Sun: STR, Sauber, Manor, McLaren

Editor

Another double DNF for McLaren while it was also a bad afternoon for Toro Rosso and Sauber.

Toro Rosso
Carlos Sainz:
"I don’t think we could’ve done much better today. We knew this was going to be the toughest race of the season so far and that it would have been difficult to fight for points. It was a decent race. I pushed as much as I could and at least we were able to complete some overtakes, but with all the fuel saving and lift-off we had to do, it was very difficult out there today. After a tough weekend, I don’t think a P12 is that bad, but hopefully next time out we can finish in the top ten again."

Max Verstappen: "I had a good start and first few laps, where I was able to catch the guys in front of me even though I was on the harder tyre, so we can be happy with my first stint. But after my pit-stop, where of course I lost time due to the 10-second penalty, it became a bit of a lonely race. I caught up with Ericsson but I couldn’t get past him on the straights, so I decided to stay behind him, not destroy my tyres and save the engine."

Sauber
Marcus Ericsson:
“It was not a bad race for me. I had some nice fights, but at the same time I had to defend my position. Overall the car felt good to drive, but we just didn’t have enough pace today. We were not able to fight for points the way we would have hoped for. Now we need to look into the data and see what we can do that is better for the next race.”

Felipe Nasr: “It was a difficult race. The car was not easy to drive and we seemed to have a couple of issues. At the beginning of the race I had a loss of power. Besides that my brakes were overheating, so I had to sacrifice some lap time to recover them. There is a lot of data to analyse and understand.”

Manor
Will Stevens:
"After a good start I was having a really strong race, managing to get ahead of my team-mate despite a problem with the front left in the pit stop, which lost us quite a bit of time. After that my race was going pretty much according to our one-stop plan and then on lap 50 I was hit by Grosjean as he was passing me, which was a little surprising as I left him so much room. It was an unnecessary accident and one which required another pit stop for front wing damage. The wing was snapped clean in two. All that aside, it’s been a stronger weekend for us here. It’s a shame we had our first retirement with Roberto’s car, but that was a good long run compared to other teams and I’m sure we’ll have things sorted for Austria."

Roberto Merhi: "It has been a very positive weekend for me and the team, so to retire from the race for the first time this season is disappointing. I had a nice battle with Will though and there is so much to take away from here in terms of steps forward, so we have to focus on the good things. I feel like I’m making good progress, so it’s all about what we can do to prepare for the next one and keep pushing to improve."

McLaren
Jenson Button:
“It was obviously a very difficult day, made even more difficult for me since I’d started last with the addition of a drive-through penalty in the first three laps. I was then obviously out of sequence; the leaders lapped me, pitted and then lapped me again. One of our biggest issues today was fuel saving. In addition, we lost a bit of tyre temperature as well. That said, our pace on the Prime tyre was pretty good. I guess it’s easy for people to look at today’s result and say we’re having a bad season, but that’s not actually the case. We’ve made very big improvements since the first race, in fact. You do have difficult days, and today was undoubtedly one of those, but that’s always the way of it when you begin a new project and you’re starting from zero. So, yes, we’re still quite a long way behind the other teams in terms of power unit development, and even the design philosophy behind our car too; but if you don’t take a stab at it at the start of the season with a new project like this, you’re never going to be able to fight the top guys. Today was quite painful, yes, but so far this season there’s been improvement at every race, with the exception of today. The layout of the circuit here was always going to be tough on us, but hopefully we’ll be back on track in Austria where we have some updates coming.”

Fernando Alonso: “Obviously, I’m a little bit sad to have suffered a third consecutive retirement. I lost power and I had to pit, and that was it. Definitely, we need to put some things in order – we know the situation for what it is but what we have to do now is work harder than ever because we want to change the situation more than ever. All the developments I know are coming for future races make sense, so I can see positive signs. I think we need to be patient now, and we need to continue to work incredibly hard. It’s been a difficult weekend for both Jenson and me, with Saturday’s problems and now today’s DNFs. Hopefully, though, we’ve learned a lesson, and it’s better that all these problems are happening now, while we’re not yet competitive. If, one day, we’re fighting for a podium finish, or for a victory, and we have to retire the car, that will hurt even more than these retirements hurt; so, as I say, we’re learning important lessons every weekend, and gradually we’ll put things right.”