24 April: San Marino Grand Prix - Race Report - Red Bull Racing
David Coulthard “At
the start I was a bit slow away from the grid. I was running around ok but then had a bit of a bump with Massa, which broke part of
the floor. We went backwards from there and never really came back. The race was pretty lonely actually, just going around in
circles. The car didn’t have great race pace – we knew that from yesterday – so I was expecting to struggle a bit. But I still
thought I’d have a better balance than I did. There was a lot of oversteer.”
Tonio Liuzzi “I thought the race
would be difficult for me because of fitness, but I feel pretty ok. The car was quite good really. The balance was good, but there
just wasn’t enough speed, so we have to improve. It was quite difficult to keep the car on the track – it felt as if I was
sliding all over the place. I wanted to overtake Mark (Webber) so I tried to make something crazy but it didn’t work. Can I say
that? It feels great to have done my first race and I can’t wait for testing to prepare for Barcelona.”
Christian
Horner, Sporting Director “Obviously 11th and 13th is pretty disappointing after three consecutive point-scoring races.
Tonio drove an excellent race on his grand prix debut. He was consistent throughout and made a very solid start to his F1 career.
David had a couple of knocks from Massa and I think this damaged his car slightly. From a reliability point of view we’re ok, but
we need to take a step forward in performance. We hope to see that at the forthcoming test in Jerez.
Günther Steiner,
Technical Director “I am not that happy with how we performed in the race today. But the car was reliable and didn’t have any
problems. In comparison with qualifying I think this is the best we could have achieved. “
David Prigg, Cosworth “Once
more Cosworth has succeeded in powering Red Bull to a double race finish, which successfully completes the second event mileage on
both David's and Tonio's engines. David's engine has accumulated more than 1200km and with a completely problem-free weekend, again
demonstrates Cosworth's ability to provide a reliable and competitive product ”
David Coulthard Chassis number: 2 1st qualifying: 1:21.632 Total qualifying time:
2:48.070 Starting position: 15th
“The lap started very badly. I lost the back end into turn one so I was all over the kerbs.
I managed to pick up around the rest of the lap, but ultimately it wouldn’t have made a big difference in terms of where we
qualified. The others are ahead on pace and we were 0.6 of a second down on Villeneuve, so it’s just a question now of what luck
we have in the race in terms of other people dropping out, otherwise it’s probably going to be quite a quiet one. Being out on the
track early was more of a disadvantage than in other sessions, because it was wet at the start and absolutely dry at the end – but
that’s the price you pay for being slow in the first session.”
Tonio Liuzzi Chassis number: 1 1st qualifying:
1:21.804 Total qualifying time: 2:48.155 Starting position: 16th
“Yesterday, I had the disadvantage of being first man
out on track when the conditions were at their worst. So, at least today I got a decent lap and I am happy with my performance. I’m
very excited to start my first ever Formula 1 race this afternoon. It will be much longer than any race I have done in the past, so
it will be interesting to see how I cope with that side of things.”
