Brake issues hamper Red Bull in Malaysian GP

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F1 Grand Prix, GP Malaysia, Sepang International Circuitmy

The Malaysian Grand Prix ended up to be a very difficult event for Red Bull Racing with both driver unable to make significant progress as they had to manage rising brake temperatures.

Team Principal Christian Horner reported after the race that brake temperatures were unexpectedly high, incurred by the team's switch of brake supplier over the winter. The team had been a long time customer of Brembo, but have now changed to Carbone Industrie for both discs and calipers. The change was supposedly initiated by Vettel's complaints during 2014, even though the German is now ironically driving for Ferrari, who similarly run Brembo brakes.

Daniil Kvyat, 9th: “We took the maximum out of the situation today. We are lacking some pace and need to catch up, I am confident that the team can do it; it’s a challenge and we have to face it with a strong mind. Fighting for P9 and P10 is not what we want, we struggled today and we need to work out why.”

Daniel Ricciardo, 10th: “A really frustrating race. I was ready for a fight going into the race and hoping for something special – but it wasn’t to be! I had a bit of contact on the first lap, which hurt us and then we had a few issues throughout the race, which we had to manage. It took a long time to pass cars as we didn’t have the pace and we had some problems with the brakes, which didn’t make our afternoon easy. It was a good job by Seb, a great drive from him.”

Christian Horner, Team Principal: “A really difficult afternoon. Some contact at the first turn damaged Daniel’s front wing, which seemed to deteriorate through the race. Then after the safety car we started to see brake temperatures climb and needed to nurse the cars quite significantly through the second half of the race. I don’t think the drivers could have done anymore today. There’s plenty to understand following this weekend and plenty to address before China in two weeks. Sebastian drove an incredible race, so congratulations to him and Ferrari. Hopefully we will give them a harder time soon.”

Thierry Salvi, Renault: “This weekend we made a step forward in driveability compared to Melbourne, which was essential in the wet Quali. There are still improvements that can be made to bring lap time gains, but so far both drivers are happy with the work completed. As usual in Malaysia, we were on the limit cooling wise during the race and had to compromise to stay safe, especially when following competitors. Daniel’s front wing issue cost him a lot of lap time and Dany had to work hard to come back after the clash with Hulkenberg. Reliability was much better this weekend, which will allow us to spend more time working on the performance of the Power Unit and with the team.”