Red Bull Racing’s reliability problems continued when Mark Webber suffered an engine failure the Friday afternoon session in Sepang.
The Aussie slid into gravel trap when the problem occurred at the end of a straight. Although the engine was not a fresh one, the failure has added to the team’s woes. This year drivers have to do 19 weekends with the same eight engine allowance that they had for 17 events in 2009.
“You never want your Fridays disturbed and it cost us a lot of track time, obviously,” he said. “But the car felt pretty good. Never ideal to lose an engine, but we did. It was pretty high mileage. But you want every km you can get, no question about it.”
Webber’s team mate Sebastian Vettel was second in the afternoon session, which gave the team some encouragement.
“It’s where we expected to be. It would have been nice to feel the options and have a go on them, but I’ll have to do that tomorrow.
“The car feels good in the quick stuff. I wouldn’t say we have a particular weakness for a speed range, in terms of low and high speed. We’re good in the low speed too.”
Adam Cooper F1 