Spanish GP team review: Red Bull

Red Bull, having entered the race as favourites, were not their usual self and finished in a territory that is highly unknown to them. Sebastian Vettel qualified 3rd and Mark Webber qualified 8th but was promoted to 7th following a three-place penalty Felipe Massa suffered for having impeded the Australian during qualifying.

Vettel started the race very well, overtaking Lewis Hamilton on turn one. He then put pressure on Nico Rosberg, and patiently waited till the DRS wings were activated to overtake Rosberg’s Mercedes.

Vettel held on to the position till the first round of pit stops, which saw Ferrari‘s Fernando Alonso overtake him and put in scintillating lap times in the process. The Spaniard then proved to be too hot to handle, and Vettel just couldn’t keep up. The German then fell behind Kimi Raikkonen and Felipe Massa during the course of the race.

The Red Bull has had a good car all season long but their upgrades for Spain haven’t affected the team like the way the other teams’ upgrades have. They have the stability and balance to make the car extremely competitive at turns and corners, but they lack straight-line speed and that cost them the race. Ferrari and Lotus have made sure that they have the speed required to take on long straights and they caught up with the Bulls in the first sector of the track itself.

Mark Webber had a patchy race and didn’t really make a lot of difference in the line up. He wasn’t at his best and he was constantly pressurised by the Lotus of Grosjean and the Ferrari of Massa.

The Australian still managed to finish fifth, one place above the struggling Mercedes of Nico Rosberg. Before the start of the race, Webber was confident of nailing a result having got on to the podium twice in recent years, one of those being a win, but the sheer pace of the Ferraris and the Lotuses kept him at bay.

Next up, the team heads to Monaco to take on one of the best Formula 1 tracks. Last year, Mark Webber won the race after Michael Schumacher was given a penalty and the Australian saw to it that he clinched the race by quite a margin. Mercedes’s Nico Rosberg came second followed by Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso.

Vettel finished fourth and that rounded off a fairly successful weekend for the Red Bull team.

Christian Horner’s men will surely look forward to the challenge of Monaco and they’ll be focusing mainly on their qualifying, given that’s all the race requires pretty much.

Their car is adaptive enough to handle the ups and downs of the track, and there aren’t many straight-line sections, meaning the cars will do well in the turns.

Vettel will look to get back to winning ways and Webber will do well to support him.