(Renault Sport F1)
The Renault powered teams endured a tough day at the office during today's Brazilian Grand Prix at the Interlagos circuit in Sao Paulo as Infiniti Red Bull Racing managed to get just one car to finish as reigning world champion Sebastian Vettel finished the race in fifth place while his team mate Daniel Ricciardo was forced to bring his to a premature end ah he retired on lap 40 with a suspension failure which brought to and his fifteen race points scoring run.
Despite his DNF the Australian remains in third place in the championship 55 points ahead of team mate Sebastian Vettel.
Toro Rosso's Daniil Kvyat was left disappointed as the Russian just missed out on a points scoring finish as he ended the race in 11th place just behind Williams Martini Racing's Valtteri Bottas. After scoring his first points for the team in Austin last weekend the Lotus F1 Team's Pastor Maldonado finished the Brazilian Grand Prix just outside the points in 12th place.
Jean Eric Vergne finished the race in 13th place in the second Toro Rosso while Romain Grosjean was forced to retire from the race in the closing stages with a suspected power unit failure.
Speaking following the race Renault Sport F1's Head of Track Operations Remi Taffin stated:
'It’s been a strange day really, with the few points we did score courtesy of Seb helping Red Bull claim the runners-up spot in the Constructors’ Championship. It’s no secret that we have endured a tough season – despite scoring three wins together so far – and this result is testament to the hard work carried out behind closed doors at both Viry and Milton Keynes.
Nevertheless, this degree of recovery is not enough and we must be realistic about the gap that still exists to Mercedes. We are not accustomed to finishing second and will be working extremely hard in all areas during the winter to overhaul their advantage in time for next season.
Seb’s performance here, as in Austin last weekend, was absolutely fantastic. Both the Power Unit and tyres are tricky to manage in these conditions but collectively we coped very well indeed and extracted the maximum. It’s a shame we lost Daniel to a suspension problem but he remains third in the championship and, with one race remaining, looks odds-on to finish there.
Toro Rosso and Daniil were less than a second shy of scoring some points, which shows the package is still competitive in the tight mid-field battle. Lotus too demonstrated their pace with Pastor coming home 12th, but I am obviously disappointed for Romain whose car suffered a Power Unit problem and lost a cylinder towards the end. We’ll study the data and, as always, learn from the cause.'
© Ben Johnston 2014
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