Post-Race Quotes From The Land Down Under

by Jack Lamure on Mar 28th, 2011

The Podium Finishers' Chat

1st: Sebastian Vettel - Red Bull

“I’m very pleased, it was a very good weekend and I had a very nice car to sit in this afternoon. It was a good race - towards the end things calmed down a bit. Lewis didn’t push as hard, so we tried to control the last part of the race.

"Believe me, that kind of boredom you really do appreciate - especially if the result is that in the end you can climb the top spot of the podium and carry a trophy home - and get a fancy drink on top of it!"

2nd: Lewis Hamilton - McLaren

“Second position is a great result. The car felt fantastic, really nice to drive, and I was able to look after my tyres throughout the race. To be able to apply pressure to Sebastian [Vettel] so soon into the season was massively encouraging, too.

“Physically, that was one of the easiest races I’ve ever had. I came here feeling fitter than ever, so I’m looking forward to going to Malaysia, which is probably the toughest race of the year.

3rd: Vitaly Petrov - Renault

"I’m delighted to be here on the podium, especially after the winter that we had as a team, which was very tough. I made a great start today, which was probably the key for my race because it got me ahead of Alonso and Button, and I was able to run in some clean air and push hard, as well as looking after my tyres. This result is for all of us and I’m totally ecstatic."

Sauber: Disqualified & Disgruntled

James Key - Sauber Technical Director.

"This is a very surprising and disappointing result. It appears that there is a question over the top surface of the uppermost rear wing element, this area is not the working surface of the component and therefore relatively unimportant to its function.

"Certainly this has not led to any performance advantage. We are checking the design of the parts now to better understand the situation and we intend to appeal the decision made by the stewards."

And the rest...

Fernando Alonso - Ferrari

"For the journalists it is a very interesting race having Petrov and me, but I was looking in the mirror because I had a title contender behind me, and I was happy to have Webber behind me. To finish fourth, I lost points with Hamilton today, I lost points with Vettel, but the points with Petrov I am not so stressed."

Christian Horner - Team Principal, Red Bull

"We plan to have [KERS] on the car for Malaysia. The KERS effect in Australia is less, as the run to the first corner is shorter. So that is our main exposure, which is why we didn't want you guys to tell the rest of the world that we didn't have it. In Malaysia there is a relatively long run to the first turn, and we will be keen to get it on the car as soon as possible."

Jarno Trulli - Lotus

"[The Pirelli tyres] left us all shocked. I don't mean they were better or worse than we had expected, I mean that they were completely different: it's as if they have been changed since the last tests in Barcelona.

"During the winter all of us, in every team, have worked with tyres that would deteriorate immediately. It was a characteristic of the tyres, and there's been some polemics too. So we had thought the problem was to make them last long enough.

"Instead here in Melbourne we've found ourselves with tyres that had no durability problems, but in exchange for that they would struggle immensely to get up to temperature."

Rubens Barrichello - Williams

I wasn't planning on overtaking [Rosberg] at that point, I was defending from Kobayashi.

Sebastien Buemi - Toro Rosso

"Overall, I would say we are definitely more competitive than last year and now we must continue to move forward, bringing further improvements to the car. It has been a positive start and we will have a lot to learn from analysing this whole weekend and then we will see what we can do in Malaysia."