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

Posted on September 24, 2013 by Fygar

“Even you, Roscoe, fuck you. You’ve all been against me from the start.”

Red Bull
Sebastian Vettel, 1st
“It’s just been a fantastic weekend. The start was close, but then we had strong race pace, especially when the safety car came in, and we pushed very hard to try to build up a gap. You never know what’s coming up and what can happen. The last ten laps seemed to go on forever inside the car. I kept my concentration by reminding myself how easily you can make a mistake around here, the walls are close and if you don’t pay enough attention it can go wrong pretty quickly. I focused on hitting the brakes correctly and on saving the tyres. We didn’t expect to be that strong, but it’s a team effort. Everyone is pushing hard and I think the secret, if there is one, is that we love what we do and we’re so passionate. The conditions aren’t great here with the heat, but the team always pushes hard and I think that’s what makes the difference. I’d like to say to everyone working for team that it’s a privilege for me to be driving the car you have built.“

VET – “This car. This car. Not the No. 2 car. It’s a privilege to drive the car that actually makes it across the finish line and doesn’t abandon you on the highway and then you have to hitchhike back to the paddock like some jumpsuited, 5-o’clock shadowed version of Even Cowgirls get the Blues. Perhaps, though, if I had the No. 2 car, I might not have to struggle to maintain my concentration, tapping the brakes, singing German victory songs to myself, driving with my knees while I practice harmonica. I’m telling you guys: between here and Monza, I’ve just about perfected my cover of Sonny Boy Williamson’s ‘Don’t Start Me Talkin’!”

Mark Webber,15th
“I think I did pretty much everything I could today. We had pace in the car when we needed, we managed the tyres and made a very good undercut on Nico, I was really happy with that lap. Then six laps from the end, the guys were getting worried about the car. So, yeah, it’s annoying but someone’s had a tougher day than me somewhere and that’s the way it goes. I was having to short shift, but then, unlike Monza, we started to lose a lot of power. We were just trying to get home at that point but then on the last lap we caught fire.”

WEB – “I’m feeling rather sanguine, now, about this race, the fire, the self-destruct button that Cristian keeps in a small, rosewood box along with my daily supply of razors. ‘Nando and I shared a moment out there on the track. The kind of moment that can only be shared by two guys with incredible facial hair. So, right now, I’m feeling ok. I hope Daniel enjoys having the rug pulled out from under him every time he starts to enjoy a race. Assholes. There: the bliss of my quality time with Fernando is starting to wear off. . . Hey, guess what? Hey, Red Bull Racing!? You can take your fucking bitching about fucking Constructor’s Points and my lack of earning them AND STICK THAT AND THIS NO. 2 CAR UP YOUR FUCKING AAAAAASSSSSSSSSEZZZZZZZZZ. You fucking pricks! But, um, can I get my razors before I go?”

Ferrari
Fernando Alonso, 2nd
“Today’s second place is like a victory for us, at the end of a difficult weekend on a track where it’s very tricky to overtake. The key points of this race were the start and the strategy and, in both cases, the decisions taken proved to be the right ones, even if they were aggressive choices. At the start, I managed to pass four cars, helped by having watched the starts from previous races here, but then I couldn’t pass Rosberg. The decision to pit when the safety car came out paid off, even if it wasn’t easy to get to the finish with the tyres on the limit. Fortunately, thanks to the advantage I had over Raikkonen and Webber, we were able to manage the situation over the final laps: if I’d been in a group, it would have been like the end of a horror movie! Now the gap to the championship leaders has increased and apart from congratulating them, because they deserve to be where they are, we must be realistic, because to win the title now, we would need a lot of luck. Sure, we cannot think of giving up right now because if that luck does show up, then we will be there to take it.”

ALO – Here’s the deal: none of this matters, right? The goddamn VET-Bot 2000 is fucking unstoppable. All I can do now is hold off Hammy and Kimi and console myself amidst the soft, supple limbs of my completely of-age girlfriend. Look: I’m the highest-paid driver of the world’s most recognizable car with the hottest girlfriend, well, ever. I almost feel bad for the VET-Bot. You know, he does have this awesome attachment that opens the big can of tomatoes we use to make marinara at the driver parties. I can’t help but wonder if he showed off those features on the podium that people might stop booing. Anyway, I have to go. WEB and I are going to give one another a therapeutic shave with straight razors and talk about coming in second.”

Felipe Massa, 6th
“Given everything that happened in today’s race, sixth place is a really good result. After a fantastic start, at the first corner I found myself stuck inside the cars that had braked early and, at that point I lost places instead of making up some. From then on, I was always stuck behind other cars and we all know how hard it is to overtake at this track. When the safety car came out, we had two options: to fit the medium tyres, with which we weren’t sure to go all the way to the end, or the supersofts, to try and regain some places. We went for the second option, but Di Resta was ahead of me on the same tyres and so I was stuck behind him. In the final stint after the third stop, I managed to retake sixth place, making the most of the fact that many were struggling with their tyres. It was tough from start to finish and I am very happy to have brought home a good points haul.”

MAS – “Guys! Guys! Still here, guys! Points! I got some points, guys! Tyres! We had to use some tyre strategy! Then there was a safety car! Guys! I got some points! You know how hard it is to pass here, right? Without crashing! It’s hard! Guys! Guys! Guys? Points, guys. Fuck it: I’m waiting ’til the garage clears out and i’m totally pooping on ‘Nando’s Ferrari car seat thingy.”

Lotus
Kimi Raikkonen, 3rd
“It’s been a difficult weekend, so to finish on the podium is a good result. The car felt good and it could have been even better if I’d been able to do more work in practice, but even with a better qualifying performance I think third was the maximum we could achieve today. The problem with my back hasn’t been ideal, but it felt much better than yesterday and I didn’t really notice it in the race, only afterwards. I have some time to recover before Korea and we were pretty strong there last year, so let’s see what we can do next time out.”

RAI – “At first, this weekend, I thought that I would show Lotus how very little I care. Ambivalence is my calling card, yes? Then, when I got out there, the ice dragon, Lohikäärme, came down out of the sky and blew this really refreshing blast of cold fire onto my pinched nerve. It really did the trick! What can’t these Ice Dragons do? You wouldn’t know from the NBCS feed, but, pain-free and ice-blessed, I then passed a shit-load of cars until I was in third. I was just close enough that I could hear the VET-Bot 2000 squawking on that damn harmonica.”

Romain Grosjean, DNF
“The race was going pretty well and I think a second or third place finish was a realistic prospect. We had a good strategy pitting under the safety car and we should have finished well, but unfortunately today my engine had other ideas. We lost air pressure and the team tried to fix the problem by topping it up with an additional pit stop, but that didn’t work so we had to retire which is never what you want to happen.”

GRO – “I watched that ‘air-pressure’ pit stop on YouTube. Every other suggested video fell under the ‘fucking painfully long and sad’ label and they were all videos from wedding receptions where someone was so drunk and not putting down the mic, talking about the time the bride was giving them the most awesome blow-job and that was just last week. That’s how painful that pit stop was. I asked Kimi’s ice dragon for a little air boost and he just laughed a frosty laugh: “Ha-ha. No: you’re French.” And then he flew off and it made me sad. Confidential to Eric: I don’t care who drives with me next year, but I sure-as-shit had better get Kimi’s car!”

Mercedes
Nico Rosberg, 4th
“I had a good start today and the pace of our car was really strong. The safety car was unfortunate timing for us and perhaps it wasn’t the best decision to stay out but, at the time, we weren’t sure if our tyres would be able to last the distance. I then had some rubber trapped in my front wing after the safety car period which cost me quite a lot of performance for some laps and had an impact on my race because the tyres suffered more than would be normal. We could perhaps have been second today but events in the race just didn’t go our way so it is a little disappointing to only finish in fourth place. We now need to learn from this weekend and focus on the next race in Korea.”

ROS – “Again: Angels, dancing, on my dick. Coming, in my jumpsuit. Listening to fucknuts-Hamilton bitching on the radio is like little, magic elves tickling my balls while the angels dance on my dick. It’s a goddamn good thing WEB and ALO didn’t pull that shit in front of me because I was totally not paying attention as I was fucking jizzing in my jumpsuit. It would’ve been awkward, too, post-crash, explaining why ‘I can’t get out of the car just now’.”

Lewis Hamilton, 5th
“That was a really tough race, probably the most physically demanding of the year. We tried our best and the car felt good but unfortunately we paid the price for not qualifying further ahead yesterday. I didn’t have the best start and had to go wide to avoid Mark at turn one. From there, it was difficult to follow the race and my position. Whilst the timing of the safety car definitely didn’t help us, we need to go back through our strategy and see what we could possibly have done differently in that situation. I’m not sure we could have done what Fernando and Kimi did by staying out on that set of tyres for so long, though. Of course, it’s a little disappointing to come away with only fifth place but I gave it my all out there and we’ll come back stronger. Our aim is to get back ahead of Ferrari in the constructors championship and see if we can get another win before the end of the season.”

HAM – “Victim victim victim. Victim. Victim, victim. Victim? Victim. Victim, victim and victim: victim. Victim. Victim victim – victim, victim – victim. (Victim). Bless.

McLaren
Jenson Button, 7th
“We thought we might have a chance of a podium, but in the end we didn’t have the pace to keep us ahead of the closing cars. It was good fun trying though, and we have to take risks if we want to get podium finishes this year. We expected to spend most of the race on the option tyre, so we’d set the car up for that. The prime tyre didn’t work so well for me, and having to hold Kimi off for so long destroyed my rear tyres and made things very tricky. In the end, as I say, we simply didn’t have enough pace to stop him overtaking. It was a good try though, and a P7 finish isn’t too bad. We couldn’t have done any better with a different strategy, I’m certain of that, and I’m glad we got some good points for the team.”

BUT – “Hey! Points! Hi! We’re McLaren and we’re excited to just have some points!”

Sergio Perez, 8th
“I think we should be satisfied with today’s result – as Jenson says P7 and P8 was probably the best we could have achieved today. In my view the safety car came at the wrong time for us, so we had to take a risk by choosing to drive to the finish with two pit stops. It was pretty tough to keep the car out of the barriers – not to crash yet to lose too much lap time – but as I say I think it was the right choice. Last but not least, although P7 and P8 isn’t brilliant, it’s the best we could have hoped for – and I dearly hope it’ll put a smile on the faces of my people, in my country, Mexico, who really need something to smile about at this very difficult time.”

PER – “I keep racking my brain for a decent Mexican translation of ‘turd polishing’, but I can’t think of anything. I come from this amazing country that’s pretty fucked up. It’s fucked up, but we kind of manage to have a good time so, in essence, our national identity is sort of a living version of turd polishing. So, there you go: McLaren 2013! The only metaphor that perfectly represents you is Mexico itself. Now, about this fucking national soccer team bullshit! What the fuck? Seriously, I come in 8th and that’s the goddamn salve for my country!? Breathe, Checo, breathe. Just think of that nice, cold Tecate waiting for you at the end of this nightmare season. A Tecate, some nopales and a al pastor. Focus, Checo, foooocussss.”

Sauber
Nico Hulkenberg, 9th
“All in all we can be happy. We brought home two points. To be honest, I didn’t expect much more than that. You can’t expect that every weekend will be like Monza now, but we improved significantly. It was a very tough race. I had a very good start and then a racing situation with Sergio Perez. In the end, I did have to give back the position to him and I don’t quite agree with that. There was a Williams in the fight as well, Sergio was on the inside, but I had to leave space and caught the outer kerb. Then my car bottomed and I was off, however, I was in front of Sergio before and after the corner. At the end, it was a pure fight for survival, because the tyres were pretty much gone. Nico Rosberg, Lewis Hamilton and Mark Webber were all on fresh tyres and I simply had to focus on staying on track and finishing the race.”

HUL – “We’re all just back here, fucking fighting like hyenas over the little scraps of victory left behind once the VET-Bot 200 is done feasting on the giant carcass of total domination.”

Esteban Gutierrez, 12th
“We expected a better result today. Our pace during the race was not good enough, especially at the beginning as I was fighting a lot with the car. At times I pushed a bit too much, had a lot of oversteer and the tyres were degrading. It was one of the toughest races I have ever had. I did the best I could and this is where we finished. The strategy was not ideal either. Nevertheless, the weekend was a step forward and now I will keep working to improve.”

GUT – “I can’t quite decide who to blame, so I’ll just spread it out all thin and watery over everything that occurs to me. Was there a full moon this weekend? That was probably it. What? There wasn’t? Well, that’s why.”

Force India
Adrian Sutil, 10th
“It was a tough race and exhausting in the end. So it feels great to come away with a point and it’s a small motivation for the whole team. In the closing laps of the race I was catching the train of cars in front of me – Perez, Button and Hulkenberg. I thought I had a chance to get ahead of at least one of them, but as soon as I reached the back of the train my tyres went off. In fact, we were all struggling with tyres and I couldn’t attack anymore because it felt like driving on ice. So I’m happy to take the point and it’s well deserved by the whole team.”

SUT – “F1 conga line, you suck balls. Fucking MAL had his hands all over my hips, like, more than just the light touch you use when you don’t really want to be touching someone. He was, like, enjoying my hips. It was weird. That must be why he hits people so often: he’s one those ‘touchy’ people.”

Paul di Resta, 20th
“It’s such a shame to come away with nothing to show from a race where we had put ourselves in a position to score some valuable points. The management of the tyres was good and the overall performance in race conditions was very strong. Even without the safety car we were in good shape, but as a team we made the right calls and were looking to challenge the train of cars ahead of us in the final few laps. Then I had the incident at turn seven. I’m still not sure what happened, but I took the corner the same way as I had done the previous lap and the car went straight on and wouldn’t stop. The team is investigating what happened.”

DIR – “I heard this lonesome harmonica playing as the Vet-Bot lapped me and that really distracted me as it made me feel very melancholy. So I was trying to figure out why I felt so sad, then I was thinking about this spanking my father gave me once and there I was in the wall.”

Williams
Pastor Maldonado, 11th
“We recovered two places at the start and after a couple of laps we were pushing towards the cars in front whilst also trying to manage the rear tyres. My tyre management was good throughout the race and I was able to push hard in the final stages on the super soft tyres. We just missed out on points in the end, but we’ll be looking to progress a step further in the next race.”

MAL – “We had this awesome conga line going and you could hear bongos and I had this vision of everyone in feathery shirts and tight pants. SUT kept pulling away from me, but I could tell he liked the way I was rough with him. Too bad about the points.”

Valtteri Bottas, 13th
“It was one of the most difficult races of the whole season for me today. Immediately at the start we had a problem with the clutch which meant we lost a few positions. After the safety car we had a few problems with debris in the front wing, which made the car difficult to drive. These limiting factors meant we couldn’t go any faster today and so we did the best we could with what we had.”

BOT – “I was on the back end of the conga line, watching MAL groping SUT, feeling kinda glad the car wasn’t faster.”

Toro Rosso
Jean-Eric Vergne, 14th
“My start was not the best and, in an effort to compensate for that, we switched from a two stop to a three stop strategy and I believe it could have paid off in terms of getting me back into the points. However, I then found I was having a lot of trouble just keeping the car on track and my tyres were completely worn out at the end, by which time, I had already been told to back off as the car was overheating. This is always a long, tough race and it felt particularly long for me, as I had no one to fight against in the closing stages, apart from working to keep the car away from the barriers. I always try to look on the positive side and in that respect, the updates we brought here seemed to work and we have learned a lot about the car. Therefore I still believe we can have a strong end to the season, starting in Korea, where I expect the car to work very well.”

VER – “Blergh.”

Daniel Ricciardo, DNF
“The crash was my error, trying to make up for lost ground. At the start, my car just seemed to sit there without moving off the line. It was very frustrating to lose so many places right away. I think I went down five places from ninth on the grid to fourteenth. So I was on the back foot from then on, just trying to do the best I could. In the second stint, my engineer came on the radio and said ‘the pace is good, keep pushing.’ I was aware that for the pace we had, we were not doing too badly and maybe at the end I was just trying to get too much out of it and made that mistake. It’s a delicate corner with not much run-off and I went too deep into the apex. I then braked a bit harder, locked a wheel and went into the wall. It’s not a mistake I’m used to making. I will learn from this.”

RIC – “Bernie could hear the TV sets turning off all across the Eurozone so he made the call. I already had some puppet-strings installed in my body as part of my contract with Red Bull. All Bernie had to do was sign into the server, take over my body and I toodled into that wall for all of F1 and Bernie and, well, really just Bernie.”

Caterham
Giedo van der Garde, 16th
“That was a tough race but for me a really good one – I have to say I really enjoyed myself out there tonight! Fighting with the Williams for most of the race was great, really good and I’m pleased for Tony and Kamarudin that we could put in a performance like that back in South East Asia. After a bit of a poor start I was past Charles, Bianchi and Bottas by the end of lap one and was up behind Sutil until the first stop. The car was absolutely great on the super softs – my pace in the first stint was really strong, the same as the cars up to 12th and it just felt great for the whole first stint. We boxed for a set of mediums on lap 12 and re-joined in 18th, still ahead of Bottas who was on super softs for the second stint. With the pace advantage that compound has here there wasn’t a lot I could do to hold him off and he passed me about three laps later. When the safety car came out we boxed for another set of mediums and after the race re-started my pace was good again. I was right up with Bottas and then passed him again when he went off a couple of laps into the stint. As the fuel levels dropped he got past me again so we focused on catching Charles who had stayed out on a two stop plan. With a long final stint he was managing his tyres and I was catching him at about two seconds a lap, and just before he had to make the final stop I passed him and then held 16th to the flag. As I say, it’s good to have had a strong race here and I’m pleased for the whole team that we could fight with Williams for a lot of the race. I’m now staying out in the Far East for a break before Korea and even though tonight’s race was tough physically I’m already looking forward to getting back in the car.”

GAR – “Still just happy to be here!”

Charles Pic, 19th
“Even though I finished 19th I’m not too disappointed. We tried a two-stop strategy but this time it didn’t work out – sometimes plans like that work, sometimes they don’t and this was one of those days. Away from the line I had a pretty good start but had to move aside to avoid Bianchi and was then stuck behind him for most of the first stint. Just before we were due to box I passed him and opened up a gap within a couple of laps so the first stop wasn’t so much of a fight. I was back out on track on a new set of mediums, clear of him and immediately started pushing on to my teammate. When the safety car came out I boxed early, re-joining in 19th on another set of mediums and right up with Giedo after his stop. The car felt okay at that point – the tyres were performing really well and when Giedo came in again we made the call to switch to a two stop strategy. I had a lot of laps left so I had to manage the pace so I could look after the tyres to the end but with six laps left the rears were gone so we had to come in again. My race was effectively over at that point because, even with the big pace advantage I had on the super softs, we used in the final stint I didn’t have enough laps to catch the cars ahead.”

PIC – “Did you guys see all the clag all over the track?! It was like a freaking buffet of clag! It was like one of those Argentinian restaurants where they just walk around with big skewers of meat and you flip a card to green and they walk up with the meat but, here, instead of meat, it was clag, glorious clag. I was so fucking stuffed on clag, I got drowsy and let Smilin’ Max Chilton pass me and I didn’t even fucking care.”

Marussia
Max Chilton, 17th
“What started off as quite a tough race with the balance then thankfully improved and in the end it was not a bad race for us. Once again we got another two car finish out of it which is good for the team and we maintain our 10th place in the championship. The degradation was quite high and it was a tough challenge to manage the tyres and still try to push for opportunities with Caterham, which came along when Pic stopped late in the race enabling us to gain an extra place. Overall I’m pleased with my first night race and have enjoyed the whole Singapore experience.”

CHI – “GUYS! FUCKING 17TH PLACE!!! CAN YOU BELIEVE THIS SHIT?! I CROSSED THE LINE AND SAW CARS IN MY MIRROR AND REALIZED IT WASN’T JUST SEBASTIAN, LAPPING ME AGAIN, AND I WAS ALL, ‘WHHHHHHAAAAAAA????!!!!’ THIS IS SO AWESOME! O LOVE F1!!!”

Jules Bianchi, 18th
“I was hoping for better today but the first half of the race didn’t go at all well for me. Just as I was stopping for the first time I lost the gears and I was worried it was mechanical but we stopped again to change the steering wheel and the problem thankfully went away. The second stint was tough because I was so far back by then and it was looking like it would be a very long and lonely race, also hitting the blue flag phase much earlier than usual. When the safety car came out it helped enormously as we were able to catch up and unlap ourselves. After struggling with traction initially I was then able to get into a good rhythm with strong pace. I was quicker but whilst trying to pass my team mate my tyres went away completely and we had to stop again much earlier than plan. After that, having seen the degradation we were incurring trying to push, I had no option but to hold back but at least I was able to gain a place when Pic stopped again at the end. Some difficult points in the race but what matters is the team result.”

BIA – “It’s going to be fucking ten days before CHI stops smiling about this race. I’m going to find the nearest noodle shop and hide out until Korea.”

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

Posted on September 11, 2013 by Fygar

“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!!!!!”

2013 Belgian Grand Prix Post-Race Driver’s Quotes, Translated

Posted on September 4, 2013 by Fygar

F1 Champ Sebastian Vettel Pays Tribute To Beyonce With New Hair Style

Vet-Bot 2000, they’re not booing you, they’re booing your hair.

Red Bull
Sebastian Vettel, 1st
“I don’t think we expected to be dominant here, and it surprised all of us actually; it’s a great result. I think we knew going into the race that our race pace, compared to Mercedes, maybe gave us a little in hand, but we didn’t know where we were compared to the others, especially Ferrari, and Lotus looked very quick in dry conditions also. It wasn’t clear if the rain was going to come at the end of the race, so we kept pushing, but the gap we had by that stage meant we were able to control the race from there and the last couple of laps weren’t too stressful.”

VET – “Yeah, I wasn’t sure about the rain, so I kept pushing for fastest laps. Also, I like the color that Newey and Adrian’s faces turn when I ignore them on the radio and just drive however the fuck I want. You know, now that I think about it: FUCK THESE GUYS! I could win the WCC for these assholes saddled with CHI as a team-mate. I will, in fact, drive however the fuck I want. Heh, yeah, the last couple of laps weren’t too stressful. . .if you mean “from the second lap on”, it wasn’t too stressful. Jesus, sometimes I shock even myself, I’m such an asshole.”

Mark Webber,5th
“The two practice starts before the race weren’t great and so we were a bit worried about the clutch going to the start, which put us on to the back foot. We tried our best, but lost a couple of rows off the line which is not good. We then had to try and clear people on the track, which was difficult, as we had set up the top gear to race in clean air, rather than to pass. The bad start put us out of position and it snowballs from there, as you use up the tyres trying to get back into position.”

WEB – “What’s that? Porsches have clutches, too?!!!?? Fuck.”

Ferrari
Fernando Alonso, 2nd
“Today’s result shows that the outcome of qualifying bears little relation to the result on Sunday, although I think that even if I’d started from pole I would still have finished second, because Vettel was quicker. At the start we immediately made up some places and all in a rush, first passing Button, then Rosberg and Hamilton, so I found myself six seconds behind Vettel, but if one looks at the final gap of 16 seconds, we can but congratulate him and his team. The car worked well in all conditions, with a full fuel load at first and then with a lighter one at the end and, on top of that, the extra speed we had on the straight meant I could overtake without taking too many laps to do so. We know we have made a step forward and that we have recovered some of the competitiveness we had lost in recent races. In Monza and Singapore we will see the next steps in this process. The updates used in this race worked well and, even if they were aimed at this particular circuit, they are the results of work that goes on twenty four hours a day, at home and at the track. That makes us optimistic for the coming races, because our goal still remains the same, namely to fight for the title right to the end”.

ALO- “I have to talk about ‘steps’ and ‘process’ and ‘optimism’ because if I don’t talk about those things, I have to realize that that 16 second gap at the end was just the result of the VET-bot 2000 actually listening to Cristian for once and, probably, he could’ve lapped the entire field and all the beautiful girlfriends in the universe couldn’t stop the tears of frustration from flowing down my face for all of eternity.”

Felipe Massa, 7th
“That was a difficult race for me right from the early stages, because after managing a good passing move at the start, I then had to slow and drop back four or five places, to avoid a collision with Grosjean at the exit of the first corner. From then on, things got complicated because for a few laps I had a problem on the steering wheel linked to the KERS operation and I wasn’t able to communicate well with the team. When everything was back to normal again, it wasn’t easy to catch up, because even if the decision to bring forward the first pit stop allowed me to get past several cars, the pace wasn’t good. In the final stint on the Hard tyres, the car was very competitive and I managed to gain some important places, with a nice passing move on Grosjean. I definitely can’t be pleased with seventh place, because today, our car deserved better, but the fact we’re more competitive than at the last few races makes me think we are working in the right direction and so we can hope to make progress throughout the second half of the season”

MAS – “Seriously, look at the language I’m using in this quote. I’ve used more positive words to describe my dog’s poops! I made a nice passing move on Grosjean. . On Grosjean! That’s like shitting yourself and being happy that your hat is still clean. ALO has to watch VET walk away with races n’shit; you think that’s hard?! I have to look in mirrors and other reflective surfaces!!!”

Mercedes
Lewis Hamilton, 3rd
“I got everything that I could out of the car today but we just weren’t as quick as Sebastian and Fernando. I made a nice start and it felt like the exit out of turn one was good, too. But Seb just caught me on the run out of Eau Rouge and there wasn’t really much I could do to defend: I moved once, like we are allowed to, but then I just had to watch him glide by. From that point, it was very difficult to hold on to him, and the same thing happened with Fernando, too, later in the race. We have done a good job this weekend but Spa and Monza are always unique tracks because of the low-drag requirements and I expect we will be more competitive in Singapore again. It’s still a great team result to finish third with Nico right behind me in fourth, so we will take the positives from this afternoon into the next races.”

HAM – “At least I beat Nico across the line. I can look Roscoe in the face when I get home.”

Nico Rosberg, 4th
“Fourth place was a reasonable result for me today, and it’s great that we achieved a strong points finish for the team with Lewis’ third place as well. The whole weekend hasn’t gone perfectly for me and you are always slightly on the back foot in the race when qualifying doesn’t go as well as planned. I had a great start but I wasn’t able to go as long as planned on the second stint and I had to cover Felipe. But in the end, it was nice to keep Mark behind me and get fourth place. We have a lot of work ahead of us now and we need to look into why we weren’t as competitive as a couple of the other teams today.”

ROS – “I pretty much let HAM go by me. I was getting pretty tired of him coming up to me in the garage, showing me drawings of prospective haircuts and then walking away with tears welling up in his eyes. He was beat-boxing, too, to try and cheer himself up, but he’d start to cry and then it was this blubbering beat-boxing. . . . Sigh. . . . .So, yeah, I let him pass me.”

McLaren
Jenson Button, 6th
“We were trying for a one-stop strategy at the start of the race, then we adapted that to a two-stopper later on. We gave it a go, but our pace still wasn’t quite as good as that of the cars in front of us, so we couldn’t really chase them down at the end of the race. Having said that, it was a decent race for us. Moreover, as always, it was really fun to race around this magnificent circuit – I really enjoyed driving the car today. In terms of performance there’s been a small but definite improvement, so we should be pleased with the progress we’ve made. I’m pretty happy with the feel of the car now, in fact; okay, there’s still room for improvement in terms of pace, but the good thing is that we know which areas we should be focusing on. So I’m looking forward to Monza – another great circuit – where hopefully we can take another small step. We’re not going to be fighting at the front, we know that; instead we’re concentrating on ourselves, gradually understanding more about the car, and progressively improving things. There are still a lot of grand prix left this season, and we can enjoy some of them, I’m sure.”

BUT – “We didn’t totally suck today! Woo-hoo! Lots of racing left this season! More chances to suck less! Go team!”

Sergio Perez, 11th
“My race started pretty well. I managed to make up a couple of positions at the start, and then a few more in the first 10 laps, and at that point things were looking pretty good. I was happy with the balance of the car and we were on a good strategy. Then came the drive-through, and after that it was always going to be tricky to score any points. What happened with Romain [Grosjean] was unfortunate. I got ahead of him, and took the corner, but I now understand where the penalty came from, even if I’m naturally disappointed for myself and for the team. These things are always difficult, but the team spirit at McLaren is unbelievably strong and now, together, we simply have to move on. What we must now do is look ahead to Monza, and do our very best to make up for the points we missed out on here at Spa.”

PER – “Looking ahead to Monza? Shit, I’m looking ahead to Vallarta in November. I’m taking this barge of a car onto a barge, dumping it in the Pacific and then hitting the beach at Yelapa with about 14 cases of Modelo. I will drink, there, on the beach, and eat of the ocean and sleep on the beach until I wake from this nightmare. I hear Torro Rosso has a seat open.”

Lotus
Romain Grosjean, 8th
“We had a difficult first lap where we lost a few positions and then dropped back a couple more places in the incident with Sergio [Perez]. We decided on a one stop strategy today and with the new tyres I felt that the grip was much higher than before but I knew that it would be difficult to get the time back. We tried something different and you never know; had it rained in the middle of the race we could have been well-placed to take advantage. It is good to finish the race without any mistakes, even if eighth place isn’t what we were hoping for this weekend; it’s also a shame that Kimi didn’t finish the race, but we go to Monza hopeful of better things.”

GRO – “Really, the less said, the better.”

Kimi Raikkonen, DNF
“I had a brake failure so there was really no point in trying to continue. We both got good starts off the line but there wasn’t enough space into the first corner where I went over the kerb and lost some time, but after that I was pushing as hard as I could. There were some brake issues at the beginning of the race but we were managing them and it was going okay until we had to retire. We’ve finished a lot of races and had some good reliability; one day your luck has to run out and today was that day.”

RAI – “Pragmatism, bitches! Learn it! Love it! Live it!”

Translation Svcs – Can we all just admit to ourselves that this race became exponentially more boring after Kimi DNF’d? Regardless of how you feel about Kimi (except that, if you don’t like him, you are fucked in the head) every race could be framed around “Yeah, VET is winning, but where’s Kimi? Yeah, ALO is driving like an unconscious wizard, but where’s Kimi?” His DNF’ing just made me appreciate what he brings to this sport even more.

Force India
Adrian Sutil, 9th
“An interesting and exciting race, and it’s good to come away with two points. At the start I didn’t make the best getaway and lost a few places, but after that I settled into the race and was able to get ahead of a few cars and move into the top ten. I always enjoy driving here at Spa and I had some exciting overtaking moves today, which felt very nice. The two-stop strategy was the best way to go and it worked out well because I think we achieved the maximum that was available to us. We are still in a close fight with McLaren so it was important to get back in the points today after a couple of tough races.”

SUT – “I had a good race but McLaren should be ashamed of themselves.”

Paul di Resta, DNF
“I got a lot of wheel-spin at the start of the race and was down in about tenth place going into turn one, but during the first lap I managed to recover to seventh. After the second pit stop I was racing closely with Adrian and there was a train of four cars battling as we went into the final chicane. Pastor [Maldonado] went in deep and missed the apex so I tried to get the cut-back and was going around the outside of him. He then decided to try and enter the pit lane, which was impossible given his track position. As a result he hit me, which took the rear corner off my car. It’s a real shame because the speed was quite strong today and I think there was definitely a point or two up for grabs.”

RES – “Every week, it’s a ‘Who’s-Pastor-Going-to-Hit-this-Weekend?” lottery. I won.”

Toro Rosso
Daniel Ricciardo, 10th
“It was nice to get that point! We ran a long first stint on the hard tyres and I think that helped us build a good base to have a strong pace in the final stints on the medium. I felt much more comfortable on the Option tyre and that’s when my race really started. With the last set of tyres I was knocking out maybe ten or so qualifying laps and managed to pick off some cars in front to bring home that crucial point. We knew we had to move on from yesterday. I had said that starting where we were, getting in the points would be good, so I’m happy with that and with the pace we showed while fighting to get there.”

RIC – “I’m very pumped about enjoying these last few races before my primary duty is making sure the VET-Bot 2000 stays lubricated and happy.”

Jean-Eric Vergne, 12th
“I think we could have done a bit better than this 12th place, because my pace was good until the final stint when I had a slow puncture almost right from the start of it, which meant my performance dropped off. I managed to get past Hulkenberg with an exciting move, but I could not close to Perez ahead of me and then my team mate Daniel came up behind me on new tyres. It was hard for me to be competitive therefore in the final stint. A bit of a weekend to forget as it could have ended so much better, if we had not made a mistake in qualifying, but at least when things were going well it seems that our car has picked up some speed that was lacking just before the break.”

VER – “Sigh. . . Summer Break: I miss you already.”

Sauber
Nico Hulkenberg, 13th
“I was able to improve a couple of positions at the start. It was tight but I managed quite well. I had a good first lap, but the pace was missing pretty much from the beginning. The car was difficult to drive. We were lacking a good balance throughout the whole weekend and during the race, and the tyres started to go off pretty quickly. We had to pit earlier than planned. Overall, we were simply missing speed today.”

HUL – “Can this season be totes over soon? Please?”

Esteban Gutierrez, 14th
“From where I started I had to make progress and be clever about how much I could push. It was a matter of finding the right balance between pushing and taking care of the tyres, and I found that balance pretty well. I just focused on being as quick as possible, trying to manage the tyres well and getting the most out of the car. We lost a lot of time in the first stint with the traffic I encountered as I was coming from the back of the field. The strategy we planned was not ideal, so we had to change it and that still wasn’t perfect. I totally respect the FIA ‘s decision to penalise me for overtaking Pastor, but I don’t agree with the penalty. To be able to fight and to extract the maximum today is good to know. Now we have to improve in qualifying, because I think with the pace we have we can still fight for the top ten.”

GUT – “What the fuck? Did the steward get sick on his last trip to Acapulco? Anybody who goes to Acapulco deserves to get sick. Just because you went to the armpit of Mexico and got ‘Los Amoebas’, don’t take it out on Checo and I. . . Asshole.”

Williams
Valtteri Bottas, 15th
“Today’s race was not the easiest for us. We were struggling for pace in sector two and this made it difficult to get close to the cars in front and once I had been overtaken it was very difficult to regain the place. We will have to go away and understand why our race pace was not as strong today as it has been and try to make improvements in time for Monza.”

BOT – “You forgot I was even here, didn’t you?”

Pastor Maldonado, 17th
“I had a good start and I immediately picked up a number of places, but we struggled for pace in the second stint and I was not able to push and overtake the cars in front. I then had a collision with Di Resta in the final corner when our lines crossed as I was entering the pits. It was a difficult situation because I was fighting hard with the Sauber and I didn’t see Di Resta on the outside as I turned toward the pit lane. I tried to brake to avoid the accident but it was too late. It wasn’t a good weekend for us but we need to keep working hard and improving the performance of the car.”

MAL – “Everyday I am thankful that F1 does not require an IQ test.”

Caterham
Giedo van der Garde, 16th
“My start was good. I had clear space going into turn one and held 14th place until mid-way through lap two, but then it wasn’t really possible to hold off some of the cars who’d started behind us. Realistically, we’d expected that to happen so I was focused on pulling away from Bianchi and Chilton and giving myself a big enough gap to manage the race we’d planned. I’d started on a set of mediums which we managed well. My first stop was on lap 15 when we went onto a set of new hards and I rejoined in 19th. That set was also working well until about lap 26 when the rears started to go off so we pushed for another couple of laps and then came in for the second stop on lap 29. The final stint was on another set of hard tyres and from there I was well clear of both Marussias and had a really good fight with Maldonado for 16th right to flag, pushing as hard as I could to keep that place. Overall this has been a really good weekend. It would have been interesting to see what would have happened if it had rained today, but for what was effectively my first home F1 race I think we got the maximum for the car. Saturday was an incredible feeling and I’m really pleased we could give the team, our partners and the fans such a lift in qualifying – now we have to make sure we can do the same for the rest of the season whenever the chances come our way.”

GAR – “Somehow, God was watching over me; some miraculous shit went down and I got past MAL. Does anybody have two bucks? I’m going to buy an actual lottery ticket!”

Charles Pic, DNF
“We started on a set of options and I was off the line cleanly with no problems on lap one. I passed both Chilton and Bianchi and by lap eight was catching my teammate but then I was told to box as we had an oil leak so we stopped the car to avoid any damage to the new engine we used today. Racing’s sometimes like this – we had good pace on Friday and Saturday, the car felt well balanced and we’d made some progress. While today’s race obviously didn’t go to plan I’m not down about it – we have another chance in Monza in two weeks to continue to build on the gap to our nearest rivals and I’m sure we’ll bounce back there.”

PIC – “Hey, I was out there long enough to enjoy some clag and frites, so I’m pretty happy!

Marussia
Jules Bianchi, 18th
“It was a tough race today, made more difficult by the fact that I had a radio problem from the start. Our pace was not as good as we hoped for, which was a shame. Although it was going to be hard to hang on to our grid positions if it didn’t rain, we were looking for something more after a good result yesterday. As it remained dry we were not presented with the sort of opportunities we were hoping might come our way. However, we did get a two-car finish and also we continue to hold position in the championship, so we will now look to Monza for more of an improvement we hope.”

BIA – “I’m telling you: doing lap after lap, willing the clouds to coalesce into some sort of spitting rain so that I might move up a spot or two gets a little depressing. Still: Glad to be here!”

Max Chilton, 19th
“A long race today, not just in terms of laps and lap distance, but more the fact that the dry conditions made the race quite uneventful for us. The threat of rain meant that we had thought through and prepared for so many different scenarios, so we would be in a position to capitalise on any opportunity to move up the order, but as it turned out much of the homework was not required. So we’re disappointed with the race but encouraged by signs earlier in the weekend and I hope we can make more of those in Monza in two weeks’ time.”

CHI – “GUYS! I TOTALLY MADE IT Q2!!!!! HOLY CRAP! EVEN I WAS READY FOR RAIN OR NOT-RAIN, IT WAS AWESOME TO BE HERE!”

Canadian 2013 GP, Post-Race Driver’s Quotes, Translated

Posted on June 10, 2013 by Fygar

“Hey, Bernie, I was hoping you could tell VET and RBR to take their 132 driver points and 201 constructor’s points and stick them up their asses! Perhaps we could have a fucking tribunal about who’s the biggest collection of pricks in F1? Maybe THAT needs a tribunal!!

Red Bull
Sebastian Vettel (1st)
“It’s great to win today. I was pushing very hard, especially at the beginning of the race – I had a moment when I hit the wall, but I didn’t feel it; I was trying to get away from the field, as you don’t know what will happen towards the end. It turned out that we could control things in the later stages, but you don’t know that, so I was just trying to push all the time and stay in the rhythm. It was good to see that we were quick in all conditions this weekend and had speed in the race. We had average tyre wear, which hasn’t always been the case for us, so we have made a step forward there. It’s nice to win here, as it’s a very special race. Not just the track, but the whole city enjoys the race and it’s a nice atmosphere.”

VET – “I hit the wall at one point, but I had my humano-servo-emoto-sensors dialed down at that moment, so I have no feeling about that incident, like, literally. I do like watching the others have fun at this Canada race-place. I always enjoy watching others expend energy emoting and smiling and doing other non-winning related activities. Eh? What’s that? They were booing me on the podium? Oh, silly Canadians! I just put a call into SkyNet. You will be first on the kill list, you bunch of fucking SCTV-watching . . . . .HUMANS!”

Mark Webber (4th)
“I got a sensational start, but I didn’t have too many places to go. I went to the middle and Bottas and Nico were there, so I went to the other side and lost some momentum. We are certainly getting our starts sorted, but so far there’s been no opportunity to show how good they have been! We lost some time with Nico in the first stint, and the car was getting hot behind him in the slip stream. Once I got in free air, the car was handling much better. Then we had the incident with Giedo van der Garde which caused some front wing damage and made it more difficult; the whole top section of the wing was gone on the left hand side, so it didn’t help from then on. I don’t know what he was doing. We had a lot of blue flags as we approached the hair pin and I rolled to the inside, giving him plenty of space so he knew I was there, but when we got to the apex he tried to hit it; I don’t know what was going on with that. There were some positives from today, but it would have been nicer to have finished a bit further up the road.”

WEB – “I dedicate this race to my pharmacist who had been working with me and working with me to get the dosage on the Viagra just right. The dosage is important, when you take it is important, it’s like fucking F1 but for my dick! So, to Doctor Nick: we finally got this starting issue figured out! Now, is there a drug designed for, um, ‘closing the deal’?” No? Fuck.”

Ferrari
Fernando Alonso (2nd)
“At the end of an extremely complicated weekend, this second place tastes like a win, because we were competitive and managed to fight with the front running drivers. You never feel in danger with them, because, even wheel to wheel at 320 kilometres per hour, they have the necessary intelligence and experience to know to leave a margin of safety. The overtaking moves on the two Mercedes had an almost identical dynamic, although maybe the pass on Hamilton was more intense because we were running at the same pace, while with Rosberg, I knew it was only a matter of the laps going by, thanks to the advantage of having the medium tyres, while he was on the supersoft. In terms of points this is a great result: now we only have Vettel ahead of us, who was untouchable here and deserved the victory. Even if he has increased his lead, there’s still a long way to go in the championship and there’s plenty of time to catch up. I don’t know if I could have done better if I’d started further up. Qualifying, even in the wet, is our weak point and an aspect we absolutely must improve on: we are working very hard on that, both back home and at the track.”

ALO – “Why did this feel like a win? Ohhhhh, I don’t know. . Maybe it was all my Cone-nay-dian homies booing the VET-Bot and chanting my name! I’ll mouth some platitudes about the driver’s championship and the constructor’s points all day but, in the end, if can drive like an angel, have the entire F1 global fan-base adore me AND have the hottest lay in all of organized everything for a girlfriend, then fuck your 1st place. No matter what, at the end of everything, they’ll say: ‘He was a masterful driver and, besides, HE LOST TO A ROBOT.’ Gimme that and a smokin’ hottie in the sack and I’ll sleep peacefully my entire Spanish Winter.”

Felipe Massa (8th)
“I am very happy with my race today, which was a real battle from start to finish. After going off the track yesterday, I knew it wouldn’t be easy starting from sixteenth place, but I also knew I had a good car and I tackled the race on the attack, managing to pull off several nice passing moves. However, because of a problem with graining, I lost precious time behind Sutil in the Force India: that’s why I think a strategy based on using two sets of medium tyres would have seen me gain at least one or two places. Even if I can’t be satisfied with this result it was still a positive day, in which we showed we had a good pace and that we were able to fight. Now I’m looking ahead to the next race with a lot of confidence, because Silverstone is very similar to Shanghai and Barcelona, where our car worked very well.”

MAS – “Finished! I finished! Did you see that, bitches? I totally finished! And then I passed some bitches! And I finished! WOO-HOOOOOO!!!!!”

Mercedes
Lewis Hamilton (3rd)
“The car felt fantastic today and I had good grip for the low-speed corners but we just weren’t quite on the pace of Seb and Fernando. I was on the maximum that I could possibly drive and we got absolutely everything out of the car today. It would have been nice to have kept second place of course but Fernando was very quick today and it was difficult to keep him behind. I got close to taking the place back but he was just that little bit too fast. Still I’m very pleased with third place and it was a strong points-scoring day for the team with Nico’s fifth place as well. We’ve taken a step up in the constructors’ championship which is great for the team and gives us a nice boost going into Silverstone.”

HAM – “Jesus Christ. Looks like all that praying paid off and I finally finished ahead of Nico. 3rd is great, but I would’ve been fine with 21st over his 22nd and watched CHI sorry ass beat both our asses across the line. But, hey, 3rd, 5th: whatever. I TOTALLY BEAT NICO’S ASS! Bless.”

Nico Rosberg (5th)
“I think fifth place was probably my optimum today and, even if my race had gone perfectly, I wasn’t able to match the pace of the guys in front. The guys had a difficult decision to make at the first stop: we were worried about the warm-up of the harder tyres, so we went for the option to protect my track position against Webber and Alonso, but in hindsight it would probably have been better to go the other way because I could have run a longer second stint. I scored some good points and we know that there are areas where we can still improve our performance. But looking back to where we were a month ago, we have made some good steps forward, and it was great for Lewis to be on the podium again. We are heading in the right direction and looking forward to the next race at Silverstone, in front of our team-mates from Brackley and Brixworth.”

ROS – “Really looking forward to HAM shouting ‘STEVE HOLT!’ every time he walks into the garage the next two weeks!”

Ross Brawn, Mercedes team principal
“It has been rare in recent seasons to have backmarkers become such a factor in a race as they were today. They played a decisive role in the final result but getting through traffic is one of the challenges that you have to tackle in Formula One. The car performed reasonably well but we still had some anxiety about the tyre performance in the high temperatures, so we were managing the situation carefully, particularly in the opening laps of the stints. Lewis drove a very strong race although it was a shame that he could not quite hold on to second position in the closing laps. However, that wasn’t down to him but rather the fact that we still need to find a little more performance from our car to compete with Ferrari and Red Bull. Nico had a reasonably quiet race after a strong first stint and we will have to analyse if we could have made more of the car’s performance today with him. We called him in for a third stop as a precaution, because he had flat-spotted badly the right-front tyre badly and we had nothing to gain or lose in terms of track position. Overall, a positive afternoon and another strong two-car finish that is important for our position in the constructors’ championship.”

Toto Wolff, Mercedes team executive director
“Lewis and Nico did a great job on track today and it was nice to see Lewis on the podium again. He tried to hold off Fernando towards the end of the race but the Ferrari was just too quick today. Nico dropped back on the option tyre and our strategy didn’t quite come to him this afternoon unfortunately. Looking ahead, we know that we need to keep bringing performance to the car and that Silverstone will be a bigger test for our tyre management. But it’s the second race in a row that we have had both cars in the top five and that is building a good platform in the championship. Well done, too, to Sebastian and Red Bull today: they didn’t put a foot wrong all afternoon.”

Brawn/Wollf – “Can’t talk now. Getting coached for tribunal.”

Toro Rosso
Jean-Eric Vergne (6th)
“Incredible! I’m very happy. The best result for me of course, but also the highest finishing position since Vettel’s results for the team in 2008. It is even more satisfying, because it was a normal race in the dry, with no one going out in front of me so we achieved this position fair and square. It’s a great result for the team as we are making progress race by race and it’s very encouraging for the rest of the season. It wasn’t too complicated, because we had the pace to maintain that position, although we did not have the speed of those ahead. I passed Bottas and Raikkonen and from then I managed my race, keeping an eye on Sutil who was behind me for much of the time. That meant I could never ease up until the flag. After finishing eighth in Monaco, this result on another difficult track has boosted my confidence and I feel I have progressed as a driver. We must continue to push hard on the development of the car, starting with the next race at Silverstone, so that we can aim even higher than this.”

VER – “Holy crap! So glad to be here! I passed Kimi??!! Did you mother-fuckers see that shit? That shit ain’t easy ’cause you got the ice-dragons blowing cold-ass air in your face as you go by! Scary! This is totally turning into the mid-season of the middling teams! Go, my brothers at Force India! Go, us! Pastor, you can fuck off. Go, Marussia! I just love everybody right now! Can we all come in sixth sometime? This feels so good!”

Daniel Ricciardo (15th)
“I got a really good start, making up two positions off the line and then I was on the outside for Turn 2, which meant Hulkenberg took me back. When he ran wide at the chicane, I was ahead of him again and I gained another place when Sutil went off. At that point, I felt we could have a good race, but after just four laps, the car was oversteering like crazy and I couldn’t manage the tyres anymore. As the race went on, we tried to improve the car balance and maybe we improved it a bit, but our pace was really slow. We didn’t change so much on the car since Friday, so why we were so slow is a mystery to me at the moment.”

RIC – “Really looking forward to VER shouting ‘STEVE HOLT’ every time he walks into the garage the next two weeks!”

Force India
Paul di Resta (7th)
“To finish the race in seventh having started 17th is a great result and a top job by the team. I didn’t manage to get any long run data on Friday so it feels extra sweet to make this one-stop strategy work with a very long stint on the mediums. It also feels good to come back so strong after a difficult qualifying session. The tyres lasted very well, the lap times were competitive and the team told me it was my decision about when to make my stop. As soon as I felt the tyres starting to drop off, I came in. Then it was a case of looking after the supersofts for the final few laps.”

RES – “Y’all know were the party at? It ain’t at the front with all those doggies fightin’ over VET’s scraps of clag he leaves for ALO and RAI, it’s up in here, up in here!”

Adrian Sutil (10th)
“That race was quite an adventure so it’s good to come away with a point given everything that happened. I had a spin when I tried to overtake Bottas, which cost me quite a few positions and I was lucky nobody hit me when I was in the middle of the track. I dropped back and the pack was bunched together, which is when Maldonado ran into the back of me and damaged my rear wing. Even with all those things I was running in eighth until the drive-through penalty. I don’t think it was a fair penalty because I too had to lap so many cars today and it sometimes took one or two laps, and that’s normal for this circuit. The penalty cost me two positions and three points.”

SUT – “Seriously, when do we get back to Australia? Not ’til NEXT YEAR!?? Fuck. But, hey: that 360 with the ‘what-me-worry’ exit like nothing happened was pretty boss, no?”

Lotus
Kimi Raikkonen (9th)
“My race didn’t start very well and then my brakes were fading with the pedal going soft; similar to the problem we had on Friday. It wasn’t ideal but at least the brakes were good enough to slow me down for the corners. Unfortunately though it meant I lost a lot of time and wasn’t able to attack, plus we lost a few seconds in the pit stop which obviously didn’t help either. Most of my race was just following the cars in front and defending from those behind, so not the most enjoyable day nor the most enjoyable result. It’s been a bad weekend, but at least we scored a few points.”

RAI – “I, uh, yeah. Heh, well, when I came in third in the WDC last year, everybody was all ‘slow and steady almost wins the race’. But, yeah, I don’t think they meant quite this slow. The real problem was that one of the ice dragons couldn’t make it to the race: he had a previous bust in Canada for weed and couldn’t get a visa. Also, he kept saying ‘beers’ instead of using the plural ‘beer’, like they do and that really pissed off the customs guy.”

Romain Grosjean (13th)
“It was always going to be a tough race coming from the back, but it’s still disappointing to miss out on the points. Things were looking good until we switched to the option tyres, but they dropped off far quicker than we expected which forced us to stop again. Sadly that effectively put an end to our race as by that time there was no way back. After a promising start on Friday it’s not been the best weekend, but we had good pace last year at Silverstone so we’ll come back looking to put things right.”

GRO – “I didn’t drive up anyone’s ass this weekend. No suspensions so far this year! As long as I don’t decide that my chassis is possessed in the next 18 days, everything’s going to be Stereo Total in the UK!”

McLaren
Sergio Perez (11th)
“This wasn’t the race we were hoping to have. We tried our best to try and score a few points, but it was impossible to do any better than we did out there today. It’s a pity, because the car felt quite good during our installation laps. But the car didn’t work that well on the option tyre, and we struggled to find enough grip. At Silverstone, I hope we can make a step forward. We brought some upgrades to this race, but didn’t really get the running we needed to verify them. Hopefully, they’ll work better at Silverstone.”

PER – “Seriously: someone kill me. There’s not enough Tequila in the universe to dull this pain. I will lie in the zocalo of Cuernavaca and let the crows poop all over me and I will feel better than I do now, in this moment. I have an uncle who runs a couple of dudes who do the fire-breathing thing in the streets of the D.F., maybe he has an opening for a new fire-breather.”

Jenson Button (12th)
“This wasn’t the best race for us as a team. It’s particularly tough because this circuit is usually very good to us. With hindsight, I think we’d have been better off starting on the prime tyre, rather than the option. During my first stint, all the two-stoppers pitted ahead of me, then came back to overtake me, so it was a bit tricky. However, we showed today that, irrespective of strategy, we wouldn’t have gone any faster. Our car tends to work better on fast and flowing circuits – such as Malaysia or China – so I’m looking forward to my home race at Silverstone at the end of the month. We tried some new parts this weekend, but they weren’t really suited for this type of circuit – they should work better at Silverstone, so I’m feeling positive about the future.”

BUT – “Does anybody have any straws for me to clutch at? I lent all mine to CHI last weekend.”

Williams
Valtteri Bottas (14th)
“We fought hard to try and secure some points today but ultimately we just didn’t have the pace in the car. I didn’t get a great start which allowed a few cars to jump me on the first lap, and in the dry conditions we simply couldn’t match the level of competitiveness we showed yesterday. The tyre wear in the first stint was also high which made it tough to stay in the top ten. Nevertheless I feel like I have learnt a lot from the race today and as a team we can take positives from the weekend. Hopefully we can continue to make progress and have a stronger race at Silverstone with the home crowd cheering us on.”

BOT – “Well, that was fun while it lasted!”

Pastor Maldonado (16th)
“We were expecting a better result today in the race. We knew we didn’t have the top speed to challenge at the front, but we struggled for pace right from the beginning of the race. The car felt better in the wet conditions compared to the dry hot weather we saw today so we need to understand why. After the good result with Valtteri yesterday, it was a tough weekend for us to end with neither car in the points. There are now three weeks until the next race so we need to keep working to improve our overall race performance.”

MAL – “I always forget: Do we hit the other drivers or not? I always get mixed-up; all the time, mixed-up. I like Silverstone because it stays nice and rainy and cloudy. Changes in weather are just another thing to confuse me!”

Marussia
Jules Bianchi (17th)
“It was good to be able to enjoy a dry race today because we were back on the pace we were showing earlier in the weekend in similar conditions. It was a little bit daunting to know we were planning a one stop strategy and would have to go so long on the medium tyre, but my engineers and I kept in close contact and worked together to ensure we could manage the tyre life as we needed to. Although we had to be quite careful, in the end we got to 40 laps no problem, although it was good to switch to the supersoft and be able to secure position. I think the result is quite pleasing and we are back where we need to be in terms of the competition. We hope for good things from our next step in Silverstone, where we will be aiming for a good performance in an important race for the team.”

BIA – “Still getting used to all this! Left! Right! Brakes! Gas! It all happens so fast! Glad to be here!”

Max Chilton (19th)
“We got a good start but struggled on the first lap, then after a few laps we were able to see that our strategy was going to play out well for us. We started on the medium tyre and ran long for just under 40 laps. I was quite pleased with how well we were managing the tyres even late on in that stint, so a good job from my engineers who were working with me to achieve that, enabling me to still be able to push hard on the last few laps before we pitted for the supersoft. The early part of the second stint worked well but later on I was struggling with the tyre wear and I wasn’t able to defend my position from Pic. It was good to add to our tally of two-car finishes though and we can feel optimistic as we head towards a very important race for the Team and for me – our home race, the British Grand Prix.”

CHI – “DUDES! AGAIN! FINISHED! NOT LAST! I LOVE THIS F1 SHIT! SO AWESOME TO BE HERE!”

Caterham
Charles Pic (18th)
“My start was ok but into the first corner I had to brake early to avoid hitting one of the cars ahead and lost a couple of places.

“We went onto the mediums for the second stint and they held up well. The car balance kept improving as we went through the race and we stuck to the plan, pitting for the last time on lap 37 so we could run a long final stint to the flag.

“With about ten laps left I caught and passed Chilton and was given the instruction to push to the flag. From that point I couldn’t really gain on the car ahead so I just made sure we got to the end without any issues and finished the race 18th.”

PIC – “I found this great place at turn 9 that had this awesome Poutine made from clag! You smother this shit in enough gravy and it’s totally edible!!”

Giedo van der Garde (DNF)
“Today wasn’t a good day for me. I want to say sorry to Mark for the incident we had and I’ll make sure I learn from the stewards’ decision on the five-place penalty for the next race. Sometimes you make mistakes, but the important thing is to accept them, learn from them and move on.

“In the race itself I had a great start, passed four cars and was up to 17th by lap two. We’d started on the supersofts and the first set were done pretty quickly so we boxed on lap eight for a set of mediums and my pace on those for the first few laps was ok. I’m not sure why but not long into the stint the tyre temperatures started coming down and my lap times dropped straight away. It was pretty frustrating as there was nothing I could do to get them to work so I just had to keep pushing on.

“On lap 33 I came back in for another set of mediums but then I had to box for the stop / go I had from the contact with Mark. The temperatures went straight up after the penalty and I had to come back in almost immediately so we could check the car and they found a visor tear-off in one of the radiators which had been causing problems for most of the race.

“Shortly after that I was heading towards the hairpin with Hulkenberg alongside. I moved over for him but he turned in in front of me in the braking zone and we made contact and that was the end of my race.”

GAR – “I suck.”

Sauber
Esteban Gutierrez (20th)
“For the entire race the car was difficult to drive, and I was always pushing to the limit. Right from the start everyone was closing in. The first set of tyres was difficult to drive on and a one stop would have been impossible. When I came out from my second pit stop into the first corner, I went over one of the bumps, the front locked up and I couldn’t stop.”

GUT – “I gotta talk to PER. I heard his uncle might have an opening on his fire-breather team.”

Nico Hulkenberg (DNF)
“It’s disappointing to finish a race like this. Lapping can be troublesome, but these guys are racing too and have things happenings in the race, the same as us. I lapped Giedo van der Garde and braked. At first I didn’t feel anything until I came out of the corner and realised the car wasn’t going straight, so we decided to stop. Even after we lost positions at the start of the race, we didn’t really have the pace today. I was fighting for 14th and couldn’t do much more. Of course this is not an ideal way to end a race, but in the end we wouldn’t have gained much more.”

HUL – “I got out there and I was tooling around and then I got lapped by VET and ALO and RAI and WEB and HAM and I don’t know the fuck. Then, I look, and I realize that I’m battling fucking van der Garde for fucking 20th place and I start to seriously question my place in the universe and if my life really has any meaning. I got pretty lost in that thought and then I felt something and GAR, I think, hit me. It reminded me that I could feel, I could breathe and, if I could do those things, I could RACE! Then my car was all fucked up so I had to stop anyway.”

Pirelli
Paul Hembery, Pirelli motorsport director
“The Canadian Grand Prix was a slight step into the unknown for everybody, with track temperatures considerably higher than they had been in qualifying yesterday. Canada is one of the most challenging circuits for the rear tyres due to high traction demands – particularly after it has rained previously in the weekend, because the moisture has the effect of washing away all the rubber that has been laid down before, which decreases grip levels further. Despite that, wear and degradation was under control for all the frontrunners and there was little of the graining that is a common feature of this race as well. Mercedes still seems to be suffering from high levels of degradation with Nico Rosberg being the only driver in the top 10 having to use a three-stop strategy. While two stops was clearly the way to go, Paul di Resta drove an excellent race to show what was possible with a one-stopper, completing 56 laps on his first set of medium tyres.”

Hembery – All y’all can go fuck yo’selves! See you at he tribunal! Hembery OUT!”

2013 Monaco GP Post-Race Driver’s Quotes, Translated

Posted on May 27, 2013 by Fygar

Three cheers for secret tyre testing! Confidential to HAM: I hear your teeth gritting from here. Dude, stop spending money on studio time and get yo’self some acting classes! . . . And some new pants.

Mercedes
Nico Rosberg (1st)
“Monaco is such a special place to win and it just feels amazing today. It was my childhood dream to win this race and to do it in a Silver Arrow on the streets where I have lived all of my life is fantastic. I can’t quite believe it has happened yet and it will probably take a while to sink in. Thank you to the team for the car that we had this weekend and it’s good to have been able to show the same level of performance on Sunday and convert our pole position. The whole weekend went pretty much to plan, even though qualifying was tough with the weather conditions. I didn’t have the best start today which meant Lewis and Seb got pretty close but after the first corner, I was able to set my own pace. Then it was just a case of keeping a cool head through all the incidents and the team did a great job of keeping me in touch with what was happening. Thank you to everyone here today and back at the factories in Brackley and Brixworth. I hope this win today is the first of many more to come for us.”

ROS – “I wish every race were at Monaco! The key to our success today coughcoughasidefromsecrettyretestingcoughcough is that you have to be loonier than a taco-deprived Mexican to try to pass on this track. So, as long as we have every race here, we will totally kick-ass! Hey! Wait! What are you guys doing?! What?! Packing everything up and shipping it to where!? CANADA?! Fuck.”

Lewis Hamilton (4th)
“It’s been a great weekend for the team and I’m really happy for everyone. Big congratulations to Nico, he’s been awesome all weekend here and really deserves that victory. From my side, this weekend hasn’t really been the best and we didn’t make the most of the opportunity for a one-two finish today. When the safety car came out, I needed to maintain a gap so we didn’t get delayed with the double pit stop but unfortunately the gap was too big and we lost out to the two Red Bulls. That’s motor racing and these things happen sometimes. It’s the tightest track in the world here and virtually impossible to overtake unless you are much quicker than the car in front so there was nothing I could do to improve my position. But it’s great for the team to have achieved our first victory of the season and I hope we can carry through the performance we showed here to Montreal.”

HAM – “Does anybody else see how I’m cursed?! Even when these assholes do a fast pit, they fuck me over with the timing of the goddamn thing. I was fucking late for everything today because I had to practice my “Happy-For-Nico-and-the-Team” face in front of the mirror for, like, three fucking hours. I beat Roscoe for a while and even that didn’t make me feel better!! I thought about praying but, then, I had this moment of clarity where I looked back at the last few years of my life and especially the last few races. I thought about the secret tyre testing and how that was a sin. Then I realized that I lose when I sin and I lose when I’m virtuous. It hit me, then, that there is no fucking god or, if there is a god, he fucking hates me and all the dogs my agent forces me to own to make me seem likeable will never change anything anywhere ever.

I am so totally driving like PER in the next race. Bless”

Red Bull
Sebastian Vettel (2nd)
“Overall I’m happy and pleased with the result, we know that it’s very difficult to overtake here. Congratulations to Nico, he did a very good job and had a very controlled race; I think he had the pace and the tyres to respond whenever we tried to get a little bit closer to him. I had a fantastic start, but there was no room! I think I could have gone past both Mercedes, but there was no space and I had to lift. Then Mark came and it was very tight into the first corner. I was a bit surprised by the slow pace of the opening laps – usually you expect two silver arrows in front of you, but they were more like buses today going for a cruise on the first couple of laps. But, the strategy for them was clear and they did a very good job. It was a good strategy from our team to get past Lewis. It was hard with the restarts, but we can be happy with the result. It was a good achievement by the team; we seem to like this place. Congratulations to everyone and thanks to all our partners – two cars on the podium is very good.”

VET – “All you fuckers are too fucking slow and you all get in my way all the fucking time. My emoto-chip is continually overheated by the silly human fact that I have to race against other drivers in order for the humans to appreciate how awesome and fast I am when, really, It should just be me, setting fastest laps, with no unnecessary data input, like, for example, FROM OTHER FUCKING SLOW-ASS DRIVERS! GAH!”

Mark Webber (3rd)
“First of all congratulations to Nico, it’s a very special place to win here and he had a seamless weekend; that’s what you need to do here. Even though he started in the lead, you still have to pull it off so well done to him. For us, we knew we were a little bit against it starting on the second row, but I got an absolutely incredible start and it’s sod’s law that it’s the shortest run into the first corner here. Seb and I had nowhere to go, so we were lifting while Nico and Lewis looked like they had tricky ones. We will save some of those starts for future reference! Then after that it was basically about saving the tyres and making the one-stop work for us. It was predictable that if the race was going to stack up, then the two-stop was not really an option as you could have come back into traffic. We had to go pretty long and all the drivers were nursing the tyres – it was nice to get Lewis on the stops.”

WEB – “I love how fucking easy it is to appear like a decent, reasonable member of society standing next to VET. How ’bout that start, everybody!? Who’s your daddy now? Amazing things happen when you stomp your foot on the gas pedal as those lights flash red! I gotta remember that for the rest of the season!”

Force India

Adrian Sutil (5th)
“Fifth place feels fantastic. It’s just the result we needed and I’m very happy right now. The car felt very good and we made the most of the chances that came our way. It was difficult to move forward in the first half of the race when I was stuck in the train of cars, but the red flag opened up some more opportunities. It meant that everybody was on the same sprint strategy until the end of the race. I noticed that the hairpin was an area where there was a chance to overtake so I tried it with Jenson and it worked. Then I did the same with Fernando and it worked once again. So I think I showed that overtaking is possible in Monaco. The team did an excellent job all weekend and we definitely deserved this result today.”

SUT – “Did somebody say ‘Australia’? I had almost forgotten how good this shit feels! Now, if I can just keep my over-inflated “I showed that passing at Monaco” ego from blinding me, maybe I won’t go into a another six-race suckfest! Seems unlikely.”

Paul di Resta (9th)
“Given where we started we went with an aggressive strategy and it probably would have paid off without the safety cars. The pace was strong, but I was stuck behind lots of traffic in the early part of the race. I managed to pass a few cars going into turn one, but towards the end of the race the cars were more bunched up and it was not so easy. I was stuck behind Vergne after the restart and I had one good chance to overtake, but he defended very well. Fortunately with the cars ahead battling and making contact I made up some positions and scored a couple of points. So after the disappointment of yesterday, the boys did a great job and it’s good to continue my run of finishes in the points.”

RES – “Force India, fucking up shit in your area! Force India, fucking up shit in your area! Bo knows this and Bo knows that but Bo can’t race F1, so Bo don’t know jack! Yeah, yeah, y’all! I’m totally already counting our constructor dollars! First thing I’m going to do is take a bath in Bernie’s twenty Euro notes. Then I’m changing the livery to ‘Mother-Fucking Force India’!”

McLaren

Jenson Button (6th)
“Things weren’t looking very good initially, but the Monaco Grand Prix is one of those races where you need to hang in there until the very end, because anything can happen – and today it did. My opening laps were good – I overtook Adrian [Sutil] and tried to have a go at Fernando [Alonso] at the hairpin. I tapped his rear wheel, so I wasn’t really paying attention when Checo put a really good move on me out of the tunnel under braking for the Harbour Chicane. After the restart, Adrian also made a really good move on me into the hairpin – I didn’t actually think it would be possible because I’d tried it on Fernando earlier and it didn’t work. Then, in the last few laps, Checo and Kimi [Raikkonen] tangled, and suddenly there was a battle behind them because they were circulating slowly in their damaged cars. So I took the opportunity to jump up the inside of Fernando at Rascasse, which was quite fun, and came home sixth. It was a pity that Checo’s late-race retirement meant we couldn’t score more heavily today – that would have been a big boost for the team – but I bagged a decent number of points, and our pace in clear air was good, so there are positives we can take away from today.”

BUT – “Fuck, I wish being cute equalled being fast. I also wish it meant I didn’t have to have an asshole for a team mate. I will say: having to act nice around Hamilton made me good at acting bummed out about Checo’s tangle with Kimi. In reality, I almost fucking crashed after I took my hands of the wheel to clap happily like a little girl. Fucking Checo.”

Sergio Perez (16th)
“I’d had a great race – I’d been overtaking cars through the afternoon – but in my opinion Kimi didn’t leave me enough room when I tried to pass him as we exited the tunnel, and as a result I got squeezed into the wall on the entry to the Harbour Chicane. That was a real shame – I’d overtaken both Jenson and Fernando there, and Jenson had overtaken me there too, but I couldn’t have avoided the crash with Kimi. Of course, any passing manoeuvre at Monaco is risky, but, at the end of the day, you have to leave each other a little room. As a result of our contact, my car’s brake ducts were affected and my front brakes overheated – in fact I basically ran out of brakes. It’s particularly frustrating to retire from a grand prix in which you’ve driven hard and fast, especially when you’re so near to the finish. So, all in all, I’m extremely disappointed – for the team as much as for myself.”

PER – “Fucking passing people is like fucking crack, man! At first, just passing BUT was fine. That was enough: being all agro and going after the shit even when it was nuts to do so against my own team mate. But, then I needed more and more just to stay high. Pretty soon I was seeing day light everywhere! All the gaps were places to pass, all the spaces were spaces for my car! I was speed itself and my car was an angel. dancing on the heads of tiny, little Dia de Los Muertos skulls. Then, fucking Kimi sent me a .28 millisecond treatment program, located between his icy fist and a cement wall and I’m all better now. I guess I just wish there was a monetary award for ‘Most Hated by Other Drivers, Driver’. . . Maybe Pastor has his lying around from last year.”

Martin Whitmarsh, McLaren team principal
“Jenson drove well all afternoon to finish sixth and thereby score a useful eight world championship points. Checo would also have claimed a decent haul of world championship points but for a coming-together with Kimi that compromised the efficacy of his brake ducts and eventually caused him to lose his braking. He’s disappointed, understandably, but the up-side is that he was combative and entertaining on almost every lap – and, more important still, he was very quick. McLaren has won the Monaco Grand Prix 15 times in the past – considerably more often than any other marque – so of course we’re disappointed not to have been able to notch up win number 16 here today. But we were in the mix throughout, and it’s clear that MP4-28’s developmental trend is positive. Our next race will be the Canadian Grand Prix, which we’ve won 13 times in the past, which puts McLaren first-equal in the all-time Canadian Grand Prix win tally alongside Ferrari. We’re not predicting Canadian Grand Prix win number 14 for McLaren in a fortnight’s time, but undoubtedly we’ll be giving it 100% between now and then in our efforts to make ourselves as competitive as we possibly can.”

Translation Services – I left this Whitmarsh quote in because, on the face of it, I doubt it could get any funnier.

Ferrari
Fernando Alonso (7th)
“Unfortunately today we didn’t manage to have a good pace, as is usually the case on Sunday and I wasn’t pessimistic about not being competitive yesterday, because so far, things have always improved in the race. That wasn’t the case today, maybe down to a lack of traction, a problem we had seen before in Bahrain. This race came at the end of a weekend that overall was difficult, starting with a qualifying that left me in the middle of a group of drivers who had nothing to lose. If I had not cut the chicane, I would not have been able to avoid colliding with Perez and the same thing happened at Loews with Sutil. As for what Sergio did, I don’t have much to say, his approach reminds me of my own in 2008 and 2009, because when you are not fighting for the championship, you can take more risks, while for me today, it was important to finish the race and bring home as many points as possible. That approach has allowed me to close a bit on Kimi in the classification and even if the gap to Vettel has grown a bit, we know that sooner or later, an opportunity will come to close up on him too. Today’s outcome doesn’t bother me in terms of the next round in Canada, because we have to consider Monaco a law unto itself, with a different set-up and unusual strategy as well as being a place where it is almost impossible to overtake. We know there is still much to do to improve, but we are looking ahead with confidence.”

ALO – “Was there a race today?”

Felipe Massa (DNF)
“Today my race ended on Lap 28 after an accident at the Ste Devote corner, just as happened yesterday morning in the third free practice session. I was taken to hospital for all the precautionary checks and luckily everything is in order. I’m alright, I’ve just got a slight pain in my neck, but nothing serious. Now I will look to get in shape and be back 100 percent for the Montreal race. All I want to do is put this bad weekend behind me and think about doing well in the rest of the season.”

MAS – “Does anyone have the number of a good sports psychologist?”

Toro Rosso
Jean-Eric Vergne (8th)
“In some ways, it was rather a boring race, as I never had a clear track ahead of me! All the same, it’s always exciting to race at Monaco, especially when you score points. In the closing stages, Sutil did a good job in front of me passing Jenson and Fernando at the hairpin, but I was coming up behind and couldn’t get past as of course they blocked me. It was a good race of course, finishing eighth and picking up four more points. After some unfortunate races earlier this season, I said good luck and bad luck come round in equal measure and today everything went well for us. On top of that, it was clear that our car was very strong today and in fact I set my best lap really early on with a lot of fuel, as the rest of the time I was in the middle of the pack which was frustrating, as my car was faster than those ahead of me. I’m pleased to be eighth, but I am looking forward to doing better in the coming races.”

VER – “Does anyone have the number of a good psychologist?”

Daniel Ricciardo (DNF)
“My start off the line was fine and I decided to go for the inside as I saw the usual brake locking up ahead and thought that would be the best place to go. But there was a bit of a road block and Bottas was able to go round the outside of me which cost me a position. In the first stint, I struggled on the Prime tyre and after the stop, I was better on the Option, but from then on I was stuck in the pack. As for the crash, I could see that Grosjean had got a good run out of the tunnel and that he was close, so I defended my line and the next thing I knew he was over the back of me. I haven’t seen it on a TV yet, but at the moment I believe it was a misjudgement on his part and a costly one that was quite dangerous, even if we are both okay. This race can be frustrating, as I was in a train, but I didn’t have the pace to move forward. Now we need to move on and try and make a step forward for Canada.”

RIC – “Does anyone have the number of a good psychologist that I can give to GRO?”

Lotus
Kimi Raikkonen (10th)
“It was a really disappointing day. Because of one stupid move from Sergio [Perez] we’ve lost a lot of points to Sebastian [Vettel] in the Championship and you can’t afford to lose ground like that. He hit me from behind and that’s about all there is to it. If he thinks it’s my fault that he came into the corner too fast then he obviously has no idea what he’s talking about. It’s not the first time he’s hit someone in the race; he seems to expect people to be always looking at what he might do, then move over or go straight on if he comes into the corner too quick and isn’t going to make it without running into someone. Not the ideal weekend but there’s nothing we can do about it. At least we got one point back at the end.”

RAI – “I hope fucking PER realizes that DNF-ing is only the beginning of his nightmares. I’m going to have the ice dragons send a message to Ajatar, the evil spirit of the forests. His demonic ass is going to visit little Checo in his dreams, take him across the dark river of Tuonela and force him to watch telenovelas until his fucking brain melts out of his ears.”

Romain Grosjean (DNF)
“Daniel [Ricciardo] seemed to be really struggling with his rear tyres and they looked to have a lot of graining. I’d been following him for almost all of the 61 laps but I was caught out by him braking early in the middle of the circuit and there was nowhere for me to go. It’s a frustrating end to the weekend, but the real damage was done in qualifying when I didn’t get through to Q3. That was Daniel again who I was held up by, but it certainly wasn’t my intention to end my race in the back of his car! Now we just press the reset button and head to Canada hopeful of a better weekend all round.”

GRO – “Blame the tyres? Check. Blame another driver? Check. Blame the tyres on another driver’s car? Check. Blame the driver up whose ass I drove for my qualifying issues? Check. Let’s see. . . . . what have I forgotten. . . ? I l feel like I’m forgetting something. . . Don’t I usually blame one other thing. . . ? What? Oh, I can’t blame the car? Why not? Huh? There aren’t any chassis left for me? I broke them all? Fuck.”

Sauber
Nico Hulkenberg (11th)
“We couldn’t expect any miracles today, and yesterday we weren’t in the top ten either. Today we just lacked speed throughout the race. Unlike most of the other drivers, I started on soft tyres at the re-start, which was ok in the beginning. But, after another Safety Car, the tyres never came back to life again. The rears especially degraded a lot. When I got out of the car I could see the steel belt, so it’s no wonder the pace wasn’t good enough anymore. It’s a shame, as that point would have been ours.”

HUL – “Are we still blaming the tyres for everything? Or should I be tying this around PER’s neck somehow?”

Esteban Gutierrez (13th)
“It was very challenging to bring the car back home without any scratches or a crash. The first Safety Car compromised our strategy and in the end we just had to make the best out of that situation. We couldn’t expect to score points, but I did my best to use every opportunity I had to gain positions. Nevertheless, it was also important to not go over the limit and finish the race. I had a good re-start and was able to fight, but one of the points where we have to improve is the top speed in order to be able to fight for positions. It was tough with Williams in front and Lotus behind. On the other hand, I need to work so I can cope better with changing conditions in qualifying.”

GUT – “Note to self: start telling everyone I’m from Guatemala, then respond with, ‘I know, I know! I can’t believe it either!’, when they trash-talk Sergio.”

Williams
Valtteri Bottas (12th)
“It was difficult to overtake in the race today and even though sometimes we felt like we had the pace, we couldn’t make the moves we wanted. There was a lot of action in an eventful race so I was happy to bring the car home. We need to keep pushing because Montreal will be a track that is easier to overtake, so we need to ensure we have the speed to attack and defend.”

BOT – “Whew! Glad that shit is over!”

Pastor Maldonado (DNF)
“It was an unfortunate incident today with the Marussia car and the impact was quite big. Fortunately I am ok and the stewards took immediate action. We need to move on from a disappointing weekend but I’m looking forward to the next race in Canada, where we will be continuing to demonstrate the improvements in the car.”

MAL – “I like racing in Canada. Everyone’s really nice and I can spell the country’s name without having to look it up on Google Maps.”

Marussia
Max Chilton (14th)
“Overall I’m pleased with a positive conclusion to the race after what has been a difficult weekend for us. I fought hard in the latter stages to ensure we had something good to take away from Monaco and naturally I am very happy that I was able to get past Van Der Garde on the penultimate lap for 14th. With regard to the accident with Pastor, Esteban made a late lunge into the chicane and I could see he was locked up so I had to take action to avoid him, which meant missing the chicane. I rejoined coming out of Turn 11 and the apex to Turn 12 was fast approaching. I was aware that someone was behind me but not alongside me. The stewards determined a drive-through penalty for me and I accept that decision. After the race I went to see Pastor to check he was okay. The incident made for a difficult rest of the race but all I could do was concentrate on the best result for the Team and, problems aside, I think we have to be pleased with the end result.”

CHI – “GUYS! HOLY SHIT! MONACO! I GOT SO CAUGHT UP IN THE HISTORY AND GLORY AND SHIT THAT I TOTALLY STOPPED PAYING ATTENTION! I FEEL TERRIBLE ABOUT HITTING PASTOR BUT, AT LEAST I HIT SOMEONE THAT NOBODY LIKES, AM I RIGHT? I HEARD ALL THE OTHER DRIVERS ARE TAKING UP A COLLECTION TO GET ME TO BUMP INTO SERGIO NEXT WEEK. IT’S A LOT LIKE HAVING FRIENDS! GLAD TO BE HERE!”

Jules Bianchi (DNF)
“After a tough weekend here in Monaco I was hopeful that we might have the opportunity to turn things around in the race, but it was not to be, unfortunately. On the grid at the start I had an electrical problem and couldn’t select gear, so I had to start from the pit lane. It was a bit worrying but at least I could start. For that early part of the race I was right with Max but I had to think about looking after the tyres and hope that the race would come to me. After Maldonado hit the barrier in the accident with Max, the barrier came back out at me and my nose was damaged, so I had just pitted when the Red Flag came out. I was lucky that the damage was only limited to the nose and I could continue with the race. After that I was just looking to bring the car home, but I had a failure of the right front brake disc and that took me out at Ste Devote. It’s a big shame but we have learned a lot I’m sure from some of the problems we had this weekend.”

BIA – “If learning is crashing and DNF’ing, I earned my fucking PhD this weekend.”

Caterham

Giedo van der Garde (15th)
“That was a pretty crazy race! I made a good start from 15th but then Maldonado hit me, damaging the floor and meaning I had to come straight in for a new nose on lap one. I rejoined in 22nd and at that point, even though I had good pace and was catching the pack up again, it looked like my race was over, especially after losing KERS on lap 10. We were able to reset KERS and then Monaco did what it always does, and when the safety car came out for Massa’s crash I was able to unlap myself and get back into the action. In the car it felt like I couldn’t have any less luck, but then on lap 45 I was with Chilton, Bianchi and Maldonado when they had their incident. I didn’t really see what happened between them, but obviously the red flag gave me a chance to start again, this time from 18th. From the restart, on soft tyres and with 28 laps to go, I was holding position in 17th after Chilton’s drive-through and then the second safety car came out and I moved up to 14th when a couple of cars ahead pitted. I was right behind Bottas, in front of Gutierrez, but unfortunately after 13 laps the tyres were destroyed. I had Chilton right behind me and with the tyres in the state they were I couldn’t hold him off so I finished 15th. After the way the race started, just to be there at the end was pretty good, but it’s obviously not how we wanted it to go after such a good Saturday. However, it’s another race done, more lessons learned and, overall, a pretty good weekend.”

GAR – “I totally should not have dropped acid right before this race. But this mad hottie in a bikini ran up to me and snuggled up closely and I could feel her youth and beauty radiating through my track suit and I put my arm around her. She whispered something in my ear, something I didn’t quite catch because fucking Buxton went by, then, in his ridiculous sport coat and those giant headphones and his brow was all furrowed like he was thinking really hard about something important and deep. . . Yeah, I know: about F1, right? Hah! Anyway, it was really distracting and I opened my mouth to ask this hottie what she had said and, right then, she stuck her finger in my mouth and I felt something dissolve on my tongue. I got in my car and right as all the lights went red, I realized that I wasn’t in Monaco, I was in Yankee stadium and it was the ninth inning and I was pitching to Babe Ruth, but it wasn’t Babe Ruth, it was a purple dragon and dragon whispered in my ear and it was then that I realized that I had heard what the Bikini Hottie had said: ‘Tyres,’ she said. ‘Blame the tyres.’ Next thing I know, there’s a checkered flag and I see ROS all happy and VET crying what looked like oil and HAM shaking his head and I’m finishing the race and it’s like magic.”

Charles Pic (DNF)
“It’s obviously disappointing for my race to end that early, especially as I’d made a really good start and was running in 15th ahead of Gutierrez and just behind Di Resta on the same pace as him when I had to stop. It looks like the cause of the retirement was a gearbox problem and the fire was from the exhausts which had overheated. It looked a lot more dramatic than it felt in the car – I could feel there was a problem and started pulling over and as soon as the car stopped there was a lot of smoke, but it was all out quickly and the marshals did a good job to clear it away without bringing out the safety car. As I say, it’s a shame as we’d had a good weekend until that point. The car felt great in the race and as our deg levels were good on the long runs we were looking at stopping only once which could have put us right in the middle of the action. However, we’re in Canada next, at another circuit where I think we’ll be able to show how the car’s pace keeps improving, and with a bit more luck we’ll be in a position to have a better weekend.”

PIC – “The clag in Monaco is not all that tasty. It is money-flavored, though, and money makes everything taste better. Plus, mostly, I eat the clag out of the belly buttons of bikini hotties and that makes clag taste better, too. I’m really looking forward to Canada though, because the clag there is served with bacon and all the beer you can drink!”

Pirelli
Paul Hembery, Pirelli motorsport director
“Once again, we saw a Monaco Grand Prix where safety cars and a red flag played a prominent role. This had a defining effect on strategy, effectively meaning that all the careful pre-race planning went out of the window. Nonetheless, we experienced the expected low levels of tyre wear and degradation: in fact the race leader went one lap longer this year during his first stint on the supersoft compared to last year, even though the compounds are generally softer. After the race was stopped, most drivers chose to re-start on used supersofts, having to make them last for 32 laps for the finish – although they were certainly helped by a second safety car period. Congratulations to Nico Rosberg and Mercedes, who dominated every session and led an action-packed grand prix from start to finish. We also saw some great performances lower down the field from drivers who used their tyres and strategy to very good effect, despite the extremely unpredictable race circumstances.”

Hembery – “I’m through taking all y’all’s shit! Renew our fucking contract for next year, don’t renew our fucking contract for next year. I COULD GIVE A SHIT. Secret fucking testing for everyone! Except those assholes at RBR. “For safety”, my fucking ass! Hembrey OUT!”

2013 Spanish GP, Post-Race Quotes, Translated

Posted on May 13, 2013 by Fygar

What do mean there’s no podium spot for fourth? You get your fucking ass some fucking wood and a fucking hammer and you add a podium spot for fourth place. The VET-BOT only finishes on the podium!!!! I’ll just have Massa share his magnum with me.

Ferrari
Fernando Alonso (1st)
“Even if this is the third time I’ve won a home race, the emotion is still very strong, as if it had never happened before. It’s nice to be able to give the whole of Spain this win, especially at a time when the country is in crisis and for many people, it’s not possible to come here to bring their support. I thank everyone for that support and the team for doing a fantastic job. After a far from easy qualifying, everything went perfectly, the start, the strategy, pit stops, tyre management. At the start, I had to make up some places but after passing the halfway point on the straight, there was no more room to do so. So I switched off the KERS, so as to use it in Turn 3, where I realised, after watching the GP2 race, that it was possible to attack around the outside. We had to bring forward the final stop because of a slow puncture which meant the left rear tyre was losing pressure in the final part of the lap, but fortunately, that had no effect on the final outcome. I think that with this car we can fight for the World Championship, because in five races we have finished second once and had two wins. From now on, we must manage to produce a consistent performance and score as many points as possible because we are well aware that we are not the quickest and to change that many people are working night and day at the track and in Maranello.”

ALO – VET, this is what’s like to have a soul. People fucking freak out when you win. Winning should not be like a sunrise, winning should be like a fucking supernova. Also, my girlfriend. So, fuck all y’all: ALO esta regresado! Confidential to Pirelli: For the love of Dios, don’t change the tires! If we have to do five stops, it does not matter. All that matters are the oily robot-tears of VET, moistening the track and fogging his visor.

Felipe Massa (3rd)
“I am very happy with this podium. It was a really nice race and a fantastic result for the whole team. When you start from far back everything’s more complicated, but I managed to get away well and I immediately had a fantastic pace. On the first lap I pulled off a few overtaking moves thanks to the car being very competitive, which meant I could be aggressive, while at the same time looking after the tyres. Right to the very end, I thought it might be possible to fight with Kimi, but when I fitted my last set of Hard tyres, the ones we thought would be best as they were new, I had oversteer and began to lose the rear much earlier than I had expected. All the same, I am very pleased with our performance at this track. Now we head for Monaco, a completely different track where overtaking is very difficult. We know we don’t have the quickest car, but all we can do is continue to work with the same amount of effort, because I’m sure we are going in the right direction.”

MAS – Holy Mother of God! Is this what CHI feels like when he finishes a race?! No wonder he’s all caps, all the time! THIS FEELS AWESOME! I don’t have a new girlfriend, I just have a new mantra: “Alonso’s coat-tails, Alonso’s coat-tails, Alonso’s coat-tails” So far, it is totally working!

Lotus
Kimi Raikkonen (2nd)
“Unfortunately it’s second place again so it’s not time to celebrate too much. The car felt good and we did pretty much all we could today, but we didn’t have the pace to challenge Fernando [Alonso]. I drove to the maximum and it’s good for the championship that Sebastian finished behind us. It’s nice to be on the podium for me and the team; let’s see what we can do in Monaco.”

RAI – At some point, you get fucking tired of being the fucking Barry Sanders of F1.

Romain Grosjean (DNF)
“I made a poor start but after that I was on the pace and we know we’re able to produce good race strategies, so there was potential for a strong result today. The car was feeling pretty good until we had an issue with the rear suspension which meant I had to return to the pits and retire from the race, which is a great shame. It’s always disappointing for everyone when something like this happens but there’s no-one to blame; it’s just a part of motor racing.”

GRO – Man! And I was totally loving that new chassis! No, I mean like, really loving that chassis. Like, no, we were going to get married; it understood me. What? You don’t understand? You wouldn’t, man. You wouldn’t.

Red Bull
Sebastian Vettel (4th)
“I think we can be happy with fourth today. The first three cars were a little bit too fast for us and regarding looking after the tyres, they did a better job. We need to catch up; we’re not going the pace of the car, we’re going the pace of the tyres and obviously we do something to make the tyres wear more. We got some good points today, although of course we wanted more. The start was good, we then tried to hold on with a three-stop strategy, but had to change to four stops.”

VET – I hope nobody noticed how I just about gave up and pouted my way to fourth. Perhaps if I spend the next two weeks, stomping my feet and diving onto my bed angrily, shouting that I hate Marko, I hate him! they’ll let me try out a four-stop strategy, like, as a strategy and not a mid-race conniption fit. I know I’m mixing my pop-culture references, here, but, seriously: you, you, you won’t like me when I’m angry. Just say that while breathing like Darth Vader and you’ll kinda get the gist of my emotional state right now.

Mark Webber (5th)
“We were struggling for the range and a bit of pace today, to be honest. The Ferraris and the Lotus were in a bit of a different league and that made it hard for us to compete today. I think we got the most out of what we had, particularly as by the first corner I was probably 14th or 15th, so to come back with that result was pretty good. We managed to get back in to the scheme of things, but we were always a little bit on the back foot in terms of tyre wear and ultimately pace. If you don’t have the pace, then you can’t have the magic strategy. I was happy with how I drove and we got some points, but it wasn’t the result we wanted.”

WEB – Maybe we could just have a thing where I don’t start with the other racers and I just start from 15th or 20th and then work my way up and it won’t be so embarrassing when I’m on the grid, grinding into first gear as the likes of CHI and RIC drive around me. I’ve got to stop taking racing hints from my grandfather! Best part of the race? Finishing fifth, right behind VET! The sound of his sad-no-podium-for-me tears, splashing on my visor, was like the laughter of a thousand school-children, racing out the doors to the first day of summer vacation. . .. Or, considering that it’s VET we’re talking about: it’s more like the sound of guys laughing at dirty jokes as they club baby seals. Either way, it was a nice sound.

Mercedes
Nico Rosberg (6th)
“I had a very tough race this afternoon. The start was good and I managed my first stint well to keep some of the quicker cars behind me. From there, I had to drive my own race and we began to go backwards as it made no sense to destroy my tyres by trying to stay ahead. We didn’t have the pace of the quickest cars today and there’s a growing gap to three teams ahead of us which we need to get on top of. We have a very quick car but we have to make it work for us in the race.”

ROS – Fuckity fuck fuck. Fucking bullshit. Fuck, fuck and fuck. . .. . . .. FUCK!

Lewis Hamilton (12th)
“A difficult afternoon today and going backwards is never fun. We switched to a four-stop strategy during the race but I suffered with a lack of grip and balance throughout and we were never really able to get the tyres working. I know that everyone at the team is working so hard and we need to keep positive. I’m sure we will figure the problem out and we’ve got to keep pushing together to close the gap. I will be doing my best to help and encourage the guys.”

HAM – Where’s T-Dawg, my producer? I’ve got some great lyrics for a really sad song about a guy who’s trying to remain positive but knows it’s all this, like, farce and the guy just flys off to L.A. with his dog and his girlfriend while these sad-sacks try to work magic on this mud-flap of a car but, in the end, it’s ok, ’cause I got mad beats, my dog, my God, and my girl. Bless.

Force India
Paul di Resta (7th)
“We said before the race that seventh would be a good result and towards the end I was even fighting for sixth. So we can take a lot of positives from the weekend because this is a track that has traditionally not suited our car. It was a great effort by the team to get through to Q3 yesterday and come away with a seventh place today. The result shows the consistency that we have had since the start of the year and that we can perform each weekend. There’s more to come too, because there is more we can do to optimise the car with the new parts we introduced here, but this is definitely a big result for us.”

RES – Can’t wait to be the PER hot-commodity for 2014! Oh. . .. . wait.

Adrian Sutil (13th)
“It’s extremely disappointing to come away empty handed from this race because we were so quick today. My start was very good and I went around the outside of the first corner, which worked well because I was up in eighth by the end of the first lap. It was all going to plan until the first pit stop when there was an issue and I lost so much time. The team told me to switch the engine off while they sorted the problem, but it cost me the chance of points. For the rest of the race it was a case of pushing as much as possible because you never know what can happen. It’s frustrating, but you have to accept these things. Hopefully it will not happen again.”

SUT – Racing is hard!

McLaren
Jenson Button (8th)
“That was an interesting race. The lap to the grid was very slow, which hurt us, and my start wasn’t great. I had no grip, so Turn One was a mess. I was unlucky to end up 17th at the end of lap one.We took the same approach as in China, adopting a different strategy from the others. To finish eighth show what a good job the team did with the strategy. I don’t know whether we’ve improved our package or not, but we certainly beat some cars that we possibly shouldn’t have beaten. Still, it’s a positive that both cars finished in the points, and hopefully this’ll be the start of an upward trend. We gathered a lot of useful information today, and we’ll be working on that over the next few races in order to continue developing MP4-28. I want to say a big thank-you for all the support I’ve received from the British fans this weekend. It’s great to see so many Vodafone ‘rocket red’ caps and T-shirts in the grandstands. Hopefully, we’ll have a full house at Silverstone and we’ll be stronger there. There’s still a lot of work to do. It’s tough at the moment, but I’m pleased that we’re making the best of what we have.”

BUT – Did we lower expectations enough so that this result seemed acceptable? No? It still seemed sad? Fuck.

Sergio Perez (9th)
“That wasn’t the race I’d hoped for. It’s so difficult to manage these tyres. We didn’t do a perfect job, and, like many drivers, I required four pitstops. So I didn’t maximise the full potential of our car today, so I wasn’t happy in that respect, but, having said that, I think it’s been a stronger weekend overall for us. Our car is still improving, and I think we can do a slightly better job at Monaco. After that I hope we’ll be able to gradually close the gap to the cars in front of us over the next few races.”

PER – When I say “cars in front of us”, I mean, “the cars in front of me”. When I say, “cars in front of me”, I mean, “GET FUCKING BUTTON THE FUCK OUT OF MY WAY!!!!”.

Martin Whitmarsh, McLaren team principal
“Jenson drove a typically classy race to work his way back from a very unlucky start, which saw him drop almost to the back of the field, all the way through to eighth place at the finish. To do that, on this circuit, where overtaking is notoriously difficult, and in this car, which we know is not yet as competitive as we need it to be, was a seriously impressive feat. And to do it on a three-stop strategy, managing the tyres with impeccable care yet still keeping the pace consistently strong while so doing, was more remarkable still. By contrast, like most drivers here today, Checo opted for a four-stop strategy – but, like Jenson, he also drove a very good race, finishing in ninth place not far behind his far more experienced team-mate. At the end of the race Checo’s tyres required diligent nursing, but like Jenson he managed the situation very capably. We scored six world championship points today, and of course we aren’t satisfied with that. Nonetheless, to score points with both cars in what was a decidedly technical race is a very creditable achievement, and constitutes a solid platform from which to move forwards from here on in. Next we go to Monaco, a grand prix that McLaren has won a record 15 times in the past – and, although we aren’t predicting a 16th McLaren victory on those famously tortuous streets this year, we’ll be doing our utmost there to score as many world championship points there as we possibly can.”

Whitmarsh – We have sucked a lot less in the past. I hope everyone remembers that! Especially when it comes to making staffing decisions for 2014!

Toro Rosso
Daniel Ricciardo (10th)
“I had a really poor start off the line, with a lot of wheelspin and, to be honest, the first few laps of the race I really struggled with front grip and locking the front brakes. I tried to be patient and eventually it improved and I could see the cars ahead of me were not pulling away so much. It was disappointing to lose ground like that, but the pace itself was not too bad. At the first stop, we made quite a few changes in terms of wing settings and tyre pressures and that helped, so the next two stints were quite good and I made a few passing moves, so it was certainly not a boring race. But then, towards the end of the race, our pace began to fade again. It wasn’t easy to get tenth, even if we looked on course to get more than the one point earlier in the race, so it’s better than nothing.”

RIC – Of course, I don’t know what the fuck I’m talking about. All I should be talking about is the boner I have for coming in ahead of HAM.

Jean-Eric Vergne (DNF)
“After a good start, I then had a lot of understeer and we had to keep adding a lot of wing at each pit stop, which didn’t really help. The strategy we adopted was the right one and even with a damaged floor and wing I was able to do good lap times. Yet again I was unlucky and I hope that stops soon, because as I was coming into the pits, Sauber did an unsafe release with Hulkenberg who drove into me and then I had a problem with a tyre, so it was one problem after another today. I plan to have a better weekend in Monaco in two weeks’ time. I haven’t lost hope for the future, given the performance we had shown earlier in the weekend and it’s just such a shame as that good pace should have allowed us to score points today.”

VER – You know the sound that puking makes? Yeah, that’s how I feel about my race. Anybody needs me, I’ll be watching the White, Blue and Red Trilogy, trying to squeeze some meaning from this seemingly meaningless existence.

Sauber
Esteban Gutierrez (11th)
“I focused on getting the most out of the car today, and it was important to achieve a result like this for me and the team. The team has given me the patience and tools to improve as a driver and this is what I could extract from the car. It was a tough race and tyre management was critical. At the beginning of the race I was quite surprised about how much I could get out of the tyres. The last two stints were a bit more difficult, but this is a step forward.”

GUT – Y’all ever watched “Y Tu Mama Tambien”? I’m the less bitchy, non-rich Mexican No. 2 of F1. Glad to be here!

Nico Hulkenberg (15th)
“We knew that it would be a difficult race today. The start went well and, until the incident in the pit lane, we looked quite good. We planned for a three stop, but then had to convert to a four stop. But then we had the incident, which ruined the race for us. Obviously the timing wasn’t quite right, but we are a team, so we have to look into it and make sure it does not happen again. Overall the car still felt quite difficult to drive, and I think we still have some homework ahead of us.”

HUL – The late stages of “Hulkenberg-Fever!” sadly, seem to include a lot of shivering and aches and pains and losing. I just have to learn to say no when WEB offers me his Viagra, saying that shit cures everything!

Williams
Pastor Maldonado (14th)
“The pace was unfortunately not in the car today. We made one more pit stop than we hoped to because I was given a drive-through penalty for speeding in the pitlane but overall we did the best we could. We now need to regroup, work hard and prepare for Monaco.”

MAL – There are a lot of fucking buttons and numbers on this steering wheel. Isn’t it enough that I go around on this closed track without getting lost?! Now I gotta worry about how fast I go in pit lane??!

Valtteri Bottas (16th)
“I couldn’t feel the grip in the car and we were sliding a lot from the start which meant we were hard on the tyres. We made a three-stop strategy work but in the end, Pastor switched to a four-stop race and that seemed to be better. We’re not where we want to be, so there is still a lot of work to do.”

BOT – It could’ve been VET’s robo-tears making the track slick or it could be that I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing. . . Either way, glad to be here!

Caterham
Charles Pic (17th)
“I’m really happy with today’s performance. Finishing 17th doesn’t really tell the whole story as we ended the race right behind one of the Williams cars which shows that we’ve made some good progress this weekend. The blue flags didn’t help as without them I’d have had a much better chance of overtaking him, but it was still good that I could attack him in the last few laps. The car felt great for the whole race, particularly after my third stop when we went for a 25 lap final stint on the hard tyres and I was able to manage the degradation levels well which meant I could push right to the flag. It’s good to have a Sunday like this as I hadn’t really been able to get the most out of the new package on Friday or Saturday, but it felt good right from the first lap today. There’s still more to come from the parts we brought here, quite a bit more in fact, so we’ll work on that back at the factory and see how much more we can extract for the next race in Monaco. That’s obviously going to be busy for me and the whole team, but after seeing the pace we had today, more to come from the race five update and the fact the team has been strong there in the past, I think it could be a really interesting weekend for us.”

PIC – I gotta say: I love the shit out these clag tapas! It’s like all these little dishes of crazy, fun clag combinations and you just keep eating and eating and drinking and drinking and pretty soon it’s 3am and you lost an F1 race again!

Giedo van der Garde (DNF)
“It’s obviously such a shame that my race ended like it did today, but sometimes these things happen. I’d had a great start and was fighting with Button and both Williams cars through the first couple of stints The car felt great, really good and I was definitely having the best of the season so far. When I came in for my second stop I could feel that there was a problem with the left rear as soon as I rejoined the track. At some point the wheel came off so I tried to make it back to the garage to see if I could continue, but once the team had taken a close look it was clear I had to retire the car. As I say, it’s a shame but it’s another lesson for me and the team. Sometimes you don’t have the luck, but we have a lot of positives to take from this weekend. The updates on the car are working well, and we have more to come. Our race pace is really good, strong enough to fight with a few cars ahead and my quali performance was easily my best this year. Next up we go to Monaco, a track I know well and one where I was on the podium twice last year in GP2, and in Formula Renault 3.5, so another qualifying performance like I had in Spain, and a race like I had until retiring today, and I think we can do well.”

GAR – Anybody needs me, I’m going to be in my wooden shoes, in a bath tub filled with tulip petals, watching DVDs of windmills, thinking of all the exciting ice-skating I used to do with my brother, Hans. Nobody disturb me until I can be immediately carted from the Monaco airport to a yacht-full of bikini-clad hotties.

Marussia
Jules Bianchi (18th)
“I feel like I drove a really hard race today but there is not so much to show for it. I am obviously pleased to have had three strong middle stints but the damage was done in the opening few laps when I had to pit for a new nose. I think we recovered well from this and had we not had the extra stop we could have been fighting with Bottas today. Our lap time was much faster than theirs and I managed to get the gap down to eight seconds in the final stint, but pushing so hard stretched the tyres too much and I had to back off to just focus on getting the car home. Another two-car finish is important to us. It was a race that demanded all my concentration and I certainly put all of the tyre management experience I have gained in the first four races to good use today, so it was quite an exhausting day but one which also had some positive highlights. I will focus on these and hope for better things in my home race in Monaco in two weeks’ time.”

BIA – I just had three weeks off and this racing shit is exhausting, yo!

Max Chilton (19th)
“It was disappointing to have such a problematic start to the race and then we had the pit stop issue, which was a further setback. What is encouraging is my lap time in free air today, which I’m pretty pleased with, and it’s good to be able to demonstrate more of my outright pace than I’ve been able to over the past few races. If we can get on top of some of these problems we can really start to come into our own a bit more. The pace is there so we should be able to get back to closing the gap to the midfield. Next it’s one of my favourite races and I’ll be doing everything I can to prepare for my first time out in a Formula 1 car there. Hopefully we can enjoy a better reward for our efforts.”

CHI – GUYS! HOLY SHIT! ONCE AGAIN, I FINISHED. . . .ALIVE, YO! NEXT WEEK: MONACO, GUYS! SO MANY HOT WOMEN! AND A RACE! SO GLAD TO BE HERE!!

Perez, Translated

Posted on May 10, 2013 by Fygar

“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!!'”

Confidential to Red Bull Racing

Posted on April 23, 2013 by Fygar

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!

2013 Bahrain GP, Post-Race Driver’s Quotes, Translated

Posted on April 22, 2013 by Fygar

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!??

Friday Practice, Translated

Posted on April 20, 2013 by Fygar

In fact, it is true: every time a driver bitches about the tyres, an angel gets their wings.

Thanks for the link, Bernie!

Lotus
Kimi Raikkonen, P1 – 1:35.345, 9th; P2 – 1:34.154, 1st
“It’s nice to be fastest but you never know what the others are doing; we just stick to our programme and don’t take too much notice of what else is happening. I actually made a mistake through the final corners on my fastest lap, so there’s still more time to be found. It’s tricky to get the setup right here and the wind can make a big difference; it might work for you one way but make things more tricky the other. It wasn’t a bad start today; things aren’t exactly where we want them but we’re reasonably fast, so let’s see what we can do from here.”

RAI – “See? While all you little bitches are changing your diapers and crying because daddy won’t give you different tyres, I am quietly kicking all of your asses. Even, EVEN if I don’t win this race or the Driver’s Championship, I’ll earn the begrudging respect of the most devoted non-Lotus fan becauseI don’t spend half my life bitching about shit I can’t control!!!!”

Romain Grosjean, P1 – 1:35.611, 10th; P2 – 1:34.631, 7th
“The new chassis feels good. Today we’ve been working on getting the right correlation between chassis, setup and tyres to extract everything we want from it. It’s easy to know what you want, the difficult bit is getting the little details sorted, but we’re getting there and it’s been a positive day. We’ve seen that Kimi was fastest today so that gives us a great target for tomorrow.”

GRO – “7th?! I told you assholes to let me smash up the nose and wing before I went out there!!”

Alan Permane, Lotus trackside operations director
“It was a fairly standard Friday for us, which is a nice way to start the weekend. We looked at setup work in the morning before moving to longer runs, higher fuel race pace and degradation analysis on both tyre compounds in the afternoon, with no problems or interruptions to the programme. We were able to push both allocated compounds of tyres pretty well in the hot conditions today and generally the cars are well balanced. Romain’s running a new chassis and overall is happy with the car so we’re looking forward to an exciting qualifying session tomorrow.”

Permane – “Except for Roman’s useless bitching, could anyone love life more than me right now? Maybe Kanye West, he is tapping all the best asses, right? Other than him: I wouldn’t trade places with anyone else in the world. I see Horner in the Director’s lounge, in a corner, crying, an ashtray full of butts on the table in front of him, holding his head in his hands and I just laugh and laugh and laaaauuugh.”

Red Bull
Mark Webber, P1 – 1:35.101, 7th; P2 – 1:34.184, 2nd
“I would have liked to have got some more running in P2, but I still think we learned what we expected today. Saturdays are perhaps becoming less important overall than they used to be, but they’re still important in terms of traffic. You don’t want to be in too much traffic on Sunday, as the tyres don’t like being disturbed and wear more which will shorten your first stint – so you still need to be in a good position. We still have areas to improve on the car. Lotus and Ferrari look strong and Mercedes is there too.”

WEB – “I keep getting these scrawled notes in my mailbox. They say: ‘Mark, This is God. I’m not sure why. Maybe you’re just too good-looking. Yo, sorry, but, I JUST HATE YOUR GUTS. Love, God.'”

Sebastian Vettel, P1 – 1:34.790, 4th; P2 – 1:34.282, 3rd
“It’s pretty close. If you look at the opposition then Ferrari and Lotus were strong today and I think it will be close in qualifying. It’s important to work with the tyres around the track. I wasn’t so happy with my short runs today – but that’s why we have the Friday practice sessions I guess; I was happier with the longer runs. The tyres still seem to be the dominating factor. The car seems quick, so we have to make sure we use that and then we should be on the right page.”

VET – I am so glad to be in Bahrain! All these protestors, taking rubber bullets from some King or something. For once, it’s nice not to be the biggest asshole in the country where we’re racing.

Ferrari
Fernando Alonso, P1 – 1:34.564, 2nd; P2 – 1:34.310, 4th
“It was a positive day and we are reasonably pleased with how the car behaved. We had no major problems and more importantly, we didn’t have to make any radical changes to the F138 to adapt it to this track and its long straights and slow corners, characteristics which I like a lot and usually produce a great show in the race. Unfortunately, the wind and sand make everything a bit more complicated here, because the track surface never gets completely clean. However, the initial feelings are good and I think we can be up in the leading group tomorrow, a group that is all within the same two, maximum three-tenths. We have not yet decided if we will use the aero updates we tried in the morning. It is not yet completely clear how they worked and in the afternoon, we concentrated on comparing the two tyre compounds we have for this race. Ahead of us is another long evening of studying data to choose the best strategy and set-up for qualifying and the race.”

ALO – Oh. My. GOD. Did you hear that, you fucking assholes? I’m, like, pretending to be worried about the wind. .. and the sand. We’re thinking we might put this wing on the car that makes it go even FASTER. . .Or, we might not. Seriously: at this point, we really are totally fucking with all of you. Maybe I’ll “bitch” about the tyres, just to make it seem like I care. Really, the only thing that scares me are those ice dragons that always seen to be around Kimi. . . What? What do you mean: ‘What ice dragons?’ You SEE THEM, right?! Oh, fuck.”

Felipe Massa, P1 – 1:34.487, 1st; P2 – 1:34.552, 6th
“Everything went well today, even if it’s not easy to say at the moment where we will be on Sunday. Car balance was good and it behaved well in all conditions, even if we suffered a bit with tyre wear, especially at the rear. It’s pretty normal to have significant degradation in such high temperatures and on this front, we have a lot of work to do to prepare for the race. On the medium tyres, the F138 worked really well, even over a long run, but the key on Sunday will be managing the degradation of both compounds, as well as deciding on whether or not to use the updates we tried here this morning.”

MAS – “Fuck me, I need a hotter girlfriend.”

Pat Fry, Ferrari chassis director

“Of the aerodynamic updates we tried this morning, some worked well, while with others we have yet to decide if we will use them this weekend, because it is still too early to say what real advantage they bring. There was not enough time to test them fully, but I’m still pleased at how we managed to get through the work programme planned for both cars. In the afternoon session, we had a good balance on the hard tyre, while we found it a little bit more difficult with the Medium. On this compound, Fernando was unable to improve his time, partly down to traffic, but I’m sure that tomorrow he will find a way to go better. Race pace seems good here and now we face a careful analysis of all the data we gathered to see where we are compared to our main rivals.”

Fry – “Muhahahahahaaaaaaaa! MUHAHAHAAAAAAAAAAAA!”

Force India
Paul di Resta, P1 – 1:34.949, 5th; P2 – 1:34.543, 5th
“As Fridays go it’s been positive and we’ve achieved as much as we could realistically have hoped for. The car is working well and responding as we expected, and we’ve already got a reasonable idea of where we stand. There is still some optimising to do, as always, but if we can take another step forward tonight we should be in a strong position going into qualifying.”

RES – “It’s ‘Force India’! Who the fuck am I kidding?”

Adrian Sutil, P1 – 1:35.119, 8th; P2 – 1:34.932, 9th
“Lots of laps and lots of things to evaluate today, but I’m still not totally comfortable with the car – either for short or long runs. It all feels very low grip at the moment so the set-up is not quite right for me yet. As for the tyres, there are no real concerns. My long runs looked competitive and both the medium and hard compounds seem to be working well for us in the high temperatures – as they did in Malaysia.”

SUT – “I am seriously considering not hitting Paul this weekend. OK, hey, when do we go back to Australia?”

Mercedes

Nico Rosberg, P1 – 1:34.621, 3rd; P2 – 1:34.666, 8th
“Our test programme was pretty good today in that we managed to complete everything on our plan. However it’s clear that we weren’t as strong as on the Fridays of the previous three race weekends. The car had a lot of understeer and the race will be very tough on the rear tyres. The problem is that when you want to save the rear tyres, you try to set up the car with more understeer and that costs you time over one lap. So it’s all about finding the right compromise. We’ve still got some work to do tonight to find a good balance for tomorrow and the race.”

ROS – “This car is like a Republican. Booooo, Compromise!”

Lewis Hamilton, P1 – 1:35.792, 13th; P2 – 1:34.976, 10th
“We worked as hard as we could today but couldn’t quite get the balance of the car to where it needs to be. I had some issues in P1 which we were able to improve for this afternoon so that’s a positive, but we need to identify where we are losing time and find more performance. We have changed the set-up of the car to what we thought would suit this track but we need to look at that and make sure it is the right direction to go. The heat here is so hard on the tyres so another positive is that we did as many laps as possible to look at long runs and race preparation. We’re not as far off as we might look today but there is a lot of hard work ahead and it will be a tough battle for us this weekend.”

HAM – “We worked as hard as we could this weekend. Except for when I was re-tweeting tweets with the N-word in the hashtags. I’m fucking pissed at Kimi for taking away the tyres as a valid excuse. Shit, people are going to start thinking I have some sort of control over the outcome! Bless.”

Ross Brawn, Mercedes team principal
“Neither driver enjoyed the same good balance today that we achieved during practice at the past three races and, in the hot conditions, that proved quite damaging for the tyre condition and therefore overall pace. We got a good read on how the two tyre types compare and were also able to compare some set-up items such as downforce levels to assess their impact over long and short runs. There is a lot of data to analyse and clear areas for improvement, so we will be working late into the night in order to find better solutions for tomorrow.”

Brawn – “I give it ’til Monaco. After that, Lewis is going to be tweeting telemetry between that inspirational bullshit and pictures of Roscoe.”

McLaren
Jenson Button, P1 – 1:35.069, 6th; P2 – 1:35.356, 11th
“Today’s sessions were very productive for us. We completed some useful investigative work this morning before focusing on longer runs this afternoon. It’s very difficult to know exactly what to do with set-up. This is a big traction circuit, with lots of low-speed exits and a few high-speed corners too, and that puts a lot of load into the rear tyres. The tyres are behaving a bit strangely here – driving conservatively doesn’t seem to help their wear-life, so there’s only so much you can do without damaging your outright pace. But we’ve tried a few things, and we’ll get there. I’ve already got a good feeling that we’ve found a set-up and a direction for tomorrow that will be more competitive. There’s a lot we can take away from today that will help us for tomorrow.”

BUT – “I’m so good-looking, I no longer care. Hey! Anyone want to watch a YouTube of Sergio literally being shat upon? We could watch it in my Estrella de Oro bus and have a Margarita! There’s this button…”

Sergio Perez, P1 – 1:35.640, 11th; P2 – 1:35.589, 13th
“We managed to complete our full run-plan in both the morning and afternoon, which was a positive, but it’s going to be a difficult weekend for us. Although we’ll probably be fighting to get into Q3, there’s still plenty of potential for having a good race on Sunday. The team has shown before that, with solid preparation, we can run a clever strategy on Sunday, and I think we have enough raw material from today to help us race strongly this weekend. So, scoring points is a realistic ambition for us here in Bahrain.”

PER – “Monday, they love my passion and curiosity. Thursday, they’re questioning my drive and abilities. There’s more fucking mind-gaming going on here than the second draft of the script for ‘Y Tu Mama Tambien’.”

Toro Rosso
Jean-Eric Vergne, P1 – 1:36.014, 14th; P2 – 1:35.506, 12th
“A hot day in the office, but it’s fine because you get to breathe some cooler fresh air going down the straights. It seems our pace is similar to that in China, at the end of a day when everything worked well. It’s all looking quite positive and I got a good feeling from the car. As for the tyres, the lap time difference between the prime and option is not as great as in China, but the heat means there is quite a lot of thermal degradation which will make life quite tricky in the race.”

VER – “Unlike the oppressed citizens of Bahrain, I, for one, am happy to be here!”

Daniel Ricciardo, P1 – 1:36.485, 15th; P2 – 1:35.761, 14th
“The first day here is quite complicated as the track is always dusty in the morning and that makes setting the car up rather tricky as the track is always improving. You are obliged therefore not to get too carried away in terms of making lots of changes. In the afternoon, we were tempted to make some changes and I’m not sure they were an improvement. So tonight, we must look at the data and decide which direction to go in tomorrow. We did a lot of laps, so we have plenty of data to study and I believe we have a good platform to work from. The option which I tried this afternoon is obviously going to be quicker for qualifying, but the gap is not as great as last weekend. It pays not to push the tyres too hard I think. The weather? I come from Perth, so I’ve been looking forward to some sun for a while now.”

RIC – “If we change anything, we might fuck up something on this barely-functioning car. Don’t even look at the car. I said, DON’T LOOK AT IT!!!”

Sauber
Nico Hulkenberg, P1 – 1:36.755, 17th; P2 – 1:36.133, 15th
“We were able to run our practice programme as planed today. Everything went quite smoothly. In terms of performance, there is still quite a lot of work for us to do. I expected this circuit might highlight some of the weaknesses of the car, but I think there is some potential. I’m still not happy with the balance of the car, but I think we can find more performance tomorrow if we sort out the balance. We have a long night ahead of us to try and maximise everything for this weekend.”

HUL – “I am totally looking forward to leading some random, mid-race, laps, thus creating the impression that I know what I’m doing. As always, by the end, it’ll be me and MAS in 9th and 11th, trying to figure out who the fuck we pissed off.”

Esteban Gutierrez, P1 – 1:37.214, 18th; P2 – 1:36.616, 18th
“I think we managed to improve the balance of the car in the second session compared to this morning. The first session was a bit tricky in terms of the balance of the car. We were trying a lot of different settings and measurements, but everything came together this afternoon. However, we are still missing speed in the slow corners due to lack of stability and traction. We will look at the data and work on these characteristics so we can create a car with a better margin.”

GUT – “See, in Mexico, we just willingly let the same party run the joint for 70 years. I don’t know why these people are even trying. The less energy you spend fighting, the more energy you can spend drinking. Huh? They can’t drink here? THE FUCK??!”

Williams
Pastor Maldonado, P1 – 1:36.498, 16th; P2 – 1:36.279, 16th
“We completed our planned programme today. We tested some development parts this morning and then we were back to working on set-up for the weekend this afternoon. Our short run pace isn’t as strong, but on higher fuel and used tyres the car felt better. This is what we were expecting today, and so we’ll continue to push hard tomorrow.”

MAL – “What is this? Like, three races and I haven’t hit anybody?! Check that shit! It has to be some sort of record!”

Valtteri Bottas, P1 – 1:35.783, 12th; P2 – 1:36.579, 17th
“It wasn’t a bad day for us. We gathered some valuable data in FP1 to help us to evaluate which direction to continue with the development of the FW35. In FP2 we completed some longer runs on the medium tyre, and now we will go through the data to see where we can improve as the tyre wear is big here, especially on the rears.”

BOT – “Huh-uh-huh: I said ‘rears’.”

Caterham

Charles Pic, P1 – 1:37.850s, 19th; P2 – 1:37.313, 19th
“We’ve made some progress today and I think we can be quite pleased with the job we’ve done in both FP1 and FP2. In the morning session we ran the car in the same configuration we raced in China and ran through a pretty normal FP1 program, using just the hard tyres and working on the baseline setup. In FP2 we ran a couple of new parts at the back of the car and saw more rear grip which is positive. We did find that meant there was quite a bit of understeer that we’ll need to work on for quali, but the performance run time was a good sign of where we are heading, so overall today has been ok.”

PIC – “The clag here is really dusty. They say: ‘Just eat it with some hummus!’ Hummus makes me so gassy! I don’t know: maybe I’ll try it with some baba ganoush. Or some blood of the oppressed. Some of the dignitaries at the track have said that’s really tasty.”

Giedo van der Garde, P1 – no time; P2 – 1:37.970, 22nd
“After sitting out the morning session I went straight back to work in FP2 and ran through a normal Friday afternoon program that included work on both tyre compounds on short and long runs. The tyre deg here was pretty big, especially on the mediums, but they’re coming up to temperature well and that suggests that if we can manage the deg levels this track might suit us better than the last race in China.”

GAR – “Still, with the tyres. Just like a big boy!”

Heikki Kovalainen, P1 – 1:38.401s, 20th
“It was good to be back in the car and great to be back at work with the team. The main priority today was to help give my impressions of the 2013 car in the spec it ran in for the first three races this year against the car I raced last year, and to give my feedback on the 2013 tyres. The first impression I had was that this car, which is obviously closer to the 2012 car than what will be raced for most of the rest of the season, is certainly trickier to find a balance on than the 2012 car, and the 2013 tyres go off a lot faster than last years. After one session I clearly haven’t had enough time in the car to find out how much we could change the handling with setup alterations, but I’ve been able to give the team a lot of feedback that I think will be useful this weekend on setup and tyres, and looking ahead to Spain where we’ll have more new parts.”

KOV – “No, seriously, I am so fucking glad to be here.”

Marussia
Max Chilton, P1 – 1:39.445, 21st; P2 – 1:37.313, 20th
“I’m pleased that I was able to complete plenty of running in both sessions today. This is especially important given the tough conditions we are facing, which are obviously impacting quite a lot on the way the car is behaving here. The heat is making it difficult to find good grip. We’ve tried a few things and gathered plenty of data, all of which will need some careful thought overnight, but I’m sure we can reach some conclusions which will improve things for tomorrow.”

CHI – “YOU GUYS! THERE IS SO MUCH SAND IN THIS DESERT! AND IT IS MAD HOT HERE! MAN! IT’S SO HOT, IT’S MAKING ME JUST A BIT CRANKY! STILL: SO GLAD TO BE HERE!”

Jules Bianchi, P1 – no time; P2 – 1:37.363, 21st
“It was not an easy task getting up to speed this afternoon. Having watched and listened to the challenges Max and Rodolfo were experiencing this morning, it was clear that FP2 would not be straightforward for me either. The heat is playing a big part in the way the car has been performing but I think, for my part, we were limited by the time to improve on these issues in the space of an afternoon. Given this, I am not so unhappy with my time as I was making progress and I am sure that, overnight, we will find a good solution for tomorrow.”

BIA – “Sometimes, man, I just get tired of all of Max’s positivity bullshit.”

Rodolfo Gonzalez, P1 – 1:40.215, 22nd
“Although my first experience of the MR02 was quite brief, it provided a good start for my FP1 programme at various races this year. With my programme, I had actually experienced and achieved quite a few different things before the problem with the gearbox. I felt comfortable with the car and I could see that Max and Jules were going to have quite a challenging day with the heat and the track conditions. I’m looking forward to being able to make a wider contribution to the team’s performance during a Grand Prix weekend and next time will be better for sure.”

GON – Holy fuck! At least there were some other newbies who didn’t know what the fuck they were doing? WHY WOULD ANYONE WANT TO RACE IN THIS HEAT?! Oh, someone just handed me a stack of hundreds labelled ‘oil money’. What was I saying?”

Pirelli

Paul Hembery, Pirelli motorsport director
“As expected, track evolution played a prominent role in today’s action, with many of the competitors not running until later in each session in order to take advantage of more rubber being laid onto the track. The track is going to keep on evolving as the weekend goes on, so we are still not seeing the full picture yet. Wear and degradation is where we expect it to be at this point during the weekend, with the rear tyres worked particularly hard here, but when it comes to the race the cars will certainly be able to complete longer stints than we are seeing at the moment. Already some drivers are completing more than 15 laps on the hard tyre, so we are certainly on track to see a three-stop strategy for the race, although it’s possible that some teams will attempt a two-stopper. Once we’ve analysed the data from tonight and seen the times from tomorrow’s final free practice session, we should be able to have a clear idea of the optimal strategy.”

Hembrey – “Have I mentioned to anyone that my body heart actually pumps the tears of little bitch drivers in the place of blood? No? Oh. well, no matter: keep up your bitching, you assholes. I’ll suck Bernie’s cock for a thousand years if it means I keep getting the tyre contract. I’ll fill my swimming pool with your salty, whiney, floor-pounding, air-kicking, grown-men-pouting tears and laugh every time I do a cannon ball, splashing Kimi, who iis sleeping poolside, vodka bottles strewn about like so many talons of the ice dragons.

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