Another dismal Sunday afternoon for Williams, who were fighting at the back of the field with Lotus, Virgin and Hispania...
Williams:
Pastor Maldonado: "It was a difficult race. We didn't have a great start, which is something we need to work on. We then struggled to keep on the pace and unfortunately our strategy didn't help us. But we finished the race and so we now have more data to work with. We need to push hard and concentrate on improving our race pace for Monaco."
Rubens Barrichello:"I had a very tough race. Starting on primes meant the base wasn't good but we had the option so it should have been better at the end. Unfortunately, we had more problems today. First, during the pitstop and then with KERS again, which lost us a lot of time. That's another race with no points. We need to improve."
Team Lotus:
Jarno Trulli: "The race was really good. It was another great start for me, another strong start this season, so that was very positive. I gained a number of positions and was right in the race in the beginning. Obviously with soft tyres our car was looking better than it did with the hard tyres and that gave us a very good first couple of stints. Unfortunately towards the middle of the race I felt I had a problem with the exhaust which affected the rear end of the car and meant that my performance was not as good as earlier. But all in all, it was a very good race for me. I fought like a lion and I'm happy with myself and felt that I really got the best out of the car today. There's still a bit of work to do to catch up with the guys in front, but it's fantastic that we've lapped the guys behind us once again. The overall aero package is good - we just need to focus on developing that for the future and increase the gap even more from the guys behind, and keep on closing the distance to the cars ahead."
Heikki Kovalainen: "It's a real shame my afternoon came to an end like that. I made a mistake on the entry to turn four and went off but up until that point the race was pretty good. Both Jarno and I were right in the mix early on and we were fighting in the midfield for a lot of the race but then the tyres started to go off and the early pace wasn't there for the later stages of the afternoon. Maybe we should have pitted earlier on but we've still learnt a lot from this weekend and can take that to Monaco where I think it will be a very interesting weekend for everyone."
Virgin:
Timo Glock: "I had a reasonable race - although it was a bit of a struggle going into turn one. Liuzzi got past me as he had a better line but I got past him after the first pitstop, which was good as it meant that we could then go at our own pace. In general I think we got the best out of the car today and we had a good strategy in terms of managing the traffic, so overall I'm quite happy with my day."
Jerome D'Ambrosio: "I think it was a pretty good race for me - better than qualifying yesterday. I had a pretty good first stint but of course when we hit the traffic it turns into a completely different race. Here you lose a lot of time, more than in Turkey, China or Malaysia, but for us it was a good race. We need to look at a small issue with the brakes but apart from that everything went smoothly. The team did a great job again with the strategy. I had some good stints with not too much traffic so overall I'm quite pleased."
Hispania:
Narain Karthikeyan: "It was a very hard race. The tyres were degrading a lot, especially the rear ones making it very difficult to drive. The first few laps were all right but then the rear started giving me a lot of problems. I also had some trouble with my seat, I burnt my back and at times the pain was unbearable. The positive aspect was that I finished the race although we didn't get much out of it. We need to find out why we were off the pace, we thought our race pace would improve this weekend but that has not been the case. Qualifying was good but our race pace wasn't good unlike in previous races. Perhaps this is because of the drastic difference between prime and option compounds which made the setup very difficult and resulted in massive oversteer. So we now need to work on this."
Tonio Liuzzi: "I had a great start to the race passing a few cars into the first corner just like at the last grand prix. Everything was going fine, the balance of the car was good, I was ahead of both Virgin cars and pulling away in the first stint. This confirmed the step forward we'd predicted from the last race. After the first pit stop, with the second set of tyres we lost some grip in the rear just like in qualifying. I also started feeling issues with the upshift, it was getting worse and worse and eventually had to stop. We have to investigate why this happened but it's still too early to say what the reason was. It's a real shame because without this issue we could've had better pace for the second stint and fight with the Virgins until the end. Narain finished the race which is always positive because it means we can have more data but it's now time to start thinking about racing and not just finishing because we're growing and must try and get ahead of Virgin."
