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| © Mark Thompson/Getty Images/Red Bull Racing |
Red Bull can take some solace in leading the championship ahead of the mid-season break after a successive podium-bereft race on Sunday.
Sebastian Vettel had qualified third for the Hungarian Grand Prix and had a good start but was unable to overtake the Lotus of Romain Grosjean at the first corner.
Later, the defending champion was stuck behind Jenson Button in the first stint losing time behind the McLaren, admitting that there was not much he could have done on a difficult track.
“I think our overall speed was better than the actual result we got," said Vettel who finished fourth.
"The tyres were not too bad at the end, but we thought that we should try something, the tyres on the cars in front could have fallen off, but it didn’t happen," the German added referring to the late pit stop as Red Bull changed his strategy from a two-stopper to three stops.
The two-time world champion's frustration was obvious.
"We sit in the car for one and a half hours, race at the limit, it is hot as hell, and then you sit in traffic - which in itself is not a huge satisfier - and you know that you cannot get airborne to get into a better position," he was quoted saying on the official Formula 1 website. "And of course if you know that you’ve been fighting for every inch and it didn’t pay off, that is a bit frustrating."
Teammate Mark Webber, meanwhile, had a mechanical issue when his car developed signs of a differential problem around lap 45, with the Australian losing a considerable amount of time behind the Williams of Bruno Senna after he made his pit stop.
“We were hoping people would be in a bit more trouble with their tyres at the end," said Webber who made up three places from the starting grid to classify in eighth. "We were in fifth place and had a nice cushion, but we’ve had plenty of times this year where the tyres had stopped working towards the end of the race.
"It didn’t really work out that way and we lost places through trying something different. I was quicker in the closing stages, but it’s hard to overtake here and I couldn’t get the job done," he added.
Webber is second in the championship, 40 points behind leader Fernando Alonso, and two ahead of third-placed Vettel.