CaterhamF1 delighted with 10th in constructors championship
Thanks to Vitaly Petrov's 11th place finish in today's Brazilian GP, CaterhamF1 have taken 10th place in the constructors' championship, passing Marussia who held that position since the Singaporean GP.
Vitaly Petrov, car 21, chassis CT01-#2:
“What an incredible race. I’m so pleased for the whole team and I want to thank every single one of them for doing such a fantastic job in the conditions today. Seeing what regaining tenth place in the championship meant to everyone when I got back to the garage was really special and I think we deserve it after all the hard work we’ve put in throughout the whole year.
“On track it was one of the hardest races I’ve ever been in, but also one of the best. I had a great start, passed a lot of cars and avoided all the problems in turn four, and from then I was pushing as much as I could as the conditions kept changing. We made the right calls today on the stops and every time I came in the boys were perfect. The change to inters on lap 54 is I think what made the difference today. I had a good battle with Pic until the last few laps but then got him into turn three and just pulled away. From there it was all about keeping it on track and when I heard the safety car was coming out and I knew I had one lap left to go it was such a great feeling. Now we can celebrate and everyone has earned it – all the team on track, the factory back in Leafield, our team partners and our technical partners Renault Sport F1 and Red Bull Technology.”
Heikki Kovalainen, car 20, chassis CT01-#3:
“I’m really pleased for the team today and delighted that we’ve secured tenth place in the championship after a pretty intense race. It was one of those afternoons when anything could have happened and I think it was down to really good work right across the whole team that got us to where we finished today.
“My race was pretty interesting. I had an ok start and missed the problems on lap one but when we brought both cars in for the second stop there was an issue with my right rear that cost a lot of time and from that point I was playing catch up with the cars ahead. We went onto full wets on the last stop to cover the chance of the rain increasing but there was very little grip until the last couple of laps on that set. Despite that it was all about the final result and it came good right when it mattered.”
Cyril Abiteboul, Team Principal, Caterham F1 Team:
“On behalf of the whole team I want to say how proud we are of the job we’ve done today. It’s been a tough year, one where we have not performed at the level we want to, but today we have very good reason to celebrate. Every driver who finished the race in such treacherous conditions deserves praise and both our drivers did exactly that, so they can be very proud of the job they have done. They kept their cars on track when an awful lot of incidents were going on around them and they took full advantage of incidents that cost a number of other drivers the chance to finish the season in style.
“On balance, we deserved to regain tenth place. Our results over the whole season were better than our nearest rivals and when it mattered we were able to seize the opportunity that came our way. That is the mark of a good team and it means we head into the winter break and next year in a positive frame of mind.
“Our shareholders, Tony Fernandes and Kamarudin Meranun, and our team partners have given us the backing we need to progress up the field, and today we paid that support back in a small way by getting it right when it mattered. We can enjoy the feeling we have today, but tomorrow we will be back to work, ready to come back in 2013 and make the sort of progress a team in our position should.”
