Fahrerstimmen – Tag 3

“Winning at Monza is one of the greatest experiences of my Formula 1 career. I absolutely love this place: I’ve been coming to Italy to race since I was 13 years old and I just love the culture, the food and the people. “Since I started in Formula 1, Monza has been one of the races I always wanted to win at – it’s such an incredible, historic circuit and all the great racing drivers have won here. To finally put my name on that list makes me feel extremely proud, but also very humble. “Our car has been fantastic all weekend, and it was nice to have a relaxed grand prix with no troubles. I was out on my own for most of the race and just tried to manage the gap behind me. I was cruising at the end, but, once I heard that Sergio [Perez] had got past Fernando [Alonso], I had to push a little to keep the cushion over second place. “The race was very unfortunate for Jenson – we were running first and second at the time and it would have been great for the team if we could have finished like that. “This championship is proving to be so unpredictable – and I’m so grateful that we’ve got a good car and that we’re in the fight. We’ve got seven more races on the calendar. We should enjoy today, but this victory is just one step. Tomorrow, we’ll start all over again, for Singapore.”

„Dieses Rennen war ein Genuss. Es war eines von jenen, in denen man einfach den Speed hat und in der Rolle des Angreifers ist. Ich freue mich sehr für das Team. Sauber ist ein sehr gutes Team, das hart arbeitet, und ich bin stolz auf die Mannschaft. Der erste Teil des Rennens war mit den harten Reifen nicht einfach für mich, aber das war ganz sicher die richtige Strategie. Ich war oft in Funkkontakt mit der Box. Ich hatte Sorge, dass die Reifen vielleicht plötzlich abbauen würden und wir die Strategie ändern müssten. Wir wussten auch nicht, wie schnell ich sie anfangs auf Temperatur bringen könnte. Aber das spielt jetzt keine Rolle mehr: Es hat funktioniert, und ich konnte so lange draussen bleiben wie ich für die Strategie sollte. Im zweiten Rennabschnitt ging es nur noch um Angriff, und ich muss sagen, alle Fahrer, die ich überholt habe, waren sehr fair. Sie haben mir natürlich nicht wahnsinnig viel Platz gelassen, aber immer genug. So muss das sein. Ich freue mich sehr, dass ich meinen ersten Podestplatz bei einem europäischen Rennen gerade in Monza erzielt habe.“

“This Sunday was perfect for the championship, almost like a film with a happy ending: another podium finish, three of my closest rivals with no points and an increased lead over my closest pursuer. I remain convinced that, but for the problem in qualifying yesterday, we could definitely have had every chance of starting from pole and if we can be equally competitive on Saturdays at the tracks that are coming up, it will be very important for the end of the season. We must try to win some more races and to manage the lead we have in the classification. Here we had to mark Vettel, but in Singapore it will be important to keep an eye on Hamilton, who is now second. When I found myself fighting with Vettel I went off the track and, from then on, the car was not right. It wasn’t nice bouncing through the gravel but, afterwards, I was able to overtake him anyway a few laps later. I don’t want to comment on the penalty he received, but what he did was definitely on the limit. The opening laps were the key to my race. I passed a few cars – Kimi, Di Resta and Michael – and finding myself sixth almost immediately put my race on a more even course. Racing for Ferrari at Monza and standing on the podium is something special: driving a red car is different because the fans are exceptional. If they were told not to eat for days to have the chance to drive a car from Maranello, they would do it and this is what makes the passion for Ferrari unique around the world.”

“I’m pleased with this result, even if I’d been hoping to make it to the podium. We faced higher tyre degradation than we expected, very different to what we had seen on Friday in free practice. A shame, because while the tyres were still working, I could match the pace of the McLarens, but then I began to lose the rear end earlier than they did. It was not an easy race: towards the end, Perez came back at me very strongly and there was nothing I could do to fend him off. I worked for the team, trying to help Fernando, which is as it should be. I have always done it and will do it whenever it’s necessary. I don’t think a two stop strategy would have worked: looking at the data, for us it was definitely slower than a single stop. When the team had no telemetry, we spoke for a long time on the radio and, all in all, we were able to manage the situation in the best way possible. I don’t know if this race changes anything regarding my future, but definitely the most important thing for now is to keep going like this, working with great concentration and trying to do my best for the team.”

"It's good to go into third position in the Drivers' Championship but we lost some points to Fernando [Alonso] which is not ideal. It was a difficult weekend as we were too slow in a straight line, making it very difficult to hold off anyone and even with the DRS it was difficult to overtake the cars in front. We did the one stop strategy and the tyres were fine. We came into the race looking for sixth or seventh so fifth is the maximum we could have done here this weekend."

It was a fun race today - although I must admit that, following our performance on Friday, I had secretly hoped we would be able to move up the field. But we had a tricky first stint. After that, everything went really well, we were on the pace and I think we showed a clear upwards trend today. I kind of ran out of laps this afternoon and, if the race had been a bit longer, I´d have been able to battle even further forward. Overall, though, we got everything out of it today. Now we need to keep this trend going - and everybody in the team is working hard on it.

Seventh place is an improvement on my recent finishes so I’m satisfied with that today, although there may have been potential for more. I had no grip on my option tyres in the first stint, which were the same set that gave me problems in Q3. After the first stop, I had very good pace and was able to set a few fastest race laps and move up the field with some nice overtakes. It’s nice to have had a better finish to a race weekend and I’m looking forward to more of the same in Singapore in a couple of weeks.

“Coming into this weekend I probably would have settled for eighth place, but when you consider the pace we showed in qualifying yesterday, we certainly had high hopes for the race. I struggled at the start with the heavy fuel load and didn’t really have the race pace on the medium tyres. Things improved after my stop when I was running the hard compound and our pace was much stronger towards the end of the race. But there was no way I could keep the Mercedes behind me and with their two-stop strategy they had a bit more speed than us. It’s good to extend our lead over Williams with a few more points, but obviously Sauber look strong and outperformed a lot of people. We will take the positives from the weekend, analyse things and try and improve our race pace in time for Singapore.”

„Zuerst möchte ich Sergio gratulieren – Kollege, das hast Du gut gemacht! Das ist ein grossartiger Tag für unser Team. Was mein Rennen betrifft, kann ich mich nicht beschweren, aber aus irgendwelchen Gründen war ich nicht schnell genug. Klar, ich war auf einer anderen Strategie, weil ich ja mit meinen Reifen aus dem Top-Ten-Qualifying starten musste. Mit beiden Mischungen fehlte mir Erfahrung, weil wir am Freitag keine längeren Distanzen fahren konnten. Für mich war es ein normales Rennen ohne spezielle Vorkommnisse.“

It was very tough to try to make the one-stop strategy work, but we did it and were also lucky with a few cars that were forced to retire. It was a great effort from the team today to make it into the points. Now we look forward to the next few races where we run higher downforce on the car which should suit us better. We will be aiming to build on today and bring home even more points.

It was a tough race, especially starting from the back, but the car showed good pace and was consistent. We just missed out on the points but I was happy to have made up 11 places in the race. I’m looking forward to the next race now as I think the track will suit our car better, so we’ll see.

“It’s been so hard to score points this year and that means it is incredibly disappointing not to get one today. I was tenth until the last corner on the very last lap. At that point, I accelerated to exit Parabolica and nothing happened. At the moment, I don’t know the cause, but to miss out on a point by a few hundred metres is bitterly disappointing.”

"It was a pretty long and difficult race for me today. After losing my KERS on lap 6 it was always going to be tough as that's worth about half a second per lap around here. I got a good start and was up fighting with Daniel [Ricciardo] and Nico [Rosberg], but once I lost that extra boost it was impossible to keep up and I dropped back. My last stint on the medium tyres in clean air was pretty good and I didn't make many mistakes, so maybe with a bit more luck we could have had a slightly better result. My main aim was to finish the race and I've achieved that so it's not so bad overall. It was great to be back in the car and especially with such a fantastic team ; I've learnt a lot this weekend."

"Overall the race was OK and better than we had last weekend but for me it was a pretty hard afternoon, not too bad but maybe a bit average. I didn't really have the performance I had on the longer runs on Friday and the grip level felt lower so I couldn't really attack and that held me up a bit on each set of tyres. "Now we have a couple of weeks to work through everything we've learnt in Italy and from Spa and make sure we go to Singapore with a clear idea of where we lost time in Belgium and what we can do to keep improving in the rest of the season. Everyone's determined to get back to where we should be and we'll see what we've learnt when we get back on track in two weeks time."

"My car felt fantastic all afternoon so thanks to the team for giving me a car I could push my teammate with right up to the last lap. The pitstops were good and the mechanics and engineers did a great job to keep me in the hunt with Heikki. With a few laps left Heikki and I were right up behind Fernando but Heikki was close enough to the Ferrari to use his DRS, otherwise maybe I'd have been able to pass. Anyway, we've definitely improved since Spa and we can build on this for Singapore and the rest of the season. "It was my birthday yesterday and I had a quiet dinner with some friends. Now I can go out and celebrate a bit more and that'll be a good way to finish the European races this year - maybe I should make sure I have dinner with them before every race so I can have as good a Sunday as this for the rest of the year!"

“I am very happy with today’s race performance as it represents another significant step for the team. We came here expecting it to be a tough weekend for us; our car had not performed well in Montreal, which has similar aerodynamic characteristics. We worked well through the various set-up options to arrive at a car that was actually very strong and which today put us even closer to the cars ahead when we were perhaps expecting not to be so competitive to them here. This is a good sign. In the race it was not a bad start, but not great, so there is some work we can do in the last stage of the season to improve that and our prospects for the races. We have some more upgrades for Singapore so I hope they translate into more of this great progress we have been seeing.”

“A bitter shame on my side really. The start itself was not great although I got through Turn 1 okay, but into Turn 2 there was a bit of a queue in front of me and Petrov moved to the outside, where I was. I couldn’t avoid him and he just clipped my front wing, which was damaged as a result. From there I couldn’t really do much as we had lost a bit of performance and the car was just ‘okay’ to drive. Worse than that, as I stopped so early I was out of sequence. I had to stay out longer and had more degradation at the end as the stints were quite long for me. Then blue flags cost us at the end. Overall I think we have to be quite pleased as we weren’t really running with the traditional Monza downforce specification. I’m now looking forward to Singapore - my favourite race.”

"I’m more than satisfied with the result, especially keeping in mind how we started the race. The start wasn’t easy but I did what I could because the medium tyres didn’t work well. In the second half of the race, on hard tyres, I started to run well and I’m happy with our pitstop because it was very good. I’m happy with this 100th Grand Prix although I would have liked to have done it better. We have to continue improving and in Singapore we hope for the planned upgrades to help us take that step forward”.

"I had a great start and overtook both Marussias, but on the first corner we had a slight touch that, besides making me lose positions, damaged my front wing. The car was oversteering and we made the most of the pit stop to the change the front wing, which made us lose a substantial amount of time. Then the blue flags started coming out and we also had to change our driving mode to avoid excessive overheating and reach the end of the race. Nevertheless, I’m happy because the car is performing well and surely, if we continue working hard, we will achieve a good result. Now the Asian swing begins and I’m very excited about racing close to home in Singapore”.

“Towards the end of the race, I had no rear tyres left and I was pushing reasonably hard. Nico (Rosberg) was coming on his fresh two-stop tyres, so I had to keep pushing and staying on it – for the sake of getting a couple of points, maybe I shouldn’t have pushed as hard, but I was trying to stay on it. The rear tyres were completely finished, so I dropped it out of the Ascari chicane; I managed to keep it off the wall, but then the tyres were so heavily flat-spotted, I was worried about damaging the car. We do 330 km/h round here, I couldn’t see the track, so we decided to retire.”

“It’s always frustrating to start right at the back and I knew it was going to be difficult to come through the pack – even with a quick car. I had a few good fights in the race – so from that point of view it was fun, but I was struggling with my brakes from lap one with a long pedal and I lost more performance as the race went on. Towards the end it became a safety concern so we decided to retire the car. It’s not been a particularly memorable weekend for me, but at least the team scored some points with the other car.”

“I found out I had a problem roughly 300 metres before I stopped the car. It was an alternator problem, similar to the one we had yesterday morning. The drive-through incident was decided and happened, so there’s not so much to say about that. We lost some points today; but we did the best we could – you could see that our pace was not as strong as the leaders. It had been a good race for us given the lack of pace. There are not so many long straights at the next couple of circuits, so we can challenge there.”

“I was taken from the accident to the medical centre, but apart from a bit of pain in my back and my head, I am fine. I don’t know why I crashed. All I can remember is that when I braked, I completely lost control of the back end of the car. I felt a big impact when the car landed after going up in the air. The kerb is high at that point and I count myself lucky that the car did not flip over.”

“I had too much wheelspin at the start, and that dropped me to third and caused me to lose a lot of time behind Felipe [Massa]. But it was nice to get past him, put some clear air between us, and then start chasing down Lewis. “I was never going to challenge him for the win, but it would have been great for the team if we could have finished first and second. But it wasn’t to be. “I don’t entirely know what caused my car to stop – I’m told it was a fuel system problem that we’re still investigating. The engine cut out and I had to coast to a stop. These things happen. “But, looking for the positives, I want to offer my congratulations to the whole team. We’ve proven over the past few races that we’re very strong in both qualifying trim and race trim. That consistency is really key, and we haven’t seen that form from any team all season, so that’s very encouraging indeed.”