Red Bull Racing’s Singapore Grand Prix ended in disappointment today after both cars suffered brake issues. Both drivers didn’t have great starts, which was inevitable from the dirty side of the grid, and Nico Rosberg was able to get past Sebastian Vettel, who started from second place on the grid. However, after Rosberg was penalized for going over the white line at pit exit, Vettel resumed his fight back and was within half a second off the race leader.

However, he was also forced to come in for a drive through penalty after speeding in pitlane. He also suffered damage to his diffuser after running over a kerb and, later in the race was nursing his brakes just to make it to the finish. All in all he did a fine job to bring the car home in P4 with a really competitive drive.

“The start was not so good from the dirty side of the track, but it was pretty good race for me until we had the drive-through. There’s a bit of a question mark as to why I got the penalty, I mean I had no reason to push at that point. We knew we couldn’t pass Lewis at the pit-stop because he was staying out longer, so I was surprised when I got the call on the radio for it,” he explained. “We were on the limit with the brakes, I was lifting earlier than normal and braking a little more smoothly when I was in traffic. Sometimes I had to drop off a bit to cool them too, before I could push again – you always have to listen to your car. Regarding the Championship, I think history has shown many different examples of how it can finish over the years, with it going either way. At the next races our approach will be simple: we will try to get pole position and try to win, so it’s very straightforward.”

Meanwhile, after getting past Alonso on lap one, Mark Webber was told to allow both Glock and Alonso back past as he had made the overtaking manoeuvre off track at Turn 7. Then later in the race, there were some concern about his brake wear, so they called his second pit-stop a couple of laps earlier to do a visual safety check. Visually, both the brake pads and brake discs looked fine and they cleared the cooling duct of any debris. After the stop, the brake wear continued to rise and the team were just in the process of calling him in, when a suspected brake disk failure occurred and he crashed out of contention.

“We had a suspected brake problem, so when I came in for my pit-stop, the guys made a visual check. It seemed reasonable for me to continue, but then we had the failure and I retired. The guys did everything they could – I think they were seconds away from retiring me when we had the failure, so it’s disappointing. The first lap was pretty feisty, as you’d expect on a street circuit and I had a bit of a fight with Fernando in Turn 7 and we both ran wide,” he explained. “About nine laps later I had to let Fernando back through, but unfortunately Glock was in the middle by then, so I had to let them both through”

“My race was heavily compromised from there. I thought the incident was fifty/fifty – but the stewards decided I had to let Fernando and Glock through, so I lost the hard work I’d done during my first stint. It was a hard penalty I think, Kimi did something similar in Spa and got away with it. I’d like to say thanks to the guys in the garage for this weekend – they’re awesome and that’s why we’re second in the Constructors’ Championship. Fingers crossed we can finish this year on a high.”