Horner hails 'tremendous' driver performances
Red Bull team principal Christian Horner showed himself extremely pleased with the outcome of the Singapore Grand Prix where both his drivers managed to make it onto the podium.
Sebastian Vettel, 2nd: “It’s a circuit I like here, the atmosphere‘s great and it’s a tough event. I had a good start and got past Daniel and had a decent race. We played a bit with strategy after we got undercut by Alonso, the safety car came at the worst time for us but we made the tyres work at the end which was tough. There was no point fighting Lewis at the end, he was on fresh tyres and I had to manage mine to the end as they were pretty old by then; that was the focus. It was nice to get the cold champagne on the podium.”
Daniel Ricciardo, 3rd: “We were really close to the Mercedes in qualifying and we expected the race pace to be a bit faster today to be honest. We weren’t quick enough in the first stint and we had a few other issues going on, with brakes and some power issues that were coming and going, but in terms of points we still got a good handful to take away from here. It actually feels a bit like a home race here. Singapore to Perth is like Melbourne to Perth, so for West Australians it’s not too far. Suzuka is in two weeks and that’s another track we can be optimistic for, so I’m looking forward to that. All in all it was a solid weekend.”
Christian Horner, Team Principal: “A tremendous performance by both drivers. After an interesting start, Fernando had to give back the position to Sebastian, but unfortunately not Daniel also, and after that it was all about getting into the race. We went onto the soft tyre at the first stop, by the time we got to the second, Fernando had got the undercut on us, so we went onto the different tyre to change the strategy. Then the pace car came out and we were in a horrible situation of having to decide if the tyre could make it to the end, but the drivers did an incredible job today, and got the cars to the finish on what must have been minimal rubber by the end. So, second and third is a great team performance, especially with the double pit stop during the race which was done in an exceptional time.”
Thierry Salvi, Renault: “A difficult race today but we got the most we could have expected with a double podium. Sebastian had to fight from the beginning of the race, pushing to get the maximum of the car while keeping the tyre degradation under control. He managed very well until the end of the race and second place is a great result for him and the team. Daniel had reliability issues with his power unit and had to manage the energy management in very tricky situations. He again proved his ability to stay calm and focused, even in difficult situations, and stayed very quick. Once again reliability is the key point and we suffered this weekend. The car has the potential to win and we need to work harder to deliver it in the final races of the season.”
