The Gentleman Magazine Issue 14 | April 2019 | Page 35
These things happen in motorsport: we took the best out of it
anyway. It’s my first podium even if I’m not enjoying it as much
as I wanted. It’s life, it happens, we’ll come back stronger”
Sebastian Vettel #5
“Not the race we wanted. We started first and second and we
didn’t finish there. A disappointing evening. I had a good start
but already halfway through the first lap I realised that the
car was extremely difficult to drive. I think Charles struggled
less as he had no difficulties in passing me. It was quite tough
out there. Then we lost P2 at the pitstop but came back. In the
second stint on the medium tyres maybe it was a bit better
but overall we didn’t have the pace we should have had today.
While battling with Lewis I made a mistake at turn 4, which is
one of the trickiest corners on the track. I suddenly lost the car
and I spun. In doing so, I damaged the tyres so much that I had
quite a lot of vibrations, which eventually led to the failure of
the front wing. It was Charles’ race today, he got very unlucky.
I am sorry for him and for the team”.
FROM THE TEAM:
Mattia Binotto Team Principal.
“It was a shame for Charles. He was in the lead for much of
the race and showed that he was particularly comfortable
here in Bahrain, also setting the race fastest lap. He deserved
to win and it was only the reliability problem, which we must
now investigate, which prevented him from doing so. That is
something unacceptable from us and it shows how important
it is to get every last detail right in order to win.
Charles Leclerc #16
“It’s part of motorsport, we know that. Sometimes it’s not your
day to win and today wasn’t ours. In the final part of the race
we had an issue with the power unit and I had to slow down.
It’s a shame because the race seemed to me to be under control.
The team is disappointed and I am disappointed but there are a
lot of positives to take home from this weekend. They gave me
an amazing car and that is very much to their credit. The car
was very easy to drive and was very good.
With regards to Sebastian, these things can happen in racing
when you are on the limit, therefore it is more important to
consider the car, which today performed well. The team also
did an excellent job, producing some really good pit stops. We
head home with many positives on which to build for the rest
of the season, such as our performance level and the way the
team reacted. Clearly there are still various things that we have
to learn and we will continue to work on them.”
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