Sunday: McLaren, Sauber, Toro Rosso

Editor

Fernando Alonso was forced to retire on the first lap, while Toro Rosso had a pretty miserable race in Austria.

McLaren

Stoffel Vandoorne: “I’m actually a little bit disappointed with 12th – if you look at the pace we had throughout the race, I think points just might have been possible today. And that’s very encouraging. Our weekend has generally been quite positive – we had no problems, our pace has been reasonable, and I felt very comfortable with the car. Unfortunately, I was stuck behind some cars and it was impossible to overtake – but that’s how it is for us at the moment. I got a penalty, but we had to try something, and I don’t think I really lost a lot in terms of the overall result. It’s a shame we didn’t score points today, but our pace all weekend has been a positive for the whole team.”

Fernando Alonso: “We had a good start again, I was able to benefit from Carlos Sainz and Max Verstappen’s poor getaways, so I was already up to 10th when we arrived at the first corner. But the guys behind me arrived at the turn too quickly, didn’t brake enough and destroyed my race. I was hoping for a good race but we were just unlucky – things were out of my hands; I was just a passenger. We know it’s always tricky to start from the middle of the pack, but it’s just not necessary to gain an extra meter at the first corner. Sometimes, the guys behind risk things a bit too much.”

Sauber

Pascal Wehrlein: “I started the race from the pit lane due to an engine change. During my first lap I picked up a piece of debris before reaching turn four. I was slightly worried about the condition of the car, but fortunately it turned out to be alright. I pushed hard all the way from the beginning to the end of the race, but this result was the maximum for today. I hope we are more competitive in Silverstone.”

Marcus Ericsson: “It was a difficult race for me. At the beginning I had issues with getting the tyres to work properly, so I lost ground. Overall I was struggling to keep up the pace, although some parts of the race were alright. Later on, the blue flags made it challenging to keep the tyres in the right working window. We have to focus on the next race in Silverstone, which is only a week away. It is one of my favourite tracks, so I hope that we can have a stronger race weekend there.”

Toro Rosso

Daniil Kvyat: “Not the race we hoped for. Regarding the start, it was a good one, even if I had to suddenly go around my teammate. I then couldn’t see too much of what was happening in front of me; I think Verstappen had a problem too, so Alonso reacted to that – he saw it, I didn’t, so he took a step back while, on the other hand, I lost all my references. I tried to do my best but ended up colliding, unfortunately. It’s upsetting for me and for the others for sure, but these things happen to all drivers. Now I just need a cold shower before Silverstone, have a look into it, correct what needs to be corrected and move on.”

Carlos Sainz: “What a big shame! We had an issue with the engine from the moment the race started – I felt it misfiring during the whole of the first ten laps, which meant I dropped from ninth to sixteenth. We tried everything in order to get it working and for 15 laps I was playing with the switches trying to make the car work. In the end this unfortunately didn’t happen, even though we managed to recover a bit of pace, and as the issues persisted in the end we had to retire the car. It’s disappointing and certainly not what we needed, especially because points looked possible today. All in all, a difficult end to what I’d describe as a good weekend – qualifying yesterday was good and I was running in the points before the problem started, so there are some positives to take. I now look forward to next week’s British GP at Silverstone, one of my favorite tracks and a Grand Prix we can sort of consider my ‘second home race’ as I live in London when I’m not in Madrid!”