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2007 China GP
Team Quotes - Sunday 7 October
Vodafone McLaren Mercedes driver Fernando Alonso finished the Chinese Grand Prix in Shanghai in second place, whilst his team mate Lewis Hamilton retired on lap 31, when he went off into the gravel with fading Bridgestone Potenza wet tyres on a drying track. Kimi Raikkonen took victory so the championship will now be decided among those three at the final race in Sao Paulo in two weeks time. After 56 laps in changeable conditions, 305.066 km and a total race time of 1h37m58.395, Fernando came home 9.8 seconds behind Kimi. Fernando was on a two-stop strategy and pitted on laps 18 (7.7 seconds) and 32 (8.9 seconds), whilst Lewis made his pit stop on lap 15 (6.8 seconds). Despite his first retirement in 16 Grands Prix, Lewis maintained his lead in the Drivers' Championship after 16 out of 17 races with 107 points followed by Fernando in second with 103 and Kimi in third on 100, with a maximum of 10 points available in the remaining race.
Ron Dennis: The start of the race saw everybody being careful not to make any mistakes. Lewis pulled out a healthy lead and stopped a little earlier than both Fernando and the two Ferraris. All of these cars stayed on the same set of tyres which was clearly the right decision. Like us, our competition was hoping to get through the last period of rain before changing to dry tyres. Lewis stopped first but a combination of tyre condition, the wetness of the pitlane and a small mistake saw him run wide into the gravel trap. Fernando's second stop took place on the following lap and he drove an excellent race to put himself firmly back in contention for the World Championship. As always we will now focus on the next Grand Prix and with both Fernando and Lewis having a points lead over Kimi it should be an interesting end to the season in Brazil.
Norbert Haug: It was a shame what happened to Lewis, but no blame at all to him. He was performing very well but it wasn't to be. Fernando finished second in a challenging race under difficult conditions and did a great job to stay in the World Championship fight. The team worked so hard throughout the season, and we will come out of this even stronger. We now set our sights on the final in Brazil where we will face a three driver fight for the World Championship and are still in a good position to take the title there. For all of us it makes much more sense to concentrate on the final race ahead of us rather than the one today where we didn't get the best possible result.
The ING Renault F1 Team endured a tough afternoon today in wet-dry conditions at the 2007 Chinese Grand Prix. Starting from P13 (Heikki Kovalainen) and P18 (Giancarlo Fisichella), and with rain forecast for much of the race, the team chose to fuel the cars heavy for a planned one-stop strategy. The race began in wet conditions and intermittent showers doused the circuit for the first fifteen laps, meaning both drivers ran Bridgestone's wet tyres. However, the heavy fuel load left both Heikki and Giancarlo struggling with an inconsistent handling balance, and they lost time relative to the lighter- fuelled cars around them. The team made the switch to dry tyres at the correct time, and at this point, with little hope of a points finish, decided to split its strategies: Giancarlo was light fuelled and therefore needed to make another stop before the end of the race, while Heikki was fuelled to the finish. With his lighter fuel load, Giancarlo was extremely competitive and ran as high as P5 as he tried to build a big enough gap to his competitors to emerge in front after his final stop. Ultimately, he failed by several seconds, and the Renault drivers ran within five seconds of each other to the finish, chasing the Red Bulls of Coulthard and Webber to the flag. While the team scored zero points today for the first time since the 2006 Hungarian Grand Prix, the R27 proved encouragingly competitive in the dry conditions at the end of the race (with Giancarlo setting fourth fastest lap of the race), while results elsewhere confirmed the ING Renault F1 Team's final position in the 2007 constructors' championship.
Pat Symonds, Executive Director of Engineering: The difficult, changing conditions and our poor starting positions made for a challenging afternoon. We tried to cover all angles with two different strategies midway through the race, and they turned out to be very similar. Ultimately, though, we did not have the pace when it mattered at the critical points of the weekend. However, our position in the constructors' championship is now sealed, and we will aim to round the year off strongly during what promises to be an exciting weekend in Interlagos.
Denis Chevrier, Head of Trackside Engine Operations: The weather played a critical role in the strategic choices we made yesterday afternoon and this morning, and the unexpected, changeable wet-dry conditions meant those choices failed to pay off today. Clearly, we were not helped by our starting positions of thirteenth and eighteenth, and it is frustrating to fall just short of the points and miss out on the opportunity to take advantage of the conditions. We must now move on to Brazil, learn what we can from this race, and look to finish the year with a strong race where we achieve our full potential.
Kimi Raikkonen secured Scuderia Ferrari's two hundredth victory from 757 Grand Prix entered in the Formula 1 World Championship. It is Kimi's fifth win with the team, his fourteenth from 121 races. It is Ferrari's eighth victory of the season and its third in four runnings of the Chinese Grand Prix.
Jean Todt: It is great to be able to celebrate Scuderia Ferrari's two hundredth victory in Formula 1, here in Shanghai, at the end of a difficult race, further complicated by the unpredictability of the changes in the weather. Kimi brings his total tally of the season to five and this is the team's eighth. He drove an extraordinary race, without committing the slightest error. Felipe had a good race, helping us to see how the dry weather tyres were working at a critical moment. Unfortunately, the rain returned for a brief period, which affected his race. All the team had taken badly what happened at a difficult weekend in Fuji which we left with much less than we deserved. I also wish to congratulate our friends at Toro Rosso, who picked up some important points: it is great to see four Ferrari engines in the top eight. We know our aim of bringing home the Drivers' title will still be very difficult to achieve, but we will give it our all, right up to the last lap of the last race!
Luca Baldisserri: This was probably one of the most difficult races of the season, characterized by very unstable weather, with the rain coming and going. After the first pit stop, Kimi gradually made up ground on Hamilton and could have got past earlier but for the yellow flags. Then, as the track was drying, Kimi stepped up the pace and controlled a possible attack from Alonso. Maybe with Felipe, we rushed the switch to dry tyres, but the rain did not help. Now we can say it was a great race, run by two exceptional drivers who are capable of adapting very well to the changing track conditions. It will be tough in Sao Paolo but we will give it our best shot right down to the final corner.
Jenson Button boosted the Honda Racing F1 Team's championship tally by four crucial points today when he brought his RA107 home in fifth position in China. He delivered an exceptional performance in the wet-dry race, once again demonstrating his prowess in challenging weather conditions to achieve the team's best performance of the season. Rubens Barrichello meanwhile endured a tough race to finish in 15th position.
Conditions were hot, wet and humid for the start of the 56-lap race at the Shanghai International Circuit. Both Honda drivers started the race on the Bridgestone Potenza wet tyre and Jenson lost one position away from the line to end the opening lap in 11th place. He spent the next 23 laps mixing it in the midfield until making his first pitstop on lap 24, when he became one of the first drivers to switch to dry tyres.
For the next 18 laps Jenson charged through the field, setting a series of fastest lap times. He immediately found grip which enabled him to climb up to fourth place by the time of his second and final pitstop on lap 42. He rejoined the race in sixth place and when Fisichella pitted ahead of him he moved into fifth, which is where he ended the race.
Rubens' race was compromised on lap two when he was running in 15th place. As he braked for turn one, he had a coming together with Davidson and he dropped to the back of the field.
On lap 25 he made his first pitstop and switched to dry tyres, but he made the decision to return to the pits for wets on the following lap when it started to rain again. The shower was short-lived and he found himself on the wrong tyre for the rapidly drying track conditions. He made a third stop later on lap 31 and he crossed the line in 15th place.
Jacky Eeckelaert, Engineering Director: Two wet races in seven days have made the Asian rounds an exciting challenge. This time the track conditions were good for the wet tyre and only one team opted for the extreme wet, which was clearly not appropriate to the conditions. At the start of the race our cars struggled to keep pace with the cars around us as we were on a heavy fuel load. After everybody pitted for dry tyres it started to rain again and Rubens opted for wets. This was a gamble and the rain stopped after only two laps, so Rubens had to do an extra pit-stop which ruined his hopes of a points finish. Jenson also had to pit earlier than planned as the track was too dry for the wet tyres; therefore we could not take advantage of our planned one-stop strategy. After losing some positions with a heavy car in the first part of the race, he drove a storming race to finish in a fine fifth position. It's a nice feeling for the team to score some points again.
The BMW Sauber F1 Team scored two points in an action packed Chinese Grand Prix. Nick Heidfeld finished seventh after having been unlucky with the timing when changing from wets to dry weather tyres. Robert Kubica retired on lap 34 while leading due to an hydraulic leak.
Mario Theissen (BMW Motorsport Director): It was an extremely hard weekend for our team. On Friday and on Saturday we had hydraulic problems three times. In contrast to European races, here we do not have the opportunity to analyse such a problem and to take the respective measures. Therefore, we knew before the race started there was a risk of a failure. Anyway, it is hard for Robert to roll to a stop while leading the race. Nick's race went without any problems technically. A short rain shower forced us to do a second tyre change that finally dropped him down three places. We will take the defective parts to Munich in our hand luggage in order to start the analysis on Monday morning. Naturally, we were interested to see what happened in the title race. I am happy that the new world champion will be crowned at the season's final race.
Willy Rampf (Technical Director): This was a turbulent race under tough weather conditions. Both cars had a rain set-up, we had planned long stints. Nevertheless, the timing of Nick's pit stop was not perfect. This cost him a few places. Robert was leading the race when he had his failure. This was a bitter pill. We will now do all possible to be perfectly prepared for the season finale in Brazil.
Panasonic Toyota Racing will leave Shanghai empty-handed following a disappointing afternoon's work at an action-packed Chinese Grand Prix. The race began in wet conditions after the rain that had long threatened arrived precisely as the cars left the grid for the parade lap. Toyota had come into Sunday with high hopes after Ralf Schumacher took 6th place on the grid. Unfortunately he spun on the first lap and he dropped to the back of the field. From there he began a charge, making up great ground in the early stages, passing several cars and running as high as 12th. But his race ended when he spun out on lap 27, shortly after pitting for dry tyres. Jarno Trulli started in 12th place and made it up to 9th before his stop for dry tyres on lap 25. Further rain initially impeded his progress but he battled to bring the car home in 13th. After this disappointment the team will now regroup at Interlagos in the city of Sao Paulo for the season-ending Brazilian Grand Prix on October 21.
Tadashi Yamashina – Team Principal: The team did an excellent job in qualifying and we had good positions but again we had a miserable start to the race on Ralf's car. We have to analyse carefully what happened. After that the car showed it was very competitive on the standard wet tyres and the two drivers showed their best performance in these conditions. But when we changed to dry tyres both drivers faced difficulties. That was the key to the race. The timing of the pit stops and the selection of the tyres were not bad but still we need to analyse what happened after the switch. This was always going to be a difficult race with such an unstable weather forecast but given these conditions the pit crew did a good job. Now we will head to Brazil hoping to do our best in the final race.
Christian Horner: Changeable conditions at the beginning of the race meant it was a bit hit and miss regarding the drivers being on the right tyres at the right time. David was running in fifth position behind the leading group at the start and remained on his wet tyres at his first pit stop. It then looked as though dry tyres were the ones to be on, so we opted to change him to those and fuel him to the end of the race. At the point when he left the pit lane for a second time, another small shower broke out which lost him crucial circuit time. Those not on dry tyres benefited significantly at that point. Mark was the opposite. He had some issues with the car that he wasn't particularly happy with in the damp conditions on his wet tyres so changed to dry tyres very early on. It looked like the right decision at the time. When the rain started again, he changed back to wets and was the fastest car on the track for a few laps until finally needing to pit for dry tyres. Unfortunately, he finished out of the points. It's frustrating for both cars to have started in a competitive position and obviously disappointing to only get one point out of it. Congratulations to Toro Rosso today on fourth and sixth place.
Fabrice Lom, Renault Principal Engineer, Track Support: We are a little disappointed with our result today. We had a good car, but in these changing conditions you need to have the right tyres at the right time and it was really close once again, with less than 15 seconds separating fifth and tenth positions at the finish, which is nothing in such a race. We'd like to congratulate Toro Rosso for the results achieved today, it's a shame we were not able to make it too. However our result doesn't change the fact that our car performed well this weekend. Engines ran very well and were trouble free during these two Asian races. We score one point, it could have been more which is a little bit frustrating, but it is still one point.
The AT&T Williams team had an eventful but ultimately unrewarding Chinese Grand Prix in Shanghai today, with varying wet weather conditions unfortunately not assisting the team with their race strategies. Alex finished the race in twelfth position and Nico, after one unscheduled stop for a punctured tyre, finished in 16th.
Patrick Head, Director of Engineering: Our grid position rather dictated our race, but the conditions were difficult today and we might have been luckier. Nico was certainly driving a very good race and overtaking cars but he sustained a puncture which also damaged some bodywork. As a consequence, he had to make an unscheduled stop without which it was quite possible he would have been among the points. As it was, we sent him out on the wrong tyres for the conditions and that was that. Alex's race was dictated by a poor grid position. The race was disappointing for both the drivers and the team. I must say congratulations to the Toro Rosso drivers who I think both did a good job.
Gerhard Berger: A very good result thanks to a fantastic effort from the team and both drivers. We have been working very very hard and sometimes this year we have been a bit unlucky. Today it all came together. This team works so hard. It is competitive and fights hard with limited resources, but still doing an outstanding job. The immediate future? To go to Sao Paulo and try and get more points.
The Etihad Aldar Spyker Formula One Team's disappointing Chinese Grand Prix weekend came to a similarly frustrating finish today at the Shanghai International Circuit. The heavy typhoon-like rain conditions the team had expected never ultimately materialised and, with a full wet set-up, both Adrian Sutil and Sakon Yamamoto's races were compromised from the start.
Both started on extreme wet Bridgestone Potenza tyre options to tackle the monsoon-like rain predicted to fall within minutes of the start, but when only a light shower emerged, the pair changed to standard wet tyres. As the humidity and temperature increased, the track started to dry out and, at the back of the field with risks worth taking, the team changed Adrian and Sakon to the dry option tyres.
For Adrian this risk was a little too great as he spun off at a wet last corner into the barriers on lap 24. Sakon changed back to wets until the rain abated and he switched back to dry. With no hope of making up any positions, Sakon concentrated on bringing the car home, finally finishing 17th.
Mike Gascoyne, chief technical officer: We took a gamble to start on the extreme wets with heavy rain predicted, but the rain never really materialised. We then had to change to the standard wets and, from that moment on, it was always going to be a case of getting it to the flag. Unfortunately we then changed to drys, but after a few laps it started to rain again and Adrian just got caught out. Sakon did a good job to get the car to the finish in difficult conditions, but I think that we can all say that this is one race to definitely forget.
Colin Kolles, team principal and managing director: This was a tough race to call with the expected heavy rain ultimately never coming. We have usually been right with strategy calls in similarly difficult conditions, but this time the risks didn't pay off, however when you start at the back of the grid, there is everything to gain and the risks are always worth taking. Although it didn't work out this time, there is always one race to go where I hope we can put on a better show.
Super Aguri's fighting spirit was challenged once again as the team ensured a difficult race today at the Shanghai International Circuit. The changeable weather and track conditions during the 2007 Chinese Grand Prix produced a few surprise results which have dramatically changed the order of the Constructors' Championship with only one race to go this season.
Aguri Suzuki, Team Principal: This was another tough race for us in difficult conditions. Taku did a good job and it is a shame that Anthony had a coming together at beginning of the race with Barrichello. I would like to thank everyone in the team for continuing to push hard and I would also like to congratulate both Toro Rosso drivers who did a good job today. We have only one more race this season, so we shall continue to keep up our fighting spirit and try to replicate the result that we had last year in Brazil.
Kimi Raikkonen (Ferrari) has achieved the 120th Grand Prix race win on Bridgestone Potenza tyres after he employed a two-stop strategy to win the Chinese Grand Prix at the Shanghai International Circuit.
Raikkonen used the same set of wets for his first two stints, before changing to the medium dry tyre to take the chequered flag. He won by a margin of 9.8 seconds at the same venue where recently-crowned Bridgestone-shod MotoGP champion Casey Stoner took his third win of the season. He was joined on the podium by Fernando Alonso (McLaren Mercedes) who finished second by using a similar strategy, but finishing on the hard tyre. Felipe Massa (Ferrari) used the same strategy as his team-mate to finish third.
It was a mixed weather race with all of Bridgestone's range of Potenza Formula One tyres being used. The standard wet tyre was the favoured tyre to start the race, whilst drivers and teams made their own choice whether to opt for the medium or hard compound as the track dried, despite reoccurring showers.
Rookie Sebastian Vettel (Toro Rosso) took advantage of good timing in the drying conditions to make his only stop to change from the wet to medium dry tyre and this enabled his best finish of the year, fourth place. Jenson Button (Honda) finished fifth and Vitantonio Liuzzi (Toro Rosso) finished sixth, both their best results of the season. Nick Heidfeld (BMW Sauber) finished seventh and David Coulthard (Red Bull) finished eighth, taking the final point.
Drivers' championship leader Lewis Hamilton ended his race in a gravel trap after he slid off the track at the pit entrance, when pitting to change from wet tyres for the now predominantly dry track. His non-score here means that the title race is still very much alive heading to the season finale in Brazil, with a three-way title battle between Hamilton on 107 points, Alonso on 103 and Raikkonen on 100.
Bridgestone Potenza Formula One tyres will next be in race action in the final race of the year at the Brazilian Grand Prix at Interlagos in Sao Paulo on October 19-21 where Bridgestone's soft and super soft compound Potenzas will be used.
Hirohide Hamashima - Director of Bridgestone Motorsport Tyre Development: Firstly, congratulations to Kimi Raikkonen and Ferrari for their win. Kimi maintained his wet tyre very well until his second stop. We could see this as he was setting very good lap times at the end of his second stint, when the track was almost dry, and his wet tyres were almost worn out from these conditions. Secondly, congratulations to the Toro Rosso team, especially Sebastian Vettel, who made very good use of a one stop strategy to take fourth, which is a fantastic result. This was a difficult race. Tyre management and pit stop timing was very important in the changeable conditions. Maintaining the wet tyre on the drying track was crucial, and it was possible to see which cars had worn their wet tyres too much by looking at the television monitors.
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