First double car finish of the season for Caterham
It has been a difficult race day for the Caterham F1 Team at Sepang. Vitaly Petrov ended the Malaysian Grand Prix in 16th position, team mate Heikki Kovalainen in 18th place, resulting in the first double car finish for the team this season.
Vitaly Petrov, car 21, chassis CT01-#2: “I am really happy with the performance today. We didn't show the car's true potential in qualifying, but today I was able to put in similar lap times to the cars ahead and didn't make any mistakes in the tricky conditions. The car felt good all afternoon and the team worked really well to help me get the most out of it, both on the pitwall and with the stops, so I'm very pleased I've been able to record my first race finish for the team and to start to show what we can do in races. This gives us a good base to work from so it's been a good Sunday, particularly in front of our home fans.”
Heikki Kovalainen, car 20, chassis CT01-#3: “That was one of those races when we could have had a really good result, but a bit of bad luck and a car I didn't really have a great balance on meant I'm just pleased to have got it home. I made a small mistake on the inters and had to come in for a new nose, and that dropped me back a few places which basically ended my race. Despite that, it's good that we got both cars home and we also showed again that we have a car that can race on Sundays. Now we need to focus on getting more out of it in qualifying and pushing on at the next race in China.”
Thierry Salvi, Renault Sport F1 Support Leader: "Conditions like we saw today can make the race a complete lottery. We worked well all afternoon with the engineering team to adjust the engine strategy to deal with the red flag and the safety car period, and we can be reasonably pleased with how well the car performed against the teams ahead, so now we will focus on China and Bahrain and make sure we use this as a base to keep progressing."
Mark Smith, Technical Director: “From the technical perspective that was an incredibly busy race. With the constantly changing conditions we had to make a number of calls to give us a chance to fight and while that paid off for Vitaly, for Heikki it was a much tougher afternoon. He had to change a front wing after going off track and that effectively ended his race, but it is good to see how hard Vitaly was able to push, and to see the lap times he was putting in on the inters.”
Tony Fernandes, Team Principal: “I'm happy with how the race went today. We recorded our first two car finish at our home race in Malaysia, and we definitely gave the fans here something to cheer for, particularly with Vitaly battling with the likes of Ferrari, Williams and Toro Rosso. We showed good pace and with a bit more work ont he strategies I think we can keep demonstrating that we keep edging ever closer to what is clearly an intense battle in the midfield. The fact we are now fighting with some of the most famous names in motorsport is a huge achievement in what is only our third season, and now we will keep fighting to close that gap which is already so much smaller than it was last year, and streets ahead of where we were in 2010.”
