Fahrerstimmen – Tag 3

Das waren fantastische Tage für mich hier in China. Die Fans waren ab dem Moment meiner Ankunft absolut unglaublich. Sie sind sehr begeisterungsfähig - das gibt uns Fahrern wirklich ein ganz besonderes Gefühl. Auf der Strecke war es ein beinahe perfektes Wochenende. Nur der Start hätte besser sein können. Aber zum Glück konnte ich Daniel später auf der Geraden überholen. Danach baute ich meinen Vorsprung aus. Ich muss schon sagen, dass ich noch nie eine bessere Fahrzeugbalance hatte als heute. Sie war absolut perfekt. Vielen Dank an alle, die mir geholfen haben, das zu erreichen. Auch möchte ich den Frauen in meinem Leben danken - meiner Ehefrau, meiner Tochter und meiner Mutter. Ihre Unterstützung ist fantastisch und sie ermöglicht es mir erst, das zu tun, was ich tue. Ich bin ein sehr glücklicher Mensch und nach drei Rennen kann ich mit dem bisherigen Verlauf meiner Saison sehr zufrieden sein. Noch liegt jedoch ein sehr langes Jahr vor uns und es sind noch viele WM-Punkte zu vergeben. Deshalb werde ich meinen Fokus nicht verlieren. Jetzt freue ich mich auf Russland. Dort habe ich im vergangenen Jahr meine Serie an guten Qualifying-Ergebnissen begonnen. Hoffentlich kann ich wieder so eine schöne Serie starten.

“What happened at the first lap, in the end, is a racing incident. From my side I didn’t really know where to go, I was sandwiched between Kimi and Daniil. Obviously I am terribly sorry for what has happened, I mean touching the car with the same colors is not right. It was a shame, because it destroyed both of our races, Kimi’s and mine. At the end of the day we’ve been lucky because we were still able to continue. The safety car helped us to sort of come back. Kimi locked up in turn one. I tried to go inside to pass him. Daniil was behind me. He had a better start and was lining up for the same move initially. I was determined to overtake Kimi. Daniil was determined to overtake me. Kimi came back from the left, Kvyat came from the back from the right and I was reacting to him. I tried to back out of it, going off throttle and hitting the brakes, but there was no way, so I had contact with Kimi which is a shame, the car was damaged after that, but obviously a great recovery by the Team, which managed to stay calm initially and then change the nose while the safety car was out. Overall we had great pace, good strategy, fantastic pit stops, I couldn’t have asked for more after this poor first lap. Hopefully in Russia we have a smoother race!”

“I really enjoyed the race today. Our pace was very strong and to get this result at this track where we didn’t expect to be so strong is really great. The car is performing really well, the chassis is easy to drive and with further upgrades coming to the power unit, we should be in an even stronger position. I think it was a fair move on Vettel. I saw the gap and I went for it. We didn’t touch, unfortunately for him, Kimi was on his other side. For me it was a logical move and it paid off with a podium. It’s a nice boost for our side of the garage after a couple of tricky races. It’s also good for the team to be consistently fighting for podiums this year. It’s very encouraging for the season. I’m a very happy man today and it’s nice to carry this feeling heading into my home grand prix in Russia.”

“I think there were some incidents on the first lap and I remember on my second lap there was a little bit of debris here and there. But it didn’t seem like there was one big bit which I caught so it was still unexpected when I was coming through Turn 11 and 12 and was feeling the rear start to slide so I just came on the radio straight away to let them know the tyres were gone. The puncture became noticeable when I got on the straight as I could feel the car start to wobble and then my tyre went. Then the safety car put us even further back so that was like a double whammy, which felt like getting punched in the stomach by a heavy weight. But in the end the second part of the race I drove probably one of the best races of my life. The package is really promising for sure. Right now, three races in every weekend we’ve shown our strength at some point and it’s been a strength we didn’t think we’d have this early in the season, so it definitely feels more like 2014 when we had potential. I felt like I would have sprayed champagne today and part of me is smiling because I am optimistic that will happen this year so that’s a really good feeling and I’ll keep fighting.”

“I have no idea of what happened at the start, I suddenly got hit and spun. I had a puncture in the left front tire and a front wing damage, but I managed to get back to the pits. Once I went back on track I found myself more or less in last position, the car felt a bit tricky, but I tried to do my best to charge thorugh the field. At the beginning I struggled a bit, but then I managed to recover some places. Obviously the fifth position is not ideal and not what we were looking for, but after what happened it’s not a disaster. Seb came to apologize to me afterwards and it’s obvious he didn’t run into me on purpose. Unfortunately this does not change things for the race but it’s only the third round of a long season…”

It was a good race. I spent the whole race fighting with other cars and we got our strategy right. I was worried about my strategy when the safety car came out, because I had no idea if it would work or not, but actually after the safety car the pace was really good straight away, so I managed to build a good gap to the other guys. We managed the tyres perfectly today. I am really, really happy with my performance, it was a very enjoyable race.

Das war definitiv ein schwieriges Wochenende. Ich hatte einen guten Start, aber es ist stets schwierig, am Ende des Feldes zu starten und zu versuchen, dem Domino-Effekt einer Berührung in der ersten Kurve zu entgehen. Ich versuchte es so gut es ging, aber ich wurde einfach darin verwickelt. Das war ein wenig Pech. Danach stand mir eine schwierige Aufgabe bevor, aber ich hatte viel Spaß auf meiner Aufholjagd! Soweit ich mich erinnern kann, gab es viele Überholmanöver! Ich gab mein Bestes und Platz sieben war das Limit. Am Ende steckte nicht mehr in den Reifen drin und obwohl die Strecke gut für Überholmanöver ist, war mein Auto recht stark beschädigt. Das erschwerte es mir schon sehr, auf der Bremse näher heranzukommen. Soweit ich es erkennen konnte, verlor ich dadurch eindeutig an Abtrieb und möglicherweise war auch die Aufhängung beschädigt. Das Auto schien auf jeden Fall viel herumzurutschen. Aber das gehört zum Rennsport dazu. Manchmal kommt das vor und immerhin konnte ich noch ein paar Punkte mitnehmen. Das war heute ein ziemlicher Schlag punktemäßig, aber ich muss jetzt einfach mein Bestes geben, um das bei den kommenden Rennen aufzuholen. Weiter geht's!

"A race full of action! At the start, I had a good first reaction but then I wasn't able to keep my position unfortunately. From then on it was very tricky, and the Safety Car didn't help as I lost even more ground with our double pit-stop, which meant I was at the back of the pack... But I stayed calm, overtook the rivals one by one and in the end, to cross the line in eighth position is something that if someone had told me at the beginning of the race I wouldn't have believed! I also think the team did a great job strategy wise, we were able to charge through the field and score some more points."

"What an eventful and exciting race! There was plenty of action and I enjoyed it out there today – we had fights with Ferrari, Mercedes, Red Bull, which are the battles we want to be having. A P9 in the end aren't that many points, but it's good to finish with both cars in the top 10 and keep adding to our tally. Maybe we could've finished a bit higher up, but we lost a lot of time behind Force India in the pit-lane during the first pit-stop... Overall, it was good fun out there today, we were able to do a lot of overtakes and our pace was decent. I'm now looking forward to our next race in Russia in two weeks' time!"

It was a disappointing race. I was blocked at the start because of the crash between the Ferraris and lost many positions. The beginning of the race was looking alright, the pace was pretty good on the soft tyres, but once I went on to the medium tyre the pace was not there and I was struggling with overall grip. We need to check and see if everything was alright with the car, but it was difficult out there today in the last stint.

“Today things didn’t go our way and the timing of the safety car didn’t help me. The start of the race was really good and things looked very promising. I was up in third place when the safety car came out and we had no option but to pit, which dropped me back into the pack. I had to fight hard because the cars around me were on different tyres and there were some quick cars recovering as well. All of this took a lot of the life from my tyres. There were some entertaining battles during the race and we put up a good fight, but the points finish slipped away in the final part of the race. I think we chose the right strategy and made good choices, but the race didn’t go our way. It’s also clear that we need to keep doing our homework to come back stronger for the next few races.”

“Today wasn’t easy. We didn’t quite have the pace to record a good result and finish in the points. We chose a two-stop strategy and tried to benefit from that, but the early Safety Car didn’t help us, and our race didn’t really work out as planned after that. That’s the way it is, but it’s a shame. “We need to look in detail at the areas in which we need to improve – we ran among a lot of different cars this afternoon, so we should have some useful reference points from which to gauge our respective strengths and weaknesses. “On a positive note, today’s race was the first proper long run I’ve completed in this year’s car – I didn’t ever finish a 50-lap stint during testing, and I retired early in Melbourne because of the accident. “There’s a long way to go, but we’ll keep improving. I’m already looking forward to the next race.”

“My start was good: I made up a lot of places and was able to take the battle to the other cars. Our pace on the Option tyre during the first stint was also pretty good – it was fun racing the quicker cars. “When the Safety Car came out, there was mayhem in the pit-lane because Nico [Hulkenberg] was trying to slow everyone down to help his team-mate. After that stop, we seemed to be sitting in a strong position, but we were running the Medium compound, and we just seemed to stand still compared with the others. “We tried to do a two-stopper – which didn’t work out – so then we decided to fit the Option for the final stint. Given our position just outside the points, we thought we might as well give it a go. “Perhaps fitting the Option at the end was the wrong choice – I could have stayed out until the end on the Medium, but I decided to have some fun by fitting softer [ie, faster] rubber – but it just couldn’t make its performance last to the end. Still, as I say, it was worth having a crack at it.”

“It was fun out there today and to finish the race was a big step. I think we can now build on this performance as we prepare for Russia. I really want to thank the guys because they’re doing a great job. The pit stops were fantastic, really consistent. Unfortunately, we didn’t have DRS (Drag Reduction System), so it was difficult to overtake, but overall it was a solid race. We now need to finish inside the points and that’s what we’ll be focusing on, so I’m really looking forward to the next one.”

“It was a frustrating race in the end, even though the start and the first few laps were great. As the lights went out, I rocketed from P13 up to fifth place, picking up one place after the other. The safety car threw all this good work out the window because I had to stack in the pits behind Checo and dropped right down the order. The dirty air affected us, we had some faster cars coming through and this destroyed my tyres. In fact, tyre degradation was the main story of the day and we appeared to suffer more than some others, which is why I went backwards in the second half of the race. The time penalty was an added blow, but in the end it didn’t make a huge difference to my result: the rules say you shouldn’t slow down coming in, but in the heat of racing it’s hard to gauge if that is giving you an advantage. Ultimately, we didn’t have the pace to get back into the points: it’s something we have to work on and do better in the coming races.”

“I think it was a decent race, I made a good start, and had a good first lap. When the safety car came out, we went for a bit of a gamble and decided to try to do the rest of the race on just two stints of medium tyres. But it felt like we didn’t really have the pace we hoped for on the mediums. We have to analyse everything and see if we could have done something different strategy-wise. In our situation you sometimes need to try to take a chance and it could have worked out. Apart from that, I think it was a strong race, with no mistakes from my side. I felt like the driving was good, but we still need to find some more performance in the car.”

“It was a pretty steady race for me really. I had a decent start and then I didn’t actually have much action; just passing people on strategy so no one was really fighting hard. This isn’t a weekend that we will be very happy about but it’s definitely one that we can learn from. There’s a lot we still don’t really understand so once we do, we’ll be a stronger team. We knew it was going to be a tough start, we’re not panicking.”

“It was a good race, with some positives to take away. Once again we were fighting with some other cars and managed to overtake a few as well. The start went well and then the first few corners were a bit hairy with cars and debris all over the place. We did well to avoid the chaos and made up 17 places from the start to be 4th for a few laps. That was a nice feeling, although I knew it would be short-lived. The car was working fine but I think 18th place is where the car is right now at this event. At the end we saw the chance to gain on Magnussen, which is why we went for the Supersofts. It was a good feeling to be hunting him down but we only had a limited window on those tyres and it wasn’t quite enough in the end. Everyone finished, so with no DNFs we got ahead of four other cars on merit, but we have to make a good step forward now to make a big difference in the races ahead.”

“It was a horrific race. The start was terrible when (Marcus) Ericsson turned into me and got my front wing. From there we had the safety car and I thought, ‘OK, we still have a chance to do something.’ But the balance in the car was nowhere near good. I don’t know what happened. Somehow, it’s positive that we had such a difficult race, because we can analyze what we did wrong, what we did right and what we could have done differently. From there, we can come back stronger. It’s a difficult one after the two first races. Not the birthday I was hoping for.”

“It was a difficult race for me this weekend, especially as it was compromised after the start at turn 1. I got hit, which resulted in my front right tyre having a puncture and in a nose change. That cost me a lot of time in the race, because I couldn’t recover the lap I lost in the safety car period. So this meant, I had a lot to catch up in the race. Anyway, I still feel that we have a lot to do in the car to bring back the pace, because I am still struggling with the same issues that I’ve been having in the last couple of events. I have confidence in the team that we can get the performance back.”

“In the early part of the race we were in the mix with Sauber, as we have been at various parts of the weekend, and also with Haas, but towards the end we were just lacking pace a little bit. I managed to hold off Palmer until the end which was good, so while I’m happy that we managed to get both cars to the chequered flag again, I was hoping for more of a fight today. The signs are good though and I think we know what we need to do to improve and make that possible. My thanks to my crew and the team and let’s keep pushing for Russia.”

“The start was good today, as was the first lap – we made up a lot of positions. From then on though, it was a tough day. The balance of the car was all over the place, tyre degradation was bigger than usual and the pace wasn’t as good as previous races. We need to look in the data really, and I’m definitely happy to move on to the next race.”