It's half-term for the world of F1: time for a "what do you think of it so far" report from Red Bull Racing's Team Principal, Chief Engineer and drivers.
CHRISTIAN HORNERThe first half of the season has gone pretty well for us. We have taken a big stepforward in reliability and our performance has also shown progress since 2007. Sofar, coming up to the British Grand Prix, we have had one hundred percentmechanical reliability in all the races, which is remarkable compared to last year. Wehave already scored as many points in a half season as we did in the entirety of2007 and we have secured our first podium of the year as well as scoring in seven ofthe eight races to date. The only race where we failed to score was in Melbournewhere both our drivers were eliminated through accidents. It's a positive start and weare on target to meet our objective of finishing the year in fourth spot in theConstructors', but there's still a long way to go. With that in mind, there are stilldevelopments due on the car to increase performance as we feel we can get closerto McLaren and BMW.
This year, everyone has worked very well as a team and we are beginning to see thetrue potential that exists within our group. As an independent team and many peopleseem to forget we are independent without the clout of a manufacturer behind it, Ithink we have exceeded expectations in many areas, but we won't be fully satisfieduntil we are winning races.
While pushing to maintain our fourth place in the Championship, we are also workingon our 2009 programme and, as a smaller team, we have to be smart in the way weuse our resources. All teams face this dilemma to some extent. The best form ofdefence is attack and that's what we'll continue to do for the rest of 2008. Within ourtechnical group we have the capacity to develop the current car while looking at 2009and Adrian Newey's primary focus is now the 2009 car. But he is still overseeing thedevelopment of RB4. It is a juggling act but one which we feel we can deal with. Wejust have to think smarter than the bigger teams we are fighting against, work hardand keep our head down.
Mark has driven fantastically well so far this year, in the points bar Melbourne andCanada where he had incidents that weren't his fault. He's in a very competitive partof the field racing against the likes of Fernando Alonso, Jarno Trulli and NicoRosberg. He's done an excellent job and on three occasions - Turkey, Monaco andFrance, we've got both cars into the top ten in qualifying. As for David, things had notgone his way until Montreal. He qualified in the top ten in fifty percent of the racesbut he's come home with three ninth place finishes which is the most frustratingposition just outside the points. The Montreal podium was the highlight for both himand the team so far this year. With half the season still to go, it is imperative that wemaintain our reliability and continue to develop the car at each race in order toachieve our target of fourth place in the Constructors' Championship.
PAUL MONAGHANYour primary judgement of your car's performance is relative to that of youropposition. At the start of the season, both drivers were happy with some aspects ofthe car and less impressed with other areas. In terms of our pace, we werecomparable to our nearest opposition. Therefore it was reasonably encouraging aswe saw no major flaws and reliability was good which meant we could do lots ofmiles which enabled us to run our development programme. We have had somestrong qualifying and race performances from the car in the first half of the seasonso, overall, reasonably pleased would be the verdict.
We had one incident in the first grand prix which set us back slightly for the nextcouple of races, but we got on top of that. Of course, it was never part of our plan tohave a big accident in the first race! But having fixed it we were confident to run thecar in all situations from then on.
No car is perfect and some areas were clearly in need of development. Our twodrivers commented on traction, possibly expecting more than the car could deliver. Alack of balance was another criticism and we worked on ironing out the extremes sothat we could get a faster lap time by delivering more consistent performance. Andwe've been reasonably successful at that. The most obvious lack of performance isthat we're not running at the pace of the fastest car! We are making progress ingetting nearer to that goal.
In terms of tyre behaviour, the RB4 is working well. We made a significant step inunderstanding this aspect of performance in Bahrain and have continued to improvein this area race by race. In Canada, we were in very good shape as far as tyreswere concerned which was actually quite surprising thus confirming that we have notexperienced all the problems that other teams have had in this area.
We have had a few updates of varying magnitude through the first half of the year:we had a good step for Barcelona, but we have drip fed small changes into the carthroughout the year which have helped us move forward rather than remain static.For the remainder of the season, we have more upgrades planned and it's a case ofprioritising their introduction. We are now looking at finding better lap times, becausethe car is reasonably well balanced, so we have to pinpoint any remaining vices andwork on those to improve our lap times. We will still have to develop this car, eventhough this is the time of year when the following year's car looms large.
Which upcoming tracks will suit us? Ask me at the end of the year. Seriously, the carcan be made to perform competitively at most of the tracks as we have seen fromthe first half of the season. We have scored at nearly all races in the first half, so whyshouldn't we continue to do that for the second half of the year, only higher up theorder and picking up more points.
MARK WEBBERCurrently, the season is going better than we could have expected after the start ofthe year when we had a lot of tough opposition down the pit lane. Those teams arestill there, but the numbers never lie and at the moment, we are looking good tomaintain fourth place in the Constructors' Championship. Touch wood, I've had agood run in terms of reliability and that's certainly helped. I think we have executedmost of our weekends pretty well and there haven't been many races where we'vehad to dig out the hindsight goggles. In terms of qualifying and the race, it has
generally gone well and certainly much better than last year. Not many teams havemanaged to get seven consecutive points scoring finishes. Okay, maybe we're notbanging out podiums and race wins but we are doing everything that can be asked ofus at the moment.
Personally, from the middle part of last year, I started to work well in terms of gettingthe most out of the car and understanding it and that has carried through to thepresent and I'm pretty happy with the way I've been driving. Having a reliable car hashelped and it will be asking a lot to maintain one hundred percent reliability throughto the end of the year, but I hope the bad race weekend stays away for as long aspossible. I'm comfortable with RB4 and I feel I can put it on the limit at most venues,which is encouraging. I am trying to keep the errors to a minimum and that's beenreflected in our points tally. Qualifying is more than ever this year proving crucial insetting yourself up for a good race as you really need to be in a strong position at theend of your first race stint. Therefore grid position is important and this year, thequalifying procedure is a lot easier as you get a few chances to nail that lap, so thereare no excuses for not doing the job in qualifying. Apart from Melbourne, where I hada brake problem and Bahrain where I qualified eleventh, I've made it through to Q3 inevery race. We've been on the bubble of not getting through on a couple ofoccasions, but thankfully it's always gone my way.
As for the rest of the season, it's not going to get any easier for us and we still haveto deliver week in and week out. It's a cliché but I'll be taking every race as it comes.In terms of the opposition, Renault have definitely not performed to their maximumyet and we can expect strong opposition from them and from a few other drivers andteams that have maybe underperformed so far.
DAVID COULTHARDThe first half of the season has been a mixed bag for the team mainly through myresults, as Mark has had his best season to date. I had a couple of wobbles inqualifying earlier in the year and that has resulted in being on the wrong piece ofrace track at the wrong time and getting involved in incidents. The only weekendwhere I had an incident all by myself was in Monaco, but that was off the back ofhaving no running on the Thursday because of reliability issues. Without trying togive the impression of "poor me" making excuses, I've definitely had the non-RedBull end of the stick! But on the positive side, I've been in the top ten several timesand I've had a podium finish in Canada. There have also been three ninth placefinishes, which doesn't sound very sexy, but in all those races, I was less than tenseconds away from seventh, which shows just how competitive it is in that midfield. Iam genuinely optimistic for the second half of the year, but it's going to be incrediblytight with Toyota, Renault and Williams. Having said that, my one day of testing atSilverstone did not go too well, so my preparation for the British Grand Prix hasdefinitely been hampered, because the high speed nature of the track means it helpsto get your eye in by doing plenty of laps. We're on the back foot, but the team hasthe strength to bounce back and have a good weekend.
