Red Bull Racing Valencia GP Team Views
By Ian Lockwood
June 26 2011
Sebastian Vettel reigns in Spain following his win in Valencia. Mark was just pipped to second place by Fernando Alonso.
Car 1 SEBASTIAN VETTEL, Finish Position: WINNER, Start Position: POLE POSITION
”From the outside, I’m not sure if it seemed that much was happening in the race, but I enjoy it so much when it’s between you and the car on every single lap. Of course, I had pressure from behind, especially as the strategy was a little bit different with Mark and Fernando – sometimes they were pitting earlier and sometimes later. I had a gap before the first pit-stop, but I came out very close to them, so again I had to push hard while judging the tyres and trying to imagine what the end of the stint might be like. You are trying to foresee the strategy, so every single lap it’s between you and the car. I enjoy this track a lot, last year I had a very smooth weekend here and again this year too. It’s fantastic, the team has done a phenomenal job preparing the car. Even though we come here every year and think it may be tricky for us, as there are no real fast corners, we managed to come here and have a faultless weekend. I’m obviously very happy with the result.”
Car 2 MARK WEBBER, Finish Position: 3rd, Start Position: 2nd
“I think we should have finished second today. It was a good race with Fernando, I think it was my best race of the year to be honest until the last pit stop. It was quite close with all three of us (Fernando, Mark and Seb), obviously we were trying to go as fast as possible and manage the tyres at the same time. I was very happy with how the race was going until the last stop and it was my fault basically. I was worried about Fernando getting the undercut and it was not really known how the medium tyre would behave on the out lap, but it was a risk I decided to take. I lost out to Fernando, he drove a good race. We had a gearbox problem at the end, so we backed right off, but we had a massive gap to McLaren, so we could cruise to the end and look after the gearbox.”
CHRISTIAN HORNER, Team Principal:
“A fantastic team performance with first and third and a lot of points today. It was a tight race with Fernando all afternoon, both our drivers had good starts running one and two initially, then Fernando was able to use the DRS to get ahead of Mark. Mark managed to get back past him through pit stop strategy and then stay ahead, as it evolved into a three stop race. Unfortunately at the last round we just didn’t have enough to stay ahead of him with Mark to get the one-two, but a one-three is still fantastic. Sebastian drove another immaculate race and has consolidated his lead in the Drivers’ Championship. It was another great haul of points today for the team and it was great to have Mr. Mateschitz here to see the Red Bull cars both on the podium today.”
CYRIL DUMONT, Renault:
“First of all I would say that the rules have changed, but not the results, which is a really good thing for all the team. Everyone here at the circuit and everyone doing the pit stops did a really good job today. I would also like to congratulate and thank everyone working for Renault at the factory. It’s another really great result for the team and we have more points than the others, but we have to keep working. We will see how we go in two weeks time, when there are again new rules. “
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Within 0.2s of Seb in quali (although Seb aborted his final hot lap, so may have been a bit of a wider gap).
If he had kept Alonso off in the final pit stop and hadn't backed off with his gear box problem, he probably would have ended the race within 5s of Seb in an incident-free race, which would have been his closest finish for the year.
Also, he held ground on the start, for a change. He was lucky that Massa didn't try muscle past him into T1. McLaren seem to suffer off the start. Wonder if that was a result of the new engine mapping rules?
Hopefully Mark's finally getting to grips with the tyres. Also, will be interesting to see relative performances with reg changes for Silverstone. I hope they bring Mark closer to Seb, to liven up the racing at the front.
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It would make sense to optimise for the race over quali position, so you're probably right (for a change!), but interested to know the answer.
Quote:SydneyF1Fan
It probably was Mark's best race of the season.
Within 0.2s of Seb in quali (although Seb aborted his final hot lap, so may have been a bit of a wider gap).
If he had kept Alonso off in the final pit stop and hadn't backed off with his gear box problem, he probably would have ended the race within 5s of Seb in an incident-free race, which would have been his closest finish for the year.
Also, he held ground on the start, for a change. He was lucky that Massa didn't try muscle past him into T1. McLaren seem to suffer off the start. Wonder if that was a result of the new engine mapping rules?
Hopefully Mark's finally getting to grips with the tyres. Also, will be interesting to see relative performances with reg changes for Silverstone. I hope they bring Mark closer to Seb, to liven up the racing at the front.
I too think Mark drove a stellar race. Though the way Alonso has been driving lately I think he stands a better chance of making up a 22 point diffential vs Mark making up 77 points.
"When you talk, you are repeating what you already know. But if you listen, you may learn something new." - Dalai Lama
Don't really understand your point. though. Surely Alonso would only be satisfied with more than doubling his points to make up the 99 point difference to the #1 spot?