Paddock reaction from the Canadian Grand Prix where Lewis Hamilton held off team-mate Nico Rosberg to lift the title for a fourth time.
– F1i: Pirelli director admits softest compound tyres are too hard
– F1i: Wolff says Rosberg’s brakes were ‘in danger’ at Canadian GP
– F1i: Felipe Massa faced ‘very scary’ moment in Canadian Grand Prix
LEWIS HAMILTON: “I love Montreal! It’sreally special to win here again – the place where I had my first win back in 2007. The team did a fantastic job, so a big thank you to everyone. I wouldn’t say it’s a relief because I’ve had good pace for both of the past two races – I’m just happy to get another win for me and the team. It was quite close after the stops. I think because Nico was in my tow he was using less fuel, so I was having to save a bit while managing the gap.”
IT’S #CANADIANGP WIN NO.4 FOR #LH44!!!! What a drive, absolutely superb!!!! #F1 pic.twitter.com/19QW8xFRM8
— MERCEDES AMG F1 (@MercedesAMGF1) June 7, 2015
NICO ROSBERG: “It was a tough race, with tyres, brakes and fuel all on the limit. The problem for me was to cool my brakes behind Lewis. I had to take different lines to get some fresh air. Really, I lost it in qualifying so I need to do a better job there and get together a perfect weekend like in Spain. I’ll move on now and look forward to Austria, where I have very good memories from last year with my win.”
SEBASTIAN VETTEL: “It was an entertaining race and I had a good recovery, but obviously there was not much more we could have done. In the opening laps I was not very happy with myself, I was very aggressive but I could not find the gaps, I wanted to go crazy but there was no room, so I had to be patient and it’s a shame because these are the moments when if you are lucky you can gain easily five, six, seven or eight seconds in total race time. It did not happen so we had to fight back afterwards, but the pace was good, I felt happy in the car and especially toward the end the speed kept coming.
KIMI RAIKKONEN: “The result of today is not ideal, we expected more than what we got in the end. My start was pretty good but then I did not have enough speed to go through and try to pass the Mercedes at the first corner. The tires were working pretty much ok, but in this kind of circuit fuel saving plays a big part and this obviously limited our speed today.
NICO HULKENBERG: “I am very happy to come away from here with four points – that’s definitely some positive news. It was not the most eventful race and I was by myself most of the time, except for the battle with Sebastian [Vettel]. In hindsight I probably shouldn’t have tried so hard to defend against Seb, but when you’re a racer you just don’t want to give up a position without a fight.
Finally back in the points yayy! Happy with my #CanadianGP weekend! Now en route to #LeMans Big push #F1 & #LeMans pic.twitter.com/mTKJQGxuVy
— Nico Hülkenberg (@NicoHulkenberg) June 8, 2015
SERGIO PEREZ: “It was a tough race today and I just didn’t have enough pace to finish in the points. In the first stint I was suffering with a lot of understeer and couldn’t really attack the cars ahead of me. The main battle was against the Red Bulls and I managed to get ahead of Ricciardo, but it was hard to match the pace of Kvyat.”
ROMAIN GROSJEAN: “It was good for the team to get both cars in the points. Unfortunately, that car didn’t feel as strong as it did in qualifying but I was able to push nevertheless. It can be difficult with traffic here and I was held up a few times even when there were blue flags. I thought I was past the Manor, but it was soon clear that I wasn’t. It was my fault entirely and I apologise for it. You never stop learning as a driver.”
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.
“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.”
The start and the first lap was fun! Then we had to retired the car with a loss of power. Now is time to work flat out to Austria!!
— Fernando Alonso (@alo_oficial) June 7, 2015
DANIIL KYVAT: “It was a tough race because the Mercedes powered cars had a clear advantage over us, but we managed to keep two of them behind us today which is the maximum we could have done. Two championship points is the best we could have achieved. The team did a good job but we obviously have to improve in many areas including the power unit.”
DANIEL RICCIARDO: “It’s been a strange weekend for me and I am a little confused about today’s race. I was lacking pace and we are not sure why. There was nothing that felt especially wrong but we just couldn’t get any pace out of the car. I had a few set-up changes compared to Dany but that doesn’t explain the difference in pace. It is something we will look at to understand what the cause was.”
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.”
We travelled to the #CanadianGP with different expectations, the result was disappointing: http://t.co/2yqQMAuM2U #F1 pic.twitter.com/EmyaRfDUgm
— Sauber F1 Team (@SauberF1Team) June 7, 2015
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.”
VALTTERI BOTTAS: We had an opportunity to get third and we took it. We had the chance to change the strategy in the middle of the race and go for one stop instead of two. We knew it could be a risk but the team knew what to do and we were right. There was not much threat from behind so we could take a bit of a risk, and I’m really proud that we did. It’s great to be back in the top three and we know there are better Grands Prix to come because of the updates we are bringing so I can’t wait for the next few races.
FELIPE MASSA: With the car I had today I could have been fighting for podiums, but all in all this has been a very positive weekend for the team and we should be very competitive in the next few races, especially with some upgrades planned for the car.
