14/05/2017
NEWS STORY
Carlos Sainz: "What a good race, I'm very happy! It was a bit chaotic at the start – we managed to gain a couple of positions but I then ran wide into Turn 2 in order to avoid the accident… I therefore lost some of the positions I had gained, but we were P9 and from that point onwards it was a full-on attack race to try and recover. We managed to do just that and finished P7 after starting P12, a great result! I really enjoyed it out there today because we were always faster than the car in front and never looking in the mirrors. It was also amazing to have such big support from the fans – I was feeling it! I was pushing the whole time, going for the cars I had in front, trying different ways of attacking both on track and in the pit-lane and we managed to do a very complete race weekend. During my in-lap at the end of the race I looked up to my grandstand and it was amazing to see them all so pumped up and cheering me on – I'd like to thank everyone for this amazing support. Talking about thank-yous, I need to make a special mention and congratulate all the pit-stop guys – they've improved the pit-stops so much this year and this was a key part of the race today. I now have a surprise for them in the garage in order to thank them in a proper way: let's enjoy some good Spanish ham and beers together! Well-deserved by everyone!"
Daniil Kvyat: "It feels great to finish in the points today, I'm proud of myself and my engineers! We didn't give up after a difficult day yesterday and followed a great strategy to go from last to P9! Of course we need to analyse and find out what happened yesterday, because we can't afford qualifying sessions like this to happen anymore, but today's race was fun. I was able to overtake many cars at a circuit where normally it's not easy to do so and enjoyed every lap of the race a lot, so I'm very happy. These points are very welcome after a tough weekend! Thanks everybody!"
Franz Tost (Team Principal): "A good race for us today: to finish P7 with Carlos and P9 with Daniil is a great result for us. Both the drivers and the team performed really well after a disappointing qualifying session yesterday but it's positive to see that no one gave up on the challenge and at the end, what counts is the race! It seems that all the upgrades that we brought here to Barcelona this weekend worked well. Especially in the race, we saw some good overtakes and we are now back to fifth position in the Constructors' Championship, which is always our target for the season. Regarding the strategy, we made very good decisions and both drivers did a great job. I always said that this race could be a good one for us, where we needed to score as many points as possible, as this track suits the set-up of our car and it's pleasing to see that we could actually do so. I believe the same is true for the next race in Monaco, so let's approach it in the same way and get ready for it now."