RBR Rely on Race Strategy - Quali 1 Review

By Ian Lockwood
April 23 2005

Red Bull is putting its hopes in a strong race strategy if it is to score points this weekend after a difficult first qualifying session. David Coulthard put his car fourteenth while Antonio Liuzzi was sixteenth.

David Coulthard  "Not really a good one this afternoon. I was a bit cautious going into Turn 1, because Tonio had said he picked up some understeer there and if you overshoot there, you can lose about half a second. So although the rest of the lap wasn't too bad, I'd already lost the time. Generally, we seem to be struggling a bit here. On a more positive note, it's fantastic that the team has secured a Ferrari engine deal for 2006."

Tonio Liuzzi commented, "I am reasonably happy with my lap, but as I was going out first the track was really dirty. In the first chicane it was difficult and the car was tricky to stop when braking. But for the rest of the track it was good. I was quite happy but unfortunately we are too slow and also I actually think I might have lost half a second because of the dirt."

Christian Horner, Sporting Director of the team added, "14th and 16th - we would obviously liked to have been higher than this but with a creative strategy we can certainly move forward from where we are today. Tonio did a solid job on his Formula 1 debut as it is always a difficult job to go first on a dirty track after the Porsche Cup, but he drove maturely. David was slightly more unhappy with his lap, but as I said earlier we have a good strategy for tomorrow." 

Günther Steiner, Technical Director concluded, "Nothing else then expected - we are too slow and this is where we stand now in comparison with the other teams. It is not a very good position to be in when you consider our performance in the previous three races, and it is obviously difficult to get better. We have to have faith in our strategy and hope we can improve with this."

Source: www.f1racing.net