Yearly Archives: 2013

“I like this track in Barcelona; it’s high-speed and has a pretty good flow to it,” says Mark on the eve of the Spanish Grand Prix. “It’s a good test of man and machine, and it’s quite fun having the tower on the start-finish straight because you see immediately where you are after a qualifying lap. Everyone will find out how good their car is here, so it’s certainly going to be interesting.”

“I passed a lot of cars early on in that stint and climbed from 14th to second in the space of 13 laps,” explained Mark “but my tyres couldn’t stand the pace and I was forced to pit early.”

“The beginning wasn’t too bad,” says Mark, “but we lost quite a bit of time in the second stint trying to clear people. We went aggressive on the first few out laps, which meant we jumped people, but the tyres didn’t like it.”

I would have like to have got a bit more out of the car in that session and been a bit further up, but seventh with a penalty isn’t the end of the world,” says Mark after qualifying fifth on the road. However, he will face his 200th Grand Prix start from seventh after last weekend’s penalty was applied.

News from Infiniti Red Bull Racing following Friday’s free practice sessions ahead of the Bahrain Grand Prix this weekend.

The 2013 Bahrain GP heralds Mark’s 200th grand prix. “It’s amazing to think it’s 200 starts already,” he says. “I can remember my first race like it was yesterday,”

“That was a very disappointing weekend,” says Mark. “Every time I got in the car on Saturday and Sunday there was a problem, so I wasn’t able to show my true pace. For some reason it just wasn’t meant to be this weekend.”

Mark sums up his disappointing Chinese Grand Prix weekend in understated fashion….”We have had a few problems this weekend; I think we could have done something from our start position today, but it wasn’t meant to be.”

“It’s very disappointing. Q1 went okay; I was comfortable with the car and we had a good plan for the rest of the session” Mark said after running out of fuel in Q2.

Infiniti Red Bull Racing’s news following Friday’s free practice sessions in Shanghai ahead of this Sunday’s Chinese Grand Prix.