Italy: The F1 Grand Prix Seen from the Pits

Mercedes

Lewis Hamilton – Victory

Nico Rosberg – 2nd

Toto Wolff, Executive Director: « Lewis had a fantastic pace this weekend, and his qualifying lap laid the foundation for his victory. He was in a league of his own this afternoon in terms of speed, but it wasn’t an easy race for him after the issues at the start. However, he remained calm, seized his opportunity, and delivered on his promise. Nico also delivered a solid race by taking second place. It’s fantastic to secure our seventh one-two finish of the season; we’ve been waiting for it for a little while. Congratulations to everyone at Brackley for a job well done – and I would like to make a special mention of the boys and girls at Brixworth; it’s very special when you see your power unit achieve a quadruple at Monza! »

– Read the drivers’ statements

Williams

Felipe Massa – 3rd

Valtteri Bottas – 4th

Rob Smedley, Head of Performance: « We finished where we needed to be, even though we did it in a more spectacular manner than necessary. We had some issues with the starts, which is not normal, so that needs to be investigated. Valtteri had an incredible race to come back from 11th place while managing his tires. Felipe also had an amazing race, using all his experience, including a great overtake on Magnussen to secure a fantastic result. It was great to see the fans’ reception for him as well. »

– Read the drivers’ statements

Red Bull

Daniel Ricciardo – 5th

Sebastian Vettel – 6th

Christian Horner, Team Principal: « I think fifth and sixth was the maximum today. We chose different strategies, an aggressive one with Sebastian to undercut the McLarens, which worked and gave him the advantage but unfortunately degraded his tires at the end of the race.

With Daniel, we chose the opposite approach since he had a clear track. We had him do a long first stint with a shorter second stint, and then his pace to make up time was really impressive. Obviously, with Sebastian suffering from tire degradation due to the length of his second stint, it was inevitable for them to swap places. But fifth and sixth, on a circuit dominated by Mercedes-powered cars, is successful damage limitation.

– Read the drivers’ statements

McLaren

Jenson Button – 7th

Kevin Magnussen – 10th

Eric Boullier, Racing Director: « Kevin made a really great start from fifth place on the grid, which gave him enough speed to cleanly pass Felipe for second place at the first corner. Afterwards, he drove hard and well, making no mistakes, but he couldn’t prevent several faster cars from passing him over the remaining 53 laps. In the final laps, Valtteri and he engaged in a spirited and entertaining duel – the kind of wheel-to-wheel racing that excites Formula 1 fans – and from our perspective, he was unfortunate to be penalized for what we considered a legitimate defense. But the stewards’ decision is final, and the result is that Kevin is ultimately classified tenth.

Jenson delivered a typical race, controlled yet aggressive, finishing ninth on the track, which became eighth place after Kevin’s penalty. As a team, we only scored five points in the World Championship today, which is a bit less than we hoped for, but there were also positives to take from this weekend: our qualifying pace was strong, and our race pace was solid, and as I said yesterday, it’s clear we are making steady and sure progress.

The next race, the Singapore Grand Prix, will be run on a narrow and winding circuit whose layout could hardly be more different from the pure speed circuit of Monza. But whether it’s a fast or slow circuit, rest assured that we will give it our all to score as many points as possible to consolidate our fifth place in the Constructors’ Championship.

– Lire les déclarations des pilotes

Force India

Sergio Pérez – 8th

Nico Hülkenberg – 12th

Vijay Mallya, Team Owner: « These 6 points allow us to stay where we need to be in our tight battle in the championship with only one point separating us from 5th place. Sergio was great today, showing once again how well he can race with brilliant overtakes and defense.

Nico had a great start, but he wasn’t completely comfortable with the car’s balance all weekend and especially during the race today […] Points were out of reach. With six races remaining, I still believe we have everything to succeed, and we must keep pushing.

– Lire les déclarations des pilotes

Ferrari

**Kimi Räikkönen** – 9th

Fernando Alonso – Retirement (ERS)

Pat Fry, Chassis Technical Director: « Over a weekend where we knew it would suit the characteristics of our competitors’ cars, trying to do our best was unfortunately not enough. Having made a superb overtake on Perez on the outside of the first Lesmo, Fernando spent most of his first stint with a group of cars setting similar lap times, with all drivers benefiting from the DRS effect on the cars ahead of them. Unfortunately, his race ended after the first stop due to a failure in his ERS system. Even though it has been a long time since we had a reliability issue, the incident shows how important it is to continue focusing on this aspect.

Thanks to a good start, Kimi managed to gain a position at the start and another by passing Hülkenberg on lap 6, but he couldn’t catch up further to attack those ahead. We finished in the points with him, but it’s disappointing that we couldn’t do more for our fans.

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Toro Rosso

Daniil Kvyat – 11th

Jean-Eric Vergne – 13th

Franz Tost, Team Principal: « Daniil did a fantastic job today. Starting from the last position on the grid, he managed to climb up. I think he is the driver with the most overtakes today. In the last two laps, he was fighting to close the gap with Räikkönen, getting quite close to him, but unfortunately, he suffered a front brake disc failure, which we need to investigate. Thanks to his extraordinary driving skills, he was able to control the car and avoid a collision. I am really impressed by his ability to close the gap with the cars in front of him, and I am convinced he could have finished the race in 9th position today, after Magnussen’s 5-second penalty.

For Jean-Eric, he complained about a lack of grip which made him struggle with the car throughout the race, and thus he finished 13th. The team did a solid job with a good strategy and quick pit stops.

– Lire les déclarations des pilotes

Lotus

Pastor Maldonado – 14th

Romain Grosjean – 16th

Alan Permane, Track Operations Director: « Fourteenth is not where we want to finish, but today’s race gave us some encouraging signs. Pastor’s pace was much closer to the cars in front of us, and he drove an exemplary race. Both cars were reliable. We made another small step in understanding the car this weekend, which will help us for the upcoming races. »

– Read the drivers’ statements

Sauber

Adrian Sutil – 15th

Esteban Gutierrez – 19th

Monisha Kaltenborn, Team Principal: « It was a difficult weekend that ended as we expected. In these circumstances, the team worked well, even though we have room to be more consistent on our pit-stops. Adrian extracted the maximum possible from the car today. Esteban’s contact was unnecessary. The upcoming circuits rely less on engine power; therefore, we hope to return to the performance level we had in Hungary. »

– Read the drivers’ statements

Caterham

Kamui Kobayashi – 17th

Marcus Ericsson – 20th

Cedrik Staudohar, Renault Sport F1 Track Support Manager: « Today it was a good race for us, with both cars finishing and a big battle between Kamui and Bianchi. In the end, we were clearly ahead, which shows the progress we have made in the last two Grand Prix. On the engine side, we had to monitor temperatures at the beginning of the race but everything remained manageable and under control. We hope to deliver improved engine performance to capitalize on this race with an even better result in Singapore. »

– Read the drivers’ statements

Marussia

Jules Bianchi – 18th

Max Chilton – Abandon (accident)

John Booth, Team Principal: « Difficult day for the team […] Max’s race ended quite early with a mistake at turn 4. With Jules, we were following a conventional one-stop strategy […] and with it, there wasn’t much we could do to try to move him forward. Arriving in Monza, we weren’t particularly confident about having a good weekend, however, the pace seemed encouraging until qualifying. The car wasn’t particularly unbalanced, and we didn’t suffer from any stability issues this weekend, so at least we can be confident going to Singapore. »

– Read the drivers’ statements