” said the environmental activist, a local representative of the Nabu ecologist campaign group.

Announced in November 2019, Tesla’s gigafactory project was warmly welcomed as an endorsement of the “Made in Germany” quality mark – but was immediately met with opposition from local residents.

Demonstrations, legal action, open letters – residents have done everything in their power to delay the project, supported by powerful
environmental campaign groups Nabu and Gruene Liga.

Tesla was forced to temporarily suspend forest clearing last year after campaigners won an injunction over threats to the habitats of resident lizards and snakes during their winter slumber.

READ MORE: Is Germany’s Volkswagen becoming ‘the new Tesla’ as it ramps up e-vehicle production?

And now they have focused their attention on water consumption – which could reach up to 3.6 million cubic metres a year, or around 30 percent of the region’s available supply, according to the ZDF public broadcaster.

The extra demand could place a huge burden on a region already affected by water shortages and hit by summer droughts for the past three years.

Local residents and environmentalists are also concerned about the impact on the wetlands, an important source of biodiversity in the region.

Tesla Street

“The water situation is bad, and will get worse,” Heiko Baschin, a spokesman for the neighbourhood association IG Freienbrink, told AFP.

Brandenburg’s environment minister Axel Vogel sought to play down the issue, saying in March that “capacity has not been exceeded for now”.

But the authorities admit that “the impact of droughts is significant” and have set up a working group to examine the issue in the long term.

The gigafactory is set to sprawl over 300 hectares – equivalent to approximately 560 football fields – southwest of the German capital.

Tesla is aiming to produce 500,000 electric vehicles a year at the plant, which will also be home to “the largest battery factory in the world”,
according to group boss Elon Musk.

In a little over a year and a half, swathes of coniferous forest have already been cleared to make way for vast concrete rectangles on a red earth base, accessed via the already iconic Tesla Strasse (Tesla Street).

German bureaucracy

The new site still has only provisional construction permits, but Tesla has been authorised by local officials to begin work at its own risk.

Final approval depends on an assessment of the project’s environmental impact – including the issue of water.

In theory, if approval is not granted, Tesla will have to dismantle the entire complex at its own expense.

But “pressure is being exerted (on the regulatory authorities), linked to Tesla’s significant investment”, Gruene Liga’s Michael Greschow told AFP.

In early April, Tesla said it was “irritated” by the slow pace of German bureaucracy, calling for exceptions to the rules for projects that help the environment.

Economy Minister Peter Altmaier agreed in April that his government “had not done enough” to reduce bureaucracy, lauding the gigafactory as a “very important project”.

Despite Germany’s reputation for efficiency, major infrastructure projects are often held up by bureaucracy criticised as excessive by the business community.

Among the most embarrassing examples are Berlin’s new airport which opened last October after an eight-year delay and Stuttgart’s new train station, which has been under construction since 2010.

Brandenburg’s economy minister, Joerg Steinbach, raised the possibility in February that the Tesla factory could be delayed beyond its July planned opening for the same reason.

SEE ALSO: Tesla advertises over 300 jobs for new Gigafactory near Berlin

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