Formula 1

FORMULA 1 DRIVER QUOTES ON THE UPCOMING U.S. GRAND PRIX…

Mark Webber: “Regarding the new track, it’s unproven in terms of what we need to do with the car there. We will have a reasonable idea before we turn a wheel, but we’ve got to get into the nitty-gritty from our simulations. We need to see track temperatures and how the asphalt is for the car in terms of grip – we’ve got a lot of unanswered questions which we only learn on Friday, but the layout looks awesome. It’s probably one of the best layouts of the year in terms of being challenging for the drivers and the cars. I’ve been to Austin a few times, I’ve got some buddies there. It’s a really vibrant city, similar to Melbourne, and I know the locals are going to really embrace it. They obviously have the huge music festivals and they pull those off really well in terms of the organisation and getting everyone around.”

Sebastian Vettel: “I think it’s great that we are travelling to the United States again. I have been in the simulator learning the Austin track; how it flows and getting a general feel for it. What we know from designer Hermann Tilke is that the hallmark of the circuit will be the big differences in altitude within a lap as the highest point is expected to be 40ft higher than the lowest point. The site has natural elevation changes, which promises a fast course with difficult corners for us to familiarise ourselves with. It was also important to the designers that the fans in the stands could see a lot of the track and see the cars for a good amount of each lap. The track has 20 corners and we go anticlockwise.”

Pastor Maldonado: After a good performance in the last race in Abu Dhabi I’m looking forward to getting in the car again and seeing what we can achieve in Austin. The team has worked very hard to get the car back to the sort of pace that can consistently challenge for points and that is what we will be looking for in this race. The track is new so it will be challenging to get the right set up, but that is the same for all the teams. It looks like a fun and challenging track to drive from the work we have done in the simulator and the American fans should bring a really good atmosphere as well.

Bruno Senna: I’m excited to go to Austin because I’m hearing lots of good things about the track. It has both high speed and technical sections so it will be tricky to learn for all the drivers and it’s always interesting to see how drivers cope with a new layout and new corners they haven’t driven before. The weather can be very varied in Texas as well, with lots of wind and drops in temperature so that could be a factor. The car has definitely come on a lot in the past few weeks so we take good momentum into this race.

Pedro de la Rosa: “The truth is we don’t know much about this circuit. All I know about it is from what I’ve seen on the Internet. The first thing that strikes you about this track is the number of gradient changes and how extreme they are. The important thing is for our car to adapt well to this circuit and we will dedicate Friday to learning the track and setting up the car. The choice of medium and hard tyres seems, on paper, an election of quite hard compounds. But until we don’t confirm the grip of the asphalt it will be difficult to draw any conclusions”.

Narain Karthikeyan: “The Circuit of The Americas looks like a promising layout, lots of parts from different circuits around the world but what I’m looking forward to most is the massively uphill turn one. These gradient changes do well to add to the circuit’s character as we’ve seen in India so it is going to be a challenging layout. So as a driver, it would be up to us to do the maximum number of laps possible on Friday to learn the circuit and get the base set-up right and then take it from there. I raced in Formula 1 the last time it was in America, back at Indianapolis in 2005 and then NASCAR in 2010 and I really enjoyed racing there; the fan following is huge. So it would be great to see Formula 1 being successful in such a promising market and hopefully with this new facility and an entertaining circuit, it will happen soon enough”.