Vitaly Petrov is happy but wants more

Following his seventh-place finish in Shanghai - his first points in F1 - Vitaly Petrov praised his team’s efforts through the weekend, and explained how he’s now aiming even higher.

Vitaly, you must be delighted to score your first F1 finish and your first points?

Yes, I am happy – but I always want more, so I’m not satisfied to finish only seventh because I must aim even higher. At the beginning of the race, we had to take a difficult decision about the tyres: some drivers, like the Red Bull guys, came in and it was all a bit crazy, but we decided to stay out on slicks and it was a good decision. Then after that, the team and I did a good job together to be on the right tyres, at the right time.

In the second half of the race, the key to being quick was to keep the intermediate tyres in good condition. How hard was it to do that well?

At first, it was quite difficult to understand how hard to push, because we didn’t know if the circuit would stay wet or start to dry out. Also, my helmet was full of water, so that made things a bit more difficult!

By the end of the race, you had preserved your tyres much better than the cars in front and you overtook Michael Schumacher and Mark Webber. Was it a good feeling?

Yeah, of course. My car was much quicker and my engineer (Mark Slade) told me that my pace was good, that I should continue to push, but also that I had to look after the condition of the left front tyre. And this was what I did. Schumacher and Webber were both struggling with the tyres, but they were very fair with me, and I did some clean moves to pass them.

What can you say about the work of the team this weekend?

We have done a fantastic job together and this Renault team feels really like a family. My mechanics did a brilliant job to rebuild the car between third practice and the race yesterday, and it was good to give them this reward by finishing in the points. The car is not too bad at the moment, but we know that we still need to work to make it even better. We’re looking forward with a positive feeling, and we will be doing our maximum.