12/06/2011
NEWS STORY
Four hours after its start time, the Canadian Grand Prix reached its conclusion after a safety car start, four further safety car appearances and a red flag period of more than two hours due to heavy rain. AT&T Williams' Rubens Barrichello had a clean afternoon to convert 16th on the grid to ninth position and secure two more points for the team. The race failed to deliver any reward for another strong performance by Pastor Maldonado, however. While running in 10th with nine laps, remaining Pastor ran wide to avoid an incident with Kobayashi but collected Rosberg and damaged his front wing. After an unscheduled trip to the pits, Pastor fell victim to the slippery conditions on exit at turn two which put him out of the race.
Rubens Barrichello: Starting from 16th, I am happy that I managed to score more points for the team. Unfortunately, it should have been more but I lost a potential 6th or 7th place when I went offline to avoid Kobayashi after the last safety car went in. He ran wide while overtaking a backmarker and rejoined the track without seeing that I was there. I was then forced offline and lost a lot of positions. That was unfortunate but it was still a good reward to score a couple of points again.
Pastor Maldonado: It was a difficult race for me. I had quite a bit of oversteer at the beginning so the car was difficult to manage. When the race was re-started, the car felt better on inters and then even better on the dry tyres. We then had another safety car. When that went in, Kobayashi made a mistake at the first corner, Rosberg braked in front of me in response and I collided with him. That broke my front wing so I had to make a stop. After that, I just spun out on the wet.
Sam Michael, Technical Director: After an incident-packed race it was good to score a couple of points. The first safety car deployment hurt our decision to put both cars on intermediate tyres that were working out really well. After the long race suspension, the calls to switch to intermediates and then dry tyres were spot on to put both cars into the points. We then had some issues on the re-start that meant we dropped back in the order.
To check out our Canadian GP gallery, click here.