Sunday 19 April 2015

Tough weekend for Red Bull Racing but Ricciardo and Kvyat continue to make a point

(Infiniti Red Bull Racing) 

Infiniti Red Bull Racing endured another race weekend at the Bahrain Grand Prix on Sunday. Daniel Ricciardo started the race from seventh place while Daniil Kvyat started the race from 17th place on the grid after a difficult qualifying for the Russian on Saturday.

In the race however the team fared better as Daniil Kvyat made his way through the field to finish the race in ninth place to claim two valuable points for the Milton Keynes based outfit. Speaking following the race he stated:

I enjoyed the race today, it put a smile on my face. We had a good recovery to finish in the points. We gathered a lot of data to analyse and see what improvements can be made so we can move forward. As a team we want to improve and we’re all working hard to get there – I can feel good vibes are coming.

Ricciardo finished the race in sixth place however of great concern for Infiniti Red Bull Racing’s engine partner Renault, Ricciardo’s power unit blew as he came onto the main straight to finish the race. In fact the Australian didn’t manage to take the chequered flag. Speaking following the race he stated:

I think the race went as well as it could and I drove well to finish sixth. The chassis is working better and through the corners we are more or less there; we’ll move onto Europe and see if we can get further up the grid and keep improving. The weekend went pretty smooth for me until the end of the race, I don’t know what happened, but the team will have a look at it.

Infiniti Red Bull Racing Team Principal Christian Horner commented on the race saying:

I think both drivers got the absolute maximum out of the cars today. Daniel drove a very clean race; his engine seemed to join the firework party in the end, but he finished a strong sixth. Daniil made a good recovery from his P17 start to finish in ninth. It’s good to have both cars finish in the points today.’

As a result of the failure, Daniel Ricciardo will potentially be using his fourth power unit for the Spanish Grand Prix which is his entire allocation for the season so is likely to face a ten place grid penalty in the near future however Horner has said that the team could use an engine that has less mileage on it. Speaking following the race, Renault Sport’s Thierry Salvi stated:

It was a quiet race for us and as much as we could have expected results-wise. We got to the end with the fixes we put in place after Shanghai, and got the points, which was the main objective.”

© Ben Johnston 2015

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