Kids, this’ll have to hold you until Tuesday but, really, after that race, it might be all one needs to say:
Single GIF Response to 2014 Bahrain Grand Prix
Reply
Screw you Guys, I’m going home
Is Formula 1 in crisis? No. But you’d never know it given the hullabaloo in the press. Red Bull saying this isn’t Formula 1. Ferrari saying this isn’t Formula 1. Bernie saying this isn’t Formula 1. Well I’m sorry guys, but you’ve only yourselves to blame.
This new engine formula came about as a direct result of Renault holding the sport hostage. Formula 1 was living in the past said Carlos Ghosn, and Renault would not be hanging around unless it changed its regulations to move in line with more road relevant technology. If they’d had their way, we’d currently have flat fours. As it is, they backtracked slightly to the 1.6 litre V6s which have so divided the sport’s fanbase.
That Renault has arguably done the poorest job in preparing for this new formula is nobody’s fault but their own. They pushed for this technology. They made their bed…
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2014 Bahrain Grand Prix GIF Grid
Nico Rosberg
Lewis Hamilton
Valterri Bottas
Sergio Perez
Kimi Raikkonen
Jensen Button
Felipe Massa
Kevin Magnussen
Fernando Alonso
Sebastian Vettel
Nico Hulkenberg
Daniil Kvyat
Daniel Ricciardo
Jean-Eric Vergne
Esteban Gutierrez
Romain Grosjean
Pastor Maldonado
Kamui Kobayashi
Jules Bianchi
Marcus Ericsson
Max Chilton
Adrian Sutil
2014 Bahrain Grand Prix Drivers’ Post-Qualifying Quotes, Translated
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
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 Malaysian Grand Prix GIF Report
Sebastian Vettel
After Qualifying (excluding his little cock up in Q3, of course):
After the race:
Daniel Ricciardo
Lewis Hamilton
Nico Rosberg
Fernando Alonso
Nico Hulkenberg
Jenson Button
Felipe Massa
Valtteri Bottas
Kevin Magnussen
Daniil Kvyat
Romain Grosjean
Kimi Raikkonen
Kamui Kobayashi
Marcus Ericsson
Max Chilton
Pastor Maldonado
Esteban Gutierrez
Adrian Sutil
Jean Eric Vergne
Jules Bianchi
Sergio Perez
Exclusive Footage of RBR Appearing Before the FIA!
2014 Australian Grand Prix Post-Race Drivers’ Quotes, Translated
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.”
2014 Australian Grand Prix GIF Review
Kevin Magnussen
Daniel Ricciardo
then
Daniil Kyvat
Kamui Kobayashi
Felipe Massa
Kimi Raikkonen
Romain Grosjean
Pastor Maldonado
Jenson Button
Lewis Hamilton
Fernando Alonso
Nico Rosberg
Sebastian Vettel
Nico Hulkenberg
Jean Eric Vergne
Valtteri Bottas
Jules Bianchi
Marcus Ericsson
Sergio Perez
Adrian Sutil
Esteban Gutierrez
Max Chilton
F1 Pre-Season Testing GIF Recap!
Red Bull!
Mercedes!
McLaren!
Lotus!
Force India!
Williams!
Marussia!
Ferrari!
Sauber!
Toro Rosso!
profanef1 