Red Bull Racing were left with mixed feelings after qualifying for the Italian Grand Prix at Monza today. Sebastian Vettel had been forced to sit out quite a lot of practice this weekend in a bid to get the most of of his remaining engine, but still managed to make it through to Q3 and finished down in ninth place.
Team boss Christian Horner seemed pleased with how his two championship chargers performed saying “An interesting qualifying session. Both drivers did a good job to get to Q3 at a circuit which probably doesn't best suit the characteristics of our car.”
Despite this he was left ruing a missed opportunity, “Strategies have come into play in the final part of qualifying – and it's a shame both drivers aborted their final laps: a tenth of a second difference for Sebastian could have been fifth place today, demonstrating how close it is. It's a mix of KERS cars and non-KERS cars on the grid, which will make an interesting first lap tomorrow.”
Mark Webber was also talking strategy ahead of the Grand Prix tomorrow saying “we've got to try and grab everything we can now.” “I'm pretty happy with the job I did today and the guys (team) have done a good job all weekend, but we're just lacking a bit of pace. We'll do what we can tomorrow and salvage something from tenth – it's certainly possible.”
Sebastien Vettel summed things up nicely: “Not a very good session for us today, ninth and tenth is not where we wanted to be, but let's wait to see the fuel weights. It's a long race tomorrow, anything can happen and our target is to score points.”
Photo credit: Mark Thompson/Getty Images
