Red Bull targets points
After a very difficult day for Red Bull, where the exclusion from the Malaysian Grand Prix lured around the corner, the team can be satisfied with their qualifying session. Mark Webber will start tomorrow's race from 8th position and team mate David Coulthard from 12th. The target is obviously to score points.
Car 10 Mark Webber, Position 8th: "Today went better than expected to be honest. We worked hard on the car yesterday and the guys did a great job to make the improvements that they did, so we've laid the foundations ahead of tomorrow's race. Q3 was quite tricky for a lot of people, as the grip level was lower than in Q2, but we're in a sensible position for the start of the race. If it's half as wild as Melbourne - it will be interesting to see."
Car 9 David Coulthard, Position 12th: "I was a bit surprised as in qualifying I was slower in the first sector than I had been in the morning practice. I'd lost some mechanical grip, which made it difficult to nail the middle sector. What's happened this weekend doesn't concern me, as a racing driver you never think you're going to have a car failure, so you don't think about it, and I have complete faith in the team too."
Christian Horner: "A strong qualifying performance from Mark puts him on the fourth row for tomorrow's race. The weather was closing in towards the end of Q3 and it all got a little bit frantic, but P8 is a positive result. David has been recovering today after losing a lot of track time yesterday. He only just missed out on Q3 and starts from 12th,so the target tomorrow is obviously for points."
Fabrice Lom, Renault, Principal Engineer, Track Support: "After a bad day yesterday, when we suffered the first engine failure we've had since we joined forces with Red Bull, we bounced back well today. We got two good qualifying positions, of 8th and 12th,and I think we're in good shape for tomorrow.
ON CAR 9s INCIDENT IN YESTERDAY'S FIRST PRACTICE SESSION:
Christian Horner: "Following David's retirement in Australia, where an incident with Massa caused significant damage to his car, David's RB4 had a track rod failure during first practice for the Malaysian Grand Prix. It was an isolated incident, which caused him to go off the circuit at Turn 14, hit a bump and go heavily into the inside of the kerbing, causing damage to his car's front suspension. The FIA takes safety extremely seriously and wanted to understand how the failure had happened. They followed up the incident by looking at our procedures in terms of rig testing, R&D testing and proof testing, for each of our components. We've demonstrated our diligence in making sure the car is safe, they understand that and are happy with the explanation that we've given them."
Adrian Newey: "Yesterday's incident on David's car was due to a track rod failure. This in turn was due to a poor bond preparation. The component therefore failed very early in its life."
