Team reaction after the German GP (part 1)

Ferrari

Second one-two of the season for Scuderia Ferrari, repeating here in Hockenheim the result obtained in Sakhir, with Fernando Alonso first and Felipe Massa second. This is the Scuderia’s twentieth German Grand Prix victory, as well as being win number 212 from 804 Grands Prix contested. It was Fernando’s twenty third career win, the second at this track, which brings his championship points total to 700 points.

Stefano Domenicali: “First and foremost, I want to congratulate the team on this fantastic result, which is down to all the work undertaken with so much effort, ability and passion by everyone, both at the track and in Maranello, day after day. Already, over the past few races, we have seen that the performance level of our car has improved and finally today, we reaped the rewards. As for the Stewards’ decision, given after the race, in the interests of the sport, we have decided not to go through a procedure of appealing against it, confident that the World Council will know how to evaluate the overall facts correctly. The congratulations mentioned earlier should also extend to our drivers who drove a great race. Both Felipe and Fernando got very good starts, with the Spaniard squeezed in a very decisive fashion by Vettel and the Brazilian making the most of the space that created ahead of him. Then came a long three way fight to the chequered flag, with Felipe very quick on the softer tyres while he struggled a bit on the hards, which meant that Fernando was at first able to close right up on him and then take the lead when his team-mate decided it was best not to create a risky situation, given that right behind them, Vettel was fighting back. The situation in both championships is still complicated, but this result is further motivation for the coming races: we firmly believe in our chances of reaching the targets we had at the start of the season.”

Fernando Alonso: “This is a very important win, which comes on the back of weeks of hard work from the team, who pushed to make up the ground that separates us from our main rivals. Race after race, the improvements applied to the F10 have proved to be effective, thus making the car more competitive. I am very happy, because winning with Ferrari is a very special feeling. At the start I was pushed right up against the wall by Vettel, whose only thought was to close me down, while Felipe made the most of it to go past both of us. Then, I tried to stay close all the time to my team-mate and when he had some difficulties, I got past: I am sure that Felipe was thinking above all of the good of the team and that it was pointless to take risks when we had Vettel catching us up. There is no point in doing the sums for the championship now. We have shown what our package can do in a normal race and we must simply continue to work, trying to always pick up the maximum number of points. As I have always said, the final tally will come in Abu Dhabi.

Felipe Massa: “A driver always wants to win, so I cannot be completely happy with second place. I know that this year, the team has lost too many points in previous races and today it was important to do the maximum. We drivers have to first of all think of the interests of the team and that is what I showed again today. In my opinion this was not a case of team orders: my engineer kept me constantly informed on what was going on behind me, especially when I was struggling a bit on the hard tyres: so I decided to do the best thing for the team, and a one-two finish is the best possible result, isn’t it? I got a great start, the best of the season. At the start, on the soft tyres I was going very quickly but then, with the hards, I was unable to run at an ideal pace. I think today I proved that when everything is in order, I am a winning driver. It would have been nice to stand on a higher step on the podium but all the same, I want to dedicate this result to Fernando Marins, a relation of mine, who passed away at the start of this week.”

Chris Dyer: “A great result for the team. Going home with the maximum number of points after all that has happened in the races immediately leading up to this one is enormously pleasing. This one-two is down to all the people who have done an extraordinary job over the last two months, to improve the performance of our car. I think we now have a very competitive package and we will continue to push as hard as possible on the development of the car to be even stronger in the forthcoming races.”

Red Bull Renault

Sebastian Vettel: “Normally we have very good starts, so I’m not really sure what happened today. I had quite a lot of grip, I dumped the clutch, but got bogged down, so the first five to ten metres of the acceleration
were poor. I was lucky I didn’t stall the engine, but I lost the momentum so I knew that it would be very tight with Fernando who I was already side by side with. There was no way I could stay ahead of him and then I was surprised to see Felipe coming from the left. But, after that we still had a good race. The closer I got to the car in front, I began to feel tyres losing grip and starting to grain, but I think for most of the race the Ferraris were probably a tenth or two quicker than us. It was difficult to keep up the pace. Towards the end we were able to push again a little bit. We finished third and I think we can be proud of that. We achieved our maximum today and I was very pleased to be on the podium. It’s very special for me at my home Grand Prix, it’s great to see the people here and to
be on the podium – to see everyone cheering is very nice and emotional.”

Mark Webber: “I enjoyed the first part of the race and had a good scrap with Lewis. He didn’t look too comfortable on the option tyre and I was getting held up a bit. When I came in for a pit stop, I thought Lewis
might come in at the same time, but he stayed out a lap longer. In the end, the guys did a very good job, but we came back out in traffic. It was a little bit of a gamble to try and jump Lewis and we lost a bit of track to him. Jenson tried a different strategy and went longer and unfortunately was able to jump me. After that we had an oil consumption problem, so we had to concentrate on getting the car to the end. I wasn’t in the main fight today, but I’ll be back. It’s competitive at the front and that’s how
it should be, so we’re looking forward to the next race.”

Christian Horner, Team Principal: “Today’s race was dictated by the start. Unfortunately Sebastian didn’t get away cleanly and ended up on the right-hand side of the track.
Massa got a good run on the left and we emerged from Turn one in P3 – that’s what shaped the race as far as Sebastian was concerned. With Mark, we took a calculated risk with the pit-stop. After that, he got caught up behind Rosberg, which cost him a bit of time and allowed Jenson to jump him. From there he did an excellent job in nursing an oil system issue that he managed well to the end of the race to score some important points. It was surprising what happened with the Ferraris, it looked to
be a team order with the cars switching position. If so, it’s a shame for Formula One and the fans that they were deprived of a race between the two Ferrari drivers today.”

Fabrice Lom, Renault, Principal Engineer Track Support: “What a difficult race. Sebastian had a bad start, which compromised his chances, so third was the best he could achieve against the Ferraris on this track. For Mark, it was a very difficult race. We had an oil system problem which we had to manage and we had to ask a lot of him, so that the car could get to the finish. He drove very well and did everything that we requested, so a big thanks to him for that. As a team we really deserved the points we got today; now we need to find a bit more performance to fight back for victory at the next races.”

McLaren Mercedes

Lewis Hamilton: “I did everything I could at the start, because I knew that that was the place where I could really make up some ground. Unfortunately, the guys in front were phenomenally quick, but I still managed to make up a couple of places.

“It was a very tough race today – the car didn’t feel fantastic and the Ferraris and Red Bulls were very fast. We hoped the gap would be closer in the race than it was in qualifying, and it was – but, even so, we’ve got to make up some pace on our main rivals.

“We need to go back and figure out where we can improve, and pick it up again very quickly. Today, we did everything we could do – now we just have to work harder than ever to get ahead of the cars in front.”

Jenson Button: “My start was pretty good, I got away fantastically well off the line – but we got to Turn One, and Sebastian [Vettel], who was fighting the Ferraris, braked pretty early, and I nearly went into the back of him. I had to take avoiding action and go wide at Turn One – the thing is, I hit the brakes, and soon as you do that in Turn One, you lose a lot of time. So I lost three places, but thankfully I got one of those back pretty quickly.

“In the first stint, I looked after the tyres pretty well. I was at the back of the group, and it was a strategy that we’d planned before the race. After my stop, my pace relative to Lewis was very similar, and I settled in never less than two seconds behind him. But I couldn’t go any quicker because I was losing downforce to the car in front.

“Lewis and I showed today that we got the maximum out of the car – it’s just that the car isn’t quite quick enough at the moment.”

Martin Whitmarsh, Team principal, Vodafone McLaren Mercedes: “Today we saw yet another impressively competent day’s work from both our drivers – and the result was 22 very valuable world championship points.

“In truth, in the circumstances, that’s probably about as many as we could have hoped to score today.

“We arrived in Germany in first place in the constructors’ championship and in first and second places in the drivers’ championship – and we leave Germany in exactly the same positions. So that’s extremely positive.

“From here on in, we’ll work as hard as we can to maintain and improve our positions at the head of both world championships. We’ll continue to develop our car in the weeks and months ahead, with a view to adding as many world championship points to the milestone total of 300 we’ve amassed this season as of today.”

Renault

Robert Kubica: I think we had a good weekend considering the car’s potential at this circuit. There were some exciting moments during the race: I made a good start and was fighting to pass Hamilton into
turn two when he braked early, and I ended up losing positions to Button and Webber. Then, after my stop, I had a good battle with Michael to keep my position – but I also had to make sure I didn’t lose too much time fighting with him, because I had to maintain a good pace to stay in front of
Rosberg who hadn’t yet stopped. Overall, though, the gap to the front-runners was too big for us to fight for more than seventh place, so I think we must be pleased that we achieved our maximum.

Vitaly Petrov: This was an interesting race for me and I am very happy to have scored my first point in dry conditions – especially because I thought that I had finished 11th, so it was an even better surprise
when I found out I was tenth! I managed to gain a position at the start, the pace was good today and I made a big effort to push at the right time before the pit stop, which helped me climb two more places. I am pleased with my race but I know that I could have done better in qualifying, so I
still need to work hard and put all of the pieces together across the weekend.

Eric Boullier, Team Principal: There were some very positive points from today’s race. The team did a strong job on the strategy and with the pit stops; Robert achieved the full potential of the car and showed we were the fourth quickest team this weekend; and Vitaly produced an excellent drive. He showed good pace, pushed when he needed to in order to gain positions and scored the final point. On the other hand, in terms of pure performance, we cannot be satisfied to be lapped by Ferrari. It shows that we still have a lot of work to do, but we know that we have some good upgrades on the way.

Alan Permane, Chief Race Engineer: We knew that our pace today wasn’t good enough to match the top three teams. Robert did a great
job to retain his position: he managed to stay ahead of both Mercedes around the pit stops, and that is not easy to do when you are trying to defend against two cars stopping at different times. He got the best result we could have hoped for today. As for Vitaly, he put in an excellent drive: he made a good start, and then managed to overtake two cars at the stops. This meant we finished with both cars in the points for the second time this year, and we can be happy with that.

Rémi Taffin, Head of Engine Operations: This was a good result when compared with Mercedes, the team we are fighting in the championship, with one car finishing ahead of them and one right behind. Robert did a strong job to finish where he started, which was the most we could hope for without any problems for the quicker cars in front. Vitaly did a super job, and showed that his pace could match Robert’s here at Hockenheim. Unfortunately, he didn’t manage to qualify as high up the grid as he could have done, but his drive today showed that we can count on him. Our engines were on their third race but we were able to push them to the limit all race without any problems. That means we will have fresh units next weekend, in addition to more progress with our development programme.

Mercedes GP

Nico Rosberg and Michael Schumacher finished the German Grand Prix at Hockenheim in eighth and ninth positions today.

Michael made up three places at the start to be running in eighth position with Nico shadowing him in ninth place. He made his only pit stop on lap 14 with Nico staying out longer and making his stop on lap 24. Despite the two quickest stops of the race, neither driver was able to jump Robert Kubica, with Nico’s later stop being enough to move him ahead of Michael.

Nico Rosberg: “We made the best of our situation today but it is frustrating after being on the podium at the last race. Achieving eighth place is damage limitation really and we were able to minimise the loss to Robert in terms of points but it has generally been a struggle this weekend. My strategy was good and the guys made a fantastic effort with my pit stop being the quickest of the race. There are surely better times ahead in Hungary.”

Michael Schumacher: “I had a pretty good start today but from then onwards, there was not much more that we could do. We were targeting to stay out long but we changed the strategy to react to the circumstances and maybe I could have finished slightly higher. But in the end, that would not have changed much in a race where we had hoped to be more competitive. What we achieved after my stop was the maximum that was possible. Of course I would have wished for more, especially as our race performance tends to be better than qualifying, but it did not work out. We will certainly not get nervous but we have to sit down, analyse the reasons and put the right solutions in place.”

Ross Brawn: “We did a reasonable job today with the car that we currently have. It was a little bit frustrating, particularly for Nico, as he was in a very strong position to get past Robert Kubica with his strategy. Unfortunately he lost some time getting tangled up with Mark Webber and ended up coming out just behind Robert. The car was more consistent in the race than in qualifying but we have to find some more performance. The team and drivers did a great job, we have good reliability and the two fastest pit stops today, so all the foundations are in place for when we develop a better car.”

Norbert Haug: “After Nico´s podium at the last race in Silverstone, coming home in eighth and ninth places was not the result that we had been looking for at one of our home races. However our grid positions were not a good base for the race, so better than P8 for Nico and P9 for Michael were not really possible. We could not make our new upgrades work to the planned extent which compromised our speed and lap times. The team worked relentlessly to get the new parts ready for this race, so two points finishes are at least a small reward for their hard work, even if they were not the positions we were hoping for. A big thank you to all of our guys for their efforts, and now we will try to get better results next weekend in Hungary.”

Sauber Ferrari

Despite suffering no technical problems and both drivers finishing the race, the team didn’t manage to score any more points at the German Grand Prix. Kamui Kobayashi finished 11th in Hockenheim, while Pedro de la Rosa came 14th.

Kamui Kobayashi: “I am not really happy with today’s race. I felt a lack of grip on both sets of tyres, and tyre degradation started quite early on. In qualifying the balance of the car was definitely better than today. However, I had a good start and made up two positions then. The crew did a good pit stop. I tried to overtake Michael Schumacher, who was held up by a back marker, but then we ended up fighting on the straight and this is not really a strength of our car yet. Later I tried to fight Vitaly Petrov, but could not get by him either.”

Pedro de la Rosa: “The first laps of the race were very difficult for me on the hard tyres. It was like driving on ice. My race actually started only after 20 or 25 laps when the tyre temperatures and grip were there.
Then the car improved on every lap as it was getting lighter. But the end of the race was very disappointing for me. After my late pit stop I was on fresh tyres and wanted to fight for positions.
After I passed Nico Hülkenberg the next cars in front were Rubens Barrichello and then Kamui.
But I have to say the behavior of the back markers was a serious problem over the whole race, and in the end I crashed into one who had opened the door for Rubens but closed it immediately again.“

Peter Sauber, Team Principal: “It was a good race and a good performance, but not the result we hoped for. Our goal now is to
improve our qualifying performance in order to get the appropriate reward.”

James Key, Technical Director: “Ultimately it’s a bit disappointing not to finish in the points. We decided to take a split strategy, with a gamble on Pedro’s side and a standard strategy on Kamui’s. Kamui drove well in a pack of cars and was probably held up early in the race. We brought him in to protect him against the cars directly around him, but it seems the option tyres lasted quite well for more laps and this enabled Vitaly Petrov to pass him immediately after his stop. He was then not able to re-pass
him again, so we missed out on the points. With Pedro we decided to go as long as we felt we could, and then put the option tyres on at the end to see what was possible. Initially it worked well as he overtook Nico Hülkenberg, but then made contact with Heikki Kovalainen and damaged his front wing. It’s a shame it didn’t work out for us today, but it’s only one week before the next race where we want to do better.”