F1weekly podcast number 574
Special Interview with Inder Lal from McLaren F1
Pastor Madonado takes his first victory in the Spanish Grand Prix.
Pastor: “It was so close. We were looking to manage the tyre degradation so I couldn’t push that hard, just to keep the tyres alive for the end of the race and Fernando got very close,” said Maldonado.
There were some moments where he was so close especially at end of the straight, but I was managing the gap and controlling everything.
Our pace today was very strong, the car was fantastic, so was the team. We did a small mistake at the last pitstop but it did not affect our performance.
I think it’s a wonderful day, unbelievable for me and all the team,” he said. “We have been pushing so hard since last year to improve race by race and here we are.
It was a tough race because of the strategy as well, it was hard especially because of rear tyres, after a couple of laps we were struggling with them, but I need to say I am pretty happy because car was so competitive since the first lap.
It will be a great opportunity for us to be strong again,” said Maldonado. “We need to keep continuing like that to develop it as soon as possible. Consistency will be the most important thing in this championship.”
Kimi Räikkönen: “I had a very good start and had a chance to overtake on the outside, but we did not have enough speed and I hit the limiter in fifth gear. I am a bit disappointed because if everything had gone right in the first part of the race, we could have won. There was no issue with the speed of the car, but it is so close between all the teams that if you have a small problem or a small issue it can cost so much.
Our car can do it, but everything has to fall into the right place to be able to get on to the top step. My first stint was okay, but I didn’t have the speed to stay with the cars in front. We changed the tyres and it seemed to be pretty good, but we were too far away. At the end we needed a few more laps and we could have fought for the win. We’re not far away from it and so far we’ve made good steps forwards; the car feels strong everywhere.”
Romain Grosjean: “We lost position at the start and with it a bit of front wing too! It was cooler today which didn’t suit us so much. Despite this, I am very happy with P4 especially when you look at yesterday where I missed all of the final practice session.
Both cars finishing strongly in the points is great for the team. It was pretty difficult for me at the start of the race as it was hard to get the front working properly with the wing damaged, but we made some changes and at the end of the race the car was really flying. I think we made the right decisions today; if you told us we could finish third and fourth at the beginning of the weekend we’d have taken it.
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