F1: Australian GP Post-Race Quotes
Ferrari
Charles Leclerc #16
What a great victory this was for us! We managed our pace well, and we were extremely competitive. We didn’t suffer from tire degradation, even when pushing hard. The car was just amazing, and I’m very pleased with how my race went. On paper, this was a track that we expected to be tough for us, so we have to review our data because we were, in fact, very strong.It’s a great way to start the season, but we have to keep in mind that we are only three races into a very long championship. We can’t afford to relax at any moment, and have to stay on top of things, most of all on development. Congratulations to everyone on our team. What an amazing job you have all done! I’m very proud of how far we’ve come, and can’t wait to continue fighting. Forza Ferrari!
Carlos Sainz #55
This is definitely a difficult weekend to digest. After all that happened yesterday, I was looking forward to the race, but we hit problems even before the start. On the laps to the grid we had an issue with some switches on the steering wheel, and we had to change it one minute before the formation lap. Unfortunately, at the start, the anti-stall kicked in. Trying to recover, and overtake, I made a mistake as I pushed too early when the tires were probably not ready. Up until Q3 the weekend was going ok, but from then on everything just went wrong. We will analyze it carefully, learn, and move on. The car felt good so congrats to the team, and to Charles for the win. We’ll come back stronger in Imola.
Mattia Binotto, Team Principal & Managing Director
I am very pleased. It’s always great to win, and it also boosts the morale of the team who deserve all this, because they have all developed the right mentality to face difficult moments head on, and make the most of any opportunity. We always say that you can only come out on top in Formula 1 if you do everything to perfection, and I think today’s race proved that. Charles delivered a mature performance, something he is now making a habit of.It’s a shame for Carlos, because his weekend was complicated by a series of circumstances in both qualifying, and the race, which affected his performance. I know him well enough to believe that he will turn the negatives to his advantage, and come back stronger next time he’s in the car. The start of the season has been positive, and the work of the past few months is paying off. We will continue to concentrate on ourselves, and take it one race at a time. We have earned some time with our families over Easter, but then we will get back to it, working on the next race, which, being at Imola, takes on even greater importance. We can’t wait to be there, and we’re looking forward to seeing the circuit packed with our fans, to share this good start to the year.
Mercedes
George Russell
You’ve got to be in it to win it, and capitalize from other’s misfortune, and the guys at Brackley, and Brixworth have been working so hard on giving us a reliable car. We got a little bit lucky today, probably twice, but we take it. There’s so much hard work going on back at base to try, and get us back at the front so to be standing on the podium today is special a reward for all their hard work. We’re never going to give up, we’ve got to keep on fighting. This weekend we were a long way behind our rivals, but here we are standing on the podium. We’ve got to keep this up while we are on the back foot, maximize our points opportunities, and I am sure we will get there after a few more races.
Lewis Hamilton
It’s a great result for us as a team, honestly. This weekend we have had so many difficult moments with the car, and to get fifth, and sixth in qualifying, to have progressed like we have, with the reliability we have, is amazing. We definitely didn’t expect to be third, and fourth today. George did a great job – I got to see a bit of the battle of him racing Perez, and I wish could have been in it, but nonetheless, we’ll take these points, and keep pushing. I couldn’t fight for third because the engine was overheating so I had to back off, and sit behind, but we bagged as many points we could as a team, and that’s great.
Toto Wolff
We are leaving Melbourne in a better state than when we arrived-more lessons learned, more data to analyze, and more points on the board. Clearly we haven’t got the pace yet to challenge Ferrari, and Red Bull, but we know where we need to seek performance. One factor that leaves me very optimistic for the future is the mindset, and strength of the team. Everyone in the UK, in Stuttgart, and in the travelling race team is pulling together every ounce of effort we have to tackle the performance gaps with determination, and a deep hunger. Seeing Lewis, and George perform at an exceptionally high level today with a tool that is clearly not on the pace of the leaders is another example of the spirit of this team. We are optimistic yet realistic on the timeline for improvement, and the advantage our competitors have, but P3, and P4 helps us leave Australia with a good feeling. Both drivers deserved the podium today, Lewis was unlucky with the timing of the Safety Car, but the partnership between the two, and how they work with one another epitomizes the overall spirit of the team.
Andrew Shovlin
Well done to George on his first Mercedes podium, he’s working hard to help us improve the car, and whilst we’ve not got the pace right now that he would hope for, the podium is some reward for his efforts. Lewis lost out with the timing of the Safety Car, he’d managed to put Sergio under pressure in that first stint, and we exited from the stop ahead of him., but ultimately, we don’t have the underlying car pace to race them, even if our degradation was probably a little better. At this stage of the championship, we’re focused on just two things, damage limitation, and learning. In both regards, this has been a successful weekend, but we know we have a lot to do, Charles was in another world today so it’s likely a long road ahead, but we’re not short of opportunities to find lap time around the car.
Red Bull
Sergio Perez
“It was a good result, but, unfortunately, we lost Max, and it would have been great to have a double podium for the Team. On the other h, and, it is a good result after so many unlucky moments in the first couple of races for me. It was a very complicated race with the start I had, and the safety cars, but we managed to overcome it. My first start was very poor, we struggled a lot with degradation on the medium tire, we were a bit unlucky with the safety car, and we lost two positions which we recovered later. We got a few things wrong across the weekend, and we were battling more with Mercedes than Ferrari so the pace wasn’t where we want it to be, but we will work on it. There is some good analysis to be done from this weekend because yesterday we were close for pole, but in the race we were a bit too far off the pace. The fastest guys out there are Ferrari, we want to be up there fighting with them, and today that wasn’t the case. If we can improve the car a little, then we can be more confident.”
Max Verstappen
“It’s of course very disappointing to not finish today’s race, I don’t really know what happened to the car yet, we’ll take it back to the factory, and regroup. I already knew there was a possibility ahead of the race that we might not finish, but I tried not to think about it. This is not what you need when you want to fight for the Championship, the gap is already pretty big. Of course, Checo did well to come second, he scored some good points. Overall, it doesn’t look like there is an easy fix so we need to work hard as a Team, there are a lot of things to work on. We’ll wake up tomorrow, and focus on the upcoming races, and do the best that we can. It is of course a long season, and a lot can happen; I think at this stage we need 45 races! [laughs]”
Christian Horner, Team Principal, and CEO
“Checo drove an exceptional race today with some stunning overtakes to secure his first podium of the season, and bag some solid Championship points., but it was very much a day of mixed emotions with Max not finishing. We think it was an external fuel leak, and we need to understand exactly what has caused that failure, so it was a very frustrating race in that respect., but we are in this as a team, and we will bounce back. We didn’t have the pace of Ferrari today, so congratulations to Charles. It’s a long season ahead, and we have the basis of a quick, and competitive car, but we need to get on top of these issues quickly, and we will keep pushing.”
Alfa Romeo
Frédéric Vasseur, Team Principal: “Bringing home four points with another top ten finish is really good, especially to bounce back after the off-race in Jeddah. The team did a good job in difficult circumstances today: the timing of the first Safety Car wasn’t ideal, and it cost us track position, especially with Zhou; we also got stuck in a couple of DRS trains that made progress hard, so we had to earn our place the difficult way. That we did, and we went so close to having two cars in the points again, is proof that we are going in the right direction. The whole team did well today, now we can focus on the race in Imola to continue our battle for a good position in the constructors’ championship.”
Valtteri Bottas
“I really enjoyed the race today, it was a good performance with close racing, and battles from beginning to end. Of course, the most important thing is that we brought home some points, and that is due to a good job done by everyone in the team: I am happy with the calls that were made, and how we raced –, and, definitely, the thinner wing that penalized us yesterday turned out to be the right choice, and helped us make progress. I had a fun day even though I had to work hard, pushing all the race: now hopefully we can continue to be strong, and improve. We have upgrades coming in the next few rounds so we can continue fighting for points in every race.”
Zhou Guanyu
“I am proud of my race, but obviously, I am a bit upset at missing out on the points for such a close margin. Our pace was good, but we lost a few positions with the safety car, and that made our life a lot harder. I gave it all, and pushed so hard at the end, but I had no tires left when I got to battle Alex, and I couldn’t make it in front. Still, we solved the problem at the start, and the race was good: I am looking back at my first three rounds in Formula One, and my worst result is 11th, so I can build on this positive start, aiming to score points in every race.”
AlphaTauri
Pierre Gasly
“I’ll take those two points today! It’s been quite an unfortunate race for me, I managed to pass two cars at the start, but then I got unlucky pitting right before the safety car, and dropped to P14. I was pretty mad at the time, but I stayed focussed, and managed to come back through to P9. I had a nice battle with Lance which I enjoyed, it was pretty intense on a track like this, but in the end I got the best of him. Objectively, it’s been a tough weekend for us, so I think we can be quite happy with the result, and to leave with two points. I still feel like we’ve got a few things to improve on, we’ve got some new parts coming in the next few races, so we’ve got to keep up with the others if we want to keep fighting for these positions. We would like to be a bit further up in the order, so we’ll keep pushing.”
Yuki Tsunoda
“There wasn’t any pace today. We struggled for the whole race, so we need to work out why to avoid something like this happening again. It was very difficult to keep up with other cars, and stay in their DRS, we just lacked performance overall, and I didn’t expect it to be that bad. It is what it is, we have to stay positive, and work on improving for the next race.”
Jody Egginton (Technical Director)
“Today’s race was not straightforward with, similar to the last race, Pierre losing track position with the safety car, meaning he had a lot to do to recover into a points-scoring position. These battles took a lot out of his front left tire, and, unfortunately, a small mistake meant we lost a position to Bottas in the closing laps, finishing P9. Yuki has had a tough day struggling for pace on both compounds, so we need to understand the factors behind this as he was reasonably happy with his car during the Friday, and Saturday sessions. We have a lot of work to do ahead of the next race, but at the same time we are looking forward to the challenge.”
Williams
Jost Capito, CEO & Team Principal
To get a point early in the season is good for the team, and I’m extremely happy for everyone – the team deserved this. We’ve had a difficult start to the season, and even yesterday was difficult, but that’s the good thing about racing – things can change on the Sunday, and it’s not over until it’s over. If you keep pushing, and always stay motivated, keep the team alive, and believing in itself, then fortunes can change.
Dave Robson, Head of Vehicle Performance
Alex drove brilliantly today, and found a sweet spot on the Prime tire, which gave him good pace, and, crucially, much less degradation than many other cars. He completed a very long stint, and we ignored several opportunities to pit under safety cars, hoping that something might happen to allow us to keep as many of the gains as possible. In the end, the degradation of cars behind, and difficulty in overtaking gave us a small opportunity to run until the very end, and pull a gap big enough for a pitstop. Under huge pressure, the pit crew were very good, and Alex was quick enough on the out-lap to secure tenth place. After the ups, and down of the previous two days, this was an excellent result for the entire team.
Nicholas had a more difficult race following a very different strategy to Alex. We wanted to spend a lot of the race on the Prime tire with both cars, but we chose to get Nicky’s Option stint done early in the race rather than put him on the riskier strategy that Alex followed. Nicky found the opening stint on the Option difficult, and showed degradation like most of the field. His pace on the Prime was better, but he still couldn’t quite match the degradation of Alex. We need to understand if differences in the car, and driving style contributed to this, and this will be the main focus of our work as we prepare for the next race in Imola.
Alex Albon
I am very pleased with how today went. We came in this morning, looked at our race predictions starting from last, and felt pretty sad, so to end Sunday with a point is extremely rewarding. It was a race where we took risks, and really allowed our tires to get into a nice window, and from then they just felt better, and better. I was putting in what felt like continuous qualifying laps for the last 25 laps of the race! For me, it really highlights the work that’s been done at the factory, and at the track; this is the result of the team’s determination, and motivation. It’s been a great day, and I’m really happy to have played my part in this for the team.
Nicholas Latifi
It was definitely a tricky race, but we were expecting that after the FP2 high fuel running that we did. It seemed that we struggled with the tires quite a lot, experiencing graining on both compounds, and struggling to keep them in the right window. There was a lot going on with multiple safety cars, and Virtual Safety Car periods. It was great to see Alex finish P10 in the end, and I’m super happy for the whole team. It’s been a difficult start to the season, and there’s still a lot to find on my side. If Alex is able to extract that performance out of the FW44 then there’s no reason why we can’t in the other car. We will now spend a lot of time looking through the data, and understand how we can make it work.
Haas
Kevin Magnussen
“It was good fun and a nice track. Disappointed not to get points today but we made a small gamble on the hard tire as we felt we were faster than our position, which we were, but the safety car came and ruined the strategy. The starting set-up that we had here wasn’t good and we were struggling a little bit with tires on this new tarmac but we were able to turn it around and get much closer to the pack in the race and have pretty decent pace. We were able to turn things around, and we’ll score points next time.”
Mick Schumacher
“It was a very eventful one. Right from the beginning with Carlos coming around and cutting back across the track, I think we got missed by a few meters there, and obviously Yuki under the safety car coming quite close together. I think in terms of pace we were not too far off, it’s just unfortunate that there’s not a huge amount of passing opportunities here. Lots was learned, some positives, so we’ve just got to take it away with us and hopefully be better in Imola.”
Guenther Steiner, Team Principal, Haas F1 Team
“It didn’t work out as we planned. We always make sure that the safety car is out at the wrong time – but seriously, though – sometimes you get lucky, and sometimes you get unlucky. The car was strong, and the drivers did a good job, so we know if we qualify better we can score points, and that is what we keep on trying to do. As I always say, this year we’ve got a car that can score points, we’ve just had a difficult weekend. It’s one of three which was difficult, here we go again in Imola.”
Aston Martin
Lance Stroll
“We did not quite have the pace for points today, although we were able to defend a position inside the top 10 for a while late on. I think we had the right idea with our strategy by running the majority of the race on the Hard tire, but we will look over the data and see what else we can learn. The five-second penalty was frustrating, even though it did not change our final race position. I caught Valtteri [Bottas] after the Virtual Safety Car and made up a place, so it was frustrating to receive a penalty for weaving. I also want to say thank you to the team once again: everybody did a tremendous job to get the cars repaired this weekend. We will keep our heads up and dig deep to try to extract more from the car in the races to come.”
Sebastian Vettel
“My lack of race experience with this car did not help today. I was pushing a little too hard and I lost the car on the curbs at Turn Four and could not prevent the impact, which is very frustrating. Every lap in race conditions counts because this was my first time racing this car, so it is a shame not to have completed the race. We know that the car is challenging, but we are continuing to search for solutions to add more performance. Things did not go our way this week, but it is time to move on, and I am confident that we can come back stronger at Imola.”
Mike Krack – Team Principal
“We had a frustrating end to a weekend to forget. Sebastian had an accident on the exit of Turn Four, and was taken to the Medical Center for precautionary checks, but I am glad to say he is OK. Our strategy team reacted cleverly to the lap-four Safety Car triggered by [Carlos] Sainz’s lap-three shunt, pitting Lance twice in quick succession. He had started on the Hard, which we expected to be a better race tire than the Medium, so we gave him just a single lap on the Medium before pitting him again to put him back on the Hard. At one point we hoped that that strategy might lift him to a points finish, but in the end it did not quite do that. From here we will go home to Silverstone where we will work hard to prepare for Imola, where we want and expect to have a better race than we have had here. Nonetheless, I am pleased that the famously passionate Melbourne fans have had a Grand Prix to enjoy at Albert Park for the first time in three years.”
Pirelli
Mario Isola, Pirelli Motorsports Boss
“The tires performed in line with the expectations we had established from Friday’s free practice sessions, despite the much higher temperatures on race day and expected track evolution. Nearly all the drivers made just one pit stop, with many of them taking advantage of safety cars to minimize the time loss. The different characteristics of the medium and hard tires, with deliberately higher degradation on the medium, also presented the drivers with a wide pit stop window. This allowed them to maximize strategic opportunities today. The modified track layout here in Melbourne helped to underline how the new car and tire package for 2022 permits drivers to attack and overtake, with a high number of passing maneuvers. We also saw some ingenious pit strategies, such as two consecutive pit stops from Lance Stroll to cycle through the medium tire, and a very long hard stint from Alex Albon that enabled him to get from last on the grid into the points.”