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Team Quotes - Sunday 7 November

SEASON INFORMATION
13/01/2018

2010 Grande Premio Petrobras do Brasil

Team Quotes - Sunday 7 November

McLaren
Martin Whitmarsh, Team Principal: "The 2010 Brazilian Grand Prix was a tense and absorbing race. Fighter that he is, Lewis tried his damnedest to pass Nico [Hulkenberg] in the early laps, and very nearly pulled it off on a number of occasions, but lost quite a lot of time to the front-runners in the process. As a result, in the end, he wasn't able to improve on his starting position: fourth.

"Meanwhile, Jenson drove a typically canny race to move from 11th on the grid to fifth at the flag.

"Once the Safety Car had been deployed as a result of Vitantonio's [Liuzzi] shunt, we opted to bring both our drivers in for new tyres - a more or less risk-free strategy given that the gap back to Michael [Schumacher] had been sufficiently large for Lewis and Jenson to be able to rejoin the field without losing their fourth and fifth positions respectively.

"The rationale behind that decision was that, had the front-runners' older Primes begun to degrade in the final laps, our drivers would have been uniquely well placed to capitalise on that degradation. In the event there was very little such degradation, so our drivers derived no demonstrable benefit from their fresh rubber; but they suffered no disadvantage either, so it was well worth trying.

"More generally, Jenson lost the chance of retaining his drivers' world championship this afternoon, but he's been a superb team player all year and has made a great start to his Vodafone McLaren Mercedes career. He's already looking forward to doing better still in 2011.

"Lewis, by contrast, is one of four drivers who are still in contention for this year's drivers' world championship - and, although he faces a very tough task in order to prevail, he'll definitely be giving it everything he's got in Abu Dhabi in his efforts to become world champion for the second time in his career. Good fortune will have to play its part, and nothing short of a win will suffice, but it's by no means impossible.

"Last but not least, the battle for the constructors' world championship came to a finish today - and the victors were Red Bull Racing. Although in some ways it goes against the grain for me to say so, because our ethos at Vodafone McLaren Mercedes is that winning is all, it's always refreshing when a new constructor's name is etched onto that famous trophy.

"So, on behalf of all at Woking, I'd like to offer congratulations to all at Milton Keynes."

Mercedes
Nico Rosberg and Michael Schumacher finished the Brazilian Grand Prix in sixth and seventh places today to achieve a double points finish for the Mercedes GP Petronas team in Interlagos. Nico and Michael made the most of the opportunities presented to them and had strong races to move up the order and improve on their grid positions.

Ross Brawn: "We are pleased to get a solid double points finish with good drives from Nico and Michael today. It was frustrating to lose a place to Jenson in the early stops as we expected him to get held up with traffic but he did a good job to get through. We made all the right strategy calls today which enabled us to make up several places on cars ahead of us on the grid. We had a radio problem which caused confusion with the tyres at Nico's second stop however we boxed him again with no loss of position. It's good to have two cars scoring points but obviously we are not finishing where we would like to. Congratulations to Red Bull for taking our Constructors' title today and we will be after them next year."

Norbert Haug: "We achieved the best possible results for us today to finish behind the drivers who were fighting for the World Championship as we have done in the six races since Spa. The team, Nico and Michael did a solid job and it is positive that Nico came home in sixth place after starting from 13th position. Michael recovered well from losing two places on the first lap to finish in seventh position and could have gone one place better if he had not been caught after his pit stop behind a car who changed tyres late in the race. Sixth and seventh places are not our target for the future but for now these results are the maximum with the technical package we currently have. Well done to everybody in our team and thank you for your hard work. We have one more race to go next weekend and then we are looking forward to next season with consistently better results. Congratulations to Red Bull Racing for winning the 2010 Formula One Constructors' World Championship."

Red Bull
Christian Horner, Team Principal: This is an unbelievable result. In six years this team has come from a team that no-one took seriously - that everyone thought was a party team - to the 2010 Formula One Constructors' Champions. We have finished ahead of teams with far more experience and heritage than ourselves - we took them on and we won. Thanks to the tremendous dedication of every single team member, to the incredible support from Red Bull and to the vision and unfaltering commitment from Mr. Mateschitz. It's a very proud day for everyone in the team and for everyone within Red Bull to have won the 2010 Formula One Constructors' Championship - and to do it in such dominant style, with our fourth one-two finish of the season, is very special. We've assembled a great group whose collective commitment and effort has delivered this result. Six and half years ago Mr. Mateschitz had a vision and today we have fulfilled it, it is an unbelievable feeling.

Fabrice, Renault, Principal Engineer Track Support: A big, big wow - it's a historic day for Red Bull Renault. We have won this first title for the team and it's a big reward for all the hard work we have done. Congratulations to everyone at Red Bull, at the Renault factory in Viry-Chatillon, and to everybody in Mechachrome who have helped us to win this title. We now look to the Drivers' Championship, but before that we need to enjoy ourselves and to celebrate, congratulations to everyone.

Ferrari
Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro takes away fifteen points from the Brazilian Grand Prix, thanks to a third place for Fernando Alonso, while Felipe Massa finished fifteenth. Thanks to this result, Fernando continues to lead the Drivers' championship, while the Constructors' title is now out of reach for the Scuderia.

Stefano Domenicali: First of all, I want to congratulate Red Bull Racing and Renault for taking the Constructors' Championship title, which is a very important achievement. We said the Drivers' title would go down to the final race and we will now arrive in Abu Dhabi with Fernando currently heading the classification. We knew it would be a hard task to bring home the title, as our main rivals are very strong and they demonstrated that once again this afternoon. Now we face eight crucial days. We know what we have to do and we will prepare everything with the maximum attention to detail: each one of us knows we have to give a hundred percent at our specific tasks and, maybe even a little bit more. As for the race, I think Fernando did the most he could after yesterday's qualifying: his opening laps were exceptional and he managed to pass first Hamilton and then Hulkenberg in decisive fashion, but without taking excessive risks. Then he had to manage his race and he did that in impeccable fashion, even after the Safety Car, when the situation could have turned out to be very tricky. Felipe was unlucky at his pit stop, when a problem in fitting the front right meant he had to come straight back in for another tyre change. That was a shame as he could have finished in a good position. Lastly, I would like to thank the Brazilian crowd for their continued support: going into the race there was talk of the atmosphere being a bit tense for Ferrari. In fact there was nothing of the sort, confirming the great passion and sporting spirit of the fans in this country.

Chris Dyer: We are very disappointed for Felipe, who had everything in place to have a good race. Unfortunately, there was a problem at the pit stop which meant he had to immediately come in again, which pretty much put him out of the running. As for Fernando, he got the maximum result he could, in the light of how qualifying went yesterday. The way he ran his race was perfect, with some fantastic opening laps, during which he managed to deal with first Hamilton and then Hulkenberg, and after that he managed the car and the strategy in just the right way. There was some tension at the restart after the safety car period, because the two McLarens had opted to fit new tyres: we knew there was a chance of tyre degradation, which might have put us in difficulty. Fortunately, at that moment our race pace was very good and we were able to manage our advantage over them. Our aim was to arrive at the final race still fighting for the title and we have done that, even getting there with a driver leading the classification. It will definitely be tough but we will do all we can to bring home this championship title.

WilliamsF1
The AT&T Williams team conclude the Brazilian Grand Prix weekend having manoeuvred into sixth place in the constructors' championship courtesy of Nico's four points from his eighth place finish. A difficult race for Rubens Barrichello ended in P14, who slipped down the order following a lengthy first pitstop and an unscheduled second after a collision on lap 34 caused a puncture.

Patrick Head, Director of Engineering: From our grid positions, the results obviously aren't great, but Nico drove well despite struggling with vibrations, and he was driving to the pace of the car. We were unfortunate with the timing of the safety car because it pulled us too far back in the order and prevented us from possibly challenging Mercedes. Rubens' drive was destroyed by a problem pitstop in which we had an issue with the nut on the right rear. He then had a bump with Alguersuari which caused a puncture and required another stop. That effectively put him out of contention for points. Many congratulations to Red Bull for winning the constructors' championship.

Renault
The Renault F1 Team endured a frustrating Brazilian Grand Prix this afternoon at Interlagos. In spite of running sixth in the early stages of the race, after gaining a position at the start, Robert Kubica finished ninth - spending much of his race stuck in traffic and unable to show the car's full potential. Vitaly Petrov's race was ruined on the first lap, when he was forced off track to avoid an accident at turn two, putting him to the back of the field. He recovered from 23rd position to finish the race 16th.

Eric Boullier, Team Principal: We knew that we would have a tough battle with the cars around us today, but we didn't take full advantage of our opportunities. Robert spent his entire afternoon in traffic and we weren't able to get him out of it with strategy, while Vitaly's race was essentially over on lap one. It's disappointing after showing good performance at different points of the weekend, but we will now focus on the final race of the season in Abu Dhabi, and on finishing our season on a stronger note.

Alan Permane, Chief Race Engineer: This was not our finest race of the season. It was extremely frustrating for Robert to spend the whole race stuck behind Hulkenberg. In terms of strategy, we were left between a rock and a hard place on the call to stop Robert: Button and Massa had stopped for fresh tyres before us, and were making up time, so we pitted to cover them and try to get out in front. Unfortunately, Hulkenberg also chose to stop on the same lap and we simply followed him in and out of the pits, then Robert lost time running behind his team-mate for several laps. As for Vitaly, he made a poor start, then went off at turn two on the first lap, which ruined his race.

Remi Taffin, Head of Engine Operations: First of all, congratulations to Red Bull-Renault on their championship success today, and particularly to our engineers who work with the team. The entire team at Viry, including our partners and suppliers, should be proud to have once again demonstrated that we are capable of building and supporting a world champion engine. As for Renault F1 Team's race this afternoon, it was a disappointing one. We were capable of more but take home only two points. On the technical front, we had no problems, so the only answer is to work hard to achieve a better result in the season finale next weekend.

Force India
The Force India F1 Team has finished today's Brazilian Grand Prix in 12th position with Adrian Sutil. Adrian moved up 10 places from his grid slot after a strong first stint on the harder tyres and a change to the options under the safety car period at two third's distance. After pulling off one of the most exciting overtaking moves of the race on Sebastien Buemi on lap 61, Adrian passed the flag in 12th.

Following a long battle with the Ferrari of Felipe Massa, Tonio Liuzzi retired from the race on lap 49 in an accident in the first corner complex. Tonio was fortunately uninjured in the impact.

Otmar Szafnauer, chief operating officer: First of all, we must extend our congratulations to Red Bull on securing their first-ever constructors' championship. For us, we knew this would be a difficult race and to come away with 12th is a good effort considering our starting positions. Adrian again showed our strong race pace and Tonio put in lap times that matched those of the top ten until his retirement. Thankfully he is OK after the accident, and we'll look into the reason for this. We've got another race coming up very soon and although it's going to be a tough week with the travelling, we're going to keep fighting until the end.

Toro Rosso
Franz Tost: We started from fourteenth and nineteenth and finished eleventh and thirteenth and when the entire field bar one car finishes the race, it is hard to score points, so we can take some satisfaction from finishing in front of most our direct rivals today which is good. We were eleventh for most of the race and when the Safety Car appeared, we decided to leave both our cars out on track, giving the drivers the task of defending position against some runners on newer tyres. Jaime and Sebastien did a good job in the closing stages therefore, as indeed they did for the whole 71 laps. Congratulations to Red Bull Racing for winning the Constructors' title.
Lotus
An excellent end to the Brazilian Grand Prix saw Lotus Racing take one more step closer to tenth place in the 2010 Championship after Heikki Kovalainen finished 18th, just ahead of Jarno Trulli in 19th.

Mike Gascoyne, Chief Technical Officer: "An excellent race for us after what has been a very good weekend. Congratulations to Red Bull for winning their first constructors' championship today, and for us it was a textbook race today. Heikki made a great start and went straight past Timo, and Jarno followed him past a few laps later. After that we were able to open a gap to our nearest rivals and maintain track position right to the end. It was a very professional race from the whole team and pushes us another step closer to tenth so we will be aiming to take that performance to Abu Dhabi and repeat it at the final race."

Tony Fernandes, Team Principal: "Firstly my sincere congratulations to Red Bull Racing on securing the constructors' title today. They are a superb team, full of honest, professional people and we are very excited about working with them next year. They have set the standards Mike and his aero team must reach and that is an excellent challenge for him and our whole team. From our point of view I am very happy with the performance today. We looked a class team out there and the two car finish is just reward for the hard work this weekend and all year. Two flawless pitstops from the team in the garage showed that we have talent everywhere, and for a team that is still only a year old that is very impressive. What pleased me most is the fact that we kept pace with most of the cars in the middle of the pack, right up to the fifth place car who we were only just over a second away from in race pace. With all the steps we have taken to build such a solid foundation for our team next year we will be right in the mix with the established teams in 2011, but for today I want to say congratulations to the whole team. Now we focus on Abu Dhabi, the last race of the season and the one where I hope we secure tenth place."

HRT
Under dry and sunny conditions, in contrast to yesterday's rain, Hispania Racing completed its first ever race in Brazil and both cars were able to cross the finish line again, making it the eighth time this season and the third in a row that the Spanish team finishes a race with its two cars. Bruno Senna didn't make any mistakes, kept closing the gap and was able to fight for positions with the other new teams, finishing 21st. Even though Christian Klien had to start the race from the garage due to a fuel pressure problem, the team managed to solve the problem quickly and he was finally able to get out, run at constant pace and cross the line in 22nd position. The Spanish team's attention now turns to the last Grand Prix of its first season in Formula 1, in Abu Dhabi next week.

Dr. Colin Kolles, Team Principal: "Our race performance was very good today and better than expected. We could easily keep up with the other new teams pace. Christian Klien was unlucky as he had a fuel pressure problem on the way to the starting grid and had to stop the car at the pit lane exit. I want to say thank you to the mechanics who could repair the car and get it back onto the circuit after only four laps. Bruno Senna showed a good performance at his home Grand Prix and finished close behind the other new teams. We are now focusing on the finale of the season in Abu Dhabi and we hope to achieve another good result."

Sauber
Kamui Kobayashi scored one point in Sunday's Brazilian Grand Prix in Interlagos. The Japanese driver was on a different tyre strategy to most of the field and came tenth after having started 12th. Nick Heidfeld, having started 15th, was stuck in traffic for most of the race and dropped back to 17th after being given a drive through penalty with six laps to go.

Peter Sauber, Team Principal: "One point doesn't look like much, but Kamui fought very hard to finish tenth - this was a strong performance. Nick was unlucky, because he was stuck in traffic for much of the race. Then, after his second pit stop, he was penalized with a drive through penalty."

James Key, Technical Director: "An eventful race for most drivers in many respects. With Kamui we tried to start with the prime tyre considering that the track temperature was going to be high so warm up wouldn't be so much of a problem. We knew that his pace should be okay. Then he changed unfortunately just before the safety car came out, so we lost a bit of an advantage on the option tyres, but he did a good job to squeeze a point out of it. Nick started on the option tyres to have a fighting chance at the start of the race, and it was a fairly normal strategy with the prime tyres on the second stint. We pitted him to protect his position under the safety car, but then after the safety car he got a drive through penalty, which we need to look into it because we didn't see what exactly happened. We knew the proximity of Rosberg, but there was a car between him and Nico."

Virgin
After a promising qualifying performance for Virgin Racing's Timo Glock yesterday, his VR-01 was less competitive in the dry conditions today and having been passed by Kovalainen whilst trying to avoid Petrov, he lacked the pace to be able to take the fight to Lotus. He ended the day 20th.

Lucas had a disappointing day in his first Grand Prix on home soil. He reported a mechanical problem early in the race, which was identified and fixed but this necessitated a long stop in the garage and as a consequence he was unclassified when he crossed the line.

John Booth, Team Principal: "A disappointing day today. Perhaps we had the car setup biased slightly too much towards the wet conditions of yesterday but nevertheless we simply didn't have the pace to match our immediate competitors today. Lucas had a problem with his rear suspension, which we were able to rectify but it cost him a lot of time which is disappointing in his home race. Timo gave it his best shot and extracted the maximum from the car but unfortunately it was just not our day today, so we hope for a better race in Abu Dhabi next weekend."

Bridgestone
Bridgestone's penultimate Formula 1 race saw an epic and exciting Brazilian Grand Prix with Sebastian Vettel taking his fourth win of the season and his Red Bull Racing team winning the constructors' championship.

Vettel led team-mate Mark Webber across the line, with Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro's Fernando Alonso finishing third. All three drivers used the same super soft - medium Bridgestone Potenza tyre strategy. As a complete contrast to yesterday's damp qualifying, the race saw hot and dry weather conditions.

Hiroshi Yasukawa - Director of Bridgestone Motorsport: "Congratulations to Red Bull Racing for winning the Constructors' Championship today and well done to Sebastian, Mark and Fernando for such strong drives to the podium. Thank you Sao Paulo and Brazil for such a warm welcome over the many years we have been visiting. We always enjoy great racing here and the millions of fans around the world saw Bridgestone's tyres showcased in this fantastic race. The drivers' championship is very much alive so we are looking forward to next weekend's final race of the season, which will also be Bridgestone's last."

Hirohide Hamashima - Bridgestone Director of Motorsport Tyre Development: "The weather was very different from yesterday's damp conditions and we started the race with a very green track. This meant that the super soft compound was less durable at the start of the race when the track surface was at its worst. As we predicted, at around a third of the race distance the surface had improved significantly. Rubens and Kamui showed the benefits of the super soft compound in the later, better conditions. This meant that when there was a safety car period, many drivers also changed back to the super soft. Aside from the top three, there was a good variety of tyre strategies today. Overall, our tyres performed very well whatever the weather conditions over this weekend so I am very satisfied."

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