The Hungarian Grand Prix proved to be a conflicting day for Red Bull Racing. Mark Webber continued his push for the World Drivers Championship with a strong podium finish in third place, but his points finish could not be replicated by Sebastian Vettel who was forced to retire from the Grand Prix with front suspension damage.
After the race, Red Bull chief Christian Horner, lamented the time lost to both Raikkonen and Hamilton whilst running the harder compound, a factor which ultimately ruled Webber out of contention for race victory.
Having closed the gap in both championships, Red Bull now hope for a strong weekend, next time out in Valencia.
Mark Webber – 3rd: “I expected us to be a little bit quicker after our running on Friday, but to be honest we expected these guys (McLaren and Ferrari) to be around us. We knew it would be a more difficult venue for us and that we wouldn’t have the advantage that we maybe had at the last two events so, all-in-all, I’m happy to get the result we did today. I think we would have had a better chance to fight with Kimi (Raikkonen) if we’d made a slightly different pit stop and chose a different tyre for the middle stint, but that was my call. I was worried about how long the middle stint was, so it was quite difficult to know which tyre to put on. Overall we still have a lot of positives to take away from here we re still up there, we re in the hunt and know that we can take our car to a lot of venues and be competitive. Red Bull and Renault have a lot to be proud of, we re still a strong force and it s a positive day.”
Sebastian Vettel – DNF: “I had a collision on the first corner with Kimi (Raikkonen). I was on the inside and had a clear run to accelerate, his car came sideways and we touched he crashed into my car, it can happen. This was why my first pit stop was bad and, at some point, the front-left suspension gave up and we had to retire the car. We knew it would be close with the other teams here, but at the start of the race there’s nothing you can do other than putting your foot down. We have a button on our steering wheel, which is similar to the other teams, but nothing happens if you press it. You go into the first corner and you have five or six cars next to each other instead of three or four, so it s a different situation. There are still a few races left this season and the race is still on, so we will see what we can do.”
Christian Horner, Team Principal: “A good drive from Mark today for third.
Unfortunately, we perhaps gave away too much time in the middle stint on the harder tyre and a small issue at Mark’s pit stop allowed Kimi (Raikkonen) to jump ahead, but I think Lewis was out of reach today. Nonetheless, a good result for Mark in both the Drivers’ and Constructors’ Championships. For Sebastian, things just didn t go his way today unfortunately a knock on the first lap looks as though it caused suspension damage that resulted in his retirement. Going into the break, we’ve closed the gap in the Constructors and we re looking forward to the next race in four weeks time in Valencia.”
