25/10/2015
NEWS STORY
Pastor Maldonado finished eighth in a highly eventful United States Grand Prix whilst Romain Grosjean retired from the race because of damage sustained to his car at the first corner. The Grand Prix started wet with a dry line emerging through the race. There were a number of safety car periods of both virtual and real iterations.
Romain started from P10 on the grid on new intermediate tyres. He pitted at the end of lap one for new intermediate tyres, then lap 9 for new soft tyres. He retired at the end of lap 10 as a consequence of the lap one damage. Pastor started from P12 on new intermediate tyres, changing to new intermediates on lap 18 then new softs on laps 27 and 43.
Romain Grosjean: "I had a good start, but in the middle of the first corner I felt a hit from behind. This gave me a puncture and the damage meant that the floor and braking cooling ducts were damaged. We tried continuing but the brake temperatures were just too high and we had to retire for safety reasons. It's a shame because it would have been a good race as far as we know with the experience we have and the set-up we were on... Everything should have been quite nice but now we'll never know!"
Pastor Maldonado: "We are in the points once again which is the main positive thing for the team. It was quite a busy race with a lot of fighting around me, and even some fighting with the car as it didn't quite perform as expected. It was a little bit strange because we are normally quite strong in the races; better than in qualifying in fact. My crew were great all day with qualifying and the race. We hope to continue scoring strong points in the remaining races."
Federico Gastaldi, Deputy Team Principal: "Firstly congratulations to Lewis Hamilton, a deserving world champion who took his title in the best way possible. He and the entire Mercedes AMG F1 team have done a fantastic job this year. It was an unfortunate day for Romain as his race was ended so early through no fault of his own. Pastor secured a good top ten finish which adds to our points tally. After a tough build-up to the race Formula 1 put on a great spectacle at the Circuit of the Americas so we thank everyone in Austin for all their efforts. I'm sure we're all hoping for better weather next year!"
Alan Permane, Trackside Operations Director: "It was an eventful race but we weren't able to capitalise on all the opportunities. Unfortunately we had to retire Romain very early as his rear floor and brake cooling was damaged in the contact at the first corner. We tried to keep racing but it wasn't safe to continue. Pastor scored useful points but we weren't able to fight higher unfortunately."
Check out our Sunday gallery, here.