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2019 Brazilian Grand Prix – what the drivers said

Sian Cowper

The penultimate race of the 2019 Formula 1 season saw two drivers in the podium places for the first time in their career.

Pierre Gasly held off a late charge from Lewis Hamilton to come second behind former teammate Max Verstappen, while Carlos Sainz completed the top three after a penalty demoted Hamilton.

Both Alfa Romeos were in the top five, while both Ferraris failed to finish after colliding late on.

3 Legs 4 Wheels looks back at what the drivers said following the action in Interlagos.

Max Verstappen – 1st (Red Bull):

“It’s an incredible feeling right now and to win today was a huge Team effort. It was a crazy race with a lot of action and fighting but luckily we always had the pace to counter back and overtake Mercedes in every scenario. It wasn’t easy out there but the Team made all the right calls, especially at the end to pit for the soft tyres during the Safety Car which gave us the win today. As a Team you always try and make everything perfect, I focus on my job and the Team also try to do a perfect job in the pits and on the strategy and clearly today it worked out pretty perfectly. It’s a great victory, after last year of course, but more for the way the race unfolded and how we all had to work together. Today and the whole weekend the car and Honda power unit have been working really well and we have made a step so thank you to everyone for that. It is of course a massive shame that Alex could not be on the podium with me as it would have been an even better result for the Team but it’s great for Pierre to be up here and for Toro Rosso and Honda.”

 

Pierre Gasly – 2nd (Toro Rosso):

“This is just incredible! My first podium in Formula 1 and with Toro Rosso. I kept working every race on myself, I always thought that if I could be in the right place at the right time something will come, and today it happened, it’s just amazing – I have so many emotions! I’ve always said the team is my Italian family, I love their spirit and passion, they always push like hell and today was the best present I could give back to thank them for their massive constant effort. You dream a lot about being in F1, you dream about your first podium, but then when it happens all of the emotions coming through me are just unpredictable, it’s just the best day of my life right now. I want to send a huge thank you to everyone who has supported me since the start of my career and have gotten me to where I am today.”

 

Carlos Sainz – 3rd (McLaren):

“Yes! What a day! It’s a weird first podium not being there straight after the race, but I’m extremely happy with our race today. To finish P3 coming all the way from the back of the grid was a big challenge, but we fought until the end with everything we had! It was a very eventful race and I think I was the only car to do a one-stop strategy. It was really difficult to hold the other midfield cars behind after the two Safety Car re-starts, but I managed to defend my position well and took advantage of what happened at the front of the race. A good first stint, a great pit-stop from the guys and a very challenging and long stint to bring it home and finish P3 for the first time in my career. Congrats to the whole team, here and back in Woking! My first podium is obviously very special but we need to keep pushing to step up there on pure pace! That’s what we’re really here for, that has to be our goal!”

 

Christian Horner – Team Principal (Red Bull):

“That was redemption for Max. We went into the race with one objective today and that was to win. From the moment the lights went out, Max stormed into the lead and controlled the race brilliantly. Lewis pitted just before us and committed to a two-stop, then an unsafe release with the Williams cost Max the lead, but taking full advantage of his new tyres he immediately repassed Lewis. Thereafter Max controlled the race and the mechanics did a phenomenal job to turn the car around in 1.9s at the final pit stop. When the Safety Car came out we had the horrible decision of whether to pit from the lead, knowing the car behind would stay out. Our strategist Hannah made the recommendation to pit so we did and Max was once again able to repass Lewis.

“Alex drove another very strong race, going wheel to wheel with Ferrari and Mercedes. He managed to pass Sebastian on the outside of Turn 1 and was also able to get ahead of Lewis who pitted at the final Safety Car. Unfortunately on the last lap, Lewis went for a gap that was rapidly diminishing and contact was made. That was a 1-2 finish for the Team and second place for Alex taken away, but nonetheless Alex has driven a great Grand Prix and he can leave Brazil with his head held high. Finally, congratulations to Pierre who delivered a very strong weekend and it’s great to see him on the podium for the first time. Overall, it’s been a really positive weekend for both Red Bull teams and Honda.”

 

Kimi Raikkonen – 4th (Alfa Romeo):

“It’s great to finally be able to celebrate our best result of the season as a team. It was a positive day and finally we were able to get the result we worked so hard for. We kept on our own most of the race, but at the end we were in the middle of the action. I am disappointed we couldn’t get past Sainz for what turned out to be the final podium position: we had the speed, got a good run on him twice but couldn’t get past. But you always want something more: in the end, it’s good to get big points with both cars.”

 

Antonio Giovinazzi – 5th (Alfa Romeo):

“I am really, really happy today, for both myself and the team. What a great race, it was a fantastic way to celebrate my contract for next year with two cars in the points. We had a great start, the best this year – we made up three places and went straight into the top ten, but we still had a lot of work to do. The strategy was great, the restarts were very important, especially the final one when I was under pressure from Daniel [Ricciardo]. The last ten laps were crazy, it was quite intense but we managed to stay ahead. Everyone in the team did a wonderful job and we can be really happy with our work. We are improving race after race and we can now focus on Abu Dhabi and on finishing the season in the right way.”

 

Franz Tost – Team Principal (Toro Rosso):

“It was a fantastic race today, especially for the spectators as the safety car periods really made it a show, very exciting. Toro Rosso, Honda and Pierre Gasly together showed a fantastic performance. Pierre was competitive straight away, from Friday onwards, and he showed great pace again yesterday in Qualifying, where he finished the session in P7. He started from P6 on the grid (due to LEC’s penalty) and he had a good start to the race, with a very clever first stint in managing his Option tyres and avoided overheating. On his first pit stop, he changed to the Prime tyre and he had even better pace than expected, and then on the last set of Options he already had a five-second advantage over the others. He reacted well to Kimi Raikkonen’s challenge because he was able to pick up the pace and go a couple of tenths faster to hold his position – this was very impressive as he was able to do this without overdriving and overheating the tyres. It was a great drive from him, so he really deserves his second-place finish. Ferrari and the others have certainly helped, but Pierre anyhow had the pace to finish in P5 or P6 without these collisions, and today he drove his best race at Toro Rosso.

“Daniil’s race was much more difficult, but he was able to score a point. It was tricky for him on the Prime tyres because it took a long time to get t hem into the ideal working range, and it was the same for a few of our competitors as well. On Options it was much better, and I think that without the safety car he could have had a chance to finish further ahead. Having said this, we are still happy with the point he scored as it also helped reclaiming the sixth position in the Constructors’ Championship.”

 

Daniel Ricciardo – 6th (Renault):

“After the early incident, I would have said ‘no way we could finish seventh’, so I’m quite happy with that. I take responsibility for the incident with Kevin. It was close, but I went into him and he spun. Sometimes you can do that and it works, but sometimes you touch wheels. In that situation you think the race is over, but we kept our heads down and managed a really strong race. The safety car restarts were fun and it was good out there. There’s one more to go now and I’m excited for that.”

 

Andreas Seidl – Team Principal (McLaren):

“P4 in the Constructors’ World Championship for McLaren secured. First podium for Carlos in his F1 career and first podium for McLaren since 2014. What an amazing achievement for the entire team back home in the factory plus here at the track, and for Carlos and Lando after putting in so much hard work throughout the year. Big, big thank you to every single member of the team. We woke up this morning after a difficult Saturday with a clear commitment to never give up and fight back. We executed well today as a team, we had some difficult strategy decisions to make, did great pit-stops, had two brilliant race drivers in the cars and in the end deserved to score this P3 and P8 after the cars at the front were dropping out. We keep our heads down and now focus on securing our positions in the Drivers’ World Championship. The achievement this year together with the podium today is the perfect motivation for all of us to keep working hard in order to score podiums again in the future for McLaren based on our own outright performance.”

 

Frederic Vasseur – Team Principal (Alfa Romeo):

“We can be really happy and proud with this result. To bring two cars in the points just outside the podium is the reward for the hard work of everyone in the team. We didn’t let our head drop in the races where we were unlucky and now we can celebrate our best result of the season. There was no defining factor today: everyone did a great job – in the cockpit, in the pitstops, on the pitwall and back at base. We have made a lot of progress in the last few races, but it wasn’t until today that it showed. Now we can look forward to the chance to do another good race in Abu Dhabi and finish the season on a high.”

 

Lewis Hamilton 7th (Mercedes):*

“It was a great race, I thoroughly enjoyed it and it was hopefully fun for people to watch, although the result is upsetting. I never want to collide with anyone, it was really unfortunate with Alex. Naturally I take it on me, it was my fault, I was coming from behind. He was doing a great job, so apologies to him. I gave it absolutely everything and more today, I was pushing so hard in every lap just to keep up with Max in front of me. We really didn’t have a lot of pace today and I think we were probably going faster than we should have gone. Congratulations to Red Bull, they did the better job today and deserved the win. They were extremely quick today, I was basically a sitting duck on the straights. There’s one more race to go in this season, so we will be pushing for a better result in Abu Dhabi.”

*Hamilton crossed the line 3rd but received a 5-second time penalty for causing a collision with Albon

2019 Brazilian Grand Prix, Sunday – LAT Images

 

Lando Norris – 8th (McLaren):

“A good race for the team and me! I had a really good launch off the line and was up to P5 after the first few corners. We’re doing a good job in this respect and it’s a good strength of ours. The rest of the race was tough, especially the first stint on the Softs. I struggled a lot compared to Daniel [Ricciardo] in the later laps with the tyres, which we kind of expected. We then did the Hard tyre stint and was close to getting Daniel after the stop. I tried to look after the tyres. He wasn’t pushing too much, so I was trying to push, and see if he made any mistake where I could get past him. But he didn’t and was just controlling the pace. We decided to box for Mediums and go for the two-stop – which turned out to be really good. A fun race, at least in the third stint, with some overtaking. Massive thanks to everyone back at the factory and at the circuit for their hard work”

 

Sergio Perez – 9th (Racing Point):

“It was a very chaotic race – especially the final ten laps when the Safety Car brought all the cars together again. Unfortunately it was difficult for us to really fight out there today because we lacked speed on the straights, which meant that we got overtaken easily and couldn’t fight back. In the end, our two points are really deserved and I’m pleased we came away with something. Unfortunately, we couldn’t fight for higher positions.”

 

James Allen – Technical Director (Mercedes):

“It was a very disappointing day – a day where we made some mistakes, where we suffered very uncharacteristic unreliability on one car and turned what should have been a decent result into a DNF for Valtteri and a disappointing finish for Lewis. The simple answer is that we weren’t as quick as the Red Bulls today. We were reaching a bit in the end and we paid the price for doing something that was too optimistic – we brought in Lewis for a set of fresh tyres right at the end of the race and lost some places as a result of that and also got tangled up in an accident that was an indirect consequence of that call. Valtteri suffered from an oil consumption issue earlier on in the race and we were monitoring it, but it got worse and ended his race prematurely. Overall a very disappointing weekend for us, we want to put it behind us and move on to Abu Dhabi to put it right there and hopefully finish the season in fine style.”

 

Daniil Kvyat – 10th (Toro Rosso):

“Starting from P16 I knew it wasn’t going to be easy today. There not much to say, it was a difficult race until my safety car restart on the last lap, as I was able to overtake three cars, getting at least one point. It’s the second podium for Toro Rosso this year and I think we are the only midfield team who achieved that, so we can be really pleased with our effort. We scored many points today, taking back the sixth position in the Championship. Today’s result is a great achievement for the team.”

 

Mattia Binotto – Team Principal (Ferrari):

“The overriding feeling today is that everyone, first and foremost our drivers are very disappointed and sorry from a team perspective. It was a small collision that had a big consequence. In truth, this sort of thing should never happen. Our drivers were free to race today and they knew that. We have already clinched second place in the Constructors’ Championship and they were battling for their own positions in the Drivers’ classification. Of course we now need to sit down and decide together where the limits are to make sure we all push for the benefit of the team and make sure these things don’t happen anymore. Our race today was certainly not bad, and similar to Mexico in terms of performance. We are still lacking a bit of pace in the race. Sebastian was in a comfortable fourth, Charles from 14th could have been on the podium. It’s such a shame that we ended up throwing away so many points.”

 

Sebastian Vettel – DNF (Ferrari):

“The summary of the day is that we did not finish a race in which we could have got a good result. It’s a shame about the collision between us, especially for the team as a whole, given that both cars were in the points and considering how much work everyone puts in, both at the track and back in Maranello. From my point of view, the race was going well, even if I think that Max (Verstappen) was uncatchable today. Now we must just focus on the final race of the season where will try and bring home the best possible result.”

GP BRASILE F1/2019 – SABATO 16/11/2019
credit: @Scuderia Ferrari Press Office

 

Charles Leclerc – DNF (Ferrari):

“It’s a real pity to end the weekend like this. I am sorry for the whole team, especially because today we were fast and we were looking good to bring home some decent points. It had actually been an exciting race for me. Starting from the midfield, I enjoyed fighting my way forward and was satisfied with the way things were progressing. We will move on from this in any case and continue to work together in the best way. Now it’s time for us to focus on Abu Dhabi to end our season in the best possible way.”

 

Kevin Magnussen – 11th (Haas):

“It’s a shame, this feels like a missed opportunity for the team today – it just didn’t go our way. I got turned around at the beginning of the race and lost a lot of positions, I then had damage on the front wing. At the safety car later, everyone else was just a lot stronger than us at the restart, I just didn’t have enough to hang onto it. I got passed and ultimately missed out on the points by just one place – which doesn’t feel good.”

 

George Russell – 12th (Williams):

“It was definitely crazy in those last few laps and that gave us half an opportunity. I gave it my everything to take advantage of the situation and overtake a car here or there. It wasn’t meant to be though and that’s the maximum we could do. However, it was nice to be in the mix and fully fighting in the closing stages.”

 

Romain Grosjean – 13th (Haas):

“First of all, I’m very happy for Pierre (Gasly), it’s good to see him on the podium. I’m very happy for him. I was the last Frenchman on the podium four years ago. As for us today, we just didn’t get any luck. We were doing the race of our life, we were hanging on in there in P7 with a car that doesn’t deserve that. We were doing an amazing job and then the safety car fell at exactly the wrong time for us. The tires at the restart were just tired from a long stint. We knew we could go to the end, but then Sainz pushed me wide at the restart into turn two. I’m not very happy about that. We pushed the car to the limit today, it just wasn’t our time.”

 

Guenther Steiner – Team Principal (Haas):

“Obviously it was a disappointing race, we had hoped for more, and it had looked like we might get it. Kevin (Magnussen) was spun out by Ricciardo, so his race was basically over, it put him back a lot. Romain (Grosjean) was doing a good job and our plan was to do a one-stop race. On the restart we had an MGU-K issue and he was overtaken by a lot of people. From there onwards it was just going backwards. Unfortunately, we started in the top ten but ended up outside of the top ten. We know we’re in a difficult position with the car. There’s one more race to go, then hopefully we can come back stronger next year.”

 

Alexander Albon – 14th (Red Bull):

“Of course I’m frustrated but I’m not angry, I’m just upset. I wanted that podium and we deserved it as it was on merit. At the Safety Car restart we had some fun and I enjoyed battling with the Ferraris, the overtake felt good! Obviously Lewis had good grip once he pitted and I think he would’ve got me eventually into Turn 1, but I thought worst case scenario we had P3. I had a good gap to Lewis and I wasn’t worrying about him. I went into the corner deep just to cover him so he didn’t get any ideas, and then there’s a blind spot and obviously we made contact. Of course he didn’t do it on purpose, it’s just one of those things and today wasn’t meant to be. It’s done now and we’ll focus on the positives before the next race. Congratulations also to Max, he drove really well and deserved the win.”

 

Valtteri Bottas – DNF (Mercedes):

“It was a tricky race overall, even before I had to retire the car. The pace wasn’t quite there today, so we will have to investigate that. I was aiming to do a one-stop and go to the end on the Hard tyres, but I had to pit again as we were concerned that the tyres wouldn’t last until the end. It’s obviously not ideal to switch strategies like that, but it didn’t really matter in the end as I didn’t finish the race. I don’t know the details yet, I just suddenly lost power, so we will have look into that and see what caused it. It was very disappointing especially since there was a lot happening afterwards, so it would have been nice to be a part of that action. I’m now looking forward to the race in Abu Dhabi, we want to come back strong and finish the season on a high.”

 

Nico Hulkenberg – 15th (Renault):*

“I don’t really know what happened today and I just couldn’t seem to make progress in the race. There was some excitement at the end with the safety cars and the restarts. It was fun with some battling, but it just wasn’t happening for me today. It shows how important qualifying is to be right up there and being in a position to gain places.”

*Hulkenberg crossed the line 13th but received a 5-second time penalty for an infringement under the safety car

 

Lance Stroll – DNF (Racing Point):

“There’s not much to say today: it was a really disappointing afternoon. I ran over some debris from the Ferrari incident and that was it, my race was over. It had been a really close race up until then and the Safety Car really mixed things up and changed the race for everybody. It’s a shame because up until then I was on a one-stop strategy, my tyres were performing well, and we were definitely in a position to grab some points today.”

 

Robert Kubica – 16th (Williams):

“The first lap of the race was good, I was able to fight with some quicker cars in the first stint. Afterwards I lost the pace, especially with hard tyres. We had to protect the rear tyres, but, by saving these, we were unable to put any energy into the fronts, making them ice cold with no grip.”

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