Sun: STR, FIndia, McLaren, Lotus

Editor 21 Sep 2014 5:11 PM

There were points for Jean-Eric Vergne and both Force Indias as Sergio Perez and Nico Hulkenberg were in the top 10.

STR:
Jean-Eric Vergne: “It feels great. It was a fantastic race and I’m extremely happy, especially considering the two 5 second penalties. I had to push as much as possible in the last laps and pull away and this is what I’ve done. I had a lot of fun overtaking the ones in front of me, an incredible race. I did a mistake yesterday in Qualifying and I said to the team that I would have done everything for them to forgive me today and I think I could manage it in the end. So I’m really happy also for the guys, they gave me a good car and the 6th place repays their big effort, we deserved it. I’m really confident we can have a good end of the season together and I’m looking forward to Japan, where we also have some updates. Hopefully we can improve even further.”

Daniel Kvyat: “It was a very tough race today in which I had to fight more with myself than with the cars around me. The car was quite difficult to drive and it was sliding a lot. It was also hard work to take care of the tyres. Unfortunately I also had a problem with my drink system, so I was without water for the whole race, which definitely made it a much tougher race. I think points could have been possible, so well done to JEV, who did a great job today!”

Force India:
Sergio Perez: “The race really had everything for me and the final laps were very enjoyable. I was very happy with our performance today and, most importantly, we finished ahead of our direct competitors. Those in front of me at the end had big tyre degradation, but this affected me as well. When I caught the train ahead I didn’t have much grip either and this made each one of the overtakes a bit more difficult. We managed our tyres perfectly and to go from P15 to P7 was the reward we deserved. It was a great result for the team; they did a fantastic job with the strategy and it worked very well for both Nico and me. Today was one of those results where the race gives you a fantastic feeling: it’s more than just scoring the points – it’s about how you gained the result. Everything gets thrown at you but you don’t give up and come back strongly to get the points.”

Nico Hulkenberg: “It’s good to be in the points and from a team perspective it’s been a successful day. This is always a difficult race, especially from a strategic point of view, and maybe we could have achieved even more today. After the safety car I had to do a 30-lap stint on the soft tyres and like most of the cars ahead I was running out of grip towards the end of the race. With hindsight it would have been better to pit again for fresh tyres and we probably could have finished even higher up, but it’s always a difficult decision for the team with the information we had at the time. The good news is that we got two cars home in the points.”

McLaren:
Kevin Magnussen: “It was a very, very tough grand prix. During the race, I don’t know if there was something wrong with the car, but my seat started getting very hot, which made things extremely uncomfortable for me. Without that, I think we could have done better than 10th, but at least we got that one point. It’s better than nothing. It was the hardest point I’ve ever earned.”

Jenson Button: “I was cueing things up for the end of the grand prix: I’d been looking after the tyres for the whole stint, and I knew the last five laps were when things were going to get tricky for Valtteri ahead of me. I’d just switched the car into a different mode, and the chase was starting to get quite exciting. Then, a few corners later, the car just died going into the hairpin. Going across the bridge, it just turned off, so I had to stop. I’d been really looking forward to the end of the race, because I definitely think I’d have got past Valtteri. But it just didn’t work out – I was pretty unlucky.”

Lotus:
Pastor Maldonado: “We got the maximum out of our performance today and we had a strong consistent race. I’m pretty happy about this after the issues we had earlier in the weekend. I pitted once more than the others during the safety car period but it didn’t affect my position. It was a tough race, especially the last ten laps where the tyres needed a lot of managing, but I think we were able to do a great race today.”

Romain Grosjean: “It was hot out there; things were looking pretty alright until the safety car, we were fighting for points. Unfortunately, I tried to attack too hard on the restart. I wanted to give it everything and with cold soft tyres after a slow safety car period, it was just too much once at the corner. From then on, I couldn’t pass back up through the field to get points.”