Speaking following the Race Stewards decision to allow Red Bull to contest the remainder of the Malaysia GP weekend, the team's boss, Christian Horner, had this to say.

"Following David's retirement in Australia, where an incident with Massa caused significant damage to his car, his RB4 had a track rod failure during first practice for the Malaysian Grand Prix. It was an isolated incident, which caused him to go off the circuit at Turn 14, hit a bump and go heavily into the inside of the kerbing, causing damage to his car's front suspension.

"The FIA takes safety extremely seriously," Corner continued, "and wanted to understand how the failure had happened. They followed up the incident by looking at our procedures in terms of rig testing, R&D testing and proof testing, for each of our components. We've demonstrated our diligence in making sure the car is safe, they understand that and are happy with the explanation that we've given them."

"Yesterday's incident on David's car was due to a track rod failure," added Adrian Newey. This in turn was due to a poor bond preparation. The component therefore failed very early in its life."

The Race Stewards official statement read: "Having received a written report from Red Bull Racing and the verbal report from the Technical Delegate who has conducted a visual check of the front suspension of the Red Bull car, the Stewards, at this stage, intend to take no action under Art 2.3 of the 2008 Formula One Technical Regulations. This matter will however, be kept under review during the event."