“We don’t yet know the cause of the engine failure on Fernando’s car, but in spite of the disappointment of the final result, we take encouragement that our relative performance has moved up. There is still a lot to do, though, and we will continue to work hard to improve the car.”
Franz Tost [Scuderia Toro Rosso – team boss]:
“Our races are getting shorter and shorter at the moment! Vettel stopped at turn four on lap one, while Bourdais managed six more laps. Vettel could do nothing about it as Sutil spun right in front of him, and Bourdais didn’t see Piquet and they collided.”
Hirohide Hamashima [Bridgestone – director of motorsport tyre development]:
“
Kimi Raikkonen used his tyres very well to win quite a confusing race with the two safety car periods. The medium compound was the better tyre today with an obvious advantage of grip and better lap times, and this was because the circuit was much cleaner than yesterday.
“Most competitors used a medium-medium-hard strategy, and this was the correct choice. In terms of wear and tyre appearance, performance was good, but we expected this as we have tested here so many times.
“Regarding Heikki Kovalainen’s incident, we do not believe that there was a tyre failure. As is normal, we are now conducting a thorough investigation with the team and we are happy Kovalainen appears to have not sustained any visible injuries.”
