Panasonic Toyota Racing returned to the podium in a dramatic Singapore Grand Prix as Timo Glock equalled his and the team’s best Formula 1 result with second place. Timo took his third career podium, his second of the season, thanks to a brilliant drive from sixth on the grid under lights at the Marina Bay Street Circuit.
Vodafone McLaren Mercedes
Martin Whitmarsh Team principal, Vodafone McLaren Mercedes
“You won’t be surprised to hear me describe what Lewis did this weekend as ‘a fantastic job’.
“After a slightly troubled Friday, the team worked tremendously hard throughout Friday night and Saturday morning to rebuild Lewis’s car completely – and the result, combined with a brilliant pole lap from the man himself, was that we were able to approach today with a win firmly in our sights.
“As such, it was a perfectly paced weekend – and Lewis delivered magnificently today. Working together with the team, he was able to control the race from the front – and, although at one point both Nico [Rosberg] and Sebastian [Vettel] were piling the pressure on, we were always confident.
“In short, I’d describe it as a great victory – not only for Lewis, but also for the team. To design and manufacture the new parts required for our latest upgrades, against time pressure, and yet to do it accurately and reliably, is a truly superb achievement. In fact, I’m every bit as proud of the team as I am of Lewis himself.
“As for Heikki, he was unlucky in qualifying yesterday, but today he put in a solid performance from 10th position on the grid, in tricky circumstances, and earned us some valuable world championship points as a result.”
Norbert Haug Vice-president, Mercedes-Benz Motorsport
“A first-class grand prix from Lewis and our whole team. Lewis did everything right, setting pole position yesterday and winning the race today. The team was at its best by building up a different chassis for Lewis over night from Friday to Saturday – and they all got the reward for their exceptional work including perfectly timed and well-executed pit stops.
“Heikki came home seventh, and more was just not possible after his 10th place in qualifying. Well done to everybody – nobody scored more points than Vodafone McLaren Mercedes in this so important night race here in Singapore.
“The statistics speak for themselves: this is the 60th grand prix victory of the McLaren-Mercedes partnership, and no team has scored more points than us in the five races since Lewis’s victory in Hungary two months ago Now we all are looking forward to a great season finale with three more races to go.
“Congratulations to our German friend Timo Glock and Toyota for their second place today, they have been strong all weekend.”
Panasonic Toyota Racing
Tadashi Yamashina – Team Principal
“I am extremely happy to be back on the podium and fighting at the front again. Timo did a fantastic job this weekend, as did the entire team. Everything went perfectly with Timo today; his pit stops were very good and he drove very well. Jarno did his best but unfortunately it was always going to be difficult after qualifying. To be on the podium again is a particularly satisfying result coming just a few days before our home Grand Prix in Japan. Suzuka should be more suited to our car than Singapore so we can expect to be very competitive there as well. I would like to thank the team for their hard work in getting such a great result and I am looking forward to another strong performance next weekend.”
ING Renault F1 Team
Bob Bell, Team Principal
“Today was absolutely fantastic. It’s wonderful to get a podium at any time but to get one after what the team has just been through is really positive and gives us great strength to move on now. Unfortunately Romain had more brake problems which put him out of the race early on. It’s clear he has a lot of potential for the future and he just needs to move on from this race and make sure he completes a solid race in Japan. Everybody in the team will now go to the final three races very buoyed by this result because it shows that the team can fight for the podium.”
Jean-François Caubet, Managing Director
“To end the weekend with a podium is a great result. When we arrived here on Wednesday we did not think it was achievable, but little-by-little we have made it possible. In the end the race team put together a strategy that worked very well today. It’s great to get a podium here and it’s extremely important for Renault, for our partner TOTAL and for our sponsors, and for Renault F1 Team. We showed that Renault F1 has what it takes to fight at the front.”
Remi Taffin, Head of Engine Operations
“The engines have run perfectly this weekend. We were using the same engines we ran in Spa and Monza so it was their third race and they have delivered once again. The only issue we had was a small alert in the race, but we managed it and it had no consequence on the result of the race. To finish on the podium here isn’t easy because it’s an unforgiving circuit where you cannot afford to make any mistakes. Today we showed that the whole team is focussed and it’s a super result for us.”
Red Bull Racing
Christian Horner, Team Principal
“A really disappointing day – and unfortunately one with too many incidents. Both drivers didn’t have great starts, which was inevitable from the dirty side of the grid, and Rosberg was able to get past Sebastian. It was a shame that Mark had to drop back behind Glock and Alonso after both drivers had run wide at Turn 7. There was a drive-through penalty for Sebastian and damage to his diffuser after running over a kerb and, with all of that, he managed to bring the car home in P4 with a really competitive drive. With Mark, we had some concern about his brake wear, so we called his pit-stop a couple of laps earlier to do a visual safety check. Visually, both the brake pads and brake discs looked fine and we cleared the cooling duct of any debris. After the stop, the brake wear continued to rise and we were just in the process of calling him in, when a suspected brake disk failure occurred.”
Fabrice Lom, Renault, Principal Engineer Track Support
“A very, very disappointing result. One penalty per driver and one retirement, so it was a very bad Sunday compared to what we showed we could do yesterday. On the positive side we didn’t have any engine problems and the performance of the car was good, so let’s hope we will get a better result in Japan next week.”
BrawnGP F1 Team
Ross Brawn, Team Pricipal
“Jenson, Rubens and the team put in a very good performance today to achieve two points-scoring positions after what was a disappointing qualifying result for us yesterday. Both drivers did exactly what they needed to do at the start with Jenson getting ahead of Nakajima and Rubens taking two places from Kubica and Kovalainen. From there, the pace was good and whilst the safety car didn’t play in our hands particularly for either driver, we were able to make steady progress up the field. A longer than planned pit stop for Rubens when the car stalled as he entered the box lost him some time however the pit crew recovered the situation superbly and he was safe for sixth position. Jenson put in some quick laps before his stop to make up the required time for fifth place which we settled for and decided to bring both cars safely home. We will go away from Singapore with further valuable points in the championship having done as we intended and recovered well from qualifying.”
BMW Sauber F1 Team
Mario Theissen (BMW Motorsport Director)
“That was a lot of hard work for a single point. With Nick starting from the pit lane it was clear he would not be involved in the outcome of the race. Unfortunately eventually he was taken completely out of the race due to an accident which was not his fault. Robert, yet again, was unlucky as the safety car came out just after his first pit stop. Therefore he lost some positions. What we take from this race is the improved performance in qualifying. Now we have to fully exploit the potential of the car.”
Willy Rampf (Head of Engineering)
“Nick’s start was very difficult as it was from the pit lane. The accident, which was not his fault, ruined his race early on. Robert lost ground at the start. Later he was not able to fight back as our pace today was bad compared to our qualifying speed. Also Robert suffered from early tyre degradation. In the end he rewarded himself with one point, which he had to fight for really hard in the final laps.”
AT&T Williams F1
Sam Michael, Technical Director
“Nico had a really good start and showed strong pace all the way to the first pit stop. He had a good strategy for the remainder of the race which was going to put him solidly into P2, but unfortunately he had a problem at the end of the pitlane which cost him a drive-through penalty. It was a real shame because he had done everything right in practice, qualifying and the race, and then had a small mistake that was very costly. We then called him in early for his second stop to vary the strategy in case of another safety car. Kazuki had an uneventful race, but the car pace here has been good all
weekend, our upgrades are delivering and we have some more to add to the car for the races ahead.”
Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro
Stefano Domenicali
“Honestly, I don’t think we could have done much better. When you start this far back on a track like this, it’s difficult to climb up the order. Kimi and Giancarlo did their best, trying to exploit what their cars had to offer. We have to accept the fact that many other teams have made yet another step forward in terms of performance, which makes our technical situation even more difficult, given that development on the F60 stopped a while ago now. When we took that decision, we knew we would pay for it more and more as the end of the season approached, but let’s be clear on one thing, we are not giving up: there are still three races to go and we will tackle them with maximum effort because we want to do all we can to finish third in the Constructors’ classification. In a strange season like this one, anything can happen. Again today, for example, we saw teams that used to be a long way back, now at the front end, while others did the opposite.”
Chris Dyer
“It was a very difficult race, for both Kimi and Giancarlo. Contrary to what has happened in recent races, we were unable to make the most of the start, which has been one of our strong points this year. We were already a long way back on the grid and so our situation was immediately more complicated, especially as overtaking is virtually impossible here. Today, several cars failed to finish, or were struggling with brake problems, but we were not able to exploit that to make it at least into the points. As for the tyre performance, the softer compound, in the final part of the race proved to be better than expected in terms of consistency, but it was not clear enough to decide to use it as from the second stint, which was the longest one. It’s easy to say things after the event, but I do really think we made the right choice.”
Force India Formula One Team
Dr Vijay Mallya, chairman and team principal
“We thought this was going to be a difficult race with the high downforce configuration and it indeed proved to be true. We tried all we could to gain some places but ultimately it was too big a challenge to score some points today. I am however very pleased that Tonio has achieved his first race finish for the team and again trailed home a Ferrari. Adrian tried to make up places but it just didn’t work out for him. But it was a racing incident and these things happen when you are pushing hard. We are now looking forward to Suzuka where we hope we will see a truer reflection of our performance.”
Scuderia toro Rosso
Franz Tost
“Both drivers got an okay start, Buemi moving up to twelfth and Alguersuari was fourteenth. Buemi defended his position, until he was passed by Raikkonen. The first pit stop for Buemi went according to plan. Then we had a major problem at Jaime’s first stop, as he tried to drive away before the lollipop was up and this damaged the fuel rig. As a consequence, when Sebastien came in for his second stop, no fuel went in and we had to bring him in to refuel again. Towards the end, we called him back to the pits, as we could see he was losing oil pressure in the gearbox, for reasons we must now investigate. When Jaime made his second pit stop, we saw that there was a problem with the front right brake, the cause of which we have yet to identify, so on safety grounds we decided to retire him.”
