F1: Red Bull Has A Quick Car, Says Horner

Formula 1

F1: Red Bull Has A Quick Car, Says Horner

Red Bull's Christian Horner says RB9 is fast...

Adam Cooper | http://www.speedtv.com | Posted March 18, 2013 Melbourne (AUS)

Mark Webber of Australia and Infiniti Red Bull Racing talks with his Team Principal Christian Horner as he sits in his car at the Albert Park Circuit on March 16, 2013 in Melbourne, Australia. (Photo: Getty Images)

Christian Horner insists that the Australian GP was a good weekend for Red Bull, despite the team managing only third place with Sebastian Vettel.

Horner says that while tires were an issue on Sunday over the course of the weekend the car proved that it was fast.

“The really positive things are we’ve come here, we’ve got a quick car, we’ve qualified on the pole,” said Horner. “We’ve been out of the window in the race, which is ironic because 12 months ago it was the opposite, we struggled to qualify but had a car that was very soft on the tire in the race.

“RB9 is a competitive car, and I think we’re only going to get a real, true picture of form after about four or five races, when we’ve gone to different venues, different tracks, different asphalt surfaces, then we’ll get a true picture of form. But it’s been a very positive weekend for us.”

Horner was surprised by the ability of rivals to keep their tires alive.

“I think probably the conditions were a significant factor and we were just out of the window. All things considered third place is actually a very good result. Kimi (Raikkonen) is the only driver/car combination that could make a two-stop really work, and it was quite obvious from about half distance that was what they were doing.

“Just to emphasize that point he did fastest lap on a tire that was older than we could have dreamed going anywhere near. I think we’ve learned an awful lot today, and hopefully it won’t be quite as chilly next weekend...

“I think the Force India looked good on its tire, and Kimi. If you looked at (Romain) Grosjean, it looked like he adopted a similar strategy, but it didn’t work for him. But Kimi really made it work, his car set-up was very light on the tire, and in these conditions he really was able to make it work. Could we have done a two-stop? No chance. We never had the range on the tire, it was never an option.

“(Adrian) Sutil started to pull away on tires that were significantly older than Sebastan’s so at that stage we knew that we were out of the window with the tire degradation.”

Horner is convinced that Vettel’s problems were related to his set-up, which was different from that of his team mate. (Mark) Webber suffered less dramatic tire degradation, which is not the usual pattern at Red Bull.

“We know that we’ve got a good car, certainly through practice. Our least competitive moments were during the race. Mark was very competitive in the race and had better tire durability than Sebastian in the race so we have to look again at where the differences in set-up were between the two drivers. I think it’s more set-up dependent than inherent in the car, as I said we had two different versions going on.”

Adam Cooper notched up his 28th season as a racing journalist in 2012. He has written about F1 for SPEED.com since 2005. Follow him on Twitter.