1.5 points for Red Bull in race for ducks
The Red Bull Racing F1 Team always tries to make a funny comment in their press releases and the one for the Malaysian Grand Prix was: "Nice weather for ducks… And we get 1.5 points!" As the race at Sepang was halved due to heavy rain storms, drivers were only rewarded with half the points. This results in 1.5 points for Mark Webber who finished the race in 6th position. Team mate Sebastian Vettel was not able to make it to the finish line.
Car 14, Mark Webber, (Finish Position 6th Start Position: 5th)
"The guys made the best call to stop the race when they did. It would have been nice to have had some more laps to give us a crack at getting on the podium - but that's how it is, so I've got mixed emotions. It's dark now (7pm), so it was the right call not to make a re-start. I'm not so sure you can blame the time of day for today's conditions, as the weather was bad at 3pm too. It seems it was just one of those days. It's been the mistiest and coolest day I've ever seen in Malaysia for race day."
Car 15, Sebastian Vettel, (Finish Position DNF, Start Position: 13th)
"Not so much to tell. I was on the intermediate tyres and they were pretty gone as it wasn't very wet before the sudden pour down. I was approaching Turn seven and there was suddenly lots of water, but I was being very cautious. I lost the car due to aquaplaning and there was nothing I could do. There was too much water and my tyres were not made for those conditions. A spin wouldn't have been much of a problem, but the anti-stall didn't work. Without that, I would just have spun, lost some time and that would have been it. In the past drivers had three pedals, a throttle, a brake and a clutch and when you were spinning you knew exactly what to do. It's not in our hands anymore, so it's a shame that we have to retire for this stupid reason."
Christian Horner: "The rain was always going to come, it was just a question of when. Unfortunately it started with drizzle, followed by heavy rain. We got both drivers onto full wets at the earliest possibility and we then put Sebastian onto intermediates. Just before the heavy rain came, he was the
quickest car on the track at the time but unfortunately he spun on his in-lap to get extremes and the anti-stall didn't catch the engine, so that was the end of his race. Mark made a pit stop for intermediates just before it started to rain heavily and then pitted again for the extremes. If he would have completed that lap, we believe he would have been third in the running order. However, the count back, classifies us 6th."
Fabrice Lom, Renault, Principal Engineer, Track Support: "What a race! We had a difficult start at the beginning and Mark lost some places, although Sebastian made some. Both cars then had good fights- moving up through the field and overtaking lots of cars. Then the rain came and it was like a lottery. We have to apologise to Sebastian; the anti-stall didn't catch his engine, so we have to investigate that. Mark did a fantastic job; it's an unfair result for him, but at least we get the first points of the year."
