Red Bull Racing’s drivers were left in mixed moods after qualifying at Barcelona.
Reigning champion Sebastian Vettel starts from third place ahead of tomorrow’s race, the best non-Mercedes car.
“I was pretty happy with the last sector, as historically it’s been a bit weak for me. Now finally, after the last couple of years, I understand the last few corners a little better. I’m quite happy as yesterday and this morning I wasn’t too comfortable, particularly in the last sector, but we improved the car,” he said.
“We had a pretty smooth qualifying session, we took a slightly different approach to some others using option tyres only – whether that helps us tomorrow we‘ll have to wait and see, but it will be an interesting race and a lot will be about tyre degradation. It’s good to start a little bit higher up, so let’s see what we can do tomorrow.”
For the winner of the 2010 race, Mark Webber, things were more difficult. The Australian starts tomorrow from seventh following a grid penalty for Ferrari’s Felipe Massa, who impeded Webber in Q2.
“Qualifying went well today apart from Q3. I was disappointed with the lap in Q3 and lost a lot of time in the last sector; I’m normally quite strong there, but I was in trouble with the rears. It’s a sensitive game these days and you need to get everything lined up. So, in the end I’m disappointed with the last lap, but everything else I was happy with. It will be an interesting race tomorrow,” Webber said afterwards.
“A very interesting qualifying. Sebastian put in a phenomenal lap at the end of Q3 to line up third on the grid, which was beyond what we expected after Q1 and Q2. With the two Mercedes ahead of us and Kimi and Fernando behind it makes a fascinating grid for tomorrow’s race,” team principal Christian Horner added.
“For Mark, having looked competitive in Q1 and Q2, unfortunately his lap in Q3 was just that little bit off and, on such a close grid, the differences are marginal. Hopefully both drivers can have very strong races from their grid positions tomorrow.”
