Sun: FIndia, Sauber, Williams, Renault

Sunday 13th November 2011

Sun: FIndia, Sauber, Williams, Renault

Sun: FIndia, Sauber, Williams, Renault

There were top ten finishes in Sunday's Abu Dhabi GP for both Force India drivers while Kamui Kobayashi finished P10...

Force India:
Adrian Sutil: "Today's result is great for the team and just what we needed. Initially we were planning to do a one-stop race, but the team took the decision to switch to a two-stop strategy because the soft tyre did not last as long as we thought it would. So it was a good call by the team to make the change. I spent a lot of the race fighting with Schumacher and managed to get ahead of him for the middle stint. But I probably went one lap too long in the middle stint and he got ahead of me when we were both on the medium tyre at the end of the race. I was close behind him, but we had similar pace and I couldn't get back ahead. Still, we came here to pick up points with both cars, and that's what we've done. It puts us in a very strong position for the final race."

Paul di Resta: "I think as a team we can be pleased to have come away with a double points finish having run different strategies with both cars. With hindsight my one-stop race was not the optimum strategy, but we felt it was worth a try. As it turned out the performance of the medium was not great to begin with so the first 30 laps were quite hard work. I had a good fight with Buemi in the early laps and I think we were quite lucky that he retired, which made my race a bit easier. When I switched to the softs the speed of the car was very strong. To do a one-stop race and come away with two points is as much as we could really hope for. It's what we need for our fight in the championship and hopefully we can arrive in Brazil and carry on where we left off."

Sauber:
Kamui Kobayashi: "I am happy to having scored a point today, I have had a pretty long period without scoring and for me it was important to put an end to this. I had a really good start and was able to make up five positions on lap one. Actually the performance of the tyres during and after the start was better than expected. I started on the medium compound as I was only 16th on the grid, and this is obviously a situation in which you have to take chances. But we knew it would be a difficult first stint, and it was not really clear how long those tyres would last. They dropped off after a few laps and then I lost three positions before I pitted after lap five for soft tyres. I think overall it was a good race by us."

Sergio Perez: "I had higher hopes for the race today. It is a shame what happened on lap one. There was a queue into turn seven and I couldn't avoid hitting Adrian Sutil's car. It wasn't immediately clear how big the damage was, but then the team told me my front wing was broken and I had to pit after lap two. We then decided to go for the medium compound when we did the nose change. On my third stint, again on soft tyres, I was driving in tenth for a while, but then I struggled with the tyres and also for the last 12 laps my KERS wasn't working."

Williams:
Rubens Barrichello: "It was a very good race, and a well considered one by the team. We started from the back but I fought all the way through and we almost ended up fighting for points. We did well to finish where we did today."

Pastor Maldonado: "Our pace was a bit slow at the beginning of the race but improved when we switched onto the soft tyre. Unfortunately, my drive through penalty cost us a lot of time and potentially a better result. Our overall pace was better than it has been recently and I was happy with the car today."

Renault:
Vitaly Petrov: "It was quite a frustrating afternoon because my DRS was not working. We thought we could have a good fight with the cars in front, but we were pretty helpless, so we decided to change the strategy. When I first stopped, we put fresh medium tyres on but unfortunately these did not last long enough so we returned to the pits on lap 38 to change to the soft. Unfortunately that ended up being too slow. The pace was not good enough to score points and that's the reality."

Bruno Senna: "Let's be honest here - there's not a crumb of comfort to take from that performance. We suffered from a KERS failure, drive through penalty and a car which was not on the money at this particular track. Put those together and you see why I finished where I did. There was lots of lost time to make up and, strategically, we took a gamble that didn't pay off. I certainly think that overall this weekend my pace was as good as it could have been. Maybe for Brazil we will have a better baseline, and let's hope we have a better race weekend."

Related Links
Race: Hamilton Cruises To Abu Dhabi Win

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