Red Bull close to podium as safety car helps out
Red Bull's Daniel Ricciardo came extremely close to a podium at the Bahrain Grand Prix, finishing just behind 3rd placed Sergio Perez. Sebastian Vettel finished 6th. Both drivers raced each other fairly and in the end were able to exploit good timing from a safety car period.
Daniel Ricciardo, 4th: “It was an awesome race; it was exciting. I think the first stint was a bit follow-the-leader, but from the second stint onwards, the race really started to turn up the heat and there were more battles going on in front and behind – it was good to be a part of them. We got close to the podium today, I think within half a second, so I was doing all I could. The car came to me as the race went on and I was happy with how I moved up through the pack, so a good day. It was good fun to race Sebastian, it was hard but fair and we left each other room. That’s what we want from each other and we discussed it beforehand, we’re racers and that’s what we enjoy doing.”
Sebastian Vettel, 6th: “I think it was a busy race today, especially at the end after the safety car, but it’s a shame we couldn’t get further up. Daniel proved that there was a little bit more to get from the car today, I couldn’t really get to that bit, so I’m not so happy with my day. For some reason we seemed to be really slow on the straights, and not just against the Mercedes. Merc has a stronger package, so there’s work ahead of us. It was straight forward with Daniel today, we worked well together as a team and we raced well, but surely I would like to have finished higher up.”
Christian Horner, Team Principal: “A very interesting race today and great entertainment; I think we got everything out of it that we could. The drivers worked together as a team earlier in the race when they were on different tyre strategies and then raced each other hard at the end of the race. Daniel put in a great drive and, with another lap, possibly could have made it to the podium. It was good to see them both racing each other cleanly and fairly. Sebastian reported a problem in a straight line, which we need to investigate because he didn’t manage to overtake anyone at the end of the straight all afternoon, so there’s plenty of work to do. We got a good haul of points today and we now have a couple of days testing to try and further close that gap to Mercedes.”
Thierry Salvi, Renault Team Support Leader: “It was a tight race for us as we were trying to stay with the middle group all race. We were simply not able to fight at the right level, so a lot of work has to be done to extract the maximum from our power unit. Dan did a good job all race and was able to move up after the safety car: he was quite impressive. Seb struggled more, especially at the end where he was missing some top speed to stay with Daniel. We still have a lot to optimize, but the progress and steps will be big and we will learn even more during the test session in the coming days. This will help us to come back stronger and to give our drivers the power unit they need to fight at the front.”
