Canada: The F1 Grand Prix Seen from the Pits

Red Bull

Daniel Ricciardo – Winner

Sebastian Vettel – 3rd

Christian Horner, Team Principal: An exceptional race today and what a race by Daniel to win his first Grand Prix. He has been phenomenal since joining the team. I believe he fully deserves his victory today. We benefited from Mercedes’ issues but, nonetheless, he had to be there. Passing Perez was the key moment in the last ten laps. He was then able to make an easy pass on Nico a few laps before the end. Winning in Montreal, against all odds, was an exceptional result. Having Sebastian on the podium is an additional bonus, making it a perfect day.

After a good start, Seb unfortunately found himself stuck behind the Force Indias, and despite all his attempts, we couldn’t get through. It was a frustrating race for Seb, who was lucky not to be taken out by the Williams and the Force India. Fortunately, both drivers came away unscathed. Congratulations to everyone in the team and to Renault for the first victory of the season. It’s a fantastic result and a great source of motivation for the upcoming races.

– Read the drivers’ statements

Mercedes

Nico Rosberg – 2nd

Lewis Hamilton – Retirement

Toto Wolff, Team Principal: « First of all, I have to say that I’m sorry for Lewis. His retirement is not his fault at all and falls entirely on the team’s shoulders. Both drivers were doing a superb job when they lost the MGU-K. This also led to the brake failure that caused Lewis to retire after the second pit stop. Nico did a sensational job bringing the car to the finish, which is fantastic when considering all the power he was missing compared to the other cars. Now we will stick together as a team, analyze and understand what happened. We will come out of this situation stronger.

Congratulations to Daniel Ricciardo for his first Grand Prix victory. He is not only fast but also a new friendly face as a winner in Formula 1, which is very positive for the sport.

– Read the drivers’ statements

McLaren

Jenson Button – 4th

Kevin Magnussen – 9th

Eric Boullier, Sporting Director: « As Jenson said yesterday, eventful races like this really demonstrate the strength of our strategists and engineers: we didn’t have the pure pace to finish 4th, but the combination of a good strategy, excellent communication between the pit wall and the driver, and aggressive racing from both our drivers put the cars in the points.

Jenson showed that he never gives up, and this has served him well on this circuit in the past: he started the penultimate lap in 8th position and finished the race in 4th, executing a magnificent overtake on lap 69 at the hairpin on Nico [Hülkenberg] and Fernando.

Kevin’s pace was good all weekend, but his grid position and the proximity of the cars around him meant that he spent most of his race in traffic. After the pit stops, he pushed hard to come back in the second half of the Grand Prix.

We bring 14 points home this weekend – let’s hope we can continue to earn more once we’re back in Europe.

– Read the drivers’ statements

Force India

Nico Hülkenberg – 5th

Sergio Pérez – Retired (classified 11th)

Robert Fernley, deputy team director: « The most important thing today is that Checo is okay after that very heavy impact on the final lap. He had a fantastic race, running at the front for much of the afternoon and looking set for what was shaping up to be a very good result. Unfortunately, that wasn’t meant to be, but we will focus on the positives and build on the performance shown today for the coming races. Nico delivered another solid performance, extracting the maximum from his alternative one-stop strategy. He drove smartly to withstand incredible pressure towards the end of the race and was able to secure a good haul of points. As in previous races, our race pace looked really strong, and we are confident we can turn it into another good performance in Austria. »

– Read the drivers’ statements

Ferrari

Fernando Alonso – 6th

Kimi Räikkönen – 10th

Marco Mattiacci, Team Principal: « Even before arriving in Montreal, we knew that it wouldn’t be an easy race for us because it is not a track that suits the characteristics of our car. The final result is clearly not satisfactory, far from it, but the improvement in performance glimpsed this weekend shows that to get the most out of our package, we need to attack in the areas where our rivals make the difference.

Today we saw that for many teams, it has been a struggle on the reliability front, and our main rivals were able to capitalize on the opportunities left by Mercedes. My congratulations go to Ricciardo for the first victory of his career. For the future, I can’t make predictions, but I will ask the team to thoroughly analyze what they’re doing and work together, making efforts so that our drivers can fight for more ambitious results.

– Read the drivers’ statements

Williams

Valtteri Bottas – 7th

Felipe Massa – Abandon

Rob Smedley – Track Performance Director: « It’s really disappointing to lose that position with Felipe at the end. It seemed like he was going to overtake Pérez and they had a collision. Valtteri’s race was good but we were a bit hot, and we had to manage the engine and brake temperatures, like many other cars did. He dropped to ninth place, which was converted to seventh with Felipe’s accident. In clear air, the car was very fast, but we lost a lot of points today. »

– Read the drivers’ statements

Toro Rosso

Jean-Eric Vergne – 8th

Daniil Kvyat – Abandon

Franz Tost, Team Principal: I’m very happy with Jean-Eric’s excellent 8th place today, especially because he had to retire several times due to technical issues when he was in a good position to score points. The team was able to provide him with a car capable of showcasing what he can do. After overtaking Alonso at the start, JEV managed to keep him behind and also successfully defended his position against Magnussen towards the end.

On the other side [of the garage], it seems that Daniil suffered from a transmission issue, prematurely ending his race. Congratulations to Daniel who won his first Grand Prix today. We look forward to heading to the Red Bull Ring in Austria, where we will have a number of new developments to enhance the overall performance of the car.

– Read the drivers’ statements

Sauber

Adrian Sutil – 13th

Esteban Gutierrez – Retired (classified 14th)

Monisha Kaltenborn, Team Principal: « Without a doubt, it was a tough race. The team performed well, made good pit stops, and we were able to execute the strategy as planned. Tire wear was as expected, there was nothing wrong with that. However, we need to analyze the data very carefully to understand why the lap times were slower than what we could expect based on Friday’s long runs. We will focus on working on the car’s setup as there is more potential to be exploited. »

– Read the drivers’ statements

Lotus

Romain Grosjean – Abandonment

Pastor Maldonado – Abandonment

Federico Gastaldi, Sporting Director: « Today, we saw a great Formula 1 race and we have to say bravo to Daniel Ricciardo for his first victory. As for us, it was certainly not our finest moment. Pastor was driving very well with a good strategy that could have perhaps earned us some points. But he had an issue with his power unit from the start of the race and eventually, he had to retire because of it. It’s frustrating for everyone involved and we will do everything possible to eradicate such problems in the future. Romain had a tough race where he pushed all the time, but there was a problem with his rear wing. Again, it’s not ideal and it’s something we need to understand and rectify. We have a few busy weeks before Austria. »

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Marussia

Jules Bianchi – Abandon

Max Chilton – DNF

John Booth, Sporting Director: A very difficult day for the team but we will forget it very quickly. The crash at turns 3 and 4 ruined our race. This can often be a race where opportunities can arise, so it was essential that we had both drivers on track to take advantage. But in the end, the results didn’t affect our position in the Constructors’ Championship, and at least we can be happy leaving Montreal as we are still in 9th position in this standing. The next weeks will be very busy for the team back at the factory. We are a strong team, so I’m sure we will pull everything together and focus on what we need to do for Austria.

– Read the drivers’ statements

Caterham

Marcus Ericsson – Abandon

Kamui Kobayashi – Abandon

Cédric Staudohar, Head of Logistics at Renault Sport F1: « After the start, we saw a turbo problem on Marcus’s car indicating a leak in the intake system. The team will investigate why, but we had no choice but to retire to save the power unit. Kamui stopped shortly after with a suspension failure, leading the weekend to a very disappointing conclusion. »

– Read the drivers’ statements