Schumacher and Vettel win at ROC
Michael Schumacher and Sebastian Vettel have won the nations cup at the Race Of Champions as Team Germany. They have thereby ended the 100 percent win record of Tom Kristensen. He still dubbed it a great result, despite being being beaten in the final.
The German duo defeated Team Nordic’s Tom Kristensen and Juho Hänninen in the final after being taken to a decider in the best-of-three semi-final against Team Great Britain’s Jenson Button and Andy Priaulx.
In the individual competition, Sebastien Ogier was crowned the champion.
After such an exciting ROC Nations Cup, the drivers gave their reaction to events. Here’s what some of them had to say:
Sebastian Vettel (Team Germany): “It’s special to win five in a row. This is a difficult event and a lot of things have to come together. You jump into different cars and it’s easy to lose it so you have to push yourself to the limit. Winning at home makes up for the Nürburgring, which wasn’t my best race of the F1 season! I enjoyed tonight. The fans were incredible, giving us a boost when we came into the stadium and when we crossed the line. In fact the atmosphere felt much better than last year so I hope we can carry this through to tomorrow.”
Michael Schumacher (Team Germany): “It’s always a pleasure for us to be here – and especially to win it. Sebastian and I are good mates and we work well with each other and help each other. In the end it worked out right for us. Unlike him, this is one of the few wins I’ve had this year – apart from a few in karts. There are so many great drivers here and we are all good in our own area. So this is just a nice competition and the social moments that we get to spend together behind the scenes are very special.”
Tom Kristensen (Team Nordic): “It was a good evening for us. I’m not German but I still had good support from the crowd when we won. It was nice to drive all these different cars, and they all gave me a good feeling, especially the Audi. But I’m really impressed with my young team-mate. He was a bit nervous to start with but I told him to just go out there and enjoy it. And he produced a really mature and impressive performance to win in the semi-final. His heart rate hasn’t been above 90bpm all day so I’m wondering what it is when he sleeps! Overall it was a great result to be on the podium.”
Juho Hänninen (Team Nordic): “Compared to yesterday’s practice, I had a more confident feeling tonight. Tom was a huge help today, saying just relax and don’t worry, enjoy. I lost my first race, then I won with the Skoda – I think I had to do that! Then we had a nice fight with Ogier in the VW Scirocco. That was probably my best moment today. We didn’t quite make it in the final. When I noticed Seb ahead of me on the first lap, I started to push more and made a mistake. But altogether this is a nice feeling.”
