Singapore: The F1 Grand Prix Viewed from the Pits

Mercedes

Lewis Hamilton – Winner

Nico Rosberg – Retirement (electrical problem)

Toto Wolff, Executive Director: What an incredible race from Lewis. After the safety car came in, he needed qualifying laps each time to widen the gap, and he did it flawlessly. These are the days when drivers like Lewis show what makes the difference between stars and superstars. Congratulations to him.

On the other side, it was a cruel afternoon for Nico. It seems that an [electrical cable] in the steering column gave out, and that was the cause of his problems. When he came back to the garage, I told him that we were sorry to let him down, and he handled the whole situation very professionally. We have a missile of a car this year, but these reliability issues continue to bother us. The parts will be sent to our base tonight for thorough analysis by our reliability group. We have an excellent team dedicated to quality, and we will track down this defect and ensure it doesn’t happen again.

At the championship level, the pressure is now on both drivers with such a small gap and five races remaining. It’s going to give us a few more gray hairs, but it’s great for F1 fans.

– Read the drivers’ statements

Red Bull

Sebastian Vettel – 2nd

Daniel Ricciardo – 3rd

Christian Horner, Team Principal: A very fine performance from our two drivers. After an interesting start, Fernando gave back Sebastian’s position but not Daniel’s. After that, we had to get into the race. We put on the soft tires during the first stop. During the second stop, Fernando managed to overtake us. So we changed our tire strategy. Then the safety car came out and we were in a horrible situation because we had to decide if the tires could hold until the end. Both drivers did a superb job and managed to bring the car to the finish with very little rubber left. Second and third is a fantastic team performance, especially with the double stop that was done in an exceptional time.

– Lire les déclarations des pilotes

Fernando Alonso – 4th

Kimi Räikkönen – 8th

Pat Fry, Chassis Manager: Here in Singapore, the performance of both F14 T was a pleasant surprise, as we had never been close to the leaders this season. The technical characteristics of this track, our development work, the talent of our drivers, and the way our car performed on the soft tires were just a few factors that explain our good form this weekend. Even though it’s very encouraging, it still wasn’t enough to achieve the team’s objectives, and it was really disappointing to see second place slip away from Fernando because of the safety car.

Unfortunately, with Kimi, we were not able to extract the full potential of the car: Kimi could theoretically have achieved a better result if Massa hadn’t undercut him. Even though he was on fresher tires, he didn’t have the necessary top speed to overtake Bottas on the straight. Like Monaco, this is a track where overtaking is difficult, and the arrival of the safety car can shake up the hierarchy. Now, in Suzuka, we’ll have another opportunity, and we’ll try again to fight with the Red Bull and especially the Williams for the constructors’ championship.

– Read the drivers’ statements

Williams

Felipe Massa – 5th

Valtteri Bottas – 11th

Rob Smedley, Head of Performance: We knew it would be damage limitation this weekend and, ultimately, we should be happy with the result until the last corners, we were about to score the same number of points as our closest rivals in the championship. We took a calculated risk with the strategy and it worked for Felipe as it left him ahead of Räikkönen who had a faster car, but with Valtteri, it didn’t pay off because he had no tires left in the last lap, which cost him 6th place.

The drivers did a magnificent job behind the wheel and the team performed very well throughout the weekend. We are heading to tracks that will suit our car better and we have maintained our third position in the championship, which was the goal this weekend. » »

– Read the drivers’ statements

Toro Rosso

Jean-Eric Vergne – 6th

Daniil Kvyat – 14th

Phil Charles, Chief Race Engineer: « We are thrilled! JEV had an absolutely fantastic race. He faced two five-second penalties, but since he had served the first one, we knew that with the second, the time would be added at the end. So, we informed him of the gaps with those behind him, after he had made some superb overtakes. He managed to finish more than five seconds ahead of the 7th place, allowing him to maintain his 6th place. He did everything right. The team worked very well today and everything went as planned, with a strategy that worked well. We are all happy for JEV. He should have had decent results before because he has done a good job this year but has had more than his share of bad luck.

Danill was particularly unlucky as he had a drinking problem right from the start. It was therefore a physically challenging race since he couldn’t drink. He quickly became dehydrated. We are sorry for him that he had this problem which compromised his race.

– Read the drivers’ statements

Force India

Sergio Pérez – 7th

Nico Hülkenberg – 9th

Vijay Mallya, Team Owner: It is a fantastic result to return from Singapore with eight points in our pocket and a fifth place in the championship. It was a hectic race, especially for Checo, and it was only in the final laps that the race turned in our favor. We had to make some tough decisions today on the pit wall, but I think overall we made the right choices. There was a bit of luck involved too, but we took advantage of the opportunities and Checo and Nico drove extremely well. This puts us in a good position to approach the last five races where it will be crucial to continue scoring points with both cars.

– Read the drivers’ statements

McLaren

Kevin Magnussen – 10th

Jenson Button – Retirement (power unit)

Eric Boullier, Racing Director: Only scoring one point after spending two hours in intense heat and humidity is extremely disappointing for the whole team. For Jenson, who was having a particularly exceptional race in 7th place, smartly optimizing a complicated two-stop strategy, having to retire due to a power unit failure is especially bitter.

For Kevin, who had an excellent qualifying round yesterday, this afternoon was challenging. There is no other word. His first stint was satisfactory, but during his second stint, he began experiencing more tire degradation than expected, which forced us to shift from a two-stop strategy to three. To make matters worse, he suffered significant physical discomfort as his cockpit began to overheat, which forced him to raise his arms, one after the other, to direct cooling air into his sleeves and suit, adding further complication for him.

In the end, he delivered an impressive performance under demanding conditions. He was able to score just one point for the team. It’s obviously a small consolation, but it’s a good indication of his immense fighting spirit, and I congratulate him on that.

– Read the drivers’ statements

Lotus

Pastor Maldonado – 12th

Romain Grosjean – 13th

Federico Gastaldi, Deputy Team Principal: « We were very close to scoring points with Pastor and Romain. Unfortunately, we couldn’t turn the potential into a result at the end, but the team did an excellent job to get both cars to finish the race after the difficulties we had during the weekend. So, I am happy. Not ecstatic, but happy. »

– Read the drivers’ statements

Caterham

Marcus Ericsson – 15th

Kamui Kobayashi – Retirement (MGU-H)

Cedrik Staudohar, Renault Sport F1 Track Support Manager: It’s a great result for the team, with Marcus finishing ahead of both Marussias. On our side, however, it wasn’t a simple race. Unfortunately, Kamui lost his MGU-H at the start of the formation lap and had to stop. We will need to check why this happened at Viry. Marcus also had issues with the energy management system, so it wasn’t optimal from a performance standpoint. Nevertheless, we finished ahead of our two closest rivals, which is a fantastic team result.

– Read the drivers’ statements

Marussia

Jules Bianchi – 16th

Max Chilton – 17th

Claudio Albertini, Ferrari Customer Teams Operations Manager: « The beginning of the weekend wasn’t easy for Max who suffered an issue with the power unit on Friday. Fortunately, things improved as we didn’t have any more reliability issues with Max or Jules. During the race, due to the hot and humid conditions, we started to have some difficulties with temperature, but then everything was fine, and we finished the race without a problem. We know that this specific track, similar to Monaco, presents different challenges typical of an urban circuit, so during the weekend we had to deal with that, but I think the overall performance was satisfactory. »

– Read the drivers’ statements

Sauber

Esteban Gutierrez – Retirement (power unit)

Adrian Sutil – Retired (water leak)

Monisha Kaltenborn, Team Principal: It was a very disappointing race. Esteban in particular was in a good position, but he was forced to retire from the race once again due to a problem with the power unit. Since Adrian’s car had a water leak, the team decided to retire him to avoid the risk of losing an engine. We now need to analyze the reasons for this.

– Read the drivers’ statements