Red Bull Racing Korean Qualifying Team Views

Red Bull Racings unbeaten run of pole positions in 2011 came to an end as Lewis Hamilton pipped Sebastian Vettel to the top grid slot in Korea.

Sebastian Vettel: “McLaren looked very competitive yesterday; I know the conditions were completely different, but you could see they were a fair chunk ahead of everyone else, including us. They looked extremely quick this morning in the dry also, but I think once again we pushed them very hard in qualifying and got closer than I think they, and we, expected. So, I think we did a good job. We also saved all our soft tyres, which I think will be crucial for tomorrow. We only had a rough idea from this morning with more fuel in the car, but I think we are in a good position. There’s not a long run to the first corner and Turn 3 is a little bit exposed, so we’ll see. It’s a long race, a lot of things can happen and I think tyre wear will be crucial.”
Grid Position: 2nd
3rd Practice: P9, 1:39.695

Mark Webber: "On the last run, I lost the rear a little bit on the exit of Turn 1. I tried to get it back through Turn 3, but I was down 3/10 of a second; it’s a pity as you’re not going to get that back in the last sector – which hadn’t been too bad on the previous run. So, we’re fourth tomorrow to start. It’s a shame that Jenson got me in the end there, as it bumped me onto the left hand side of the grid, but we’ll see how we go tomorrow in the race. Tyres are going to be interesting tomorrow, as there were different strategies in qualifying. We’re closer to the McLarens than we thought and it was a well fought contest between the four of us.”
Grid Position: 4th
3rd Practice: P3, 1:37.723

Chrisitan Horner: “Well, for the first time since Brazil last year we didn’t make the pole position today, but it was a very exciting qualifying session and Sebastian produced a stunning lap to split the two McLarens and be on the front row. Mark backed that up with fourth. We elected to take a different approach to others with our tyre usage in qualifying, which has saved us three sets of the soft tyre for
tomorrow’s race, should that come into play. It’s going to be a fascinating race with strategy and pit-work and hopefully we can take the fight to the McLaren’s.”

Cyril Dumont (Renault): “So, I’m a bit disappointed and would of course have preferred to have continued grabbing pole positions and not end our impressive sequence of sixteen pole positions, but with the lack of running we had yesterday, it was pretty difficult to get a nice programme this morning. Overall, I think we should be happy with P2 and P4 to start the race tomorrow.”