The Renault Formula One team enjoyed a double points finish in this afternoon’s German Grand Prix here at the Hockenheim circuit when Robert Kubica crossed the line in seventh place ahead of his Russian teammate, Vitaly Petrov in tenth.
“I think we had a good weekend considering the car’s potential at this circuit. There were some exciting moments during the race: I made a good start and was fighting to pass Hamilton into turn two when he braked early, and I ended up losing positions to Button and Webber,” Robert said.
“Then, after my stop, I had a good battle with Michael to keep my position – but I also had to make sure I didn’t lose too much time fighting with him, because I had to maintain a good pace to stay in front of Rosberg who hadn’t yet stopped. Overall, though, the gap to the front-runners was too big for us to fight for more than seventh place, so I think we must be pleased that we achieved our maximum.
Meanwhile, Petrov was thrilled to finally score his first points in a dry event, however he knows that there is still a lot of hard work ahead to ensure the best possible finish to his rookie season in the sport...
“This was an interesting race for me and I am very happy to have scored my first point in dry conditions – especially because I thought that I had finished 11th, so it was an even better surprise when I found out I was tenth!” he said.
“I managed to gain a position at the start, the pace was good today and I made a big effort to push at the right time before the pit stop, which helped me climb two more places. I am pleased with my race but I know that I could have done better in qualifying, so I still need to work hard and put all of the pieces together across the weekend.”
“There were some very positive points from today’s race,” added Eric Boullier, Team Principal.”The team did a strong job on the strategy and with the pit stops; Robert achieved the full potential of the car and showed we were the fourth quickest team this weekend; and Vitaly produced an excellent drive.”
“He showed good pace, pushed when he needed to in order to gain positions and scored the final point. On the other hand, in terms of pure performance, we cannot be satisfied to be lapped by Ferrari. It shows that we still have a lot of work to do, but we know that we have some good upgrades on the way.”
;)
