A short round up of the F1 websites after China.
Ferrari
Tyres again played a vital role with the winner pitting three times, although Fernando did not feel the fact he was on a two stop would have made much difference to his final placing. Felipe on the other hand did concede that an additional tyre change might have allowed him to fight off a few more of those who got past him in the final stages, while adding he felt this was his best race drive for quite some time.
http://www.ferrari.com/English/Form...10417_F1_CHN_No_miracle_cure_for_Ferrari.aspx
Red Bull
Vettel on the start - My initial launch was not 100%. I probably had problems to really get going; you feel that inside the car. It’s hard to wait then, and I was probably a bit too aggressive later on. You can’t use Kers straight away, you have to wait until you reach 100kph, so I saw that I immediately lost a position to Jenson, which wasn’t nice and then had Lewis behind. I tried to defend hard into turn one, but at some point you have to give up and let the guy go. The fight with him today was very fair; it was quite entertaining and good fun too.
On Lewis - To be honest I was quite surprised by his move into turn seven. I think he did very well there and surprised me. Congratulations to them. I think we have given it our best and I don’t see second today as a disappointment.
Webber on qualifying - We thought we had enough pace to do the lap, but in the end I couldn’t get the tyre working. We weren’t quick enough. For sure the Option is safer, but that’s the way it goes, we should have had enough pace for the Prime. The pitwall has most of the say in that, but I was comfortable with the decision to go with the Prime. I thought we had enough to get through.
On the race - You have to be head down, arse up and get into it – and that’s what I did. I could have used a few more yellow flags, a few more retirements and maybe a couple of Vodafone cars pulling over, but there was nothing – I had to pass everyone, so I think I earned it today.
Toro Rosso
Our Spanish driver lost two places at the start, the Swiss one dropped four and one lap later, Jaime was passed by Sutil and then Kobayashi. Lacking grip at the rear, he came in on lap 9 for new rubber and that was pretty much the end of his race, as the wheel nut on the right rear had not gone on far enough for the safety clip to hold it and with one wheel missing, his race engineer told him to park the car somewhere safe. Race over.
http://www.scuderiatororosso.com/cs/Satellite/en_INT/Article/Cruel-sport-in-China-021242996239107
HRT
Colin Kolles, Hispania Racing Team Principal: We reached our target, which was to finish the race. We planned a one stop strategy for today. Narain went for this strategy but Tonio had a drive-through penalty for a jump start and lost some positions so we switched to a two stop strategy with him. Tonio’s times were impressive at the end, he was doing similar times to the middle of the field which is positive.
All in all, we had a normal weekend where we did a lot of miles and the improvement of the car is visible. We had no technical issues and both drivers did a good race so we’re happy with the weekend. The aerodynamic and mechanical upgrades for Turkey will put us closer to the field.
http://www.hispaniaf1team.com/
Lotus Renault
Alan Permane: Vitaly didn’t make a great start and he was stuck in traffic during his first stint. At that point we were thinking about whether to do two or three stops, but when he finally found some clean air his pace looked reasonable and we decided it was best to do two stops. However, he struggled for pace on the soft tyres during his middle stint. As for Nick, we chose to run the same tyre strategy as Vitaly, but he struggled with KERS overheating problems, which meant the system could only be used intermittently and made it even more difficult for him to come through the field.”
The R31 had the fastest straightline speed this afternoon with Nick clocking 322.6 km/h and Vitaly 322.5 km/h.
http://www.lotusrenaultgp.com/4720-Roll-With-It-Chinese-GP-Sunday-17.html
Team Lotus
Mike Gascoyne - That was an absolutely fantastic race from both drivers and from the pitcrew who performed brilliantly under huge pressure. It is very satisfying to have beaten two other midfield teams on track on pace and strategy and to be able to show that we have bridged the gap to the established teams.
http://www.teamlotus.co.uk/news/2011/chinese-grand-prix-race-report
Virgin
John Booth: Obviously today was a very good result for Jérôme in only his third race. His two-stop strategy proved far superior to the three-stop strategy we decided upon for Timo and more suited to what our competitors were doing around us. All credit to Jérôme for getting a two-stopper to work. Following some feedback in the race from Timo regarding the degradation he was suffering with the rear tyres, we were perhaps a little too quick to convert him to three stops. Our predictions pre-race were that this would be worse and with the benefit of hindsight we can see it was not the way to go. We didn’t help Timo and when he had a problem during his final stop he lost quite a bit of time and had to fight hard to catch the HRT again and overtake. Overall we have had a better weekend in reliability terms and it has proved a useful development opportunity as we have faced several challenges that we will learn from. This is the last of the season-opening long hauls and, as is the case up and down the pit lane, the race team are ready for a bit of a break, particularly after the back to back between Malaysia and China. Meanwhile, as you would expect, everyone at our technical base is nose to the grindstone ensuring that the Turkey upgrade goes according to plan and delivers the performance gains we expect so we can get back to where we should be for the start of the European season.
http://www.virginracing.com/news/334/5-out-of-6
Sauber
James Key - It is nice to come away from here finishing in the points. I think it was always going to be a bit tricky from where we were on the grid, but our intention was to give it our best shot at top ten positions. Both drivers did a good job. It was unfortunate with Sergio’s incident, but we will look at that afterwards. It is only his third race so perhaps he was a bit optimistic but, other than that, again he drove a really good race and I think his pace was very good. Kamui did a great job to do a lot of laps on the hard tyre at the end. We pulled him in early and he did okay. He brought home a point for us. However, Mercedes has taken a good step forward here and is ahead of us in the championship, so we have got to react to this as best we can and have a better weekend in Turkey.
http://www.sauberf1team.com/en/news.cfm?id=NOC94YH4-Chinese_GP_-_Race
Force India
Adrian Sutil - I was unlucky with the incident with Perez, which cost me the race. But in the end we had problems as well with the tyres, they didn’t last as long as we thought and I was just struggling the whole time. We have to understand why we were not so competitive in the race this time; in qualifying we were much better.
Paul di Resta - It was always going to be quite a tough race, starting from where we were. We came very close to scoring points, but just missed out at the end when the tyres had gone. Having gone into the race without heavy fuel runs may have compromised us a bit. We didn’t quite get the aero balance right at the start, but the second and third stints I think were pretty good, just a bit longer than expected because we had to stop early to try and cover Michael [Schumacher].
http://www.forceindiaf1.com/index/page_id/356/news_id/548
No Mercedes or McLaren I’m afraid as my log in isn’t working.
Ferrari
Tyres again played a vital role with the winner pitting three times, although Fernando did not feel the fact he was on a two stop would have made much difference to his final placing. Felipe on the other hand did concede that an additional tyre change might have allowed him to fight off a few more of those who got past him in the final stages, while adding he felt this was his best race drive for quite some time.
http://www.ferrari.com/English/Form...10417_F1_CHN_No_miracle_cure_for_Ferrari.aspx
Red Bull
Vettel on the start - My initial launch was not 100%. I probably had problems to really get going; you feel that inside the car. It’s hard to wait then, and I was probably a bit too aggressive later on. You can’t use Kers straight away, you have to wait until you reach 100kph, so I saw that I immediately lost a position to Jenson, which wasn’t nice and then had Lewis behind. I tried to defend hard into turn one, but at some point you have to give up and let the guy go. The fight with him today was very fair; it was quite entertaining and good fun too.
On Lewis - To be honest I was quite surprised by his move into turn seven. I think he did very well there and surprised me. Congratulations to them. I think we have given it our best and I don’t see second today as a disappointment.
Webber on qualifying - We thought we had enough pace to do the lap, but in the end I couldn’t get the tyre working. We weren’t quick enough. For sure the Option is safer, but that’s the way it goes, we should have had enough pace for the Prime. The pitwall has most of the say in that, but I was comfortable with the decision to go with the Prime. I thought we had enough to get through.
On the race - You have to be head down, arse up and get into it – and that’s what I did. I could have used a few more yellow flags, a few more retirements and maybe a couple of Vodafone cars pulling over, but there was nothing – I had to pass everyone, so I think I earned it today.
Toro Rosso
Our Spanish driver lost two places at the start, the Swiss one dropped four and one lap later, Jaime was passed by Sutil and then Kobayashi. Lacking grip at the rear, he came in on lap 9 for new rubber and that was pretty much the end of his race, as the wheel nut on the right rear had not gone on far enough for the safety clip to hold it and with one wheel missing, his race engineer told him to park the car somewhere safe. Race over.
http://www.scuderiatororosso.com/cs/Satellite/en_INT/Article/Cruel-sport-in-China-021242996239107
HRT
Colin Kolles, Hispania Racing Team Principal: We reached our target, which was to finish the race. We planned a one stop strategy for today. Narain went for this strategy but Tonio had a drive-through penalty for a jump start and lost some positions so we switched to a two stop strategy with him. Tonio’s times were impressive at the end, he was doing similar times to the middle of the field which is positive.
All in all, we had a normal weekend where we did a lot of miles and the improvement of the car is visible. We had no technical issues and both drivers did a good race so we’re happy with the weekend. The aerodynamic and mechanical upgrades for Turkey will put us closer to the field.
http://www.hispaniaf1team.com/
Lotus Renault
Alan Permane: Vitaly didn’t make a great start and he was stuck in traffic during his first stint. At that point we were thinking about whether to do two or three stops, but when he finally found some clean air his pace looked reasonable and we decided it was best to do two stops. However, he struggled for pace on the soft tyres during his middle stint. As for Nick, we chose to run the same tyre strategy as Vitaly, but he struggled with KERS overheating problems, which meant the system could only be used intermittently and made it even more difficult for him to come through the field.”
The R31 had the fastest straightline speed this afternoon with Nick clocking 322.6 km/h and Vitaly 322.5 km/h.
http://www.lotusrenaultgp.com/4720-Roll-With-It-Chinese-GP-Sunday-17.html
Team Lotus
Mike Gascoyne - That was an absolutely fantastic race from both drivers and from the pitcrew who performed brilliantly under huge pressure. It is very satisfying to have beaten two other midfield teams on track on pace and strategy and to be able to show that we have bridged the gap to the established teams.
http://www.teamlotus.co.uk/news/2011/chinese-grand-prix-race-report
Virgin
John Booth: Obviously today was a very good result for Jérôme in only his third race. His two-stop strategy proved far superior to the three-stop strategy we decided upon for Timo and more suited to what our competitors were doing around us. All credit to Jérôme for getting a two-stopper to work. Following some feedback in the race from Timo regarding the degradation he was suffering with the rear tyres, we were perhaps a little too quick to convert him to three stops. Our predictions pre-race were that this would be worse and with the benefit of hindsight we can see it was not the way to go. We didn’t help Timo and when he had a problem during his final stop he lost quite a bit of time and had to fight hard to catch the HRT again and overtake. Overall we have had a better weekend in reliability terms and it has proved a useful development opportunity as we have faced several challenges that we will learn from. This is the last of the season-opening long hauls and, as is the case up and down the pit lane, the race team are ready for a bit of a break, particularly after the back to back between Malaysia and China. Meanwhile, as you would expect, everyone at our technical base is nose to the grindstone ensuring that the Turkey upgrade goes according to plan and delivers the performance gains we expect so we can get back to where we should be for the start of the European season.
http://www.virginracing.com/news/334/5-out-of-6
Sauber
James Key - It is nice to come away from here finishing in the points. I think it was always going to be a bit tricky from where we were on the grid, but our intention was to give it our best shot at top ten positions. Both drivers did a good job. It was unfortunate with Sergio’s incident, but we will look at that afterwards. It is only his third race so perhaps he was a bit optimistic but, other than that, again he drove a really good race and I think his pace was very good. Kamui did a great job to do a lot of laps on the hard tyre at the end. We pulled him in early and he did okay. He brought home a point for us. However, Mercedes has taken a good step forward here and is ahead of us in the championship, so we have got to react to this as best we can and have a better weekend in Turkey.
http://www.sauberf1team.com/en/news.cfm?id=NOC94YH4-Chinese_GP_-_Race
Force India
Adrian Sutil - I was unlucky with the incident with Perez, which cost me the race. But in the end we had problems as well with the tyres, they didn’t last as long as we thought and I was just struggling the whole time. We have to understand why we were not so competitive in the race this time; in qualifying we were much better.
Paul di Resta - It was always going to be quite a tough race, starting from where we were. We came very close to scoring points, but just missed out at the end when the tyres had gone. Having gone into the race without heavy fuel runs may have compromised us a bit. We didn’t quite get the aero balance right at the start, but the second and third stints I think were pretty good, just a bit longer than expected because we had to stop early to try and cover Michael [Schumacher].
http://www.forceindiaf1.com/index/page_id/356/news_id/548
No Mercedes or McLaren I’m afraid as my log in isn’t working.
