Category: Reviews

Selected Team and Driver Quotes following the Singapore Grand Prix

Red Bull
Sebastian Vettel, 1st
“It’s just been a fantastic weekend. The start was close, but then we had strong race pace, especially when the safety car came in, and we pushed very hard to try to build up a gap. You never know what’s coming up and what can happen. The last ten laps seemed to go on forever inside the car. I kept my concentration by reminding myself how easily you can make a mistake around here, the walls are close and if you don’t pay enough attention it can go wrong pretty quickly. I focused on hitting the brakes correctly and on saving the tyres. We didn’t expect to be that strong, but it’s a team effort. Everyone is pushing hard and I think the secret, if there is one, is that we love what we do and we’re so passionate. The conditions aren’t great here with the heat, but the team always pushes hard and I think that’s what makes the difference. I’d like to say to everyone working for team that it’s a privilege for me to be driving the car you have built.“

Mark Webber,15th
“I think I did pretty much everything I could today. We had pace in the car when we needed, we managed the tyres and made a very good undercut on Nico, I was really happy with that lap. Then six laps from the end, the guys were getting worried about the car. So, yeah, it’s annoying but someone’s had a tougher day than me somewhere and that’s the way it goes. I was having to short shift, but then, unlike Monza, we started to lose a lot of power. We were just trying to get home at that point but then on the last lap we caught fire.”

Christian Horner, Red Bull team principal
“It was a really bittersweet result today. It was a phenomenal performance by Sebastian. It was one of his strongest ever drives, particularly after the safety car came out halfway through the race. It wasn’t the best moment for us and after that, Seb needed to pull out a gap of 27 seconds. He pulled out 30 seconds in 15 laps, at times lapping over two seconds quicker than the rest of the field; it was incredible to watch and it was a thoroughly deserved and really dominant victory today. There was huge frustration for Mark that after two hours of driving really well we could see with 12 laps to go that we began to lose water pressure. The water then effectively ran out at which point it is only a matter of time until the engine overheats, which is what happened on the last lap – it was cruel luck. Nonetheless today is our third successive win and our third consecutive Singapore Grand Prix win, while we’ve extended our lead in the drivers championship.”

Thierry Salvi, Renault support for Red Bull
“Sebastian had fantastic pace today. He controlled the race from the beginning to the end. Mark retired following a water leak about five laps from the end. We tried everything, including short shifting, to get to the end of the race, but we came up just short and the engine overheated within sight of the line. The whole team did a great job this weekend, showing the potential of the Red Bull-Renault chassis/engine package yet again. Apologies to Mark, as he deserved more after such a strong race.”

Ferrari
Fernando Alonso, 2nd
“Today’s second place at the Singapore Grand Prix is like a victory for us, at the end of a difficult weekend on a track where it’s very tricky to overtake. The key points of this race were the start and the strategy and, in both cases, the decisions taken proved to be the right ones, even if they were aggressive choices. At the start, I managed to pass four cars, helped by having watched the starts from previous races here, but then I couldn’t pass Rosberg. The decision to pit when the safety car came out paid off, even if it wasn’t easy to get to the finish with the tyres on the limit. Fortunately, thanks to the advantage I had over Raikkonen and Webber, we were able to manage the situation over the final laps: if I’d been in a group, it would have been like the end of a horror movie! Now the gap to the championship leaders has increased and apart from congratulating them, because they deserve to be where they are, we must be realistic, because to win the title now, we would need a lot of luck. Sure, we cannot think of giving up right now because if that luck does show up, then we will be there to take it.”

Felipe Massa, 6th
“Given everything that happened in today’s race, sixth place is a really good result. After a fantastic start, at the first corner I found myself stuck inside the cars that had braked early and, at that point I lost places instead of making up some. From then on, I was always stuck behind other cars and we all know how hard it is to overtake at this track. When the safety car came out, we had two options: to fit the medium tyres, with which we weren’t sure to go all the way to the end, or the supersofts, to try and regain some places. We went for the second option, but Di Resta was ahead of me on the same tyres and so I was stuck behind him. In the final stint after the third stop, I managed to retake sixth place, making the most of the fact that many were struggling with their tyres. It was tough from start to finish and I am very happy to have brought home a good points haul.”

Pat Fry, Ferrari engineering director
“This weekend, even if we didn’t have the fastest car, we did manage to maximise our performance getting everything possible out of our driver-team package and the result is absolutely positive. With Fernando, the decision to stay out all the way to the end after the safety car paid off handsomely. Our competitiveness in the race was better than we had seen in the previous days, but even if we knew that things could change today, we must try to improve, especially in situations where the track characteristics don’t suit our car. Fernando pulled off an amazing start, as it’s really rare to make up four places at the start here at the Singapore Grand Prix. Felipe also got away well, but then, his inside line meant he had to move over to avoid a collision. At Fernando’s first stop, we had to cover Webber’s early stop: we knew we would have found ourselves in traffic behind Di Resta, but the pit stop window was very limited and we preferred not to take the risk. When the Safety Car came out, we had half a lap to take a decision and, in the end we brought both drivers in, trying different strategies. We tried to play an ace with Fernando and luckily we did not have to go through a repeat of what happened in Canada in 2012. For the final six races, one group of engineers will still concentrate on the F138, because we want to continue to try and improve so that we can be more competitive.”

Stefano Domenicali, Ferrari team principal
“I am happy with the performance of the team on a weekend that was not easy for us and on a day when unfortunately, it was the wrong Bull that stopped. Clearly, with yet another win for Vettel, to whom I send my congratulations, the drivers’ championship situation is becoming difficult, but until the outcome is a mathematical certainty, we will continue to push. I don’t think we could have picked up many more points today, which all the same have strengthened, albeit only slightly, our position in the constructors’ championship. A reasonably clear scenario emerged from Friday’s practice, in which apart from the leaders being very strong, we were also up against Mercedes and Lotus, who were also back to being very competitive here at the Singapore Grand Prix. We finished ahead of them in unfavourable conditions and this should motivate us to give it our all over the last six races. We definitely have to be realistic about our chances, even if we have a duty to ourselves and those working in Maranello, to try and score as many points as possible, because we don’t want to give up on doing well in both classifications. We have seen how performance levels can change depending on the circuits and during the coming week we will prepare to tackle the Korea-Japan doubleheader in the best way possible.”

Lotus
Kimi Raikkonen, 3rd
“It’s been a difficult Singapore Grand Prix weekend, so to finish on the podium is a good result. The car felt good and it could have been even better if I’d been able to do more work in practice, but even with a better qualifying performance I think third was the maximum we could achieve today. The problem with my back hasn’t been ideal, but it felt much better than yesterday and I didn’t really notice it in the race, only afterwards. I have some time to recover before Korea and we were pretty strong there last year, so let’s see what we can do next time out.”

Romain Grosjean, DNF
“The race was going pretty well and I think a second or third place finish was a realistic prospect. We had a good strategy pitting under the safety car and we should have finished well, but unfortunately today my engine had other ideas. We lost air pressure and the team tried to fix the problem by topping it up with an additional pit stop, but that didn’t work so we had to retire which is never what you want to happen.”

Eric Boullier, Lotus team principal
“Once more Kimi drove an exceptionally strong race today – even without considering his back pain – whilst the team did an amazing job with the strategy for both drivers. Were it not for Romain’s engine problems we should have had both cars home in third and fourth. It’s unfortunate that Romain had the problem with the pneumatic system of his engine as he showed strong pace in the race after putting in superb performances on both Friday and Saturday. This level of downforce suits our car and that’s the level we’re running for the remaining tracks this season; we will fight for podiums for the rest of the year I’m sure.”

Alan Permane, Lotus trackside operations director
“Another day of mixed fortunes and commiserations for Romain who had a superb weekend, stymied by a reliability issue in the race. On the other hand, huge congratulations to Kimi for a typical ‘never-give-up’ race carving his way through the field nicely to put the back problems which have affected him all weekend right behind him. Our race strategy worked perfectly today and we were able to jump a number of other cars well.”

Ricardo Penteado, Renault Sport F1 team support leader
“The team did a great job with the strategy today; getting Kimi from 13th to 3rd on a track you can’t overtake on is a real achievement. Unfortunately Romain retired with an engine pneumatic system problem. Air consumption had been inconsistent throughout the race so we pitted him to top the air back up, however the consumption remained high so we were forced to retire the car on the next lap. We’ll look at why it happened as it was a brand new engine and put solutions in place to ensure it does not happen again.”

Mercedes
Nico Rosberg, 4th
“I had a good start today and the pace of our car was really strong. The safety car was unfortunate timing for us and perhaps it wasn’t the best decision to stay out but, at the time, we weren’t sure if our tyres would be able to last the distance. I then had some rubber trapped in my front wing after the safety car period which cost me quite a lot of performance for some laps and had an impact on my race because the tyres suffered more than would be normal. We could perhaps have been second today but events in the race just didn’t go our way so it is a little disappointing to only finish in fourth place. We now need to learn from this weekend and focus on the next race in Korea.”

Lewis Hamilton, 5th
“That was a really tough race, probably the most physically demanding of the year. We tried our best and the car felt good but unfortunately we paid the price for not qualifying further ahead yesterday. I didn’t have the best start and had to go wide to avoid Mark at turn one. From there, it was difficult to follow the race and my position. Whilst the timing of the safety car definitely didn’t help us, we need to go back through our strategy and see what we could possibly have done differently in that situation. I’m not sure we could have done what Fernando and Kimi did by staying out on that set of tyres for so long, though. Of course, it’s a little disappointing to come away with only fifth place but I gave it my all out there and we’ll come back stronger. Our aim is to get back ahead of Ferrari in the constructors championship and see if we can get another win before the end of the season.”

Ross Brawn, Mercedes team principal
“That was a frustrating Singapore Grand Prix after the safety car came out at what was just the wrong time for us. It was a close decision whether or not to pit the cars in order to try and run over half the race distance on a single set of tyres. Our view was that we couldn’t make it, so we left both cars out on track – as did Red Bull – so that we could run a shorter final stint. In the end, we saw that two of the cars who pitted managed to make it work, but most others had to make an additional stop or fell out of the window of tyre performance in the closing laps. The race was further complicated by a front wing problem for Nico, who suffered from rubber build up at a critical stage of the race, which cost him performance through excessive understeer. Fourth and fifth positions allowed us to minimise the points loss to Ferrari in the constructors championship but our car had the performance potential to score more points today.”

Toto Wolff, Mercedes team executive director
“After starting from second and fifth positions on the grid, we cannot be satisfied to finish fourth and fifth this evening. Two of our rivals managed to complete over half the race distance on a single set of tyres, which was something we did not feel we would manage successfully. Therefore both cars stayed out behind the safety car when it was deployed. Congratulations to Sebastian on a well earned Singapore Grand Prix victory: he was in a different league for most of this race.”

McLaren
Jenson Button, 7th
“We thought we might have a chance of a Singapore Grand Prix podium, but in the end we didn’t have the pace to keep us ahead of the closing cars. It was good fun trying though, and we have to take risks if we want to get podium finishes this year. We expected to spend most of the race on the option tyre, so we’d set the car up for that. The prime tyre didn’t work so well for me, and having to hold Kimi off for so long destroyed my rear tyres and made things very tricky. In the end, as I say, we simply didn’t have enough pace to stop him overtaking. It was a good try though, and a P7 finish isn’t too bad. We couldn’t have done any better with a different strategy, I’m certain of that, and I’m glad we got some good points for the team.”

Sergio Perez, 8th
“I think we should be satisfied with today’s result – as Jenson says P7 and P8 was probably the best we could have achieved today. In my view the safety car came at the wrong time for us, so we had to take a risk by choosing to drive to the finish with two pit stops. It was pretty tough to keep the car out of the barriers – not to crash yet to lose too much lap time – but as I say I think it was the right choice. Last but not least, although P7 and P8 isn’t brilliant, it’s the best we could have hoped for – and I dearly hope it’ll put a smile on the faces of my people, in my country, Mexico, who really need something to smile about at this very difficult time.”

Martin Whitmarsh, McLaren team principal
“Jenson and Checo both drove great, spirited, combative races here this afternoon, and the result was a brace of points scoring finishes for Vodafone McLaren Mercedes. Our strategy involved an element of risk, but that risk was worth taking. After all, the second placed and third placed finishers both ran the same strategy – and, although our cars didn’t have sufficient pace to beat them to those podium finishes, our drivers boldly embraced the challenge set by a strategy that required them to attack and defend with an impressive mix of aggression and restraint. Checo, in particular, made an extremely good start, moving from his P14 grid slot to P11 on lap one, and thereafter fighting his way through heavy traffic all afternoon to finish eighth at the flag, just behind Jenson in seventh. From here we go to Mokpo, South Korea, where we’ll be aiming to score points with both cars once again.”

Sauber
Nico Hulkenberg, 9th
“All in all we can be happy. We brought home two points. To be honest, I didn’t expect much more than that. You can’t expect that every weekend will be like Monza now, but we improved significantly. It was a very tough race. I had a very good start and then a racing situation with Sergio Perez. In the end, I did have to give back the position to him and I don’t quite agree with that. There was a Williams in the fight as well, Sergio was on the inside, but I had to leave space and caught the outer kerb. Then my car bottomed and I was off, however, I was in front of Sergio before and after the corner. At the end, it was a pure fight for survival, because the tyres were pretty much gone. Nico Rosberg, Lewis Hamilton and Mark Webber were all on fresh tyres and I simply had to focus on staying on track and finishing the race.”

Esteban Gutierrez, 12th
“We expected a better result today. Our pace during the race was not good enough, especially at the beginning as I was fighting a lot with the car. At times I pushed a bit too much, had a lot of oversteer and the tyres were degrading. It was one of the toughest races I have ever had. I did the best I could and this is where we finished. The strategy was not ideal either. Nevertheless, the weekend was a step forward and now I will keep working to improve.”

Tom McCullough, Sauber, head of track engineering
“Scoring points again was obviously very good for the team. The timing of the safety car meant it was very difficult to get to the end from there, but we elected to do that with both cars. Nico managed the tyres and the pressure from behind very well. It’s a shame he had to give his position up to Sergio Perez because he went off the track. However, this was not to gain a position but to avoid a crash. Esteban lost track positions when the safety car came out, and, after that, he suffered some slight tyre degradation. But overall, we take a lot of positives from this weekend to the upcoming races.”

Monisha Kaltenborn, Sauber team principal
“After a strong performance in Monza we were able to claim points again, which is very pleasing. Nico drove a fantastic race and was rewarded with two points. We find the decision by the race director to give the position back to Sergio Perez very harsh. He did not gain an advantage, but merely avoided a collision by leaving the track. However, we have to accept this decision. Esteban had a mixed weekend. Now we have to find out why he wasn’t able to clock the expected lap times. We are happy that we were able to perform on a track that usually doesn’t suit our car. That shows we are heading in the right direction with the development of the car.”

Force India
Adrian Sutil, 10th
“It was a tough race and exhausting in the end. So it feels great to come away with a point and it’s a small motivation for the whole team. In the closing laps of the race I was catching the train of cars in front of me – Perez, Button and Hulkenberg. I thought I had a chance to get ahead of at least one of them, but as soon as I reached the back of the train my tyres went off. In fact, we were all struggling with tyres and I couldn’t attack anymore because it felt like driving on ice. So I’m happy to take the point and it’s well deserved by the whole team.”

Paul di Resta, 20th
“It’s such a shame to come away with nothing to show from a race where we had put ourselves in a position to score some valuable points. The management of the tyres was good and the overall performance in race conditions was very strong. Even without the safety car we were in good shape, but as a team we made the right calls and were looking to challenge the train of cars ahead of us in the final few laps. Then I had the incident at turn seven. I’m still not sure what happened, but I took the corner the same way as I had done the previous lap and the car went straight on and wouldn’t stop. The team is investigating what happened.”

Dr Vijay Mallya, Force India team principal and managing director
“We come away from Singapore with mixed feelings. The positive is that Adrian picked up the final point and that’s a good effort considering where he started the race. On the other hand we missed a golden opportunity to score some big points with Paul, who potentially could have finished in sixth place. His retirement with seven laps to go proved costly and has not helped us in our battle against McLaren. As a team we must focus on the positives of the competitive race pace, good tyre management, and the calls we made with the strategy. Korea in two weeks’ time will be a chance to regroup and keep up our fighting spirit.”

Williams
Pastor Maldonado, 11th
“We recovered two places at the start and after a couple of laps we were pushing towards the cars in front whilst also trying to manage the rear tyres. My tyre management was good throughout the race and I was able to push hard in the final stages on the super soft tyres. We just missed out on points in the end, but we’ll be looking to progress a step further in the next race.”

Valtteri Bottas, 13th
“It was one of the most difficult races of the whole season for me today. Immediately at the start we had a problem with the clutch which meant we lost a few positions. After the safety car we had a few problems with debris in the front wing, which made the car difficult to drive. These limiting factors meant we couldn’t go any faster today and so we did the best we could with what we had.”

Xevi Pujolar, Williams Chief race engineer
“Pastor had a good start, gaining a few positions and managing his tyres well in the early stages. Valtteri was unable to hold position at the start due to a clutch problem and consequently struggled with his tyres fighting to regain position. Valtteri’s race was further compromised by debris in his front wing meaning he didn’t have the pace to challenge for position. Under the safety car we pitted both cars for their second stops to move onto the prime medium tyre. We were looking at the data to see if we could go to the end but when it became clear that we needed to stop again we switched both cars back onto super softs. Pastor was then able to fight to the end gaining two positions in the final stages to finish P11. Both Pastor and Valtteri drove a solid race today in challenging conditions but we need to find more performance from the car if we want to be consistently fighting for points.”

Laurent Debout, Renault Sport F1 team support leader
“The end result flatters us slightly as we were not as competitive as we would have liked. It is disappointing to miss out on the points again but Korea is a very different track and should play to the strengths of the car more. We’ll look forward to this race now.”

Toro Rosso
Jean-Eric Vergne, 14th
“My start was not the best and, in an effort to compensate for that, we switched from a two stop to a three stop strategy and I believe it could have paid off in terms of getting me back into the points. However, I then found I was having a lot of trouble just keeping the car on track and my tyres were completely worn out at the end, by which time, I had already been told to back off as the car was overheating. This is always a long, tough race and it felt particularly long for me, as I had no one to fight against in the closing stages, apart from working to keep the car away from the barriers. I always try to look on the positive side and in that respect, the updates we brought here seemed to work and we have learned a lot about the car. Therefore I still believe we can have a strong end to the season, starting in Korea, where I expect the car to work very well.”

Daniel Ricciardo, DNF
“The crash was my error, trying to make up for lost ground. At the start, my car just seemed to sit there without moving off the line. It was very frustrating to lose so many places right away. I think I went down five places from ninth on the grid to fourteenth. So I was on the back foot from then on, just trying to do the best I could. In the second stint, my engineer came on the radio and said ‘the pace is good, keep pushing.’ I was aware that for the pace we had, we were not doing too badly and maybe at the end I was just trying to get too much out of it and made that mistake. It’s a delicate corner with not much run-off and I went too deep into the apex. I then braked a bit harder, locked a wheel and went into the wall. It’s not a mistake I’m used to making. I will learn from this.”

Franz Tost, Toro Rosso team principal
“A very disappointing evening for us, especially after we had produced a good qualifying performance yesterday. Unfortunately, the benefit of our grid positions was cancelled out immediately, as both drivers got poor starts, with Daniel dropping five places and Jean-Eric three. Daniel’s race then ended prematurely with an uncharacteristic mistake which put him in the barriers. With overtaking being so difficult here, we decided to switch Vergne from a two stop to a three stop strategy, as he was so far back. After that, he looked in reasonable shape and we had saved a new set of options for the final stint, believing this would help him catch the cars ahead, that had tried to go for a long stint. However, his car suffered from overheating and we had to turn down his power, which meant he could not pass those ahead of him. This weekend, we didn’t make the most of our opportunities and we will be working hard to put that right in a fortnight in Korea, where the Yeongam circuit should suit us better.”

Caterham
Giedo van der Garde, 16th
“That was a Singapore Grand Prix tough race but for me a really good one – I have to say I really enjoyed myself out there tonight! Fighting with the Williams for most of the race was great, really good and I’m pleased for Tony and Kamarudin that we could put in a performance like that back in South East Asia. After a bit of a poor start I was past Charles, Bianchi and Bottas by the end of lap one and was up behind Sutil until the first stop. The car was absolutely great on the super softs – my pace in the first stint was really strong, the same as the cars up to 12th and it just felt great for the whole first stint. We boxed for a set of mediums on lap 12 and re-joined in 18th, still ahead of Bottas who was on super softs for the second stint. With the pace advantage that compound has here there wasn’t a lot I could do to hold him off and he passed me about three laps later. When the safety car came out we boxed for another set of mediums and after the race re-started my pace was good again. I was right up with Bottas and then passed him again when he went off a couple of laps into the stint. As the fuel levels dropped he got past me again so we focused on catching Charles who had stayed out on a two stop plan. With a long final stint he was managing his tyres and I was catching him at about two seconds a lap, and just before he had to make the final stop I passed him and then held 16th to the flag. As I say, it’s good to have had a strong race here and I’m pleased for the whole team that we could fight with Williams for a lot of the race. I’m now staying out in the Far East for a break before Korea and even though tonight’s race was tough physically I’m already looking forward to getting back in the car.”

Charles Pic, 19th
“Even though I finished 19th I’m not too disappointed. We tried a two-stop strategy but this time it didn’t work out – sometimes plans like that work, sometimes they don’t and this was one of those days. Away from the line I had a pretty good start but had to move aside to avoid Bianchi and was then stuck behind him for most of the first stint. Just before we were due to box I passed him and opened up a gap within a couple of laps so the first stop wasn’t so much of a fight. I was back out on track on a new set of mediums, clear of him and immediately started pushing on to my teammate. When the safety car came out I boxed early, re-joining in 19th on another set of mediums and right up with Giedo after his stop. The car felt okay at that point – the tyres were performing really well and when Giedo came in again we made the call to switch to a two stop strategy. I had a lot of laps left so I had to manage the pace so I could look after the tyres to the end but with six laps left the rears were gone so we had to come in again. My race was effectively over at that point because, even with the big pace advantage I had on the super softs, we used in the final stint I didn’t have enough laps to catch the cars ahead.”

Marussia
Max Chilton, 17th
“What started off as quite a tough race with the balance then thankfully improved and in the end it was not a bad race for us. Once again we got another two car finish out of it which is good for the team and we maintain our 10th place in the championship. The degradation was quite high and it was a tough challenge to manage the tyres and still try to push for opportunities with Caterham, which came along when Pic stopped late in the race enabling us to gain an extra place. Overall I’m pleased with my first night race and have enjoyed the whole Singapore experience.”

Jules Bianchi, 18th
“I was hoping for better today but the first half of the race didn’t go at all well for me. Just as I was stopping for the first time I lost the gears and I was worried it was mechanical but we stopped again to change the steering wheel and the problem thankfully went away. The second stint was tough because I was so far back by then and it was looking like it would be a very long and lonely race, also hitting the blue flag phase much earlier than usual. When the safety car came out it helped enormously as we were able to catch up and unlap ourselves. After struggling with traction initially I was then able to get into a good rhythm with strong pace. I was quicker but whilst trying to pass my team mate my tyres went away completely and we had to stop again much earlier than plan. After that, having seen the degradation we were incurring trying to push, I had no option but to hold back but at least I was able to gain a place when Pic stopped again at the end. Some difficult points in the race but what matters is the team result.”

John Booth, Marussia team principal
“Today’s race was a challenging one for the whole team due to a combination of the intense humidity, an early gear shift problem for Jules and a heavy emphasis on tyre management through the whole race. The safety car period benefited us by helping us to overcome the penalty of an extra unscheduled pit stop for Jules and we were able to get back in touch with the rest of the field, which in turn put us back into a good fight with Caterham. They were ahead but the gap was minimal during the second half of the race and at a track like this any opportunity can arise at a moment’s notice and this is in fact what happened when Pic had to stop six laps from the end. We have been extremely close to our nearest competitors all weekend, which is a definite improvement on recent races. Another two car finish for the team and we leave Singapore with our position in the constructors championship still intact, so we will focus on the positives from the weekend.”

Pirelli
Paul Hembery, Pirelli motorsport director
“Thermal degradation proved to be the limiting factor that the tyres had to overcome today rather than actual wear at the Singapore Grand Prix: a race that proved to be just as tough as everyone expected. Both compounds, but in particular the super soft, showed plenty of durability as well as pace and were the most appropriate choice for this race. One of the biggest complications is that the race strategy here has to be flexible in order to take into account the length of the race and the potential for safety cars, which ensured once again that the race went to the full two hours. The safety car mixed up the strategies considerably, but while Vettel was in a league of his own, there was an intense tactical battle for the final podium positions behind him. In the closing stages there was plenty of action, with different strategies ensuring a tight battle for the points’ places and several passing manoeuvres on a circuit where it’s not normally so easy to overtake.”

September 25, 2013
F1 2013: Singapore GP Review – Invincible Vettel Shatters Competitors

It has been a well-known fact for a number of years now that Red Bull cars have a leg up on the competition. However, Sebastian Vettel’s complete domination of the Singapore Grand Prix weekend will strike fear in the most resolute of hearts.

Nico Rosberg flew out of the blocks and momentarily snatched the lead of the race. However, the Mercedes driver ran slightly wide into turn one allowing Vettel the opportunity to re-take the lead of the race. Master-of-the-starts Fernando Alonso started seventh but scythed his way into third ensuring that Ferrari’s afternoon wouldn’t be as glum as previously expected.

Nevertheless, by the end of the first lap Vettel had scampered nearly two seconds clear of Rosberg and continued to pull dramatically away from the field. It looked set to be an afternoon of which Vettel would be firmly in control but a rare driver error from Daniel Ricciardo brought out the safety car mid-way through the race on lap 24. As several drivers dove into the pits the deployment of the safety car was expected to add some spice to the race at the front. Nothing could have been more unlikely.

Sebastian Vettel was able to turn a scintillating pace at the start of the 61 lap race. But as the safety car pulled into the pitlane at the end of the 31st the pace that Vettel churned was so ludicrously quick it bordered on the nigh impossible. To conclusively prove that there was no one near the level of Vettel this weekend the three-time champ pulled out a mind-boggling twenty seconds in nine laps over second placed Nico Rosberg.

Overtaking manoeuvres on a street track are usually at a premium and Singapore was no exception. Nevertheless, Kimi Raikkonen managed to pull off some audacious moves regardless. Despite back pain, which required a cortisone injection before the race, Raikkonen delivered an amazing drive from thirteenth on the grid to third. Teammate Romain Grosjean was on for a decent haul of points but an air consumption issue brought an end to his race.

Only Vettel, Webber, the two Mercedes and Grosjean elected not to pit with the deployment of the safety car. This left Fernando Alonso in second, Raikkonen battling with Button for third and Perez, Nico Hulkenberg and Esteban Gutierrez on course for some championship points. Alonso and Raikkonen were able to nurse their medium compound tyres to the end but the McLarens and Saubers were struggling for grip towards the closing stages of the race.

It was Raikkonen who opened the overtaking floodgates with a brilliant move around the outside of turn 14 on Jenson Button. Mark Webber, Nico Rosberg and Lewis Hamilton, all on much fresher rubber, made short work of the McLarens and Saubers and Felipe Massa fought his way into sixth behind the Mercedes duo.

Webber looked on course for a potential podium finish but was forced into retirement on the final lap with a gearbox issue. The Australian hitched a ride back to the pits with friend Alonso but with hindsight may have elected to take a stroll back to the garage. Webber has been given a ten place grid penalty as this is his third reprimand. Ultimately, the penalty is a bit harsh considering that it provided the fans with a moment worth remembering.

Jenson Button came close to the scoring McLaren’s first podium of the season but ultimately came home in seventh ahead of teammate Sergio Perez in eight. Nico Hulkenberg earned a welcome two points for Sauber with a ninth place finish ahead of Force India’s Adrian Sutil in tenth. Paul di Resta had been in the fight for the minor points but crashed his Force India six laps from the chequer.

Many criticize Sebastian Vettel and declare that the only explanation for his success is the Red Bull. His pace defies logic; many drivers in the fastest cars on the grid couldn’t deliver the same stunning pace. Sebastian Vettel was not in a class of his own this weekend; he was on a whole different planet. To lap nearly two and a half seconds per lap faster is mind-blowing and reminiscent of greats like Senna and Schumacher. That is class.

Red Bull sent a deafening, crystal-clear, message to their competitors – there is not even the slightest of hints that they will be relaxing their grip on this title fight. The pace of Sebastian Vettel this weekend was truly stupendous and at this stage of the game, with a 60 point lead, it is becoming more and more difficult to imagine anyone other than him grasping the world championship trophy at the end of the season.

September 22, 2013
F1 Singapore Qualifying – Sebastian Vettel takes pole

Sebastian Vettel has secured pole position for the Singapore GP.

The stars seemed aligned for Vettel even before the qualifying session had gotten underway. Although the German secured the coveted pole position the fight was decidedly closer than expected.

Mercedes’ Nico Rosberg got to within a tenth of snatching the first slot on the grid & Lotus’ Romain Grosjean was a further three tenths back in third. Significantly closer than the second gap Vettel enjoyed in the third free practice session.

The biggest casualty of the session was Kimi Raikkonen. The Finn failed to advance to the top ten shoot-out and will start the race in 13th position. It was reported that Raikkonen was suffering from back pain sustained as a result of his seat not being fastened correctly in the cockpit of his Lotus.

The stand-out driver of qualifying was Sauber’s Esteban Gutierrez. The Mexican put in a mega lap to advance to the top ten and in the process out-qualified his highly rated teammate Nico Hulkenberg.

Mark Webber set a time only quick enough for fourth and Lewis Hamilton won’t be too pleased down in fifth and three tenths off his teammate.

Perhaps there was some truth in Felipe Massa’s statement that he would be racing for himself from this point onward. The Brazilian out-qualified teammate Fernando Alonso albeit by just about a tenth of a second. The two Ferrari drivers will start sixth and seventh respectively. Jenson Button, Daniel Ricciardo and Esteban Gutierrez round out the top ten.

Full qualifying time sheet below.

Due to technical difficulties with a certain ISP, this report was compiled using an instant messenger, an iPhone 5, some duct tape and a Canadian squirrel.

September 21, 2013
Vettel stays on top as Grosjean ups his pace in FP3

Sebastian Vettel remained fastest in Singapore this morning, improving on his time from yesterday by a tenth of a second but his rivals are closing the gap.

Romain Grosjean finished the third practice session in second place, less than two tenths away from Vettel’s time.

Nico Rosberg finished in third place at the end of the session but his time was half a second slower than Vettel.

As was the case in yesterday’s FP2 session, drivers found that the supersoft tyres were over two seconds per lap faster than the medium tyres – quite a considerable difference.

Mark Webber who finished fourth today, was the fastest man on track before the switch to supersofts so that will certainly be something to look out for during the race.

Lewis Hamilton brought the other Mercedes home in fifth ahead of Fernando Alonso who finished 6th on the time sheets today in his Ferrari which is clearly lacking pace around this circuit.

Kimi Raikkonen managed only 12th this session, not setting a representative time on the supersofts.

Here is the full time sheet for the session. Follow us on Twitter (@F1_Madness) for live updates throughout qualifying later today and the race tomorrow.

September 21, 2013
Team and Driver Quotes after the Italian Grand Prix at Monza

The Monza gods must have been looking down on Sebastian Vettel with the dry race on Sunday playing right into his hands. The Red Bull team clearly dominated the Italian Grand Prix from start to finish. Here are the team and driver quotes following the race.

Red Bull
Sebastian Vettel, 1st
“It’s fantastic to win this event again. I just managed to make turn one! I locked the front right and it just didn’t seem to come back. I had a big flat spot, which I felt straight away and I wasn’t sure if the tyre would survive, but fortunately I managed to make it round and have a strong first stint. I pushed straight away to get a bit of a gap, in case we had to stop early and change to a two stop strategy. We had a gearbox issue and I had to short shift, which meant we dropped some time in the straights – but I tried to make it up in the corners. It’s great to finish on the top step.

The podium here is always very passionate. We are in Italy and when you walk around outside the track, you see Ferrari clothing and merchandise in all the shops starting from the smallest sizes upwards; it’s part of their DNA, which I understand. It was great for the Tifosi to have Fernando on the podium today. The season is going well and we’re pushing hard, but we take each race as it comes. We’re looking forward to Singapore next, which I want to finish; I think it’s the toughest race we have all year.”

Mark Webber,3rd
“It’s a great place here and it’s very special to finish on the podium. It’s not the circuit where I’ve had the best results in the past, so it’s a bit of a personal best for me in qualifying and the race. I felt better on the soft tyres today; I had a good battle with Fernando, fair play to him on that and then afterwards I settled in to getting my head down and getting on with the race. We got Felipe on the stop, which was great. I was happy with my in lap, the pit stop was great and then my out lap was strong, so we cleared him reasonably comfortably. We had to nurse the gearbox a bit at the end, but overall it was a good result. Seb is very strong around here and it was great to get such a good result today.”

Christian Horner, Red Bull team principal
“A fantastic way to achieve our 40th victory and Sebastian’s 32nd. To win and finish third in Monza, which is one of the most historic events, is testimony to our strong team work today. It’s been a fantastic effort behind the scenes in preparation for this event. We had some issues that we had to manage during the race and the pit stops in particular were great and enabled Mark to get ahead of Felipe Massa. It’s very impressive how the whole team have all contributed to this fantastic result.”

Thierry Salvi, Renault support for Red Bull
“Everyone knows it’s special to win at Monza, but particularly for an engine manufacturer. It is the last time the V8s run round here so we are naturally over the moon to finish the era with a win and a podium today. I would like to thank everyone at Renault for getting the job done all weekend – first a 1-2 in qualifying and then both drivers on the podium at the end of the race. It shows the competitiveness of everyone at Renault and the Red Bull team and the strength of the partnership. Everyone pushed hard to get this fantastic result. A great race and a great day. “

Ferrari
Fernando Alonso, 2nd
“Stepping onto the Monza podium is always a special feeling, as it’s the only one where you can feel all the love that the fans have for the team and it’s the best prize at the end of what was an almost perfect weekend. ‘Almost’ because our championship rivals won and we send them our congratulations.

We went well on both Friday and Saturday, getting both cars in the top five, but Red Bull was able to do better. When Vettel pitted, we were still doing green sector times and so we opted to lengthen the stint as much as possible, at least while Webber was not becoming a threat. That way, we could have tried to get Vettel on Hard tyres that were fresher by a few laps.

We tried our best and even if we have to be realistic about our championship chances, as it’s not an easy task to close down a 53 point gap in the few remaining races, in Formula 1 anything can happen and we will believe in our chances all the way to the finish line in Brazil, always trying to give a hundred percent.”

Felipe Massa, 4th
“I am very happy with my race, which went fantastically well right from the beginning, thanks to a nice start which moved me up two places. The pace was good on both compounds and we ran consistently throughout the whole race. It was a shame I lost the place to Webber at the pit stop, because today, the podium was within our grasp and it would have been brilliant to celebrate with our fans at our home race. Today, overtaking wasn’t easy, because, when you find yourself behind another car, especially in the second sector, you loose a lot of downforce. Overall, the weekend has been very positive for me and for the whole team.

We brought home a good points haul, but we know we still have a lot of work to do if we want to improve. As far as that’s concerned, I will be doing my utmost right to the very end of the Championship.”

Pat Fry, Ferrari engineering director
“As is traditional here at Monza, we were expecting a very tough race and once again this year, it was extremely close fought from start to finish. It was not hard to interpret the race in terms of strategy, because right from Friday practice, the indications were that tyre degradation levels meant one stop would be enough. After one of his great starts that we have now grown to know, Felipe lost the place he had gained over Webber who, by bringing forward his pit stop, gained enough of an advantage to ensure his third place. From then on, the gap between the two was never less than a second, therefore Felipe wasn’t able to use the DRS to try and get closer. Fernando also got a great start and his passing move on Webber at the Roggia was the mark of a true champion. When Vettel came in, Fernando’s times were very competitive and that’s why we tried to delay our stop. We knew that on the Hard tyres our performance deficit would be higher than on the Mediums and we tried to exploit the fresher tyres for the final stages of the race. The European leg of the season has come to an end and now comes a final rush around the world during which we will try our hardest to continue to put our closest rivals under pressure.”

Stefano Domenicali, Ferrari team principal
“Today we fought with all the means at our disposal to try and stick with the race leader, but given Vettel’s performance, in the end we could not have done better than this. I send him my congratulations. We know we are up against very strong opponents, but I’m pleased to have seen Ferrari run competitively, being the only team that tried to put Red Bull under pressure. It’s normal to feel some regret, because here at Monza we wanted to repay our fans for their incredible support, which is a great incentive to never give up. The gap in the Drivers’ classification has grown, but in the Constructors’ we have managed to move up to second place. On top of that, there were four Ferrari engines in the top seven at the finish line, which is a very impressive result.

Now we must maintain this current form and be ready to make the most of whatever opportunities arise, counting on reliability, which from now to the end of the season will play an important role, while also hoping for a bit of a good luck. Today, Fernando drove an impeccable race, during which he managed the pressure from Webber, who was very competitive and this second place is the result of his great tenacity. I am very a great pity for Felipe because he ran a great race, just missing out on a podium that he absolutely deserved. Looking ahead, Singapore will be important because it will reveal our level of competitiveness on a high downforce circuit: the outcome of that Grand Prix will also be decisive in helping us draw conclusions linked to the gradual changeover of our resources to the 2014 project. While we still have a mathematical chance this year, we will not slacken our efforts one iota.”

Sauber
Nico Hulkenberg, 5th
“It’s a great result and, after yesterday, another great performance by the team today. I am very happy and fifth was the ideal result. Despite starting third, it was always clear keeping the Ferrari and Red Bulls behind was not realistic. I lost two places right at the start, but then the pace was good and, especially towards the end, I was able to catch up quite a bit again. I kept the Mercedes behind with Rosberg leaving no room for me making any mistakes. It’s a very nice result for the team, and finally we have some points again. I hope this will give us some momentum, so we can carry this form on to the next couple of races.”

Esteban Gutierrez, 13th
“The start of the race was quite reasonable. I gained one place, but the first corner was tricky. It was important to keep the car together. I was able to settle down well during the first few laps. I was trying to manage the tyres as best I could, but, of course, you can’t compromise too much. Overall, it was a good race. Obviously, we cannot be happy, because it’s not a great result. However, the race was positive. Now we have to improve in qualifying, so we can start in a better position. I’m confident we will get there.”

Tom McCullough, Sauber, head of track engineering
“After the rain during the lap to the grid, the race settled in to being dry. It’s a fantastic result for Nico, who withstood pressure from Nico Rosberg throughout, and didn’t put a foot wrong. Finally he was rewarded for the fantastic job he did yesterday. Esteban was unlucky with traffic, but again showed strong race pace. It was clear that it would be difficult from P16. On this track our car’s race pace was stronger than in recent races and that should put a smile on a lot of faces here and in Hinwil.”

Monisha Kaltenborn, Sauber team principal
“We are happy about such a great result. Nico fought hard and drove a fantastic race. The crew did a great job as well today. Esteban was held up several times and thus lost the chance to score points. Overall, however, he drove yet again a very strong race and showed he is constantly improving. We are pleased to see that, for the first time, the result reflects us making a step forward with the development of the car. A big thank you to the race team here in Monza and the team back in Hinwil.”

Mercedes
Nico Rosberg, 6th
“This hasn’t been one of our best weekends and it feels like everything was a little compromised from the outset. It’s a real shame as the pace of the car looked really good in the race but we weren’t able to take full advantage because of the issues from yesterday. It’s so important here to feel comfortable with the set-up and I wasn’t able to get the car as I wanted after losing the time in third practice. I tried everything to overtake Hulkenberg for the extra place today but he was very quick at the end and it didn’t work out. Now we’ll look forward to Singapore in a couple of weeks. I love street circuits so hopefully that will be a better weekend for us.”

Lewis Hamilton, 9th
“That was a difficult weekend for me but these things happen and you have to say that it’s been a good year so far. I gave it my all out there today; the pace of the car was great but unfortunately we paid the price for not qualifying far enough up the field.

My radio failed right at the start of the race and it’s really tough when that happens as you rely on the advice and information from the team to manage your race. I didn’t even know about the slow puncture until after the race so now it makes more sense why we had to make the extra stop.

I did have some fun this afternoon, particularly fighting with Kimi. It’s just tough fighting so far down the field when our car was clearly really quick. We’ll keep pushing together as a team and I know that we’ll bounce back for Singapore. We’ll be giving it everything to make up for this weekend with a stronger performance there.”

Ross Brawn, Mercedes team principal
“In the end, that was a frustrating race because we had a very quick car today. We can never be certain what Vettel’s ultimate pace could have been at the front of the field but we saw Fernando and Mark fighting hard for second place and our drivers were matching their pace all the time. Lewis’ slow puncture in his first stint obviously compromised his strategy by forcing us to make two stops. But he drove a fantastic fighting race, complicated by the radio failure, and got everything out of the car this afternoon to climb back to P9. With Nico, we have the frustration that he found himself stuck behind a slower car in terms of lap time that was too quick at the critical parts of the lap to be able to overtake. It’s a disappointing result and this weekend reminds us that we need to be on top of our game at all times if we want to maximise our potential. But this afternoon also suggested that we have a competitive car.”

Toto Wolff, Mercedes team executive director
“Our afternoon was compromised by our starting positions, which resulted from yesterday’s problems, and further difficulties in the race. Nico found himself stuck behind the Sauber of Nico Hulkenberg and although we were quicker over the lap, we didn’t have the speed to make a pass when it counted. Lewis’ slow puncture forced him to make an extra pit stop. After that, he showed everybody just how quick the car was and that gave a glimpse of what might have been this afternoon. But we can’t take comfort from what might have been. The result was P6 and P9, well beneath the standards we set ourselves. We now need to focus on delivering on the car’s potential in the next races.”

Toro Rosso
Daniel Ricciardo, 7th
“I am pleased with that! After qualifying well yesterday, it was nice to maintain that position at the end of today. In recent races where we have managed to qualify in the top ten, we didn’t have the pace to stay there in the race, but today we did. I think I got the most out of the car, managing to keep the guys behind me and the low downforce set up certainly helped us down the straights. The others got close to me in the second sector, but I was able to pull away once we got to the high speed sections, which we knew from yesterday would be our strong point. We must keep pushing hard on the car development for the next few races, because hopefully, a top five finish is not too far away.”

Jean-Eric Vergne, DNF
“Everything was going well, I wasn’t actually in a battle at the time and was conserving my tyres and controlling Button behind me quite easily. Then I felt something was wrong and had to stop at the side of the track. I said on the radio I thought the engine had gone, but actually it was still running and it seems I had some sort of transmission problem. A real shame, especially as I knew my final stint on the hard compound tyre would be even stronger. I would definitely have finished quite high up in the points as the guys ahead were not pulling away from me. I seem to be suffering a lot of bad luck this season, but I keep believing the turning point will come soon.”

Franz Tost, Toro Rosso team principal
“An excellent performance from Daniel and the entire team resulted in us finishing a well deserved seventh at one of the most famous races on the calendar, which also happens to be our home grand prix. With Daniel, our race ran to plan, although in the early stages we had some concerns about whether tyre degradation would allow us to run our one-stop strategy, but it actually worked out fine. He did a great job of maintaining his position, while looking after his tyres. His afternoon was complicated by the fact he was hardly ever in a position to use DRS, except when coming up behind backmarkers, while the cars behind him were able to use it and close right up to him. As for Jean-Eric, it was a real shame that he again had some bad luck. Having made a good start, he too was holding position but had to retire with a transmission problem, the cause of which we now need to investigate.”

Lotus
Romain Grosjean, 8th
“It isn’t easy to follow another car with the aero configurations that we had for the race here but we got the best result we could have done having started in P13. Unfortunately we had a poor pit stop where we had an electronic problem and the light didn’t turn to green, so we lost a few seconds there. I think we could have come out in front of the two McLarens and the Toro Rosso, which would have made things a bit easier for a stronger result. I had a good battle with Lewis on the last lap. I think we did the best we could here in Monza and I hope that for Singapore we can get back to the level of performance that we had in Budapest.”

Kimi Raikkonen, 11th
“When I lost the front wing I had to come in and change to a new one meaning an extra pit stop which we hadn’t planned. It’s not just the time in the pits, but you have to work your way through the field afterwards. We did a pretty good job of that and the car felt good, surprisingly good given where we were on Saturday. Unfortunately, there’s not much you can do after the start to the race we had.”

Eric Boullier, Lotus team principal
“If you want to be competitive for the Championships you need to be able to fight every weekend at the front on Saturday as well as on Sunday. The positive from this weekend is that we showed fantastic race pace and both drivers drove exceptionally well. Romain withstood great pressure and performed great overtaking moves on both McLarens. Kimi fought back from a first lap incident in a superb display of his talents. The negative from this weekend is that we couldn’t qualify where we needed to be. The results at the end of the race aren’t rewarding for the team, but there are plenty of positives to take from the final European race of the season and we head to the final flyaway races with plenty of fight.”

Alan Permane, Lotus trackside operations director
“Our damage was done yesterday by our poor qualifying positions. We actually had good race pace today and if you compare Kimi and Sebastian Vettel’s races, after Kimi’s first stop we only lost a second to Seb and we gained four seconds on Fernando [Alonso]. Seb won the race and Fernando finished second, so that gives an illustration of what could have been. We obviously will be dissecting where we lost the pace on Saturday and have some solace that we don’t visit another circuit of this level of downforce for the rest of the season as it certainly wasn’t beneficial for us in terms of qualifying. Starting where we did put us in the middle of the pack where incidents happen on the first lap and that was the case for both our drivers, but both made great recoveries.”

Ricardo Penteado, Renault Sport F1 team support leader
“Monza is always a tough race for engines with a high percentage of the lap spent flat out. Today the race was even harder. Kimi’s early stop meant he went down the pack and had to fight to regain position. Fuel consumption was considerably higher than that expected as a result, so we had to manage the settings very carefully to give him the power he needed to fight without running dry. Sadly he missed the points by under a second – on the strength of his drive he really deserved it and the car had the pace to score. Romain did a great job to keep hold of eighth, which is a more representative indication of where we are this weekend.”

McLaren
Jenson Button, 10th
“I had a bad start when my clutch slipped, and I dropped a few places. That first stint was quite good fun, but, once I got stuck behind Daniel [Ricciardo], there was no way of getting past him. We didn’t get the gear ratios quite right today. Consequently, as our fuel loads decreased, and our cornering speeds should have increased, we were hampered by our rev-limiters, and that made it easier for the cars behind to overtake us and harder for us to overtake the cars ahead of us. In clear air, our pace was pretty good – but, with such a short top gear, especially with DRS deployed, we were hitting the rev-limiter while other cars weren’t being rev-limited. Moreover, about 15 laps from the end, I locked up into the first corner and severely flat-spotted my front right tyre – I couldn’t really see a lot after that, because of vibration, but I still managed to bring it home and score a world championship point for the team. Finally, I just want to say a big ‘thank you’ to all the guys in the garage today. They had to really work hard to repair my car’s fuel system before the race, in record time, and they pulled out all the stops to get it all done. It was touch and go for a while, but they responded really well and did an incredible job. In a tight spot, they’re the best guys out there – and, once again, they were faultless today.”

Sergio Perez, 12th
“It was a disappointing afternoon, and I think we deserved more than that. I got hit from behind into Turn One and had to cut the chicane, unfortunately. Then, throughout the race, I was held up by Daniel’s Toro Rosso. My car was quicker overall, but its straight-line speed just wasn’t strong enough to get me up and alongside him to try a pass. We stopped one lap later than we’d planned, and I lost a position to Jenson when the stop didn’t go too well. From then on, I was stuck in a train of cars; and, without a straight line speed advantage, I just couldn’t get past anyone.”

Martin Whitmarsh, McLaren team principal
“Today’s race was a disappointing end to a frustrating weekend. Jenson lost a few places at the start, and thereafter spent most of the race stuck behind one of the Toro Rosso cars – as indeed did Checo. Had that not been the case, our cars would have been able to lap significantly faster than in fact they did. However, although as I say our cars were faster in terms of overall lap-time, their comparative lack of straight line speed prevented Jenson and Checo from being able to pass the Toro Rossos’ in order to exploit that greater pace on a clear track. Jenson was mighty at the end of the race, however, holding off Kimi [Raikkonen] to retain 10th place by just three-tenths of a second at the chequered flag. Checo was unfortunate to finish only 12th – a slower than usual pit stop costing him track position through no fault of his own. All in all, I’d summarise our weekend by saying that we’ve come away with a very hard won world championship point.”

Williams
Pastor Maldonado, 14th
“It was a poor race for us from the beginning because of losing a couple of positions at the start which were then hard to recover. There was little pace from the car, I think we did quite well on the strategy but whatever we did today it was not enough to recover places. It was a disappointing race but I am looking forward to the next one.”

Valtteri Bottas, 15th
“I maintained my position at the start but from the first few laps I couldn’t really challenge any of the cars ahead as we just didn’t have the race pace today. It was good that we were able to do our planned one stop, but most of the others did this as well. I’m now looking forward to Singapore; it’s a new track for me so I hope we can do better there.”

Xevi Pujolar, Williams Chief race engineer
“There was some risk of light rain during the race but we thought we would be able to stay on dry tyres so opted to start both cars on the medium compound tyres. We were aiming to achieve a one stop strategy with both cars following the pace we saw on Friday. Our strategy and tyre management went as planned but we just didn’t have enough pace to challenge the cars in front. We now go from a circuit with the lowest downforce level to one with the highest downforce level in Singapore, so it’s a completely different challenge and we hope to perform better there.”

Laurent Debout, Renault Sport F1 team support leader
“Together we expect more than 14th and 15th so we can’t be satisfied with today. That said, we do expect our relative level of performance to be higher in Singapore where the tight corners will play more to the strengths of the car. There should be a better chance to finish in, or closer to the points, than we could do today.”

Force India
Adrian Sutil, 16th
“A tough race today and in the end we had to retire the car because of issues with the brakes. I tried my best and I don’t think we could have delivered anymore because I was on the limit throughout the race. The pit stop was good, but the team had to hold me on the exit because Maldonado was coming in, which meant I lost a position to Gutierrez. I was able to pass him again on the track, but there were some quick cars [Kimi and Lewis] with fresher tyres and there was no way to hold them off. Points were not too far away, but overall we didn’t have the pace this weekend.”

Paul di Resta, DNF
“It has been one of those weekends to forget, starting with the brake failure yesterday and the early retirement today. I just got caught out going into the second chicane because the cars ahead of me got backed up – I guess they were reacting to the tussle going on ahead of them. I locked both fronts trying to stop the car and ended up hitting Grosjean. Unfortunately it was too late to take avoiding action. Now we need to look forward to Singapore and put this one behind us.”

Dr Vijay Mallya, Force India team principal and managing director
“We leave Monza empty handed after a difficult weekend. We’ve struggled for pace and had our share of misfortune. Paul’s race was over on lap one after contact with Grosjean at the second chicane, which was very disappointing. Adrian had a better start, made up some ground and moved onto the tail of the top ten. He drove a strong race with a great overtaking move on Gutierrez, but was missing the speed to fight for points. In the closing laps we were forced to retire the car with concerns over the brakes. It’s clear we need to recapture the form we showed before the summer break if we are to continue fighting for fifth in the constructors’ championship.”

Caterham
Charles Pic, 17th
“My start was good and I held position into turn one and was up with Bottas and pushing to keep pace with him. Up to the first pit stop I was just about keeping him in range but then in the second stint he was a lot quicker and I simply didn’t have the pace to fight with him. The car felt okay, the first set of tyres worked pretty well and we stuck to the strategy, coming in for the first stop on lap 17. We went onto the primes for the second and third stints and, honestly, from the time I re-joined the track after the first stop the rest of the race was pretty quiet for me. When the blue flags started coming out we had to manage the traffic and that obviously cost us more time, but our pace meant we were able to cover off our nearest competitors one stop strategy and that was the main target today. We’ve shown over the last few races that we definitely have a pace advantage over them, and we have enough races left to keep fighting for tenth place in the championship. Next we go to Singapore which is going to be an incredibly busy race off-track, and on track I think our car will be suited to the heat and layout of the track. After a quiet race today it’ll be good to have a few more battles!”

Giedo van der Garde, 18th
“After good starts for most of the season I have to say this wasn’t one of my best, but I overtook the Marussia halfway through lap one and was up with Charles until he pitted for the first time. I came in a lap later and with a new set of hard tyres the car felt good – my pace was on target and I was easily able to pull away from the cars behind and push on to Charles. We were running a two stop strategy and I came in for the second stop when I was given the command to box. There was a communication mistake on the pit wall and when I came in the guys weren’t ready for me which obviously cost me a lot of time and I came out behind Bianchi, but I passed him pretty quickly and set about trying to catch my team mate. It’s a shame as my pace in the second stint was really good and I’d have had a chance to pass Charles, but sometimes these things happen – that’s racing.”

Marussia
Jules Bianchi, 19th
“I was really pleased with my start as I got ahead of both Caterhams’ into the first corner. Unfortunately our early pace was not sufficient to hold them off and they regained position by the end of the first lap. In the first stint we had started to make some good progress and were catching them but after the pit stop the balance was not there and we struggled on the hard compound tyre, dropping back from them again. We were on a one stop, Caterham on two, and I was able to move up to P18 and keep Van der Garde behind for a while, but not long enough unfortunately and it was especially tough to make any progress during the blue flag phase. It is a shame I could not have a strong race today at a track I love, but on to Singapore now, which I am really looking forward to.”

Max Chilton, 20th
“Another tough race today and one which underlined the balance problems we’ve been experiencing all weekend. The start was okay but we weren’t able to keep pace with the competition today. What I was encouraged by was my pace versus my team mate – there was nothing between us for the first 25 laps but every time I got close enough to overtake I lost downforce, so I couldn’t do anything to improve. I kept with him throughout the rest of the race, despite experiencing the toughest blue flag phase of the season, when it was really hard to make sure I gave the space needed at the right time and not suffer a huge loss of time myself. Time now to say goodbye to the European phase of my debut season for what will be a very challenging run of long-haul races I think.”

John Booth, Marussia team principal
“Coming into the race today we had quite a bit to contend with. The weather in the half hour prior to going to the grid was very mixed and deciding which tyres to start on was tricky. In the end we gave the drivers a compare between intermediate and the dry tyres in case we experienced further rain before the start of the race. In the end the weather held off for the rest of the race and we were able to run to our planned strategy of a one stop race. We’ve seen very good levels of degradation on our car all weekend, which is an improvement over the last few races and the work we have done in this area has paid off to allow us to complete a one stop race versus Caterham’s two-stop. Unfortunately we still didn’t quite have the pace we needed to finish in front of them but it was very close with Van der Garde at the end. In the dying stages we were getting very low on fuel and given that we had tried to race Van der Garde as hard as we could, we had to dramatically slow the pace on the last three laps to ensure we could make it to the flag.”

Pirelli
Paul Hembery, Pirelli motorsport director
“With some light rain 30 minutes before the race, some of the cars went onto the grid with the Green intermediates but as the rain subsided we saw the majority of drivers start the race on the mediums. This was a straight forward one stop race with no degradation and many cars set their fastest laps towards the end of the race. Any strategy would have been dependant – as always – on a number of factors, but as the rain held off, Vettel’s decision to start on the mediums with one stop to change to the hards proved a winning combination. Monza is a big test for the tyres with the surface temperature of the tyres heating up to 130 degrees Celsius as the cars exit La Roggia but the tyres coped well with the demands for the whole weekend. I’d like to take this opportunity to thank the fans here this weekend – as always the atmosphere is electric at this circuit and we are truly proud to call this our home race.”

Photo credits:

Fernando Alonso – Podium selfie, posted on Instagram

Pastor Maldonado – Photo by the Williams F1 Twitter Team

September 10, 2013
F1 2013: Italian GP – Relentless Vettel Wins At Monza

Sebastian Vettel has set nineteen fastest laps, taken forty pole positions, won thirty-two races and from the looks of things soon to be a fourth time world champion. The German has unquestionably edged significantly closer to his fourth consecutive title after winning the Italian GP.

The German driver was hardly challenged at the front of the Italian GP as he romped to his sixth win of the 2013 season. He made his customary break in the first two laps of the race and seemed to control it at ease for the remaining 53 laps. But looks can be deceiving however as the Red Bull ace had to contend with several minor issues throughout the race.

A heavily flat spotted tyre was the first cause of concern for the Red Bull pitwall and later in the race instruction to Vettel was to short shift in fifth and sixth gear. Pace however was no issue at all as Vettel effortlessly pulled away from second place man Fernando Alonso.

Felipe Massa momentarily slotted into second place but was efficiently overtaken by teammate Alonso who had put a gutsy move on Webber into the second chicane. The Australian looked poised to do some serious battle for the second step of the podium in the second half of the race but a similar call from the team instructed him to short shift between second and third gear. Nevertheless, Webber finished less than a second behind Alonso.

Ultimately, the Tifosi didn’t quite get the victory they had hoped for but were still left with something to cheer about as Fernando Alonso brought his scarlet Ferrari home in second place.

Teammate Felipe Massa finished fourth but the rumours about his future at the Italian team continue to swirl, recently, with added intensity. Several reports are suggesting that Lotus driver Kimi Raikkonen will be announced as a Ferrari driver for 2014 on Wednesday. Nico Hulkenberg has also been linked with the seat.

The star of Saturday qualifying, Hulkenberg finished a welcome fifth for Sauber; a great drive from the German who is surely now primed to move to a more competitive team.

Nico Rosberg finished sixth overall ahead of Daniel Ricciardo and Romain Grosjean in seventh and eighth respectively.

Kimi Raikkonen, in his current Lotus guise, didn’t have a great Italian GP in terms of points. In fact, he didn’t score any points at all.

An uncharacteristic clunk up the back of Sergio Perez’s McLaren forced the Finn into the pits for a new wing after only two laps had been completed.

Armed with the slightly faster medium compound tyres, Raikkonen set several fastest laps but ultimately fell short of the points paying positions in eleventh. An issue with the KERS system and a request to save fuel throughout the race didn’t help Raikkonen’s cause either.

Lewis Hamilton found himself in a similar situation as he was forced into the pitlane early in the race with a slow puncture. The 2008 world champion was able to recover to ninth place after a feisty drive through the field. Jenson Button scored the final point on offer in tenth lamenting an incorrect choice of gear ratios.

There were only two retirements from the race with the first being Paul di Resta who clouted the back of Romain Grosjean and exited the race in a pile of destroyed carbon fibre at the exit of the first chicane.

Toro Rosso’s Jean-Eric Vergne bid the Italian GP adieu with what looked like engine failure on lap 15.

Belgium and Italy were supposed to be the Red Bull team’s Achilles heel. Never were these two tracks to play to the strength of the prolific Sebastian Vettel much less to his supposedly straightline-speed-challenged-car. It must be ominous then for those who fancy themselves a contender in this championship. Not only were they beaten by Vettel’s Red Bull but summarily routed.

What are your highlights for the Italian GP? Let us know in he comments section below!

Photo Credits:

Sebastian Vettel – Press conference screen grab

Fernando Alonso – Photo by Fernando Alonso himself, via Instagram

Kimi Raikkonen – Screen grab

September 9, 2013
Lewis Hamilton quickest after FP1 at Monza

Lewis Hamilton was quickest after FP1 at Monza ahead of the Italian Grand Prix, a fraction of a second faster than Fernando Alonso.

Alonso looked all set to beat Hamilton’s 1.25.565 but lost time in the final sector and ended the session on a 1.25.600.

Nico Rosberg showed off Mercedes’ potential at Monza by finishing the session in third place a tenth off Alonso’s time. Sebastian Vettel brought the Red Bull home less than half a tenth further back on the time sheets.

Kimi Raikkonen’s longer wheel base E21 took lots of getting used to but the Finn finished a respectable fifth after the session.

Here is the full time sheet for FP1 at Monza.

September 6, 2013
F1 Belgian Grand Prix – Team and Driver Quotes

Here are the team and driver quotes following the F1 Belgian Grand Prix.

Red Bull
Sebastian Vettel, 1st
“I don’t think we expected to be dominant here, and it surprised all of us actually; it’s a great result. I think we knew going into the race that our race pace, compared to Mercedes, maybe gave us a little in hand, but we didn’t know where we were compared to the others, especially Ferrari, and Lotus looked very quick in dry conditions also. It wasn’t clear if the rain was going to come at the end of the race, so we kept pushing, but the gap we had by that stage meant we were able to control the race from there and the last couple of laps weren’t too stressful.”

Mark Webber,2nd
“The two practice starts before the race weren’t great and so we were a bit worried about the clutch going to the start, which put us on to the back foot. We tried our best, but lost a couple of rows off the line which is not good. We then had to try and clear people on the track, which was difficult, as we had set up the top gear to race in clean air, rather than to pass. The bad start put us out of position and it snowballs from there, as you use up the tyres trying to get back into position.”

Christian Horner, Red Bull team principal
“It was a fantastic win for Sebastian and the team, which came down to the first lap. He had an average start, but managed to position himself well going through the first corner and he knew that the first run through Eau Rouge up the hill was going to be critical. He went for it, got in the tow and managed to make the move stick round the outside of Lewis and then got his head down and built up a great lead. For Mark, his clutch wasn’t good in preparation going to the grid. We did our best to tidy it up but he conceded a place to Rosberg off the start. Once he was comprised in his positioning within the pack, he wasn’t able to get a clean run through La Source and Alonso managed to get a run on him down the hill and pass him into Eau Rouge. Thereafter it was a matter of trying to find a way through, past the Mercedes and Ferrari ahead, but unfortunately whenever we got close enough we seemed to lose aero performance and so Mark couldn’t get close enough to make a move. We didn’t come here expecting to win today, so it’s great to get a victory to start the second half of the season”

Thierry Salvi, Renault support for Red Bull
“Spa highlights strong chassis-engine packages so winning here means perhaps more than any other circuit for the Red Bull-Renault partnership. The car has performed well all weekend, with consistently fastest end of speed straights and good traction in the corners. Congratulations to Seb for his second win in three years here and to Mark for a solid fifth. Getting this result here looks good for the next race in Monza.”

Ferrari
Fernando Alonso, 2nd
“Today’s result shows that the outcome of qualifying bears little relation to the result on Sunday, although I think that even if I’d started from pole I would still have finished second, because Vettel was quicker. At the start we immediately made up some places and all in a rush, first passing Button, then Rosberg and Hamilton, so I found myself six seconds behind Vettel, but if one looks at the final gap of 16 seconds, we can but congratulate him and his team. The car worked well in all conditions, with a full fuel load at first and then with a lighter one at the end and, on top of that, the extra speed we had on the straight meant I could overtake without taking too many laps to do so. We know we have made a step forward and that we have recovered some of the competitiveness we had lost in recent races. In Monza and Singapore we will see the next steps in this process. The updates used in this race worked well and, even if they were aimed at this particular circuit, they are the results of work that goes on twenty four hours a day, at home and at the track. That makes us optimistic for the coming races, because our goal still remains the same, namely to fight for the title right to the end”.

Felipe Massa, 7th
“That was a difficult race for me right from the early stages, because after managing a good passing move at the start, I then had to slow and drop back four or five places, to avoid a collision with Grosjean at the exit of the first corner. From then on, things got complicated because for a few laps I had a problem on the steering wheel linked to the KERS operation and I wasn’t able to communicate well with the team. When everything was back to normal again, it wasn’t easy to catch up, because even if the decision to bring forward the first pit stop allowed me to get past several cars, the pace wasn’t good. In the final stint on the Hard tyres, the car was very competitive and I managed to gain some important places, with a nice passing move on Grosjean. I definitely can’t be pleased with seventh place, because today, our car deserved better, but the fact we’re more competitive than at the last few races makes me think we are working in the right direction and so we can hope to make progress throughout the second half of the season”

Pat Fry, Ferrari chassis director
“The performance level we saw in today’s race is what we were unable to demonstrate yesterday in qualifying and it was certainly worthy of a front row. We knew that with a competitive car on this track, we would be in the game, even if moving up from ninth and tenth places and coming out of La Source in one piece is no easy task. Fernando got a great start, being both aggressive and steady at the same time, even if unfortunately, it was not enough to get past Vettel. In the middle stint of the race, their pace was very similar and it was only in the closing stages that the gap grew. Felipe had a harder time, especially at the start when he got caught up in traffic. We tried bringing forward his first pit stop to make up some places, but in the end, the time lost at the start prevented him from getting into the top five. Now we will tackle two very important races and only by improving the car will we be able to fight for the lead in the championship”

Stefano Domenicali, Ferrari team principal
After qualifying hadn’t really given a true picture of the hierarchy down pit lane, today’s result showed just how competitive is our car. This second place wasn’t easy to come by and follows on from a difficult month and comes after plenty of speculation, which we prefer to reply to with results on track. Certainly this result alone is not enough, because we cannot claim to be satisfied until we manage to reduce the gap to Red Bull and be able to fight for first place. In the coming races, we will try to improve the car to give Fernando a chance of fighting for the championship title and for Felipe to deliver performances which can help the team: those are our goals, the rest doesn’t matter”.

Mercedes
Lewis Hamilton, 3rd
“I got everything that I could out of the car today but we just weren’t as quick as Sebastian and Fernando. I made a nice start and it felt like the exit out of turn one was good, too. But Seb just caught me on the run out of Eau Rouge and there wasn’t really much I could do to defend: I moved once, like we are allowed to, but then I just had to watch him glide by. From that point, it was very difficult to hold on to him, and the same thing happened with Fernando, too, later in the race. We have done a good job this weekend but Spa and Monza are always unique tracks because of the low-drag requirements and I expect we will be more competitive in Singapore again. It’s still a great team result to finish third with Nico right behind me in fourth, so we will take the positives from this afternoon into the next races.”

Nico Rosberg, 4th
“Fourth place was a reasonable result for me today, and it’s great that we achieved a strong points finish for the team with Lewis’ third place as well. The whole weekend hasn’t gone perfectly for me and you are always slightly on the back foot in the race when qualifying doesn’t go as well as planned. I had a great start but I wasn’t able to go as long as planned on the second stint and I had to cover Felipe. But in the end, it was nice to keep Mark behind me and get fourth place. We have a lot of work ahead of us now and we need to look into why we weren’t as competitive as a couple of the other teams today.”

Ross Brawn, Mercedes team principal
“It is a measure of how far we have come in the past 12 months that a race which would have been our result of the season last year now feels slightly average. However, we must keep things in perspective: this was a good team result, we scored a good haul of points for both championships, but we were on average half a second off the pace we needed to fight for the win at this track, especially when the tyres were new. The performance of both cars was pretty respectable by the end of the race but we were not quick enough in the early stages. Both drivers delivered a fault-free performance and the team performed well at the pit stops, so we got the maximum out of the car this afternoon. It’s a good foundation for the second half of our season and we now need to find a little more performance for the next races.”

Toto Wolff, Mercedes team executive director
“We expected the race would be tougher for us in dry conditions compared to the mixed wet-dry weather we experienced yesterday in qualifying. Even so, we now have to analyse why we were lacking some performance relative to other teams when we debrief this evening and back at the factory next week. Third and fourth positions represent a very solid team result and good points for the Constructors’ Championship, so we can be happy with what we achieved this weekend. And we will keep working hard back at base for the next races.”

McLaren
Jenson Button, 6th
“We were trying for a one-stop strategy at the start of the race, then we adapted that to a two-stopper later on. We gave it a go, but our pace still wasn’t quite as good as that of the cars in front of us, so we couldn’t really chase them down at the end of the race. Having said that, it was a decent race for us. Moreover, as always, it was really fun to race around this magnificent circuit – I really enjoyed driving the car today. In terms of performance there’s been a small but definite improvement, so we should be pleased with the progress we’ve made. I’m pretty happy with the feel of the car now, in fact; okay, there’s still room for improvement in terms of pace, but the good thing is that we know which areas we should be focusing on. So I’m looking forward to Monza – another great circuit – where hopefully we can take another small step. We’re not going to be fighting at the front, we know that; instead we’re concentrating on ourselves, gradually understanding more about the car, and progressively improving things. There are still a lot of grand prix left this season, and we can enjoy some of them, I’m sure.”

Sergio Perez, 11th
“My race started pretty well. I managed to make up a couple of positions at the start, and then a few more in the first 10 laps, and at that point things were looking pretty good. I was happy with the balance of the car and we were on a good strategy. Then came the drive-through, and after that it was always going to be tricky to score any points. What happened with Romain [Grosjean] was unfortunate. I got ahead of him, and took the corner, but I now understand where the penalty came from, even if I’m naturally disappointed for myself and for the team. These things are always difficult, but the team spirit at McLaren is unbelievably strong and now, together, we simply have to move on. What we must now do is look ahead to Monza, and do our very best to make up for the points we missed out on here at Spa.”

Martin Whitmarsh, McLaren team principal
“Jenson made a brilliant start to move from sixth place on the grid to fourth after the first corner, and thereafter he drove a typically faultless race to finish just 13 seconds behind a podium finish. At one point we were considering opting for a one-stop strategy for him, and, if we’d been able to do that successfully, he may well have got that podium finish. As things turned out, it wasn’t to be; but, as I say, he drove an excellent race, and the eight points he scored were richly deserved, lifting our constructors’ world championship ranking to fifth place. Clearly, fifth place isn’t where we want to be, but it’s one place higher than we were this morning. As for Checo, he’ll be disappointed with having got involved in an incident with Romain, because, had he not done so, he’d definitely have scored points too. So we’re a bit disappointed, overall, of course we are, but equally we’re pleased to see firm evidence of underlying improvement in terms of pace. We’re still not where we want to be, but the trend is clearly in the right direction. Looking forward, then, from here we go to Italy, where we hope that that underlying pace improvement will produce better on-track results. Having said that, we never under-estimate our opponents, and we’re far from complacent about our chances. Nonetheless, we’ll be doing our utmost to put on a good show at Monza, a magnificent racetrack whose unique ambience always creates a very special vibe.”

Lotus
Romain Grosjean, 8th
“We had a difficult first lap where we lost a few positions and then dropped back a couple more places in the incident with Sergio [Perez]. We decided on a one stop strategy today and with the new tyres I felt that the grip was much higher than before but I knew that it would be difficult to get the time back. We tried something different and you never know; had it rained in the middle of the race we could have been well-placed to take advantage. It is good to finish the race without any mistakes, even if eighth place isn’t what we were hoping for this weekend; it’s also a shame that Kimi didn’t finish the race, but we go to Monza hopeful of better things.”

Kimi Raikkonen, DNF
“I had a brake failure so there was really no point in trying to continue. We both got good starts off the line but there wasn’t enough space into the first corner where I went over the kerb and lost some time, but after that I was pushing as hard as I could. There were some brake issues at the beginning of the race but we were managing them and it was going okay until we had to retire. We’ve finished a lot of races and had some good reliability; one day your luck has to run out and today was that day.”

Eric Boullier, Lotus team principal
“It was a disappointing weekend, with qualifying not as good as we had expected and then a difficult first lap in the race. Kimi suffered from a brake failure which, of course, is a concern. We already believe we know why it happened and we will investigate this in detail to prevent the situation arising again. Romain finished eighth which clearly isn’t the sort of position we hope for at the end of a race weekend. Today we lost some pace and part of that might be due to the low temperatures. We must now look ahead, learn from this weekend and make sure that next year we can deliver on a medium downforce track.”

Alan Permane, Lotus trackside operations director
“It was a difficult race for us. We didn’t have the pace in qualifying yesterday and didn’t seem to have the pace today. We had a difficult first lap where we lost a few places and found ourselves sat behind slower cars. After that it was difficult to make up any ground. Unfortunately Kimi retired from the race with a front brake failure which we are now investigating. Romain was on a one stop strategy which was the right thing to do today. We look forward to starting again in Monza where we will bring new developments to the car and can hopefully have a better weekend.”

Ricardo Penteado, Renault Sport F1 team support leader
“Spa is traditionally very hard on engines, with long sections at full throttle, changes of altitude and compressions putting the engines under pressure. The RS27 has performed well all weekend and we were hopeful of a better result. The starting positions put us down in the pack and despite Romain’s efforts we could not make up any places. It’s a shame for Kimi but at least we come away with some points this weekend, which is important for the championship.”

Force India
Adrian Sutil, 9th
“An interesting and exciting race, and it’s good to come away with two points. At the start I didn’t make the best getaway and lost a few places, but after that I settled into the race and was able to get ahead of a few cars and move into the top ten. I always enjoy driving here at Spa and I had some exciting overtaking moves today, which felt very nice. The two-stop strategy was the best way to go and it worked out well because I think we achieved the maximum that was available to us. We are still in a close fight with McLaren so it was important to get back in the points today after a couple of tough races.”

Paul di Resta, DNF
“I got a lot of wheel-spin at the start of the race and was down in about tenth place going into turn one, but during the first lap I managed to recover to seventh. After the second pit stop I was racing closely with Adrian and there was a train of four cars battling as we went into the final chicane. Pastor [Maldonado] went in deep and missed the apex so I tried to get the cut-back and was going around the outside of him. He then decided to try and enter the pit lane, which was impossible given his track position. As a result he hit me, which took the rear corner off my car. It’s a real shame because the speed was quite strong today and I think there was definitely a point or two up for grabs.”

Dr Vijay Mallya, Force India team principal and managing director
“I’m pleased to see Sahara Force India back in the points after a fine performance by Adrian. He clearly enjoyed himself out there today and his overtaking moves were a highlight of the race. The strategy calls from the pit wall helped him stay in the hunt for points and his race pace was good. The incident with Maldonado hitting Paul was very disappointing because Paul was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. It certainly cost us the chance to get both cars in the points. Going forward we will take the positives from the weekend and look to build on this performance level in a couple of weeks’ time in Monza.”

Toro Rosso
Daniel Ricciardo, 10th
“It was nice to get that point! We ran a long first stint on the hard tyres and I think that helped us build a good base to have a strong pace in the final stints on the medium. I felt much more comfortable on the Option tyre and that’s when my race really started. With the last set of tyres I was knocking out maybe ten or so qualifying laps and managed to pick off some cars in front to bring home that crucial point. We knew we had to move on from yesterday. I had said that starting where we were, getting in the points would be good, so I’m happy with that and with the pace we showed while fighting to get there.”

Jean-Eric Vergne, 12th
“I think we could have done a bit better than this 12th place, because my pace was good until the final stint when I had a slow puncture almost right from the start of it, which meant my performance dropped off. I managed to get past Hulkenberg with an exciting move, but I could not close to Perez ahead of me and then my team mate Daniel came up behind me on new tyres. It was hard for me to be competitive therefore in the final stint. A bit of a weekend to forget as it could have ended so much better, if we had not made a mistake in qualifying, but at least when things were going well it seems that our car has picked up some speed that was lacking just before the break.”

Franz Tost, Toro Rosso team principal
“Normally, we would not be happy with a single point for tenth place, but given how things went in qualifying, today we can be relieved that both drivers and the team did a good job to recover, with Daniel going from 19th to tenth and Jean-Eric from 18th to 12th. It was always going to be a difficult Sunday, especially as the rain which could have helped us never arrived. But both cars were fast enough to work their way through a large part of the mid field and Daniel and Jean-Eric produced some exciting passing moves to get back in the points zone. We ran different strategies, to try and make the most of any opportunity, with Daniel starting on the hard tyre and running a longer first stint and, by the final stages this proved to be slightly quicker than Jev’s, although they both made two stops. The most positive aspect of today’s performance is that our pace seems to be back at the relative level we had earlier this season. We are now looking forward to a competitive performance at our home race in Monza.”

Sauber
Nico Hulkenberg, 13th
“I was able to improve a couple of positions at the start. It was tight but I managed quite well. I had a good first lap, but the pace was missing pretty much from the beginning. The car was difficult to drive. We were lacking a good balance throughout the whole weekend and during the race, and the tyres started to go off pretty quickly. We had to pit earlier than planned. Overall, we were simply missing speed today.”

Esteban Gutierrez, 14th
“From where I started I had to make progress and be clever about how much I could push. It was a matter of finding the right balance between pushing and taking care of the tyres, and I found that balance pretty well. I just focused on being as quick as possible, trying to manage the tyres well and getting the most out of the car. We lost a lot of time in the first stint with the traffic I encountered as I was coming from the back of the field. The strategy we planned was not ideal, so we had to change it and that still wasn’t perfect. I totally respect the FIA ‘s decision to penalise me for overtaking Pastor, but I don’t agree with the penalty. To be able to fight and to extract the maximum today is good to know. Now we have to improve in qualifying, because I think with the pace we have we can still fight for the top ten.”

Tom McCullough, Sauber, head of track engineering
“In the end the race was dry, and we opted for a two stop strategy for both cars. For Nico it was clear from the early part of the race he was struggling with the balance of the car, and the second and third stints were simply not fast enough to score points today. We need to understand why that is when we get the car back and analyse the data. It was clear that for Esteban starting so far back would be difficult, but his pace and tyre management was strong, and it was unfortunate he ended up with a drive through penalty. Otherwise he would have been close to the points towards the end of the race. Now we will regroup and are looking forward to Monza in two weeks time.”

Monisha Kaltenborn Sauber team principal
“We expected more this weekend. On a performance level, we were able to close the gap to our direct competitors. However, we weren’t able to translate that into points. We have to have a look at the data as to why Nico’s performance decreased during the race. Esteban did a good job, but the drive through penalty made it impossible for him to score points.”

Williams
Valtteri Bottas, 15th
“Today’s race was not the easiest for us. We were struggling for pace in sector two and this made it difficult to get close to the cars in front and once I had been overtaken it was very difficult to regain the place. We will have to go away and understand why our race pace was not as strong today as it has been and try to make improvements in time for Monza.”

Pastor Maldonado, 17th
“I had a good start and I immediately picked up a number of places, but we struggled for pace in the second stint and I was not able to push and overtake the cars in front. I then had a collision with Di Resta in the final corner when our lines crossed as I was entering the pits. It was a difficult situation because I was fighting hard with the Sauber and I didn’t see Di Resta on the outside as I turned toward the pit lane. I tried to brake to avoid the accident but it was too late. It wasn’t a good weekend for us but we need to keep working hard and improving the performance of the car.”

Xevi Pujolar, Williams Chief race engineer
“Pastor and Valtteri both made good starts on the medium tyre and our initial pace was good. We switched to the hard tyre for the second stints to allow us more flexibility if the forecasted rain arrived in the late stages, however the race remained dry and our pace on the hard compound tyres wasn’t quick enough compared to our nearest competitors. We also had the added challenge of a radio problem with Pastor which began shortly before the second pitstop and then as he came in for his pitstop he was involved in an incident with Di Resta which resulted in him needing a new front wing. Pastor then received a 10-second stop-and-go penalty for the incident which dropped him down the order. Valtteri had a clean race but after being held up initially during his medium tyre stint, we just didn’t have enough pace on the hard compound to progress beyond P15 today.”

Laurent Debout, Renault Sport F1 team support leader
“Sadly we have not been able to capitalise on the improved form we showed in Hungary. The variable track conditions put us out of position in qualifying yesterday and as a result we were unable to make an impression in the race. We’ll hope for better in Monza.”

Caterham
Giedo van der Garde, 16th
“My start was good. I had clear space going into turn one and held 14th place until mid-way through lap two, but then it wasn’t really possible to hold off some of the cars who’d started behind us. Realistically, we’d expected that to happen so I was focused on pulling away from Bianchi and Chilton and giving myself a big enough gap to manage the race we’d planned. I’d started on a set of mediums which we managed well. My first stop was on lap 15 when we went onto a set of new hards and I rejoined in 19th. That set was also working well until about lap 26 when the rears started to go off so we pushed for another couple of laps and then came in for the second stop on lap 29. The final stint was on another set of hard tyres and from there I was well clear of both Marussias and had a really good fight with Maldonado for 16th right to flag, pushing as hard as I could to keep that place. Overall this has been a really good weekend. It would have been interesting to see what would have happened if it had rained today, but for what was effectively my first home F1 race I think we got the maximum for the car. Saturday was an incredible feeling and I’m really pleased we could give the team, our partners and the fans such a lift in qualifying – now we have to make sure we can do the same for the rest of the season whenever the chances come our way.”

Charles Pic, DNF
“We started on a set of options and I was off the line cleanly with no problems on lap one. I passed both Chilton and Bianchi and by lap eight was catching my teammate but then I was told to box as we had an oil leak so we stopped the car to avoid any damage to the new engine we used today. Racing’s sometimes like this – we had good pace on Friday and Saturday, the car felt well balanced and we’d made some progress. While today’s race obviously didn’t go to plan I’m not down about it – we have another chance in Monza in two weeks to continue to build on the gap to our nearest rivals and I’m sure we’ll bounce back there.”

Marussia
Jules Bianchi, 18th
“It was a tough race today, made more difficult by the fact that I had a radio problem from the start. Our pace was not as good as we hoped for, which was a shame. Although it was going to be hard to hang on to our grid positions if it didn’t rain, we were looking for something more after a good result yesterday. As it remained dry we were not presented with the sort of opportunities we were hoping might come our way. However, we did get a two-car finish and also we continue to hold position in the championship, so we will now look to Monza for more of an improvement we hope.”

Max Chilton, 19th
“A long race today, not just in terms of laps and lap distance, but more the fact that the dry conditions made the race quite uneventful for us. The threat of rain meant that we had thought through and prepared for so many different scenarios, so we would be in a position to capitalise on any opportunity to move up the order, but as it turned out much of the homework was not required. So we’re disappointed with the race but encouraged by signs earlier in the weekend and I hope we can make more of those in Monza in two weeks’ time.”

John Booth, Marussia team principal
“A long race today, not just in terms of laps and lap distance, but more the fact that the dry conditions made the race quite uneventful for us. The threat of rain meant that we had thought through and prepared for so many different scenarios, so we would be in a position to capitalise on any opportunity to move up the order, but as it turned out much of the homework was not required. So we’re disappointed with the race but encouraged by signs earlier in the weekend and I hope we can make more of those in Monza in two weeks’ time.”

Pirelli
Paul Hembery, Pirelli motorsport director
“With qualifying yesterday finishing in wet conditions, the drivers were allowed to start the race on whichever compound they preferred, opening up the possibilities for different strategies still further. A number of drivers and teams maximised these opportunities to the utmost today, especially Sebastian Vettel and Red Bull, who controlled the race. But we also saw some very good strategy calls all the way down the grid, which enabled many drivers to improve on their start positions. Following the uncertain weather earlier in the weekend, this was actually quite a straightforward Belgian Grand Prix, with dry conditions from start to finish and no safety car periods. But Spa remains probably the ultimate test of a Formula One tyre, with its long lap and high energy loadings, so the performance and durability of our tyres after a hard-fought race on one of the most epic tracks in the world were very much in line with our expectations.”

August 26, 2013
F1 2013: Belgium GP Review – Vettel saunters to Spa Victory

The Belgium GP isn’t one to be associated with processional racing. However, when the leader of the race is the young, three time world champion – it doesn’t have much of say.

Lewis Hamilton snatched pole position on Saturday from the grasp of Sebastian Vettel but that was as close to beating the German as Hamilton was going to get this weekend. As the weather held firm over the Spa circuit, Vettel pounced on Hamilton immediately and took the lead of the race as the field headed into Les Combes at the top of the hill. Fernando Alonso upheld his illustrious reputation at the start of grand prix as he transformed ninth on the grid to fifth by the end of lap one.

The day was to belong to the championship leader and there was no looking back for the defending champion as he expertly controlled the race from the front. Driving within himself and nursing his first stint tyres Vettel opened a gap of seven seconds over Mercedes driver Lewis Hamilton. Further down the field the Lotus pair of Romain Grosjean and Kimi Raikkonen had made little progress from their starting positions. Nevertheless, Raikkonen was able to overtake several drivers to get himself solidly into the point. However, smoking brakes on the starting grid was an indication that the Finn could run into trouble later in the race. Several radio messages later Raikkonen pulled the Lotus into the pits and retired from the Belgium GP bringing to an end a 28 race point scoring streak.

Despite being felled by the brake issue Raikkonen was having substantial difficulty in passing cars on the Radillon straight – even with DRS. It’s not a new problem for the Lotus team as they experienced the same issue in last year’s Belgium and Indian grand prix. It was during last year’s Spa race that Raikkonen was instructed to overtake then Mercedes driver Michael Schumacher to which the Iceman responded with one of his ever-popular monotone quips – ” then give me more power.” It seems top end speed is still haunting the Lotus team; and this ahead of the power hungry Monza.

There was very little excitement throughout the rest of race as Vettel seemingly cruised at the front. Fernando Alonso made short work of Hamilton and took over second place but that is where his progress would cease. Although the Ferrari team managed to put together a much better performance this weekend Alonso will still be asking for more from his Italian team. The Spaniard may have finished second in the race and taken over second place in the standings but in truth he was nowhere near to matching the Red Bull’s pace. The number one Red Bull was comfortably in the lead of the race but Vettel was nevertheless instructed to progressively open the gap to Alonso should there be a threat of rain. The rain never arrived by Vettel was able to extend his lead by a second per lap and never looked on the edge while doing so.

The race for the top three positions between Vettel, Alonso and Hamilton seemed settled but a handful of peculiar incidents caused several drivers to be slapped with penalties. Sergio Perez was the first driver to be hit with a drive-through penalty for ‘crowding’ Lotus’ Grosjean off the track at the entry to Les Combes. The Mexican driver was well past the Frenchman who appeared to outbrake himself and race off the circuit. Perez has been known for hot-headed moves in the past but this time the McLaren driver was in the clear.

An incident involving Pastor Maldonado, Adrian Sutil, Esteban Gutierrez and Paul di Resta saw the latter bunted out of the race. Force India’s Sutil cut short an attempted overtaking my Maldonado but would have dire consequences for his teammate. As Maldonado failed to check his mirrors he appeared to dive for the pits triggering contact with Gutierrez who in turn smashed the rear of di Resta’s car to pieces. Maldonado was given a ten second stop/go penalty.

On a quieter, somewhat anonymous note, Nico Rosberg brought his Mercedes home in fourth ahead of Mark Webber and Jenson Button. Felipe Massa, who has been given two races to save his Ferrari seat, finished seventh ahead of Grosjean, Sutil and Daniel Ricciardo. Toro Rosso’s Ricciardo was the biggest gainer of the day by going from nineteenth on the grid to finish tenth and score one championship point.

Straightforward victory in the Belgium GP is the 31st of Sebastian Vettel’s career. It is also enough to give the triple world champion his biggest margin, 46 points, at the top of the standings. Eight races remain and it is now evident that whoever wants to win this driver’s championship need to make a move – yesterday.

August 25, 2013
F1 2013 Mid Season Review

Starting with a hazardous Australian Grand Prix with ever changing weather conditions to a controlled race in Hungary we’ve had everything from tyre explosions to loose wheels, pitlane accidents, cars on fire and controversy galore. The 2013 F1 season has been a thrilling, wild ride for teams, drivers and fans alike.

With ten races behind us, it’s time to look at the season so far and how things have been shaping up.

Here is our F1 2013 Mid Season Review ahead of what is set to be an tumultuous second half of the season.

Red Bull Racing – 277 points

Sebastian Vettel – 172 points, Mark Webber – 105 points

Red Bull is still the team to beat and are the only team to really maximise their results every race so far this season. Leading the championship with 60 points over Mercedes in second place, it’s bound to be business as usual for the team following the break. Sebastian Vettel is sitting pretty in the drivers’ championship too – 38 points ahead of his nearest rival, Kimi Raikkonen in second place.

Vettel has raced all out so far this season – even defying team orders to score an extra 6 points – and remains on track for his 4th world championship.

Red Bull have an incredibly quick car – perhaps the quickest on the grid – and have remained incredibly consistent but have suffered like the other teams with tyre degradation issues and saw Vettel retiring from the British Grand Prix with mechanical failures. Vettel however will be very hard to beat going forward and his rivals know it.

Mark Webber, who announced that he will be leaving F1 at the end of the season, has had a more inconsistent – and really unlucky – season. Webber has had no wins yet this season but you can be sure that he’ll be looking to add to his nine career wins before he bows out of F1. His frustration became very clear in Malaysia when Vettel defied team orders to pass Webber for what would have been his only win this season.

Mercedes – 208 points

Lewis Hamilton – 124 points, Nico Rosberg – 84 points

With Niki Lauda and Toto Wolff assuming high profile positions and Lewis Hamilton joining the Brackley based team, all eyes were on Mercedes even before the season got underway.

Nobody expected Hamilton to be challenging for race wins in his first season at Mercedes, but he was on the podium within two races and took his first race win at the Hungarian Grand Prix.

Team mate Nico Rosberg has already recorded two race wins so far this season and continues to impress.

Mercedes has made quite a turn-around this season and their prospects are not looking bad at all. With a 69 point deficit to championship leaders Red Bull, it seems unlikely that they will challenge for the championship though.

Ferrari – 194 points

Fernando Alonso – 133 points, Felipe Massa – 61 points

A mid season review of the Ferrari team’s performance so far this year, seems all too familiar. Ferrari started off really well with both drivers having a really good start to their season.

Alonso banked a solid second place at the first race in Australia, and Massa also started off well – regularly out-qualifying his team mate and recording point finishes.

But things have been on a downward spiral after Alonso’s wins in Spain and China. In contrast to the 2012 season when Alonso had a 40 point lead at the summer break, the team has lost their second place in the championship and qualifying seems to be a big problem for the team. Massa was struck by a number of crashes and race retirements pushing him far behind his team mate as far the driver standings go.

They’ve just not kept up with the pace of development at Red Bull. Alonso has slipped back into third place in the championship – but it would be silly to discount the Spaniard just yet – his entire championship lead was wiped clean by Vettel in the second half of the 2012 season so that should be a clear indication of how quickly things can change.

Lotus – 183 points

Kimi Raikkonen – 134 points, Romain Grosjean – 49 points

The Lotus F1 Team started the 2013 season on a high, with a win for Kimi Raikkonen at the Australian Grand Prix. But that early strong form has not led to further victories for Raikkonen or the team, with the Finn collecting five second-place finishes and teammate Romain Grosjean – the former ‘first lap nutcase’ added two third-places to his name.

Lotus have been in the midst of the battle at every race. Their constant evolution and the way the tyres work for them has made this team a contender for the podium every race weekend. But their downfall is Saturday qualifying – the E21 has simply not had the outright pace in qualifying to make Sundays a little easier for the team.

Raikkonen has moved up to second place in the championship, one point ahead of Alonso, but if he hopes to catch Vettel they’re going to need to start winning races and with technical director James Allison leaving for Ferrari, it remains to be seen whether they’ll be able to keep up the development pace that will be required to catch the Red Bull.

Force India – 59 points

Paul di Resta – 36 points, Adrian Sutil – 23 points

For the purposes of a mid season review it can be said that Force India have had a pretty impressive season in general – especially in the earlier part of the calendar. Their car has far outshone the team’s resources and their drivers have both delivered on track, scoring points and making Force India’s mark as the strongest of the mid-field teams.

Adrian Sutil, who recently celebrated his 100th race, has driven really well especially in Monaco when he fearlessly overtook his rivals on the narrow street circuit. But unfortunately, like his team mate Paul Di Resta, the pace has just not lasted and they’ve both been rather lack-lustre of late. The final two races before the mid season break were their worst of the year so far and the tyre change in Budapest seemed to affect them particularly negatively.

Both drivers have worked really hard though and this has culminated in the team now ahead of McLaren in the Constructors’ championship. The Woking-based team is breathing down their necks though and they’ll have to pull up their socks in the remainder of the season if they hope to hold onto 5th place in the championship.

McLaren – 57 points

Jenson Button – 39 points, Sergio Perez – 18 points

The fact that McLaren is being discussed this far down in the mid season review should be a clear indication of the difficult, disappointing season the Woking-based team have had. McLaren are used to being in the heat of the battle for the championship but are currently on 6th in the standings, behind Force India. The dramatic slump in their form will certainly be a surprise to most.

Their drivers both try really hard – sometimes a little too hard as is often the case with Sergio Perez, but their car can’t keep up and they’re left fighting the mid-field.

Jenson Button’s strategy calls have been his only saving grace – in the last four races he was able to challenge for 5th and 6th places but this is obviously not where the team are used to being.

McLaren has said that they are no longer developing their 2013 car and are now working on their 2014 car instead, so don’t expect too much from them in the second half of the season. Jenson Button however has said he is very positive going into the Belgian Grand Prix and has predicted a podium at Spa. Let’s wait and see how that pans out.

Toro Rosso – 24 points

Daniel Ricciardo – 11 points, Jean-Eric Vergne – 13 points

Toro Rosso may not be fighting for titles and race wins but they have shown some significant progress during the season so far.

Daniel Ricciardo, who is still first in line for Mark Webber’s Red Bull seat, has put in some very strong qualifying performances.

Team mate Jean-Eric Vergne has brought home some very impressive race drives. With Vergne out of the running for the Red Bull seat, one can only hope that the Frenchman will still come out fighting for the rest of the season as the battle of the team mates has been the most interesting thing to watch within the Toro Rosso team.

It is unsure how long Toro Rosso will continue development on their current car, given the mammoth task of developing the much-changed 2014 cars that lies ahead.

Sauber – 7 points

Nico Hulkenberg – 7 points, Esteban Gutierrez – 0 points

Sauber has had a really challenging season so far and the mid season review of their performance leaves a disappointed taste in the mouth. Everyone had great hopes for Sauber – their car was the star of the 2013 car launches, but things have just not materialised for the team.

I guess a lot can be blamed on their budget and financial troubles but from the very beginning Sauber were on the back foot with a car that has struggled from the word go, and two brand new drivers in the team.

Nico Hulkenberg has done his best with the car he’s been given and has managed to secure 7 points for the team. His team mate Esteban Gutierrez has not done too badly for a rookie but has failed to bring home any points.

Sauber have closed a deal with Russian investors to help save the team, so let’s hope that pans out well for them or we may never see a C-33.

Williams – 1 point

Pastor Maldonado – 1 point, Valtteri Bottas – 0 points

At the back of the grid it’s been a very disappointing season for the Williams team. After winning a race last year in the FW34 we all expected much more from the FW35 but alas. They only scored their first point for the entire season at the Hungarian Grand Prix in Budapest.

The car lacks downforce and both Pastor Maldonado and team mate Valtteri Bottas have found the car difficult to drive, resulting in the team doing a mid season review of their own and overhauling their technical team. Most notably, technical director Mike Coughlan has left the team and been replaced by former Renault and Marussia man, Pat Symonds. He is bound to make a huge difference to the team but I’m afraid it’s a little too late to expect it to make a difference for the 2013 season though so let’s hope they’re already working on next year’s car.

Marussia – 0 points

Jules Bianchi – 0 points, Max Chilton – 0 points)

Marussia continues their battle for tenth place in the championship with the Caterham team. They started the season very impressively and after the Australian Grand Prix you would have been forgiven for thinking they may even be set to trouble the mid-field teams this season, but instead they’ve pretty much been racing the Caterham team all season.

They have gained a lot since last year though, especially in the form of rookie driver Jules Bianchi who has had some impressive performances.

His fellow rookie team mate Max Chilton has struggled a little to come to grips with driving an F1 car but the Marussia team have been impressed by his consistency and the feedback they get from him.

They’ve been dealt a pretty big blow with Pat Symonds leaving for Williams but for now, they still hold on to tenth place thanks to Bianchi’s 13th place finish in Malaysia.

We’re not expecting much in terms of development from the Marussia team for the rest of the season but for now, it seems they should be able to stay ahead of the green machines for the remainder of the season.

Caterham – 0 points

Charles Pic – 0 points, Giedo van der Garde – 0 points

Caterham’s season has been an uphill battle all the way. The team was targeting the mid-field but have just not managed to make any headway. It was only after Heikki Kovalainen was called in to advise the team that they started making some headway and finally in Bahrain – at the fourth race of the season – they managed to out qualify Marussia.

Slowly but surely their car has been improving and their upgrades have steadily resulted in progress. In Hungary they were able to easily out qualify both Marussia’s.

Both Giedo van der Garde and Charles Pic have put in solid performances, doing they best they can with what they have so they’ll be hoping that they can take back tenth from Marussia before the end of the season.

And that’s a wrap on our mid season review of the 2013 Formula 1 season. The first half of the season has been a thrilling one but has been dominated by tyres. With that behind us, and teams now on revised Pirelli rubber, the second half of the season should see some real battles taking shape. As we head to Spa for the Belgian Grand Prix you can bet that everyone will be bringing their A game.

What are you hoping for in the second half of the season? Share your thoughts in the comments section below.

Photo credits:

Photo of Bianchi’s car on fire – F1 Madness screen grab

Photo of Vettel gearbox failure – F1 Madness screen grab, Sky Sports HD

Lewis Hamilton after the Hungarian GP – Mercedes F1 Twitter Team

Massa and Alonso – Ferrari F1 Twitter team

Raikkonen – Lotus F1 Team

Adrian Sutil – Force India Twitter team

Jenson Button – Wikimedia Commons

Daniel Ricciardo – Red Bull Twitter Team

Sauber launch – Sauber F1 Team

Pastor Maldonado – Williams F1 Twitter Team

Max Chilton – Marussia F1 Twitter team

Giedo van der Garde – MyCaterham Twitter team

August 19, 2013