Red Bull Racing: Australia Day 1 Report
By Ian Lockwood
March 15 2013
We hear from Sebastian and Mark after their first day of on track action in Melbourne...
CAR 1, SEBASTIAN VETTEL
First Practice Session: Position: 1, Best Time: 1:27.211, Laps: 16
Second Practice Session: Position: 1, Best Time: 1:25.908, Laps: 33
“Overall it was a good day for us. It was pretty seamless and there was no trouble with the car. After all the mileage of testing, it was fun to be out there – this circuit doesn’t get easier, it’s a good challenge. The soft tyre doesn’t last too long, but the harder tyre is a decent race tyre. The weather should be quite changeable tomorrow and, as we can’t predict how much that will impact the tyres and car balance, we need to be ready to change things. Today was a good day and the balance was good, but we need to be ready for what’s coming up.”
CAR 2, MARK WEBBER
First Practice Session: Position: 5, Best Time: 1:27.668, Laps: 18
Second Practice Session: Position: 2, Best Time: 1:26.172, Laps: 31
“It was not a bad day and we got through plenty of information. It was nice to have a bit of sun on the circuit after Barcelona, where we had pretty overcast conditions. We had to correlate a lot of information from Europe and that went pretty well. We still have a huge amount to go through tonight and we’re expecting a bit of overcast stuff tomorrow, so we need to be ready for that. Overall, it was pretty positive for us, but there are still areas to improve on.”
AND FINALLY
After all the serious business of the day, here are five fast facts from Mark:
MARK WEBBER’S TOP FIVE… things to do before the start of a race
"How long before the start? That’s the question. If it’s a while before then…
1. I need sleep. Always a good thing!
2. I need fuel, so something to eat. That means the usual things, a bit of pasta or chicken, something easy to digest.
3. Get a briefing from the engineers.
4. Put my race kit on and go to the toilet!
5. Get in the car, which I always do from the left-hand side and do the belts up.
That’s it really. It’s not a big process, just getting yourself mentally ready, being prepared. I don’t have any big rituals really, aside from the left-hand side of the car thing.