Driver Quotes - Spanish Grand Prix 2011

Sebastian Vettel (1st)
- McLaren were very strong, Lewis in particular,The last few laps I felt like China, with my tyres falling away. He [Hamilton] was always getting in the DRS zone but in the last few laps I got a good run in the last sector to make it stick

Lewis Hamilton (2nd)
- I wasn't expecting to be so quick today, as the race went on we had some serious pace, but he [Vettel] was massively quick in the high speed corners

Jenson Button (3rd)
- We never planned to do anything but a three-stop strategy as I thought doing two stints on a prime tyres was no good. It would have been interesting to see what would happened if I didn't have a bad first lap, but all in all it was a good day and good to get a podium

Mark Webber (4th)
- I don't think my start was hideous, but Fernando got a phenomenal one. Obviously from then on it wasn’t the start we had planned and it was a bit of a chess game. People were covering each other’s pit stops and I really didn't do much racing on track. At the end of the race I finished 40 seconds behind Lewis and Seb. It was an interesting day today and shows how fine the margins are; we were frustrated by Fernando who seemed to pit every time I did! At certain stages I was quick and at others I wasn’t - that’s the way it was today.

Fernando Alonso(5th)
- It looks a little bit sad when you start losing positions but we need to understand that P1 was maybe not our position at that moment, We were not competitive, especially in the race pace, we were too slow - with the hard tyre even more

Michael Schumacher (6th)
- I had a good start; going right through the middle was tight but fortunately it worked out. Then the race was about holding position from there. We can be happy with the result but other than that, it was just tricky with oversteer, tyre degradation and poor balance to deal with

Nico Rosberg (7th)
- It was a difficult race for me after I lost radio communication with the team early on which was tough, and my DRS was not working properly which made any overtaking almost impossible. I had fun in the battle with Michael for P6, although I wasn't able to attack him fully and was therefore stuck behind him for most of the race

Nick Heidfeld (8th)
- I’m satisfied with eighth after starting from last position. Just like in Turkey, with one or two laps more I could have gained one or two more positions from the two Mercedes, but it’s still a good result if you look at where I started and everything that happened to the car over this weekend

Sergio Perez (9th)
- It was a tough race today and a hard fight for points. I’m really happy we made it. My first points in Formula One are obviously something special for me, and it is good for the team that Kamui also scored.

Kamui Kobayashi (10th)
- I lost a lot of time on lap one today. After the start I was pushed into the gravel and then another car touched me, which resulted in a left rear puncture. I had to pit and was relegated to last, which of course cost us a very good set of the soft tyres.

Courtsey : Google Images, TV Grabs, BBC

Spanish Grand Prix 2011 - And the winner is again - Vettel

Sebastian Vettel clinched his fourth win out of five this year at the Circuit de Catalunya.

But it wasn’t as straightforward as his other wins as he had to cope with a faulty Kinetic Energy Recovery System and sustained pressure from Lewis Hamilton.

Vettel made a good start from second and passed pole sitter Mark Webber around the outside at the first corner.


There may not have been as much overtaking as we saw in Turkey, but Lewis Hamilton made it a gripping Barcelona race on Sunday as he hounded Sebastian Vettel from the 20th to the 66th and final lap. The reigning world champion had to work every inch of the way as he took his fourth victory of the season for Red Bull, and the two drivers were separated by a mere 0.6s after more than 300 kilometres of flat-out racing.

There was drama that the crowd loved at the start when Ferrari's Fernando Alonso burst through from fourth place to slam down the inside of poleman Mark Webber going into the first corner. It was the prelude to a disappointing afternoon for the Australian, who had been focusing on keeping Vettel at bay and didn't spot the Ferrari in time.
Vettel made an early first pit stop on lap eight to try to get ahead but Alonso reacted on the next lap, as did Webber. While Vettel picked off the likes of Jenson Button and Felipe Massa, Alonso stayed ahead.

Hamilton delayed his stop by another lap and came out in third ahead of Webber.

Vettel came in early for his second stop as well – heading for pit lane on the 18th lap – and Alonso stayed out, resigning himself to losing the lead. He also dropped behind Hamilton.

That left Vettel and Hamilton in a battle for the lead, and the McLaren driver was able to cut into the Red Bull driver’s lead. Radio messages between Vettel and his team revealed he was having to turn KERS off at times, and reactivate it later.

That allowed Hamilton to use the Drag Reduction System to close in on Vettel on the main straight, but couldn’t get close enough to try to pass. The RB7 was clearly faster than the MP4-26 through the faster corners on the Circuit de Catalunya.

With Vettel unable to back off, every driver bar the two McLarens and Red Bulls were lapped – even Alonso, who had led to begin with.

Button recovered from a poor start during which he fell to tenth place. He took Sebastien Buemi on lap three and later took Massa as well.

Once again he ran one fewer pit stop than most of his rivals and was able to stay of soft tyres for longer. He breezed past Webber and Alonso on lap 35 to take third.

Alonso made an early fourth pit stop for a second set of hard tyres but that couldn’t stem the huge amount of time he was losing to the leaders. It handed fourth to Webber who closed in on Button, but dropped off the pace at the end.

The two Mercedes were sixth and seventh, Nico Rosberg spend most of the race stuck behind Michael Schumacher, who made a very strong start.

Nick Heidfeld recovered from starting last by getting his hard tyre stint out of the way early on, then using his three fresh sets of soft tyres to carve through the field.

He passed Sergio Perez and Massa to take eighth and had just caught the Mercedes when the race finished.

Massa retired in the gravel trap at turn seven shortly after Heidfeld passed him. He’d struggled during the race and spun at turn ten shortly after putting hard tyres on.

Kamui Kobayashi in the other Sauber rounded off the points finishers – both drivers used hard tyres for their second stints and ended the race on softs.

Vitaly Petrov finished out of the points in 11th. Behind him were the two Force Indias, led again by Paul di Resta.

Having started in the top ten Pastor Maldonado could only finish 15th, two places ahead of his team mate with Jaime Alguersuari in between.

Jarno Trulli was the only Lotus to finish. Team mate Heikki Kovalainen crashed out on lap 48 and four drivers were later penalised for failing to slow under the resulting yellow flags.

The two Virgins and Narain Karthikeyan’s HRT were the final finishers.

Another victory for Vettel gives him a 41-point lead in the drivers championship over Hamilton, who is the only driver to finish a race ahead of him this year.

Courtsey : F1.com, F1 Fanatic,BBCF1 Tweets from Individual teams

Spanish Grand Prix - Qualifying - Drivers Quotes

- Webber : It was a good session. We thought he had an advantage and that we would probably battle for pole, not to underestimate the other guys. I was obviously praying my number went to number one on the gantry when I crossed the line and it did. Today was my day


- Vettel : It's not right to say Mark is on pole because I didn't have Kers,Mark did a better job today. I'm not concerned, we are working hard on the Kers, and I think we will be on top of it in the race


- Button : "I'm three hundredths [of a second] off third, and the positive thing is I'm starting from the clean side of the grid. It's difficult to predict what will happen, but tyre-wise in particular I think we're in pretty good shape


- Hamilton : I'm pushing like crazy, as you can tell. I made some changes going into qualifying, and it was the wrong choice. It's good to be in P3, but it was massively close to the guys behind, and nowhere near as fast as the guys in front


- Alonso : I did a perfect lap. I reckon that if I tried to repeat it 20 times I could not do better. When you do a lap like that it's hard to put into words what one feels: always being on the limit in every corner is a special feeling


- Schumi : We had a problem with Kers and we couldn't go out for another qualifying lap so we preferred to save the tyres for tomorrow


- Hekki : We wanted to go for the qualifying time and maximise our performance. Everybody on the pit wall agreed, and I think it was the right choice


- Nick Heidfeld: I still hope for a good race and with fresh tyres you can still move forward and fight


- Rubens : We had a gearbox problem. The car was not doing very well when I was running and when I came back they said I couldn't go out again.

Spanish Grand Prix - Qualifying - Webber beats Vettel

Questions from Qualifying


For the first time this year, we have a new pole sitter and it is Webber on RB7, - Can Mark Webber capitalize rare chance to put one over his team mate? 
- Will Vettel be left stranded at the start with out KERS?
- Can Lewis capitalize on the race where he lost out on qualifying? But his tyres has a burned patch
- Can Jenson, the smooth tyre operator jump ahead in race strategy?


Many questions that needs answered and would be answered in today's Grand Prix, the qualifying is loosing its steam due to DRS and Tyres strategy




I am going to skip the qualifying as the timings are available everywhere and it was a straight forward qualifying session with very few surprises which I will highlight at the bottom, but I would Analyze race strategy here


Probable Race Strategy


The new "Super" hard tyres which Pirelli has bought for Spanish Grand Prix is lasting a lot comparing it the the normal hard tyres and in comparision to soft it is almost 2 seconds slower
Using it earlier in the race would be a gamble as most of the front runners are using soft tyres and potentially will loose places (But Remember Webber in China and Kobyahsi in Turkey) 


# of soft tyres available for the drivers by race

Driver	Sets
Fernando Alonso, Felipe Massa, Nico Rosberg, Vitaly Petrov, Pastor Maldonado, Kamui Kobayashi, Sergio Perez, Jaime Alguersuari	0
Sebastian Vettel, Mark Webber, Lewis Hamilton, Jenson Button, Michael Schumacher, Sebastien Buemi, Heikki Kovalainen, Jarno Trulli, Narain Karthikeyan, Vitantonio Liuzzi, Timo Glock, Jerome D’Ambrosio	1
Adrian Sutil, Paul di Resta	2
Rubens Barrichello	3
Nick Heidfeld	4

Heidfeld will be trying to mimick webber with the choice of tyres he has (4 stops) I belive for him. 


The summary strategy would be : Drivers would like to spend less time on Hard tyres and postponing the stop as late as possible, I am guessing 3 to 4 pit stops for all the front driving drivers


Few Surprises




- Heikki Kovalainen raised huge smiles at Lotus, not only because he qualified 15th on merit on 1m 25.403s, but because that comprehensively out-paced the troubled Force Indias
- Rubens Barrichello was in trouble with his Williams which spent too much time in the pits due to gearbox trouble, and was 19th on 1m 26.910s
- Jerome D’Ambrosio was also in trouble, running 1m 28.556s in the second Virgin for P23. Nick Heidfeld will start at the back, not running at all as his Renault was still being repaired after its morning fire


Qualifying Timing & Race Driver Line up

Pos	No	Driver	Team	Q1	Q2	Q3	Laps
1	2	Mark Webber	RBR-Renault	1:23.619	1:21.773	1:20.981	12
2	1	Sebastian Vettel	RBR-Renault	1:24.142	1:21.540	1:21.181	13
3	3	Lewis Hamilton	McLaren-Mercedes	1:24.370	1:22.148	1:21.961	12
4	5	Fernando Alonso	Ferrari	1:23.485	1:22.813	1:21.964	15
5	4	Jenson Button	McLaren-Mercedes	1:24.428	1:22.050	1:21.996	12
6	10	Vitaly Petrov	Renault	1:23.069	1:22.948	1:22.471	14
7	8	Nico Rosberg	Mercedes	1:23.507	1:22.569	1:22.599	14
8	6	Felipe Massa	Ferrari	1:23.506	1:23.026	1:22.888	15
9	12	Pastor Maldonado	Williams-Cosworth	1:23.406	1:22.854	1:22.952	14
10	7	Michael Schumacher	Mercedes	1:22.960	1:22.671		12
11	18	Sebastien Buemi	STR-Ferrari	1:23.962	1:23.231		6
12	17	Sergio Perez	Sauber-Ferrari	1:24.209	1:23.367		9
13	19	Jaime Alguersuari	STR-Ferrari	1:24.049	1:23.694		9
14	16	Kamui Kobayashi	Sauber-Ferrari	1:23.656	1:23.702		8
15	20	Heikki Kovalainen	Lotus-Renault	1:25.874	1:25.403		6
16	15	Paul di Resta	Force India-Mercedes	1:24.332	1:26.126		13
17	14	Adrian Sutil	Force India-Mercedes	1:24.648	1:26.571		13
18	21	Jarno Trulli	Lotus-Renault	1:26.521			4
19	11	Rubens Barrichello	Williams-Cosworth	1:26.910			5
20	24	Timo Glock	Virgin-Cosworth	1:27.315			8
21	23	Vitantonio Liuzzi	HRT-Cosworth	1:27.809			9
22	22	Narain Karthikeyan	HRT-Cosworth	1:27.908			9
23	25	Jerome d'Ambrosio	Virgin-Cosworth	1:28.556			5
	9	Nick Heidfeld	Renault	no time			0
		Q1 107% Time		1:28.767

Courtesy : F1.Com, F1 Fanatic, BBC F1 & Tweets from indiviual teams & Drivers