Formula 1 News

2008 Bahrain GP, Qualifying: disappointing session for Red Bull 

After the closest of qualifying sessions, the drivers, team principal and Renault’s principal engineer give their verdict on events at the Bahrain International Circuit. Mark Webber will start tomorrow’s race from 11th position and team mate David Coulthard from 17th.

David Coulthard:

“I never felt comfortable with the balance of the car today and on this track you’ve got to attack on the entries. I had two bad runs in Q1, on the prime tyre and the option. The option lap was good enough to get through to Q2, until the last two turns when I had oversteer on the entry to Turn thirteen. I moved the brake balance forward to try and push in the last corner, but I had the same situation and dropped a couple of tenths. That was enough to stop me getting through. Tomorrow’s another day and each day the set up of the car changes on the track, but we’ve had a lot of oversteer on this circuit all weekend, so we’ll see.”

Mark Webber:

“Qualifying went smoothly today, in the first session we elected to do the first lap on the hard tyre and we used two sets of options in Q2. We knew it was going to be very tight to get into Q3, which turned out to be the case. It was very tough against Fernando(Alonso) and Jenson (Button) today; we weren’t quick enough to go through.”

Fabrice Lom, Renault, Principal Engineer, Track Support:

“Both cars missed the next qualifying sessions by very small amounts, which is very frustrating, but it shows how tight it is this year. We have to push hard to make sure we’re at the front of the tight middle group. Hopefully we can do better tomorrow.”

Christian Horner:

“With qualifying being so close here, it’s disappointing for David to go out in the first round of qualifying and for Mark to miss Q3 by the narrowest of margins. We’ll consider our strategies carefully tonight, as it’s a circuit that you can overtake on quite easily. We’ll be focusing on how to move up the order in tomorrow’s race.”

source: Red Bull Racing