Race report
Japanese GP: Top 10 quotes after race
Mercedes have now sealed a third consecutive Constructors' World Championship title with a 60th Formula One Grand Prix victory at Suzuka
XPB Images
| Cla | Driver | Chassis | Engine | Gap |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 |  Nico Rosberg |
Mercedes | Mercedes | 1:26'43.333 |
| "What an awesome weekend! It felt great right from when the lights went green on Friday. I got a good rhythm in practice, had a strong Qualifying, a decent start and then from the lead I was able to control the pace in the race. I had to save my engine a bit as it was my last race in the cycle - but the gap was always safe. I came here to win in Japan and I managed to do so, which is really special. It's a fantastic feeling to win at this legendary race track. Massive congratulations to all of my colleagues here in Japan, back at Brackley and Brixworth, and the hundreds of thousands of Daimler employees out there for the third Constructors' World Championship. A huge thank you to every single person and to every partner who made this possible. They are really the best! They deserve it so much after the unbelievable effort over these past few years, so let's celebrate hard! I might do a little bit of celebrating myself but not too much. The season is not over yet with a few races still to go around the world, so I need to keep my energy up! Thank you so much to everyone out in the crowds this weekend too. The fans here always create a special atmosphere and they've put on such a great show. Arigato! Now we need to focus on the last four races. I look forward to going to America next. See you there!" | ||||
| 2 |  Max Verstappen |
Red Bull | TAG | 4.978 |
| “We knew the start was going to be very decisive and we had a really good one today which allowed me to settle into my own rhythm. I’m pleased the starts are coming together, that’s two in a row now. I was then able to sit behind Nico (Rosberg) and control my tyres. The team gave me a really strong strategy, along with a car that felt very balanced so I was able to enjoy a successful race. I was really happy to be able to get in-between the two Mercedes cars, it is a great result yet again for the team. In the race we had quick pace but I think Nico was still only cruising. When I sped up Nico could match it and if I slowed he did also, he was in control. Lewis (Hamilton) was obviously a bit quicker in the final stages and I knew he was going to catch me, the gap time on the pit board was dropping every lap. Into the last chicane I saw him coming in my mirrors so I defended my position, this allowed me to hang on for the second place. I had some concerns about the blue flags, I think we need to talk about it. I have been in the same situation last year and earlier this year, I understand from their (back-markers) perspective you want to race but the guys lapping you are racing for a podium so you have to have a different approach." | ||||
| 3 |  Lewis Hamilton |
Mercedes | Mercedes | 5.776 |
| "Firstly, I'd like to say a huge congratulations to everyone back at the factories and the whole of Mercedes-Benz. Everyone has done a fantastic job and to have this success three years in a row is incredible. It's been an awesome effort from so many people over the last three years and that is the most important thing to take from today. We couldn't have done it without all of their support and I'm very, very proud to be a part of it. I'm also proud to have been part of the Mercedes-Benz journey since 2007 and then since 2013 with this team. Looking at the race itself, I'm not really quite sure what happened at the start. I'll have to see what the engineers say - but I got the worst getaway I could possibly get. My side wasn't completely dry and there was lots of wheel spin - but that wasn't the whole issue. I lost a lot of ground as everyone else gained traction moving away. It was frustrating, but that's the way it is. These things happen. Then, in the first part of the race, I didn't have the pace of Kimi, so knew I had to go longer and wasn't really trying to attack him in the first part of the race. The second half got a lot more interesting and I was able to pick up some serious pace on the hard tyre. The car was feeling better, I was feeling more comfortable and I was able to overtake people. We put a bit of front wing in and the understeer completely disappeared, so I was able to make my way through the field and close the gap. Unfortunately I wasn't able to take second but I did the best job I could out there today. Every point counts, so I drove my heart out to get as many as possible. Nico did a great job today and he has a healthy margin now, so the Drivers' Championship has got harder for me. I'll give it everything I've got, as I did in the race today and always do. That's all I can do - focus on doing the best that I can - so we'll see what happens. A big thank you to everyone who came out today. The fans were amazing here as always. I'm looking forward to getting home and then moving onto the next race." | ||||
| 4 | Sebastian Vettel |
Ferrari | Ferrari | 20.269 |
| “We had a very good start and made good progress in the first two laps, passing Ricciardo and Perez, then we were faster than Verstappen. I think today we had the second fastest car. So it was a question of time, but obviously Max came in as soon as he could to maintain track position, which worked well for him. We tried to go on the softer tire in the end, which initially we thought would work well, but then we had too much degradation and we were falling off this group. It is always easy to criticize, and I am sure there are many 'experts' that knew better, but on the pitwall as well as in the car, I was keen to go for this strategy so to extend the second stint. It's a fact I lost big chunks of time with the blue flags. I always got the lapped cars right in sector one, when they can't move, so I was losing a lot of time, and there's probably where I lost track position to Lewis, who always seemed to clear the lapped cars in the straight. But then the pace wouldn't have probably been enough to challenge for the podium.” | ||||
| 5 |  Kimi Raikkonen |
Ferrari | Ferrari | 28.370 |
| “After a good qualifying yesterday, the issue with the gearbox and the consequent starting position change was not ideal in this kind of track. Obviously there's a lot of disappointment, as we had a good car and if we could have stayed in front we would have fought with more free air and with a lot of speed. I had a good start but then I got stuck behind other people: it was really tricky to follow other cars and it affected quite a bit the behavior. It was also difficult to stay close to them and attack them. Once we got past them and I was on my own, the car was quick and handling well. For sure today we were fast enough for a better result. Unfortunately that's how it goes... ” | ||||
| 6 |  Daniel Ricciardo |
Red Bull | TAG | 33.941 |
| “Today wasn’t a very exciting race for me, and unfortunately it just wasn’t my day. Kimi’s (Raikkonen) penalty was a bit of a bummer for us as it put us on the wet side of the grid and that compromised the start. I don’t think my launch was too bad but Lewis obviously struggled to get off the line and I had to go around him through the wet and that made me lose a place to Sergio (Perez). Seb (Vettel) had a good exit out of Turn 14 and made quick work of me on the straight, then he caught Perez quickly as well. That sort of shaped the first stint for me. We struggled to stay close to the cars in front as we couldn’t follow them in the dirty air, and we didn’t have the straight line speed to make an attack. We struggled in the traffic and fell behind the eight ball. In the final stint towards the end I had a clear track and I was able put in some good laps but it wasn’t enough. I’m not going to get too down about it. I didn’t think there was anything else we could have done today, it was just circumstances and how the race panned out. We’ll come back in Austin ready to have a good weekend on track and also eat plenty of barbeque. I’m going to diet for the next few days so I arrive lighter in Austin and can enjoy the local food!” | ||||
| 7 |  Sergio Perez |
Force India | Mercedes | 57.495 |
| “I enjoyed myself today and I feel we made all the right decisions during the race. The start was good fun – I had a clean run going into turn one and ended up in third place. I tried my best to hold on to the position, but I knew it would be difficult to keep some very quick cars behind me so I needed to be sensible and choose my battles. Our car was very quick today and the two-stop strategy was definitely the correct one for us. It meant we needed to overtake the Williams cars on the track because they were on a different strategy, but fortunately I could make the moves on them very quickly. The end of the race, after all the pit stops, was just a case of looking after the tyres and keeping out of trouble. We scored some very useful points today – we need to keep doing the same in the final four races.” | ||||
| 8 | Nico Hulkenberg |
Force India | Mercedes | 59.177 |
| “I am quite happy with my race: seventh would have been possible, but I paid the price of not having an ideal qualifying session yesterday. I had a good first lap, but when you start from the back of the top ten, you have a lot more traffic to deal with and that cost me some time. The pass on Valtteri [Bottas] was the highlight of my race. I had lined up a pass the lap before, but didn’t get a good exit from the final corner and I missed out in turn one; so I told myself “if I can’t get you here, I’ll get you at the chicane instead!” I pulled the move off nicely; it was a close wheel-to-wheel battle. It was important to finish with two cars well inside the points, but we know every race and every point will count from here onwards because the battle in the championship will go down to the final race. It’s going to be good fun and it’s a nice challenge.” | ||||
| 9 |  Felipe Massa |
Williams | Mercedes | 1'37.763 |
| “It was a tough race. We were really fighting from the beginning, to the end. We lost two positions at the start with both cars, maybe due to the tyres we had compared to the others. The pace at the beginning didn’t look very promising compared to the others. We tried to stay out long to do a one-stop, and it worked out. We would love to have finished ahead of Force India, but today they had a better car. We managed to score points with both cars after being just 13th and 14th during the first stint. I think it was a positive race and the strategy worked out very well.” | ||||
| 10 | Valtteri Bottas |
Williams | Mercedes | 1'38.323 |
| “As a team strategy-wise, we managed to do something different to our competitors so that was good. There definitely wasn’t any more we could have got out of today. In a nutshell, we need to make a quicker car and hope that the rest of the circuits in the calendar are better suited to us. We just didn’t have the pure pace today. From my side, being the lead car in the first stint I was hoping for the better strategy out of the two of us but that didn’t work out today. Looking ahead to Austin, I hope it’s better and more like Malaysia in terms of our pace in comparison to Force India. It’s just so difficult to predict these things nowadays, so we need to learn from today and hopefully we’ll perform better there in two weeks.” | ||||
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