Motorsports Mondial
Photo: Renault sports F1
The vettel train continues with victory 11 in India
Another crash between Felipe Massa and Lewis Hamilton
Sebastian Vettel: “To be honest with you, it is a little bit of a mixed emotion,
On the one hand I am very happy, very proud to be the first winner, but on the other hand looking back at last weekend we lost two of our mates. I didn’t know Dan but obviously he is a big name in motorsport.
This year I got to know Marco Simoncelli and our thoughts are with them. We are ready to take certain risks when we get in the car, but sometimes things happen. As I said a bit of mixed emotions and our thoughts are with them at the moment.
Obviously it was a very good race for us. I enjoyed the time in the lead very much. I had a bit of a fight with Jenson in the distance as he was always four seconds behind and with the strategy he kept closing in during the pitstops.
I think we can continue. The car is fantastic and the team is enjoying it. We are on a run since the beginning of the season. We enjoy every race. The great thing is when you walk in the garage every morning, they are flat out and pushing very hard.
It’s really enjoyable to see that knowing what we have achieved, we are still hungry, not lacking motivation. The people come with questions but we come back with the right answers, so we don’t want this to end.”
Felipe Massa: “My view is that I was in front, I braked later than him and I was in front, I was on the grippy area as well and then I started to turn and I didn’t see him on the left as he was behind. He touched my rear wheel. So, to be honest I don’t understand why I have the penalty. It is not really understandable. Maybe for him. Because all the incidents are that he touched my car. So, I didn’t do anything wrong.
If it is Lewis or not Lewis, whatever the driver is there, I would do the same. I know he was on my side. But when I braked, this is the important place, not when you are on the straight, when I braked, he was not on my side. So, I turned because I braked later than him. I cannot understand why I am supposed to back off and let him by, no? I braked later. He was on the dirty side. And then I turned and he touched me from behind. He did not touch on my side, or wheel-to-wheel. If it was wheel-to-wheel I would not try to close the door.”
Lewis Hamilton: “There’s not really much to say,” It’s a disappointing day. My team worked hard all weekend as they always do. I don’t really know what else to say. We had the one minute silence before the start of the race and me and Felipe were standing next to each other. He hasn’t spoken to me in a long, long time so I put my arm around him and just said ‘good luck for the race’.
But in the race I tried to overtake and I tried to come out of it because it didn’t look like he was going to give me any space, and we collided. I’m really, really sorry for my team. I had some vibrations, in right handers it felt like the floor was scraping on the floor, and I just had very, very poor performance and I was pushing as hard as I could just to have the pace of anyone, The car looks fine so maybe it’s just me.”
The Indian Grand Prix Noida, New Delhi, India; 60 laps; 308.220km 1. Vettel Red Bull-Renault 1h30:35.002 2. Button McLaren-Mercedes + 8.433 3. Alonso Ferrari + 24.301 4. Webber Red Bull-Renault + 25.529 5. Schumacher Mercedes + 1:05.421 6. Rosberg Mercedes + 1:06.851 7. Hamilton McLaren-Mercedes + 1:24.183 8. Alguersuari Toro Rosso-Ferrari + 1 lap 9. Sutil Force India-Mercedes + 1 lap 10. Perez Sauber-Ferrari + 1 lap 11. Petrov Renault + 1 lap 12. Senna Renault + 1 lap 13. Di Resta Force India-Mercedes + 1 lap 14. Kovalainen Lotus-Renault + 2 laps 15. Barrichello Williams-Cosworth + 2 laps 16. D'Ambrosio Virgin-Cosworth + 2 laps 17. Karthikeyan HRT-Cosworth + 3 laps 18. Ricciardo HRT-Cosworth + 3 laps 19. Trulli Lotus-Renault + 4 laps Fastest lap: Vettel, 1:27.457