Mark Webber 'massively disappointed' with KERS failure

Mark Webber made his disappointment clear after a KERS failure meant that he could only qualify in 10th place for the Hungarian Grand Prix.

Red Bull had looked as the strongest team in practice and Webber was in par with Vettel in terms of one lap pace. But a KERS failure and simple gearbox setting in qualifying meant that he couldn’t convert his car’s pace into a grid spot it deserved.

“That was a massively disappointing qualifying session,” said a frustrated Mark Webber. “We had no KERS, and a basic gearbox setting that we couldn’t get out of, which cost a lot of lap time. I was happy with how I drove, but it doesn’t count in qualifying when you need everything at the absolute limit.”

“Instead of challenging for the front row, we were challenging for the last row of Q3.” he added.

Team principal Christian Horner said the problems costed Webber at least eight tenths of a second.

“Unfortunately, Mark’s car had two issues, one with the gear shift and also with KERS, which was probably costing him up to 0.8 of a second per lap.”

“He did a very impressive job to get into Q3, but at that stage, with a car that was not able to run at its full potential, we had to take a strategic approach to tomorrow’s race.” Horner said.

However, since Webber didn’t complete a run in Q3, he now has a free choice of tyres for start of the race.

“We therefore elected not to run in Q3, so he has a freedom of choice and fresh tyres for tomorrow’s race. It’s going to be interesting tomorrow and strategy is going to be crucial.” he added.