Red Bull’s Christian Horner says Mark Webber gets confidence boost from Chinese GP – Formula 1
Red Bull team boss Christian Horner has once again praised the Australian driver Mark Webber and stated that the Chinese Grand Prix was a confidence booster for him.
Talking about the tyre strategy for Webber, Horner commented that three stops worked well for him.
Mark Webber was the driver of the day in Shanghai, despite Lewis Hamilton taking the win. Horner, while commenting on Webber’s performance, stated, “I think it is great for his confidence to get a good result, especially after a great drive. He had a tough
ride in qualifying but he kept his head down, did not lose his focus and he has delivered a great race.”
Webber had the worst qualifying session when he was sent on the Pirelli hard tyres in China. Mark did not qualify for Q2 and ended in the 18th grid position. At the start of the race, Mark was almost overshadowed by the battle going on in the
upper ranks. In the middle part of the race, the Australian did a good job in getting to higher positions when he took his second pit-stop.
After the third pit-stop Webber was just unstoppable as he overtook four front running drivers in the last 12 laps to take the podium position. Webber was on three stop strategy and his team-mate, Sebastian Vettel, was on two.
Talking about the strategy of Webber’s drive, Horner said, “The strategy worked really well for him. He drove a strong race, he was out of position and he had three brand new sets of option tyres available to him.” Horner added that Webber was fighting with
the lower ranks like Lotus in the opening round, but at the end he overtook the McLaren of Jenson Button, which was remarkable.
Webber himself has stated before that to save tyres in the qualifiers and use them in the race is a good strategy despite starting the race lower down the order.
The next race is almost three weeks away and Red Bull is still on top of both the Driver’s and Constructor’s Championship tables.
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