Formula 1 News

2010 Canadian GP, race: Team quotes 

Sam Michael: “We had lots of issues during the race today. On Rubens car, we had an anti-stall at the race start, from which he made a reasonable recovery; however he then lost some positions at turn 2 because of an accident in front of him. Shortly after his first pit stop for prime tyres, he came together with another car and had to pit again for a front wing change. Nico had a good first lap, then ran into the back of another car on lap 6, forcing him to pit for a spare front wing. He made reasonable progress then, but had to take a drive through penalty for speeding in the pit lane.”

Stefano Domenicali: “This result is very regrettable as it does not match up to the potential we had shown this weekend. Fernando, who drove a great race, could have won, but a few incidents did not work in his favour: these things can happen in racing, but that does not make it any less disappointing. Felipe seems to be particularly unlucky here in Montreal, given that something always happens : it doesn’t happen often that a driver has to change his nose twice because of incidents that were not his fault. A shame, as he too showed the car’s potential. Indeed, that is the most comforting aspect of this weekend in that we are back fighting for the top places. The fact we came here with a car virtually identical to the one we had in Turkey where we were definitely not competitive, is cause for thought: it only takes a few elements – circuit characteristics, tyres – to change the picture. Now we must push as hard as possible on the development of the F10: in Valencia in a fortnight’s time, we will have some significant updates, but then we must continue to improve the car to be in the fight right to the end. The Drivers’ championship is very open and if the Constructors’ one looks a bit trickier, the situation can change really quickly.”

Chris Dyer: “On the one hand, there is satisfaction with the performance level we showed today, but on the other there is the disappointment with a result that did not live up to our expectations. We had everything in place to win: the speed of the car, the best strategic choice in terms of tyres, the quality of the work of the team at the pit stops. Unfortunately, a handful of unfavourable moments cost us the win. Felipe had a very unlucky race: here, the first corner is always very risky and he was caught up in a collision that was not his fault. Then, when he had at least looked like picking up a small number of points, important for the championship, there was the other incident with Schumacher. It is regrettable, because we should have left Montreal with many more points to our name.”

John Booth: “Our debut Canadian Grand Prix has been a challenging one, but we have enjoyed the experience and learned a lot from it. Today the team executed an incredible eight pit stops to cope with the tyre issues we were experiencing and each one was slick and fast, so congratulations to our pit stop crew who have now had enough practice for this race and the next! With Timo’s race over, Lucas did a great job to nurse his car to the chequered flag to ensure we were able to take away some reward from a tough weekend. So it’s onwards and upwards now as we head back to Europe for the second half of the season.”

Nick Wirth: “For us, the worse-case tyre degradation that we planned for occurred, and the team did an unprecedented eight pit stops, all very smoothly. We came out of the first lap in reasonable shape but unfortunately Timo had been hit from behind which cost him over 10% of his downforce, mainly at the rear. With rear tyre degradation as the dominant factor, his possibility of being competitive was effectively over and he had to do a number of very short stints and cope with this issue. Lucas had a smoother run and did a great job running the low-downforce setup. We had a steering rack leak that stopped Timo and we saw a drop in hydraulic pressure on Lucas’s car with about 10 laps to go, so we elected to cruise to the end to ensure that we leave Montreal finishing one car like the other two new teams. The rack leak is unfortunate but easy to remedy and we’ll set about solving Lucas’s issue once it’s been identified. The whole Canadian GP experience has been very enlightening and gives us a lot of useful information for the other lower downforce races to come. Meanwhile, we’re all looking forward to deploying some significant performance upgrades during the next two GP’s whilst we continue to improve our reliability.”

Vijay Mallya: “Another double points finish for the team is a very positive result, but given our outstanding qualifying performance yesterday I think in my heart of hearts I would have hoped for more. Both drivers got caught in unfortunate accidents and dropped back but they drove excellently to salvage three points, which, given the circumstances of the race, is very good. We also picked up significant damage on both cars in the incidents and to still show that level of performance is very encouraging. What we have learnt this weekend is that we’ve got a very strong car that’s capable of fighting with the top four teams entirely on merit and we have two top line drivers who are functioning at their best. We’re really looking forward to Valencia now.”

Colin Kolles: “Today, we really could race with other teams and were fighting hard for good positions with the other teams. We were on a two-stopp-strategy like the top six drivers. On one side it was a good race because we could beat Virgin on track. But on the other hand I think that we could have had a better result. Bruno unfortunately had a gear box problem and this is why he had to stop the race.”

Eric Boullier: “It was obviously a tough race for the team in terms of strategy and, particularly, tyre management. Robert had a good first lap and gained some positions, but he suffered high degradation in his first and second stints, and that ultimately allowed Rosberg to gain position on us. His points were very hard-earned. As for Vitaly, there is not too much to say – he jumped the start, had an incident at the start and was penalised for both. We changed his strategy and hoped for a Safety Car that would allow him to gain positions but, for once in Canada, it never came. This wasn’t our best weekend of the year but we didn’t lose much ground to Mercedes in the championship and the basic pace of the car during qualifying was strong. We will hope to bounce back strongly in Valencia.”

Alan Permane: “This afternoon’s race was all about tyre degradation. We had hoped that our decision to qualify on the prime tyre with Robert would pay off, but we saw more degradation than expected in the first two stints, and that ultimately cost him position to Rosberg – even though we ran in front of him for much of the race. As for Vitaly, he had a character-building afternoon after receiving two drive-through penalties that put him out of contention early on. Although it’s frustrating not to have made the most of the car’s performance this weekend, the next circuit in Valencia should play to the strengths of our car, and we have more good developments in the pipeline.”

Remi Taffin: “It was a pretty difficult afternoon for the team. We were feeling optimistic after Robert made up places at the first corner, but then struggled to keep pace in the opening stints, which ultimately cost us a better finish. Even so, Robert finished seventh after starting eighth, so we cannot be too despondent. On the engine side, we had a trouble-free race and were able to push to the limit throughout. Now, we need to carry on working like we have done so far this year because we know we’re heading in the right direction. ”

Peter Sauber: “As is often the case in Canada, it was easy to score championship points today, however, we didn’t collect them. We lost one car which was in tenth at the end of lap one through an over optimistic move, and the second one through an engine failure.”

James Key: “All in all it was a really difficult weekend and a shame not to get to the end. Pedro had a collision in the mix of the first corner, which damaged his rear right tyre and front wing, so he had to come straight in. Kamui made an excellent start. He took advantage of the situation in front of him and got up to tenth. But then in the last corner he spun off – that was the end of his race. There was too much damage to the car to continue, which was a real shame because there was potential to score some points. When Pedro went out after his early pit stop his pace was extremely good, and he caught up to the people ahead of him. He then came in for a second stop because of the tyres degrading. We hoped he would make it to the end but then he had an engine problem which we need to diagnose. That was a pointless end to a difficult weekend, so we have to do better in the next race.”

Martin Whitmarsh: “I’m told I sometimes over-use the phrase ‘fantastic job’ when describing the performances of Lewis and Jenson, but I make no apology whatsoever for using that phrase again today. This afternoon’s race was extremely exciting from a spectacle point of view and decidedly challenging from a strategy point of view, and I think our engineers rose to that challenge supremely well. But, yes, Lewis and Jenson did indeed do a fantastic job here in Montreal this afternoon. They drove with controlled aggression when it was needed, tempered by patience and discipline when those qualities were required. I firmly believe that Vodafone McLaren Mercedes has the two best racing drivers in the world today. Now, we leave North America and head back to Europe, in first place in the constructors’ world championship, and in first place and second place in the drivers’ world championship. We never under-estimate our competitors, who are working every bit as hard to win grands prix and world championships as we are. There’s a long way to go yet, but I can say without fear of contradiction that every single person at Vodafone McLaren Mercedes is working as hard as he or she possibly can to maintain our positions at the top of both championship tables from here on in through to Abu Dhabi in November.”

Ross Brawn: “We had a messy start to the race which unfortunately is what happens when you start in the midfield. Nico was blocked and Michael was hit which broke part of his front wing. Nico then had a very good race to recover up to sixth place. We called the tyres perfectly, Nico was fast where he needed to be, looked after the car when required and generally had an excellent race. Michael was looking strong in the first phase of the race and was very well-placed. Unfortunately the incident with Kubica punctured the right front tyre and coming in for the extra stop meant we were out of phase with where we wanted to be with the tyres. With hindsight, it was over-ambitious to try and get the option to last as long as we did and Michael really struggled towards the end. We’ve come away with some points from the weekend but not as many as we would have hoped.”

Norbert Haug: “It was a great race today and fantastic for the sport and of course the spectators here in Montreal and worldwide in front of their televisions. Our speed looked much better today than in qualifying and it seemed like we were in for a good race with Michael as high as third place in the early phase of the race. Without the puncture, Michael could certainly have achieved a respectable result. For Nico, sixth place was a good result and posting the third fastest race lap shows that our speed compared to our competitors was better than yesterday in qualifying. However we need to improve our car further and we will. Congratulations to Vodafone McLaren Mercedes on their second one-two victory in a row. The victory marks the 72nd win powered by Mercedes-Benz in 224 races since 1997 which is an impressive score. Well done to McLaren and our committed engine guys in Brixworth and Stuttgart.”

Christian Horner: “It was an interesting race this afternoon. We tried something different strategically with the hard tyre, but despite managing to get our cars into a onetwo position, we didn’t have the pace to pull away on the hard tyre. We adopted different strategies for the two cars in the middle part of the race, putting Sebastian onto the soft tyre while putting Mark onto the hard. Unfortunately, halfway through the race, Sebastian had a gear box related issue, which we had to manage to ensure the car got to the finish. Mark finished just behind him after starting seventh on the grid. We shouldn’t be disappointed with fourth and fifth, they are still valuable points in both Championships and they have been gained at a circuit that we always knew we would be exposed at.”

Fabrice Lom: “In terms of the result, it wasn’t such a great weekend. We scored some points, but not as many as we expected after yesterday’s qualifying result. Having said that, this track is very hard for engines and the positive thing is that we had a trouble free weekend, which is encouraging.”

Mike Gascoyne: “I think overall we can be very happy with the race, and the whole weekend. The one disappointment was obviously Jarno’s problem – we will have to look at it in more detail, but it looks as though the vibration put paid to his race. Before he pulled over he was absolutely flying and the strategy would have really paid out for him, so that’s a plus. Heikki drove a fantastic race, fighting all the way with the guys in front, and kept it up right to the end to keep Petrov behind him. I think this weekend has been a massive step forward for the whole team. Rather than being just one of the new teams, we actually got stuck in and raced the teams ahead, which is what we wanted to do, so congratulations and thank you to the whole team for getting us to this position. In the end we lapped both of the other new teams, so it was a great effort, and again, well done!”

Tony Fernandes: “I’m very happy with the result today, and the whole weekend’s work. We got 42 laps from Jarno and Heikki drove an absolute cracker – beating a Renault was great, and Heikki did really well to hold him off, but the main aim for us is to get both cars home, and we’ll keep working on that back at the factory and at the track. Now we go to Valencia where we’ll be celebrating the 500th F1â„¢ race Lotus has competed in, and the ninth for Lotus Racing.”

Franz Tost: “I like coming to Montreal because Toro Rosso always seems to pick up points here and today we did it again, with the added pleasure of seeing one of our cars lead the race, albeit briefly. It was an exciting race for us, not entirely for the right reasons, as with forty laps to go, we saw that the exhaust was broken on Buemi’s car and we were concerned that he might not finish the race. Sebastien did a fantastic job, as did the entire team, because the engineers produced a good set-up on both cars and our strategy was absolutely correct. The four points Sebastien brought home today are very important for us as it means we move ahead of Williams in the Constructors’ Championship even if we are equal on points and they are also important for him, as he has had some bad luck so far this season and hopefully from now on he can deliver more good results. This was the first time here for both our drivers. Congratulations to the team here at the track, at the factory in Faenza and the wind tunnel in Bicester for their excellent work which has delivered this result.”