Category Archives: F1 Drivers Translated

Chinese Grand Prix Post-Race Drivers’ Quotes, Translated

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No, Kimi, I don't know where your Enzo-Grappa went.

No, Kimi, I don’t know where your Enzo-Grappa went.

Toro Rosso
Daniil Kvyat, 10th
“It felt great today and I’m very happy with my performance. I had a good start and I managed to make up some positions during the first lap. Our pace was very strong today and I enjoyed the fight with Jenson pretty much throughout the race. We did a good job with the tyre management, so we were able to stay out longer. Even though it all went very well today, I think there’s still a lot more to come from the car, so I’m really looking forward to starting the European part of the season, where I hope to get some more points.”

KVY – ” You guys remember cute, little Anakin from ‘The Phantom Menace’? Y’all had better check my blood for midi-chlorians. I’ll just be back here, whacking out 10th and 9th places, biding my time until Lord Palpati. . . . Seb! I mean, Seb, retires.”

Jean-Eric Vergne, 12th
“First of all, congratulations to Daniil for his good race and another point for him and the team. As for my race, I had a bad start and a bad first lap. We need to understand what happened exactly to improve this aspect. After that, I could not make the best out of the option tyres because I was stuck behind Button, so it was not possible to build a gap and pull away. It was definitely a tough race but we should not have to forget some positive aspects: we had a really good qualifying yesterday, the general pace was not bad and we know exactly the direction to take in order to improve. This is the reason why I’m convinced that we can be stronger in a few weeks’ time in Barcelona.”

JEV – “If anybody needs me, I’ll be in my computer room, updating my resume. I’m going to have ‘Paths of Glory’ on the TV, volume off, and the Leonard Cohen-read audio book of ‘Being and Nothingness’ playing on a sad, old boombox. I’ll be wasted on absinthe and just mashing the keys of the keyboard with my drunken fists but, it’ll be an update!”

Lotus
Romain Grosjean, DNF
“We started by losing fourth gear but it got worse and essentially we lost all gears. It’s the first time we’ve had a problem like this so we’ll have to understand what happened. It had been quite nice in the race as we’d been fighting for ninth position so we were in the points, which is a good improvement from before. We didn’t make it to the end of the race today but let’s hope we finish in the points in Barcelona.”

GRO – “If anybody needs me, I’ll be passed out on JEV’s couch.”

Pastor Maldonado, 14th
“Today wasn’t my best race ever but we finished. My pace wasn’t fantastic but at least we moved forwards and I pushed as hard as I could. We will look at the data as we seemed to lack pace on the straights which made it difficult to overtake and also difficult to defend. It will be nice to have a race weekend without any problems, and that’s what we are all working for when we head to Europe.”

MAL – “Life really is like a box of chocolates. Sometimes I just stare at the chocolates when I should be watching the road. When I hit things, it’s a really great chance to eat all the chocolates.”

Marussia
Jules Bianchi, 17th
“I had a good fight with Kobayashi throughout the race and I’m very happy to be leaving China having finished ahead of him. This was my first straightforward race of the season so far and it is a big relief I have to say. The start was good and I got ahead of Kamui off the line but he regained position quite quickly. I stuck with him until the second stint when with Maldonado between us I dropped back a little but then I caught up again and we continued to enjoy a good battle. When he stopped for a third time for the option tyre we saw the opportunity to manage my tyres and stay out to get ahead. On new option tyres he was catching quite quickly and I had to work really hard to keep in front and not lose the place. Unfortunately, he caught me with only two corners left but in the end we keep the position, so I’m happy and have a good feeling with which to end the first long haul rounds of the season.”

BIA – “Everything is relative.”

Max Chilton, 19th
“It was a tough race but I’m pleased to have passed and kept Ericsson behind me and, of course, to secure my 23rd consecutive finish. The start went well – I got past a couple of cars actually – and the car felt good in that early stint. On the medium tyre I struggled a bit more with the balance and we changed the strategy, before changing back at the end when we pitted for a third time, basically to ensure that we were not going to be subject to a late charge by Ericsson on fresh rubber. A good race and a nice way to head into the start of the European season.”

CHI – “GUYS! GUYS! 23 STRAIGHT! WOOOO-HOOOOOOOO!!!!!! JULES WON’T EVEN TALK TO ME ANYMORE!!!! IT’S OK: HE’S FRENCH! GUYS! THE TYRES! WE HAD TO CHANGE STRATEGY, LIKE, DURING THE RACE!!! IT WAS FUCKING INTENSE!!!!!!! WOOOOO-HOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!! WOOOOOO!!!!!

McLaren
Jenson Button, 11th
“It was pretty difficult out there. It felt a little bit like qualifying yesterday: we just couldn’t get the front tyres working – they just grained. We’ve got a few upgrades for the next grand prix, in Barcelona, but they won’t be enough to close our performance gap to the fastest cars. But the guys are doing their best, and a result like this is disappointing for everyone, especially for the mechanics and the guys back at the factory, because they’ve all been working so hard.”

BUT – I’m so fucking depressed, I can’t even work up the energy to use the word ‘reckon’. This is fucked. Even fucking Perez flipping me off is ok: at least it makes me feel something, you know? Someone handed me a dictionary after the race and the page with the word ‘resignation’ on it was bookmarked and next to ‘resignation’, there was a GIF of me, doing this interview; inside that GIF, was another GIF of me, doing this interview; inside that GIF was another GIF of me, doin. . . . . OH GOD SOMEONE HELP ME PLEASE!!!!!” 

Kevin Magnussen, 13th
“It felt like a long race, because there wasn’t much I could do out there. Our car lacks downforce – that’s its main problem. The way it’s set up, and how it feels, has always been positive; it’s just low on grip, that’s all. So, clearly, we need to work as hard as we can to create that missing downforce. I know the guys back in Woking are doing their best, and I have faith that they’ll deliver that downforce before too long.”

MAG – “It did feel long. It felt like fucking forever. Every. Fucking. Lap. Fucking Perez and his sarcastic, pouty-lipped, sad-face laughing at us. Twisting his fists at the sides of his eyes, making the baby crying ‘wah! wah!’ noise and fucking laughing his ass off and driving away in his fucking Force India??!!! Yes: delivering downforce before too long. How long is ‘long’? Fucking eternity. How many more races do we have? 15??!! Fuck.”

Eric Boullier, McLaren racing director
“Our car isn’t competitive enough, we know that, its deficiencies mostly the consequence of insufficient downforce. Furthermore, the Shanghai circuit is front-limited – in other words it punishes lack of front-end grip. That being the case, the fact that we’ve been unable to get sufficient heat into our front tyres in the chilly weather conditions we’ve experienced this weekend has further compromised our performance here. There’s a three-week gap between now and the Spanish Grand Prix, and we’ll work flat-out between now and then in an effort to address our car’s shortcomings. We know what we have to do, and we’ll work night and day to do it.”

Boullier – “I keep having this nightmare where I’m still at Lotus, but it’s not really Lotus, but it’s kind of Lotus.”

Williams
Valtteri Bottas, 7th
“It was a good race for me despite some hard contact at the start which cost me a few positions. I also had to drive the whole race without telemetry which isn’t the easiest thing to do. We made progress over the whole weekend which is good. It’s great to make steps forward and we are looking to do the same in Spain in a three weeks’ time.”

BOT – “I had no telemetry either, Nico. At least I wasn’t a little bitch about it.”

Felipe Massa, 15th
“I had another great start today and we were fighting at the top. I felt some contact with Fernando but luckily the car wasn’t damaged so I could carry on. There was a mistake at the first pitstop and that effectively lost me the race as I came back out on track in last position. It is a frustrating situation and something we need to work on to make sure that it doesn’t happen again. We have time now to work hard and improve the car for Spain.”

MAS – “You know, if Bernie’s gonna do stupid shit like double points for whatever race, could we do some bonus scoring for FUCKING STARTING LIKE A DUDE’S SHOT FROM A CANNON, please? So, to recap: start like a mo-fo; race like a mo-fo; finish like a mo-fo. All we need to work on, then, is GETTING THE FUCKING TIRES ON THE FUCKING CAR FUCKING CORRECTLY. Jesus fucking CHRIST!”

Rob Smedley, Williams head of vehicle performance
“It’s bittersweet really as the car was quick. We had a good strategy and the team worked well together. It’s a real shame for Felipe and the whole team about the pitstop and it is something that we need to investigate to ensure it doesn’t happen again, as it cost us points today. To have one car in the top ten shows that we have the pace and that gives us continued optimism, so we will take the positives forward to Spain.”

Smedley – “We’ve tried praying. We’ve tried group therapy. We’ve tried sacrificing chickens. We’ve tried sacrificing goats. We’ve tried burning incense. We’ve had Felipe stop masturbating. Nothing fucking works. Dude’s cursed. We might as well hire fucking Webber at this point.”

Sauber
Esteban Gutierrez, 16th
“It was a very complicated race in terms of tyre management. With these kind of temperatures the prime tyres were not really working for us. We had to do a three stop strategy, which ended up as a disadvantage for us. With our current pace we could not have higher expectations in terms of our results. I have total faith in my team, everybody is putting their best efforts into everything. I believe that Barcelona is the place where we can recover, make a step forward and fight for better positions and points.”

GUT – “Yeah, if we had run a two-stop, I coulda come in 15th. At least fucking Pastor stayed away from me. The little ‘message’ I had my cabrones send him must’ve worked. Getting a box full of tamales stuffed with human fingers will do that for a guy.”

Adrian Sutil, DNF
“Unfortunately it was a very short race for me. During the formation lap I already had problems. As it was a quite slow formation lap, I was not able to identify what the problem was. I just realised the engine was not working properly. At the start I had almost no power. Going into the first corner I noticed there was a problem with the engine. I lost a lot of positions during the first lap and fell back to last. I did a few more laps, but then went back to the pits. The team tried to solve the issue, but we could not do it quickly. I had to retire. However, I am still positive and looking forward.”

SUT – “Who’s a guy gotta blow to not DNF around here?! Seriously, point out the cock and I’m on that shit. I seriously have to stop hanging out with, um, myself? Fuck.”

Force India
Nico Hulkenberg, 6th
“Finishing in sixth and bringing both cars home in the points again was a very positive result for the team. It was actually a pretty straightforward race for me after we got in front of Massa: I had to manage my tyres, my pace and avoid mistakes, and it only got tricky at the end when Bottas was getting a bit closer. We have beaten all other customer Mercedes cars, which are our main competition at the moment, but we have also seen some other teams up their game so we will need to keep pushing.”

HUL – “Is it appropriate to keep walking past the Ferrari garage and do a little dance where I stick my ass way out and point at it and sing, ‘You coulda had this assss! Yooouuu coulddaaaa had this asssss. But you don’t! No, no, you dooon’t!’? I do that until Kimi starts whipping vodka bottles at me. It’s awesome.”

Sergio Perez, 9th
“To start from P16 and finish in ninth place is a good recovery after a difficult qualifying session yesterday. I made a good start and after that I just focused on making the two-stop strategy work. I think everybody suffered with tyre graining and I picked up a few flat spots, but we still made it work. It was not easy to overtake today, even the cars on a different strategy, so I think ninth place was the maximum. It means I’ve scored points in three out of four races, but I was hoping for more today after the weekend we had in Bahrain. It’s also clear that all the teams around us are finding pace so we have to keep working hard to be ready for Barcelona.”

PER – “Oh my god, my hands are fucking killing me from flipping off McLaren so much. I think I’m just going to have some gloves made that have the middle finger up all the time ’cause, seriously: all you fuckers can fuck the hell off. Force India is owning all your asses!” 

Red Bull
Daniel Ricciardo, 4th
“I started on the dirty side of the grid and had quite a poor getaway; I was spinning up on the line a bit too long and lost the two places. From then on however, I thought the race was good! With Seb, we were racing and you always want to hold on to your position, but the team radioed and he let me through. I did what I could after each stop and we improved the car; at the end I was doing all I could to catch Alonso and I think we got to within a couple of seconds of him as we went over the line. It’s going well with the team, I feel comfortable here and I did the best I could today. I really want that podium and we’re getting close!”

RIC – “What people don’t know is that I never stop smiling like this. Nev-VER. ‘Sure, Seb!’, I say. And I smile. ‘Right away, Seb!’, I say. And I smile. Now I just smile and kind of glance at Seb and he brings me a coffee. ‘Thanks Seb!’ I smile and he asks me if I want anything else. When he was all ‘Tough luck’ on the radio, I knew he could picture me smiling that smile inside my helmet. 30 seconds later, he pulls over to let me by. Nobody saw this, but he also stopped and brewed me some coffee. I like smiling.”

Sebastian Vettel, 5th (Fixed that typo for you, formula1.com. You’re welcome)
“I moved over for Daniel once I knew that we were on different strategies. When I was first asked, I didn’t understand as we were on the same tyre, unlike in Bahrain, so I double checked. When the team said we were on a different strategy, I moved over and then, as the race went on, I saw more and more that I didn’t have the pace. There was no point in holding Dan back. I’m not yet where I want to be with the car, but it’s an on-going process; hopefully at the next few races we will make some more steps in the right direction. Our weakness isn’t in the corners, but on the straights. The first stint today was okay but after that I’m not sure what happened.”

VET- “Has anyone seen Daniel? Does he want coffee? I have this coffee for him.”

Mercedes
Lewis Hamilton, 1st
“The team have done an amazing job and all the hard work both here and at the factory is really paying off at the moment. This car is just unbelievable; in the final laps, I was pushing a little bit more to keep up the tyre temperatures and it just felt great to drive. I’m so, so happy today. We had to make a lot of changes after P2 in terms of the set-up of the car but after it rained on Saturday, we didn’t know exactly how it would go today. There was a lot of hard work done, sitting down with the engineers so that we didn’t guess anything and just made the right steps in anticipation for today. I really want to give a big shout-out to the team in Brackley and Brixworth for embracing me last year, for building this amazing car and engine and for continuously pushing forward with so much positive energy in 2014. We are definitely on a roll right now; I’m working hard, the team is working hard and we just want to improve even further when we get back to Europe.”

HAM – “I just wish everyone could feel how I feel right now. It’s so awesome. It’s really too bad that you can’t, you know, be me right now, because being me right now is so totally awesome. I love that everything is going great for the team as a by-product of everything going awesomely for me. I love helping people and the team. Especially when it’s me, helping, so awesomely. Not too much longer and I should be able to heal people just by laying hands on them. Hashtag Bless.” 

Nico Rosberg, 2nd
“That was not a perfect weekend for me. Too many things went wrong, beginning with a technical problem and a less than perfect job from me in qualifying. Today I didn’t have any telemetry, so there was no communication from the car to the pits. My engineers couldn’t see what was going on in my car and therefore they couldn’t set up my clutch for the start. The clutch was completely on the wrong place, which is why I had a really bad start. I had some contact with Bottas in Turn 1 and I thought that was it. Luckily my car wasn’t damaged and in the following laps the pace in the car seemed good, which meant I was able to climb some positions. To finish second in the end, on a weekend of damage limitation, is great. I collected some important points again, which makes me happy. It’s great to go back to Europe with the lead in the Championship. In Barcelona, the aim will be to have a normal weekend and be back in first place. It was again an amazing team result and the whole team can be very proud. Congratulations to Lewis on a fantastic weekend.”

ROS – “How long can you talk between gritted teeth, like, really gritted, until it’s, like, bad for you? Is it bad that I can hear my teeth cracking under the pressure of fake-smiling for Hammy? Fucker keeps coming up to me and putting his hands on me, closing his eyes and yelling, ‘HEAL-DUH!’ and then asking if I feel faster. Yeah, in Barcelona, I hope we have a normal weekend. And by ‘normal’, I mean, ME fucking WINNING the fucking race! That’s what’s normal! Gah!”

Ferrari

Fernando Alonso, 3rd
“After a difficult start to the season, this podium is a confidence boost for the whole team, providing extra motivation for all those who are doing their best to close the gap to the front. And I think this podium should be dedicated to Stefano, as everything we do up to July will also be the result of his efforts. We have definitely made a step forward, because compared to two weeks ago, we have partly closed the gap to the leaders, but we are well aware there’s still a long way to go and we have to keep our feet on the ground. In general, this has been a good weekend for me, as everything went well right from Friday, although the rain made qualifying more complicated than expected. I was on the limit all race long and I really don’t think I could have done any more. This is quite a unique track of its kind and now we must make the most of the long break before the next race to prepare as well as possible for whatever situation arises.”

ALO – “I heard the cries of my people: ‘Alonso! Alonso! You must do better so that Dasha is on our TV screens!’ So I said, ‘Fuck this car and fuck whomever you fire or don’t fire: fire everybody! Give me a Marussia! For you, my people who need pictures of Dasha on your TV, I will win! I. Will. Win.’ So I slammed, like, this big tumbler full of Enzo-Grappa and, hey, what can I say? Third: this car’s a piece of shit. Yo, nobody tell Mattiacci about the Enzo-Grappa! There’s barely enough for Kimi and I as it is!”

Kimi Raikkonen, 8th
“This has been a really difficult weekend. Right from Friday morning, I suffered with problems that we didn’t manage to solve completely and today in the race, I couldn’t get the result I wanted. The start was good, I made up two places but then I couldn’t make up any more ground, as I just didn’t have the pace, nor much grip at the front or the back. In the final stint on new tyres, the car handled better, but then, as the tyres degraded the situation got complicated again. I think the difficulties I encountered here stem from a combination of various factors, from my driving style combined with the low temperatures and the characteristics of the track. Today, we brought home valuable points thanks to the intense efforts of the whole team and now we will continue to work ceaselessly to improve. Fernando’s result is very encouraging and proves we are moving in the right direction.”

RAI – “I think ‘Nando switched out my Enzo-Grappa/vodka cocktail with all-vodka, which is fine, but daddy needs his Enzo-Grappa just will this car into the points. Of course, one arm is pretty sore from throwing all those vodka bottles at The Hulk. That couldn’t have helped shit. Fuck, maybe we just need to fire some more people.”

Caterham

Kamui Kobayashi, 18th
“Finishing 18th isn’t the final position we’d want, but after a really good battle with Jules I’m relatively pleased with how today’s race went. However, it’s a real shame that my move on him on the last lap now doesn’t count. We stuck to the original three stop strategy and that gave us a few interesting moments, particularly with Vettel who I was told I could pass as he was fuel saving and on old tyres and I was on new softs on the third stint. I hear he wasn’t too pleased about that but relative to him I had the pace then to immediately pull away and did so to avoid compromising our plan. Even though we had good race with Maldonado for the first third of the race it’s clear we don’t have the outright pace to fight Lotus or Sauber yet, but we have a good package coming for Spain and we are determined to try and close the gap. The first four races have been hard, but having both cars finish today shows the progress we and Renault have made with reliability. Now we have to build on that and use the next couple of weeks to recharge ourselves so we can come back stronger in Barcelona.”

Marcus Ericsson, 20th
“For me the whole race was dominated by understeer. On every set of tyres the balance just wasn’t there and that meant I couldn’t really push at all. It’s good that we got to the end of the race, but if I hadn’t had that understeer I’m sure I’d have been quicker. I just couldn’t push any more than I was. It was the same for the third and fourth stints which we did on softs but by that point I was pretty much on my own so just focused on getting to the end of the race. This is obviously the last of the early season flyaways and when we start the European season in Spain it’ll be back at a track I know really well. As a rookie that’s obviously good for me and with the amount of time I’ll be in the factory and in the simulator between now and then, and with the new parts we have coming in Barcelona, I’m sure we’ll come back stronger there and ready to make progress there and in the next few races.”

KOB and ERI – “What we like to do, between races, is go riding busses and then we like to talk to the people who sit next to us about all the things that happen to us and all the things that we see and all the things that some of our cousins do. Some of our cousins have friends and they do things and see things and things happen to them, too, so we talk to the people who sit next to us on the busses about those things, too. Sometimes we see dogs or other animals that are funny looking or doing funny things or surprising things. We see them in real life or on the internet and we tell the people sitting next to us about those things until those people find somewhere else to sit or start pulling on the ‘stop’ rope and shouting, ‘This is my stop! This is my stop!’. Then, someone else sits down where that person was sitting and we tell our new friend, sitting next to us, about all the things we see and do and that’s how we practice for these post-race interviews.”

2014 Bahrain Grand Prix Post-Race Drivers’ Quotes, Translated

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Here we see Lewis Hamilton practicing his “Humble/So Sorry, Nico/We’re all on the same team, right?” face

Red Bull
Daniel Ricciardo, 4th
“It was an awesome race; it was exciting. I think the first stint was a bit follow-the-leader, but from the second stint onwards, the race really started to turn up the heat and there were more battles going on in front and behind – it was good to be a part of them. We got close to the podium today, I think within half a second, so I was doing all I could. The car came to me as the race went on and I was happy with how I moved up through the pack, so a good day. It was good fun to race Sebastian, it was hard but fair and we left each other room. That’s what we want from each other and we discussed it beforehand, we’re racers and that’s what we enjoy doing.”

RIC – “We discussed our strategy beforehand, yep. Of course, like always, VetBot2000 ‘discussed’ while staring, unblinkingly, at me very intently while sharpening a straight razor on a strap. It was a good discussion.”

Sebastian Vettel, 6th
“I think it was a busy race today, especially at the end after the safety car, but it’s a shame we couldn’t get further up. Daniel proved that there was a little bit more to get from the car today, I couldn’t really get to that bit, so I’m not so happy with my day. For some reason we seemed to be really slow on the straights, and not just against the Mercedes. Mercedes has a stronger package, so there’s work ahead of us. It was straight forward with Daniel today, we worked well together as a team and we raced well, but surely I would like to have finished higher up.”

VET – “Man, it is freaky running with the hoi-palloi, here, in the media pit. I’m in the media pit, smelling Maldonado’s flop-sweat and fucking Perez is on the podium!? Marko! Marko! Where the fuck is Marko?! Marko? Help?”

Toro Rosso

Daniil Kvyat, 11th
“Unfortunately today didn’t go as I would have liked. I was not happy with our pace and it was frustrating to see the other cars just passing me by. The start was a little bit messy and I lost a position. From then on I tried to push as much as possible, but it wasn’t enough to get into the points today. We will now have to analyze carefully what went wrong today and hopefully we will come back stronger at the next race in China.”

KVY – “I may be 19; I may be a rookie; I may be here primarily because Petra has a giant house payment to make, but I’m no dumbass: Those fucking Ice Dragons were flying around Kimi’s car ahead of me, looking all threatening, breathing icy blue fire and I thought to myself: ‘You know, 11th is fine today. 11th is juuuust fine.'”

Jean-Eric Vergne, DNF
“It was a bit of a mess at the start in Turn 8 with a lot of cars around me, but while the others were having a poor exit I had a clean one on the outside. When I then found myself next to a Lotus, I got squeezed more and more and when he realised I was about to overtake him anyway, he just closed the door. That is why our wheels touched and my car took off, out of control. Both rear wing and floor got heavily damaged with a huge loss of aero performance and it was just not possible to continue my race. Hopefully bad luck will leave us alone for the next races.”

JEV – “Yeah, this is a little bit of a let down, this, being bitten by the black widow that is Lotus F1. It’s a total bummer after deciding to go ahead and have that special surgery that strips all the flesh and everything from your body. So, um, yeah, basically, my fire suit kind of holds all my organs and muscles in place and then there’s my skeleton, which I had mostly replaced with leftover carbon fiber from last year’s car .. . so, yeah, having fucking Lotus assholes knock my spleen out, I mean, my “front wing” was kind of a bitch.”

McLaren
Jenson Button, 17th
“In terms of pace, we took a step forward this weekend. Moreover, our degradation was positive and I think we did a very good job understanding our tyres. Only one team were demonstrably quicker than us today – Mercedes – but sadly they were a lot quicker than us. Having said that, our long-run pace was very good, especially over the last few laps, so I reckon we could have raced very hard to the finish on the primes. But unfortunately I didn’t get that opportunity.

“It’s tough for all the team, because they all worked really well and really hard. We were set for fifth place at worst and a podium finish at best, and that would have been a very positive outcome for all of us. In summary, then, there was lots of good racing out there – I can’t even remember how many cars I overtook but it was quite a lot – and I think it was the same for almost everyone out there. I really enjoyed it, in fact.

“Formula One may have new power units and technical regulations this year, but it’s clearly every bit as good as it ever was in terms of on-track spectacle.”

BUT – “Do you reckon that if I use the word ‘reckon’ in every post-qualy and post-race quote that no one will notice all the blood coming out of my even-my-ears-are-cute ears because doing the British thing and not FUCKING freaking out about this FUCKING piece of SHIT car?! Fucking Perez fucking flipping me the double-bird every time he went by?! If anybody needs me, I’ll be cry-eating a ten-liter bucket of scotch eggs and lovingly stroking a picture of Ross. Oh, Ross.”

Kevin Magnussen, DNF
“That wasn’t a great race for me. The start wasn’t ideal – I lost three positions – and after that we just didn’t have enough pace to make progress towards the front. We’d been expecting that the colder conditions might help us, but, as things panned out, we were actually a little less strong here than we were in Malaysia, for some reason.

“We’ll analyse that carefully, and I’m sure we’ll learn from it. We’re learning all the time, in fact. It’s disappointing that we didn’t score points today – two DNFs is never pleasant for any team – but we’ll approach the Chinese Grand Prix with the aim of doing quite a bit better than we did here in Bahrain.”

MAG – “Can somebody get me Perez’s Uncle’s phone number? I heard he has a used Estrella de Oro bus we could drop a PU106A into that’ll probably do better than this POS chassis: ’cause you know the problem ain’t the fucking engine. At least, in the bus, I could watch movies while everyone passes my slow ass.”

 

Eric Boullier, McLaren racing director
“Well, it goes without saying that we’re leaving Bahrain bitterly disappointed. We didn’t have the fastest car this weekend, we know that, but, had our cars not both been afflicted with clutch problems towards the end of the race, triggering their retirements, at least we’d have been leaving with some more championship points on the scoreboard.

“In fact, had Jenson’s car run reliably to the flag, there’s every chance that he’d have been fighting for fifth, fourth or potentially even third place. Granted, minor placings aren’t what McLaren is all about – on the contrary we exist to win – but a third-, fourth- or fifth-place finish would have been extremely welcome in terms of our achieving what we’d set out to accomplish in these early-in-the-season fly-away races: namely, steadily pick up championship points while we develop our car’s performance envelope for the beginning of the European season in Barcelona.

“Anyway, from here we’ll go back to Woking, where we’ll work as hard as we possibly can to improve our cars for Shanghai, where we’ll be hoping to put up a significantly better showing than we did here in Sakhir this evening.”

Boullier – “Fucking deja vu all over again. Fuck.”

Williams
Felipe Massa, 7th
“The start was fantastic, I did everything right and I had good grip and it all went well. We were in a good position and fighting but sadly the tyre degradation was worse than we expected. The safety car didn’t help the strategy as I think we should have been up with the Force Indias rather than behind the Red Bulls so that is a shame. Other than that it was a good race, with some good battles and to finish with both cars in the points is really positive.”

MAS – “Memo to Mark Weber: That’s how you start a race, muthafucka!! Oh my God, that shit felt good. I was doing a little dance in my seat, singing, ‘Seems like funky days are black again!’ and I could see Hammy, see him. After that it was all Springsteen: “I had a friend who was a fast race car driver, then he got hit in the head with a spring.” I hate that fucking song. really, though, I blame the goddamned sanitized livery. In China, when we get the ‘Martini’ back on there, watch out, um. . . . I guess, Bottas!”

Valtteri Bottas, 8th
“After a poor start our race strategy was compromised. I had too much wheelspin and that lost me a few positions which is frustrating. We had issues with the tyres that were worse than expected but on a positive note we got some good points from both cars. We always want more though, so we will continue to work hard and look forward to the next race.”

BOT – “Yeah, I had too much wheel spin! Because I kept slamming the pedal to the metal because the fuck if I was going to let Massa get away with shit after last week. Then he goes un-fucking-conscious at the start and now I’m really freaking out and the ‘racing’ livery is bullshit; so, yeah: wheel spin. I had to call on all the powers of my Finnish Gods of Stoicism to remain calm. I think, later, I have to go sacrifice a goat or something, to pay them back. I can’t remember. I gotta look it up, or try ask Kimi. I don’t think he’s really in a talking mood right now, though.”

Caterham
Kamui Kobayashi, 15th
“I had an okay start but had an issue on lap one with a setting that gives us full boost and energy release – we sorted that out quickly and I passed Marcus [Ericsson] for 18th, then went after [Jules] Bianchi who I caught and passed on lap 10.

“My race pace was good in the first stint and the tyre deg was what we’d expected so we stuck to the strategy and boxed for the first time on lap 15 for another set of options. I came out behind Marcus and [Max] Chilton but got in front of them both and went after [Pastor] Maldonado in 16th but with the performance level of the car now I wasn’t able to catch him.

“We were on a two stop strategy so we came in for the mediums on lap 35. I was fighting with Gutierrez but let him go as he was on a different strategy and there wasn’t any point ruining that set of tyres just to race him, but then the safety car came out and I was able to make up the lap and was up with Maldonado and [Romain] Grosjean just as the safety car came in.

“After the restart I had to save fuel so couldn’t keep pace with the pack and that was pretty much the end of my race. Finishing 15th isn’t great but we really couldn’t do any more today. We’ll have to regroup for China and with a few updates we have for that race we’ll aim to make progress there.”

KOB – “Do you ever get the idea that I’m not paying any attention to actually fucking racing?”

Marcus Ericsson, DNF
“My start was good and I was up to 17th by the end of lap three, fighting with Grosjean and then went after Bianchi. The car balance really didn’t feel great and Kamui had better pace than me in the first few laps plus my tyre deg wasn’t great so we made our first stop on lap 11 at the same time as Chilton – the guys did a good job and I came back out still ahead of him at the start of the second stint.

“The car still didn’t feel great on the second set of tyres and I couldn’t hold back the Marussia or Kamui who was on a different strategy to me. I kept pushing up to the second stop on lap 26 when we went onto the third set of options and came out ahead of the Marussia again but then after a few more laps I lost power and was told to stop the car because we had an oil leak.

“It’s obviously disappointing not to be able to finish the race, especially as the car was feeling much better as the fuel level dropped. Still, for me it’s another part of the learning process and with every lap I’m racing my education continues. Now we have a couple more days of testing in Bahrain and then it’s off to China for another new track for me. We’ll have some new parts there so we’ll work on optimising them with setup and come back fighting in Shanghai.”

ERI – “Another thing that Kamui and I talk about on the radio while we’re racing is how it’s weird that Kevin and I both have two ‘s’ in our names and so people keep getting us confused. I was telling Kamui, via Gchat, during the race, when that does happen, I like to tell people, ‘Ok, this is how you can tell us apart: his name ends with ‘en’ and mine ends with ‘on’!’ Hah! That one always cracks me up. Kammy (I call him ‘Kammy’. We both drive green cars) Kammy just has the BEST emoticons, I guess ’cause he’s Japanese. They love that shit. Was there a race today?”

Force India
Sergio Perez, 3rd
“This podium is an amazing achievement and one of the most special results in my whole career. This is a massive confidence boost, especially after the very hard season I had last year, and it was the hardest-fought podium I ever had. It was an amazing feeling to cross the line because the last few laps were very difficult. I had to keep up the pace and I knew the Red Bulls were coming. In the end we managed to stay ahead and score this very special result in only my third race with the team. I also had a great fight with my teammate during the whole race. When he got ahead of me after the first stop, I tried to keep my head down to get back ahead. I managed to do that when we were fighting with the Williams and that was the crucial moment.”

PER – “Oh my god! I think my arms and my hands are going to fall off, they’re so fucking tired from fucking flipping off every last asshole at McLaren every time I see them. I don’t give a shit where I am on the track: if you drive a black car with one pathetic ad on your livery, you’re getting the bird. Fucking forget about my arms! I’ve got goddamn blisters on my knees from driving with my legs so I can flip all these pendejos back the stone age which, I think it where they got the design for their car: off some rock paintings. Fucking assholes. I AM KICKING YOUR ASSES IN A FUCKING FORCE INDIA CAR, BIIITCHEEEEZZZZZZ!”

Nico Hulkenberg, 5th
“It’s a great day for the team and I’m very happy for the guys. The battle with Checo was very clean and fair, and when you’re fighting for the podium you give everything but always stay within the lines. It was good fun. The end of the race was hard because I had to battle from the moment the safety car came in until the end of the race. I was behind Checo and I felt I had a little more pace, but I was in dirty air and that caused me to struggle towards the end. I held back Ricciardo for as long as I could and I managed to stay ahead of Vettel. It’s a great achievement for the team and we’ve shown once again that we are competitive so hopefully we can keep up the momentum in China.”

HUL – “I watched the awesome segment that Matchett did on dirty air and I’m just going to use that as an excuse for just about everything now.”

Vijay Mallya, Force India team principal
“Today is one of the greatest days in the history of our team. It’s been a long time coming, but it’s very satisfying to see Sahara Force India back on the podium after so many near misses in recent years. We have a great driver line-up and today we saw both Checo and Nico at their best as they battled for a place on the podium. Without the safety car our two-stop strategies would have been much more comfortable because we faced a strong assault from the Red Bulls in the closing stages. Nico did a fantastic job to keep them back for so long and hold on to fifth place. It gave Checo the breathing space he needed to secure third place. So I’m extremely proud of everyone in the team and congratulate all of them on this achievement. 2014 is a new chance and we have shown we’re moving forward in Australia, Malaysia and here. I couldn’t be happier.”

Mallya – “Thank you, Renault, for laying the most gigantic of F1 turds. Thank you so much.”

Sauber
Esteban Gutierrez, DNF
“First of all, the most important is that I am okay. They did all the checks at the hospital and everything is fine. Concerning the accident, I was completely surprised that Pastor (Maldonado), who came out of the pits, ran into me. I was clearly in front of him. I turned into the corner and I was suddenly hit and I rolled over. There was nothing much I could do.”

GUT – “I’ve got some homies in El Norte, some bad-ass cabrones, enforcers in the fucking trenches of narco-tepotzlan and they are going to fucking show Maldonado what happens you have to sling drogas to The States for your millions and your goddamn money doesn’t just come bubbling up out of the ground. Cuidate, motherfucker. Cuidate.”

Adrian Sutil, DNF
“My race was over quite early. Jules (Bianchi) braked too late and went into my car in the hairpin. I was not able to do anything to prevent it, and my car was damaged. He was driving aggressively for the whole race and pushed me off at the start. With his move he destroyed mine as well as his own race. It was unnecessary. In general, the weekend was difficult for us. However, I wanted to finish the race to cover more kilometres and also to gain experience with the car. The next race in China will come soon, so it can only be better.”

SUT – “CAN SOMEBODY JUST HIT CHILTON FOR ONCE AND NOT ME!? PLEASE? GOD!!!! US BACK MARKERS ARE SUPPOSED TO STICK TOGETHER, I THOUGHT!! GOOOOOOODDDD-DAH!!!!”

Ferrari
Fernando Alonso, 9th
“Today’s race was complicated for us, even if we knew what to expect because, with its long straights, this track shows up our weak points. The team did a super job and sorted the problem I had yesterday in the final part of qualifying and the start and strategy were perfect. The Safety Car helped us make up a bit of ground on the cars ahead of us and also allowed us to save fuel, but it was not enough to change the result, with eight cars ahead of us doing a better job. Although we did all we could, we can’t be happy with our level of performance and now our sole focus must be on working day and night. The season is in its early stages and I think we can stage a recovery. We have the resources and the potential to do it and it’s all down to us. Next week will be very important as we get back on track on Tuesday and Wednesday to test in preparation for the upcoming races. We have got a very aggressive programme, which we need as our rivals will not just be sitting back and watching.”

ALO – “A couple more races like this and I’m gonna have to lock up all my katanas. I’m losing sleep because I can hear them calling to me, begging me to use them to perform hara-kiri. Actually, fuck that: I should take my finest katana and fucking drive it right into the heart of this piece of shit car. Yep: A couple of shots of Enzo-Grappa and I’m going to stab the shit out of this car.”

Kimi Raikkonen, 10th
“I am very disappointed with today’s result, because after how qualifying went, I expected to do better. I didn’t get a good start and immediately lost some places. On the first lap, I was hit by Magnussen, luckily without it doing any damage, but trying to move up the order at this point was very difficult, because the lack of aero downforce and speed on the straight meant overtaking was complicated. We knew this track was less suited to the characteristics of our car than the first two and that the Mercedes would be very quick. Overall, the handling of our car has generally improved compared to the first races and this makes me confident for the upcoming ones. We can expect a lot of work to do and we will make the most of the test days to try and improve already in time for the next race in China.”

RAI – “Unless they can figure out a way to fuel this car with Enzo-Grappa or fucking dip the whole car in Enzo-Grappa, I’m going back to an all-vodka diet and, by ‘all-vodka diet’ I mean I’m going to dump all my vodka all over this car, the garage, anything red and I’m going to light the whole motherfucker up with a money-log from my money-heated hot tub. And I will laugh (silent, Finnish, to myself, very quietly, laughter) as it all goes up in flames.”

Stefano Domenicali, Ferrari team principal
“This race provided an epilogue to a weekend which turned out to be as difficult as we had thought it would be, even before arriving in Bahrain. This circuit is particularly tough for our car and Sakhir’s technical characteristics showed up the gaps in our performance. Now, we must forget this race and look ahead, because I don’t like seeing our drivers fighting hard everywhere and then being unable to attack or defend on the straights. We’ve got an important test ahead of us now, when I expect to see an initial step up in terms of quality. The team must not get downhearted, even if things have not turned out the way they should so far. They must continue to work in order to step up a gear as quickly as possible.”

Domenicali – “We are fucked.”

Marussia
Max Chilton, 13th
“Yesterday’s qualifying didn’t go so well but I knew today’s race was going to be a lot closer. I didn’t get a very good start but through the course of the race I managed the tyres well, while still having a good race with the Caterhams. The safety car helped us out as I don’t think we had to fuel save as much as the others, once we had unlapped ourselves. All in all it’s great to be leaving Bahrain with 13th place and having finished every single race of my F1 career so far – 22 out of 22 now! Most important of all, it’s a nice feeling to have helped us back into 10th position in the constructors’ championship standings. Bring on China!”

CHI – “WOOOO-HOOOOOO! HASN’T ANYBODY FIGURED IT OUT YET? WOOOO-HOOOOO! THE KEY TO LIFE IS TO STAY THE FUCK AWAY FROM MALDONADO!!!! WOOOOO-HOOOOOOO!!! SO HAPPY TO BE HERE!!!!!! BRRRRINNNNG IT-TAHHHH!!!!!!”

Jules Bianchi, 16th
“I’m really disappointed after another tough race for me; the third one in a row. I got a good start and made up three places by the end of the first lap and I was having a really good first stint, enjoying a good race with Sutil. I had the chance to get ahead of him and I was slightly ahead going into Turn 1, but he turned in on me and crashed into me, which punctured my left rear. I pitted but after that the car never felt the same and we can see now that the floor was damaged, which resulted in a loss of downforce and made the car difficult to drive for the rest of the race.”

BIA – “Coulda been 15th. Even 14th! Seriously though, can’t someone do something about Max?”

John Booth, Marussia team principal
“After a disappointing outing in Malaysia last weekend, where unfortunately we allowed 10th place in the constructors’ championship to slip through our grasp, it’s fantastic to regain the position again so quickly. Our performance today was no accident; it was the product of a lot of hard work by the factory in a very short space of time, coupled with the efforts of the trackside crew. Max had a tough start to the race and was stuck behind Ericsson for several laps but we re-optimised his ERS, which enabled him to overtake the Caterham. As a result of Kobayashi emerging just in front of Max after his second pit stop, at this point we opted to switch Max to a two-stop strategy to run to the end. The late safety car enabled us to put Max onto a fresh set of option tyres and he was able to pass Kobayashi at the restart. From there he comfortably pulled away and was able to stay in front of Maldonado, whilst also managing his fuel to the end of the race. Jules enjoyed a fantastic start to the race and after his first pit stop he was in a good battle with the Sauber of Sutil in which he was clearly quicker and trying to overtake. What happened next was unfortunate and that was effectively the end of Jules’ ability to race, however the fact that he was able to make it to the chequered flag gives him his first classified finish and provides the team with more valuable data. We’ve made a lot of progress this weekend and the test will give us the chance to improve the car further.”

Booth – “Data collection. That’s the business we’re in! Data for sale! Anybody want some Marussia Data? Data for sale!”

Mercedes
Lewis Hamilton, 1st
“What an incredible day. That was a really tough race tonight and I am absolutely delighted to have come home with the win. It’s a long time since I had a race like that! My weekend started off well but I didn’t really have great pace for qualifying and the race. I knew that I needed a good start and to go into the first corner in the lead was crucial to my race this evening. From there, it was such a battle. Nico drove fantastically well and, in all honesty, he had the pace on me today but I managed to hold on. I knew when the safety car came out that Nico would be on the option tyres and that he would be quick. To try and stay ahead of him was so hard and when I came across the line I was just so relieved. When you’re racing your team mate, the pressure is really intense and we both knew that we had to bring the cars home for the team and for the championship. All credit to the team for allowing us to race and I hope the fans loved the show that we were able to put on tonight. A big thank you to the team, especially to my engineers for all the information they were giving me during the race, and to everyone here and back at the factories for all their hard work. Another one-two is just fantastic for us. I’m also very proud to have joined Fangio with 24 Grand Prix wins today, he’s one of the great racers of all time so that’s a real honour.”

HAM – “Quite a sight to behold when someone as insufferable as I am attempts to appear diplomatic when, inside my head, I just want to start screaming about how I fucking rule and waggling my dick in everyone’s faces, isn’t it? After all, I have the power of God on my side. . . I think. Hashtag Bless.”

Nico Rosberg, 2nd
“It was a great battle out there this evening with Lewis and this kind of race is exactly why I am in Formula One; I love to race like today. Of course, it’s very disappointing to have finished second in the end but I gave it everything and it just didn’t quite come off for me. Lewis did a great job defending his position and, so often when I did manage to get past, I then couldn’t see him in the blind spot in my mirrors. Our strategy was good and to change it after the first stint was a decision that I made with the team. It was a slightly slower strategy but it gave me the best chance of catching Lewis at the end on the option tyres. The difference between the prime and the option was not as big as we expected however and that’s why I didn’t quite manage to get by. The positive must be that this was a great day for Formula One. The race was a fantastic show and hopefully it proves that the critics of our new technology are wrong. I can’t wait for China now and I want to end up on the top step there.”

ROS – “You think you’ve had cases of blue balls?! You have no fucking idea! GAH!!!”

Toto Wolff, Mercedes team executive director
“It has been a fantastic weekend for the team from start to finish. To have led every session with both cars is a real achievement and we can be very proud of the combined effort of our staff at Brackley, Brixworth and Stuttgart. The race was quite simply brilliant to watch, with battles throughout the field. Lewis and Nico drove with a great deal of maturity and respect for both each other and the team but still put on a great show. What we saw today was two drivers at the peak of their abilities fighting fair and square for victory. This is what we go racing for and it was a strong advert for the sport: in particular under these new regulations. With the result last week in Malaysia mirrored here tonight, we now find ourselves in a strong position in both Championships. We are under no illusions, however, that this is a given. We must take these moments and use them as inspiration in the on-going push to achieve our goals.”

Paddy Lowe, Mercedes team executive director (technical) 
“Another exceptional and well-deserved result for the team today after what has been a flawless weekend from everyone involved. From the very first laps in practice the car looked competitive and we didn’t miss a beat throughout. From the pit wall, the race was fascinating to watch. While there were undoubtedly some tense moments, we knew that both drivers would be sensible enough to bring the cars home: although it was worth throwing in a little reminder just to be sure! All credit to the teams at Brackley, Brixworth and Stuttgart for what they have achieved already this season. A particular note must go to the team at Mercedes AMG High Performance Powertrains, with their power units taking all three podium places and six of the top ten positions. It’s fantastic to show the world that not only can amazing technology be produced within this exciting new ‘Efficiency Formula’ but that racing is alive and well within our sport. We now have a two-day test here in Bahrain where we will be looking to build on our current performance and maintain this momentum into the next races. For now, though, we can enjoy what has been a highly successful few weeks for the team.”

Lotus
Romain Grosjean, 12th
“It’s good that we didn’t have any problems during the weekend and we were able to finish the race with both cars. It’s not easy racing – what with the fuel management and energy recovery system – so there’s certainly more mental work going on in the cockpit. At certain points of the race we were quite quick, but then at other points we were really struggling with the rear grip. Fortunately, we now have two days of testing at Bahrain so we’ll be able to try a lot of different set-ups to try to get the car more as we want it.”

GRO – “I don’t even think this is a French film anymore. It’s like a Bergman film, mixed with a Von Trier film, mixed with ‘Requiem for a Dream’, mixed with that time, when I was 14 and I danced, unironically to Snow’s ‘Informer’. Fucking kill me, someone, please.”

Pastor Maldonado, 14th
“As we expected the pace was much better in the race than it was in qualifying. We were using quite an interesting strategy and were running on two stops which was working well until the incident. We will need to have a look again at what happened as Esteban seemed to be off his line coming into Turn 1 – maybe he missed his braking point, I don’t know – and by then I was in the corner with nowhere to go. For sure it’s difficult to understand and I was coming out from the pits and with cold tyres. I think he was very unlucky and it’s good he jumped straight out of the car. As a team it’s a plus that we finished with two cars which is very important and now we need to learn from this race and push hard for Shanghai.”

MAL – “Yeah, looking at the tape, it’s obviously Esteban’s fault. I mean, look at that: there he is, on a racing track! Racing! Just fucking asking to be hit! Frankly, I think I should be commended to showing people the depths to which a person can sink and the heights of assholery that can be reached if you just dream big enough!”

2014 Bahrain Grand Prix Drivers’ Post-Qualifying Quotes, Translated

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I’m just so glad I don’t believe in God, like Hammy, ’cause at least I just have to live with Marko’s hate and not God’s, like Hammy.

Mercedes
Nico Rosberg (1st, Q3 – 1:33.185) 
“It’s fantastic to be on pole again here in Bahrain. I really enjoy the track and I won my GP2 Series title here so it has some pretty special memories for me. We’ve had a good weekend so far and I’ve been able improve my pace throughout the practice sessions so I was hoping for a strong qualifying. It’s so difficult to get everything completely right with all the new technology and set-up requirements on the car but I felt really comfortable this evening and was able to put some great laps together. I’m looking forward to the race as I had a good run on high fuel but we’re going to need to be careful with tyre degradation.”

ROS – “Oh, shit! Better start hydrating! All this cum! What the hell am I going to do? There are all these weight issues: on one hand, I’m ejacualting all my water weight; on the other hand, My shoes are swelling up like loaded diapers. I almost need Hammy to beat me every other race, just so I regain normal kidney function. C’mon, Hammy!”

Lewis Hamilton (2nd, Q3 – 1:33.464)
“Second place is pretty good for us today. I made a mistake on my last lap which was a shame but it’s great for the team to have both cars on the front row. They’ve done a fantastic job this weekend with the set-up simulations and we did a lot of testing here before the season started which has helped. The car has felt good so far but I definitely felt more comfortable in practice than I did this evening in qualifying. I’m not really sure why but we’ll have a good look at the data tonight and see if there is anything we can identify before the race tomorrow. Congratulations to Nico today, he’s done a great job so far this weekend and nailed a really quick lap in qualifying. I’m happy that it’s my team-mate there on pole and not someone else!”

HAM – “Yep, we had better check the data, ’cause it couldn’t be that I was slower than Nico today. I wonder of the data will show the hand of God coming down and holding my car back for 5-hundredths of a second. I wonder if the data will have the audio of God, laughing, as he does this to me, Lewis Hamilton, Center of the Universe? Perhaps if I tweet the data. I’m just so glad it’s Nico on pole and not someone else even if that someone else is me. Really. Happy. For. Nico. Hashtag Bless.”

Paddy Lowe, Mercedes team executive director (technical)
“It’s extremely satisfying to see that our car has the performance to take both slots on the front row for the first time under these new regulations. Our pace was evident from the beginning of Q1 and it was good to watch our drivers competing so closely throughout the sessions. Nico drove a superb lap on his first run in Q3 and Lewis clearly sensed he had to push to the limit to match his team-mate. Unfortunately this lead to a mistake at the first corner but his initial lap was still good enough to maintain second. It’s been a good day and we look forward to seeing if we can match that performance in the race tomorrow.”

Lowe – “Lewis, try not to freak out over second place and fuck the shit up, right?”

Toro Rosso
Daniil Kvyat (13th, Q2 – 1:35.145)
“I am a little bit disappointed and also surprised with only making it to Q2, because we were fast enough to get into Q3 looking at how the rest of the weekend went so far. But unfortunately the others were faster and we didn’t manage to improve enough so it wasn’t a very satisfying Qualifying session. We will have a look at this tonight and hopefully we can have another strong race tomorrow.”

KVY – “I think it might be time for a visit to Renault from my jump-suited friends. They won’t do anything, really. They’ll just stand there, glowering in a corner…In their jumpsuits. Remember the twins in Breaking Bad? Like, you knew those guys were bad-ass just from their matching suits, right? Renault’ll get their shit together once they’ve been turned inside out by Adidas-Fear.”

Jean-Eric Vergne (14th, Q2 – 1:35.286)
“Today the team did again a very good job to give me a car that was more suitable for me and I had a good feeling in Q2. We made a good step forward compared to yesterday, even though I felt down in power and we will have to investigate the reasons for this. Anyway, we have to stay positive, also because starting 14th on the grid is not too bad and everything is possible. We just have to keep our head down and stay focussed.”

VER – “Gotta stay positive. Gotta stay focussed. Keep telling ourselves it’ll be ok. It’s just a tornado: it’ll be ok. It’s just a hacking cough: it’ll be ok. It’s just a funny rash: it’ll be ok.”

Marussia
Jules Bianchi (20th, Q1 – 1:37.310)
“The car balance was pretty good today. We lost some time on the straight – 0.3s – which I thought we had got on top of and ultimately this cost us getting ahead of Kobayashi. It’s something we need to look at as we need to get back in front of the Caterhams, not losing out to them. We will hope to recover a little bit of ground tomorrow but it will be tough.”

BIA – “Qualified ahead of Chilton. It’s a fucking great day.”

Max Chilton (22nd, Q1 – 1:37.913)
“I’m a little bit disappointed after that qualifying session as I thought we had done enough to edge a bit closer to Q2. When everything comes together we aren’t that far away and if you look at the overall spread of times we have made some progress. We didn’t achieve everything we could today, but having said that, I think tomorrow we’ll have a better showing.”

CHI – “TOMORROW! TO-MORROW! I LOVE YA! TOMORROW! THE GUYS LOVE IT WHEN I SING THIS AFTER EVERY QUALIFYING, DON’T YOU GUYS? TOMORROW! THE SUN’LL COME UP TOMO. . . . GUYS?”

Williams
Valtteri Bottas (4th, Q3 – 1:34.247)
“It was a good qualifying session; I think we got the maximum potential out of the car today. After the Red Bull penalty we are third and after the last two races it’s good to see the full potential of the car on a Saturday. We haven’t done too many laps this weekend so there are things we can still improve for the race, but if we get the strategy right and take the opportunities that come our way we should be in for a good result.”

BOT – “That oughta shut Felipe the fuck up.”

Felipe Massa (8th, Q3 – 1:34.511)
“That was not a very easy qualifying. I made a few mistakes on my lap in Q3 as I had a bit of oversteer, so lost some time and I really should have been quicker. We will start P7 tomorrow after Ricciardo’s penalty and it’s a long race so a lot could happen. We look competitive which is good to see, and we are in the fight for tomorrow.”

MAS – “It’s a fucking bitch to qualify when you’ve been up all week, not sleeping, with fucking radio transmissions echoing in your head about ‘x is faster than you’ and ‘y is faster than you’. Jesus, by Wednesday, just pouring milk into my cereal, I could see my cereal staring at me accusatorially. My fucking cereal, man, was like, ‘What? Can’t you pour that milk any faster? What’s wrong with you, slowy slowerton?’ Yeah, qualifying is hard when every breakfast ends with you, throwing a gallon of milk at the wall. Fuck”

Rob Smedley, Williams head of vehicle performance
“The team did an excellent job throughout the whole of qualifying, so we are very happy. We have good race pace which we showed in testing and with Ricciardo’s penalty we’ll be P3 and P7 on the grid, which is a good step forward towards where we want to be. We are also starting on the clean side of the grid, which is an added advantage. The FW36 has good overtaking capabilities so we are feeling positive for tomorrow. Overall, it’s been a good day to start off my time at Williams.”

Smedley – “That ought shut Felipe the fuck up.”

Sauber
Esteban Gutierrez (15th, Q2 – 1:35.891)
“I am satisfied with the result of qualifying today. We managed to put together some fast laps. I want to thank my team; they did a good job in finding the right balance from my feedback. We need to look forward and still work hard, because we are missing quite a lot of pace to be where we want to be. I have a great team and we are all working hard. Today it was the optimum I could get out of the car on my last really good lap. With the lower temperatures the tyres are behaving in a different way. I feel positive for the race tomorrow, but with our pace we cannot be in the top ten at the moment. However, I am sure if we work consistently we can get some points in the future.”

GUT – “Hey, it’s Sauber. What the fuck do you want? Fucking 11th?!”

Adrian Sutil (18th, Q1 – 1:36.840) 
“Today there was not much to achieve. However, making it into Q2 could have been possible. Unfortunately, we are still too slow on the straights, and I am personally struggling with the fact the car is overweight. I only had one lap, as I had traffic on my second run. This resulted in aborting my final lap. We have to concentrate on tomorrow, and we need to be better in the race. However, it will be difficult to finish in the points. We are working on the car, and I think when we get to Europe we will be able to move further up the grid. I am looking forward to that and I will put all my efforts into it.”

SUT – “I wonder if I cum as much as Nico, but not into my shoes, I might get light enough to not blame my weight on every goddamn thing that goes wrong?”

Caterham
Kamui Kobayashi (19th, Q1 – 1:37.085)
“FP3 was a much better session than we’d had yesterday. The guys had worked until just before curfew to get the cars ready and they did really well to prepare for Saturday. The car was performing pretty well in FP3, a little oversteer, but that was to be expected with the track temperatures in the afternoon, but we didn’t want to make any changes as it was obviously going to be cooler in the evening.

“In quali my first run was good – one flying lap on the options that I didn’t think I could improve on so I boxed and we waited until there were about three minutes left and then went out for one more flying lap. I definitely got everything I could out of the car on that run and finished about four-tenths from Q2, a realistic view of where we are now with performance.

“That’s the first time this season we’ve really had a chance to extract maximum performance from the car, after a good Friday and Saturday, so it’s clear what we need to do to improve. We saw last week in Malaysia we have good race pace, but we need to bridge that gap to be able to fight in quali with teams like Lotus and Sauber, and that’s the target. For tomorrow I think we’re in a much better position than we were in the first two races, particularly with the work we did yesterday, so if we can continue this better reliability the race could be a good one for us.”

KOB – “Caterham, where if words were speed, we’d be kicking everyone’s ass all over the globe.”

Marcus Ericsson (21st, Q1 – 1:37.875) 
“We definitely made some improvements overnight and I want to thank everyone in the team for the efforts they put in to move on from what had been a bit of a difficult Friday. My final run on the options was the best of the weekend so far – we’d improved the braking and the overall balance so I went into quali feeling pretty positive about being able to fight with our nearest rivals.

“We started Q1 on a set of new options but I had a bit of a lock-up that cost me quite a bit of time on the first run. I wasn’t going to get any more out of that set of tyres so we boxed and then went for another final run towards the end of the session. My final lap was definitely my best of the weekend but I didn’t have a great out lap so I know I could have found more, but overall I’m reasonably pleased with how Saturday has gone. It’s been a much better weekend so far with reliability and with the improvements we made today I’m now focused on having another solid race tomorrow. I’m learning all the time, and with the mileage we’ve now done here in Bahrain I want to make tomorrow’s race my strongest yet – do that and this will have been a good weekend.”

ERI – “Just trying to match Kamui, prose-wise, here!”

Force India
Sergio Perez (5th, Q3 – 1:34.346)
“It was definitely a great qualifying session and the team did a fantastic job to give me such a competitive car. After the problems we had in the first two races I feel this has been the first real opportunity to show the potential of the car. I believe we could have been even closer to the front, but I couldn’t warm up my brakes enough on the out lap of my final run in Q3 and so I didn’t improve. We’re already thinking about tomorrow and I think the clear target must be to aim for the podium. We’re in the best possible position to fight at the front and I’m going to make the most of it. I’ve got some very good memories of this track but tomorrow I want to create even better ones.”

PER – “I’m not sure how I managed to qualify while flipping McLaren the double bird the whole time but, fucking a, if I didn’t do it! Where’s your pot-leafed fucking bandera de Mexico now, motherfuckers?!”

Nico Hulkenberg (12th, Q2 – 1:35.116)
“My lap in Q2 was not the best one. I made a mistake in turn 11 and ran wide on the exit kerb, which completely ruined my lap. I lost a couple of tenths and that made the difference between making it into Q3 and missing out. I do believe the chance for a good result tomorrow is still there and I feel optimistic. We showed on Friday that we have good long run pace and I have two new sets of soft tyres for the race. The strategy decisions for tomorrow will be important to help me move forward and with the cooler conditions it should be easier on the tyres compared to Malaysia.”

HUL – “Back here and I still am going to have to battle it out with ‘Nando for tenth. Fuck me.”

Lotus
Romain Grosjean (16th, Q2 – 1:35.908)
“It was tight to get to Q2. We knew beforehand that we were around the cut off, so it was great to get through. If we look at the whole weekend we’ve been struggling on the track. This evening the car felt more together and more driveable – of course 16th is not great and we’re never going to be satisfied with that, but I’m happy with the way the team has been working and pushing in the right direction. We have to try things and try to understand why we are where we are and why we are not unlocking our potential. I hope the race pace will be a little bit better than the qualifying pace and then we can put up a good fight in the race.”

GRO – “Yeah, sometimes you’re not unlocking your potential. And, of course, sometimes, you dig up that stash of weed that you buried under that tree two summers ago when you just about got busted by your parents and, yeah: lots of potential there right? So, you dig that shit up; you think: ‘Fuck, I’m getting fucking hiiiiiigh tonight.’ You dig that shit up and it turns out that your stash all went moldy and fucked up BECAUSE IT WAS BURIED IN THE DIRT UNDER A TREE! And there really wasn’t any potential to unlock. Lotus: We are moldy weed. Go team. Fuck, Imma gonna hafta smoke something, being teammates with Pastor. My god.”

Pastor Maldonado (17th, Q1 – 1:36.663)
“We’re not here to fight for P16 and P17 so it’s a bit disappointing to see ourselves where we are in qualifying at the moment. We just need to be focused and try to push even more on the development of the car to catch the people around us. At the moment it’s fair to say our car is a bit on the slow side and quite difficult to drive. However we’ve made an important step forwards in terms of reliability. There have been no problems this weekend which is quite positive so fingers crossed for tomorrow. For race pace we look much more competitive than in qualifying. I’m looking forward to the race and seeing what is possible.”

MAL – “Yep, it’s the car. Lotus: Cross Your Fingers and Smoke that Moldy Weed. Go team”

Red Bull
Daniel Ricciardo (3rd, Q3 – 1:34.051)
“Today was nice, tomorrow will be less nice with the ten place penalty, but I was really happy with qualifying. I think through all the runs and on both tyres I was happy with my performance. We may have saved one set of tyres compared to the others, so that’s good, hopefully I’m going to need it tomorrow for coming through the pack; hopefully it will help us. I did the best I could today, so for that I’m pleased. I think Seb and I will both be charging hard tomorrow and will aim to put on a good race.”

RIC – “It’s not so much that I’m the ‘Mark’ this season or that they’ve given me Mark’s old car or any of that: it’s that I’m infected with the aura of Mark and, really, the only cure for that is for fucking Marko to die so, um, it’s been fun!”

Sebastian Vettel (11th, Q2 – 1:34.985)
“We weren’t quick enough today. I was pretty happy yesterday, but I think this morning didn’t help us when I spun off and did some damage to the car. It’s hard to say how big the impact of that was, as once you start qualifying you just get your head down and try to do the best you can. It was quite tight with Kimi and there wasn’t a lot missing to get to Q3, but that’s how it goes. We get an extra set of tyres tomorrow and I think in the race things will calm down and we’ll be able to be a bit more consistent and attack for some good points. I think our speed is okay on a longer run – and actually on a shorter run too, as Dan has shown today. It will be hard to overtake some cars tomorrow, but we will try our best.”

VET – “Some motherfuckers are going to get the shit Force-choked out of them, that’s all I’m gonna say.”

Christian Horner, Red Bull team principal
“A superb lap from Daniel to finish qualifying in third. It’s unfortunate he has to take the ten place penalty, but nonetheless a really impressive qualifying performance from him today. Unfortunately Sebastian’s qualifying was plagued by a couple of issues that cost him straight line speed and some compromised downshifts. Hopefully that can be rectified overnight. Sebastian will start tenth tomorrow and, with freedom of choice of tyres, it still puts us in a reasonable position for the race.”

Horner – “Watching Adrian get Force-choked is this weird combination of scary and satisfying.”

Thierry Salvi, Renault Sport
“Again a tough session today and quite different for our drivers. We had to work on Seb’s car before qualy and had to face several issues. Seb started in a downgraded mode since we found a damaged wastegate and then the team experienced some problems with the downshifts. We were able to manage during the session until the last run of Q2. Dan again extracted the most from the car to get close to Mercedes. We are clearly in the challenger situation with two silver cars in front as a target. We know what we have to achieve to get back to the front and that’s what we are focused on night and day. Tomorrow will be tricky race starting in the middle and again we’ll ask a lot from both drivers to get back to the front.”

Salvi – “I just gave you this entire quote while being Forced-choked!”

McLaren


Jenson Button (7th, Q3 – 1:34.387)
“Although we haven’t qualified where we’d ideally like to have done, as a team I reckon we’ve done a more or less perfect job so far this weekend.

“It was very tight out there, we did all we could, and we ended up very close to P4; all you can do is get the best out of the car, and that’s what we did here today.

“The four fly-away races are all about picking up points as and when you can. We’ve done that pretty well the first two races, and we’ve got to continue doing that. We’re not the quickest, so we’ve got to make the best of what we have and what we are.

“A podium finish tomorrow would be great, but it’ll be very difficult because the first two places are already fully booked as long as the two Mercedes cars are reliable. But let’s be positive: we’ve got a fighting chance of making up places tomorrow, and third place is only three spots better than where we’ll be starting from [sixth].”

BUT – “I might’ve qualified higher, I reckon, but every time I saw Checo, flipping us the double bird and driving with his knees, I fucking fell over from laughter.”

Kevin Magnussen (9th, Q3 – 1:34.712)
“I’m not entirely happy with my qualifying position today, to be honest.

“We’d hoped that the cool temperatures would confer more of an advantage to us, and help us a little bit more, but it didn’t work out that way. Having said that, Jenson did a very good job, and got a bit more out of the car than I did, and I think that’s probably the most anyone could have got out of it today.

“Our race pace might be better than our qualifying pace was, and we should hopefully be a bit more competitive tomorrow as a result of that. We should be in the thick of the fight for points.

“But, first of all, I need to make a clean start tomorrow. I don’t want any damage to the front wing at the first corner!”

MAG – “Gah! Even qualifying is hard! Goddammit!”

Ferrari
Kimi Raikkonen (6th, Q3 – 1:34.368)
“I am reasonably pleased with my qualifying, because up until this morning, I did not feel completely comfortable in the car, but the faith I put in what we had at our disposal was paid back with this result. We are improving in all areas, on the engine, data acquisition, electronics and the new parts fitted to the car have given me a better feeling from the front end. Sure, we are not yet where we want to be, but I think we are on the right path and we have the right people to give us every possibility to continue to move forward. It’s hard to say how tomorrow’s race will go, because in the simulation done yesterday, I was struggling on the Medium tyre, while the balance was better on the Soft. We know we can’t fight with Mercedes, but today’s result gives me more confidence than at the previous races and I will do my best to bring home a good result.”

RAI – “‘Nando kept telling to lay off the Vodka and go with the Enzo-Grappa. Fuck, if it didn’t work! Now, make no mistake: this shit wasn’t easy. Laying off the Vodka for a week, just in the hopes that some Grappa from a giant bottle with a dead Italian inside the bottle would make me faster: fuck, dude, I’m Finnish. I don’t believe in shit! I believe in ice, Ice Dragons and giant piles of money, burning in an oven to heat the water of my hot tub. But, fuck if this shit didn’t make me faster! Also, watching Sasha blow Fernando in that Ferrari seat/chair thing probably didn’t hurt.”

Fernando Alonso (10th, Q3 – 1:34.992)
“We tried our best as usual today and now we need to wait for the car to come back from parc ferme to work out why there was a drop in power in Q3. In winter testing here we had already seen that this circuit is particularly suited to the Mercedes powered cars, because the long straights allow them to use their top end performance. But given how free practice and the first two parts of qualifying had gone, maybe we could have hoped to be a bit higher up the order. Now, we must think only of doing well tomorrow, especially at the start, given we are on the clean side because of Ricciardo’s penalty. Then we must work out the best strategy, choosing between two or three stops. A lot will depend on how the tyres perform: I think that, in lower temperatures than we have seen so far, the Medium could throw up some surprises.”

ALO – ” I don’t know how he did it, but I think Kimi watered down my Enzo-Grappa.”

 

2014 Malaysian Grand Prix Post-Race Drivers’ Quotes, Translated

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If it’s a day that ends in ‘y’, be sure to go fuck yourself and your fucking team orders

Mercedes
Lewis Hamilton, 1st
“I’m incredibly happy today. This is my first win in Malaysia after eight attempts and to do it for our Petronas family in their home country makes it even more special. It’s all down to the team. They have done a fantastic job and I have to say a huge thank you to everyone here at the track and back at our factories who have been pushing non-stop to get the car where it is. The race was tougher than it perhaps looked today and the conditions here always make it a great challenge. But I was able to look after the car, the tyres and the fuel and still keep a bit of pace in hand which made my job that little bit easier. It’s great to see Mercedes leading the championship but we know that we have to make these early races pay. Anything can happen as we saw in Australia, so this is an important result for us. One-two finishes don’t happen very often and this is a real achievement for the team. Finally, I would like to offer this victory in tribute to all those affected by the tragedy of MH370. A special mention also goes to my step-mum Linda for her 50th birthday tomorrow!”

HAM – “Baby is so happy when Baby gets what he wants! Next week, when things go to shit, I’ll go back to pouting on the radio and tweeting telemetry. BTW: So sad about the plane crash people stuff! God rest their souls. These things happen for a reason; God puts commas where we try to put periods. Although, for lots of those people, it was probably pretty period-y.  It does make me sad, though, that they won’t be able to see me race or do fast things or listen to my music or think about me and the rich things I do. Happy Birthday, Linda! Hashtag Bless.”

Nico Rosberg, 2nd
“This is an incredible day for our team and for Mercedes-Benz. Everyone back at our factories in Brackley and Brixworth, and all employees of Mercedes-Benz, can feel very proud today. For the first time in the modern Silver Arrows era, we have achieved a one-two finish which is an incredible result. The team did a phenomenal job over the winter and my thanks once again for that. I also want to thank our partners Petronas. They have given our team so much support, along with the best products for our power unit, so we are proud to be associated with them and I hope they enjoy the celebrations today. I had a great start again, even though it was tight with Sebastian. It was very close at the wall and I just closed the eyes, went for the gap and did it. Later I was able to control the pace and to defend my position against Seb but Lewis was out of my reach, so congratulations to him for his win. I really look forward now to next weekend in Bahrain.”

ROS – “I just closed my eyes, went for the gap, let the angels on my dick start their dancing. . ..  and then. . gah! It’s like when you feel a sneeze coming on and then you don’t sneeze. Although, I have to say, after nearly passing out from hyper-ejaculating related dehydration last week, it was best for me and the team that I retain my fluids. I’ll probably get dehydrated this week, anyway, after puking every time I have to see Hammy’s smug fucking happy face. Thank god there’s only one week between races. Two weeks and my esophagus would’ve been toast.”

Red Bull

Sebastian Vettel, 3rd
“We have certainly made a good step forwards, but we still have a lot of work to do. It’s great to get a podium finish today. Considering where we were, not even two months ago, I think this weekend is a massive step in the right direction. It’s a shame we didn’t finish with both cars, but it’s good to see the car is quick and we need the laps; for now it’s important to collect points. The guys are pushing back in the factory and at Renault – it’s been a massive job from them – and we’ll try to be up there very soon again. It was a shame to lose a place at the start, but third was our maximum position today, so I’m very happy with that. It’s a shame for Daniel with what happened, he drove really well.”

VET – “Marko and I have been watching a lot of ‘Clone Wars’ lately and picking up a lot of motivational tips from the Separatist-soon-to-be-The-Empire guys and, yeah, it’s funny: doing a force choke on the guys at Enstone and Renault really gets their attention! Like, this shit works. Won’t be long until this seems-to-be-unfinished car is FULLY OPERATIONAL. Except for Danny’s car. Fuck him.”

Daniel Ricciardo, DNF
“It was looking like we could have a solid points finish today; the race was going pretty well. The start was really good and I made up a couple of positions and I was starting to, let’s say, mix it up at the front, which is nice. It’s fun being up there and fighting for the top few spots, but then we had a problem at the last pit stop and then we had a puncture. I think we had a front wing failure and a few other things went on and then the stop-go penalty, so the race ended pretty quickly for us, it went from looking good to looking pretty bad in a short amount of time. I’m really disappointed, but at the same time there’s a little bit in me which is happy because I think I’ve come out the first two races how I wanted to, in a way. I still want to improve, but we’ve started off on the right foot, so for that I’m pleased and with a little bit of luck we’ll turn things around soon and I’ll get some points. I love racing up the front, it’s been a privilege so far and a lot of fun in the last couple of races. It’s a bit addictive actually, I want more, so you’ll see me up there plenty of times this year.”

RIC – “Well, I can’t say nobody warned me. One thing that does make more sense now are all the little scraps of paper I keep finding in the nooks and crannies of the garage with “help me!” scrawled on there in Mark’s hand-writing. Time to respond to those ‘anonymous’ emails I’m getting about a support group for victims of team abuse.”

Christian Horner, Red Bull team principal
“Considering where we were a month ago, to be on the podium with Sebastian in Malaysia in a dry race, is an incredible performance. We knew that we had some ground to catch up to the Mercedes, so to finish as close as Sebastian did today was a really positive performance and, while we know we’ve got a lot of work to do, we can begin to realise the scale of our challenge. It’s a great shame for Daniel who did everything right today – a great start and a great first lap and a really impressive opening part of the race. It was unlucky that when he came in to a pit stop, the front left didn’t go on properly and the car was released, it was judged to be an unsafe release and we had a drive through penalty. Thereafter the wing failed – we don’t know what caused that yet. I think Daniel’s clearly shown his potential and that the Australian GP wasn’t a one off; it’s great to have two guys pushing like they are.”

Horner – “Remember this quote when, next season, we’re blaming Danny for holding up Seb after his car catches fire and the smoke kinda slows Seb down for a second and so Seb doesn’t get a purple lap and that makes Marko/Seb angry and then I have to deal with that. Fuck that Danny guy.”

McLaren
Jenson Button, 6th
“It was hot out there this afternoon! And when you’ve spent all that time watching the two Williams battling in your mirrors, it makes it feel even hotter. Still, it was an enjoyable race, and I couldn’t really have expected more. I think we got the most we could out of the package this afternoon, and I didn’t think I’d be finishing sixth after the way the car had performed earlier in the weekend.

“It’s encouraging for all the guys that we called both the pit stops and the fuel usage perfectly throughout the race. I also want to say a big ‘thanks’ to everyone back at the MTC [McLaren Technology Centre] for working so hard to bring the updates to the track. Every little helps. Nonetheless, there’s no getting away from the fact that we’re still weak in the high-speed corners; this car does have its strengths, but we’ve got a lot of work to do. We got the best out of the car today, but we know we still need to improve.

BUT – “It’s just really nice to not-suck as much as we sucked last year. Even though we still kinda suck.”

Kevin Magnussen, 9th
“I’m sorry for the team that I messed things up going into the second corner, with the incident with Kimi. I think we could have scored some good points today, so I’m disappointed with and for myself, too. Grands prix are long races, so I shouldn’t have made a mistake like that so early on in the afternoon. But that sort of stuff happens sometimes – and, when it does, you just have to learn from it, and I will.

“After the incident, it wasn’t easy to recover, and we struggled with the high track temperatures, and in the high-speed corners, too. As I say, I’ll learn from this race and I’ll see what I can do at the next one. It’s good that the Bahrain Grand Prix is so soon; it’ll feel good to put this one behind me, and move on.”

MAG – “I wonder if Sutil still has that prescription for ‘Sutil-itis’? Fuck, this shit is hard, actually, this racing thing. Do we do this all fucking year?! Fuck.”

Eric Boullier, McLaren racing director
“Clearly, we’d expected to be leaving Sepang with rather more than the 10 points we scored here this afternoon. Having said that, Jenson drove a faultless race, moving steadily from his P10 grid slot to P6 at flag-fall. Had qualifying gone better for him, perhaps he could have finished a little farther up, but probably not much.

“Kevin made a good start, but, as he shaped up to pass Kimi’s Ferrari, the two cars touched, causing a puncture for Kimi and a broken left-side front-wing end-plate for Kevin. Kevin’s first pit-stop was consequently elongated by our need to fit a replacement nose-cone assembly, which deficit was compounded by the stop-go penalty he was awarded soon after. Such races are a Formula 1 rookie’s rights of passage, inevitable and unsurprising, but Kevin’s reaction was impressive from two perspectives: first, he put his head down and drove his heart out for the remainder of the afternoon, recovering very well to finish ninth at the finish; and, second, he apologised to the team unreservedly on the slowing-down lap, which wasn’t strictly necessary but was good to hear all the same.

“Overall, then, despite having got both our cars to the finish in points-scoring positions, we’re far from satisfied; but we’re working tirelessly to improve things, and that’s exactly what we’ll do.
“From here we go to Bahrain, where we hope to spice things up a bit by putting on a better show in the home race of our principal shareholder, Mumtalakat.”

Boullier – “Still so happy I got the fuck out of Lotus!”

Lotus
Romain Grosjean, 11th
“Eleventh place is good for all the guys at Enstone and at the track, and it’s good for me too. Finishing the race was our first objective and then we wanted to see where we were with our car. It’s not perfect yet but it’s good to be where we are at this stage. I had a big loss of downforce around eight laps to the end especially in the rear of the car which made things difficult, especially when I had to defend. Without that issue, I’m sure we could have finished higher. It’s good to be back and close to the points so it’s a positive for all of us. It was a good battle at the end. I kept remembering our past battles to make sure Kimi couldn’t go through!”

GRO – “Hey, hey! We finished a race! Well, one car anyway. Well, to be honest: Does anyone actually expect Pastor to finish a single race this season? Fuck. Do you know what I’m really sick of? I’m just realizing that ALL HE WEARS are these T-shirts with the 2012 Spanish GP results printed on the back. He must have, like, 50 of those fuckers. Seriously, even Kimi and his Ice Dragons weren’t as annoying as this shit.”

Pastor Maldonado, DNF
“After the start we were losing a lot of power so we’ll have to investigate later to see what the issue is and analyse the data. This problem meant I had to retire in order to protect the engine. Despite that, this weekend has been clearly a step forwards. Since Saturday, we’ve been able to run far more with the car and Romain was able to finish the race. Today obviously was not so good for me, but we’re not the only ones with issues so early in the season. This is all related to all the complex packages in the car, but we have learnt a lot this weekend and will make progress for the next.”

MAL – “Trombone sounds you hear when the adults talk to the kids in those Peanuts cartoons.”

Sauber
Adrian Sutil, DNF
“In my last lap I lost power and then suddenly the car switched off. I don’t know what happened, so we need to analyse it. It is a shame. Many things don’t work well at the moment, so we need to learn from that. In general, our pace was too slow and the grip level was poor. This was unusual for us and we didn’t expect that. We will keep working on the issues we have and we will be back stronger for the next races. We don’t have much time until Bahrain, so we don’t expect to have many updates there. However, for the upcoming races we have a plan which we are working on in order to improve.”

SUT – “We have a plan. Yep: we’re going to stea. . . um, borrow one of RBR’s cars from last year and paint it with whatever boring-ass livery we’re using right now.”

Esteban Gutierrez, DNF
“After quite a long stint, I made a pit stop and couldn’t engage first gear. I tried it many times, but it didn’t work, so there was not much I could do. In the end we made a step forward this weekend. Obviously it was not a good race, but we have to keep positive. We must solve our issues so we are consistent and reliable at the track and have no technical problems. We still have a long season ahead and I am confident we can improve.”

GUT – “I was sitting there, in the pit, and all the guys were all shouting, ‘GRIND IT ‘TIL YOU FIND IT! GRIND IT ‘TIL YOU FIND IT!’ and laughing. Fucking assholes were falling down they were laughing so hard. Fucking Sauber.”

Giampaolo Dall’Ara , Sauber head of track engineering
“The start of the race was okay, as Adrian was able to gain several positions. We were on a three stop strategy with both cars, because our goal was to keep up with the cars in front of us. Both drivers started on the medium tyre. Adrian then shifted to the hard compound at his first stop, because he was not happy with the medium tyre. Esteban changed to the hard tyre during his second stop, and then wanted to go back to the medium for the last stint. But during his pit stop he wasn’t able to engage first gear. Before that Adrian was forced to stop out on the track. His car lost electric power supply and switched off completely. We will investigate both problems in order to solve them before the next race in Bahrain. Overall, our performance in the race wasn’t where we expected it to be, so we have some homework to do.”

Dall’Ara – “Huh-uh, huh-uh! I said ‘Three stop strategy’. Uh-huh.”

Toro Rosso
Jean-Eric Vergne, DNF
“I think I had a great start today but very soon I felt some problems with the car. I lost power in the car and I just saw everybody overtaking me. Then I found myself in a sandwich between a Caterham and Bianchi and maybe I was a bit too ambitious to think I could try and pass the two cars. It was just not possible and this resulted in the collision, which damaged my front wing. At this point I knew that my race was compromised, so I was hoping for some rain and maybe a safety car to change the cards on the table and re-join the pack. But then I continued to suffer with the car and my race was over. It’s really a shame, as this was a race in which we could have been strong and achieve a good result. The race pace on hard tyres was pretty good. On the positive side, we have a good car and we won’t have to wait long before being back on track, as Bahrain is just around the corner.”

VER – “I’ve said a lot of words and things just now but the most important fact is that the idea of a Caterham/Bianchi sandwich has given me a really gigantic boner.”

Daniil Kvyat, 10th
“It’s good to finish in the top 10 for a second time in a row now. This afternoon’s race was very difficult and intense with a lot of fighting. The first two stints were hard when I was fighting the Williams and McLaren in the early stages, but they were faster than me on the straight. I was quite happy with the final stint and having managed to defend my position. Overall it was a good weekend and I hope we continue to improve like this as the car definitely has potential. So I’m looking forward to going straight to Bahrain to race again in a week’s time. It will be interesting to be on a track where we have actually tested with this car.”

KVY – “All the Ice Dragons and all the Italian racing history and all the British racing history and all the energy drink dollars and all you fuckers will all eventually bow to the power of oil-soaked Rubles! Respect, bitches!”

Franz Tost, Toro Rosso team principal 
“Daniil did another good race, scoring a point again here after Melbourne. He could stand the pressure from the others until the end of the race and defend his position, without making any mistake. As for JEV, after yesterday’s very good performance in qualifying, he unfortunately faced some problems today from the very beginning of his race. Soon after the start, in his first lap, he lost many positions, when something went wrong in the power unit management.”

Tost – “New strategy! We are looking into Russian citizenship for Jean-Eric!”

Williams
Valtteri Bottas, 8th 
“I think we need to be happy about today as moving from P18 to P8 is a good result and we have more points in the bag. The car was not as competitive this weekend as it was in Melbourne, but the team has done a very good in producing a car that is looking like it can consistently fight in the top 10. I had a really good start, making up six places on the first lap, and from then on the pace was pretty good and I was able to make up more places without too much trouble by using our very strong straight line speed on the long straights. Qualifying has shown that there are parts of the car we need to address, but the start to the season has been encouraging for us so far.”

BOT – “I am totally looking forward to being this season’s Romain Grosj. . . .Oh: Fuck me.”

Felipe Massa, 7th
“Getting both cars in the points today is a positive result for the team. I had a very good start and made up some good places on the first lap, but my progress was halted a bit by the McLaren of Magnussen in the first stint which had good traction out of the last corner which made it difficult for me to overtake. I also had the same issue later on in the race with Jenson as I was able to get up close to the back of him in the closing stages when on better tyres, but just couldn’t get past. On the whole I don’t think this track particularly suited our car, so we have done well to finish where we have, and I’m confident that we will be more competitive in Bahrain.”

MAS – “FUCK ALL YOU FUCKERS. MASSA IS THROUGH TAKING SHIT FROM ANY OF YOU FUCKING ASSHOLES. MASSA WILL RACE HOW MASSA WANTS TO RACE AND, IF YOU CAN’T DEAL WITH MASSA, FUCK THE FUCKING FUCK OFF. Oh, wait: Smedley’s here? GODDAMMIT! Hi, Rob. How are you? Me? I’m fine. Hm, what? Oh, nothing. Jus’ chillin’.”

Marussia
Max Chilton, 15th
“It was a pretty demanding race I have to say. I didn’t get a fantastic start and I knew there was going to be trouble in Turn 1, which I at least managed to avoid. We had a close battle with Ericsson for much of the race and towards the end we were very close and pushing him all the way to the line, eventually ending up just 0.1s adrift. We are a little disappointed today, but we’ll regroup and focus on what we can do for Bahrain next weekend.”

CHI – “WOOO-HOOO! 15TH! YEAH! I MUST’VE PASSED SOME PEOP. . . .WHA? ONLY 15 CARS FINISHED? OH. WELL. . . OH. THAT SHIT WAS STILL A BLAST! WOO-HOO!”

Jules Bianchi, DNF
“Unfortunately the situation with Maldonado was a consequence of what happened off the start, when Vergne hit me from behind and punctured my left rear tyre. Quite simply I could not avoid Maldonado; there was nothing I could do. We came in to change the tyres and to fit a new front wing but when I returned to the track the car was not easy to drive and we suspected a problem with the brakes. We could not continue to drive this way and had no choice but to retire. It was disappointing to end my race after eight laps and this is not the reward the team deserves after a week where we seemed to make good progress through the sessions.”

BIA – “It appears that the only way Max is ever going to not-finish a race is by me killing him, so I’m going to do that now.”

Force India
Nico Hulkenberg, 5th
“Today was a super team effort and I’m very happy with fifth place. We were the only team among the frontrunners to do a two-stop race and we had good pace all afternoon. It shows that the team’s hard work over the winter is paying off and it feels great to be so competitive and fighting up at the front. We showed that we could manage the tyres well, although I felt a bit more comfortable on the medium compound tyres than on the hards, but we always had the tyre management under control. So I’m feeling happy that we can take all these positives to Bahrain and leave Malaysia with a good helping of points.”

HUL – “I can fucking smell that fucking podium, motherfucker. Just give me that shit. I will fucking wreck that fucking podium.”

Sergio Perez, DNS
“I’m disappointed not to have a chance to race today. We are still investigating the cause of the problem but the car kept going into neutral when I was downshifting on the way to the grid. I made it back to the garage but we could not find a solution. I need to focus on the positives because we learned a lot from the weekend so I hope we can come back stronger in Bahrain. It’s been a frustrating weekend for me but at least we are racing again in seven days and can look forward to putting the disappointment behind us.”

PER – “Ja-ja! Ok, funny joke, guys: You painted my McLaren car from last year with Force India colors and put the stupid nose on it, but I can tell it’s my car from last year because, right there, is the margarita/michelada button and look how much wear is on it. I was punching the shit out of that button last year.”

Ferrari
Fernando Alonso, 4th
“The points scored today are the result of a trouble free weekend, in which the small improvements on the car worked as we had expected and it ran very reliably. We definitely have a lot more work to do, because while we are moving forward, the others are doing the same. Everyone in our team is doing their utmost to close down the gap. There’s still a lot to learn in these early races, but it’s no secret that we definitely need to improve our top speed, as could be seen from my duel with Hulkenberg. I was able to get him thanks to fresher tyres, but we definitely need to up our performance right from the very next race. It will be very hot in Bahrain and the tyre compounds are softer. This might be an advantage to us, because on the harder tyres we are sliding a lot. Also, from the data we gathered there during winter testing, we might be able to extract more of our potential, but that will apply to everyone.”

ALO – “Fighting off fucking Hulkenberg and fucking Force fucking India. Fucking Enzo would be spinning in his grave if he weren’t actually preserved in a giant bottle of grappa they keep in the basement at Maranello. There’s a little tap, there, on the bottle, and they let me and Kimi take shots of that grappa before every race. If Kimi wasn’t already made of half-vodka, the magic Enzo-grappa might actually help his ass finish higher. 

Kimi Raikkonen, 12th
“I am very disappointed with how this race turned out, because I got a good start, but then the collision with Magnussen damaged my right rear tyre, which meant I had to make an extra stop. That wiped out any chance I had of fighting for a good finish. After the accident, the car’s handling was not the same, as the tyre had caused damage to the floor, which led to a loss of downforce. On my first set of tyres, I had some difficulties and it was only after the final stop, when I fitted the mediums that it went better, but by then it was too late. Hard to say how things might have gone without that problem, because our rivals were very quick, but maybe I could have finished close to Fernando. It was a really unlucky day, but overall we managed to improve our performance and now we must concentrate on the positive aspects of this weekend and work to improve starting already next week in Bahrain.”

RAI – “It’s going to take a lot of watching Sasha blow ‘Nando in that Ferrari seat-chair thing he has to get my boner back this week.”

Caterham

Kamui Kobayashi, 13th
“Thirteenth in our second race of the season is a very good result for the team, especially after such a bad weekend until the race! I had a great start, and no brake problems this time going into turn one, and by the end of the first lap I was up to 16th, running at the same pace as Sutil just ahead and with the car performing much better than it had all weekend.

“We were looking at what was going on around us and with the good tyre degradation we had we adapted the strategy and decided to go long on the first stint on options, finally boxing on lap 15, going out again on another set of mediums which were working well right from the first lap of the second stint. I was ahead of Chilton and found really good pace on the new set of tyres and I went after the Saubers ahead and was catching them fast. We stopped for the second time on lap 32 and went onto the primes for the final stint, knowing it would be a long run to the flag but also knowing that if we kept it on the track we could have a good finish, and that’s how it turned out.

“Thirteenth place in Malaysia puts us back in 10th in the championship and gives everyone the sort of boost we needed. There’s still a huge amount of work to do and a lot of today was new for me – that was the first time I’ve driven the car on full tanks on these tyres and we obviously have to keep putting more performance on the car so we can really fight one or two of the teams ahead. That looks like it’s a realistic target at this stage, but for now, focusing on today, finally we’ve had a good day and we should be happy about that.”

KOB – “Not hitting people and not crashing and actually finishing a race does make me very talkative, yes. Why do ask? Hey, did I ever tell you about this other time I finished a race? It was warm that day. Not as warm as today but, still, pretty warm. There were some people in the stands. They were watching the race. Some of them were smoking. Those fans: they sure were smooookin’. This race, the one I finished, that time. I remember the tyres: the tyres were, like, wearing out; so I kept a good eye on them. Did I mention I was wearing an onion on my belt? That was the fashion at the time. . . Hey! Where are you going??!”

Marcus Ericsson, 14th
“First I want to thank the boys in the garage for working so hard to fix my car after yesterday’s accident. I was feeling a bit low last night, but to have finished my first full grand prix in 14th, helping us move up into 10th place in the constructors’ championship, is a great feeling, for me and everyone in Caterham.

“My start couldn’t have been much better – I passed both Marussias and was right up with Kamui by the end of lap one in 17th having made up five places. I was quickly into a good rhythm and keeping pace with my teammate but about ten laps into the first stint I started having some issues with the rear grip which was costing me a bit of time. We boxed for the first time on lap 11 but had a problem during the stop and I came out behind Chilton and Vergne. The second stint was really good – to be honest I was a bit surprised that I was fighting Raikkonen but he and Vergne made a couple of moves on me which I was able to defend, and then I went after Chilton. We boxed for another set of new options on lap 26 and I came back out ahead of the Marussia and focused on pulling away from him.

“I stayed ahead of Chilton after the third stop for the primes and from there I just wanted to get the car home. It was all okay until the last couple of laps when I started losing power, and I finished just ahead of the Marussia at the line as he’d been almost able to catch me with the ERS issue, but that 14th place, by 0.1 seconds, is what puts us into 10th so I’m really glad I could hang on. That tiny margin also shows that every single detail counts at this level of competition, and the tiniest advantage can make a big difference.

“It’s been a tough weekend, really tough for everyone, but we’ll head to Bahrain knowing we have something to build on, and something to defend. That’s a big positive and I can’t wait to get back in the car in a few days time and start all over again.”

ERI – “Whatever Kamui was smoking. . . I just shot a bunch up, right into my veins.”

Pirelli
Paul Hembery, Pirelli motorsport director
“This was a tough race, with track temperature of 46 degrees at the start and the most abrasive surface that we visit all year. In spite of this the tyres showed an overall balance of performance that allowed a close battle for the lead. There was no blistering or graining, and while drivers had to manage thermal degradation, a three-stop race is in line with the requirements the sport has asked Pirelli to deliver.”

Hembery – “Hey, Renault! I feel for ya, bra. If you need any lube, I’ve got some left over from last year. Don’t worry guys, take it from me: eventually, your assholes will heal and you will be able to poop normally again. Pro tip: avoid leafy greens!

2014 Australian Grand Prix Post-Race Drivers’ Quotes, Translated

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This is not metaphorical! I repeat: THIS IS NOT A METAPHOR!

Mercedes

Nico Rosberg, 1st 
“That was an incredible day for us. To start the season with a win is unbelievable and I have to say a big thank you to everybody who was involved in building our car over the winter. I always dreamed of having such a strong Silver Arrow and now it seems we are there. In the race, everything went perfectly for me. My start was great and I was able to push from there until the end, with our fuel consumption well under control. However, despite our success today, we also know that there is still some work to do. We saw over the weekend that reliability is still a concern and it prevented us from having a strong two-car finish. We have two weeks to improve that. I am very much looking forward to Malaysia and I would love to race again tomorrow!”

ROS – “No, seriously: Can I live in my car? I fucking love my fucking car so much right now. My only real problem is, like, this is a real concern, ok? So, um, can you, like, get dehydrated, um, from, ahh, fucking ejaculating too much? No, really. I’m serious you guys! I mean, first of all, Hammy DNFs, right? Pow! Right in my pants. The VETBot 2000 DNFs: Ungh-uhhhh! Mess in my pants. Then I go all VETBot 2000 on the field, leading by some ridiculous margin: Sploosh! Again, in my pants. Dudes, like, by the time I got out of my car at the garage, not only were my penis-angels exhausted, it felt like my boots were made of sponges. So, um, yeah any feedback on the dehydration issue might be helpful. Hammy, how was your race? Oh! I just came again.”

Lewis Hamilton, DNF
“My start didn’t feel great today and I had a lot less power than usual when pulling away, so it was obvious immediately that something was wrong. It looks like we only had five cylinders firing and, while I wanted to keep going, we had to play safe and save the engine. It’s unfortunate but that’s racing and we will recover from this. We have a great car and engine, and the pace was really strong today as Nico clearly showed. Big congratulations to him and the team for achieving the win, it’s a fantastic result for us. Of course I’m disappointed with my own race and when I think about all the work that has gone on back at our factories, it’s tough to have a costly hiccup. However we have achieved an incredible amount to get here, to be at the front and to be so competitive; we will bounce back and learn from this. There is a very long way to go this season.”

HAM – “Anybody who doesn’t think I am totally full of shit should take one look at my Twitter feed. After today – what was essentially a confirmation that, even with all the praying and bullshit “blessed” hashtags, there is no fucking God – I should be tweeting fucking “blessed” hashtags and pictures of Coco chewing on her crucifix-shaped doggie toy and talking to everyone about how right now, in the sand, there’s only one set of footprints and that’s God carrying me. I should be tweeting all that shit. What am I tweeting? Fucking crickets. Not even Haribo tweets. There is no god. I hate my life.”

Toto Wolff, Mercedes team executive director
“It was a day of light and shadow for us. Nico did a perfect job this afternoon: a great start and a really controlled drive all the way to the final lap. He delivered the car’s performance how he needed to, when he needed to, and took a very composed and deserved victory. On the other side, we were disappointed to lose Lewis so early after a misfiring cylinder forced him to retire. He had done everything right this weekend until that point and it was a situation beyond his control. We know that reliability will be crucial to this long season and we will be working hard to improve the situation for the race in Malaysia. Finally, this victory has a very special meaning for us, too. I would like to dedicate it to Michael, who has been in all our thoughts this weekend. He will keep fighting, as only he knows how, and we are sending all our strength to him today.”

Wolff – “Whoops! We gave Hammy Webber’s old car!”

Sauber
Adrian Sutil, 12th
“It was an exciting race, and especially the start, but luckily I went through without any incidents. We had a few issues with the powertrain during the first stint, but after the pit stop that improved. Nevertheless this cost us a lot of time that we couldn’t recover. I was on a two-stop strategy, but we switched to a one stop because of the safety car. This could have worked well, but the safety car phase didn’t help us. In addition we were simply too slow, but we managed to finish the race, which was our goal. We came close to the points, but we need to improve our speed. There is a lot of data now to analyse and we can only improve. I hope that we will progress quickly.”

SUT – “Wait, I thought I left Force India. Fuck.”

Esteban Gutierrez, 13th
“It was a different kind of racing today, but definitely something we take as a reference. In general we are missing speed and it’s a challenge to be able to compete at the front like this. As a team, we need to make sure we put everything together because the lack of speed we have on the straight is quite significant. However, we can be very happy that we both finished the race today. This means a step forward for the team and its reliability.”

GUT – “Can we go back to Jerez and do some more pre-season stuff where we kinda rocked it?”

Force India
Nico Hulkenberg, 7th
“Seventh place is a positive way to start the season. I was very happy to see the chequered flag – the first time I’ve done so in Melbourne – and it’s important to score some good points early on. I made a strong start and enjoyed good track position for the first two stints when I was running up in fourth. The only real issue I had was some front left graining on the soft tyres, which never really cleared up and that compromised my first two stints. It was a shame to lose two positions at my second stop [to Button and Alonso] but it looks like some of the cars around us have a bit more pace at the moment. I want to thank the team for the amazing job they’ve done over the winter and this weekend to get us to this point. It’s been a great effort and it’s nice to reward everyone with some points at the first race.”

HUL – “I’m here! I might be kinda fast! Get used to it!”

Sergio Perez, 11th
“I’m satisfied to finish the race, but disappointed not to score points. My race became very difficult on lap one when I got hit by the Sauber of Gutierrez at turn three. It gave me a puncture and I had to return to the pits very slowly, which dropped me to the back of the pack. After that I just tried to keep a consistent pace on the medium tyres and I was quite fortunate that the safety car came out, which helped me recover some positions. Points were close, but my progress was hurt by being stuck behind the Sauber of Adrian for such a long time. It’s positive to finish the race because it gives the team lots of information and hopefully that will make us stronger for Malaysia.”

PER – “Oh, sure, the fuckers at McLaren fire the Mexican and then spend the off-season developing a car that can actually go, uh, like, fast? I spent all of last season drinking away the the pain of driving my Estrella de Oro pontoon boat of a car and now Jensen backdoors it into third with an actual, fast car?! What the FUCK, people?! Anyway, mad props to Force India for putting me in a car that is exactly as fast as the fabled fucking McLaren I had last year. Now, where did I put my michelada?”

Toro Rosso
Jean-Eric Vergne, 9th
“This is obviously a good result, even though the car was very difficult to drive. We had problems with the brakes which made us lose a lot of time but at the end we are all satisfied to finish the race with two cars in the points. I’m very pleased with the overall three points especially for the team, more than for myself. After a long difficult time and so much hard work this winter, this is a great relief for all the guys in the garage and it’s nice for us drivers to be able to give them something back. It looks like things are turning well and hopefully it will always be better from now on. As for my mistake in the last corner, I was trying to defend myself from Mercedes, looking for the best line to get a good exit, but I went on the grass and I was lucky enough not to spin the car. It’s really a shame but it’s just the first race and I’m sure we will have plenty of opportunities to score more points. Overall, it’s a good result today.”

VER – “Holt shit! We finished! The Renault made it to the finish! Did anyone expect that, really? I didn’t. Shit, I figured I’d be hanging my balls in the pool with the VetBot2000 after a few laps. But, hey: points! That’s more than the VetBot2000 got or, heh, even Daniel. Heh.”

Daniil Kvyat, 10th
“It was a very intense afternoon and finishing my first race with a point is a great feeling. It was a fantastic first Grand Prix weekend with the team, everyone worked really hard and scoring points was a great way to end it. So well done to everyone! The start was a bit messy, but after that I managed to get into a rhythm and the car seemed competitive compared to those around us. It was close at the end with Jev, but I had to save fuel towards the end, so I was not going to attack him. I never expected to score a point in my first race, so it feels amazing. It’s a real boost for us and now we have to keep on working hard and if we keep on the way we are going, then we can look forward to a really positive season.”

KVY – “If anybody needs me, I’ll be in the back, whacking off to a giant pile of crude-soaked rubles.”

Lotus
Romain Grosjean, DNF
“In a way, it was a pretty positive day. I expected to do around 15 to 20 laps in the race after all the issues we’ve had this weekend, and we managed 45! We’ve learnt a lot today and all the changes made to the car have been positive. We still have a long way to go, but at least I know more about tyre usage, all my engineers know where we need to improve with the chassis, and we’ve learnt a lot about aero balance and fuel consumption. Of course there’s more to do with the energy management and recovery and some work yet with the braking. We’ve still got lots of work to do, but we’re definitely heading in the right direction.”

GRO – “In a way, it was a positive day. . . .If you ignore the fact that the car sucks, that I’m teammates with Pastor Fucking Maldonado, that Boullier has left me behind, that I’m French. . . . Oh, fuck, this wasn’t a positive day at all. Not at all. No, seriously, am I in some F1-themed Camus novel? Hah-ha. Ok, this shit ain’t funny.”

Pastor Maldonado, DNF
“It was obviously very disappointing, but if you look at the positives we did more laps than in the pre-season which is quite encouraging as we have more data which is very important for making progress. We had a very negative free practice but we did plenty of laps during the race which is very positive for the team. I’m looking forward to the next race and we’ll keep pushing.”

MAL – “Bright side: I didn’t hit anybody!”

Federico Gastaldi, Lotus deputy team principal
“Though the results do not show it, everyone in the team has done a fantastic job in very challenging circumstances. Both our cars finished with problems related to the same MGU-K component so we and Renault F1 Sport both know where we have to focus for our improvements heading to Malaysia. It’s clear we also have other improvements to make, but the team spirit and resolve has not diminished. We know what we have to do and we will do it.”

Alan Permane, Lotus trackside operations director
“In simple terms, we’ve finished a disappointing weekend with a disappointing race, with neither car finishing. However the 45 laps completed by Romain’s car is the longest run completed by the E22 and while we accept we’re way behind, we’re working hard to catch up. It’s not the way we want to go racing. We need to make a big leap forward in Malaysia and we’re working every hour to ensure we make this leap. I’m very sure and very confident that we’ll see a big improvement in two weeks’ time.”

Julien Barbieux, Renault Sport F1 team support leader
“After such a difficult built up to the race it was some sort of plus to get two cars to just under half distance, but shows we are still not at the level we want. We have struggled all weekend to find the right balance between reliability and performance, but we seemed to turn a corner today and Pastor and Romain were both on the pace of the top 10. Unfortunately both drivers suffered from a malfunctioning MGU-K and were forced to retire. We’ve learnt a huge amount from the running as it was the first time we have completed a longer run on both cars. We have improved operationally and there will be a huge combined effort from Viry and Enstone to improve on this performance in Malaysia and get closer to the full potential of the car.”

Barbieux, Permane, Gastaldi – “Does anybody have an extra can of turd polish around? We’ve already burned through ours. Maybe McLaren has some left from last year. Fuck.”

Marussia
Max Chilton, 14th
“Today’s race was by no means perfect but we have started the season with a two-car finish, and on my side a 14th place as well, so we have to be pleased with that. The start was obviously extremely concerning. I was on the grid preparing for the formation lap with the usual procedures and suddenly everything just cut out. At that point I was worried that my race was already over, but the team did a fantastic job to push me off the grid and back to the garage where they reset the car and I was able to start the race from the pit lane. From that point on I knew we had an important job to do to get the car home, but at the same time do the hard work to we needed to be able to evaluate the car over a race distance. It was quite pleasing to be able to catch Ericsson in the process. We’ve learned an awful lot today that will stand us in good stead as we prepare for the next race in Malaysia and also to start developing the car for the longer term. After a tough time in testing when we did not achieve all the mileage we had hoped for, it’s good to take home a 14th place finish from the first race of the season. It’s a nice reward for all the hard work across the whole team.”

CHI – “14TH! FINISHED! AGAIN! YOU GUYS! HOW ARE NOT LOVING EVERY MINUTE OF THIS!? I PASSED SOME DUDES! SURE, SURE: HIS CAR WAS NOT REALLY RUNNING WHEN I PASSED HIM. . . BUT, HEY, A PASS IS A PASS, RIGHT? WOO-HOOOOO! SO HAPPY TO BE HERE!”

Jules Bianchi, NC
“The problem at the start was really quite worrying and I did not expect to be able to race, but the team got me to the garage and fought hard to get me back on track. I was six laps down when I did rejoin and of course I was never going to recover from that, but that was not the point. Being in the race – and finishing it – enabled us to gather the maximum amount of information and test various strategies for maximising the power unit. In many ways it was more like a test than a race for me, which was far from ideal, but as is the case in testing, the mileage was important and this will be crucial for the engineers to start moving us forward. Hopefully I will be able to benefit from this next time around. I am pleased that we have some reward for all the hard work and we look forward to better things in Malaysia.”

BIA – “Mr. Consistency over there finished another fucking race and I get to do some test laps in Australia. If I have to look at that big smile and that goddamned spikey, happy hair again, I’m going slap his lucky bagpipes over his ‘heed’ and play that shit until he bleeds haggis out his ass.”

Caterham

Kamui Kobayashi, DNF
“That isn’t how I wanted my first race back to go, and I’m sorry for the team and for Felipe (Massa) that both our races ended early. I had a really good start but then into turn one I made contact with Felipe. From the initial data it looked like I had a brake system issue which obviously meant I couldn’t do much about the contact and when we got the car back and looked at the information in much more detail it was clear that was the problem. After the race I went to the stewards and they went through the data from the car and confirmed this was the case. We’ll have a close look at what caused that problem and make sure we fix it.

“It’s been a tough weekend for us, but we still have a lot more data that will help us keep improving, and the really positive thing is that we were still quite competitive, even with the issues we had on Friday. Race two is Malaysia, one of our team’s home races, and we’ll keep pushing there, just as we will all weekend.”

KOB – “Man, I hope that Felipe understands that I was merely the vehicle for God’s hatred of him.”

Marcus Ericsson, DNF
“Even though my first race in F1 ended with a DNF I’m still proud of the way we fought today. It’s been a very difficult weekend overall, one of the hardest in my whole career, but we still showed a bit of the potential we have in the first laps of the first stint when I passed Sutil and was running well in twelfth. My first ever live pit stop a Grand Prix went really well but then unfortunately an oil pressure problem forced us to stop – we don’t know what caused that yet but if we hadn’t had that I think we’d have finished ahead of the Marussias as I was pretty comfortable ahead of Chilton until the issue.

“Friday was tough, obviously, but we had a better Saturday and then today we started to show some of the race pace this car has. For the last few laps of the first stint I was driving with pretty flat spotted tyres but the rear was still behaving well and the Power Unit felt good. That’s encouraging for the next race in Malaysia which is on a track I’ve raced at before and one I like, so I’m leaving Australia in a positive frame of mind and just want to get on with it again as soon as possible!”

ERI – “Fucking Chilton fucking ‘Woooo-hooooooooo’ing’ as he passed me. Is it going to be like this all fucking season?”

Williams
Valtteri Bottas, 6th 
“The car performed very well today which is looking encouraging for the season ahead, and on the whole as a team we can be pleased that we have made a good step forward from last season. I’m a little disappointed with myself because I was pushing a bit too hard and hit the wall which caused a puncture and put me back a long way. I spent the rest of the race trying to make up for that mistake and managed to make some good overtakes, but I need to learn from this and make sure it doesn’t happen again. It felt great to be able to race hard with people around me and I want to say a big thank you to the race team and everyone back at Grove and Brixworth who have done a great job with this car. We should have finished higher today than we did with the pace we had and I’m looking forward to seeing what we can do in Malaysia.”

BOT – Oh my god! I hadn’t realized how much of my energy was being spent, helping Pastor with his math and reading questions! Freed from that responsibility, I’m like a singing bird; a blossom in the Finnish Spring! In fact, when I hit that wall, I was humming a little tune to myself, so much was joy filling my heart. Now I just have to get used to Felipe, shouting all the time at the sky, ‘WHY, GOD, WHHHY?’ and everything should be fine. Anything’s better than Pastor, walking around, asking everybody about the lyrics to ‘Sabotage’.”

Felipe Massa, DNF
“I’m obviously very disappointed as I had the sort of car capable of challenging for a podium today, but the incident in the first corner ruined my race. I tried to have a calm start and not take any risks, but was hit from behind after Kobayashi braked too late and there was nothing I could do to avoid being taken out of the race. It’s a shame but there are a lot of positive things that the team can take from this weekend in terms of pace and reliability, so I’m just thinking about the next race and having a strong result there.”

MAS – “Everybody sees Charlie Brown as a metaphor. Fuck. The only thing I’m missing is a goddamned smartassed Beagle and a best friend who carries a blanket around all the time. Funnily enough, my shrink’s name is Lucy. I think I will go cry to her now and await more of God’s malice in Malaysia.”

Ferrari
Fernando Alonso, 5th
“I’d have liked to start the season with a podium, but getting both cars to the flag is a good result, which can give us confidence, especially on the reliability front. I had some problems with the electric motor at the start and had to make a few changes from the steering wheel, but after the first ten laps everything went well. When I managed to pass Hulkenberg after the pit stop my pace was definitely better, although it was impossible to overtake. 35 seconds down on the leader is too big a gap and to work out what we need to do to close that gap, we will need to analyse the race, work out what are the strong and weak points on the car and with that in mind, the laps I did behind Nico can provide very useful information. We are a great team and I have total faith in our guys, because they did a great job today. We still have lots to learn about this new Formula One, as the race was very strange and very difficult. But it’s only the start. We must concentrate on doing better in Malaysia.”

ALO – “If anybody needs me, I’ll be over here, completely content with coming in second or third or fifth to those fuckers at Mercedes, ’cause we’re fucked as far as that goes. Just gimme my Ferrari chair and Sasha blowing me while I take big swigs off a bottle of that vodka Kimi’s been leaving around the garage and I’ll beeee juuuuuusssst fiiine.”

Kimi Raikkonen, 8th
“That wasn’t a straightforward race. At the start, I managed to get away well and even though I was hit from behind by another car at the first corner, my car was undamaged. The speed was good, but at one point I was suffering with graining on the front tyres, I had very little grip and a lot of understeer. From then on, the car’s handling was not the same. When it was time for the first stop, we had to do a double stop and that cost me a place. It’s definitely too early to make any definite judgement, because even if at the moment we don’t seem to be in great shape, we still managed to finish the race, scoring valuable points. We can’t be pleased with this result and we know there are many areas where we need to improve. But I’m sure that analysing the data from this first race will give us a clearer idea of the direction to work in.”

RAI – “In theory, this shit should be easy, but when these fuckers can’t give me a properly balanced car while I blurt out random grunts and orders through a Vodka fog, it’s like, what the fuck am I supposed to do? Red car, black car: just get behind the wheel and fuck off, thank you very much. Heh, at least I got out of Lotus when I did. Damn, you couldn’t pay me to . . . Oh, wait: THEY DIDN’T FUCKING PAY ME. Ha-ha, bitches!”

Stefano Domenicali, Ferrari team principal
“The first race of the championship has provided a clear picture of the hierarchy at the start of season. It’s also shown which teams appear to have done the best job of dealing with these new regulations. Today, we achieved our objective in terms of reliability, but the gap we need to make up, especially to Mercedes, was clear to see. The information we have gathered this weekend clearly points to the direction we must take and what areas need the most work. It will be important to catch up as quickly as possible and react in the way this team has always proved capable of doing. Our engineers know what the priorities are and which areas need the most immediate attention.”

Domenicali – “Remember how, last season, we were all ‘Fucking Red Bull this and fucking Red Bull’ that? Well, just take all those quotes, switch in ‘Mercedes’ for ‘Red Bull’ and fuck off.”

Pat Fry, Ferrari chassis director
“Going into this race, getting both cars to the finish seemed like the most difficult task, but in the end, we managed it. Today we saw how reliability can never be taken for granted: it caught some people out and it also affected our performance at some stages of the race. On both the F14 Ts, we had some electrical problems, especially on Kimi’s car, which meant he couldn’t use all the car’s potential. Fernando found himself behind Hulkenberg for many laps and he was only able to show what the car was capable of once he got ahead thanks to a spot on pit stop strategy. Kimi got a great start, but then for much of the race he suffered with graining on the front tyres and thus found himself having to defend, without being able to attack. There is much work ahead if we are to improve the car’s performance. We are up against several very strong opponents, but we have all the right tools to get the job done of closing the gap between us.”

Fry – “Augh! Kimi! Don’t sic the Ice Dragons on us! We’ll make the car better! We promise!”

McLaren
Kevin Magnussen, 3rd
“It’s just fantastic to be on the podium! What happened today just feels surreal. Being on the podium in the first race of my Formula 1 career – it’s amazing. My ‘moment’ at the start was quite scary – I got on the power a bit too quickly, and nearly lost it. But the car was fantastic today – I was always able to place it exactly where I wanted, and I had the pace to fight the Red Bull. I had a bit of a go at Daniel towards the ends of the race, but didn’t quite have the speed to get past. I want to say a big congratulations to the team for doing such a good job over the winter and for working so hard to prepare me for this – it’s just crazy! Where do we go from here? Well, we need to continue improving. And I’m sure we will. I’ll try to learn as much as I can, and to carry this experience forward to Malaysia. It’s a completely different circuit, so there’s no guarantee we’ll have the sort of speed we showed here today, but I’m sure the team will keep pushing as hard as they’ve done already this year. I’m very happy, and I’m sure the guys are happy to be leading the constructors’ world championship, as indeed I am too. That’s a big boost, and the guys completely deserve it. Me? I’ll just keep pushing as hard as I can.”

MAG – “HOLY SHIT! I AM REALLY, REALLY, REALLY, REALLY HAPPY TO BE HERE!!!!!!! THIS IS NUTS! WHERE’S MAX? HE WAS GOING TO SHOW ME HOW TO PLAY THE BAGPIPES SO JOYOUSLY!!!” 

Jenson Button, 4th
“It was a great drive by Kevin today – I had a lot of fun chasing him and Daniel down at the end of the race, but my tyres were several laps older than theirs, so it was always going to be tricky. Still, I had a good race – the car’s balance wasn’t quite right when I was in traffic – I struggled with understeer when I was behind people – but the car worked very well in clear air. For some reason, it seems to be more difficult to overtake now than it used to be, so we had to do it during the pit stops. During my second stop, we damaged the nose – which made it a bit cooler in the cockpit! – but the guys did a great job of putting me in the right place at the right time. When the Safety Car came out, I quickly dived into the pit lane at the last second – which gained me a couple of places. And then the second stop gained me a couple more. They were both great calls. As a team, I think we can be very proud of the job we did today. I don’t think we expected to be leading the constructors’ world championship at the end of this weekend, but I think the pace in the car is generally there: in clear air, we seem capable of fighting every team except one. I’m really looking forward to getting back in the car in Malaysia. It’s been an emotional day for me, but it’s been great to have my sister, my fiancée and lots of friends around me, so that definitely helped.”

BUT – “Yep, and I’m hot. Really hot.”

Eric Boullier, McLaren racing director
“To be in first place in the constructors’ world championship is a very nice feeling, but let’s not forget that today’s race was only the first of 19, and I’ll be a lot happier if we’re still in first place in the constructors’ world championship after the 19th race! Having said that, I’m not making any predictions, and it’s clear that we’ve got a lot of work to do in order to close the performance gap between our car and the fastest car. Kevin scored 18 of the 33 constructors’ world championship points we racked up today, Jenson 15, and both guys drove superbly. Indeed, Kevin’s drive was one of the finest performances by a Formula 1 rookie in living memory. Despite his youth and inexperience, he drove like a man who’d notched up 100 grands prix already. It was a complex and challenging race, yet he managed those complexities and challenges faultlessly. Jenson recovered skilfully from his disappointing qualifying result, which was the result of his not being able to put in a final quick lap owing to inopportune yellow flags, and drove the sort of measured yet combative race that he’s become famous for. Finally, I want to give a huge amount of credit to the guys, not only here in Melbourne but also in Woking and Brixworth, who have done such sterling work to deliver such a solid and reliable car for Kevin and Jenson to race here today. Our next stop is Malaysia, which will be hot and hard. But we’re ready for the challenge.”

Boullier – “Well, I don’t know. Kimi won’t talk to anybody and there are Vodka bottles every where and Romain is just nuts and we’re out of money so, fuck, I don’t kno . . . . . . What? What’s that? I don’t work at Lotus anymore? I work at McLaren?! What? And McLaren doesn’t suck this year? OhhhhhHHhhhh. Sorry: I just came in my pants.”

2013 US Grand Prix Post-Race Drivers’ Quotes, Translated

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Am I pissed about that stupid, fake Mexican flag? Not really. Why not? ‘Cause the team gave me some hilarious, counterfeit Homer Simpson and Bart Simpson t-shirts they got at the same store. Good-bye presents, I guess.

Red Bull
Sebastian Vettel, 1st
“It’s the day after, normally on the Monday, when you feel what you have achieved. It’s a great feeling, you have a grin on your face and it’s nice. On Sunday things happen fast and you don’t always realise what has been achieved until later. It’s down to team effort today. Everyone is willing to push; this morning the guys were working hard as we had some concerns about reliability on the car, so they were flat out trying to fix the problem and the car ran okay all race, so a big thanks to them. I’m not sure what we have done since the summer break in order that we have been winning races, but whatever it was it has worked. When you are a sports man, not every day is supposed to be a good day and you have ups and downs. Certainly you feel the points when you are low, they hurt more than when you are on a high, of course you enjoy those times, but I kept saying that there’s no guarantee for the next race or the one after that or after that! You never know what is coming next, so you have to enjoy today and look forward to tomorrow.”

VET – “You can take the VET-Bot 2000 out of Germany but you can’t take the ‘German’ out of the VET-Bot 2000.”

Mark Webber, 3rd
“The initial launch and my getaway was pretty good. Romain had a good start too, I wanted to get on the right for the breaking point at the first corner, but that’s what everyone did too. I got boxed in and didn’t get a good exit off the corner, but after that it was a strong race. Our pace was good, but you have to manage the tyres well here. Qualifying was where a lot of the race was decided. In the end I did what we could, but I think we left some on the table yesterday. I have some family and friends here this weekend, so it’s good to get a strong result. It would have been better to have had a win, but Seb did a good job here this weekend.”

WEB – “I suppose, in the grand scheme of things, I should be happy the fucking car didn’t catch on fire.”

Lotus
Romain Grosjean, 2nd
“That was a really tough race. I had to have probably one of my best ever drives to keep Mark [Webber] behind and it’s a great feeling to have tamed at least one of the Bulls in Texas as they clearly had the fastest package today. We knew a good start would be the key, so making up one place in the first corner was really important and the car was just fantastic from there onwards. The whole team here and at Enstone are doing an amazing job. Every day I see them working hard together to keep us at the front and when you look at the gap to the next nearest challenger, it’s clear that we’re the second best team after Red Bull right now. I think this place must bring me luck; this time last year I found out my wife was pregnant and now I’ve equalled my best finish in Formula One, so I can’t wait to come back again and see what happens next year!”

GRO – “Nothing like starting a race behind Webbo to give a guy a confidence boost! As long as I can always make P3 or so in quali and then wait for Mark to bogart the start, I’ll be set for next seas. . . .Huh? What’s that? Mark’s retiring after this season?! Fuck.”


Heikki Kovalainen, 14th
“My start wasn’t great but then it was going okay until the first pit stop as I was racing with the pack with the car feeling quite good. After the pit stop I started to have a few problems, but it was difficult to know exactly what was going on. We had issues with downforce so we changed the front wing and after that it was much better, although still not as good as it’s felt previously this weekend. There was a KERS issue too, though not enough to account for my lack of race pace. We’ll have a good look at the data and hopefully be on top of things far better for the race in Brazil.”

KOV – “There I was, just a small town boy, born and raised in south Detroit. I took the midnight train going annnnnnyyyywheerrrre! Driver in a smokey room, smell of wine and cheap perfume, I took the midnight train going annnnnnyywhhhereeee! I just want to thank Nico ‘The Hulk’ Hulkenberg, Michael ‘The Maestro’ Schumacher, Pastor ‘The Little Bitch’ Maldonado, Davide ‘The Fuck?!’ Valsecchi, my postman and that guy who just happened to be walking by the Lotus garage. . . I need to thank them all for turning down the chance to drive for Lotus these last two races. I’m going to take the E21 through the drive thru of the McDonald’s I worked at this last year just as a nice ‘Fuck you!’ to my manager, Gary, who’s been up my ass since I started there. No, Gary, I can’t do anything about my accent!!!”

Mercedes
Lewis Hamilton, 4th
“That felt good out there this afternoon and I’m really happy with fourth place. It was so nice to have a race where I could fight for position and make progress. The car felt much better today than recently so the change in chassis has definitely made a difference and a big thanks to my guys in the garage for their efforts there. I had a great start today and that was crucial to my race. We had to give up third place to Mark fairly easily to make sure our tyre management and strategy worked as it was more important for the team to finish ahead of Ferrari. There was no way I was letting Fernando past at the end; I was ready for him to make his move and had a couple of tenths ready to pull out if he did! We’ve had a few difficult races on my side of the garage and I’m so proud of the team for all the hard work they have put in. We’re all determined to maintain our second place at the final race in Brazil next weekend.”

HAM – “Seriously, I’ve got more personalities than Sybil. It’s just too bad that the majority of them are variations of the same asshole.”

Nico Rosberg, 9th
“I didn’t have a great weekend here in Austin unfortunately. It really started yesterday in qualifying where I struggled with getting temperature into the tyres and starting from 12th place makes your race really difficult, especially in a one stop race. I made some nice overtaking moves but we weren’t able to do much with the strategy today because of the single stop so it’s disappointing to only have finished ninth as our car was quicker than that today. Overall though, as a team we managed to increase the gap to Ferrari and that’s a good result. After such a tough weekend, I’d love to be back in the car in Brazil tomorrow and not wait another seven days! We’ll be pushing really hard there to end the season on a high.”

ROS – “Well, you can’t come in ahead of Hammy every weekend, I guess. I miss you, penis angels! 

Ross Brawn, Mercedes team principal
“That was a pretty good race this afternoon with the car we had today. It was very definitely a managed race rather than one where the drivers could push flat out. Lewis made a fantastic start but it then became clear that trying to hold Webber behind would not help us in our quest to run a one stop strategy, which was essential. The car was not bad and both drivers had a pretty good balance, given the extreme difference in conditions to yesterday. Both Lewis and Nico did a perfect job managing the tyres in the race and their sets of primes were close to the end of their life when they crossed the line, which is exactly as it should be. They put in very, very controlled drives today which allowed us to consolidate our second position in the Constructors’ Championship. Now it’s time to head for Sao Paulo to finish the job.”

Brawn – “Not too much longer and I will no longer have to tolerate whichever of Hammy’s asshole personalities shows up. Nor will have have to listen to him blather on about Roscoe and the other one. I might have to borrow Nico’s penis angels just to celebrate after Brazil.”

Ferrari
Fernando Alonso, 5th
“Finishing in the top five today is a very positive result when you consider how difficult this weekend has been and the fact I had to start from the dirty side of the track. We were well aware it would be very difficult to maintain position and in fact I lost it to Perez. In the first part of the race, we weren’t quick and we decided to save the tyres and then attack round the pit stop. We were more competitive on the hards, we passed Perez and set off to get Hulkenberg, but even if our situation compared to Mercedes has improved, we were unable to beat them. I am very proud of this second place in the drivers’ Championship, it’s a small reward for me, the same as being first of the “mortals” behind Red Bull. My back is okay, as I did a good warm-up before the race and it didn’t bother me. I feel more tired from all the tension of the race, but now I have three days to rest and arrive in Brazil feeling a hundred percent. We really must improve there, because our goal is still to finish second in the constructor’s championship”

ALO – “Let’s just think about the fact that I ran this race with a bad back, a g-force induced concussion, in a 2013 Ferrari, and a bad case of blue balls since they were all, ”Nando! No sexy time with Sasha! Save your for back for COTA!’. Think about that! Then, I finally get close to Hammy. I nearly have him and I start slipping all over the track. It wasn’t clag, it wasn’t the tires. It was Hammy spilling his prescription for his Schizophrenia all over the track. The fucking dumbass was trying to pop that shit though visor.”

Felipe Massa, 12th
“It’s been a really difficult weekend and I was struggling right from Friday, unable to get the tyres up to temperature or to run at a good pace. At the start, I didn’t make up any places and then for all the race I was stuck in traffic, on a track where overtaking is not that easy. We knew that making a second stop was not the best choice, but I already found myself in a difficult situation and so we decided to risk stopping for a set of medium tyres: if anything had happened ahead of us, maybe a safety car, we might have profited from the situation. Unfortunately, nothing happened and the tyre wear of those ahead of me was very low, so I was behind them ending up in the same position from which I started. It’s a real shame because we could have done better. Now we must keep concentrated for the final round of the season in Brazil, my final race with Ferrari on my home track: it’s bound to be a very emotional weekend because of that. I hope I can be more competitive there and even if our rivals are very quick, we will do our best right to the very end.”

MAS – “I’m running out of ways to talk around the word ‘ignominy’. At least things won’t be so fucked up at Williams. . . .Wait. . . I’m driving for Williams next season?! Fuck.”

Sauber
Nico Hulkenberg, 6th
“It was a very solid result yet again. If I’m not mistaken, since Monza that would have been the eighth points finish in a row if it wasn’t for the brake disc failure in India and the drive through in Abu Dhabi. That’s a pretty impressive statistic. It was an interesting race. I didn’t have to fight that much, only at the end with Fernando (Alonso), which was good fun. Unfortunately in the crucial part of the race, about 10 to 15 laps before the end, we didn’t quite have the pace of Fernando, so he was able to overtake me. During the last lap going into turn one I passed him, but then I just missed the apex and he was able to get me back at the exit. But we finished just a couple of seconds behind our competitors. I think it’s been a good weekend with a gain of a good eight points.”

HUL – “Hello! Hellllllooooo! Solid results! impressive statistics! Good gains! I didn’t even have to fight that much! I make this shit look easy! WHY ARE YOU ALL NOT LINING UP TO SIGN MY HOT, FAST ASS???!!!”

Esteban Gutierrez, 13th
“It was a very tough race starting from P20. We had to make up a lot of positions on track. I managed a good first lap. I made up a couple of positions and then, once the safety car was deployed, we decided to pit in order to put me on a different strategy to the other cars. We need to analyse the situation now and see how much we gained from that. I think all in all the problem came from the ten place grid penalty, which made it complicated at the end.”

GUT – “Seriously, can someone please sign HUL?! I am so fucking sick of him asking if the pants he’s wearing make his ass look big!”

McLaren
Sergio Perez, 7th
“To be honest, I was expecting to achieve a little bit more than seventh today. On the opening lap, I managed to push past Fernando [Alonso], and the car initially felt pretty strong. After that, however, between about lap 10 and lap 15, the tyre degradation started to kick in, and we struggled relative to the others around us. They seemed to be coping with the degradation a little bit better than we were. But, more importantly, I want to say a big ‘thank you’ to all my Mexican and American fans for the support they’ve shown me all weekend. They came here to watch me perform, and, while I would love with all my heart to have given them a better result than seventh, it was still amazing to have their support throughout what has been a difficult but very special weekend.”

PER – “I don’t know if there are any words to describe the conflicted emotions I have this weekend. Sure, I’m pissed about being fired. On the other hand, thank god I’m getting the hell out this fuck-show. Ya la cargaron, you fucking McLaren fuckwads. Good luck with your fucking pontoon boat. You should’ve taken me up on that offer to bring in the Estrella de Oro bus. At least that thing had a TV and a VCR for watching old Luche Libre tapes. Your F1 car ain’t got mierda on that.”

Jenson Button, 10th
“Even though I was only battling for a single world championship point, I still wanted to do the best job I could this afternoon. As in all the past few races, I made contact with another car on the first lap – and that contact broke my left-hand front-wing endplate. It wasn’t quite as bad as in Abu Dhabi, but it still left me with quite a lot of understeer. We considered changing the nose-box at the pit stop, but, instead, the mechanics added some extra front wing, and that helped to re-balance the car. It still wasn’t ideal, because losing downforce at the front doesn’t affect only the front-end, it affects air-flow across the whole car as well. Still, I enjoyed the race. The first 30 laps, during which I was stuck behind Felipe [Massa], were particularly tough, but I was able to make some good moves at the end, and that made our day a bit more interesting. Now, I’m hoping for a trouble-free, exciting and prosperous final Grand Prix of the season in Brazil next weekend.”

BUT – “I wish I was leaving, like Checo, and also not British so I could be impolite, too.”

Martin Whitmarsh, McLaren team principal
“Both Checo and Jenson drove very well in trying circumstances here this afternoon, hampered in their efforts to make significant forward progress by a pit stop strategy that didn’t quite work out for either of them and a circuit whose layout always makes overtaking extremely difficult. We opted to put both our drivers on early one stop strategies, in an attempt to allow them to ‘under-cut’ their nearest rivals, but, as I say, as things turned out we failed to gain any advantage by doing that. That being the case, Checo drove a solid and controlled race to come home seventh, which was in fact the position from which he’d started the race, further underlining how difficult it was to overtake here today. Jenson started from P15, owing to a troubled qualifying yesterday, but thereafter drove an excellent race, skillfully nursing a car whose left hand front wing endplate had been significantly damaged in a lap one contact with another car. Despite the understeer handicap that that damage had caused, however, Jenson was able to record some impressive lap times – and, driving with measured aggression all the while, climbed the leader board to 10th place at the finish, expertly controlling his tyre wear, and taking a very hard-earned world championship point by pulling off a slick yet spectacular passing manoeuvre on Daniel [Ricciardo] on the race’s penultimate lap. That move marked a fitting end to a frustrating weekend for Jenson, but I hope he’ll take some comfort from the knowledge that today he equalled our old friend David’s [Coulthard] all-time record of 246 Grand Prix starts by a British driver. He’ll establish a new benchmark of 247 Grand Prix starts by a British driver next weekend in Brazil. Talking of Brazil, which will be the final Grand Prix of a gruelling 19 race schedule, we’ll now make our way to Sao Paulo as determined as ever to do our utmost to score as many world championship points as we possibly can and thereby consolidate our fifth place position in the constructors’ world championship. No, finishing fifth isn’t what McLaren is all about, but I want to say a big ‘thank you’ to our mechanics in particular, who have worked very hard and extremely diligently to ensure that our reliability has been first-rate this season even though our relative competitiveness hasn’t. Last but not least, once again I want to pay tribute to the Circuit of The Americas, and all who sail in her. Undoubtedly, Formula One has now found its spiritual home in the United States, and I think I speak for all at McLaren when I say that we love visiting Austin Texas and are already looking forward to coming back again next year, where we’ll be aiming to compete closer to the front of the field than we did here today.”

Whitmarsh – “I’m just going to keep talking in the hopes that I can talk long enough that everyone forgets about this weekend and this season.”

Williams
Valtteri Bottas, 8th
“I’m very happy to get my first points in Formula One today. The whole weekend has been good from setting up the car in practice through to the strategy and pitstops in the race. We managed the tyres well today and I had good feedback from my engineers on them throughout. We did have a bit of pressure from Rosberg at the end but I was able to keep pushing and hold the position. I want to say a big thanks to everyone in the team and at the factory as they have all been working so hard and really deserve this result.”

BOT – “So, I got some points and Pastor is leaving so pretty much this is the greatest weekend of, not only my life, but of anyone’s life that ever been lived by anyone ever.”

Pastor Maldonado, 17th
“It was a difficult race for me as the incident with Sutil compromised the strategy. We did manage to get 40 laps out of the prime tyres which was pleasing on a track like this. Overall, we had a difficult weekend and I’m looking forward to a better race in Brazil.”

MAL – “I blame the Stonecutters, the Masons, the members of Skull & Bones, Lee Harvey Oswald, and the aliens who built the Pyramids at Giza. . . .oh, and my team, for everything bad that’s happened to me, ever. THANKS FOR NOTHING, ASSHOLES!”

Toro Rosso
Daniel Ricciardo, 11th
“It was a tough end to the day, really tough. It looked as though we were going to hang on to the flag to get the point for tenth place, but then in the last five laps, I lost pretty much all the grip I had and I saw the guys closing in on me. I tried to hold them off but I didn’t have enough left in the tyres to do it. It’s frustrating to get that close but I put up the best fight I could and there was nothing more I could have done today. It was very difficult to overtake in the early stages when the cars were full of fuel and it wasn’t easy to stay with the car in front through the fast corners, so we had to be patient.”

RIC – “I kinda can’t wait ’til this season is over and I can be the new Mark We. . .. . . Oh, god! WHAT HAVE I DONE??!!”

Jean-Eric Vergne, 16th
“The final result was nothing special, but I feel I had a good race. We had planned a two stop, but switched to a single tyre change and for the second part of the race, I was told I had to manage my Options carefully, but I was given the go ahead to push again with 15 laps to go and at that point my race pace was quite good. So I feel we did a good job with the car we had. On the last lap, I tried to pass my team-mate at Turn 1, and it didn’t work and we ran wide, but I think he had used a bit of KERS on the straight so I couldn’t pass him. I used all my KERS on the next straight to try and outbrake him but then Gutierrez clipped my rear wheel at Turn 12 and he tried to pass me and we touched.”

VER – “Blergh.”

Force India
Paul di Resta, 15th
“I made a good start and was in reasonable shape for the first stint. But it soon became clear that we were struggling for pace and not really in the zone with the tyres. We were pushing to do a one stop race, but the tyre wear was a bit higher than expected and I ran out of tyre performance with nine laps to go. It was hard to defend my position so I had to make a second pit stop. It’s a shame because we were quite optimistic before the race and we thought the warmer weather might play into our hands. So it’s a bit disappointing, but we will pick ourselves up and look to end the season with a better result in Brazil next weekend.”

RES – “Double blergh.”

Adrian Sutil, DNF

“It feels like I ran out of luck this weekend. Up until Saturday morning I was looking competitive and was happy with the car, but all of that promise disappeared with the problems we had in qualifying. In the race I made a good start, gained a few positions and was racing ahead of Maldonado on the back straight. For some reason he hit my left rear wheel and I immediately lost control of the car and crashed into the barriers. I don’t really understand why he was so close to me because the track is so wide there. I stayed on my line and there was a lot of space to the right and the left. So it was an early finish and a very disappointing day.”

SUT – “Well, at least I’m not Paul.”

Marussia
Jules Bianchi, 18th
“It’s fair to say that today was the toughest race of the season for me. With just the one pit stop, switching from the medium to the hard tyre, it was a really long race with so much of my focus being given to looking after the tyres. Anyway, the start was good – enough to put me ahead of Van der Garde – and then I’m really happy with the race I drove as we were easily able to keep both Caterhams behind. I have to say a big thanks to the whole team as there has been a great deal of work not only to help us resolve the problems of the weekend, but also to bring new parts to the car and make them work to good effect at this late stage of the season. A really good race for us today and we go into the final race in Brazil next week able to feel more confident.”

BIA – “Just glad to not be at McLaren!”

Max Chilton, 21st
“Heading into this race with the drive through penalty to serve, I was always aware that this would be a tough and lonely race for me. I lost 15 seconds in the pit lane and the reality is that you are simply going to hit the blue flag phase much earlier and pay a hefty price for that in the second half of the race. I’m pleased with the job I did to try to play catch-up and I think my fastest lap reflects that. Unfortunately the other factors defined my race. On the bright side, I’ve finished yet another race – my 18th out of 18 – and the car is performing well versus the Caterhams, so we’ll throw everything we have at the final race next weekend.”

CHI – “THAT WEEKEND WAS NOT THE MOST AWESOME, BUT IT WAS STILL PRETTY AWESOME! ALSO, NOT MCLAREN! WOO-HOOOO!”

Caterham
Giedo van der Garde, 19th
“I didn’t have a good start and was behind Bianchi at the end of the first lap. From there it wasn’t possible to pass him as, even though I had a quicker car round the whole lap, his straight line speed was better than mine and every time I got close my front tyres started graining because the car was understeering a lot so I couldn’t make a move past him stick. Sometimes it’s like this, there’s not much you can do when you’re so evenly matched. Despite how today went, overall it’s been a good week in Austin. The track is good and the atmosphere in Austin and at the circuit is amazing, but obviously for us we need a bit of a crazy race to be in with a chance of reclaiming tenth in the Championship, so now it goes down to the wire in Brazil. We’re ready, we just need to see what happens.”

GAR- “It’s all Bianchi’s fault.”

Charles Pic, 20th
“Off the line I passed Chilton and was right behind Giedo and Bianchi at the end of the first lap. However, the car balance today was the same as it’s been all weekend, just not quite there, which meant I couldn’t push at all. I was keeping up with my team mate for the whole race, up to the drive-through in the last couple of laps, but we just didn’t have the pace today to put in the normal sort of race performance we’ve seen for most of the season. We have the chance to bounce straight back in Brazil, and we’ll work hard over the next few days to understand what we need to do to find a set-up that allows us to get the most out of the package. I had my highest finish of the season in Brazil last year so we’ll aim to sort out the setup issue and be there to take advantage of anything that comes our way.”

PIC – “Love these clag tacos in Texas!”

Pirelli
Paul Hembery, Pirelli motorsport director
“The variation in temperature we saw over the course of the weekend was quite remarkable, meaning that the drivers encountered different track conditions in every session. With such a wide spread of asphalt temperatures, you would ideally need more than just the two compounds stipulated in the regulations, but these were highly unusual circumstances and that was obviously not an option! As a result, the teams did not really have a proper read on the wear and degradation rates heading into the race. Nonetheless, most drivers chose a one stop strategy as we expected, helped by the safety car period at the beginning of the Grand Prix, which then led to a race with less strategy and fewer variables than we have been accustomed to recently.”

Hembery – “No, really, you all can go fuck yourselves.”

2013 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix Post-Race Drivers’ Quotes, Translated

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So happy for Nico. So happy. So very, very happy.

Red Bull
Sebastian Vettel, 1st
“I think today was incredible; the pace we had was scary at some stages, I felt very, very good on the soft tyres and was able to pull out a good gap in the first couple of laps. I think it’s difficult, being an active member of the team, to put things like today into perspective. When I think of the times we’ve experienced over the last few years, it’s incredible to have a strong group of people together that believes so much in what they do. To be part of that is great and makes me proud. The car was so enjoyable on every single lap. There are not that many races when you are in complete control of the car – so it’s special. I didn’t get the maximum out of myself yesterday, but we made up for it today.”

VET – “Fucking Rocky, making me fucking rein my shit in. It’s bullshit. Why do I need to do those doughnuts at the end of the race? It’s not a celebration! It’s all my pent-up glory!! That’s the price of forcing me to contain my true potential: I’m’a gonna turn this F1 shit into some NASCAR, dick-wagglin’ malarky.”


Mark Webber, 2nd
“Seb was on another planet today and was very, very strong in the first stint. He was super quick and his tyres didn’t wear out, which is a recipe for disaster for the rest of the opposition, me included. Nico had a very good start on both Sebastian and I, but fortunately it wasn’t a long run to the first corner. We got under way from there and I attacked Nico on the first lap, but then we had to look after the tyres, so we waited and then on lap eight or nine we were in trouble with the rears. I made a good move on Nico to get back into position. It would have been good to win, but we got second and I’ll go to Austin and try and do better.”

WEB – “I wonder if I’ll look back on all this and think that, maybe, I should’ve been nicer to Adrian?”

Mercedes
Nico Rosberg, 3rd
“I had a great start to the race and was able to catch Mark off the line. I thought there might be a chance to get Seb but it wasn’t quite possible. I was able to push hard in the first stint on the option tyres but the second stint wasn’t quite as good as the car had a lot of oversteer on the primes and Mark was able to pass me. After the second stop, the set-up worked much better and we were able to set some really good lap times. We didn’t quite manage to take the challenge to the Red Bulls today but we were closer at least to one of them and hopefully we can make it happen in the last two races. As a team, we scored some great points for the Constructors’ Championship this weekend and I’m very happy about that.”

ROS – “Hey-hey, y’all! I’ll tell you one thing: the rosewater wasn’t the only thing poppin’ up on that 3rd place podium, yo! Only a few people know that when my eyes get all squinty and glazed over like that, it only means one thing: Angels. On my dick. Dancing. ‘Til I come. Why? Hammy’s tears, Hammy’s tears. Sigh.” 

Lewis Hamilton, 7th
“That was a tough race this evening for me. My race just didn’t quite come together and I’m not really sure why as I gave it my all out there. I had some problems with grip and, of course, it’s so difficult to overtake here when you are in traffic but we also need to figure out why I’m not getting the maximum performance from the car at the moment. The guys worked so hard this weekend to get my car repaired and ready for the race so it’s frustrating not to have delivered a better performance for them. A massive thank you to everyone for their efforts and it’s great that we have extended our lead for P2 in the Constructors’ Championship. All points count but Nico did a really good job today to maximise the potential of the car. Hopefully the last two races will be stronger for me and I look forward to that challenge.”

HAM – I suppose, really, that this is just God, testing me. Everyone at church who has, like, really crappy things happen to them, that’s how they rationalize it: ‘It was god’s will.’ So, that’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to just keep telling myself it was God’s will that Felipe FUCKING MASSA PASSED ME. AUUUGHH!!! Oh, man. This is harder than I thought. It was God’s will. It was God’s will that MassA PassssSSEDDD MEEE.. . .. . ..AUGHH! You forsaking motherfucker!!!!!!! MASSSAAA???!!! AUGHHGH!!!!! Bless.”

Lotus
Romain Grosjean, 4th
“That was a pretty long race. I got a good start and made up two places in the first few corners, but after that I lost a lot of time behind the Force India. I could overtake him with the DRS, but he had much better top speed and could just drive straight back past at the next straight. That middle stint cost us the chance of a podium in the end, and on pace we could maybe even have pushed Mark [Webber] for second place, but that’s how it goes sometimes. It’s a shame we couldn’t make it four podiums in a row, but to come away with fourth place after a difficult couple of days is a decent result.”

GRO – “Not only are they paying me and not Kimi, but they secretly gave me his car, too.”

Kimi Raikkonen, DNF
“There was some contact in front of me through the first corner so I stuck to the inside, but unfortunately one of the Caterhams touched my front wheel and it broke the track rod. It wasn’t a heavy impact, but the angle made it worse. It’s never easy starting so far back on the grid, but after the penalty it was a better choice to help our chances in the race rather than starting from the pit lane. After a difficult start to the weekend we did well yesterday so it was a shame we couldn’t start where we qualified, but these things happen sometimes; it’s just back luck.”

RAI – “What? Eh? Sorry, I can’t hear your insipid, dumbass questions over the sound of my flip-flops heading towards the door. KIMI OUT!”

Ferrari
Fernando Alonso, 5th
“I am happy to have brought home points for the team in a race that was always going to be tough, on what has been a very difficult weekend for us. Given the gap to the top four, I certainly couldn’t have done more. Starting from further back, we knew we would find ourselves in traffic, therefore having done well at the start, I tried to overtake as much as possible. When we saw that we were always behind another car, it became impossible to think in terms of a single stop and it was clearly better to switch to two and attack. As the Mediums were holding up quite well, we thought we’d use the Softs for a short stint to try and do a series of quick laps. As for what happened with Vergne after the second pit stop, I don’t know what the stewards will say, but the rule states that if you have an equal amount of car to the other one on the track then you can use all the space. But this was only one incident in a race which, for me, was fantastic. Now, if we don’t want to give up our fight in the Constructors’ Championship, we absolutely must do better and finish the last two races on the podium.”

ALO – “You know. . . Shit, I don’t even know what to say. You know that scene in Lord of the Rings where Gandalf is being all badass to the fire demon thing? What is it? The Balrog? Anyway, I’m like Gandalf, you know? I’m a fucking wizard in this car. . . this fucking Hobbit car. And I’m being all bad ass and doing my best and then, at the last moment, right, the goddamn Balrog sucks me down that endless pit into oblivion. So frustrating. ‘Oh, but Gandalf comes back as Gandalf the White and he’s more powerful than ever!’ you say. Yeah, well, take that and second place in the WDC and stick it up your fucking LOTR freakazoid ass!”

Felipe Massa, 8th
“Today I was competitive from start to finish and pulled off a lot of passing moves with a car that handled well. It was a great race. Our strategy was based on a single stop, but when we realised that the pace was too quick for the rear tyres and the wear was greater than expected, we decided to make a second stop so as not to take any risks. Fitting the Mediums rather than the Softs was not the best decision, because the softer compound was quicker by at least a second per lap: I’d managed to do 19 laps on them in the first stint and it would not have been a problem to do the same in the final part of the race.It’s a real shame, because we could have finished at least fifth, but even if this is not the result we deserved, I am still pleased with my performance. Now we head for Texas and Brazil, two tracks that on paper should suit our car better and where I hope I can continue to be competitive.”

MAS – “Yo-ho! Still here! Fuck that Hulkenberg Fever! Get yo’self some hot Massa action for your team! Cheap!”

Force India
Paul di Resta, 6th
“It’s a great feeling to finish sixth and make the one-stop strategy work. I said yesterday that we had opted to set the car up more for the race and it really paid off today. There were times when we had to be very quick and times when we had to manage the pace and look after the tyres. Towards the end of the race I was battling with Fernando and Lewis, but it was impossible to hold Fernando back because he was on much fresher soft tyres. Lewis was on the mediums so I just focussed on getting clean exits from the hairpin and the chicane leading onto the long straights, and was able to stay ahead. The eight points are just what we needed and everybody in the team deserves credit for the big effort that has gone in this week. That’s two strong weekends in a row and we will move to Austin determined to keep up the momentum.”

RES – “Please don’t fire me.”

Adrian Sutil, 10th
“Considering that I started in P17 I have to be quite satisfied about scoring a point and I’m happy about the team result today. It’s not been an easy weekend with the problems I had during practice and qualifying, but the strategy today was the right one and we came away with a point. I was running in ninth until the last lap ahead of Perez, but by that time I had done 27 laps on the soft tyres and it was very hard to defend because I had no traction out of the slow speed corners. The points scored in the last two races have been very important for the championship position.”

SUT – Feel that hot, fucking breath on your neck McLaren? That’s motherfucking Force fucking India right up on your ass! Hope you losers find the magic pontoons or Sergio’s Uncle drives that Flecha Roja bus up from Guadalajara or some shit. ‘Cause you are about to get the beat-down from Force India! Respect!”

McLaren
Sergio Perez, 9th
“This was a very complicated race – and harder than we’d expected. I struggled a little on my first set of Prime tyres, and I’m not too sure why. We had bad rear tyre degradation and poor traction overall. We’d opted to run with minimal downforce in the hope of being able to pass other cars in the race. But, despite that, in the event I found it difficult to overtake, and the fact that I spent a lot of the race stuck in traffic therefore made things very difficult. Still, it was a positive to be able to take ninth position from Adrian [Sutil] on the very last lap – one more point for the team may not sound much but it’s always helpful. The next race is in Austin [Texas, USA]. I can’t wait to go racing again so close to my home [Mexico], and to see the people who’ve supported me so well during this difficult season.”

PER – “I can’t wait for my uncle, Paco, to get up to Austin with that bus he promised me. He’s been running it around the Mexico City GP track and swears that thing does comparable lap times to the MP4-28. Shit, it’s easier on tyres and has a little blender for margaritas and pina coladas. Which, hey, after this season in this car, we could all use a drink. . . Am I right, people?!”

Jenson Button, 12th
“You make your own luck when you start down in 12th – where first-lap congestion is inevitable – and, sure enough, there was a little bit of argy-bargy into Turn One. I duly locked-up both my front tyres, couldn’t slow the car down sufficiently, and drove into the back of Paul [di Resta], which broke my front-wing end-plate. It’s a real pity to keep on having first-lap incidents, especially when the car is working reasonably well now. I’ve been in a similar situation for the past two races, and things haven’t really gone my way. Still, I managed 44 laps on the Prime – and, in terms of getting the most out of what we had, that felt positive. So, all in all, given how far behind we were after lap two [when he made his unscheduled early pit-stop], to finish so close to 10th by the chequer wasn’t so bad.”

BUT – “I’m just sort of glad I’m British right now. Between kidney pie and Benny Hill and Eddie “The Eagle”, we’re just sort of used to putting a good face on complete and total suck. I’m not even sure how Checo is keeping his shit together. He’s always wandering around the garage, muttering about buses and his uncle and 10 peso trips to Acapulco to go foam dancing. At least I’m still the cutest F1 dri. . . . What? What’s that? Gutierrez has been voted “Cutest F1 Driver” this week??!!! Fuck.”

Williams
Pastor Maldonado, 11th
“Today was a very tough race from the perspective of trying to manage the tyres, but we managed to cope with it pretty well. I certainly feel that the pace and consistency of the car has improved with the new aero package we ran this weekend and I could feel that the car was improving as the race went on. Unfortunately I came out in to traffic after my second pitstop which meant that I couldn’t really show the improved pace we had, and in the end I had to settle for a finish just outside the points. Overall the weekend has seen some positive steps forward which will give us a boost for the next race.”

MAL – “Yeah, I came in 11th. Man, what’s this giant wad in my pocket? Oh, look! It’s 10 million American Dollars that say 11th is the new 10th. What’s that? These dollars smell like oil? Oh, I’ll find someone who wants my stinky dollars.”

Valtteri Bottas, 15th
“I don’t think P15 was really reflective of the pace we had today. My race was compromised by the first lap when I was jumped by the Caterhams who started on the option tyres and so had more grip and were able to overtake me. After the prime tyres started to work my race pace was very good and I was able to fight hard with the cars around me. The positive from this weekend is that the car is feeling better and we have definitely made some gains which is promising for the final two races.”

BOT – “‘Jumped by Caterhams. Jumped by Caterhams. Have I ever told you how I get freaked out by Kindergartners? Yeah, I have to cross the street when I see those little fuckers coming down the sidewalk. Little fucking monsters. Them and the Caterhams.”

Sauber
Esteban Gutierrez, 13th
“Obviously we were looking for a better result this weekend, so we can not be happy. The pace is there, but qualifying yesterday affected the race today. Our strategy today wasn’t ideal either. I still had some good fights going on today, which I enjoyed, so I will take those positives with me and look forward to Austin.”

GUT – “Still super cute! And not in a McLaren!”

Nico Hulkenberg, 14th
“I’m not quite sure what happened today. I had felt comfortable with the car all weekend, but from lap one I was struggling with it. All the balance and the confidence I had was gone today, and I don’t know why. I had a lot of understeer in the first two stints. I couldn’t really rotate the car, which cost a lot of lap time. Then the unsafe release during my second pit stop, which resulted in a drive through penalty, was also quite costly. Now we have to evaluate as to why the car was so different today. It is disappointing, because there was a realistic chance for points today.”

HUL – “I need to find out what the hell Massa is smoking. I heard he’s got a little bottle he uses to collect ‘Nando’s tears and he drinks that shit and it’s like he’s Kurt Russell in some fucking Disney movie!”

Toro Rosso
Daniel Ricciardo, 16th
“This was not at all the race I was hoping for. In this sport, if the start doesn’t go well, it’s hard to recover, so I want to look at the data to understand what happened. The car didn’t get off the line well and then, at Turn 1 there was a bit of chaos as I dropped back into the group behind me. I had to run wide to avoid some accidents and from then on, my race was pretty much over. At the moment, our pace is not sufficient to fight back into the top ten if something like this happens. We must see what we can do to have better starts, because when we get good ones, we have generally gone on to score points.”

RIC – “Here’s a litany of empty excuses I need to burn up before the end of this season.”

Jean-Eric Vergne, 17th
“This is a very disappointing result. To sum it up, going for a one stop strategy was the right decision, but we made the change from Soft to Medium a little bit too early, so there was no life in the tyres towards the end, just as all that group of cars came up behind me. The original plan was for a two stop, but looking at how the race was developing, we decided to take this gamble, but it didn’t pay off. I tried all I could to keep the tyres alive, but it was not enough. A shame, as I was in the points for most of the race, especially as the car felt good and I was running at a strong pace. It seems that luck is just not on my side this season, as it’s not the first time I’ve been having a good race until circumstances have worked against me. The incident with Alonso? For a while now, if a driver puts a wheel outside the track when overtaking he gets a penalty and he had four wheels outside the line. In any case, he would have passed me down the next straight as I was struggling with my tyres by then.”

VER – “Mostly what I do at this point is pretend I’m in really deep, existentialist French film and I pretend there are all these hot, American undergrads really enjoying the movie and that’s pretty much what gives my life meaning right now.”

Caterham
Giedo van der Garde, 18th
“I have to say that’s one of my best ever races. The car was great today and the work the boys did in the stops, they were really on it and that helped a lot in the race. At the start I was ahead of Raikkonen who made contact with my left rear in turn one. I nearly spun after the contact, and lost a bit of time to my teammate and Chilton, but both Charles and I passed him by the end of the second lap and then we also got Bottas. I’m obviously pleased the luck went my way this time and I made it through the first lap and from there the car was feeling great, just really well balanced. In the first stop I went from softs to mediums and I could really push everywhere – I had a bit of oversteer but nothing too bad. I was behind my teammate after the stops but had more pace and the team made the call to let me past – with clear air I could really push and opened up a gap to him right to the flag. We know we need more luck and things to happen to the cars ahead to be able to get back tenth place in the championship, but it’s still good to have finished so far ahead of our nearest rivals. We need to carry that form through for the final two races and I know that if things come our way, we can do what’s required to finish my rookie season on a really positive note.”

GAR – “Fuck yeah! Fucking happy to be here!”

Charles Pic, 19th
“The car’s been understeering all weekend and it just carried on the same today in the race. I had an ok start, passed Chilton and Bottas by the end of lap two and was immediately pulling away until the first stop on lap eight when we went from options to primes. In the second stint the car just didn’t have any balance I could work with. I was ahead of Giedo but the team told me to let him pass so I did but with the way the car felt I couldn’t get any more out of it. That was the same pretty much right to the flag – in the final stint it felt a bit better but still nowhere near enough what I’d wanted.”

PIC – “Yup, as I predicted: it was all sandy clag with some hummus and baba ganoush this weekend. All the LED lights and money in the world ain’t gonna give this shit flavor. Next race: The States! Texas! Tacos and clag! Guns and clag!”

Marussia
Jules Bianchi, 20th
“I think we are quite surprised by our performance today after we had seemed to arrive at an improvement in qualifying. It was a very long race, I have to say. The car balance was not as we expected and I had to really push very hard to keep pace with the Caterhams, which is not ideal for managing the tyres. I think we will have to have a good look at everything before we go to Austin as, in theory, our new developments had seemed positive. It has been a tough weekend so we hope for better things in the final two races.”

BIA – “Is this shit over yet? What? We’re supposed to do this 22 times next year??!!!?? Fuck.”

Max Chilton, 21st
“That was a tough race for us today. We’ve made some good progress this weekend but for some reason we were unable to show that today. The start was good – again – so well done to the Team for getting on top of that because that last few races have been very good in that respect. Into the race the car balance was difficult and we were just battling for pace. It’s a shame, because our new developments seemed positive, but they haven’t translated into the race today. On the plus side, I finished yet another race – so that’s 17 out of 17 now – and of course we still hold position in the Constructors’ Championship. I think we have a lot of work to do to get on top of this before Austin as we need two strong final races.”

CHI – “GUYS!!! FUCKING 17 IN A ROW!!!! CAN YOU BELIEVE THIS SHIT!!!????? WOOOOOO-HOOOOOOO!!!!!!!”

Pirelli
Paul Hembery, Pirelli motorsport director
“First of all, congratulations to Sebastian Vettel for winning this race. A variety of strategies were deployed, with good levels of wear and degradation on both compounds, which meant that drivers were able to complete long opening stints even on the soft tyre. Sebastian drove a masterful race to win without ever losing the lead, making the most of the fact that he had not used the medium compound at all in qualifying, leaving him with two fresh sets of mediums today. As usual we saw a high degree of track evolution and falling track temperatures over the course of the race, although perhaps not to the extent we actually anticipated.”

Hembrey – “As always: double finger to you fucking assholes blaming the tyres on your shit-ass results.”

2013 Indian Grand Prix Post-Race Drivers’ Quotes, Translated

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17th to 3rd. It appears that using Kimi’s sunglasses does help you drive better. Next race, watch out assholes, I’m adopting his method of driving in flip-flops as well!

Sebastian Vettel, 1st

“First of all I would love to say thank you to the crowds. It was an unbelievable reception today and it’s a shame we are not racing here next year. I’m speechless. I crossed the line and I was empty. I took ages to think about something to say. It’s one of these moments where you want to say so many things but you can’t. It’s been such a phenomenal season. I think the team and the spirit inside the team is so strong; I said it on the radio already – it gives me so much power. It’s a pleasure to jump in the car and go out for the guys and girls and try to give it all I have. The car was fantastic today. I didn’t think about the donuts before the race today – it just happened. My engineer directed for the usual procedure, but I said ‘not this time!’ There are so many people in the main grandstand, I just had to do it. I want to say a big thank you to the team – all the people behind us. It was for sure not an easy season and even though people on the outside thought we had it in our hands, I think it was difficult. It a was tough season for me personally, to receive boos even though we haven’t done anything wrong; to overcome that and give the right answer on the track and get acceptance makes me very proud. To join people like Prost, Fangio and Michael is unbelievable. I think this is one of the best days in my life so far. There are so many people that I have to thank; I’ve always tried to listen and learn and it’s incredible to race some of the best drivers in the world.”

Translation Svcs – While we here at Translation Svcs feed on snark much like the VET-Bot 2000 feeds on, um, team spirit, I guess, we sort of feel like this was actual sincerity on Vettel’s part. Listening to him declare his love for Adrian and Cristian on the radio touched a warm and fuzzy spot on our gnarled and bitterly blackened hearts. We’re almost willing to forgive the wonderful contradiction between him saying “I always try to listen” and saying “Fuck it! I’m doing some doughnuts!!!!!!”. VET-Bot 2000, we are not sure if you are human, half-human or not-human; if you “secretly” get the better car with the magic turbo boost; or if you’re a combination of all that, PLUS just really fucking fast. . . . Either way, you clinched the WDC so, this week, we’ll be mostly nice as a way of saying congratulations.

Mark Webber,DNF
“Obviously I’m pretty disappointed with today’s race, but there is not much I can do, the alternator went wrong with very short notice so we had to stop straight away. It’s tough because we did a lot of things right this weekend, but I’ve got a smile on my face as I could not have done any more. Well done to Seb on his Championship and also to all the Team; to get a fourth title is amazing. It’s been a great job by the whole team to achieve the title four years on the trot and it has once again set itself as the benchmark for the others.”

WEB – “I’ve got a smile on my face right now because I’m a fucking professional. Shortly, I will be proceeding to a small, dark, well-insulated room where I will anger-shave my anger-whiskers. Then I will hold a koala-shaped pillow to my face and scream into it until I fall asleep.”

Christian Horner, Red Bull team principal
“To achieve four double World Championships is the culmination of an enormous amount of dedication and commitment from the whole team. For Sebastian to have joined the illustrious names of Fangio, Prost and Schumacher is an incredible achievement, especially at such a young age and it’s a privilege to work with him. It’s an enormous day for the team to have won its fourth consecutive Constructors’ World Championship. Without the dedication and determination of all the staff from all of the departments throughout the company and from all of our Partners and the backing of Dietrich Mateschitz and support of Red Bull, none of this would be possible. There’s going to be an awfully lot of happy people in Milton Keynes and Salzburg this evening. We’ve got three races to go and we’re just going to go for it. The most disappointing thing today was obviously the failure on Mark’s car when we were set for a 1-2 finish; we had a sudden alternator failure, but sometimes that’s racing. It was just desperately disappointing to happen while we were on course to achieve a 1-2 finish. I think it’s going to take quite a few days for this success to sink in and it’s important for the team to enjoy the moment – we will be pushing all the way to the chequered flag in Brazil.”

Horner – “That’s racing. Every week: that’s racing. Car’s on fire: that’s racing. Nothing to see here. Go Seb!”

Thierry Salvi, Renault support for Red Bull
“Seb showed his capacity to be very, very quick yet again and to come back to the front despite a very early pit stop. That was a demonstration. Mark pushed very hard from the beginning and was a serious rival to Seb until his failure. A huge result for the team today, with the quadruple double finally done and dusted! It’s a very proud moment for us to have contributed to these titles and to see the partnership go from strength to strength. It was not a perfect day with the alternator issue for Mark, but it doesn’t have to sour the celebrations for too long.”

Salvi – “Mark who?”

Mercedes
Nico Rosberg, 2nd
“A great job from Sebastian today and his fourth title is well deserved. For our team, it was a very important race today. We scored a lot of points and climbed back up to second place in the Constructors’ Championship. I’m quite confident that we can keep that position until the end of the season as the team is doing a great job and our car looks good but it will be a fight. I had good pace today and we really nailed the set-up here. The team did a fantastic job on the strategy and thanks to the boys for that. The only thing which didn’t work out perfectly was when I dropped behind Felipe at the start as it was not easy to overtake him on the track, but then we managed to clear him in the pits. Our target was to be the best of the rest this weekend and it worked out perfectly.”

ROS – “I’m not really sure how the hell I  came in second but, uh, hey! I’m down with it! I got past Felipe. Hey, Hammy! How did you do against Felipe? Uguughhh. . . Oh, yeah. . . .Um, does anyone have a towel? I just came again.”

Lewis Hamilton, 6th
“Massive congratulations to Seb on becoming four-time World Champion today. That’s an awesome achievement and he’s put in some incredible performances this season. I really hope we get to take the fight to him next year! Looking at my race today, it’s great that we got some good points, particularly with Nico’s podium, and that the team are back to second place. The car has been pretty good this weekend but the race was frustrating for me. I tried so hard to get past Felipe but it just wasn’t possible and unfortunately I destroyed my tyres in doing so. Finishing in sixth place is never satisfying but we’ve got three more races and we’ll keep pushing. I’m confident that we can get some more good results to keep the team in second place and we’ll keep fighting to achieve just that.”

HAM – “I am just happy to be here. Loving being in F1 with someone as talented as Seb. It’s so good to have a great relationship with Seb and that Seb knows that I totally support him and, man, am I lonely. Bless.”

Lotus
Romain Grosjean, 3rd
“If you had told me yesterday that I’d be on the podium here I would have said you were crazy! Straight from the beginning of the race I felt very comfortable on the option tyres and we looked in pretty good shape, then we fitted the mediums and the car was really quick. I lost quite a lot of time behind [Esteban] Gutierrez which maybe cost us the fight for second, but we managed to come back from that well. When I saw that I was fourth in front of [Felipe] Massa with 27 laps to go I knew it was going to be close with him as we had to take care of the tyres, plus we had an engine issue at the end of the race which made things quite tricky. In the final laps Kimi was really struggling with his tyres so I managed to pass him and luckily had enough pace to keep Felipe behind. Before the race our best prediction was fourth if we had a strong start and a perfect race, so it was an amazing result and a great performance from the team.”

GRO – “HOW DOES IT FEEL, KIMI?!!! SHOE’S ON THE OTHER FOOT NOW, BITCH!!!!!! /GRO MIC DROP/”

Kimi Raikkonen, 7th
“We ran maybe the first twenty laps with no brakes as they had overheated massively, so every time I got close to somebody I lost braking. At the end of the race I ran out of tyre performance too so it’s been a pretty disappointing day. I knew the tyres would drop off quite quickly, but there wasn’t much to lose between trying to get to the end and making an extra pit stop in terms of time lost. In the end it didn’t work.”

RAI – “Yeah, whatever. I’ve already painted all the ice dragons red. Have fun with Maldonado, Romain. You think I’m an asshole? Ask Valtteri about assholes for teammates.”

Ferrari
Felipe Massa, 4th
“That was a nice race and I am very happy, because the strategy worked. I managed to always run at a good pace, even with the Soft tyres. Here, I could have fought for the podium, but as the track evolved, some cars, such as Grosjean in the Lotus, managed to make just one stop, which was impossible for us. I lost a position to Rosberg, who came in early for his second stop, but I have to be happy with this day when we made no mistakes. Today, we lost second place in the Constructors’ classification, because Mercedes was very quick and we are well aware, that even if it won’t be easy, there are still three races and we will do our utmost right to the very end. I want to congratulate Sebastian, who deserves everything he has achieved so far. I am really happy for him, because he is a great driver and a very nice guy. From today, his name will sit alongside the greatest drivers in the history of Formula One, such as Senna, Schumacher and few others.”

MAS – “Hey, motherfuckers! Still relevant! I’m like Hulkenberg but with some gravitas. I could be like the Crash Davis of your (Yes! Your F1 team!) team! Teaching that young driver about pussy n’shit! Think about it! Fourth!”

Fernando Alonso, 11th
“Today, the problem I had on the first lap compromised my entire race, because we had to immediately change the nose and with one extra stop, without any opportunity to overtake, it was all an uphill struggle. In front of me, Webber touched someone and then me, then at turn 4 I also touched with Button. The steering felt very heavy in right hand turns and the only thing to do was pit. If you look at Webber’s race or Perez’s then I’d say our strategy was good, because when the others began to pit, those two were leading, but it’s also true that it went well for those who started on the Softs. I must congratulate Vettel, because in this, as in other sports, it’s the best that win. I’m a bit sad at not having scored points for the Constructors’ title, but now, if we want to take that second place, we have to do better in the next three races and try to always finish on the podium, at least with one car, if not both.”

ALO – “If anybody needs me, I’ll just be over in this corner, curled up in a ball.”

McLaren
Sergio Perez, 5th
“Unlike the past two or three weekends, I was finally able to enjoy a clean race without any bad luck! Fifth place is a great result for me. Without question, I have a lot of pressure on my shoulders, but it’s always sweeter when you perform well while under pressure. I’m extremely satisfied. In the closing laps, it was a fantastic feeling to get past Kimi [Raikkonen] and Lewis [Hamilton] in a single move. I just braked as late as I could for turn four to try and keep Lewis behind – and I managed to do it. It’s been a tough season, but today’s result is a promising sign and really motivates the whole workforce ahead of the last three races, where we’ll be doing our best to get more strong finishes under our belts. Finally, I want to give a big congratulations to Sebastian. He’s shown over the past few years that he’s a truly great champion. He’s had a great season and what he’s achieved is incredible. Now, I really hope we can fight against him next season!”

PER – “Si, cabron! As long as, at the end of some races, I can zip past some mo-fos whose tyres have completely gone off, I will continue to show promise! Whatever we did to the car this weekend: pontoons, some sparkly decals, whatever the fuck we did, totally worked!”

Jenson Button, 14th
“Today was just one of those days… Exiting turn four on the first lap, I got hit quite hard on the right-hand-side by Fernando [Alonso]. I don’t quite know why he couldn’t make the apex, as I’d given him loads of room, but he hit me in the side pretty hard. The contact damaged the car and damaged the wheel rim, which also gave me a puncture, although it didn’t cause me an issue until about three laps later. It was an extra shame that I was running on the medium compound tyre when I had the puncture, as that was the one you wanted to run long around here! So that incident destroyed my strategy for the rest of the afternoon. Without that contact, and the resultant puncture, I think we could have had some fun out there. It’s just a shame, because our car was quick around here – Checo showed just what was possible by driving an extremely good race. Congratulations to Seb for winning his fourth world championship. That’s very impressive – especially to win four in a row. His team did a great job, Adrian Newey demonstrated how good he is, and Seb finished it off nicely with a win.”

BUT – “Great job to Seb for getting to drive that magic car that Newey built for you, and only you, to victory. Fucker.”

Force India
Paul di Resta, 8th
“It’s great to score points here in India – the team’s home Grand Prix and a really important race for us. We took an aggressive strategy by pitting at the end of the first lap to change from softs to medium tyres – which was always the plan. After that we effectively split the race in two and I pitted again for my second set of medium tyres on lap 30. The other positive is that we’ve steadily improved the car over the last few weeks and I’m feeling more comfortable, so I think we can be optimistic of performing at a similar level in Abu Dhabi next week.”

RES – “Please don’t fire me, guys!”

Adrian Sutil, 9th
“The target was to score points so eighth and ninth places are a great result for us today. My one-stop strategy was the riskier approach and it was only during the race that we decided to go ahead with it. The medium tyres, which I started on, were performing really well and I realised that doing a one-stop race was possible. We thought that the soft tyres would only last around five laps, so I made sure I really looked after them, and in the end I managed just under twenty laps. After some difficult races recently, we showed everybody what we can achieve with some great teamwork today.”

SUT – “Hembery! After, like, ten laps on the softs, is was like fucking ‘2001: A Space Odessey’ up in this bitch! Lights and things were streaming all out of the monolith and I saw the secrets to the universe flash all around me. I felt so free! Force India!”

Toro Rosso
Daniel Ricciardo, 10th
“I am pretty pleased with today’s performance, even if during the race I thought we were looking better than a tenth place finish, especially after the first stint went well and the pace was looking good. It seemed as though we could have matched Sutil and Di Resta, so there’s a little bit of disappointment about the fact I couldn’t get past them and get a couple more points. Generally, I am pleased with what I did in the car and now we move on to Abu Dhabi, where we have a lot of support, so I hope we can give them a good result next Sunday. Vettel? Phenomenal! Particularly since the summer break, when he grabbed the title and never let anyone else look at it.”

RIC – “I suppose I should get used to the feeling of Seb taking all the nice things and me not getting to look at them.”

Jean-Eric Vergne, 13th
“I think the strategy we had was a good one, coming in very early to get rid of the Soft tyre. It could have paid off to the extent of getting into the points, but we were just too slow, even though we did everything we could. I just couldn’t do better today, so of course I am disappointed, because making up one place from my grid position is not really enough. At least we only have a few days to wait before trying again in Abu Dhabi. Vettel? What he’s done is something truly special, so congratulations.”

VER – “Blergh.”

Williams
Pastor Maldonado, 12th
“This was a better weekend for us, with the car showing better race pace which is encouraging. I had another strong start and made up a good number of places on the first lap. I was fighting hard at the end of the race to try and get us in to the top ten but unfortunately we didn’t quite make it today. We can take positives from this weekend and I feel we are getting closer to the points so hopefully we can score some more in the final three races.”

MAL – “Hey! I didn’t hit anybody! Let’s build on that momentum! Does anybody want some mad Venezuelan oil money? I promise not to run my teammate off the track too frequently!”

Valtteri Bottas, 16th
“The first lap was very slippery for me and I was sliding a lot more than other cars and lost some positions, but my pace in the first stint was getting better and I was getting more and more grip from the tyres. However I had a radio failure which meant my first pit stop was later than planned and I lost track position, and in the second stint I was fighting closely with a lot of other cars and that traffic cost us a bit of time. Our race pace was stronger than in the last few races and I felt that I was on the right strategy, but the lack of running in free air meant that I wasn’t able to capitalise on this and challenge for points.”

BOT – “Just kinda stayed back here so I wouldn’t have to smell MAL’s farts.”

Sauber
Esteban Gutierrez, 15th
“This wasn’t a great weekend, yet I gained valuable experience during the race today. Unfortunately, I made a mistake at the start and I paid for that with a drive through. We had a good pace today and I had good fights with Fernando (Alonso) and Roman (Grosjean). I enjoyed that. The car had a very good balance. At the end I struggled a bit on the options, but still I think if I avoid mistakes and we are able to qualify better we can for sure finish in the top ten again.”

GUT – “Still the cute one!”

Nico Hulkenberg, 19th
“Today I would have passed the finish line in eighth place. We don’t know yet what happened. When I was braking into the last turn something clicked and all of a sudden my brakes were gone. Something must have been broken on the car. Following that I pitted and went out again, but something wasn’t right. It is very disappointing.”

HUL – “Hulkenberg? Fever?”

Marussia
Max Chilton, 17th
“I’m so happy with my performance in that race. The start was great and with the help of my engineers we did a good job of driving around a problem that at one stage had looked like it might end in retirement. Thankfully it eased and we could set about recovering our strategy, which in the end played out very nicely for me. From the video, the circumstances of the first corner seem pretty clear – I was ahead of Van der Garde and he hit both Pic and myself with his front wing. When I looked in my mirrors I could see he had damaged his wing. Overall, it hasn’t been an entirely straightforward weekend but we have been there or thereabouts with the Caterhams’ on pace and we had it in the car today to do a good job. I’m obviously very happy to maintain my record of finishing every race but it will be an even nicer feeling if I can still be saying that in Brazil! My thanks to the team for all the hard work, which is clearly paying off. Finally, congratulations to Sebastian on a well-deserved fourth title.”

CHI – “WOOOO-HOOOOOO!! FINISHED AGAIN!!!! LOVE THIS SHIT! SO HAPPY TO BE HERE!!!!!!!! LET’S GO GOLFING.”

Jules Bianchi, 18th
“I am happy that we finished the race with both cars again but disappointed with my position to be honest. Our two strategies were very close, although the theory was that mine would be just a little quicker. The car was good and the strategy should have paid off had it not been for a problem at the first pit stop, which cost me a lot of time. At the end of the race that really made the difference. Overall we have to be pleased with the car performance and think positively about every opportunity for the team to hold position in the Championship. My best wishes to Sebastian – a great achievement for him.”

BIA – “Fucking Chilton and his goddamned positivity fucking powering him to glory. . .Well, 17th, anyway.”

Caterham
Giedo van der Garde, DNF
“I’m really disappointed my race ended so early. I made a fair start but coming out of turn one Chilton left me no room and we made contact, breaking my front wing and suspension. It’s been made really clear to us that we have to give each other room but today I wasn’t given any at all and that’s what’s finished my race before it really got going. It’s such a shame as this weekend the car’s felt really good, the balance has been there right from the first practice session and we know we have the pace on Sundays to pull away from the cars we’re fighting with. Having it all end so quickly is obviously bad, for me and everyone in the team who keep working so hard, but we can come back from this straight away next weekend in Abu Dhabi and that’s exactly what I aim to do.”

GAR – “Chilton’s so busy smiling and being happy, his eyes get all squinty and he can’t see so well and he hits me and . . . Man, I’d be angry but he’s so fucking happy.”

Charles Pic, DNF
“After the start and coming out of turn one I was ahead of Chilton and my team mate. Giedo didn’t have anywhere to go and made contact with my right rear tyre and it punctured which meant I had to come in immediately for a stop. We’d started on the soft tyres so we were always going to have to stop early, but obviously not on lap one, and with the time I’d lost with the first lap puncture I was back to where we were in Japan, having to play catch-up for the rest of the race. On the first set of mediums the car started behaving strangely and I was told to box again on lap 16. It turned out we had another puncture on the right rear and the tyre had lost a lot of pressure so we put on another new set of mediums and I pushed to close the gap to the cars ahead, but with such a big deficit it was always going to be unlikely I’d be able to catch and pass them. We gave it a go but we started losing hydraulic pressure, affecting the gearbox first, making changes harder, and then the steering started getting heavier and on lap 39 I was given the call to retire the car. My engineer explained afterwards we had to stop because of a hydraulics leak which is why we’d had problems with the gearbox and the power steering and we had to retire to stop any more problems with the rest of the car. Overall this has been a bit of a tough weekend, but we will keep fighting, next weekend and for the rest of the season.”

PIC – “Have you guys ever had the clag-naan? The shit is for reals, yo! And it just goes with everything: curried clag, clag with paneer, clag with saag. . . EVERYTHING! Where’re we going next? Abu Dhabi?! Fuck. Fucking clag with sand. Can’t wait.”

Pirelli
Paul Hembery, Pirelli motorsport director
“With a notable lap time difference between the two compounds, strategy was at the forefront of this action-packed Indian Grand Prix. We saw some very different approaches being taken all the way down the grid, which was roughly split between drivers starting on the soft and the medium tyre. We also saw many teams split their strategies between both cars, in order to cover every possibility. Sebastian Vettel’s early pit stop meant that he was able to undercut his direct rivals on the same strategy, but Webber was able to gain track position by staying out longer: which basically summed up how the different tactics worked. However, we are disappointed to see that some teams went against our recommendations and used the compounds for longer than we advised them to do. Most of all though, congratulations to Sebastian and Red Bull for their fourth consecutive double championship: a testament to their astounding capabilities in every area all year, including their skills at using the tyres and strategy to gain an advantage.”

Hembery – “Only Sutil saw through our ruse and realized that all the secrets of the universe were to be revealed to the one who pushed the softs past ten laps. Also, we slipped him a lot of LSD right before the race. That helped.”