(Formula1.Ferrari.com)
Scuderia Ferrari scored their first victory since the 2013
Spanish Grand Prix in Malaysia on Sunday when four time world champion
Sebastian Vettel took his maiden win for the Italian team.
The German started the race from the front row alongside
pole sitter Lewis Hamilton and overtook the reigning world champion early on in
the race and once the former Red Bull driver got out in front he never looked
back taking a commanding victory by 8.569s. As a result, Vettel moves up to
second in the championship just three points behind Hamilton.
It was Vettel’s second podium in as many race’s following
his third place finish at the season opener in Australia two weeks ago.
Speaking following the race Vettel said:
‘Grande gara, bella
macchina! (A great race and a beautiful car). Sorry for starting to speak in
Italian, but today is such a special day for me. I don’t really know what to
say, I am speechless. It’s not only one childhood dream that becomes true, it
seems to be many dreams together. It was amazing to look down from the podium
and see the mechanics, the engineers, the whole team and listen to the German
and Italian anthems. The atmosphere in the team has always been great, but it’s
just getting better and better. For today, the important thing is for all of us
to enjoy this moment together and celebrate. I did not swap teams that much in
the past, so winning for a new team is always a relief. Since I joined Ferrari
I felt incredibly welcome and together we have worked to improve things. The
potential, as I always said, is huge, it’s good to see what a step forward we
did over the winter. There were a lot of changes in the background (including
one driver…) which never make things easy, but everyone saw the positives of
that. It just doesn’t compare to last year, when the car was also good but I
couldn’t get on top of it. With Ferrari I had a good feeling right from the
start. This is a special day, it has been a while since both I and team won for
the last time. I’d like to be in the same position at every race, but we must
be realistic, Mercedes were a bit struggling today but they have a great
package and our target is to make the gap smaller at every Grand Prix and make
sure that we are the team right behind them”.
Kimi Raikkonen in the other Ferrari had a cracking race too.
The Finn who started the event from eleventh on the grid. The Finn was tagged
from behind by the Sauber F1 Team’s Felipe Nasr which resulted in a puncture
meaning the Iceman dropped down to the back of the field.
However, the Iceman kept his cool and carved his way back
through the field to finish the race in fourth place recording his first point’s
finish of the season. The result moves Raikkonen up to fifth place in the
championship. Speaking following the race the Finn said:
‘We had a pretty poor
weekend in terms of things going wrong. I had a good speed but in qualify it
didn’t go well and then today, after a poor start where I had too much wheel-spin
right off the line, I found myself fighting with all the other drivers and I
had a puncture on the rear left tyre while battling Nasr at the last corner,
which means I had to go one full lap before coming back to pits with no tyre.
At that point my floor had got a little bit damaged, I had to do a full lap
with no tyre and then, even if the safety car helped us, I had to start from
way back behind. We did our best and the forth position was the maximum we
could achieve. The win of Sebastian is a very good thing for him and for the
whole team, knowing how difficult the last year has been; it’s a very good job
what the team has done. We knew from winter testing that we have a good car, so
it did not come as a total surprise, and probably the track with these high
temperatures suited us. I don’t know how it will be in other circuits, but the
car has been strong so far, not yet as we want but we have a good package, and
we are getting stronger”.’
Scuderia Ferrari Team Principal Maurizio Arrivabene was full
of praise for the whole outfit saying:
‘This is no one-man win:
it’s a success for the whole team, which has been working impeccably at all
levels. Seb was just unbelievable today, and Kimi was able to put on a
fantastic charge from the back. The whole team has showed a great deal of
discipline, just like a Swiss watch-or should I say, an Italian one! Today, the
whole team gave me great emotions and I wish to thank everybody, including the
women and men back at the Maranello factory, for putting on an incredible
effort over the last months, burning the midnight oil. Now we’ve got to be
realistic, keep our feet on the ground and our concentration at a high level,
because Mercedes is still a formidable contender. After the race our President
Mr. Marchionne congratulated the whole team. He’s really one of us, he likes to
stay away from the spotlight but still gives us a powerful contribution. And
he’s a real Ferrari fan!’
© Ben Johnston 2015
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