Red Bull drivers agree: 'It was fun with Fernando'
Red Bull Racing finished today's German Grand Prix in 4th and 6th positions. The result follows close on track battles from both cars, in particular with Fernando Alonso in the Ferrari who finished in between the Red Bulls.
Sebastian Vettel, 4th: “It was fun with Fernando today – we started maybe where we left off in Silverstone! It was quite entertaining the first half of the race and at one point it was quite tight with both the Ferraris, but we managed to stay ahead. The second stop was a bit too close and Fernando was able to pass without too many difficulties, which put us on the back foot, but we decided to be a bit more aggressive towards the end and make sure we got the undercut and then we could put some gap between us, which was crucial for us as we were quite tight in terms of fuel towards the end of the race. I think that was the best we could get today. Daniel just missed passing Fernando at the end unfortunately.”
Daniel Ricciardo, 6th: “That was awesome fun, one of my most enjoyable races I’ve had. I mean, not on the first lap, obviously, that was just the wrong place at the wrong time. I wasn’t as worse off as Massa and hopefully he is okay. I was on the outside and the collision happened, I had to avoid it and went pretty far down the field, I don't know exactly how far back. From then on I just got on to the radio and said let's make an amazing recovery and make ourselves proud today. And I think we did that, we fought hard and we didn't leave anything on the table. These are the moments and battles that I personally thrive off and enjoy. Fernando is known to be a tough racer and I thought who better to have a good fight with. I was on the Primes and he was on fresher Options and I gave it the best fight I could and, well.., nearly!”
Christian Horner, Team Principal: “Fourth and sixth were the absolute maximum we could achieve out of today, especially after the first corner when Daniel did an amazing job to avoid the accident. There was some great racing with Sebastian and Fernando early in the race and he was really our main competitor today. Our strategy worked out that we were able to beat him in the end reasonably comfortably with Sebastian and Daniel came close as well after recovering extremely well and fighting hard with some more great racing towards the end. It was an exciting Grand Prix – there’s still a big gap to Mercedes but we’re working hard to try and close it down.”
Thierry Salvi, Renault: “Daniel was unlucky today at the start as he lost positions to avoid the accident and had to rebuild everything during the race. He’s done a fantastic job and was quick enough to come back to sixth. Seb had to fight all race to maintain position and he had a lot to do to manage energy and fuel consumption, but it worked fine. All went OK today reliability-wise, which is the first step. We still have a lot to do on performance to be able to reach the podium, but Hungary should suit us a lot better.”
