The headline for Red Bull Racing is that we didn’t come away from China with a podium or victory. But there was a lot more to the story than only coming away with points.
Rain once again played its part in a flyaway grand prix, and this time, again, it was all about tyre strategy which affected the result that saw Vettel finish sixth and Webber eighth.
Starting on slicks, Alonso illegally got ahead of our pole-sitter Seb and his team-mate Mark, but in a reversal of the Malaysian GP, Webber came out ahead of Vettel, just behind the Ferrari driver who was subsequently given a drive-through penalty for jumping the lights.
From there, while most – including our drivers - elected to change to intermediates during a Safety Car period precipitated by Vitantonio Liuzzi spinning off taking Toro Rosso’s Sébastien Buemi and Kamui Kobayashi with him. But the eventual race-winner Jenson Button and the man who finished third, Nico Rosberg, remained out on slicks. The rain didn’t last as long as anticipated and the inters didn’t cope with the warming track, so it was back to slicks…
As Vettel and Webber made an attack on the cars in front a second Safety Car call-out was made. And in the corner preceeding the Safety Car’s exit Button slowed right down causing a jam behind him and in the ensuing chaotic slingshot around the final corner, Vettel, Lewis Hamilton and Webber became entangled with the Australian coming off worst. It wasn’t the only Hamilton v Red Bull battle this afternoon as the McLaren driver went wheel-to-wheel with Seb in the pitlane after he was released into the path of our German driver, an incident which is under investigation by stewards. Seb said: “At the stop I was ahead; I don’t know why he pulled to the left and was keen to touch me. I hoped I didn’t get a puncture from that – I don’t really understand why he did that as I was a bit ahead of him and had the advantage anyway.”
Hamilton went on to finish the race in near bald inters behind team-mate Button with Rosberg third. Alonso was fourth ahead of Kubica with Petrov between our two drivers. Massa was ninth with Schumacher collecting the final point of the race.
Speaking afterward, Red Bull Racing team boss Christian Horner said: “Sixth and eighth isn’t the result that we were looking for from first and second, but it is such a lottery in chaotic conditions and they are still valuable points. It’s not often you get a race like that and when you’re first and second you’ve got everything to lose, rather than everything to gain.”
It means we leave China with Sebastian fifth in the drivers championship and Mark eighth while the team is now third, behind McLaren and Ferrari and ahead of Mercedes.
Due to the volcano cloud over Europe when we actually leave is a different matter...
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