04/07/2021
NEWS STORY
Lance Stroll: "It was not the race we were hoping for today. I think it is clear, with hindsight, that starting on the Softs was not ideal, although we managed to keep ourselves in the fight for points during the first phase of the race. When we made our first stop to get onto a set of new Hards, we came out in quite a bit of traffic. With cars on different strategies and tyres, it meant we lost time and did not take advantage of the peak of the tyre early in the second stint, which impacted our race. It is a disappointing end to the triple-header, but I am excited to get going for our home race at Silverstone in a couple of weeks. It is a very different circuit and we also have a new weekend format, so it is a clean slate and a chance to bounce back."
Sebastian Vettel: "It was not an easy race today, which ended with a trip through the gravel because of the misunderstanding with Kimi [Räikkönen]. I guess he just did not see me in front of him. The first I knew about it was the contact I felt on the left rear. I had made a good exit out of Turn Four and was pulling ahead of Kimi on the right as we approached Turn Five. I do not think there was any intention from Kimi. Even before that, we did not have the speed to fight for points today. The balance inside the car felt alright, but the cars on the Medium tyres had better performance in the opening stint when I was stuck in traffic without any clean air. It is disappointing not to score points, but we will work hard to understand where we can improve before we get to the next race at Silverstone."
Otmar Szafnauer, CEO & Team Principal: "A number of factors combined to prevent us from scoring points today, despite both our drivers having done so well to get through to Q3 yesterday. That strong performance showed the underlying pace of our car, but it is possible that other teams that did not get through to Q3 were actually advantaged by that failure, since our drivers were both forced to make their first pit stops early as a result of having started the race on the Softs on which they qualified in Q3. We will have to analyse that issue carefully.
"Additionally, through no fault of his own, Lance was very unlucky to be slowed by debris that lodged itself in a brake duct, while Sebastian was nerfed off the track in the closing stages by [Kimi] Raikkonen. Looking on the bright side, next up is our home race, the British Grand Prix, and we will now start working through today's data to learn from and build on the positives, in order to put on as good a show as we possibly can in front of the famously passionate Silverstone crowd."
Check out our Sunday gallery from Spielberg, here.