Drivers report from the European Grand Prix, Round 8 of the 2016 Formula 1 World Championship, at the Baku City Circuit in Azerbaijan.
Carlos Sainz, DNF: “It’s been a bit of a difficult weekend overall, and even though we were doing a good recovery in today’s race, unfortunately a suspension issue ended my race. It’s a shame, because I had positive feelings in the car and our strategy and pace was looking decent… But I know it will get better soon! As a driver, when this sort of thing happens, all you can do is forget about it quickly and work hard for the next race. We have to remember that we’ve had very good momentum from Barcelona up until now, so this little hiccup won’t disturb me: it was just an unproductive weekend. There wasn’t much more I could’ve done from my side today and I’m still happy with my season so far. I look forward to the next race in Austria.”
Daniil Kvyat, DNF: “Quite a disappointing day, as I was only able to race for a few laps before retiring because of an issue with the rear suspension. The car became difficult to handle at the beginning of the race and even though we had quite a decent first lap, in the end we had to stop – it’s a real pity, but that’s life, this is part of racing. We need to investigate what happened and understand the issue, but we will definitely keep on pushing and fighting. We remain positive as the handling of the car has been very good this whole weekend, so the future looks promising and hopefully those enjoyable races will come soon. I will cancel today out of my mind and all we need to do is carry on working like we have done until yesterday, because everything was looking great before the race.”
Fernando Alonso, DNF: “This was always going to be a difficult race for us – and that’s made even more difficult when you don’t see the chequered flag. We had a developing issue on the gearbox which was getting worse and worse, so we decided to retire the car in order to prevent damage to the power unit or anything else. It’s a shame, but we were running outside the points, so this retirement feels a little less painful. The most important thing now is for the team to find a little more pace – for both qualifying and the race.”
Jenson Button, 11th: “Obviously, I didn’t make it easy for myself starting 19th. I enjoyed the race, and I got everything out of the car, but that was all we could really do as we didn’t have the pace this weekend. I’m happy with my performance today. In terms of strategy, it was difficult to know the best way to go, but we’d struggled with graining on the Supersoft, so chose to pit relatively early. Then our pace was good on the Prime – I’m happy with that. It was also good to battle out there, especially when the other guy has the same equipment as you. In terms of outright performance, we’re not quite quick enough, so to come from 19th to 11th wasn’t too bad, particularly with the straight-line speed we had here. It was a fun race and I enjoyed it, but there are some improvements needed to raise our level of performance. I persevered as I always do when times are tough, and we’ll hopefully come out the other side.”
Daniel Ricciardo, 7th: “At the start we put ourselves in a good position and the aim was to get Nico. We managed to hold second and I felt pretty good in the first few laps, especially as I could see Seb wasn’t catching me. After lap three we started to slide the rear and there was no way of controlling it. I went from being very optimistic about our race to being uncertain. I don’t think we had the wrong strategy, one stop would have been ideal but we had to adapt and were forced into a two stop race. We were slow in the first two stints but in the third one we managed to find some pace and I passed Hulkenburg, which was good fun. I think Max suffered the same issues so that’s just the way it went, I don’t think we could have done anything else today. We need to understand why because we usually perform well in hot races, like Singapore. Today was a bit unexpected. I got everyone’s hopes up yesterday by saying it could be the race of the season, It was, however, pretty uneventful.”
Max Verstappen, 8th: “It was a tricky start, but a good end. On the supersoft and the soft tyres we had too much degradation in the rear and from there on, once we changed to the medium tyres, I felt like I was flying in the end. My lap times were coming down very nicely – I managed to drive back to eighth and almost seventh. With the start position I had it was going to be difficult to catch the front guys, but I think in the end we did a good job. Of course you want to finish higher up but that was not possible today. I had the third-fastest lap today in the race so I can’t complain.”
Valtteri Bottas, 6th: “Overall, it was a good day for us because the pace we had today wasn’t enough for any more. It felt like a good race from my side, and we managed to do the one-stop strategy which was definitely the best one today. I’m glad we could manage the tyres and get it to work because that made the sixth place possible. The team did a really good job with what we had today, the strategy and the pitstop. Now we need to work hard because we need better positions than this. We need to make the car quicker and then we can fight for another podium soon.”
Felipe Massa, 10th: “It was a really terrible race for me, one to forget. I struggled massively with the tyres. I couldn’t make them work, I was having a lot more degradation on the rears than I thought I would. One point is more than it could have been because I couldn’t drive the car in the proper way and I couldn’t save the tyres either. We maybe need to change something in the car to make the tyres work in a different way here in the future.”
Rio Haryanto, 18th: “Not such a good one for me today. I had contact in Turn 1, which damaged my front wing and I had to stop at the end of the first lap. Obviously a new one requires a longer pit stop, so I dropped back quite a bit when I re-joined the race. We decided to put the Soft tyre on at that point and stay on a one-stop strategy, but 49 laps was a long stint for that tyre and I was really struggling with high degradation; the braking point was changing every lap. But, I think everyone was expecting some opportunities today, so we had to try to put ourselves in a position to respond to them. In the end, no such opportunities; it was a very straightforward race. I’m going to focus on the positives though; I had a really strong qualifying and I finished the race, so that’s good.”
Pascal Wehrlein, DNF: “Today is a bit of shame to be honest; we were hoping for much more. I think we were on quite a different strategy than the other guys; one that could really make the most of any chances, but only if the race came our way. We started on the Softs and I was happy with my position after the first lap but it was more difficult on the Soft than the Supersoft. Then we pitted and again I was really happy with my pace on the Medium tyre; I felt I could have closed the gap to the Saubers in front of me but I was running out of brakes. When I got to Turn 1 I simply had no brakes and there was no alternative but to stop. So nothing more to say, we just have to look ahead. I’ve really enjoyed this circuit and my first experience of Baku though.”
Read the full story at GRAND PRIX 247
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