2011 Monaco Grand Prix Team Website Round-up

FB

Not my cup of cake
Valued Member
Ferrari


At the end of a truly hectic race, Fernando Alonso delivered Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro its second podium of the season, after he finished second in the sixth round of the Formula 1 World Championship. Winner of an unpredictable Monaco Grand Prix was Sebastian Vettel in the Red Bull, with Jenson Button third for McLaren behind the Spaniard in his 150º Italia. Felipe Massa was less fortunate in the other Ferrari, knocked out of the race by a move from Lewis Hamilton in the McLaren.

Williams


In what was one of the most tense battles of the 2011 Championship so far, Rubens Barrichello took his best finishing position of the year and claimed AT&T Williams’ first points of the season with a ninth place finish. Today’s action-packed Monaco Grand Prix also allowed Pastor Maldonado to demonstrate his abilities. After a competitive performance in qualifying and a well managed race, Pastor looked set to bring home sixth for the team. The prospect of a double points-scoring conclusion, however, ended abruptly. Shortly after the re-start a collision with Hamilton’s McLaren forced Pastor out of the race with just five laps to go.

Red Bull


Christian Horner: It was a phenomenal drive by Sebastian today. We had a communication problem with the first stop, which affected both drivers as they were both stopping on the same lap. It delayed Sebastian, but we managed to re-adjust our strategy. We didn’t panic and managed to engineer ourselves out of the situation to get him back into the lead. He then had an awfully long way to go on the harder tyre, which he made work. He soaked up huge pressure from Fernando and Jenson and then our hearts were in our mouths when the accident happened just in front of him. But he picked his way through that and, with the benefit of the option tyre, was able to have a bit more comfort in the remaining laps after the re-start. It was a classy drive from Sebastian today and a tremendous team performance to recover from what looked to be a difficult first stop to win the race. At one stage Mark was 15th after the first round of stops, but he never gave up and kept on pushing through. He pulled a great move on Kobayashi on the last couple of laps who’s not an easy guy to pass and it was a shame not to have him on the podium today, as he deserved to be there.

Toro Rosso


At Tabac, Sutil hit the wall and picked up a puncture and in the confusion, Petrov hit Jaime, who ran into Hamilton. Fortunately, Petrov was uninjured, but the Renault man was in pain and they took time to extricate him, hence the decision to red flag the race. With everyone allowed to do what they wanted to the cars, fitting new tyres even, any advantages of closing in on a car ahead that might be suffering more tyre degradation than your own was thus negated and we were not expecting much.

However, when the race restarted, Sébastien was eleventh, but once Maldonaldo crashed out, the Swiss driver was promoted to a point scoring tenth. Unfortunately, Jaime could only watch the final laps from the garage. It was a very busy garage when the race was interrupted, because Lewis Hamilton’s McLaren was on track just behind our work area and so there was a constant stream of McLaren mechanics running in and out, shouting “thanks, thanks a lot,” as they rushed a new front and rear wing through our garage to repair the badly-damaged car.

McLaren


Jenson Button: We jumped Sebastian [Vettel] at the first stop and I then pushed like crazy on the Super-Soft, even tapping the wall a couple of times. The car was good and I pulled out a big lead, about 15 seconds, so it was all looking great at that point. Then we made another tyre stop – just moments before the Safety Car was deployed. By that stage, we still hadn’t run the Prime, which meant we still had to fit another set of tyres to finish the race.


With 10 laps to go, it was looking like either myself, Sebastian or Fernando [Alonso] could win the race: Sebastian’s tyres were going off and Fernando was pushing him really hard. I could tell that Fernando was getting ready to have a go into Turn One – it was fun to watch because they were either going to crash or there was going to be an opportunity for me to try and get through as they battled each other. Any of us could have won at that point. But after the red flag for Vitaly’s big accident, all the teams were able to fit fresh tyres – which meant we couldn’t do anything because the three of us were all on the same pace and I’d lost my advantage.


The team did a great job this weekend and I’m very happy. We really went for it and had to try something different in order to beat Sebastian here. It was looking good, but it didn’t work out in the end…


Lewis Hamilton: It’s been a disappointing weekend, really. This afternoon, in the race itself, I made some strong moves on three drivers – Michael [Schumacher], Felipe [Massa] and Pastor [Maldonado] – and I got penalised for two of them.

With Felipe, I went up the inside at the hairpin, he turned in early and we touched. With Pastor, again, he turned in and I was pushed over the kerb.

The penalties were frustrating: it’s really tough to overtake around here, and you rarely get an opportunity to do so. I was racing my heart out and just wanted to put on a good show for everyone.


HRT


Colin Kolles: It has been a very tough weekend for the team but everybody worked very hard to achieve the best possible result under the circumstances. We suffered the whole weekend with balance problems and, due to the reduced amount of running, were not able to get the best out of the car. Both drivers finished the race though, which is very important. No we must look ahead to Canada where we’re planning to introduce new updates which should improve the performance of the car.


Lotus Renault


The 2011 Monaco Grand Prix will be one that’s hard to get. Firstly, of course our collective LRGP thoughts went to Vitaly who got caught up in an unfortunate crash between Adrian Sutil and Jaime Alguersuari when he was closing in on a fourth place finish.

Thankfully, after being taken on a precautionary visit to hospital, it was found that Vitaly had not broken or fractured anything, and just had some pain to his left ankle. Our very own ’Vyborg rocket’ was in good spirits and we are looking forward to him taking the field in Montreal at the end of next week.

Nick put in a sterling performance to finish eighth (after starting in 16th). Doing what Nick knows how to do best - weaving his way up the lineup - he was able to salvage four points for the team. What was disappointing, however, was that despite what looked a gloomy outlook prior to the race, we could have actually scored some more points.



Team Lotus


Mike Gascoyne: A strong result for the team and it was good to get both cars over the finish line. Both drivers drove very strong races and we gave them a chance to fight with a two stop strategy, starting both cars on options. We switched Heikki to the prime for the last two stints because he had higher degradation but kept Jarno on the options until the second pitstop and even thought they were held up by slower cars we are very pleased with 13th and 14th.


Virgin

Timo and Jérôme both got off to good starts, holding their positions off the grid and keeping their noses clean in the opening laps. Running Options, Timo was slightly quicker in the opening laps than Jérôme, who was on Primes, and was trading lap times with the Kovalainen's Lotus in front of him.

After the Finn stopped, Timo came in for his first, and as it turned out only, pit-stop on lap 22, narrowly failing to jump Heikki as he rejoined the track. Sadly, after just another 12 laps, a right-rear suspension failure forced him to retire, pulling up in the Swimming Pool section of the track.

Meanwhile, Jérôme was running consistently, looking after his tyres with a view to switching to a one-stop race. This was looking good until the deployment of the Safety Car after Massa's accident in the tunnel meant that he would have to switch to Options earlier than we would ideally have liked, but it was still worth a go.

After the restart, both Team Lotus drivers stopped and Jérôme was able to keep them behind him for a lengthy period, until he went off line in order to let Nick Heidfeld through under a blue flag. At this point he lost all grip because of the marbles and was forced to pit for another set of tyres.

With just six laps to go, the red flags came out after a big crash involving Petrov and Alguersuari and the race was temporarily suspended to clear the cars and debris. The focus then turned to the grid until the race was restarted 20 minutes later behind the safety car. Jérôme ran to the finish without incident and crossed the line in 15th position.



Sauber


Kamui Kobayashi: I am very happy. I was struggling a lot in qualifying, but the team did a great job with the pit stop strategy today. The call for the tyre change came at a perfect time. It was no problem to go for such a long stint with the super soft tyres, and I think they would have lasted even longer. After the start I had problems with traffic, but then one after the other they stopped and it became better for me. After my one and only pit stop I was stuck behind Adrian Sutil, and at the same time I had to defend against Mark Webber. In this situation it was a bit difficult to manage the tyres. Without the restart I obviously could have finished fourth. But when Mark was so close behind me on the final laps there was nothing I could do to defend that place. However, I think fifth is a great achievement at the end of what was a difficult weekend.


Perez on his accident: I remember how I started Q3 and I also remember some of the accident. For the time being I am missing some memories about what happened after the first impact and the rescue procedures. I don’t really know what caused the accident. My race engineer told me there was no problem with the car. I can only guess that I might have been a bit offline or braked on a bump.


Force India


Vijay Mallya: Today’s race was full of excitement, drama and great racing. With Adrian I believe we judged the strategy perfectly and his seventh place finish is a great reward for the whole team. He did an excellent job to keep his tyres alive in the middle part of the race when we were planning to do a one-stop strategy. Towards the end of the race we got a little bit lucky with the safety car, but we reacted well and Adrian kept pushing hard to score six important points.

“Paul’s race was looking promising in the early laps until he picked up some damage after contact with the Toro Rosso. He was maybe a little over-eager to get by, but this was his first Grand Prix at Monaco and he will learn from this experience.


Mercedes


Schumacher: Unfortunately, there are not a lot of positives we will be able to take away from this race. At the end, there was a fire inside the airbox and the car simply stopped, but the beginning of the race was not satisfying either.


Rosberg: After a good start to move up to fifth place, the rest of Nico’s race was more difficult: “I had a good start today, and that’s the one positive thing that we can take from the race.
 
Nice round up :thumbsup:

McLaren mechanics really said that? What a nerve...I have always found them annoying, don't see Williams or Ferrari mechanics going past and saying the same.
 
I'm confused.
McLaren mechanics really said that? What a nerve...I have always found them annoying, don't see Williams or Ferrari mechanics going past and saying the same.
What a nerve for saying thanks? :s

It was a very busy garage when the race was interrupted, because Lewis Hamilton’s McLaren was on track just behind our work area and so there was a constant stream of McLaren mechanics running in and out, shouting “thanks, thanks a lot,” as they rushed a new front and rear wing through our garage to repair the badly-damaged car.
 
I am just astounded that McLaren and Button thought they could win the race with like 5 laps left after the accident. Last I checked button was circling around lap after lap not really in any position to challenge Alonso even, so I just think they were blowing air out of there rear blown diffusers.
 
I am just astounded that McLaren and Button thought they could win the race with like 5 laps left after the accident. Last I checked button was circling around lap after lap not really in any position to challenge Alonso even, so I just think they were blowing air out of there rear blown diffusers.

You believe that if you like but Button was biding his time waiting for Vettel's tyres to go off the clif so they both would have gone past him - then we would have seen if he could have got Alonso. Wouldn't have been the first time he'd got him. Think about it from Button's point of view; why bother wasting your rubber advantage and risk getting your nose chopped off when you know at least one of the drivers in front of you(according to your information) is nto going to make it through to the end of the race - let them waste their rubber locking brakes and going at it - hell let em take each other out and take the easy path to victory. Its called being tactical. Would it have worked? unfourtunatly we will never know so anyone saying either way is blowing hot air.
 
Well driving behind other cars is reducing the effect of new tyres in turbulant air, so it makes no sense, I am dead certain that in those conditions and that track those tyres were certainly good enough to carry him through or we would have started to see rearing outs and the lot long before. 5 laps to go that is 6 odd minutes of racing, never going to happen, 3rd was the best he was ever going to get after about lap 50.
 
We appear to be recycling the same arguments again and again and again. We all have an opinion but the simple facts are that the race was red flagged on lap 72, the two guys in front were allowed to change their tyres and Button finished 3rd.

In a perfect world Sutil would never have hit the barrier, Alguresari wouldn't have eaten the end of Hamilton's car and Petrov wouldn't have stuffed it into the wall. But it all happened so get over it folks.

BTW - my favourite quote is from Nico Rosberg:

I had a good start today, and that’s the one positive thing that we can take from the race.

Just about sums up Mercedes weekend really.
 
We all have an opinion but the simple facts are that the race was red flagged on lap 72, the two guys in front were allowed to change their tyres and Button finished 3rd

I was kind of trying to say that just with a counter argument
 
I did read you post RasputinLives and saw your comment at the end, thank you for that. My note was really just trying to draw a line under it before the whole thing started again.
 
Back
Top Bottom