16 POINTS ...18 RACES TO GO
Car 5 SEBASTIAN VETTEL, Finish Position: 4th, Start Position: 1st
“It’s a pity today. It was positive all weekend, except for the exhaust failure. From Saturdaymorning onwards, we were one of the quickest cars on track in all conditions. We had controlof the race today and we were on top of the strategy – everything was running smoothly. Ithink at every point I knew how my tyres were, so we kept good control of the tyres andbrakes. At some stage, I think about 15 to 20 laps from the end, you could see my lap timeswere getting slower. It seems something mechanical broke, luckily we could continue andfinished fourth, but we should have won today. It cost us a lot, but we’ve got 12 importantpoints.”
Car 6 MARK WEBBER, Finish Position: 8th, Start Position: 6th“It was a bit of a traffic jam out there. I had a fight with the two Mercedes in Turn one andMichael (Schumacher) had the inside for two; after that it was just about working out how wewere going to jump them. It was very, very difficult to stay close to the cars in front. We gothurt yesterday in qualifying; we still managed to get a few points today, although not as manyas we would have liked. We definitely learned a lot as a team today. It wasn’t the mostexciting grand prix I’ve driven – following gearboxes all afternoon – but the world class driverswho were ahead don’t normally make mistakes. I tried as hard as I could to make Jenson(Button) and Michael make mistakes, but it wasn’t happening. We have a long Championshipahead and the boys are working incredibly hard; we showed last year we can fight, so I’mlooking forward to Melbourne.”
CHRISTIAN HORNER, Team Principal: “It was cruel luck with Sebastian today. Hedrove a great race and was pulling away at the front. We had a very good pit stop with himand he was controlling the lead comfortably until lap 33, when he had a sudden loss of power.He was then powerless to defend to the Ferraris and Hamilton, but he drove extremely well toretain fourth position. It gives us valuable points, but ultimately it’s very disappointing to losesuch a great opportunity for a victory. Mark lost ground in the first turn and a little more with aslight sticking front tyre at his pit stop, losing him a place to Jenson (Button). After that,despite being a lot faster than the cars in front, he was unable to overtake.”
FABRICE LOM, Renault, Principal Engineer Track Support: “It’s a very disappointingresult. With the pace we showed yesterday we really thought we would get a better result.Mark had a bit of an engine problem at the start which lost him a place and then he lostanother with the pit stop. He was eighth in the end, which shows how difficult it was toovertake. For Sebastian, everything seemed to be in our pocket, but then a spark plug failurecaused him to lose power. He was still able to finish fourth, which shows great talent. We area bit disappointed, but we can take a lot of positives from this weekend. We will clear thenegatives and be stronger in Australia.”
