Italy: The Race Seen from the Pits

Red Bull

Sebastian Vettel – Winner

Mark Webber – 3rd

Christian Horner, Team Principal: « It’s a fantastic way to mark our 40th victory and Sebastian’s 32nd. Winning and finishing 3rd at Monza, which is one of the historical Grand Prix, is a testament to our excellent teamwork today. There was a huge effort behind the scenes to prepare for this race. We had some issues that we had to manage during the race, and the pit stops in particular were excellent and allowed Mark to get ahead of Felipe Massa. It was very impressive to see how the entire team contributed to this fantastic result. »

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Ferrari

Fernando Alonso – 2nd

Felipe Massa – 4th

Pat Fry, Technical Director: As usual at Monza, we expected a difficult race and, once again, it was a very tight fight from start to finish. It was not difficult to interpret the race in terms of strategy because from Friday, the indications showed that degradation allowed for only one stop. After one of those excellent starts we are getting to know, Felipe lost the place he had gained on Webber who, by advancing his stop, gained enough of an advantage to secure third place. From there, the gap between the two was never less than a second, so Felipe couldn’t use the DRS to try to close in. Fernando also had an excellent start, and his overtaking maneuver on Webber at the second chicane was the mark of a true champion. When Vettel came in, Fernando’s lap times were very competitive, which is why we tried to delay our stop. We knew that with the hard tires our performance deficit would be greater than with the mediums, and we tried to exploit the fresher tires for the final moments of the race. The European season is coming to an end, and now the final rush around the world is arriving, during which we will do our best to continue putting our rivals under pressure.

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Sauber

Nico Hülkenberg – 5th

Esteban Gutiérrez – 13th

Monisha Kaltenborn, Team Principal: « We are pleased with what is a great result. Nico fought well and had a fantastic race. The team did a good job as well. Esteban was delayed many times and we lost the chance to score points. Overall, however, he still delivered a very solid race and showed that he is constantly improving. We are happy to see that, for the first time, the result reflects that we have made a step forward with the car development. A big thank you to the race team here in Monza and the team back in Hinwil. »

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Mercedes

Nico Rosberg – 6th

Lewis Hamilton – 9th

Ross Brawn, Team Director: « It was a frustrating race in the end because we had a fast car today. We cannot be certain of what Vettel’s true pace at the front could have been, but we saw Fernando and Mark fighting for second place and our drivers were matching their times. Lewis’s slow puncture in his first stint clearly compromised his strategy by forcing us into a two-stop race. But he drove a fantastic race, complicated by a radio problem, and maximized the car’s performance, climbing back to 9th place. With Nico, we are frustrated because he was held up behind a slower car that was at times too fast for him to overtake. It’s a disappointing result and this weekend reminds us that we need to be at our best under all circumstances if we want to maximize our potential. But this afternoon also suggested we have a competitive car. »

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Toro Rosso

Daniel Ricciardo – 7th

Jean-Eric Vergne – Retirement

Franz Tost, Team Principal: « An excellent performance from Daniel and the whole team allowed us to finish in a well-deserved seventh place at one of the most well-known races on the calendar, which is also our home Grand Prix. With Daniel, our race unfolded as planned, even though at the beginning we had some concerns about whether tire degradation would allow us to execute our one-stop strategy, but it worked well. He did a very good job maintaining his position while managing his tires. His afternoon was complicated by the fact that he was almost never in a position to use the DRS, except when overtaking backmarkers, while the cars behind him could use it to close the gap. Regarding Jean-Eric, it’s really unfortunate that he had more bad luck. After getting a good start, he maintained his position but had to retire due to a transmission issue, a cause we now need to investigate. »

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Lotus

Romain Grosjean – 8th

Kimi Räikkönen – 11th

Eric Boullier, Team Principal: « If you want to be competitive for the championship, you must be able to fight at the front every weekend on Saturday and also on Sunday. The positive point of this weekend is that we showed a fantastic race pace and both drivers drove exceptionally well. Romain withstood a lot of pressure and made two beautiful overtakes on the two McLarens. Kimi came back after the first-lap incident in a superb demonstration of his talents. The negative point is that we couldn’t qualify where we needed to be. The results at the end of the race did not reward the team, but there is a lot of positive to take from the last European race of the season and we will fly to the final races with a lot of fighting spirit. »

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McLaren

Jenson Button – 10th

Sergio Pérez – 12th

Martin Whitmarsh, Team Principal: « Today’s race was the disappointing end to a frustrating weekend.

Jenson lost a few places at the start and then spent the majority of the race behind one of the Toro Rossos, just like Checo.

If that hadn’t been the case, our cars would have been able to go significantly faster than they actually did. However, even though I said our cars were faster in terms of lap time, their lack of straight-line speed prevented Jenson and Checo from passing the Toro Rossos to exploit their good pace on a clear track.

However, Jenson was fantastic at the end of the race by holding off Kimi to keep 10th place by just three-tenths of a second at the checkered flag.

Checo was unhappy to finish 12th, a slower pit stop than usual cost him a place on the track, without it being his fault.

Overall, I would summarize our weekend by saying that we leave with a hard-earned point.

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Williams

Pastor Maldonado – 14th

Valtteri Bottas – 15th

Xevi Pujolar, Chief Race Engineer: There was a risk of rain today during the race, but we thought we could stay on slick tires, so we decided to start with both cars on mediums. We hoped to execute a one-stop strategy with both cars given the pace shown on Friday. Our strategy and tire management went as planned, but we weren’t fast enough to compete with the cars ahead. We’re moving from a low-downforce circuit here to a high-downforce circuit in Singapore, so it will be a completely different challenge, and we hope to be better there.

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Force India

Adrian Sutil – 16th

Paul di Resta – Retirement

Dr. Vijay Mallya, Team Owner and Director: « We leave Monza empty-handed after a difficult weekend. We struggled with the pace and had our share of bad luck. Paul’s race ended on the first lap after contact with Grosjean at the second chicane, which was very disappointing. Adrian had a better start, gaining ground and positioning himself on the verge of the top 10. He had a solid race with a nice overtaking maneuver on Gutierrez, but he lacked the speed to fight for points. In the final laps, we were forced to retire the car due to concerns about the brakes. It is clear that we need to regain the form we showed before the summer break if we want to continue fighting for 5th place in the constructors’ standings. »

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Caterham

Charles Pic – 17th

Giedo van der Garde – 18th

Caterham did not publish the statements of the team’s representatives.

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Marussia

Jules Bianchi – 19th

Max Chilton – 20th

John Booth, Team Principal: Before arriving at the race, there were many things to contend with. The weather during the half-hour before the start was very mixed, and deciding which tires to start with was difficult. In the end, we gave our drivers a comparison to make between intermediates and slicks in case we experienced rain before the start. Ultimately, the weather held for the rest of the race, and we were able to execute our one-stop strategy. We saw good levels of degradation on our car throughout the weekend, which is an improvement over recent races, and the work we’ve done in this area has paid off, allowing us to succeed with a one-stop race against Caterham’s two stops. Unfortunately, we still don’t have enough pace to finish ahead of them, but it was quite close with Van der Garde at the end. In the final laps, we were very tight on fuel, and given that we had tried everything to catch Van der Garde, we had to drastically slow the pace over the last three laps to ensure we saw the checkered flag.

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