Sebastian Vettel (1st)
“It’s good to be back winning and on a circuit where we didn’t expect to be that strong. But we were quick enough at all times in the race to pull away, find the gap and then guide the car home, but it wasn’t as easy as expected. It’s good to get a lot of championship points and the guys can be extremely proud, so a good weekend for them. Most important of all today is the fact that Mark had quite a big shunt but he’s fine - it shows that the cars get safer and safer but still there is a lot of risk so it’s good that he’s okay.”
Lewis Hamilton (2nd)
“Into Turn One, I was very close to Seb Vettel, I went for the gap, I out-braked him and we went into the corner side-by-side. He gave me room, but we touched and the contact damaged my front wing. When the Safety Car came out, the team did a great job to change the nosebox and tyres. After that my pace was much better and I was able to push Seb, but it’s impossible to pass around here when the cars are so closely matched. Whenever a Safety Car comes out, it’s difficult to compute all the information. There are all these beeps in your ear, and lights flashing on your dashboard too. There’s got to be a certain time between the ‘Safety Car One’ line and the ‘Safety Car Two’ line, and between those two lines you can go fast. So it’s all a bit complicated. So I pushed past the last Safety Car line, and was obviously then trying to close the gap to Seb. But as I came out of the first corner, all of a sudden I saw the Safety Car coming out, so I backed off and went across the line as I did that, so I thought I was okay. When the team told me I had a drive-through penalty, I made time by pushing as hard as I could, and was able to increase the gap a bit to the guys behind. I took my penalty - it’s quite a long time to spend at 60km/h in the pit lane - and I came out second. I don’t see how that’s unfair - it’s racing, and those are the rules, and we all have to accept them.”
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Formula 1: European Grand Prix - Race Results
Jenson Button (3rd)
“The first lap was great - I loved it! I was alongside Robert (Kubica) for 10 corners, then we both went around Mark in Turn Eight, one on the inside and one on the outside! We continued fighting until Turn 10, but I couldn’t get around the outside of him there - it was just too tight. I was very close to the pit entry when the Safety Car was triggered. I was warned by the team beforehand, who said, ‘There might be a Safety Car, in this lap,’ so I dived into the pits. There was no room to lift off or hit the brakes, so to be honest I can’t really see why I was called to the stewards. Later in the race, when I was behind Kamui (Kobayashi), I knew he’d have to pit again. His pace was reasonable, so I knew he wasn’t going to pit early, but you just can’t overtake around here. I was running pretty low downforce today, which gave me good straight-line speed, but I couldn’t get out of the corners quick enough to get really tucked in behind him on the straights. As soon as he went into the pits, though, I had three or four laps when I could push and have some fun with the car. I got the fastest lap at that point, which was nice; the car was feeling very good, and I just wish I’d had more laps to play with!”
Rubens Barrichello (4th)
“It was great fun out there today and the car was behaving well throughout the race. We really seem to be heading in the right direction with the development of the car and I hope that this improved performance continues for the rest of the season.”
Robert Kubica (5th)
“I got a pretty good start today and I managed to keep my position, then had a really nice clean fight with Jenson - I think we spent about half a lap side by side. In fact, we both managed to overtake Webber going into turn eight: I was on the inside, Jenson was on the outside and we both squeezed Mark to get past. And then, Jenson and I went through the next two corners side by side as well, so it was a pretty fun first lap and I came out on top of the battle. After that, we got lucky when the safety car came out: I was already braking for the last corner when the message came on the steering wheel, so I decided to head straight to the pits. Unfortunately, though, we didn’t manage to take maximum advantage of the opportunity: I was the first car into the pits but the third car to leave. If everything had gone smoothly, we could have finished on the podium this afternoon, but unfortunately we didn’t manage to do so.”
Adrian Sutil (6th)
“It was an interesting race for me and a very good result in the end: from 13th to sixth, it’s pretty amazing for us, one of the best races so far this season. We made the call to come into the pits at the right time - when the safety car went out I was in the last sector and could go in the pits straight away and then moved up the order when the front guys came in. Then I could pass Buemi on track and in the end it was sixth position. I think we did everything right today and it’s a very positive result for the team to keep the points coming in.”
Kamui Kobayashi (7th)
“Before the race we had decided to use separate tyre strategies for Pedro and me. I started on the harder ones and didn’t pit when everybody else did. It was great racing there at the front, but it was not easy either because I had Jenson Button close behind me all the time, and also I had to look after my tyres. I was careful not to overdrive them. After my pit stop I had only four laps to make use of my fresh tyres. At this moment I had better grip than anybody else, and I felt I had to make the most out of it. Of course it was a risk to overtake Alonso and Buemi. If it hadn’t worked out and I had crashed I would have been in trouble.”
Fernando Alonso (8th)
“The race was ruined by the Safety Car and everything that followed on from that. I am disappointed most of all for the thousands of spectators who were here today and saw how the situation was handled. I am very bitter about what happened today. I was in third place, a metre behind Hamilton at the moment the Safety Car came out on track and, at the chequered flag, he was second and I was ninth, even though we had made the same choice of strategy. The penalty he was given came when it could no longer have any real influence on his finishing position. From then on, my race was compromised. I was always in traffic and I did not get the performance I had expected from the hard tyres: this also explains the difficulty I had in passing first Sutil and then Buemi. This is definitely a bad result for us, but I still hang onto the idea that we will do the maths at the end, in Abu Dhabi: incidents we have no control over will be made up for. We must continue to work and push on the car development front to try and be the quickest on the track.”
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