2013 Grand Prix du Canada
Driver Quotes - Sunday 9 June
Sebastian Vettel:
"It's great to win today. I was pushing very hard, especially at the beginning of the race - I had a moment when I hit the wall, but I didn't feel it; I was trying to get away from the field, as you don't know what will happen towards the end. It turned out that we could control things in the later stages, but you don't know that, so I was just trying to push all the time and stay in the rhythm. It was good to see that we were quick in all conditions this weekend and had speed in the race. We had average tyre wear, which hasn't always been the case for us, so we have made a step forward there. It's nice to win here, as it's a very special race. Not just the track, but the whole city enjoys the race and it's a nice atmosphere."
Mark Webber:
"I got a sensational start, but I didn't have too many places to go. I went to the middle and Bottas and Nico were there, so I went to the other side and lost some momentum. We are certainly getting our starts sorted, but so far there's been no opportunity to show how good they have been! We lost some time with Nico in the first stint, and the car was getting hot behind him in the slip stream. Once I got in free air, the car was handling much better. Then we had the incident with Giedo van der Garde which caused some front wing damage and made it more difficult; the whole top section of the wing was gone on the left hand side, so it didn't help from then on. I don't know what he was doing. We had a lot of blue flags as we approached the hair pin and I rolled to the inside, giving him plenty of space so he knew I was there, but when we got to the apex he tried to hit it; I don't know what was going on with that. There were some positives from today, but it would have been nicer to have finished a bit further up the road."
Fernando Alonso:
"At the end of an extremely complicated weekend, this second place tastes like a win, because we were
competitive and managed to fight with the front running drivers. You never feel in danger with them, because, even wheel to
wheel at 320 kilometres per hour, they have the necessary intelligence and experience to know to leave a margin of safety. The
overtaking moves on the two Mercedes had an almost identical dynamic, although maybe the pass on Hamilton was more intense
because we were running at the same pace, while with Rosberg, I knew it was only a matter of the laps going by, thanks to the
advantage of having the Medium tyres, while he was on the Supersoft. In terms of points this is a great result: now we only have
Vettel ahead of us, who was untouchable here and deserved the victory. Even if he has increased his lead, there's still a long way
to go in the championship and there's plenty of time to catch up. I don't know if I could have done better if I'd started further up.
Qualifying, even in the wet, is our weak point and an aspect we absolutely must improve on: we are working very hard on that,
both back home and at the track."
Felipe Massa:
"I am very happy with my race today, which was a real battle from start to finish. After going off the track
yesterday, I knew it wouldn't be easy starting from sixteenth place, but I also knew I had a good car and I tackled the race on the
attack, managing to pull off several nice passing moves. However, because of a problem with graining, I lost precious time behind
Sutil in the Force India: that's why I think a strategy based on using two sets of Medium tyres would have seen me gain at least
one or two places. Even if I can't be satisfied with this result it was still a positive day, in which we showed we had a good pace
and that we were able to fight. Now I'm looking ahead to the next race with a lot of confidence, because Silverstone is very similar
to Shanghai and Barcelona, where our car worked very well."
Jenson Button:
"This wasn't the best race for us as a team. It's particularly tough because this circuit is usually very good to us.
"With hindsight, I think we'd have been better off starting on the Prime tyre, rather than the Option. During my first stint, all the two-stoppers pitted ahead of me, then came back to overtake me, so it was a bit tricky.
"However, we showed today that, irrespective of strategy, we wouldn't have gone any faster.
"Our car tends to work better on fast and flowing circuits - such as Malaysia or China - so I'm looking forward to my home race at Silverstone at the end of the month. We tried some new parts this weekend, but they weren't really suited for this type of circuit - they should work better at Silverstone, so I'm feeling positive about the future."
Sergio Perez:
"This wasn't the race we were hoping to have. We tried our best to try and score a few points, but it was impossible to do any better than we did out there today. It's a pity, because the car felt quite good during our installation laps. But the car didn't work that well on the Option tyre, and we struggled to find enough grip.
"At Silverstone, I hope we can make a step forward. We brought some upgrades to this race, but didn't really get the running we needed to verify them. Hopefully, they'll work better at Silverstone."
Kimi Raikkonen:
"My race didn't start very well and then my brakes were fading with the pedal going soft; similar to the problem we had on Friday. It wasn't ideal but at least the brakes were good enough to slow me down for the corners. Unfortunately though it meant I lost a lot of time and wasn't able to attack, plus we lost a few seconds in the pit stop which obviously didn't help either. Most of my race was just following the cars in front and defending from those behind, so not the most enjoyable day nor the most enjoyable result. It's been a bad weekend, but at least we scored a few points."
Romain Grosjean:
"It was always going to be a tough race coming from the back, but it's still disappointing to miss out on the points. Things were looking good until we switched to the option tyres, but they dropped off far quicker than we expected which forced us to stop again. Sadly that effectively put an end to our race as by that time there was no way back. After a promising start on Friday it's not been the best weekend, but we had good pace last year at Silverstone so we'll come back looking to put things right."
Nico Rosberg:
I think fifth place was probably my optimum today and, even if my race had gone perfectly, I wasn't able to match the pace of the guys in front. The guys had a difficult decision to make at the first stop: we were worried about the warm-up of the harder tyres, so we went for the option to protect my track position against Webber and Alonso, but in hindsight it would probably have been better to go the other way because I could have run a longer second stint. I scored some good points and we know that there are areas where we can still improve our performance. But looking back to where we were a month ago, we have made some good steps forward, and it was great for Lewis to be on the podium again. We are heading in the right direction and looking forward to the next race at Silverstone, in front of our team-mates from Brackley and Brixworth.
Lewis Hamilton:
The car felt fantastic today and I had good grip for the low-speed corners but we just weren't quite on the pace of Seb and Fernando. I was on the maximum that I could possibly drive and we got absolutely everything out of the car today. It would have been nice to have kept second place of course but Fernando was very quick today and it was difficult to keep him behind. I got close to taking the place back but he was just that little bit too fast. Still I'm very pleased with third place and it was a strong points-scoring day for the team with Nico's fifth place as well. We've taken a step up in the Constructors' Championship which is great for the team and gives us a nice boost going into Silverstone.
Esteban Gutierrez:
"For the entire race the car was difficult to drive, and I was always pushing to the limit. Right from the start everyone was closing in. The first set of tyres was difficult to drive on and a one stop would have been impossible. When I came out from my second pit stop into the fist corner, I went over one of the bumps, the front locked up and I couldn't stop."
Paul di Resta:
"To finish the race in seventh having started 17th is a great result and a top job by the team. I didn't manage to get any long run data on Friday so it feels extra sweet to make this one-stop strategy work with a very long stint on the mediums. It also feels good to come back so strong after a difficult qualifying session. The tyres lasted very well, the lap times were competitive and the team told me it was my decision about when to make my stop. As soon as I felt the tyres starting to drop off, I came in. Then it was a case of looking after the supersofts for the final few laps."
Adrian Sutil:
"That race was quite an adventure so it's good to come away with a point given everything that happened. I had a spin when I tried to overtake Bottas, which cost me quite a few positions and I was lucky nobody hit me when I was in the middle of the track. I dropped back and the pack was bunched together, which is when Maldonado ran into the back of me and damaged my rear wing. Even with all those things I was running in eighth until the drive-through penalty. I don't think it was a fair penalty because I too had to lap so many cars today and it sometimes took one or two laps, and that's normal for this circuit. The penalty cost me two positions and three points."
Pastor Maldonado:
We were expecting a better result today in the race. We knew we didn't have the top speed to challenge at the front, but we struggled for pace right from the beginning of the race. The car felt better in the wet conditions compared to the dry hot weather we saw today so we need to understand why. After the good result with Valtteri yesterday, it was a tough weekend for us to end with neither car in the points. There are now three weeks until the next race so we need to keep working to improve our overall race performance.
Valtteri Bottas:
We fought hard to try and secure some points today but ultimately we just didn't have the pace in the car. I didn't get a great start which allowed a few cars to jump me on the first lap, and in the dry conditions we simply couldn't match the level of competitiveness we showed yesterday. The tyre wear in the first stint was also high which made it tough to stay in the top ten.
Nevertheless I feel like I have learnt a lot from the race today and as a team we can take positives from the weekend. Hopefully we can continue to make progress and have a stronger race at Silverstone with the home crowd cheering us on.
Daniel Ricciardo:
"I got a really good start, making up two positions off the line and then I was on the outside for Turn 2, which meant Hulkenberg took me back. When he ran wide at the chicane, I was ahead of him again and I gained another place when Sutil went off. At that point, I felt we could have a good race, but after just four laps, the car was oversteering like crazy and I couldn't manage the tyres anymore. As the race went on, we tried to improve the car balance and maybe we improved it a bit, but our pace was really slow. We didn't change so much on the car since Friday, so why we were so slow is a mystery to me at the moment."
Charles Pic:
"My start was ok but into the first corner I had to brake early to avoid hitting one of the cars ahead and lost a couple of places.
"We went onto the mediums for the second stint and they held up well. The car balance kept improving as we went through the race and we stuck to the plan, pitting for the last time on lap 37 so we could run a long final stint to the flag.
"With about ten laps left I caught and passed Chilton and was given the instruction to push to the flag. From that point I couldn't really gain on the car ahead so I just made sure we got to the end without any issues and finished the race 18th."
Giedo Van der Garde:
"Today wasn't a good day for me. I want to say sorry to Mark for the incident we had and I'll make sure I learn from the stewards' decision on the five-place penalty for the next race. Sometimes you make mistakes, but the important thing is to accept them, learn from them and move on.
"In the race itself I had a great start, passed four cars and was up to 17th by lap two. We'd started on the supersofts and the first set were done pretty quickly so we boxed on lap eight for a set of mediums and my pace on those for the first few laps was ok. I'm not sure why but not long into the stint the tyre temperatures started coming down and my laptimes dropped straight away. It was pretty frustrating as there was nothing I could do to get them to work so I just had to keep pushing on.
"On lap 33 I came back in for another set of mediums but then I had to box for the stop / go I had from the contact with Mark. The temperatures went straight up after the penalty and I had to come back in almost immediately so we could check the car and they found a visor tear-off in one of the radiators which had been causing problems for most of the race.
"Shortly after that I was heading towards the hairpin with Hulkenberg alongside. I moved over for him but he turned in in front of me in the braking zone and we made contact and that was the end of my race."
Jules Bianchi:
"It was good to be able to enjoy a dry race today because we were back on the pace we were showing earlier in the weekend in similar conditions. It was a little bit daunting to know we were planning a one stop strategy and would have to go so long on the Medium tyre, but my engineers and I kept in close contact and worked together to ensure we could manage the tyre life as we needed to. Although we had to be quite careful, in the end we got to 40 laps no problem, although it was good to switch to the Supersoft and be able to secure position. I think the result is quite pleasing and we are back where we need to be in terms of the competition. We hope for good things from our next step in Silverstone, where we will be aiming for a good performance in an important race for the Team."
Max Chilton:
"We got a good start but struggled on the first lap, then after a few laps we were able to see that our strategy was going to play out well for us. We started on the Medium tyre and ran long for just under 40 laps. I was quite pleased with how well we were managing the tyres even late on in that stint, so a good job from my engineers who were working with me to achieve that, enabling me to still be able to push hard on the last few laps before we pitted for the Supersoft. The early part of the second stint worked well but later on I was struggling with the tyre wear and I wasn't able to defend my position from Pic. It was good to add to our tally of two-car finishes though and we can feel optimistic as we head towards a very important race for the Team and for me - our home race, the British Grand Prix."
