First one-two finish of the year for Red Bull
Red Bull enjoyed a nearly perfect race at Turkey where both cars made it to the finish in first and second place, just like where they started. Vettel dominated the whole race while Mark Webber could overtake Fernando Alonso in the last stint of the race.
Sebastian Vettel, car 1, Finish Position: 1st, Start Position: 1st:
“It was a great result today – especially after I gave the team so much work on Friday. I hope giving a victory back goes some way to help them forget it. Saturday morning was crucial. When I walked into the garage everyone gave me the impression that nothing is wrong and there was nothing to worry about. The whole team was working so hard to get the car back together and times like these are important. The team are close to me and if they are not happy or unmotivated it reflects on me and the other way round, so after being a bit down on Friday, it picked me back up. In the race we had a very good first stint and got a gap and you can always benefit from that cushion. At the end I did two short stints, which was the right thing to do – it was seamless today. We don’t know what happens next, so we have to take it race by race. There will be days when we are beaten for definite, but we need to minimise the loss – but for today, it was a great result for the team.”
Mark Webber, car 2, Finish Position: 2nd, Start Position: 2nd:
“It was good to get second place – and a relief to finish there and not third. In the end it was a good fight with Fernando, you lose a bit of time when you’re into each other like that, but it turned out okay and I got him back in the end. For the first stop, the team pitted me earlier than expected as they were worried about the undercuts coming into play. Ferrari saw the same thing and it was really a race between us two from then onwards. At that point, you make your bet that you will be having a few stops during the day. It was a good victory for Sebastian and Fernando drove well too – it was a great result for the team with a one two. The grip wasn’t great at the start, but I will leave Istanbul happy – it was my best result of the year so far.”
Christian Horner, Team Principal:
“A fantastic team performance today. It was a very busy race with a four-stop strategy, perfect pit work and a great performance by Sebastian to take what was, in the end, a dominant win. Mark had a bit more on, dropping a place on the dirty side of the grid at the start, but then his recovery was excellent. He worked the tyres really hard to get past Nico Rosberg and then came under pressure from Alonso, dropped a place to him, but kept calm. We had a new set of primes for the last stint and Mark really made them work, resulting in a great passing move to achieve our first one-two of the year. All compliments to the team, it certainly exorcises the demons from last year and I would like to thank all our partners for their fantastic support.”
Cyril Dumont, Renault:
“It’s really good to confirm the result from yesterday and it’s nice to be one and two again for the first this year. So, congratulations to everyone. For Sebastian it was a pretty smooth race, very solid in terms of performance and for Mark it was really solid in terms of overtaking. It was fun to watch him. Congratulations to everyone and engine-wise it was a very good race.”
