Red Bull driver Mark Webber wants KERS fixed ahead of the Turkish Grand Prix
Red Bull driver, Mark Webber, has claimed that his team will be working hard in order to get the Kinetic Energy Recovery System (KERS) ready for the Turkish Grand Prix, which kicks off on Sunday May 8, 2011. The reigning champions have suffered a lot of
issues with their power boost system in the opening three races of the current Formula 1 season.
Commenting on the upgrades for the next race, Webber stated, “Top of the job sheet is KERS, which continued to give us problems in China. It's a key component in F1 this year and Red Bull Racing are not out of the woods with our system yet. We didn't run
KERS in 2009 and we're playing catch-up to the likes of McLaren and Ferrari, who did.”
The Australian further added, “If we can get the system reliable in time for Istanbul, we'll head to the race with confidence. The RB7 is already a great car and we'll be looking to put McLaren back in their place after Lewis Hamilton's victory in China.”
Webber’s team-mate, Sebastian Vettel, was able to win the opening two races of the season in Australia and Malaysia. However, their closest rivals this year, McLaren didn’t take too much time to sort out their issues and won the Chinese GP.
Although Red Bull have been very strong this year, they have struggled to get all their systems working during the race weekends. The biggest concern for them has been the KERS, which gives an advantage of 0.3 to 0.5 seconds per lap, depending on the nature
of the circuit.
Webber stated that a three weeks break will be good for the teams and drivers, as everybody will be able to spend time with their families. However, he stressed on the fact that the process of upgrading the car should continue during this time period.
The start to the 2011 season hasn’t been an ideal one for Webber, who is fourth in the driver’s championship at the moment. The veteran driver has suffered from numerous technical issues, resulting in some mixed performances in the qualifiers. He was unable
to make it through to the top 17 of the Chinese GP and started the race from 18th on the grid.
There weren’t many expectations from Webber during the race day, but he had a fresher set of tyres compared to the front-runners which gave him an advantage towards the end.
The Australian got off to a bad start in the race and was even overtaken by Sauber’s driver Kamui Kobayashi. However, things changed dramatically once Webber was on the softer tyres. He gained a number of places, ending the race on the podium with a third
place finish. His pace suggested that he could have easily overtaken Hamilton, but ran out of time at the end.
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