Fahrerstimmen – Tag 3

What a great weekend! We really didn´t expect this when we came here this weekend and I said last night that I would need a miracle to win today. Well, just maybe they do happen. The team called the strategy and the pit stops just right and then it was just about managing the gap. I had some racing to do out there, though, with Jenson and Mark and I think we had the pace on everyone today. The team has just done an exceptional job: we have worked so hard to understand these tyres and we got the balance spot on today. I am very hopeful this could be a real turning point for us as we coped with these high track temperatures. I would like to say a massive thank you to everyone at the team here and at our factories in Brackley and Brixworth. Team work achieved this result today and I really couldn´t be happier.

“It was a good race and a good result for the team. The strategy worked well. We did two long stints on the tyres but they weren’t too bad and the car felt strong so it allowed us to make one less stop. In the last few laps the rears were a bit on edge, but apart from that it was ok. Sebastian [Vettel] got the run on me a couple of times but luckily it was in places that you can’t really overtake. The main positive is that we gained a few points to Seb in the Championship. For sure we could have maybe closed the gap a little more with a win, but anything we can get back will help. We’re only halfway through the season and it will be hard to catch up, but anything can still happen so we’ll keep fighting until the end.”

“I would have loved the race to have been a bit longer, as it was fun with Kimi at the end. It’s hard to pass on this track, I got close but I wasn’t in the prime overtaking spot at that point; I was trying to set something up for the next corners, but it didn’t work. The key issue in the race was when I got stuck behind Jenson, there’s no one to blame for that, I lost more time than expected on the way into the first stop and we came out just behind him. I couldn’t get past; I tried to force it and damaged my front wing, which was a mistake from my side. I was maybe trying to urge a bit too much. It was close with Kimi and nice to be on the podium again today. Congratulations to Lewis, he did a good job today.”

“I think we had the right strategy. We knew there was a lot of pressure on getting a good first lap and I got some clear air, which worked well. The start was okay and the first sector was very good, I was able to put a bit of pressure on Kimi and then we just settled in. I had a pretty tricky car for the first three or four laps, as I knew the option tyres were quite grippy and after that we just got our heads down. I don’t think we could have got much more than that result today. The strategy was pretty solid and you have to pace the option tyres until the end.”

“Finishing fifth today, maybe we actually did better than what should have been within our grasp, because Mercedes, Lotus and Red Bull were quicker than us, a fact we had already seen from Friday’s practice. This race ends what’s been a generally difficult month for us and, with Silverstone and Nürburgring, is part of a cycle where we were not up to par. However, looking at the points we have obtained, we haven’t lost out too much and today, Hamilton and Raikkonen helped us to keep the gap from growing too big to Vettel in the lead. Now, our aim is to work hard to arrive at Spa and Monza with a more competitive car. There are still nine races to go and the points available are more than enough. The team can do it and the potential is there, so I don’t see any reason why we can’t fight right to the end of the championship, as we have always done”.

“For sure this is one that got away, but I’m very happy with my race and I honestly don’t think I could have done much more. Maybe the strategy didn’t quite work how we wanted, but the car felt really good and it was the traffic that cost us. Without this maybe there would never have been a drive-through penalty which for sure didn’t help. I haven’t seen the footage yet and I thought it was a good move, but unfortunately the stewards took a different view. I’ve no problem with the time-added for the incident with Jenson and I apologised to him afterwards. This could have been the one for me, but we will just have to wait a little bit longer and keep improving like we have been recently to make it happen.”

"That was a fun race – although I seemed to be a target for other cars! Sebastian [Vettel] tried many times to get past me, and clipped my rear wheel into Turn Two – he may have damaged his wing, but I was lucky not to puncture. "With Romain [Grosjean], I don’t know what he thought – unless I took to the grass, it was inevitable we were going to touch! I don’t think he was thinking at that point. "I ran almost half the race on the Prime tyre, which was the longest of anybody; it’s good to show we can do that. Our middle-stint pace on the Option was also very good, and I had a blinding first lap, jumping from 13th to eighth. We beat a Ferrari fair and square, and we’d also have beaten a Mercedes if Nico [Rosberg] hadn’t stopped – we can take a lot of positives away from here. "Seventh position might not look too exciting – particularly after we fought for fifth at the last race – but we’ve done a good job this weekend and taken a step forward – and that’s a nice little boost to send everyone off into the summer break."

“Today’s race was difficult from start to finish, because right from the first lap, at turn 5, after making contact with Rosberg, I lost the left part of the front wing. At that time, stopping to change the nose would have lost valuable time, so we decided not to come in, but from then on, the balance of the car was never the same and I lost a lot in terms of performance, suffering a lot with understeer and oversteer and my tyres degraded more than they should have done. I definitely can’t be happy with eighth place, because both in the race and in qualifying, we lacked the pace to fight for the lead. For various reasons, this track doesn’t suit our car, but it’s precisely because things can change from track to track that we must absolutely stay focused now. From now on we will concentrate on the development and on the preparation of the second part of the championship, when I hope we can be more competitive”.

"We really needed the starting tyre in the best possible condition to make a two-stopper work properly. After qualifying yesterday, I think we were in a good position to score some good points, but we were affected by the run on the used Prime from qualifying. "So, unfortunately, I think we lost out a little too much in the first stint; I struggled with the rear of the car, had to pit earlier than planned, and then ran into traffic and lost more time, so it’s a bit of a shame. "Still, it’s a positive to get both cars into the points again. I think we can feel satisfied with the job we’ve done over the last couple of races – a result like this is encouraging for everybody in the team, and it’s a nice present with which to send us into the August break."

I had a really good start from P15 and made a few overtaking manoeuvres during the race which were on the limit, which is especially pleasing as at this track it is very hard to overtake. The car felt consistent, maybe not as fast in the second and third stints, but very consistent. I really want to keep scoring points now and be even stronger during the second part of the season.

„Das Rennen war bis auf den Vorfall in der Boxengasse in Ordnung. Ich hatte nach meinem zweiten Boxenstopp ein Problem beim Wegfahren. Zum Schalten vom ersten in den zweiten Gang gibt es ein bestimmtes Fenster, wenn man nicht in diesem ist, wird der Schaltvorgang nicht zugelassen. Das hat irgendwie nicht funktioniert und dann war etwas Hektik, und irgendwie habe ich dabei den Knopf für die Geschwindigkeitsbegrenzung zu früh losgelassen. Ohne die Durchfahrtsstrafe wäre wahrscheinlich ein Punkt drin gewesen. Insgesamt war unser Tempo nicht schlecht, aber auch nicht gut genug, um einfach in die Punkte zu fahren. Jetzt freue ich mich erst mal auf drei Wochen Sommerpause, ein bisschen Sonne und Entspannung am Strand.“

“A difficult race after we saw yesterday, particularly with Daniel, that the car has a good pace, but in the race we struggled and we could not match our usual rivals. I did what I could after a bad start, which meant I had to fight to get back to where I was. Beating my team-mate? It means nothing, especially when we are outside the points. I’d rather finish behind him inside the points. The holiday starts soon, but my focus is still on racing and I will be doing a lot of training to be in good shape to have a strong second half of the season. We still have a week to go when, along with the engineers, there will be a lot of work for us to do.”

“Right from the start, it was clear we weren’t really quick. I tried to hold position as long as I could but we were way too slow. I tried my best in terms of trying to maintain a good pace and look after the tyres, but today it was not enough to go looking for points. We got a bit more out of the car in qualifying yesterday, but it’s hard to repeat that for seventy laps. We struggled at Nurburgring as well, so the heat has got something to do with it. We could not match our competitors today, just lacking speed when we have a heavy fuel load, which is the opposite of what we tended to see with last year’s car.”

"I'm really pleased with today's race, for me that was the best race of the year and it's great to put in a performance like that before we head off for the August break. I think it shows that the plan we'd set for this season, about learning and improving race by race, is working as I was right on the pace we'd targeted until about six laps to go when the tyres were pretty much gone. "For most of the season my starts have been good and it was the same here. I was ahead of Bottas by the end of lap one and keeping pace with the pack until my first stop, going onto primes, on lap eight. "The car felt good at that point and the tyre management plan was going pretty well. I was making up time to the Williams ahead when we stopped for the second time on lap 28 and I was 19th when I came back out, well clear of both our nearest rivals. "The goal today was to beat the cars we've been racing all year, so the second half of the race was really about consolidating the position we were in past the half-way point. Obviously the blue flags don't help us as we're having to race with one eye ahead and one behind, but we have to deal with them both on track and with the strategy, and I think the plan we had today was just about right. "After the third stop I was about five seconds ahead of my teammate and knew I had to make the last set of mediums last until the flag, about 26 laps. I think the fact I was able to do that shows how my tyre management is improving, and I think the mix of a good strategy and a decent performance in the car combined to make this best day in F1 for me so far."

"I started on the options on a two-stop strategy and by the end of lap one I was just behind Bottas with my teammate ahead of him. We'd originally planned to stop around lap 10 but the soft tyres were holding up well so we extended the first stint to lap 13 so I could stay out, even though we knew it would be challenging with the track conditions today! "After my first stop I came back out behind Bianchi and Chilton but passed them and started to make up time to Giedo who was then in 18th. Even though the track conditions were obviously very hot the first set of mediums was performing well and they held up for the distance we'd targeted for stop two on lap 38, by which point I was 18th. "With that second stop successfully completed I had to make the tyres last for the rest of the race, 32 laps in total, so I managed them as best I could and there wasn't really anything more I could do today."

“It was a very tough race today and we were struggling with the balance the whole time and having to work so hard to preserve the rear tyres. All 70 laps were a bit of a battle to be honest. On the positive side we remained reliable in a race which is very demanding for the cars, bringing two cars home once again. My thanks to the Team for a good job, especially today with the pitstops and high temperatures. They did their usual strong performance. Now we head into the summer break and it is a time to both rest but also think about what we can do when we come back for the second half of the season. It is so important that we hold our ground to our competitors in order to achieve our objectives this year.”

“A really tough day today for the whole team and easily the hardest race of my career. The track is challenging enough at the best of times, with little or no respite the whole lap - and there are 70 of them. Compounding things further for us was a real balance shift on the Medium tyres, which we started the race on, and this eased only for a short while when we ran on the Soft tyre for the second stint. This made it really difficult to drive the car for most of the race and at the same time try to manage the tyre degradation, so it really took every ounce of concentration and energy. These problems lost us a lot of time and this put us into blue flags much sooner and for a much longer period of time, which then causes you to lose even more time and have to fight to make up what we could when we were in free air. With that in mind, I am pleased with my relative race pace under the circumstances. Now, in common with the rest of the pit lane, a well-deserved summer break is due for the Team so we can come back fighting in the second half of the season.”

“I made a good start and was very aggressive on the opening lap. I think I was up to about P12, but from there on it was difficult because I was struggling with the balance and tyre performance. Without the speed we did not have the flexibility to make the strategy work and points were looking out of reach. Towards the end of the race the team called me to the pits because it seems we had picked up a hydraulic issue, similar to the problem with the other car. Over the summer break we will regroup, analyse things properly and take a fresh approach into the second part of the year.”

Today was a great day for the team, for Lewis and a brilliant job by everyone here at the track and back at our factories. Unfortunately my weekend didn’t go quite so well and it’s a shame that we couldn’t have had a two-car finish today. I got a good start but then Felipe and I came together on the first lap which was unfortunate as I was in front and had left some space for him but his front wing hit my rear tyre. That cost me a lot of positions and it’s really difficult to make the places back up on this track. Then my day came to an early conclusion with the engine failure. However there are lots of positives for us to take as a team from this weekend and now I really look forward to the upcoming races as we know that we have a quick car and we made the new tyres work for us this weekend.

“It’s disappointing not to finish, especially as the race was coming back to me after a poor start on the medium tyres. Just before my pit stop I had a problem with the gear shifts and I could not shift up any more. I came into the pits and it became clear we had a hydraulic problem so the team immediately told me to park the car.”

„Es ist sehr schade. Wir hatten eine gute Strategie, und alles lief wie geplant. Leider schied ich auf Grund eines Öllecks im Getriebe aus. So möchte man ein Rennen nicht beenden, aber wir haben alles gegeben dieses Wochenende. Gestern hatten wir ein Problem mit dem Motor, heute mit dem Getriebe, und nun müssen wir uns das ansehen, damit es in Zukunft nicht mehr passiert. Es ist frustrierend, aber wir müssen positiv bleiben und auf die nächsten Rennen schauen, da sich unsere Performance verbessert hat. Das Auto hat sich sehr gut angefühlt bis zu dem Ausfall. Ich möchte mich beim gesamten Team für die harte Arbeit bedanken. Nun müssen wir diese Probleme lösen, um in Zukunft reibungslose Wochenenden zu haben.“

It’s a shame to have my first retirement of the season as the goal was to finish every race, but there was nothing I could do today. We still need to investigate what happened but it felt like hydraulics as first I lost the power steering and then the engine. Today wasn’t my best race but in general I feel I am improving all the time and looking forward to the second half of the season. Congratulations to Pastor and the team on claiming our first point, we now need to work hard to build on that when we return after the summer.