Pre-Barcelona Chat With Fabrice Lom

Fabrice Lom, Engine Coordinator for Red Bull Racing, looks back on the team's weekend in Bahrain and ahead to the first European race of the season, the Spanish Grand Prix in Barcelona.

Can you give us a summary of the team's weekend in Bahrain, which included another podium for Red Bull Racing...

It was certainly quite a challenging race for the team. We had a good result in qualifying for Sebastian who was third and we were heavier than the cars ahead of us. But Mark was further back in 18th and it was a complicated race for him.
 
At the start of the race, Sebastian struggled into the first few corners and so he dropped back to fifth place. We then had to adapt his strategy to try and make up the places that we had lost. We managed to get him back up to second place, but unfortunately we couldn't catch Button. We certainly had the pace to win the race, but the first corner destroyed our chances of victory and so we had to be content with second place, which is still a great result.

For Mark, it was a difficult race and he was stuck in traffic and so finished outside the points in 11th place.

Did you have any problems with the engine in Bahrain caused by the sand and the wind?

No, we have an engine filter system developed by Renault which is very effective and so we didn't suffer from the sand. On the other hand, what did cause us problems was the fact that all the weather forecasts suggested that it was going to be much colder and windier than it was on Sunday. We had therefore chosen quite aggressive gear box ratios and a specific cooling configuration for the conditions that we expected. Unfortunately, it was very hot on Sunday and the engine got a bit hot during the race.

What are your predictions for Spain - is it a circuit that suits Red Bull?

It's difficult to say. The answer is probably yes, because up until now our car has worked well everywhere. In testing, we were not that fast there, but the car has evolved a lot since then so it's difficult to make predictions. We also expect that most teams will bring developments to Barcelona, including us. How the pecking order will be in Barcelona is one of the great unknowns.