(Mercedes AMG F1 Team)
Lewis Hamilton took a fantastic home victory at today's British Grand Prix at Silverstone following a delay of over an hour after the race was red flagged on the second lap after Ferrari's Kimi Raikkonen suffered a horrendous crash coming down the Wellington straight at over 170MPH. Fortunately the Finn suffered nothing more then severe bruising to his leg and right ankle and according to his manager should be fine for the next race in Germany in two weeks time.
Williams Martini Racing's Felipe Massa, who celebrated his 200th Grand Prix start today was also involved in Raikkonen's crash as he hit the Finn's car as the Ferrari bounced onto the track. Massa did a fantastic job to slow his car down to avoid a more serious crash. Following the race Massa said:
'It has been a really difficult weekend. It was a bad start but after that I could catch up everyone and pass cars in the first few corners. The car felt great. Then there was the accident. Kimi came across the track and I never really had a chance to miss him, and sadly the damage was too much to continue. Luckily I turned as it could have been a worse accident. I hope Kimi is ok but it’s a weekend to forget for me personally; not the 200th Grand Prix I had planned.'
'It has been a really difficult weekend. It was a bad start but after that I could catch up everyone and pass cars in the first few corners. The car felt great. Then there was the accident. Kimi came across the track and I never really had a chance to miss him, and sadly the damage was too much to continue. Luckily I turned as it could have been a worse accident. I hope Kimi is ok but it’s a weekend to forget for me personally; not the 200th Grand Prix I had planned.'
It was a day of mixed emotions for the Williams Martini Racing Team as Valtteri Bottas finished the race on the podium for the second race in a row. The Finn started the race down in 14th place and managed to finish the race in 2nd place just ahead of Infiniti Red Bull Racing's Daniel Ricciardo. Following the race, Bottas said:
'We knew that this race would be good fun. We knew we had a quick car and maybe it surprised us it was so quick. The first stint we went through the field fast and that needed a bit of risk. I am so happy for the team, they have worked on race pace and it shows.
We were thinking about points today not the podium, and the strategy guys did a great job. I really felt for Felipe today in his 200th race, and it was so nice of him to come to the podium with the team; I really appreciated that. We are a stronger team than we were in the first few races and it won’t be easy to stay near the top but we are doing a great job of it at the moment.'
The result moves Williams into fourth place in the Constructors championship on 103 point's just three behind Ferrari in third place. The team's Head of Performance Engineering Rob Smedley:
'It’s a slightly mixed weekend. It’s a great result for Valtteri and he showed incredible race craft throughout the whole race. You couldn’t ask for anything more from the driver; he changed his race around with those overtakes in the first stint. It’s really disappointing for Felipe as we clearly have a great car and could have had a double podium, but he will rebuild and has the support to bounce back. Everybody is pushing and everybody is motivated in the team, and as a result we are moving forward and that is the main aim. I am really proud of everything that we have done and a big thank you to everyone at the team here and in Grove for all the hard work.'
'We knew that this race would be good fun. We knew we had a quick car and maybe it surprised us it was so quick. The first stint we went through the field fast and that needed a bit of risk. I am so happy for the team, they have worked on race pace and it shows.
We were thinking about points today not the podium, and the strategy guys did a great job. I really felt for Felipe today in his 200th race, and it was so nice of him to come to the podium with the team; I really appreciated that. We are a stronger team than we were in the first few races and it won’t be easy to stay near the top but we are doing a great job of it at the moment.'
The result moves Williams into fourth place in the Constructors championship on 103 point's just three behind Ferrari in third place. The team's Head of Performance Engineering Rob Smedley:
'It’s a slightly mixed weekend. It’s a great result for Valtteri and he showed incredible race craft throughout the whole race. You couldn’t ask for anything more from the driver; he changed his race around with those overtakes in the first stint. It’s really disappointing for Felipe as we clearly have a great car and could have had a double podium, but he will rebuild and has the support to bounce back. Everybody is pushing and everybody is motivated in the team, and as a result we are moving forward and that is the main aim. I am really proud of everything that we have done and a big thank you to everyone at the team here and in Grove for all the hard work.'
Daniel Ricciardo did a fantastic job for Red Bull as the Australian, who was out-qualified by team mate Sebastian Vettel collected his fourth podium finish of the season. Following the race the Australian said:
'I feel good! This is the best third place I've ever got. I'm not normally ecstatic with a third but I really am today, obviously to redeem myself from yesterday and also the fact that I don’t think we had an awesome race car today, but we made it work. We used the cards that we had and played the game well, so I was really happy to make a one stop work. For the last two laps, I saw Jenson coming and thought I was probably going to be a bit vulnerable but we held on. The one stop wasn’t planned.
We pitted quite early on the Prime because we were quite slow and it wasn’t working, so we came in for the Option and, at one point, my engineer pretty much said alright four laps to go on this tyre then let's box. I said the pace seems OK, the tyres aren’t getting any worse and let’s try and stay out or at least think about keeping me out there and he said OK we’ll look at our options. Then, a few laps later he said do you think you can go to the end, there’s 15 or 20 laps to go, and I said, at the moment I think we can give it a crack. And so, yeah, we did and it paid off!'
Infiniti Red Bull Racing team boss Christian Horner said:
'After the initial delay we elected to change both drivers onto the harder tyre for the restart, which we believed would give us more strategic options. We decided to pit relatively early to try and get the undercut on the McLaren cars ahead and, whilst that was successful with both the cars, unfortunately it put us out of the range of a one stop with Sebastian.
After we pitted him for the second time, he dropped behind Fernando and then had an enthralling battle with him, finally making a great move to get the pass. However it cost him a great deal of time to be able to catch the cars ahead, so fifth was the maximum we could achieve with Sebastian today. Daniel stopped slightly later for the first stop, which bought the possibility of a one stop into play and he was able to conserve his tyres extremely well to make it work. So it was great for Daniel at our second home race to get a podium today.'
Jenson Button was extremely unlucky to miss out on a podium finish as he finished the race just eight tenths of a second behind Daniel Ricciardo in fourth place. Following his home Grand Prix Jenson Button said:
'"Circuits with high-speed changes of direction aren’t really our car’s forte, so I think we can go away from Silverstone feeling encouraged by what we achieved this weekend. Specifically, it was great to have such a good fight with Fernando [Alonso], and it was encouraging to be able to pull away from him and Sebastian [Vettel] in the last stint.
'I feel good! This is the best third place I've ever got. I'm not normally ecstatic with a third but I really am today, obviously to redeem myself from yesterday and also the fact that I don’t think we had an awesome race car today, but we made it work. We used the cards that we had and played the game well, so I was really happy to make a one stop work. For the last two laps, I saw Jenson coming and thought I was probably going to be a bit vulnerable but we held on. The one stop wasn’t planned.
We pitted quite early on the Prime because we were quite slow and it wasn’t working, so we came in for the Option and, at one point, my engineer pretty much said alright four laps to go on this tyre then let's box. I said the pace seems OK, the tyres aren’t getting any worse and let’s try and stay out or at least think about keeping me out there and he said OK we’ll look at our options. Then, a few laps later he said do you think you can go to the end, there’s 15 or 20 laps to go, and I said, at the moment I think we can give it a crack. And so, yeah, we did and it paid off!'
Infiniti Red Bull Racing team boss Christian Horner said:
'After the initial delay we elected to change both drivers onto the harder tyre for the restart, which we believed would give us more strategic options. We decided to pit relatively early to try and get the undercut on the McLaren cars ahead and, whilst that was successful with both the cars, unfortunately it put us out of the range of a one stop with Sebastian.
After we pitted him for the second time, he dropped behind Fernando and then had an enthralling battle with him, finally making a great move to get the pass. However it cost him a great deal of time to be able to catch the cars ahead, so fifth was the maximum we could achieve with Sebastian today. Daniel stopped slightly later for the first stop, which bought the possibility of a one stop into play and he was able to conserve his tyres extremely well to make it work. So it was great for Daniel at our second home race to get a podium today.'
Jenson Button was extremely unlucky to miss out on a podium finish as he finished the race just eight tenths of a second behind Daniel Ricciardo in fourth place. Following his home Grand Prix Jenson Button said:
'"Circuits with high-speed changes of direction aren’t really our car’s forte, so I think we can go away from Silverstone feeling encouraged by what we achieved this weekend. Specifically, it was great to have such a good fight with Fernando [Alonso], and it was encouraging to be able to pull away from him and Sebastian [Vettel] in the last stint.
"At the end, I crossed the line only 0.9s behind Daniel [Ricciardo]; if there’d been just one more lap, I think I could have made it past.
"I got so close to a podium finish – and I think it would’ve been so great for the fans to see Lewis and me up there together. I’m sorry it didn’t quite happen, but I want to say a big thank-you to all the fans, and to my family, and last but not least to the entire McLaren team – everyone has been so supportive this weekend.
"Looking to the future, although today has seen us take another step forward, it’s apparent that we still have a lot of work to do: for example, even though Williams started behind us [on the grid], they still beat us today.
"Nonetheless, we’re certainly not giving up. On the contrary, it’s important that we continue to work hard to develop this car, so as to score as many world championship points as we can this year and learn as much as we can for next year.'
Reigning world champion Sebastian Vettel was involved in an extremely close battle with Ferrari's Fernando Alonso managing to finish the race ahead of the Spaniard in 5th place with Alonso in 6th place. Speaking after the race Vettel said:
'It felt very close with Fernando – maybe a bit too close! It got a bit silly when we both started to complain about the other going off track; I don’t think the people care too much if the car is a little bit to the left or the right. I got the message that I should respect the limits and that he was complaining, so I was doing the same thing. I’m not sure who won the list keeping.
I think twice it was maybe a bit too harsh into Turn 6, but it was good to get the move at the end. I expected to get third today, the pace was there but the strategy wasn’t right. I’m looking forward to my home race in Germany; it’s always special to race there.'
'It felt very close with Fernando – maybe a bit too close! It got a bit silly when we both started to complain about the other going off track; I don’t think the people care too much if the car is a little bit to the left or the right. I got the message that I should respect the limits and that he was complaining, so I was doing the same thing. I’m not sure who won the list keeping.
I think twice it was maybe a bit too harsh into Turn 6, but it was good to get the move at the end. I expected to get third today, the pace was there but the strategy wasn’t right. I’m looking forward to my home race in Germany; it’s always special to race there.'
Kevin Magnussen did a good job for the McLaren team as he finished the race in 7th place just ahead of Sahara Force India's Nico Hulkenberg who was left disappointed after qualifying in fourth place for the race. The German has continued his run of scoring point's and said after the race:
'It was quite a tricky afternoon. My start was not great; I lost a couple of places, and after that we didn’t seem to have the pace to fight for big points. I was struggling with the balance, which may have been related to the wind because it was very gusty out there. I had some good battles, especially in the early laps, but we were just missing the performance to really fight today. It’s good to score points, but starting fourth we were hoping for more. We now need to regroup and come back stronger for my home race in Germany.'
Kevin Magnussen said:
"Today has been a good day for the team – we scored 18 points – so we should feel reasonably satisfied, because we’re continuing to improve. Also, the engineers and mechanics did a truly great job this weekend.
'It was quite a tricky afternoon. My start was not great; I lost a couple of places, and after that we didn’t seem to have the pace to fight for big points. I was struggling with the balance, which may have been related to the wind because it was very gusty out there. I had some good battles, especially in the early laps, but we were just missing the performance to really fight today. It’s good to score points, but starting fourth we were hoping for more. We now need to regroup and come back stronger for my home race in Germany.'
Kevin Magnussen said:
"Today has been a good day for the team – we scored 18 points – so we should feel reasonably satisfied, because we’re continuing to improve. Also, the engineers and mechanics did a truly great job this weekend.
"Having said that, all the other teams are continuing to improve, too; so our challenge is really about making progress faster than the others do.
"My race went okay – we struggled a little on the Option [tyre], and we had much better pace on the Prime. It’s always frustrating when you slip back through the order a bit – but I made a really good start to be third initially, and after that I struggled to keep the Ferrari and Red Bull behind.
"So, as I say, I think we should be reasonably satisfied with seventh place. But I’m really pleased for Jenson, who was able to score a great fourth place for the team.
"Last but not least, I want to pay tribute to the Silverstone fans. It’s been fantastic racing in front of them all today, especially as so many of them are McLaren fans.
"I’d love to have finished a bit higher for you, guys, but I don’t think we had the pace today.
McLaren Racing Director Eric Boullier commented:
'We’re satisfied that we were able to convert a good qualifying performance yesterday [P3 and P5] into a decent race result today [P4 and P7].
It was a disappointing race for championship leader Nico Rosberg as the German failed to finish the race following a gearbox failure.
'We’re satisfied that we were able to convert a good qualifying performance yesterday [P3 and P5] into a decent race result today [P4 and P7].
"In achieving that outcome, our engineers and mechanics here at Silverstone didn’t put a foot wrong, and they deserve great credit for getting the absolute maximum out of the package that they have at their disposal at the moment.
"Obviously, we’d like to have scored more points still, especially as Jenson missed achieving his first ever British Grand Prix podium finish by a whisker.
"Indeed, once Nico [Rosberg] had retired, we decided to target a third-place result for Jenson, but in the end it wasn’t quite possible. Nonetheless, he drove a superb race and richly deserved the 12 world championship points he scored here today.
"Kevin drove very well, too, making a storming start to be third into Turn One and ending up a solid seventh at the flag.
"We hadn’t expected to be competitive at this circuit, whose many fast corners we felt wouldn't suit MP4-29’s aerodynamic envelope, so we're pleased to have scored 18 points here.
"More broadly, as I've said before, it’s clear that we’re making progress, even if that progress is necessarily not as rapid as we'd ideally like it to be, and I'm confident that that progress will continue; we're on-track.
"Last but not least, on behalf of all at McLaren, I want to say how relieved we all are to hear that our old friend Kimi [Raikkonen] is okay following his hefty lap-one shunt."
It was a disappointing race for championship leader Nico Rosberg as the German failed to finish the race following a gearbox failure.
Daniil Kvyat did a great job for the Toro Rosso team as the Russian finished the race in 9th place with team mate Jean Eric Vergne finishing the race in 10th place. Sergio Perez was left disappointed as he just missed out on a top ten finish in eleventh place. Following the race the Mexican said:
'We can't really judge what our real pace was because the contact with Vergne at the start compromised our race. We dropped down to last and from down there it was very difficult to salvage something from this race. I struggled with the prime tyre early in the race, which would have been the best time to make up the ground I had lost. The car felt a lot better on the options, after our pit-stop, but our final stint was not enough to get back into the points. It was a real disappointment after the good qualifying position we had yesterday and I feel that we deserved some points from this weekend. We need to focus on the next race in Germany and I believe Hockenheim will be more suited to our car.'
Sahara Force India team boss Dr Vijay Mallya said:
'After such a strong qualifying performance, we were naturally expecting more from today’s race. While circumstances played into our hands yesterday, today we were not so fortunate with Checo’s race heavily compromised by the contact with the Toro Rosso on lap one. The windy conditions also returned, which appeared to have an impact on our performance. On the positive side we continued our run of points finishes with Nico adding another four points to our tally. It means Nico and the team have scored in every race this season. As we near the halfway point of the season the battle in the championship is closer than ever so it’s important that we respond with a stronger showing in Germany in a couple of weeks’ time.'
Romain Grosjean finished the race in 12th place for the Lotus F1 Team while team mate Pastor Maldonado was forced to retire from the race.
'We can't really judge what our real pace was because the contact with Vergne at the start compromised our race. We dropped down to last and from down there it was very difficult to salvage something from this race. I struggled with the prime tyre early in the race, which would have been the best time to make up the ground I had lost. The car felt a lot better on the options, after our pit-stop, but our final stint was not enough to get back into the points. It was a real disappointment after the good qualifying position we had yesterday and I feel that we deserved some points from this weekend. We need to focus on the next race in Germany and I believe Hockenheim will be more suited to our car.'
Sahara Force India team boss Dr Vijay Mallya said:
'After such a strong qualifying performance, we were naturally expecting more from today’s race. While circumstances played into our hands yesterday, today we were not so fortunate with Checo’s race heavily compromised by the contact with the Toro Rosso on lap one. The windy conditions also returned, which appeared to have an impact on our performance. On the positive side we continued our run of points finishes with Nico adding another four points to our tally. It means Nico and the team have scored in every race this season. As we near the halfway point of the season the battle in the championship is closer than ever so it’s important that we respond with a stronger showing in Germany in a couple of weeks’ time.'
Romain Grosjean finished the race in 12th place for the Lotus F1 Team while team mate Pastor Maldonado was forced to retire from the race.
Adrian Sutil finished the race in 13th place for the Sauber F1 Team just ahead of the Marussia of Jules Bianchi. After the race the German said:
'The race was relatively unspectacular for me. It took a few laps to overtake Jules (Bianchi), but afterwards I was able to constantly improve my lap times. We decided to go with a one-stop strategy.After the pit stop I could not get the hard tyres to work and was not fast enough anymore. Unfortunately I was rarely able to attack and had to defend most of the time.'
Sutil's team mate Esteban Gutierrez had an extremely tough weekend, the Mexican was handed a grid penalty prior to the start of the race and unfortunately for him and the Swiss based outfit he failed to finish the race. Following the Grand Prix he said:
'I had a good race start. After the restart I was fighting with Pastor (Maldonado). When I tried to overtake him in turn 16 he braked and did not leave me enough space. I was already beside him and could not avoid a collision with him. I feel very sorry for the team, as this is not the way a race should end. However, we have to look forward to the next races.'
'The race was relatively unspectacular for me. It took a few laps to overtake Jules (Bianchi), but afterwards I was able to constantly improve my lap times. We decided to go with a one-stop strategy.After the pit stop I could not get the hard tyres to work and was not fast enough anymore. Unfortunately I was rarely able to attack and had to defend most of the time.'
Sutil's team mate Esteban Gutierrez had an extremely tough weekend, the Mexican was handed a grid penalty prior to the start of the race and unfortunately for him and the Swiss based outfit he failed to finish the race. Following the Grand Prix he said:
'I had a good race start. After the restart I was fighting with Pastor (Maldonado). When I tried to overtake him in turn 16 he braked and did not leave me enough space. I was already beside him and could not avoid a collision with him. I feel very sorry for the team, as this is not the way a race should end. However, we have to look forward to the next races.'
Speaking following the race Sauber F1 Team principal Monisha Keltenborn said:
'The team worked well during the weekend. In qualifying, which took place in changing weather conditions, everything was done right, however, we were not able to exploit our full potential. In the race it was obvious what our problem was. We were not able to make the hard tyres work properly. In the first part of the race our lap times were competitive. We will now have two days of testing in Silverstone this week, and we will work on further improving the competitiveness of the C33.'
Sauber's Head of Track Engineering Giampaolo Dall'Ara said:
'Both our drivers made good starts and were able to gain positions. After the re-start we lost time behind a slower car before we were able to overtake. From this moment on the performance was quite good, and it looked as if we were able to match the performance of some of our competitors. But then we lost Esteban’s car due to an incident. With Adrian we changed to the hard compound. From this moment on we lost competitiveness, because we were not able to make theses tyres work, which had an immediate influence on our performance and cost us a couple of positions. Overall, we were not fast enough to make it into the points.'
Kamui Kobayashi finished the in 15th place while Max Chilton rounded out the runners in 16th place.
Driver's Championship
1 Nico Rosberg Mercedes AMG F1 Team 165 point's
2 Lewis Hamilton Mercedes AMG F1 Team 161
3 Daniel Ricciardo Infiniti Red Bull Racing 98
4 Fernando Alonso Ferrari 87
5 Valtteri Bottas Williams Martini Racing 73
6 Sebastian Vettel Infiniti Red Bull Racing 70
7 Nico Hulkenberg Sahara Force India Formula One Team 63
8 Jenson Button McLaren Mercedes 55
9 Kevin Magnussen McLaren Mercedes 35
10 Felipe Massa Williams Martini Racing 30
11 Sergio Perez Sahara Force India Formula One Team 28
12 Kimi Raikkonen Ferrari 19
13 Jean Eric Vergne Toro Rosso 9
14 Romain Grosjean Lotus F1 Team 8
15 Daniel Kvyat Toro Rosso 6
16 Jules Bianchi Marussia F1 Team 2
Constructor's Championship
1 Mercedes AMG F1 Team 326 Point's
2 Infiniti Red Bull Racing 168
3 Ferrari 106
4 Williams Martini Racing 103
5 Sahara Force India Formula One Team 91
6 McLaren Mercedes 90
7 Toro Rosso 15
8 Lotus F1 Team 8
9 Marussia F1 Team 2
© Ben Johnston 2014
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