F1 Grand Prix Austria - Congratulations Lewis Hamilton, Max Verstappen and Kimi Raikkönnen ! - next race SILVERSTONE - - NAANII GLOBAL Luxury/Quality Family Lifestyle MAGAZINE 'en Vogue' - NAANII GLOBAL Quality & Luxury Family Lifestyle - MAGAZINE 'en Vogue'-

Race austrian F1 Grand Prix  03.07.2016 - Team Interviews -

1. winner: Team MERCEDES AMG PETRONAS, Lewis Hamilton
Lewis Hamilton
'I was in a good position, head down and targeting as many points as possible today - The opportunity to try for the win came on the final lap when Nico ran wide out of Turn 1. I was then able to get a good run on him and went down the outside, leaving as much room as I could. I was surprised to make contact with Nico and then from there I just tried to push as hard as possible, passing him ahead of the next corner as he slowed due to the sparks coming off his car. This is motor racing and the team allow us to race and it's the aim for both of us to win races - this was just an unfortunate incident today. I'm looking forward to getting to Silverstone to catch up with my fans and hopefully I can get another good result there.

Nico Rosberg
It was disappointing to lose the race like that. It got quite difficult on the final few laps as I had to manage my brakes and I was confident that I could bring the victory home. I had the inside line and we both went into the corner a bit long. I was surprised that Lewis turned in and it ultimately meant that we came together - that's how the sport goes sometimes but it's really difficult to lose the race in that way.

Toto Wolff, Head of Mercedes-Benz Motorsport
It was incredibly frustrating for the team to see a one-two finish potentially become a double DNF on the final lap of the race - and to see us lose points again as a result of a collision between our two cars. We let our drivers race and we trust them to do so - but colliding team-mates is not what we want and this is something that needs to be stopped. If we need to reconsider our philosophy, and to take some unpopular decisions, then we must be prepared to keep that option open. It had been an intense race until that point: we tried the one stop with Lewis, anticipating that Ferrari would do the same, but converted early to a two-stop for Nico. However, as the race unfolded, our predictions began to show that Nico would come out on top, so we converted to a two-stop strategy with Lewis as well to give him the best chance of the win. Lewis was running our preferred tyre, the soft compound, in his final stint but Nico did not have any soft sets left, so took super soft to the finish. The drivers were also right on the limit with the brakes, having raced hard all the way through, and Nico's brake by wire system went into passive mode on the penultimate lap. As for the collision, I am not going to try and put blame more on one side than the other; it always takes two to tango and, as we have said before, this should not happen between team-mates. We will now let the emotions settle before we sit down and discuss our next steps.

Paddy Lowe, Executive Director (Technical)
It was a very eventful race as we had predicted given the quite unusual starting grid and the different tyre options in play. Our plan was fairly straightforward for Lewis as we had him on our baseline one-stop strategy; ultra-soft, soft. Nico had a rather difficult first stint as his ultra softs went off quite quickly so we reverted him to a two stop strategy and he made fantastic progress through the traffic. In Lewis' case we stayed out to cover the Ferraris who were also clearly doing a one stop. By the time it had all shaken out it was clear that Lewis' one stop was perfectly viable to beat everyone else but not his teammate because Nico's two-stop was faster than predicted. We therefore elected to also stop Lewis for another set of soft tyres and Nico changed onto the super softs as he didn't have another set of soft tyres. Towards the end of the race Nico ended up running towards the limits of brake wear. We did our best to manage this but by the last lap his brake system had defaulted to a 'passive mode'. This allowed Lewis to launch his final attack and unfortunately this didn't end as we would have liked. Ultimately we're happy to come away with a win for the team. The car performed very well all weekend and our team performance was very strong so congratulations to the team at Brackley and Brixworth for the continued great work.


2. winner, REDBULL RACING TEAM, Max Verstappen:

MAX VERSTAPPEN,
Finish Position: 2nd, Start Position: 8th
“It’s a great feeling to get the second Formula 1 podium of my career. For sure that was a good race today, the car was performing well, as were the tyres. I managed to overtake some cars at the start and had some good battles so that was really good fun. From there on I did my own race, Kimi was catching fast but I managed to hold him off until the end. I expected P3 but got the P2, I was surprised but very happy to pick up another position in the last lap. The safety car definitely helped us today and allowed us to make the most of the pit stops. Towards the end we had to deal with the pressure but that just means you can’t make any mistakes, and we didn’t today.  I hit some traffic which cooled the tyres and made it a bit tricky but we finished with no problems. We are working hard for this season and picking up podiums so it’s definitely positive looking at 2017, and looking at Silverstone next week it should be good, the car usually performs better there than here so that is another positive after a good day today.”

DANIEL RICCIARDO,
Finish Position: 5th, Start Position: 5th
“I think for the team it was a really good day. We didn’t expect to be on the podium here in Austria. Obviously I wish I was up there with Max, but from my side the race was a bit disappointing. At the beginning we seemed to get passed before Turn 8 which is not normal, so that was a bit frustrating but then once it settled we just weren’t quick. I was obviously trying to push on the tyre and then get what I could out of it. It seemed we could hold the pace, but then when everyone was improving and getting quicker and quicker we were just getting slower and slower. For now I just want to understand why and look into it. If there are things I need to do better, then I will make sure to figure that out. I’m glad the Red Bull Ring and Silverstone are back to back. It’s always nice when you can get back into a race straight away so hopefully Silverstone is better. We’ve got a few days to work out why I wasn’t quick today, but I’m in the factory tomorrow so we’ve got time to look into it. But for now for sure it was disappointing not to be quicker.”

CHRISTIAN HORNER,
Team Principal: “An action-packed Austrian Grand Prix. After making good starts Max managed to get ahead of Daniel fairly early on, and having started the race on the supersofts we knew we’d be in reasonable shape tyre-wise for the race. As other cars started to pit on the ultrasofts we went a few laps longer before making a stop on to the soft tyres we had. And in the cooler temperatures suddenly a one-stop became a viable option. The drivers did extremely well to start to make that happen, running in third and fourth places for large percentages of the race. Once Raikkonen managed to pass Daniel, there was nothing to lose in pitting him for the ultrasofts. In the meantime both Mercedes stopped putting Max in to the lead and he did what he could but the car was toothless in responding on the old tyres which were pretty much down to the canvas. But he managed to get the car home and was able to capitalize on the incident between the two Mercedes and take a fabulous 2nd position, and our first podium in our home race. A great grand prix and we look forward to taking that momentum to Silverstone in one week’s time.”


3. winner: SCUDERÍA FERRARI, Kimi Raikkönnen

Maurizio Arrivabene  
The result could have been better as Sebastian, today, would have finished very high on the podium without the tire failure. That happened when he was leading the race and all of a sudden, with no prior warning, so the causes will have to be investigated together with Pirelli. As for Kimi, he scored another nice podium finish: we had split strategies between our drivers and both our data and his feedback showed that he could have come ahead of Verstappen in the last stages of the races, had it not been for the yellow flags which came out following Perez's crash.    

Kimi Raikkonen  
It was not an easy day but I did my best. Third position is an ok result but I'm a bit disappointed with where we ended up: considering the first part of the race, we expected more here as a team. At the beginning we had good speed to catch up a bit with the Mercedes, but then after my pit stop it was not easy to recover. I lost precious time trying to pass Ricciardo, I got close to him many times, but then I was losing traction trying to get out of turn two. Once I got past him I had a very good speed and I was very happy with the handling. In the last part of the race I think I could have passed Max, but with the yellow flags on track it was not possible. Handling-and-speed-wise today we got the maximum out of the car, but it was not enough because we want to be up there with both cars. Hopefully in Silverstone we'll have a smoother weekend and a better result.    

Sebastian Vettel  
When the rear right tire failed, I didn't feel anything, or rather, I felt it when it was too late and it exploded out of the blue. There were no signes before that, everything was normal. I spoke with the people on the pit-wall and everything looked the same, the pace was the same as the lap before, the tires felt fine, the lap times were fine. It's completely a question mark on why the tyre had the failure. Obviously the idea was to go on as long as possible with that set of tires and to shape our race on that idea, but I don't think it was an aggressive strategy, as lots of people went longer than us on the same tires. Now there are still a lot of races left, but surely not finishing the race doesn't help.   


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