MELBOURNE // Sebastian Vettel, the reigning world champion, yesterday showed ferocious pace to secure pole position at the Australian Grand Prix for the second successive year and then had the audacity to reveal he clocked his fastest lap without even using the kinetic energy recovery system (Kers).
Vettel navigated his Red Bull Racing RB7 around the Albert Park circuit in an incredible 1min 23.529secs and while Lewis Hamilton was understandably "thrilled" to place second quickest, the fact he lagged a massive 0.77 seconds behind the world champion may have dampened McLaren-Mercedes' spirits.
Vettel's domination was strengthened further by his teammate Mark Webber's third-placed finish, almost a full second off the pace.
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"Staggering," was how Hamilton described Vettel's lap-time, while the McLaren driver's stablemate Jenson Button, who finished fourth, described Red Bull as being "in a different league".
Vettel's and Webber's lead last night certainly did not include the energy saving Kers, meaning both drivers potentially have another half a second in their tanks, another factor that left Hamilton bewildered.
"So that is a 1.3 second [gap]," the Englishman said. "That's not normal."
And while nobody in the Red Bull team would say why the device had not been deployed, Christian Horner, the team principal, said it was "a strategically elected team decision". He also refused to say whether they would use it in today's race.
Yet while opposition engineers last night hurried to close the gap before today's season-opening grand prix, Vettel, who finished on pole last year only to later retire from the race, sounded a note of caution.
"Although the gap now might appear to be big, it's a long season and a lot of things can happen," the 23-year-old said. "It's a good position to be in, and I'm very happy with that, but we need to keep our feet on the ground.
"If you look at the points, we still have zero like everyone else, so we need to see what happens in the race."
History would certainly dictate that a Vettel victory is far from guaranteed. In 1997, Jacques Villeneuve started on pole at the season-opening grand prix at Albert Park after clocking the fastest lap on the Saturday by a giant 1.8-second margin, yet did not win the race.
In front of a swollen home crowd here yesterday, Australian Webber was disappointed by his performance. Last year, He was a mere few hundredths of a second behind Vettel; this year he was 0.86 seconds.
"I'm not overly rapt to be third on the grid," said Webber, who has never finished higher than fifth in Melbourne.
"I'm a little bit mystified by the gap if I'm honest. I wasn't in the fight for pole, clearly, so we need to address that and take it into the race. It's frustrating [because] I would have liked to have done better, but I tried my best and I'll have to go through it and have a look at where I can improve."
While Vettel's pace is astonishing, McLaren undoubtedly deserve praise for squeezing their way on to the front line of the grid and managing to become the metallic meat in a Red Bull sandwich.
Only last week, the team were desperately struggling to produce a competitive car and eventually opted for a radical, but risky, overhaul.
"It was a very brave and tough decision for us to pull back from what we had been developing over the winter test and decide 'OK, we are going to come back in another direction'," Hamilton said.
"Since I have been here, we have never done that before. The guys worked harder than they have ever pushed before to get the components here and the car feels a huge improvement; a great foundation for us to really push on."
gmeenaghan@thenational.ae
COMPANY%20PROFILE
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Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
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COMPANY PROFILE
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