Following his brilliant podium in the Malaysia GP, Sebastian Vettel had a very tough weekend at Bahrain, where he damaged his car in a spin, and qualified and finished behind his teammate. Red Bull team principal Christian Horner described the race as “damage limitation”, as Vettel complained of a lack of straight line speed. He also had drivability issues in qualifying.
No. 1 Sebastian Vettel (GER)
Q: P11 (Started P10 following Daniel Ricciardo’s penalty)
R: P6
Definitely one of the poorest weekends for the reigning World Champion in a long time, and certainly one that will not meet his very high standards. While it was clear that the Renault powertrain was not doing as it was meant to be doing at times, which partly caused his spin in FP3 before qualifying, damaging the floor of the car, Vettel claimed he simply wasn’t quick enough on Saturday. He fared quite well in the race, however, making an alternative strategy work en route to P6 ahead of the Mercedes-powered Williams cars. Having been asked to move over for his teammate early in the race, Vettel happily moved over and let him through, unlike in Malaysia last year. Despite it being a poor performance, he picked up 8 valuable points. I am sure he will be back in China.
No. 3 Daniel Ricciardo (AUS)
Q: P3 (Started P13 following penalty for unsafe release at Malaysia)
R: P4
While his teammate struggled, Daniel Ricciardo continued his very strong form from the first two races to produce his best result to date (unless the appeal on Monday goes in Red Bull’s favour). Having been set up better for the race, Ricciardo still managed to qualify in P3, the fastest of all cars that wasn’t a Mercedes work car. And in the race he produced the sort of drive that a World Champion would produce, maximising absolutely every opportunity and producing some great overtakes after the safety car period to take fourth, including forcing the very highly rated Nico Hulkenberg into a rare mistake. If Ricciardo can continue this form he will certainly make the podium again soon (and hopefully keep it).
Like the other teams, Red Bull took part in the testing session that took place after the race. Daniel Ricciardo drove the car on both days, completing 91 and 67 laps on days one and two respectively. Solid running compared to how little Red Bull managed to run in the winter tests. Perhaps Red Bull and Renault are getting on top of their reliability issues? The only Renault car to stop not because of an incident was the Caterham of Marcus Ericsson. This is very strong improvement compared to what everybody, including probably Renault themselves expected from the first few races. Should they find the 80bhp they are lacking (worth about 15kph on the straights and fuel consumption too) then surely Red Bull will be right at the very front. Former driver Mark Webber has suggested that Red Bull will be winning ‘by Monaco’, in just three races time.
The appeal for Daniel Ricciardo’s 2nd place in the Australian Grand Prix takes place on Monday. Should the appeal be successful, it will be Ricciardo’s strongest result and will rocket both Dan and Red Bull very high up the standings. Should the appeal not go well for Red Bull, then that may dampen spirits for the Chinese Grand Prix, which takes place next weekend. We could also see further punishment for Red Bull, but that is highly unlikely. In terms of performance however, it seems like Red Bull can fight with Williams, McLaren and Force India (all Mercedes-powered), and are ahead of Ferrari.
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