Red Bull salvage point from difficult weekend

Red Bull emerged from their home race relatively pleased, thanks to a great drive from Daniel Ricciardo to get the car into the points, although that in the end was only one point for their troubles.

Starting from the back of the grid in 18th, it was always going to be a difficult race for the home team, after the team elected to change their power units for the race.

Managing to avoid all the incidnets at the back of the field, Daniel Ricciardo was pleased with the result in the end, “I was pleased with the car during the race. I was trying to push as much as I could towards the end to catch Perez but the boys behind me were fighting for the podium and I had to respect that.

“I was really happy with the option tyre, the balance of the car worked well. To finish tenth is a good result from where we started today.

“I’m staying on here for a day’s testing this week and I hope that despite the bad weather forecast we’ll be able to get some useful work done before the next round in Silverstone.”

His team mate had a more difficult day though, and could only finish in 12th of the 14 runners which was compounded by damage on the first lap, which saw him out of sync on the pitstops and damage to manage on the car. He said after the race, “It was a very tough race today.

“The front wing was damaged on the first lap and from then on my race was massively compromised.

“The bodywork damage affected the grip for the entire race which made the car difficult to drive. I think points were possible today if it hadn’t been for the damage, so that’s disappointing.”

Their comments were echoed by team principal Christian Horner, “From the grid position that Daniel started from today, it was a strong drive from him to score a point. He effectively ran the race in reverse; running the slower tyre at the beginning of the race, and then fitting the softer tyre at the stop.

“Dany after a great start, with what was happening ahead of him, unfortunately made contact with the back of Perez. That caused significant damage to the underside of the car and from there the goal was to make it to the end of the race.”

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