“Giancarlo made a bad start, but after the first stop he showed really competitive race pace. Ultimately it was disappointing not to get two cars to the finish, but overall I think we can look forward to a much better season than the team has had over the last few years.”
Sam Michael [Williams – technical director]:
“This was a race weekend to move on from. After a poor qualifying, we tried two different strategies on the cars – Nico on a one-stop and Kazuki on a two-stop. The plan didn’t work out because Nico lost his front wing on the first lap and Kazuki had a puncture.
“We later had a problem with the fuel system on Nico’s car, meaning we had to pit earlier than planned and run some extra fuel. Kazuki made good progress during the first stint and it looked like the strategy was working, but he had a puncture in the second stint, so we had to pit him earlier than scheduled too. Kazuki then went off the road and flat-spotted the tyres. We need to learn from all the mistakes we made this weekend, look forward to Bahrain and have a good recovery.”
Aguri Suzuki [Super Aguri F1 - team principal]:
“I am very happy to have a two-car finish here in Malaysia, because it is a very hot, humid and difficult race. The whole team has done an excellent job, and for both cars to finish means that we have finally started the 2008 season.”
Gerhard Berger [Scuderia Toro Rosso – team principal]:
“Not a great weekend for us; even practice did not go the way we would have liked. Then, on the opening lap we lost Bourdais. On his first set, Vettel had too much understeer, but still showed a reasonable pace until he stopped with a problem we have yet to investigate. On the positive side, the two
Red Bull Racing cars finished, and obviously we will get the benefit of this later in the season.”
