Christian Horner admitted that his Red Bull team were below parr, after suffering a disappointing European Grand Prix.
Although Mark Webber was able to pass Jenson Button towards the start of the race, his overall pace was not strong enough – losing out to the Brit in the second round of pitstops. The Australian could only manage a ninth placed finish.
The engine problems which have marred Sebastian Vettel’s season, returned during the race, as the German had to retire while running in the points. The failure to finish now leaves Vettel limited on spare engines, going into the remainder of the season.
Mark Webber – 9th: No gains for us today, which is the first time in a long time. The long and short of it was that I wasn’t quick enough today – it was a tough race. I’ve been struggling all weekend and I think I got the result I deserved, which was no points, unfortunately. We were a little bit unlucky around the pit stops with Lewis (Hamilton) coming back out in front, but that s the way it goes. The pit stops weren t great, as I might have been a bit long on positioning so not the best day for us. But, we will dust ourselves down and move on to Spa.
Sebastian Vettel DNF: The biggest problem today was the first stop we weren’t able to get fuel in the car, so we had to come in again. We were lucky to make it back for a second stop. The race was lost already at that point but then, a couple of laps on, I had a problem with the engine and I had to retire. It s not good. In terms of the Championship, I will fight until the last breath, but it s not good to have retired when you re hunting and want to get more points than your opponent. You re in a position to do it, but then you don t finish the race.”
Christian Horner team principal: A bitterly disappointing day. A fuel rig failure on Sebastian s car, followed by an engine failure, which is the second of the weekend, was costly. Unfortunately with Mark, we just weren t quick enough today. He held Jenson (Button) behind him for a long time, but Jenson was too quick and jumped us with a very quick out-lap, unfortunately Mark was not quick enough to hold him behind.”
Fabrice Lom Renault, principal engineer track support: This race ended a nightmare weekend for us. We had two engine failures on Sebastian s car, so it s a black weekend. I can only apologise to Red Bull Racing and Sebastian in particular for this reliability issue and assure them that we will work as hard as possible to ensure it doesn t happen again. But, the end of the season will now be tough on the engine side for Sebastian.
