Maldonado bags points with 'surprisingly good' pace
Pastor Maldonado scored his first points of 2014 whilst Romain Grosjean was assisted out of a points-scoring position to finish an eventual eleventh in an exciting and action-filled United States Grand Prix at the Circuit of the Americas.
Maldonado finished 9th on track and was classified 9th, despite incurring a 5 second penalty for speeding in the pit lane. As Jean-Eric Vergne was similarly penalised for bumping into Romain Grosjean by adding 5s to his race result, their relative positions remained the same.
Romain started from P16 on new soft compound tyres. He changed to new soft compound tyres on lap 16 then new medium compound tyres on lap 29. Pastor started from P10 on new soft compound tyres. He changed to new medium compound tyres on laps 15 and 35.
Romain Grosjean, 11th, E22-03: “The race was really good, I enjoyed it. On the soft tyres, the car was quick; I could follow the Ferraris, and on prime it was a bit more difficult but still enjoyable. Fighting with JB was very very tight but definitely good fun. It was less amusing with Jean-Eric though, he broke my front wing and he broke my rear floor which made the car pretty difficult to drive afterwards. I wasn’t very happy about that as the incident cost me P8. On the plus side, it’s good to be back in the points with Pastor, it’s just a shame not to have been there too.”
Pastor Maldonado, 9th, E22-02: “It was a great fight from the very beginning; it felt good, the strategy was good and the car pace was surprisingly good! We were fully focused, keeping the pace and managing the tyres. We did lose out in the slow-speed corners but we were very competitive in the medium and high speed turns throughout the first and last sector. That meant we could recover the time lost in the slow ones so we were in the mix. Overtaking was challenging because of the speed we have but we still took the fight to others for position which was great. Let’s keep pushing like that; I think we can do a good job in the next two races.”
Federico Gastaldi, Deputy Team Principal: "It was a great race from both our drivers and everyone in the garage for which we owe everyone at Enstone thanks for their perseverance throughout the season. Pastor and Romain both drove really well and showed their class on track. For Pastor it was great to finally score, which is something we all want. There are two further races in 2014 and we aim to achieve the very best possible in both of them.”
Alan Permane, Trackside Operations Director : "It was good to be back racing Ferraris and McLarens today and see both cars running in scoring positions. Tyres were key, with degradation varying at different points in the race but we seemed to manage well with the allocation here. Our pace was good and we matched that of McLaren and Toro Rosso fairly evenly. Overall it was a good effort from everyone. We have the same tyre combination for Brazil next weekend, we can go on and do the same.”
Simon Rebreyend, Renault Sport F1 track support leader: “We’ve seen a much-improved performance today, which is fantastic for the whole team. The Power Unit is made to work pretty hard here, especially in the first two sectors which involve a lot of straight-line speed, so to have scored points for Pastor, and had the potential for a few more, and been able to overtake many cars, is personally very satisfying. We extracted everything we could from each PU, and neither experienced any problems, which allowed both drivers to complete good mileage early in the weekend and hone their race set-ups. Clearly that made a difference today.”
