01/10/2006
NEWS STORY
Team McLaren Mercedes driver Pedro de la Rosa finished today's action packed Chinese Grand Prix in fifth place – gaining two places on the final lap. Team mate Kimi Raikkonen retired on lap 19 due to a failure of the engine throttle mechanism. Kimi had his pitstop on lap 16 (9.3 seconds) whilst Pedro came in on laps 17 (7.7 seconds) and 36 (10.3 seconds). Both drivers will now travel to Tokyo for a few days before heading to Suzuka for the Japanese Grand Prix
Pedro de la Rosa: "A difficult race for everybody. I made a wrong call after the first stint when I asked my engineer for a different set of intermediate Michelin tyres. In hindsight I should have stayed on the ones I had, like Kimi, as the track was drying, and I suffered from graining. This lost me a lot of time but apart from that our pace was good. I didn’t see much of what happened towards the end of the final lap. It had started raining slightly again, and we were all on dry weather tyres coming into what is a hard braking area. I was lucky to stay out of trouble and gained two places as a result. Our car seems to be on the pace. I'm sure we will win a race before the end of the year."
Kimi Raikkonen: "That was a shame as it was looking like we could achieved a win today. I don't know exactly what happened, but all of a sudden the throttle didn't react correctly and the engine went into safety mode and selected neutral. I made a good start and then got on the outside and gained a couple of places – it was a bit tight, so I didn't manage to get past Fisichella at that point. I overtook him later on and was gaining on Alonso before my first scheduled pitstop. I'm disappointed, but at least we showed that we have the speed, so I'm looking forward to Japan now."
Ron Dennis: "Obviously an action packed Grand Prix. Kimi's strategy and car set-up were more than capable of winning the race. Unfortunately a failure of the engine throttle mechanism forced him to retire. Pedro struggled with front-end grip and had a spin following his pitstop. However he did well to finish fifth, and the entire team now looks forward to the Japanese Grand Prix at Suzuka next weekend."
Norbert Haug: "An eventful race which began promising with Kimi running second. However a problem with the throttle activation system led to his retirement. The reason for this is being investigated. Kimi's lap times were strong and good enough to win the race. Pedro drove a solid race, had a spin after changing to grooved tyres and came home fifth. With two more races to go we want to clinch the victory we missed today."
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