Nico Rosberg
This weekend really went really perfectly for me. Already in Qualifying I had found a perfect balance and that
continued throughout the race, which was fantastic. I had a great start and from there was able to control the
pace at the front. Thank you so much to everybody at the factories for building such an amazing car. If you
have a car like this, you are really able to push to the limits and that’s an awesome feeling. Lewis drove really
well to come back up to second so quickly, so well done to him too. The only down side to the weekend was
to see that reliability is becoming a bit of a concern, as Lewis obviously has a problem yesterday and both
cars had issues during the race today. But we have a great team behind us and I’m fully confident that we will
sort this out. It´s unbelievable to go into the European races with four wins and I really look forward to
Barcelona now. Thanks, Russia – you were very good to me!
Lewis Hamilton
Firstly, I would like to thank the guys who came together to get the new parts over here from the factory last
night – and then to the mechanics who worked all through the night to get everything prepared for me to go
out there and race today. The guys on my side of the garage are having a really hard time of it at the moment
– but I have every faith and confidence in them. We’ve swapped things round in the garage a bit this season
but that is absolutely not the reason we’ve been having issues. It hasn’t been the case for the past three
years and I have no reason to believe it would be now. Without their hard work I wouldn’t even have got to this
point, so a big thank you to them once again. The first corner was pretty hectic. I don’t know what happened
– but I saw something happening in the corner of my eye and just thought “I’m not getting caught again!” I
managed to get out of the way and avoid it – but if I’d turned in I would have collected them. It was pure
instinct and I’m glad I was able to come out without any contact this time. From there I had good pace and I
felt like I could challenge for the win – but then there was the water pressure problem which ended that
chance. It was tough to hang on at the end but I handled it as best I could. I had to really nurse the car home
and I’m just relieved to have made it to the flag after how this weekend has been. I’ve got a long way to go yet
this season with not many healthy engine parts left, so we need to do a better job on reliability.
Kimi Raikkonen
“Overall it hasn’t been a very easy weekend, but today we tried to make the best out of it. I had a good start
and managed to get second position but then, like last year, after the Safety Car I could not hold up the
Williams behind me on the straight. After that I was trying to fight them back, but I lost one place to Hamilton.
So we decided to run longer to gain positions and we did quite a pretty good job. The car was handling very
well through the whole race, even if we were forced to do some fuel saving and this affected our laptimes. The
third place we managed today is what we were able to achieve, but is not ideal, because we want to be at the
front with both cars. It’s a pity not to be fighting for the win, but we take this result and keep on working to put
ourselves in a better position.”
Sebastian Vettel
“I think it’s a shame because today we had done everything right. I had a really good start, I was a bit stuck at
the first turn, but then I was able to go. Of course there’s always a bit more risk in starting behind, but P7 is
not P15. I was going into second corner, I was already attacking and approaching fifth place, but it doesn’t
help when people behind don’t brake. What Kvyat did was completely unnecessary. I had a massive hit from
behind, then another big hit in turn 3 and that finished my race. As far as I know, the race is 53 laps, but not
everybody seems to remember. I don’t think I need to say much, I think if you look at the footage you’ll have
the answers to your questions. Today it was not my fault, there was nothing I could have done differently,
nothing I would change. I don’t dislike him (Kvyat), but I think he did a mistake two weeks ago, he made a
mistake today but it doesn’t help me now. Obviously I would have loved to drive the car today to feel if we
could keep the same balance into the race, but for the future nothing has changed. Of course I’m
disappointed but we’re already focused on the next race.”
Toto Wolff, Head of Mercedes-Benz Motorsport
That race was anything but plain sailing today – it was a pretty stressful experience to get both cars home,
and there was a point when we thought neither of them might make it to the flag. First of all, congratulations
to Nico, he did a perfect job all weekend and controlled the race from the front once again. He didn’t put a foot
wrong and, when we faced an issue on the MGU-K during the middle part of the race, he was able to do all
the necessary steps to keep it under control and bring it home. As for Lewis, he drove brilliantly. Some really
good, aggressive passing manoeuvres and clever racing brought him to P2 – and he was just getting his head
down to charge when we saw a water leak and he was losing water pressure. The only thing to do was ask
him to back off to bring the car home and fortunately that meant the situation stabilised but cost him the
chance of racing Nico. No doubt he will be thinking about what could have been today – but it was a fantastic
recovery after such a tough moment in qualifying yesterday. A one-two finish is always something special and
to be savoured, especially with the performance advantage we enjoyed this weekend. We are pushing hard
this year and finding the limits of our car – but we need to get on top of our issues so the drivers can battle it
out on track themselves. That’s what we all want to see and what we will be working hard to achieve in the
coming days before Barcelona.
Paddy Lowe, Executive Director (Technical)
Coming into the race, the team did a fantastic job to get Lewis’ car back into shape for the race in the right
specification and preserving his tenth place on the grid under parc ferme restrictions. It was quite a dramatic
start, from which our drivers fortunately emerged unscathed. The result, in fact, worked in their favour, with
Nico comfortable at the front and Lewis moving up to fifth. After the re-start, Lewis made some fantastic
overtaking moves on Massa and Räikkönen, then once again on Bottas following the first round of stops. This
proved critical to his result. After Nico’s stop, his car developed an MGU-K problem which we were able to
manage to some extent but remained a concern to the end of the race. Then, shortly afterwards, Lewis’ water
pressure started to progressively drop. We encouraged him to ease off, which helped to a degree. But, in
reality, this appeared to be a terminal situation and we were sitting for about 20 laps with our fingers crossed
hoping the car would make it to the flag. By some miracle it did just that, which came as a huge relief after
the difficulties of the weekend. Overall, it’s great to get another one-two finish. But it’s clear that we have more
work to do in the days leading up to the next race to understand the series of problems experienced over the
past two weekends.
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