A series of errors robbed both Red Bull drivers of a strong finish in today’s Singapore Grand Prix.
Sebastian Vettel, who had been running in second, was penalised for speeding in the pits and was give a drive-through penalty. Meanwhile Mark Webber’s race was cut short when the Australian crashed out of the race with brake failure.
Sebastian Vettel – 4th
“The start was not so good from the dirty side of the track, but it was pretty good race for me until we had the drive-through. There s a bit of a question mark as to why I got the penalty, I mean I had no reason to push at that point. We knew we couldn t pass Lewis at the pit-stop because he was staying out longer, so I was surprised when I got the call on the radio for it. We were on the limit with the brakes, I was lifting earlier than normal and braking a little more smoothly when I was in traffic. Sometimes I had to drop off a bit to cool them too, before I could push again – you always have to listen to your car. Regarding the championship, I think history has shown many different examples of how it can finish over the years, with it going either way. At the next races our approach will be simple: we will try to get pole position and try to win, so it s very straightforward.â€
Mark Webber – DNF
“We had a suspected brake problem, so when I came in for my pit-stop, the guys made a visual check. It seemed reasonable for me to continue, but then we had the failure and I retired. The guys did everything they could – I think they were seconds away from retiring me when we had the failure, so it s disappointing. The first lap was pretty feisty, as you d expect on a street circuit and I had a bit of a fight with Fernando in Turn 7 and we both ran wide. About nine laps later I had to let Fernando back through, but unfortunately Glock was in the middle by then, so I had to let them both through. My race was heavily compromised from there. I thought the incident was fifty/fifty but the stewards decided I had to let Fernando and Glock through, so I lost the hard work I d done during my first stint. It was a hard penalty I think, Kimi did something similar in Spa and got away with it. I d like to say thanks to the guys in the garage for this weekend – they re awesome and that s why we re second in the constructor s championship. Fingers crossed we can finish this year on a high.â€
Christian Horner, team principal:
“A really disappointing day – and unfortunately one with too many incidents. Both drivers didn t have great starts, which was inevitable from the dirty side of the grid, and Rosberg was able to get past Sebastian. It was a shame that Mark had to drop back behind Glock and Alonso after both drivers had run wide at Turn Seven. There was a drive-through penalty for Sebastian and damage to his diffuser after running over a kerb and, with all of that, he managed to bring the car home in P4 with a really competitive drive. With Mark, we had some concern about his brake wear, so we called his pit-stop a couple of laps earlier to do a visual safety check. Visually, both the brake pads and brake discs looked fine and we cleared the cooling duct of any debris. After the stop the brake wear continued to rise and we were just in the process of calling him in, when a suspected brake disk failure occurred.â€
Fabrice Lom, Renault, Principal Engineer, Track Support:
“A very, very disappointing result. One penalty per driver and one retirement, so it was a very bad Sunday compared to what we showed we could do yesterday. On the positive side we didn t have any engine problems and the performance of the car was good, so let s hope we will get a better result in Japan next week.â€
