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Vettel takes third win of the season; Hamilton retires; Spectator invades track in a bizarre incident
Sebastian Vettel took his third victory of the season for Ferrari in an incident-packed race at the Marina Bay Circuit that saw Lewis Hamilton retire with technical problems and a spectator invade the track.
Vettel took his fourth career Singapore Grand Prix win ahead of Red Bull Racing’s Daniel Ricciardo, with Kimi Räikkönen third in the second Ferrari ahead of Mercedes’ Nico Rosberg.
When the lights went out at the start of the race Vettel made a good getaway to take the lead ahead of Ricciardo. Räikkönen too held his starting position to sit in third ahead of Red Bull’s Daniil Kvyat, while Hamilton and Rosberg kept their starting positions of fifth and sixth position, ahead of Williams’ Valtteri Bottas.
There was trouble for Max Verstappen though. The Toro Rosso driver, who was starting eighth, stalled on the grid and the rest of the field swarmed past him as the grand prix got underway. Verstappen was wheeled back to the pit lane where his car was restarted and he re-joined a lap down.
Vettel meanwhile was flying. By the end of lap two the Ferrari driver was a 4.4s ahead of Ricciardo and after four laps he’d stretched the advantage to 5.2 seconds.
After six laps, though the lap times began to stabilise, with Ricciardo’s race engineer Simon Rennie telling the Red Bull driver that “Vettel has calmed down a bit”. Ricciardo began to chip away at the gap and took a second out the German over the next handful of laps.
Lotus’ Romain Grosjean was the first to shed his opening supersoft tyres – the Frenchman switching to soft tyres on lap 10. On the next lap he was followed to the pit lane by McLaren’s Fernando Alonso, Toro Rosso’s Carlos Sainz, Sauber’s Marcus Ericsson and Lotus driver Pastor Maldonado. Sainz lost time in the stop though as he was held in his pit box as Ericsson and Maldonado made their way along the pit lane.
On lap 13, however, the Virtual Safety Car was deployed as Williams’ Felipe Massa and Force India Nico Hulkenberg made contact. Massa was re-joining after his pit stop and Hulkenberg gave the Brazilian nowhere to go as they went into the following corner. They collided and Hulkenberg was pitched into the wall and out of the race. The Singapore Grand Prix’s 100% safety car record was maintained when the physical safety car was then briefly deployed as marshals cleared the debris from the crash.
Hulkenberg was later penalised with a three-place grid drop at next weekend’s Japanese Grand Prix for causing the collision.
The period under the SC meant that all cars pitted, though some with more success than other. Jenson Button’s stop in front of the McLaren garage went horribly wrong as a problem with his front right wheel delayed him for some time and he rejoined in P16.
The order at the top under the SC saw Vettel leading from Ricciardo and Räikkönen, with the top three having taking more supersofts in their stops. Hamilton was fourth on soft tyres as was fifth-placed team-mate Rosberg.
Kvyat, also on supersofts, lost out under the VSC and had dropped to P6 ahead of Bottas, Force India’s Sergio Perez, Sauber’s Felipe Nasr, who has climbed to P9 from 16th on the grid and Lotus’ Romain Grosjean. Verstappen, meanwhile, had the chance re-join the lead lap during the safety car period.
When the action resumed Ricciardo kept pace with Vettel and on lap 22 the Australian was 0.8s behind the lead, with Vettel appearing to hold back a bit. Räikkönen was another 0.9s back but Hamilton was beginning to lose touch with the podium positions, slipping to over 2.0s down on the leaders.
On lap 27 Hamilton began complaining of a loss of power and the Briton was swiftly passed by Rosberg and Kvyat.
The team told Hamilton that his throttle was failing to open completely but that there was no electrical problem. Hamilton responded that he could no feel a pedal issue and as the investigation went on Hamilton to P11 by lap 30.
It was then Felipe Massa’s turn to encounter problems as he radioed his team to say that his car had suddenly jumped into neutral. He made a detour through the pit lane without stopping and then was told to retire the car.
Hamilton’s frustrations finally came to an end on lap 33. The championship leader had been complaining that the issue was worsening and then informed his team that the brakes were becoming too cold to continue in comfort. The team told him to box and he too retired.
On lap 35 Kvyat made his second stop from P5 but there was a problem with the rear left wheel and he lost out again as his stop took 6.6s. He dropped to seventh.
On lap 37 the Safety Car was deployed again, though this time it was because of a spectator invading the track.
It was the cue for all of the field to make another pit stop and when the order sorted itself out under the SC Vettel still led from Ricciardo and Räikkönen but Rosberg was now fourth ahead of Bottas with Kvyat sixth. Perez was now seventh in the sole remaining Force India, with Grosjean eighth ahead of team-mate Pastor Maldonado. Button, in the sole remaining McLaren following an earlier retirement for Fernando Alonso, was in the final points position, though he too would soon exit the race with a gearbox issue.
When the action resumed, Vettel this time powered away, with the German rapidly building a two-second gap to Ricciardo. Further back Button tangled with Maldonado as they battled for P9 and the Briton clipped the back of the Lotus, losing his front wing in the prices. He pitted for a new wing and re-joined in P14.
Toro Rosso’s drivers, meanwhile, were on a march, with Verstappen passing Maldonado for P9 and with Sainz repeating the moved almost immeditaley afterwards. Verstappen then set the fastest lap of the race so far on lap 43 of the 61 scheduled.
The Dutch teenager then passed Grosjean for P8 on lap 47 with an excellent move into Turn 16. Sainz followed but his move was riskier and both drivers went over the kerbs on the exit, with Grosjean complaining that he had been forced wide and had “no place to go”. The move stood, however, and Sainz held ninth.
Verstappen’s next target was Perez in seventh but he could find no way past the Mexican. His race ended in somewhat controversial circumstances when his engineer told him to swap places with Sainz in the closing laps. Verstappen refused and held station to claim eighth ahead of his team-mate.
At the front the order also remained unchanged, with Vettel taking his 42nd career win just 1.4s ahead of Ricciardo, with Räikkönen third. Rosberg closed the gap to title rival Hamilton by 12 points by claiming fourth with Bottas fifth ahead of Kvyat and Perez. With the Toro Rosso pair eighth and ninth, the final points position when to Sauber’s Felipe Nasr.
2015 Singapore Grand Prix – Race
1 Sebastian Vettel Ferrari 2:01:22.118
2 Daniel Ricciardo Red Bull Racing +1.478
3 Kimi Räikkönen Ferrari +17.154
4 Nico Rosberg Mercedes +24.720
5 Valtteri Bottas Williams +34.204
6 Daniil Kvyat Red Bull Racing +35.508
7 Sergio Perez Force India +50.836
8 Max Verstappen Toro Rosso +51.450
9 Carlos Sainz Jr. Toro Rosso +52.860
10 Felipe Nasr Sauber +1:30.045
11 Marcus Ericsson Sauber +1:37.507
12 Pastor Maldonado Team Lotus +1:37.718
13 Romain Grosjean Team Lotus +2 laps
14 Alexander Rossi Manor +2 laps
15 Will Stevens Manor +2 laps
– Jenson Button McLaren Gearbox
– Fernando Alonso McLaren Gearbox
– Lewis Hamilton Mercedes Power Unit
– Felipe Massa Williams Power Unit
– Nico Hulkenberg Force India Collisioneom/FIA press release
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Vettel praises Raikkonen after winning the Singapore GP: FIA Sunday Press Conference
DRIVERS1 – Sebastian VETTEL (Ferrari)
2 – Daniel RICCIARDO (Red Bull Racing)
3 – Kimi RÄIKKÖNEN (Ferrari)
PODIUM INTERVIEWS
(Conducted by Eddie Jordan)
Sebastian, was this you best ever race, or one of?
Sebastian VETTEL: It must be one of; I think it was pretty intense. Obviously we had a bit of a breather with the safety car. Still, lots of pressure from behind. I think Daniel had a very good race, looking after his tyres very well, which made it a bit tactical towards the end with the stints. Second stint I was dictating the pace. Obviously around here it’s not so easy to overtake, so I was using that. And from then, at some point, chipping away, trying to control the gap. Fortunately that worked. It’s obviously a great day; we had a really great weekend, thanks to the team.
So, we want to know also, because on Friday a little bird told me you were quietly confident, you thought you had a lot left over, and then you did that magic qualifying lap yesterday; you kind of showboated a bit didn’t you, you just wanted to rub it in, to see how good you were?
SV: Not really. Friday was not perfect I would say but we improved the car overnight, which was very important and then we picked up so much pace. The car was fantastic yesterday with one lap. Amazing the feeling I got; so much adrenalin in qualifying. And the same today. I was able to look after my tyres, control the pace, so all in all a perfect weekend so very, very happy.
I’m coming back to you, don’t you worry. Daniel Ricciardo, ladies and gentleman. Looks like you’re a bit of a local boy here? There are a lot of Aussie flags here. You have a lot of support. Come on let’s hear you. Come on you can tell me, I know he’s your old team-mate but he did back you up didn’t he? He did try to stumble you. He wanted you to let go, so that Kimi could pass you?
Daniel RICCIARDO: I think Seb experimented a bit today. The start of the race he just went, but realised towards the end of the stint I was coming. I think if wasn’t for the safety car it would have got pretty close in terms of the pit stop – maybe an undercut was possible. But, yeah, then the second stint seemed like he had learned for the first, backed us up and then just went after that. I think both safety cars came out at a pretty crucial time. Nonetheless, his pace was good and it was quite representative of qualifying, you know. We seemed to be the two quickest cars today.
You talk about being the quickest car: were you surprised, because you targeted this race didn’t you? You always thought that Red Bull would be strong here.
DR: Yeah, it’s really good to back it up. We came in here pretty confident. I’m always careful not to be overconfident but yeah I think the pace we showed all weekend was strong. The race pace was good; I think we matched Seb, so we’ve got to be pretty happy with this weekend. It’s nice again to capitalise; Budapest we had a chance and we’ve done it again here.
Kimi, hot race. Last time you were on the podium it was in Bahrain and this is the first time this year we’ve seen the two Ferrari drivers on the podium. Is this the sign of the future?
Kimi RÄIKKÖNEN: Obviously we hope that. I must say Friday was fine for me and yesterday we struggled for whatever reason and I didn’t expect much better today. I was a bit surprised to finish third yesterday with how difficult the car felt and today was a struggle again but obviously we had enough speed to be in third place but I had no chance to do anything about the first two. I could follow them at the beginning but once my tyres dropped off that just went. It wasn’t that nice to have that kind of difficulties but you know we still finished third and when you have a bad few days and you finish third it’s pretty good and for the team nice and hopefully we can repeat them.
I just ask you one tiny question: how many starts did you do on the simulator after Monza?
KR: Two.
That’s not what I heard. He’s lying to us. Seb, you must love this place, don’t you? Four-time winner here. What is it about Singapore?
SV: The party on Sunday night I guess.
Are you going to party tonight?
SV: I think we will have some drinks, yes, definitely. My drinks bottle failed half-way through the race, so I’m quite thirsty. We need to make sure we….
What’s the plan now? Six races left. Can Ferrari really take it to Mercedes?
SV: If we have more weekend like this, yes. But all we have to do is look after ourselves, maximum attack and then what they do is not in our hands. We still have a small chance, maybe we can make the impossible possible; we’ll definitely go for it.
PRESS CONFERENCE
Sebastian, obviously you controlled the race throughout, from your first Ferrari pole position. First stint you attacked from the outset; beginning of the second stint you did the opposite and were pacing yourself. How did you perceive the threat from Hamilton and Rosberg at that point of race? You then speeded up and how much did losing the lead, on the one hand, to the two safety cars balance out against the fact that in both cases you were able to stop under the safety car? How did that help you?
SV: First it was fairly simple: you drive a bit into the unknown, so I was trying to put a gap. I was surprised by the opening laps to put five seconds straight away. Then eased off; probably was pushing a bit hard at the beginning, which allowed Daniel to just be that two, three, four tenths quicker at the end. Obviously I had a bit of margin left but the safety car answered all the questions about the first stop. And the same for the second stop. I think it was pretty straightforward when to stop, because you obviously take the advantage of losing less time through the pit lane. I did pretty much the opposite on the second stint. I knew that it’s impossible for Daniel, for anyone, to go 40-odd laps on the prime tyre, it will just fall apart at the end, so I think some 35 or 36 laps to go, I knew we were approaching the pit stop window plus. I knew that one of the Mercedes was on the prime tyre, which obviously allows them to be on the option for the final stint, so I said, ‘OK a couple of laps to go’. When the pit stop window more of less opened for the final stint, allowing to finish on the prime, to go for it, open a gap, put some three or four seconds between me and Daniel, so that we can react in case he dives into the pits and he doesn’t get the undercut. So it worked pretty well. I was controlling the pace in the second stint for a while and then, as I said, went for it. In the last stint I knew that with the prime they were a bit more resilient – obviously the safety car answered all the questions, as I said, and I could maintain the gap. I wanted to put, fairly quickly, two or three seconds between us, to make sure that Daniel doesn’t get too excited, to try and attack in the end. And it worked. I new that the prime tyre would favour us probably a bit – and it did. At the end we faced some traffic but he never really got close, so I could control the end fairly well.
Very well done. Daniel, your best result of the season so far. After the first stint your engineer said that your pace and degradation were both very good, so was there any optimism at any point that you might get the win today or did both stops coming under the safety car put paid to chance of doing something with strategy that might have helped you?
DR: I think that sort of dictated the race really. I’m not saying there were any guarantees but I think in the first stint we were coming on quite strong. It was obvious Seb pushed pretty hard at the beginning to break let’s say the DRS and all of that, but then as the laps were ticking down we were starting to come alive, I was able lean on the tyres a bit more and I could see it was working in my hands. So when I saw the safety car come out I was a bit frustrated, but I knew there was one more stop in the race, so I knew there was one more chance to do the same thing, replicate the same, let’s say, procedure. Seb learned a little bit from the first stint – started off a little bit easier in the second stint, then broke away. Then I think again as the laps ticked down I was probably able to make the tyres last a bit better on the option and close in, but then safety car again. So, thanks to the guy on the track, appreciate it. I was tempted to swerve, clip him! That was that and then with the prime, as Seb said, that was pretty much it. It’s hard to overtake here but we tried to do what we could. We just got the fastest lap at the end, so we proved our pace all weekend. I’m proud of that. Good to get another podium. Really happy for the team. As I said yesterday they’ve done a really good job, particularly the last couple of races I think the chassis has really come alive, so thank you to them for that. So, yeah, congrats to Seb, it was a good race.
Q: Kimi, your 79th career podium. On the radio you were getting messages about the tyres being out of range and bringing them back into range. Is that what prevented you from doing more today?
KR: No, not really. I think for whatever reason yesterday morning already in the practice we had difficult handling with the car and then through qualifying it was not exactly what we wanted and was a bit surprised to still be third. Obviously it was good, with all the difficulties I felt. It kept happening in the race. Obviously when you have new tyres the car’s more or less OK and then Sebastian was not pushing on the second set and the last set, the stints, it was quite easy but once we started to push I started to struggle straight way with the same issues with the rear end. It obviously was a bit tricky race but in the end with the difficulties we’ve had in the last few days we still finished third. It’s OK. It’s not ideal but I’ll take it and, for the team, it’s a great result. Hopefully we can improve on this and all the areas and try to keep it going for longer and longer and build on this one again. I think we’ve done an amazing job as a team and we keep doing the same things, I’m sure we’re going as a team the right direction and we get where we want to be in the end, for the future. So I think it was OK. Not ideal but I’ll take it.
QUESTIONS FROM THE FLOOR
Q: (Daniel Johnson – Daily Telegraph) Seb, just talk us through, from your perspective, what it was like when the man came on the track. What did you see? I guess that kind of thing is pretty worrying from your seat.
SV: I don’t know. I had to look again because I wasn’t sure whether I had a problem with my eyesight or I saw somebody crossing the track. I went on the radio and said “some guy’s running across the track!” I think I saw him taking a picture. I don’t know. I hope it was a good one at least. I hope it was in focus! Yeah, pretty crazy, we approach that corner at around 280-290klicks so, I don’t know, I wouldn’t cross the track if I was him. It was crazy, obviously, and we had a Safety Car straight away. Maybe in the next year we need to block the grandstands a bit better. Fortunately nothing happened to us and nothing happened to him – as far as I know. The other guys didn’t see him, so I was the first one to come around.
[off-mic follow up]
SV: Not necessarily. I think he did a pretty good job. He was a quick runner, crossing from the right to the left but yeah, pretty odd. Obviously that’s not what you expect when you come around, looking into the next corner.
Q: (Heikki Kulta – Turun Sanomat) I have been waiting for a while to ask this question: to Sebastian and Kimi, does it feel any different to be first time as team-mates in the podium compared to previous times?
SV: Honest answer: no. I’ve always liked Kimi because from the very first day I joined Formula One he was one of the guys who showed me most respect. There were other guys who lost a little bit the ground under their feet but Kimi was definitely not one of them. At that time I was nobody in F1 and he was a great champion already. It was great to see that he pays that much respect. And since that day he hasn’t changed. I think people love him for the fact that there’s no bullshit – as he often quotes – he’s here for the racing bit and that’s ultimately why we’re all here: we love racing. So, I don’t know, I think we get along well. Obviously I had a better day, compared to him today – but if it’s the other way around I think it’s only fair to be as fair as him today.
And Kimi, does it feel any different to you to be team-mates for the first time on the podium?
KR: Maybe a little bit. Obviously you try to beat your team-mates. Sometimes you lose, sometimes you win but I think in the end you are happy the team did well. So, I’d rather be with him in the same team and he wins and I’m in a third place than he’s in another team other than Ferrari. So obviously it’s a win-win situation. I didn’t have the best few days but I mean, fair enough, he was faster and I can take the third place and we try next weekend again and I’m sure we will have other good battles in the future and I think, as a team, we work well. And that’s the most important thing. If there would ever come a day when we have issues, then we can talk about it and sort it out. Not a big deal about it but we’re working well. I’m happy for him and for the team first of all that we can have a good result. Obviously we want always better but it’s going in the right direction for all of us.
Q: (Michael Schmidt – Auto Motor und Sport) Daniel, despite a good race you had today, at the moment your team doesn’t have an engine for next year and it doesn’t look like there’s a solution tomorrow on the table. Are you worried? And then, obviously to Seb, what would you say if Red Bull would drive similar engines, the same engines as you next year?
DR: I think it’s… now I’m not worried. I think we’ve still got time. It’s not December yet, so if we’re in this position in December then, maybe I’m a bit worried. Maybe I’m facing a year of getting paid to do nothing.
SV: You renewed your contract?
DR: Yeah! I don’t know how that would feel but for sure I want to be here, want to be racing. Obviously I’m at a bit of a peak of my career, I’m learning all the time but enjoying it and want to keep racing definitely and keep racing at the front. So, firstly it’s great to be back on the podium and fighting where I want to be fighting. For next year, in time it will get solved. Obviously the sooner the better for everyone to start working and preparing the car for next year. Obviously it depends on what engine you have: you design the car around that, the set of geometry of the engine – but yeah, we’ll see how we go in the next few weeks, hopefully we’ll get an answer.
And your part of that question Seb?
SV: Well, it’s not in my hands. Obviously I think Daniel answered that question fairly well. I think as a racing driver you want to race and not worry about these kind of things. I cannot really provide him with an engine, I’m not making the decisions. It’s other people to ask… and probably the champagne hits more than I thought so it’s maybe better for me to shut up at this point!
DR: Do you want some water?
Q: (Dan Knutson – Auto Action and SpeedSport Magazines) Daniel, looking at the shorter term, as you say, the chassis has really come alive. On which of the upcoming tracks do you think you will be able to really exploit that and get a good result?
DR: I think this was our best chance, so we got close. I think we can still be proud of what we did this weekend. As I said on the podium, I think it’s good that we – in a way – capitalise or make the most of our opportunities. This year, I believe we have had two: Budapest and here and we’ve got podiums in those races. A bit like last year, when we had the chance to win we did. I still think we’re maximising everything we’ve got at the moment. Moving forward, Suzuka is normally a good track for us. I don’t think we can expect as strong a performance as here but we can still look at the top five and maybe better. Then after that, I’m not sure. Mexico is new for everyone, so we will see how that goes but I was there already and they’ve got a pretty long straight, so I’m not sure how that will play in our hands. Yeah, looking forward to the last part of the season. Austin’s pretty good so yes, see how we get on.
Q: (Heikki Kulta – Turun Sanomat) Kimi, after Bahrain it took eight races for you to get a podium. Does it feel any better now after that kind of long wait?
KR: No, not really. I have mixed feelings, you know. I am happy to be in third place after how difficult it’s felt in the last two days with some issues that we had. But it’s disappointing in that on Friday we knew that we were faring pretty well and then to get third place is fine but it’s not what we are here for. It’s a bit mixed feelings but I think I take the third place. We’ve had some other chances to be on the podium quite a few times but either I made a mistake or something else happened. It’s been a bit of an up and down year but hopefully we keep building, we learn a lot and obviously we are still some way to go to be exactly where we want to be. It’s getting there and to be happy as a team in what we’re doing I think the team should get a big big thanks from everyone, from us, for what a great job they are doing for us. Obviously the things that we are doing are definitely going in the right direction. For the future it is the good way. We just have to have some patience to build on this.
Q: (Luigi Perna – La Gazzetta dello Sport) Seb, this is your third win in your first season with Ferrari as Michael had in 1996 and one more than Senna. Does it mean something special for you?
SV: One more than? Was Senna ever with Ferrari? No. Ah, overall you mean. I think I could consider myself the luckiest racing driver in the world if there were as many race wins to come as there was with Michael. I don’t think you can really draw that comparison. In all fairness, I think the car he had in 1996 was a lot worse than what we have this year which shows again what a great racing driver he was. I don’t know. I think looking back it has been incredible. You know the way I was growing up, I just enjoyed racing and then to find myself nowadays having a teammate that I looked up to when I was young, racing him and seeing what he does, racing on a similar level to him and racing other guys that are really great like Daniel, like Lewis, like Nico. I can consider myself very very lucky that I got in a position always to have a great team around me, the last couple of years, and keep going that way. As Kimi described in his answer before, I think looking at our current situation with Ferrari, things are definitely improving. I think the spirit is very high in the team. I haven’t been with the team in the last couple of years but as far as I have learned, it’s a lot better so I think the direction is the right one and obviously we are very happy with today’s result, very happy with the car this year in general but not yet where we want to be. We know that there’s still a lot of work to do so expectations are already fairly high but I think they are always, especially in Italy, when you talk about Ferrari. So we have to keep our feet on the ground because there’s still a lot of homework to do.
Q: (Don Kennedy – Hawke’s Bay Today) Just adding to that, Sebastian, 42 wins, you’re third now in the all-time list behind Alain Prost and Michael Schumacher. Do you think you will stay around long enough to obviously surpass Prost’s record but what about Schumacher’s record? Is that in your sights or do you not think about it?
SV: Well, I think, to be honest, Prost’s is in sight somehow. I’m 28 so I’m not the youngest any more especially if the kids start racing at 17 now. But Michael’s is just ridiculous: number of wins, number of poles, number of fastest laps. I think all the statistics you can go for you compare yourself to him or anyone to him, so I think that’s far away. So if you have 23 corners in Singapore, I consider myself being in turn one and Michael in turn 23. I’m not really looking at that. As I said, I’m having a great time. I think I can consider myself very lucky and blessed the way things have turned out. I’ve always had a more or less competitive car, competitive team, so if it keeps going that way then I can consider myself very lucky.
Q: (Don Kennedy – Hawke’s Bay Today) Damon Hill was 35 when he won the championship so you’ve got plenty of time.
SV: Yeah, and Michael still kept racing some years ago when he was 43. I think Kimi is now 33, 34, 35, 36! OK. I think it’s impossible to predict the future. I think we are now on a good track with the team, Kimi and myself, so I think we’ve got some years ahead of us which we can enjoy. In a way you can forget the statistics, I think the most important thing is the sheer fun in life and get paid for it, that’s a great thing.
Q: (Frederic Ferret – L’Equipe) To all of you: do you think that the fact that there is no Mercedes driver on the podium this weekend is only track-related or is it the fact that Ferrari and Red Bull are progressing?
DR: I think for us it’s very much track-related. With all that being said, we expected to be strong here. I think we’re all surprised that Mercedes – or at least one of them – isn’t up here or not even… OK, I think Rosberg was fourth but we never really saw them all race in the mirrors or in qualifying so definitely an off weekend for them. I expect them to be back in Suzuka but for whatever reason, if it is that we’ve made so much progress – Ferrari and us – then obviously hopefully you will see us up here a few more times this year.
KR: It’s hard to say obviously. I feel as a team Ferrari did the same thing that we do going into every race weekend. I don’t feel that we really made something magic, it’s not like that we did something really different to other race weekends. We are there. I think we were more surprised at the last race in Monza to be that close to the Mercedes and maybe that shows us that we made a step there and maybe we just kept doing the same things here. But it’s very hard to say what they did. I think everybody’s surprised where they’ve been all weekend and who knows what happens in the next race. We can see from the last race to this race has been completely different. I think it’s better to wait and see what happens in Suzuka.
SV: Big surprise, so same as Daniel and Kimi. I guess they should be back in Suzuka. If they’re not, in all honesty we don’t mind.
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Vettel’s first pole for Ferrari as Mercedes were soundly beaten; Ricciardo second, Hamilton fifth
(From left) David Ricciardo, Sebastian Vettel, Kimi Raikkonen at the FIA press conference on Saturday at Singapore after Vettel took pole position. An FIA image. Sebastian Vettel took his first pole position as a Ferrari driver and the team’s first since the German Grand Prix of 2012 with a dominant performance in qualifying for the Singapore Grand Prix.
The German will be joined on the front row by former Red Bull team-mate Daniel Ricciardo, the Australian taking his best qualifying position since last year’s Chinese Grand Prix. Kimi Räikkönen was third fastest for Ferrari ahead of the second Red Bull of Daniil Kvyat as Mercedes were soundly beaten. Lewis Hamilton was fifth, though he was almost 1.5s behind Vettel. Nico Rosberg was sixth.
Q1 saw Ricciardo make the early headway with a time of 1:46.805, but nine minutes into the segment Vettel jumped to the top of the timesheet, eclipsing the Red Bull driver by seven tenths of a second.
With just a few minutes remaining, most of the field opted to switch to the quicker supersofts, including, unusually, the Mercedes drivers and Hamilton was quickly into P1 with a time of 1:45.765s.
The Ferraris though were still looking quick on the prime tyre and while Kvyat eventually took P1 on the supersoft with a time of 1:45.340, with Hamilton in P2, Vettel made it through to Q2 in third place with a time of 1:46.017, just 0.677 off Kvyat and having only used the soft tyre.
Daniel Ricciardo also made it through to the second phase on the soft tyre and his time of 1:46.166 was good enough for fourth place ahead of Rosberg. The only other driver to save a set of supersoft tyres was Ferrari’s Räikkönen who progressed in P8, behind Valtteri Bottas and Carlos Sainz.
At the bottom end of the order the Manors of Will Stevens and Alexander Rossi were eliminated in P19 and P20 respectively, with Lotus’ Pastor Maldonado and the Saubers of Marcus Ericsson and Felipe Nasr also exiting at this stage. McLaren’s Jenson Button made it through in P15, though he was just 0.074 ahead of Nasr.
At the end of Q2’s opening salvoes, Vettel was quickest, having vaulted to P1 with the last of the opening runs. The Ferrari driver’s 1:44.743 put him ahead of Kvyat, with Räikkönen third ahead of Ricciardo, Hamilton and Rosberg. In the drop zone were Force India’s Sergio Perez and Nico Hulkenberg, in P11 and P12, followed by McLaren’s Fernando Alonso, Sainz and 15th-placed Button.
And at the end of the final runs none escaped the drop, though Hulkenberg climbed to P11 with a lap of 1:46.305, though that was still four tenths of a second adrift of Valtteri Bottas’ P9 time. Behind Hulkenberg, P12 went to Alonso who finished ahead of Perez, Sainz and Button. Sainz prevented any further improvements when he clipped the wall and scattered debris across the track.
At the top of the order the Ferraris and Red Bulls opted to forego a second run, while Toro Rosso’s Max Verstappen jumped to fifth ahead of Hamilton and Rosberg.
The first runs in Q3 saw Vettel quickest once more, with the German setting an opening run time of 1:44.305 to sit ahead of former Red bull team-mate Ricciardo who was three tenths adrift of the four-time world champion. Räikkönen was third ahead of Kvyat with Rosberg fifth. Hamilton, meanwhile, was down in ninth place having run wide over a kerb at Turn Seven, an error that forced him to abort his first flying lap.
In the end, Vettel’s opening lap was good enough. Ricciardo improved but couldn’t pass the Ferrari driver’s benchmarch and he settled for second.
Vettel got down to a 1:43.885s, 0.543s clear of the Red Bull driver to take his first pole position since Brazil 2012. Raikkonen and Kvyat had to settle for third and fourth with Hamilton and Rosberg to start the Mercedes from row three. Behind them Bottas took seventh ahead of Verstappen, Massa and Grosjean.
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Pole is unbelievable! But the main job is coming tomorrow, says Vettal after taking pole at Singapore
DRIVERS
1 – Sebastian VETTEL (Ferrari)
2 – Daniel RICCIARDO (Red Bull Racing)
3 – Kimi RÄIKKÖNEN (Ferrari)
(From left) David Ricciardo, Sebastian Vettel, Kimi Raikkonen at the FIA press conference on Saturday at Singapore after Vettel took pole position. An FIA image. TV UNILATERAL
Sebastian, pole and by quite a margin as well. Your first for Ferrari and Ferrari’s first for 61 races, going back quite a few years. Your feelings?
Sebastian VETTEL: And a proper one I would say. Unbelievable. I know it’s only Saturday and the main job is coming tomorrow but I had to enjoy the moment when I heard that I made it. It was looking good right from the offset of quali and actually from this morning to be fair. The car was fantastic to drive; it just got better through qualifying. I think we got the maximum today. Surprised by the margin but I think it just came together. I really had a near-perfect lap at the end. I was very, very happy with the laps I had today, especially the last one. Around here it’s such a long, tricky lap; it’s so easy to go just a little in too deep or push a little bit too much but it just seemed to come in the end. I was very happy that I made it to the finish line because it felt like a good lap and it was a good lap in the end. Very happy, it puts us in a great place for tomorrow but, as I said, it’s only Saturday and the main job is coming tomorrow. I’m sure the Mercedes will be quick tomorrow – everything else would be a bit of surprise and it’s already a bit of a surprise. And the Red Bulls of course, so tough job ahead tomorrow.
Coming to you Daniel: obviously it’s been close this weekend throughout between Red Bull Racing and Ferrari and you have the prospect of a battle with your old team-mate tomorrow,
Daniel RICCIARDO: Yeah, firstly, it’s nice to be back up here. The front row as well… it’s been a while. It’s good. It’s a bit of a coincidence that it’s Seb and I but it should be a good race tomorrow. I think already qualifying was exciting. To have no Mercedes up here is a surprise to everyone, still a bit of a surprise. I thought they were playing a few card games here yesterday but it seems they are obviously not particularly comfortable here this weekend. It’s good to capitalise on that. Tomorrow it would be nice to be back here. I’m really happy. Really happy for the team as well. I think we’ve definitely made a lot of progress, since Silverstone but particularly for me since Budapest the car has really come alive. It’s nice we can show that here. We expected it to work well and it is, so pretty happy and we’ll just try to hang in there in the long runs tomorrow and make a race of it.
Thank you for that. Coming to you Kimi: your second consecutive top three qualifying this season and how do you like Ferrari’s race pace tomorrow?
Kimi RÄIKKÖNEN: Well, we’ll set it tomorrow. Obviously we had some difficulties yesterday on my side. I think Seb has a good run yesterday. Obviously quite a good result for the team today. I was not very happy since this morning for whatever reason, so I’m a bit surprised to be in this position after how difficult it felt all day. But it was good and we have to try to do a good job tomorrow and hopefully get the two cars on the podium.
PRESS CONFERENCE
Sebastian, Ferrari’s first pole, in fact, since Germany 2012, I’m told. As Daniel was saying just a moment ago, it is against the run of form of the past 18 months really for no Mercedes driver to be up here. Can you put into words, explain why you think this is happening this weekend?
SV: To be perfectly honest I think we don’t mind for a start; sorry! I don’t know, it’s a surprise. I thought yesterday they were sandbagging and also this morning, because there’s no doubt they have the strongest package this year. They have a very good car, sorry, a very good power unit, which we know. It usually puts them very high up and difficult to beat. I don’t know, they must have some issues not feeling comfortable at all; it’s the only explanation I think. But I wouldn’t rule them out for tomorrow. It’s not the easiest circuit to overtake but if you have the pace eventually you come through, so I expect them to be strong tomorrow.
The other half of it of course is that you’ve obviously improved?
SV: Well, obviously we always try to improve. Obviously we hope that we can show the exact same result… maybe a little bit better to have both of us in 1-2, without being too greedy, next Saturday. Then you can say we have improved. We generally feel OK on this track; obviously it’s about feeling confident. I think it was fairly close the whole weekend between Kimi and myself. I the quali the gap seemed to increase. He explained that he wasn’t that comfortable and I think that’s where a lot of lap time is – if you feel confident with the car then you can attack. There is no room for error here and it can easily make a big difference. But nevertheless it’s a great day and it puts us in a very good place for tomorrow so I don’t mid at all.
Coming to you Daniel, obviously Ferrari have had some wins in 2015, Red Bull have not. You got three last year, you’ve been hanging out for a win in 2015, is tomorrow your best chance?
DR: It’s definitely our best chance. Coming into the weekend we thought it would be our best chance to back on the podium and obviously today’s result has shown that we’ve backed up the confidence I had in the car and I think the team had coming here. Tomorrow is where… that’s where the points are the champagne is, so you know we put ourselves in the best position today. Obviously Seb was out of reach. I think he did two really good laps from what it looked like. Yeah, second best today but we’ll try to get one more up there tomorrow. It’s always a challenge here: it’s hot, it’s physical, it’s long. Not only is it can the car hold up, it’s a test for the driver and I think that’s fun. Pretty happy with how the weekend has gone. As Seb said as well, you need a lot of confidence in the car here and it’s felt good out of the box from yesterday, so really pleased.
Well all three of your managed to save a set of supersoft tyres in Q1 but Kimi it was a little bit marginal for you, very brave. Were you sweating a little bit towards that end of that Q1 session with the decision to not go out on a supersoft set.
KR: Not really, because obviously the lap, you know if it’s a good lap or not. I think even with that lap we probably could have gone through, just wanted to with the first set. So it was quite OK. There’s always a chance that people start guessing and it can get more hectic but it was fine and just for whatever reason it’s been a difficult day, just lacking in grip and struggling a bit on braking and turn-in, so not in an ideal position but in the end the result is OK for how difficult it’s been today, so I’m sure we found something for tomorrow so it should be OK. It’s good for the team. Obviously we’ll try to have a strong race to finish 1-2 tomorrow and we’ll see what happens.
QUESTIONS FROM THE FLOOR
Q: (Heikki Kulta – Turun Sanomat) Kimi, how much pressure there is after what happened in Monza in the start and is it better to start from the cleaner side of the street? How much that helps?
KR: If it makes a difference we don’t know. There is no pressure from what happened. It doesn’t change for tomorrow.
Q: (Dan Knutson – Auto Action / Speed Sport) Daniel, your team-mate was quicker than you in FP2 and FP3. What happened in qualifying? Did things maybe just click a little bit better for you?
DR: Ask him [Vettel] why I was slower than Dany in FP2! Yeah, we encountered some traffic, otherwise I think, yeah, we would have been pretty quick in FP2. This morning, we made a few changes overnight and I wasn’t as comfortable with them. I think my lap wasn’t great, as well, from my side. We went back to what we know from yesterday and yeah, obviously qualifying is where you need to really make it happen so was… yeah, felt more comfortable in quali.
Q: (Peter Windsor – F1 Racing) Sebastian, forgive this hypothetical question, bear with me. Beautiful pole lap. If you could go back 12 months and drive last year’s RB11 as you are now, do you think you’re a better, slightly faster, more experienced driver. Do you think you’d be quicker in the RB11 now, if you could get back into the car as it was.
SV: It’s a very difficult question to answer because there’s no way I can do that. Look, it’s very simple: last year for sure I didn’t have a great year and all in all Daniel had a very good year and beat me fair and square, many times. Other times I was in front but overall it was not the best year for myself. A lot of stuff that I learned… yeah, obviously didn’t have a good start to the season. Didn’t drive the car very often. I think I did about one day of testing, one proper day of testing, before the season, and then we had lots of issues – but still, I think I’m experienced enough to know what to do to go quick but yeah, simply wasn’t good enough. Daniel showed that he could go quicker with the car on occasions. So, to try and answer your question… I don’t know – but I think I’ve learned a couple of bits about this generation of cars, let’s say and yeah, probably the way the season went last year has helped me for this year.
Q: (Lim Say Heng – The New Paper) This question is for Sebastian. You must be quite familiar, comfortable and confident here since you’ve won here three times. How much of that comfort and confidence helped you in getting pole today?
SV: I think it’s crucial if you’re confident around the track. You need to be confident in your car. It is a street circuit and the better you feel, the closer you can get to the walls. It is a circuit where the driver can make a difference. If he feels comfortable… I don’t know, I’ve always loved this track since I came here. I had a very good result in 2008, I think 2009 was OK as well. It’s a tough one, a tough lap. It’s an extreme challenge but it’s the sort of race where you’re kind of excited. Not scared but nervous as well, before you start. There’s a lot of things happening, it’s intense, you need to keep your focus up. So, looking forwards to tomorrow.
Q: (Daniel Johnson – The Telegraph) Seb, two things if I may. First of all, it’s been a while for you and the team since you started on pole, is there anything you have to refresh tonight? Any studying you need to do to remember all what you have to do. The second bit is, are you expecting this to be a blip with Mercedes so far behind or do you think this could be the pattern for the rest of the year?
SV: Expect it to be a pattern. They’ve been way too comfortable and too strong for a long time so, I don’t know what happened today, probably we’ll here after quali what they have to say. As I’ve said, I think they will be quick tomorrow and then, the first part of your question, I don’t think so. I think it’s actually easier if you have nobody in front on the formation lap to look out for. You can do your own thing. It’s nice. Obviously hard work on Saturday but we succeeded and looking forward to have a clean run to Turn One.
Q: (Heikki Kulta – Turun Sanomat) Sebastian, last time Ferrari was having a front row was France 2008 when Kimi was in pole. Can you see that realistic this season to happen also? To get a front row for Ferrari?
SV: I think yes. We are trying, both as hard as possible. I think obviously today could have been possible but in the end obviously I was a bit lucky that I felt really comfortable, Kimi wasn’t. It’s easy to lose some time there but for the rest of the season we go maximum attack. Anything can happen, it can rain on Saturday. There’s always the chance to do well – so we have to attack latest next Saturday if you talk about qualifying.
Q: (Peter Windsor – F1 Racing) Question for Daniel. I think you were quickest in Sector Three. I wondered whether your tyre warm-up process was affected in any way by Bottas coming out just in front of you?
DR: It’s not ideal. You always want to have a clean out-lap and obviously it’s not his fault at all. It’s just the pattern and the way we came out was close but yeah, it’s always nicer to have your own out-lap to do your own thing. Everyone’s got their own way of warming up the tyres. You never know how much the car in front is going to back up to try and do whatever they want to do, so yeah, it probably explains why my tyres were better at the end of the lap rather than the beginning. I haven’t seen the sectors but the third one felt pretty good. Maybe it was a blessing in disguise. Who knows? But yeah, it’s always nice having a clean out-lap and doing your thing. It was close. Wanted to push him in the pitlane! Yeah, it’s just part of it.
eom/FIA transcript of the Press Conference on Saturday
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The cars are safer than they have been 30 years ago but there is still room for making them safer: Sebastian Vettel
DRIVERS – Marcus ERICSSON (Sauber), Daniel RICCIARDO (Red Bull Racing), Carlos SAINZ (Toro Rosso), Felipe MASSA (Williams), Sebastian VETTEL (Ferrari), Nic
FIA press conference at the Italian GP on Thursday. An FIA image o ROSBERG (Mercedes)
PRESS CONFERENCE
Nico maybe we could begin with you, congratulations, I understand you became a father. How will it change you and have you decided on a name yet?
Nico ROSBERG: Yeah, for sure it’s been very exciting, very intense of course. Big respect for all the mothers of this world – unbelievable. No, very emotional and super happy. Very excited.
You’ll obviously be losing a little bit of sleep then in the coming weeks but you’ve also been losing a few places off the start line lately, with both the old and the new rules on starts, so it’s now three races in a row, making race day a bit more complicated for you. What thoughts have you and the team had on that and how you are going to address it, as particularly here in Monza it’s a long run to turn one so any loss off the line would be amplified by turn one?
NR: Yeah, it’s true that starts have not been our strength lately, so we’ve been working on it a lot, making progress and then of course the rule change also came in right in the middle of, or off the back of two starts that hadn’t been fantastic. So it’s a work in progress and we need to improve for sure, we know that, and we’re all getting into it.
Thank you. Sebastian, when you started with Ferrari you said you were living the dream and here you are, at Monza, a Ferrari driver, in front of the tifosi. Can you put into words the sense of pride, responsibility, expectation, dare we say even emotion that comes with the job?
Sebastian VETTEL: No! Well, I’m about to find out. Obviously I’ve heard lots of good things. I’ve been here before so obviously [I have seen] the passion for Ferrari, so obviously very much looking forward to becoming part of that. If we do well, which is our target, and we manage to be on the podium on Sunday I’m looking forward to not receiving booing for a long time. So, yeah, plenty of stuff to look forward to. So far we have had a great season. This is our home grand prix as a team and since I didn’t have a home grand prix this year I adopt this one as well and hopefully we can make it a good one.
Now, you made you feelings very clear to the media in Spa about Pirelli and the tyre failure. Having now seen the results of the investigation, what are your considered thoughts on the matter?
SV: Well, first of all I think there was a lot of stuff explained or written that I think was not correct, the way it was expressed. I think it was very clear what I said. I think the most important point is that obviously we have been looking into the issue we had very clearly and Pirelli has been supportive and very open in the discussions, so I think that’s the most important thing and we need to make sure that we learn from that. Other than that we are in Monza now and, as I said, there is plenty of other stuff to look forward to.
Thank you for that. Felipe, coming to you, obviously confirmed for 2016 [at Williams]. On the podium here last year, third for Williams and you’re always popular here with the fans thanks to your years with Ferrari. Given Williams’ chassis and engine characteristics can you dream of maybe moving to a higher step on the podium on Sunday of this weekend?
Felipe MASSA: Yes, for sure. Dreaming is for free. You always dream about the best, about winning the race. Here is one of the best places to be on the podium, to see the whole people, the whole straight [full] of people, especially. Last year that everybody was also happy that I was there on the podium, screaming my name, I think it was so nice, so I’m really looking forward for another one and definitely we dream even to get a better position than third. When you go to the grid you’re thinking about doing the best and thinking about the victory. That’s what I’m doing every race and it’s another one where I will try everything I can to be there.
If we you look at your recent record, you out-qualified Bottas six-five this season, finished ahead of him in the last four races and moved ahead of him in the championship. What’s driven this strong run of form for you?
FM: I think last year I was very competitive as well with my team-mate. We were fighting the whole season I would say. The only thing is that the results of the race are a lot more consistent this year. Last year I had a lot of problems, many races where so many things happened and I couldn’t finish in the position I was supposed to. I think this year the situation is a lot more consistent and I managed to score points and finish more or less where I was supposed to in most of the races. I think that’s really good, but we have many races to go and you always want more.
OK, thank you for that. Daniel, coming to you, you obviously come from an Italian family that emigrated to Australia. When you come here how Italian do you feel and how have the Italians welcomed you in the last few days during all the various promotional activities you’ve been doing?
Daniel RICCIARDO: I start talking with my hands a bit more! It’s automatic: you arrive in Italy and you start using your hands. What was the question?
Apart from how Italian you feel, how have the Italians welcomed you in the past few days in the various different things you’ve been up to?
DR: It’s always a warm welcome here, for sure. The fans are… I’ve always said it, they’re passionate; they’re full on but they’re great. They love the sport, they love getting close and having their moment and stuff. It’s pretty cool walking into the paddock. It creates a bit of a road block but… I think it’s the craziest paddock entrance we go to all year in terms of the fans spreading their love, but it’s nice. I remember the warm-up lap here last year, I think I crossed the second Lesmo and there was a flare blowing across the track… it’s unique, so it’s cool.
Red Bull has yet to lead a lap in 2015 and you’ve spent a fair chunk of the races somewhere between P5 and P7. Tell us about how you’ve set targets for the remainder of the season and also about the decision on power units for you and your team-mate this weekend?
DR: Looking now towards the last part of the season, the last couple of races have been our strongest, as of late, Budapest and Spa have gone well for us. I think in terms of understanding the car we’re much more on top of it now than we were earlier in the season. I think the chassis is back to a really strong level. Monza’s not obviously a circuit that suits us particularly. We’ve got the penalties as well, so you know that’s obviously a strategic things as well – take the penalty here rather than in Singapore where we expect to be very competitive. Then, yeah, have some fun here on Sunday, come through the field as far forward as we can and then Singapore, we can really fight for a podium there.
Coming to you Marcus, 25th birthday celebrated yesterday, happy birthday. Scored points in the last two races consecutively and beaten your team-mate in the last four, do you feel it’s all starting to come together?
Marcus ERICSSON: Yeah, I think my form, like you say, has been strong now lately and it’s nice to see. I’ve been working a lot with myself, trying to change my approach during a race weekend, focusing more on myself and not other people, what they are doing. It’s nice to see that it’s giving results on the track. I just need to continue that form, not relax but continue to work really hard to continue that way.
New start regulations in Spa; it wasn’t the smoothest start for you. What happened there and what do you generally think of the new rules?
ME: I think I did quite a good start. I gained a position, so for me it was pretty good. For me, it doesn’t make a big difference. It’s a bit more feeling for us drivers than there has been before. It’s very similar to how it was in GP2 and I was always a strong starter in GP2, so for me it’s not a problem.
Thank you. Coming to you Carlos, another birthday celebrated, 21 years old now. If we look at your performances, you’ve reached Q3 six times and out-qualified Verstappen 7-4, yet the results show four consecutive retirements from the races and a best result of eighth. Are you getting concerned that the performances are being overshadowed by the results and the retirements?
Carlos SAINZ: No, not really. It’s not my main concern at the moment, because at the end, what is under my control everything is going so far quite well. The retirements are obviously totally out of my control, but four consecutive ones is a tiny bit too much. But I’m confident that this well end soon and I’m confident that it will start playing a bit to my side now and we can have a smooth second half of the season and start finishing races and going back to where we were at the beginning of the year in terms of points and position.
We mentioned that you’ve out-qualified Verstappen to this point, have you been surprised by the speed you’ve been able to find in qualifying?
CS: Well, you never know what to expect when you come to Formula One. I just know that last year in World Series I made a very big step forward with myself in qualifying and in the race and I just brought it to Formula One this year. You never know how you are going to be, you never know how you’re speed is going to be in Formula One. What I am quite sure is that Saturdays this year have gone very well for me and I am performing at a very decent level. I just need to make sure now on Sundays I perform at the same level and we finish races and I’m sure we’ll be in a good position.
QUESTIONS FROM THE FLOOR
Q: (Agris Lauznieks – Kapitals Lativia) This is last race in Europe this season. What are your thoughts about the opportunity to add extra races in Europe, especially northern Europe – to do Riga Grand Prix in Latvia. How would you feel about it?
NR: I’ve heard great things about Riga, I’ve got a good friend from there also so that would be fantastic but I don’t know. Races in Europe are great, wherever they are to be honest, so it’s always good to have more of those.
Sebastian, anything to add?
SV: Not many things I know about Latvia. But yeah, would be, I think, a nice place to go to. I think in general it’s a bit of a shame that we don’t have a grand prix in northern Europe, also Scandinavia because people are quite passionate and crazy about racing. I’ve been to Rally Finland some years ago and I was wondering why we don’t have a Formula One grand prix but I guess that, especially next year, we have quite a lot on the calendar so it looks sort-of busy now – but maybe in the future.
Marcus, maybe you can tell us why we don’t…
ME: I think we should have a snow race in Sweden – that would be something! I don’t know. Like Sebastian was saying, we have a lot of passionate fans in all of Scandinavia and northern Europe so it would be very nice to have a race somewhere in these countries, for sure.
Q: (Vladimir Rogovets – Sb Belarus) My question is to Felipe Massa. Today here you are between the very young drivers and in the race you are very quick and very competitive. My question, where is your personal secret to be very young and very quick?
FM: I still feel young, honestly. Definitely when you here with 21 years old, 17… it’s really young, definitely. I think you just need to… I always do my best. I feel quick, I feel competitive and definitely the experience helps in so many areas. I’m happy for what I’ve learned with these days and, definitely also when I see you are competing with young drivers and you show good speed in the qualifying, in the race good performance is always nice – nice feeling, so we always compete for the best result you can. That is what gives you pleasure. I can say I have many pleasures in racing and by the result I finish in races – sometimes not, something yes, this is part of our feeling. I still feel good motivation and I’m not finishing the race tired or whatever, so I think that’s what counts at the end.
Q: (Andrea Cremonesi, La Gazzetta dello Sport) Question for Nico Rosberg. Nico, before you talked about the birth of your daughter. I would like to know if you can compare the happiness of that to some other things in our job, like victory and nervousness. If you can compared nervousness in that moment? And a technical question about the gap with Lewis. The gap has increased a lot in the last two races, do you think this is one of the last chances to recover? To change the direction of the championship?
NR: Emotions extremely intense, more intense than any racing success or anything like that. And also, yeah, because there’s factors… love and health and all these things playing a part. That’s definitely more than a race victory. Then the gap to Lewis, yeah, points of course it’s gone in the wrong direction but it’s just over one race difference so I’m very optimistic and pushing and definitely want to try and close that back down now.
Q: (Andrew Benson – BBC) To Sebastian, Felipe, Daniel and Nico. Are you satisfied with Pirelli’s explanation for the tyre failures in Belgium – especially as a couple of you described them as unacceptable over that weekend? And to Sebastian personally and additionally, have you raised your concerns, as expressed after Spa, with Bernie, who’s deciding the new tyre supplier?
SV: I think in all honestly I had a bit more insight because I was obviously one of the two cars that had a failure during the weekend in Belgium – a bit more insight on what was going on after the race in terms of the analysis and so on, than probably Felipe and Daniel. I’m not sure about Nico. But yeah, from what I mentioned also before, it has been very professional, the way it was handled. It was taken very seriously. And obviously our target is to improve the situation. I think it’s natural that you always try to improve your product. I think if you look at the cars, if you talk about the cars today, the cars are quick and so on, and the cars are safe. They’re surely safer than they have been 30 years ago but there is still room for making them safer: we still have accidents and so on and still some things can happen. It’s a one-way street: you want to make progress and keep making progress. So I think that’s more important than any sort of press release, the feeling that I got when I spoke to the engineers and spoke to Pirelli.
Nico?
NR: It’s being handled with extreme precision and a lot of energy is going into it, which I’m happy to see, of course. It requires that also. I’m confident that we’ll be here and driving safely.
Felipe, what were your reflections on Spa?
FM: I think maybe they know better than me. They were there, they were inside. All these problems the two cars had in Spa with the tyres. For me it’s a little bit more difficult to explain. We want to be safe. What we want is to not have this problem happen – or maybe to understand 100 per cent why it happens and change whatever needs to be changed to give us the most safe tyres and the most safe opportunities to race and to risk ourselves in a safe way – which is what we want. Don’t know what they changed from there to here, but for sure if they change somethings from Spa to Monza, maybe with the tyre pressure and everything. So we need to understand if really they understand what’s happened or not – which is the most important thing. We always want the most safe car or tyres to race.
Daniel?
DR: That’s right. It’s all been covered.
Q: (David Croft – Sky Sports) With all due respect, Daniel, I don’t think it has all been covered. I’m still at a loss, guys; are you satisfied with Pirelli’s explanation? They say as well, in the press release, there were 63 cuts to tyres over the course of the weekend. We know two of them, for Sebastian and Nico, did any of you other guys experience cuts on your tyres? Did your teammates experience cuts? Is this statement right? Were there that many cuts? Was the track that dirty because of all the debris?
DR: There was blistering. I don’t really know the difference in a way, the details: what’s a blister, what’s a cut? Yeah, we experienced some blistering. Certainly not the first time we’ve had it in Spa. It’s pretty common around there. Yeah, so we did see some activity, I guess but there again, not the first time. It’s probably hard to be as attached to it as Nico or Seb. Obviously I wasn’t in the car but I still saw it and I feel their concerns or their disappointment with the situation. I think what Pirelli’s put out has been as much as they can for now. That’s all they can say really is that we’re working on it. Obviously they’ve given us some answers so, yeah, that’s just where it is for now. It’s hard to predict what will happen now in the future.
Q: Carlos, any cuts in your team?
CS: No, not really. I think they’ve given us an explanation, the reasons. I hope they’ve done their job properly. I’m convinced they have because they are the first ones that don’t want to put us drivers at risk so they are giving us those explanations and I’m convinced that at least it will not happen again and we can race safely here in Monza. And if it does happen again, then maybe we need some more investigation.
Q: Marcus, did you have any cuts in the Sauber team?
ME: Yes, we had some issues with some cuts on some tyres but I think they came from debris on the track. That was the explanation that we got. I didn’t experience anything else, not any problems with my driving.
Q: Felipe, Daniel just said it’s quite a common problem at Spa. Could you explain to us why Spa, why it’s particularly common that you pick up debris there?
FM: No, I don’t believe it should be common. Debris we have every race. Some races we have more debris than others. For sure, the tyres should be strong enough to accept the debris or what we have beside the track. I don’t think it’s common. We had cuts as well during the weekend.
Q: (Kate Walker – motorsport.com) More about the tyres, I’m afraid. We know that you guys all have Pirelli engineers embedded in your garage, giving you advice on cambers and pressures and whatever else. To what extent, in each of your teams, is that advice listened to? Do they have real input in the strategy? How can things go wrong when you’re supposed to have an expert with you, telling you what to do safely?
NR: Well, sometimes there are strict things that you must follow and other times there are just suggestions on everything. I’m not sure… we handled everything accordingly in Spa and made modifications also throughout the weekend to make sure we were running the tyres as safely as possible, according to guidelines given by Pirelli. I don’t know about them, what their situation was. I can just say that we did manage things, yeah.
SV: I think it’s fairly simple. There’s a lot of things that you have to stick to because it’s part of the rules. Also the FIA is checking so you can decide not to listen but then obviously you risk to be disqualified, so I don’t think there’s any team taking that risk. And then there’s other things that you talk about and use the expertise of the Pirelli engineer inside your garage and I think it would be stupid not to listen to him, for all of us, for all the teams, because obviously they have knowledge that we can’t get about their tyres etc, so of course we take it very very seriously.
FM: Yeah, I think the same, not really more to add.
ME: Same, same stuff, yeah.
Q: (Daniel Johnson – The Telegraph) Seb, sorry to labour the point slightly. After the race in Spa, among many other things you said was that the current situation was unacceptable. If I can put it this way, is the situation now acceptable to you and any of the drivers who want to chip in?
SV: Well, I think it is not acceptable to have a blow-out at that sort of speed, out of the blue and I think that’s what I said also after the race, so there’s nothing really to add. But, as I said before, I think the investigations that have been going on, the stuff that obviously has been analysed and talked about, explains some of it, maybe not all of it yet but it’s still ongoing and obviously, as I said, the most important thing is that we make sure that we make progress. At the moment, from Pirelli’s side, it looks very very professional, they handle it with extreme care, and I think things are going the right way.
Q: (Daniel Johnson – The Telegraph) So has enough changed from Spa to here? Is the situation more acceptable?
SV: Well, I think there are some short term changes, as I learned, if we talk about tyre pressures, for example. We obviously see how it feels but if that’s a short term reaction within those couple of days or weeks that we’ve had, that’s one thing. Then obviously long term I think we need to understand properly what happened. I think it’s very clear that everybody is trying to do their best. I think we had a situation a couple of years ago which wasn’t acceptable and there was immediate change and we didn’t have problems afterwards so you can see that the professional approach does work and usually leads to the right result.
Q: (Silvia Arias – Parabrisas) Felipe, I would like to know if something has changed in the team after the mistake they made with Bottas’s car when they put on the wrong compound, please?
FM: Well, it should, definitely. We always work for trying to do everything in the correct way, in the best way we can. Sometimes mistakes can happen in our working but for sure mistakes happen which we cannot repeat, so definitely we are always trying to improve things when we see they are not working in the way we want, so we want to be perfect, we want to do everything correctly. This is part of the working we are doing from race to race, the changes we are doing from race to race and whichever mistakes or things that can happen we are always working not to repeat and that’s what we’re doing as a team.
Q: (Peter Farkas – Auto Motor) Daniel, you’ve mentioned that you are starting to understand the car better, and it was obviously in Spa, the efficiency is there, you were very quick in the second sector in spite of running a very skinny rear wing but the top speed was not there. Do you think that Red Bull again has one of the best cars on the grid and again, is it obvious that now the engine is the biggest hindrance for you?
DR: I think we’re now back at a level we were at last year. We knew the chassis was strong, we felt most of our deficit was the power and then yeah, I think earlier this season it looked like we obviously had issues on both sides, the chassis… obviously I had experience from last year and I didn’t feel like it was where it was last year so I thought we had similar deficiencies on both sides but yeah, we’ve had quite a few updates since. All year we have updates but I’d say since Silverstone it’s really come on strong and we seem to be in the window a lot easier now with getting the car there so I’m definitely a lot happier with where the chassis is now. I feel it’s like we were last year and then yeah, the power we know, we’re trying to make up what we can but we know we started too far back and it’s… I don’t like the word impossible but it nearly is impossible to make all that gap back in one season so I think that’s what it is for now. We’re always going to be somewhat down for the rest of the season, that’s why we look at Singapore and some of these circuits which are obviously a lot less power-dependent, a lot more chassis and we look at those as potential podiums for us.
Q: (Louis Dekker – NOS.NL) Sebastian, can you take us back to a couple of years ago, your first victory here and also explain why it is harder this year to win here for Ferrari than back then for Toro Rosso?
SV: I don’t know yet. I don’t know if it’s harder yet. Obviously it was a miracle that was happening in 2008 so only positive memories of the whole weekend really. But yeah, some years later, obviously another highlight and I’m looking forward to it and obviously can’t promise anything but for sure I can promise that we will give our maximum, trying to have a very very successful home race. I think that I know a lot more than I knew in 2008 so in this regard it should be easier but obviously it’s never easier. If you look on paper, it looks like a simple track with low downforce but still it’s also very technical so for us drivers it feels that the car is moving a lot, it feels very light under braking so it’s still a big challenge around here. You need to get the braking points right etc so it’s not that straightforward and obviously I’m sure that people expect a lot from us, but I think the one thing that we can promise now is that we will give everything we have.
eom/FIA press release
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Vettel wins Hungarian GP; Hamilton finishes 7th, Rosberg 8th
Sebastian Vettel claimed his second win of the season in an incident-packed Hungarian Grand Prix that saw championship leader Lewis Hamilton finish seventh and title rival Nico Rosberg finish eight after both tangled with rivals during the race.
After crossing the line to claim his 41st career win Vettel dedicated the victory to Jules Bianchi saying that the French driver would have one day been part of the Ferrari squad.
It was a rewarding afternoon for Red Bull Racing, with Daniil Kvyat taking second place and Daniel Ricciardo claiming third. The Australian might have finished ahead of Kvyat but a late collision with Rosberg saw the pair places. Kvyat too dedicated his race to Bianchi and his family.
After an aborted start and an extra formation lap due to Felipe Massa being out of position on the grid, the lights finally went out and for the second race in a row pole position man Hamilton made a poor getaway.
The slow start was immediately seized upon by the fast-starting Ferraris and Vettel went around Hamilton through Turn One to take the lead, while Rosberg snuck past his team-mate. Rosberg was soon dropped to third, however, as Räikkönen hustled past the German in Turn 3.
Hamilton’s woes were compounded when, in hot pursuit of Rosberg, he went off at the chicane, clattering through the gravel before re-joining in tenth place.
Behind the front four Daniel Ricciardo also made a poor start from fourth place on the dirty side of the grid and was passed by Williams’ Valtteri Bottas. Ricciardo dropped to seventh. The second Red Bull of Daniil Kvyat went from seventh on the grid to fifth but he was quickly passed by Force India’s Nico Hulkenberg and then, with the Russian appearing to struggle in the early stages, the pit wall asked him to let team-mate Ricciardo past, which he did.
Once clear of Kvyat the Australian began to push hard. On lap 10 he made his way past Hulkenberg at Turn One and then three laps later he muscled his way past Bottas to claim fourth place.
Williams took the pass as the signal to bring Bottas in for a change of tyres and the Finn’s visit to pit lane triggered the first round of stops. As the major of the field took on fresh rubber Hamilton vaulted up the order, rising to fifth by lap 17. The Briton was setting fastest race laps and running up to four tenths of a second quicker than leader Vettel but the Mercedes man was still 30 seconds adrift of the lead.
Hamilton made his first visit to the pit lane on lap 19, taking on more soft tyres in a four-second stop. He was followed a lap later by team-mate Rosberg who made a rapid 2.8-second stop for medium tyres. Leader Vettel responded on laps 21 and took on soft tyres on a 3.2s stop, while third on the road Ricciardo followed on the same lap but, like Rosberg, he opted for the medium tyre for his second stint. Vettel then resumed the lead when Räikkönen took on more soft tyres.
With only medium-tyre starter Pastor Maldonado and Manor’s Will Stevens left to pit, the order on lap 24 was Vettel with six seconds in hand over second-placed Räikkönen and the Finn a further six seconds ahead of Rosberg. Ricciardo was fourth, 16s off the lead, but with the medium tyre on board he was struggling to resist attacks from Hamilton who was on the soft tyre. Hamilton was now 31.5s behind Vettel.
Bottas was now sixth ahead of Hulkenberg, with the medium-shod Kvyat eighth ahead of Max Verstappen and Fernando Alonso who had climbed from 15th on the grid to sit in a points-scoring position. Maldonado, meanwhile, had received a drive through penalty for colliding with Sergio Perez and was now languishing in 18thposition.
At the front, Ricciardo lost the battle against Hamilton on lap 29, with the champion, aided by quicker tyres, a more powerful engine and DRS, sweeping past the Red Bull driver on the run to Turn One.
After passing Ricciardo the middle stint saw Hamilton, on softs, begin to reel in the medium-tyre shod Rosberg and by lap 40 he was just six seconds behind his team-mate. Ricciardo also on the slower medium tyres began to drop back from Hamilton and was now nine seconds adrift of the Mercedes. Vettel and Räikkönen, meanwhile, were on a second soft-tyre stint and would need to complete the race on the slower medium tyre. Vettel’s lead over his team-mate was now 10 seconds and he was a further six clear of Rosberg.
Ferrari’s hopes of a first one-two finish in five years (since the German GP of 2010) began to look shaky on lap 41 as Räikkönen’s times began to drop and he reported a loss if power, attributed to an MGU-K problem.
The picture became even more bleak later in the lap when Nico Hulkenberg’s front wing collapsed on the main straight and the Force India driver straight-lined Turn One and went into the barriers.
That triggered a Virtual Safety car and a flurry of pit stops saw the leaders pit for their final set of tyres, during which Rosberg opted to stay on mediums rather than the softs his team had earlier advised. Under the VSC the gaps were maintained, but with debris from Hulkenberg’s wing strewn across the track the VSC was rapidly replaced by the real thing, which led the field through the pit lane due to the debris on the track, and Vettel’s comfortable lead was almost erased.
The Safety Car left the track at the end of lap 48 and while Vettel powered away to hold his lead and Raikkonen vainly battled to defend from Rosberg, who made it through to second, Ricciardo, on the soft tyre, mounted an attack on Hamilton on the slower medium. He went around the outside of the Mercedes through the opening corners but the pair tangled with the left side of Hamilton’s front wing being shredded on the right sight of Ricciardo’s Red Bull.
The Australian came out of the collision in better shape and set off after Räikkönen. Hamilton though fell back to sixth and he was later penalised with a driver through penalty for causing the collision.
Hamilton was passed by Kvyat and Bottas but in getting past the Mercedes, Bottas was tagged by the Toro Rosso of Max Verstappen and the Finn sustained a puncture.
Räikkönen, meanwhile, was struggling badly and Ferrari’s hopes were finally dashed when he was brought to the pits where mechanics appeared to reset the car. He dropped back to 16th and eventually retired on lap 56.
Vettel now led, with just 1.3s in hand over Rosberg, who was being harried by the hard-charging Ricciardo who was on the quicker soft tyre. Kvyat was fourth in the second Red Bull ahead of Toro Rosso’s Max Verstappen but the major surprise, on lap, 59 was that Alonso had kept his nose clean and his McLaren in good shape to hold sixth position with a little over 10 laps to go. Romain Grosjean was seventh for Lotus, while Jenson Button was eighth in the second McLaren. Carlos Sainz was ninth in the second Toro Rosso and Sauber’s Marcus Ericsson occupied the final points position. Hamilton, who had taken his penalty, was down in 12th.
The order looked set but at the start of lap 64, Ricciardo made a bold attempt to pass Rosberg into Turn One. He braked very late and ran wide and then as Rosberg passed him again Ricciardo collided with Rosberg, with the Australian’s front wing being destroyed and Rosberg sustaining a puncture.
That vaulted Kvyat to second. The Russian had been handed a time penalty for exceeding the track limits but when Ricciardo re-joined after pitting for a new nose Kvyat still had enough of a gap to hold the place.
Rosberg, meanwhile, was forced to limp all the way around the track before taking on new tyres and when he re-joined he found himself in ninth place.
Vettel, though, sailed on serenely, and when the flag came out he crossed the line with five seconds in hand over Kvyat. Ricciardo took third, while Verstappen claimed his best ever F1 result with fourth place. Alonso claimed McLaren’s best result of the season with fifth, while Hamilton claimed seventh. Rosberg passed Button for eighth in the closing laps and Ericsson took the final point on offer.
eom/
Sebastian Vettel poses with the trophy along with a Ferrari engineer after winning the Hungarian GP on Sunday. A Shell Motorsport image FIA release
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Vettel scores a sensational win; Hamilton, Rosberg settle for minor podium places
Sepang, 29 March 2015: Sebastian Vettel scored a sensational first win of his Ferrari career at the Malaysian Grand Prix, ambushing the dominant Mercedes team by expertly converting a two-stop strategy to relegate championship leader Lewis Hamilton to second place and Nico Rosberg to third.
Across the weekend, Ferrari’s SF15-T was kinder on tyres than its rivals and Vettel capitalised on the advantage in the race, electing not to stop during an early safety car period and then getting the best out of his starting medium tyres to hold the lead during the race’s opening phase.
The German made his first visit to the pit lane on lap 17, taking on more medium tyres and rejoining in third place behind the Mercedes cars of Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg, who had both pitted during the safety car period brought about by Sauber’s Marcus Ericcson beaching his car on the edge of the gravel trap in turn one.
A strong second stint saw Vettel maintain his challenge but when Hamilton took on medium tyres for his next stint the gap closed as the Mercedes driver closed in on the German by upwards of a lap per second.
Vettel then took on hard tyres in his second stop on lap 37, but when Hamilton then made his third stop with 18 laps to go – having to take on hard tyres with only heavily used mediums as the alternative – Mercedes’ challenge evaporated.
Vettel controlled the gap with ease and eventually took the chequered flag with eight seconds in hand to claim his first victory since Brazil 2013 and Ferrari’s first win since Spain of the same season.
“A phenomenal day. It feels incredible,” said Vettel afterwards. “To see the guys when I was on the podium, to look down, it was an incredible atmosphere. I can only recall from the victories Fernando had with Ferrari and recall especially the victories Michael celebrated with the team – I think there were one or two – it’s incredible.
“The strategy today was also ace,” he added. “Mercedes pulled in [during the safety car period], which I think we were a bit surprised by, but we saw on Friday that they weren’t too happy on the medium compound and Lewis was struggling in the first stint and I was able to keep up with him, which I enjoyed a lot.
“And then I knew I had to deliver, trying to make those tyres last and trying to go as fast as I can. Second stint he was chasing me down, which was tough, so he had a string second stint. In the end I think I was able to rebalance the car a little more and I was able to, yeah, have a solid gap the last couple of laps.”
Hamilton, meanwhile, admitted that he had struggled with the balance of his car all afternoon.
“All day I was struggling with the balance,” he said. “It was very, very uncomfortable, a lot of understeer, I couldn’t look after tyres. When I went to option tyre the car was better I was able to be a bit more consistent. I was able to close the gap. We went on the other tyres at the end, which weren’t good for me. I tried my best and the team made best choice they could.”
There was plenty of action behind the podium finishers. Kimi Raikkonen recovered from a first-lap puncture to finish fourth. The Finn used a three-stop strategy and hustled his way through the field to close in on the leaders but the time lost early couldn’t be recovered and he finished 41 seconds behind Vettel.
Williams’ Valtteri Bottas finishing fifth, winning a late-race tussle with team-mate Felipe Massa. It was a curiously uncompetitive weekend for the Grove team, however, and they certainly now look to have ceded ‘best of the rest’ status behind Mercedes to Ferrari.
Behind Massa was the other hero of Sepang, the sport’s youngest ever points scorer Max Verstappen. The 17-year-old passed his team-mate Carlos Sainz in the late stages having recovered from a fraught run through the early laps.
Daniil Kvyat led home Red Bull team-mate Daniel Ricciardo after a difficult day for the Milton Keynes squad. Kvyat was lucky to see the flag having been pitched in the air while passing Nico Hulkenberg’s Force India. Both cars suffered with excessive brake wear and Ricciardo hung on for the final point.
Behind the points scorers, Romain Grosjean finished 11th for Lotus, with Sauber’s Felipe Nasr 12th ahead of the Force Indias of Sergio Perez and Nico Hulkenberg. Manor’s Roberto Mehri was the final finisher in 15th place.
The McLaren’s of Jenson Button and Fernando Alonso failed to finish, with Alonso told by his team to retire his car after 21 laps and Button cruising back to the garage having reported a loss of power after 41 laps.
Malaysian GP, Sepang, 29th March
1 Sebastian Vettel Ferrari 1h41m05.793s
2 Lewis Hamilton Mercedes +8.569s
3 Nico Rosberg Mercedes 12.310s
4 Kimi Raikkonen Ferrari 53.822s
5 Valtteri Bottas Williams 1:10.409s
6 Felipe Massa Williams 1:13.586s
7 Max Verstappen Toro Rosso 1:39.085s
8 Carlos Sainz Toro Rosso 1 Lap
9 Daniil Kvyat Red Bull 1 Lap
10 Daniel Ricciardo Red Bull 1 Lap
11 Romain Grosjean Lotus 1 Lap
12 Felipe Nasr Sauber 1 Lap
13 Sergio Perez Force India 1 Lap
14 Nico Hulkenberg Force India 1 Lap
15 Roberto Merhi Marussia 3 Laps
– Pastor Maldonado Lotus R
– Jenson Button McLaren R
– Fernando Alonso McLaren R
– Marcus Ericsson Sauber R
– Will Stevens Marussia DNSeom/FIA Press Release
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Ricciardo takes maiden win in Canada as Mercedes hit trouble
Daniel Ricciardo of Red Bull Racing wins Canadian GP on Sunday for his maiden F1 victory. An FIA image Red Bull Racing driver profits as power unit issues relegate Rosberg to second and force Hamilton to retire.
Montreal, 8 June 2014: Red Bull Racing’s Daniel Ricciardo took his maiden Formula One victory in at the Canadian Grand after power unit problems forced Mercedes’ Nico Rosberg to settle to second after team-mate Lewis Hamilton was forced to retire with brake problems after 46 laps, an FIA press release said.
Sebastian Vettel finished third after passing Force India’s Sergio Perez, who also struggled with brake issues, two laps from the flag. However, the race ended under the safety car following a high-speed crash involving Perez and Felipe Massa on the penultimate lap.
At the start, Rosberg held off a strong challenge from Hamilton, holding his line as Hamilton made a move into turn one. The tussle allowed Vettel to sneak through into second. Behind them Williams’ Valtteri Bottas held fourth ahead of Massa, with Ricciardo sixth. Fernando Alonso, meanwhile, dropped back, surrendering seventh place to Jean-Eric Vergne. Kimi Raikkonen, too, made up a place, passing Jenson Button for ninth.
At the back, though, there was a collision. Just after the start Max Chilton lost control into Turn 4 and collided with team-mate Jules Bianchi and pitched the Frenchman into the barriers. Chilton, too, spun out as a result. It was the first time Chilton had failed to finish in Formula One. The double DNF was a bitter pill for Marussia after the team took its first points in Monaco two weeks ago.
When the action resumed the leaders all held position but Button lost out again, Sergio Perez passing the McLaren driver into the chicane to slot into the final points position.
At the front, Hamilton made his move on second-placed Vettel at the end of lap nine, passing the Red Bull under DRS into the final chicane. The move left the Mercedes driver 1.7s adrift of his team-mate.
Ricciardo was the first to make a scheduled stop at the end of lap 13. The Australian swapped his starting supersoft tyres for soft rubber. The stop saw Ricciardo re-emerge in 14th place. Bottas responded, pitting on the next tour from fourth place. He re-emerged just in front of Ricciardo. The next lap saw Vettel, Vergne and Massa all making their way to pit lane for soft tyres.
Massa’s stop, however, was problematic. A delay with the front left wheel saw the Brazilian lose out badly and he was jumped on track by both Ricciardo and Vergne.
Leader Rosberg stopped on lap 18, shedding his supersofts for soft tyres. Hamilton pushed hard to make up time and that forced Rosberg to be similarly committed. The German’s enthusiasm was almost very costly as he took too much kerb just after leaving the pits and almost hit the wall.
Hamilton pitted the next time around but his in-laps hadn’t clawed back enough time to pass his team-mate and Rosberg held his lead comfortably.
After 21 laps, then, most of the field had made a visit to pit lane. Sergio Perez, however was still circling on his starting supersofts and had climbed to third behind the Mercedes drivers, while Nico Hulkenberg, on his starting soft tyres in the second Force India had climbed to fourth ahead of Vettel, who led Bottas, Ricciardo, Alonso, Massa and Vergne.
At the front, Hamilton was exerting heavy pressure on Rosberg. The German made a mistake at the end of lap 25, locked up and straightlined the chicane. The incident seemed to gain the leader time on the track and the FIA stewards quickly put the incident under investigation. However, the officials eventually decided not to penalise the German and Hamilton was left to pass his team-mate on the track.
Perez finally pitted at the end of lap 34, the Mexican taking on his final set of tyres, discarding his starting supersofts for soft tyres.
Bottas was the first of the two-stoppers to return to pit lane at the end of the next lap. He was followed on lap 36 by Vettel. His team-mate Ricciardo followed a short while late but his pace was sufficient to allow him to jump the champion.
Hamilton, meanwhile, was on the radio reporting a loss of power. He wasn’t alone and Rosberg was soon on the radio reporting the same issue. Both were suddenly dropping two seconds a lap to third-placed Hulkenberg. The second Force India driver made his sole stop on lap 42, taking on supersofts. He emerged in eighth position behind the Vettel/Ricciardo battle.
At the front, the Mercedes were still running slow – a second slower per lap than new third-place man Massa, who was 17s adrift. Rosberg was told the problem was not fixable and that both would have to push hard to stay in control.
When the two Mercedes drivers made their stops, Massa assumed the lead. Rosberg had a slow stop and when Hamilton came in the next time around the Briton was able to rejoin ahead of his team-mate in P2.
Rosberg soon had the position back however as Hamilton suddenly overshot the final chicane, clearly struggling with his brakes. The problems quickly became terminal and he was forced to retire on lap 46.
Massa then pitted from the lead, handing control back to Rosberg. The Williams driver had been told to try to nurse his tyres to the end but the team gave up that chase and the Brazilian bolted on a new set of soft tyres in the hope that the boost in pace would help in the closing stages.
It was Perez, then, who was left to chase down the troubled Mercedes of Rosberg. The gap between the two disappeared within a handful of tours and on lap 52 the Force India man was just half a second down on the faltering W05 Hybrid. Behind Perez, the Red Bulls of Ricciardo and Vettel were also suddenly vaulted into contention.
Rosberg, though, was determined to stay in control and after being told by his team to push when he could the German began to put in better laps, eventually stabilising the gap to Perez at the one-second mark.
Futher back, the battle for fifth was hotting up, with Hulkenberg under pressure from Bottas and Massa. The Brazilian was on fresher tyres than his team-mate and the Williams pit wall soon told Bottas to let him past. Bottas attempted a move on Hulkenberg that forced the German wide at the hairpin and Massa was able to leapfrog both and move into fifth place. With new tyres and running faster than anyone else on track he began to close on fourth-placed Vettel.
The final few laps were thrilling as a four-car train formed behind Rosberg, all battling for the lead. It was Ricciardo who made the decisive move, first muscling past Perez into turn one, and then overtaking the struggling Rosberg under DRS later in the lap to take the lead. Behind them Vettel pressed Perez and eventually got past the Mexican, who was struggling with brake wear, on the penultimate lap.
Massa on much fresher tyres saw his chance and attempted to get past Perez on the final lap. The pair collided at high speed and both arrowed off track and hit the barriers hard, scaterring debris across the circuit. The safety car was immediately deployed, giving Vettel no chance to make a move on Rosberg in the final corners.
Ricciardo then took his first grand prix victory ahead of Rosberg and Vettel. Button was a surprise fourth, with Hulkenberg fifth. Fernando Alonso was sixth for Ferrari ahead of Bottas, Vergne, the second McLaren of Kevin Magnussen and Ferrari’s Kimi Raikkonen.
2014 Canadian Grand Prix – Race Result
1 Daniel Ricciardo Red Bull Racing Winner 6 25
2 Nico Rosberg Mercedes +4.2 secs 1 18
3 Sebastian Vettel Red Bull Racing +5.2 secs 3 15
4 Jenson Button McLaren +11.7 secs 9 12
5 Nico Hulkenberg Force India +12.8 secs 11 10
6 Fernando Alonso Ferrari +14.8 secs 7 8
7 Valtteri Bottas Williams +23.5 secs 4 6
8 Jean-Eric Vergne Toro Rosso +28.0 secs 8 4
9 Kevin Magnussen McLaren +29.2 secs 12 2
10 Kimi Räikkönen Ferrari +53.6 secs 10 1
11 Sergio Perez Force India +1 Lap 13
12 Felipe Massa Williams +1 Lap 5
13 Adrian Sutil Sauber +1 Lap 16
14 Esteban Gutierrez Sauber +6 Lap 22
Ret Romain Grosjean Lotus +11 Lap 14
Ret Daniil Kvyat Toro Rosso +23 Laps 15
Ret Lewis Hamilton Mercedes +24 Laps 2
Ret Kamui Kobayashi Caterham +47 Laps 21
Ret Pastor Maldonado Lotus +49 Laps 17
Ret Marcus Ericsson Caterham +63 Laps 20
Ret Max Chilton Marussia + secs 18
Ret Jules Bianchi Marussia + secs 19eom
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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. 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
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Hamilton on top again as Vettel sits out Friday session: Spanish GP
Hamilton obliges fans on Friday. An FIA image Mercedes driver fastest again ahead of team-mate Nico Rosberg and Red Bull Racing’s Daniel Ricciardo.
Lewis Hamilton continued to set the pace in Barcelona repeating his time-sheet-topping performance of the morning in the day’s second session.
Mercedes ended the day with top two times as Nico Rosberg joined his team-mate at the top of the order, the German making up for lost time after his opening session was interrupted by power unit problems. He finished just under half a second adrift of Hamilton, who set a best lap of 1:25.524.
Third place went to Red Bull Racing’s Daniel Ricciardo, the Australian finishing just under a second behind Rosberg, but over half a second up on fourth-place Fernando Alonso.
Ricciardo was the only Red Bull running in the afternoon, however. After being restricted to just four laps in the morning with an electrical problem, the Austrian team failed to repair the damage caused in the afternoon and the champion was forced to sit out the whole session.
Alonso, meanwhile, was less than 0.2s ahead of team-mate Kimi Raikkonen, who finished the second in fifth place. The twin Ferraris were followed by the McLarens of Kevin Magnussen and Jenson Button respectively.
Felipe Massa was eighth for Williams and was followed by the Lotus of Pastor Maldonado. The Lotus driver had a good afternoon completing 42 laps but it was a more tricky outing for team-mate Romain Grosjean.
The Frenchman suffered with engine woes and brake issues, the latter forcing him to abandon the session after 26 laps.
Elsewhere, there was a worrying moment for Jean-Eric Vergne late in the session. The Toro Rosso driver came out of the pit only for the right-rear wheel of his STR9 to detach and he was to stop at Turn 2.
2014 Spanish Grand Prix – Free Practice 2 Times
1 Lewis Hamilton Mercedes 1:25.524 33
2 Nico Rosberg Mercedes 1:25.973 0.449 36
3 Daniel Ricciardo Red Bull Racing 1:26.509 0.985 38
4 Fernando Alonso Ferrari 1:27.121 1.597 33
5 Kimi Räikkönen Ferrari 1:27.296 1.772 33
6 Kevin Magnussen McLaren 1:27.788 2.264 37
7 Jenson Button McLaren 1:27.811 2.287 29
8 Felipe Massa Williams 1:27.824 2.300 31
9 Pastor Maldonado Lotus 1:27.866 2.342 42
10 Daniil Kvyat Toro Rosso 1:28.049 2.525 35
11 Nico Hulkenberg Force India 1:28.074 2.550 31
12 Jean-Eric Vergne Toro Rosso 1:28.246 2.722 30
13 Adrian Sutil Sauber 1:28.284 2.760 33
14 Valtteri Bottas Williams 1:28.698 3.174 33
15 Esteban Gutierrez Sauber 1:29.105 3.581 24
16 Sergio Perez Force India 1:29.129 3.605 34
17 Romain Grosjean Lotus 1:29.493 3.969 26
18 Jules Bianchi Marussia 1:29.991 4.467 26
19 Max Chilton Marussia 1:31.148 5.624 28
20 Kamui Kobayashi Caterham 1:31.338 5.814 38
21 Marcus Ericsson Caterham 1:31.586 6.062 39eom/FIA release
