Sebastian Vettel, 4th: “It was a difficult race today. We found ourselves in third place, quite far away from Lewis. He decided to box again, but Fernando and I took the decision to stay out. I felt pretty comfortable on the tyres and obviously we were hoping to get the place back, but as it turned out it was the right thing to go for the second stop. We decided a few laps from the end to do a pit stop – a stop here is not so long, about 15 seconds – and in the end it was the right decision. Before the stop we were three four seconds behind Fernando, but we ended up six seconds ahead of him. It was a good call considering what you can lose with only eight laps to go. It’s easy now to analyse and know everything, but I think we learned a lot today and we’ve seen that races can be interesting until the very last lap. All in all it was a good weekend. We had a very smooth run up to qualifying and a very good qualifying – in the race we maybe lost some of that edge, but we were there or thereabouts. We have another winner today also, I think Lewis deserved to win today, no doubt, but we have learned more and will make step forward in Valencia.”
Mark Webber, 7th: “I knew it was going to be mixed up today, but not that mixed up. In the first ten laps, we had a small issue with the engine which we had to manage, but then I settled into the pace. We pitted and came out behind the one stoppers. It’s hard to get it right here – if you push to try and pass you kill the tyres but if you wait, then you find you’re on the same strategy and finish behind them anyway. I think ultimately we were quick at times today and it’s good that we finished in the points. With hindsight we could have done a different strategy, but it’s easy to say that now and I’ve had worst days than today.”
Christian Horner, Team Principal: “A tricky race. Having been in the lead at the start, it was obvious early on that we were a little bit harder on the tyres, which necessitated Sebastian to pit earlier than we wanted. That permitted Hamilton and Alonso to get the jump on us. Then there was a dilemma as to whether we do a one or two stop race. We were going well on the tyres and at that stage it seemed our best option was to do a one stop. But then the tyres really started to go away from us, so we made a late call to go on to the super soft tyres, which enabled us to get back up to fourth position, behind the one-stopping Grosjean and Perez. With Mark, again we were running okay early on. He had an engine hesitation in the first few laps, but then he settled into a good rhythm. Again we were heavy on the tyres towards the end of the stints and it was clearer with Mark to go to a two stop earlier, but unfortunately the one stoppers managed to get ahead. So, a tactical race, a tricky race, but nonetheless we have still managed to salvage respectable points today.”
Cyril Dumont, Renault: “It was a shame today, to start on pole and finish fourth and seventh is not the best, but will work to understand it. It’s always easy to see what we could have done with strategy after the event. Engine-wise we did what we could to get the most power and best usage out of the engines for this race, but it was not enough today.”
