Sunday Team Quotes

Red Bull-Renault

Sebastian Vettel (1st): "It's great to win today. I was pushing very hard, especially at the beginning of the race “ I had a moment when I hit the wall, but I didn't feel it; I was trying to get away from the field, as you don't know what will happen towards the end. It turned out that we could control things in the later stages, but you don't know that, so I was just trying to push all the time and stay in the rhythm. It was good to see that we were quick in all conditions this weekend and had speed in the race. We had average tyre wear, which hasn't always been the case for us, so we have made a step forward there. It's nice to win here, as it's a very special race. Not just the track, but the whole city enjoys the race and it's a nice atmosphere."

Mark Webber (4th): "I got a sensational start, but I didn't have too many places to go. I went to the middle and Bottas and Nico were there, so I went to the other side and lost some momentum. We are certainly getting our starts sorted, but so far there's been no opportunity to show how good they have been! We lost some time with Nico in the first stint, and the car was getting hot behind him in the slip stream. Once I got in free air, the car was handling much better. Then we had the incident with Giedo van der Garde which caused some front wing damage and made it more difficult; the whole top section of the wing was gone on the left hand side, so it didn't help from then on. I don't know what he was doing. We had a lot of blue flags as we approached the hair pin and I rolled to the inside, giving him plenty of space so he knew I was there, but when we got to the apex he tried to hit it; I don't know what was going on with that. There were some positives from today, but it would have been nicer to have finished a bit further up the road."

Christian Horner, Sporting Director: "To win in Montreal is a fantastic result for the team. Having come so close two years ago, to win in the dominant fashion that we did today was a tremendous performance, despite a couple of heart stopping moments, particularly when Seb touched the wall. He was totally commanding today and thoroughly deserved the victory. It was a shame for Mark that his race was compromised by van der Garde, who just seemed to shut the door on him for no reason damaging the front wing. But, despite that damage Mark did a tremendous job to still finish fourth."

Thierry Salvi, Renault: "A very classy performance from Sebastian today, but it wasn't at all easy “ he was pushing all the way. Montreal is one of those circuits that highlights a good overall package and everything came together today. The potential was there for Mark to score a podium, but the incident with van der Garde cost some time. All the same getting the first win in Canada for Red Bull and the first Renault-powered win since 2006 is a great end to the weekend."

Ferrari

Fernando Alonso (2nd): "At the end of an extremely complicated weekend, this second place tastes like a win, because we were competitive and managed to fight with the front running drivers. You never feel in danger with them, because, even wheel to wheel at 320 kilometres per hour, they have the necessary intelligence and experience to know to leave a margin of safety. The overtaking moves on the two Mercedes had an almost identical dynamic, although maybe the pass on Hamilton was more intense because we were running at the same pace, while with Rosberg, I knew it was only a matter of the laps going by, thanks to the advantage of having the Medium tyres, while he was on the Supersoft. In terms of points this is a great result: now we only have Vettel ahead of us, who was untouchable here and deserved the victory. Even if he has increased his lead, there's still a long way to go in the championship and there's plenty of time to catch up. I don't know if I could have done better if I'd started further up. Qualifying, even in the wet, is our weak point and an aspect we absolutely must improve on: we are working very hard on that, both back home and at the track."

Felipe Massa (8th): "I am very happy with my race today, which was a real battle from start to finish. After going off the track yesterday, I knew it wouldn't be easy starting from sixteenth place, but I also knew I had a good car and I tackled the race on the attack, managing to pull off several nice passing moves. However, because of a problem with graining, I lost precious time behind Sutil in the Force India: that's why I think a strategy based on using two sets of Medium tyres would have seen me gain at least one or two places. Even if I can't be satisfied with this result it was still a positive day, in which we showed we had a good pace and that we were able to fight. Now I'm looking ahead to the next race with a lot of confidence, because Silverstone is very similar to Shanghai and Barcelona, where our car worked very well."

Stefano Domenicali, Team Principal: "Today, we absolutely had to make up for the difficult day we had yesterday, because we knew the more normal weather would allow us to demonstrate our true potential. The podium was in our sights and we can claim to have hit the target, in a race that was complicated from start to finish by our grid positions. Fernando produced an absolutely extraordinary performance, especially when taking into account that today, our competitors operated at a really high level. Felipe also showed exactly what he could do: managing to bring home points after starting from the back was the best response to those who felt he was affected by the unfortunate incidents of the last few days. I must congratulate the winners, because even if it's easier to get the job done when starting at the front, it's also true that they managed to produce a perfect qualifying, a task which we know we must improve on. Today's race demonstrated how two of our closest rivals, Red Bull and Mercedes, have managed to make a step forward and that's the same direction we are working in, so that we can be contenders right to the end of the Championship."

Pat Fry: "The long straights and the DRS zones at the Montreal track, which usually help with overtaking, meant we were hopeful of being able to race up the order, while aware that starting from sixth and sixteenth would not make that an easy task, especially as the performance levels of the front runners were very similar today. Fernando got a great start and managed to pass Bottas, moving up to fifth. From then on, he did an amazing job of managing his tyres, pushing at the most opportune moments which brought him in touch with the leaders. The climb up to second place was a performance worthy of his talent, with some daring passing moves, like the one on Hamilton. Felipe fought hard all race long, also pulling off several overtaking moves, including a very important one on Raikkonen right at the end. Maybe if we had opted to fit Mediums at his first stop, Felipe could have gained another place. From the pit wall, we had to manage the race for both drivers in very different track conditions to what we experienced in the past couple of days and all in all, after all the difficulties we encountered yesterday, it was a good result. Now, our priority is still to improve our qualifying performance and on this front, we will try to do that right from the next race in Silverstone."

McLaren-Mercedes

Sergio Perez (11th): "This wasn't the race we were hoping to have. We tried our best to try and score a few points, but it was impossible to do any better than we did out there today. It's a pity, because the car felt quite good during our installation laps. But the car didn't work that well on the Option tyre, and we struggled to find enough grip. At Silverstone, I hope we can make a step forward. We brought some upgrades to this race, but didn't really get the running we needed to verify them. Hopefully, they'll work better at Silverstone."

Jenson Button (12th): "This wasn't the best race for us as a team. It's particularly tough because this circuit is usually very good to us. With hindsight, I think we'd have been better off starting on the Prime tyre, rather than the Option. During my first stint, all the two-stoppers pitted ahead of me, then came back to overtake me, so it was a bit tricky. However, we showed today that, irrespective of strategy, we wouldn't have gone any faster. Our car tends to work better on fast and flowing circuits “ such as Malaysia or China “ so I'm looking forward to my home race at Silverstone at the end of the month. We tried some new parts this weekend, but they weren't really suited for this type of circuit “ they should work better at Silverstone, so I'm feeling positive about the future."

Martin Whitmarsh, Team Principal: "This was a difficult afternoon. Credit goes out to Jenson and Checo “ both drivers performed brilliantly, attacking when necessary, and driving with the foresight and caution needed to look after their tyres across long stints. They deserved to score points. Unfortunately, with the benefit of hindsight, we were a touch too conservative with our tyre management this afternoon. The Prime turned out to be a stronger tyre than we'd anticipated, and we could have exploited it for longer and further in the race than we did. The data that we've accumulated this weekend will nonetheless provide us with a useful basis from which to move forwards, and we've learned some valuable lessons this weekend. Our focus now turns to our home race at Silverstone. We'll be doing our utmost to score a better result for the many British fans who'll be supporting Vodafone McLaren Mercedes on home soil."

Lotus-Renault

Kimi Raikkonen (9th): "My race didn't start very well and then my brakes were fading with the pedal going soft; similar to the problem we had on Friday. It wasn't ideal but at least the brakes were good enough to slow me down for the corners. Unfortunately though it meant I lost a lot of time and wasn't able to attack, plus we lost a few seconds in the pit stop which obviously didn't help either. Most of my race was just following the cars in front and defending from those behind, so not the most enjoyable day nor the most enjoyable result. It's been a bad weekend, but at least we scored a few points."

Romain Grosjean (13th): "It was always going to be a tough race coming from the back, but it's still disappointing to miss out on the points. Things were looking good until we switched to the option tyres, but they dropped off far quicker than we expected which forced us to stop again. Sadly that effectively put an end to our race as by that time there was no way back. After a promising start on Friday it's not been the best weekend, but we had good pace last year at Silverstone so we'll come back looking to put things right."

Eric Boullier, Team Principal: "Today was certainly character building. On the plus side, Romain drove a measured and mature race through the field and should have finished in the points had we not had to make a second stop, which wasn't to our original plan. Kimi had a frustrating day, but still scored some points. We couldn't show the pace we wanted this weekend and will be all the more focused when we get to Silverstone as we are obviously very keen to get our championship challenge back on track."

Alan Permane, Chief Race Engineer: "We clearly haven't been quick enough all weekend and we'll go back to Enstone to analyse why. We'll then react to those conclusions and hopefully get ourselves back up to where we want to be, which is fighting for podiums and wins. We have an aero test before Silverstone, a new bodywork package and other tweaks to come so there is plenty of potential to improve. We simply weren't quick enough this weekend."

Riccardo Penteado, Engine Support Leader: "That was a race to the finish, in many respects. Every lap we were changing settings to try to give an extra advantage over the competition, particularly from the starting positions we were in. The change in weather conditions changed fuel consumption so we had to play with that, plus we had to control the temperatures throughout the race as we were in traffic every lap. Getting P9 for Kimi keeps the points going, but we hope we can return to the front at the next race in Silverstone."

Mercedes GP

Lewis Hamilton (3rd): "The car felt fantastic today and I had good grip for the low-speed corners but we just weren't quite on the pace of Seb and Fernando. I was on the maximum that I could possibly drive and we got absolutely everything out of the car today. It would have been nice to have kept second place of course but Fernando was very quick today and it was difficult to keep him behind. I got close to taking the place back but he was just that little bit too fast. Still I'm very pleased with third place and it was a strong points-scoring day for the team with Nico's fifth place as well. We've taken a step up in the Constructors' Championship which is great for the team and gives us a nice boost going into Silverstone."

Nico Rosberg (5th): "I think fifth place was probably my optimum today and, even if my race had gone perfectly, I wasn't able to match the pace of the guys in front. The guys had a difficult decision to make at the first stop: we were worried about the warm-up of the harder tyres, so we went for the option to protect my track position against Webber and Alonso, but in hindsight it would probably have been better to go the other way because I could have run a longer second stint. I scored some good points and we know that there are areas where we can still improve our performance. But looking back to where we were a month ago, we have made some good steps forward, and it was great for Lewis to be on the podium again. We are heading in the right direction and looking forward to the next race at Silverstone, in front of our team-mates from Brackley and Brixworth."

Ross Brawn, Team Principal: "It has been rare in recent seasons to have backmarkers become such a factor in a race as they were today. They played a decisive role in the final result but getting through traffic is one of the challenges that you have to tackle in Formula One. The car performed reasonably well but we still had some anxiety about the tyre performance in the high temperatures, so we were managing the situation carefully, particularly in the opening laps of the stints. Lewis drove a very strong race although it was a shame that he could not quite hold on to second position in the closing laps. However, that wasn't down to him but rather the fact that we still need to find a little more performance from our car to compete with Ferrari and Red Bull. Nico had a reasonably quiet race after a strong first stint and we will have to analyse if we could have made more of the car's performance today with him. We called him in for a third stop as a precaution, because he had flat-spotted badly the right-front tyre badly and we had nothing to gain or lose in terms of track position. Overall, a positive afternoon and another strong two-car finish that is important for our position in the Constructors' Championship."

Toto Wolff, Mercedes Motorsport Director: "Lewis and Nico did a great job on track today and it was nice to see Lewis on the podium again. He tried to hold off Fernando towards the end of the race but the Ferrari was just too quick today. Nico dropped back on the option tyre and our strategy didn't quite come to him this afternoon unfortunately. Looking ahead, we know that we need to keep bringing performance to the car and that Silverstone will be a bigger test for our tyre management. But it's the second race in a row that we have had both cars in the top five and that is building a good platform in the championship. Well done, too, to Sebastian and Red Bull today: they didn't put a foot wrong all afternoon."

Sauber-Ferrari

Esteban Gutierrez (20th, Accident): "For the entire race the car was difficult to drive, and I was always pushing to the limit. Right from the start everyone was closing in. The first set of tyres was difficult to drive on and a one stop would have been impossible. When I came out from my second pit stop into the fist corner, I went over one of the bumps, the front locked up and I couldn't stop."

Nico Hulkenberg (DNF, Damage): "It's disappointing to finish a race like this. Lapping can be troublesome, but these guys are racing too and have things happenings in the race, the same as us. I lapped Giedo van der Garde and braked. At first I didn't feel anything until I came out of the corner and realised the car wasn't going straight, so we decided to stop. Even after we lost positions at the start of the race, we didn't really have the pace today. I was fighting for 14th and couldn't do much more. Of course this is not an ideal way to end a race, but in the end we wouldn't have gained much more."

Monisha Kaltenborn, Team Principal: "This is a weekend to forget. We knew this track wouldn't really suit our car. If you have weaknesses on the car in addition to a track that doesn't suit you, then it's twice as hard. We have a lot of work to do."

Tom McCullough, Head of Track Engineering: "The circuit's characteristics were going to make it a hard day for our car. Ultimately it was a double DNF, which is very disappointing. On the strategy side we attempted a one stop with Esteban and a two stop with Nico, which was the base strategy today. But ultimately the tyre degradation and wear were too high for Esteban, so we had to convert to a two stopper late in the race and unfortunately he had the incident exiting the pits. Looking forward to Silverstone, that's a track that should suit us better. We have to make sure to get the maximum out of our car."

Force India-Mercedes

Paul di Resta (7th): "To finish the race in seventh having started 17th is a great result and a top job by the team. I didn't manage to get any long run data on Friday so it feels extra sweet to make this one-stop strategy work with a very long stint on the mediums. It also feels good to come back so strong after a difficult qualifying session. The tyres lasted very well, the lap times were competitive and the team told me it was my decision about when to make my stop. As soon as I felt the tyres starting to drop off, I came in. Then it was a case of looking after the supersofts for the final few laps."

Adrian Sutil (10th): "That race was quite an adventure so it's good to come away with a point given everything that happened. I had a spin when I tried to overtake Bottas, which cost me quite a few positions and I was lucky nobody hit me when I was in the middle of the track. I dropped back and the pack was bunched together, which is when Maldonado ran into the back of me and damaged my rear wing. Even with all those things I was running in eighth until the drive-through penalty. I don't think it was a fair penalty because I too had to lap so many cars today and it sometimes took one or two laps, and that's normal for this circuit. The penalty cost me two positions and three points."

Robert Fernley, Deputy Team Principal: "It's great to see both our cars in the points at our 100th Grand Prix. It brings our tally to 51 points and strengthens our fifth position in the championship. Paul showed his fighting spirit with a remarkable drive to seventh with just one stop. The car had great pace and he looked after his medium compound tyres extremely well. I don't think anybody thought there were 56 laps in those tyres but he pulled it out of the bag. Adrian's afternoon was rather more eventful, but it was a disappointment to pick up the penalty in the closing laps so it's something we need to review. Overall I think we should be pleased with the outcome after a challenging weekend. The car remains competitive and we can hopefully carry our form into our local race at Silverstone at the end of the month."

Williams-Renault

Valtteri Bottas (14th): "We fought hard to try and secure some points today but ultimately we just didn't have the pace in the car. I didn't get a great start which allowed a few cars to jump me on the first lap, and in the dry conditions we simply couldn't match the level of competitiveness we showed yesterday. The tyre wear in the first stint was also high which made it tough to stay in the top ten. Nevertheless I feel like I have learnt a lot from the race today and as a team we can take positives from the weekend. Hopefully we can continue to make progress and have a stronger race at Silverstone with the home crowd cheering us on."

Pastor Maldonado (16th): "We were expecting a better result today in the race. We knew we didn't have the top speed to challenge at the front, but we struggled for pace right from the beginning of the race. The car felt better in the wet conditions compared to the dry hot weather we saw today so we need to understand why. After the good result with Valtteri yesterday, it was a tough weekend for us to end with neither car in the points. There are now three weeks until the next race so we need to keep working to improve our overall race performance."

Mike Coughlan, Technical Director: "We knew Valtteri's grid position was not representative of our current pace, but we had hoped to be able to challenge for some points. The tyre degradation was quite high on the supersoft tyres though and we lost time in the first stint with both cars, which compromised our race. The medium tyre was working better which allowed us to do longer middle stints, but we weren't able to gain an advantage on anyone around us. Pastor was also compromised by a drive-through penalty but then pushed hard to close the gap, finishing 16th..Valtteri drove a solid race without making any mistakes, but ultimately the pace wasn't in the car to enable him to hold a top ten position today. We need to keep the momentum going following our qualifying performance to keep working hard to improve ahead of our home race at Silverstone."

Laurent Debout, Renault: "There have been a lot of signs of improvement here this weekend so it's a shame that we could not convert them into points. All the same third on the grid yesterday was a good confidence booster for everyone and something to take forward to the team's home race in three weeks' time."

Toro Rosso-Ferrari

Jean-Eric Vergne (6th): "Incredible! I'm very happy. The best result for me of course, but also the highest finishing position since Vettel's results for the team in 2008. It is even more satisfying, because it was a normal race in the dry, with no one going out in front of me so we achieved this position fair and square. It's a great result for the team as we are making progress race by race and it's very encouraging for the rest of the season. It wasn't too complicated, because we had the pace to maintain that position, although we did not have the speed of those ahead. I passed Bottas and Raikkonen and from then I managed my race, keeping an eye on Sutil who was behind me for much of the time. That meant I could never ease up until the flag. After finishing eighth in Monaco, this result on another difficult track has boosted my confidence and I feel I have progressed as a driver. We must continue to push hard on the development of the car, starting with the next race at Silverstone, so that we can aim even higher than this."

Daniel Ricciardo (15th): "I got a really good start, making up two positions off the line and then I was on the outside for Turn 2, which meant Hulkenberg took me back. When he ran wide at the chicane, I was ahead of him again and I gained another place when Sutil went off. At that point, I felt we could have a good race, but after just four laps, the car was oversteering like crazy and I couldn't manage the tyres anymore. As the race went on, we tried to improve the car balance and maybe we improved it a bit, but our pace was really slow. We didn't change so much on the car since Friday, so why we were so slow is a mystery to me at the moment."

Franz Tost, Team Principal: "Jean-Eric's sixth place is a fantastic result for him, the team here in Canada and everyone who works so hard behind the scenes in Faenza and Bicester. This is our best result since Daniel finished seventh in China and it is Jev's best ever F1 finish position. Our car has been making steady progress over the last few races and that was confirmed yesterday, when despite the difficult conditions, we got both our cars into the top ten on the grid, even if Daniel then had to drop one place. Jev did a great job to keep his concentration on this difficult track, just as he did when he finished in the points in Monaco a fortnight ago and here, he also managed his tyres very well, which meant that once he had secured sixth place, he was able to keep it all the way to the flag. Daniel has had a tougher weekend and quite quickly in today's race, he suffered a lack of grip at the rear and found the car unstable over the kerbs. But he can fight back from this disappointment and I expect both our drivers to challenge for points again in Silverstone in two weeks time."

Caterham-Renault

Charles Pic (18th): "My start was ok but into the first corner I had to brake early to avoid hitting one of the cars ahead and lost a couple of places. We went onto the mediums for the second stint and they held up well. The car balance kept improving as we went through the race and we stuck to the plan, pitting for the last time on lap 37 so we could run a long final stint to the flag. With about ten laps left I caught and passed Chilton and was given the instruction to push to the flag. From that point I couldn't really gain on the car ahead so I just made sure we got to the end without any issues and finished the race 18th."

Giedo van der Garde (DNF, Damage): "Today wasn't a good day for me. I want to say sorry to Mark for the incident we had and I'll make sure I learn from the stewards' decision on the five-place penalty for the next race. Sometimes you make mistakes, but the important thing is to accept them, learn from them and move on. In the race itself I had a great start, passed four cars and was up to 17th by lap two. We'd started on the supersofts and the first set were done pretty quickly so we boxed on lap eight for a set of mediums and my pace on those for the first few laps was ok. I'm not sure why but not long into the stint the tyre temperatures started coming down and my laptimes dropped straight away. It was pretty frustrating as there was nothing I could do to get them to work so I just had to keep pushing on. On lap 33 I came back in for another set of mediums but then I had to box for the stop / go I had from the contact with Mark. The temperatures went straight up after the penalty and I had to come back in almost immediately so we could check the car and they found a visor tear-off in one of the radiators which had been causing problems for most of the race. Shortly after that I was heading towards the hairpin with Hulkenberg alongside. I moved over for him but he turned in in front of me in the braking zone and we made contact and that was the end of my race."

Cyril Abiteboul, Team Principal: "A very bad day for us, to say the least. Since the start of the weekend we had a feeling that the race would be difficult for a number of reasons. First, in terms of aerodynamic setup, we never managed to find the right compromise between top speed and downforce with the parts available. We spent a lot of time on this issue, maybe losing sight of other important areas like the tyres and to what extent the very different weather conditions we had on the earlier part of the weekend and on Sunday and how dramatically that would affect tyre behaviour in the race. This is an area we must particularly investigate as our direct competitors went for a different strategy that clearly gave them an edge. The high tyre degradation, especially on Giedo's car, meant that he received his first blue flag very early in the race and that contributed to the unfortunate events in the race that we never want to see as a team. Today's race in Canada put a rather radical stop to the positive trend we have seen since Bahrain, and we have to reverse that for Silverstone and come back fighting there. We will have new parts for the British Grand Prix and we're running another aero test next week, so we hopefully have the chance to make amends."

Marussia-Cosworth

Jules Bianchi (17th): "It was good to be able to enjoy a dry race today because we were back on the pace we were showing earlier in the weekend in similar conditions. It was a little bit daunting to know we were planning a one stop strategy and would have to go so long on the Medium tyre, but my engineers and I kept in close contact and worked together to ensure we could manage the tyre life as we needed to. Although we had to be quite careful, in the end we got to 40 laps no problem, although it was good to switch to the Supersoft and be able to secure position. I think the result is quite pleasing and we are back where we need to be in terms of the competition. We hope for good things from our next step in Silverstone, where we will be aiming for a good performance in an important race for the Team."

Max Chilton (19th): "We got a good start but struggled on the first lap, then after a few laps we were able to see that our strategy was going to play out well for us. We started on the Medium tyre and ran long for just under 40 laps. I was quite pleased with how well we were managing the tyres even late on in that stint, so a good job from my engineers who were working with me to achieve that, enabling me to still be able to push hard on the last few laps before we pitted for the Supersoft. The early part of the second stint worked well but later on I was struggling with the tyre wear and I wasn't able to defend my position from Pic. It was good to add to our tally of two-car finishes though and we can feel optimistic as we head towards a very important race for the Team and for me - our home race, the British Grand Prix."

John Booth, Team Principal: "It was quite a tough morning for the engineers who were working with less data than we would normally have collected on the dry tyres over the course of the weekend here. Determining our starting tyre and overall strategy was always going to be tough. The opening laps of the race didn't quite go as planned and we lost ground on the prime tyre, which suffered with warm-up. At this point it did feel like perhaps we hadn't started the race the right way, however both the drivers and engineers did a good job to hold their nerve and allow the much improved durability of the prime tyre to show over the option tyre. We never expected for this to be a particularly good race for us but we've been working hard on improving our tyre wear life and we reaped the benefit of this focus with our first stint of around 40 laps. That really enabled us to gain good track position on the Caterhams. With a total of only two pit stops for the Team today we knew that each had to count and the mechanics did a fantastic job to service both cars in a quick time. Really then it was about managing the wear life on the Supersoft tyre and getting both cars to the end of the race. Overall we can be pleased that we have made progress at what has traditionally been a less than favourable circuit for our cars. We leave Canada pleased and in good spirits as we prepare for our home Grand Prix in three weeks' time."