A ‘strong team performance' has seen
Red Bull Racing get both of its cars into the top ten on the starting grid in Istanbul this weekend for the first time in five outings – and the clear target now is to secure a double points finish in the race too.
Mark Webber's sixth place in particular went a long way to atoning for the Aussie's expensive practice shunt the previous day – one that had left his mechanics with much work to do prior to qualifying [see separate story –
click here]. The 31-year-old repaid them with interest, however, by outpacing
Renault's
Fernando Alonso,
Toyota ace
Jarno Trulli and
Nick Heidfeld in the BMW-Sauber to line up alongside the latter's team-mate
Robert Kubica on row three of the grid for Sunday's race.
“It's good to get P6 today,” Webber confessed, “after letting the team down yesterday with a bit of a shunt. The only downside of today's result is that we're on the left-hand side of the grid, but apart from that it went very well.
“We're in reasonable shape to get some good points tomorrow – we'll just have to keep our nose clean and have good, clean pit-stops. It's going to be an interesting race [and] the team has done a great job today – to get both cars into Q3 was a good effort.”
On the back of two qualifying sessions in which he had failed to make it beyond the initial Q3 drop – beginning a lowly 17th in both Bahrain and Barcelona –
David Coulthard had arrived in Turkey under something of a cloud and with murmurings intensifying about the safety of his seat at the Milton Keynes-based outfit. The experienced Scot answered those critics with aplomb by joining his team-mate in the final shoot-out, eventually settling for P10.
