SPANISH GRAND PRIX
CATALUNYA
SATURDAY DRIVER QUOTES
11 MAY 2013
Infiniti Red Bull Racing
Sebastian Vettel
“I was pretty happy with the last sector, as historically it’s been a bit weak for me. Now finally, after the
last couple of years, I understand the last few corners a little better. I’m quite happy as yesterday and
this morning I wasn’t too comfortable, particularly in the last sector, but we improved the car. We had a
pretty smooth qualifying session, we took a slightly different approach to some others using option tyres
only – whether that helps us tomorrow we‘ll have to wait and see, but it will be an interesting race and a
lot will be about tyre degradation. It’s good to start a little bit higher up, so let’s see what we can do
tomorrow.”
Mark Webber
“Qualifying went well today apart from Q3. I was disappointed with the lap in Q3 and lost a lot of time in
the last sector; I’m normally quite strong there, but I was in trouble with the rears. It’s a sensitive game
these days and you need to get everything lined up. So, in the end I’m disappointed with the last lap,
but everything else I was happy with. It will be an interesting race tomorrow.”
Scuderia Ferrari
Fernando Alonso
“It’s a well known fact that Saturday afternoon is our weak point and fifth place is more or less what we
were expecting. We were well aware that Red Bull and Mercedes would both be very strong, but while
it’s true we have to start taking back points on Vettel, we are not too scared of Mercedes, who usually
have higher tyre degradation. The team and I are optimistic for tomorrow as our race pace is good and
usually we manage to go better on Sunday. We start from the clean side and hope that will allow us to
get off the line well, because what we need here is to make up some places at the start and then put in
a few clean laps in the early stages or at half distance. We will also have to defend against Raikkonen:
so far he has gone very well in the races and the Lotus doesn’t seem to suffer too much on the tyre
front. As usual this season it will be very important to choose the right strategy, because there is only
one lap difference in terms of degradation between the two tyre compounds”.
Felipe Massa
“I can’t say I’m pleased with this result, because I was expecting more after the times I did this
morning. Unfortunately, in the third sector I had slight understeer which was costing me time, but all
the same, I feel very confident because our car seems competitive. Now we must concentrate on
tomorrow’s race, because it will be a long one and anything can happen. As for the Stewards’
decision relating to what happened with Webber in Q2, it was not my intention to get in his way and
in all honesty, I can’t recall having affected his qualifying. When I saw him in the mirrors, I thought I’d
get through the corner before letting him by, which was the only course of action at such a narrow
point. On top of that, he was on worn tyres at the time and I don’t think he was doing a quick lap. I’m
not surprised at the pace of the Mercedes, as they were already strong here in winter testing and
their car is always very competitive in qualifying. This result shows once again that, on Saturdays,
our rivals prefer to take a more conservative approach in the morning before revealing their true
potential in the afternoon”.
Vodafone McLaren Mercedes
Sergio Perez
“We’ve had a difficult couple of days – I had problems throughout practice – so to get through to Q3
was a great result, and something we really weren’t expecting. I’m very pleased because I got
absolutely everything out of the car. So we’ll go into the race tomorrow looking to maximise our
potential. If we can manage that, I think we should be satisfied. The whole Vodafone McLaren
Mercedes team is determined to keep on fighting. I’ve seen how hard the guys in the garage, and
everybody back at MTC, are working to get us back to the front – so today’s result just makes me even
more hungry to justify all their efforts.”
Jenson Button
“Congratulations to Checo – he did a great job, particularly in Q2. He did everything right this afternoon
and showed that some of our recent upgrades are definitely working. It’s not yet enough, but it’s
rewarding to see that we’re making some progress. For me, the car felt okay in Q1, but, in Q2, I
couldn’t find the grip for my final run. It felt as though the tyre pressures may have been too high, but to
be honest we’re not yet quite sure exactly what happened. So, tomorrow, from 14th on the grid,
whatever we do will be difficult. It’ll be a tricky afternoon, but we’ll definitely do our best to make the
best of it.”
Lotus F1 Team
Kimi Räikkönen
“That was more or less all we could do today. I didn’t make any mistakes on my fastest lap so that was
pretty much all there was to come from the car. I wouldn’t say it was a perfect lap, but I don’t think we
would have been much higher up the order if it had been. The Mercedes, as we’ve seen before, seems
to be pretty fast in qualifying but hopefully in the race we can turn it around. Our race pace has been
pretty good all year so let’s try and get on the podium. I’ll have to make a good start, then let’s see what
happens.”
Romain Grosjean
“We did a good job today throughout qualifying but on my last lap I made a mistake into turn one, so I
decided to back off and save the tyres. Otherwise, I think we could have done a bit better and maybe sit
one or two rows further towards the front. I was happy with the car and all the work we’ve done since
Friday. For tomorrow, we will see what happens as the competition is very tight. As we have seen,
conditions are variable this weekend and once more the tyres should be key.”
Mercedes AMG Petronas Formula One Team
Nico Rosberg
“It’s a great feeling to be on pole again. So far this weekend has been very positive and it’s a
pleasure to see that the team is improving and fighting through the problems together. I know
everyone back at the factory and at home will have been watching this afternoon and it’s a great
feeling for all of us. However, we know that this is only half of the job completed and have the painful
memory of what happened in Bahrain to prove that. We’ve worked very hard on our race pace but
this track is tough for the tyres, particularly with graining. So it will be a big challenge tomorrow and
our goal is to make the most of the opportunity we have from starting at the front and get a strong
result for the team.”
Lewis Hamilton
“A great job by the team and I’m so happy that we got a one-two qualifying result today. It’s a real bonus
for us to be so high up, and that’s all down to the hard work that the team have put into this car, I can’t
thank them enough. Of course, I’d like to be one place higher but Nico did an awesome job and really
nailed his lap. I’ve not been totally happy with the balance of my car all weekend, even today, so we need
to look at it this evening and see what we can do for the race. Limiting the degradation is going to be my
major challenge as the general pace isn’t too bad. It’s going to be tough to keep these positions tomorrow
but we’ll give it our best shot.”
Sauber F1 Team
Nico Hülkenberg
“Qualifying went according to plan today. It is disappointing, as we are simply too slow. The updates
this weekend were a step in the right direction, and the set up of the car during qualifying was good, but
not good enough as the other teams might have improved even more. I am very satisfied with my lap in
Q2. It was the perfect lap. We used two sets of mediums in order to try to get a better grid position, but
in the end it wasn’t enough, because we were missing pace. Other than that, I think we can be satisfied
with what we have done, but we simply need to find more speed.”
Esteban Gutiérrez
“Qualifying today was tricky. Yesterday and in FP3 this morning I felt quite confident and the laps
seemed to be consistent. Overall I think the updates are a good step forward. I could have got more
speed out of the last set of tyres, but it’s a delicate position when you are driving on the limit and I tried
to get the best out of what we have. I’m not satisfied, as I want to be further in front. We simply need to
keep pushing to get more speed.”
Sahara Force India Formula 1 Team
Paul Di Resta
“I think we can feel pretty pleased with tenth because we achieved our target of reaching Q3. I did not
quite get the maximum from Q3, because it was difficult to optimise the final sector on my out lap, but
we are still in a good position for the race. Tyre wear will play a big role tomorrow because this place is
one of the hardest tracks for the tyres. Hopefully that will work to our advantage and we can make
some progress with a good strategy and not spend too much time in the pit lane. There will obviously
be a lot of cars behind me with new tyres, so the race to the first corner will be crucial.”
Adrian Sutil
“Q1 went well and my run on the hard tyres gave me some good information before I fitted the
mediums. Then Q2 was a bit disappointing because my position on the track for the final run was not
ideal. Vergne pulled out of the pits just as I was leaving and I had Nico [Hulkenberg] pushing from
behind. Also Webber was on a flying lap and it was difficult to find a gap. I think that’s the main reason
why I missed out on Q3 because we had the pace to be in the top ten. I’m sure my car is going to work
well tomorrow, but it’s so tough to overtake here and qualifying position is very important.”
Williams F1 Team
Valtteri Bottas
“Unfortunately the result from today shows where we are compared to others, but I still think we’ve
made a step forward and we’re heading in the right direction. It seems everyone else has improved
as well which means we are in similar position to the first four races. Hopefully we can keep making
the same steps race-by-race. We will try our best tomorrow and I still think we can climb up the grid
as our race pace looks good.”
Pastor Maldonado
“We’re having a difficult time with the car at the moment, but we have been working very hard to
improve things. We were missing a lot of grip which made it difficult to get a good time today. In
terms of performance, we’re not there but we will keep focussing on the work needed to move us up
the grid.”
Scuderia Toro Rosso
Daniel Ricciardo
“I was pleased with the way the session went overall, particularly Q2 and I think we got the most we
could out of the car. While yesterday was a good day for us, this morning was nowhere near as
positive, as I had problems with the balance on the car. So we had to play catch-up and this afternoon
we managed to get it right. I was happy with my lap in Q2, even though you can’t help feeling a little bit
disappointed to miss out on Q3 by such a small margin. But we are close and we can have a good race
tomorrow. We have made progress and we are once again looking as competitive as we did in China.”
Jean-Éric Vergne
“We have made a good step forward which means we start the European part of the season with a
stronger car, so that anything is possible tomorrow. There are a lot of positives to take from this
afternoon, starting with the fact my car’s set-up will be even better suited to race conditions than to
qualifying. Twelfth is a good place to start and points should be on the agenda tomorrow. The team has
done a fantastic job to bring some updates that have worked well, but we still need to do a bit more to
be genuine contenders for Q3, but so far it has been a good weekend and I am feeling very confident
for tomorrow.”
Caterham F1 Team
Charles Pic
“It’s been a bit of a tough weekend so far. We’ve put a few new parts on the car and have tried
several setup options to get the most out of them and find a balance I can use, but it hasn’t worked
yet. FP3 was ok – I didn’t have a completely clean lap so we knew there was a bit more time to come
after that session, but in qualifying the car just didn’t feel like it was working as well as it had in the
morning session. I’m not too sure why but we’ll go through all the data and find out if there’s anything
we can do for tomorrow. On the positive side, we know we have good long run pace and I think we
can have a decent race tomorrow. The weather’s supposed to be a bit warmer and that’ll suit our car
better than the cooler conditions we’ve had so far this weekend. Our pitstops have been good all
year and our tyre degradation here has not been too bad on both compounds, so I think we should
be ok for the race.”
Giedo van der Garde
“I’m obviously really pleased with how today’s gone, both in FP3 and qualifying. We made a few
changes to the car overnight to try and find a balance with the new parts and it’s worked out really
well. I’m not running the same package as my teammate here – I have most of the new package
except the front wing so we went a slightly different way than Charles on setup and even though I
didn’t get a really quick lap in during FP3 I could feel we were going in the right direction. In
qualifying it came good and on the second run I had a clean outlap, got the tyres working well, and
then a really good run to set my best quali time of the season so far. Days like today show how my
learning curve keeps improving. I’m working better with the engineers in every session on track and
they are finding out more about how to help me get the most out of the car. This is the sort of
performance I’d targeted for when we had new parts on the car so I’m really pleased for me, the
whole team and everyone who’s backed me that we can deliver like we did today. There’s more to
come, in the race tomorrow and with more new parts for the rest of the year and this is a great way to
kick off the European season.”
Marussia F1 Team
Jules Bianchi
“We had a good Free Practice 3 session this morning and the changes we had made seemed to move
us on quite a bit from yesterday. We found more grip but the car is still not well-balanced and this is the
most I could get from it today. The balance was quite variable in the first and last sector on different
laps and I’m still not happy in the high-speed corners. We need to go through the data and understand
what I can do in the race tomorrow to manage these situations. We need a good start to get ahead of
Van der Garde but I think we will see some improvement tomorrow in terms of our race pace.”
Max Chilton
“We’re not there yet with the balance of the car but I am pleased with the progress we have made since
yesterday. My first lap in particular was strong and I’m definitely feeling the benefit of not having lost
track time this weekend. I feel like I’ve been able to demonstrate more of my progress. I’m really
looking forward to the race now.”
