Vettel and Webber to drive different specifications on Chinese Friday
The Red Bull Racing F1 Team has known a difficult start to the 2012 F1 season and hopes to turn that around during this weekend's Chinese GP. Both Mark Webber and Sebastian Vettel will be driving with different specifications of the RB8 on Friday in order to make the best choice for Saturday's qualifying session and Sunday's race.
Sebastian Vettel: “The track in China is unique due to its size. The broad track leaves enough space for overtaking moves and there are very big run off areas – even the usually tight pit areas in Shanghai have a lot of space. I’ve had some good races there in the past, we got a great result in 2009 when we took the team’s first win and in 2011, when we were second. Hopefully we can get a strong finish and some more points.”
Mark Webber : “Shanghai is a track that has been pretty good to me in the past. I’m yet to notch up my first victory, but I’ve had some memorable podiums there, notably the extreme wet race in 2009 and my third place from 18th on the grid. I expect this year’s race to be as exciting, but clearly I’m looking to start in a much better position. It’s generally cool, so it’s very different to Malaysia. It’s going to be interesting to see how the long straight will affect people’s strengths and weaknesses in terms of top speeds; the flow of the rest of the circuit is something that I really enjoy.”
Adrian Newey, Chief Technical Officer: “We have shown good race pace, but we know we need to make a step in qualifying. In order to evaluate our most recent upgrades, we will run two different specifications of the RB8 in China on Friday. Based on feedback and preference shown by both drivers, Mark will test an updated evolution of the set-up used for the Malaysian GP, while Sebastian will run a pre-season specification. We will then compare the results.”
