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2009
EUROPEAN GRAND PRIX
Valencia,
Sunday August 23
LEWIS
HAMILTON
MP4-24-05
Started:
1st
Finished:
2nd
Fastest
lap: 1m39.056s
(4th)
Pitstops:
two
(Op-Op-Pr)
2009
points: 27
(6th)
Lewis
made a good start from pole position, and drove a strong first stint to
lead the opening laps, stretching his advantage over Heikki and Rubens
Barrichello in so doing. Pitting for the first time on lap 16, Lewis
resumed in fourth position but was able to retake the lead once the order
had shaken itself out after the first series of pitstops.
He
struggled a little with his car’s balance in the middle stint, and was
therefore unable to pull out a sufficient gap on second-placed Rubens –
he needed to have established a lead of at least six or seven seconds
before the final pitstop in order to give himself a fighting chance of
retaining his lead, but was able to manage only around four seconds.
The
team’s strategy for him was twofold: to push hard to extend his gap over
Rubens, and to take great care to conserve enough fuel for an additional
lap before the second pitstop. It was marginal, though, and it was only at
the last second that a decision was made to keep Lewis out for that extra
lap, but by that time he was heading for the pit entry so it was too late.
As
a result, the pit crew hadn’t fully readied his final set of tyres, and
he was delayed slightly in the pits while they were being unwrapped.
It
was a calculated risk to push for that extra lap – but, given the race
pace of Rubens’s car, it almost certainly wouldn’t have paid off even
if Lewis’s tyres had been ready for him. Second place was anyway safe,
though, and Lewis scored a second successive podium finish – a result
that moved him up to sixth in the Drivers’ World Championship.
“This
is my second podium in a row, and I’m very happy to be here,” Lewis
said. “We did the best job we could today. Am I disappointed? Yes, I
think we all are – but that’s simply an indication of just how hard
everyone in this team is pushing to win. We’re never satisfied unless
we’re winning, in fact.
“But,
ultimately, we didn’t really lose anything today – it was always going
to be tough to beat Rubens and what we tried wasn’t quite enough.
“Before
my second pitstop, I’d been saving fuel and was a bit unsure if I had
enough for that extra lap or not. The pitwall had initially asked me to
pit – but, just when I was coming in, they told me to stay out and do an
extra lap – however, I was already inside the white line [entry to the
pits] and committed, so it was too late.
“In
those circumstances, it’s always better to be safe and to pit, because
the last thing you want to do is run dry out on the circuit. But the call
was a marginal one – the team was pushing the envelope, as I say – and
it came just a little too late for me and the mechanics, who weren’t
perfectly prepared. Make no mistake, I think those guys are the best in
the business; what happened was simply a result of the team trying
everything in their power to turn a safe second place into a possible win.
“In
any case, our overall performance this weekend confirmed the huge
improvement we’ve made recently, but we still lack a bit of race pace
compared with the very fastest cars. You can be well sure we’re working
on fixing that, though.
“Congratulations
to Rubens – he drove a fantastic race today and really deserved this
victory.”
HEIKKI
KOVALAINEN
MP4-24-03
Started:
2nd
Finished:
4th
Fastest
lap: 1m39.341
(7th)
Pitstops:
two (Op-Op-Pr)
2009
points: 14
(12th)
Heikki
started from the front row, slotted in behind Lewis into the first corner
and maintained second position until the first stops, when he was jumped
by Rubens. Despite pushing hard to create a sufficient advantage over
fourth-placed Kimi Raikkonen, the Ferrari driver was fuelled longer in the
middle stint and jumped Heikki at the second pitstops.
Nonetheless,
Heikki drove a solid race to finish fourth – his best result of the
season and his third successive points finish.
“To
start second and finish fourth isn’t ideal,” he said. “But I’m
more pleased with my overall performance in this race than in Hungary. We
showed good performance throughout the whole weekend, and I really want to
thank the whole team for helping us to achieve that – it’s good to see
things improving like this.
“We
don’t yet have the pace of the frontrunners, but everyone has done an
incredible job to get us to where we are. We’ve scored more points in
the last three races than any other team – but I still want to score
more. I’m already focusing on Spa; it’s a circuit I love and I really
want to be on the podium there.”
MARTIN
WHITMARSH
Team
principal, Vodafone McLaren Mercedes
“Following
our all-front-row qualifying result, naturally enough we had very high
expectations for today’s race. In the event, though, our race pace
wasn’t good enough to beat Rubens’s car. We’d adopted a different
tyre strategy from many of the front-runners – maybe that was right,
maybe that was wrong – but the reality is that we weren’t quick enough
to win today.
“So,
coming in to the final pitstops, in our efforts to convert a safe second
for Lewis into a possible first for him, we took a calculated risk in
attempting to reverse the sequence of Lewis’s and Heikki’s pit stops
at the last second. That last-second decision caused a bit of pitlane
confusion, which probably cost Lewis a couple of seconds overall – but
Rubens’s race pace was such that that couple of seconds didn’t make a
difference to the outcome of the race.
“In
a nutshell, we decided to take the risk because we knew Rubens had the
strategy to win and it was our only chance of attempting to prevent that.
We don’t like not winning, but second and fourth isn’t such a terrible
result. Now, though, we’ll focus on the challenge of Spa – a very
different type of racetrack from Valencia.”
NORBERT
HAUG
Vice-president,
Mercedes-Benz Motorsport
“A
shame for Lewis who drove a faultless race, but it would have been very
tight with a perfect pitstop against Rubens anyway and he certainly
deserves this victory.
“Our
team scored more points than any other today, the same it did before the
summer break in Hungary. This makes a total of 27 out of 36 possible
points and Lewis scored 18 out of possible 20. That of course is very
positive and will certainly please all our team members in Woking,
Brixworth and Stuttgart who have worked so hard to recover from our not
quite typical Vodafone McLaren Mercedes form in the first half of the
season.
“Heikki
drove a solid race today and brought home his best result so far this
season. So, all in all, quite a lot of positives and we all will push hard
in order to build on these results.
“Spa
will not be a circuit exactly tailormade for our car and I do not expect
us to be quite as competitive as we were in Hungary and here where we have
been the class of the field or on a level with the best.
“Congratulations
to Rubens – he deserves this victory after four tough years since his
last one and my feeling is the whole paddock thinks like that.”
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