Formula 1 News

2011 Turkish GP, Race: Driver quotes 

Sebastien Buemi: “In general I am very happy with my race and I don’t think I could have done better. However, it’s true that in the final two laps I lost two places and if not for this we could have brought home a seventh place finish. But I could not even hold the steering wheel anymore because there was so much vibration coming through from the tyres: it was not due to tyre wear, so we will have to analyse carefully what happened as I had not felt this before. All the same, it was a great race and I pulled off plenty of overtaking moves and I fought hard. Scoring points after starting sixteenth is reason to be pleased. We decided to do only three pit stops, although it was clear that here it did not cost that much time to make a pit stop so that was an interesting situation. We are continuing to develop the car and have more parts coming which I hope can keep us fighting for points in the next few races.”

Jaime Alguersuari: “As usual, I did my best, pushing hard from the beginning. But I suffered a lot from degradation on the rear tyres, especially in the final stint. This meant I had a massive amount of oversteer, which is why I really had to come in for an additional fourth stop for fresh tyres towards the end. I don’t understand why my team-mate suffered much less than me in this respect, so we need to look at all the data to find out why. The next race is in Barcelona, which is obviously very important for me as it’s my home race. I have many good memories from there, including scoring points there last year.”

Jarno Trulli: “That was a reasonably good race, particularly in the early laps. I had another incredibly good start but was blocked in the first corner so couldn’t really exploit how well I’d got off the line. Early on I started fighting with the tyres so we changed to a three stop strategy which eventually worked out pretty well. However, the result today doesn’t really show how we have improved our performance so I think that when we get to Barcelona with the whole new package on the car we’ll really be able to fight with the midfield teams.”

Heikki Kovalainen: “That was a pretty tough afternoon. I had a couple of mechanical issues, with a small hydraulic leak which affected the DRS and the diff, and I think the strategy didn’t work out how we would have liked. Despite that it’s been another good weekend for the team and a two car finish was always a major goal here, but now it’s about looking forward to Spain and we’re all focusing on taking a big step forward there.”

Lewis Hamilton: “I got a pretty decent start but made a mistake on the opening lap and lost a lot of ground out of Turn Three when I was trying to go around Webber. That was the defining moment of my afternoon: if I hadn’t dropped behind Fernando [Alonso] and Jenson, I think I could have got up to third and battled for second in the race. The battle with Jenson was good and fair, as always, but that, and the fact that I had too much front-wing dialled into my car meant I struggled to look after the rear tyres; so my tyres were finished and that’s what kick-started the four-stop strategy. Considering the time I lost at my third stop [when a pair of cross-threading wheelnuts on the right-front caused a delay], I think we recovered reasonably well. I don’t think that made a huge difference to our overall finishing position, and I was quite happy with the way the car behaved once we’d taken out some wing. We were definitely able to do better today – but to start fourth and sixth and finish fourth and sixth was a good recovery.”

Jenson Button: “It’s a pity to finish so far back after everything in the first stint seemed to go so well. Strategy-wise, I don’t think we got it right today. My battle with Lewis was great fun and I there was a lot of excitement on the track, but I was disappointed to finish where I did: the car felt very good but we just went the wrong way on strategy. I think most people probably started the race aiming for a three-stopper, but because many of them damaged their tyres in the first stint, they changed their approach. We didn’t, and I was able to put a couple of laps on everyone and my tyres still felt pretty good – but I felt the next two stops were earlier than the tyres could have done, which is disappointing. We didn’t leave the stops late enough – the tyres were still good at the end of every stop, so we should have stayed out longer because it just made the last stint extremely difficult. During the final stint, I was trying to get the best out of the car but it’s so hard because the difference in pace between a fresh and used set of tyres is so great.”

Kamui Kobayashi: “It was a lot of fun today, I really enjoyed this race. I found overtaking here a lot easier than last year in Hungary. Before the race I had promised Peter (Sauber) to score points today. It is just one point now because we lost so much time due to a puncture, which was the result of touching Sébastien Buemi when I overtook him. Otherwise I think I could have finished seventh and score more points. The car was great and also the team had a very good strategy for me, so I want to thank them for this. In the end I had to be a bit careful and save the tyres, because the last stint was quite long with 20 laps, but it worked out well.”

Sergio Perez: “We had a good pace today and I clearly had a chance to score my first points. It is a real shame what happened on the first lap. Pastor Maldonado was braking quite hard in front of me and I couldn’t avoid hitting him. I broke my front wing and had to pit. Apart from that I found it quite difficult to manage the tyres – both compounds actually – but the car was really good. I will now continue to work with the team to improve my qualifying performance.”

Nico Rosberg: “My start today was fantastic to overtake Mark and be running in second place on the first lap, but from there I was struggling with my tyres on the first stint. Our strategy worked out well to bring me back into a decent position so we can be reasonably satisfied, and I’m happy to be in front of Jenson and just a few seconds behind Lewis in the McLarens. There is still a gap to the top but we have continued to improve the car this weekend. We don’t know exactly why we are better in qualifying than in the race but we will work on this. Overall I had another good weekend and I’m looking forward to Barcelona.”

Michael Schumacher: “A lot of fighting and action today, and that was probably the positive part of my race. Obviously I am not very happy with my weekend, but I’m responsible myself for the result. The incident with Petrov kind of dictated my race: we were very close and I was surprised that we touched but it was mostly my mistake. After making such an early stop, the way the race played out was given from there. What we can take away from this weekend in Turkey is that we have confirmed our good trend and we still have things to come to help us deliver more of our potential.”

Rubens Barrichello: “We struggled quite a bit with straight line speed today and at various points during the race I couldn’t use KERS which made it difficult to defend and I also struggled with it locking up under braking when I was charging. We had a better qualifying session but we need to make some changes to the car to ensure the rear tyres can get to the end of the race in good shape. So it is up to us to improve our pace.”

Pastor Maldonado: “It was difficult from the beginning of the race. It was difficult to maintain a consistent pace in the first two stints because I had a lot of oversteer. We had a much better pace towards the end of the race when on primes but I made a mistake by speeding in the pitlane which cost me a drive-through penalty.”

Adrian Sutil: “My start to the race was not too bad: I kept my position and had some good battles with the cars around me. The three-stop strategy was the right choice today and the soft tyres felt like the better race tyre so I stayed on them as much as possible. In the final laps I was fighting hard with Perez and that was a lot of fun. Ultimately we didn’t have the pace to race with the cars ahead of us and I think we got as much from the race as we could. The team is working hard to introduce a new aero package at the next few races, which will hopefully bring us a bit closer to the front.”

Paul Di Resta: “It was a tough start to the race, although I managed to hold my position on the first lap. However, as the race unfolded the pace didn’t seem quite there and that’s why we decided to change our strategy and make a fourth stop. When I was leaving the pits after my final stop, the team came on the radio and instructed me to stop. There was obviously a problem so I pulled up as soon as I could. It was unfortunate because the final part of the race would have been interesting on the fresh tyres.”

Vitaly Petrov: “It was an interesting race, and strategically it was challenging for all the teams. I think what really affected my position today was the collision with Michael early in the race. He hit my car and then I was stuck behind some slower drivers after the first pit stop. If this had not happened, my race would have been much stronger and I could have pulled away. However, I was pleased to overtake Sebastien (Buemi) at the end, which took me back into eighth. We must be positive, we have both cars in the points and it’s another ten points for the team.”

Nick Heidfeld: “It’s always good to score points, but I think I could have finished even higher up today, even though I started in P9. I am not totally happy with the race -I was stuck in traffic for quite a while, overtaking was difficult and Vitaly made contact with me- but my pace was good, especially at the end of the race when the car was light on the soft tyres. I also think our strategy was the right one. Overall, to finish in P7 and take six points for the team is good, given that I did not qualify in a higher position.”

Sebastian Vettel: “It was a great result today – especially after I gave the team so much work on Friday. I hope giving a victory back goes some way to help them forget it. Saturday morning was crucial. When I walked into the garage everyone gave me the impression that nothing is wrong and there was nothing to worry about. The whole team was working so hard to get the car back together and times like these are important. The team are close to me and if they are not happy or unmotivated it reflects on me and the other way round, so after being a bit down on Friday, it picked me back up. In the race we had a very good first stint and got a gap and you can always benefit from that cushion. At the end I did two short stints, which was the right thing to do – it was seamless today. We don’t know what happens next, so we have to take it race by race. There will be days when we are beaten for definite, but we need to minimise the loss – but for today, it was a great result for the team.”

Mark Webber: “It was good to get second place – and a relief to finish there and not third. In the end it was a good fight with Fernando, you lose a bit of time when you’re into each other like that, but it turned out okay and I got him back in the end. For the first stop, the team pitted me earlier than expected as they were worried about the undercuts coming into play. Ferrari saw the same thing and it was really a race between us two from then onwards. At that point, you make your bet that you will be having a few stops during the day. It was a good victory for Sebastian and Fernando drove well too – it was a great result for the team with a one two. The grip wasn’t great at the start, but I will leave Istanbul happy – it was my best result of the year so far.”

Jerome D’Ambrosio: “It was a good race for me I’d say. Obviously I was pretty much on my own during the race as I was faster than the HRTs. I had a good fight at the beginning then I couldn’t keep up with the Lotus cars, but it was good for me to manage the tyres well and be able to change to a two-stop strategy. Overall I’m happy with my performance this weekend – Qualifying in particular – and the team has worked very well. I’m looking forward to working with them to develop the whole package and I hope we can take a step forward in Spain.”

Timo Glock: “A very short race for me. It was very frustrating to experience a problem with fifth gear just as I was making my way to the grid. I have to say the team did an amazing job to try to get me back on track but in the end it just wasn’t possible. Overall I think we have made some progress this weekend but there is still plenty of hard work ahead of us if we are to keep pushing forward. Everyone is very committed to seeing that happen though, so we stay focused and look ahead to Spain when I hope we will have made enough progress to reintroduce the new floor and exhaust which should help us a little more.”

Narain Karthikeyan: “I think we should be happy with the fact that today we got another finish under the belt. I got more time in the car which is important, I’ve now finished my second race out of three, so I need to get more comfortable in the car and that will happen with every lap that I do. I couldn’t keep the two Virgin cars behind and we will have to analyze why we were slower. But, all in all, I’m reasonably happy, now we must work on the updates for Barcelona and keep on working to improve.”

Vitantonio Liuzzi: “Overall this has been a positive weekend up until qualifying. We’ve shown an improvement in our performance and had good pace on Friday and Saturday proving that the gap has closed with Virgin. In the race we need to try and understand what we did wrong, we had a problem with both front tyres and need to work on this to make sure it doesn’t happen again in the next race. Our expectations are much higher for Barcelona, we’re pushing for some new upgrades there as it will be important to show our home crowd what we’re capable of, I’m sure we will be much more competitive there.”

Fernando Alonso: “I am pleased with this result, which is down to three weeks of hard work from the entire team at Maranello and at the track this weekend. We had not started this Grand Prix on the right foot, after having quite a few problems on Friday, but then we moved forward and today it was great to be back fighting for the top places. We had come so close to the podium already in Malaysia and in China and today we managed to jump onto it, but this is only a first step: we must continue in this direction. Given the shape we were in at the start of this season, this is a great finish. The next three or four races will be crucial. At 99% I could not have fought with Vettel, but the remaining 1% went when I was stuck behind Rosberg for too long: maybe I could have put him in difficulty, forcing him to push even more. In the end, Webber passed me because he had the benefit of a new set of tyres, while I had none left. I know it seems strange having to stop eleven laps from the finish, but it was getting hard to keep the car on track and there was a risk of ruining everything. There is more overtaking, but I think that has more to do with the different behaviour of the tyres rather than the moveable rear wing. It’s true that the gap in the classification is very wide, but there are still so many points up for grabs: there is certainly no need to give up.”

Felipe Massa: “Everything happened to me today and I was not able to get the result that was within my grasp. It’s a shame, because the car was competitive and the pace was very good. We did the first stop at the right time, but already at that moment, I lost the place I had just taken off Hamilton. Then I also had problems at the third and fourth pit stops: we have to all work together to improve this element of the race, which is becoming really very important. I was always fighting with other drivers, which meant I was unable to get the most out of the tyres, as Fernando was indeed able to do and he definitely had a cleaner race than mine. The positive thing about this weekend is the improvement in performance of the car: we had a bit more aerodynamic downforce and also greater speed on the straights. It’s an encouraging sign, but we have to continue moving in this direction, introducing new parts already in Barcelona.”