Styrian Grand Prix: What The Drivers Said
July 13, 2020
Lewis Hamilton capped off a perfect weekend when he landed his 85th victory in Formula One while Norris put in another cracking drive to finish 5th.
Mercedes fans were provided with an absolute clinic from Hamilton who was clearly on a mission after a disappointing weekend last week.
Sergio Perez was another driver of note as he managed to climb from 17th on the grid to finish 6th but it didn’t come without controversy as he collided with Albon in the final laps which saw his front wing come loose and nearly cost him 3 places.
Here’s a look at what the top 10 drivers said after an entertaining Styrian GP.
Daniil Kvyat, 10th
“I have to say that even if Friday and Saturday were quite difficult, it was a fantastic race for me today. I did my job and I brought the car home to score one point, with much fewer retirements compared to last week, so I’m happy. Everything was executed well and while I was often under attack, I was able to defend my position and I could even open the gap with the ones behind me towards the end of the race. Let’s think of Hungary now, it’s just around the corner.”
Carlos Sainz – 9th
“A very disappointing day for me. We missed out on big points after a problem at the pit stop. The first part of the race we were running P5 with a solid pace and managing the gap to the cars behind. Unfortunately, we had a bad pit stop, which meant we came out of the pits in the middle of traffic. I had to push too hard too early to try to recover the gap, and that drained my battery and ultimately compromised my tyres for the second part of the race.
One of those days when nothing goes your way. Time to turn the page and come back stronger, but we missed out on a good P5 today. We win and we lose as a team, so we’ll try to fight back in Hungary next week.”
Daniel Ricciardo – 8th
“We certainly hoped for more today. I had a good start and made some decent progress up the order. The mediums felt good on our first stint, but when we put the soft on it wasn’t as quick as we’d hoped, and it didn’t really give us as much as we’d thought. The end of the race was frustrating, and I was struggling to hold on to the position on the last couple of laps.
On the incident, I did see Stroll coming but I felt if I turned in, we would have crashed, so I had to make that call. I maybe should have blocked him and it’s a shame to lose a couple of positions from that one moment.
Lance Stroll – 7th
“We started the race strongly and settled into it quickly, making up some places. We managed to close in on the Renaults ahead too. The second stint was a little trickier and it was very difficult to pass Daniel Ricciardo – because he was strong on the entry and exit of Turn 1. But I was patient and I saw an opportunity to pass him on the final lap and made the move stick. That was such an exciting end to the race and I hope the fans at home enjoyed it as much as we did. The car was competitive today and we performed strongly against our rivals. That’s promising for the coming races.”
Sergio Perez – 6th
“The team did a fantastic job today: the strategy was good and the car had strong pace. We managed to achieve our goal of recovering positions and managed to drive all the way to P5 – almost P4 at the end. I was pushing Alex Albon hard through the second stint and I only had the one opportunity to overtake him. Unfortunately, we touched, and I lost a position and finished in P6. The important thing is that we made a good step from last weekend to this weekend at the same circuit.
Lando Norris – 5th
“A very good race from us today. First of all, the team did an awesome job with the strategy and I did a good job with managing the Soft tyres in the first stint. We got to Lap 39 before we boxed and that was one of the key aspects to our race in allowing us to be so strong in the second stint, to go out on the Mediums and be one of the fastest on track for some of the laps. We managed to go from tenth all the way up to fifth, with three of those overtakes on the final two laps.
Alex Albon – 4th
“The race was okay and P4 is a good amount of points for the Team, especially after last week’s DNF, so we definitely needed that. On my side, I was fighting a bit further back than I would have liked and my race pace wasn’t amazing. There’s time to find on my side but we’ve understood the car better this week and I think we know where to improve.
With the long straights and types of corner here we struggled a little but I think Max and I both agree on where we can improve the car. Towards the end of the race, Perez was very quick. On the last lap he had a decent run on me into Turn 4 but I left him enough space. I think he ran a bit wide and we touched but we avoided a crash so it was ok and just hard racing.
Max Verstappen – 3rd
Today we maximised the result with the podium and it’s of course good to be back up there, but we were just too slow to really fight for the win. I pushed as hard as I could and tried everything to stay with Lewis but it just wasn’t possible. We have work to do and we will keep pushing as hard as we can to improve and I know how hard everyone is working. For me, it wasn’t the most exciting race up until I had a lap of fighting with Valtteri.
My tyres were pretty dead at that point and I knew he was going to pass me, but I wasn’t going to make it easy and had a bit of fun re-passing him around the outside. I had nothing to lose as there was such a big gap behind so there was no risk. P3 is of course good points but it’s still not what we want, we want to fight for victories every weekend, so I hope Hungary is better for us.
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Valteri Bottas – 2nd
“Starting fourth, I think today was all about damage limitation and we managed to maximise everything available to us. Yesterday wasn’t ideal so that’s why it wasn’t 25 points today, but we still scored some good points, the car performance was great and I’m still leading the Championship, so it’s not too bad.
I had a good battle with Max, I had quite a bit more pace than him at the end as we extended the first stint to create a tyre offset, but racing closely is always fun and it was good to get the pass done.”
Lewis Hamilton – 1st
“This has tended to be one of my weaker tracks, so I am over the moon to have a performance like this today – so, so happy. This feels like a long time coming since the final race of last year and it is a great step forward to come back from a difficult first weekend.
The team did a fantastic job with the strategy and then it was about keeping it together, staying off the curbs and bringing it home. I tried to get the fastest lap towards the end, but I had 40-lap old Mediums, so it was going to be difficult against someone on new, fresh rubber. A big thank you to my team and everyone back at the factories, they have done a brilliant job.”
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