Formula 1 News

2011 Turkish GP, Race: Team quotes 

Franz Tost: “Given our qualifying performance yesterday which put us in sixteenth and seventeenth places on the grid, we are happy to have finished in ninth place with Sebastien Buemi. He delivered his best performance of the season so far, as he was racing around eighth place for most of the race and occasionally even higher. Unfortunately, coming under pressure from the Lotus Renaults, who had much fresher tyres, he was unable to defend that position on the final lap. The team deserves praise for running a good strategy and we have picked up a further two points today, which is important in our battle in the Constructors’ Championship. In Barcelona, I hope that we can challenge for points.”

Thierry Salvi: “That was a good race because both cars finished so for us it was okay reliability-wise. That is the second time we have done that and that is the first job of the team, so that is a good result for us. We struggled a bit with Heikki today but I think it was a bit easier for Jarno and even though we can see that we need some more time to be able to catch the teams ahead I am sure that will come soon.”

Mike Gascoyne: “The key goal today was for both cars to cross the finish line and I am pleased we achieved that and it is pleasing to see that both drivers performed very well all weekend, and the whole team. With Heikki we tried to stick to two stops but the degradation of the tyres was higher than we expected so we switched Jarno to a three stop plan. Heikki’s car then developed a hydraulic leak and we were concerned that he would not be able to get to the end, and that if his tyres went off he would be unable to stop again but we were forced to keep him on two stops and turn off the differential and clutch off which made his car very difficult to handle. Without that, I think we would have been able to beat Maldonado on the track. Jarno drove a good, strong three stop strategy but reported quite high tyre degradation so we have to look at why he is suffering more than Heikki. However, overall it is good to get two cars to the finish and we look forward to Barcelona where we will have our big update and I hope that we can take the fight to those in front.”

Tony Fernandes: “This has been a good weekend for us and we are all happy that we got two cars to the finish. Heikki had some hydraulic issues and if they had not affected his race I think he would have given Maldonado a much better fight. Looking at the laptimes I am very happy that we keep improving every weekend. The whole team is excited about the updates we have for Barcelona, but for now I am very pleased with this weekend. Here in Turkey last year neither car finished so this is another positive development in our growth. We keep making small steps and moving forward and that has always been the plan – grow in a measured, controlled way that gives us the best foundations for future success.”

Martin Whitmarsh: “Well, we qualified fourth and sixth, and we finished fourth and sixth. And, although clearly we’d hoped to score considerably more than the 20 points we netted as a result, both our drivers drove hard and well all afternoon – and I’m sure their contribution to a race that included lots of action and no fewer than 80 pitstops was a very significant one in terms of providing entertainment for grandstand spectators and TV viewers alike. At Vodafone McLaren Mercedes we’ve traditionally never sought to prevent our drivers from racing each other – and they certainly did that today. It was good to see: they get on extremely well off the track, as I think everyone knows, but on the track they’re as keen to beat each other as they are to beat any other driver, and that’s the way it should be. Although we weren’t quite as quick as the Red Bull and the Ferrari this afternoon, Lewis’s four-stop race pace was strong; Jenson was the quickest of the three-stoppers, but with hindsight it probably wasn’t the optimal strategy and consequently he struggled a bit – through no fault of his own. So, looking forward to the Spanish Grand Prix, we’ll continue to push extremely hard from a car-development point of view, and we intend to be competitive in Barcelona. We lie second in the constructors’ world championship, and Lewis lies second in the drivers’ world championship too, but we’ll continue to do all we can to convert both those seconds to firsts during the rest of the season. Last but not least, I want to say something about Pete Vale, our chief mechanic, who operates the lollipop during all our pitstops. He acted quickly and level-headedly during Lewis’s problematic second pitstop, when two wheelnuts cross-threaded on the right-front, to prevent a potential collision – so well done Pete!”

Peter Sauber: “The Sauber C30 Ferrari was excellent today, as were both our drivers, and the strategy could not have been any better. Kamui overtook countless drivers, and Sergio also passed many competitors. Unfortunately neither driver was able to get the full reward they deserved today. However, Kamui scored one point despite starting from the back of the grid, which was amazing.”

James Key: “What an eventful race! A great drive by both our drivers. The car was definitely a lot better than in qualifying, and the drivers extracted the most out of it. It’s a real shame we couldn’t get them both in the points and finish a bit higher up, because it was possible. Unfortunately, Sergio had front wing damage on lap one, and we had to change his strategy and put him at the back of the pack. Kamui had a puncture towards the end of the second stint, which dropped him back. So it’s a real shame, but we can’t complain, because we managed to squeeze a point out of it after starting with both drivers in a compromised position. I think it’s a tribute to Kamui’s race craft to go from P24 to 10. Now we have an updated package for Barcelona, and we hope this will help us to continue to score points on a regular basis.”

Ross Brawn: “The race balance that we gave Nico wasn’t as good as we had hoped and on high fuel, the car was too hard on its tyres. That spoiled the first half of the race but in the second half, our pace was more respectable. Nico began climbing back through the field towards where we had hoped to be racing; however we were too far back by then. Fifth place is still a respectable result taking everything into account, but fine-tuning our race set-up will be a particular priority for the next races, especially at circuits where the tyres are delicate to manage. Michael got out of phase because of his unplanned stop on lap two and that left him with a difficult task, especially as a number of other events in the race cost him time. Overall, we are moving forward from where we began the season, but we’re still not where we want to be. We will keep on pushing hard.”

Norbert Haug: “Of course, everybody was expecting another good result from us today after Nico qualified third yesterday. In reality he was a few thousandths ahead of Lewis yesterday, and today Lewis was quicker. Alonso in the Ferrari had a great drive from fifth whilst the Red Bulls are still clearly in front. To beat one McLaren Mercedes and one Ferrari was the maximum that Nico could achieve after a great drive with our current car. We have made improvements over the last two races, and closed the gap to the best which shows that we are heading in the right direction. Michael had an eventful weekend and was very committed from lap one in the wet practice of Friday. His clash with another car dictated the outcome of his race and cost him the time missing to finish in the points. We now look forward to Barcelona where we will try to improve our position further.”

Sam Michael: “We brought both cars to the finish again, but we just weren’t fast enough today. In the first stint of the race we showed some decent pace against a number of cars that finished in the points. However from the second stint onwards we couldn’t match the laptimes of those same cars. Small changes in the car balance can have a large effect on tyre degradation and wear. There were also some issues with cooling the KERS during the race. Our focus is now on the upgrades that we have for the Barcelona Grand Prix that will give the car a boost in performance.”

Robert Fernley: “It was a tough race for us today. We always knew it would be difficult to match the pace of the top five teams, but in race trim the Toro Rosso of Buemi and the Sauber of Kobayashi were a little bit quicker than us. Both our drivers raced hard and Adrian in particular had some good battles, especially with Perez in the closing laps. I think he got the maximum from his race and the strategy was spot on. As for Paul, he had some difficulties with the rear tyres and, with the benefit of hindsight, we probably should have switched him to a four-stop strategy a couple of laps earlier. Ultimately his race came to an end when we identified a fault with the car which meant he had to retire. After four races I’m quite upbeat about our start to the season. We were always on damage limitation until the new 2011 aero concept comes on stream in the next few races, but we’re just four points behind Sauber and two points behind Toro Rosso. I’m hopeful we can haul them back in over the next few races.”

Eric Boullier: “Today, going for four pit stops was the right decision. There was no spectacular start from our cars but we pitted at the right time to ensure both drivers finished in the points. We definitely need to work harder on Fridays to understand the tyre degradation, which will allow us to know where we stand for the rest of the weekend. From here, we will push even more as the result today was not as strong as it could have been – we will be striving to get back into the top six.”

James Allison: “Today we opted for a four stop rather than a three stop race, and the balance of the evidence suggests that was the right choice. In all honesty, I feel satisfied rather than happy with today’s performance – satisfied because our finishing places in the race were stronger than our qualifying positions, but not happy because the gap between us and the cars that finished on the podium was too large. We have more improvements planned for the car and we will be aiming for top six finish or better in the coming races at Barcelona and Monaco.”

Christian Horner: “A fantastic team performance today. It was a very busy race with a four-stop strategy, perfect pit work and a great performance by Sebastian to take what was, in the end, a dominant win. Mark had a bit more on, dropping a place on the dirty side of the grid at the start, but then his recovery was excellent. He worked the tyres really hard to get past Nico Rosberg and then came under pressure from Alonso, dropped a place to him, but kept calm. We had a new set of primes for the last stint and Mark really made them work, resulting in a great passing move to achieve our first one-two of the year. All compliments to the team, it certainly exorcises the demons from last year and I would like to thank all our partners for their fantastic support.”

Cyril Dumont: “It’s really good to confirm the result from yesterday and it’s nice to be one and two again for the first this year. So, congratulations to everyone. For Sebastian it was a pretty smooth race, very solid in terms of performance and for Mark it was really solid in terms of overtaking. It was fun to watch him. Congratulations to everyone and engine-wise it was a very good race.”

John Booth: “When the pit lane opened ready for the start of the race we had no reason to suspect that we would have anything other than a relatively straightforward grid procedure, so it was a surprise to hear Timo report a broken fifth gear on his reconnaissance lap. Back in the garage we attempted to change the gearbox, which is no mean feat in the pre-race window and when Jerome’s car was lining up on the grid as normal. With the two car crews split between the two different situations, Timo’s crew worked calmly and methodically under extreme pressure to take the rear of the car apart. Despite a Herculean effort, in the end we took the decision not to compromise the car that was still in the race because the way things were panning out with the tyres, it looked likely that we would have some last minute calls from the pitwall and we needed the full crew to be on ready alert. We’re disappointed for Timo after his efforts and we’ll look into the data now to understand why this happened. Having experienced many gearbox issues last year and then to make such made enormous strides with the quality of the preparation this year, it is highly unusual that we should experience this problem. As for Jerome, we predicted that he would have a real ‘racer’s race’ and that is exactly what we saw. He grabbed the opportunity with both hands, using the DRS effectively to steal a march on Karthikeyan the minute the activation period came into play, then after a 3 or 4 lap battle with Liuzzi using the DRS, Jerome’s tenacity paid off and he was able to ease away. From that point it was a lonely race for him, however he maximised the opportunity to perfect the strategy and managed the traffic well. In fact this was a race where we encountered the least instances of blue flags in our 23-race tally. On lap 30 we decided to change to a two-stop strategy, which was brave at the time given what everything else that was going on around us. We held our nerve and Jerome drove brilliantly, preserving the Prime tyres to allow this strategy to work. Our focus now moves towards an aero test at the Idiada proving ground in Spain next Sunday, where we will continue our evaluation of the new aero package under more controlled conditions in the hope of bringing more to the car in Spain. We are also pleased to be providing one of the drivers from our young driver programme – Adrian Quaife-Hobbs from Marussia Manor Racing GP3 – with an exciting first opportunity to drive a Formula One car.”

Colin Kolles: “The race was not as we expected because we faced some unpredicted problems with the tyres during the pit stop. The wheel gun seems to have not worked properly on Liuzzi’s car resulting in the loss of a wheel nut.We had to do more stops also to make sure that it was safe to continue running. All in all without these problems we could have achieved a better result. Narain’s lap times were a good sign, showing that our performance has improved. We will have a major update for Barcelona which should put us closer to our competitors. It is our home race and if all the upgrades bring the improvement in lap times that we expect then we will have a better weekend.”

Stefano Domenicali: “It’s been a very long time since we last saw one of our drivers on the podium and today, finally, we were able to. Fernando drove a very nice race, to crown a great weekend on his part: he did not put a foot wrong and was aggressive when he needed to be and prudent when he had to manage the situation. I am very sorry for Felipe, who had every possibility of also getting a good result. We had already seen in the three previous races that, in the race, the 150o Italia seemed to be the more beautiful sister of the one seen on Saturday afternoon in qualifying, but for one reason or another, in the first three Grands Prix, we never managed to make the most of all its potential. Today we were competitive for long periods and if Fernando had not been stuck behind Rosberg for a few laps after the start, he could have even put Vettel under more pressure. We must definitely not get carried away with this third place: the road is still very long and there is still a very long way to go to where we want to be. At least we have shown that we have started off down the right road.”

Pat Fry: “Mixed emotions and feelings at the end of a very intense race, which featured a large number of pit stops. On the one hand there is the satisfaction of having a driver on the podium again and on the other, there is disappointment at not getting the result that was also within our grasp with Felipe, whose race was ruined by a series of problems during the pit stops. From a performance point of view, I would say we were competitive in some parts of the race, especially on the softer tyres. In the final duel with Webber, we paid the price for him having a new set of hard tyres while we only had ones that had already been used. Felipe was nearly always in traffic and was penalised through losing time in his pit stops: this operation is becoming ever more crucial and everyone involved has to be perfect in order to do it well. We will have to work on it, as well as continuing to push on the development of the car, because the gap to make up is very big, especially in qualifying.”