Sebastian Vettel and the Mystery of Randy Mandy...
i.e. Would anyone like some utterly pointless but mildly intriguing information? Because here it is. It started with this photo and its caption sending me down a distinctly 2010-shaped rabbit hole.
↪ "ABU DHABI, UNITED ARAB EMIRATES - NOVEMBER 13: A detail view of the name 'Divine' of the car of Sebastian Vettel of Germany and Red Bull Racing team is pictured during qualifying for the Abu Dhabi Formula One Grand Prix at the Yas Marina Circuit on November 13, 2010 in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates."
Hang on... 'Divine'? The 2010 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix? But Sebastian's winning RB6 was called Randy Mandy - he even said so himself. What is happening here?
Well, as it turns out, the story goes something like this...
Heartened by the achievements of 2009, Red Bull brought their RB6 to winter testing in Spain with high hopes. Their optimism was not unwarranted. The car, equipped with chassis 01 for the tests, looked to be a promising challenger, and the team came away from the sessions satisfied and ready to get things underway at the first race of the 2010 World Championship - calendar for reference throughout.
(This is a tale of many chassis, so to avoid using the word a thousand times, I'm mostly referring to them just by number.)
Before the season began, Sebastian Vettel announced to the world that he would be continuing his tradition of naming his cars, and turned up to the first round in Bahrain to race in Luscious Liz, chassis 03. Mark Webber's sadly unnamed counterpart carried 02.
The race came and went with minimal drama for the team. But at the next round in Australia, Webber had been switched to 04, formally intended to be the spare, as it was slightly lighter.
The team continued like this, with Webber driving 04, and Vettel 03, for the next several rounds, up until the Turkish Grand Prix. Vettel had been unhappy with the car in Spain and in Monaco, and upon inspection the team discovered some hairline fractures in 03, so assigned him 02, used only once by Webber in the opening round, for the race in Turkey.
Although he dropped the habit from 2011 onwards, Vettel had previously been known to rename his car after a chassis change, doing so when one occurred after the first race of the season in 2009. Following this tradition, he quickly dubbed his updated RB6 Randy Mandy. All of this information was reported by the relevant racing media when it occurred. News articles are still easily found online.
↪ Vettel's Randy Mandy, pictured at her outing during the European Grand Prix in Valencia.
Once again, this chassis allocation remained for several rounds, until Silverstone. Here, Webber was given Vettel's used, faulty, but now patched up 03, as Webber had... somewhat damaged his 04 upon descending from the Valencian skies. A quick aside, but his Silverstone win therefore came in that 03 chassis, which Red Bull let him keep as a memento after the season was done. Ergo Mark Webber technically owns Luscious Liz?
But I digress. To recap so far: Both drivers tested 01. Vettel drove 03 up to and including Monaco, after which he received 02 due to small defects in 03. Webber ran his opening weekend in 02, switched to the lighter 04, then damaged it in Valencia and had to drive Vettel's fixed-up 03. Got it?
Chassis-tracking becomes a lot simpler after the summer break: Webber changed to the new 06 for the weekend in Japan, and Vettel to the equivalent 05 immediately after the summer break. His updated car was pictured in Spa with that intriguing new name: Divine. Although this information was available in the usual technical documents and FIA releases, the chassis changes were not covered by the media, and the new name was never mentioned, and isn't listed on Vettel's website. There are a lot of well-documented discussions about the changes that took place from online in 2010, with reference to the technical info. Still, the only confirmation of the name change is in photos, or squinting at 2010 onboard quality. And yet, there are several photos and onboards, and it's stated plain as day in the caption I quoted at the beginning...
Save for Webber using and promptly crashing 03 in Korea, the two drivers saw out their seasons with their new chassis. Meaning that Vettel, it appears, drove to Red Bull's maiden championship, and indeed to his very own, in a car christened Divine.
↪ Her nameplate was pictured in the garage at Spa. It can also be seen in this photo, on the grid just before the deciding final Grand Prix of 2010.
↪ Vettel's chassis label at Yas Marina. (Apologies for the quality - it's a photo I took of a photo in this book).
TL;DR In 2010, Sebastian Vettel not only switched chassis after Monaco, but also after Hungary. Given his then-tradition of giving each new chassis a new name and as told by photographs, he won his first championship in a car that was called Divine; not Randy Mandy as we all thought..
This is relevant to absolutely nothing and nobody in real life but I found it somewhere between slightly and mildly interesting, and thought others might too :)
photos 1 & 2 by Vladimir Rys, photo 3 by Mark Thompson. Via Getty.
🏎️ Red Bull Racing's RB6s, driven by Sebastian Vettel and Mark Webber, are covered in confetti in parc fermé after the Brazilian Grand Prix, as the team win the Constructors' World Championship
