Red Bull experienced less tyre wear than initially predicted during the Hungarian Grand Prix, with both Sebastian Vettel and Mark Webber carrying out late pit stops with the intention of passing those who suffered tyre wear in the closing laps. As it transpired, the tyres behaved better than first thought, and Red Bull failed to capitalize on their strategy.
After suffering a disastrous qualifying performance, Mark Webber started the race from a lowly 11th position on the grid. By the end of the opening lap, the Australian driver was up to 7th position behind the Lotus of Kimi Raikkonen. Whereas the ‘Iceman’ stormed through the pack to finish a strong 2nd, Webber eventually finished 8th after his team expected higher amounts of tyre wear throughout the closing stages.
“We were hoping people would be in a bit more trouble with their tyres at the end.” Explained Mark Webber, “We were in fifth place and had a nice cushion, but we’ve had plenty of times this year where the tyres had stopped working towards the end of the race. Today it didn’t really work out that way and we lost places through trying something different. I was quicker in the closing stages, but it’s hard to overtake here and I couldn’t get the job done.”
Sebastian Vettel also attempted the same strategy as his team-mate, however like Mark Webber the reigning World Champion failed to capitalize with this tactic. Whereas his team-mate lost several positions, Vettel remained in 4th place just behind Romain Grosjean and just ahead of Championship leader Fernando Alonso.
“I think our overall speed was better than the actual result we got today.” Said Sebastian Vettel, “I was stuck behind Jenson [Button] in the first stint; he was slower and we lost some time there, but of course you can’t just pit and come out in clean air, there’s traffic, so there’s not much we could have done. The tyres were not too bad at the end, but we thought that we should try something, the tyres on the cars in front could have fallen off, but it didn’t happen.”
The Red Bull duo are now separated by only two points in the Drivers’ Championship, with Mark Webber retaining 2nd place ahead of his team-mate. Red Bull have remained in control of the Constructors’ Championship, with a strong 53 point lead over their nearest rivals McLaren.
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