Felipe Massa of Ferrari finished 8th, even though he started at the back of the grid. “It was a very difficult race for me after everything that happened in qualifying yesterday. We chose a strategy similar to the one used for Fernando in Monaco, hoping for some help from a Safety Car which unfortunately, came out on track too early,” said Massa. “So I was not able to overtake that many cars and then I found myself in a train behind Sutil and Hulkenberg: one or two laps later and I could have made up two or three places and had a different sort of race. The car was not too bad, given that I was always on the same set of hard tyres: only towards the end did the situation get worse and I could feel the tyre degradation which is why Kubica managed to get past me so easily. I can’t say I had much fun driving, given that I was always stuck behind another car. I had a new engine and now I only have three left which have each done one race, to rotate over the last four races of the season. I hope I will have more luck in those races than I have had this weekend!” (Photo 11 © Les Tan/Red Sports)
Adrian Sutil of Force India received a post-race penalty and dropped to 9th. “It was a really hard race today, in the heat and the humidity and having to race the whole way – I always had a car following really closely behind!” said Sutil. “Starting from 15th on the grid, I think this was the maximum we could have done. It’s a fantastic result, particularly after the disappointment yesterday. I said before it is very important to score every single point we can so we can keep ahead of Williams in the constructors’ championship. That’s why I tried so hard to keep Hulkenberg behind – any points we get are very important.” (Photo 12 © Les Tan/Red Sports)
Nico Hulkenberg of Williams finished 10th. Said the Williams technical director, Sam Michael: “It was a good points score from both cars today. Rubens’ start was poor so he lost two positions immediately. Nico had a great start and first lap. Then on the first Safety Car we decided to split the cars on strategy and it worked out for both of them. Nico did well to score points from his grid position. FW32 has been progressively stronger, and we intend to continue the trend in Suzuka.” (Photo 13 © Les Tan/Red Sports)
Vitaly Petrov of Renault takes his car through Turn 19. He eventually finished 11th. “I made a fantastic start and was running in 10th position early in the race. We stopped under the first Safety Car period and I was the first runner on prime tyres behind Webber, so things looked good,” said Petrov. “I need to look at the video to see what happened afterwards with Hulkenberg and why he pushed me out in turn seven, but his move cost me three positions. I was then stuck behind Massa, in the queue behind the Force India, and it just wasn’t possible to overtake because we had all changed tyres at the same time. It was a tough race, but my luck went away from me yesterday in qualifying.” (Photo 14 © Les Tan/Red Sports)
Jaime Alguersuari of STR-Ferrari driving to a 12th-place finish. “I am satisfied that I finished the race, but to be honest, it was possibly the most boring race of my career,” said Alguersuari. “I was stuck in a train of cars and there was virtually nothing I could do. It should have been a good opportunity for us to score points today, having qualified 11th, but it went wrong before the start with a coolant leak on the car, which meant I started from pit lane after the others had gone by. At that point, my hopes of having a good day disappeared. At least I managed three overtaking moves. Looking on the positive side, I think our car has improved in terms of performance and it’s not so bad to start last and finish 12th.” (Photo 15 © Les Tan/Red Sports)
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