04/09/2005
NEWS STORY
Red Bull Racing's wings seem to have been clipped for today's Italian Grand Prix. Despite starting from tenth on the grid, David Coulthard suffered an incident on the second corner of the first chicane when he made contact with the back of Giancarlo Fisichella's car and sustained damage to his car's front wing. Forced to make an early pit stop, the Scot dropped to 17th position, lost valuable time and with it any real chance of a strong points-finish. Team-mate Christian Klien set out to finish in the top eight from his starting position of 13th. Delivering a determined drive, the young Austrian moved up to ninth, but struggling with some oversteer, eventually crossed the line in thirteenth position overall.
David Coulthard: “I must say, I'm very disappointed. As a team, we felt we had a chance to pick up some points here, but we've come away with nothing and a bad qualifying slot for the next race. At the start, I made it around Turn one okay, but in Turn two where all the cars concertina up, I touched the back of Fisichella's car and broke my front wing. I then had to make a pit stop, which lengthened my race strategy. I was battling with (Mark) Webber for the remainder of the race, and the team managed to get me in front of him during his pit stop. However, I was having difficulty balance-wise and he was able to pass me again later on. I've just looked at my car in parc fermé and the barge-board, the little deflector behind the front wheel, seems to be jammed at 45 degrees and stuck in the suspension, whereas it should be sitting in line with the chassis. That must have happened in the first-lap incident and was probably what was affecting the car's aerodynamics and balance.”
Christian Klien: The race was not so good. I was late releasing the clutch and lost some time then, at the first corner, I was perhaps overcautious, as I didn't want to damage the front wing. After that, the car was difficult to drive, there was some over-steer and towards the end of the race, the rear tyres began to blister. We took some front flap off during the pit stop to help them, but it was still not easy to put the car exactly where I wanted it. As soon as I pushed, the tyres began to overheat and things were not so good.
Christian Horner, Sporting Director: In a race that had remarkable reliability with all competitors finishing, we unfortunately paid the penalty of David's first lap incident when he touched the back of Fisichella's car. He then had to stop early and change the front wing. After that, we changed his strategy to a one-stop, rather than a two. Christian also got delayed on the first lap and, unfortunately, didn't have a strong enough pace to make forward progress. For us, this was a fairly unmemorable race.
Chris Jilbert – Cosworth F1 Race Engineering: No problems with the Cosworth 12 series race engines this weekend, but unfortunately no points for the team. Fortunately, the Constructors' Championship is not significantly affected. Both engines now travel to Belgium to face their second race duty at the challenging Spa circuit.