“Unfortunately Adrian was not so lucky. He tried to move up – sadly it didn’t work – but if you start close to the back you have to take risks. We now just have to work on qualifying and improve on this – if we start higher up the grid, who knows where we could go?”
Mike Gascoyne [Force India F1 – chief technical officer]:
“Good and bad. Both drivers had excellent starts, but unfortunately Adrian just lost the car on the first lap and was forced to retire. Giancarlo drove an excellent race, and was able to pick up several positions and run at the pace of the group in front as we expected. It was difficult at his first pit-stop when the safety car came out as we were just seconds away from coming in, but Giancarlo did a great job to conserve fuel so we could hang on until the pit-lane opened.
“We short-fuelled him to jump the cars in the pit-stop, which worked perfectly for us, but we then got bottled up behind Sato, which meant we couldn’t use the light car to build up the cushion and we dropped a couple of places. It was a shame as at one point eighth place was on the cards, but well done to Giancarlo and the team – our first top ten finish. Once again our race pace shows well, but we now have to get Saturday right as we haven’t got the most out of qualifying yet.”
Aguri Suzuki [Super Aguri F1 – team principal]:
“It was a tough race with only just over half of the competitors crossing the finish line. Despite the fact that we did not attend the test here last week, both drivers and all the mechanics and engineers have done a great job today. I am sorry for Anthony as he retired due to damage to his radiator, but he did a great job at the start.
“Taku had a very good race in a difficult situation and came home in 13th position, which is our best result so far this season. It has been a difficult weekend for everybody in our team, and I would like to thank our partners and the fans for their continued support.”
Flavio Briatore [Renault – managing director]:
“It is disappointing to come away with nothing, especially after such a hopeful weekend. Nelson’s race was spoiled when he ran wide at the beginning, but Fernando drove impeccably. In spite of the engine problem we have seen that the car is very competitive, and we can look forward to the next race.”
Pat Symonds [Renault – executive director of engineering]:
“A weekend that had a lot of potential has slipped away from us. A fifth place with Fernando looked easy today, and a good showing from Nelson would have backed this up.
