Sebastian Vettel conceded that it the European Grand Prix may have been pretty dull for spectators, but is delighted with his sixth win of the season.
However, team-mate Mark Webber was disappointed on losing second place to Fernando Alonso and failing to complete another Red Bull one-two finish.
”From the outside, I'm not sure if it seemed that much was happening in the race, but I enjoy it so much when it's between you and the car on every single lap,” said Vettel. “Of course, I had pressure from behind, especially as the strategy was a little bit different with Mark and Fernando – sometimes they were pitting earlier and sometimes later.
“I had a gap before the first pit-stop, but I came out very close to them, so again I had to push hard while judging the tyres and trying to imagine what the end of the stint might be like. You are trying to foresee the strategy, so every single lap it's between you and the car.
“I enjoy this track a lot, last year I had a very smooth weekend here and again this year too. It's fantastic, the team has done a phenomenal job preparing the car. Even though we come here every year and think it may be tricky for us, as there are no real fast corners, we managed to come here and have a faultless weekend. I'm obviously very happy with the result.”
“I think we should have finished second today,” said a disappointed Webber. “It was a good race with Fernando, I think it was my best race of the year to be honest until the last pit stop. It was quite close with all three of us (Fernando, Mark and Seb), obviously we were trying to go as fast as possible and manage the tyres at the same time.
I was very happy with how the race was going until the last stop and it was my fault basically. I was worried about Fernando getting the undercut and it was not really known how the medium tyre would behave on the out lap, but it was a risk I decided to take. I lost out to Fernando, he drove a good race.
“We had a gearbox problem at the end, so we backed right off, but we had a massive gap to McLaren, so we could cruise to the end and look after the gearbox.”
Team principal Christian Horner said that he was delighted with another forty points for the team, especially with the big boss in town:
“A fantastic team performance with first and third and a lot of points today,” said Horner in summary. “It was a tight race with Fernando all afternoon, both our drivers had good starts running one and two initially, then Fernando was able to use the DRS to get ahead of Mark.
“Mark managed to get back past him through pit stop strategy and then stay ahead, as it evolved into a three stop race. Unfortunately at the last round we just didn't have enough to stay ahead of him with Mark to get the one-two, but a one-three is still fantastic.
“Sebastian drove another immaculate race and has consolidated his lead in the Drivers' Championship. It was another great haul of points today for the team and it was great to have Mr. Mateschitz here to see the Red Bull cars both on the podium today.”
