Nico Rosberg
It’s been a fantastic few days for me here in China. First of all, the fans have been amazing from the moment I
arrived. They’re so enthusiastic, which gives us drivers a very special feeling. Then, racing wise, it was an
almost perfect weekend. Only the start could have been better – but luckily I was able to pass Daniel later on
the straight and from then on I could build up a gap. I must say, I’ve never had a better balance in my car than
I had today. It was really perfect, so a big thanks to everyone who helped me achieve that. I also want to
thank all the women in my life – my wife, my daughter and my mother. Their support is unbelievable and
that’s really what makes it possible for me to be doing what I’m doing. I’m a very happy man today and, after
three races I can be really pleased about how my season has gone so far. But it’s a very long year ahead and
there’s a lot of points still on the table, so I’m not losing my focus. Now I look forward to Russia, where I
started my good run of qualifying results last year. Hopefully I can get on a nice run like that again.
Lewis Hamilton
That was definitely a difficult weekend. I got a good start – but it’s always tricky being at the back and trying
not to get caught up in the domino effect of any contact at the first corner. I tried to avoid whatever happened
in front of me but I just got tangled up in it. It was just a bit unfortunate, really. From there it was always going
to be a battle – but I had a lot of fun fighting back through! There were plenty of overtakes, from what I can
remember! I gave it everything I had and P7 was about the limit. There was nothing left in the tyres at the end
and, although it’s pretty good for overtaking here, I had quite a lot of damage to the car which made it difficult
to get close on the brakes. From what I could feel there was definitely some aero loss and possible
suspension damage too, as the car seemed to be flexing all over the place. But that’s racing – it happens
sometimes and at least I still managed to get a few points on the board. It’s a pretty big hit points-wise today
– but I’ll just have to do what I can to make it up over the next few races. Onwards and upwards…
Kimi Raikkonen
“I have no idea of what happened at the start, I suddenly got hit and spun. I had a puncture in the left front tire
and a front wing damage, but I managed to get back to the pits. Once I went back on track I found myself
more or less in last position, the car felt a bit tricky, but I tried to do my best to charge thorugh the field. At
the beginning I struggled a bit, but then I managed to recover some places. Obviously the fifth position is not
ideal and not what we were looking for, but after what happened it’s not a disaster. Seb came to apologize to
me afterwards and it’s obvious he didn’t run into me on purpose. Unfortunately this does not change things for
the race but it’s only the third round of a long season…”
Sebastian Vettel
“What happened at the first lap, in the end, is a racing incident. From my side I didn’t really know where to
go, I was sandwiched between Kimi and Daniil. Obviously I am terribly sorry for what has happened, I mean
touching the car with the same colors is not right. It was a shame, because it destroyed both of our races,
Kimi’s and mine. At the end of the day we’ve been lucky because we were still able to continue. The safety
car helped us to sort of come back. Kimi locked up in turn one. I tried to go inside to pass him. Daniil was
behind me. He had a better start and was lining up for the same move initially. I was determined to overtake
Kimi. Daniil was determined to overtake me. Kimi came back from the left, Kvyat came from the back from
the right and I was reacting to him. I tried to back out of it, going off throttle and hitting the brakes, but there
was no way, so I had contact with Kimi which is a shame, the car was damaged after that, but obviously a
great recovery by the Team, which managed to stay calm initially and then change the nose while the safety
car was out. Overall we had great pace, good strategy, fantastic pit stops, I couldn’t have asked for more after
this poor first lap. Hopefully in Russia we have a smoother race!”
Toto Wolff, Head of Mercedes-Benz Motorsport
That was a rollercoaster race today. Nico enjoyed the perfect weekend: he was totally dominant this
afternoon, always in control of his performance and did really a flawless job. For Lewis, the circumstances
couldn’t have been more different. He got a great start, tried to stay out of trouble in the first corners and still
got collected by a Sauber, who was avoiding another car coming back on track. His front wing was lodged
under the car for a while, which damaged the leading edge of the floor and cost him a chunk of downforce for
the rest of the race – though it was hard to know exactly how much during the race. We did something
different with him under the Safety Car, cycling through the SuperSoft tyre with no loss of position, in order to
open up some strategic options later in the race. He put in a great recovery drive and pulled off some great
overtakes – but the damage to the car meant the tyres didn’t last as long as we had hoped and made it hard
to catch cars through Turn 13 before the back straight. He still did a great job and kept charging to the end –
but it was damage limitation again for him this afternoon. We are just three races into the longest season in
Formula One history, so this isn’t the time to be looking at Championship tables or points gaps. We just need
to keep scoring points right now, continue to work on our reliability after some wobbles this weekend and
keep working very hard to bring more performance to the car and Power Unit. Today looked like it could have
been a three-way fight with Mercedes, Ferrari and Red Bull if our rivals had a cleaner race – so there is no
margin for us to relax.
Paddy Lowe, Executive Director (Technical)
Starting on Lewis’ side, one of the debates we actually had overnight was whether to do a bit more work to
the car and start him from the pit lane, which ironically would have been a better decision in hindsight given
what happened at the first corner. Equally, Lewis had by far his best start of the season, which ironically
contributed to him being caught up in the cascade of collisions ahead of him. So, a perfect storm of
unfortunate circumstances all round put him on the back foot straight away. We could see that there were
problems with the car – both aerodynamic and mechanical – affecting him through the low-speed corners in
particular. Under the safety car, we chose to perform consecutive pit stops with Lewis to get rid of the
SuperSoft and enable us to run the rest of the race on the Soft, which was the stronger race tyre. As it
transpired, his first set of softs were cut from the first corner incident – something we were unaware of at the
time – which meant we were then forced to run the medium at the end of the race, rendering our SuperSoft
eliminating tactic redundant. So, overall, Lewis did a great job to recover what he could with a car that was
significantly underperforming. On Nico’s side, he actually had a less good start, losing a place into the first
corner – although he was obviously running a less grippy tyre compound than the cars around him. He was,
however, able to re-pass Daniel quite quickly once DRS became available and went on to have a
straightforward race from there – running a soft / soft / medium strategy as intended from the beginning. An
uneventful race from his perspective – but that’s not to underestimate the top job he did to manage the car
safely within its limits and claim a well-deserved third victory of the season – and the 100th Formula One
podium for the Silver Arrows in the process. We now look forward to Russia – targeting a clean and
successful weekend on both sides of the garage.
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