China: The Grand Prix Seen from the Pits

Mercedes

Lewis Hamilton – Victory

Nico Rosberg – 2nd

Toto Wolff, Executive Director: « Today’s result was not as straightforward as it appeared. It was a tough race after losing telemetry on Nico’s car, which shows just how exceptionally he drove despite this handicap. From the start, Lewis was in a world of his own, faster than everyone else and conserving his tires longer than we anticipated.

It’s a superb result for the team to achieve a third consecutive double – congratulations to all the guys and girls for working so hard to reach our current level of performance. Now, our goal is to maintain this level for the European season.

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Ferrari

Fernando Alonso – 3rd

Kimi Räikkönen – 8th

Pat Fry, Chassis Director: « Today’s result is a reward for all the efforts put in by the team in all areas. Both drivers did well, managing to gain two places right away, and fortunately, the collision between Fernando and Felipe Massa’s Williams did not damage the F14-T.

During the first stint, with Kimi, we lost a bit of time behind Grosjean, which prevented him from gaining ground on his rivals in a race where tire degradation and graining played an important role. The choice we made during Fernando’s first pit stop allowed him to move into second place: afterwards, we focused on managing the gap with the Red Bull and trying to keep Rosberg behind us as long as possible.

This weekend we made progress and overall, the car’s speed increased, both in corners and on the straight, but we have to be realistic about our current potential and keep working because the gap that separates us from Mercedes is still big and no one in the team intends to give up.

– Read the drivers’ statements

Red Bull

Daniel Ricciardo – 4th

Sebastian Vettel – 5th

Christian Horner, Team Principal: « I think the wet conditions in qualifying yesterday helped us to start high on the grid. With a dry race, 4th and 5th is ultimately where we were this weekend. Mercedes were particularly strong again and Ferrari maintained their form from Friday into today’s dry race.

Sebastian got off to an excellent start, but then he seemed to wear out the tires faster than Daniel, and after the second stop, it was clear that Seb’s tire degradation was really worse than Daniel’s, so we considered switching him to a three-stop strategy and thus releasing Daniel who was more focused on a two-stop strategy at that time.

Then, Daniel was able to close the gap with Alonso, but unfortunately not enough to reach the podium. 4 and 5 is a solid result with good points. Returning to Europe, we know there is a lot of work to do.

– Read the drivers’ statements

Force India

Nico Hülkenberg – 6th

Sergio Pérez – 9th

Bob Fernley, Deputy Team Principal: « It’s a very good result to leave China with 10 new points in our bag and third place in the constructors’ championship. We didn’t expect Shanghai to be our strongest circuit, so I think we can be satisfied with our performance over the whole weekend.

Nico’s race was relatively straightforward, and we assessed our tire strategy well as he managed to hold off Bottas in the final stint. Sergio made a great comeback to finish in the points, which is a strong performance considering he wasn’t completely comfortable with his car’s balance this weekend. It’s an excellent result to have 54 points after four races, and we can be pleased with the consistency we have shown on different types of circuits.

– Read the drivers’ statements

Williams

Valtteri Bottas – 7th

Felipe Massa – 15th

Rob Smedley, Head of Performance: It’s a bittersweet feeling because the car was fast. We had a good strategy and the team worked well. It’s really unfortunate for Felipe and the whole team regarding the pit stop and it’s something we need to investigate to ensure it doesn’t happen again, as it cost us points today.

Having a car in the top 10 shows that we have the pace and it gives us optimism, so we will focus on the positives before Spain.

– Read the drivers’ statements

Toro Rosso

Daniil Kvyat – 10th

Jean-Eric Vergne – 12th

Franz Tost, Team Principal: Daniil delivered yet another fantastic race, with consistently competitive lap times. Starting from 13th position on the grid and bringing back 1 point certainly demonstrates a great performance.

Jean-Eric had a bad start, which compromised his race and did not allow him to finish with a better result. We need to find the reasons for this in order to be better prepared for the race in Barcelona, where we will have new parts that will hopefully help us improve our overall performance.

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McLaren

Jenson Button – 11th

Kevin Magnussen – 13th

Eric Boullier, Race Director: « Our car is not competitive enough, we know it, its weaknesses are mainly due to insufficient aerodynamics. Moreover, Shanghai is a circuit that punishes the lack of front grip. This was the case; the fact that we were not able to give enough heat to our tires in the cool conditions we experienced further compromised our performance here.

There is a 3-week break until the Spanish Grand Prix, and we will work tirelessly from now on to solve the issues with our car. We know what to do and we will work day and night to achieve it.

– Read the drivers’ statements

Lotus

Pastor Maldonado – 14th

Romain Grosjean – Retirement (gearbox)

Federico Gastaldi, Deputy Team Principal: Romain suffered from a gearbox problem that caused him to lose 4th gear and then the other gears, so he was unable to continue. Obviously, it’s not ideal, and we will investigate the cause. It’s a shame because Romain was really running well in the points and was capable of competing with his rivals, and a points finish was realistic.

Pastor did a great job from the back of the grid to finish 14th. In Barcelona, we will have more improvements on the chassis and engine, so we should be more competitive here.

– Read the drivers’ statements

Sauber

Esteban Gutierrez – 16th

Adrian Sutil – Retirement (engine)

Monisha Kaltenborn, Team Principal: « Obviously, it’s a shame that Adrian suffered a power unit issue after just a few laps and never really got into his race. In Esteban’s case, we need to analyze everything to understand why the rear tires suddenly lost so much grip.

We are obviously not satisfied with this kind of performance. We are going through difficult times, but that is no reason for us to bury our heads in the sand. We need to continue working with focus and ensure we extract the maximum from our development package at the next race in Barcelona.

– Read the drivers’ statements

Marussia

Jules Bianchi – 17th

Max Chilton – 19th

John Booth, Team Principal: A good result today with Jules finishing ahead of Kobayashi and Max ahead of Ericsson. In reality, today we didn’t really have the pace to fight with Kobayashi, but thanks to a well-inspired strategy, we were able to stay ahead of him. It was quite tense on the pit wall, and great tire management and a great race from Jules.

Max had a bit more trouble with the front left wear on the mediums than Jules, but it was still enough to stay ahead of Ericsson. However, with the opportunity to stay ahead of him with one more stop at the end, we decided to put Max on a three-stop strategy.

It’s nice to leave these races outside Europe while still being in 10th position, and we have shown very good reliability at the start of this season. Our goal for Barcelona and Monaco will be to bring new developments and to really start focusing on performance.

– Read the drivers’ statements

Caterham

Kamui Kobayashi – 18th

Marcus Ericsson – 20th

The team did not communicate through a member of its staff.

– Lire les déclarations des pilotes