Malaysia: The Race Seen from the Pits

Red Bull

Sebastian Vettel – Winner

Mark Webber – 2nd

Christian Horner, Team Principal: « Before addressing anything else, it was a phenomenal performance from the team, the car, and the mechanics who executed incredible pit stops. We made our fastest stop during Mark’s second stint, which might also be a new benchmark for the entire pit lane. Clearly, there’s a lot of debate about what happened at the end of the race. Our position after the last stop was to manage the race to the end and preserve our tires, finishing with both cars and scoring maximum points. Unfortunately, the interests of drivers can sometimes conflict with those of the teams. Sebastian decided to do things his way today and fight against Mark, making fortunately a clean overtake and changing the finishing order. It’s frustrating. Formula 1 is both a team and individual sport, and sometimes there’s a conflict between a driver’s desire and the team’s interest. What happened today is something that shouldn’t have happened. It’s something Sebastian has apologized for, and we’ll discuss it internally. »

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Mercedes

Lewis Hamilton – 3rd

Nico Rosberg – 4th

Toto Wolff, Team Executive Director: « We achieved a very good result for the team this weekend and scoring solid points is very satisfying. We continued to show an upward trend in performance although there is still work to be done for us to close the gap to the leading cars. Lewis and Nico drove very well today. Sometimes difficult decisions must be made and it was important for us that both cars finished the race and we scored solid points. Congratulations to the whole team, here at the circuit, and back in Brackley and Brixworth for our first podium of the season. We will continue to push hard to ensure that more will follow. »

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Ferrari

Felipe Massa – 5th

Fernando Alonso – Retirement

Stefano Domenicali, Team Principal: Obviously, today’s result leaves a bitter taste in our mouths, especially considering our positions on the grid. As soon as Alonso collided with Vettel, we knew his race would be difficult. We wanted to wait until the track dried enough to pit for slick tires and change the wing, but we knew we could lose a lot; we needed to hold out for four laps, which didn’t happen. Massa saw his chances of winning complicate with the first laps and the gaps that opened with the top four. Given the performance level of our rivals, we must now turn the page, leave this Sunday behind us, and analyze the positive and negative points to be ready for the next race in China.

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Lotus

Romain Grosjean – 6th

Kimi Räikkönen – 7th

James Allison, Technical Director: « This weekend leaves a sense of unfinished business. On Friday, the car showed extremely promising signs, but unfortunately, we didn’t translate that into results. Starting from tenth and eleventh on the grid, especially on a wet track, was not ideal. As a consequence, after seven laps, we were already about thirty seconds behind the race leader. Our progress thereafter was very respectable, so it’s frustrating to have lost contact with the leaders so early. But I am confident we will produce much better results in the upcoming events. »

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Sauber

Nico Hülkenberg – 8th

Esteban Gutiérrez – 12th

Monisha Kaltenborn, Team Principal: « We are pleased with this result because we had an unexpectedly difficult weekend. However, we managed to improve step by step. We now have a better understanding of the areas in which we need to improve. This will help us to better exploit the full potential of the car. »

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McLaren

Sergio Pérez – 9th

Jenson Button – 17th

Martin Whitmarsh, Team Director: After finishing only ninth and eleventh last weekend in Melbourne, we clearly saw today in Sepang that the hard work we’ve put in since last week has resulted in significant gains in terms of car development.

However, we are obviously disappointed that Jenson lost his well-deserved fifth place, or even a third or fourth place, due to an issue during a pit stop caused by a pneumatic gun problem. Jenson did absolutely nothing wrong and reacted well to the green light.

Checo also delivered a solid performance throughout the weekend, allowing him to score his first points for Vodafone McLaren Mercedes this afternoon and he set the fastest lap of the race at the very end.

Therefore, even though we are very disappointed for Jenson, the truth is that he could and should have finished at least fifth, and by his own very high standards, that is far from good enough. This clearly shows that we are heading in the right direction from a car development perspective.

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Toro Rosso

Jean-Eric Vergne – 10th

Daniel Ricciardo – 18th

Franz Tost, Team Director: It was a hectic race with the pack starting on Intermediates. We timed our switch to dry-weather tires well on both cars and Daniel immediately gained positions.

The battle in the middle of the pack was very fierce, and we had one car ahead, Daniel’s, and another behind this group, Jean-Eric’s. Unfortunately, we released JEV’s car too early during a stop, and it collided with a Caterham, which cost us a lot of time as we had to bring him back to the pit to change the nose. The stewards fined us for “dangerous release of a car in the pit lane,” and we accept their decision.

After that, JEV did a good job fighting and getting into the points ahead of that midfield group, which is remarkable on a dry track. The fact that our race pace was satisfactory was the most positive aspect of the race.

In Daniel’s case, he went out during the grid setting lap and drove with a damaged floor, so taking that into account and the way it affected his car, his performance was also very positive. Unfortunately, we encountered an exhaust problem on his car in the final laps and decided it was better to have him stop.

Generally, our race performance was good but we are too slow in qualifying. We need to find a way to improve on Saturday afternoon to give ourselves a better starting position on Sunday.

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Williams

Valtteri Bottas – 11th

**Pastor Maldonado** – Abandon

Mike Coughlan, Technical Director: After going wide on the first lap, Valtteri had a fantastic race to climb up the ranks and finish just outside the points. We opted for different strategies for the two cars with an early stop for Pastor to fit a new front wing after going off track on lap 15. We then had a KERS issue on his car, and he had to stop on track as a precaution. The team will now investigate this. Overall, we feel that our performance has improved since Melbourne, but we still have work to do.

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Marussia

Jules Bianchi – 13th

Max Chilton – 16th

John Booth, Team Principal: As is often the case, the Malaysian Grand Prix presented a mix of challenges to manage today. The rain we had before the pit lane opened created tricky conditions for the grid formation, and there were some difficult moments deciding which tires to use, particularly when both our drivers suffered from aquaplaning in turn 3. We didn’t have the best starts and first laps; however, Jules did a great job staying ahead of the Caterhams. Once he switched to slick tires, he unfortunately got stuck behind Van der Garde, but a good strategy from the engineers and a good pit stop allowed him to break free in the second stint and progress while managing the gap with the cars ahead. For the rest of the race, we expected a good fight with Maldonado before he was forced to retire, which left a clear track for Jules to have a solitary stint. He did a very good job once again, and a 13th place is more than welcome at this point in the season.

Max unfortunately came out of the first round in a less favorable position and had to wait during the first stop, which cost him time. At several points, he showed he had the pace to fight against the two Caterhams but unfortunately, he took the blue flags earlier and then at the end, he was slowed down by Ricciardo who was a lap ahead and was running slowly. Once again, we can be pleased with the progress we are making; however, the midfield remains at a respectable distance and this calls for significant efforts over the next three weeks with the development of the car. Realistically, we know that we need a few more tenths to be able to compete against them.

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Caterham

Charles Pic – 14th

Giedo Van der Garde – 15th

Cyril Abiteboul, Team Director: « Finishing with both cars in the first two races, particularly this weekend at our home race in Malaysia, is a nice reward for the efforts made by the whole team, considering our performance position at this point in the season. Both our drivers once again made very good starts and drove very well in the first part of the race. The incident where Charles was the innocent victim during his first stop is really unfortunate as it ruined his chances of fighting against Bianchi, but the team responded very well and I am proud of the efforts made by everyone here and in Melbourne, in races that are known to be challenging.

Even though the overall reliability of the cars has been better than a number of teams ahead of us, we still have to face some intense situations that affect our ability to control the small details of our races. This time, we had communication issues, which prevented communication between our engineers; our telemetry was even out of order at times, and the timing software crashed, making us unable to predict how the race would unfold. These are things that happen behind the scenes and, although they don’t directly affect the performance of the cars, they don’t help, so we need to make sure to fix all of this for China.

Overall, with the strategy employed for /f1/actualite/15237-dimanche-vettel-a-la-tete-dun-double-red-bull.html and in preparation for 2014 and beyond, we knew that the first races of the season would be complicated, but we are not going to deviate from our plan. Even if we are running a hybrid car for these first three races, we are close to where we want to be and the upcoming improvements will pay off. We have a long-term goal, which is built around the group we are part of and is realistic, viable, and will see us in the middle of the pack in the long term.

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Force India

Adrian Sutil – Retirement

Paul di Resta – Retired

Dr Vijay Mallya, Team Principal: « A very disappointing end to a weekend where we showed incredible pace with both our cars. We were cautious in the opening laps on a wet track and then we were on form once we switched to slicks, with Paul being one of the fastest on track. Unfortunately, things went wrong in the stops when we had an issue with our wheelnut system at the first stop, which caused significant delays for both cars. The problem reappeared again at the second stop and it became clear that we couldn’t resolve it during the race. As a precaution, we were forced to retire both our cars and we will investigate. It is frustrating, but sometimes these things happen in the world of motor racing. We will take the positives, such as the strong performance of the car, and we will look to get everything in order for next time in China. »

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