At the moment, huge shock struck the Red Bull Racing’s pit garage. Sebastian caught his foot on the rain and made a huge crash on his first outing at the wet free practice. His RB7 was badly damaged and it made him stay in the garage through the dry second session.
“There wasn’t much I could do to stop the car from hitting the wall this morning” said Sebastian. ”But the most important thing is that I’m fine. Unfortunately we couldn’t get the car ready in time for this afternoon’s session, as there was too much damage, so I’m sorry to the guys. It makes things a bit more difficult, but I don’t think it will be a problem, we know the track well from other years. I’m still confident”
But he had “Nazar Boncugu”, traditional Turkish lucky charm on his helmet this weekend. Thanks to that he came back on track as normal on Saturday. He afford to save his tyre for Sunday even though he claimed pole position.
“It was a bit funny in Q3 today,” he looked back. “As both Mark and I decided we would skip the second run and so we finished earlier than normal. It was a strange feeling, as the other cars are on track setting times and you are in the garage watching – they might beat you, but you can only watch the screens and there’s nothing you can do. It was an odd feeling but a good decision to save tyres for tomorrow’s race”
Mark did the same strategy as well and came beside Sebastian. He seemed to go out for his second attack a little, but he purely praise Sebastian’s lap.
“I would have liked to have got a couple more tenths to have the margin. Obviously Sebastian did a very good lap for pole, but my lap wasn’t too bad”
Sunday was Sebastian’s day. Not to repeat the mistake in Shanghai, he made four pit stops looking after the tyre condition closely and kept his lead from start to finish. His third victory of this season without any influence from the shunt was because of his warm-heart staffs.
“Saturday morning was crucial,” said Sebastian. “When I walked into the garage everyone gave me the impression that nothing is wrong and there was nothing to worry about. The whole team was working so hard to get the car back together and times like these are important. The team are close to me and if they are not happy or unmotivated it reflects on me and the other way round, so after being a bit down on Friday, it picked me back up”
Mark couldn’t make best start and lost his position but “I was saying to myself ‘I can’t finish third having started eighteenth on the grid and then finished third having started on the front row’” At last the fresh tyre saved from Qualifying brought him a huge effect and he claimed the second position overtaking Ferrari.
“The tyres play a huge role,” said Mark. “In the end I had a fresher set of tyres from qualifying and got the job done on Fernando and that was it really which is very important these days”
It was Red Bull Racing’s first 1-2 finish of this season. This momentum will make Sebastian, Mark and the team even stronger for this European season.
