WITH THE HELP OF RENAULT POWER: MARK WEBBER AND RED BULL RACING SECURE BRITISH F1 GRAND PRIX VICTORY

Red Bull Racing’s Mark Webber secured victory in today’s (08.07.2012) British Grand Prix after a superb move on Fernando Alonso in the final laps of the thrilling race. The Australian’s win, his second at Silverstone, brings the Red Bull Racing Renault partnership’s tally of victories to 30, while edging Renault’s total wins in Formula 1 to 146. Webber’s Red Bull Racing team-mate Sebastian Vettel gave the team a double podium, finishing in third position.

Lotus F1 Team’s Kimi Raikkonen and Romain Grosjean passed the flag in fifth and sixth positions to retain the team’s third position in the championship. The Renault-powered drivers demonstrated a strong race pace, with Grosjean moving up the field after an early pit stop was required to change his front wing, which had been damaged in an early impact.

Bruno Senna, Williams F1 Team, finished in ninth position, giving Renault engined drivers 50% of the total points-scoring positions. Unfortunately, Senna’s team-mate Pastor Maldonado was involved in an incident at one fifth race distance and, although able to continue, dropped down the order. The Venezuelan finished in 16th position.

Caterham F1 Team’s Heikki Kovalainen passed the flag in 17th however Vitaly Petrov was unable to take the start after an engine failure on his way to the grid.

Red Bull Racing extends its lead of the constructors’ title ahead of Ferrari while Lotus F1 Team keeps third. Williams F1 Team is seventh, with Caterham tenth.

R?©mi Taffin, Renaultsport F1 head of track operations: 'A double podium for Red Bull Racing at its home event is a fantastic result for the team, and for Renault. While it’s satisfying to see a win here and no repeat of the issues we experienced in Valencia, we have still not had a perfect weekend reliability-wise. We have had an engine failure on Vitaly’s car, and we need to explore the reasons why this happened. Initial investigations showed that top of the engine failed first, but, at the present time it is difficult to understand the reasons why. The data does not show any particular reason, so we will strip the engine to help us get to the bottom of the issue.

Our apologies to Caterham as the upgrades they brought to this race worked well and they looked to be on for a good race performance. We will ensure there is no repeat of this failure in the future: to achieve this we will keep our head down and trust that we will recover from this disappointment.

Lotus has again showed a strong pace with fifth and sixth and Williams too. For 50% of the points today to be scored by Renault-engined drivers shows that overall the chassis-engine packages are working very well, but there is still work to be done to improve on our overall reliability so each and every driver can optimise his race performance.'

TS
09.07.2012
Silverstone - Cairo - Dubai