Red Bull failed to get the tyres to work

Red Bull looked like they would continue 2013 in the same manner that they ended 2012.

The three-time Formula One constructors champions looked immediately quick in Australia, with the defending three-time Formula One World Champion Sebastian Vettel setting the fastest times during Friday’s Free Practice sessions.

That form continued into the delayed qualifying sessions with both Red Bull’s of Vettel and team-mate Mark Webber locking out the front row of the grid in Melbourne.

It all looked so promising for the team, but a poor Sunday afternoon showing meant that Red Bull eventually had to settle for a podium position for Vettel and a sixth place finish for Webber.

Australian Webber had been hampered by a faulty ECU, which caused him to endure a poor start to the race and ongoing KERS problems.

While Vettel just didn’t enjoy decent race pace, as he suffered with high degradation levels on both sets of Pirelli compound’s.

‘We just weren’t in the optimum window with the tyres today. I think that, for whatever reason – the conditions and so on – we were just a bit out on the set-up or whatever for the tyres in these conditions,

‘It was fairly apparent from lap four or five. Seb got a good start and built the lead that we wanted. And then it was clear that the car was pretty heavy on the tyre. Horner told Sky Sports.

The point was further emphasised later in the race when both the Lotus of Kimi Raikkonen and the Force India of Adrian Sutil continued to set decent lap times on old Pirelli tyres.

Raikkonen of course went on to win the opening race of the season, while Sutil later dropped down the field to seventh following his later stint on the Pirelli super-softs which the front runners had all started the race on.

‘It was quite obvious from about half-distance that was what they [Lotus] were doing, And then to emphasise that point, he [Raikkonen] did the fastest lap on a tyre that was older than we could have dreamed of going anywhere near.

‘Obviously when you’re running around behind a car, you’re using the tyre even harder. But then Sutil started to pull away on tyres that were significantly older than Sebastian’s [Vettel], That’s when we knew we were just out of the window with the tyre degradation today.’

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