The street track surrounded by Valencia concrete walls could have been a burden for the Red Bull Racing. The brilliant sunshine and harbour wind should be nice but the straightaway layout would be bad for their car. It looks like the Montreal track in a sense where they were not enough quick and in fact last year’s race was a disaster with a lot of engine failures. Mark says “This isn't one of our strongest circuits and the track is like a Tesco car park.”
But this time they had a new weapon, so called “F-Duct”. It makes it possible to reduce the rear wing’s drug without losing any downforce level. Simply speaking, you can gain top speed with it. Rivals had been introducing this kind of device from the beginning of this season and the RB6 finally has gotten this.
The Red Bulls dominated the qualifying session. 1-2 was an unexpected result even for them thanks for the device or so.
"Valencia isn't usually - or shouldn't be - our strongest circuit,” the pole sitter Sebastian said. “So it's good that we are able to put the car on pole and I think our pace is looking very good. It was a tight qualifying session, and a tough one especially as we reintroduced the F-duct and I think some of the mechanics had maybe an hour or two's sleep last night, so it's good to say thank you by putting the cars on one and two.”
Sebastian led the race form the start for a while but suddenly the team was struck by a shocking scene. Mark crashed into a car running in front heavily. He flew into the sky in 300km/h and landed upside down to the track then the car was caught by tyre barriers the right way up. Incredibly he was unhurt and walked away from the car indifferently!
"I was going a lot faster than Heikki [Kovalainen / Lotus],” Mark said. “And then a long, long way before the braking point he braked - about 80m before - and at that point I'm a passenger. The car, thank God, was very safe. I am OK. Of course, the hits were pretty hard but it's good that I am OK. It was my Monte Carlo and Barcelona winning chassis and one which has secured a lot of pole positions, so the chassis has been good to me, and it has been good to me today as it saved me from some injures.”
Sebastian drove the same car perfectly and gave no chance to the others. He finally got his second victory of this season.
“It's good to be back winning and on a circuit where we didn't expect to be that strong. But we were quick enough at all times in the race to pull away, find the gap and then guide the car home, but it wasn't as easy as expected. It's good to get a lot of Championship points and the guys can be extremely proud, so a good weekend for them.”
The team broke off the last two races’ bad momentum by this victory despite Mark’s accident. Next race is a home race for them because they have their factory there and there’s no race in Austria. The Red Bull re-accelerate from here for the Championships.
