Red Bull Racing
Sebastian Vettel: “It’s been a fantastic weekend. Yesterday’s qualifying was perfect and today again, the balance of the car was amazing. We didn’t change too much at the stops; it just seemed to work fantastically well. I’m very happy, the guys have been pushing very hard and even though we didn’t have major upgrades here, it still seemed to come together and the balance was there – and that’s what made the difference today. It’s a shame for Alonso, it’s not something you hope for and it could happen to us at the next race. We’ve seen this year there are a lot of up and downs and things change quickly – we have to keep our heads down and take it step by step.”
Mark Webber: “I haven’t seen what happened at the start, but it’s been confirmed that it was Grosjean who hit me. We’re trying to fight for results each weekend and it doesn’t help so, yeah, it’s frustrating as a few of the big guys suffered out there today. We went onto a one stop strategy from then on, but I kept pushing, I didn’t give up and got something from it. To finish eight seconds off fifth, after the fact I was in reverse at one point – and also the safety car came in before I caught the back of the field – was something. I’ll come back in Korea.”
Vodafone McLaren Mercedes
Lewis Hamilton: “Congratulations to Jenson – he drove well all weekend, and, between us, we got some decent points for the team today. I was very fortunate to stay out of trouble at the start; there were lots of cars going off the track, so I just concentrated on bringing the car through undamaged. I pushed as hard as I could throughout the whole race. It was a bit of a struggle in the first stint – I had a lot of understeer – but after a while the car started turning again. From that moment on, it felt really good, and I was able to push; but it was too late to have much of an effect on the result. This just wasn’t the weekend for me. With better qualifying, we can get better results – and that’ll be our aim in South Korea next week. I’m already looking forward to it.”
Jenson Button: “Fourth definitely isn’t a bad result – particularly considering I started from eighth. I ran as high as third during the first stint, but in hindsight it was probably an error to make our first pitstop so early. Both Kamui [Kobayashi] and I were compromised behind a Toro Rosso, and that cost both of us a bit of time to Felipe [Massa]. He’d started on a brand-new set of tyres, and that makes a big difference: you can go longer and keep the speed up, so he was able to jump both of us after the first stops. Towards the end, I was able to push and start catching Kamui. But he controlled his final set of tyres very well – I could get close to him, but the only way I was going to get into the DRS zone was by braking extra-late into the chicane, and, every time I tried, I locked up and ran wide. Still, this result isn’t too bad – we got some more points – we just didn’t have the pace to go for the win today.”
Info & Images: Red Bull Racing and Vodafone McLaren Mercedes
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