Red Bull Spanish qualifying review

ANIIL KVYAT, Position: 8, (3rd Practice – 9, 1:27.313) “I did my best and so I can’t be happy with P8. Maybe we have not got the most out of our upgrades just yet, but I’m sure the team can turn things around. At least this weekend, we have had a clean free practice and qualifying and, step by step we will get there. Nevertheless, tomorrow is the day that matters, the thing we are all fighting for and there is still everything to play for, so I can definitely aim to score some points starting from where I am on the grid.” DANIEL RICCIARDO, Position: 10, (3rd Practice – 6, 1:27.048)“I think tenth place must be my worst quali since I started with the team, so it wasn’t the best day. I was frustrated mainly in sector 3. In Q1 and Q2 I felt it was my strongest sector, but then in the end we lost maybe half a second or more through there. And I don’t really have an explanation for why that happened. I am disappointed with the outcome, as I had hoped to be at least P7 or P8. From the long run I did in FP3 this morning, the car performed consistently and the balance was okay, so we should be okay on tyres tomorrow. We are not really quick enough down the straights, so we need a good start and then we will try and do something with strategy.” CHRISTIAN HORNER: “A tricky qualifying for the team and we can’t help but feel we have underperformed, lining up eight and tenth on the grid after a difficult build up from Friday and FP3. I think Dany got the most car of the car today, and Daniel struggled a little on the last run. We have plenty of work to do in the race tomorrow.”****************************************Pursuit of PerformanceNo.3: Pierre WacheBarcelona is traditionally the place where teams bring their first major update of the season, and we’re no different. Chief Engineer, Performance Engineering, Pierre Wache explains the importance of this part of the season and talks about the hard work going on behind the scenes in the run-up to this event“Barcelona updates are perhaps not as big as those of previous years as there is now a constant flow of updates at many teams but these updates are still represent a big step for teams as the window of the three-week gap after the first four races is a good opportunity to finalise a lot of work. “Much of what you’ll see on cars, certainly the big aero updates and body work will have been planned some time ago. New elements such as those are not reactive; they are not brought about by what happens on the track in the first four races. It is still possible to adapt those plans to some degree but the lead times on those element means that they require significant planning. But we, and all the teams, will of course bring more parts and solutions that are based on the issues faced in the opening races. We are not alone there and we will have parts based on that long-term view and there are definitely things we have addressed based on recent issues.“It’s been an enormously busy time for the team. The pressure on the engineering side, and even more so on the production and logistics side, is always pretty high coming into the Barcelona weekend, but especially so this time. But that’s why you’re in this sport. You enjoy the fact that you develop and change the car; that you encounter and solve problems in incredibly short spaces of time. “The hope every time is high, but with experience you understand that if you access part of what you are looking for then it’s a good result. But there’s never a magic bullet. You never go over expectation. You push as hard as you can and in that regard it is quite remarkable what the people at the factory are doing.”


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