Lewis Hamilton
Nico Rosberg
Fernando Alonso
(Also, very happy for ‘Nando, because, when he podiums, we get more shots of Dasha.)
Daniel Ricciardo
Sebastian Vettel
Nico Hulkenberg
Valtteri Bottas
Kimi Raikkonen
Sergio Perez
Daniil Kvyat
Jenson Button
Jean-Eric Vergne
Pastor Maldonado
Adrian Sutil
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!”
Red Bull!
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.”
As Force India passes McLaren in the WDC, they roll down the window and ask: “Old chap, How do you get this Rambler ouuut offf second gear???!!!”
“Seb, you think it’s disgusting that I touched my balls and then shook your hand? Shit, I’m fucking drinking my ball sweat right now! Tastes like holy water, yo!”
Red Bull
Mark Webber (1st, Q3 – 1m 30.915)
“It’s a great track and we always enjoy driving here. The laps weren’t too bad today to be honest, but you always want a little bit more here and there. Sebastian had a problem in qualifying, so it’s a little bit of a hollow pole position if you like; he still did a phenomenal lap. But, I’m happy to be on pole; you have to grab the opportunities when you can and still get the laps in. It’s a very, very nice farewell for me to have pole position on my last attempt here at Suzuka. It’s a great circuit and I’ll never forget the first sector today, it’s what us guys strive for and it’s what our profession is all about; driving that is a real highlight for us.”
WEB – “I could tell something was a little jinky right off, mate. Something about the car felt bodgy. Then I realized the car wasn’t bodgy, the car was perfect and I just wasn’t used to perfection. Next thing I noticed was this picture of Marko, Seb and Cristian together on a beach and it was covered in sparkles and unicorn stickers. I kinda looked around to see if anyone was putting me on and everyone was acting quite normal. I figured: fuck it: I’ll drive this car and see what happens. The only real problem was getting used the Seb’s seat. It’s formed for his metallic endo-skeleton so it wasn’t very comfortable. I’ll do my best to not hold the VET-Bot 2000 up at the start. Really.”
Sebastian Vettel (2nd, Q3 – 1m 31.089s)
“First of all congratulations to Mark, I think he did a very good lap. We had an issue in qualifying, but I’m not a big fan of thinking that without this, with this, if this, you know… it’s always unknown and we’re P2. I’m happy with the result, a front row for the team is great. The car was phenomenal today, especially in the first sector. You realise afterwards that the car was really fantastic through there and you don’t get many days when the car feels that great and you can really push it to the limit. I enjoyed qualifying today and I’m happy with second place”
VET – “They make him race with this car?! Man, if I had emotions, I’d feel really bad for him.”
Christian Horner, Red Bull team principal
“It’s great to have secured front row for tomorrow’s race. It was a very strong performance by Mark today to claim his first pole of the year and Sebastian, despite the failure of KERS on his car, produced a great lap also to get onto the front row for tomorrow’s race. We need to understand the issue with his car, as it’s the second session we had a KERS problem. Hopefully we can convert these very strong grid positions into a good points haul tomorrow.”
Horner – “Can someone take this call from Marko? He won’t stop fucking calling me or texting me about what happened.”
Mercedes
Lewis Hamilton (3rd, Q3 – 1m 31.253s)
“I am really happy with P3 on the grid and the team has done a great job this weekend, so thank you to everybody for their hard work. It seems to me that we have a better package here than we’ve had for a while and the car felt awesome to drive. The wind direction changed around from yesterday’s practice session and that changed the characteristics of the circuit, which felt like it had much more grip. Third place is a strong result from Qualifying but the Red Bulls were just out of reach today. Managing the tyre degradation will be key tomorrow so hopefully we can get a good start from the clean side of the grid, then see what we can do from there against the guys in front.”
HAM – “Like any borderline bi-polar sociopath, I’m pretty happy when shit goes my way. When this fucking Merc craps out come race-time, watch for my hang-dog, victim bullshit to rear its lovely head. Pray for me. Bless.”
Nico Rosberg (6th, Q3 – 1m 31.397s)
“It was a good lap but it’s annoying when you step out of the car and the gap to the cars ahead is so close. I have put my set-up more towards tomorrow afternoon, so I’m quite confident about what will be a challenging race for the tyres. P6 is not a bad position to start from and I will try to climb some places up the order. Qualifying always involves some compromises in terms of set-up but we saw in Korea that it was working out quite well for me in the race until my wing broke. I hope we have found the same good balance between qualifying and race performance this weekend.”
ROS – I’m sorta torn between placing two spots behind HAM due to a sparky, fall-y-off-y nose and having that to rub in his face and coming in two spots ahead of him and having the little angels dance on my cock. Either way, I’m totally jizzing inside this suit.”
Lotus
Romain Grosjean (4th, Q3 – 1m 31.365s)
“The Red Bulls have looked very strong and we knew it would be tight with Lewis [Hamilton] for P3, so I think we did a good job to take P4. The car feels much better than it did yesterday; especially on the hard tyres which we had been struggling with previously but were then fastest with in Q1 today. The team worked hard to address this overnight and we’ve shown great progress through the weekend once again. It’s a tight, technical circuit, the wind is still making things tricky and it should stay pretty hot, so it’ll be interesting to see what we can do in the race. I’m feeling pretty good.”
GRO – “I’m wondering if they pulled a “Red Bull Special” on me and gave me Kimi’s car for Quali.”
Kimi Raikkonen (9th, Q3 – 1m 31.684s)
“The car has felt much better here than it has in recent races; even if we don’t have a better position on the grid for tomorrow. A small mistake on my quick lap cost me a little bit of time and it’s very close here, so a small amount lost can mean quite a few positions dropped. We’ll have to see what happens in the race, but the car has certainly been more to my liking this weekend so the position on the grid is not a drama.”
RAI – “Motherfuckers. You gave me Romain’s car!!!”
Felipe Massa (5th, Q3 – 1m 31.378s)
“Managing to put together a perfect lap on this incredible track is always extremely satisfying and it reminded me of my pole here in 2006. Even if it’s a fifth place, it’s still a good starting point for tomorrow. Already yesterday, I could feel the car was well balanced and today we did a good job, managing to get all the potential out of it. More than this was not possible, but I am very happy all the same. Sure, tomorrow’s race will not be easy, because we have some very fast cars ahead of us, but we can be in the game and for that we must concentrate to the maximum on strategy and tyre management. Getting a good result will depend very much on having a strong pace. Last year, I finished second here and this evening I will try and remember how I did it.”
MAS – “Guys! I qualified ahead of Alonso! Guys! Wait. Did you fuckers give me Alonso’s car?! You bastards!”
Fernando Alonso (8th, Q3 – 1m 31.665s)
“Today’s result is more or less what we were expecting, not having had a great pace all weekend, always being between sixth and tenth and even in Q3, I could not do more. Here the long run tests went better in terms of degradation than in Korea and that gives us hope that we can make up ground in the race. Tomorrow, we will give it our best shot, as always, trying to count on our strong points; the start, the strategy and the way we manage tyre degradation. The aim is definitely not just to finish in the first eight to keep the Championship alive, because if Vettel doesn’t win here, he will do it in one of the next races, when the number of combinations that can affect the result will be less. Now we need to pick up points for second place in the Constructors’ Championship and for that we need to finish ahead of Mercedes, who are only one point behind us.”
ALO – “They make him race with this car?! Man, if I had emotions, I’d feel really bad for him.”
Sauber
Nico Hulkenberg (7th, Q3 – 1m 31.644s)
“We knew we could fight for the top ten today, but P7 is a nice surprise. It was very tight, everything had to fall into place and I think we managed to do that. Compared to yesterday, the wind changed so we had a tail wind on the straights and this makes you really quick. That means we have a head wind in sector one, which gives you a lot of grip. It was so much fun to put a really good lap together in Q3. I am very happy. Clearly tomorrow we’ll be aiming for points.”
HUL – “P7! In a Sauber! Get in line, bitches! Look at my ass! Yeah! You know why it’s so fucking perfect? ALL THE FAT! It’s doesn’t matter! You want this fat ass so bad right now! You know why I’m so fucking fast right now? Desperation!!!”
McLaren
Jenson Button (10th, Q3 – 1m 31.827s)
“In Q3 at Suzuka you want to go out and have fun – which is exactly what I did. I couldn’t have gone any quicker. I did three laps in Q2 and Q3 that were almost identical, so I think P10 was as good as our car could get here today. There wasn’t any more time left out on the track, but it was fun trying to find it! Looking forward to tomorrow’s grand prix, I think it’s going to be a different sort of race to those we’ve experienced recently, because the tyre degradation is more reasonable here than it’s been in previous races. Actually, I think both compounds are working well here. I’m really looking forward to the race, and hopefully we’ll be able to make progress and bag a decent haul of points. It’s going to be tough out there though – but that’s why we enjoy this sport.”
BUT – “Fun! I’m having fun! I enjoy this sport! I’m having fun in this enjoyable sport! My sports therapist has been working with me on positive reinforcement. It’s totally working!”
Sergio Perez (11th, Q2 – 1m 31.989s)
“It was frustrating to miss out on Q3 by the smallest of margins. It was extremely close: my first set of tyres in Q2 were the Options I’d run during Q1 when we’d aborted because of the red flag. That meant my reference for my second Q2 run wasn’t ideal as I didn’t really know where the track was going. Obviously, yesterday we missed out on some useful track time owing to the accident, so this morning was spent trying to recover that time, changing set-up and learning about the track. To miss out by just over tenth wasn’t ideal but, on the other hand, I think we’re in a good position to score points tomorrow.”
PER – “How much longer is this season? It seems really long.”
Toro Rosso
Daniel Ricciardo (16th, Q2 – 1m 32.485s)
“That wasn’t a good session for us, which is disappointing as yesterday was one of the best Fridays we have had in a while. The wind has played a bit of a part today, but we definitely should have been further up than that. I would have liked a better result of course, but we will have to see what we can do in the race. I just wasn’t happy with the balance of the car. Jev’s problem? I heard about it, but from what I’ve been told there’s no reason for me to be concerned about it for the race, as everything was fine on my car.”
RIC – “Those A-holes told me they were going to give me Mark’s car this weekend. I think something got fucked up. I suppose I should just get used to being fucked over my Cristian. Man, and I put unicorn emoticons in all my texts to him this week!”
Marussia
Max Chilton (19th, Q1 – 1m 34.320s)
“I’m so happy to have put us ahead of both Caterhams’ in qualifying for the first time since China. One would have been a result, but to beat both Pic and Van der Garde is really incredible and shows just how much fight there is in all of us at this crucial stage in the season. It has not been the most straightforward weekend for us on track and leaving the garage after the red flag, with just under three minutes of the Q1 session, remaining seemed like a tough ask. The track conditions had also shifted in that time and the wind made things more difficult in sector one for sure. I gave it all I had and my lap was as good as I could have asked of myself. I’m just really looking forward to my first Japanese Grand Prix at Suzuka and I hope we can carry the momentum through into the race tomorrow. Well done to all of us in the team.”
CHI – “OH HELLS YESSSSS!!!!!! QUALIFIED IN 19TH PLACE!!!!! THIS RACING SHIT IS AWESOME!!!!! SO HAPPY TO BE HERE!!!!
Pirelli
Paul Hembery, Pirelli motorsport director
“It’s been an action-packed day at Suzuka, which is a sign of just how challenging this circuit is. There has been quite a high degree of track evolution over the weekend so far and we’d expect to see two pit stops in the normal course of events tomorrow. There’s a much smaller lap time difference between the two nominated compounds than we’ve had in the previous two races, which clearly had an effect on the strategy as it made it easier for the frontrunners to get through Q1 using the hard compounds, as we saw with Grosjean’s impressive run through Q1. This opens up different strategic possibilities for the race tomorrow, with a number of options potentially paying off. The times are actually very close, so there’s an opportunity for strategy to really make a difference. Although this is a very demanding track for tyres, with the highest lateral energy loads of the year, wear and degradation is where we expect it to be: we saw in qualifying that times didn’t drop off significantly even with used tyres.”
Hembrey – “As with every week: Y’all can go fuck yerselves.”
“Eat your ‘heart’ out, VET-Bot 2000!!”
Red Bull
Sebastian Vettel, 1st
“It’s fantastic to win this event again. I just managed to make turn one! I locked the front right and it just didn’t seem to come back. I had a big flat spot, which I felt straight away and I wasn’t sure if the tyre would survive, but fortunately I managed to make it round and have a strong first stint. I pushed straight away to get a bit of a gap, in case we had to stop early and change to a two stop strategy. We had a gearbox issue and I had to short shift, which meant we dropped some time in the straights – but I tried to make it up in the corners. It’s great to finish on the top step. The podium here is always very passionate. We are in Italy and when you walk around outside the track, you see Ferrari clothing and merchandise in all the shops starting from the smallest sizes upwards; it’s part of their DNA, which I understand. It was great for the Tifosi to have Fernando on the podium today. The season is going well and we’re pushing hard, but we take each race as it comes. We’re looking forward to Singapore next, which I want to finish; I think it’s the toughest race we have all year.”
VET – “They introduced a new sub-routine to my positrons this week. It’s one where I attempt to inject some drama into my absolute dominance: ‘My tyre had a flat spot! I thought I might not make it! I ‘managed’ to make it around!’. Obviously, though, the programming needs some tweaking: Look at me people! I’m chatting up the fucking MERCH! Even Darth fucking Vader remained more engaged with the pathetic rebellion. By Austin, my entire post-race quote will just be about the crazy belt buckles I saw this weekend in Texas!”
Mark Webber, 3rd
“It’s a great place here and it’s very special to finish on the podium. It’s not the circuit where I’ve had the best results in the past, so it’s a bit of a personal best for me in qualifying and the race. I felt better on the soft tyres today; I had a good battle with Fernando, fair play to him on that and then afterwards I settled in to getting my head down and getting on with the race. We got Felipe on the stop, which was great. I was happy with my in lap, the pit stop was great and then my out lap was strong, so we cleared him reasonably comfortably. We had to nurse the gearbox a bit at the end, but overall it was a good result. Seb is very strong around here and it was great to get such a good result today.”
WEB – “Good luck scoring Constructor’s Points next season, bitches!”
Ferrari
Fernando Alonso, 2nd
“Stepping onto the Monza podium is always a special feeling, as it’s the only one where you can feel all the love that the fans have for the team and it’s the best prize at the end of what was an almost perfect weekend. ‘Almost’ because our championship rivals won and we send them our congratulations. We went well on both Friday and Saturday, getting both cars in the top five, but Red Bull was able to do better. When Vettel pitted, we were still doing green sector times and so we opted to lengthen the stint as much as possible, at least while Webber was not becoming a threat. That way, we could have tried to get Vettel on Hard tyres that were fresher by a few laps. We tried our best and even if we have to be realistic about our championship chances, as it’s not an easy task to close down a 53 point gap in the few remaining races, in Formula 1 anything can happen and we will believe in our chances all the way to the finish line in Brazil, always trying to give a hundred percent.”
ALO – “Yep, we thought it would be a great strategy to stay out on old tyres, trying to stretch a lead out on the fresh-rubbered VET-Bot 2000. In other news, rather than war-game race strategies, we recently doubled the budget of our ‘Lying-to-Ourselves-About-Our-Chances” department.”
Felipe Massa, 4th
“I am very happy with my race, which went fantastically well right from the beginning, thanks to a nice start which moved me up two places. The pace was good on both compounds and we ran consistently throughout the whole race. It was a shame I lost the place to Webber at the pit stop, because today, the podium was within our grasp and it would have been brilliant to celebrate with our fans at our home race. Today, overtaking wasn’t easy, because, when you find yourself behind another car, especially in the second sector, you loose a lot of downforce. Overall, the weekend has been very positive for me and for the whole team. We brought home a good points haul, but we know we still have a lot of work to do if we want to improve. As far as that’s concerned, I will be doing my utmost right to the very end of the Championship.”
MAS – “Is Italy over? Can I breathe again? Can there be a trophy for the driver who most performs when every shred of his being needs him to, when the last vestiges of his dignity require some sort of respectable outcome to a single race? Would that fit on a large plaque, at least? Thank god fucking HUL screwed the pooch on that start!”
Sauber
Nico Hulkenberg, 5th
“It’s a great result and, after yesterday, another great performance by the team today. I am very happy and fifth was the ideal result. Despite starting third, it was always clear keeping the Ferrari and Red Bulls behind was not realistic. I lost two places right at the start, but then the pace was good and, especially towards the end, I was able to catch up quite a bit again. I kept the Mercedes behind with Rosberg leaving no room for me making any mistakes. It’s a very nice result for the team, and finally we have some points again. I hope this will give us some momentum, so we can carry this form on to the next couple of races.”
HUL – “Were it not MAS being fueled by some insane, NOS-like concoction of desperation and terror at the start, I would’ve done ever better! Fucking momentum! Momentum, like all the fucking fickle girlfriends I had in grade school; momentum can go fuck itself.”
Esteban Gutierrez, 13th
“The start of the race was quite reasonable. I gained one place, but the first corner was tricky. It was important to keep the car together. I was able to settle down well during the first few laps. I was trying to manage the tyres as best I could, but, of course, you can’t compromise too much. Overall, it was a good race. Obviously, we cannot be happy, because it’s not a great result. However, the race was positive. Now we have to improve in qualifying, so we can start in a better position. I’m confident we will get there.”
GUT – “All this talk about Mr. Fever over there and what team he may or may not go to and here I am, honing my platitudes to a razor’s edge. Can a hermano get some fucking respect over here, yo?!”
Mercedes
Nico Rosberg, 6th
“This hasn’t been one of our best weekends and it feels like everything was a little compromised from the outset. It’s a real shame as the pace of the car looked really good in the race but we weren’t able to take full advantage because of the issues from yesterday. It’s so important here to feel comfortable with the set-up and I wasn’t able to get the car as I wanted after losing the time in third practice. I tried everything to overtake Hulkenberg for the extra place today but he was very quick at the end and it didn’t work out. Now we’ll look forward to Singapore in a couple of weeks. I love street circuits so hopefully that will be a better weekend for us.”
ROS – “Heh. Still came in ahead of HAM and his fucking pity parade. I could give a shit less about the car or how this season plays out: every fucking time I cross the line ahead of him, a harem of feathery angels dances on my dick until I come inside jumpsuit. HUL can think he fought me off all he wants. Truth is: I was getting off.”
Lewis Hamilton, 9th
“That was a difficult weekend for me but these things happen and you have to say that it’s been a good year so far. I gave it my all out there today; the pace of the car was great but unfortunately we paid the price for not qualifying far enough up the field. My radio failed right at the start of the race and it’s really tough when that happens as you rely on the advice and information from the team to manage your race. I didn’t even know about the slow puncture until after the race so now it makes more sense why we had to make the extra stop. I did have some fun this afternoon, particularly fighting with Kimi. It’s just tough fighting so far down the field when our car was clearly really quick. We’ll keep pushing together as a team and I know that we’ll bounce back for Singapore. We’ll be giving it everything to make up for this weekend with a stronger performance there.”
HAM – “Yeah, it was a problem that my radio wasn’t working ’cause, when my radio’s not working, I don’t have any opportunity to broadcast my suffering to the world and, if I can’t broadcast my suffering to the world, then I have no opportunity to enjoy the feeling of of forcing the world to see me as the center of the universe and, if I’m not the center of the universe, than I am nothing. It’s also a bitch because, when they can’t give me orders, then the only person to blame for failure is me. . . And the tyres. . . . and the car. . . . and the other drivers. . . . .and my dog. . . . . and my dad. . . . . and god. . . . .Wait! Not my dad. So, um, never give up? (H)ard (A)s a (M)otherfucker?”
Toro Rosso
Daniel Ricciardo, 7th
“I am pleased with that! After qualifying well yesterday, it was nice to maintain that position at the end of today. In recent races where we have managed to qualify in the top ten, we didn’t have the pace to stay there in the race, but today we did. I think I got the most out of the car, managing to keep the guys behind me and the low downforce set up certainly helped us down the straights. The others got close to me in the second sector, but I was able to pull away once we got to the high speed sections, which we knew from yesterday would be our strong point. We must keep pushing hard on the car development for the next few races, because hopefully, a top five finish is not too far away.”
RIC – “Blah-der-beee. Blah-blah. I could give a rat’s ass. I’m going to be the VET-Bot’s bottom boy next season! It will be an honor to have them give me the shitty gearbox, the loose wheel nuts and then shit all over me for coming in 4th and 3rd every race.”
Jean-Eric Vergne, DNF
“Everything was going well, I wasn’t actually in a battle at the time and was conserving my tyres and controlling Button behind me quite easily. Then I felt something was wrong and had to stop at the side of the track. I said on the radio I thought the engine had gone, but actually it was still running and it seems I had some sort of transmission problem. A real shame, especially as I knew my final stint on the hard compound tyre would be even stronger. I would definitely have finished quite high up in the points as the guys ahead were not pulling away from me. I seem to be suffering a lot of bad luck this season, but I keep believing the turning point will come soon.”
VER – “MEH!”
Lotus
Romain Grosjean, 8th
“It isn’t easy to follow another car with the aero configurations that we had for the race here but we got the best result we could have done having started in P13. Unfortunately we had a poor pit stop where we had an electronic problem and the light didn’t turn to green, so we lost a few seconds there. I think we could have come out in front of the two McLarens and the Toro Rosso, which would have made things a bit easier for a stronger result. I had a good battle with Lewis on the last lap. I think we did the best we could here in Monza and I hope that for Singapore we can get back to the level of performance that we had in Budapest.”
GRO – “I can’t tell you how much fun it is to mention ‘McLaren’ and ‘Toro Rosso’ in the same breath!”
Kimi Raikkonen, 11th
“When I lost the front wing I had to come in and change to a new one meaning an extra pit stop which we hadn’t planned. It’s not just the time in the pits, but you have to work your way through the field afterwards. We did a pretty good job of that and the car felt good, surprisingly good given where we were on Saturday. Unfortunately, there’s not much you can do after the start to the race we had.”
RAI – “Yep. I can’t imagine what would’ve kept me distracted and under-performing this weekend. Nothing comes to mind, really. Nothing at all.”
McLaren
Jenson Button, 10th
“I had a bad start when my clutch slipped, and I dropped a few places. That first stint was quite good fun, but, once I got stuck behind Daniel [Ricciardo], there was no way of getting past him. We didn’t get the gear ratios quite right today. Consequently, as our fuel loads decreased, and our cornering speeds should have increased, we were hampered by our rev-limiters, and that made it easier for the cars behind to overtake us and harder for us to overtake the cars ahead of us. In clear air, our pace was pretty good – but, with such a short top gear, especially with DRS deployed, we were hitting the rev-limiter while other cars weren’t being rev-limited. Moreover, about 15 laps from the end, I locked up into the first corner and severely flat-spotted my front right tyre – I couldn’t really see a lot after that, because of vibration, but I still managed to bring it home and score a world championship point for the team. Finally, I just want to say a big ‘thank you’ to all the guys in the garage today. They had to really work hard to repair my car’s fuel system before the race, in record time, and they pulled out all the stops to get it all done. It was touch and go for a while, but they responded really well and did an incredible job. In a tight spot, they’re the best guys out there – and, once again, they were faultless today.”
BUT – “Salvaged a point, one point, for the prestigious McLaren legacy today. All this talk of our 50th anniversary has me wondering if we aren’t the GMC of F1. Christ, here’s hoping this season is the conflagration from which the phoenix of a new and better fucking season will rise. I will admit: I have really enjoyed learning how to swear at these assholes in Spanish!”
Sergio Perez, 12th
“It was a disappointing afternoon, and I think we deserved more than that. I got hit from behind into Turn One and had to cut the chicane, unfortunately. Then, throughout the race, I was held up by Daniel’s Toro Rosso. My car was quicker overall, but its straight-line speed just wasn’t strong enough to get me up and alongside him to try a pass. We stopped one lap later than we’d planned, and I lost a position to Jenson when the stop didn’t go too well. From then on, I was stuck in a train of cars; and, without a straight line speed advantage, I just couldn’t get past anyone.”
PER – “I’m running out of fucking Spanish swear words to teach BUT.”
Williams
Pastor Maldonado, 14th
“It was a poor race for us from the beginning because of losing a couple of positions at the start which were then hard to recover. There was little pace from the car, I think we did quite well on the strategy but whatever we did today it was not enough to recover places. It was a disappointing race but I am looking forward to the next one.”
MAL – “I guess I sort of ‘stepped it up’ this weekend. If by ‘stepped it up’, you mean ‘Didn’t drive into anybody like a fucking idiot’.”
Valtteri Bottas, 15th
“I maintained my position at the start but from the first few laps I couldn’t really challenge any of the cars ahead as we just didn’t have the race pace today. It was good that we were able to do our planned one stop, but most of the others did this as well. I’m now looking forward to Singapore; it’s a new track for me so I hope we can do better there.”
BOT – “I was pretty much counting on MAL hitting somebody so I could come in 14th.”
Force India
Adrian Sutil, 16th
“A tough race today and in the end we had to retire the car because of issues with the brakes. I tried my best and I don’t think we could have delivered anymore because I was on the limit throughout the race. The pit stop was good, but the team had to hold me on the exit because Maldonado was coming in, which meant I lost a position to Gutierrez. I was able to pass him again on the track, but there were some quick cars [Kimi and Lewis] with fresher tyres and there was no way to hold them off. Points were not too far away, but overall we didn’t have the pace this weekend.”
SUT – “I think I must be fucking delusional. Sorry: I AM fucking delusional.”
Paul di Resta, DNF
“It has been one of those weekends to forget, starting with the brake failure yesterday and the early retirement today. I just got caught out going into the second chicane because the cars ahead of me got backed up – I guess they were reacting to the tussle going on ahead of them. I locked both fronts trying to stop the car and ended up hitting Grosjean. Unfortunately it was too late to take avoiding action. Now we need to look forward to Singapore and put this one behind us.”
RES – “How ’bout that infrared heat camera footage of the accident?! Pretty fucking awesome, huh?!”
Caterham
Charles Pic, 17th
“My start was good and I held position into turn one and was up with Bottas and pushing to keep pace with him. Up to the first pit stop I was just about keeping him in range but then in the second stint he was a lot quicker and I simply didn’t have the pace to fight with him. The car felt okay, the first set of tyres worked pretty well and we stuck to the strategy, coming in for the first stop on lap 17. We went onto the primes for the second and third stints and, honestly, from the time I re-joined the track after the first stop the rest of the race was pretty quiet for me. When the blue flags started coming out we had to manage the traffic and that obviously cost us more time, but our pace meant we were able to cover off our nearest competitors one stop strategy and that was the main target today. We’ve shown over the last few races that we definitely have a pace advantage over them, and we have enough races left to keep fighting for tenth place in the championship. Next we go to Singapore which is going to be an incredibly busy race off-track, and on track I think our car will be suited to the heat and layout of the track. After a quiet race today it’ll be good to have a few more battles!”
PIC – “Italy is hard for me because the culinary tradition of clag is so rich here. Clag with Bolognese, Clag Alfredo, Clag ziti, Clag with communal wafers. . . .. I guess my favorite has to be clag ravioli. Fuck, if I ever start winning, I’m going to loose, like, 50 pounds.”
Giedo van der Garde, 18th
“After good starts for most of the season I have to say this wasn’t one of my best, but I overtook the Marussia halfway through lap one and was up with Charles until he pitted for the first time. I came in a lap later and with a new set of hard tyres the car felt good – my pace was on target and I was easily able to pull away from the cars behind and push on to Charles. We were running a two stop strategy and I came in for the second stop when I was given the command to box. There was a communication mistake on the pit wall and when I came in the guys weren’t ready for me which obviously cost me a lot of time and I came out behind Bianchi, but I passed him pretty quickly and set about trying to catch my team mate. It’s a shame as my pace in the second stint was really good and I’d have had a chance to pass Charles, but sometimes these things happen – that’s racing.”
GAR – “Probably, my team was all sleepy from eating so much clag ravioli.”
Marussia
Jules Bianchi, 19th
“I was really pleased with my start as I got ahead of both Caterhams’ into the first corner. Unfortunately our early pace was not sufficient to hold them off and they regained position by the end of the first lap. In the first stint we had started to make some good progress and were catching them but after the pit stop the balance was not there and we struggled on the hard compound tyre, dropping back from them again. We were on a one stop, Caterham on two, and I was able to move up to P18 and keep Van der Garde behind for a while, but not long enough unfortunately and it was especially tough to make any progress during the blue flag phase. It is a shame I could not have a strong race today at a track I love, but on to Singapore now, which I am really looking forward to.”
BIA – “Truly, it is at this point is the season that, as happy as I am to be here, I start having nightmares about those fucking blue flags. It’s like when you turn on your radio and all there is is that goddamned Robin Thicke song and, at first, it’s so awesome, you don’t mind that you’re hearing it every ten minutes everywhere you go. Then, eventually, you just want to kill yourself. Looking forward to Singapore! The blue flags look really cool at night. . . . Oh, wait. . . Blue flags. . . . .Fuck.”
Max Chilton, 20th
“Another tough race today and one which underlined the balance problems we’ve been experiencing all weekend. The start was okay but we weren’t able to keep pace with the competition today. What I was encouraged by was my pace versus my team mate – there was nothing between us for the first 25 laps but every time I got close enough to overtake I lost downforce, so I couldn’t do anything to improve. I kept with him throughout the rest of the race, despite experiencing the toughest blue flag phase of the season, when it was really hard to make sure I gave the space needed at the right time and not suffer a huge loss of time myself. Time now to say goodbye to the European phase of my debut season for what will be a very challenging run of long-haul races I think
CHI – “GUYS! I AM NO LONGER SO TOTALLY PSYCHED TO BE HERE! WHAT THE FUCK? I DIDN’T REALIZE I’D BE EATING EVERYONE’S DUST ALL SEASON!!!!! NEXT RACE IS AT NIGHT! SHOULD BE AWESOME! TO COME IN 20th. . . . WAIT! AUGH!!!!!”
“Trying to think of something nice to say. Mustn’t let emotions explode. What does the script say? ‘We’re really looking forward to Spain.’ Better check the date on this script. . . Augh! This thing is three weeks old! Fuck it: I’m just going to my Flecha de Rojo bus and hitting the “Michelada” button until I’m so borracho.”
Thanks, Rupert, for the linky!
The team have endured a testing start to 2013 after opting for a complete overhaul of their design concept, rather than an evolution of their previous car like most squads.
The consensus in the paddock is that McLaren’s season hangs on the success of this upgrade package. However, Perez has downplayed expectations, stressing that the team’s focus is on making small step forwards.
“I think it is important for us to keep improving,” the Mexican said in the Drivers’ Press Conference at the Circuit de Catalunya.
“I think we have improved quite a lot since the first race, so I think we are going in the right direction. We do not expect a big gain here, I think when you are so far away from the people at the front, you have to bridge the gap and to start closing the gap is a priority for us. I think this race will be really important for us to learn a lot more about the car as well.”
Perez’s views echo those of McLaren Managing Director Jonathan Neale, who urged caution when he spoke to the media on Wednesday.
“I think we’ll be cautious at this stage and say that a measure of our progress will be revealed on Saturday afternoon and Sunday.
“Some things will work, some things won’t. We’ve got a lot more work to do on Fridays as well, so I don’t see us being able to just run the car without a huge degree of upgrades.
“It’s a significant volume of parts that go into this. But bear in mind that we are essentially trying to sort out a correlation issue. I’d rather not give away exactly which bits are going to be changing until we’ve decided on Friday night which parts are staying on the car for Saturday.”
PER – “See! This is what I’m talking about! Three weeks ago – I’m too annoyed to look it up – I bet the internet has me going, ‘Oh, wait ’til Spain!’ ‘We really showed some progress in Bahrain! Aduante te, Espania!’ ‘Hey-ho, you thought all that shit with Button and I was awesome?! Well, wait ’til I open that can of whup ass on the other teams!’ I was saying all that shit! Why was I saying it? Because THAT’S WHAT THE SCRIPT SAID TO SAY!!!!
Now, 19 days later, I get these new pages in a nice, manila envelope, and on the envelope, there’s a little note clipped on there with a paper clip and the note says: ‘Uh, Checo, bad news: we’ve had three weeks, but the car still sucks. Engage Operation ‘Lower Expectations Even Further’!’
I don’t want to give away which bits we’re changing, though. Suffice it to say it will include: the exhaust, the steering wheel, the cockpit, the wing geometry, the chassis, the color, the axles, the brakes, the struts, the oil, four of the pistons, the transmission, the DRS, the KERS, the smell, the rotation of the Earth, the fabric of time and space, the Bush/Gore election results, and the anti-freeze.
We have this saying in Mexcio and the saying goes something like: ‘What? The look on my face? No, I didn’t just smell fart. I was was just thinking about MY FUCKING PIECE OF SHIT CAR!!'”
We all love Fuck You! tacos!
Hey! Guys! On the Twitter, McLaren is doing a brief seminar on how to act like adults!
Important chat yesterday with @schecoperez 2 clear the air. As a team we will move forward and live 2 fight another day 😉 roll on Barcelona
— Jenson Button (@JensonButton) April 22, 2013
Oh, wait: They already did that. . . On the fucking racetrack!
Would you all like to eat a giant taco of FUUUCK YOUU??! No? Oh, well YOU WILL EAT IT ANYWAY!!! Hey, it’s no Al Pastor, but no one ever said life was perfect! I have this nice green salsa.. . it’s kind of spicy. . .what? You don’t like spicy? Shut up and eat your Fuck You taco.
Thanks, Bernie, for the link. You are has generous with links as you are accommodating to oppressive regimes with loads of oil money.
Red Bull
Sebastian Vettel (1st)
“It was good fun at the beginning with some very tight wheel to wheel racing. At the start you don’t know if you will be quick or not, as everyone is a bit all over the place, including yourself! It’s important to get to the front; we saw at the last race that if you get stuck behind someone then it does have an impact on tyre wear and today it was important to make use of the tyres we had saved from qualifying yesterday. I love to be in clean air, so I was pushing hard to get into the lead and, with the speed we had mid-race, it was quite comfortable today. Well done to the whole team, to everyone here, to the factory in the background and especially to those who were working on the strategy today; it worked just as we expected, so we obviously got the numbers right.”
VET – “All y’all who think I’m a dick can, in fact, suck my dick. Numbers, speed, laps: these are things that have meaning to me. Emotions, feelings, camaraderie, others (other than those who help me attain numbers, laps, and speed): these things are superfluous. I have enjoyed my human counterparts’ attempts to challenge my domination! I look forward to seeing them in this planet’s country called ‘Spain’.”
Mark Webber (7th)
“The beginning wasn’t too bad, but we lost quite a bit of time in the second stint trying to clear people. We went aggressive on the first few out laps, which meant we jumped people, but the tyres didn’t like it. That meant the second stint was a disaster really in terms of pace at the end and that loaded the other two stints up. In the middle of the race I thought I could get on the podium, but then it was about pace management and it’s a fine line between racing and saving tyres. Others pitted a bit before me at the end, but it wasn’t enough for me to get home. If you race people hard then you run out of tyres, but if you don’t then they come through. In the end it was a pretty good battle with Lewis for both of us; neither of us had any tyres left, but we were trying to race as best we could.”
WEB – “Heh. Well, let’s see. . . .crappiest events so far this year? Getting shat on by my team-mate? Hmm. .. No, that wasn’t it. Grid penalty after a giant poop of a race in China? Well. . .. no, that wasn’t so bad, really. Getting FUCKING PASSED by FUCKING PEREZ and his FUCKING FLECHA DE ROJO BUS IN THE LAST FIVE LAPS??!!!! This guy, from Porsche, he left me a phone number on his card. I’ve got that around here somewhere. What the fuck did I do with that card?!”
Christian Horner, Red Bull team principal
“An absolutely impeccable drive from Sebastian today. He executed two brilliant overtakes, one on Fernando and the other on Nico Rosberg. After that he dominated the race until the finish and managed his tyres brilliantly. The strategy worked perfectly with the tyres that we conserved in qualifying, which ended with a dominant win on a three-stop strategy. For Mark, after racing very well in the first stint and making progress through the first round of pit stops, in the second stint he pushed very hard on the first few laps which effectively elevated him into second position. Unfortunately he couldn’t achieve the longevity in that stint, which put him under pressure for the final two. His last stop put him in the range of those on two-stops, and then it was a matter of making it to the end. Despite fighting fantastically well and racing very hard with Lewis, he ran out of rear tyres before the end of the race, but still got some valuable points.”
Horner – “VET is so pretty when wins. Mark, you’re cute but so very slow. Love, Christian.”
Lotus
Kimi Raikkonen (2nd)
“You’re never really happy if you don’t win, but I suppose second place is as close as you can get. I drove to the maximum and the car had the pace that we missed in qualifying yesterday so it was a pretty good result. We didn’t have the speed to challenge Sebastian [Vettel] today but we did have the pace to get both cars on the podium so I’m happy for the team.”
RAI – Bitches. You feel my cold breath, don’t you? It’s pointless to pretend like I’m not here. One wrong fucking move, VET. One. Wrong. Move. And I will wrap the automaton called, “Vettel” in a crystalline cloak of defeat and misery. People call me “emotionless”, I have a fucking fire burning within me. I am the ember that crackles and shimmers through the night. Waiting, waiting, waiting to ignite the conflagration. Also, for fuck’s sake, just how long is the German National Anthem??!! We get it: you’re the Nation of Destiny. I love the Finnish Anthem: ‘Laa Laa LAaaaa! Finland! We’re a country. It’s cold here. Life is hard. We try to have fun. There are ice dragons. Finland!'”.
Romain Grosjean (3rd)
“It’s great to be back on the podium and it’s a fantastic result for the team. It hasn’t been an easy start to the season for me, but we made good progress through the weekend and are now back to where we should be. I felt much more comfortable in the car and the result today is a deserved reward for everyone after all our hard work. It was a really enjoyable race with a lot of overtaking and a couple of tense moments along the way, so to come from P11 through to the podium is really satisfying. We’ve had consistency already, finishing every race in the points, but now it’s the big results we’re chasing and this is a very good start to that challenge.”
GRO – “I’ve already asked HAM to write a song for me. The lyrics go: ‘I was right! I was right! I needed a new car! A new chassis! All you assholes love Kimi more! Why? I’m lovable, too! I’m French! I got my new toy! It goes really fast! It totally wasn’t psychological! No! No! No! It wasn’t all in my head! Have I mentioned I was right?’ Dope beats, y’all!”
Ferrari
Fernando Alonso (8th)
“We definitely didn’t have much luck today and that’s a real shame, at the end of what had been such a positive weekend for me and Felipe up until this afternoon. We had been competitive in free practice and qualifying and we were both expecting to have a good race. After the opening laps, when I thought the rear tyres had gone off, the pit wall informed that the DRS was stuck. It wasn’t fixed properly at the first stop and so I had to come in for another one. From then on, the clear instruction from the pit wall not to use it affected my race. I tried to recover but it was really difficult finding places to overtake without DRS. When you are far back, in the middle of a group, tyre degradation is even harder to manage. I am sure that without the problems me and Felipe had, we would have finished higher up, because the car responds very well and it is definitely our best of the last four years. But having a good race involves a lot of factors, including a bit of luck. Let’s hope it balances out very soon, maybe even starting in Barcelona, my home race. There, it will be even more important to have a good qualifying, because it’s not easy to overtake on that track and so starting from the front is vital.”
ALO – “If shit doesn’t turn around for me by Barcelona, I am FUCKED. Turns out, having a 18+ hottie on the paddock is not the good luck charm I thought it was. Bummer for MAS, ’cause I had just given him a list to all these awesome web sites. Also, I have to TOTALLY stop hanging out with WEB.”
Felipe Massa (15th)
“I was really unlucky in this race and even if it’s true that many things can happen in this sport, I can’t find an explanation for why so many of them have to be negative. At the start, I lost ground after the collision with Sutil and then I lost even more time coming back to the pits to change tyres and that wiped out any chance of having a good race. At the start, I suffered a bit with understeer, but I don’t believe that was the cause of my problems, while we still need to check what happened to my tyres that failed in this way. In the first instance it was probably delamination on the right rear and in the second it might have been due to a puncture. Now we must try and understand exactly what happened and immediately turn our attention to the next race.”
MAS – “Ha! Ha! Ha! Ok, Whoever has the ‘Hulkenberg’ voo-doo doll and whoever painted it to look like me, you can stop now! Ha! Ha! Ha! Very FUCKING FUNNY! Really, ok. Stop, ok?”
Force India
Paul di Resta (4th)
“It’s great to round off the fly-away races with a fourth place and a race that was probably my strongest Grand Prix. The podium was very close, but with our strategy we were always going to be vulnerable at the end of the race – especially to Grosjean who had two new sets of medium tyres. I had a good start to the race, a strong opening stint and we showed our true speed today, but ultimately fourth place was the maximum that was possible. We will get on the podium one day, hopefully soon, but for now we can be very happy with the points we’ve scored today. A big thanks to the whole team because it’s been an excellent weekend and I feel we managed to get 100 percent out of the car.”
RES – “I caught ‘Hulkenberg Fever'”!
Adrian Sutil (13th)
“It’s disappointing to get a puncture in a race that looked so promising. My start was clean and I was racing Massa going into turn four. I was on the outside; I gave him a lot of space but he was off-line and made contact with my front right tyre. I don’t know what he did exactly but I had a puncture immediately. I had to pit and lost a lot of time, which ended my chance of scoring points. I had amazing pace in the race and I just kept my head down to try and recover something from the race, but I had lost too much with the puncture. But I’m happy for the team and fourth place for Paul gives us more points. There are many more races to come so we will keep focused and next time score points with both cars.”
SUT – “Oh, man. I am beginning to accept that I suck and that I race for Force India.”
Mercedes
Lewis Hamilton (5th)
“I’m really happy with our result today. It’s been a tough weekend for us but we got through it and finishing in fifth place was some good damage limitation. My race didn’t start well at all. I was looking after the tyres but I really struggled on the first two stints and was falling back. But as the temperatures dropped, the car picked up and then I had the grip that I needed to push and close the gap. I had so much fun fighting with Mark at the end. We really needed that point and I was so determined to get by. It was good, clean wheel-to-wheel racing. I’m very proud of what we have achieved over the first four races and to be third in the drivers’ championship is beyond any of our expectations. But we’ve got to keep pushing and find more performance. We’re hanging on by the skin of our teeth at the moment and, if we can make that next step, then we can close the gap.”
HAM – “While I am glad that I jumped like a proverbial rat from the sinking ship that is McLaren, I obviously jumped from one dinghy to, like, this 40 year-old Alcoa paddleboat. I was kinda aiming for that yacht over there. Yeah, the one with all the girls in bikinis and the big red, um, bull, um, painted on the side. . . .. . I’ll be over here, crying. Bless”
Nico Rosberg (9th)
“A tough day for me. As nice as it was to start from pole this afternoon, it was just as hard to finish in ninth place. I didn’t feel comfortable in the car today and it wasn’t much fun out there really. We switched to a four-stop strategy at the end of my third stint but it wasn’t enough. We were using the rear tyres too much and at the end, I was really struggling and wasn’t able to push hard enough. There is a lot of work ahead and we need to focus on why our race performance isn’t matching the pace that we can show in qualifying. Hopefully we can make some steps here before the European season starts.”
ROS – “Well, that was fun while it lasted! Then it sucked.”
McLaren
Sergio Perez (6th)
“That was an incredible race – really enjoyable. I have to thank the Vodafone McLaren Mercedes team first of all – we’ve been through some difficult times recently, but they kept on supporting me. All in all, it’s been a solid weekend – we got pretty much the maximum from the car, ran a great strategy, looked after the tyres, and scored some very useful points. I guess I was a little aggressive on track today; banging wheels with Jenson was perhaps a little too risky, a little too hard, but the team never came on the radio to tell us to stop racing. There were no team orders. There was a lot of adrenaline from both of us, and Jenson is always a very strong racer, but hopefully we’ll help each other a little more in the future. He was calm and friendly after the race, though, which was great; but that isn’t surprising because he’s a great guy as well as a great driver.”
PER – “What? All you fucking ‘gueros’ have never heard of the term ‘Machismo’? Are fucking idiots? You sit around all week, saying, ‘Sergio has no dick! Sergio has no dick!’ And you think I’m not going to whip this monster out and fucking waggle it every face that has eyes within twenty miles?! Fuck you and fuck you and , you? Yes: fuck you. Confidential to Button: You are cute. You have bad teeth, you must. You are slower than The Monster. Stay the fuck out of my way.”
Jenson Button (10th)
“Today wasn’t brilliant for me. Okay, the race was a lot of fun, but I didn’t get the result I wanted because I used up my tyres fending off Checo. There was a lot of action out there, and as I say I wasn’t really able to conserve my tyres as a result. That was partly because I had to work my way back through after my second pitstop, when I’d been fighting with Romain (Grosjean). But there was a lot of clean racing out there too – although as I say Checo was a bit tough, which was a little unusual. He did a good job overall though: he had good pace, and he looked after his tyres well. So, congratulations to him, because together we scored some very useful points for the Vodafone McLaren Mercedes team today.”
BUT – “Have you fuckers seen PER’s cock?! HOLY SHIT!”
Martin Whitmarsh, McLaren team principal
“The 2013 Gulf Air Bahrain Grand Prix was a fantastic motor race, and I’m sure it was hugely entertaining for the tens of millions of viewers who watched it at home as well as for those lucky enough to be here at Sakhir to see it for real. Checo drove his best race for Vodafone McLaren Mercedes so far, passing both Fernando and Mark in the closing stages, to finish a fighting sixth at the flag. It was a very good drive, especially when you consider that he was able to maintain such strong race pace despite having sustained damage to his rear wing and one of his front-wing endplates. Jenson would have finished right up there, too, had he not had to make an extra tyre stop with just 10 laps to go. Nonetheless, he, too, finished in a solid points-scoring position. The two of them spent much of the afternoon in close proximity to each other – sometimes in nail-bitingly close proximity actually – but that’s motor racing. Both Jenson and Checo are fast, forceful and hungry for success – and that’s exactly how it should be. It’s called racing, and we at Vodafone McLaren Mercedes always allow our drivers to race. It’s what this sport is all about. Having said that, it’s probably fair to say that Checo was a little too combative with Jenson this afternoon, and I think he knows that. From here we travel back to Woking, where we’ll work hard on our upgrade package for Spain, where in three weeks’ time we hope to continue the process of demonstrating the fruits of our steady development of MP4-28 into the competitive machine we need it to be.”
Whitmarsh – “I knew we’d get some results if we kept showing Checo pictures of him in a Speedo with a big arrow and a question mark pointed at his genitals. I only hope that Button will keep having Jessica come ’round the paddock now that she knows the frightening, thrilling truth about Sergio.”
Williams
Pastor Maldonado (11th)
“Considering the problems we have been having, I think we got 100 percent out of the car today. We put everything together today, working well as a team and managing the tyres, and 11th was the maximum we could have achieved. We are really looking forward to the next race where we should see a step forward. We must stay together and positive. It’s a difficult time, but we still have many races to go.”
MAL – “Was I even in Bahrain? I have a bunch of sand in my ass-crack. It must’ve been more than a bad dream.”
Valtteri Bottas (14th)
“The race was really dominated by the rear tyres today. In the first two stints I was fighting with a lot of cars so it was difficult to look after the tyres and manage the pace. The last two stints were better as I had more clean air and managed to make up some ground on the cars ahead. We now need to keep on working to get some updates to help us in coming races.”
BOT – “By ‘updates’, I mean, ‘hacking into the VettelFeed from Planet Speed Robot and actually making podium.'”
Sauber
Nico Hulkenberg (12th)
“It was a difficult and frustrating weekend. It was clear from the beginning that we were not fast enough and that it would be challenging. We are lacking speed and eat up the rear tyres too much so it simply wasn’t enough this weekend. We pitted a bit too late, because we expected to have more problems on low fuel, which in the end we didn’t have. That cost us at least one position. This weekend clearly showed we need to bring some new parts to Barcelona in order to improve our speed and fight for points.”
HUL – “I cannot wait to get to a country where we can drink.”
Esteban Gutierrez (18th)
“I expected a difficult race and this is what I got. We need to find more speed. On the first lap I had contact down into Turn 10, which was really hard to avoid. Apart from that, things were quite okay, but, of course, finishing a race like this is definitely not enough and we need to improve. We have to analyse the strategy and hopefully we will bring some good updates to Barcelona.”
GUT – “Glad I finished!”
Toro Rosso
Daniel Ricciardo (16th)
“I got a reasonable start, better than some of the guys around me and I got ahead of Grosjean. Then at some point, I locked up the wheels and lost a position or two. All afternoon, we just struggled with speed: in the first stint, tyre warm-up was a problem and I was losing a lot of time on braking. We never really recovered, even though we tried to make a few changes to the balance of the car at the pit stops. We must look into what exactly was wrong with the car as we were really limited in terms of downforce.”
RIC – “Ugh.”
Jean-Eric Vergne (DNF)
“I was pushed by Bottas as I passed him on the outside of Turn Four, giving him plenty of room and he clipped my car. Unfortunately for Van de Garde, he was in the wrong place at the wrong time and it was a big impact, which caused a lot of damage to the car, including a puncture and left it with a big piece of the floor missing. After I pitted, I tried to carry on to see how the car felt, but in the end, I was a lap down, I’d lost plenty of aero and the team could see that the damage was causing the car to overheat to an unsafe level, so they called me in to retire. This opening sequence of races has not gone too well for me and I really hope that the beginning of the European part of the season will be like a new start for me.”
VER – “What RIC said.”
Caterham
Charles Pic (17th)
“That’s our best race of the year so far and one the whole team should be pleased with. I quickly passed both the Marussia cars after starting on the medium tyres which held up for the first stint pretty well, allowing me to pit for the first time on lap 11. By that point the car felt good, well balanced and I was pulling away from the cars behind without any issues. We stayed on the hard tyres for the second stint and again the deg levels were good. I passed Gutierrez and was running comfortably in 16th until Sutil got past about two thirds of the way through the race. As the fuel levels dropped the deg levels increased a little but it wasn’t an issue. I was keeping pace with Ricciardo just ahead, and keeping Gutierrez behind me and we decided to stay out after the third stop so I did a very long stint on the hard tyres, 21 laps, and brought it home in 17th. I’m really pleased with how close we finished to the Toro Rosso ahead, and the fact we kept a Sauber behind – maybe if I’d been slightly further up the road after the start we could have beaten Ricciardo, but we can take this performance as a good step and look forward to what’s coming next in Spain.”
PIC – “You know, you travel all over the world and you eat a lot of clag and there’s just some clag that doesn’t suit your palette. Some people like sandy, gritty clag infused with the blood of the oppressed. For me, it just doesn’t do it. Give me some clag with chips or clag with a nice red wine reduction. These guys here, with there hummus and no drinks with dinner. .. You just have to smile and compliment the clag-chef and choke it down.”
Giedo van der Garde (21st)
“I didn’t have a great start but I was up to about 16th with a couple of other cars going into turn four and saw that Vergne had spun and was moving off the line. I tried to miss him but couldn’t and we made contact which destroyed my front wing and basically ended my race on the first lap. I couldn’t really do anything from that point so I just got my head down and pushed but after losing so much time with the unplanned stop on lap one, and having a delaminated right front after my fourth stop, there really wasn’t anyone to race with. From that point I just made sure I brought the car home and used this as another step in my learning curve. Despite today it’s been a good weekend for the team. The developments we put on my teammate’s car have worked well and there’s another step to come in Spain when I’ll have the same package as Charles. From that point I think my season will look different. We’ll be on tracks I know really well, from GP2, World Series and from F1, and with the updates we have coming we have reasons to be positive. The first four races have been exactly what I thought they would – pretty tough, but I’m learning all the time and the whole team’s right behind me. I’m feeling really good physically and mentally and I can’t wait to get started again in Barcelona.”
GAR – “Asia sucks. Getting hit, too, sucks. If any of you fuckers need me for the next three weeks, I’ll be in Amsterdam, eating fucking Gouda, riding my bike and sniffing the fucking tulips!”
Marussia
Jules Bianchi (19th)
“A really difficult race for us today and a tough weekend all round to be honest. I was hoping that things might improve for the race, but we really struggled with the tyres. On my fourth stint the plan was to go to the end but we had to pit again. From there it was just about making it to the finish and holding position with the cars around me. There isn’t much more to say about here; it was not destined to be our race and we are at the stage where we need to implement the next round of upgrades, which of course are coming right when we need them for Barcelona. My thanks to the pit crew today for a busy day of pit stops and for keeping their spirits through the weekend.”
BIA – “I’m becoming less enchanted with being here.”
Max Chilton (20th)
“Despite a difficult weekend for us here, there were some encouraging signs in the race today. I got a really good start, which I was very pleased with, and this meant that we were able to leapfrog both of the Caterhams for a while. Unfortunately we struggled on the tyres and it wasn’t long into each stint before we hit that window again. I’m pleased that I have demonstrated that I drove to the pace of the car today and although we weren’t in a position to race who we want to be, I did at least have a good battle with my team mate.”
CHI – “HOLY CRAP!! HAVE YOU GUYS EVER SEEN MORE SAND??!! IT’S EVERYWHERE! WHAT IS UP WITH THAT?! MAN, THEY SURE SO HAVE US RACE IN SOME CRAZY PLACES! GLAD TO BE HERE!”
Pirelli
Paul Hembery, Pirelli motorsport director
“It was fantastic to see such brilliantly close racing all the way down the field, from the start to the finish of the Grand Prix. To some extent this was down to the fact that there was only a small performance gap between the two compounds, meaning that we saw lots of different thinking on strategy. On this occasion, there was no clear advantage in starting on particular compound when it came to overall race time. The high temperatures – the highest we have seen all year so far – made managing thermal degradation a particular challenge, which rewarded the drivers with the best strategy and smoothest driving style. There was a clearly an issue with the tyre on Felipe Massa’s Ferrari, which we are investigating at the moment. We’ve seen one sidewall cut and one at the top of the tread, and we’re currently trying to find out what caused those cuts.”
Hembery – “It isn’t that Lotus has an advantage, it’s that, less Kimi and Seb, you all drive like fucking idiots.”
Renault Sport
Remi Taffin, Renault Sport F1 head of track operations
“A great result for all at Renault Sport F1, with a clean sweep of the podium for the second consecutive year in Bahrain. It’s also the first time in a year that an engine manufacturer has done this so we can be really proud of the result. Coming at a tough track like Bahrain, where the heat, lack of humidity and general ambient conditions put lots of pressure on the engine internals, it’s an even more satisfying result. While Sebastian’s win and the two Lotuses on the podium is the highlight of the day for us, there are a number of other positive areas. The performance of the two Williams was stronger and Pastor was not too far away from scoring the first points of the season. Equally the Caterhams have made a big step forward here and now seem to be back in front of the Marussias. Having this depth of performance across all our partners is obviously what we want to do – and having two fighting for the championship is really an ideal way to be in the championship. We’ve got a number of areas to focus on now in the break before the start of the European season, not least with the teams bringing new upgrade packages, so we’ll celebrate this one and then get back to the hard work to try and repeat it in Spain!”
Taffin – Can everybody stop with the “Renault Alliance” jokes now, please!??
profanef1 