Bahrain – The Race Seen from the Pits

Red Bull Racing

Sebastian Vettel – Winner

Mark Webber – 4th

Christian Horner – Team Principal:

A great performance today. After a good start from pole, Sebastian got into the race well and had a very good first stint. The challenge today, having been very hard on the tires yesterday, was that we needed to get the best out of them. Seb did a masterful job of keeping the tires alive and executing our three-stop strategy, and we made stops at the right times. It was a great team effort with some superb stops and a close fight with Kimi, especially during the last stop – it was crucial that it went smoothly. With a magnificent performance from the mechanics, we managed to gain a second in the pits, in fact.

This has been an excellent result for Mark as well, it’s his fourth consecutive 4th place finish. Once again, having used a lot of tires yesterday compared to our rivals, they were able to take advantage of fresher tires, but he had a great race to finish 4th and score big points for himself and the team, and now we are leading both championships. Congratulations to Lotus for their very strong performance today and a double podium, which also means that Renault engines finished first, second, third, and fourth.

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Lotus F1 Team

Kimi Räikkönen – 2nd

Romain Grosjean – 3rd

Eric Boullier – Team Principal

This was a very great performance from the team today and I am happy for everyone, both here in the paddock and at the Enstone factory. The first three races were frustrating because we knew we were capable of a result like this. Until now, small details had hampered our performance, so it’s almost a relief to finally show what we are capable of.

We took a gamble yesterday with the strategy and I’m thrilled it paid off. Both our drivers delivered a fantastic performance, and having both our cars not only on the podium but so close throughout the race shows that we have a very strong driver duo. I’m really very proud of what we’ve achieved today.

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Mercedes AMG

Nico Rosberg – 5th

Michael Schumacher – 10th

Ross Brawn – Team Principal:

This was a tough race but still a nice reward today. Nico didn’t get the best possible start and lost a few places, which made his start to the race difficult, but he drove very well to climb back to 5th position. Michael had a great race to secure the point for 10th place, considering he started from 22nd on the grid.

We saw once again that if you set up your single-seater well, it makes a big difference, with Lotus and Red Bull clearly having a car in better shape than ours. We will learn the lessons from today, but we did our best with what we had, so I’m fairly happy. Now we can look forward to getting back to the factory to improve the car before the next race.

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Sahara Force India

Paul di Resta – 6th

Nico Hülkenberg – 12th

Robert Fernley – Deputy Team Principal:

Considering everything that happened this weekend, I am thrilled to see such a great performance from the team during today’s race. We took a gamble with Paul’s strategy, but it paid off, and since we had saved tires yesterday, it allowed us to push the window of a two-stop strategy to the limit. Once again, Paul delivered a magnificent race, with consistent lap times, allowing the strategy to work perfectly. This sixth place is well deserved and matches his best result in Formula 1.

It’s a shame that Nico fell victim to a clutch problem on the first lap, otherwise, I’m convinced he could have fought for points as well. Before leaving Bahrain, I want to tip my hat to the whole team once again and thank everyone for helping to make today’s result possible.

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Scuderia Ferrari

Fernando Alonso – 7th

Felipe Massa – 9th

Stefano Domenicali – Team Principal

Honestly, what happened on track today is secondary for us. We were very saddened to learn of the death of Matteo Vignali, a young man who worked in the gearbox department, who suffered a heart attack. He lost his life at only 32 years old, which leaves us in a state of dismay. Our thoughts are with his family and friends and because of that, I think it’s difficult to comment on our race result.

All I can say is that the first round of very difficult races has just ended, even though it was what we expected. We have managed to limit the damage, at least as far as the drivers’ championship is concerned. We must look to the future and improve so that we can step up and fight for the podium and not just for points. This is what I have been asking of our engineers for several weeks, and for Barcelona, I expect to see the first results of the efforts made in all areas.

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McLaren

Lewis Hamilton – 8th

Jenson Button – 18th

Martin Whitmarsh – Team Director:

Clearly, our performance was disappointing this afternoon. That being said, Lewis and Jenson drove very well in very difficult conditions. Lewis executed some sensational overtaking maneuvers in his effort to claw back, but ultimately, he was significantly affected by his two very slow pit stops, each time caused by an issue with the rear left. Jenson’s stops had no issues, so we will need to identify what the problem was with the rear left of Lewis’s car.

Jenson also had a frustrating race, which ended with a puncture and an issue with his differential and exhaust, the combination of things forced us to retire him. We will also need to analyze, in due time, what caused these issues.

That being said, we are in second place in the Constructors’ Championship, only nine points behind the leaders, our drivers are in second and fourth place in the Drivers’ Championship. Lewis is second, only four points behind the leader.

From here, we will head to Barcelona, a circuit where we were strong during pre-season testing. Lewis and Jenson are as resilient as they are competitive, so you can be sure that in Spain, they will do their best to score as many points as possible to put the Vodafone McLaren Mercedes team back at the top of the drivers’ and constructors’ championships.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: the 2012 season promises to be both exciting and unpredictable. Sometimes you win races and sometimes you don’t. But that’s motor racing. Above all, motor racing is a team sport – and I probably know better than anyone how incredible the people at team Vodafone McLaren Mercedes are, which is why I’m confident that they will all now work as hard as possible to ensure that at the Circuit de Catalunya, we’ll be back where we need to be: at the front.

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Sauber

Sergio Pérez – 11th

Kamui Kobayashi – 13th

Giampaolo Dall’Ara – Track Engineers Manager:

« The key point of the race was the first lap during which we lost places. The start wasn’t very good either. It’s something we will need to analyze. From there, we were not able to come back. With Sergio, we planned a three-stop strategy, and we were a bit aggressive with our first stop, but our rivals reacted and we couldn’t take advantage. With Kamui, we decided on a two-stop strategy, but in the second stint, the degradation came quicker than expected, so we had to bring him in. Then, the third stint was too long, so we had to make him do an additional stop. Overall, we weren’t strong enough today to be able to come back after all this. »

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Toro Rosso

Jean-Eric Vergne – 14th

Daniel Ricciardo – 15th

Franz Tost, Team Director:

« Above all, I want to thank His Royal Highness Prince Salman Bin Hamad Al Khalifa, the FIA and its President, Jean Todt, as well as Bernie Ecclestone and the organization, particularly the president Zayed R. Alzayani, for the work they have done to ensure that this race takes place. As far as we are concerned, we have not encountered any problems, either on the circuit or in Manama.

Regarding the race, we started with Daniel Ricciardo in sixth place on the grid but failed to finish in the points. He encountered some issues at the start, losing several places and having contact with another car, though we don’t know which one yet. This meant we had to change the front nose and after that, his race was compromised as he had lost too much time, finishing in 15th place.

After starting from 17th place, after 57 laps, Jean-Eric finished just ahead of his teammate, having recorded decent times.

Daniel’s performance in qualifying was the only spark in a weekend that did not live up to our expectations.

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Caterham

Vitaly Petrov – 16th

Heikki Kovalainen – 17th

Mark Smith, Technical Director:

« We can be satisfied with the performance of both cars today. Despite a puncture that Heikki suffered on the first lap, he drove solidly throughout the afternoon and Vitaly gave Ricciardo a hard time for a good part of the race. It shows that we are constantly making progress, and our performance in qualifying yesterday gives us good reasons to look forward to starting the European season, which begins in three weeks in Barcelona. We have many new developments planned for the upcoming races and even more throughout the season, so our ambition is to continue building on this kind of performance and keep closing the gap to the teams ahead. »

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Marussia

Timo Glock – 19th

Charles Pic – Retirement

John Booth, Team Director

« On the positive side, we saw that Charles continued to make progress and build on his good work from yesterday. It’s really unfortunate that we did not diagnose a valve issue on his engine, which forced us to retire at a time in the race when Charles was very competitive. Timo was also affected by the same engine problem, and we will work hard with Cosworth in the coming days to understand the causes of these issues. Unfortunately, our second major problem was the behavior of Timo’s car. We need to clearly identify and understand the problems we encountered with the car. Fortunately, the tests at Mugello in a week will provide us the opportunity to correct these issues outside the pressure of a race weekend. I would like to take this opportunity to commend the very good work of the team during the first four races, which have each been a challenge. We come out of this long start to the season stronger and with many reasons to be optimistic for the start of the European season. »

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HRT

Pedro de la Rosa – 20th

Narain Karthikeyan – 21st

Luis Pérez-Sala – Team Director:

We underwent another tough test here in Bahrain with the intense heat, and I am satisfied with how things went. We achieved our goals once again, and I want to thank the entire team once more for their excellent work.

Maybe the downside was that we wore our tires too much and that’s why we had to make four stops. We tried to make only three with Pedro but he ended up on the edge, so maybe it wasn’t the best choice.

The reliability has been very good as well, and the team is working very well. We can say that we are already at the same point where we finished last season. We must now make progress.

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Williams F1

Bruno Senna – Retirement

Pastor Maldonado – Abandonment

Mark Gillan – Chief Engineer in Charge of Operations

«Our two single-seaters made a good start, gaining a few positions by the end of the first lap. Pastor’s first stint was good but unfortunately he spun on lap 25 due to an issue with the left rear of his car, which forced us to retire him. Bruno was in the middle of the pack for most of the race, but a few laps before the finish, he complained about a worsening problem with his car’s behavior and we decided to retire him too. As a team, we need to regroup and continue to work hard to prepare for the Mugello tests and the next race in Barcelona.»

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