That was a sudden shock. On lap 40, when the Red Bulls were leading the race, their garage was surprised at the scene of their two cars touching, smashing and going off the track together. Mark dropped from the top to third and Sebastian finished his race losing his right rear at that moment while he was going up to the top. That was too big loss and scar for the team.
Europe meets Asia here, Istanbul. Culture, Scenery, Foods, everything in this city is different from any other place in the world. And it’s same for the stage of the Turkish Grand Prix. The Istanbul Par Circuit has such a special feature “Turn 8”, which is high-speed left-hander with three apexes.
The RB6’s superb aerodynamics gives the drivers massive cornering speed much quicker than any other teams. The quicker of them was Sebastian. He’d gotten new chassis because some fault was found in it after the races and it was regarded as a reason why he’d lost his ground in Spain and Monaco.
“It feels more natural now with the new chassis,” he said. “It was good to change it and overall was happy with the balance of the car."
His speed never stopped going into Qualifying. With a strong will to restore his honor, he kept his top position, but it was by the end Q2. From the end of his first attack in Q3, he was suddenly suffered from wheel locking because of a failure on rear suspension. He couldn’t attack hundred percent and Mark got the pole position three times in a row.
“It’s really strange,” Sebastian claimed. “In Q3, I locked the inside wheel very easily, the car didn't seem to stop, so I lost time. On the second run I got confirmation in the first turn there was a problem, as I hit the brakes and went straight - I lost the ability to stop the car and the inside wheel didn't do what it was supposed to. In Q1 and Q2 we were on top of the game, but in Q3 we were not, so it's quite frustrating.”
With replacement for both cars’ concerning parts, Mark led the race from the beginning and Sebastian came up to second at the pit stop. Red Bulls made 1-2 formation and it seemed to be their perfect race by then.
Going into the last 20 laps, situation began to change. Mark found his fuel wasn’t enough for the rest of the laps so advised to switch his engine map into “fuel save mode” by his engineer. Then he lost a bit of power and straight-line speed. While Sebastian walked up to Mark’s tail lap by lap because he afforded to use normal mode four or five laps longer than Mark.
Sebastian wanted to show his true potential after the frustration in Barcelona, Monaco and even the qualifying in Turkey. Mark wanted to beat his teammate and grasp his third pole-to-win in a row. Prides of two drivers clashed. Sebastian thought restrained teammate will give him a way when 3/4 of his car came in front of the teammate. Mark thought the space for his teammate was enough and was trying to regain the position at Turn 12 because he was better side for that corner. The drivers’ thoughts went into other ways and they were directed to the opening moment.
Just after the race Sebastian commented “If you watch it on the TV, you can see what happened. I'm not in the happiest of moods,” Mark refuted “I was surprised when he came right suddenly, as I was holding my racing line. It happened very, very fast.” They didn’t admit it was their own fault. Team principal Christian Horner said it was a racing accident caused by both drivers’ fault not giving enough rooms each other.
“The one thing I always ask the drivers is that, yes, they can race each other, but give each other room, and that's exactly what didn't happen. They were too far over on the left, Sebastian got a run on the inside of Mark, but then came across too early. They didn't give each other room; it's as simple as that.”
Red Bull Racing needs to heal this scar tissue if they want to move forward; otherwise, the scar can open again in the forthcoming fight for the title. The reason why they need an early stage treatment is because their target to fight is none other than the world championship.
