INDIA in F1

Tag: formula 1

  • A fantastic performance by the team to get 1-2 on the starting grid: Hamilton

    DRIVERS

    1 – Nico ROSBERG (Mercedes)

    2 – Lewis HAMILTON (Mercedes)

    3 – Sebastian VETTEL (Red Bull Racing)

    TV UNILATERAL

    Nico, your first pole here in Montreal and given Lewis’ record here over the years you must be delighted.

    Nico ROSBERG: I’m not really aware of Lewis’ record or something but of course I know it’s a track where he’s very strong at, so all the more I’m very, very happy that it worked out. It’s great. It’s been a fantastic day and also all through the weekend really progressing all he time, getting stronger and stronger. It’s really cool and best position for tomorrow of course.

    It’s been very close all weekend of course, but Lewis did have the upper hand going into qualifying. Where did you find the difference today?

    NR: It’s just working at it all the time: looking at data, working with my engineers, trying to just improve the set-up, trying to understand what are the areas where I can do better. It’s really just an onward process and it’s great that it worked out.

    Lewis, you were behind on the first runs in Q3 and then on your final run it looked like you lost time in the middle sector. Can you tell us what happened?

    Lewis HAMILTON: Not particularly. Nico did a fantastic job today, so congratulations to him. Just wasn’t the greatest qualifying session this; sometimes you have good ones, sometimes you have bad ones. But it’s great for the team that we have got the 1-2 in quali. A really fantastic performance by the team, so let’s hope we can make history tomorrow.

    Well, it’s seven one hundredths of a second only the difference between you today. Can we expect a similarly close battle in the race tomorrow?

    LH: I would assume so, yeah.

    Thank you for that. Sebastian, a great final lap, you saved your best until last?

    Sebastian VETTEL: Yeah, indeed. The start of the last lap wasn’t great. I still didn’t manage to get that first sector right, the first two corners I didn’t get along very well with today. After that I tried to take more risk and it worked, so sector two was very good through the two kind of chicanes, especially the second one; I found a significantly better line and more time compared to previous runs and kept it together until the end. So, all in all, a very good result. I think it was the maximum we could do, very close with the people behind, obviously half a second to the Mercedes in front, but yeah, I think four cars were within five or six hundredths of a second, so obviously I’m happy to be the quickest one of those.

    Obviously you won here last year, like you say the margin to Mercedes is big but you’ve got the Williams to contend with tomorrow. What are your thoughts on prospects for the race?

    SV: We’ll see. It’s a long race here. Strategy I think could be a bit of a surprise, so we’ll have to wait and see what happens. But as you touched on Williams is very, very strong here. They have a very, very quick down the straights. Generally the Mercedes-powered cars are looking forward to the straight lines tomorrow. I’ll try to obviously stay as close as I can to those two, maybe get some tow and do the best I can. If we have a chance to attack them then we should go for it.

    Coming back to you Nico, again same as in Monaco you had the advantage after the first run in Q3. Can you talk about the confidence that gives you going into your final run, knowing that you’re in that position; that you’ve got the pole and it’s up to the other guy to take it off you?

    NR: Of course that helps a lot because I have a banker in and that’s a big advantage to have, definitely. That was also a benefit.

    PRESS CONFERENCE

    Q: So Nico, the word you used in Monaco was momentum: you stopped Lewis’ momentum there and you’ve carried that on here. Now you’ve got the momentum. Can you talk about that and how you take that forward into tomorrow’s grand prix?

    NR: Well, it’s just that little bit extra when you have the result, when I have that result behind my back and I know I’ve come here knowing that I’ve won the last race. It just helps a bit. Lewis obviously had that winning streak and to bring that to an end was important.

    Q: Lewis, you talked about the importance of pole position here in Montreal. How do you see it? On the one hand it looks like an easy track to overtake on but from where you are now, you thinking about that for tomorrow, how important to you in your mind is not being on pole?

    LH: Yeah, it’s not that easy, especially with Nico being so fast, so overtaking is going to be very difficult, to overtake the same car as mine – especially when we’re so close in pace. So, we’ll do what I can but, of course, the thing tomorrow is to try to make sure we get as many points as we can.

    Q: Sebastian, can you talk a little about the improvements that Red Bull have bought here this weekend – obviously we heard something about Renault giving you a bit more power – and how you feel all of that has contributed to you being here now.

    SV: Well, honestly I don’t know where the Renault talk comes from but I think as far as we’re concerned, yeah, we always obviously try to improve but we didn’t have any major steps for here. Regarding the car, obviously you run a little less downforce around here, which I think is obvious and probably the same for everyone. And… yeah… we brought some bits, other than a different downforce package as well, which seemed to work – but obviously we’re fighting a very big gap and it’s difficult to close it in one go.

    QUESTIONS FROM THE FLOOR

    Q: (Dan Knutson – Auto Action / National Speedsport News) Seb, following on from that last question, how about you, yourself? Do you think maybe you’ve made a step getting more used to driving these cars?

    SV: Well, I think you always try to work on yourself. Obviously if you look at the record so far I didn’t have the smoothest races, so it’s good to have a more or less clean Friday and a clean Saturday today. So, hopefully, fingers crossed, we’ll have a clean race tomorrow. But I’m confident, always confident that when I step in the car that it is good enough to make it – so we’ll have to wait and see. In terms of fighting with the car, I’m still not where I want to be, still not yet behaving the way that I probably prefer but, then again, you still try to get the maximum out of the car and that’s normal. It’s not like last year always I was stepping into a dream car and everything was smooth and perfect – I had to work very hard as well. So, this year, obviously, yeah, we’re not yet tickling the right spots, probably.

    Q: (Pierre Durocher – Montreal Journal) I would like to ask each driver about the fact that they announced earlier today a new deal to keep the race in Montreal for the next ten years.

    NR: It’s great because Montreal is one of the best races in the year, for all of us, I think. It’s a great track, the fans are fantastic, so enthusiastic so I’m very happy and I’m sure everybody is, that we’re going to be coming here a lot more often in the future.

    LH: Yeah, I second that. It’s one of the best races of the year but mostly the fans here are just, again, some of the best that we get to see. They really make the atmosphere and the city is incredible, great food, we enjoy coming here so I’m grateful that that’s been done so hopefully we get to race here many more times.

    SV: Yeah, I think it’s great. I think it’s one of those places… one of the few places in the calendar where the whole city really parties all weekend long and embraces the Grand Prix so really appreciates the Grand Prix being here and obviously for us that’s a great feeling. You stand on the grid tomorrow and you have so many fans during the drivers’ parade but also when you race you see full grandstands and it just makes your job extra special.

    Q: (Paolo Ianieri – La Gazzetta dello Sport) Sebastian, is this third position a surprise to you, were you expecting to make it, looking also at the problems you had yesterday?

    SV: Well, I think it was very very tight, you have to say that. I think between third and sixth there wasn’t much so obviously I’m happy I got the last lap right and it was just good enough. Obviously it’s quite good to start third, right behind the Mercedes so we will see what we can do from there in the race but I think it was kind of expected that it would be a tough battle for third. It was probably not yet clear yesterday but the contenders were already on the list, with Red Bull, with us, with Williams and the Ferraris.

    Q: (Livio Oricchio – Universo On-Line) Lewis, you lost a lot of time in the second part of the track with your last set of tyres. Do you think you lost your pole position there and what happened?

    LH: In the middle sector? I went wide a couple of times in turn six and then turn eight but Nico just did a better job today so I need to work hard to make sure I do better tomorrow.

    Q: (Jordan Irvine – Nextgen-Auto.com) Sebastian, in 2009 when Brawn seemed to be running away with the championship, Red Bull were able to catch up and challenge in the latter half of the season. This year, is Red Bull able to develop a car that can not only catch up Mercedes but actually in your opinion beat them on regular occasions to put you back in the fight for the championship?

    SV: Well, you don’t have to be a genius to beat them. You need to be faster than them on the track and to beat them in the championship, you need to consistently score more points than them so right now we’re struggling to do that. You didn’t have to follow much… obviously they’ve been very dominant in the first couple of races, winning all of them so we are working very hard, completely motivated and we have a strong belief in ourselves. I think that’s the reason why we’ve been so successful the last couple of years, so rest assured we won’t give up.

    Q: (Massimo Lopez Pegna – La Gazzetta dello Sport) Lewis and Nico; seeing the results today, do you predict for tomorrow that the race will be decided between the two of you or can you see somebody else maybe giving you trouble?

    NR: I expect that it’s going to be between the two of us for now, yes, but of course there can be surprises so we need to still make sure we push but I think we have enough of a gap at the moment on race pace.

    LH: I don’t think it’s just between the two of us. Obviously in qualifying Sebastian wasn’t as close as perhaps he would like to be but the race pace was great in the last race so I anticipate tomorrow they should be quite strong, so we definitely cannot disregard Sebastian or Red Bull. I think we need to be very cautious, still, and make sure that we keep pushing.

    Q: (Paolo Ianieri – La Gazzetta dello Sport) Nico, this has always  been called a track for Lewis and you’ve never done better than fifth in your career racing here. Has this pole taken pressure off you, is it a boost of confidence?

    NR: That’s statistics, you know. I di

    Rosberg, flanked by Hamilton on right and Vettel on left after Canada GP qualies. Mercedes AMG Petronas team photo.
    Rosberg, flanked by Hamilton on right and Vettel on left after Canada GP qualies. Mercedes AMG Petronas team photo.

    dn’t even know the statistics until I got here and you told me on Friday or whenever, so for me it’s a track like any other and a track that I really enjoy. It’s a really great track, it’s a challenging track so I didn’t think about it that way and I always believed that I have a chance to be right at the front, so I’m just very very happy that it worked out.

    eom/FIA release of the transcript

  • Hamilton fastest in final practice but Nico Rosberg steals the pole

    Montreal, 7 June 2014: Lewis Hamilton continued to dominate the timesheets in Montreal as went quickest in final practice at the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve. The Briton, who failed to set a representative time on the quicker supersoft tyre at the end of the session, still managed to finish half a second clear of supersoft-shod Williams driver Felipe Massa. However, it was his teammate, Nico Rosberg,

    File photo: Nico Rosberg after winning the Monaco GP. A Mercedes AMG Petronas image
    File photo: Nico Rosberg after winning the Monaco GP. A Mercedes AMG Petronas image

    who took the pole amid yellow flags. Vettel will start on P3.

    Hamilton set his P1 lap of 1:15.610 with 25 minutes of the session remaining, as the final longer runs on the soft tyre came to an end. That put him half a second clear of team-mate Nico Rosberg.

    However, when the time came to bolt on the supersoft tyre for qualifying simulations, neither Mercedes driver set a convincing time, with Hamilton returning to the garage first and Rosberg following soon after.

    Despite the field being clear none of the duo’s supersoft-shod rivals could make a dent on their soft tyre times. Williams’ Felipe Massa came closest, splitting the Mercedes, but otherwise the closest challenger was Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso, eight tenths adrift of Hamilton.

    In the early part of the session the pace was set by McLaren’s Kevin Magnussen, the Dane topping the timesheet with a lap of 1:18.325. The expected front-runners were still in the pit lane, however, with Lewis Hamilton not emerging inside the first quarter of the hour.

    As the 15-minute mark was reach, the session was briefly red-flagged. Esteban Gutierrez lost control of his Sauber on the run down to turn four and hit the wall on the outside of the exit.

    Action resumed four minutes later and Hamilton joined the fray and the Briton jumped to P1 on his second lap out, with a lap of 1:17.416. That was swiftly eclipsed by Ferrari’s Kimi Raikkonen before the Mercedes driver responded by becoming the first man to break the 1 min 17s barrier with a lap of 1:16.760.

    Mercedes team-mate Nico Rosberg was not to be outdone, however, and after Hamilton had lowered the bar to 1:16.186, the championship leader shaved another six hundredths of a second off to claim P1.

    There was no denying Hamilton, though, and he soon moved ahead again, registering the fastest lap on soft tyres – a 1:15.610 – before the duo returned to the pits. Behind them the quickest prime tyre runners were Massa in third and over a second down on Hamilton, Red Bull Racing’s Daniel Ricciardo, and Valtteri Bottas in the second Williams.

    Raikkonen was the first to make the switch to the supersoft tyre, 20 minutes before the end of the session and the Finn jumped to third with his first lap out, still just under a second shy of Hamilton’s soft tyre benchmark.

    The rest of the field left it later, with most not making the switch until the final 10 minutes. Force India’s Nico Hulkenberg leaped from 10th to fifth and then Fernando Alonso moved third ahead of team-mate Raikkonen by just 0.040s.

    The battle at the top should have been about the two Mercedes drivers but as Hamilton left pit lane for his first supersoft run he got on the radio to his team asking them to investigate a problem noticed when leaving the garage. He returned to the pits after an first lap out and didn’t re-emerge. Rosberg too opted out of his run on the red-banded Pirelli tyre after failing to find significant improvement and thus the session ended with Hamilton’s soft-tyre time giving him spot, 0.476s ahead of Felipe Massa’s best time on supersofts, with Rosberg third.

    Alonso was fourth on supersofts, some eight tenths down on Hamilton’s times, with Daniel Ricciardo fifth for Red Bull Racing. Raikkonen took sixth place ahead of compatriot Bottas and the Finns were followed by the Toro Rossos of Daniil Kvyat and Jean-Eric Vergne. The final top-10 spot went to Sebastian Vettel, who ended the session almost 1.3s adrift of Hamilton’s time.

    A number of drivers had offs during the session, with Gutierrez’s being the most significant. Turn eight caught out number of drivers with Marcus Ericsson, Romain Grosjean and Sergio Perez all surviving spins at the turn. Kamui Kobayashi made a late exit from the session, his Caterham team telling him to stop his car at Turn 10 as they had spotted an issue with his CT05.

    2014 Canadian Grand Prix – Free Practice 3 Times
    1 Lewis Hamilton Mercedes 1:15.610  18
    2 Felipe Massa Williams 1:16.086 0.476 16
    3 Nico Rosberg Mercedes 1:16.120 0.510 20
    4 Fernando Alonso Ferrari 1:16.488 0.878 15
    5 Daniel Ricciardo Red Bull Racing 1:16.504 0.894 15
    6 Kimi Räikkönen Ferrari 1:16.528 0.918 22
    7 Valtteri Bottas Williams 1:16.684 1.074 20
    8 Daniil Kvyat Toro Rosso 1:16.820 1.210 21
    9 Jean-Eric Vergne Toro Rosso 1:16.824 1.214 19
    10 Sebastian Vettel Red Bull Racing 1:16.884 1.274 15
    11 Nico Hulkenberg Force India 1:16.944 1.334 17
    12 Kevin Magnussen McLaren 1:16.993 1.383 19
    13 Romain Grosjean Lotus 1:17.121 1.511 21
    14 Sergio Perez Force India 1:17.188 1.578 19
    15 Pastor Maldonado Lotus 1:17.224 1.614
    16 Jenson Button McLaren 1:17.360 1.750
    17 Adrian Sutil Sauber 1:17.900 2.290
    18 Jules Bianchi Marussia 1:18.518 2.908
    19 Max Chilton Marussia 1:18.525 2.915
    20 Marcus Ericsson Caterham 1:19.865 4.255
    21 Kamui Kobayashi Caterham 1:20.227 4.617
    22 Esteban Gutierrez Sauber 1:22.388 6.778

  • We are fighting for fourth place: Andrew Green

    TEAM REPRESENTATIVES – Dave GREENWOOD (Marussia), Andrew GREEN (Force India), Giampaolo DALL’ARA (Sauber), Pat FRY (Ferrari), Paddy LOWE (Mercedes)

     PRESS CONFERENCE

    Dave can we start with you? Obviously points for the team in Monaco. That must be a huge boost, a huge encouragement to the team. Can you tell us about the reaction within the team and also how you got there, the work that was involved in that?

    Dave GREENWOOD: Yeah, obviously for the whole team they were very pleased on Sunday evening with the result. From the point of view of how we got there, really we’d actually brought some updates to the Barcelona race and we almost struggled a bit to get them working as we’d expected during the race weekend but the real positive for us was the fact that we had the two-day test after the Barcelona race. So, plenty of new tyres you to do some good testing and we had quite a good result on the first day. We got the car much better balanced with the parts that we had brought to the race. Certainly Max, on day one, was very happy with the car. Competitiveness-wise on day one? OK, it’s only a test and yes we did put the supersoft tyres on, but that vaulted us right up to the front of the timesheets, which was not normal for us. We were quite happy with that and Max did a good job to get the parts working on the first day. Confirmed with Jules, the situation had improved on the second day and really went into Monaco [where] we kind of thought ‘well, that’s great, they worked well at Barcelona, but Monaco is a completely different track’. So we were quite, not nervous, but you know we needed to make sure that the homework we did to translate the set-up from Barcelona to Monaco was the right direction. Monaco free practice went really well, really happy with the balance of the car again and the times we were posting. What we’re saying is that we were at the back of the midfield pack. I’m not saying we were further forward than that. But that’s the place you need to be on a Sunday when you have a race of attrition, which is obviously what we had. It enabled us to be in the right place to take hold of the places when they became available.

    Where do you go from here then? Can you repeat that result and how do you build from here and develop?

    DG: Obviously on pure pace alone we’re not going to repeat that result this weekend. It’s clear we needed some luck. But the bottom line is if you’re fighting with the cars that are trying to take the eighth, ninth and tenth-place spots, they’re good cars, they’re good competitors, so you need to have a reasonable amount of pace to be able to stay with them. Obviously in Monaco, you’ve got the advantage of the fact that there is a huge lap time difference needed to overtake, there’s much less here, so that helped us. But we just need to keep progressing, keep bringing developments to the car, we’ve got some more developments this week, just keep chipping away at it and see how we get on.

    Well done, thank you? Giampaolo, coming to you, can you tell us from an engineering point of view why have the first six races of the season gone the way they have for Sauber?

    Giampaolo DALL’ARA: OK. It has been quite a tough beginning, especially entering the season. Even before racing we had quite a tough winter preparing the car and the team with the big changes this year and obviously the big hit we got was that the performance side of things was nowhere near where we were expecting. We have been identifying some of the reasons why. For some of them there was a kind of immediate follow-up but for others it took and is taking longer, that’s why we still lag quite a bit behind where we would like to be in terms of pure performance. In the early races we had some reliability issues, some accidents as well, but in all honesty, if you talk about scoring points we were never really in position on performance grounds. In the last of couple of events starting in Barcelona we could introduce a new aero package, we could finalise quite an extensive weight reduction campaign. The car came out for a number of reasons I’m not going to explain here, came out way heavier then we were expecting and targeting so we had to take on that problem as well. On top of this we worked together with our powertrain supplier Ferrari to get on top of some of the issues on that side of things and we believe we made quite a remarkable step and performance… unfortunately the kind of race we are able to perform is quite at the back and we would like to step up further, at least to fight in the midfield, regularly scoring points. We are not quite there yet.

    But since Barcelona we feel that we are closer. In Barcelona we had to face some setup issues related to the difference we had in the new package which, let’s say, were heading to some instability the drivers couldn’t cope with and not all of them were solvable and the race was… although we had both cars on the finish line we were quite far from the points. In Monaco, quite a few of those issues were addressed to our satisfaction. Also we had this test in between the two races, which helped a lot and we were reasonably happy about the performance there. We didn’t qualify well, not only due to performance, we had a couple of unfortunate rounds so we had to start from the back – but we felt in the race that we could fight which some of the guys we are normally not used to fight with. Unfortunately we didn’t have the cars on the finish line due to accidents in this case which, yeah, had a high price for us because right now we are on the sporting side, not in an ideal situation. Definitely we are not happy about this but for sure  we don’t take it too badly. We feel like we are on a growing pattern and we keep being optimistic about the future. We try to improve race-by-race and we are quite sure that at some point we will be back in the right fight.

    Q: Pat, quite a bit of discussion this weekend about the new package on the Ferrari this weekend. Fernando said yesterday that there were updates that needed validating here today. Can you tell us what you tried on the car, whether it worked and how you feel about it?

    Pat FRY: There were quite a few bits: aero; a lot of the control system tuning; obviously reliability updates in the engine and that in itself allows us to push the engine a little bit harder as well. It’s far too early to be able to say whether it’s all working or not. Some things are looking promising, some we need to look into in more detail as normal really. So, yeah, reasonable and a broad spread set of developments. But we need to keep developing the car as quickly as we can really.

    Q: I guess the big question is: is Paddy’s Mercedes team catchable before the end of the season?

    PF: I think that’s going to be a very tough challenge really – but we just need to keep on. There’s quite a gap to close, let’s face it, but we just need to do our best and keep developing.

    Q: Andy, following on from that, for you, for Force India, are Ferrari catchable? You’re 11 points behind them with a third of the season gone.

    Andrew GREEN: I don’t think we’re really in that sort of position to be targeting Ferrari. I think we’re in our own fight with McLaren and Williams for fourth. The sort of teams ahead of us are the big budget teams. We can’t really look to compete with those. We’ll try to give them a fight wherever we can. If they slip up, we will be right behind them. I don’t think, to be realistic, I don’t think we’re really in the same league.

    Q: Tell us about today’s running. What did you learn about the performance of the tyres in particular on this track and obviously the temperatures today are projected to be lower than what we’re expecting for the rest of the weekend.

    AG: It’s a tricky one for us. It’s quite a unique tarmac here in Montreal. It throws up a bit of a conundrum on car setup. We’ve always looked to target the best car we can on Sunday afternoon, maybe at the cost of a Saturday afternoon performance. So, we’ll be looking at all that data again this evening and making some decisions on which way we go. We’ve also had our eye on the weather, knowing that it’s going to warm-up a bit over the next couple of days. So, yeah, we’ve got some difficult decisions to make over the next few hours.

    Q: Paddy, it’s a clean sweep so far for you in pole positions and race wins so far this season. Looked like very strong race pace for both cars this afternoon – do you see any areas where the opposition are catching up on you?

    Paddy LOWE: We take each race at a time. They’re all different circuits with different challenges. This one in particular, very hard on the brakes and difficult to manage the fuel. I think we’ll all find that on Sunday. So, yeah, it’s not easy. I know we’ve had a fantastic record so far this year but we have to work very hard, we’ve got some great competitors out there who will grab everything we leave behind. We’ve just got to make sure we don’t.

    Q: You mentioned the braking there. Obviously braking stability is a huge thing around this Montreal circuit and brake-by-wire obviously is a new thing in Formula One this year. Could you share any insights with us about setting it up for a place like this and what the key to it all is and how yours is working?

    PL: In many ways it makes life easier because the brake-by-wire gives you some authority over brake balance, which we didn’t have in the past. So, in that sense, it’s taken some difficulties away. I don’t think there are any new challenges from that with these new cars.

    QUESTIONS FROM THE FLOOR

    Q: (Kate Walker – crash.net) We’ve heard that there is talk about dropping the Friday morning practice session in light of cost-saving. What kind of impact is that going to have on a technical point of view, other than the time saved on the track?

    DG: I think that with all things, initially, you meet these things with some alarm and you think ‘oh my God, how are we going to deal with that?’ But the reality is that you start to think about it, you come up with new ways that you’re going to structure your programme and I’m sure that ultimately a few races in we will have kind of forgotten about the old way we used to do it and we’ll all be used to it and it will just mean a slight re-structuring of the programme and changing the way we do things. But we’re all adaptable, that’s why we’re all in F1 so I’m sure we’ll cope.

    AG: Well, first of all, from Force India’s perspective, we don’t see this as cost-saving at all. For us, we’ve always looked to use the FP1 session to blood in some new drivers and that was an income stream for us and if we lose that, that’s going to be a relatively severe blow, which, in turn, will have an impact on our technical ability so in that respect, I don’t think it’s cost-saving. I agree, I think we’ll get used to it. With just one session, I don’t think we’ll just move straight into the… we’ll move up, we’ll condense our programme which was an FP1/FP2 and do it all in one session, so not a big issue.

    GD: Yeah, pretty much in line. Obviously from where I sit, I can’t judge on the cost-saving side which  is out of my area but technically, for a team like ours, the time at the track is very precious. Obviously we are more limited than other teams in simulation as a broad concept so time on track is extremely important for us. Obviously, if this happens, we would have to adapt our plans, try to – as mentioned – try to squeeze what we’re doing now in two sessions into one and move off other points, for sure.

    PL: I think the rationale is to reduce the workload on the cars significantly through the weekend and also to reduce the consumption of parts, particularly power units, which is one of the major costs for all the teams, but that’s a particular burden for the smaller teams. That was the concept. It’s still to be finalised, by the way, so there’s a whole month in order to determine the small print and to finally approve it but the concept was to save money. If teams are feeling it isn’t going to save money, then of course it could be reviewed.

    PF: From a technical point of view, you just have to work out how to deal with it, so you need to do a little bit better home work, you’ve got one less session. Obviously we normally test car bits in one session and test tyres in the other. Now we’ve got to work out a way of combining the two. Years ago, when we got rid of warm-up and brought in parc ferme, initially hands were up in the air going ‘my God, we’ll never cope’ and now it’s great, you can actually sleep on a Saturday night rather than be working forever. So I think you just adapt to it really, so you need to do a little bit better preparation, maybe it leads more into trusting the results from the tunnel, from the simulation and things like that. You just have to adapt.

    Q: (Dieter Rencken – Racing Lines) I guess Paddy’s the target for this one but if anybody else would like to comment afterwards feel free. Paddy, if we have a look at why there are restrictive regulations limiting the number of power units, transmissions, tyres, running, tests, whatever, head counts are restricted at races, if one looks at it, one comes to the conclusion that ultimately the cost of going racing is roughly or broadly the same, whether you’re a Marussia or a Ferrari or a Force India or a Mercedes. Yet if I have a look at Companies House records, a budget for a team like yours and the expenditure over a year is about three times that of Andrew’s. That leads me to believe that you’re actually spending twice as much on developing your cars, because that’s where their shortcomings are, than you are to actually build two cars and go racing for an entire season. Is that really a sustainable business model for the 21st century?

    PL: I don’t see why it’s any less sustainable than it ever has been. Formula One has always existed with some differentials between the teams, some teams being better funded than others, and it’s always been that way and teams will sustain themselves, they have to manage themselves as businesses to break even at least. They have to be going concerns. If you can generate income then you chose how to spend it and that’s the nature of a team. So I don’t see any particular difficulty with that, it’s always been that way.

    AG: I think you’ve pointed a very valid fact. I think it’s something we’re aware of but we go racing on a minimal budget and what we have left over, we try and develop the car with. We can see that other teams have got an incredible amount more money to spend on car development, it’s not something we’re particularly concerned about. We do what we can with what we’ve got, that’s what we focus on; what everyone else has got is nothing really to do with us.

    Q: (Matthew Walthert – Bleacher Report) Pat, yesterday Fernando said of Marco Mattiacci that he has good vision and a very clever approach so now that you’ve worked with him for almost two months, I’m wondering if you could maybe tell us a little bit about that approach and some changes he’s brought in – maybe from your perspective – that are working well?

    PF: I think it’s good to come with a clean sheet and look at something and see where it works well, where it doesn’t work well and sometimes, with some of the engineering things,  you do you end up getting so close to it that you miss the obvious things, so I think it’s good to come in with a clean set of eyes and see where we need to improve. There are a huge amount of opportunities for us to actually improve the place and we’re going through those and then working on how to fix them and improve them.

    Q: (Ian Parkes – Press Association) Paddy, when you are in a position like Mercedes with both drivers going head-to-head the way they are for the World title, from a technical point of view, what difficulties have you encountered so far in particular, perhaps reassuring both men that they are getting exactly the same equipment, that the procedures over the weekend are followed to plan, that nothing is unfair effectively?

    PL: You’re absolutely right, it puts a great pressu

    File photo of Andrew Green. Courtesy Sahara Force India
    File photo of Andrew Green. Courtesy Sahara Force India

    re on us to more than ever make sure that both drivers are given an absolutely equal opportunity at every level to compete finally in the race, but we manage that. The cars are built identically, each driver has access to the same tools, the same time to develop the car and we just manage it that way. It is a challenge because you find very small, subtle things that you hadn’t thought of that can be seen as a difference but we work through those and I think we get a good result.

    eom/FIA release of the transcript

  • Alonso tops first practice session on Friday: Canadian GP

    Montreal, 6 June 2014: (7 June 2014 12.30 am IST) Fernando Alonso finished the opening practice session of the Canadian Grand Prix weekend at the top of the timesheet, the Ferrari beating out Mercedes rivals Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg, who were second and third respectively. Sebastian Vettel was fourth-fastest for Red Bull Racing.

    Sahara Force India’s Nico Hulkenberg and Sergio Perez were 11th and 12th respectively during the first practice session for the Canadian GP to be held on Sunday .

    Alonso set a best lap of 1:17.238 to finish just under two hundredths of a

    Alonso in a pensive mood on Friday. The Ferrari driver topped the time sheets in the First practice. An FIA image
    Alonso in a pensive mood on Friday. The Ferrari driver topped the time sheets in the First practice. An FIA image

    second ahead of Hamilton whose best time of 1:17.254 was over a tenth of a second clear of team-mate Rosberg.

    The top three were well clear of the rest of the field, with Vettel’s fourth-placed time being just under a second adrift of Alonso’s benchmark. Valtteri Bottas was fifth for Williams, the Finn exploiting the Mercedes engine that is expected to make the difference on the long, fast straights of the Montreal circuit. Daniel Ricciardo in the second Red Bull was sixth fastest. The Milton Keynes-based team have already admitted they are expecting a difficult weekend due to the deficit their Renault power unit has to the pacesetting Mercedes.

    Ricciardo was followed by the McLarens of Jenson Button and Kevin Magnussen, while Kimi Raikkonen was ninth in the second Ferrari, some 1.3s down on his team-mate. The top 10 order was completed by Toro Rosso’s Jean-Eric Vergne, who eclipsed rookie team-mate Daniil Kvyat by more than half a second around the daunting, high-speed track.

    As ever, the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve’s close walls played a part in the session. With little grip available from the temporary track, several drivers had close brushes with the barriers. Most got away with minimal contact but Marussia’s Jules Bianchi was caught out and the Frenchman struck the wall on the exit on the exit of turn four sustaining damage to the right rear of his car. Bianchi eventually limped back to the pits for repairs.

    Felipe Massa had few chances to test the limits of the circuit. The Brazilian completed just seven laps during the session.

    2014 Canadian Grand Prix – Free Practice One Times
    1 Fernando Alonso Ferrari 1:17.238  21
    2 Lewis Hamilton Mercedes 1:17.254 0.016 25
    3 Nico Rosberg Mercedes 1:17.384 0.146 32
    4 Sebastian Vettel Red Bull Racing 1:18.131 0.893 28
    5 Valtteri Bottas Williams 1:18.361 1.123 20
    6 Daniel Ricciardo Red Bull Racing 1:18.435 1.197 26
    7 Jenson Button McLaren 1:18.446 1.208 33
    8 Kevin Magnussen McLaren 1:18.514 1.276 31
    9 Kimi Räikkönen Ferrari 1:18.578 1.340 15
    10 Jean-Eric Vergne Toro Rosso 1:18.643 1.405 14
    11 Nico Hulkenberg Force India 1:18.733 1.495 30
    12 Sergio Perez Force India 1:18.959 1.721 22
    13 Adrian Sutil Sauber 1:19.108 1.870 24
    14 Romain Grosjean Lotus 1:19.142 1.904 32
    15 Daniil Kvyat Toro Rosso 1:19.177 1.939 21
    16 Pastor Maldonado Lotus 1:19.340 2.102 37
    17 Felipe Massa Williams 1:19.575 2.337 7
    18 Esteban Gutierrez Sauber 1:19.804 2.566 15
    19 Jules Bianchi Marussia 1:20.200 2.962 15
    20 Max Chilton Marussia 1:20.844 3.606 26
    21 Marcus Ericsson Caterham 1:21.404 4.166 33
    22 Alexander Rossi Caterham 1:21.757 4.519 27

    eom/FIA press release

  • We are having a good package and that puts us in good position: Hulkenberg

    Montreal, 5 June 2014: DRIVERS – Adrian SUTIL (Sauber), Nico HULKENBERG (Force India), Kamui KOBAYASHI (Caterham), Felipe MASSA (Williams), Lewis HAMILTON (Mercedes), Jenson BUTTON (McLaren)

    PRESS CONFERENCE

    Jenson, we’ll start with you if we may. A 2011 winner here, of course, memorably, and you’re currently eighth in the championship. This circuit has the famous wall of champions on the outside of the final corner. The back of the cars this year, of these designs, is quite light. I wonder if you could a little bit about how you read the challenge of driving these cars around this track this weekend.

    Jenson BUTTON: OK. Good morning. Yeah, it’s going to be tricky here, It always is, especially with the cold circuit temperatures we’ll probably have on Friday. So yeah, the last corner will be tricky, but we’re sort of used to that I think. We’ve been driving these cars all year and if we can drive these cars around Monaco I think we’ll be alright around here. It should be an interesting circuit. It’s a circuit where you don’t really use downforce so much, it’s a lot more mechanical grip. There are long straights, so we can use the power of the engine – for us that’s great, with the Mercedes engine. And it’s about working with the tyres. I think it’s going to be tricky around here. It’s supposed to be hot on Sunday, so you’re going to have to really look after them. But we’re reasonably good at that.

    Talking about McLaren’s situation: how do you compare this year to last year and the competitiveness and the problems that you have? Are they more fixable than last year’s problems?

    JB: Yeah, I think from the outside it doesn’t look spectacular, our season this year, and you’d say it looks quite similar to last year but it’s very different. In terms of the feel of the car, it’s much better. In terms of the development of the car, it is working and we’re going in the right direction. Yeah, it’s tough. When you’ve been fighting for wins and the team is used to fighting for wins, it’s difficult when you find yourself in this situation. But also there are a lot of positives right now. With Ron back in charge, and Eric, I think they’re doing a great job of really moving the team on and changing certain things so that we will be fighting at the front again. But it just takes time. Things don’t change overnight, even though we’re pushing very hard.

    OK, thank you. Coming to you now Lewis. You’re a three-time winner here, three times on pole here. What is it about you and this Montreal circuit and it’s walls around the outside? Is it the braking? Is about technique? What is it that somehow clicks with you here?

    Lewis HAMILTON: I’m not sure. Good morning everyone. I guess there are certain tracks you like more than others and this is one of those circuits I particularly like. I really like coming out to Canada, I always have a great response from the fans here. It is one of the best grands prix of the year in terms of the turnout, the city, just in general the weekend, it’s a good fun weekend and I guess all of that packed into one makes it fun to drive.

    You’ve said this week that you and your team-mate Nico Rosberg are friends again after Monaco. Can you tell us a little bit more about that?

    LH: There’s not really much to say. I said it in my message. We spoke after the race and just like friends we have our ups and down, we’ve known each other a long, long time, so it’s done and dusted and we look forward to working together to try to help this team win the Constructors’ Championship.

    OK, thank you for that. Coming on to Felipe. Three seventh-place finishes so far this season, your best result here in Montreal a fourth. Williams is tied with McLaren at the moment in the Constructors’ Championship with 52 points after six races. Is that in line with your expectations?

    Felipe MASSA: No. Definitely I think I didn’t have great results until now. It should be much better than what I had until now. So I had not very great races, starting with the race, where I didn’t get to corner two and you know in Bahrain I was fighting for third, fourth the whole race and then I lost a lot of positions because of the safety car. So I think it was not very great results but I’m sure we can do much better and I hope this track can be also a bit better for our car compared to Monaco, compared to other tracks. So really looking forward that we can have a lot better results, starting here in Montreal, a lot better than seventh I hope.

    I wonder if you could tell us what Rob Smedley has brought to the team, because you obviously have got a very long working relationship with him. He’s now in a senior role on the engineering side, can you tell a little bit about what he’s brought to the team?

    FM: A lot of experience. A lot of good direction, different things in terms of how to work, you know, in many different areas. I think he’s a very intelligent engineer, has a lot of experience. For sure, things don’t change from one day to the other, so it takes a little bit of time but not just him, we have a lot of great engineers, a lot of good people and things are getting better all the time inside the team and I’m really looking forward that from now until the end of the of the championship things will get better and better all the time.

    Nico, coming to you. Fifth in the Drivers’ Championship and points scored in every round so far but no podium personally yet. Given the confidence that Force India has in the package for this weekend in Montreal, is this your weekend do you think?

    Nico HULKENBERG: I don’t know. Obviously I hope and like every weekend we’re going to try to make the most of our chances here. I think the track should be OK for us. Also, it’s one of my favourite grands prix, so I really look forward to this weekend – the track, the city, everything is pretty cool. So hopefully we can have a strong result again.

    Q: Monaco showed that you can get results by doing a different strategy from the people around you. As a midfield team I wonder, is that something you feel you need to do to get the results or do you feel you can compete with front running teams on equal terms?

    NH: Not really, and I think looking back in hindsight we made it a bit harder for ourselves, starting on the harder tyre – the other way around with how it turned out, Safety Car etcetera may have been easier – but I think it’s always different and you always have to look at each race and each case and decide then but, generally, we’re having a good package, we’re competitive and that puts us in a good position in general.

    Q: Kamui, you’ve twice finished in the points here in Montreal but after Marussia’s result at the last round in Monaco I wonder what the reaction was in the Caterham team? Is it encouragement that it’s possible to score points or concern about the position it leaves you in?

    Kamui KOBAYASHI:

    For us the Monaco result for us was a bit of a pain but at least we know Marussia made a great step from their updates so I have to say, I think, we have to say it’s a well done job. I think for us for sure I think we need to work. I think what happened in Monaco was a little bit… strange but at least we check with the FIA and that’s through so we have nothing to say but at least we have some upgrades for that first point.

    Q: So what is the way forward for the Caterham team this season?

    KK: The thing about a Formula One team is we cannot change day-by-day. We progress. Of course, it’s not an easy life for us, it’s a difficult moment right now but for sure everybody is working really hard and we know, I think, that we will progress. We need a little bit of time and we are looking forward to more later on this season.

    Q: Adrian, two points finishes also for you in your career here in Montreal – but still none this year for you with the Sauber team.  Your thoughts on the start that the team has made and how the upgrades have worked out so far.

    Adrian SUTIL: Well, a difficult start of course. I thought it would be a little bit more easy but that’s how it is. That’s how our situation is. We try, of course, to get out and improve the car, improve general performance – yeah, coming here we try it again. We had a tough weekend in Monaco but I think Monaco was a little bit more on the better side, the car was behaving a little bit better and so it’s not only bad everything. There are a few positive things – but it’s very complicated to make it altogether at the moment. To understand the car is quite difficult for us still, so we have to work on that and we need a bit more time and hopefully it really goes soon in the right direction. It’s quite hard to be in the back there always, lot of problems come together in racing at the back.

    Q: And tell us from your perspective what you think it will be like to race these hybrid turbo cars around this circuit – the specific challenges of this circuit?

    AS: Well I think here we’re going to have quite high top speeds, with the new engines and the low drag the cars have so we should really be quick on the straights, maybe also a quicker overall lap time than last year – maybe – so I don’t know. It should be a circuit that suits the car in general. All the Formula One cars, not only us. And, as everyone said, it’s quite an enjoyable track with a lot of possibilities to overtake. The race should be quite interesting as well. Lot of chicanes… yeah, good weekend and I look forward to it, hopefully with a quite good result in the end.

    QUESTIONS FROM THE FLOOR

    Q: (Ian Parkes – PA) Jenson, I don’t know if you read the team’s pre-race press release this week but there were some very complimentary words from Eric Boullier with regard to yourself, taking about your quality of input, your experience, your ambassadorial role. It all sounded very positive and almost as if they’re looking to next year, perhaps wanting to keep you. Any further progress on that? As I say, it was all very complimentary towards yourself.

    JB: er…no. No more progress at all. But that’s just the way it is. We’re here, we’ve spent four good years together already. In our fifth year together. And we both want to work together in the future but it’s just not time yet. Not the right time. We have a lot of other issues to solve first before we start thinking about the future too much. We’re in a good place and y’know, I think my experience does help me a lot. I still feel very young at heart, fitter than ever and I have all that experience. I’m in a great position and I feel I’ve got a lot more to give in the future in Formula One. I definitely can’t see an end to my career. This is my life and where I want to be in the future.

    Q: (Bill Beacon – La Presse Canadienne) Because this track is different to most with the braking and long straights and everything, do you think that that in any way will close the gap between Mercedes and the rest of the field?

    LH: I’d be guessing but I don’t feel that will be the case. We’re particularly strong on the straights, Mercedes are but I don’t know, maybe we will be surprised this weekend but long straights do suit us very well. We have a very good power curve on our engine, Mercedes have done the best job with the engines. Renault and Ferrari would have to have done an exceptional job coming into this weekend, in terms of that area, to be  able to keep up with us on the straights..

    FM: Definitely it can be a good track for most of the cars that are using Mercedes (engines) so I think maybe we will see even maybe a big difference compared to Mercedes and the other teams, because as Lewis said, the engine is amazing, it’s been a very good job done by Mercedes and they have a good car under braking and everything, so for sure maybe we can see maybe even a big difference.

    NH: I don’t think it will be very different to the other weeks before.

    Q: (Chris Me

    Nico Hulkenberg file photo by Sahara Force India F1 team.
    Nico Hulkenberg file photo by Sahara Force India F1 team.

    dland – crash.net) Lewis, you said that the air has been cleared between yourself and Nico between races. Did you feel the need to do the same with the team and was anything different with the way the team handled the two of you between Monaco and coming here now?

    LH: There was no difference. Collectively with the team… me and Nico spoke and we individually spoke to the team and saw the team. Nothing’s really changed. We know the team has done a great job in terms of supporting us and the way it’s run with Paddy and Toto. Their support for the both of us has been great. We’re now full steam ahead. We had dinner with the team yesterday and things have never been better. We’re just going from strength to strength. People have ups and downs, as I said, so it’s no different to any other experience me and Nico have had in our whole – God knows how many years we’ve been racing together. We move on, we’re pushing forward. There’s a long long way to go in the season so we’re looking forward to that battle.

    Q: (Gerhard Kuntschik – Salzburger Nachrichten) Jenson, as kind of the older statesman, you raced on the old A1 Ring; we’re coming up to Austria again, Red Bull Ring, in a fortnight; what are your memories of the Austrian Grand Prix?

    JB: Lots of campsites and lots of very merry Austrians over the Grand Prix weekend. It’s one of those races that they really embrace the sort of party scene and the camping scene, which is really cool. It reminds me very much of Spa, British Grand Prix and those sort of races. It’s a true racing fan’s Grand Prix, I feel. The circuit itself… you look at it and you think ‘there’s like seven corners, it can’t be that fun to drive.’ But it is, it’s a really good circuit. I’ve enjoyed racing there in the past, I don’t know what it’s going to be like with these cars. I’ve always had fun racing there. I don’t know how much has changed, either. Turn one, we used to drive off through the gravel because that was the quickest way on the exit. I’m sure it’s not going to be the case any more. I think we’re in for a good Grand Prix.

    Q: (Luis Fernando Ramos – Racing Magazine) To all drivers: the World Cup is coming and your countries are going to be there, playing, so on a personal note, how much are you interested in football? Are you going to follow all the matches or you don’t care much about what’s going on there? And a second brief question: who do you think is going to win the World Cup?

    Q: Kamui, would you like to kick us off?

    KK: Me? On soccer? I don’t really care so I don’t follow anything. All I know is that Japan is not really strong so I don’t…

    NH: Well I hope that Gemany is going to be good but I’m not a football expert but I’m sure I’m going to be behind the TV following the World Cup.

    AS: I’ll be watching, cheering for Uruguay and Germany, because I’m half Uruguayan.

    FM: Yeah, I love football, I watch everything, so I will maybe be watching most of the games. I really hope that Brazil can be there in the final. To win the championship at home would be fantastic so I will be there watching and supporting Brazil.

    LH: I don’t follow it as much (as I used to) but I will probably catch a few games and I want to try and see if we can go out to one of the games at least. The dream will be to go and watch Brazil and England play, that would be pretty awesome.

    JB: Yes, I totally agree. I’m not a massive football fan, I don’t support a team but when it comes to nationalities, countries playing, obviously I will be supporting England and I’m really looking forward to it.

    eom/FIA release of transcript

  • Can Hamilton reclaim the lead in Canada?

    Montreal, 5 June 2014: After two races in Europe, Formula One visits North America this week for the Canadian Grand Prix, round seven of the 2014 FIA F1 World Championship.

    Following Monaco, Montreal’s Circuit Gilles Villeneuve is another temporary track with unforgiving walls millimetres off the racing line – but that’s where the similarities end. From the slowest race of the year, F1 moves to one of its fastest and teams will unleash medium-low downforce packages for the first time in 2014 in an attempt to stay competitive on the long straights of the

    File photo of Hamilton with fans. An FIA image
    File photo of Hamilton with fans. An FIA image

    Île Notre-Dame.

    In essence, the long, thin circuit is a series of high-speed straights linked by slow corners. The start-stop nature of the lap, in which cars may hit more than 300km/h on four separate occasions before braking down to first or second gear, has long been recognised as exceptionally harsh on brakes and engines but this year there are the added demands of the MGU-K, which will have to deal with these heavy braking loads, and the MGU-H which will be kept busy with unrelenting demand from the turbocharger.

    Cars will be set-up for high top speeds but the demands of the three chicanes and the hairpin prevent use of ultra-low downforce packages. There is much fine-tuning to be done as teams seek to find the right balance between low downforce and good stability in those all-important braking zones. With the added requirements of riding the kerbs well and getting good traction from low-speed, Circuit Gilles Villeneuve has plenty to keep engineers occupied.

    Lewis Hamilton comes to Montreal as the form driver of 2014 with four victories and four pole positions from the six early season races. The Briton, however, arrives narrowly trailing German team-mate Nico Rosberg in the Drivers’ Championship. The Mercedes pair are waging a fascinating battle for dominance at the top of the table, and this provides an added dimension to what is always a thrilling weekend in Canada.

    eom/FIA release

  • We have shown that we have a car that can constantly deliver: Vijay Mallya

    Montreal, 3 June 2014: As the F1 bandwagon moves to the American continent and to a technical circuit Sahara Force India team principal and drivers share their views:
    Excerpts:
    Vijay Mallya’s Views:
    Vijay, Force India dummy photo Mar2014 David picten points in Monaco – another good result by the team. Sum up the race for us…
    The car was competitive. We qualified tenth and eleventh, but we felt we could have qualified a few tenths better, which would have put us into sixth or seventh on the grid. Nico drove the car wonderfully well; he conserved the tyres when he had to and defended brilliantly at the end. On the supersofts we did over 50 laps, which is quite incredible. It’s just a shame Sergio’s afternoon was so short: I would have liked to see what he could have done too.
     
    Nonetheless it must have been satisfying to see the team strengthen its hold on fourth place…
    The battle for fourth place is going to be intense as the season develops, but at the moment we are firmly in fourth with 15 points advantage over fifth place. We are now a third of the way into the season and we’ve shown that we have a car that can constantly deliver whatever the track. We’ve been in the points in every race, which is very motivating for everyone in the team and helps pump us up even more. There are some strong teams behind us, but we are holding our own and will continue pushing hard.
     
    What are you hopes and expectations for Canada?
    It should be a good one for us. However, gone are the days when you can hope to have results simply based on what tracks should suit you. This game has changed too much. There are so many variables in racing that we don’t take anything for granted. For example, the weather often plays a role in Montreal and that could reset everything.
     
     
    Driver’s View: Nico Hulkenberg
    Nico Hulkenberg looks to extend his run of points finishes this weekend.
     
    Nico, you’ve scored points in six out of six races in 2014. You must be pleased with that…  
    It’s my best run of results in Formula One and I’m really enjoying the racing. I’ve said many times that consistency is our strength and we showed that again in Monaco with another fifth place. Monaco was not our strongest track, or our weakest track, but we still brought the car home for a great result.
     
    What about those final laps in Monaco. How tough was it to hold on to fifth place?
    It was such a hard race. There was pressure from behind and my tyres were gone. Just keeping the car out of the wall was difficult. So it was a big relief to keep Jenson behind. I was shouting over the radio when I crossed the finish line because it was such a satisfying result for everyone in the team.
     
    Looking ahead to Montreal what are your expectations?
    It’s difficult to say how we will perform in Montreal. In theory it should be one of the better tracks for us, but things change from race to race. It’s good that we have the soft and supersoft tyres again because I think the softer tyres are more suited to our car. As an overall event the Canadian Grand Prix is one of my favourites because of the buzz around the city and the unusual track. To get a quick lap you need good top speed, a car that can attack the curbs and you also have to be brave enough to get close to the walls.
    Driver’s View: Sergio Perez
    Sergio Perez hopes to resume his points-scoring streak in Montreal this weekend.
     
    Tell us about the Canadian Grand Prix. Do you enjoy the weekend?
    I really enjoy racing in Canada; it’s a very nice circuit which is quick and technical. It feels a little bit like a home race for me because it’s not too far from Mexico and there are always quite a few Mexican fans at the race. It’s a very cool city as well with a touch of Europe in the American continent, and the food is just amazing.
     
    It’s also a track that holds special memories for you…
    I have very good memories from Montreal. In 2012 I started at the back of the grid and managed to finish in third place. It was an amazing race and my one-stop strategy worked perfectly. It was my second podium in Formula One and a great feeling – one I hope to experience again soon.
     
    Tell us more about the layout of the lap…
    It’s another track where you need good top speed and traction from the slow corners. You also have to maximise the limits of the track to be quick and get really close to the walls, so it’s easy to make a mistake. It’s hard to overtake there, but the final chicane is definitely the best opportunity. As a track, it should be suited to the strengths of our car so we have to maximise this opportunity.
     
    What are your expectations for the weekend?
    After a very disappointing race in Monaco, I just want to get back in the car and get the best possible result for my team. Points will be the target.  
    eom/Sahara Force India press release

  • Rosberg takes second consecutive Monaco win; regains Championship lead

    Mercedes driver reclaims control of Drivers’ Championship standings as Hamilton is second and Ricciardo third.

    Nico Rosberg took his second consecutive Monaco Grand Prix victory and reclaimed control of the FIA Formula One World Driver’s Champiolnship with a controlled drive from pole position.

    Nico Rosberg after winning the Monaco GP on Sunday. A Mercedes AMG Petronas image
    Nico Rosberg after winning the Monaco GP on Sunday. A Mercedes AMG Petronas image

    The German held of a strong challenge from team-mate Lewis Hamilton, whose chances of taking a fourth win in a row this season faded when he suffered a visibility problem caused by dirt in his left eye. Daniel Ricciardo finished third for Red Bull Racing after recovering from a slide to fifth at the start.

    Rosberg held his lead at the start, but had Hamilton hard in pursuit. Behind them third-on the-grid Red Bull Racing’s Daniel Ricciardo made a poor getaway and was passed by team-mate Sebastian Vettel. The Australian then tried to fend off the hard-charging Fernando Alonso and that allowed his team-mate Kimi Raikkonen, who had started sixth, to slip past both around the outside.

    As the front-runners settled into the lap behind them Force India’s Sergio Perez, who had started 10th, was clipped by McLaren’s Jenson Button and pitched into the barriers on the run down to the hairpin.

    That triggered a brief safety car intervention and when the pace car left the order quickly changed again. This time it was Vettel on the move – though backwards. The champion reported a loss of power and slid rapidly back to 10th by the end of lap four. He pitted for work to be done but when he was released back on track he quickly reported that his RB10 was stuck in first and then had further power unit problems, which forced him to retire at the end of the lap. His exit moved Raikkonen to third and Ricciardo to fourth.

    The next man to stop was Toro Rosso’s Daniil Kvyat. The Russian rookie had impress all weekend on his first time out at Monaco but after a decent race start in which he settled into eighth position he began to drop back on lap 11 losing places to Button and Hulkenberg. Kvyat steered his car back to the pit lane and retired.

    The Safety Car next appeared on lap 25. Adrian Sutil lost control of his Sauber on the exit of the tunnel and smashed into the barriers scattering debris all across the run down to the Nouvelle Chicane.

    That was the cue for a flurry of stops as all the front runners visited the pits. While all went smoothly for the Mercedes drivers and for Ricciardo, trouble was brewing elsewhere. Seventh-placed Jean-Eric Vergne was released into the path of Magnussen and incurred a penalty that spelled the beginning of the end of his race. Raikkonen, meanwhile, slotted back into third following his stop but was soon back in the pits, for another set of softs, the Finn being clipped by a lapped Marussia on his out lap. The Finn’s misfortune promoted Ricciardo to third.

    Vergne’s return to the pits on lap 37 for his penalty shuffled the order in the lower half of the top 10. Hulkenberg was now sixth, ahead of Magnussen, Button, Valtteri Bottas and Esteban Gutierrez.

    Massa, though, was still circulating on his starting supersofts and would need to make the switch. He finally pitted on lap 45, dropping back to 11th. The order now was Rosberg, just 0.8s ahead of Hamilton, with Ricciardo third 12s back. Alonso was fourth ahead of Hulkenberg, Magnussen and Button. Bottas was eighth, Gutierrez ninth and Raikkonen was back into the top 10.

    Vergne’s race meanwhile went from bad to worse. Fighting with Jules Bianchi for P13 on lap 52, blue smoke suddenly appeared at the back of the Toro Rosso. By the time Vergne reached the swimming pool section it had turned into a plume and he arrowed into pit lane to bring to an end a frustrating afternoon for his Italian team.

    A handful of laps later a second engine failure changed the order again. Bottas, in eighth, was defending hard as behind him Gutierrez, Raikkonen and Massa (on fresher tyres) pushed to get past. In the end none of the trio had to tussle too hard as on lap 57 Bottas’ FW36 expired in a pall of smoke at the hairpin.

    Gutierrez was the next man to exit the race. The Mexican clipped the barrier at Rascasse, sustained a puncture and spun close to the pit lane entrance.

    That put Marussia’s Jules Bianchi in a points-scoring position. The Frenchman was due to take a five-second penalty at the end of the race for a previous infringement but with a six-second advantage over Grosjean on track, it looked like the Frenchman was on the way to his first F1 points.

    Hamilton, meanwhile, was in trouble, complaining that he had dirt in his left eye that was impairing his vision. The gap between him and Rosberg drifted to five seconds, with Ricciardo now eight seconds behind Hamilton.

    The Australian made a determined bid to reel in Hamilton and closed the gap on the Mercedes driver to three seconds by lap 72. Hamilton was soon embroiled in traffic and on lap 73 Riccardo was running on the Briton’s gearbox.

    In the traffic, Button passed Magnussen across the start-finish line. Riccardo and Hamilton wove their through the backmarkers and as they did so Raikkonen attempted to pass Magnussen.

    Both got stuck at the hairpin and that allowed Bianchi to move up to eighth place, meaning that regardless of his penalty he would retain a points position.

    It was now all about the Riccardo/Hamilton duel. Riccardo threw everything at the challenge but the Red Bull driver could find no way past as Hamilton used his greater power in tunnel to prevent any move from Riccardo into the chicane.

    Ahead, Rosberg crossed the line to take his second Monaco win and to seize back the championship lead. The German now has 122 points to his team-mate’s 118.

    Hamilton held off Riccardo to take second. Alonso was fourth behind the Australian, with Hulkenberg fifth. Button was sixth for McLaren, ahead of Massa. Romain Grosjean was eighth with Bianchi ninth, but the Marussia driver was crucially nine seconds ahead of tenth-placed Magnussen, meaning that Marussia scored their first championship points and took a crucial advantage over Caterham, for whom Ericsson was 11th, in the Constructors’ Championship.

    2014 Monaco Grand Prix – Race Result
    1 Nico Rosberg Mercedes 78 1:49:27.661 1 25
    2 Lewis Hamilton Mercedes 78 +9.2 secs 2 18
    3 Daniel Ricciardo Red Bull Racing 78 +9.6 secs 3 15
    4 Fernando Alonso Ferrari 78 +32.4 secs 5 12
    5 Nico Hulkenberg Force India 77 +1 Lap 11 10
    6 Jenson Button McLaren 77 +1 Lap 12 8
    7 Felipe Massa Williams 77 +1 Lap 16 6
    8 Romain Grosjean Lotus 77 +1 Lap 14 4
    9 Jules Bianchi Marussia 77 +1 Lap 21 2
    10 Kevin Magnussen McLaren 77 +1 Lap 8 1
    11 Marcus Ericsson Caterham 77 +1 Lap 22
    12 Kimi Räikkönen Ferrari 77 +1 Lap 6
    13 Kamui Kobayashi Caterham 75 +3 Laps 20
    14 Max Chilton Marussia 75 +3 Laps 19
    Ret Esteban Gutierrez Sauber-Ferrari 59 Accident 17
    Ret Valtteri Bottas Williams 55 +23 Laps 13
    Ret Jean-Eric Vergne Toro Rosso 50 +28 Laps 7
    Ret Adrian Sutil Sauber 23 Accident 18
    Ret Daniil Kvyat Toro Rosso 10 +68 Laps 9
    Ret Sebastian Vettel Red Bull Racing 5 +73 Laps 4
    Ret Sergio Perez Force India 0 Accident 10
    Ret Pastor Maldonado Lotus 0 +78 Laps 15

    eom/FIA press release

  • It was a really good day for Mercedes to get 1-2 finish: Hamilton

    DRIVERS

    1 – Nico ROSBERG (Mercedes)

    2 – Lewis HAMILTON (Mercedes)

    3 – Daniel RICCIARDO (Red Bull Racing)

    PODIUM INTERVIEWS

    (Conducted by Benedict Cumberbatch)

    Nico, congratulations, man – a home win for the home boy. How did it feel? You had Lewis very, very close to you all the race but you held on to your lead. How was it?

    Nico ROSBERG: A very, very special day for sure. Lewis drove really, really well and pushed me massively hard, so the pressure was on all the way. But I kept it cool and, yeah, was able to win, in the end pulling a bit of a gap because I had the fresher tyres. So, fantastic and I’m very, very happy for the whole team, it’s an amazing car they’ve built and given us this year.

    Congratulations, well done to the Monaco boy. Lewis, how are you? Tell us a little bit about what happened on the 56th lap? You got something in your eye?

    Lewis HAMILTON: Yeah, just through the visor… but anyway that’s not important. It was a good day and really good for the team to get a one-two.

    You had [Daniel Ricciardo] right close behind. How was it? You started second and finished second and how are things with your team-mate, I think people want to know?

    LH: I had great pace, you know, obviously I felt I was very strong today but it’s a very, very difficult circuit to overtake on…

    It’s incredibly thrilling to watch, you were all incredible out there, the closeness of the cars…

    LH: Thank you. Fortunately we didn’t make any mistakes, so….

    Daniel, well done, man. Nice to meet you; Benedict. Tell us a little bit about your race. You were in third for a while, then the pit stops, tell us a little about your strategy.

    Daniel RICCIARDO: Firstly, it’s really nice to be up here on the podium in Monaco.

    It’s your first podium here isn’t it? Congratulations.

    DR: Yeah, thank you. The start was not great, I dropped back to fifth actually. A bit of frustration but then we saw Vettel had a problem, so we were able to get fourth and then we saw Raikkonen had a puncture on one of the safety cars. So we sort of inherited third after a poor start…

    You got very close to Lewis. You were right on his gearbox at the end?

    DR: At the end we really closed in. I believe he had an issue. We tried to put some pressure on but in the end third was the best we could do.

    PRESS CONFERENCE

    Congratulations Nico – a two-time Monaco Grand Prix winner, only a handful of drivers have ever done that before. Fifth consecutive one-two finish for the Mercedes team and you are back on top of the Drivers’ standings. Can you sum up what this win means for you today in the context of tyhe4 battle with Lewis for the championship?

    NR: Yeah, it’s a special win, definitely, because Lewis has had the momentum with the results and everything and I really needed to try to break that momentum and somewhat I managed to do that this weekend. Of course taking the leading again in the world championship and winning here in Monaco, yeah, all in all really, really cool.

    Well done. Lewis, obviously the momentum is broken for the moment. We heard you on the radio quite a lot after the safety car and the pit stops, questioning and speaking about the strategy calls. Obviously you pitted together under the safety car. Had there been a thought that you might try to undercut Nico before that? Can you explain to us what the conversation was about?

    LH: I don’t remember to be honest. I don’t. I think they saw a crash and normally under the crash we could have come in and I really should have come in but the team didn’t call us in. We really should have pitted that lap.

    Fair enough. Daniel, your first Monaco podium. Can you describe your feelings about that and looking back across qualifying and the race is there any way you could have got a better result than the one you got today.

    DR: To describe the feeling, it’s really nice to be up here. Could we have done better? I don’t know. I felt yesterday that we left a little bit of lap time on there. Where that would have jumped on the grid, who knows. After that, the race itself – the start was not good, not what I wanted. I actually dropped back to fifth and then Seb had his problems, still not sure what, but pretty evident he had problems when he slowed on the straight. Then Raikkonen I saw got a puncture under the safety car, so I got third and then pretty much was just trying to maintain the gap behind me to Alonso. Then when I thought there was enough or the right amount of laps left before the end to push and not really save tyres anymore, I did and went for it. We got close to at least one of the Mercedes at the end but you know what it’s like around here, it’s quite hard to pass. Tried to put a bit of pressure on but third was the best we could do but not a bad day.

    QUESTIONS FROM THE FLOOR

    Q: (Paolo Ianieri – La Gazzetta dello sport) A question for Nico and Lewis. We have seen that there is a pretty tense situation between the two of you and we also heard comments from Lauda saying you did not want to talk and apologise. Are you going to have a pizza together, a dinner, to sort the problems, talk about it and try to get the situation back to normal.

    NR: It’s fine. We’ve had discussions and the benefit we have is that we’ve known each other for so long. We always sit down and discuss it and then move on and that’s what we’re doing this weekend also.

    Lewis?

    LH: I don’t really have an answer for you there.

    Q: (Oana Popoiu – F1 Zone) I have a question for Lewis. Niki Lauda said that in Barcelona you used an engine mode you were told not to and you had to apologise to Nico for that. Do you think that that mode would have helped you win the race today?

    LH: No… today we were using all the modes. In the last race it was a mode that didn’t really affect the outcome of the race. We were told that we had to stay in a certain mode. Nico did it in Bahrain and I did it in Barcelona. In this race we stuck to the strategies we had to stick.

    NR: I don’t know what Niki is referring to but it’s completely normal that we switch modes together you know, we always do that in the races. It’s nothing unusual.

    Q: (Dan Knutson – Auto Action and National Speedsport News) Lewis, yesterday you told the BBC that you might handle the situation with Nico like Senna would. What did you mean by that?

    LH: I don’t know. I can’t really remember to be honest. I think it was just a joke. Obviously I didn’t.

    Q: (Michael Schmidt – Auto Motor und Sport) I think you said on the radio that you had a problem with your eye in the closing stages. What happened there?

    LH: I’ve never really had it before. I kept making sure my visor was as closed as possible but I had quite a bit of wind coming in. I got close to Nico at one stage and all of a sudden I got a bit of debris in my eye, or some dirt, so I was driving with one eye, which is virtually impossible to do and so through the low-speed corners I was trying to open up my visor to clear it up but it was just making it worse. Fortunately, I think with five laps to go it cleared up so I was able to stay ahead of Daniel.

    Q: (Vincent Marre – Sports Zeitung) in the last days Nico was mentioning that the previous races were not one-to-one races. What do you think Lewis about this race or this race weekend. Was it a one-to-one races.

    LH: I don’t fully understand the question.

    Q: (Vincent Marre – Sports Zeitung) last day Nico Rosberg was mentioning that the previous races were not one-to-one races, relating to the weather, because you were winning the races and this time he’s winning the race and I want to know if you think this weekend is a one-to-one race for you?

    LH: I’m still not fully understanding it, but all the races have been very, very close but this weekend I think I had very good pace. I drove with all my heart and gave it all I could, fairly, and I feel like I drove fairly all weekend. So I leave today quite happy and I can go into the next race with even more energy and determination.

    Q: (Ian Parkes – Press Association) Lewis, it seems pretty clear to us that you feel aggrieved with the events that occurred yesterday in qualifying. Is this it now for you? Is it gloves off in your battle with Nico? And secondly, do you feel that you are getting full and fair support from the team?

    LH: Generally, there is a fierce battle between me and Nico and it will continue that way to I’m sure quite late in the season. Nico’s not had a single hiccup through the season so far. Obviously I had a car that didn’t finish in Melbourne but otherwise it’s still quite close, so I’m just going to keep my head up, keep pushing. I know the team are working hard for the both of us. The team can sometimes be in awkward positions, which they were yesterday, and their job is really to protect us both and that’s what they did.

    Q: (Graham Harris – Motorsport Monday) Question for Nico: you were being told to back-off and coast with fuel. How critical was your fuel?

    NR: Yeah, the fuel was very critical and caught me off-guard a little bit because it was a major change that I had to make and especially with Lewis being so close behind, it was a tough moment because I had to change the driving style completely, use different gears, different lifting and coasting, everything different. But, again, the team managed that well and got me to do what I needed to do. And then, once I got into the groove again, it was OK and everything… it was no problem them. But it was still difficult.

    Q: (Jussi Jäkälä – YLE) Nico, 31 years ago Keke won here, today you are double Monaco winning. Which do you think is prouder at the moment: you or your Dad?

    NR: I don’t know. I hope… of course my father is proud today and that makes me very happy, that I’m able to make my parents proud. Hopefully even my friends, for example, who all were here also this weekend and that makes it all the more special to have family, friends, everybody I know lives here and is at the track watching the race and that’s even nicer.

    Q: (Paolo Ianieri – La Gazzetta dello Sport) One question to Nico and one to Daniel. Nico, you said that you had to break the momentum, since Lewis is coming from four consecutive wins. Is this your most important victory so far? And to you Daniel, from what we have seen today from Red Bull, are you going to have the pace to challenge Mercedes in Montreal in two weeks?

    NR: I don’t know about the most important. For sure it was very, very important, yes, today because Lewis had the result moment and I needed to try and bring that to an end and managed to do that today, so that’s great but, y’know, it’s still early days and for sure it’s going to continue to be a very, very tough battle.

    Daniel?

    DR: I think, yeah, we closed up a bit here in Monaco which we knew would be our best chance up until now. This circuit definitely suits our package a bit better than previous circuits – we still didn’t finish in front so, unfortunately, it’s still not where we want to be. Montreal is still a street circuit but unfortunately the straights go on a little bit longer there so we’re still down a little bit in that area, which I think everyone’s aware of and we’ve made progress. Whether it will be enough by then, honestly, probably not but we are closing the gap so, that’s all we can ask for, for now, and just keep chipping away at it and be patient. I’m sure a bit of perseverance as well and we’ll get there.

    Q: (Livio Oricchio – Universo Online) Daniel, for sure as a driver you must trust in yourself but in any moment did you believe you could beat Vettel in the way this season you are beating him in qualifying and the race?

    DR: I didn’t really have any visions exactly on how it would go, what the race results would be or what the qualifying score would be – but I knew that I have some talent and obviously got a bit of experience now in Formula One. So, every year, even every six month period I feel I’m still growing and getting better as a driver as well so, I knew coming into the season with the team behind me and sort of a new opportunity, that I would be able to challenge Seb. Did I think it would be going, let’s say, as well as it was now? I don’t know. But I knew if I had everything underneath me I’d be capable of getting the results. So, fortunately the team saw that as well, back in September, I think, last year. So, it’s coming good.

    Q: (Barna Zsoldos – Nemzeti Sport) Lewis, after your victory in Barcelona, you said that Nico was faster than you in the race. Today he can even beat you. Is it a worry for you? And do you know where you should improve pace-wise.

    LH: erm… not really. I was pretty comfortable with my pace this weekend.

    Q: (Yassmin Abdel-Magied – RichardsF1.com) Daniel, you said yesterday that there was a little bit left on the table in terms of qualifying. Do you think that there was a little bit left on the table still in the race, and was there was there any point – you got pretty close to Lewis at the end there – when you were going to go for it and then maybe not – don’t want to risk it? What was the thinking in those last few laps?

    DR: Everyone was trying to do a one stop today; it’s a bit of a weird one, you don’t really push much of the race because, especially after the first pit stop, we still had a long way to go, so you’re in two minds: do I push or do I just try and hold the guy off and get to the end. By the time we’d got 15/20 laps to go I knew the tyres were going to last so then I could actually start my race, so to speak, and then start to set some quicker times. We caught Lewis, the team said I was going to catch him, the pace was good so I knew I was eventually going to get on to him. Knowing it’s hard to pass around here, I wasn’t… I don’t know. I was just waiting to see what happened but I wasn’t just going to settle for third. Obviously in the end I did but if there was a clean move to be taken then yeah, I would have taken it.

    Q: (Nicola Pohl – Bild) Lewis, what do you think was the reason why the team didn’t call you in immediately after the crash? You complained over the team radio about that.

    LH: I think it’s just what we have a rule that the guy in front gets the first opportunity to pit first so I think that would be why.

    Q: (Haoran Zhou – Formula One Express) Lewis, how did the debrief of yesterday’s qualifying go because as we understand, you were not in the debrief room, while Rosberg was?

    LH: I was in there. I went to the toilet and Nico did his big debrief before I got there which is unusual. Usually we do it when we’re both in the same room but as I came up I did mine and fortunately the engineers had written down what Nico had said so I read it.

    Q: (Michael Schmidt – Auto Motor und Sport) Nico, have you been surprised that the team didn’t call you in right after the crash of Sutil?

    NR: No. Surprised? No, not really, because I don’t think about that too much. I know I can rely on them to make the right call at all times so it’s not something that I’m thinking too much about, the strategy and should I be boxing now or not, because I know that they’re going to make the right call.

    Q: (Christian Hoenicke – Der Tagesspiegel) Nico, do you think it was fair what Lewis said about you not being hungry as him because you were growing with boats and jets and all that stuff?

    NR: I didn’t hear Lewis say that and so I’m not going to comment because it’s easy for you to just invent something and so I’m not going to comment on that, and even if something like that was written – which I don’t know because I don’t read the media – then still, between what Lewis says and what’s written, so much can turn around so it’s better I don’t say anything and I know that Lewis wouldn’t say something like that, especially not to the press, maybe to me if he feels like it but not to the press.

    Q: (Ian Parkes – Press Assocation) Nico, you may give the same answer to this question then, because there were some comments from yourself in one of the German newspapers or certainly a few of the German newspapers and you can correct me if I’m wrong, if the English translation was not correct but you remarked that when Lewis goes through a difficult period that he can crack. Do you think that that’s what happened this weekend, that maybe Lewis did crack under the press yesterday in qualifying, and Lewis, any comment on that yourself? Do feel you’re the kind of guy that doesn’t crack, that you can hold it together in these kind of circumstances?

    NR: Again, that is definitely very very far from anything that I’ve ever said and ever would say. Definitely not and I’ve known Lewis for many many years and he’s always been strong, among other things mentally, so I’m definitely not expecting him to crack any time soon, that’s for sure. It’s going to be a tough battle which is going to be ongoing, but I would never say something like that anyways.

    LH: Do I feel like I crack? No.

    Q: (Ralf Bach  – Sport Bild) Lewis, to clean the situation, did you tell the BBC in this interview where you said these things with the boat or didn’t you say that?

    LH: I was asked who was hungrier. I think if you ask every driver they will say that they’re the hungriest and I said that what gives me the hunger is where I grew up in comparison to where Nico grew up. You know I’ve always been striving to come and live here. I used to travel around with Nico in his Dad’s plane, I used to go to his boat, I used to go to his house, I used to have those experiences and that gave me those experiences and that gave me the desire to want that one day, which gave me the hunger. It was his Dad obviously who inspired me to be where I am today.

    Q: (Ralf Bach  – Sport Bild) So you did say it.

    LH: Yes, but – as Nico said – it was taken out of context a little bit.

    Q: (Livio Oricchio – Universo On Line) Lewis, do you believe with a normal pit stop – not under safety car conditions – you would have had any chance to overtake Nico and get the lead of the race?

    LH: It’s irrelevant now, but obviously with the start, we got exactly the same start… there’s only two opportunities in the race and the pit stop would have been the other one but the safety car came out at the perfect time for him so I didn’t have the chance there. Otherwise, that was it.

    Q: (Gloria Scola – El Mundo) The race has just finished; I was wondering what racing gives you, is it freedom of expression, a way to express yourself, adrenalin?

    NR: First of all, we’re here to entertain and hopefully give people a great time and a spectacle to watch, and especially in Monaco, it’s very obviously because everybody’s there on boats and houses and everything, and I just hope that we’re able to put on a great show, that our sport is seen as the best sport in the world, the most fun sport in the world, the most exciting sport in the world and so that’s a special feeling as such. And then of course driving my car through the streets of Monaco on the limit, battling everybody else, trying to win and then of course the win itself is the most special moment.

    LH: I’m living my dream so it gives good energy.

    DR: I get… honestly, freedom is definitely one thing. I remember when I first hopped in a go-kart as a kid, just being in control and not having anyone else in your space and then going at speed was a sense of freedom definitely. It’s nice as well, particularly with everything that happens around F1, all the media and everything else – when you hop in the car, it’s just you and the car and occasionally you have an engineer on the radio but it’s just you so definitely a sense of freedom along with a wicked adrenalin.

    eom/FIA press release of the transcript of Monaco Press Conference

    Rosberg flanked by Hamilton on right and Ricciardo after winning the Monaco GP to take the F1 Championship lead again. A Mercedes AMG Petronas image
    Rosberg flanked by Hamilton on right and Ricciardo after winning the Monaco GP to take the F1 Championship lead again. A Mercedes AMG Petronas image

  • Rosberg and Hamilton make it a fifth 1-2 for Mercedes at Monaco GP

    Nico Rosberg and Lewis Hamilton took a dramatic one-two finish this afternoon at the 2014 Monaco Grand Prix.

    • Nico took his second consecutive Monaco Grand Prix victory this afternoon, the first driver to do so since Ayrton Senna
    • Lewis finished in second place, securing the team’s fifth consecutive one-two finish in the 2014 season
    • Both drivers ran one-stop strategies, pitting behind the Safety Car on lap 26 and retaining the leading two positions
    • The team has now taken five consecutive one-two finishes, for just the third time a team has achieved this in F1 history
    • This victory marked the team’s 10th victory in the new era of the Silver Arrows since 2010
    Driver
    Car No.
    Chassis No.
    Result / Fastest Lap
    Nico Rosberg
    6
    F1 W05 Hybrid/04
    P1 1:19.425
    Lewis Hamilton
    44
    F1 W05 Hybrid/01
    P2 1:19.361
    Weather
    Warm
    Temperatures
    Air: 19-21 °C
    Track: 28-31 °C

    Nico Rosberg 
    It was a tough race out there today but I am absolutely delighted to have won my second Monaco Grand Prix in succession. It’s an amazing feeling and I’m proud to have done it at home, in front of my family and friends who were all here this afternoon. The race started well and I was comfortable but then we had to manage my fuel consumption and Lewis was pushing really hard behind me. We were able to be in control of the fuel with a few laps of lift and coast. It was important for me to break Lewis’ momentum of winning the last four races this weekend. That worked out very well, but it was a really tough weekend. I’m so happy for the team that we had another one-two finish and look forward to the party tonight!

    Lewis Hamilton 
    I felt very strong out there today and I really drove with all my heart, giving everything that I could to improve my position. This just hasn’t been my weekend but I can leave today feeling happy that we have achieved another one-two finish for the team. We have such a great car and everyone who has worked on it deserves the incredible results that we are getting at the moment. Back to this afternoon, this is such a difficult circuit to overtake. I was following Nico as close as I could and had great pace but I just couldn’t get past. Towards the end, I got some dirt in my eye through the visor which made it very tough for a few laps but thankfully it cleared up and I was able to hold off Daniel and keep second place. This hasn’t been the greatest of weekends but I’ll go into the next race with even more energy and determination. The team are working so hard and we’re determined to keep the momentum going.

    Toto Wolff 
    A fantastic result for the team after a weekend where we had the pressure to deliver on the car’s potential here in Monaco. Six wins from six races, and five one-two finishes in a row, is a very special achievement at the start of this 2014 season. Congratulations to Nico for a faultless race and to Lewis for following him home in spite of some unexpected challenges this afternoon. We were driving a controlled race when the Safety Car forced us to pit earlier than had been planned for our only stop of the afternoon. After that, both drivers pushed hard and that had the consequence that they started to run out of rear tyres in the closing laps. When Lewis had the problem with his eye, that was when Daniel Ricciardo came close. It just goes to show that we must never give up pushing because our rivals are right behind us – and working hard to run us down. We have absolutely no margin for error because if we make one little slip, our rivals are right there. We will enjoy this moment – but the hard work continues tomorrow at the factory.

    Paddy Lowe 
    To take our fifth consecutive one-two finish is an incredible achievement for our team. It doesn’t matter how good a car you’ve got: to achieve that kind of run, you need amazing drivers and a great team performing faultlessly. We have all of those elements and this afternoon again reinforced just how well both Nico and Lewis are driving right now. I also must say a special thank you to the team: to take a one-two at Monaco, you need a great chassis and a driveable engine, and this result shows our car is an all-round performer. In terms of the race itself, it wasn’t without its challenges: Nico had to manage his fuel consumption quite carefully and we were working with the settings of Lewis’ Power Unit to optimise the energy recovery and deployment in the first half of the race. In the final stages, we had some concerns with the tyres as we were running out of rubber, which in turn made it hard to maintain the tyre temperatures. We s

    Nico Rosberg after winning the Monaco GP on Sunday. A Mercedes AMG Petronas image
    Nico Rosberg after winning the Monaco GP on Sunday. A Mercedes AMG Petronas image

    aw that when Lewis recovered from the problem with his eye, and couldn’t get the tyres back working properly, which allowed Ricciardo to close in. But he was able to bring the car home and secure this fantastic team result.

    eom/A Mercedes AMG Petronas press release