Formula 1 News

2010 Turkish GP, race: Team quotes 

Vijay Mallya: “After the various issues we’ve had over the weekend, it’s very satisfying to come away from Turkey with some more points to our name. Adrian drove a great race and richly deserved his points today. Tonio has had a harder weekend and we really need to understand why he’s not getting the grip he needs to be able to regain his earlier season form. That will be the focus for next week so when we get to Canada we can have a chance at another double points finish. We’ve also got some work to do on our SRW and when we do, I hope we’ll be mixing it again with the top end.”

Franz Tost: “As we have seen in past races, our performance on Sunday is much better than in qualifying and today yet again, both our drivers had good race pace. So we now need to concentrate on transferring that good level to qualifying, as your race is won or lost dependent on your grid position. It’s difficult to score points when you start from far back. The team did a good job in terms of our tactics: unlike the majority, we started on the Prime tyre, as we expected the Option to struggle in the early laps. In the second stint, the Option did indeed bring a better pace. In the later stages, we saw that although Alguersuari was close to De La Rosa, he could not pass him and, as Liuzzi was around 19 seconds behind, we called him for another tyre change and if the race had been one or two laps longer, Jaime could have got the Saubers and scored a point. Unfortunately, Buemi had a collision with Hulkenberg on the opening lap. The Williams front wing clipped Seb’s right rear wheel and after pitting for new tyres, he went out again with a damaged floor and parts missing from the right rear brake duct. Nevertheless, he did quite good lap times for the rest of the race.”

Ross Brawn: “A solid performance today in which we achieved the potential of the car with both drivers. We had a purposefully quiet early part of race as we were unable to challenge the leading group and therefore decided to save our tyres for the second half. Michael, Nico and the team did an extremely good job with the car that we had and once again our pit stops were very impressive. Compliments to them all today. We have made reasonable progress with our latest set of upgrades thanks for the hard work of everyone at the factory but clearly we have a lot of work still to do.”

Norbert Haug: “Fourth and fifth positions for Michael and Nico were the best results we could achieve today as our pace was only ok in the last third of the race. We are aware that we need further improvements and we definitely will get them. Congratulations to McLaren Mercedes and Lewis Hamilton for achieving the 71st victory for Mercedes-Benz since our first win with David Coulthard in a McLaren Mercedes in Melbourne 1997. Four Mercedes-powered cars came home in the top five today which is a remarkable result, especially for our hard-working engine guys, so well done to you all.”

Eric Boullier: “Overall it has been a very satisfying weekend. Both cars have run well and we had both drivers in the top ten in qualifying for the first time this year. In the race today we again showed the strength of our car and the progress we have made recently, but it was a shame that we couldn’t jump ahead of the Mercedes with Robert during the pit stops because we felt we were quicker than them. As for Vitaly, he has been excellent this weekend and drove a very strong race, pushing Massa hard and fighting well against Alonso. It’s cruel luck to pick up a puncture so close to the end because he really deserved a good result after such a strong weekend.”

Alan Permane: “We’ve had a really strong weekend here and until the last couple of laps it had been a fairly straightforward race. Both cars spent most of the race stuck in the train of cars behind the Mercedes and so it was difficult to see the true pace of the car. We therefore need to work on our qualifying pace to try and get ahead of them on the grid so we can realise our full potential. Robert was as solid as ever and hasn’t put a foot wrong all weekend so it was good to score some more points with him. Vitaly was also very impressive today and had very strong race pace. It’s a real shame that he picked up a puncture while he was fighting with Alonso, but he can be very proud of his performance today.”

Remi Taffin: “Vitaly had a fresh engine for this race, while Robert was on his third race and will have a new engine for Canada. We had no concerns during the race and that allowed Robert and Vitaly to push hard all afternoon. Both cars were working well and both drivers did a great job, but it was such a shame for Vitaly to get the puncture so close to the end. He has done an excellent job this weekend and really deserved to score some points.”

Martin Whitmarsh: “Today’s race had everything: drama, suspense, excitement and a perfect result from a Vodafone McLaren Mercedes point of view. The 43 world championship points we earned from our one-two finish have propelled us to the top of the constructors’ world championship. But we’re particularly encouraged by the fact that, despite our having to ask both our drivers to drive with fuel conservation in mind from early in the race, it was immediately clear that Lewis had the pace to pull away if only he could have passed Mark – and he very nearly did on a number of occasions. It was edge-of-the-seat stuff – and Jenson was pushing Sebastian pretty hard just a few hundred metres behind. After the Red Bulls fell over each other, Lewis and Jenson raced each other pretty hard whilst still driving with fuel conservation in mind, and I imagine their dice made hugely entertaining TV, too. On the slow-down lap, Jenson congratulated Lewis on the radio, which is an eloquent illustration of the affection and respect they have for each other. Looking forward to the Canadian Grand Prix in two weeks’ time, we’re pleased to have closed the performance gap to Red Bull, and are hopeful of bagging another hefty haul of world championship points in Montreal. But I want to stress that I can only say that as a result of the fact that everyone in the entire Vodafone McLaren Mercedes team – our drivers, our engineers, our mechanics and every single person who works so hard back at the McLaren Technology Centre in Woking – is so motivated, so driven and so committed to the cause.”

Peter Sauber: “Looking at the whole weekend it’s clear we were able to confirm the upward trend which we saw in Barcelona. Of course we were lucky in the race, but we finished with both cars and finally scored a well deserved championship point.”

James Key: “I’m very pleased we scored a point at this event. It was also good that we had a two car finish. It was fairly eventful in many ways, because, to begin with, it was a case of making sure we were matching the top ten pace, which Kamui did superbly well. He stayed very close behind Fernando Alonso. On the strategy side of things, we decided to bring the cars in early, and particularly Kamui given his tyres were several laps old after doing Q3 with a used set of tyres. That seemed to be the right call. Unfortunately he was held up slightly at his pit stop, which cost him two seconds. Without that he could have been further ahead. Towards the end Kamui’s tyres went off quite badly at the front, and he lost quite a lot of lap time, which allowed Pedro and some other cars to catch him up. But the fact is both came home in tenth and 11th. I think this is deserved by everyone and we should be very pleased with this result.”

Sam Michael: “We finished roughly where we qualified today. Rubens had a problem with anti-stall off the start, it wasn’t a driver issue. Shortly after his pitstop, he then had a throttle control problem which dropped him back down the order again. The problem reduced so he was able to continue the race, but we’ll be stripping the car down to identify what caused it. Nico came together with another car on the opening lap which damaged his front wheel. That forced him into a premature pitstop, so the rest of his race was consumed with tyre management. For the forthcoming events, our objective will be achieving better qualifying and race performance.”

Christian Horner: “It’s disappointing for the team to have got into that position today. The one thing I always ask the drivers is that, yes, they can race each other, but give each other room, and that’s exactly what didn’t happen. They were too far over on the left, Sebastian got a run on the inside of Mark, but then came across too early. They didn’t give each other room; it’s as simple as that. It was a massively close race between us and the McLarens up until that point. We managed to get ourselves ahead with a better pit-stop and a better strategy for Sebastian and were first and second. Sebastian was a bit happier on the prime tyre than Mark and was looking quicker at that point in the race. He got a run on Mark up the inside and we saw what happened. It’s massively disappointing and the situation shouldn’t have occurred. To give McLaren 28 points on a plate is very frustrating for everyone in the team – especially after so much hard work. We’ve lost a lot of points today with what’s happened. We need to learn from it, so we don’t find ourselves in this position again.”

Fabrice Lom: “Today’s result is a big shame. We had a very good result in our hands, but unfortunately we didn’t cement it. But, if we want to keep the positive, we have to underline that both cars were trouble free mechanically today – the engines performed very well and we gave a very good defence on the long straight against the McLarens. We are still in a good position in both Championships, so let’s put this behind us and recover for the next race in Canada.”

Colin Kolles: “It was a difficult race for us. We were running well and making good progress, gaining good experience. It was disappointing to have one car retire on a fuel system problem and Karun Chandhok not finish higher than 20th. We now look ahead to the next race in Canada.”

John Booth: “To finish the race with both cars and as the best of the new teams is a fantastic reward for the whole team, who’ve worked incredibly hard all weekend to contend with the various issues that cropped up. After the power loss issue with the engine yesterday, the very last thing we needed just an hour before the race was an issue with the engine oil system, which had us taking the car to pieces to get to the engine when we would have been in the final throes of our race countdown. On one side of the garage we were calmly executing the grid sequence with Timo, but it was quite a different story on the other side of the garage where the guys were faced with the seemingly impossible odds to get Lucas’ car together and out into the race. They were an absolute credit to us today.”

Stefano Domenicali: “This was definitely a very poor weekend for us and it’s a shame we were unable to celebrate our 800th Grand Prix in a worthy manner. We did not have the performance level we expected and we were definitely inferior to the two teams which dominated the Turkish weekend. We are at the level of the second group of drivers; those who were fighting throughout the Grand Prix, all within a few seconds of one another. But we know what an influence qualifying has on the final result and yesterday we struggled even more than usual in this area. This afternoon, we did what we could: Felipe didn’t make any mistakes and Fernando managed to make up a few places with the pit stop and by passing Petrov. Now we must make a step forward to close the performance gap: our engineers are capable and ready, as they have shown so often and I am sure they will be able to do it again, improving the performance of the F10. We are entering the crucial phase of the championship and we have to do everything to tackle it in the best possible shape.”

Chris Dyer: “Given the position of our two cars on the starting grid, this is an acceptable result. What is not however, is our performance level this weekend, given that it definitely did not match our expectations. Felipe was always in traffic and never had a chance to overtake those immediately ahead of him. Fernando drove a good race, making up a few places thanks to the strategy and pulling off a nice passing move on Petrov at the end. When he made contact with the Russian driver’s Renault, he also damaged a wheel rim, but luckily he was able to finish the race and take points that are definitely valuable on a weekend like this.”

Mike Gascoyne: “Obviously very disappointing to have two cars go out on the same lap when we were having such a strong race, our strongest performance all year. We started the cars with Jarno on the harder tyre, and Heikki on the soft – Heikki was slightly quicker on the option to start with, but towards the end of the stint Jarno was catching him. We were hanging on for the pitstops, monitoring the rain situation, but then had sudden hydraulic failures on both cars. Heikki’s was a leak from the power steering, and with Jarno we don’t know as yet what the specific issue was. Despite that we have to keep our chins up after what was a really strong weekend from the whole team, fix these problems and move on.”

Tony Fernandes: “This looked like it was going to be a great weekend for us so it’s obviously very disappointing to have it all brought to an end in such a fashion, after what was probably our best race so far. Jarno and Heikki should be very proud of the times they put in, and the whole team should be pleased with how far we’ve come. This is a low but to be champions we have to deal with the lows, learn from them and move on. It all reminds me of the early days of AirAsia, but we have just been awarded the title of world’s best low cost airline for the second year running, so I know we can repeat that with this team, and one day be victorious. Onwards and upwards, and now we’ll focus on Montreal.”