Assessment – Saturday – The two extremes seen by Red Bull

A crazy day for Red Bull, which ultimately didn’t turn out so badly… This morning during practice, Coulthard shone and secured the second-fastest time, while at the same time his teammate, Webber, did not participate in the session due to an engine problem.

This afternoon in qualifying, the Scotsman we expected to be strong was stuck in Q1, and will start 17th tomorrow. The Australian came out of nowhere to position himself in 7th place, just behind the McLarens. Reactions…

Mark Webber – 22nd and 7th:

« We knew the situation was going to be tight. The Circuit de Catalunya is well known to all the teams. However, we have positioned ourselves well for tomorrow’s race. We therefore hope to earn some points. »

« We had an issue this morning that we were able to rectify and I hope we can maintain our position in the race tomorrow. »

David Coulthard – 2nd and 17th:

« I am very upset. I lost time at turn 12, but the problem occurred at the beginning of the lap. I found myself in traffic with Sutil behind me and couldn’t get my tires up to temperature properly. We thought we were fast enough to get through Q1 without any trouble using only one set of tires.

« Under normal conditions, if you drive with hard tires for a lap, there shouldn’t be any problem but unfortunately it didn’t work today. After this morning, I thought Q3 was possible but we took a risk and it didn’t work. »

Christian Horner – Director

« It was a very good qualifying for Mark today because he didn’t do a single timed lap this morning during practice. He achieved very good results in Q1 with the first set of tires and managed to get through to Q3. He did a good job. »

« After a promising fast first lap, David unfortunately lost time in the third sector and was unable to reach Q2. He is preparing for tomorrow. »

Fabrice Lom – Renault Engine Engineer:

« First of all, we apologize to Marc for the engine problem this morning. It is not usually the kind of thing that happens at our team. Fortunately, there was no impact during the qualifying and we are very happy with this seventh place. Unfortunately for David, he just missed Q2 by a small margin. »