Spain: The Race Seen from the Pits

Ferrari

Fernando Alonso – Winner

Felipe Massa – 3rd

Stefano Domenicali, Team Principal: « I am really happy with this great team result! We have done a good job, both here at the races and in Maranello. It was a very tense race, in which the smallest detail could make a huge difference. From this perspective, we read the race very well, when some believe that tire management and stops made the difference today, I must say without being presumptuous, that our engineers made no mistakes. I think it’s thanks to Pat Fry, who wasn’t with us today on the pit wall. These forty points taken in Barcelona are very important: Fernando once again delivered a magnificent race, aggressive at the right moments and conservative when he had to manage his lead, widening the gap on all his rivals. I am delighted that we have closed the gap with our closest rivals. I am also particularly happy with Felipe’s performance, because on this track, starting 9th and finishing on the podium is not an easy task. He was in the fight until the end, and this result is well deserved. After how the qualifying session went yesterday, this result is the best we could have hoped for. We organized ourselves against strong opposition, but we know there is still much to do to improve our car for Saturday afternoons, as we have said many times if we want to ensure we can start from a better position. »

– Lire les déclarations des pilotes

Lotus

Kimi Räikkönen – 2nd

Romain Grosjean – Retirement

Eric Boullier, Team Director: We are really happy with this podium. Losing out to Fernando at the first corner was problematic, and being stuck first behind Lewis and then Sebastian clearly impacted our progress, but I don’t think we had the pace to win today anyway. Unfortunately for Romain, and through no fault of his own, a suspension failure ended his race very quickly. The cause of this is yet to be determined, and we’ve completed so many kilometers with this suspension configuration, so it’s difficult to know what could have happened. We will send the parts back to Enstone to study in detail what went wrong and prevent any repetition.

– Lire les déclarations des pilotes

Red Bull

Sebastian Vettel – 4th

Mark Webber – 5th

Christian Horner, Team Principal: « A tough race. 4th and 5th positions were obviously not what we were hoping for from this race but it was clear that tire degradation was going to be a key factor. We didn’t have a good race pace today but we still managed to score big points. We made four pit stops for both cars, did some great work in the pits, and made a series of very quick stops. It was a good comeback after a difficult first lap for Mark. »

– Lire les déclarations des pilotes

Mercedes

Nico Rosberg – 6th

Lewis Hamilton – 12th

Ross Brawn, Team Principal: We endured a very difficult afternoon and the comparison between our competitiveness in qualifying and in the race was particularly disappointing. Nico did an excellent job managing the tires to make only three stops, and his level of performance showed that our car is currently capable of functioning properly on tracks of this kind. Lewis failed to achieve a good balance, making the situation even more critical, which forced him to adopt a four-stop strategy in the middle of the race. We need to find the key to explain why we lose performance on Sunday afternoon and find the right solutions to improve.

– Lire les déclarations des pilotes

Force India

Paul di Resta – 7th

Adrian Sutil – 13th

Robert Fernley, Deputy Team Principal: It’s great to come away with another 7th place for Paul and to maintain our 5th place in the championship. Paul drove a very solid race and the pit wall decisions allowed him to continue fighting for 6th place with Rosberg until the last lap. On the other side of the garage, Adrian had a lot of bad luck; he lost a lot of time during the first pit stop when the right rear wheel didn’t attach properly. It was really unfortunate because he had a fantastic start, gaining five places on the first lap. His race pace was very impressive and he certainly could have scored a lot of points. As a team, we will focus on the positives and head to Monaco confident that we can match this level of performance and get both our cars in the points.

– Lire les déclarations des pilotes

McLaren

Jenson Button – 8th

Sergio Pérez – 9th

Martin Whitmarsh, Team Director: « Jenson had a first-class race to come back from the back after a very unlucky start, which saw him drop to the back of the pack, up to the final 8th place. To do that on this circuit, where overtaking is known to be difficult, and with this car, which is not yet as competitive as we would like, was very impressive. And to do it on a three-stop strategy, paying very close attention to the tires while maintaining a sufficiently fast and consistent race pace, was even more remarkable.

On the other hand, like most drivers today, Checo chose a four-stop pit strategy. But, like Jenson, he had a very good race, finishing 9th, not far behind his much more experienced teammate. At the end of the race, Checo’s tires needed attention, but like Jenson, he managed them very well.

We scored six points in the championship today and obviously, we are not satisfied with that. However, scoring points with both our cars in a technical race is a very clear demonstration of success and provides a solid platform on which we can build.

Now we are going to Monaco, a Grand Prix that McLaren has won 15 times. Even though we are not expecting a 16th McLaren victory on these famous narrow streets this year, we will do our best to score as many points as possible.

– Lire les déclarations des pilotes

Toro Rosso

Daniel Ricciardo – 10th

**Jean-Eric Vergne** – Withdrawal

Franz Tost, Team Principal: As expected, there were a large number of pit stops during the race due to high tire degradation, so we knew that three or four stops were the most likely strategy, and in the end, most cars did four. We had planned for three tire changes, but it went to four over the course of the race. Unfortunately, Jean-Eric’s race was ruined by the contact in the pit lane with Hülkenberg’s Sauber. He had to pit on lap 38 when it became clear he had a damaged tire, then in the final stages, we could see from the data that the damage to the rear of the car had worsened, and we asked him to pit. This incident had a big influence on our other car, as we had to leave Daniel on track for an extra lap before a pit stop while we dealt with Jean-Eric, and since his tires were quite worn by then, it cost him a significant amount of lap time. Nevertheless, he managed to fend off Gutierrez in the final laps and picked up a point with his tenth place. Without this earlier problem, we should have been much closer to the McLarens with a possible chance to attack them in the latter part of the race. We must be pleased with the improvement in performance we saw on Friday and Saturday and work to get more updates that have allowed us to make this step forward.

– Lire les déclarations des pilotes

Sauber

Esteban Gutiérrez – 11th

Nico Hülkenberg – 15th

Monisha Kaltenborn, Team Principal: « Finishing a race without points is always disappointing. Nevertheless, there are also some positive points we could take from this weekend, such as a better understanding of our car and the measures we took before coming here. We didn’t expect to make a huge step forward because we knew that other competitors would also have improvements. However, our updates worked as planned, which is positive. Nonetheless, we know we need to improve. Analyzing this weekend will help make bigger steps in the future. Nico was in a strong position, but the incident in the pitlane, resulting from an early release, ruined his race. Esteban delivered a very solid performance, we are happy about that and we hope it will give him confidence. »

– Lire les déclarations des pilotes

Williams

Pastor Maldonado – 14th

Valtteri Bottas – 16th

Mike Coughlan, Technical Director: « We knew it would be a tough race today, but we can take some positives from the three places Pastor gained compared to his grid position. We suffered significant degradation, so we decided to switch Pastor to a four-stop strategy. We stuck with three stops for Valtteri, but then we lost time. We need to analyze the data because the degradation on his car was unusual compared to Friday. Everyone at Williams knows what needs to be done to turn the situation around, and we need to continue working hard. I’d also like to thank all our fans and partners for their unwavering support. »

– Lire les déclarations des pilotes

Caterham

Charles Pic – 17th

Giedo van der Garde – Retirement

Caterham has not released the statements of the team’s representatives.

– Lire les déclarations des pilotes

Marussia

Translate: Jules Bianchi – 18th

Max Chilton – 19th

John Booth, Team Principal: We leave the Circuit de Catalunya with mixed feelings about our Spanish Grand Prix weekend. On one hand, we clearly made progress thanks to the new developments for this race, not only on Friday but also in how we optimized things session by session. We hoped for better in the race, but we had issues with Jules and Max that masked what should have been our advantage today, which is our pace compared to the cars around us. Both our drivers did a good job demonstrating this and being forced to stop 4 times instead of the planned 3 stops, and having completed his last stint on worn hard tires, Jules’ comeback was particularly impressive. With the benefit of new tires, he might have been able to attack in that last stint and it could have been a different result today. The development pace is the result of hard work from our factory in Banbury and we must maintain our momentum now in Monaco, where we will have new developments, even if they are minor.

– Lire les déclarations des pilotes