Race - selected team driver quotes
Sunday, 26 June 2011 16:00
We may have had two DRS zones and enough sun to test Pirellis soft and medium compounds to the max, but nothing stopped pole sitter Sebastian Vettel sailing to a dominant win in Valencia on Sunday. With every driver making it past the finishing line behind him, there was much to discuss. All 24 - and senior team personnel - review their European weekends
Lotus
Heikki Kovalainen (19th)
For me that was a very good race. Im happy that we seem to have regained the early season form after Monaco and Canada where I wasnt really feeling too comfortable in the car. Today the conditions were pretty hot out there but I felt good all afternoon - Ive prepared myself physically for this sort of heat so it wasnt hard at all to push right to the end. I didnt have any issues and after we went to the three stop strategy I was able to keep up a good pace after each stop. We know where we have to improve the car to keep taking the fight to the teams ahead, and that will come in time, but this is a long-term plan and we are definitely on the right course.
Jarno Trulli (20th)
That was a good race for me. We tried a couple of different strategies to cover all our options and even though my second set was gone by the end I definitely enjoyed myself out there. This was always going to be a track where we knew we would have to keep pushing to get anything out of it, but its satisfying for the team to get both cars to the end and be well clear of the cars behind us.
Tony Fernandes, Lotus team principal
"A pretty good day for us. I am happy both cars finished but as we are steadily increasing our competitiveness it would have been good to have finished a bit higher. It is obviously a big challenge for us to find the 0.5 seconds that will propel us towards the midfield teams, but we have the right elements in place to help us do that. We will find more downforce and we will continue to grow, both in experience and in pace, and that is why I see days like today as another step in the right direction."
Mike Gascoyne, Lotus chief technical officer
A very solid race from both drivers. We had considered two stops on both cars but when we saw higher degradation levels on Heikkis car we put him onto three and kept Jarno on two to give both of them a chance to fight. Jarno nearly passed Heikki in the final stops but Heikkis fresh rubber gave him the chance to edge ahead and the key goal today was to make sure they both finished, so I am pleased we achieved that. This has not been our most competitive type of track but despite that we finished well and that sets us up nicely for Silverstone.
Thierry Salvi, Renault Sport F1 support leader for Lotus
Engine-wise that was a good race. Valencia is a track that is hard on both engine temperatures and fuel consumption and we managed both elements well on both cars. The maps we used gave the drivers the right options today which helped when we split the strategies as we did not suffer any drop in performance as a result of the switch.
More to follow.
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