Red Bull Racing’s celebrations were rather muted after clinching a third straight Constructors’ Championship after being beaten to victory in America. Sebastian Vettel lost out to Lewis Hamilton and will now head to Brazil for a last-race shootout with Fernando Alonso and was disappointed with the way he surrendered the lead.
“I’m very, very happy for the team to win a third Constructors’. It’s been a tough year so far and they have been pushing incredibly hard; they deserve to win, as we have been the best team. Obviously Mark and I were pushing throughout the year. It was a shame for Mark not to finish today. It was a very good race and we did everything we could, but unfortunately we ran into traffic at the wrong time and lost the gap to Lewis. He used his chance well, I tried to cover the inside but he had more speed down the straight. I respect the positions; Lewis beat us fair and square. We showed we had the pace today and now it’s full steam ahead to the next race.”
Teammate Mark Webber was eliminated from third place after a KERS problem but the Australian was proud of the team for their success despite being let down on Sunday.
“A third Constructors’ for the team is an incredible achievement. Three years in a row is something that I think all of us would never have envisaged when we first started to be successful, so the results that we’ve had over the years is really astonishing. This Championship was probably the toughest one so far, for lots of different reasons and – it’s a cliché – but it’s been a real team effort. Looking to today, I had to stop with an alternator problem. We had low battery voltage for a few laps before and then I lost gearbox sync and KERS, something was happening on the battery side. It’s frustrating; as we had a reasonable start to the race and a good fight with Lewis. We had issues to manage, but even when I knew we had them we tried to keep going and get something out of it, but we had to stop.”
Team Principal Christian Horner was especially honoured to see Red Bull join some of the all-time great teams with their hat-trick of titles.
“It’s incredible for the whole team to have won a third consecutive World Championship. The Constructors’ is what we use to measure ourselves against our competitors and, for every member of the team, it’s how we gauge our performance. The Drivers’ obviously has the prestige and public following but within the team they carry equal importance. So, to have achieved a consecutive third World Championship, which only three other teams in the history of the sport have achieved, puts us into a very elite group and having done it in such a short space of time is testimony to all the members of the team. That’s all the hard work, the long hours and dedication from every department. It’s a very proud moment for every single member of the team and Red Bull.”